Part 5

In determining the question, how far Hel among the heathen Scandinavians has had a meaning identical with or similar to that which Halja and Hella had among their Gothic and German kinsmen--that is to say, the signification of a death-kingdom of such a nature that it could not with linguistic propriety be used in translating Gehenna--we must first consult that which really is the oldest source, the usage of the spoken language in expressions where Hel is found. Such expressions show by the very presence of Hel that they have been handed down from heathendom, or have been formed in analogy with old heathen phrases. One of these modes of speech still exists: _i hjäl_ (slå ihjäl, svälta ihjäl, frysa ihjäl, &c.), which is the Old Norse _i Hel_. We do not use this expression in the sense that a person killed by a weapon, famine, or frost is relegated to the abyss of torture. Still less could the heathens have used it in that sense. The phrase would never have been created if the word Hel had especially conveyed the notion of a place of punishment. Already in a very remote age _í Hel_ had acquired the abstract meaning _to death_, but in such a manner that the phrase easily suggested the concrete idea--the realm of death (an example of this will be given below). What there is to be said about _í Hel_ also applies to such phrases as _bida Heljar_, to await Hel (_death_); _buask til Heljar_, to become equipped for the journey to Hel (to be shrouded); _liggja milli heims ok Heljar_, to lie between this world and Hel (between life and death); _liggja á Heljar thremi_, to lie on Hel's threshold. A funeral could be called a _Helför_ (a Hel-journey); fatal illness _Helsótt_ (Hel-sickness); the deceased could be called _Helgengnir_ (those gone to Hel). Of friends it is said that Hel (death) alone could separate them (Fornm., vii. 233).

Thus it is evident that Hel, in the more general local sense of the word, referred to a place common for all the dead, and that the word was used without any additional suggestion of damnation and torture in the minds of those employing it.

58.

THE WORD HEL IN VEGTAMSKVIDA AND IN VAFTHRUDNERSMAL.

When Odin, according to Vegtamskvida, resolved to get reliable information in the lower world in regard to the fate which threatened Balder, he saddled his Sleipner and rode thither. On the way he took he came first to Nifelhel. While he was still in Nifelhel, he met on his way a dog bloody about the breast, which came from the direction where that division of the lower world is situated, which is called Hel. Thus the rider and the dog came from opposite directions, and the former continued his course in the direction whence the latter came. The dog turned, and long pursued Odin with his barking. Then the rider reached a _foldvegr_, that is to say, a road along grass-grown plains. The way resounded under the hoofs of the steed. Then Odin finally came to a high dwelling which is called _Heljarrann_ or _Heljar rann_. The name of the dwelling shows that it was situated in Hel, not in Nifelhel. This latter realm of the lower world Odin now had had behind him ever since he reached the green fields, and since the dog, evidently a watch of the borders between Nifelhel and Hel, had left him in peace. The high dwelling was decorated as for a feast, and mead was served. It was, Odin learned, the abode where the _ásmegir_ longingly waited for the arrival of Balder. Thus Vegtamskvida:

2. Ræid hann (Odin) nidr thathan Niflhæljar til, mætti hann hvælpi theim ær or hæliu kom.

3. Sa var blodugr urn briost framan ok galldrs födur gol um læengi.

4. Framm ræid Odinn, foldvægr dundi, ban kom at hafu Hæliar ranni.

7. Her standr Balldri of brugginn miödr. Ok ásmegir i ofvæno.

Vegtamskvida distinguishes distinctly between Nifelhel and Hel. In Hel is the dwelling which awaits the son of the gods, the noblest and most pious of all the Asas. The dwelling, which reveals a lavish splendour, is described as the very antithesis of that awful abode which, according to Gylfaginning, belongs to the queen of the lower world. In Vafthrudnersmal (43) the old giant says:

Fra iotna runom Of the runes of giants oc allra goda and of all the gods ec kann segia satt, I can speak truly; thviat hvern hefi ec for I have been heim um komit: in every world. nio kom ec heima In nine worlds I came fyr Niflhel nedan, below Nifelhel, hinig deyja or Helio halir. thither die "halir" from Hel.

Like Vegtamskvida, so Vafthrudnersmal also distinguishes distinctly between Hel and Nifelhel, particularly in those most remarkable words that thither, _i.e._, to Nifelhel and the regions subject to it, _die_ "halir" from Hel. _Halir_ means men, human beings; applied to beings in the lower world _halir_ means dead men, the spirits of deceased human beings (cp. Allvism., 18, 6; 20, 6; 26, 6; 32, 6; 34, 6, with 28, 3). Accordingly, nothing less is here said than that deceased persons who have come to the realm called Hel, may there be subject to a second death, and that through this second death they come to Nifelhel. Thus the same sharp distinction is here made between life in Hel and in Nifelhel as between life on earth and that in Hel. These two subterranean realms must therefore represent very different conditions. What these different conditions are, Vafthrudnersmal does not inform us, nor will I anticipate the investigation on this point; still less will I appeal to Gylfaginning's assurance that the realms of torture lie under Nifelhel, and that it is wicked men (_vândir menn_) who are obliged to cross the border from Hel to Nifelhel. So far it must be borne in mind that it was in Nifelhel Odin met the bloody dog-demon, who barked at the Asa-majesty, though he could not hinder the father of the mighty and protecting sorceries from continuing his journey; while it was in Hel, on the other hand, that Odin saw the splendid abode where the _ásmegir_ had already served the precious subterranean mead for his son, the just Balder. This argues that they who through a second death get over the border from Hel to Nifelhel, do not by this transfer get a better fate than that to which Hel invites those who have died the first death. Balder in the one realm, the blood-stained kinsman of Cerberus in the other--this is, for the present, the only, but not unimportant weight in the balance which is to determine the question whether that border-line which a second death draws between Hel and Nifelhel is the boundary between a realm of bliss and a realm of suffering, and in this case, whether Hel or Nifelhel is the realm of bliss.

This expression in Vafthrudnersmal, _hinig deyja or Helio halir_, also forces to the front another question, which as long as it remains unanswered, makes the former question more complicated. If Hel is a realm of bliss, and if Nifelhel with the regions subject thereto is a realm of unhappiness, then why do not the souls of the damned go at once to their final destination, but are taken first to the realm of bliss, then to the realm of anguish and pain, that is, after they have died the second death on the boundary-line between the two? And if, on the contrary, Hel were the realm of unhappiness and Nifelhel offered a better lot, then why should they who are destined for a better fate, first be brought to it through the world of torture, and then be separated from the latter by a second death before they could gain the more happy goal? These questions cannot be answered until later on.

59.

THE WORD HEL IN GRIMNERSMAL. HVERGELMER'S FOUNTAIN AND ITS DEFENDERS. THE BORDER MOUNTAIN BETWEEN HEL AND NIFELHEL. THE WORD HELBLOTINN IN THORSDRAPA.

In Grimnersmal the word Hel occurs twice (str. 28, 31), and this poem is (together with Gylfaginning) the only ancient record which gives us any information about the well Hvergelmer under this name (str. 26, ff.).

From what is related, it appears that the mythology conceived Hvergelmer as a vast reservoir, the mother-fountain of all the waters of the world (_thadan eigo votn aull vega_). In the front rank are mentioned a number of subterranean rivers which rise in Hvergelmer, and seek their courses thence in various directions. But the waters of earth and heaven also come from this immense fountain, and after completing their circuits they return thither. The liquids or saps which rise in the world-tree's stem to its branches and leaves around Herfather's hall (Valhal) return in the form of rain to Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal, 26).

Forty rivers rising there are named. (Whether they were all found in the original text may be a subject of doubt. Interpolators may have added from their own knowledge.) Three of them are mentioned in other records--namely, _Slidr_ in Völuspa, 36, _Gjöll_ in that account of Hermod's journey to Hel's realm, which in its main outlines was rescued by the author of Gylfaginning (Gylfag., ch. 52), and _Leiptr_ in Helge Hund., ii. 31--and all three are referred to in such a way as to prove that they are subterranean rivers. Slid flows to the realms of torture, and whirls weapons in its eddies, presumably to hinder or frighten anybody from attempting to cross. Over _Gjöll_ there is a bridge of gold to Balder's subterranean abode. _Leiptr_ (which name means "the shining one") has clear waters which are holy, and by which solemn oaths are sworn, as by Styx. Of these last two rivers flowing out of Hvergelmer it is said that they flow down to Hel (_falla til Heljar_, str. 28). Thus these are all subterranean. The next strophe (29) adds four rivers--_Körmt_ and _Örmt_, and the two _Kerlögar_, of which it is said that it is over these Thor must wade every day when he has to go to the judgment-seats of the gods near the ash Ygdrasil. For he does not ride like the other gods when they journey down over Bifrost to the thingstead near Urd's fountain. The horses which they use are named in strophe 30, and are ten in number, like the asas, when we subtract Thor who walks, and Balder and _Hödr_ who dwell in Hel. Nor must Thor on these journeys, in case he wished to take the route by way of Bifrost, use the thunder-chariot, for the flames issuing from it might set fire to the Asa-bridge and make the holy waters glow (str. 29). That the thunder-chariot also is dangerous for higher regions when it is set in motion, thereof Thjodolf gives us a brilliant description in the poem Haustlaung. Thor being for this reason obliged to wade across four rivers before he gets to Urd's fountain, the beds of these rivers must have been conceived as crossing the paths travelled by the god journeying to the thingstead. Accordingly they must have their courses somewhere in Urd's realm, or on the way thither, and consequently they too belong to the lower world.

Other rivers coming from Hvergelmer are said to turn their course around a place called _Hodd-goda_ (str. 27 _ther hverfa um Hodd-goda_). This girdle of rivers, which the mythology unites around a single place, seems to indicate that this is a realm from which it is important to shut out everything that does not belong there. The name itself, _Hodd-goda_, points in the same direction. The word _hodd_ means that which is concealed (the treasure), and at the same time a protected sacred place. In the German poem _Heliand_ the word _hord_, corresponding to _hodd_, is used about the holiest of holies in the Jerusalem temple. As we already know, there is in the lower world a place to which these references apply, namely, the citadel guarded by Delling, the elf of dawn, and decorated by the famous artists of the lower world--a citadel in which the _ásmegir_ and Balder--and probably _Hodr_ too, since he is transferred to the lower world, and with Balder is to return thence--await the end of the historical time and the regeneration. The word _goda_ in Hodd-goda shows that the place is possessed by, or entrusted to, beings of divine rank.

From what has here been stated in regard to Hvergelmer it follows that the mighty well was conceived as situated on a high water-shed, far up in a subterranean mountain range, whence those rivers of which it is the source flow down in different directions to different realms of Hades. Of several of these rivers it is said that they in their upper courses, before they reach Hel, flow in the vicinity of mankind (_gumnom nær_--str. 28, 7), which naturally can have no other meaning than that the high land through which they flow after leaving Hvergelmer has been conceived as lying not very deep below the crust of Midgard (the earth). Hvergelmer and this high land are not to be referred to that division of the lower world which in Grimnersmal is called Hel, for not until after the rivers have flowed through the mountain landscape, where their source is, are they said to _falla til Heljar_.

Thus (1) there is in the lower world a mountain ridge, a high land, where is found Hvergelmer, the source of all waters; (2) this mountain, which we for the present may call Mount Hvergelmer, is the watershed of the lower world, from which rivers flow in different directions; and (3) that division of the lower world which is called Hel lies below one side of Mount Hvergelmer, and thence receives many rivers. What that division of the lower world which lies below the other side of Mount Hvergelmer is called is not stated in Grimnersmal. But from Vafthrudnersmal and Vegtamskvida we already know that Hel is bounded by Nifelhel. In Vegtamskvida Odin rides through Nifelhel to Hel; in Vafthrudnersmal _halir_ die from Hel to Nifelhel. Hel and Nifelhel thus appear to be each other's opposites, and to complement each other, and combined they form the whole lower world. Hence it follows that the land on the other side of the Hvergelmer mountain is Nifelhel.

It also seems necessary that both these Hades realms should in the mythology be separated from each other not only by an abstract boundary line, but also by a natural boundary--a mountain or a body of water--which might prohibit the crossing of the boundary by persons who neither had a right nor were obliged to cross. The tradition on which Saxo's account of Gorm's journey to the lower world is based makes Gorm and his men, when from Gudmund-Mimer's realm they wish to visit the abodes of the damned, first cross a river and then come to a boundary which cannot be crossed, excepting by _scalæ_, steps on the mountain wall, or ladders, above which the gates are placed, that open to a city "resembling most a cloud of vapour" (_vaporanti maxime nubi simile_--i. 425). This is Saxo's way of translating the name Nifelhel, just as he in the story about Hadding's journey to the lower world translated _Glæsisvellir_ (the Glittering Fields) with _loca aprica_.

In regard to the topography and eschatology of the Teutonic lower world, it is now of importance to find out on which opposite sides of the Hvergelmer mountain Hel and Nifelhel were conceived to be situated.

_Nifl_, an ancient word, related to _nebula_ and _nephek_ means fog, mist, cloud, darkness. Nifelhel means _that_ Hel which is enveloped in fog and twilight. The name _Hel_ alone has evidently had partly a more general application to a territory embracing the whole kingdom of death--else it could not be used as a part of the compound word _Nifelhel_--partly a more limited meaning, in which _Hel_, as in Vafthrudnersmal and Vegtamskvida, forms a sharp contrast to _Nifelhel_, and from the latter point of view it is that division of the lower world which is not enveloped in mist and fog.

According to the cosmography of the mythology there was, before the time when "Ymer lived," Nifelheim, a world of fog, darkness, and cold, north of Ginungagap, and an opposite world, that of fire and heat, south of the empty abyss. Unfortunately it is only Gylfaginning that has preserved for our time these cosmographical outlines, but there is no suspicion that the author of Gylfaginning invented them. The fact that his cosmographic description also mentions the ancient cow Audhumla, which is nowhere else named in our mythic records, but is not utterly forgotten in our popular traditions, and which is a genuine Aryan conception, this is the strongest argument in favour of his having had genuine authorities for his theo-cosmogony at hand, though he used them in an arbitrary manner. The Teutons may also be said to have been compelled to construct a cosmogony in harmony with their conception of that world with which they were best acquainted, their own home between the cold North and the warmer South.

Nifelhel in the lower world has its counterpart in Nifelheim in chaos. Gylfaginning identifies the two (ch. 6 and 34). Forspjallsljod does the same, and locates Nifelheim far to the north in the lower world (_nordr at Nifelheim_--str. 26), behind Ygdrasil's farthest root, under which the poem makes the goddess of night, after completing her journey around the heavens, rest for a new journey. When Night has completed such a journey and come to the lower world, she goes northward in the direction towards Nifelheim, to remain in her hall, until Dag with his chariot gets down to the western horizon and in his turn rides through the "horse doors" of Hades into the lower world.

From this it follows that Nifelhel is to be referred to the north of the mountain Hvergelmer, Hel to the south of it. Thus this mountain is the wall separating Hel from Nifelhel. On that mountain in the gate, or gates, which in the Gorm story separates Gudmund-Mimer's abode from those dwellings which resemble a "cloud of vapour," and up there is the death boundary, at which "halir" die for the second time, when they are transferred from Hel to Nifelhel.

The immense water-reservoir on the brow of the mountain, which stands under Ygdrasil's northern root, sends, as already stated, rivers down to both sides--to Nifelhel in the North and to Hel in the South. Of the most of these rivers we now know only the names. But those of which we do know more are characterised in such a manner that we find that it is a sacred land to which those flowing to the South towards Hel hasten their course, and that it is an unholy land which is sought by those which send their streams to the north down into Nifelhel. The rivers _Gjöll_ and _Leiptr_ fall down into Hel, and _Gjöll_ is, as already indicated, characterised by a bridge of gold, Leiptr by a shining, clear, and most holy water. Down there in the South are found the mystic Hodd-goda, surrounded by other Hel-rivers; Balder's and the _ásmegir's_ citadel (perhaps identical with Hodd-goda); Mimer's fountain, seven times overlaid with gold, the fountain of inspiration and of the creative force, over which the "overshadowing holy tree" spreads its branches (Völuspa), and around whose reed-wreathed edge the seed of poetry grows (Eilif Gudrunson); the Glittering Fields, with flowers which never fade and with harvests which never are gathered; Urd's fountain, over which Ygdrasil stands for ever green (Völuspa), and in whose silver-white waters swans swim; and the sacred thingstead of the Asas, to which they daily ride down over Bifrost. North of the mountain roars the weapon-hurling Slid, and doubtless is the same river as that in whose "heavy streams" the souls of nithings must wade. In the North _solú fjarri_ stands, also at Nastrands, that hall, the walls of which are braided of serpents (Völuspa). Thus Hel is described as an Elysium, Nifelhel with its subject regions as a realm of unhappiness.

Yet a few words about Hvergelmer, from and to which "all waters find their way." This statement in Grimnersmal is of course true of the greatest of all waters, the ocean. The myth about Hvergelmer and its subterranean connection with the ocean gave our ancestors the explanation of ebb- and flood-tide. High up in the northern channels the bottom of the ocean opened itself in a hollow tunnel, which led down to the "kettle-roarer," "the one roaring in his basin" (this seems to be the meaning of _Hvergelmir_: _hverr_ = kettle; _galm_ = Anglo-Saxon _gealm_, a roaring). When the waters of the ocean poured through this tunnel down into the Hades-well there was ebb-tide; when it returned water from its superabundance there was flood-tide (see Nos. 79, 80, 81).

Adam of Bremen had heard this tunnel mentioned in connection with the story about the Frisian noblemen who went by sea to the furthest north, came to the land of subterranean giants, and plundered their treasures (see No. 48). On the way up some of the ships of the Frisians got into the eddy caused by the tunnel, and were sucked with terrible violence down into the lower world.[8]

Charlemagne's contemporary, Paul Varnefrid (Diaconus), relates in his history of the Longobardians that he had talked with men who had been in Scandinavia. Among remarkable reports which they gave him of the regions of the far north was also that of a maelstrom, which swallows ships, and sometimes even casts them up again (see Nos. 15, 79, 80, 81).

Between the death-kingdom and the ocean there was, therefore, one connecting link, perhaps several. Most of the people who drowned did not remain with _Ran_. Ægir's wife received them hospitably, according to the Icelandic sagas of the middle age. She had a hall in the bottom of the sea, where they were welcomed and offered _sess ok rekkju_ (seat and bed). Her realm was only an ante-chamber to the realms of death (Kormak, Sonatorrek).

The demon Nidhog, which by Gylfaginning is thrown into Hvergelmer is, according to the ancient records, a winged dragon flying about, one of several similar monsters which have their abode in Nifelhel and those lower regions, and which seek to injure that root of the world-tree which is nearest to them, that is the northern one, which stands over Nifelhel and stretches its rootlets southward over Mount Hvergelmer and down into its great water-reservoir (Grimnersmal, 34, 35). Like all the Aryan mythologies, the Teutonic also knew this sort of monsters, and did so long before the word "dragon" (_drake_) was borrowed from southern kinsmen as a name for them. Nidhog abides now on Nastrands, where, by the side of a wolf-demon, it tortures _náir_ (corpses), now on the Nida Mountains, whence the vala in Völuspa sees him flying away with _náir_ under his wings. Nowhere (except in Gylfaginning) is it said that he lives in the well Hvergelmer, though it is possible that he, in spite of his wings, was conceived as an amphibious being which also could subsist in the water. Tradition tells of dragons who dwell in marshes and swamps.

The other two subterranean fountains, Urd's and Mimer's, and the roots of Ygdrasil standing over them, are well protected against the influence of the foes of creation, and have their separate guardians. Mimer, with his sons and the beings subject to him, protects and guards his root of the tree, Urd and her sisters hers, and to the latter all the victorious gods of Asgard come every day to hold counsel. Was the northern root of Ygdrasil, which spreads over the realms of the frost-giants, of the demons, and of the damned, and was Hvergelmer, which waters this root and received so important a position in the economy of the world-tree, left in the mythology without protection and without a guardian? Hvergelmer we know is situated on the watershed, where we have the death-borders between Hel and Nifelhel fortified with abysses and gates, and is consequently situated in the immediate vicinity of beings hostile to gods and men. Here, if anywhere, there was need of valiant and vigilant watchers. Ygdrasil needs its northern root as well as the others, and if Hvergelmer was not allowed undisturbed to conduct the circuitous flow of all waters, the world would be either dried up or drowned.