When a deceased who has received a good ords tirr leaves the Thing, he is awaited in a home which his hamingje has arranged for her favourite somewhere in "the green worlds of the gods." But what he first has to do is to leita kynnis, that is, visit kinsmen and friends who have gone before him to their final destination (Sonatorr., 17). Here he finds not only those with whom he became personally acquainted on earth, but he may also visit and converse with ancestors from the beginning of time, and he may hear the history of his race, nay, the history of all past generations, told by persons who were eye-witnesses. The ways he travels are munvegar (Sonatorr., 10), paths of pleasure, where the wonderful regions of Urd's and Mimer's realms lie open before his eyes.
Those who have died in their tender years are received by a being friendly to children, which Egil Skallagrimson (Sonatorrek, 20) calls Gauta spjalli. The expression means "the one with whom Odin counsels," "Odin's friend." As the same poem (str. 22) calls Odin Mimer's friend, and as in the next place Gauta spjalli is characterised as a ruler in Godheim (compare grænar heimar goda—Hakonarmal, 12), he must either be Mimer, who is Odin's friend and adviser from his youth until his death, or he must be Honer, who also is styled Odin's friend, his sessi and máli. That Mimer was regarded as the friend of dead children corresponds with his vocation as the keeper in his grove of immortality Mimisholt, of the Asa-children, the ásmegir, who are to be the mankind of the regenerated world. But Honer too has an important calling in regard to children (see No. 95), and it must therefore be left undecided which one of the two is here meant.
Egil is convinced that his drowned son Bodvar found a harbour in the subterranean regions of bliss.[16] The land to which Bodvar comes is called by Egil "the home of the bee-ship" (býskips bær.) The poetical figure is taken from the experience of seamen, that birds who have grown tired on their way across the sea alight on ships to recuperate their strength. In Egil's paraphrase the bee corresponds to the bird, and the honey-blossom where the bee alights corresponds to the ship. The fields of bliss are the haven of the ship laden with honey. The figure may be criticised on the point of poetic logic, but is of a charming kind on the lips of the hardy old viking, and it is at the same time very appropriate in regard to a characteristic quality ascribed to the fields of bliss. For they are the proper home of the honey-dew which falls early in the morning from the world-tree into the dales near Urd's fountain (Völuspa). Lif and Leifthraser live through ages on this dew (see Nos. 52, 53), and doubtless this same Teutonic ambrosia is the food of the happy dead. The dales of the earth also unquestionably get their share of the honey-dew, which was regarded as the fertilising and nourishing element of the ground. But the earth gets her share directly from Rimfaxe, the steed of the Hades-goddess Nat. This steed, satiated with the grass of the subterranean meadows, produces with his mouth a froth which is honey-dew, and from his bridle the dew drops "in the dales" in the morning (Vafthr., 14). The same is true of the horses of the valkyries coming from the lower world. From their manes, when they shake them, falls dew "in deep dales," and thence come harvests among the peoples (Helge Hjorv., 28.)
75.
AFTER THE JUDGMENT (continued). THE FATE OF THE DAMNED. THEIR PATH. ARRIVAL AT THE NA-GATES.
When the na-dictum (the judgment of those who have committed sins unto death) has been proclaimed, they must take their departure for their terrible destination. They cannot take flight. The locks and fetters of the norns (Urdar lokur, Heljar reip) hold them prisoners, and amid the tears of their former hamingjes (nornir gráta nái) they are driven along their path by heiptir, armed with rods of thorns, who without mercy beat their lazy heels. The technical term for these instruments of torture is limar, which seems to have become a word for eschatological punishment in general. In Sigrdrifumal (23) it is said that horrible limar shall fall heavy on those who have broken oaths and promises, or betrayed confidence. In Sigurd Fafnesb. (ii. 3) it is stated that everyone who has lied about another shall long be tortured with limar. Both the expressions troll brutu hrís i hæla theim and troll visi ydr til búrs have their root in the recollection of the myth concerning the march of the damned under the rod of the Eumenides to Nifelhel (see further on this point Nos. 91 and 123).
Their way from Urd's well goes to the north (see No. 63) through Mimer's domain. It is ordained that before their arrival at the home of torture they are to see the regions of bliss. Thus they know what they have forfeited. Then their course is past Mimer's fountain, the splendid dwellings of Balder and the ásmegir, the golden hall of Sindre's race (see Nos. 93, 94), and to those regions where mother Nat rests in a hall built on the southern spur of the Nida mountains (Forspjallsljod). The procession proceeds up this mountain region through valleys and gorges in which the rivers flowing from Hvergelmer find their way to the south. The damned leave Hvergelmer in their rear and cross the border rivers Hraunn (the subterranean Elivagar rivers, see No. 59), on the other side of which rise Nifelhel's black, perpendicular mountain-walls (Saxo, Hist., Dan.; see No. 46). Ladders or stairways lead across giddying precipices to the Na-gates. Howls and barking from the monstrous Nifelheim dogs watching the gates (see Nos. 46, 58) announce the arrival of the damned. Then hasten, in compact winged flocks, monsters, Nifelheim's birds of prey, Nidhog, Are, Hræsvelger, and their like to the south, and alight on the rocks around the Na-gates (see below). When the latter are opened on creaking hinges, the damned have died their second death. To that event, which is called "the second death," and to what this consists of, I shall return below (see No. 95).
Those who have thus marched to a terrible fate are sinners of various classes. Below Nifelheim there are nine regions of punishment. That these correspond to nine kinds of unpardonable sins is in itself probable, and is to some extent confirmed by Solarljod, if this poem, standing almost on the border-line between heathendom and Christianity, may be taken as a witness. Solarljod enumerates nine or ten kinds of punishments for as many different kinds of sins. From the purely heathen records we know that enemies of the gods (Loke), perjurers, murderers, adulterers (see Völuspa), those who have violated faith and the laws, and those who have lied about others, are doomed to Nifelhel for ever, or at least for a very long time (oflengi—Sig. Fafn., ii. 3). Of the unmerciful we know that they have already suffered great agony on their way to Urd's fountain. Both in reference to them and to others, it doubtless depended on the investigation at the Thing whether they could be ransomed or not.
The sacredness of the bond of kinship was strongly emphasised in the eschatological conceptions. Niflgódr, "good for the realm of damnation," is he who slays kinsmen and sells the dead body of his brother for rings (Sonatorrek, 15); but he who in all respects has conducted himself in a blameless manner toward his kinsmen and is slow to take revenge if they have wronged him, shall reap advantage therefrom after death (Sigrdr., 22).