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.
This result, that Urd is identical with Hel; that she who dispenses life
also dispenses death; that she who with her serving sisters is the ruler
of the past, the present, and the future, also governs and gathers in her
kingdom all generations of the past, present, and future--this result
may seem unexpected to those who, on the authority of Gylfaginning,
have assumed that the daughter of Loke cast into the abyss of Nifelhel
is the queen of the kingdom of death; that she whose threshold is
called Precipice (Gylfag., 34) was the one who conducted Balder over
the threshold to the subterranean citadel glittering with gold; that
she whose table is called Hunger and whose knife is called Famine was
the one who ordered the clear, invigorating mead to be placed before
him; that the sister of those foes of the gods and of the world, the
Midgard-serpent and the Fenris-wolf, was entrusted with the care of at
least one of Ygdrasil's roots; and that she whose bed is called Sickness,
jointly with Urd and Mimer, has the task of caring for the world-tree and
seeing that it is kept green and gets the liquids from their fountains.
Colossal as this absurdity is, it has been believed for centuries. And in
dealing with an absurdity which is centuries old, we must consider that
it is a force which does not yield to objections simply stated, but must
be conquered by clear and convincing arguments. Without the necessity
of travelling the path by which I have reached the result indicated,
scholars would long since have come to the conviction that Urd and the
personal Hel are identical, if Gylfaginning and the text-books based
thereon had not confounded the judgment, and that for the following
reasons:
The name _Urdr_ corresponds to the Old English _Vurd_, _Vyrd_, _Vird_,
to the Old Low German _Wurth_, and to the Old High German _Wurt_. The
fact that the word is found in the dialects of several Teutonic branches
indicates, or is thought by the linguists to indicate, that it belongs to
the most ancient Teutonic times, when it probably had the form _Vorthi_.
There can be no doubt that Urd also among other Teutonic branches than
the Scandinavian has had the meaning of goddess of fate. Expressions
handed down from the heathen time and preserved in Old English documents
characterise Vyrd as tying the threads or weaving the web of fate (Cod.
Ex., 355; Beowulf, 2420), and as the one who writes that which is to
happen (Beowulf, 4836). Here the plural form is also employed, _Vyrde_,
the urds, the norns, which demonstrates that she in England, as in the
North, was conceived as having sisters or assistants. In the Old Low
German poem "Heliand," Wurth's personality is equally plain.
But at the same time as _Vyrd_, _Wurth_, was the goddess of fate, she
was also that of death. In Beowulf (4831, 4453) we find the parallel
expressions:
him vas Vyrd ungemete neah: Urd was exceedingly near to him;
vas deád ungemete neah: death was exceedingly near.
And in Heliand, 146, 2; 92, 2:
Thiu Wurth is at handun: Urd is near;
Dôd is at hendi: death is near.
And there are also other expressions, as _Thiu Wurth nâhida thus_: Urd
(death) then approached; _Wurth ina benam_: Urd (death) took him away
(cp. J. Grimm, _Deutsche Myth._, i. 373).
Thus Urd, the goddess of fate, was, among the Teutonic branches in
Germany and England, identical with death, conceived as a queen. So also
in the North. The norns made laws and chose life and _örlög_ (fate) for
the children of time (Völuspa). The word _örlög_ (Nom. Pl.; the original
meaning seems to be _urlagarne_, that is, the original laws) frequently
has a decided leaning to the idea of death (cp. Völuspa: _Ek sá Baldri
örlög fólgin_). Hakon Jarl's _örlög_ was that Kark cut his throat (Nj.,
156). To receive the "judgment of the norns" was identical with being
doomed to die (Yng., Heimskringla, ch. 52). Fate and death were in the
idea and in usage so closely related, that they were blended into one
personality in the mythology. The ruler of death was that one who could
resolve death; but the one who could determine the length of life, and
so also could resolve death, and the kind of death, was, of course, the
goddess of fate. They must blend into one.
[Illustration: THOR DESTROYS THE GIANT THRYM.
_From an etching by Lorenz Frölich_
To protect themselves against the giants of Jotunheim, the gods decided
to build a wall around Asgard, and through the persuasion of treacherous
Loke, they engaged Thrym, who appeared before them as a tall, stately
man, to do the work. An agreement was made whereby Thrym was to receive
as his reward--provided the wall and gates were completed in a single
winter--the beautiful Freya for wife, and the moon and stars were to be
given him for light to work by. With the aid of his horse Swadilfari
Thrym performed all that was required of him except the placing of one
gate when discovery was made by the gods that Thrym was a giant in
disguise. Thereupon they cried aloud for Thor to defend Asgard against
this invasion, who immediately appeared amid thunder and lightning, and
recognizing Thrym, despite the form he had taken, flung his hammer with
such force that the giant's head was broken in many pieces and his soul
cast into Nifelhel.]
In the ancient Norse documents we also find the name Urd used to
designate death, just as in Heliand and Beowulf, and this, too, in such
a manner that Urd's personal character is not emphasised. Ynglingatal
(Heimskr., ch. 44) calls Ingjald's manner of death his _Urdr_, and to
determine death for anyone was to _draga Urdr_ at him.
Far down in the Christian centuries the memory survived that Urd was the
goddess of the realm of death and of death. When a bright spot, which
was called Urd's moon, appeared on the wall, it meant the breaking out
of an epidemic (Eyrbyggia Saga, 270). Even as late as the year 1237 Urd
is supposed to have revealed herself, the night before Christmas, to
Snobjorn to predict a bloody conflict, and she then sang a song in which
she said that she went mournfully to the contest to choose a man for
death. Saxo translates _Urdr_ or _Hel_ with "Proserpina" (_Hist._, i. 43).
[12] Of the age and genuineness of Forspjallsljod I propose to publish a
separate treatise.
64.
URD'S MAID-SERVANTS: (1) MAID-SERVANTS OF LIFE--NORNS, DISES
OF BIRTH, HAMINGJES, GIPTES, FYLGIES; (2) MAID-SERVANTS OF
DEATH--VALKYRIES, THE PSYCHO-MESSENGERS OF DISEASES AND
ACCIDENTS.
As those beings for whom Urd determines birth, position in life, and
death, are countless, so her servants, who perform the tasks commanded by
her as queen, must also be innumerable. They belong to two large classes:
the one class is active in her service in regard to life, the other in
regard to death.
Most intimately associated with her are her two sisters. With her
they have the authority of judges. Compare Völuspa, 19, 20, and the
expressions _norna dómr_, _norna kvidr_. And they dwell with her under
the world-tree, which stands for ever green over her gold-clad fountain.
As maid-servants under Urd there are countless hamingjes (fylgjes) and
giptes (also called gafes, audnes, heilles). The hamingjes are fostered
among beings of giant-race (who hardly can be others than the norns and
Mimer). Three mighty rivers fall down into the world, in which they
have their origin, and they come wise in their hearts, soaring over the
waters to our upper world (Vafthr., 48, 49). There every child of man
is to have a hamingje as a companion and guardian spirit. The testimony
of the Icelandic sagas of the middle ages in this regard are confirmed
by phrases and forms of speech which have their root in heathendom. The
hamingjes belong to that large circle of feminine beings which are called
dises, and they seem to have been especially so styled. What Urd is on
a grand scale as the guardian of the mighty Ygdrasil, this the hamingje
is on a smaller scale when she protects the separate fruit produced
on the world-tree and placed in her care. She does not appear to her
favourite excepting perhaps in dreams or shortly before his death (the
latter according to Helgakv. Hjörv. the prose; Njal, 62; Hallf, ch. 11;
proofs from purely heathen records are wanting). In strophes which occur
in Gisle Surson's saga, and which are attributed (though on doubtful
grounds) to this heathen skald, the hero of the saga, but the origin of
which (from a time when the details of the myth were still remembered)
is fully confirmed by a careful criticism, it is mentioned how he stood
between good and evil inspirations, and how the _draumkona_ (dream-woman)
of the good inspirations said to him in sleep: "Be not the first cause
of a murder! excite not peaceful men against yourself!--promise me this,
thou charitable man! Aid the blind, scorn not the lame, and insult not a
Tyr robbed of his hand!" These are noble counsels, and that the hamingjes
were noble beings was a belief preserved through the Christian centuries
in Iceland, where, according to Vigfusson, the word _hamingja_ is still
used in the sense of Providence. They did not usually leave their
favourite before death. But there are certain phrases preserved in the
spoken language which show that they could leave him before death. He who
was abandoned by his hamingje and gipte was a lost man. If the favourite
became a hideous and bad man, then his _hamingja_ and _gipta_ might even
turn her benevolence into wrath, and cause his well-deserved ruin. _Uvar
'ro disir_, angry at you are the dises! cries Odin to the royal nithing
Geirrod, and immediately thereupon the latter stumbles and falls pierced
by his own sword. That the invisible hamingje could cause one to stumble
and fall is shown in Fornm., iii.
The _giptes_ seem to have carried out such of Urd's resolves, on account
of which the favourite received an unexpected, as it were accidental,
good fortune.
Not only for separate individuals, but also for families and clans, there
were guardian spirits (_kynfylgjur_, _ættar-fylgjur_).