And the Germanic Scandinavian mythology, the underworld, the kingdom of the dead, the domain of Hel. (Source: “Dictionary of spirits and gods of Germanic Scandinavian, Egyptian, Greek, Irish, Japanese mythology, mythologies of the Mayans and Aztecs.”) ... Encyclopedia of Mythology

- (“sliding” or “live, agile, nimble”) in German Scandinavian mythology, the eight-legged horse of Odin, the offspring of Loki ... Wikipedia

One goes to Helheim (1908 illustration) By W. G. Collingwood. Helheim (literally the Domain of Hel) in German Scandinavian mythology is one of the nine worlds, the world of the dead, in which Hel rules. It's cold, dark and foggy... Wikipedia

One goes to Helheim (1908 illustration) By W. G. Collingwood. Helheim (literally the Domain of Hel) in German Scandinavian mythology is one of the nine worlds, the world of the dead, in which Hel rules. It's cold, dark and foggy... Wikipedia

The article is part of a series about Northern Paganism... Wikipedia

Contents 1 Tomb Raider 1 and Tomb Raider: Anniversary 2 Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation 3 Tomb Raider: Chronicles 4 Tomb Raider: Legend ... Wikipedia

Secret of the Runes ... Wikipedia

Hell (miniature of the Magnificent Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry) Hell is a posthumous state of soul, subsequently a place for the punishment of sinners (tradition of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam). Contrasted with heaven. The word "Hell" comes from the Greek. Ἅδης ... ... Wikipedia

Niflheim (sometimes: “Niflheim”, that is, the misty land) in German Scandinavian mythology, one of the nine worlds, the land of ice and fog, the habitat of ice (frost) giants, existed before all living things. Legends say that... Wikipedia

Books

• Norse Myths for Children, Alex Freight, Louis Stowell. Scandinavian myths have become firmly entrenched in modern culture. J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote the history of Middle-earth, drew inspiration from their plots; Richard Wagner composed a cycle of operas based on them, “The Ring...
• Scandinavian myths for children, Frith A., Stowell L. Scandinavian myths are firmly rooted in modern culture. J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote the history of Middle-earth, drew inspiration from their plots; Richard Wagner composed a cycle of operas based on them, “The Ring...

What is the name of hell in Norse mythology? and got the best answer

Answer from Chakan The Forever Man[guru]
Helheim or something...
Source:

Answer from 2 answers[guru]

Hello! Here is a selection of topics with similar questions and answers to your question: What is the name of hell in Scandinavian mythology?

Answer from Ua[guru]
In Celtic and Scandinavian mythology there is no hell as such. The Celts don’t have it at all, the Scandinavians exclusively have a place where those who die from old age and disease will end up.
Scandinavia was settled as a result of the migration of peoples. with them they brought some basic understanding of the world and common symbols: a tree, a general idea of ​​the creation of the world (the first man, the murder of him, and the creation of the world on his bones), a general division into the afterlife (conditional heaven and conditional hell). The equivalent of heaven is Gimla. Valhalla is the army of the High One, and not paradise at all - in fact, real service there is just beginning... but Hel, Helheim, is a strange place. it doesn’t seem like hell, but it seems like it... Hel (Helheim) and Niflheim are two different places. Hel is most likely a kind of Scandinavian purgatory...
A person can still be reborn from Hel, but from Niflheim - no, his soul forever wanders among the mists. Not everyone who died during the battle goes to Valhalla, only those who were taken by the Valkyries.
It is not for nothing that those who were unlucky enough to fall in battle and live to old age threw themselves on the sword in order to get into more favorable “sections”. For such people it is no longer Hel, but Valhalla.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a project from the Ninja Theory studio, which is an action-adventure game inspired by Scandinavian mythology. In the game, we, the players, have to walk, no less, through hell.
My name is Ilya, I want to go a little deeper before passing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice into the mythology that Ninja Theory was inspired by. And here is a view of the Sandinavian hell - Helheim:

Impressive, though.

One of the nine worlds, the world of the dead, God Odin overthrew the giantess Hel into Helheim, where she now rules.
It is a cold, dark and foggy place where all the dead end up. Helheim is located in Niflheim, at the very bottom of the universe. It is surrounded by the impassable Gjoll River. Not a single creature, not even the gods, can return from Helheim (Well, it’s true that there was one ambassador there, but he flew through connections). The entrance to Helheim is guarded by Garm, a monstrous dog, and the giantess Modgud, whom you can see in the picture below. In front of the gates to Helm there is an iron forest - Yarnvind. If a person never helped those in need, then the dog would certainly devour them. He is a kind of cruel justice, punishing scoundrels with non-existence.

It looks like not the entrance to hell, but to a parking lot. Well, these are complaints against the artist, it doesn’t matter.

No mortal comes out from there. There is not so much physical suffering in Helm as there is psychological suffering. Among the physical ones, only constant cold and hunger can be distinguished. It’s a disgusting place and you’ll only get there if you didn’t fight with honor and courage, kids! Only a brave warrior will get to Valhalla. He will fight during the day, feast in the evening and at night women will please him. So much for you, honest workers!
You can only get there through the thin golden bridge of Gjallarbr. If a dead person moves across the bridge, he does not make any sounds. But if a living person walks across it, it will ring madly. There was even a tradition of putting good shoes on for the dead, because the road to hell is long, and you could even leave your feet bleeding.
And during the Ragnarok apocalypse, Helm, along with the rest of the worlds, will fall, and the souls from there will fly into oblivion.

Helhelm in the games

There are two appearances of this disgusting place in video games. It's in World of Warcraft. Screenshot of the location below:

Helheim's second appearance in games is Tomb Rider: Underworld.

Authentic.

In the game, Lara Croft enters the kingdom of the dead through the Arctic Ocean, oddly enough, but okay, I accepted it.

That's all of the big appearances, but don't forget about God Of War, which, however, hasn't been released yet, but we can say with confidence that the kingdom of the dead will be there.

Let's summarize the above.

What kind of hell do you personally plan to go to after death?

The number of religions cannot be counted, and each has its own concept. In some, after death, sinners are roasted at the stake and impaled on stakes; in others, approximately the same thing happens to the righteous. It gets to the point where hell sometimes looks more attractive than heaven.

There must be everything in heaven: and hell too!
Stanislav Jerzy Lec

Gehenna fiery

Hell as such does not exist in all world religions. There is a certain concept about the afterlife, where some are a little worse off, others a little better, and to each according to his deeds. The underworld as a place of punishment for sinners became a popular topic due to the spread of Christianity. Of course, hell exists in Buddhism (Naraka), Mayan beliefs (Xibalba), and the Scandinavians (Helheim), but nowhere, besides Christianity, was it given such importance, nowhere was it depicted so brightly, colorfully, effectively. However, Christianity is always better than other religions at showing a beautiful picture - for the purpose of attracting or intimidating.

Satan sitting on the throne of hell is nothing more than an advertisement for the church as an institution of salvation. There is not a word about such a thing in the Bible.

There is another side to this coin. The fact is that the Bible is generally silent about the afterlife. The kingdom of heaven and hell are mentioned several times in passing as places where the righteous rejoice and sinners suffer, but that’s all. All modern concepts of the Christian underworld appeared in the Middle Ages thanks to zealous preachers and the wild imagination of illustrators. Moreover, the theory of hell and heaven propagated by the modern church is contrary to the Bible. According to the Bible, Satan cannot rule hell, since God tells him: “...and I will bring fire out of your midst, which will consume you; and I will turn you into ashes on the earth in the sight of all who see you; all who knew you among the nations will be amazed at you; you will become a horror; and you will never be” (Ezek. 28:18, 19). We also must not forget that God gave his own son to atone for human sins - was it really in vain?.. So hell is more a product of the church as an institution than of religion itself.

Hieronymus van Aken Bosch had a unique view of the underworld. The right wing of his famous triptych “The Garden of Earthly Delights” depicts hell, but what kind of hell! Musical hell, where martyrs are crucified on strings and fretboards...

Catholics and Orthodox Christians place very strict demands on believers. To get to heaven, it is not enough to believe and be righteous. You need to be baptized, take communion regularly, do many good deeds and constantly pray for your own salvation. In general, it turns out that almost all people, even law-abiding and good ones, are assigned the rank of hell if they do not attend church daily and do not spend several hours a day in prayer. Protestantism in this regard is much more logical and simpler: it is enough to believe in God and be righteous. Protestants do not recognize rituals and idols.

"Dante and Virgil in Hell." Painting by Adolphe-William Bouguereau (1850).

But let's return, in fact, to hell. Today, the most common picture of Christian hell can be considered the one depicted by the great Dante in The Divine Comedy. Why? Because Dante systematized what before him was a mishmash of non-canonical Gospels, sermons, lectures, and popular beliefs. Of course, Dante strictly follows Aristotle, who classified sinners long before the advent of Christianity, but in this case it seems completely appropriate.

According to Dante, in the first circle of hell (Limbe) the souls of virtuous non-Christians and unbaptized infants languish. That is, those who were close to accepting Christ, but, unfortunately, knew nothing about him. To some extent, this is an evil parody, but it is definitely more fair than the statement that all pagans without exception are doomed to hellish torment. Souls in Limbo are not in pain - they are just sad and very bored. Although the presence of Aristotle, Socrates and Ptolemy there can relieve the boredom of any random guest.

The remaining circles are more or less evenly distributed among sinners of various kinds. Libertines are torn apart and twisted by a hurricane, gluttons rot in the rain, misers are dragged from place to place by weights, heretics lie in hot graves (almost, frying pans have already appeared). More severe torments are rightly reserved for rapists and bandits who boil in hot blood, as well as blasphemers who languish with thirst in the hot desert (and fire rains from the sky). Others are gutted, bathed in fetid feces, scourged, and boiled in tar. In the last, ninth circle, traitors who are frozen in the eternal ice of Lake Cocytus are tormented. Lucifer, the angel of hell, also lives there.

In 1439, at the Council of Florence, the Catholic Church officially made a deal with God and accepted the dogma of purgatory - probably not without the influence of Dante, who had long since died by then. People didn’t want to go straight to hell for eternal torment without the possibility of redemption. The tale of purgatory originated among the people (even in Old Testament times), Pope Gregory I at the end of the 6th century recognized the justice of the innovation, Thomas Aquinas and Dante systematized it, and the church met the people halfway and gave them a chance for salvation. Purgatory became the intermediate territory between hell and heaven. Ambiguous sinners (for example, righteous but unbaptized) were not immediately sent to eternal torment, but first ended up in purgatory, where they atone for their sins through prayer for some time. The prayers of living people for him also help the sinner. At the Council of Trent in 1562, the doctrine of purgatory was officially confirmed. Typically, harsh Orthodoxy rejects this teaching: once a sinner, that means he goes to hell, no leniency. Protestantism also rejects it, but there are still much more lenient requirements for a candidate for the inhabitants of heaven.

It’s worth adding a few words about the Christian paradise, where souls go either directly or after purgatory. Christians, oddly enough, do not have an exact concept of heaven. Most often, a certain light, heavenly cloudy substance is imagined, from which the blessed can contemplate the eternal radiance of God, drinking nectar and eating ambrosia. This picture comes from Judaism, where the righteous in paradise eternally contemplate the supreme deity (though they do not need to eat or drink). There are fears that for many inhabitants of our planet such a paradise may seem worse than hell. Boring, boring, gentlemen.

However, we are well familiar with the principles and postulates of Christian hell. There is no point in dwelling on them in detail. Let's go to another hell. For example, in Scandinavian.

Brief classification of the underworld

• Type 1. A series of circles (or separate hells) with various tortures and sufferings for sinners of varying severity: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Chinese beliefs, Zoroastrianism, Aztec mythology.
• Type 2. Common underworld for all: ancient Greek and Scandinavian mythology.
• Type 3. Absolute emptiness: ancient Egyptian mythology.

Hel vs Hades

The amazing similarities between the ancient Greek and ancient Scandinavian underworlds make it possible not only to combine them into one subsection, but also to talk about them as one underworld with some differences. In principle, many religions are subject to the phenomenon of syncretism - when the same legends find their place in the beliefs of different peoples. Let us clarify right away: in Scandinavian mythology (as in ancient Greek) there is neither hell nor heaven as such. Like most religions, there is some kind of afterlife, and that's it.

The Scandinavians believed that there were nine worlds in total, one of them, the middle one, was Midgard - our Earth. The dead are divided into two categories - heroes and everyone else. There are no other principles, no sinners and righteous people. We’ll talk about the heroes separately, but the rest have only one path: if you die, you’ll get a ticket to hell, Helheim. Helheim itself is only part of a larger world, Niflheim, one of the first worlds that gave rise to our native Midgard. Niflheim is cold and uncomfortable, eternal ice and fog reign there, and its most unpleasant part, Helheim itself, is headed by the goddess Hel, the daughter of the cunning Loki.

Helheim is unusually similar to the Greek Hades that is so familiar to us. Is it possible that in the latter the ruler is male. Analogies are not difficult to draw. You can cross to Hades on Charon's boat across the River Styx, and to Helheim - across the River Gyol. A bridge, however, was built across the latter, vigilantly guarded by the giantess Modgud and the four-eyed dog Garm. Guess what name Garm has in ancient Greek mythology. That's right, Cerberus.

The torment of the dead in Hades and Helheim is almost identical. Basically they consist of boredom and spiritual suffering. Particularly distinguished sinners receive specific punishments, sometimes even physical. One can recall Sisyphus, doomed day after day to do meaningless work, pushing a heavy stone to the top of a mountain, which breaks off every time a second before the end of the work. King Sipila Tantalus is doomed in Hades to eternal torment of hunger and thirst. He stands up to his neck in water under the spreading crowns of trees laden with fruits, but cannot take a sip, because the water leaves as soon as he bends down, and cannot take a bite from the fruit, because the branches rise when he reaches out to them. And a snake is assigned to the giant Titius, which devours his liver every day, which grows back overnight. In principle, these martyrs have more fun in Hades than others. At least they have something to do.

There are some differences in Helheim. Firstly, its inhabitants constantly suffer not only from boredom, but also from cold, hunger and disease. Secondly, no one can return from Helheim - neither man nor god. The only one who has been there and returned is Odin’s envoy Hermod, but that’s a different story. Let me remind you that they return from Hades regularly, and sometimes even go there of their own free will. The main thing is to have a couple of coins for Charon.

The main difference between the Scandinavian afterlife is the presence of Valhalla, a kind of paradise. Valhalla is a palace located in Asgard, the heavenly city. The equivalent of Asgard among the Greeks is Mount Olympus. A rather narrow stratum of the Scandinavian population ends up in Valhalla: warriors who distinguished themselves in battle and died honorably on the battlefield. Half of the heroes go to the god Odin, half go to another palace, Folkvang, owned by the goddess Freya. However, the existence of both groups of warriors is approximately the same. In the morning they put on armor and fight to the death all day. In the evening they come to life and dine on the meat of the boar of Sehrimnir, washed down with intoxicating honey. And then they are pleasured by women all night long. This is a real man's paradise: fight, eat, get drunk and have girls. However, for most men such a paradise is indeed closer than the angelic singing in Christian heaven.

In fact, in ancient Greek mythology there is also an analogue of paradise - Elysium (not to be confused with Olympus - the abode of the gods), the land of the blessed, strange overseas islands. There are no worries and sadness, there is sun, sea and water. But only the souls of outstanding heroes of antiquity and especially righteous people, whose lives are “approved” by the judges of the underworld of Hades, go there. Unlike Valhalla, Elysium has many “doubles” in other religions. The mythology of the ancient Celts and Britons (Avalon), the Chinese (Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou islands) and even the Japanese (Island of Eternal Youth) tells us about exactly the same paradise.

Aztec hell

Several hundred idol images of Mictlantecuhtli have survived to this day.

Among the Aztecs, class divisions even extended into the afterlife. The place of posthumous appointment was determined not so much by a person’s personal qualities as by his social position. Depending on who the deceased was during his lifetime - a priest or a simple farmer - his soul, subject to righteousness, went to one of three types of heaven. Ordinary people found themselves in the Tlalocan circle of paradise, as close as possible to earthly life, but an enlightened priest could have the honor of going to truly cosmic heights, to the ethereal country of Tlillan-Tlapallan or to the house of the Sun Tonatiuhican. Hell in the Aztec tradition was called Mictlan. He was led by the cruel and evil (like almost all other Aztec gods) god Mictlantecuhtli. Sinners, regardless of position, had to go through nine circles of hell in order to achieve enlightenment and be reborn. Among other things, it is worth adding that a certain river flows near Mictlan, guarded by a yellow dog. A familiar plot, isn't it?

Book of the Dead

Osiris, ruler of the kingdom of the dead, Duat. Sometimes he was depicted not with a human head, but with a bull’s head.

Egyptian mythology, unlike Scandinavian and ancient Greek, includes a description of paradise. But there is no hell as such in it. The god Osiris rules over the entire afterlife of the Duat, who was vilely killed by his brother Set and then resurrected by his son Horus. Osiris is no match for the rest of the rulers of the afterlife: he is quite kind and peaceful, and is considered the god of rebirth, not death. And power over the Duat passed to Osiris from Anubis, that is, some kind of change of government took place already in those days.

Egypt in those distant times was a truly legal state. The first thing the deceased did was not to go to the cauldrons of hell or heaven, but to a fair trial. Before reaching the court, the soul of the deceased had to undergo a number of tests, avoid many traps, and answer various questions to the guards. Having gone through all this, he appeared before a host of Egyptian gods led by Osiris. Next, the weight of the deceased’s heart and Truth (in the form of a figurine of the goddess Maat) was compared on special scales. If a person lived his life righteously, the heart and Truth weighed equally, and the deceased received the right to go to the fields of Ialu, that is, to heaven. An average sinner had the opportunity to justify himself before the divine court, but a serious violator of the highest laws could not get into heaven. Where did he end up? Nowhere. His soul was eaten by the monster Amat, a lion with a crocodile's head, and absolute emptiness ensued, which seemed to the Egyptians worse than any hell. By the way, Amat sometimes appeared in triple guise - a hippopotamus was added to the crocodile head.

Hell or Gehenna?

Tellingly, in the Bible there is a clear distinction between the concepts of “hell” (Sheol) and “gehenna”. Sheol is the general name for the afterlife, the coffin, the grave, where both sinners and righteous people remain after death. But Gehenna is exactly what we call hell today, that is, a certain area where sinful souls suffer in ice and fire. Initially, even the souls of the Old Testament righteous were in hell, but Jesus went down after them all the way to the last, lowest circle of hell, and took them with him to the Kingdom of Heaven. The word “Gehenna” comes from the real geographical name of the valley near Jerusalem, where the bodies of fallen animals and executed criminals were burned, and sacrifices were made to Molech.

Brass Buddha Music

But let's return to modern world religions. In particular, to Islam and Buddhism.

Islam is much more gentle towards Muslims than Christianity is towards Christians. At least for Muslims there is only one sin that will not be forgiven by Allah - polytheism (shirk). For non-Muslims, of course, there is no salvation: everyone will go to hell like darlings.

Judgment Day in Islam is only the first step on the path to heaven. After Allah weighs a person’s sins and allows him to continue on his path, the believer must pass over the abysses of hell along a bridge as thin as a knife blade. A person who leads a sinful life will certainly slip and fall, but a righteous person will reach heaven. The hell of Islam (Jahannam) itself is almost no different from the Christian one. Sinners will be given boiling water to drink, dressed in clothes made of flame, and generally roasted in fire in all sorts of ways. Moreover, unlike the Bible, the Koran talks about the torment of sinners quite clearly and in detail.

In hot bunks, sinners are boiled in cauldrons, just like in Christian hell.

Buddhism has its own “hellish” characteristics. In particular, there is not one hell in Buddhism, but sixteen - eight hot and eight cold. Moreover, sometimes additional and opportunistic hells appear out of necessity. And all of them, unlike analogues in other religions, are only temporary refuges for sinful souls.

Depending on the degree of earthly sins, the deceased ends up in a predetermined hell. For example, in the hot Sanghata-naraka, hell is crushing. Here sinners are ground into bloody crumbs by shifting rocks. Or in the cold Mahapadma-naraka, where it is so cold that the body and internal organs become numb and crack. Or in Tapana-naraka, where victims are pierced with red-hot spears. In essence, the multiple hells of Buddhism are somewhat reminiscent of the classical Christian circles of hell. The number of years that must be served in each hell for complete atonement and new rebirth is clearly stated. For example, for the mentioned Sanghata-naraka this number is 10368 x 10 10 years. In general, quite a lot, to be honest.

It should be noted that the concept of narc has changed over time. In the sources of different years, the narak is not only sixteen, but also twenty, and even fifty. In ancient Indian mythology, naraka is one and divided into seven circles, with cruel physical torture applied to sinners living in the last three circles. The inhabitants of the last circle (mostly they are boiled in oil) are forced to suffer until the death of the Universe.

The hellish dungeons in Buddhism are located under the mythological continent of Jambudvipa and are located, like a truncated cone, in eight layers, each with one cold and one hot hell. The lower hell is, the more terrible it is, and the longer you will have to suffer in it. If Dante had been a Buddhist, he would have found something to describe.

Similar principles govern hell in Hinduism. Sinners and righteous people, depending on their achievements, after death can go to various planets of existence (lokas), where they will be subjected to torment or, conversely, drown in pleasures. Staying in hellish locks has an end point. The “deadline” can be reduced with the help of prayers and offerings from the children of the last incarnation of the suffering soul. After serving the sentence, the soul is reincarnated into a new being.

But in Taoism, heaven and hell are very similar to Christian ones. Only they are in the same place - in the sky. The tabernacles of paradise are located in the central, bright part of the sky and are subordinate to Yang-zhu, the lord of light. Hell is located in the north, in the region of the dark sky, and is subordinate to Yin-zhu, the lord of darkness. By the way, both a Hindu and a Taoist can easily show hell or heaven with a finger - in both religions, the locations of the planets and stars are combined with real astronomy. The torment of Taoist sinners is reminiscent of the ancient Greeks - it is repentance, boredom, internal struggle.

In Chinese mythology, under the influence of Buddhism, the Diyu system of hell was formed, consisting of ten courts of justice, each of which has 16 halls for punishment. All the dead, without exception, go to the first judgment. They are interrogated by Judge Qinguang-wan and decides whether the soul is sinful or not. The righteous go straight to the tenth judgment seat, where they drink the drink of oblivion and cross one of six bridges back to the world of the living to be reincarnated. But before reincarnation, sinners will have to sweat in the first to the ninth judgment courts. The torture there is quite traditional - tearing out hearts, eternal hunger (by the way, this is how cannibals are punished), climbing a ladder made of steps of knives, and so on.

* * *

There is no need to be afraid of hell. There are too many variants of it, and different people perceive the underworld too differently. This shows only one thing: no one knows what awaits us beyond. We can only find out about it once we get there. But there is probably no need to rush to do this for research purposes. Remember that everyone has their own hell - and it doesn’t have to be fire and tar.

Eternal memory is like eternal life

In Russian science fiction, one of the most interesting, complex and unique “afterlives” is described in Svyatoslav Loginov’s novel “The Light in the Window.” In his version, there is no reward beyond the line, but simply another world, more reminiscent of purgatory than hell or heaven. And what matters in it is not how sinful or righteous you were, but how long you are remembered. Every time someone alive remembers someone who has died, this memory turns into a coin, the only currency in the land of the dead. Those who are remembered a lot and often live happily even after death. And those who remain only in the memory of two or three close relatives quickly fade away.

This is a deliberately materialistic concept. In it, it is the memory of the living - the measure of the meaning and value of human life. We don’t know anything about people who lived in the past, it’s as if they no longer exist, and those few who are still remembered, in a sense, continue to live. Morality is taken out of the equation, the tyrant-conqueror and the writer - the ruler of minds - find themselves in an equal situation. It's unfair, but unfortunately very plausible.

The phrase “a person is alive while he is remembered” takes on flesh in this concept of “after death”. And after reading the book you inevitably wonder how many will remember you after death?