YGGDRASIL

Yggdrasil (Franz Stassen, 1920)

Yggdrasil (Old Norse Yggdrasill or Askr Yggdrasils) is the mighty tree whose trunk rises at
the geographical center of the Norse spiritual cosmos. The rest of that cosmos, including
the Nine Worlds, is arrayed around it and held together by its branches and roots, which
connect the various parts of the cosmos to one another. Because of this, the well-being of the
cosmos depends on the well-being of Yggdrasil. When the tree trembles, it signals the arrival
of Ragnarok, the destruction of the universe.[1]
The first element in Yggdrasil’s name, Yggr (“Terrible”), is one of the countless names of the
god Odin, and indicates how powerful and fearsome the Vikings perceived him to be. The
second element, drasill, means “horse.” So Yggdrasil’s name means “Horse of Odin,” a
reference to the time when the Terrible One sacrificed himself to discover the runes. The tree
was his gallows and bore his limp body, which the Norse poetic imagination described
metaphorically as a horse and a rider.[2]
In Old Norse literature, Yggdrasil is commonly said to be an ash tree,[3] but at other times, it’s
said that no one knows the species to which the magnificent tree belongs.[4] As with so many
aspects of Norse mythology and religion, there doesn’t seem to have been any airtight
consensus on this during the Viking Age.
In the words of the Old Norse poem Völuspá, Yggdrasil is “the friend of the clear sky,”[5] so
tall that its crown is above the clouds. Its heights are snow-capped like the tallest mountains,
and “the dews that fall in the dales” slide off of its leaves.[6] Hávamál adds that the tree is
“windy,” surrounded by frequent, fierce winds at its heights. “No one knows where its roots
run,”[7] because they stretch all the way down to the underworld, which no one
(except shamans) can see before he or she dies. The gods hold their daily council at the tree.[8]
Numerous animals are said to live among Yggdrasil’s stout branches and roots. Around its
base lurk the dragon Nidhogg and several snakes, who gnaw at its roots. An unnamed eagle
perches in its upper branches, and a squirrel, Ratatoskr (“Drill-Tooth”[9]), scurries up and
down the trunk conveying the dragon’s insults to the eagle and vice versa. Meanwhile, four
stags – Dainn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr, and Durathror – graze on the tree’s leaves.[10]
Amusing though some of these animals and their activities may be, they hold a deeper
significance: the image of the tree being nibbled away little by little by several beasts
expresses its mortality, and along with it, the mortality of the cosmos that depends on it.[11]
The Old Norse sources provide vivid but contradictory accounts of the number and
arrangement of the roots and wells beneath the base of Yggdrasil’s trunk.

According to the poem Grímnismál, Yggdrasil has three main roots: one planted in Midgard,
the world of mankind; one in Jotunheim, the world of the giants; and one in Hel, the
underworld.[12] Völuspá mentions only one well beneath the tree: the Well of Urd
(Urðarbrunnr, “Well of Fate“).[13]
However, Snorri Sturluson, in his Prose Edda, holds that there are actually three wells
beneath the tree, one for each of its roots. The Well of Urd, according to him, is not below
Yggdrasil, as it is in Völuspá – it’s actually in the sky, and the root that grows out of it bends
upward into the sky (!). The Well of Urd is where the gods hold their daily council meetings.
The second well is called Hvergelmir (perhaps “Bubbling Cauldron”[14] or “Roaring
Kettle”[15]), and it’s the body of water beneath the second root, which stretches into Niflheim,
the world of primal ice. This is the root that Nidhogg chews. The third well is that of the wise
being Mimir, and it and its root lie in the realm of the giants.[16]
Here as elsewhere, Snorri is probably introducing an artificial systematization of his own
invention that didn’t exist in the Viking Age (Snorri wrote centuries thereafter). However,
some of the elements he includes may have been drawn from legitimate sources that are now
lost to us. For instance, Yggdrasil was sometimes called Mímameiðr, “Post of
Mimir,”[17] which demonstrates that there was some particular connection between Mimir and
the tree – and surely also the well that’s frequently mentioned in connection with Mimir.
But what about the Nine Worlds themselves? How are they arranged around Yggdrasil? The
Old Norse sources never tell us – and, for that matter, they never tell us which worlds
comprise the Nine in the first place. Given the lack of systematization or codification that
characterizes all of Norse mythology and religion, and the tolerance for fluidity, ambiguity,
and even contradiction that it implies, it’s doubtful that there was ever a “map” or
diagrammatic image of the Nine Worlds and their arrangement in which all of the pagan
Norse believed. (All – all – of the pictures you’ll find online are at best speculative and
unverifiable.)
Nevertheless, there are some clues in the sources that might enable us to construct a tentative
and partial schema of where some of the Nine Worlds would have been generally thought to
be located. They seem to have been arranged along two axes, one vertical, the other
horizontal. The vertical axis would correspond to Yggdrasil’s trunk, with Asgard in the
highest branches, Midgard on the ground at the tree’s base, and Hel underground amongst the
tree’s roots. The horizontal axis would be based on the distinction the Vikings made between
the innangard and utangard. Thus, Asgard would be right over the trunk of the tree, Midgard
around the trunk (and therefore in the “middle” on both of these axes), and Jotunheim would
surround Midgard and thereby be that much more distant from the trunk. As for the other
worlds: who knows?
In any case, we can see how vital to the Norse worldview Yggdrasil was felt to be by the
number of earthly trees the Vikings treated as representations of the great world-tree. Adam
of Bremen describes a particularly majestic one near the Temple of Uppsala in Sweden.
Farmsteads were customarily designed around such a tree, making the farmstead a miniature
reproduction of the sacred spiritual cosmos.
THE NINE WORLDS
The Nine Worlds (Old Norse Níu Heimar) are the homelands of the various types of beings
found in the pre-Christian worldview of the Norse and other Germanic peoples. They’re held
in the branches and roots of the world-tree Yggdrasil, although none of the sources for our
present knowledge of Norse mythology and religion describe exactly where in and around
Yggdrasil they’re located. (Any and all modern images of the worlds arranged around
Yggdrasil are by definition speculative and unverifiable.)
The existence of “nine worlds” is mentioned in passing in one poem in the Poetic Edda.
[1]
 However, no source gives a list of exactly which worlds comprise the nine. Based on the
kinds of beings found in Norse mythology and the reference to their homelands in various
literary sources, however, we can compile the following tentative reconstruction:
Midgard, the world of humanity
Asgard, the world of the Aesir tribe of gods and goddesses
Vanaheim, the world of the Vanir tribe of gods and goddesses
Jotunheim, the world of the giants
Niflheim, the primordial world of ice
Muspelheim, the primordial world of fire
Alfheim, the world of the elves
Nidavellir/Svartalfheim, the world of the dwarves
Hel, the world of the eponymous goddess Hel and the dead
With the exception of Midgard, these are all primarily invisible worlds, although they can at
times become manifested in particular aspects of the visible world. For example, Jotunheim
overlaps with the physical wilderness, Hel with the grave (the literal “underworld” beneath
the ground), and Asgard with the sky.

While we don’t know what exactly the spiritual or magical significance of the number 9 was,
it’s clear that this number had such a significance for the pre-Christian Germanic peoples.
Philologist Rudolf Simek offers the following summary:
…[N]ine is the mythical number of the Germanic tribes. Documentation for
the significance of the number nine is found in both myth and cult.
In Odin’s self-sacrifice he hung for nine nights on the windy tree (Hávamál),
there are nine worlds to Niflhel (Vafþrúðnismál 43), Heimdallr was born to
nine mothers (Hyndluljóð 35), Freyr had to wait for nine nights for his
marriage to Gerd (Skírnismál 41), and eight nights (= nine days?) was the
time of betrothal given also in the Þrymskviða. Literary embellishments in
the Eddas similarly use the number nine: Skaði and Njörðr lived alternately
for nine days in Nóatún and in Þrymheimr; every ninth night eight equally
heavy rings drip from the ring Draupnir; Menglöð has nine maidens to serve
her (Fjólsvinnsmál 35ff.), and Ægir had as many daughters. Thor can take
nine steps at the Ragnarök after his battle with the Midgard serpent before
he falls down dead. Sacrificial feasts lasting nine days are mentioned for
both Uppsala and Lejre and at these supposedly nine victims were sacrificed
each day.
He speculates that this number’s importance could be derived from the lunar calendar’s 27
days being a multiple of nine.
MIDGARD
 Work on a Viking Age farm (anonymous)
Midgard (Old Norse Miðgarðr, Gothic midjungards, Old English middangeard, Old
Saxon middilgard, Old High German mittilgart or mittangard, Proto-
Germanic *meðjanagarðaz,[1][2] “Middle Enclosure”) is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse
mythology and an important concept in the pre-Christian worldview of all of the Germanic
peoples. It’s the inhabited world, and roughly corresponds to the modern English word and
concept of “civilization.” It’s the only one of the Nine Worlds that’s primarily located in the
visible world; the others, while they may intersect with the visible world at various points, are
first and foremost invisible locations.
The name “Midgard” (“Middle Enclosure”) has a double meaning. The first meaning of the
word refers to civilization’s position “in the middle of” an otherwise wild world, which is
reflected on the cosmological plane by Midgard’s being surrounded by the uninhabited
wilderness of Jotunheim, the world of the often-hostile giants. This is akin to the way in
which the continents are surrounded by the ocean, which is, in the ancient Germanic
perspective, also teeming with giants. The serpent Jormungand lives in the sea and encircles
the terrestrial Midgard and the wilderness at its borders, and Aegir and Ran dwell in the same
watery depths and claim the lives of unfortunate seafarers. You might call this part of the
word’s meaning “horizontal.” The second and “vertical” sense of the word’s meaning refers
to Midgard’s position below Asgard, the world of the Aesir gods and goddesses, and above
the underworld. This vertical axis is represented by the world-tree Yggdrasil, which holds
Asgard in its upper branches, Midgard at the base of its trunk, and the underworld amongst its
roots.
Both of these senses of the word’s meaning ultimately refer to Midgard’s place in the
psychogeographical distinction between the innangard and utangard, one of the most
important concepts in the ancient Germanic worldview. That which is innangard (“inside the
fence”) is orderly, law-abiding, and civilized, while that which is utangard (“beyond the
fence”) is chaotic, anarchic, and wild. This applies both to the geographical plane and the
human psyche; thoughts and actions can be innangard or utangard just as readily as spatial
locations. Asgard, the “Enclosure of the Aesir,” is the divine model of the innangard, while
Jotunheim, the “Homeland of the Giants,” is the model of the utangard. Midgard is, once
again, somewhere in the middle. But, as the -gard element in the name implies, Midgard is –
at least in theory – striving to be more like Asgard, more ordered according to the divine
model upon which it’s patterned.
When the gods gave the world its initial shape, they slew the giant Ymir and created the
various part of the world from his body parts. In order to protect Midgard and humanity from
the giants, they built a fence around Midgard out of Ymir’s eyebrows. Building fences around
farms repeated this paradigmatic act, marking off that which was within the fences as
innangard and that which was outside the fences as utangard.
During Ragnarok, the destruction of the cosmos, Midgard sinks into the sea along with
everything else in the universe.

ASGARD
 The Rainbow Bridge between Asgard and
Midgard in Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, directed by Otto Schenk (1990)
Asgard (Old Norse Ásgarðr, “Enclosure of the Aesir) is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse
mythology and the home and fortress of the Aesir, one of the two tribes of gods (the other
being the Vanir, who have their home in Vanaheim). Asgard is located in the sky[1] (albeit
spiritually rather than physically, of course) and is connected to Midgard, the world of
humanity, by the rainbow bridge Bifrost.
The -gard element in Asgard’s name is a reference to the ancient Germanic concept of the
distinction between the innangard and utangard. That which is innangard (“inside the fence”)
is orderly, law-abiding, and civilized, while that which is utangard (“beyond the fence”) is
chaotic, anarchic, and wild. This applies both to the geographical plane and the human
psyche; thoughts and actions can be innangard or utangard just as readily as spatial locations.
Asgard is the ultimate model of the innangard, while Jotunheim, the “Homeland of
the Giants,” is the epitome of the utangard.
Midgard (“Middle Enclosure”), the world of human civilization, is, as the name implies,
somewhere in the middle – not quite as innangard as Asgard and not quite as utangard as
Jotunheim. But Midgard is a space enclosed, on the geographical plane, by fences, and on the
psychological plane by norms and laws. This makes it much closer – at least in theory – to
Asgard than to Jotunheim. In other words, Asgard is the divine model upon which the pre-
Christian Norse people patterned their world.

VANAHEIM
 “The Course of Empire: the Pastoral or
Arcadian State” by Thomas Cole (1834)
Vanaheim (Old Norse Vanaheimr, “Homeland of the Vanir“) is one of the Nine Worlds that
are situated around the world-tree Yggdrasil. As the name implies, it’s the home of the Vanir
tribe of deities, who tend to be somewhat more associated with fertility and what we today
would call “nature” than the other tribe of Norse deities, the Aesir, who have their home
in Asgard.
The surviving sources for our information on Norse mythology and religion, as fragmentary
as they are, don’t contain any explicit mention of where exactly Vanaheim is located.[1] The
sole clue we have comes from the Lokasenna (“The Taunting of Loki“), one of the poems in
the Poetic Edda, which states that the Vanir god Njord went eastward when he went to
Asgard as a hostage at the conclusion of the Aesir-Vanir War.[2] Presumably, then, Vanaheim
lies somewhere to the west of Asgard.
Some scholars have gone so far as to claim that Vanaheim was invented by the thirteenth-
century Icelandic Christian historian and poet Snorri Sturluson.[3] However, there is one
authentic and reliable Old Norse poem that mentions Vanaheim by name,[4] so we can be
reasonably certain that it was a genuine element of pre-Christian Norse religion.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the sources are completely silent as to what kind of
world Vanaheim is. However, its name may contain an indication of the place’s character.
One of the primary ways the pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic peoples classified
geographical spaces (as well as psychological states) was with reference to their concept of
the distinction between the innangard and utangard. That which is innangard (“inside the
fence”) is orderly, law-abiding, and civilized, while that which is utangard (“beyond the
fence”) is chaotic, anarchic, and wild. This psychogeography found its natural expression in
agrarian land-use patterns, where the fence (the -gard or, in Old Norse, -garðr of the above
terms) separated pastures and fields of crops from the wilderness beyond them. Of the Nine
Worlds, two are innangard spaces: Asgard and Midgard, the world of human civilization.
Both of these contain -gard in their names and are depicted as having a fence or fortification
surrounding them. The rest of the Nine Worlds’ names end in -heim, and there’s no reference
to their being enclosed in any way, which seems to indicate that they’re essentially utangard
places. Such a designation is certainly in keeping with the way these places are described in
Old Norse literature. Thus, we can infer that Vanaheim, like the Vanir themselves, is
somewhat more wild or “natural,” and less “cultural,” than the world of the Vanir’s Aesir
counterparts, or even that of humanity.

JOTUNHEIM
 “Mountain out of the Mist” by Albert Bierstadt
(1873)
Jotunheim (pronounced “YO-tun-hame;” Old Norse Jötunheimr, “World of the Giants”) is
one of the Nine Worlds, and, as the name implies, the homeland of the giants (Old
Norse jötnar).
Jotunheim is also known as Utgard (pronounced “OOT-guard;” Old Norse Útgarðr, “Beyond
the Fence”), a name which establishes the realm as occupying one extreme end of the
traditional Germanic conceptual spectrum between the innangard and the utangard. That
which is innangard (“inside the fence”) is orderly, law-abiding, and civilized, while that
which is utangard (“beyond the fence”) is chaotic, anarchic, and wild. This psychogeography
found its natural expression in agrarian land-use patterns, where the fence (the “gard”
or garðr of the above terms) separated pastures and fields of crops from the wilderness
beyond them. In fact, the very word “wilderness” comes from a Germanic language, Old
English, where the word formed from the roots wild-deor-ness literally means “the place of
self-willed beasts.”[1] One would therefore expect the cosmological Utgard/Jotunheim to be
symbolized as a vast, mighty wilderness that surrounds a more civilized world.
And, indeed, that is exactly the place Jotunheim occupies in the pre-Christian Germanic
cosmology. At the center of this cosmology are Asgard, “The Enclosure of the Aesir Deities,”
and its human counterpart, Midgard, “The Middle Enclosure.” Asgard is the divine model of
the innangard. Midgard, the visible world and especially human civilization, is patterned
upon the divine model. The “Middle” element in its name largely refers to its being
surrounded by – in the middle of – Jotunheim.
In the Eddas, the dwelling-places of the giants are described as deep, dark forests, mountain
peaks where winter never eases its grip, and similarly inhospitable and grim landscapes, and
this certainly seems to be how the heathen Norse and other Germanic peoples symbolically
visualized the invisible Jotunheim itself.

NIFLHEIM
 “Morning Mist in the Mountains” by Caspar
David Friedrich (1808)
Niflheim (pronounced “NIF-el-hame;” from Old Norse Niflheimr, “World of Fog”) is one of
the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology and the homeland of primordial darkness, cold, mist,
and ice. As such, it’s the opposite cosmological principle of Muspelheim, the world of fire
and heat.
In the Norse creation narrative as related by the medieval Christian Icelandic historian Snorri
Sturluson, the first being, the giant Ymir, was born when ice from Niflheim and fire from
Muspelheim met in the middle of Ginnungagap, the abyss that had formerly separated them.
The word “Niflheim” is only found in the works of Snorri and is often used interchangeably
with “Niflhel,” a poetic embellishment of “Hel,” the world of the dead. “Niflhel” is found in
Old Norse poems that are much older than Snorri’s works. It’s entirely possible that the word
“Niflheim” is an invention of Snorri’s.[1] It’s impossible to know whether the attendant
concept is of similarly late and spurious origins, because our only source for anything that
even pretends to be a full account of the heathen Norse creation narrative comes from – you
guessed it – the works of Snorri.

MUSPELHEIM
 “Vesuvius from Portici” by Joseph Wright of
Derby (1775)
Muspelheim (pronounced “MOO-spell-hame;” Old Norse Múspellsheimr, “The World
of Múspell“) is one of the Nine Worlds and the home of the fire giants.
The word “Muspelheim” is recorded only in the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, a late work
that can’t be taken at face value as representing authentic pre-Christian Norse mythology.
However, the basic cosmological principle it represents can be tracked far into the Germanic
past. Cognates of Múspell can be found in Old High German and Old Saxon texts, meaning
that the word and the concept it denotes likely go back to the Proto-Germanic period. Its
oldest meaning, when one compares these various sources, seems to have been “end of the
world through fire.”[1] In earlier Old Norse poetry, the word seems to refer to a giant who
leads his “people” or “sons” into battle against the gods during Ragnarok.[2] Even if the idea
of Muspelheim as a place rather than an event or a person is an invention of Snorri’s, it’s a
relatively minor accretion, and one which is broadly consistent with the earlier uses
of Múspell.
Muspelheim features in both the creation of the world and its downfall. In the creation
narrative given by Snorri, fire from Muspelheim and ice from Niflheim meet in the middle
of Ginnungagap and forge the giant Ymir, the first being from whose corpse the world was
eventually shaped. During Ragnarok, the fire giant Surt, who should probably be identified
with the Múspell of Old Norse poetry, arrives from the south (surely meant to be understood
as the realm of heat and fire) with a flaming sword to slay the gods and burn the world.[3][4] For
the Vikings, then, the cosmos both begins and ends in fire (along with ice).

ALFHEIM
 “Forest Sunrise” by Albert Bierstadt
Alfheim (pronounced “ALF-hame;” Old Norse Álfheimr, “The Homeland of the Elves”) is, as
the name suggests, the world inhabited by the elves, a class of demigod-like beings in the pre-
Christian mythology and religion of the Norse and other Germanic peoples.
Alfheim is never described in the sources that form the basis of our current knowledge of
heathen Germanic religion, but is rather merely mentioned in passing in a few places.
However, the elves are described as being luminous and “more beautiful than the sun,”[1] so
we may suppose that their homeland was a gracious realm of light and beauty. Although the
realms that comprise the Nine Worlds of the Norse cosmology are never listed, it seems
highly probable that, given the prominence of the elves in Germanic religion, Alfheim was
one of them.
The Vanir god Freyr is said to be the ruler of Alfheim.[2] Scholars have long puzzled over
what to make of this, and no wholly satisfactory conclusions have been put forth. The
relationship between the elves and the Vanir is highly ambiguous and involves considerable
overlap between the two groups.[3] Freyr’s position as lord of Alfheim, therefore, while hard
to interpret with much precision, shouldn’t be entirely surprising.

NIDAVELLIR/SVARTALFHEIM
 “Soria Moria Castle” by Theodor Kittelsen
(1900)
In Old Norse literature, the home of the dwarves is called either Nidavellir (pronounced
“NID-uh-vell-ir;” Old Norse Niðavellir, “Low Fields” or “Dark Fields”) or Svartalfheim
(pronounced “SVART-alf-hame;” Old Norse Svartálfaheimr, “Homeland of the Black
Elves”).
The dwarves are master smiths and craftsmen who live beneath the ground. Accordingly,
Nidavellir or Svartalfheim was probably thought of as a labyrinthine, subterranean complex
of mines and forges.

If either of these names is the “original” one – the name that the Vikings used to refer to the
dwarves’ homeland – it’s probably Nidavellir. While both names occur only in relatively late
and problematic sources, the first source to use the term “Nidavellir” (the poem Völuspá,
“The Prophecy of the Seeress”) is older than the first (and only) source to use the term
“Svartalfheim” (Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda).
The Völuspá has this (and only this) to say about Nidavellir:
There stood in the north
In Nidavellir
The golden hall
Of Sindri’s family.[1]
The directions “north” and “downward” were commonly associated with each other in Old
Norse literature, and master craftsmen renowned for their work with precious metals would
naturally build exquisite halls for themselves, so this description is probably based on
authentic material from the Viking Age. (Sindri is a dwarf mentioned elsewhere in Old Norse
literature.)
Snorri’s descriptions of Svartalfheim, however, are much more confused. For one thing, he –
and only he – calls the dwarves “black elves” (svartálfar or døkkálfar).[2] While the
boundaries between the different kinds of demigod-like beings were quite blurry in the
Viking Age, Snorri’s terminology just introduces an additional and unnecessary layer of
complication. The name “Svartalfheim” is an extension of his invented terminology.
Apparently based on a misunderstanding of the stanza in Völuspá, Snorri says that “Sindri” is
the name of the dwarves’ hall. Snorri also includes Sindri and Nidavellir in his Christian-
influenced descriptions of the Norse afterlife and the apocalypse, adding yet another layer of
unnecessary confusion.[3] This serves as a reminder that Snorri and his Prose Edda can’t be
taken at face value as providing reliable information about Viking Age beliefs and practices.
Unfortunately, then, we know only the vaguest outlines of what the Vikings thought the
homeland of the dwarves was like.
HEL (THE UNDERWORLD)
 “Heimdall Desires the Return of Idun from the Underworld” by
Emil Doepler (1881)
Hel (Old Norse Hel, “Hidden;”[1] pronounced like the English word “Hell”) is the most
general name for the underworld where many of the dead dwell. It’s presided over by a
fearsome goddess whose name is also Hel. Occasionally, it’s also referred to as “Helheim,”
“The Realm of Hel,” although this is much more common in the secondary literature than in
the Old Norse primary sources.
Like physical graves, Hel was thought to be located underground. Some sources also place it
in the north, the direction which is cold and dark like the grave.[2] A dog is sometimes said to
guard its entrance, much like Cerberus in Greek mythology.[3]
What Kind of Place Was Hel?
The names of Hel and Hell, the Christian realm of eternal suffering ruled over by Satan, come
from the same root in the Proto-Germanic language, which is an ancestor of both Old Norse
and, by way of Old English, modern English. That common root has been reconstructed by
modern scholars as *haljo, “concealed place,” and words stemming from *haljo seem to have
been used to denote the underworld in virtually all Germanic languages. We modern English
speakers call the Christian concept of a land of damnation “Hell” because the concept was
called hel or helle in Old English.[4] Presumably, hel/helle originally referred to the same kind
of Germanic pagan underworld as the Norse Hel, and Christian missionaries to the Anglo-
Saxons used the closest word they could find in Old English to refer to Satan’s realm.
But apart from the fact that Hel and Hell are both realms of the dead located beneath the
ground, the two concepts have nothing in common. While the Old Norse sources are far from
clear on exactly how one ended up in one of the Norse afterlife realms rather than another
(there were several), what is clear is that where one goes after death isn’t any kind of reward
for moral behavior or pious belief, or punishment for immoral behavior or impious belief.
(See the article on Death and the Afterlife for more on this point.)
Furthermore, while the underworld isn’t described often in the sources, when it is, it’s
generally cast in neutral or even positive terms. As a place where the dead live on in some
capacity, it’s sometimes portrayed as a land of startlingly abundant life on the other side of
death.[5] The dead in Hel spend their time doing the same kinds of things that Viking Age men
and women did: eating, drinking, fighting, sleeping, and so forth. It wasn’t a place of eternal
bliss or torment as much as it was simply a continuation of life somewhere else.
Of all of the Old Norse sources, only one describes Hel as a thoroughly unpleasant place:
the Prose Edda of the thirteenth-century Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson. Snorri wrote
many generations after Norse paganism had given way to Christianity and ceased to be a
living tradition, and he had a habit of stretching the evidence available to him to present his
pre-Christian ancestors as having anticipated aspects of Christianity.[6] His downright
comically over-the-top portrayal of Hel is an excellent example of this tendency of his. For
Snorri, the plate of the goddess Hel is called Hunger (Hungr), her servants Slow (Ganglati)
and Lazy (Ganglöt), the threshold of her door Stumbling Block (Fallandaforað), her bed
Illness (Kör), and her curtains Bleak Misfortune (Blíkjandabölr).[7] Few scholars accept such
descriptions as being authentic products of the Viking Age.[8]
Similarly laughable is Snorri’s assertion that those who die in battle go to Valhalla, the
sublime hall of the god Odin, while those who die of sickness or old age go to Hel. Snorri
himself blatantly contradicts his distinction between Valhalla and Hel in his version of the
tale of the death of Baldur, Odin’s son, who is killed violently and is nevertheless borne to
Hel.[9] No other source makes this distinction, and several offer further examples to the
contrary.
The Road to Hel
The Old Norse sources describe in uncharacteristic detail the course that one has to travel in
order to reach Hel. It even has a name that comes up repeatedly in Old Norse
literature: Helvegr, “The Road/Way to Hel.”[10] Given how closely the accounts of this course
correspond to the narratives of traditional shamanic journeys of other circumpolar peoples,
[11]
 they seem to recount, and possibly provide templates for, the journeys of Norse shamans.
Throughout the Old Norse sources, we find instances of such journeys to Hel undertaken by
gods or humans in order to recover a dead spirit or obtain knowledge from the dead.
A journey by the hero Hadding from the Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes) by the
medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus is typical. Here is Old Norse scholar E.O.G.
Turville-Petre’s apt summary:
While he was living with Ragnhild, Hadding had another mysterious
experience. A woman appeared bearing some herbs. Wishing to know where
such herbs grew in winter, Hadding went with this woman under the earth.
They passed through mists, and then through sunny, fertile regions, where
the herbs had grown. Then they came to a raging torrent, flowing with
weapons. Crossing by a bridge, they came upon armies of fallen warriors,
locked in eternal battle. As they pressed forward, a wall stood in their way;
they could go no further, but the woman tore off the head of a cock, which
she happened to have with her, and flung it over the wall. Immediately the
cock came to life and crowed.[12]
The chicken being thrown over the wall of the underworld (variously called Helgrindr, “The
Fence of Hel,” Nágrindr, “Corpse-Fence,” or Valgrindr, “The Fence of the Fallen”[13]) is
especially intriguing. I have yet to see a convincing explanation as to its meaning, but it
seems to correspond to a Norse funeral custom. The Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan recorded a
scene he witnessed where a Norse chief had died and a woman was about to be killed to
accompany him, and she cut off a hen’s head and threw it into the ship where her dead body
would soon follow.[14]
Another typical account is the journey of Hermod to Hel to attempt to retrieve Baldur, who
had been killed by Loki. While the account comes exclusively from Snorri, it matches the
other pieces of this genre of underworld-journey narratives closely enough, both in its overall
form and in small details, that we can be sure that Snorri relied on an older source or sources
now lost to us. The relevant part of the story goes like this:
The god Hermod departed from Asgard, the celestial stronghold of the gods, on Sleipnir, the
horse of Odin. He descended down the trunk of Yggdrasil, the great tree that forms the
central axis of the cosmos. For nine nights, he rode through deep valleys, so pitch-black he
could not see the way. Finally, he came to a river, Gjöll (“Loud Noise”[15]), which was
spanned by a bridge named Gjallarbrú (“Bridge over Gjöll”[16]). On the bridge stood a
giantess, Móðguðr (“Furious Battle”[17]). The guardian of the bridge wanted to know why
Hermod wanted to cross, since she could tell from his appearance that he was not yet dead.
His answer, that he was going to look after Baldur, was evidently satisfactory to the giantess,
who let him cross, telling him that Hel lay downwards and northwards (niðr ok norðr) from
the bridge. When Hermod arrived at the fence around Hel, he jumped over it rather than
going through the gate. He then made his way toward the hall of Hel (the goddess), where he
found Baldur sitting in the seat of honor.[18]
The common elements in Snorri’s and Saxo’s accounts seem to be the following: Hel was
located underground – down and to the north, the realm of cold and general lifelessness. It
was reached by descending from a higher point with the help of a guide – an unnamed (dead)
woman in Hadding’s case, and Sleipnir in the Prose Edda and the poem Baldrs
Draumar (Baldur’s Dreams) in the Poetic Edda. After traveling through darkness and mist,
the traveler would come to a river, perhaps a torrential river of water, but more commonly a
river of clanging weapons.[19] There was a bridge over the river that one had to cross. After a
time, one would finally arrive at the wall surrounding Hel. The dead presumably entered
through the main gate, but those living beings who, for whatever reasons, undertook the
journey to Hel seem to have thought it either impossible or unwise to enter through the gate.
So they either found sneakier ways to cross into Hel or turned back.

VALHALLA
 “Walhall” by Emil Doepler (c. 1905)
Valhalla (pronounced “val-HALL-uh”; Old Norse Valhöll, “the hall of the fallen”[1]) is the
hall where the god Odin houses the dead whom he deems worthy of dwelling with him.
According to the Old Norse poem Grímnismál (“The Song of the Hooded One”), the roof of
the “gold-bright” Valhalla is made of shields, and has spears for its rafters. Seats made of
breastplates surround the many feasting tables of the vast hall. Its gates are guarded by
wolves, and eagles fly above it.[2]
The dead who reside in Valhalla, the einherjar, live a life that would have been the envy of
any Viking warrior. All day long, they fight one another, doing countless valorous deeds
along the way. But every evening, all their wounds are healed, and they are restored to full
health.[3] They surely work up quite an appetite from all those battles, and their dinners don’t
disappoint. Their meat comes from the boar Saehrimnir (Old Norse Sæhrímnir, whose
meaning is unknown[4]), who comes back to life every time he is slaughtered and butchered.
For their drink they have mead that comes from the udder of the goat Heidrun (Old
Norse Heiðrun, whose meaning is unknown[5]). They thereby enjoy an endless supply of their
exceptionally fine food and drink.[6] They are waited on by the beautiful Valkyries.
But the einherjar won’t live this charmed life forever. Valhalla’s battle-honed residents are
there by the will of Odin, who collects them for the perfectly selfish purpose of having them
come to his aid in his fated struggle against the wolf Fenrir during Ragnarok – a battle in
which Odin and the einherjar are doomed to die.
How Did One Gain Entrance to Valhalla?
The only Old Norse source that provides a direct statement about how people gained entrance
to Valhalla is the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, a thirteenth-century Icelandic scholar.
Snorri wrote many generations after Norse paganism had given way to Christianity and
ceased to be a living tradition, and he often went out of his way to artificially systematize the
disparate material in his sources (many of which we, too, possess). According to Snorri, those
who die in battle are taken to Valhalla, while those who die of sickness or old age find
themselves in Hel, the underworld, after their departure from the land of the living.
Yet Snorri blatantly contradicts this statement in his account of the tale of the death of
Baldur, who was killed violently and was nevertheless borne to Hel. No other source makes
this distinction – and several offer further examples to the contrary, some of which we’ll
explore below. This neat, tidy distinction between Hel and Valhalla is certainly an invention
of Snorri’s – a product of his tendency to attempt to systematize Norse paganism, which was
never a neat, tidy system while it was still in practice.[7]
Nevertheless, Snorri probably wasn’t entirely off-base. While entrance to Valhalla seems to
have ultimately been a matter of who Odin and his Valkyries chose to live there rather than
any particular impersonal standard, it seems reasonable to surmise that Odin would select
those who would serve him best in his final battle. The ranks of Valhalla would therefore
predominantly be filled with elite warriors, especially heroes and rulers. And, indeed, when
Old Norse sources mention particular people residing in Valhalla, they almost invariably fit
that description – along with elite practitioners of other roles that the hall of a Viking
Age chieftain would have contained, such as the poet Bragi.
Where Was Valhalla Located?
The most famous description of Valhalla in Old Norse literature, that of Grímnismál, portrays
it as being located in Asgard, the gods’ celestial fortress.
However, other lines of evidence suggest that it was at least sometimes seen as being located
underground, like the more general underworld.

As we’ve noted above, the continual battle that takes place in Valhalla is one of the place’s
defining features. The medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus describes the hero
Hadding discovering just such a place in the underworld.[8] Furthermore, the very
name Valhöll, “the hall of the fallen,” clearly seems related to the name Valhallr, “the rock of
the fallen,” a title given to certain rocks and hills where the dead were thought to dwell in
southern Sweden, one of the greatest historical centers of the worship of Odin.[9][10]
So, then, where was Valhalla located? It depends on which source you consult.

Evidently, the Vikings perceived no absolutely firm difference between Valhalla and the
other halls of the dead. For more on this point, and for a discussion of Norse beliefs about the
afterlife more generally, see Death and the Afterlife.

BIFROST
 The Rainbow Bridge in Richard Wagner’s Das
Rheingold, directed by Otto Schenk (1990)
Bifrost (pronounced roughly “BIF-roast;” Old Norse Bifröst) is the rainbow bridge that
connects Asgard, the world of the Aesir tribe of gods, with Midgard, the world of humanity.
Bifrost is guarded by the ever-vigilant god Heimdall. During Ragnarok, the giants will breach
Heimdall’s defenses and cross the bridge to storm Asgard and slay the gods.
The etymology of the word is uncertain. The original form of the name seems to be Bilröst,[1]
[2]
 which suggests a meaning along the lines of “the fleetingly glimpsed
rainbow.”[3] If Bifröst is correct, however, the meaning would be something akin to “the
shaking or trembling rainbow.” In either case, the word points to the ephemeral and fragile
nature of the bridge – just like the nature of a physical rainbow.

GINNUNGAGAP
 Ginnungagap
Ginnungagap is the bottomless abyss that was all there was prior to the creation of the
cosmos, and into which the cosmos will collapse once again during Ragnarok, the “Twilight
of the Gods.” As the Eddic poem Völuspá, “The Insight of the Seeress,” describes the time
before the cosmos existed:
That was the age when nothing was;
There was no sand, nor sea, nor cool waves,
No earth nor sky nor grass there,
Only Ginnungagap.[1]
The Old Norse word gap means the same thing as it does in modern English: a void, an
empty space. The meaning of the ginnung element, however, is far less certain. The best
guess anyone has come up with so far is Jan de Vries’s suggestion of “magically-charged,”[2] a
theory that has gained widespread acceptance.[3] This surely refers to the capacity for
something that can serve as the basis for creation to come out of its nothingness.
Chaos and Cosmos
This perfect, uninterrupted silence and darkness has close counterparts in other mythologies
from around the world. To cite but one example, most of my readers will no doubt be familiar
with the famous words of the first chapter of Genesis, which describe the state of the universe
prior to the intervention of Elohim in Judeo-Christian mythology: “And the earth was without
form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The opposition between the
well-ordered, just, and beneficent cosmos on the one hand and the lawless chaos that
surrounds it is perhaps one of the most common themes in religion and in human
consciousness more generally.[4]
In the pre-Christian religion of the Norse and other Germanic peoples, this chaos-cosmos
split is expressed as an opposition between the innangard, that which is orderly, civilized, and
law-abiding, and the utangard, that which is wild and anarchic. Plowed fields are innangard,
but beyond the fences that surround them and mark them off reigns the wilderness, the
utangard home of the giants. These anti-cosmic forces are constantly trying to drag
the Aesir gods, their work, and their ideals back to chaos (and at Ragnarok they will
succeed). While the wilderness is utangard enough, the “capital” of chaos, as it were, is
Ginnungagap; the abyss is the ultimate destination to which the giants want to bring the
world.
Nothingness in Existential Philosophy
Several modern philosophers associated with existentialism, a movement that takes our
experience of existence as the starting point of its philosophizing, have spoken of a similar
schema using the more prosaic and impersonal language of philosophy and psychology.
While the writings of luminaries such as Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-
Paul Sartre differ considerably on these points, a fascination with negation and anxiety is a
central focus of their work. In existentialist parlance, “nothingness” is that which negates
oneself, one’s values, and/or one’s worldview – one’s “personal cosmos.”

The ultimate nothingness is death, because it negates one absolutely (at least in the modern
worldview – see Death and the Afterlife for Norse perspective on death), but any condition
over which one cannot triumph is a hostile absence into which one’s yearnings, strivings, and
beliefs vanish. This negation is the root of anxiety (or “angst” or “Being-toward-death”), the
fear of what we might not be able to overcome, that which stands every chance of “getting
us” in the end. This is one of the fundamental facts of life with which everyone who strives to
live deliberately and authentically must grapple. In Heidegger’s words, “To be a particular
being means to be immersed in nothingness.”[5] While these philosophers don’t necessarily
identify nothingness with a physical void as the Norse did, the principle remains the same.
This primordial, annihilating chaos is ever-present; wherever there is darkness, wherever
there is silence, wherever any wish or belief is negated, there is Ginnungagap.

FOLKVANG
Folkvang (Old Norse Fólkvangr, “Field of the People” or “Field of Armies”[1]) is the abode of
the goddess Freya.
Folkvang is mentioned only twice in all of Old Norse literature: once in the
poem Grímnismál (“The Song of the Hooded One”), and once in the Prose Edda. The
relevant passage in the Prose Edda quotes the relevant stanza from Grímnismál, so we can
assume that the Prose Edda used Grímnismál as its source.
According to Grímnismál, Freya takes half of the “weapon-dead” into Folkvang after they
die. The other half are said to go to Valhalla, the more famous hall of the god Odin.[2] The
poem says nothing about what criteria are used to determine who goes to Folkvang and who
goes to Valhalla. In any case, there are a number of other pieces of Old Norse literature that
have contradictory things to say about who gets into Valhalla and on what basis. It seems
likely that this stanza in Grímnismál is the work of a late effort at systematization rather than
something the Vikings themselves would have necessarily believed.
The Old Norse sources say nothing about what Folkvang was like, or what the dead did while
they were there. The Prose Edda mentions that Freya’s hall within Folkvang was called
Sessrumnir (Old Norse Sessrúmnir, “Hall with Roomy Seats” or “Hall with Many Seats”[3]).
That’s a rather generic name for a hall, and the passage in question says nothing about it
except that it’s “great and fair”[4] – also a pretty generic description for a hall.
However, the idea that some of the dead go to Freya seems to have been reasonably well-
established, although different sources indicate different conceptions of who went there upon
death, and under what circumstances this occurred. Egil’s Saga, for example, has a world-
weary female character declare that she’ll never taste food again until she dines with Freya.
[5]
 Suicide by starvation is obviously a very different kind of death than one that occurs in
battle, so it’s impossible, at face value, to square this passage with what Grímnismál reports.
All we can say with confidence is that Freya was indeed thought to sometimes take in some
of the dead.

HLIÐSKJÁLF
Hliðskjálf (pronounced roughly “HLITH-skyahlf,” with the “y” being a slide vowel like the
“y” sound in “few”) is a high vantage point from which the god Odin (or, on occasion,
someone else) can see everything that happens in the cosmos.
There’s some confusion in the primary sources as to whether the name “Hliðskjálf” refers to
a general location or to a particular seat or throne in that location. This ambiguity is reflected
in the name itself. The second element, skjálf, is an obscure Old Norse word that seems to
mean “steep slope,” “crag,” “turret,” or “pinnacle.” The first element, hlið, means “opening”
or “gap.”[1] Despite this ambiguity, the characteristics of height and openness are clearly
emphasized. Thus, the compound word Hliðskjálf would mean a high place with an
expansive view, even if the precise nature of the place is difficult to determine.
Odin is one of the two great masters of the magical art of seidr among the Norse deities (the
other being the goddess Freya). Seidr is largely concerned with obtaining enhanced,
divinatory perception, a state which Odin achieves while on or at Hliðskjálf. Intriguingly,
seidr is often performed from the top of a high, raised platform called a seiðhjallr,[2] which
creates the distinct impression that Hliðskjálf is the paradigmatic seiðhjallr, the divine model
upon which all such platforms constructed for human use are based.[3]
In any case, Hliðskjálf is part of the rich symbolism through which the ancient Norse
depicted their view of Odin’s incredible insight, knowledge, and wisdom.