Part 4

We now pass to Völuspá 40 (Hauk's Codex) [more commonly quoted as Völuspá 47], where the word Helvegir occurs.

One of the signs that Ragnarok and the fall of the world are at hand, is that the mighty ash Yggdrasil trembles, and that a fettered giant-monster thereby gets loose from its chains. Which this monster is, whether it is Garm, bound above the Gnipa cave, or some other, we will not now discuss. The astonishment and confusion caused by these events among all the beings of the world, are described in the poem with but few words, but they are sufficient for the purpose, and well calculated to make a deep impression upon the hearers. Terror is the predominating feeling in those beings which are not chosen to take part in the impending conflict. They, on the other hand, for whom the quaking of Yggdrasil is the signal of battle for life or death, either arm themselves amid a terrible war-cry for the battle (the giants - gnýr allur Jötunheimur), or they assemble to hold the last council (the Asas - æsir eru á þingi), and then rush to arms.

Two classes of beings are mentioned as seized by terror - the dwarfs, who stood breathless outside of their stone-doors, and those beings which are á Helvegum. Helvegir may mean the paths or ways in Hel: there, are many paths, just as there are many gates and many rivers. Helvegir may also mean the regions, districts in Hel (cp. Austrvegr, Suðrvegr, Norvegr; and Alvíssmál 10, according to which the Vans call the earth vegir, ways). The author may have used the word in either of these senses or in both, for in this case it amounts to the same. At all events it is stated that the inhabitants in Hel are terrified when Yggdrasil quakes and the unnamed giant-monster gets loose.

Surt's spirit, or kinsman (sefi may mean either), is, as has also hitherto been supposed, the fire. The final episode in the conflict on Vigrid's plain is that the Muspel-flames destroy the last remnant of the contending giants. The terror which, when the world-tree quaked and the unnamed giant got loose, took possession of the inhabitants of Hel continues so long as the conflict is undecided. Valfather falls, Frey and Thor likewise; no one can know who is to be victorious. But the terror ceases when on the one hand the liberated giant-monster is destroyed, and on the other hand Vidar and Vali, Modi and Magni, survive the conflict and survive the flames, which do not penetrate to Baldur and Hodur amid their protégés in Hel. The word þann (him), which occurs in the seventh line of the strophe (in the last of the translation) can impossibly refer to any other than the giant mentioned in the fourth line (jötunn). There are in the strophe only two masculine words to which the masculine þann can be referred - jötunn and Yggdrasils askur. Jötunn, which stands nearest to þann, thus has the preference; and as we have seen that the world-tree falls by neither fire nor edge (Fjölsvinnsmál 20), and as it, in fact, survives the conflagration of Surt, then þann must naturally be referred to the jötunn.

Here Völuspá has furnished us with evidence in regard to the position of Hel's inhabitants towards the contending parties in Ragnarok. They who are frightened when a giant-monster - a most dangerous one, as it hitherto had been chained - gets free from its fetters, and they whose fright is allayed when the monster is destroyed in the conflagration of the world, such beings can impossibly follow this monster and its fellow warriors with their good wishes. Their hearts are on the side of the good powers, which are friendly to mankind. But they do not take an active part in their behalf; they take no part whatever in the conflict. This is manifest from the fact that their fright does not cease before the conflict is ended. Now we know that among the inhabitants in Hel are the ásmegir Lif and Leifthrasir and their offspring, and that they are not herþarfir; they are not to be employed in war, since their very destiny forbids their taking an active part in the events of this period of the world (see No. 53). But the text does not permit us to think of them alone when we are to determine who the beings á Helvegum are. For the text says that all, who are á Helvegum, are alarmed until the conflict is happily ended. What the interpreters of this much abused passage have failed to see, the seeress in Völuspá has not forgotten, that, namely, during the lapse of countless thousands of years, innumerable children and women, and men who never wielded the sword, have descended to the kingdom of death and received dwellings in Hel, and that Hel - in the limited local sense which the word hitherto has appeared to have in the songs of the gods - does not contain warlike inhabitants. Those who have fallen on the battle-field come, indeed, as shall be shown later, to Hel, but not to remain there; they continue their journey to Asgard, for Odin chooses one half of those slain on the battlefield for his dwelling, and Freyja the other half (Grímnismál 14). The chosen accordingly have Asgard as their place of destination, which they reach in case they are not found guilty by a sentence which neutralises the force and effect of the previous choice (see below), and sends them to die the second death on crossing the boundary to Niflhel. Warriors who have not fallen on the battlefield are as much entitled to Asgard as those fallen by the sword, provided they as heroes have acquired fame and honour. It might, of course, happen to the greatest general and the most distinguished hero, the conqueror in hundreds of battles, that he might die from sickness or an accident, while, on the other hand, it might be that a man who never wielded a sword in earnest might fall on the field of battle before he had given a blow. That the mythology should make the latter entitled to Asgard, but not the former, is an absurdity as void of support in the records - on the contrary, these give the opposite testimony - as it is of sound sense. The election contained for the chosen ones no exclusive privilege. It did not even imply additional favour to one who, independently of the election, could count on a place among the einherjes. The election made the person going to battle feigr, which was not a favour, nor could it be considered the opposite. It might play a royal crown from the head of the chosen one to that of his enemy, and this could not well be regarded as a kindness. But for the electing powers of Asgard themselves the election implied a privilege. The dispensation of life and death regularly belonged to the norns; but the election partly supplied the gods with an exception to this rule, and partly it left to Odin the right to determine the fortunes and issues of battles. The question of the relation between the power of the gods and that of fate - a question which seemed to the Greeks and Romans dangerous to meddle with and well-nigh impossible to dispose of - was partly solved by the Teutonic mythology by the naive and simple means of dividing the dispensation of life and death between the divinity and fate, which, of course, did not hinder that fate always stood as the dark, inscrutable power in the background of all events. (On election see further, No. 66.)

It follows that in Hel's regions of bliss there remained none that were warriors by profession. Those among them who were not guilty of any of the sins which the Asa-doctrine stamped as sins unto death passed through Hel to Asgard, the others through Hel to Niflhel. All the inhabitants on Hel's elysian fields accordingly are the ásmegir, and the women, children, and the agents of the peaceful arts who have died during countless centuries, and who, unused to the sword, have no place in the ranks of the einherjes, and therefore with the anxiety of those waiting abide the issue of the conflict. Such is the background and contents of the Völuspá strophe. This would long since have been understood, had not the doctrine constructed by Gylfaginning in regard to the lower world, with Troy as the starting-point, bewildered the judgment.