Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

The Nastrands and the hall there are thus described in Völuspá 38, 39:
Sal sá hún standa
sólu fjarri
Náströndu á,
norður horfa dyr.
Féllu eiturdropar
inn um ljóra,
sá er undinn salur
orma hryggjum.
Sá hún þar vaða
þunga strauma
menn meinsvara
og morðvarga
og þanns annars glepur
eyrarúnu.
Þar saug Niðhöggur
nái framgengna,
sleit vargur vera.
"A hall she saw standing far from the sun on the Nastrands; the doors opened to
the north. Venom-drops fell through the roof-holes. Braided is that hall of serpent-backs."
"There she saw perjurers, murderers, and they who seduce the wife of another
(adulterers) wade through heavy streams. There Nidhogg sucked the náir of the dead.
And the wolf tore men into pieces."
Gylfaginning 52 assumes that the serpents, whose backs, wattled together, form
the hall, turn their heads into the hall, and that they, especially through the openings in
the roof (according to Codex Ups. and Codex Hypnones.), vomit forth their floods of
venom. The latter assumption is well founded. Doubtful seems, on the other hand,
Gylfaginning's assumption that "the heavy streams," which the damned in Nastrands have
to wade through, flow out over the floor of the hall. As the very name Nastrands indicates
that the hall is situated near a water, then this water, whether it be the river Slid with its
eddies filled with weapons or some other river, may send breakers on shore and thus
produce the heavy streams which Völuspá mentions. Nevertheless Gylfaginning's view
may be correct. The hall of Nastrands, like its counterpart Valhall, has certainly been
regarded as immensely large. The serpent-venom raining down must have fallen on the
floor of the hall, and there is nothing to hinder the venom-rain from being thought
sufficiently abundant to form "heavy streams" thereon (see below).
Saxo's description of the hall in Nastrands -- by him adapted to the realm of
torture in general -- is as follows: "The doors are covered with the soot of ages; the walls
are bespattered with filth; the roof is closely covered with barbs; the floor is strewn with
serpents and bespawled with all kinds of uncleanliness." (Book 8) The last statement
confirms Gylfaginning's view. As this bespattering continues without ceasing through
ages, the matter thus produced must grow into abundance and have an outlet. Remarkable