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.
If we may judge from a heathen expression preserved in strophe 16 of
Atlakvida, and there used in an arbitrary manner, then the hamingjes who
were "cut off" from their unworthy favourite continue to feel sorrow and
sympathy for them to the last. The expression is _nornir gráta nái_, "the
norns (hamingjes) bewail the _náir_." If the _námæli_, the na-dictum,
the sentence to Nifelhel which turns dead criminals into _náir_, in the
eschatological sense of the word, has been announced, the judgment is
attended with tears on the part of the former guardian-spirits of the
convicts. This corresponds, at all events, with the character of the
hamingjes.
Those fallen on the battlefield are not brought to the fountain of Urd
while the Thing is in session. This follows from the fact that Odin is in
Valhal when they ride across Bifrost, and sends Asas or einherjes to meet
them with the goblet of mead at Asgard's gate (Eiriksm., Hakonarmal).
But on the way there has been a separation of the good and bad elements
among them. Those who have no hamingjes must, _á nornastóli_, wait for
the next Thing-day and their judgment. The Christian age well remembered
that brave warriors who had committed nithing acts did not come to Valhal
(see Hakon Jarl's word in Njála). The heathen records confirm that men
slain by the sword who had lived a wicked life were sent to the world of
torture (see Harald Harfager's saga, ch. 27--the verses about the viking
Thorer Wood-beard, who fell in a naval battle with Einar Ragnvaldson, and
who had been scourge to the Orkneyings).
The high court must have judged very leniently in regard to certain
human faults and frailties. Sitting long by and looking diligently
into the drinking-horn certainly did not lead to any punishment worth
mentioning. The same was the case with fondness for female beauty, if
care was taken not to meddle with the sacred ties of matrimony. With a
pleasing frankness, and with much humour, the Asa-father has told to
the children of men adventures which he himself has had in that line.
He warns against too much drinking, but admits without reservation and
hypocrisy that he himself once was drunk, nay, very drunk, at Fjalar's
and what he had to suffer, on account of his uncontrollable longing for
Billing's maid, should be to men a hint not to judge each other too
severely in such matters (see Havamál.) All the less he will do so as
judge. Those who are summoned to the Thing and against whom there are no
other charges, may surely count on a good _ords tirr_, if they in other
respects have conducted themselves in accordance with the wishes of Odin
and his associate judges: if they have lived lives free from deceit,
honourable, helpful, and without fear of death. This, in connection with
respect for the gods, for the temples, for their duties to kindred and
to the dead, is the alpha and the omega of the heathen Teutonic moral
code, and the sure way to Hel's regions of bliss and to Valhal. He who
has observed these virtues may, as the old skald sings of himself, "glad,
with serenity and without discouragement, wait for Hel."
Skal ek thó gladr
med godan vilja
ok úhryggr
Heljar bida (Sonatorrek, 24).
If the judgment on the dead is lenient in these respects, it is
inexorably severe in other matters. Lies uttered to injure others,
perjury, murder (secret murder, assassination, not justified as
blood-revenge), adultery, the profaning of temples, the opening of
grave-mounds, treason, cannot escape their awful punishment. Unutterable
terrors await those who are guilty of these sins. Those psychopomps
that belong to Nifelhel await the adjournment of the Thing in order
to take them to the world of torture, and Urd has chains (_Heljar
reip_--Solarljod, 27; _Des Todes Seil_--J. Grimm, _D. Myth._, 805) which
make every escape impossible.
72.
THE HADES-DRINK.
Before the dead leave the thingstead near Urd's fountain, something
which obliterated the marks of earthly death has happened to those who
are judged happy. Pale, cold, mute, and with the marks of the spirits
of disease, they left Midgard and started on the Hel-way. They leave the
death-Thing full of the warmth of life, with health, with speech, and
more robust than they were on earth. The shades have become corporal.
When those slain by the sword ride over the Gjoll to Urd's fountain,
scarcely a sound is heard under the hoofs of their horses; when they
ride away from the fountain over Bifrost, the bridge resounds under the
trampling horses. The sagas of the middle ages have preserved, but at the
same time demonised, the memory of how Hel's inhabitants were endowed
with more than human strength (Gretla, 134, and several other passages).
The life of bliss presupposes health, but also forgetfulness of the
earthly sorrows and cares. The heroic poems and the sagas of the middle
ages have known that there was a Hades-potion which brings freedom
from sorrow and care, without obliterating dear memories or making one
forget that which can be remembered without longing or worrying. In the
mythology this drink was, as shall be shown, one that produced at the
same time vigour of life and the forgetfulness of sorrows.
In Saxo, and in the heroic poems of the Elder Edda, which belong to the
Gjukung group of songs, there reappear many mythical details, though they
are sometimes taken out of their true connection and put in a light which
does not originally belong to them. Among the mythical reminiscences is
the Hades-potion.
In his account of King Gorm's and Thorkil's journey to the lower world,
Saxo (see No 46) makes Thorkil warn his travelling companions from
tasting the drinks offered them by the prince of the lower world, for the
reason that they produce forgetfulness, and make one desire to remain
in Gudmund's realm (_Hist., Dan._, i. 424--_amissa memoria ... pocalis
abstinendum edocuit_).
The Gudrun song (ii. 21) places the drinking-horn of the lower world in
Grimhild's hands. In connection with later additions, the description of
this horn and its contents contains purely mythical and very instructive
details in regard to the _pharmakon nepenthes_ of the Teutonic lower
world.
Str. 21.
Færdi mer Grimildr
full at drecka
svalt oc sarlict,
ne ec sacar mundac;
thar var um aukit
Urdar magni,
svalcauldom sæ
oc Sonar dreyra.
Str. 22.
Voro i horni
hverskyns stafir
ristnir oc rodnir
ratha ec ne mattac,
lyngfiscr langr
lands Haddingja,
ax oscorit,
innleid dyra.
"Grimhild handed me in a filled horn to drink a cool, bitter drink, in
order that I might forget my past afflictions. This drink was prepared
from _Urd's strength, cool-cold sea, and the liquor of Son_."
"On the horn were all kinds of staves engraved and painted, which I
could not interpret: _the Hadding-land's long heath-fish, unharvested
ears of grain, and animals' entrances_."
The Hadding-land is, as Sv. Egilsson has already pointed out, a
paraphrase of the lower world. The paraphrase is based on the mythic
account known and mentioned by Saxo in regard to Hadding's journey in
Hel's realm (see No. 47).
Heath-fish is a paraphrase of the usual sort for serpent, dragon. Hence
a lower-world dragon was engraved on the horn. More than one of the
kind has been mentioned already: Nidhog, who has his abode in Nifelhel,
and the dragon, which, according to Erik Vidforle's saga, obstructs
the way to Odain's-acre. The dragon engraved on the horn is that of
the Hadding-land. Hadding-land, on the other hand, does not mean the
whole lower world, but the regions of bliss visited by Hadding. Thus
the dragon is such an one as Erik Vidforle's saga had in mind. That
the author did not himself invent his dragon, but found it in mythic
records extant at the time, is demonstrated by Solarljod (54), where it
is said that immense subterranean dragons come flying from the west--the
opposite direction of that the shades have to take when they descend into
the lower world--and obstruct "the street of the prince of splendour"
(_glævalds götu_). The ruler of splendour is Mimer, the prince of the
Glittering Fields (see Nos. 45-51).
The Hadding-land's "unharvested ears of grain" belong to the flora
inaccessible to the devastations of frost, the flowers seen by Hadding
in the blooming meadows of the world below (see No. 47). The expression
refers to the fact that the Hadding-land has not only imperishable
flowers and fruits, but also fields of grain which do not require
harvesting. Compare herewith what Völuspa says about the Odain's-acre
which in the regeneration of the earth rises from the lap of the sea:
"unsown the fields yield the grain."
Beside the heath-fish and the unharvested ears of grain, there were
also seen on the Hadding-land horn _dyrainnleid_. Some interpreters
assume that "animals entrails" are meant by this expression; others have
translated it with "animal gaps." There is no authority that _innleid_
ever meant entrails, nor could it be so used in a rhetorical-poetical
sense, except by a very poor poet. Where we meet with the word it means a
way, a way in, in contrast with _útleid_, a way out. As both Gorms saga
and that of Erik Vidforle use it in regard to animals watching entrances
in the lower world, this gives the expression its natural interpretation.
So much for the staves risted on the horn. They all refer to the lower
world. Now as to the drink which is mixed in this Hades-horn. It consists
of three liquids:
Urdar Magn, Urd's strength,
svalkaldr sær, cool-cold sea,
Sonar dreyri. Son's liquid.
Son has already been mentioned above (No. 21) as one of the names of
Mimer's fountain, the well of creative power and of poetry. Of Son Eilif
Gudrunson sings that it is enwreathed by bulrushes and is surrounded by
a border of meadow on which grows the seed of poetry.
As Urd's strength is a liquid mixed in the horn, nothing else can be
meant thereby than the liquid in Urd's fountain, which gives the warmth
of life to the world-tree, and gives it strength to resist the cold (see
No. 63).
From this it is certain that at least two of the three subterranean
fountains made their contributions to the drink. There remains the
well Hvergelmer, and the question now is, whether it and the liquid it
contains can be recognised as the _cool-cold sea_. Hvergelmer is, as we
know, the mother-fountain of all waters, even of the ocean (see No. 59).
That this immense cistern is called a sea is not strange, since also
Urd's fountain is so styled (in Völuspa, Cod. Reg., 19.) Hvergelmer is
situated under the northern root of the world-tree near the borders of
the subterranean realm of the rime-thurses--that is, the powers of frost;
and the Elivagar rivers flowing thence formed the ice in Nifelheim. Cool
(_Svöl_) is the name of one of the rivers which have their source in
Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal). Cool-cold sea is therefore the most suitable
word with which to designate Hvergelmer when its own name is not to be
used.
All those fountains whose liquids are sucked up by the roots of the
world-tree, and in its stem blend into the sap which gives the tree
imperishable strength of life, are accordingly mixed in the lower-world
horn (cp. No. 21).
That Grimhild, a human being dwelling on earth, should have access to
and free control of these fountains is, of course, from a mythological
standpoint, an absurdity. From the standpoint of the Christian time the
absurdity becomes probable. The sacred things and forces of the lower
world are then changed into deviltry and arts of magic, which are at the
service of witches. So the author of Gudrunarkvida (ii.) has regarded the
matter. But in his time there was still extant a tradition, or a heathen
song, which spoke of the elements of the drink which gave to the dead who
had descended to Hel, and were destined for happiness, a higher and more
enduring power of life, and also soothed the longing and sorrow which
accompanied the recollection of the life on earth, and this tradition was
used in the description of Grimhild's drink of forgetfulness.
_Magn_ is the name of the liquid from Urd's fountain, since it _magnar_,
gives strength. The word _magna_ has preserved from the days of
heathendom the sense of strengthening in a supernatural manner by magical
or superhuman means. Vigfusson (Dict., 408) gives a number of examples of
this meaning. In Heimskringla (ch. 8) Odin "magns" Mimer's head, which is
chopped off, in such a manner that it recovers the power of speech. In
Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) Odin himself is, as we have seen, called _magni_,
"the one magning," as the highest judge of the lower world, who gives
_magn_ to the dead from the Hades-horn.
The author of the second song about Helge Hundingsbane has known of
_dyrar veilgar_, precious liquids of which those who have gone to Hel
partake. The dead Helge says that when his beloved Sigrun is to share
them with him, then it is of no consequence that they have lost earthly
joy and kingdoms, and that no one must lament that his breast was
tortured with wounds (Helge Hund., ii. 46.) The touching finale of this
song, though preserved only in fragments, and no doubt borrowed from
a heathen source, shows that the power of the subterranean potion to
allay longing and sorrow had its limits. The survivors should mourn over
departed loved ones with moderation, and not forget that they are to meet
again, for too bitter tears of sorrow fall as a cold dew on the breast of
the dead one and penetrate it with pain (str. 45).
73.
THE HADES-DRINK (_continued_), THE HADES-HORN EMBELLISHED WITH
SERPENTS.
In Sonatorrek (str. 18) the skald (Egil Skallagrimson) conceives himself
with the claims of a father to keep his children opposed to a stronger
power which has also made a claim on them. This power is firm in its
resolutions against Egil (_stendr á föstum thokk á hendi mér_); but, at
the same time, it is lenient toward his children, and bestows on them the
lot of happiness. The mythic person who possesses this power is by the
skald called _Fáns hrosta hilmir_, "the lord of _Fánn's_ brewing."
_Fánn_ is a mythical serpent-and dragon-name (Younger Edda, ii. 487,
570). The serpent or dragon which possessed this name in the myths or
sagas must have been one which was engraved or painted somewhere. This
is evident from the word itself, which is a contraction of _fáinn_,
engraved, painted (cp. Egilsson's Lex. Poet., and Vigfusson's Dict., _sub
voce_). Its character as such does not hinder it from being endowed with
a magic life (see below.) The object on which it was engraved or painted
must have been a drinking-horn, whose contents (brewing) is called by
Egil _Fánn's_, either because the serpent encircled the horn which
contained the drink, or because the horn, on which it was engraved, was
named after it. In no other way can the expression, _Fánn's_ brewing, be
explained, for an artificial serpent or dragon is neither the one who
brews the drink nor the malt from which it is brewed.
The possessor of the horn, embellished with _Fánn's_ image, is the
mythical person who, to Egil's vexation, has insisted on the claim of the
lower world to his sons. If the skald has paraphrased correctly, that is
to say, if he has produced a paraphrase which refers to the character
here in question of the person indicated by the paraphrase, then it
follows that "_Fánn's_ brewing" and _Fánn_ himself, like their possessor,
must have been in some way connected with the lower world.
From the mythic tradition in Gudrunarkvida (ii.), we already know that a
serpent, "a long heath-fish," is engraved and painted on the subterranean
horn, whose sorrow-allaying mead is composed of the liquid of the three
Hades-fountains.