This method is also pursued by Gylfaginning's author without hesitation, although he had the best of reasons for suspecting its correctness. A certain hesitancy might here have been in order. According to the mythology, the pure and pious Asa-god Balder comes to Hel, that is to say, to the lower world, and to one of its realms of bliss. But after the transformation to which the lower world had been subjected in Gylfaginning's system, the descent of Balder to Hel must have meant a descent to and a remaining in the world of misery and torture, and a relation of subject to the daughter of Loke. This should have awakened doubts in the mind of the author of Gylfaginning. But even here he had the courage to be true to his premises, and without even thinking of the absurdity in which he involves himself, he goes on and endows the sister of the Midgard-serpent and of the Fenris-wolf with that perfect power which before belonged to Destiny personified, so that the same gods who before had cast the horrible child Loke down into the ninth region of Nifelhel are now compelled to send a minister-plenipotentiary to her majesty to treat with her and pray for Balder's liberation.

But finally, there comes a point where the courage of consistency fails Gylfaginning. The manner in which it has placed the roots of the world-tree makes us first of all conceive Ygdrasil as lying horizontal in space. An attempt to make this matter intelligible can produce no other picture of Ygdrasil, in accord with the statements of Gylfaginning, than the following:

But Gylfaginning is not disposed to draw this conclusion. On the contrary, it insists that Ygdrasil stands erect on its three roots. How we, then, are to conceive its roots as united one with the other and with the trunk of this it very prudently leaves us in ignorance, for this is beyond the range of human imagination.

The contrast between the mythological doctrine in regard to the three Ygdrasil roots, and Gylfaginning's view of the subject may easily be demonstrated by the following parallels:

The Mythology.Gylfaginning.
1. Ygdrasil has three roots. 1. Ygdrasil has three roots.
2. All three roots are subterranean. 2. One is in the lower world; a second stands over Jotunheim on a level with the earth; a third stands over the heavens.
3. To each root corresponds a fountain and a realm in the lower world. The lower world consists of three realms, each with its fountain and each with its root. 3. To each root corresponds a fountain and a realm; the realms are the heavens, Jotunheim, and the lower world, which are located each under its root.
4. Under one of the subterranean roots dwells the goddess of death and fate, Urd, who is also called Hel, and in her realm is Urd's fountain. 4. Under one of the roots, that is the one which stands over heaven, dwells Urd the goddess of fate, and there is Urd's fountain.
5. Under the other (subterranean) root dwells Mimer. In his realm is Mimer's fountain and Mimer's grove, where a subterranean race of men are preserved for the future world. This root may, therefore, be said to stand over mennskir menn (Grimnersmal).
It is said that one of the roots stands over mennskir menn (Grimnersmal). By this is meant, according to Gylfaginning, not the root over Mimer's well, but the root over Urd's fountain, near which the Asas hold their assemblies, for the Asas are in reality men who dwelt on earth in the city of Troy.
6. Under the third (subterranean) root dwell frost-giants. Under this root is the well Hvergelmer, and the realm of the frost-giants is Nifelhel (Nifelheim). Under Nifelhel are nine regions of torture. 6. Under the third (and only subterranean) root dwell the souls of sinners and those who have died from sickness and age. Under this root is the well Hvergelmer and the whole lower world. The lower world is called Nifelhel or Nifelheim, and contains nine places of torture.
7. The sister of the Midgard-serpent and of the Fenris-wolf was cast by the gods into the regions of torture under Nifelhel, and received the rule over the places where the damned are punished. 7. The sister of the Midgard-serpent and of the Fenris-wolf was cast by the gods into the regions of torture under Nifelhel, and received the rule over the whole lower world, which consists of Nifelhel with the nine regions of torture.
8. The name Hel can be applied to the whole lower world, but means particularly that region of bliss where Urd's fountain is situated, for Urd is the personal Hel. The Loke-daughter in Nifelhel is her slave and must obey her commands. 8. As Hel means the lower world, and as the sister of the Midgard-serpent governs the whole lower world, she is meant by the personal Hel.

Gylfaginning does not stop with the above results. It continues the chain of its conclusions. After Hvergelmer has been selected by Gylfaginning as the only fountain in the lower world, it should, since the lower world has been made into a sort of hell, be a fountain of hell, and in this respect easily recognised by the Christian conception of the middle ages. In this new character Hvergelmer becomes the centre and the worst place in Gylfaginning's description of the heathen Gehenna. No doubt because the old dragon, which is hurled down into the abyss (Revelation, chap. 20), is to be found in the hell-fountain of the middle ages, Gylfaginning throws Nidhog down into Hvergelmer, which it also fills with serpents and dead bodies found in Grimnismal (Str. 34, 35), where they have no connection with Hvergelmer. According to Völuspa it is in Nastrands that Nidhog sucks and the wolf tears the dead bodies (náir). Gylfaginning follows Völuspa in speaking of the other terrors in Nastrands, but rejects Völuspa's statements about Nidhog and the wolf, and casts both these beasts down into the Hvergelmer fountain. As shall be shown below, the Hvergelmer of the mythology is the mother-fountain of all waters, and is situated on a high plain in the lower world. Thence its waters flow partly northward to Nifelheim, partly south to the elysian fields of heathendom, and the waves sent in the latter direction are shining, clear, and holy.

It was an old custom, at least in Iceland, that booths for the accommodation of the visitors were built around a remote thing-stead, or place for holding the parliament. Gylfaginning makes its Trojan Asas follow the example of the Icelanders, and put up houses around the thing-stead, which they selected near Urd's fountain, after they had succeeded in securing by Bifrost a connection between Troy and heaven. This done, Gylfaginning distributes as best it can the divine halls and abodes of bliss mentioned in the mythology between Troy on the earth and the thing-stead in heaven.