The gate of the year

Painting of the Norwegian painter Peter Nicolai Arbo, realized in 1872, entitled “Åsgårdsreien” and now in the National Gallery (Nasjonalgalleriet), Oslo, Norway.
According to Germanic tradition, Odin admitted the warriors fallen in battle in his great hall, the Valhöll (Valhalla), “the Hall of the Selected”, where they could enjoy a sumptuous treatment, continuous libations and warrior exercises. It was probably, in origin, an underground abode, which was gradually transferred in the heaven, in the realm of the gods. To reach this realm it was necessary to cross the Bifröst bridge, the rainbow. Odin’s warriors, the einherjar (“lone fighters”), engaged in battle every day, could eat from the meat of a huge boar, which, after having been devoured came back to life every day, and could intoxicate themselves with the mead produced by the tits of a great goat. This dead warriors army recalls the description by Tacitus of the “ghost army” (feralis exercitus) of the Harii, who terrorized their enemies going into battle at night. This array of the dead, who went following their ruler and could manifest themselves to the living in certain moments of the year, is the notion at the base of the Medieval belief in the Wild Hunt (Lindow 2001).
A similar theme is found also in the Celtic tradition. In Wales, the leader of the Wild Hunt was Gwynn ap Nudd, the king of the dead, who rode on stormy clouds, accompanied by his red dogs with white ears (Cwn Annwn), and gathered the souls of the recently dead to carry them in the Other World. King Arthur was regarded, in Scotland, to ride during the storms with the members of the Wild Hunt, and it was possible as well to meet sometimes the Sluagh (the “Host of the Unforgiven Dead”), ghosts of those who had died without being forgiven for their transgressions and who were trapped in this world and could not move to the Otherworld: they were forced to wander in the darkness, in a sort of intermediary condition between this world and the Other (Monaghan 2004).

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aasgaardreien_peter_nicolai_arbo_mindre.jpg]




World of the Dead

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Painting of the Norwegian painter Peter Nicolai Arbo, realized in 1872, entitled “Åsgårdsreien” and now in the National Gallery (Nasjonalgalleriet), Oslo, Norway. According to Germanic tradition, Odin admitted the warriors fallen in battle in his great hall, the Valhöll (Valhalla), “the Hall of the Selected”, where they could enjoy a sumptuous treatment, continuous libations and warrior exercises. It was probably, in origin, an underground abode, which was gradually transferred in the heaven, in the realm of the gods. To reach this realm it was necessary to cross the Bifröst bridge, the rainbow. Odin’s warriors, the einherjar (“lone fighters”), engaged in battle every day, could eat from the meat of a huge boar, which, after having been devoured came back to life every day, and could intoxicate themselves with the mead produced by the tits of a great goat. This dead warriors army recalls the description by Tacitus of the “ghost army” (feralis exercitus) of the Harii, who terrorized their enemies going into battle at night. This array of the dead, who went following their ruler and could manifest themselves to the living in certain moments of the year, is the notion at the base of the Medieval belief in the Wild Hunt (Lindow 2001). A similar theme is found also in the Celtic tradition. In Wales, the leader of the Wild Hunt was Gwynn ap Nudd, the king of the dead, who rode on stormy clouds, accompanied by his red dogs with white ears (Cwn Annwn), and gathered the souls of the recently dead to carry them in the Other World. King Arthur was regarded, in Scotland, to ride during the storms with the members of the Wild Hunt, and it was possible as well to meet sometimes the Sluagh (the “Host of the Unforgiven Dead”), ghosts of those who had died without being forgiven for their transgressions and who were trapped in this world and could not move to the Otherworld: they were forced to wander in the darkness, in a sort of intermediary condition between this world and the Other (Monaghan 2004). [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aasgaardreien_peter_nicolai_arbo_mindre.jpg]