1
" Hel's kingdom seems to have been reserved for the common dead, especially those who were not slain by handheld weapons. Valhöll, however, welcomed the valiant. Originally located beneath the earth, the Hall of Warriors fallen in battle" was transported close to Asgard, the abode of the gods, and according to the Sayings of Grimnir, it occupied the fifth heavenly dwelling place, the World of Joy (Gladsheimr) There, every day, Odin chose the warriors who died in combat and shared them with Frigg (Freyja). It was believed that Valhöll had the Unique Warriors (Einherjar), the elite. It is easy to understand why the Germans dreaded to die bedridden; if they were at risk of this, they asked those close to them to mark their bodies with spears. In the Saga of Ynglingar (chapter 9) Snorri Sturluson says that the god Odin, seen here from a euhemeristic perspective, proceeded in this way, but it is surprising to see Njörd, a god of the third function, demanding to be marked with this martial sign. "
― Claude Lecouteux , The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
2
" According to an idea that was wide-spread among the Germans and Celts, all wisdom dwelled in the lower world, which is often cited as the source of knowledge and art. This notion goes hand in hand with another idea that maintains that death precedes life. Because death is identical to night and life is identical to day, these peoples counted time in nights rather than days. We can compare this to Scandinavian cosmology: The giant Ymir is the originator of creation. In Nordic mythology, the giants are the keepers of the science of runes, and one of them, Sutting, is the keeper of poetic knowledge. As the world's first inhabitants, they [the giants] knew all its secrets. They thus maintained many close ties with death and the otherworld with, for instance, dwarves and elves. "
― Claude Lecouteux , The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
4
" After writing an Our Father backward on a page in blood, "you should carve runes on a staff and go to the cemetery at midnight with these two things, and go to whatever tomb strikes your fancy. However, it would be more prudent to attack the smaller graves.
You should then place the staff on top of the grave and roll it back and forth while reciting the Our Father backward at the same time,
following how it is written on the page, as well as some magic spells that few people know, except for witches. During this time, the revenant will slowly rise from the tomb, because this is not something that takes place quickly, and revenants will be praying greatly and saying: "Let me (rest) in peace.
-Jón Árnason "
― Claude Lecouteux , The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
7
" We are better informed about Valholl than we are about Hel, undoubtedly because people preferred to envision heaven rather than hell. Valholl was a large, easily recognized hall. The rafters of the building were made of spears, it was covered with shields, and coats of mail were strewn across the benches. A wolf was hanging west of the doors, an eagle soared above the building, and the goat Heidrun, from whose udder flowed mead, could be spotted atop the roof. Odin did not live there. He resided in the Hall of the Slain (Valaskjalf) or the Sunken Halls (Sokkvabekk),* where he drank with Saga, a hypostasis of the goddess Frigg. "
― Claude Lecouteux , The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
9
" Valholl contained 540 doors. From each there emerged simultaneously 800 warriors who spent their days fighting one another, but the dead and wounded found their lives and health restored every evening. They then dined together, eating the flesh of the wild boar Saehrimnir, which always grew back, and drinking the mead served them by the Valkyries. This would continue until the Twilight of the Powers (Ragnarok), which Wagner immortalized under the name of Twilight of the Gods. At this time, three cocks would crow in Hel; the wolf Fenris would become free; the earth would convulse; Yggdrasil the World Tree would tremble; the sun and moon would vanish; the stars would go out; the Midgard Serpent would leave the sea; the giants would set sail on Naglfar; Surt, the fire giant, would advance by rain-bow; and, at the sides of the gods, the Unique Warriors would engage in their ultimate battle, a combat that would culminate with the conflagration of the world. "
― Claude Lecouteux , The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
10
" For a Westerner living today, it is hard to imagine that ancient cultures were incapable of even conceiving the notion of nothingness and that this mental category was simply absent from their world. This was the case, however, in the Middle Ages, and most particularly in the Germanic world. There is also something else: the idea of temporality that we have manufactured, of how it is established, of its total cessation, as we all know, is something that exclusively haunts the modern mentality. History, as a science, would not have assumed the astonishing importance it has today without this temporality. The Völuspá, the gem of the Poetic Edda, introduces history into its story of the mythic events of the world with the battle of the Aesir against the Vanir, but Ragnarok, which it describes in apocalyptic terms, is not viewed even for an instant as an ending. To the contrary, it is immediately followed by a universal regeneration that relaunches the destinies of a primordial couple eloquently named Li Life and Liffthrasir Undying or Greedy to Live. "
― Claude Lecouteux , The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
15
" For us, people of the twenty-first century, it is obvious that storms have the power to inspire phantastical visions, but during the tenth and eleventh centuries, this was not how it was, and storms were viewed as the intervention of immanent powers, spirits, or the dead. If the dead per-son could intervene this way with the elements, he was necessarily connected to the fertility of the soil and to the fecundity and the well-being of grazing animals. Everything fit together in that time's mind-set. "
― Claude Lecouteux , The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
