Náströnd
"Corpse-strand." A sunless place in Hel where a great hall stands, the abode of perjurers and murderers and workers of ill with the wives of men. The hall has north-facing doors, with venom dripping from the smoke hole, and the walls are woven with snakes. The dragon-like Níðhöggr sucks the blood from corpses, and the wolf tears men, according to Völuspá:
- 42. She saw a hall standing,
- far from the sun,
- in Náströnd;
- its doors are northward turned,
- venom-drops fall
- in through its apertures:
- entwined is that hall
- with serpent's backs.
- 43. She there saw wading
- the sluggish streams
- bloodthirsty men
- and perjurers,
- and him who the ear beguiles
- of another's wife.
- There Nidhögg sucks
- the corpses of the dead;
- the wolf tears men.
Snorri Sturluson adds that the venom of snakes form rivers which run along the hall and that perjurers and murderers are doomed to wade these streams.
❧
The two worst classes of criminals known to Old Norse morality were oath-breakers and murderers.
References
Sources
- Gunnars slagr, 20.
- Gylfaginning, 52.
- Völuspá, 42-43.