sworn, and the Slid,
in whose turbid waters naked swords continually rolled.

Further on in this gruesome place was Elvidner (misery), the hall of
the goddess Hel, whose dish was Hunger. Her knife was Greed. "Idleness
was the name of her man, Sloth of her maid, Ruin of her threshold,
Sorrow of her bed, and Conflagration of her curtains."

"Elvidner was Hela's hall.
Iron-barred, with massive wall;
Horrible that palace tall!
Hunger was her table bare;
Waste, her knife; her bed, sharp Care;
Burning Anguish spread her feast;
Bleached bones arrayed each guest;
Plague and Famine sang their runes,
Mingled with Despair's harsh tunes.
Misery and Agony
E'er in Hel's abode shall be!"

Valhalla (J. C. Jones).

This goddess had many different abodes for the guests who daily came to
her, for she received not only perjurers and criminals of all kinds,
but also those who were unfortunate enough to die without shedding
blood. To her realm also were consigned those who died of old age
or disease--a mode of decease which was contemptuously called "straw
death," as the beds of the people were generally of that material.

"Temper'd hard by frost,
Tempest and toil their nerves, the sons of those
Whose only terror was a bloodless death."

Thomson.

Ideas of the Future Life

Although the innocent were treated kindly by Hel, and enjoyed a state
of negative bliss, it is no wonder that the inhabitants of the North
shrank from the thought of visiting her cheerless abode. And while
the men preferred to mark themselves with the spear point, to hurl
themselves down from a precipice, or to be burned ere life was quite
extinct, the women did not shrink from equally heroic measures. In the
extremity of their sorrow, they did not hesitate to fling themselves
down a mountain side, or fall upon the swords which were given them
at their marriage, so that their bodies might be burned with those
whom they loved, and their spirits released to join them in the bright
home of the gods.

Further horrors, however, awaited those whose lives had been criminal
or impure, these spirits being banished to Nastrond, the strand of
corpses, where they waded in ice-cold streams of venom, through a cave
made of wattled serpents, whose poisonous fangs were turned towards
them. After suffering untold agonies there, they were washed down
into the cauldron Hver