t Hell is a
particular part of the universe, filled with flames and melted
brimstone, into which actual devils, with horns, hoofs, and tails, dip,
or are to dip, wicked people, whom, for greater convenience, they have
previously perforated with three-tined pitchforks,--such a man will be
puzzled by the story, "Why the Sea is Salt," and horrified with this
comment in Mr. Dasent's Essay:--

"The North had its own notion on this point. Its mythology
was not without its own dark powers; but though they, too,
were ejected and dispossessed, they, according to that
mythology, had rights of their own. To them belonged all the
universe that had not been seized and reclaimed by the
younger race of Odin and AEsir; and though this upstart
dynasty, as the Frost-Giants in AEschylean phrase would have
called it, well knew that Hel, one of this giant progeny, was
fated to do them all mischief, and to outlive them, they took
her and made her queen of Niflheim, and mistress over nine
worlds. There, in a bitterly cold place, she received the
souls of all who died of sickness or old age; care was her
bed, hunger her dish, starvation her knife. Her walls were
high and strong, and her bolts and bars huge. 'Half blue was
her skin, and half the color of human flesh. A goddess easy
to know, and in all things very stern and grim.' But though
severe, she was not an evil spirit. She only received those
who died as no Norseman wished to die. For those who fell on
the gory battle-field, or sank beneath the waves, Valhalla
was prepared, and endless mirth and bliss with Odin. Those
went to Hel who were rather unfortunate than wicked, who died
before they could be killed. But when Christianity came in
and ejected Odin and his crew of false divinities, declaring
them to be lying gods and demons, then Hel fell with the
rest,--but, fulfilling her fate, outlived them. From a person
she became a place; and all the Northern nations, from the
Goth to the Norseman, agreed in believing Hell to be the
abode of the Devil and his wicked spirits, the place prepared
from the beginning for the everlasting torments of the
damned. One curious fact connected with this explanation of
Hell's origin will not escape the reader's attention. The
Christian notion of Hell is that of a place of heat; for in
the East, whence Christianity came, hea