Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/401

 But because the dead who were slain by arms were thought to be called to Valhal, to unite themselves with the hosts of the einherjes, it was not supposed that Hel did not get her share in their being; nor was it supposed, on the other hand, that the soul of every one who died a natural death was shut out from heaven and forced to follow the body down into the abodes of Hel. That it was virtue, on the whole, and not bravery alone, which was to be rewarded in another life, and that it was wickedness and vice that were to be punished, is distinctly shown in the first poem of the Elder Edda, where it says of Gimle:

The virtuous there Shall always dwell, And evermore Delights enjoy;

while perjurers, murderers and adulterers shall wade through thick venom-streams in Naastrand. But it must be remembered that Gimle and Naastrand had reference to the state of things after Ragnarok, the Twilight of the gods; while Valhal and Hel have reference to the state of things between death and Ragnarok,—a time of existence corresponding somewhat to what is called purgatory by the Catholic church. It may however be fairly assumed that the ideas which our ancestors had of reward and punishment concerning the preceding middle state (purgatory) of the dead, were similar to those which they had concerning the state after Ragnarok.

It was certainly believed that the soul of the virtuous, even though death by arms had not released it from the body and raised it up to the rank of the real einherjes, still found an abode in heaven, either in Valhal or in Vingolf or in Folkvang. The skald, Thjodolf of Hvin, makes King Vanlande go to Odin, although Hel tortured him;