Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

The Aesir go to the thingstead near Urd's fountain daily. At the thingstead near
Urd's fountain hosts of the dead arrive there daily.
The task of the Aesir near Urd's fountain is to judge in questions of which the
lower world is the proper forum. When the dead arrive at Urd's fountain their final doom
is not yet sealed. They have not yet been separated into the groups which are to be
divided between Asgard, Hel, and Niflhel.
This question now is, Can we conceive that the daily journey of the Aesir to Urd's
fountain and the daily arrival there of the dead have no connection with each other? --
That the judgments pronounced daily by the Aesir at this thingstead, and that the daily
event, in accordance with which the dead at this thingstead are divided between the
realms of bliss and those of torture, have nothing in common?
That these mythological facts should have no connection with each other is hard
to conceive for anyone who, in doubtful questions, clings to that which is probable rather
than to the opposite. The probability becomes a certainty by the following circumstances:
Of the kings Vanlandi and Halfdan, Ynglingatal says that after death they met
Odin. According to the common view presented in our mythological text-books, this
should not have happened to either of them, since both of them died from disease. One of
them was visited and fetched by that choking spirit of disease called vitta vættr, and in
this way he was permitted "to meet Odin" (kom á vit Vilja bróður). The other was visited
by Hveðrungs mær, the daughter of Loki, who "called him from this world to Odin's
Thing."
Og til þings
þriðja jöfri
Hveðrungs mær
úr heimi bauð.
Hvethrung's maid
called the king
away from this world
to Þriði's Thing
Þing-boð means a legal summons to appear at a Thing, at the seat of judgment.
Bjóða til þings is to perform this legal summons. Here it is Hvedrung's kinswoman who
comes with sickness and death and þing-boð to King Halfdan, and summons him to
appear before the judgment-seat of Odin. 1 Since, according to mythology, all the dead,
and since, according to the mythological textbooks, at least all those who have died from
disease must go to Hel, then certainly King Halfdan, who died from disease, must
descend to the lower world; and as there is a Thing at which Odin and the Aesir daily sit
in judgment, it must have been this to which Halfdan was summoned. Otherwise we
would be obliged to assume that Hvedrung's kinswoman, Loki's daughter, is a messenger,
not from the lower world and Urd, but from Asgard, although the strophe further on
expressly states that she comes to Halfdan on account of "the judgement of the norns";
and furthermore we would be obliged to assume that the king, who had died from
sickness, after arriving in the lower world, did not present himself at Odin's court there,
1 Þríðja is commonly taken as a qualifier of jöfri, king and taken to mean "the third king." This translation
is possible. However, another possibility usually overlooked is Þríði as one of Odin's names (see
Grímnismál 46), thus the king is summoned to "Odin's Thing." Also see No. 67.