Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

68.
THE WAY TO HADES COMMON TO THE DEAD.
It has already been demonstrated that all the dead must go to Hel -- not only they
whose destination is the realm of bliss, but also those who are to dwell in Asgard or in the
regions of torture in Niflheim. Thus the dead tread the same road at the outset. One and
the same route is prescribed to them all, and the same Helgate opens daily for the host of
souls destined for different lots. Women and children, men and the aged, they who have
practiced the arts of peace and they who have stained weapons with blood, those who
have lived in accordance with the sacred commandments of the norns and gods and they
who have broken them-- all have to journey the same way as Baldur went before them,
down to the fields of the world-fountains. They come on foot and on horseback -- nay,
even in chariots, if we may believe Helreið Brynhildar, a very unreliable source -- guided
by various psychopomps: the beautifully equipped valkyries, the blue-white daughter of
Loki, the somber spirits of disease, and the gentle maid-servant of old age. Possibly the
souls of children had their special psychopomps. Traditions of mythic origin seem to
suggest this; but the fragments of the myths themselves preserved to our time give us no
information on this subject.
The Hel-gate here in question was situated below the eastern horizon of the earth.
When Thor threatens to kill Loki he says that he will send him á austurvega (Lokasenna
59). 17 When the author of the Sun-song sees the sun set for the last time, he hears in the
opposite direction -- that is, in the east -- the Hel-gate grating dismally on its hinges
(Sólarljóð 39 - en Heljar grind heyrðag á annan veg þjóta þunglega). The gate has a
watchman and a key. The key is called gillingr, gyllingr (NafnaÞulur) 18 ; and therefore a
skald who celebrates his ancestors in his songs, and thus recalls to those living the shades
of those in Hades, may say that he brings to the light of day the tribute paid to Gilling
(yppa Gillings gjöldum. See Eyvind's strophe, Skáldskaparmál 10. Previously the
paraphrase has been misunderstood, on account of the pseudo-myth in Skáldskaparmál
about the mead.) 19 From this gate, the highway of the dead went below the earth in a
westerly direction through deep and dark dales (dökkva dala og djúpa - Gylfaginning 49),
and it required several days -- for Hermod nine days and nights - before they came to
light regions and to the golden bridge across the river Gjöll, flowing from north to south
(see No. 59). On the other side of the river, the roads forked. One road went directly
north. This led to Baldur's abode (Gylfaginning 49); in other words, to Mimir's realm, to
Mimir's grove, and to the sacred citadel of the ásmegir, where death and decay cannot
enter (see No. 53). This northern road was not, therefore, the road common to all the
17 Along eastern-ways.
18 Here Gilling appears as the name of a river.
19 I cannot account for the reasoning behind this conclusion. This is the only place in the whole of the text
that Rydberg discusses Gilling. It seems to be based on the river name Gilling found in Nafnaþular, which
would not apply here because Gilling is a feminine name, the genitive of which would be Gillingar or
Gillingjar. In the Skáldskaparmál stanza in which it appears, the form is Gillings, the genitive of Gillingr, a
masculine giant name (and Suttung's father, according to Snorri). If Gilling were an authentic name of
Suttung's father Surt, the phrase "Gilling's tribute" could properly refer to the poetic mead, as it seems to in
the stanza cited.