The belief
in another world for the dead is, however, by no means exclusively
Christian, and a reference in _Grimnismal_ suggests the older system
out of which, under the influence of the Ragnaroek idea, Valhalla was
developed. The lines, "The ninth hall is Folkvang, where Freyja rules
the ordering of seats in the hall; half the slain she chooses every
day, Odin has the other half," are an evident survival of a belief
that all the dead went to live with the Gods, Odin having the men,
and Freyja (or more probably Frigg) the women; the idea being here
confused with the later system, under which only those who fell in
battle were chosen by the Gods. Christian colouring appears in the
last lines of _Voeluspa_ and in Snorri, where men are divided into the
"good and moral," who go after death to a hall of red gold, and the
"perjurers and murderers," who are sent to a hall of snakes.
For Ragnaroek also a heathen origin is at least as probable as a
Christian one. I would suggest as a possibility that the expectation of
the Twilight of the Gods may have grown out of some ritual connected
with the eclipse, such as is frequent among heathen races. Such
ceremonies are a tacit acknowledgment of a doubt, and if they ever
existed among the Scandinavians, the possibility, ever present to
the savage mind, of a time when his efforts to help the light might
be fruitless, and the darkness prove the stronger, would be the germ
of his more civilised descendant's belief in Ragnaroek.
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