Part 4

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 (Urðar lokur, Heljar reip) hold them prisoners, and amid the tears of their former hamingjur (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 Sigurdrífumál 23 it is said that horrible limar shall fall heavy on those who have broken oaths and promises, or betrayed confidence. In Reginsmál 4 it is stated that everyone who has lied about another shall long be tortured with limar. Both the expressions tröll brutu hrís í hæla þeim and tröll vísi yður til búrs have their root in the recollection of the myth concerning the march of the damned under the rod of the Eumenides to Niflhel (see further on this point Nos. 91 and 123).

Their way from Urd's well goes to the north (see No. 63) through Mimir'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 Mimir's fountain, the splendid dwellings of Baldur and the ásmegir, the golden hall of Sindri's race (see Nos. 93, 94), and to those regions where mother Nott rests in a hall built on the southern spur of the Nida mountains (Forspjallsljóð). The procession proceeds up this mountain region through valleys and gorges in which the rivers flowing from Hvergelmir find their way to the south. The damned leave Hvergelmir in their rear and cross the border rivers Hrönn (the subterranean Elivagar rivers, see No. 59), on the other side of which rise Niflhel's black, perpendicular mountain-walls (Saxo, Book VIII; see No. 46). Ladders or stairways lead across giddying precipices to the Na-gates. Howls and barking from the monstrous Niflheim dogs watching the gates (see Nos. 46, 58) announce the arrival of the damned. Then hasten, in compact winged flocks, monsters, Niflheim's birds of prey, Nidhogg, Ari, Hræsvelgur, 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 Niflheim 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 Sólarljóð, if this poem, standing almost on the border-line between heathendom and Christianity, may be taken as a witness. Sólarljóð 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 (Loki), perjurers, murderers, adulterers (see Völuspá), those who have violated faith and the laws, and those who have lied about others, are doomed to Niflhel for ever, or at least for a very long time (oflengi - Reginsmál 4). 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. Niflgóðr, "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 (það kveða dauðum duga - Sigurdrífumál 22).

When the damned come within the Na-gates, the winged demons rush at the victims designated for them, press them under their wings, and fly with them through Niflheim's foggy space to the departments of torture appointed for them. The seeress in Völuspá 67 sees Nidhogg, loaded with náir under his wings, soar away from the Nida mountains. Whither he was accustomed to fly with them appears from strophe 39, where he in Nastrond is sucking his prey. When King Gorm, beyond the above-mentioned boundary river, and by the Nida mountains' ladders, had reached the Na-gates opened for him, he sees dismal monsters (larvæ atræ; cp. Völuspá's inn dimmi dreki) in dense crowds, and hears the air filled with their horrible screeches (cp. Völuspá's Ari hlakkar, slítur nái neffölur, 47). When Sólarljóð's skald enters the realm of torture he sees "scorched" birds, which are not birds but souls (sálir), flying "numerous as gnats".