Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

Saxo further says that the floor is besprawled with all sorts of impurity:
pavimentum omni sordium genere respersum. The expression confirms the idea that
unmixed venom is not meant here, but everything else of the most disgusting kind. 3
Furthermore, Saxo relates that groups of damned are found there within, which
groups he calls consessus. Consessus means "a sitting together," and, in a secondary
sense, persons sitting together. The word "sit" may here be taken in a more or less literal
sense. Consessor, "the one who sits together with," might be applied to every participator
in a Roman dinner, though the Romans did not actually sit, but reclined at the table.
As stated, several such consessus, persons sitting or lying together, are found in
the hall. The benches upon which they sit or lie are of iron. Every consessus has a locus
in the hall; and as both these terms, consessus and locus, in Saxo united in the expression
consessuum loca, together mean rows of benches in a theatre or in a public place, where
the seats rise in rows one above the other, we must assume that these rows of the damned
sitting or lying together are found in different elevations between the floor and ceiling.
This assumption is corroborated by what Saxo tells, viz., that their loca are separated by
leaden hurdles (plumbeæ crates). 4 That they are separated by hurdles must have some
practical reason, and this can be none other than that something flowing down may have
an unobstructed passage from one consessus to the other. That which flows down finally
reaches the floor, and is then omne sordium genus, all kinds of impurity. It must finally
be added that, according to Saxo, the stench in this room of torture is well-nigh
intolerable (super omnia perpetui fætoris asperitas tristes lacessebat olfactus). 5
Who is not able to see that Völuspá's and Saxo's descriptions of the hall in
Nastrands confirm, explain, and complement each other? From Völuspá's words, we
conclude that the venom-streams come from the openings in the roof, not from the walls.
The wall consists, in its entirety, of the backs of serpents wattled together (sá er undinn
salur orma hryggjum). The heads belonging to these serpents are above the roof, and
vomit their venom down through the roof-openings - "the ljors" (féllu eiturdropar inn um
ljóra). Below these, and between them and the floor, there are, as we have seen in Saxo,
rows of iron seats, the one row below the other, all furnished with leaden hurdles, and on
the iron seats sit or lie perjurers and murderers, forced to drink the venom raining down
in "heavy streams." Every such row of sinners becomes "a trough of venom" for the row
immediately below it, until the disgusting liquid thus produced falls on those who have
seduced the dearest and most confidential friends of others. These seducers either
constitute the lowest row of the seated delinquents, or they wade on the floor in that filth
and venom which there flows. Over the hall broods eternal night (it is sólu fjarri). 6 What
there is of light, illuminating the terrors, comes from fires (see below) kindled at the
doors which open to the north (norður horfa dyr). The smoke from the fires comes into
the hall and covers the door-posts with the "soot of ages" (postes longæva fuligine illitæ).
3 "The hall, completely ruinous within and thick with a vile, powerful odour, they saw crammed with
everything which could disgust the eye or mind. The doorposts smeared with age-old soot, the walls
plastered with grime, the ceiling composed of spikes, the floor crawling with snakes and spattered with
every kind of filth." Fisher tr.
4 "leaden trellises" Fisher tr.
5 "Everything was foul, so that the rotting filth assailed the visitors' noses with an unbearable stench" Fisher
tr.
6 "far from the sun", Völuspá 38.