In
Norse mythologyNorse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
,
Náströnd (Corpse Shore) is a place in
HelIn Norse mythology, Hel, the location, shares a name with Hel, a female figure associated with the location. In late Icelandic sources, varying descriptions of Hel are given and various figures are described as being buried with items that will facilitate their journey to Hel after their death...
where
NíðhöggrIn Norse mythology, Níðhöggr is a dragon who gnaws at a root of the World Tree, Yggdrasill.-Prose Edda:...
lives and sucks corpses.
Poetic Edda
The
VöluspáVöluspá is the first and best known poem of the Poetic Edda. It tells the story of the creation of the world and its coming end related by a völva addressing Odin...
says:
- Sal sá hón standa
- sólo fiarri,
- á,
- norðr horfa dyrr.
- Fello eitrdropar
- inn um lióra.
- Sá er undinn salr
- orma hryggiom.
- Sá hón þar vaða
- þunga strauma
- menn meinsvara
- ok morðvarga
- ok þannz annars glepr
- eyrarúno.
- Þar saug
- nái framgengna,
- sleit vargr vera.
- Vitoð ér enn, eða hvat?
- Völuspá 38-39, Dronke
Ursula Dronke is a medievalist and former Reader in Old Norse at the University of Oxford. She is the Emeritus Vigfússon Reader in Ancient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities and an Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College. She also formerly taught in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at...
's edition |
A hall she saw standing
remote from the sun
on Dead Body Shore.
Its door looks north.
There fell drops of venom
in through the roof vent.
That hall is woven
of serpents’ spines.
- She saw there wading
- onerous streams
- men perjured
- and wolfish murderers
- and the one who seduces
- another’s close-trusted wife.
- There Malice Striker sucked
- corpses of the dead,
- the wolf tore men.
- Do you still seek to know? And what?
- Völuspá 38-39, Dronke's translation
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Prose Edda
Snorri SturlusonSnorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...
quotes this part of Völuspá in the
GylfaginningGylfaginning, or the Tricking of Gylfi , is the first part of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda after Prologue. The Gylfaginning deals with the creation and destruction of the world of the Norse gods, and many other aspects of Norse mythology...
section of his
Prose EddaThe Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Nordic mythology...
. He uses the plural of the word:
Nástrandir (Corpse Shores).
- Á Náströndum er mikill salr ok illr, ok horfa í norðr dyrr, hann er ok ofinn allr ormahryggjum sem vandahús, en ormahöfuð öll vitu inn í húsit ok blása eitri, svá at eptir salnum renna eitrár, ok vaða þær ár eiðrofar ok morðvargar, svá sem hér segir:
-
- Sal veit ek standa
- sólu fjarri
- Náströndu á,
- norðr horfa dyrr.
- Falla eitrdropar
- inn of ljóra.
- Sá er undinn salr
- orma hryggjum.
- Skulu þar vaða
- þunga strauma
- menn meinsvara
- ok morðvargar.
- En í Hvergelmi er verst:
-
- Þar kvelr Níðhöggr
- nái framgengna. Gylfaginning 52, EB's edition
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On Nástrand [Strand of the Dead] is a great hall and evil, and its doors face to the north: it is all woven of serpent-backs like a wattle-house; and all the snake-heads turn into the house and blow venom, so that along the hall run rivers of venom; and they who have broken oaths, and murderers, wade those rivers, even as it says here:
-
- I know a hall standing
- far from the sun,
- In Nástrand:
- the doors to northward are turned;
- Venom-drops falls
- down from the roof-holes;
- That hall is bordered
- with backs of serpents.
- There are doomed to wade
- the weltering streams
- Men that are mansworn,
- and they that murderers are.
- But it is worst in Hvergelmir
Hvergelmir is the wellspring of cold in Niflheim in Norse mythology. All cold rivers are said to come from here, and it was said to be the source of the eleven rivers, Élivágar. Above the spring, the serpent Níðhöggr gnaws on one of the roots of the world tree, Yggdrasil.-References:* Orchard,...
:
-
- There the cursed snake tears
- dead men's corpses. Gylfaginning 52, Brodeur's translation
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