Part 11

When _ord_ occurs in purely mythical sources, it is most frequently connected with judgments pronounced in the lower world, and sent from Urd's fountain to their destination. _Urdar ord_ is Urd's judgment, which must come to pass (Fjölsvinnsm., str. 48), no matter whether it concerns life or death. _Feigdar ord_, a judgment determining death, comes to Fjolner, and is fulfilled "where Frode dwelt" (Yng.-tal, Heimskr., 14). _Dauda ord_, the judgment of death, awaited Dag the Wise, when he came to Vorva (Yng.-tal, Heimskr., 21). To a subterranean judgment refers also the expression _bana-ord_, which frequently occurs.

Vigfusson (Dict., 466) points out the possibility of an etymological connection between _ord_ and _Urdr_. He compares _word_ (_ord_) and _wurdr_ (_urdr_), _word_ and _weird_ (fate, goddess of fate). Doubtless there was, in the most ancient time, a mythical idea-association between them.

These circumstances are to be remembered in connection with the interpretation of _ordstirr_, _ords-tirr_ in Havamál, 76. The real meaning of the phrase to be; reputation based on a decision, on an utterance of authority.

When _ordstirr_ had blended into a compound word, there arose by the side of its literal meaning another, in which the accent fell so heavily on _tirr_ that _ord_ is superfluous and gives no additional meaning of a judgment on which this _tirr_ is based. Already in Hofudlausn (str. 26) _ordstirr_ is used as a compound, meaning simply honourable reputation, honour. There is mention of a victory which Erik Blood-axe won, and it is said that he thereby gained _ordstirr_ (renown).

In interpreting Havamál (76) it would therefore seem that we must choose between the proper and figurative sense of _ordstirr_. The age of the Havamál strophe is not known. If it was from it Eyvind Skaldaspiller drew his _deyr fé, deyja frændr_, which he incorporated in his drapa on Hakon the Good, who died in 960, then the Havamál strophe could not be composed later than the middle of the tenth century. Hofudlausn was composed by Egil Skallagrimson in the year 936 or thereabout. From a chronological point of view there is therefore nothing to hinder our applying the less strict sense, "honourable reputation, honour," to the passage in question.

But there are other hindrances. If the Havamál skald with _ords-tirr_ meant "honourable reputation, honour," he could not, as he has done, have added the condition which he makes in the last line of the strophe: _hveim er ser godan getr_, for the idea "good" would then already be contained in ordstirr. If in spite of this we would take the less strict sense, we must subtract from _ordstirr_ the meaning of _honourable_ reputation, _honour_, and conceive the expression to mean simply reputation in general, a meaning which the word never had.

We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the meaning of court-decision, judgment, which _ord_ has not only in Ynglingatal and Fjölsvinnsmal, but also in linguistic usage, was clear to the author of the Havamál strophe, and that he applied _ords tirr_ in its original sense and was speaking of imperishable judgments.

It should also have been regarded as a matter of course that the judgment which, according to the Havamál strophe (77), is passed on everyone dead, and which itself never dies, must have been prepared by a court whose decision could not be questioned or set aside, and that the judgment must have been one whose influence is eternal, for the infinity of the judgment itself can only depend on the infinity of its operation. That the more or less vague opinions sooner or later committed to oblivion in regard to a deceased person should be supposed to contain such a judgment, and to have been meant by the immortal doom over the dead, I venture to include among the most extraordinary interpretations ever produced.

Both the strophes are, as is evident from the first glance, most intimately connected with each other. Both begin: _deyr fæ, deyja frændr_. _Ord_ in the one strophe corresponds to _domr_ in the other. The latter strophe declares that the judgment on _every_ dead person is imperishable, and thus completes the more limited statement of the foregoing strophe, that the judgment which gives a good renown is everlasting. The former strophe speaks of only _one_ category of men who have been subjected to an ever-valid judgment, namely of that category to whose honour the eternal judgment is pronounced. The second strophe speaks of both the categories, and assures us that the judgment on the one as on the other category is everlasting.

The strophes are by the skald attributed to Odin's lips. Odin pronounces judgment every day near Urd's fountain at the court to which King Halfdan was summoned, and where hosts of people with fettered tongues await their final destiny (see above.) The assurances in regard to the validity of the judgment on everyone dead are thus given by a being who really may be said to know what he talks about (_ec veit_, &c.), namely, by the judge himself.

In the poem Sonatorrek the old Egil Skallagrimson laments the loss of sons and kindred, and his thoughts are occupied with the fate of his children after death. When he speaks of his son Gunnar, who in his tender years was snatched away by a sickness, he says (str. 19):

Son minn sóttar brimi heiptuligr ór heimi nam, thann ec veit at varnadi vamma varr vid námæli.

"A fatal fire of disease (fever?) snatched from this world a son of mine, of whom I know that he, careful as he was in regard to sinful deeds, took care of himself for _námæli_."

To understand this strophe correctly, we must know that the skald in the preceding 17th, as in the succeeding 20th, strophe, speaks of Gunnar's fate in the lower world.

The word _námæli_ occurs nowhere else, and its meaning is not known. It is of importance to our subject to find it out.

In those compounds of which the first part is _ná-_, _ná_ may be the adverbial prefix, which means _near by_, _by the side of_, or it may be the substantive _nár_, which means a corpse, dead body, and in a mythical sense one damned, one who dies for the second time and comes to Nifelhel (see No. 60). The question is now, to begin with, whether it is the adverbial prefix or the substantive _ná-_ which we have in _námæli_.

Compounds which have the adverbial _ná_ as the first part of the word are very common. In all of them the prefix _ná-_ implies nearness in space or in kinship, or it has the signification of some thing correct or exact.

(1) In regard to space: _nábúd_, _nábúi_, _nábýli_, _nágranna_, _nágranni_, _nágrennd_, _nágrenni_, _nákommin_, _nákvæma_, _nákvæmd_, _nákvæmr_, _náleid_, _nálægd_, _nálægjast_, _nálægr_, _námunda_, _násessi_, _náseta_, _násettr_, _násæti_, _návera_, _náverukona_, _náverandi_, _návist_, _návistarkona_, _návistarmadr_, _návistarvitni_.

(2) In regard to friendship: _náborinn_, _náfrændi_, _náfrændkona_, _námagr_, _náskyldr_, _nástædr_, _náongr_.

(3) In regard to correctness, exactness: _nákvæmi_, _nákvæmliga_, _nákvæmr_.

The idea of correctness comes from the combination of _ná-_ and _kvæmi_, _kvæmliga_, _kvæmr_. The exact meaning is--_that which comes near to_, and which in that sense is precise, exact, to the point.

These three cases exhaust the meanings of the adverbial prefix _ná_-. I should consider it perilous, and as the abandoning of solid ground under the feet, if we, without evidence from the language tried, as has been done, to give it another hitherto unknown signification.

But none of these meanings can be applied to _námæli_. In analogy with the words under (1) it can indeed mean "An oration held near by;" but this signification produces no sense in the above passage, the only place where it is found.

In another group of words the prefix _ná_-is the noun _nár_. Here belong _nábjargir_, _nábleikr_, _nágrindr_, _nágöll_, _náreid_, _nástrandir_, and other words.

_Mæli_ means a declamation, an oration, an utterance, a reading, or the proclamation of a law. _Mæla_, _mælandi_, _formælandi_, _formæli_, _nymæli_, are used in legal language. _Formælandi_ is a defendant in court. _Formæli_ is his speech or plea. _Nymæli_ is a law read or published for the first time.

_Mæli_ can take either a substantive or adjective as prefix. Examples: _Gudmæli_, _fullmæli_. _Ná_ from _nár_ can be used as a prefix both to a noun and to an adjective. Examples: _nágrindr_, _nábleikr_.

_Námæli_ should accordingly be an oration, a declaration, a proclamation, in regard to _nár_. From the context we find that _námæli_ is something dangerous, something to look out for. Gunnar is dead and is gone to the lower world, which contains not only happiness but also terrors; but his aged father, who in another strophe of the poem gives to understand that he had adhered faithfully to the religious doctrines of his fathers, is convinced that his son has avoided the dangers implied in _námæli_, as he had no sinful deed to blame himself for. In the following strophe (20) he expressed his confidence that the deceased had been adopted by _Gauta spjalli_, a friend of Odin in the lower world, and had landed in the realm of happiness. (In regard to _Gauta spjalli_ see further on. The expression is applicable both to Mimer and Honer).

_Námæli_ must, therefore, mean a declaration (1) that is dangerous; (2) which does not affect a person who has lived a blameless life; (3) which refers to the dead and affects those who have not been _vamma varir_, on the look-out against blameworthy and criminal deeds.

The passage furnishes additional evidence that the dead in the lower world make their appearance in order to be judged, and it enriches our knowledge of the mythological eschatology with a technical term (_námæli_) for that judgment which sends sinners to travel through the Na-gates to Nifelhel. The opposite of _námæli_ is _ords tirr_, that judgment which gives the dead fair renown, and both kinds of judgments are embraced in the phrase _domr um daudan_. _Námæli_ is a proclamation for _náir_, just as _nágrindr_ are gates and _nástrandir_ are strands for _náir_.

71.

THE DOOM OF THE DEAD (_continued_). THE LOOKS OF THE THINGSTEAD. THE DUTY OF TAKING CARE OF THE ASHES OF THE DEAD. THE HAMINGJE AT THE JUDGMENT. SINS OF WEAKNESS. SINS UNTO DEATH.

Those hosts which are conducted by their psychopomps to the Thing near Urd's fountain proceed noiselessly. It is a silent journey. The bridge over _Gjöll_ scarcely resounds under the feet of the death-horses and of the dead (Gylfaginning). The tongues of the shades are sealed (see No. 70).

This thingstead has, like all others, had its judgment-seats. Here are seats (in Völuspa called _rökstólar_) for the holy powers acting as judges. There is also a rostrum (_á thularstóli at Urdar brunni_--Havam., 111) and benches or chairs for the dead (compare the phrase, _falla á Helpalla_--Fornald., i. 397, and the sitting of the dead one, _á nornastóli_--Solarlj., 51). Silent they must receive their doom unless they possess mal-runes (see No. 70).

The dead should come well clad and ornamented. Warriors bring their weapons of attack and defence. The women and children bring ornaments that they were fond of in life. Hades-pictures of those things which kinsmen and friends placed in the grave-mounds accompany the dead (Hakonarm., 17; Gylfaginning, 52) as evidence to the judge that they enjoyed the devotion and respect of their survivors. The appearance presented by the shades assembled in the Thing indicates to what extent the survivors heed the law, which commands respect for the dead and care for the ashes of the departed.

Many die under circumstances which make it impossible for their kinsmen to observe these duties. Then strangers should take the place of kindred. The condition in which these shades come to the Thing shows best whether piety prevails in Midgard; for noble minds take to heart the advices found as follows in Sigrdrifumal, 33, 34: "Render the last service to the corpses you find on the ground, whether from sickness they have died, or are drowned, or are from weapons dead. Make a bath for those who are dead, wash their hands and their head, comb them and wipe them dry, ere in the coffin you lay them, and pray for their happy sleep."

It was, however, not necessary to wipe the blood off from the byrnie of one fallen by the sword. It was not improper for the elect to make their entrance in Valhal in a bloody coat of mail. Eyvind Skaldaspiller makes King Hakon come all stained with blood (_allr i dreyra drifinn_) into the presence of Odin.

When the gods have arrived from Asgard, dismounted from their horses (Gylfag.) and taken their judges' seats, the proceedings begin, for the dead are then in their places, and we may be sure that their psychopomps have not been slow on their Thing-journey. Somewhere on the way the Hel-shoes must have been tried; those who ride to Valhal must then have been obliged to dismount. The popular tradition first pointed out by Walter Scott and J. Grimm about the need of such shoes for the dead and about a thorn-grown heath, which they have to cross, is not of Christian but of heathen origin. Those who have shown mercy to fellowmen that in this life, in a figurative sense, had to travel thorny paths, do not need to fear torn shoes and bloody feet (W. Scott, _Minstrelsy_, ii.); and when they are seated on Urd's benches, their very shoes are, by their condition, a conspicuous proof in the eyes of the court that they who have exercised mercy are worthy of mercy.

The Norse tradition preserved in Gisle Surson's saga in regard to the importance for the dead to be provided with shoes reappears as a popular tradition, first in England, and then several places (Müllenhoff, _Deutsche Alt._, v. 1, 114; J. Grimm., _Myth._, iii. 697; nachtr., 349; Weinhold, _Altn. Leb._, 494; Mannhardt in _zeitschr. f. deutsch. Myth._, iv. 420; Simrock, _Myth._, v. 127). _Visio Godeschalci_ describes a journey which the pious Holstein peasant Godeskalk, belonging to the generation immediately preceding that which by Vicelin was converted to Christianity, believed he had made in the lower world. There is mentioned an immensely large and beautiful linden-tree hanging full of shoes, which were handed down to such dead travellers as had exercised mercy during their lives. When the dead had passed this tree they had to cross a heath two miles wide, thickly grown with thorns, and then they came to a river full of irons with sharp edges. The unjust had to wade through this river, and suffered immensely. They were cut and mangled in every limb; but when they reached the other strand, their bodies were the same as they had been when they began crossing the river. Compare with this statement Solarljod, 42, where the dying skald hears the roaring of subterranean streams mixed with much blood--_Gylfar straumar grenjudu, blandnir mjök ved blód_. The just are able to cross the river by putting their feet on boards a foot wide and fourteen feet long, which floated on the water. This is the first day's journey. On the second day they come to a point where the road forked into three ways--one to heaven, one to hell, and one between these realms (compare Müllenhoff, _D. Alt._, v. 113, 114). These are all mythic traditions, but little corrupted by time and change of religion. That in the lower world itself Hel-shoes were to be had for those who were not supplied with them, but still deserved them, is probably a genuine mythological idea.

Proofs and witnesses are necessary before the above-named tribunal, for Odin is far from omniscient. He is not even the one who knows the most among the beings of mythology. Urd and Mimer know more than he. With judges on the one hand who, in spite of all their loftiness, and with all their superhuman keenness, nevertheless are not infallible, and with defendants on the other hand whose tongues refuse to serve them, it might happen, if there were no proofs and witnesses, that a judgment, everlasting in its operations, not founded on exhaustive knowledge and on well-considered premises, might be proclaimed. But the judgment on human souls proclaimed by their final irrevocable fate could not in the sight of the pious and believing bear the stamp of uncertain justice. There must be no doubt that the judicial proceedings in the court of death were so managed that the wisdom and justice of the _dicta_ were raised high above every suspicion of being mistaken.

The heathen fancy shrank from the idea of a knowledge able of itself to embrace all, the greatest and the least, that which has been, is doing, and shall be in the world of thoughts, purposes, and deeds. It hesitated at all events to endow its gods made in the image of man with omniscience. It was easier to conceive a divine insight which was secured by a net of messengers and spies stretched throughout the world. Such a net was cast over the human race by Urd, and it is doubtless for this reason that the subterranean Thing of the gods was located near her fountain and not near Mimer's. Urd has given to every human soul, already before the hour of birth, a maid-servant, a hamingje, a norn of lower rank, to watch over and protect its earthly life. And so there was a wide-spread organization of watching and protecting spirits, each one of whom knew the motives and deeds of a special individual. As such an organisation was at the service of the court, there was no danger that the judgment over each one dead would not be as just as it was unappealable and everlasting.

The hamingje hears of it before anyone else when her mistress has announced _dauda ord_--the doom of death, against her favourite. She (and the _gipte, heille_, see No. 64) leaves him then. She is _horfin_, gone, which can be perceived in dreams (Balder's Dream, 4) or by revelations in other ways, and this is an unmistakable sign of death. But if the death-doomed person is not a nithing, whom she in sorrow and wrath has left, then she by no means abandons him. They are like members of the same body, which can only be separated by mortal sins (see below). The hamingje goes to the lower world, the home of her nativity (see No. 64), to prepare an abode there for her favourite, which also is to belong to her (Gisle Surson's saga.) It is as if a spiritual marriage was entered into between her and the human soul.

But on the dictum of the court of death it depends where the dead person is to find his haven. The judgment, although not pronounced on the hamingje, touches her most closely. When the most important of all questions, that of eternal happiness or unhappiness, is to be determined in regard to her favourite, she must be there where her duty and inclination bid her be--with him whose guardian-spirit she is. The great question for her is whether she is to continue to share his fate or not. During his earthly life she has always defended him. It is of paramount importance that she should do so now. His lips are sealed, but she is able to speak, and is his other ego. And she is not only a witness friendly to him, but, from the standpoint of the court, she is a more reliable one than he would be himself.

In Atlamal (str. 28) there occurs a phrase which has its origin in heathendom, where it has been employed in a clearer and more limited sense than in the Christian poem. The phrase is _ec qued aflima ordnar ther disir_, and it means, as Atlamal uses it, that he to whom the dises (the hamingje and gipte) have become _aflima_ is destined, in spite of all warnings, to go to his ruin. In its very nature the phrase suggests that there can occur between the hamingje and the human soul another separation than the accidental and transient one which is expressed by saying that the hamingje is _horfin_. _Aflima_ means "amputated," separated by a sharp instrument from the body of which one has been a member. The person from whom his dises have been cut off has no longer any close relation with them. He is for ever separated from them, and his fate is no longer theirs. Hence there are persons doomed to die and persons dead who do not have hamingjes by them. They are those whom the hamingjes in sorrow and wrath have abandoned, and with whom they are unable to dwell in the lower world, as they are nithings and are awaited in Nifelhel.

The fact that a dead man sat _á nornastóli_ or _á Helpalli_ without having a hamingje to defend him doubtless was regarded by the gods as a conclusive proof that he had been a criminal.

If we may judge from a heathen expression preserved in strophe 16 of Atlakvida, and there used in an arbitrary manner, then the hamingjes who were "cut off" from their unworthy favourite continue to feel sorrow and sympathy for them to the last. The expression is _nornir gráta nái_, "the norns (hamingjes) bewail the _náir_." If the _námæli_, the na-dictum, the sentence to Nifelhel which turns dead criminals into _náir_, in the eschatological sense of the word, has been announced, the judgment is attended with tears on the part of the former guardian-spirits of the convicts. This corresponds, at all events, with the character of the hamingjes.

Those fallen on the battlefield are not brought to the fountain of Urd while the Thing is in session. This follows from the fact that Odin is in Valhal when they ride across Bifrost, and sends Asas or einherjes to meet them with the goblet of mead at Asgard's gate (Eiriksm., Hakonarmal). But on the way there has been a separation of the good and bad elements among them. Those who have no hamingjes must, _á nornastóli_, wait for the next Thing-day and their judgment. The Christian age well remembered that brave warriors who had committed nithing acts did not come to Valhal (see Hakon Jarl's word in Njála). The heathen records confirm that men slain by the sword who had lived a wicked life were sent to the world of torture (see Harald Harfager's saga, ch. 27--the verses about the viking Thorer Wood-beard, who fell in a naval battle with Einar Ragnvaldson, and who had been scourge to the Orkneyings).

The high court must have judged very leniently in regard to certain human faults and frailties. Sitting long by and looking diligently into the drinking-horn certainly did not lead to any punishment worth mentioning. The same was the case with fondness for female beauty, if care was taken not to meddle with the sacred ties of matrimony. With a pleasing frankness, and with much humour, the Asa-father has told to the children of men adventures which he himself has had in that line. He warns against too much drinking, but admits without reservation and hypocrisy that he himself once was drunk, nay, very drunk, at Fjalar's and what he had to suffer, on account of his uncontrollable longing for Billing's maid, should be to men a hint not to judge each other too severely in such matters (see Havamál.) All the less he will do so as judge. Those who are summoned to the Thing and against whom there are no other charges, may surely count on a good _ords tirr_, if they in other respects have conducted themselves in accordance with the wishes of Odin and his associate judges: if they have lived lives free from deceit, honourable, helpful, and without fear of death. This, in connection with respect for the gods, for the temples, for their duties to kindred and to the dead, is the alpha and the omega of the heathen Teutonic moral code, and the sure way to Hel's regions of bliss and to Valhal. He who has observed these virtues may, as the old skald sings of himself, "glad, with serenity and without discouragement, wait for Hel."

Skal ek thó gladr med godan vilja ok úhryggr Heljar bida (Sonatorrek, 24).