Norse mythology; or, The religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted

by Rasmus Björn Anderson

Delights enjoy;

while perjurers, murderers and adulterers shall wade through thick venom-streams in Naastrand. But it must be remembered that Gimle and Naastrand had reference to the state of things after Ragnarok, the Twilight of the gods; while Valhal and Hel have reference to the state of things between death and Ragnarok,—a time of existence corresponding somewhat to what is called purgatory by the Catholic church. It may however be fairly assumed that the ideas which our ancestors had of reward and punishment concerning the preceding middle state (purgatory) of the dead, were similar to those which they had concerning the state after Ragnarok.

It was certainly believed that the soul of the virtuous, even though death by arms had not released it from the body and raised it up to the rank of the real einherjes, still found an abode in heaven, either in Valhal or in Vingolf or in Folkvang. The skald, Thjodolf of Hvin, makes King Vanlande go to Odin, although Hel tortured him; and Egil Skallagrimson, lamenting the death of his drowned son, knows that the son has come to the home of the gods (Gudheimr), while of himself he says that he fearlessly awaits the coming of Hel.

Of Nanna we read that she went with her husband, Balder, to Hel; but the souls of noble women were believed to go to heaven after death. There they found an abode with Freyja, and the spirits of maidens with Gefjun. When it is said that Freyja shares the slain with Odin, it may be supposed to mean that the slain, who in life had loved wives, were united to them again with Freyja.

On the other hand, it was as certainly believed that blasphemy and baseness might shut out even the bravest from Valhal. In the Saga of Burnt Njal, Hakon Jarl says of the bold but wicked Hrap, who had seduced his benefactor’s daughter and burned a temple: The man who did this shall be banished from Valhal and never come thither.

The reader may think that the statements here presented show some inconsistency in the theory and plan of salvation according to the doctrines of the Norse mythology. We admit that there seems to be some inconsistency, but let us ask, is not this charge also frequently made against the Scriptures? Is not the church, on this very question of the plan of salvation, divided into two great parties, the one insisting on faith and the other on works? The one party quoting and requoting Paul, in his epistle to the Romans (iii, 28), where he says, that man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law; and the other appealing to James’ epistle (ii, 24), where he says, that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. And as the most eminent divines have found harmony in the principles of the Mosaic-Christian religion as laid down in the Scriptures, so we venture to assert that a profound study of the Odinic mythology will enable the student to elicit a sublime harmony in its doctrines and principles.

The strict construction of the asa-doctrine appears to be this, that although man in the intermediate state, between death and Ragnarok, was divided between Odin and Hel, yet each one’s share of his being, after death, was greater or less according to the life he had lived. The spirit of the virtuous and the brave had the power to bear up to heaven with it after death the better part of its corporeal being, and Hel obtained only the dust. But he whose spirit, by wickedness and base, sensual lust was drawn away from heaven, became in all his being the prey of Hel. His soul was not strong enough to mount freely up to the celestial abodes of the gods, but was drawn down into the abyss by the dust with which it had ever been clogged. Perhaps the representation of Hel as being half white and half pale-blue had its origin in this thought, that to the good, death appeared as a bright (white) goddess of deliverance, but to the wicked, as a dark and punishing deity.

When the drowned came to the halls of Ran, the sea-goddess took the part of Hel; that is, Ran claimed the body as her part, while the spirit ascended to heaven.

Bondsmen came to Thor after death. This seems to express the idea, that their spirits had not the power to mount up with free-born heroes to the higher celestial abodes, but were obliged to linger midway, as it were, among the low floating clouds under the stern dominion of Thor;—a thought painful to the feelings of humanity, but nevertheless not inconsistent with the views of our ancestors in ancient times. But when the bondsmen, as was the custom in the most ancient Gothic times, followed their master on the funeral pile, the motive must have been that they would continue to serve him in the future life, or their throwing themselves on their master’s funeral pile could have no meaning whatever.

The old Norsemen had many beautiful ideas in connection with death. Thus in the lay of Atle it is said of him who dies that he goes to the other light. That the dead in the mounds were a state of consciousness is illustrated by the following passages from Fridthiof’s Saga: