Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

The root under which the frost-giants dwell we already know as the root over
Hvergelmir and the Niflhel inhabited by frost-giants.
The root under which human beings, living persons, mennskir menn, dwell we
also know as the one over Mimir's well and Mimir's grove, where the human beings Lif
and Leifthrasir and their offspring have their abode, where jörð lifandi manna is situated.
There remains one root: the one under which the goddess or fate, Urd, has her
dwelling. Of this Grímnismál says that she who dwells there is named Hel.
Therefore it follows of necessity that the goddess of fate, Urd, is identical with the
personal Hel, the queen of the realm of death, particularly of its regions of bliss. We have
seen that Hel in its local sense has the general signification, the realm of death, and the
special but most frequent signification, the Elysium of the kingdom of death. As a person,
the meaning of the word Hel must be analogous to its signification as a place. It is the
same idea having a personal as well as a local form.
The conclusion that Urd is Hel is inevitable, unless we assume that Urd, though
queen of her fountain, is not the regent of the land where her fountain is situated. One
might then assume Hel to be one of Urd's sisters, but these have no prominence as
compared with herself. One of them, Skuld, who is the more known of the two, at the
same time is one of Urd's maid-servants and a valkyrie, who on the battlefield does her
errands, a feminine psycho-messenger who shows the fallen the way to Hel, the realm of
her sisters, where they are to report themselves before they get to their destination. Of
Verdandi the records tell us nothing but the name, which seems to preclude the idea that
she should be the personal Hel.
This result, that Urd is identical with Hel; that she who dispenses life also
dispenses death; that she who with her serving sisters is the ruler of the past, the present,
and the future, also governs and gathers in her kingdom all generations of the past,
present, and future - this result may seem unexpected to those who, on the authority of
Gylfaginning, have assumed that the daughter of Loki cast into the abyss of Niflhel is the
queen of the kingdom of death; that she whose threshold is called Precipice
(Gylfaginning 34) was the one who conducted Baldur over the threshold to the
subterranean citadel glittering with gold; that she whose table is called Hunger and whose
knife is called Famine was the one who ordered the clear, invigorating mead to be placed
before him; that the sister of those foes of the gods and of the world, the Midgard-serpent
and the Fenris-wolf was entrusted with the care of at least one of Yggdrasil's roots; and
that she whose bed is called Sickness, jointly with Urd and Mimir, has the task of caring
for the world-tree and seeing that it is kept green and gets the liquids from their fountains.
Colossal as this absurdity is, it has been believed for centuries. And in dealing
with an absurdity which is centuries old, we must consider that it is a force which does
not yield to objections simply stated, but must be conquered by clear and convincing
arguments. Without the necessity of travelling the path by which I have reached the result
indicated, scholars would long since have come to the conviction that Urd and the
personal Hel are identical, if Gylfaginning and the text-books based thereon had not
confounded the judgment, and that for the following reasons:
The name Urðr corresponds to the Old English Vurd, Vyrd, Vird, 11 to the Old
Low German Wurth, and to the Old High German Wurt. The fact that the word is found
11 In Bright's Anglo-Saxon Glossary (1912), and elsewhere the form Vyrd, is written as Wyrd. I cannot
confirm the forms Vurd, Vird.