There are still two poems extant from the heathen time, which describe the reception of sword-fallen kings in Valhal. The one describes the reception of Erik Blood-axe, the other that of Hakon the Good.
When King Erik, with five other kings and their attendants of fallen warriors, come riding up thither, the gods hear on their approach a mighty din, as if the foundations of Asgard trembled. All the benches of Valhal quake and tremble. What single probability can we now conceive as to what the skald presupposed? Did he suppose that the chosen heroes came on horses that swim in the air, and that the movements of the horses in this element produced a noise that made Valhal tremble? Or that it is Bifrost which thunders under the hoofs of hundreds of horses, and quakes beneath their weight? There is scarcely need of an answer to this alternative. Meanwhile the skald himself gives the answer. For the skald makes Brage say that from the din and quaking it might be presumed that it was Balder who was returning to the halls of the gods. Balder dwells in the lower world; the connection between Asgard and the lower world is Bifrost: this connection is of such a nature that it quakes and trembles beneath the weight of horses and riders, and it is predicted in regard to Bifrost that in Ragnarok it shall break under the weight of the host of riders. Thus Brage's words show that it is Bifrost from which the noise is heard when Erik and his men ride up to Valhal. But to get to the southern end of Bifrost, Erik and his riders must have journeyed in Hel, across Gjoll, and past the thingstead of the gods near Urd's well. Thus it is by this road that the psychopomps of the heroes conduct their favourites to their final destination.
In his grand poem "Hákonármal," Eyvind Skaldaspiller makes Odin send the valkyries Gandul and Skagul "to choose among the kings of Yngve's race some who are to come to Odin and abide in Valhal." It is not said by which road the two valkyries betake themselves to Midgard, but when they have arrived there they find that a battle is imminent between the Yngve descendants, Hakon the Good, and the sons of Erik. Hakon is just putting on his coat-of-mail, and immediately thereupon begins the brilliantly-described battle. The sons of Erik are put to flight, but the victor Hakon is wounded by an arrow, and after the end of the battle he sits on the battlefield, surrounded by his heroes, "with shields cut by swords and with byrnies pierced by arrows." Gandul and Skagul, "maids on horseback, with wisdom in their countenances, with helmets on their heads, and with shields before them," are near the king. The latter hears that Gandul, "leaning on her spear," says to Skagul that the wound is to cause the king's death, and now a conversation begins between Hakon and Skagul, who confirms what Gandul has said, and does so with the following words:
Rida vit nú skulum,
kvad hin rika Skagul,
græna heima goda
Odni at segja,
at un mun allvaldr koma
á hann sjálfan at sjá.
"We two (Gandul and Skagul) shall now, quoth the mighty Skagul, ride o'er green realms (or worlds) of the gods in order to say to Odin that now a great king is coming to see him."
Here we get definite information in regard to which way the valkyries journey between Asgard and Midgard. The fields through which the road goes, and which are beaten by the hoofs of their horses, are green realms of the gods (worlds, heimar).
With these green realms Eyvind has not meant the blue ether. He distinguishes between blue and green. The sea he calls blue (blámær—see Heimskringla). What he expressly states, and to which we must confine ourselves, is that, according to his cosmological conception and that of his heathen fellow-believers, there were realms clothed in green and inhabited by divinities on the route the valkyries had to take when they from a battlefield in Midgard betook themselves back to Valhal and Asgard. But as valkyries and the elect ride on Bifrost up to Valhal, Bifrost, which goes down to Urd's well, must be the connecting link between the realms decked with green and Asgard. The grænar heimar through which the valkyries have to pass are therefore the realms of the lower world.
Among the realms or "worlds" which constituted the mythological universe, the realms of bliss in the lower world were those which might particularly be characterised as the green. Their groves and blooming meadows and fields of waving grain were never touched by decay or frost, and as such they were cherished by the popular fancy for centuries after the introduction of Christianity. The Low German language has also rescued the memory thereof in the expression gróni godes wang (Hel., 94, 24). That the green realms of the lower world are called realms of the gods is also proper, for they have contained and do contain many beings of a higher or lower divine rank. There dwells the divine mother Nat, worshipped by the Teutons; there Thor's mother and her brother and sister Njord and Fulla are fostered; there Balder, Nanna, and Hödr are to dwell until Ragnarok; there Delling, Billing, Rind, Dag, Mane, and Sol, and all the clan of artists gathered around Mimer, they who "smithy" living beings, vegetation, and ornaments, have their halls; there was born Odin's son Vale. Of the mythological divinities, only a small number were fostered in Asgard. When Gandul and Skagul at the head of sword-fallen men ride "o'er the green worlds of the gods," this agrees with the statement in the myth about Hermod's journey to Hel, that "fylkes" of dead riders gallop over the subterranean gold-bridge, on the other side of which glorious regions are situated, and with the statement in Vegtamskvida that Odin, when he had left Nifelhel behind him, came to a foldvegr, a way over green plains, by which he reaches the hall that awaits Balder.
In the heroic songs of the Elder Edda, and in other poems from the centuries immediately succeeding the introduction of Christianity, the memory survives that the heroes journey to the lower world. Sigurd Fafnersbane comes to Hel. Of one of Atle's brothers who fell by Gudrun's sword it is said, i Helju hon thana hafdi (Atlam., 51). In the same poem, strophe 54, one of the Niflungs says of a sword-fallen foe that they had him lamdan til Heljar.
The mythic tradition is supported by linguistic usage, which, in such phrases as berja i Hel, drepa i Hel, drepa til Heljar, færa til Heljar, indicated that those fallen by the sword also had to descend to the realm of death.
The memory of valkyries, subordinate to the goddess of fate and death, and belonging with her to the class of norns, continued to flourish in Christian times both among Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. Among the former välcyrge, välcyrre (valkyrie) could be used to express the Latin parca, and in Beowulf occur phrases in which Hild and Gud (the valkyries Hildr and Gunnr) perform the tasks of Vyrd. In Atlamal (28), the valkyries are changed into "dead women," inhabitants of the lower world, who came to choose the hero and invite him to their halls. The basis of the transformation is the recollection that the valkyries were not only in Odin's service, but also in that of the lower world goddess Urd (compare Atlamal, 16, where they are called norns), and that they as psychopomps conducted the chosen Heroes to Hel on their way to Asgard.
66.
THE CHOOSING. THE MIDDLE-AGE FABLE ABOUT "RISTING WITH THE SPEAR-POINT."
If death on the battle-field, or as the result of wounds received on the field of battle, had been regarded as an inevitable condition for the admittance of the dead into Asgard, and for the honour of sitting at Odin's table, then the choosing would under all circumstances have been regarded as a favour from Odin. But this was by no means the case, nor could it be so when regarded from a psychological point of view (see above, No. 61). The poems mentioned above, "Eiriksmál" and "Hakonarmal," give us examples of choosing from a standpoint quite different from that of favour. When one of the einherjes, Sigmund, learns from Odin that Erik Blood-axe has fallen and is expected in Valhal, he asks why Odin robbed Erik of victory and life, although he, Erik, possessed Odin's friendship. From Odin's answer to the question we learn that the skald did not wish to make Sigmund express any surprise that a king, whom Odin loves above other kings and heroes, has died in a lost instead of a won battle. What Sigmund emphasises is, that Odin did not rather take unto himself a less loved king than the so highly appreciated Erik, and permit the latter to conquer and live. Odin's answer is that he is hourly expecting Ragnarok, and that he therefore made haste to secure as soon as possible so valiant a hero as Erik among his einherjes. But Odin does not say that he feared that he might have to relinquish the hero for ever, in case the latter, not being chosen on this battlefield, should be snatched away by some other death than that by the sword.
Hakonarmal gives us an example of a king who is chosen in a battle in which he is the victor. As conqueror the wounded Hakon remained on the battlefield; still he looks upon the choosing as a disfavour. When he had learned from Gandul's words to Skagul that the number of the einherjes is to be increased with him, he blames the valkyries for dispensing to him this fate, and says he had deserved a better lot from the gods (várun thó verdir gagns frá godum). When he enters Valhal he has a keener reproach on his lips to the welcoming Odin: illúdigr mjók thykkir oss Odinn vera, sjám ver hans of hugi.
Doubtless it was for our ancestors a glorious prospect to be permitted to come to Odin after death, and a person who saw inevitable death before his eyes might comfort himself with the thought of soon seeing "the benches of Balder's father decked for the feast" (Ragnar's death-song). But it is no less certain from all the evidences we have from the heathen time, that honourable life was preferred to honourable death, although between the wars there was a chance of death from sickness. Under these circumstances, the mythical eschatology could not have made death from disease an insurmountable obstacle for warriors and heroes on their way to Valhal. In the ancient records there is not the faintest allusion to such an idea. It is too absurd to have existed. It would have robbed Valhal of many of Midgard's most brilliant heroes, and it would have demanded from faithful believers that they should prefer death even with defeat to victory and life, since the latter lot was coupled with the possibility of death from disease. With such a view no army goes to battle, and no warlike race endowed with normal instincts has ever entertained it and given it expression in their doctrine in regard to future life.
The absurdity of the theory is so manifest that the mythologists who have entertained it have found it necessary to find some way of making it less inadmissible than it really is. They have suggested that Odin did not necessarily fail to get those heroes whom sickness and age threatened with a straw-death, nor did they need to relinquish the joys of Valhal, for there remained to them an expedient to which they under such circumstances resorted: they risted (marked, scratched) themselves with the spear-point (marka sik geirs-oddi).
If there was such a custom, we may conceive it as springing from a sacredness attending a voluntary death as a sacrifice—a sacredness which in all ages has been more or less alluring to religious minds. But all the descriptions we have from Latin records in regard to Teutonic customs, all our own ancient records from heathen times, all Northern and German heroic songs, are unanimously and stubbornly silent about the existence of the supposed custom of "risting with the spear-point," although, if it ever existed, it would have been just such a thing as would on the one hand be noticed by strangers, and on the other hand be remembered, at least for a time, by the generations converted to Christianity. But the well-informed persons interviewed by Tacitus, they who presented so many characteristic traits of the Teutons, knew nothing of such a practice; otherwise they certainly would have mentioned it as something very remarkable and peculiar to the Teutons. None of the later classical Latin or middle age Latin records which have made contributions to our knowledge of the Teutons have a single word to say about it; nor the heroic poems. The Scandinavian records, and the more or less historical sagas, tell of many heathen kings, chiefs, and warriors who have died on a bed of straw, but not of a single one who "risted himself with the spear-point." The fable about this "risting with the spear-point" has its origin in Ynglingasaga, ch. 10, where Odin, changed to a king in Svithiod, is said, when death was approaching, to have let marka sik geirs-oddi. Out of this statement has been constructed a custom among kings and heroes of anticipating a straw-death by "risting with the spear-point," and this for the purpose of getting admittance to Valhal. Vigfusson (Dictionary) has already pointed out the fact that the author of Ynglingasaga had no other authority for his statement than the passage in Havamál, where Odin relates that he wounded with a spear, hungering and thirsting, voluntarily inflicted on himself pain, which moved Bestla's brother to give him runes and a drink from the fountain of wisdom. The fable about the spear-point risting, and its purpose, is therefore quite unlike the source from which, through ignorance and random writing, it sprang.
67.
THE PSYCHO-MESSENGERS OF THOSE NOT FALLEN BY THE SWORD. LOKE'S DAUGHTER (PSEUDO-HEL IN GYLFAGINNING) IDENTICAL WITH LEIKIN.
The psychopomps of those fallen by the sword are, as we have seen, stately dises, sitting high in the saddle, with helmet, shield, and spear. To those not destined to fall by the sword Urd sends other maid-servants, who, like the former, may come on horseback, and who, as it appears, are of very different appearance, varying in accordance with the manner of death of those persons whose departure they attend. She who comes to those who sink beneath the weight of years has been conceived as a very benevolent dis, to judge from the solitary passage where she is characterised, that is in Ynglingatal and in Ynglingasaga, ch. 49, where it is said of the aged and just king Halfdan Whiteleg, that he was taken hence by the woman, who is helpful to those bowed and stooping (hallvarps hlífinauma). The burden which Elli (age), Utgard-Loke's foster-mother (Gylfag., 47), puts on men, and which gradually gets too heavy for them to bear, is removed by this kind-hearted dis.
Other psychopomps are of a terrible kind. The most of them belong to the spirits of disease dwelling in Nifelhel (see No. 60). King Vanlande is tortured to death by a being whose epithet, vitta vættr and trollkund, shows that she belongs to the same group as Heidr, the prototype of witches, and who is contrasted with the valkyrie Hild by the appellation ljóna lids bága Grimhildr (Yngl., ch. 16). The same vitta vættr came to King Adils when his horse fell and he himself struck his head against a stone (Yngl., ch. 33). Two kings, who die on a bed of straw, are mentioned in Ynglingasaga's Thjodolf-strophes (ch. 20 and 52) as visited by a being called in the one instance Loke's kinswoman (Loka mær), and in the other Hvedrung's kinswoman (Hvedrungs mær). That this Loke's kinswoman has no authority to determine life and death, but only carries out the dispensations of the norns, is definitely stated in the Thjodolf-strophe (ch. 52), and also that her activity, as one who brings the invitation to the realm of death, does not imply that the person invited is to be counted among the damned, although she herself, the kinswoman of Loke, the daughter of Loke, surely does not belong to the regions of bliss.
Ok til things
thridja jöfri
hvedrungs mær
or heimi baud,
thá er Hálfdan,
sa er á Holti bjó
norna dóms
um notit hafdi.
As all the dead, whether they are destined for Valhal or for Hel (in the sense of the subterranean realms of bliss), or for Nifelhel, must first report themselves in Hel, their psychopomps, whether they dwell in Valhal, Hel, or Nifelhel, must do the same. This arrangement is necessary also from the point of view that the unhappy who "die from Hel into Nifelhel" (Grimnersmal) must have attendants who conduct them from the realms of bliss to the Na-gates, and thence to the realms of torture. Those dead from disease, who have the subterranean kinswoman of Loke as a guide, may be destined for the realms of bliss—then she delivers them there; or be destined for Nifelhel—then they die under her care and are brought by her through the Na-gates to the worlds of torture in Nifelhel.
Far down in Christian times the participle leikinn was used in a manner which points to something mythical as the original reason for its application. In Biskupas, (i. 464) it is said of a man that he was leikinn by some magic being (flagd). Of another person who sought solitude and talked with himself, it is said in Eyrbyggja (270) that he was believed to be leikinn. Ynglingatal gives us the mythical explanation of this word.
In its strophe about King Dyggve, who died from disease, this poem says (Yngling., ch. 20) that, as the lower world dis had chosen him, Loke's kinswoman came and made him leikinn (Allvald Yngva thjodar Loka mær um leikinn hefir). The person who became leikinn is accordingly visited by Loke's kinswoman, or, if others have had the same task to perform, by some being who resembled her, and who brought psychical or physical disease.
In our mythical records there is mention made of a giantess whose very name, Leikin, Leikn, is immediately connected with that activity which Loke's kinswoman—and she too is a giantess—exercises when she makes a person leikinn. Of this personal Leikin we get the following information in our old records:
1. She is, as stated, of giant race (Younger Edda, i. 552).
2. She has once fared badly at Thor's hands. He broke her leg (Leggi brauzt thu Leiknar—Skaldsk., ch. 4, after a song by Vetrlidi).
3. She is kveldrida. The original and mythological meaning of kveldrida is a horsewoman of torture or death (from kvelja, to torture, to kill). The meaning, a horsewoman of the night, is a misunderstanding. Compare Vigfusson's Dict., sub voce "Kveld."
4. The horse which this woman of torture and death rides is black, untamed, difficult to manage (styggr), and ugly-grown (ljótvaxinn). It drinks human blood, and is accompanied by other horses belonging to Leikin, black and bloodthirsty like it. (All this is stated by Hallfred Vandradaskald.)[13] Perhaps these loose horses are intended for those persons whom the horsewomen of torture causes to die from disease, and whom she is to conduct to the lower world.
Popular traditions have preserved for our times the remembrance of the "ugly-grown" horse, that is, of a three-legged horse, which on its appearance brings sickness, epidemics, and plagues. The Danish popular belief (Thiele i. 137, 138) knows this monster and the word Hel-horse has been preserved in the vocabulary of the Danish language. The diseases brought by the Hel-horse are extremely dangerous, but not always fatal. When they are not fatal the convalescent is regarded as having ransomed his life with that tribute of loss of strength and of torture which the disease caused him, and in a symbolic sense he has then "given death a bushel of oats" (that is, to its horse). According to popular belief in Slesvik (Arnkiel, i. 55; cp. J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth, 804), Hel rides in the time of a plague on a three-legged horse and kills people. Thus the ugly-grown horse is not forgotten in traditions from the heathen time.
Völuspa inform us that in the primal age of man, the sorceress Heid went from house to house and was a welcome guest with evil women, since she seid Leikin (sida means to practise sorcery). Now, as Leikin is the "horsewoman of torture and death," and rides the Hel-horse, then the expression sida Leikin can mean nothing else than by sorcery to send Leikin, the messenger of disease and death, to those persons who are the victims of the evil wishes of "evil women;" or, more abstractly, to bring by sorcery dangerous diseases to men.[14]
From all this follows that Leikin is either a side-figure to the daughter of Loke, and like her in all respects, or she and the Loke-daughter are one and the same person. To determine the question whether they are identical, we must observe (1) the definitely representative manner in which Völuspa, by the use of the name Leikin, makes the possessor of this name a mythic person, who visits men with diseases and death; (2) the manner in which Ynglingatal characterises the activity of Loke's daughter with a person doomed to die from disease; she makes him leikinn, an expression which, without doubt, is in its sense connected with the feminine name Leikn, and which was preserved in the vernacular far down in Christian times, and there designated a supernatural visitation bringing the symptoms of mental or physical illness; (3) the Christian popular tradition in which the deformed and disease-bringing horse, which Leikin rides in the myth, is represented as the steed of "death" or "Hel;" (4) that change of meaning by which the name Hel, which in the mythical poems of the Elder Edda designates the whole heathen realm of death, and especially its regions of bliss, or their queen, got to mean the abode of torture and misery and its ruler—a transmutation by which the name Hel, as in Gylfaginning and in the Slesvik traditions, was transferred from Urd to Loke's daughter.
Finally, it should be observed that it is told of Leikin, as of Loke's daughter, that she once fared badly at the hands of the gods, who did not, however, take her life. Loke's daughter is not slain, but is cast into Nifelhel (Gylfaginning, ch. 34). From that time she is gnúpleit—that is to say, she has a stooping form, as if her bones had been broken and were unable to keep her in an upright position. Leikin is not slain, but gets her legs broken.
All that we learn of Leikin thus points to the Loke-maid, the Hel, not of the myth, but of Christian tradition.
68.
THE WAY TO HADES COMMON TO THE DEAD.
It has already been demonstrated that all the dead must go to Hel—not only they whose destination is the realm of bliss, but also those who are to dwell in Asgard or in the regions of torture in Nifelheim. Thus the dead tread at the outset the same road. One and the same route is prescribed to them all, and the same Helgate daily opens for hosts of souls destined for different lots. Women and children, men and the aged, they who have practised the arts of peace and they who have stained the weapons with blood, those who have lived in accordance with the sacred commandments of the norns and gods and they who have broken them—all have to journey the same way as Balder went before them, down to the fields of the fountains of the world. They come on foot and on horseback—nay, even in chariots, if we may believe Helreid Brynhildar, a very unreliable source—guided by various psychopomps: the beautifully equipped valkyries, the blue-white daughter of Loke, the sombre spirits of disease, and the gentle maid-servant of old age. Possibly the souls of children had their special psychopomps. Traditions of mythic origin seem to suggest this; but the fragments of the myths themselves preserved to our time give us no information on this subject.
The Hel-gate here in question was situated below the eastern horizon of the earth. When Thor threatens to kill Loke he says (Lokas., 59) that he will send him á austrvega. When the author of the Sol-song sees the sunset for the last time, he hears in the opposite direction—that is, in the east—the Hel-gate grating dismally on its hinges (str. 39). The gate has a watchman and a key. The key is called gillingr, gyllingr (Younger Edda, ii. 494); and hence a skald who celebrates his ancestors in his songs, and thus recalls to those living the shades of those in Hades, may say that he brings to the light of day the tribute paid to Gilling (yppa gillings gjöldum. See Eyvind's strophe, Younger Edda, i. 248. The paraphrase has hitherto been misunderstood, on account of the pseudo-myth Bragarædur about the mead.) From the gate the highway of the dead went below the earth in a westerly direction through deep and dark dales (Gylfag., ch. 52), and it required several days—for Hermod nine days and nights—before they came to light regions and to the golden bridge across the river Gjoll, flowing from north to south (see No. 59). On the other side of the river the roads forked. One road went directly north. This led to Balder's abode (Gylfag., ch. 52); in other words, to Mimer's realm, to Mimer's grove, and to the sacred citadel of the ásmegir, where death and decay cannot enter (see No. 53). This northern road was not, therefore, the road common to all the dead. Another road went to the south. As Urd's realm is situated south of Mimer's (see Nos. 59, 63), this second road must have led to Urd's fountain and to the thingstead of the gods there. From the Sun-song we learn that the departed had to continue their journey by that road. The deceased skald of the Sun-song came to the norns, that is to say, to Urd and her sisters, after he had left this road behind him, and he sat for nine days and nights á norna stoli before he was permitted to continue his journey (str. 51). Here, then, is the end of the road common to all, and right here, at Urd's fountain and at the thingstead of the gods something must happen, on which account the dead are divided into different groups, some destined for Asgard, others for the subterranean regions of bliss, and a third lot for Nifelhel's regions of torture. We shall now see whether the mythic fragments preserved to our time contain any suggestions as to what occurs in this connection. It must be admitted that this dividing must take place somewhere in the lower world, that it was done on the basis of the laws which in mythological ethics distinguish between right and wrong, innocence and guilt, that which is pardonable and that which is unpardonable, and that the happiness and unhappiness of the dead is determined by this division.
69.
THE TWO THINGSTEADS OF THE ASAS. THE EXTENT OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE ASAS AND OF THE DIS OF FATE. THE DOOM OF THE DEAD.
The Asas have two thingsteads: the one in Asgard, the other in the lower world.
In the former a council is held and resolutions passed in such matters as pertain more particularly to the clan of the Asas and to their relation to other divine clans and other powers. When Balder is visited by ugly dreams, Valfather assembles the gods to hold counsel, and all the Asas assemble á thingi, and all the asynjes á máli (Vegtamskv., 1; Balder's Dr., 4). In assemblies here the gods resolved to exact an oath from all things for Balder's safety, and to send a messenger to the lower world to get knowledge partly about Balder, partly about future events. On this thingstead efforts are made of reconciliation between the Asas and the Vans, after Gulveig had been slain in Odin's hall (Völuspa, 23, 24). Hither (á thing goda) comes Thor with the kettle captured from Hymer, and intended for the feasts of the gods (Hymerskv., 39); and here the Asas hold their last deliberations, when Ragnarok is at hand (Völuspa, 49: Æsir 'ro a thingi). No matters are mentioned as discussed in this thingstead in which any person is interested who does not dwell in Asgard, or which are not of such a nature that they have reference to how the gods themselves are to act under particular circumstances. That the thingstead where such questions are discussed must be situated in Asgard itself is a matter of convenience, and is suggested by the very nature of the case.
It follows that the gods assemble in the Asgard thingstead more for the purpose of discussing their own interests than for that of judging in the affairs of others. They also gather there to amuse themselves and to exercise themselves in arms (Gylfaginning, 50).
Of the other thingstead of the Asas, of the one in the lower world, it is on the other hand expressly stated that they go thither to sit in judgment, to act as judges; and there is no reason for taking this word dæma, when as here it means activity at a thingstead, in any other than its judicial and common sense.
What matters are settled there? We might take this to be the proper place for exercising Odin's privilege of choosing heroes to be slain by the sword, since this right is co-ordinate with that of the norns to determine life and dispense fate, whence it might seem that the domain of the authority of the gods and that of the norns here approached each other sufficiently to require deliberations and decisions in common. Still it is not on the thingstead at Urd's fountain that Odin elects persons for death by the sword. It is expressly stated that it is in his own home in Valhal that Odin exercises his right of electing (Grimnersmal, 8), and this right he holds so independently and so absolutely that he does not need to ask for the opinion of the norns. On the other hand, the gods have no authority to determine the life and death of the other mortals. This belongs exclusively to the norns. The norns elect for every other death but that by weapons, and their decision in this domain is never called a decision by the gods, but norna domr, norna kvidr, freigdar ord, Dauda ord.
If Asas and norns did have a common voice in deciding certain questions which could be settled in Asgard, then it would not be in accordance with the high rank given to the Asas in mythology to have them go to the norns for the decision of such questions. On the contrary, the norns would have to come to them. Urd and her sisters are beings of high rank, but nevertheless they are of giant descent, like Mimer. The power they have is immense; and on a closer investigation we find how the mythology in more than one way has sought to maintain in the fancy of its believers the independence (at least apparent and well defined, within certain limits) of the gods—an independence united with the high rank which they have. It may have been for this very reason that the youngest of the dises of fate, Skuld, was selected as a valkyrie, and as a maid-servant both of Odin and of her sister Urd.
The questions in which the Asas are judges near Urd's fountain must be such as cannot be settled in Asgard, as the lower world is their proper forum, where both the parties concerned and the witnesses are to be found. The questions are of great importance. This is evident already from the fact that the journey to the thingstead is a troublesome one for the gods, at least for Thor, who, to get thither, must wade across four rivers. Moreover, the questions are of such a character that they occur every day (Grimnersmal, 29, 31).
At this point of the investigation the results hitherto gained from the various premises unite themselves in the following manner:
The Asas daily go to the thingstead near Urd's fountain. At the thingstead near Urd's fountain there daily arrive hosts of the dead.
The task of the Asas near Urd's fountain is to judge in questions of which the lower world is the proper forum. When the dead arrive at Urd's fountain their final doom is not yet sealed. They have not yet been separated into the groups which are to be divided between Asgard, Hel, and Nifelhel.
The question now is, Can we conceive that the daily journey of the Asas to Urd's fountain and the daily arrival there of the dead have no connection with each other?—That the judgments daily pronounced by the Asas at this thingstead, and that the daily event in accordance with which the dead at this thingstead are divided between the realms of bliss and those of torture have nothing in common?
That these mythological facts should have no connection with each other is hard to conceive for anyone who, in doubtful questions, clings to that which is probable rather than to the opposite. The probability becomes a certainty by the following circumstances:
Of the kings Vanlande and Halfdan, Ynglingatal says that after death they met Odin. According to the common view presented in our mythological text-books, this should not have happened to either of them, since both of them died from disease. One of them was visited and fetched by that choking spirit of disease called vitta vættr, and in this way he was permitted "to meet Odin" (kom a vit Vilja brodur). The other was visited by Hvedrungs mær, the daughter of Loke, who "called him from this world to Odin's Thing."
Ok til things
thridja jöfri
Hvedrungs mær
or heimi baud.
Thing-bod means a legal summons to appear at a Thing, at the seat of judgment. Bjoda til things is to perform this legal summons. Here it is Hvedrung's kinswoman who comes with sickness and death and thing-bod to King Halfdan, and summons him to appear before the judgment-seat of Odin. As, according to mythology, all the dead, and as, according to the mythological text-books, at least all those who have died from disease must go to Hel, then certainly King Halfdan, who died from disease, must descend to the lower world; and as there is a Thing at which Odin and the Asas daily sit in judgment, it must have been this to which Halfdan was summoned. Otherwise we would be obliged to assume that Hvedrung's kinswoman, Loke's daughter, is a messenger, not from the lower world and Urd, but from Asgard, although the strophe further on expressly states that she comes to Halfdan on account of "the doom of the norns;" and furthermore we would be obliged to assume that the king, who had died from sickness, after arriving in the lower world, did not present himself at Odin's court there, but continued his journey to Asgard, to appear at some of the accidental deliberations which are held at the thingstead there. The passage proves that at least those who have died from sickness have to appear at the court which is held by Odin in the lower world.
70.
THE DOOM OF THE DEAD (continued). SPEECH-RUNES ORDS TÍRR NÁMÆLI.
In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) we read:
Málrunar skaltu kunna,
vilt-ar magni ther
heiptom gjaldi harm;
thær um vindr,
thær um vefr,
thær um setr allar saman
a thvi thingi,
er thjothir scolo
i fulla doma fara.
"Speech-runes you must know, if you do not wish that the strong one with consuming woe shall requite you for the injury you have caused. All those runes you must wind, weave, and place together in that Thing where the host of people go into the full judgments."
In order to make the significance of this passage clear, it is necessary to explain the meaning of speech-runes or mal-runes.
Several kinds of runes are mentioned in Sigrdrifumal, all of a magic and wonderful kind. Among them are mal-runes (speech-runes). They have their name from the fact that they are able to restore to a tongue mute or silenced in death the power to mæla (speak). Odin employs mal-runes when he rists i runom, so that a corpse from the gallows comes and mælir with him (Havam., 157). According to Saxo (i. 38), Hadding places a piece of wood risted with runes under the tongue of a dead man. The latter then recovers consciousness and the power of speech, and sings a terrible song. This is a reference to mal-runes. In Gudrunarkvida (i.) it is mentioned how Gudrun, mute and almost lifeless (hon gordiz at deyja), sat near Sigurd's dead body. One of the kinswomen present lifts the napkin off from Sigurd's head. By the sight of the features of the loved one Gudrun awakens again to life, bursts into tears, and is able to speak. The evil Brynhild then curses the being (vettr) which "gave mal-runes to Gudrun," that is to say, freed her tongue, until then sealed as in death.
Those who are able to apply these mighty runes are very few. Odin boasts that he knows them. Sigrdrifva, who also is skilled in them, is a dis, not a daughter of man. The runes which Hadding applied were risted by Hardgrep, a giantess who protected him. But within the court here in question men come in great numbers (thjódir), and among them there must be but a small number who have penetrated so deeply into the secret knowledge of runes. For those who have done so it is of importance and advantage. For by them they are able to defend themselves against complaints, the purpose of which is "to requite with consuming woe the harm they have done." In the court they are able to mæla (speak) in their own defence.
Thus it follows that those hosts of people who enter this thingstead stand there with speechless tongues. They are and remain mute before their judges unless they know the mal-runes which are able to loosen the fetters of their tongues. Of the dead man's tongue it is said in Solarljod (44) that it is til trés metin ok kolnat alt fyr utan.
The sorrow or harm one has caused is requited in this Thing by heiptir, unless the accused is able—thanks to the mal-runes—to speak and give reasons in his defence. In Havamál (151) the word heiptir has the meaning of something supernatural and magical. It has a similar meaning here, as Vigfusson has already pointed out. The magical mal-runes, wound, woven, and placed together, form as it were a garb of protection around the defendant against the magic heiptir. In the Havamál strophe mentioned the skald makes Odin paraphrase, or at least partly explain, the word heiptir with mein, which "eat" their victims. It is in the nature of the myth to regard such forces as personal beings. We have already seen the spirits of disease appear in this manner (see No. 60). The heiptir were also personified. They were the Erinnyes of the Teutonic mythology, armed with scourges of thorns (see below).
He who at the Thing particularly dispenses the law of requital is called magni. The word has a double meaning, which appears in the verb magna, which means both to make strong and to operate with supernatural means.
From all this it must be sufficiently plain that the Thing here referred to is not the Althing in Iceland or the Gulathing in Norway, or any other Thing held on the surface of the earth. The thingstead here discussed must be situated in one of the mythical realms, between which the earth was established. And it must be superhuman beings of higher or lower rank who there occupy the judgment-seats and requite the sins of men with heiptir. But in Asgard men do not enter with their tongues sealed in death. For the einherjes who are invited to the joys of Valhal there are no heiptir prepared. Inasmuch as the mythology gives us information about only two thingsteads where superhuman beings deliberate and judge—namely, the Thing in Asgard and the Thing near Urd's fountain—and inasmuch as it is, in fact, only in the latter that the gods act as judges, we are driven by all the evidences to the conclusion that Sigrdrifumal has described to us that very thingstead at which Hvedrung's kinswoman summoned King Halfdan to appear after death.
Sigrdrifumal, using the expression á thvi, sharply distinguished this thingstead or court from all others. The poem declares that it means that Thing where hosts of people go into full judgments. "Full" are those judgments against which no formal or real protests can be made—decisions which are irrevocably valid. The only kind of judgments of which the mythology speaks in this manner, that is, characterises as judgments that "never die," are those "over each one dead."
This brings us to the well-known and frequently-quoted strophes in Havamál:
Str. 76.
Deyr fæ,
deyja frændr,
deyr sialfr it sama;
enn orztirr
deyr aldregi
hveim er ser godan getr.
Str. 77.
Deyr fæ,
deyja frændr,
deyr sialfr it sama;
ec veit einn
at aldri deyr:
domr um daudan hvern.
(76) "Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall die; but the fair fame of him who has earned it never dies."
(77) "Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall die; one thing I know which never dies: the judgment on each one dead."
Hitherto these passages have been interpreted as if Odin or Havamál's skald meant to say—What you have of earthly possessions is perishable; your kindred and yourself shall die. But I know one thing that never dies: the reputation you acquired among men, the posthumous fame pronounced on your character and on your deeds: that reputation is immortal, that fame is imperishable.
But can this have been the meaning intended to be conveyed by the skald? And could these strophes, which, as it seems, were widely known in the heathendom of the North, have been thus understood by their hearers and readers? Did not Havamál's author, and the many who listened to and treasured in their memories these words of his, know as well as all other persons who have some age and experience, that in the great majority of cases the fame acquired by a person scarcely survives a generation, and passes away together with the very memory of the deceased?
Could it have escaped the attention of the Havamál skald and his hearers that the number of mortals is so large and increases so immensely with the lapse of centuries that the capacity of the survivors to remember them is utterly insufficient?
Was it not a well-established fact, especially among the Germans, before they got a written literature, that the skaldic art waged, so to speak, a desperate conflict with the power of oblivion, in order to rescue at least the names of the most distinguished heroes and kings, but that nevertheless thousands of chiefs and warriors were after the lapse of a few generations entirely forgotten?
Did not Havamál's author know that millions of men have, in the course of thousands of years, left this world without leaving so deep footprints in the sands of time that they could last even through one generation?
Every person of some age and experience has known this, and Havamál's author too. The lofty strains above quoted do not seem to be written by a person wholly destitute of worldly experience.
The assumption that Havamál with that judgment on each one dead, which is said to be imperishable, had reference to the opinion of the survivors in regard to the deceased attains its climax of absurdity when we consider that the poem expressly states that it means the judgment on every dead person—"domr um daudan hvern." In the cottage lying far, far in the deep forest dies a child, hardly known by others than by its parents, who, too, are soon to be harvested by death. But the judgment of the survivors in regard to this child's character and deeds is to be imperishable, and the good fame it acquired during its brief life is to live for ever on the lips of posterity! Perhaps it is the sense of the absurdity to which the current assumption leads on this point that has induced some of the translators to conceal the word hvern (every) and led them to translate the words domr um daudan hvern in an arbitrary manner with "judgment on the dead man."
If we now add that the judgment of posterity on one deceased, particularly if he was a person of great influence, very seldom is so unanimous, reliable, well-considered, and free from prejudice that in these respects it ought to be entitled to permanent validity, then we find that the words of the Havamál strophes attributed to Odin's lips, when interpreted as hitherto, are not words of wisdom, but the most stupid twaddle ever heard declaimed in a solemn manner.
There are two reasons for the misunderstanding—the one is formal, and is found in the word ords-tirr (str. 76); the other reason is that Gylfaginning, which too long has had the reputation of being a reliable and exhaustive codification of the scattered statements of the mythic sources, has nothing to say about a court for the dead. It knows that, according to the doctrine of the heathen fathers, good people come to regions of bliss, the wicked to Nifelhel; but who he or they were who determined how far a dead person was worthy of the one fate or the other, on this point Gylfaginning has not a word to say. From the silence of this authority, the conclusion has been drawn that a court summoning the dead within its forum was not to be found in Teutonic mythology, although other Aryan and non-Aryan mythologies have presented such a judgment-seat, and that the Teutonic fancy, though always much occupied with the affairs of the lower world and with the conditions of the dead in the various realms of death, never felt the necessity of conceiving for itself clear and concrete ideas of how and through whom the deceased were determined for bliss or misery. The ecclesiastical conception, which postpones the judgment to the last day of time and permits the souls of the dead to be transferred, without any special act of judgment, to heaven, to purgatory, or to hell, has to some extent contributed to making us familiar with this idea which was foreign to the heathens. From this it followed that scholars have been blind to the passages in our mythical records which speak of a court in the lower world, and they have either read them without sufficient attention (as, for instance, the above-quoted statements of Ynglingatal, which it is impossible to harmonise with the current conception), or interpreted them in an utterly absurd manner (which is the case with Sigrdrifumal, str. 12), or they have interpolated assumptions, which, on a closer inspection, are reduced to nonsense (as is the case with the Havamál strophes), or given them a possible, but improbable, interpretation (thus Sonatorrek, 19). The compound ordstirr is composed of ord, gen, ords, and tirr. The composition is of so loose a character that the two parts are not blended into a new word. The sign of the gen. -s is retained, and shows that ordstirr, like lofstirr, is not in its sense and in its origin a compound, but is written as one word, probably on account of the laws of accentuation. The more original meaning of ordstirr is, therefore, to be found in the sense of ords tirr.
Tirr means reputation in a good sense, but still not in a sense so decidedly good but that a qualifying word, which makes the good meaning absolute, is sometimes added. Thus in lofs-tirr, laudatory reputation; gódr tirr, good reputation. In the Havamál strophe 76, above-quoted, the possibility of an ords tirr which is not good is presupposed. See the last line of the strophe.
So far as the meaning of ord is concerned, we must leave its relatively more modern and grammatical sense (word) entirely out of the question. Its older signification is an utterance (one which may consist of many "words" in a grammatical sense), a command, a result, a judgment; and these older significations have long had a conscious existence in the language. Compare Fornmanna, ii. 237: "The first word: All shall be Christians; the second word: All heathen temples and idols shall be unholy," &c.
In Völuspa (str. 27) ord is employed in the sense of an established law or judgment among the divine powers, a gengoz eidar, ord oc særi, where the treaties between the Asas and gods, solemnised by oaths, were broken.
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.