Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

demon of the lower world, there sucks, are called náir framgengnir, "the corpses of those
departed."
It is manifest that the word nár thus used cannot have its common meaning, but
must be used in a special mythological sense, which had its justification and its
explanation in the heathen doctrine in regard to the lower world.
It not unfrequently happens that law-books preserve ancient significations of
words not found elsewhere in literature. The Icelandic law-book Grágás (ii. 185)
enumerates four categories within which the word nár is applicable to a person yet living.
Gallows-nár can be called, even while living, the person who is hung; grave-nár, the
person placed in a grave; skerry-nár or rock-nár may, while yet alive, he be called who
has been exposed to die on a skerry or rock. Here the word nár is accordingly applied to
persons who are conscious and capable of suffering, but on the supposition that they are
such persons as have been condemned to a punishment which is not to cease so long as
they are sensitive to it.
And this is the idea on the basis of which the word náir is mythologically applied
to the damned and tortured beings in the lower world.
If we now take into account that our ancestors believed in a second death, in a
slaying of souls in Hades, then we find that this same use of the word in question, which
at first sight could not but seem strange, is a consistent development of the idea that those
banished from Hel's realms of bliss die a second time, when they are transferred across
the border to Niflhel and the world of torture. When they are overtaken by this second
death they are for the second time náir. And, as this occurs at the gates of Niflhel, it was
perfectly proper to call the gates nágrindr.
We may imagine that it is terror, despair, or rage which, at the sight of the Nagates,
severs the bond between the damned spirit and his Hades-body, and that the former
is anxious to soar away from its terrible destination. But however this may be, the
avenging powers have runes, which capture the fugitive, put chains on his Hades-body,
and force him to feel with it. The Sun-song (Sólarljóð), a Christian song standing on the
border of heathendom, scarcely crossed, speaks of damned ones whose breasts were
carved with bloody runes, and Hávamál 157 of runes which restore consciousness to
náir. Such runes are known by Odin. If he sees a gallows-nár (virgil-nár) in a tree, then
he can carve runes so that the body comes down to him and talks with him (see No. 70):
Ef eg sé á tré uppi
váfa virgilná,
svá eg rist
og í rúnum fák,
að sá gengur gumi
og mælir við mig.
If I see, up in a tree,
A dangling gallows-nár
I can so carve
And color runes,
That the man walks
And talks with me.
Some of the subterranean náir have the power of motion, and are doomed to wade
in "heavy streams." Among them are perjurers, murderers, and adulterers (Völuspá 39).
Among these streams is Vaðgelmir, in which they who have slandered others find their
far-reaching retribution (Reginsmál 4). Other náir have the peculiarity which their