Some of the subterranean náir have the power of motion, and are doomed to wade in "heavy streams." Among them are perjurers, murderers, and adulterers (Völuspa, 38). Among these streams is Vadgelmer, in which they who have slandered others find their far-reaching retribution (Sigurdarkv., ii. 4). Other náir have the peculiarity which their appellation suggests, and receive quiet and immovable, stretched on iron benches, their punishment (see below). Saxo, who had more elaborate descriptions of the Hades of heathendom than those which have been handed down to our time, translated or reproduced in his accounts of Hadding's and Gorm's journeys in the lower world the word náir with exsanguia simulacra (p. 426).
That place after death with which Skirner threatens the stubborn Gerd is also situated within the Na-gates, but still it has another character than Nastrands and the other abodes of torture which are situated below Nifelhel. It would also have been unreasonable to threaten a person who rejects a marriage proposal with those punishments which overtake criminals and nithings. The Hades division, which Skirner describes as awaiting the giant-daughter, is a subterranean Jotunheim, inhabited by deceased ancestors and kinsmen of Gerd.
Mythology has given to the giants as well as to men a life hereafter. As a matter of fact, mythology never destroys life. The horse which was cremated with its master on his funeral pyre, and was buried with him in his grave-mound, afterwards brings the hero down to Hel. When the giant who built the Asgard wall got into conflict with the gods, Thor's hammer sent him "down below Nifelhel" (nidr undir Niflhel—Gylfag., ch. 43.) King Gorm saw in the lower world the giant Geirrod and both his daughters. According to Grimnersmal (str. 31), frost-giants dwell under one of Ygdrasil's roots—consequently in the lower world; and Forspjallsljod says that hags (giantesses) and thurses (giants), náir, dwarfs, and swarthy elves go to sleep under the world-tree's farthest root on the north border of Jormungrund[9] (the lower world), when Dag on a chariot sparkling with precious stones leaves the lower world, and when Nat after her journey on the heavens has returned to her home (str. 24, 28). It is therefore quite in order if we, in Skirner's description of the realm which after death awaits the giant-daughter offending the gods, rediscover that part of the lower world to which the drowned primeval ancestors of the giant-maid were relegated when Bor's sons opened the veins of Ymer's throat (Sonatorr., str. 3) and then let the billows of the ocean wash clean the rocky ground of earth, before they raised the latter from the sea and there created the inhabitable Midgard.
The frost-giants (rimethurses) are the primeval giants (gigantes) of the Teutonic mythology, so called because they sprang from the frost-being Ymer, whose feet by contact with each other begat their progenitor, the "strange-headed" monster Thrudgelmer (Vafthr. 29, 33). Their original home in chaos was Nifelheim. From the Hvergelmer fountain there the Elivagar rivers flowed to the north and became hoar-frost and ice, which, melted by warmth from the south, were changed into drops of venom, which again became Ymer, called by the giants Aurgelmer (Vafthr., 31; Gylfag., 5). Thrudgelmer begat Bergelmer countless winters before the earth was made (Vafthr., 29; Gylf., ch. 7). Those members of the giant race living in Jotunheim on the surface of the earth, whose memory goes farthest back in time, can remember Bergelmer when he a var ludr um lagidr. At least Vafth-rudmer is able to do this (Vafthr., 35).
When the original giants had to abandon the fields populated by Bor's sons (Völuspa, 4), they received an abode corresponding as nearly as possible to their first home, and, as it seems, identical with it, excepting that Nifelheim now, instead of being a part of chaos, is an integral part of the cosmic universe, and the extreme north of its Hades. As a Hades-realm it is also called Nifelhel.
In the subterranean land with which Skirner threatens Gerd, and which he paints for her in appalling colours, he mentions three kinds of beings—(1) frost-giants, the ancient race of giants; (2) demons; (3) giants of the later race.
The frost-giants occupy together one abode, which, judging from its epithet, hall (höll), is the largest and most important there; while those members of the younger giant clan who are there, dwell in single scattered abodes, called gards.[10] Gerd is also there to have a separate abode (str. 28).
Two frost-giants are mentioned by name, which shows that they are representatives of their clan. One is named Rimgrimner (Hrímgrimnir—str. 35), the other Rimner (Hrímnir—str. 28).
Grimner is one of Odin's many surnames (Grimnersmal, 47, and several other places; cp. Egilsson's Lex. Poet.). Rimgrimner means the same as if Odin had said Rim-Odin, for Odin's many epithets could without hesitation be used by the poets in paraphrases, even when these referred to a giant. But the name Odin was too sacred for such a purpose. Upon the whole the skalds seem piously to have abstained from using that name in paraphrases, even when the latter referred to celebrated princes and heroes. Glum Geirason is the first known exception to the rule. He calls a king Málm-Odinn. The above epithet places Rimgrimner in the same relation to the frost-giants as Odin-Grimner sustains to the asas; it characterises him as the race-chief and clan-head of the former, and in this respect gives him the same place as Thrudgelmer occupies in Vafthrudnersmal. Ymer cannot be regarded as the special clan-chief of the frost-giants, since he is also the progenitor of other classes of beings (see Vafthr., 33, and Völuspa, 9; cp. Gylfag., ch. 14). But they have other points of resemblance. Thrudgelmer is "strange-headed" in Vafthrudnersmal; Rimgrimner is "three-headed" in Skirnersmal (str. 31; cp. with str. 35). Thus we have in one poem a "strange-headed" Thrudgelmer as progenitor of the frost-giants; in the other poem a "three-headed" Rimgrimner as progenitor of the same frost-giants. The "strange-headed" giant of the former poem, which is a somewhat indefinite or obscure phrase, thus finds in "three-headed" of the latter poem its further definition. To this is to be added a power which is possessed both by Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner, and also a weakness for which both Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner are blamed. Thrudgelmer's father begat children without possessing gygjar gaman (Vafthr., 32). That Thrudgelmer inherited this power from his strange origin and handed it down to the clan of frost-giants, and that he also inherited the inability to provide for the perpetuation of the race in any other way, is evident from Allvismal, str. 2. If we make a careful examination, we find that Skirnersmal presupposes this same positive and negative quality in Rimgrimner, and consequently Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner must be identical.
Gerd, who tries to reject the love of the fair and blithe Vana-god, will, according to Skirner's threats, be punished therefor in the lower world with the complete loss of all that is called love, tenderness, and sympathy. Skirner says that she either must live alone and without a husband in the lower world, or else vegetate in a useless cohabitation (nara) with the three-headed giant (str. 31). The threat is gradually emphasised to the effect that she shall be possessed by Rimgrimner, and this threat is made immediately after the solemn conjuration (str. 34) in which Skirner invokes the inhabitants of Nifelhel and also of the regions of bliss, as witnesses, that she shall never gladden or be gladdened by a man in the physical sense of this word.