Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

appellation suggests, and receive their punishment, quiet and immovable, stretched on
iron benches, (see below). Saxo, who had more elaborate descriptions of the Hades of
heathendom than those which have been handed down to our time, translated or
reproduced in his accounts of Hadding's and Gorm's journeys in the lower world the word
náir with exsanguia simulacra. 1
That place after death with which Skirnir threatens the stubborn Gerd is also
situated within the Na-gates, but still it has another character than Nastrond and the other
abodes of torture, which are situated below Niflhel. It would also have been unreasonable
to threaten a person who rejects a marriage proposal with those punishments which
overtake criminals and nithings. The Hades division, which Skirnir describes as awaiting
the giant-daughter, is a subterranean Jotunheim, inhabited by deceased ancestors and
kinsmen of Gerd.
Mythology has given a life hereafter to the giants as well as to men. As a matter
of fact, mythology never destroys life. The horse which was cremated with its master on
his funeral pyre, and was buried with him in his grave-mound, afterwards brings the hero
down to Hel. When the giant who built the Asgard wall got into conflict with the gods,
Thor's hammer sent him "down below Niflhel" (niður undir Niflhel - Gylfaginning 42).
King Gorm saw the giant Geirrod and both his daughters in the lower world. According
to Grímnismál 31, frost-giants dwell under one of Yggdrasil's roots - consequently in the
lower world; and Hrafnagaldur Óðins says that hags (giantesses) and thurses (giants),
náir, dwarves, and swarthy elves go to sleep under the world-tree's farthest root on the
north border of Jormungrund 2 (the lower world), when Dag on a chariot sparkling with
precious stones leaves the lower world, and when Nat after her journey on the heavens
has returned to her home (Hrafnagaldur Óðins 24, 25). It is therefore quite in order if, in
Skirnir's description of the realm which after death awaits the giant-daughter who has
offended the gods, we rediscover that part of the lower world to which the drowned
primeval ancestors of the giant-maid were relegated when Bor's sons opened the veins of
Ymir's throat (Sonatorrek 3) and then let the billows of the ocean wash clean the rocky
ground of earth, before they raised the latter from the sea and there created the
inhabitable Midgard.
The frost-giants are the primeval giants (gigantes) of the Germanic mythology, so
called because they sprang from the frost-being Ymir, whose feet by contact with each
other begat their progenitor, the "strange-headed" monster Thrudgelmir (Vafþrúðnismál
29, 33). Their original home in chaos was Niflheim. From the Hvergelmir fountain, the
Elivágar rivers flowed there to the north and became hoar-frost and ice, which, melted by
warmth from the south, were changed into drops of venom, which again became Ymir,
called by the giants Aurgelmir (Vafþrúðnismál 30-31; Gylfaginning 5). Thrudgelmir
begat Bergelmir countless winters before the earth was made (Vafþrúðnismál 29;
Gylfinning 7). Those members of the giant race living in Jotunheim on the surface of the
earth, whose memory goes farthest back in time, can remember Bergelmir when he var á
lúðr um lagiðr. 3 At least Vafthrudnir is able to do this (Vafþrúðnismál 35).
1 From Gorm's saga in Saxo, Hist. Book 8: "lifeless phantoms" -Elton tr., "lifeless shades" - Fisher tr.
2 With this name of the lower world compare Gudmund-Mimir's abode á Grund (see No. 45), and
Helligrund (Heliand., Fitt 17, line 1491), and neowla grund (Caedmon, 267, 1, 270, 16). Also Grímnismál
20, which speaks of Odin's ravens flying daily over Jormungrund (i.e the underworld).
3 "was laid on the mill."