Part 13

Those who have died in their tender years are received by a being friendly to children, which Egil Skallagrimson (Sonatorrek, 20) calls _Gauta spjalli_. The expression means "the one with whom Odin counsels," "Odin's friend." As the same poem (str. 22) calls Odin Mimer's friend, and as in the next place _Gauta spjalli_ is characterised as a ruler in _Godheim_ (compare _grænar heimar goda_--Hakonarmal, 12), he must either be Mimer, who is Odin's friend and adviser from his youth until his death, or he must be Honer, who also is styled Odin's friend, his _sessi_ and _máli_. That Mimer was regarded as the friend of dead children corresponds with his vocation as the keeper in his grove of immortality _Mimisholt_, of the Asa-children, the _ásmegir_, who are to be the mankind of the regenerated world. But Honer too has an important calling in regard to children (see No. 95), and it must therefore be left undecided which one of the two is here meant.

Egil is convinced that his drowned son Bodvar found a harbour in the subterranean regions of bliss.[16] The land to which Bodvar comes is called by Egil "the home of the bee-ship" (_býskips bær_.) The poetical figure is taken from the experience of seamen, that birds who have grown tired on their way across the sea alight on ships to recuperate their strength. In Egil's paraphrase the bee corresponds to the bird, and the honey-blossom where the bee alights corresponds to the ship. The fields of bliss are the haven of the ship laden with honey. The figure may be criticised on the point of poetic logic, but is of a charming kind on the lips of the hardy old viking, and it is at the same time very appropriate in regard to a characteristic quality ascribed to the fields of bliss. For they are the proper home of the honey-dew which falls early in the morning from the world-tree into the dales near Urd's fountain (Völuspa). Lif and Leifthraser live through ages on this dew (see Nos. 52, 53), and doubtless this same Teutonic ambrosia is the food of the happy dead. The dales of the earth also unquestionably get their share of the honey-dew, which was regarded as the fertilising and nourishing element of the ground. But the earth gets her share directly from Rimfaxe, the steed of the Hades-goddess Nat. This steed, satiated with the grass of the subterranean meadows, produces with his mouth a froth which is honey-dew, and from his bridle the dew drops "in the dales" in the morning (Vafthr., 14). The same is true of the horses of the valkyries coming from the lower world. From their manes, when they shake them, falls dew "in deep dales," and thence come harvests among the peoples (Helge Hjorv., 28.)

[16] Likewise the warlike skald Kormak is certain that he would have come to Valhal in case he had been drowned under circumstances described in his saga, a work which is, however, very unreliable.

75.

AFTER THE JUDGMENT (_continued_). THE FATE OF THE DAMNED. THEIR PATH. ARRIVAL AT THE NA-GATES.

When the na-dictum (the judgment of those who have committed sins unto death) has been proclaimed, they must take their departure for their terrible destination. They cannot take flight. The locks and fetters of the norns (_Urdar lokur, Heljar reip_) hold them prisoners, and amid the tears of their former hamingjes (_nornir gráta nái_) they are driven along their path by _heiptir_, armed with rods of thorns, who without mercy beat their lazy heels. The technical term for these instruments of torture is _limar_, which seems to have become a word for eschatological punishment in general. In Sigrdrifumal (23) it is said that horrible _limar_ shall fall heavy on those who have broken oaths and promises, or betrayed confidence. In Sigurd Fafnesb. (ii. 3) it is stated that everyone who has lied about another shall long be tortured with _limar_. Both the expressions _troll brutu hrís i hæla theim_ and _troll visi ydr til búrs_ have their root in the recollection of the myth concerning the march of the damned under the rod of the Eumenides to Nifelhel (see further on this point Nos. 91 and 123).

Their way from Urd's well goes to the north (see No. 63) through Mimer's domain. It is ordained that before their arrival at the home of torture they are to see the regions of bliss. Thus they know what they have forfeited. Then their course is past Mimer's fountain, the splendid dwellings of Balder and the _ásmegir_, the golden hall of Sindre's race (see Nos. 93, 94), and to those regions where mother Nat rests in a hall built on the southern spur of the Nida mountains (Forspjallsljod). The procession proceeds up this mountain region through valleys and gorges in which the rivers flowing from Hvergelmer find their way to the south. The damned leave Hvergelmer in their rear and cross the border rivers _Hraunn_ (the subterranean Elivagar rivers, see No. 59), on the other side of which rise Nifelhel's black, perpendicular mountain-walls (Saxo, _Hist., Dan._; see No. 46). Ladders or stairways lead across giddying precipices to the Na-gates. Howls and barking from the monstrous Nifelheim dogs watching the gates (see Nos. 46, 58) announce the arrival of the damned. Then hasten, in compact winged flocks, monsters, Nifelheim's birds of prey, Nidhog, Are, _Hræsvelger_, and their like to the south, and alight on the rocks around the Na-gates (see below). When the latter are opened on creaking hinges, the damned have died their second death. To that event, which is called "the second death," and to what this consists of, I shall return below (see No. 95).

Those who have thus marched to a terrible fate are sinners of various classes. Below Nifelheim there are nine regions of punishment. That these correspond to nine kinds of unpardonable sins is in itself probable, and is to some extent confirmed by Solarljod, if this poem, standing almost on the border-line between heathendom and Christianity, may be taken as a witness. Solarljod enumerates nine or ten kinds of punishments for as many different kinds of sins. From the purely heathen records we know that enemies of the gods (Loke), perjurers, murderers, adulterers (see Völuspa), those who have violated faith and the laws, and those who have lied about others, are doomed to Nifelhel for ever, or at least for a very long time (_oflengi_--Sig. Fafn., ii. 3). Of the unmerciful we know that they have already suffered great agony on their way to Urd's fountain. Both in reference to them and to others, it doubtless depended on the investigation at the Thing whether they could be ransomed or not.

The sacredness of the bond of kinship was strongly emphasised in the eschatological conceptions. _Niflgódr_, "good for the realm of damnation," is he who slays kinsmen and sells the dead body of his brother for rings (Sonatorrek, 15); but he who in all respects has conducted himself in a blameless manner toward his kinsmen and is slow to take revenge if they have wronged him, shall reap advantage therefrom after death (Sigrdr., 22).

When the damned come within the Na-gates, the winged demons rush at the victims designated for them, press them under their wings, and fly with them through Nifelheim's foggy space to the departments of torture appointed for them. The seeress in Völuspa (str. 62) sees Nidhog, loaded with _náir_ under his wings, soar away from the Nida mountains. Whither he was accustomed to fly with them appears from strophe 38, where he in Nastrands is sucking his prey. When King Gorm, beyond the above-mentioned boundary river, and by the Nida mountains' ladders, had reached the Na-gates opened for him, he sees dismal monsters (_larvæ atræ_; cp. Völuspa's _in dimmi dreki_) in dense crowds, and hears the air filled with their horrible screeches (cp. Völuspa's _Ari hlaccar, slitr nai neffaulr_, 47). When Solarljod's skald enters the realm of torture he sees "scorched" birds which are not birds but souls (_sálir_), flying "numerous as gnats."

76.

THE PLACES OF PUNISHMENT.

The regions over which the flocks of demons fly are the same as those which the author of Skirnersmal has in view when Skirner threatens Gerd with sending her to the realms of death. It is the home of the frost-giants, of the subterranean giants, and of the spirits of disease. Here live the offspring of Ymer's feet, the primeval giants strangely born and strangely bearing, who are waiting for the quaking of Ygdrasil and for the liberation of their chained leader, in order that they may take revenge on the gods in Ragnarok, and who in the meantime contrive futile plans of attack on Hvergelmer's fountain or on the north end of the Bifrost bridge. Here the demons of restless uneasiness, of mental agony, of convulsive weeping, and of insanity (Othale, Morn, Ope, and Tope) have their home; and here dwells also their queen, Loke's daughter, Leikin, whose threshold is precipice and whose bed is disease. According to the authority used by Saxo in the description of Gorm's journey, the country is thickly populated. Saxo calls it _urbs, oppidum_ (cp. Skirnismal's words about the giant-homes, among which Gerd is to drag herself hopeless from house to house). The ground is a marsh with putrid water (_putidum cœnum_), which diffuses a horrible stench. The river Slid flowing north out of Hvergelmer there seeks its way in a muddy stream to the abyss which leads down to the nine places of punishment. Over all hovers Nifelheim's dismal sky.

The mortals who, like Gorm and his men, have been permitted to see these regions, and who have conceived the idea of descending into those worlds which lie below Nifelheim, or the most of them, are vast mountain caves, abyss in question and have cast a glance down into it. The place is narrow, but there is enough daylight for its bottom to be seen, and the sight thereof is terrible. Still, there must have been a path down to it, for when Gorm and his men had recovered from the first impression, they continued their journey to their destination (Geirrod's place of punishment), although the most terrible vapour (_teterrimus vapor_) blew into their faces. The rest that Saxo relates is unfortunately wanting both in sufficient clearness and in completeness. Without the risk of making a mistake, we may, however, consider it as mythically correct that some of the nine worlds of punishment below Nifelheim, or the most of them, are vast mountain caves, mutually united by openings broken through the mountain walls and closed with gates, which do not however, obstruct the course of Slid to the Nastrands and to the sea outside. Saxo speaks of a _perfractam scopuli partem_, "a pierced part of the mountain," through which travellers come from one of the subterranean caves to another, and between the caves stand gatekeepers (_janitores_). Thus there must be gates. At least two of these "homes" have been named after the most notorious sinner found within them. Saxo speaks of one called the giant Geirrod's, and an Icelandic document of one called the giant _Geitir's_. The technical term for such a cave of torture was _guyskuti_ (clamour-grotto). Saxo translates _skúti_ with _conclave saxeum_. "To thrust anyone before Geitir's clamour-grotto"--_reka einn fyrir Geitis guyskuta_--was a phrase synonymous with damning a person to death and hell.

The gates between the clamour-grottoes are watched by various kinds of demons. Before each gate stand several who in looks and conduct seem to symbolise the sins over whose perpetrators they keep guard. Outside of one of the caves of torture Gorm's men saw club-bearers who tried their weapons on one another. Outside of another gate the keepers amused themselves with "a monstrous game" in which they "mutually gave their ram-backs a curved motion." It is to be presumed that some sort of perpetrators of violence were tortured within the threshold, which was guarded by the club-bearers, and that the ram-shaped demons amused themselves outside of the torture-cave of debauchees. It is also probable that the latter is identical with the one called Geitir's. The name _Geitir_ comes from _geit_, goat. Saxo, who Latinised _Geitir_ into Götharus, tells adventures of his which show that this giant had tried to get possession of Freyja, and that he is identical with Gymer, Gerd's father. According to Skirnersmal (35), there are found in Nifelhel goats, that is to say, trolls in goat-guise, probably of the same kind as those above-mentioned, and it may be with an allusion to the fate which awaits Gymer in the lower world, or with a reference to his epithet _Geitir_, that Skirner threatens Gerd with the disgusting drink (_geita hland_) which will there be given her by "the sons of misery" (_vélmegir_). One of the lower-world demons, who as his name indicates, was closely connected with Geitir, is called "Geitir's Howl-foot" (_Geitis Guýfeti_); and the expression "to thrust anyone before Geitir's Howl-foot" thus has the same meaning as to send him to damnation.

Continuing their journey, Gorm and his men came to Geirrod's _skúti_ (see No. 46).

We learn from Saxo's description that in the worlds of torture there are seen not only terrors, but also delusions which tempt the eyes of the greedy. Gorm's prudent captain Thorkil (see No. 46) earnestly warns his companions not to touch these things, for hands that come in contact with them are fastened and are held as by invisible bonds. The illusions are characterised by Saxo as _ædis supellectilis_, an expression which is ambiguous, but may be an allusion that they represented things pertaining to temples. The statement deserves to be compared with Solarljod's strophe 65, where the skald sees in the lower world persons damned, whose hands are riveted together with burning stones. They are the mockers at religious rites (they who _minst vildu halda helga daga_) who are thus punished. In the mythology it was probably profaners of temples who suffered this punishment.

The Nastrands and the hall there are thus described in Völuspa:

Sal sá hon standa sólu fjarri Náströndu á nordr horfa dyrr; fellu eitrdropar inn um ljora, Sá er undinn salr orma hryggjum.

Sá hon thar vada thunga strauma menn meinsvara ok mordvarga ok thanns annars glepr eyrarúna; thar saug Nidhöggr nái framgengna, sleit vargr vera.

"A hall she saw stand far from the sun on the Nastrands; the doors opened to the north. Venom-drops fell through the roof-holes. Braided is that hall of serpent-backs."

"There she saw perjurers, murderers, and they who betrayed the wife of another (adulterers) wade through heavy streams. There Nidhog sucked the _náir_ of the dead. And the wolf tore men into pieces."

Gylfaginning (ch. 52) assumes that the serpents, whose backs, wattled together, form the hall, turn their heads into the hall, and that they, especially through the openings in the roof (according to Codex Ups. and Codex Hypnones.), vomit forth their floods of venom. The latter assumption is well founded. Doubtful seems, on the other hand, Gylfaginning's assumption that "the heavy streams," which the damned in Nastrands have to wade through, flow out over the floor of the hall. As the very name Nastrands indicates that the hall is situated near a water, then this water, whether it be the river _Slidr_ with its eddies filled with weapons, or some other river, may send breakers on shore and thus produce the heavy streams which Völuspa mentions. Nevertheless Gylfaginning's view may be correct. The hall of Nastrands, like its counterpart Valhal, has certainly been regarded as immensely large. The serpent-venom raining down must have fallen on the floor of the hall, and there is nothing to hinder the venom-rain from being thought sufficiently abundant to form "heavy streams" thereon (see below).

Saxo's description of the hall in Nastrands--by him adapted to the realm of torture in general--is as follows: "The doors are covered with the soot of ages; the walls are bespattered with filth; the roof is closely covered with barbs; the floor is strewn with serpents and bespawled with all kinds of uncleanliness." The last statement confirms Gylfaginning's view. As this bespawling continues without ceasing through ages, the matter thus produced must grow into abundance and have an outlet. Remarkable is also Saxo's statement, that the doors are covered with the soot of ages. Thus fires must be kindled near these doors. Of this more later.

77.

THE PLACES OF PUNISHMENT (_continued_). THE HALL IN NASTRANDS.

Without allowing myself to propose any change of text in the Völuspa strophes above quoted, and in pursuance of the principle which I have adopted in this work, not to base any conclusions on so-called text-emendations, which invariably are text-debasings, I have applied these strophes as they are found in the texts we have. Like Müllenhoff (_D. Alterth._, v. 121) and other scholars, I am, however, convinced that the strophe which begins _sá hon thar vada_, &c., has been corrupted. Several reasons, which I shall present elsewhere in a special treatise on Völuspa, make this probable; but simply the circumstance that the strophe has ten lines is sufficient to awaken suspicions in anyone's mind who holds the view that Völuspa originally consisted of exclusively eight-lined strophes--a view which cannot seriously be doubted. As we now have the poem, it consists of forty-seven strophes of eight lines each, one of four lines, two of six lines each, five of ten lines each, four of twelve lines each, and two of fourteen lines each--in all fourteen not eight-lined strophes against forty-seven eight-lined ones; and, while all the eight-lined ones are intrinsically and logically well constructed, it may be said of the others, that have more than eight lines each, partly that we can cancel the superfluous lines without injury to the sense, and partly that they look like loosely-joined conglomerations of scattered fragments of strophes and of interpolations. The most recent effort to restore perfectly the poem to its eight-lined strophes has been made by Müllenhoff (_D. Alterth._, v.); and although this effort may need revision in some special points, it has upon the whole given the poem a clearness, a logical sequence and symmetry, which of themselves make it evident that Müllenhoff's premises are correct.

In the treatise on Völuspa which I shall publish later, this subject will be thoroughly discussed. Here I may be permitted to say, that in my own efforts to restore Völuspa to eight-lined strophes, I came to a point where I had got the most of the materials arranged on this principle, but there remained the following fragment:

(1) Á fellr austan (1) Falls a river from the east um eitrdala around venom dales söxum ok sverdum, with daggers and spears, Slidr heitir sú. Slid it is called.

(2) Sá hon thar vada (2) There saw she wade thunga strauma through heavy streams menn meinsvara perjurers ok mordvarga murderers ok thanns annars and him who seduces glepr eyrarúnu. another's wife.

These fragments make united ten lines. The fourth line of the fragment (1) _Slidr heitir sú_ has the appearance of being a mythographic addition by the transcriber of the poem. Several similar interpolations which contain information of mythological interest, but which neither have the slightest connection with the context, nor are of the least importance in reference to the subject treated in Völuspa, occur in our present text-editions of this poem. The dwarf-list is a colossal interpolation of this kind. If we hypothetically omit this line for the present, and also the one immediately preceding (_söxum ok sverdum_), then there remains as many lines as are required in a regular eight-line strophe.

It is further to be remarked that among all the eight-lined Völuspa strophes there is not one so badly constructed that a verb in the first half-strophe has a direct object in the first line of the second half-strophe, as is the case in that of the present text:

Sá hon thar vada thunga strauma menn meinsvara ok mordvarga ok thann's annars glepr eyrarúnu;

and, upon the whole, such a construction can hardly ever have occurred in a tolerably passable poem. If these eight lines actually belonged to one and the same strophe, the latter would have to be restored according to the following scheme:

(1) Sá hon thar vada (2) thunga strauma (3) menn meinsvara (4) ok mordvarga; (5) ....... (6) ....... (7) thann's annars glepr (8) eyrarúnu.

and in one of the dotted lines the verb must have been found which governed the accusative object _thann_.

The lines which should take the place of the dots have, in their present form, the following appearance:

á fellr austan um eitrdala.

The verb which governed _thann_ must then be _áfellr_, that is to say, the verb _fellr_ united with the preposition á. But in that case _á_ is not the substantive _á_, a river, a running water, and thus the river which falls from the east around venom dales has its source in an error.

Thus we have, under this supposition, found that there is something that _fellr á_, falls on, streams down upon, him who seduces the wife of another. This something must be expressed by a substantive, which is now concealed behind the adverb _austan_, and must have resembled it sufficiently in sound to be transformed into it.

Such a substantive, and the only one of the kind, is _austr_. This means something that can _falla á_, stream down upon; for _austr_ is _bail-water_ (from _ausa_, to bail), waste-water, water flowing out of a gutter or shoot.

A test as to whether there originally stood _austr_ or not is to be found in the following substantive, which now has the appearance of _eitrdala_. For if there was written _austr_, then there must, in the original text, have followed a substantive (1) which explained the kind of waste-water meant, (2) which had sufficient resemblance to _eitrdala_ to become corrupted into it.

The sea-faring Norsman distinguished between two kinds of _austr_: _byttu-austr_ and _dælu-austr_. The bail-water in a ship could be removed either by bailing it out with scoops directly over the railing, or it could be scooped into a _dæla_, a shoot or trough laid over the railing. The latter was the more convenient method. The difference between these two kinds of _austr_ became a popular phrase; compare the expression _thá var byttu-austr, eigi dælu-austr_. The word _dæla_ was also used figuratively; compare _láta dæluna ganga_, to let the shoots (troughs) run (Gretla, 98), a proverb by which men in animated conversation are likened unto _dælur_, troughs, which are opened for flowing conversation.

Under such circumstances we might here expect after the word _austr_ the word _dæla_, and, as venom here is in question, _eitr-dæla_.

_Eitr-dæla_ satisfies both the demands above made. It explains what sort of waste-water is meant, and it resembles _eitr-dala_ sufficiently to be corrupted into it.

Thus we get _á fellr austr eitrdæla_: "On (him who seduces another man's wife) falls the waste-water of the venom-troughs." Which these venom-troughs are, the strophe in its entirety ought to define. This constitutes the second test of the correctness of the reading.

It must be admitted that if _á fellr austr eitrdæla_ is the original reading, then a corruption into _á fellr austan eitrdala_ had almost of necessity to follow, since the preposition _á_ was taken to be the substantive _á_, river, a running stream. How near at hand such a confounding of these words lies is demonstrated by another Völuspa strophe, where the preposition _á_ in _á ser hon ausaz aurgom forsi_ was long interpreted as the substantive _á_.

We shall now see whether the expression _á fellr austr eitrdæla_ makes sense, when it is introduced in lieu of the dotted lines above: