Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

Hades, the middle condition, and the locality corresponding to this condition,
which contains both fields of bliss and regions of torture, he translated with Halja,
doubtless because the signification of this word corresponded most faithfully with the
meaning of the word Hades. For Gehenna, hell, he used the borrowed word gaiainna.
The Old High German translation also reproduces Hades with the word Hella. For
Gehenna it uses two expressions compounded with Hella. One of these, Hellawisi,
belongs to the form which afterwards predominated in Scandinavia. Both the compounds
bear testimony that the place of punishment in the lower world could not be expressed
with Hella, but it was necessary to add a word, which showed that a subterranean place of
punishment was meant. The same word for Gehenna is found among the Christian
Teutons in England, namely, Hellewite; that is to say the Hellia, that part of the lower
world, where it is necessary to do penance (víti) for one's sins. From England the
expression doubtless came to Scandinavia, where we find in the Icelandic Hel-víti, in the
Swedish Hälvete, and in the Danish Helvede. In the Icelandic literature it is found for the
first time in Hallfred, 5 the same skald who with great hesitation permitted himself to be
persuaded by Olaf Tryggvason to abandon the faith of his fathers.
Many centuries before Scandinavia was converted to Christianity, the Roman
Church had very nearly obliterated the boundary line between the subterranean Hades
and Gehenna of the New Testament. The lower world had, as a whole, become a realm of
torture, though with various gradations. Regions of bliss were no longer to be found
there, and for Hel in the sense in which Ulfilas used Halja, and the Old High German
translation Hella, there was no longer room in the Christian conception. In the North, Hel
was therefore permitted to remain a heathen word, and to retain its heathen signification
as long as the Christian generations were able or cared to preserve it. It is natural that the
memory of this signification should gradually fade, and that the idea of the Christian hell
should gradually be transferred to the heathen Hel. This change can be pretty accurately
traced in the Old Norse literature. It came slowly, for the doctrine in regard to the lower
world in the Germanic religion addressed itself powerfully to the imagination, and, as
appears from a careful examination, far from being indefinite in its outlines, it was, on the
contrary, described with the clearest lines and most vivid colors, even down to the
minutest details. Not until the thirteenth century could such a description of the heathen
Hel as Gylfaginning's be possible and find readers who would accept it. But not even then
were the memories (preserved in fragments from the heathen days) in regard to the lower
world doctrine so confused, but that it was possible to present a far more faithful (or
rather not so utterly false) description thereof. Gylfaginning's representation of the
heathen Hades is based less on the then existing confusion of the traditions than on the
conclusions drawn from the author's own false premises.
In determining the question, how far Hel among the heathen Scandinavians has
had a meaning identical with or similar to that which Halja and Hella had among their
Gothic and German kinsmen - that is to say, the signification of a death-kingdom of such
a nature that it could not with linguistic propriety be used in translating Gehenna - we
must first consult that which really is the oldest source, the usage of the spoken language
in expressions where Hel is found. Such expressions show by the very presence of Hel
that they have been handed down from heathendom, or have been formed in analogy with
old heathen phrases. One of these modes of speech still exists: ihjäl (slå ihjäl, svälta
5 Hallfreðr Óttarsson, died c. 1007 AD