Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

conqueror in hundreds of battles, that he might die from sickness or an accident, while,
on the other hand, it might be that a man who never wielded a sword in earnest might fall
on the field of battle before he had given a blow. That the mythology should make the
latter entitled to Asgard, but not the former, is an absurdity as void of support in the
records -- on the contrary, these give the opposite testimony -- as it is of sound sense. The
election contained no exclusive privilege for the chosen ones. It did not even imply
additional favor to one who, independently of the election, could count on a place among
the einherjes. The election made the person going to battle feigr, 1 which was not a favor,
nor could it be considered the opposite. It might play a royal crown from the head of the
chosen one to that of his enemy, and this could not well be regarded as a kindness. 2 But
for the electing powers of Asgard themselves the election implied a privilege. The
dispensation of life and death regularly belonged to the norns; but the election partly
supplied the gods with an exception to this rule, and partly it left the right to determine
the fortunes and issues of battles to Odin. The question of the relation between the power
of the gods and that of fate -- a question which seemed to the Greeks and Romans
dangerous to meddle with and nearly impossible to dispose of -- was partly solved by the
Germanic mythology by the naive and simple means of dividing the dispensation of life
and death between the divinity and fate, which, of course, did not hinder that fate always
stood as the dark, inscrutable power in the background of all events. (On election see
further, No. 66.)
It follows that in Hel's regions of bliss there remained none that were warriors by
profession. Those among them who were not guilty of any of the sins, which the Asadoctrine
stamped as sins unto death, passed through Hel to Asgard, the others through
Hel to Niflhel. All the inhabitants on Hel's Elysian fields accordingly are the ásmegir,
and the women, children, and the agents of the peaceful arts who have died during
countless centuries, and who, unused to the sword, have no place in the ranks of the
einherjes, and therefore with the anxiety of those waiting abide the issue of the conflict.
Such is the background and contents of the Völuspá strophe. This would long since have
been understood, had not the doctrine constructed by Gylfaginning in regard to the lower
world, with Troy as the starting-point, confused the judgment.
62.
THE WORD HEL IN ALVÍSSMÁL. THE CLASSES OF BEING IN HEL.
In Alvíssmál occur the phrases: those í helju and halir. The premise of the poem is
that such objects as earth, heaven, moon, sun, night, wind, fire, etc., are expressed in six
different ways, and that each one of these ways of expression is, with the exclusion of the
others, applicable within one or two of the classes of beings found in the world. For
example, in Alvíssmál 12, Heaven is called:
Himinn among men,
Hlyrnir among gods,
1 "doomed" to die.
2 As in Lokasenna 22, where Loki accuses Odin of giving victory on the battlefield to the less valiant,
presumably so that he may have the better man for Valhal.