The elements of the dead buried in the grave continued for more or less time their reciprocal activity, and formed a sort of unity which, if permeated by his ódr and önd, preserved some of his personality and qualities. The grave-mound might in this manner contain an alter ego of him who had descended to the realm of death. This alter ego, called after his dwelling haugbúi, hill-dweller, was characterised by his nature as a draugr, a branch which, though cut off from its life-root, still maintains its consistency, but gradually, though slowly, pays tribute to corruption and progresses toward its dissolution. In Christian times the word draugr acquired a bad, demoniacal meaning, which did not belong to it exclusively in heathen times, to judge from the compounds in which it is found: eldraugr, herdraugr, hirdidraugr, which were used in paraphrases for "warriors;" ódaldraugr, "rightful owner," &c. The alter ego of the deceased, his representative dwelling in the grave, retained his character: was good and kind if the deceased had been so in life; in the opposite case, evil and dangerous. As a rule he was believed to sleep in his grave, especially in the daytime, but might wake up in the night, or could be waked by the influence of prayer or the powers of conjuration. Ghosts of the good kind were hollar vættir, of the evil kind úvættir. Respect for the fathers and the idea that the men of the past were more pious and more noble than those of the present time caused the alter egos of the fathers to be regarded as beneficent and working for the good of the race, and for this reason family grave-mounds where the bones of the ancestors rested were generally near the home. If there was no grave-mound in the vicinity, but a rock or hill, the alter egos in question were believed to congregate there when something of importance to the family was impending. It might also happen that the lower elements, when abandoned by ódr and önd, became an alter ego in whom the vegetative and animal elements exclusively asserted themselves. Such an one was always tormented by animal desire of food, and did not seem to have any feeling for or memory of bonds tied in life. Saxo (Hist., 244) gives a horrible account of one of this sort. Two foster-brothers, Asmund and Asvid, had agreed that if the one died before the other the survivor should confine himself in the foster-brother's grave-chamber and remain there. Asvid died and was buried with horse and dog. Asmund kept his agreement, and ordered himself to be confined in the large, roomy grave, but discovered to his horror that his foster-brother had become a haugbúi of the last-named kind, who, after eating horse and dog, attacked Asmund to make him a victim of his hunger. Asmund conquered the haugbúi, cut off his head, and pierced his heart with a pole to prevent his coming to life again. Swedish adventurers who opened the grave to plunder it freed Asmund from his prison. In such instances as this it must have been assumed that the lower elements of the deceased consigned to the grave were never in his lifetime sufficiently permeated by his ódr and önd to enable these qualities to give the corpse an impression of the rational personality and human character of the deceased. The same idea is the basis of belief of the Slavic people in the vampire. In one of this sort the vegetative element united with his dust still asserts itself, so that hair and nails continue to grow as on a living being, and the animal element, which likewise continues to operate in the one buried, visits him with hunger and drives him in the night out of the grave to suck the blood of surviving kinsmen.
The real personality of the dead, the one endowed with litr, ódr, and önd, was and remained in the death kingdom, although circumstances might take place that would call him back for a short time. The drink which the happy dead person received in Hades was intended not only to strengthen his litr, but also to soothe that longing which the earthly life and its memories might cause him to feel. If a dearly-beloved kinsman or friend mourned the deceased too violently, this sorrow disturbed his happiness in the death kingdom, and was able to bring him back to earth. Then he would visit his grave-mound, and he and his alter ego, the haugbúi, would become one. This was the case with Helge Hundingsbane (Helge Hund., ii. 40, &c.). The sorrow of Sigrun, his beloved, caused him to return from Valhal to earth and to ride to his grave, where Sigrun came to him and wanted to rest in his arms during the night. But when Helge had told her that her tears pierced his breast with pain, and had assured her that she was exceedingly dear to him, and had predicted that they together should drink the sorrow-allaying liquids of the lower world, he rode his way again, in order that, before the crowing of the cock, he might be back among the departed heroes. Prayer was another means of calling the dead back. At the entrance of his deceased mother's grave-chamber Svipdag beseeches her to awake. Her ashes kept in the grave-chamber (er til moldar er komin) and her real personality from the realm of death (er ór ljodheimum er lidin) then unite, and Groa speaks out of the grave to her son (Grogaldr., i. 2). A third means of revoking the dead to earth lay in conjuration. But such a use of conjuration was a great sin, which relegated the sinner to the demons. (Cp. Saxo's account of Hardgrep.)
Thus we understand why the dead descended to Hades and still inhabited the grave-mounds. One died "to Hel" and "to the grave" at the same time. That of which earthly man consisted, in addition to his corporal garb, was not the simple being, "the soul," which cannot be divided, but there was a combination of factors, which in death could be separated, and of which those remaining on earth, while they had long been the covering of a personal kernel (ódr), could themselves in a new combination form another ego of the person who had descended to Hades.
But that too consisted of several factors, litr, ódr, and önd, and they were not inseparably united. We have already seen that the sinner, sentenced to torture, dies a second death in the lower world before he passes through the Na-gates, the death from Hel to Nifelhel, so that he becomes a nár, a corpse in a still deeper sense than that which nár has in a physical sense. The second death, like the first (physical), must consist in the separation of one or more of the factors from the being that dies. And in the second death, that which separates itself from the damned one and changes his remains into a lower-world nár, must be those factors that have no blame in connection with his sins, and consequently should not suffer his punishment, and which in their origin are too noble to become the objects of the practice of demons in the art of torturing. The venom drink which the damned person has to empty deprives him of that image of the gods in which he was made, and of the spirit which was the noble gift of the Asa-father. Changed into a monster, he goes to his destiny fraught with misfortunes.
The idea of a regeneration was not foreign to the faith of the Teutonic heathens. To judge from the very few statements we have on this point, it would seem that it was only the very best and the very worst who were thought to be born anew in the present world. Gulveig was born again several times by the force of her own evil will. But it is only ideal persons of whom it is said that they are born again—e.g., Helge Hjorvardson, Helge Hundingsbane, and Olaf Geirstadaralf, of whom the last was believed to have risen again in Saint Olaf. With the exception of Gulveig, the statements in regard to the others from Christian times are an echo from the heathen Teutonic doctrine which it would be most interesting to become better acquainted with—also from the standpoint of comparative Aryan mythology, since this same doctrine appears in a highly-developed form in the Asiatic-Aryan group of myths.
V.
THE IVALDE RACE.
96.
SVIPDAG AND GROA.