Valhalla (Valhǫll): The Afterlife, pt. 2

hi I'm old nurse specialist dr. Jackson Crawford and today I'm back for the second installment in my series of videos about the afterlife this time I'm talking about Odin's Hall for fallen heroes voila ho better known in english as Valhalla first I ought to take a moment to explain the name we usually call it Valhalla in English as I've explained before because during the 18th 19th and early 20th centuries translators often wanted to make feminine gender words and Old Norse look more feminine and the main way they did that was by adding an A at the end that was not really there in Old Norse this is how you get English language German language modern Scandinavian language works that give the name of the wife of othon as Frigga rather than Frigg or the underworld or it's Queen as hella rather than hell this is also the origin of Valhalla rather than ball hole as far as the vowel in hole being changed to a in the word Valhalla I think that probably has to do with the fact that the underlying vowel anytime that there is one of those oak out daughters those hook o's and old norse is always an a so for example the genitive singular of the word whole hall is how lotta meaning halls the thing belonging to the hall so since that's the underlying vowel I suspect that's why that ended up just getting changed in this english-language version about Hallam but because I like to give you the flavor of the original in this video and elsewhere in my video series I discuss it as vowel hold now the meaning of the word is pretty transparent pretty straightforward whole is the Old Norse word for Hall we should keep in mind that this does not mean anything quite like Hall typically means in English today in the sense that of a hallway saying but rather think of the feasting hall this is Hall in the sense of a location for social activities in the Middle Ages a place where feasting and drinking occurs a place where a king or Lord or God in the case of Odin here might receive his guests and then baller is a special Old Norse word for a dead body on the battlefield there are different translations of that the most common one in English is slain but I like to emphasize the physicality of what it means dead body on the battlefield so the Hall of dead bodies on the battlefield of Hall of men who have died in battle is thus Valhalla now of course the heroes who died in battle and are brought to ball hole are brought there by Odin's women servants the Valkyries or Valk you order I have recently posted a video discussing the Valkyries and some of my ideas about the origin of that concept and I'll refer you to that for more information about the them I thought that was worth posting before the video about ball hole so that you could get a clearer idea of what their role is because I think they probably do actually proceed in age the concept of ball hole now I'm not the only person or the first person by any stretch of the imagination to suggest that ball hole may actually not be a very old idea in the Norse myth owes one major reason for thinking this is that the oldest poem that mentions it is applicable ax probably from the early eight hundreds this is one of the heroic poems in the poetic Edda and in out like fever ball hole is just a hall it's just the name of the Hall of King goon art it does not mean any kind of afterlife and so that suggests that at that time there was not yet a special meaning for this term but associated with the afterlife instead this was a sort of tongue-in-cheek way of referring to the Hall of a-working who of course is going to get a lot of men killed in the course of his his pursuits but by the 900s by poetry we can confidently date to the 900 such as the poem green this mole in the poetic edda or the two poems edik small and home normal that commemorate fallen Norwegian kings we see that the concept of all whole is quite well developed it is possible that it goes back to earlier than out like Fela in which case the reference and outlet area there might be a joking allusion to moons halt in the name of King Gunnar Hall but it's difficult to know for sure the most physical if you will description of Valhalla is actually in the poem grain this small in the poetic Edda and this poem othon goes into a sort of a rapture after he has been starved between two fires for nine days he has brought finally a drink of mead by the young son of the king who is tormenting him and in exchange authen goes into what seems to be something of a trance and he sees all these different worlds of and in halls of the gods and he discusses them in some detail especially fall hold let me give you that description as it stands in my translation of the poetic Edda into English the only thing I'm going to change from that published translation is I'm going to read the names in their old norse form so I'll say for instance ball hole not Valhalla clod the same it or not not gossamer or however you might pronounce the anglicized version of that a fifth land is Gladys hammer where gold bright wide of all the holes stands that is where ozan chooses from the men killed by weapons every day ball hole is easily recognized if one comes to see it the Hall is held up by spear shafts it is roofed by shields chainmail is on the benches ball hole is easily recognized if one comes to see it a wolf hangs above the western door and an eagle above him on dream near the cook let's the pork from sacrum near cook in the cauldron l dream near there is no better meat and there are few who know what they ain't had a ahh to eat battle winning Othon feet sustained wolves Gary and Freki but for his part weapon loving Odin lives on wine alone juergen and muninn thought and memory Odin's Ravens fly every day the whole world over each day I fear that thought juergen might not return but I fear more for memory Moonen fall grained is a holy gate with holy doors upon a field the gate is old and there are few who know how it is locked I think vol hole has 640 doors if all are counted 800 in Haryana we'll walk through each when the day comes to fight Fenrir there is a goat named hay Thrun who stands on Athens Hall and gnaws the limbs of the tree lat other that goat fills of all holes cups with bright Mead from her udders and that drink will never diminish there was a stag named ake theater near who stands on Odin's Hall and gnaws the limbs of the tree lat other drops fall from his horns into the well of wear Gill manner that is the origin of all the rivers so there are several details here that we can note I think that just reading you these primary sources and considering them in some detail probably does you a better service than me trying to sketch a picture of the place because ultimately it really is about three poems in the 900s that we're depending on for our understanding of what vol holes like notice that this is not a paradise this is certainly a place of honour but it's not a place of comfort we see that it is decorated in fact sort of made of weapons the hall is held up by spear shafts roofed by shields chainmail is on the benches and a straw right so typically for a feasting event in the Norse world we read about this in sagas they would strew the benches with straw is a more comfortable thing to sit on than the bare wood but here instead it is chain mail that is strewn upon the benches definitely not more comfortable but part of the the marshal theme there is also a wolf hanging above the western door and an eagle above him the exact significance of these animals hanging there can be difficult to say some some have seen memories of old roman legion symbols or though I think that's kind of a stretch since we're talking about more than 500 years since the fall of the Roman Empire but of course note that these are animals of prey the wolf and eagle that are thus associated with battle and with Odin the foster of battle we see this very specific mention of the name of a cook the name of the pig whose pork is Eden and the name of the cauldron in which all of these are made their names are actually pretty difficult to understand reindeer is the name of a of a yotan or giant it would mean something like roster sohe why exactly you would have a pig name something like C froster the cauldron being fire froster at least fire I understand but the names of these are pretty impenetrable snorting in the prose edda where he is quoting and developing from these stanzas and cream too small says that the pork from sacrum there never diminishes so that even though this pig is slaughtered every night to feed the men in Volvo he is regenerated every morning so they just eat him all over again we also see that this is where Odin's wolves are Gary and Preki both of whose names gonna be read as something roughly like like hungry and greedy but othon himself does not eat he lives entirely on wine so he feeds the wolves with the scraps from the table Norris's from with the food that was supposed to be frozen this is also where in the evening huginn and muninn Athens Ravens return to tell him the news and there is a specific gate of all hole called valle grande which makes sense grande means gate so this is the gate of the dead men from the battlefield and few who know how it is locked there are 640 doors this is me translating with the base 12 hundreds so in older Norse poetry hundred hundred really means hundred twenty thousand thooose and really means 1200 I usually assumed as older meanings when I'm translating attic or skaldic poetry unless I have a good reason to do otherwise so you may see somewhat different numbers here then you might see in another translation and then 800 in here I will walk through each when the day comes to fight Fenrir that's a great wolf that will fight that will kill Odin the original Norse says monster but we can infer that the monster that who then is thinking about is the monster that's going to eat him as the specific word used I don't have text something write this poem but I believe it's Gonder is often used of Fenrir and the other monsters offspring of loki if we take 800 in here they are in here they are those of the men who are in Volvo Ain alone or one had a warrior so these are 800 lone warriors I like I like the name if we multiply 800 by 600 40 we get something like half a million I believe so that would be then the total capacity of all whole when Ragnar outcomes there is also a goat and a stag a buck who stand on top of all whole its top of Odin's Hall and gnaw the limbs of a tree cloud other whether this tree should be understood as being a grassle or related to it go still the World Tree is hard to say the tree is not mentioned elsewhere that that I can remember and of course it is the meed from this goat a Thrones utters that creates vault that that is drunk by the a natty otter and that drink will never diminish so like the pork from setting there they never run out of it and then for whatever particular mythic reason it is the drops from the horns of the buck egg there near that create the rivers that flow into the well of where Gelle near that is also where the original water that was part of the Norse creation myth came from so vol whole is in some sense very near to the core of creation now before I leave green this mole let me mention and probably the ninth or tenth video I've mentioned this in that I'm not convinced that the place called Fulk vaanga that Othon also mentions any descriptions of the different halls is actually different from ball hole here is that stanza in my English translation Freya rules in the ninth land folk longer that is where she arranges the seats she chooses half the dead who die in battle and Othon takes the other half now this may be different from ball hole because GLAAD's a matter glads home where ball hole is said to be located yeah just a couple stanzas before this is numbered as the fifth land her as longer which would be something like army playing is numbered as the ninth land but notice there may not be a connection between the first and second half of this stanza even so so she arranges the season that place and if that is Valhalla it would make sense that that's where she arranges the seats chooses where people sit because she is at least in some summer sentence of Norse mythology Odin's wife but notice in the last half it does not say she takes men who died in battle to a different place from fall it says she chooses half the dead who die in battle and Odin has the other half so we don't necessarily know that Falk monger is a different place where some men who die battle go if it is the only place that is mentioned is getting the small I am not counting Snorri and his prose edda because he mentions it there and does understand it is something different from ball hole but his only source is transparently greatness ball right remember Snorri is in a lot of ways a secondary source he's just valuable sometimes because the secondary sources 800 years closer to the primary sources than we are but in this case Snorri is being led entirely by the stands in agreement a small we do not have further support and our sources of Norse myth for folk longer is a different afterlife than ball hold plus I believe Freya may well be the chief of the Valkyries she may be in fact the same as gondol the Valkyrie see my video on Valkyries which I posted last week for more insight on that now I mentioned there are two other poems from the 900s in which we read about ball hole these are both written in commemoration of fallen Norwegian kings the first is called edicts small literally words of Erik and it is a poem and etic style not all etta style poems are in the poetic Edda commission and memory of norwegian king a decoder blows oaks erik blood acts by his wife goon Hildur after he died and 8950 for the poem is not preserved in its entirety but the nine stanzas that do survive paint a picture of odin preparing the ball hole for a addicts arrival while speaking to braggy the god of poetry that is briefly introduced in lokasenna and also the famous human heroes from the saga of the Folsom's sigmundur and Sinfield lee because this entire thing is relevant to vol whole and because the poem can be quite confidently dated to the actual time of death in the night 50s i'm just going to read you all nine of these stanzas in my original english translation the text of this is also available as a reward on my patreon page Bothan said what is this thunderous noise i awoke before dawn and vol hole was quiet I woke up my champions I told them to rise to spread hay on the benches and prepare the beer I told the Valkyries to serve wine for a king's arrival it looks like kings of men are arriving from youth got her some excellent warriors my heart has cheered deceive in biragi do you hear it as if a thousand men or more were coming ragi said the benches creak with the crowd sitting on them as if bald butter were coming home Ivan said I don't want to hear foolishness from you wise braggy you know well who it is this noise means it's a de coeur that king is coming here to me in Valhalla sigmund are sinfully get up quickly and greet the king tell him to come in if it is a Decker I have great hope that it is sigmundur said why are you more eager to see it occur than any other king Othon said because he a decoder has read and swords and carried a bloody blade across many lands sigmundur said why not give him victory if he is so outstanding Othon said because i never know when the grey wolf Fenrir will come to the walls of all scott even sigmundur said hail Attica you are welcome and come freely to our Hall I'd like to ask what Kings those are who follows you they're coming in from the battle Erika said five kings and I know the names of them all and I myself and the 6th first of all and that very first stanza from this translation you'll notice that hay is spread on the benches not chainmail and so at least in some conceptions of all whole or at least perhaps when a king is welcomed there the first time or maybe this is just for Kings or other notable people the bench is actually are spread comfortably of course I also think that we can be more confident that a deck small is actually old and green the small is so this could also represent a somewhat older conception of the places having some creature comforts we do see of course that there is a there is a justification for Othon gathering the ain't hairy our he wants them to help him fight against his enemies at Rogner or particularly the masters such as Fenrir and norman gandhi and we see that the men in Volvo are even a little bit unclear about of themselves or at sigmundur asks him why he's having him come to ball hole instead of giving him victory if he's so at standing and oh then explicitly acknowledges because I never know when the gray wolf in there will come to the walls of all scouted her the realm of the gods by the way establishing the ball hole whatever the nature of gloves Hamer is it is a place within wall scar through the enclosure of the a seer the realm of where the gods live now I'm also going to read you a related poem from a few decades later called hook on lar mole words of hawk on this is a similar style and content it is composed in memory and honor of Norwegian King hawk on the good hook on goeth II after his death and 89-61 at the Battle of PTR on the island of store the poem is attributed to even the plagiarist or even better scold us peeler and it is preserved in its entirety and Snorri Sturluson saga of hook on the good which is in his collection called heimskringla this poem presents a vision of Hawkins welcome arrival and vol hole somewhat like etics mall does with both aid occur but it's actually a little bit longer a little bit more detailed we get Valkyries get some lines and it concludes with the stanza that is a very similar language to the first half of stanza 76 and 77 of Havel Mall and the poor to get at the famous cows die kinsmen dying now the fact that the composer of this poem is called hook on the good excuse me the fact that the composer of this poem is called or even ders called the spoiler I've endure the plagiarism has suggested to many that if he has the same line as another poem has he is the stealer because otherwise how it come to be known as the plagiarism so this also helps us date haul them all or at least guess two thoughts are the main moral wisdom part of all them all to earlier than 961 who and Hawk on the good died note also as an aside about this that Hawk and the good was a Christian so even though he was not a missionary King like hola forth ribosome who would follow and it would forcefully convert Iceland and much ignore way he was a Christian he did privately practice the Christian faith so this represents a profound ignoring of his actual religion all right here is Hawk on our mole in my original English translation Othon sent his Valkyries Gundel and Scoville that she was a king from the England clan to go with Othon and live in ball hole they found Beorn's brother hawk on and his armor a great King beneath his war banners the spears stood ready and shook the battle began that killer of kings called on men from every part of Norway and went forth the fight that good king enemy of Danes stood beneath his helmet with his good band of Norwegian warriors that leader of men stripped off his armor through his chainmail to the earth before the battle and his golden helmet the cheerful King would defend his realm from his enemies the good sword and that Kings hands struck through armor as if through water wooden shields creaked and burst into fragments and their swords thundered as they split the skulls of men shields and heads were crushed under marching feet and the swords of Hawkins men there was war on the island of store the kings read and shields in their enemies blood wounds spread like wildfire and axes prescribed the ends of lives a tide of wounds came in not a beach of swords and a flood of Spears drowned the shore store clouds swirled in the sky above the battle they fought hard at the red edge of heaven Spears whined through the sky above the fighters and many a man knelt and died from swordplay the dead warrior sat pierced with arrows with broken shields and their swords and and that army did not walk cheerfully on the roads to ozan and Volvo the Valkyrie Gundel spoke leaning on a spear o thens army grows now that Hawk Owen and his great army is invited to all scatter the King heard what the famous Valkyries were saying on horseback they were clad in helmets and they were cheerful holding shields at their side Oakland said Garros colu why did the battle go this way the gods owed me a victory the Valkyrie replied we did give you victory and your enemies have fled the great Valkyries choral said it's time for us to ride to the green homes of the gods until Odin that the king is coming to pay him a visit northen said had her mother ragi go and greet the king a ruler is coming looking like a champion here to my Hall the King spoke then newly arrived from battle standing soaked in blood more than seems evil-minded to me for I seem to perceive what his intentions are ragi said you are welcome among all Odin's chosen now except the gods good ale and look killer of kings eight of your brothers are already here Vulcan said I would like to keep my weapons but take good care of my helmet and armor and keep them within my reach then it was proven how well the King had honoured the holy places when all the gods made Hulk oh and welcomed in their halls and post Garth it was a good day when such a king was born with such a spirit the time of his rule will always be remembered as a good era in Norway Fenrir the monstrous wolf will come Unchained and terrorize me gatherer before another King as good as hawk own rules in Norway cows die kinsmen die and our lands and properties are destroyed by enemies since Hulk owned left us to be with the heathen gods the Norwegian people suffer so here again the imagery is similar to a DEQ's mole we have Valkyries coming down to take a hook on to fall hold the Valkyries actually get them names we hear gondolas Gogol and Gaddis kögel all known valkyrie names from the lists and greatness small and bolus ball the Valkyries actually get lines in this case especially Gundel who seems to be sort of the chief Valkyrie and may in fact be in some and some understandings of Norse myth from the time Freya and once again we find that one of the ain't had a R in this case Hulk on the good himself is wondering why if Odin favored him he was killed and of course we get the same understanding that this is because Odin is building up his chosen army in order to fight his enemies such as Fenrir at rug Nurik and then at the end we see that Fenrir the Masters wolf will come Unchained and terrorize me together before another King as good as Hulk own rules in Norway so we're also being told there will in fact never be a better king this is this is a poem by someone who truly loved and adored his ruler but not his religion still it's a monument to a Norwegian poets understanding of what ball hole and a welcome to it might be like as of the early 960s and so it is extremely valuable to us let me conclude by mentioning that there may well be pictorial representations of ball hole dating from a time roughly contemporary with these poems edik small and Hulka normal at least one of the most notable is the picture stone from all Scoob Chang Vita I'm sure there's sweets today who would say Shang Vita from nearly you got on the island of Gotland this dates from the 900s probably and at the bottom of the stone you can see a well man to Viking ship but at the top there is a man riding an eight-legged horse that may well of course be hosen on slate near the stop any other eight-legged horses he is being greeted by a woman we can tell from her her dress and hair this a woman who is holding out a meat horn to him and he is entering a place that what we can see a hall somewhat in the background we can see some men fighting we see what looks like a wolf or a dog and then also someone flying over him perhaps a Valkyrie or perhaps a man newly arrived to ball hole you can find really high-quality pictures of this online for instance at Wikimedia Commons I'm getting a little bit more cherry about picking people's Creative Commons or or quote-unquote public domain pictures from there just because you know attribution desires change and things like that and I don't want a video to go out of date in terms of permissions reproducing pictures and I don't have a picture myself but you can find a picture very easily for instance on like I said what community of Commons is a good place to look at least in January 2019 well I hope this has been a useful and informative look for you at the actual medieval sources of the notion of vol holes some of which we can quite confidently date to the Viking Age and Graeme this small probably - I think there's there's plenty of of language in there that looks a lot older than its 1200 s manuscript tech codex Regius same as many other poems in the poetic Edda like bowls ball hall them all cetera and I hope that if you enjoyed this video you'll also check out one of the more than 270 other videos on my channel about all aspects of Norse language myth culture and that you'll look at my translations of the Norse myths and their original sources I've done the poetic Edda and the saga of the bull sings with the saga have read no laws broke already those are also available as audiobooks narrated by me and I am working on the saga of Kevlar and Heydrich with the saga of Rolfe Crocky as well as in the very near future the prose edda so those will be available in the next few years my videos are supported by my generous patreon supporters I hope that you'll check out my patreon page where you can also find the full text translations of Vedic small and holcomb for now from beautiful Colorado I'm wishing you all the best [Music] you

Channel: Jackson Crawford

Views: 40,095

Keywords: valhalla, valhöll, valhǫll, val-hall, val, hall, höll, hǫll, halla, what, mean, education, odin, othin, óðinn, óòinn, edda, poetic, prose, eiríksmál, hákonarmál, eiriksmal, hakonarmal, eddic, poetry, old, norse, poem, poems, viking, myth, myths, mythic, mythology, nordic, translation, valkyrie, valkyries, valkyrja, valkyrjur, afterlife, afterlives, slain, einherjar, death, dead

Id: _X_c6FCpzKQ

Length: 31min 13sec (1873 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 30 2019