Viking Lands of the Dead

Any serious inquiry into the collective mythology for the people known as the Vikings is fraught with difficulties.  First, who were the Vikings?  They were a group of people who originated in Germanic, Nordic, and Scandinavian areas.  They were travelers with the most sophisticated seafaring technology of their day, so they quickly spread throughout the world, even making it as far as North America.  The Vikings weren't any one group of people, so looking into their death practices and beliefs about life after death is going to turn up thousands of different traditions.

Second, concrete evidence on their beliefs is scarce.  Their traditions were much more orally based.  Myths were passed down through spoken word and the telling of stories, songs, and poetry.  What written information we have comes to us through Christian scholars who lived hundreds of years after the golden age of the Vikings and told through a very Christian world view.  What men like Snorri Sturluson, who is credited as having wrote the Prose Edda, tell us about Viking mythology must, therefore, be taken with a hearty amount of skepticism.  

Having said all that, I wanted to take a look at some of the Viking mythology regarding their beliefs in the afterlife.  Is there anyone on the planet who hasn't heard of Valhalla, the hall of Odin where men who die in combat go for an eternity of feasting and revelry?  It's been popularized in modern media, but where do all the poor saps go who aren't among the honorable dead?  The answer to that question is that they go to one of many different death realms, and I was interested in looking into the subject.

Valhalla:  Odin holds court in a great hall for the honorable dead in Asgard that is decked out with spears, shields, and imagery pertaining to the warrior's life.  Here, half the warriors slain in combat (we'll get to the other half in a minute) spend their afterlife practicing their martial skills in preparation for the coming of Ragnarök.  Each day is spent in glorious combat, and each night, their wounds are miraculously healed, allowing them to spend their evenings drinking and feasting.  These warriors will join Odin during the final battle of Ragnarök when he fights the great wolf Fenrir.  They, along with their leader, will be slain, allowing life to eventually be reborn into another iteration.

So how does one get into Valhalla?  Actually, the act of dying in combat isn't what punches your proverbial ticket.  Odin (or one of his Valkyrie) only has to admire your bravery and fighting skills.  He then orders that you be slain in combat in order to to join him in his afterlife training ground.  

Fólkvangr :  Now to the other half I mentioned a minute ago.  Those honorable dead who don't go to Odin wind up in Fólkvangr where Freya, goddess of fertility, love, and death, holds court in a beautiful meadow.  There is much less information to be found about this land of the dead.  Requirements for entry don't seem to be as rigorous, though, and women are permitted here.  A couple of instances in the old sagas describe women who die by honorable means (this usually involves killing themselves when their husbands die in combat) joining Freya in Fólkvangr.  

     Important Note:  I wish I lived in a fantasy world where people cared enough about the goings on in the lives of women to write down accounts other than those pertaining to childbearing and that which revolves around men.  :End Important Note

Hel:  This death-place is also referred to as Helheim, a place loosely thought of as the home for the common dead and Snorri describes in the Prose Edda as the place for "those who die of sickness and old age."  It's ruled over by the giantess called Hel who is also Loki's daughter.  She is described by Snorri as a "half black and half flesh-colored giant woman."  Later, he goes on to describe Helheim as a bleak and isolated place where souls are locked away behind high walls and imposing gates.  However, there is much speculation that Snorri's descriptions were influenced by his Christian upbringing.

We also find a brief description in the Poetic Edda concerning the tale of Baldr's Dream.  Here, Odin rides into Hel's high hall where he finds benches decked with arm rings and a dais made of gold and with mead abounding in preparation for the arrival of Baldr's spirit.  This imagery contradicts Snorri's description of Helheim being an isolated, bleak place.

Later, Hermóðr, who is described in the Prose Edda as Odin's son, is incited by Frigg to ride into Helheim in order to ransom Baldr's spirit and return him to Asgard.  Riding aboard Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged stallion, he is described as traveling for nine nights down a deep, dark valley before arriving at a bridge.  A giantess waiting there instructs him that Baldr has already passed into Helheim, so he rides northwards and downwards until arriving at a tremendous gate.  Sleipnir leaps over it, allowing the pair to enter into the great hall.  Hel agrees to relinquish Baldr's soul but only if all things dead and alive wept for him.

Náströnd:  This place exists inside Helheim and is also referred to as Corpse-Strand.  It's a special vault described in the Eddas as a place where "drops of venom fall through the roof vent."  Níðhöggr, a giant dragon, sucks on the bodies of the dead and wolves tear at corpses of men.  Murders, oath-breakers, and seducers are housed here.  I also came across a brief mention of a place referred to as Niflhel.  Interpretations indicate this is a place beneath Helheim where dead men go to disappear when their families stop making grave offerings, but the term could just overlap with the ideas of Helheim.

Helgafell, the Holy Mountain:  This death-realm only relates to Icelandic tradition.  This is a pleasant place where the dead can go to be close to their living kin and where their kin can go to make offerings and conduct rituals geared toward the dead.

Rán's Hall:  Viking sailors seemed to believe that drowning at sea meant their souls were collected by Rán, the goddess of the sea and one of several goddesses of death.  They sometimes carried gold with them as a gift or offering to her.  There is a saga that indicates people took not finding a body as a good sign, that it was and indication they had been taken to Rán's hall, which she shared with her husband and nine daughters.

Naturally, this information is all very simplified and open to interpretation, because we just don't have a wealth of material surviving from the golden age of these people.  All archaeologists can do is make educated guesses on how fundamental afterlife mythology was when it was in practice.

While preparing for this blog entry, I learned more about their practices and cleared up a few misconceptions I had believed prior to looking into the actual mythology.  Maybe someone else will find the subject as fascinating as I do.  Oh, and I found this thesis paper an interesting read.