Part 4

In regard to the position of Yggdrasil and its roots in the universe, there are statements both in Gylfaginning and in the ancient heathen records. To get a clear idea, freed from conjectures and based in all respects on evidence, of how the mythology conceived the world-tree and its roots, is of interest not only in regard to the cosmography of the mythology, to which Yggdrasil supplies the trunk and the main outlines, but especially in regard to the mythic conception of the lower world and the whole eschatology; for it appears that each one of the Yggdrasil roots stands not alone above its particular fountain in the lower world but also over its peculiar lower-world domain, which again has its peculiar cosmological character and its peculiar eschatological end.

The first condition, however, for a fruitful investigation is that we consider the heathen or heathen-appearing records by themselves without mixing their statements with those of Gylfaginning. We must bear in mind that the author of Gylfaginning lived and wrote in the 13th century, more than 200 years after the introduction of Christianity in Iceland, and that his statements accordingly are to be made a link in that chain of documents which exist for the scholar, who tries to follow the fate of the myths during a Christian period and to study their gradual corruption and confusion.

This caution is the more important for the reason that an examination of Gylfaginning very soon shows that the whole cosmographical and eschatological structure which it has built out of fragmentary mythic traditions is based on a conception wholly foreign to Teutonic mythology, that is, on the conception framed by the scholars in Frankish cloisters, and then handed down from chronicle to chronicle, that the Teutons were descended from the Trojans, and that their gods were originally Trojan chiefs and magicians. This "learned" conception found its way to the North, and finally developed its most luxurious and abundant blossoms in the Younger Edda preface and in certain other parts of that work.

Permit me to present in brief a sketch of how the cosmography and eschatology of Gylfaginning developed themselves out of this assumption: - The Asas were originally men, and dwelt in the Troy which was situated on the centre of the earth, and which was identical with Asgard (Þar næst gjörðu þeir sér borg i miðjum heimi, er kallað er Ásgarður; það köllum vér Trója. Þar byggðu guðin og ættir þeirra og gjörðust þaðan af mörg tíðindi og greinir bæði á jörðu og á lofti - Gylfaginning 9).

The first mythic tradition which supplies material for the structure which Gylfaginning builds on this foundation is the bridge Bifrost. The myth had said that this bridge united the celestial abodes with a part of the universe situated somewhere below. Gylfaginning, which makes the Asas dwell in Troy, therefore makes the gods undertake an enterprise of the greatest boldness, that of building a bridge from Troy to the heavens. But they are extraordinary architects and succeed (guðin gjörðu brú til himins af jörðu - Gylfaginning 13).

The second mythic tradition employed is Urd's fountain. The myth had stated that the gods daily rode from their celestial abodes on the bridge Bifrost to Urd's (subterranean) fountain. Thence Gylfaginning draws the correct conclusion that Asgard was supposed to be situated at one end of the bridge and Urd's fountain near the other. But from Gylfaginning's premises it follows that if Asgard-Troy is situated on the surface of the earth, Urd's fountain must be situated in the heavens, and that the Asas accordingly when they ride to Urd's fountain must ride upward, not downward. The conclusion is drawn with absolute consistency (Hvern dag ríða æsir þangað upp um Bifröst - Gylfaginning 15).

The third mythic tradition used as material is the world-tree, which went (down in the lower world) to Urd's fountain. According to Völuspá 19, this fountain is situated beneath the ash Yggdrasil. The conclusion drawn by Gylfaginning by the aid of its Trojan premises is that since Urd's fountain is situated in the heavens, and still under one of Yggdrasil's roots, this root must be located still further up in the heavens. The placing of the root is also done with consistency, so that we get the following series of wrong localisations: - Down on the earth, Asgard-Troy; thence up to the heavens the bridge Bifrost; above Bifrost, Urd's fountain; high above Urd's fountain, one of Yggdrasil's three roots (which in the mythology are all in the lower world).

Since one of Yggdrasil's roots thus had received its place far up in the heavens, it became necessary to place a second root on a level with the earth and the third one was allowed to retain its position in the lower world. Thus was produced a just distribution of the roots among the three regions which in the conception of the middle ages constituted the universe, namely, the heavens, the earth, and hell.

In this manner two myths were made to do service in regard to one of the remaining Yggdrasil roots. The one myth was taken from Völuspá, where it was learned that Mimir's fountain is situated below the sacred world-tree; the other was Grímnismál 31, where we are told that frost-giants dwell under one of the three roots. At the time when Gylfaginning was written, and still later, popular traditions told that Gudmund-Mimir was of giant descent (see the middle-age sagas narrated above). From this Gylfaginning draws the conclusion that Mimir was a frost-giant, and it identifies the root which extends to the frost-giants with the root that extends to Mimir's fountain. Thus this fountain of creative power, of world-preservation, of wisdom, and of poetry receives from Gylfaginning its place in the abode of the powers of frost, hostile to gods and to men, in the land of the frost-giants, which Gylfaginning regards as being Jotunheim, bordering on the earth.

In this way Gylfaginning, with the Trojan hypothesis as its starting-point, has gotten so far that it has separated from the lower world with its three realms and three fountains Urd's realm and fountain, they being transferred to the heavens, and Mimir's realm and fountain, they being transferred to Jotunheim. In the mythology these two realms were the subterranean regions of bliss, and the third, Niflhel, with the regions subject to it, was the abode of the damned. After these separations were made, Gylfaginning, to be logical, had to assume that the lower world of the heathens was exclusively a realm of misery and torture, a sort of counterpart of the hell of the Church. This conclusion is also drawn with due consistency, and Yggdrasil's third root, which in the mythology descended to the well Hvergelmir and to the lower world of the frost-giants, Niflhel, Niflheim, extends over the whole lower world, the latter being regarded as identical with Niflheim and the places of punishment therewith connected.

This result carries with it another. The goddess of the lower world, and particularly of its domain of bliss, was in the mythology, as shall be shown below, the goddess of fate and death, Urd, also called Hel, when named after the country over which she ruled. In a local sense, the name Hel could be applied partly to the whole lower world, which rarely happened, partly to Urd's and Mimir's realms of bliss, which was more common, and Hel was then the opposite of Niflhel, which was solely the home of misery and torture. Proofs of this shall be given below. But when the lower world had been changed to a sort of hell, the name Hel, both in its local and in its personal sense, must undergo a similar change, and since Urd (the real Hel) was transferred to the heavens, there was nothing to hinder Gylfaginning from substituting for the queen of the lower world Loki's daughter cast down into Niflhel and giving her the name Hel and the sceptre over the whole lower world.

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 Baldur 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 Baldur 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 Loki. 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 of Loki down into the ninth region of Niflhel are now compelled to send a minister-plenipotentiary to her majesty to treat with her and pray for Baldur'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 Yggdrasil as lying horizontal in space. An attempt to make this matter intelligible can produce no other picture of Yggdrasil, 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 Yggdrasil 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 Yggdrasil roots, and Gylfaginning's view of the subject may easily be demonstrated by the following parallels:

Gylfaginning does not stop with the above results. It continues the chain of its conclusions. After Hvergelmir 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 Hvergelmir 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 Nidhogg down into Hvergelmir, which it also fills with serpents and dead bodies found in Grímnismál (34, 35), where they have no connection with Hvergelmir. According to Völuspá it is in Nastrond that Nidhogg sucks and the wolf tears the dead bodies (náir). Gylfaginning follows Völuspá in speaking of the other terrors in Nastrond, but rejects Völuspá's statements about Nidhogg and the wolf, and casts both these beasts down into the Hvergelmir fountain. As shall be shown below, the Hvergelmir 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 Niflheim, 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.

This may be sufficient to show that Gylfaginning's pretended account of the old mythological cosmography is, on account of its making Troy the starting-point, and doubtless also to some extent as a result of the Christian methods of thought, with which the author interpreted the heathen myths accessible to him, is simply a monstrous caricature of the mythology, a caricature which is continued, not with complacency and assurance, but in a confused and contradictory manner, in the eschatology of Gylfaginning.

My chief task will now be to review and examine all the passages in the Elder Edda's mythological songs, wherein the words Hel and Niflhel occur, in order to find out in this manner in which sense or senses these words are there employed, and to note at the same time all the passages which may come in my way and which are of importance to the myth concerning the lower world.