Part 7

I have been somewhat elaborate in the presentation of this description in Skirnersmal, which has not hitherto been understood. I have done so, because it is the only evidence left to us of how life was conceived in the forecourt of the regions of torture, Nifelhel, the land situated below Ygdrasil's northern root, beyond and below the mountain, where the root is watered by Hvergelmer. It is plain that the author of Skirnersmal, like that of Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thorsdrapa (as we have already seen), has used the word Hel in the sense of a place of bliss in the lower world. It is also evident that with the root under which the frost-giant dwells that one, referred to by Gylfaginning, can impossibly be meant under which Mimer's glorious fountain, and Mimer's grove, and all his treasures stored for a future world, are situated.

[9] With this name of the lower world compare Gudmund-Mimer's abode _á Grund_ (see No. 45), and _Helligrund_ (Heliand., 44, 22), and _neowla grund_ (Caedmon, 267, 1, 270, 16).

[10] Compare the phrase _iotna gaurthum i_ (str. 30, 3) with _til hrimthursa hallar_ (30, 4).

[11] With race of the Asa-god _áslidar_ there can hardly be meant others than the _ásmegir_ gathered in the lower world around Balder. This is the only place where the word _áslidar_ occurs.

61.

THE WORD HEL IN VÖLUSPA. WHO THE INHABITANTS OF HEL ARE.

We now pass to Völuspa, 40 (Hauk's Codex), where the word _Helvegir_ occurs.

One of the signs that Ragnarok and the fall of the world are at hand, is that the mighty ash Ygdrasil trembles, and that a fettered giant-monster thereby gets loose from its chains. Which this monster is, whether it is Garm, bound above the Gnipa cave, or some other, we will not now discuss. The astonishment and confusion caused by these events among all the beings of the world, are described in the poem with but few words, but they are sufficient for the purpose and well calculated to make a deep impression upon the hearers. Terror is the predominating feeling in those beings which are not chosen to take part in the impending conflict. They, on the other hand, for whom the quaking of Ygdrasil is the signal of battle for life or death, either arm themselves amid a terrible war-cry for the battle (the giants, str. 41), or they assemble to hold the last council (the Asas), and then rush to arms.

Two classes of beings are mentioned as seized by terror--the dwarfs, who stood breathless outside of their stone-doors, and those beings which are _á Helvegum_. _Helvegir_ may mean the paths or ways in Hel: there are many paths, just as there are many gates and many rivers. _Helvegir_ may also mean the regions, districts in Hel (cp. _Austrvegr_, _Sudrvegr_, _Norvegr_; and Allvism., 10, according to which the Vans call the earth _vegir_, ways). The author may have used the word in either of these senses or in both, for in this case it amounts to the same. At all events it is stated that the inhabitants in Hel are terrified when Ygdrasil quakes and the unnamed giant-monster gets loose.

Skelfr Yggdrasils Quakes Ygdrasil's askr standandi, Ash standing, ymr hid alldna tre The old tree trembles, enn iotunn losnar; The giant gets loose; hrædaz allir All are frightened a Helvegum On the Helways (in Hel's regions) adr Surtar thann ere Surt's spirit (or kinsman) sevi of gleypir. swallows him (namely, the giant).

Surt's spirit, or kinsman (_sevi_, _sefi_ may mean either), is, as has also hitherto been supposed, the fire. The final episode in the conflict on Vigrid's plain is that the Muspel-flames destroy the last remnant of the contending giants. The terror which, when the world-tree quaked and the unnamed giant got loose, took possession of the inhabitants of Hel continues so long as the conflict is undecided. Valfather falls, Frey and Thor likewise; no one can know who is to be victorious. But the terror ceases when on the one hand the liberated giant-monster is destroyed, and on the other hand Vidar and Vale, Mode and Magne, survive the conflict and survive the flames, which do not penetrate to Balder and _Hödr_ and their protegés in Hel. The word _thann_ (him), which occurs in the seventh line of the strophe (in the last of the translation) can impossibly refer to any other than the giant mentioned in the fourth line (_iotunn_). There are in the strophe only two masculine words to which the masculine _thann_ can be referred--_iotunn_ and _Yggdrasils askr_. _Iotunn_, which stands nearest to _thann_, thus has the preference; and as we have seen that the world-tree falls by neither fire nor edge (Fjolsv., 20), and as it, in fact, survives the conflagration of Surt, then _thann_ must naturally be referred to the _iotunn._

Here Völuspa has furnished us with evidence in regard to the position of Hel's inhabitants towards the contending parties in Ragnarok. They who are frightened when a giant-monster--a most dangerous one, as it hitherto had been chained--gets free from its fetters, and they whose fright is allayed when the monster is destroyed in the conflagration of the world, such beings can impossibly follow this monster and its fellow warriors with their good wishes. Their hearts are on the side of the good powers, which are friendly to mankind. But they do not take an active part in their behalf; they take no part whatever in the conflict. This is manifest from the fact that their fright does not cease before the conflict is ended. Now we know that among the inhabitants in Hel are the _ásmegir_ Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring, and that they are not _hertharfir_; they are not to be employed in war, since their very destiny forbids their taking an active part in the events of this period of the world (see No. 53). But the text does not permit us to think of them alone when we are to determine who the beings _á Helvegum_ are. For the text says that _all_, who are _á Helvegum_, are alarmed until the conflict is happily ended. What the interpreters of this much abused passage have failed to see, the seeress in Völuspa has not forgotten, that, namely, during the lapse of countless thousands of years, innumerable children and women, and men who never wielded the sword, have descended to the kingdom of death and received dwellings in Hel, and that Hel--in the limited local sense which the word hitherto has appeared to have in the songs of the gods--does not contain warlike inhabitants. Those who have fallen on the battle-field come, indeed, as shall be shown later, to Hel, but not to remain there; they continue their journey to Asgard, for Odin chooses one half of those slain on the battlefield for his dwelling, and Freyja the other half (Grimnersmal, 14). The chosen accordingly have Asgard as their place of destination, which they reach in case they are not found guilty by a sentence which neutralises the force and effect of the previous choice (see below), and sends them to die the second death on crossing the boundary to Nifelhel. Warriors who have not fallen on the battlefield are as much entitled to Asgard as those fallen by the sword, provided they as heroes have acquired fame and honour. It might, of course, happen to the greatest general and the most distinguished hero, the conqueror in hundreds of battles, that he might die from sickness or an accident, while, on the other hand, it might be that a man who never wielded a sword in earnest might fall on the field of battle before he had given a blow. That the mythology should make the latter entitled to Asgard, but not the former, is an absurdity as void of support in the records--on the contrary, these give the opposite testimony--as it is of sound sense. The election contained for the chosen ones no exclusive privilege. It did not even imply additional favour to one who, independently of the election, could count on a place among the einherjes. The election made the person going to battle _feigr_, which was not a favour, nor could it be considered the opposite. It might play a royal crown from the head of the chosen one to that of his enemy, and this could not well be regarded as a kindness. But for the electing powers of Asgard themselves the election implied a privilege. The dispensation of life and death regularly belonged to the norns; but the election partly supplied the gods with an exception to this rule, and partly it left to Odin the right to determine the fortunes and issues of battles. The question of the relation between the power of the gods and that of fate--a question which seemed to the Greeks and Romans dangerous to meddle with and well-nigh impossible to dispose of--was partly solved by the Teutonic mythology by the naïve and simple means of dividing the dispensation of life and death between the divinity and fate, which, of course, did not hinder that fate always stood as the dark, inscrutable power in the background of all events. (On election see further, No. 66).

It follows that in Hel's regions of bliss there remained none that were warriors by profession. Those among them who were not guilty of any of the sins which the Asa-doctrine stamped as sins unto death passed through Hel to Asgard, the others through Hel to Nifelhel. All the inhabitants on Hel's elysian fields accordingly are the _ásmegir_, and the women, children, and the agents of the peaceful arts who have died during countless centuries, and who unused to the sword, have no place in the ranks of the einherjes, and therefore with the anxiety of those waiting abide the issue of the conflict. Such is the background and contents of the Völuspa strophe. This would long since have been understood, had not the doctrine constructed by Gylfaginning in regard to the lower world, with Troy as the starting-point, bewildered the judgment.

62.

THE WORD HEL IN ALLVISMAL. THE CLASSES OF BEINGS IN HEL.

In Allvismal occurs the phrases: those _i helio_ and _halir_. The premise of the poem is that such objects as earth, heaven, moon, sun, night, wind, fire, &c., are expressed in six different ways, and that each one of these ways of expression is, with the exclusion of the others, applicable within one or two of the classes of beings found in the world. For example, Heaven is called--

Himinn among men, Lyrner among gods, Vindofner among Vans, Uppheim among giants. Elves say Fager-tak (Fairy-roof), dwarfs Drypsal (dropping-hall) (str. 12).

In this manner thirteen objects are mentioned, each one with its six names. In all of the thirteen cases man has a way of his own of naming the objects. Likewise the giants. No other class of beings has any of the thirteen appellations in common with them. On the other hand, the Asas and Vans have the same name for two objects (moon and sun); elves and dwarfs have names in common for no less than six objects (cloud, wind, fire, tree, seed, mead); the dwarfs and the inhabitants of the lower world for three (heaven, sea, and calm). Nine times it is stated how those in the lower world express themselves. In six of these nine cases Allvismal refers to the inhabitants of the lower world by the general expression "those in Hel;" in three cases the poem lets "those in Hel" be represented by some one of those classes of beings that reside in Hel. These three are _upregin_ (str. 10), _ásasynir_ (str. 16), and _halir_ (str. 28).

The very name _upregin_ suggests that it refers to beings of a certain divine rank (the Vans are in Allvismal called _ginnregin_, str. 20, 30) that have their sphere of activity in the upper world. As they none the less dwell in the lower world, the appellation must have reference to beings which have their homes and abiding places in Hel when they are not occupied with their affairs in the world above. These beings are Nat, Dag, Mane, Sol.

_Ásasynir_ has the same signification as _ásmegir_. As this is the case, and as the _ásmegir_ dwell in the lower world and the _ásasynir_ likewise, then they must be identical, unless we should be credulous enough to assume that there were in the lower world two categories of beings, both called sons of Asas.

_Halir_, when the question is about the lower world, means the souls of the dead (Vafthr., 43; see above).

From this we find that Allvismal employs the word Hel in such a manner that it embraces those regions where Nat and Dag, Mane and Sol, the living human inhabitants of Mimer's grove, and the souls of departed human beings dwell. Among the last-named are included also souls of the damned, which are found in the abodes of torture below Nifelhel, and it is within the limits of possibility that the author of the poem also had them in mind, though there is not much probability that he should conceive them as having a nomenclature in common with gods, _ásmegir_, and the happy departed. At all events, he has particularly--and probably exclusively--had in his mind the regions of bliss when he used the word Hel, in which case he has conformed in the use of the word to Völuspa, Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Skirnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thorsdrapa.

63.

THE WORD HEL IN OTHER PASSAGES. THE RESULT OF THE INVESTIGATION FOR THE COSMOGRAPHY AND FOR THE MEANING OF THE WORD HEL. HEL IN A LOCAL SENSE THE KINGDOM OF DEATH, PARTICULARLY ITS REALMS OF BLISS. HEL IN A PERSONAL SENSE IDENTICAL WITH THE GODDESS OF FATE AND DEATH, THAT IS, URD.

While a terrible winter is raging, the gods, according to Forspjallsljod,[12] send messengers, with Heimdal as chief, down to a lower-world goddess (dis), who is designated as _Gjöll's_ (the lower world river's) _Sunna_ (Sol, sun) and as the distributor of the divine liquids (str. 9, 11) to beseech her to explain to them the mystery of creation, the beginning of heaven, of Hel, and of the world, life and death, if she is able (_hlyrnis_, _heliar_, _heims of vissi_, _ártith_, _æfi_, _aldrtila_). The messengers get only tears as an answer. The poem divides the universe into three great divisions: heaven, Hel, and the part lying between Hel and heaven, the world inhabited by mortals. Thus Hel is here used in its general sense, and refers to the whole lower world. But here, as wherever Hel has this general signification, it appears that the idea of regions of punishment is not thought of, but is kept in the background by the definite antithesis in which the word Hel, used in its more common and special sense of the subterranean regions of bliss, stands to Nifelhel and the regions subject to it. It must be admitted that what the anxious gods wish to learn from the wise goddess of the lower world must, so far as their desire to know and their fears concern the fate of Hel, refer particularly to the regions where Urd's and Mimer's holy wells are situated, for if the latter, which water the world-tree, pass away, it would mean nothing less than the end of the world. That the author should make the gods anxious concerning Loke's daughter, whom they had hurled into the deep abysses of Nifelhel, and that he should make the wise goddess by _Gjöll_ weep bitter tears over the future of the sister of the Fenris-wolf, is possible in the sense that it cannot be refuted by any definite words of the old records; but we may be permitted to regard it as highly improbable.

Among the passages in which the word Hel occurs in the poetic Edda's mythological songs we have yet to mention Harbardsljod (str. 27), where the expression _drepa i Hel_ is employed in the same abstract manner as the Swedes use the expression "at slå ihjäl," which means simply "to kill" (it is Thor who threatens to kill the insulting Harbard); and also Völuspa (str. 42), Fjöllsvinnsmal (str. 25), and Grimnersmal (str. 31).

Völuspa (str. 42), speaks of Goldcomb, the cock which, with its crowing, wakes those who sleep in Herfather's abode, and of a sooty-red cock which crows under the earth near Hel's halls. In Fjöllsvinnsmal (str. 25), Svipdag asks with what weapon one might be able to bring down to Hel's home (_á Heljar sjöt_) that golden cock Vidofner, which sits in Mimer's tree (the world-tree), and doubtless is identical with Goldcomb. That Vidofner has done nothing for which he deserves to be punished in the home of Loke's daughter may be regarded as probable. _Hel_ is here used to designate the kingdom of death in general, and all that Spivdag seems to mean is that Vidofner, in case such a weapon could be found, might be transferred to his kinsman, the sooty-red cock which crows below the earth. Saxo also speaks of a cock which is found in Hades, and is with the goddess who has the cowbane stalks when she shows Hadding the flower-meadows of the lower world, the Elysian fields of those fallen by the sword, and the citadel within which death does not seem able to enter (see No. 47). Thus there is at least one cock in the lower world's realm of bliss. That there should be one also in Nifelhel and in the abode of Loke's daughter is nowhere mentioned, and is hardly credible, since the cock, according to an ancient and wide-spread Aryan belief, is a sacred bird, which is the special foe of demons and the powers of darkness. According to Swedish popular belief, even of the present time, the crowing of the cock puts ghosts and spirits to flight; and a similar idea is found in Avesta (Vendidad, 18), where, in str. 15, Ahuramazda himself translates the morning song of the cock with the following words: "Rise, ye men, and praise the justice which is the most perfect! Behold the demons are put to flight!" Avesta is naïvely out of patience with thoughtless persons who call this sacred bird (_Parodarsch_) by the so little respect-inspiring name "Cockadoodledoo" (_Kahrkatâs_). The idea of the sacredness of the cock and its hostility to demons was also found among the Aryans of South Europe and survived the introduction of Christianity. Aurelius Prudentius wrote a _Hymnus ad galli cantum_, and the cock has as a token of Christian vigilance received the same place on the church spires as formerly on the world-tree. Nor have the May-poles forgotten him. But in the North the poets and the popular language have made the red cock a symbol of fire. Fire has two characters--it is sacred, purifying, and beneficent, when it is handled carefully and for lawful purposes. In the opposite case it is destructive. With the exception of this special instance, nothing but good is reported of the cocks of mythology and poetry.

Grimnersmal (str. 31) is remarkable from two points of view. It contains information--brief and scant, it is true, but nevertheless valuable--in regard to Ygdrasil's three roots, and it speaks of Hel in an unmistakable, distinctly personal sense.

In regard to the roots of the world-tree and their position, our investigation so far, regardless of Grimnersmal (str. 31), has produced the following result:

Ygdrasil has a northern root. This stands over the vast reservoir Hvergelmer and spreads over Nifelhel, situated north of Hvergelmer and inhabited by frost-giants. There nine regions of punishment are situated, among them Nastrands.

Ygdrasil's second root is watered by Mimer's fountain and spreads over the land where Mimer's fountain and grove are located. In Mimer's grove dwell those living (not dead) beings called _Ásmegir_ and _Ásasynir_, Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring, whose destiny it is to people the regenerated earth.

Ygdrasil's third root stands over Urd's fountain and the subterranean thingstead of the gods.

The lower world consists of two chief divisions: Nifelhel (with the regions thereto belonging) and Hel,--Nifelhel situated north of the Hvergelmer mountain, and Hel south of it. Accordingly both the land where Mimer's well and grove are situated and the land where Urd's fountain is found are within the domain Hel.

In regard to the zones or climates, in which the roots are located, they have been conceived as having a southern and northern. We have already shown that the root over Hvergelmer is the northern one. That the root over Urd's fountain has been conceived as the southern one is manifest from the following circumstances. Eilif Gudrunson, who was converted to Christianity--the same skald who wrote the purely heathen Thorsdrapa--says in one of his poems, written after his conversion, that Christ sits _sunnr at Urdarbrunni_, in the south near Urd's fountain, an expression which he could not have used unless his hearers had retained from the faith of their childhood the idea that Urd's fountain was situated south of the other fountains. Forspjallsljod puts upon Urd's fountain the task of protecting the world-tree against the devastating cold during the terrible winter which the poem describes. _Othhrærir skyldi Urthar geyma mættk at veria mestum thorra._--"Urd's Odreirer (mead-fountain) proved not to retain strength enough to protect against the terrible cold." This idea shows that the sap which Ygdrasil's southern root drew from Urd's fountain was thought to be warmer than the saps of the other wells. As, accordingly, the root over Urd's well was the southern, and that over Hvergelmer and the frost-giants the northern, it follows that Mimer's well was conceived as situated between those two. The memory of this fact Gylfaginning has in its fashion preserved, where in chapter 15 it says that Mimer's fountain is situated where Ginungagap formerly was--that is, between the northern Nifelheim and the southern warmer region (Gylfaginning's "Muspelheim").

Grimnersmal (str. 31) says:

Thrir rætr standa Three roots stand a thria vega on three ways undan asci Yggdrasils: below Ygdrasil's ash: Hel byr und einni, Hel dwells under one, annari hrimthursar, under another frost-giants, thridio mennzkir menn. under a third human-"men."

The root under which the frost-giants dwell we already know as the root over Hvergelmer and the Nifelhel inhabited by frost-giants.

The root under which human beings, living persons, _mennskir menn_, dwell we also know as the one over Mimer's well and Mimer's grove, where the human beings Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring have their abode, where _jörd lifanda manna_ is situated.

There remains one root: the one under which the goddess of fate, Urd, has her dwelling. Of this Grimnersmal says that she who dwells there is named Hel.

Hence it follows of necessity that the goddess of fate, Urd, is identical with the personal Hel, the queen of the realm of death, particularly of its regions of bliss. We have seen that Hel in its local sense has the general signification, the realm of death, and the special but most frequent signification, the elysium of the kingdom of death. As a person, the meaning of the word Hel must be analogous to its signification as a place. It is the same idea having a personal as well as a local form.

The conclusion that Urd is Hel is inevitable, unless we assume that Urd, though queen of her fountain, is not the regent of the land where her fountain is situated. One might then assume Hel to be one of Urd's sisters, but these have no prominence as compared with herself. One of them, Skuld, who is the more known of the two, is at the same time one of Urd's maid-servants, a valkyrie, who on the battlefield does her errands, a feminine psycho-messenger who shows the fallen the way to Hel, the realm of her sisters, where they are to report themselves ere they get to their destination. Of _Verdandi_ the records tell us nothing but the name, which seems to preclude the idea that she should be the personal Hel.