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“Hel our Queen”: An Old Norse Analogue to an old English Female Hell*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

L. Michael Bell
L. Michael Bell
Affiliation:
University of Colorado
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Extract

One of the most arresting characters in medieval literature, appearing in the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus, is seo hell, an apparently female chthonic figure who engages in a memorable flyting with Satan and orders him out of “her” dwelling (ut of mýnre onwununge) Her vivid personification in a dramatically excellent scene suggests that her gender is more than grammatical, and invites comparison with the Old Norse underworld goddess Hel and the Frau Hölle of German folklore, to say nothing of underworld goddesses in other cultures.

Type
Notes and Observations
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 263 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983

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References

1 Crawford, S. J., ed., The Gospel of Nicodemus (Awle Ryale Series, Anglo-Saxon Texts 1; Edinburgh: Hutchen, 1927) 20.Google Scholar

2 Kim, H. C., ed., The Gospel of Nicodemus (Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 2; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973) 38–44.Google Scholar

3 Turville-Petre, G., Origins of Icelandic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University, 1953) 114 and passim.Google Scholar

4 Unger, C. R., ed., Heilagra Manna Sögur (Christiania: Bentzen, 1878) 2. 18–20. The neuter gender of the compound derives from its second element, viti (normalized viti), “pain, punishment, torment.” Scandinavian descendants of this word (e.g., Modern Icelandic helviti, Modern Danish helvede) correspond almost exactly to English hell, even to its use as an expletive.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 2. 20.

6 Unger, C. R., ed., Postola Sögur (Christiania: Bentzen, 1874) 748.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., 748–49. Unger's text reads:

En er annarr morgun kom ok blotmenn blotuđu, þa kallađi diofullinn ok mællti: “Latiđ af, vesalir menn, at blota mik, at þer hafit eigi verra; bundinn em ek međ eldligum rekendum af englum Jesus Kristz, þess er Gyđingar krossfestu ok hugđu hann mann vera ok halldaz i dauđa; en hann heriađi a Hel drottning vara ok batt sialfan heliar hofđingia elldligum rekendum, ok reis hann upp a þriđia degi af dauđa, ok gaf mark kross sins postolum sinum ok sendi þa i allar ættir heims ok her er nu einn kominn af þeim ok hefir sa bundit mik.” Ólafur Halldórsson has normalized this text, and somewhat modernized it for the general Icelandic reader, in Sögur úr Skarđsbók (Reykjavik: Almenna, 1967) 180–81Google Scholar. His reediting has also produced substantial variations in phrasing, though not in any way that bears on Queen Hel.

8 Sturluson, Snorri, Edda (Holtsmark, Anne and Helgason, Jón, eds.; Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1962) 32–33.Google Scholar

9 Widding, Ole, Bekker-Nielsen, Hans, and Shook, L. K., C.S.B., “The Lives of Saints in Old Norse Prose: A Handlist,” MS 25 (1963) 302.Google Scholar

10 Halldórsson, Ólafur, Helgafellsbækur fornar (Studia Islandica 24; Reykjavik: Menningarsjóđur, 1966) 16–22.Google Scholar

11 The editorial history of Bartholomew's Old Norse vita is still confused, owing to an unusual chain of events. Codex Scardensis disappeared from an Icelandic church library in 1827 and turned up in London in 1836, when Sir Thomas Phillipps purchased it from a bookseller. For sixty-three years its fate escaped the notice of scholars, including Unger, whose 1874 variorum edition of the apostles' lives (Postola sögur, n. 7, above) is still standard, though seriously flawed. Unger thought that Cod. Scard. survived only in eighteenth-century copies, of which AM 628 contains Bartholomew's saga. Accordingly, he based his main text on AM 630, an eighteenth-century copy of AM 652, with minor variants from AM 628 —which he calls “Scardensis.” The original Codex Scardensis was located by E. Magnússon and J. þorkelsson in 1890; in 1966 it was acquired by the Manuscript Institute of Iceland. For full references in short compass, see Benediktsson, Jakob, “Skarđsbók,” Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for nontisk Middelalder 15 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1970) cols. 402–4.Google Scholar All but fourteen leaves of AM 652 were recycled for shoe leather sometime after 1710. See Ó. Halldórsson, Sögur úr Skarđsbólk, 26.

12 Bollandus, J. et al., Acta Sanctorum (editio novissima; Paris: Palmé, 1863–1925) 5 August, 37. Bartholomew's feast day is 25 August.Google Scholar

13 Kim, Nicodemus, 38–41 (mors); 42–43 (Mors). The former appears in chaps. 20.1.1; 20.1.4; 20.2.3; 20.2.6; 20.2.9; 20.3.10; and 21.2.13. The latter appears in 22.1.1 and 22.2.2.

14 Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog (Christiania: Den norske Forlagsforening, 1883–1896; Oslo: Mø11er, 1954).Google Scholar

15 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1943).

16 (2 vols.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1956–57).

17 Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for nordisk Middelalder 6 (1961) s.v. hel, helvede.

18 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967) s.v. Hel, Hölle.

19 H. Bächthold-Stäubli, ed. (9 vols.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1927–42) s.v. Hel, Hölle.

20 Lipsius, R. A., Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden (2 vols. in 3; Braunschweig: Schwetschke, 1883–1884).Google Scholar

21 Theogony 116–19. Translation reflects this ambiguity to a varying extent. Lattimore identifies Tartaros as “the pit beneath the earth, an original god” (Hesiod [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1973] 240)Google Scholar and Campbell, Joseph, following Lattimore, writes: “Tartarus, the dark pit of Hades beneath the earth, was given as third [of four separate deities named as original]” (The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology [New York: Viking, 1970] 234).Google Scholar Hugh Evelyn-White translates line 119 as “dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed earth” (emphasis mine); but widespread references in Hesiod to other beings “cast into Tartarus” support the impression of ambiguity. See Evelyn-White, Hugh, trans., Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1970) 86–87Google Scholar, 143, 213, and elsewhere.

This ambiguity in the case of Hel, incidentally, gives rise to such ringing misconceptions as Campbell's “[at Ragnarök] another cock would crow … in the bowels of the goddess Hel” (Occidental Mythology, 485). His conception is clearly derived from some translation of Voluspá, stanza 43, but the Old Norse original says only at solom Heliar (“in Hell's dwelling”). See Neckel, G., Edda (4th ed.; Heidelberg: Winter, 1962) 10.Google Scholar

22 ”… as with Hades, the grim god became little more than a dark place” Sandars, N. K., ed. The Epic of Gilgamesh (2d rev. ed.; Baltimore: Penguin, 1974) 27. Sandars' general treatment on pp. 26–28 further supports the impression of ambiguity.Google Scholar

23 Acta Sanctorum, 5 August, 7–8. The same sentiment is expressed in the opening lines of Bartholomeus saga and in the dictionaries of saints.

24 Anglo-Saxon Saints and Heroes (New York: Fordham University, 1967) 183–84, 191–92.Google Scholar

25 Die englische Heiligenlegende des Mittelalters (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1964).Google Scholar

26 “Hel,” Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens 3 (1930/1931) col. 1698.Google Scholar