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In Norse mythology, Náströnd (Corpse Shore) is a place in Hel where Níðhöggr lives and sucks corpses. The Völuspá says:
- Sal sá hón standa
- sólo fiarri,
- Nástrǫndu á,
- norðr horfa dyrr.
- Fello eitrdropar
- inn um lióra.
- Sá er undinn salr
- orma hryggiom.
- Sá hón þar vaða
- þunga strauma
- menn meinsvara
- ok morðvarga
- ok þannz annars glepr
- eyrarúno.
- Þar saug Níðhǫggr
- nái framgengna,
- sleit vargr vera.
- Vitoð ér enn, eða hvat? Völuspá 38-39, Dronke's edition
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- A hall she saw standing
- remote from the sun
- on Dead Body Shore.
- Its door looks north.
- There fell drops of venom
- in through the roof vent.
- That hall is woven
- of serpents’ spines.
- She saw there wading
- onerous streams
- men perjured
- and wolfish murderers
- and the one who seduces
- another’s close-trusted wife.
- There Malice Striker sucked
- corpses of the dead,
- the wolf tore men.
- Do you still seek to know? And what? Völuspá 38-39, Dronke's translation
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Snorri Sturluson quotes this part of Völuspá in the Gylfaginning section of his Prose Edda. He uses the plural of the word: Nástrandir (Corpse Shores).
- Á Náströndum er mikill salr ok illr, ok horfa í norðr dyrr, hann er ok ofinn allr ormahryggjum sem vandahús, en ormahöfuð öll vitu inn í húsit ok blása eitri, svá at eptir salnum renna eitrár, ok vaða þær ár eiðrofar ok morðvargar, svá sem hér segir:
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- Sal veit ek standa
- sólu fjarri
- Náströndu á,
- norðr horfa dyrr.
- Falla eitrdropar
- inn of ljóra.
- Sá er undinn salr
- orma hryggjum.
- Skulu þar vaða
- þunga strauma
- menn meinsvara
- ok morðvargar.
- En í Hvergelmi er verst:
-
- Þar kvelr Níðhöggr
- nái framgengna. Gylfaginning 52, EB's edition
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- On Nástrand [Strand of the Dead] is a great hall and evil, and its doors face to the north: it is all woven of serpent-backs like a wattle-house; and all the snake-heads turn into the house and blow venom, so that along the hall run rivers of venom; and they who have broken oaths, and murderers, wade those rivers, even as it says here:
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- I know a hall standing
- far from the sun,
- In Nástrand:
- the doors to northward are turned;
- Venom-drops fall
- down from the roof-holes;
- That hall is bordered
- with backs of serpents.
- There are doomed to wade
- the weltering streams
- Men that are mansworn,
- and they that murderers are.
- But it is worst in Hvergelmir:
-
- There the cursed snake tears
- dead men's corpses. Gylfaginning 52, Brodeur's translation
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[edit] References
- Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (transl.) (1916). The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Available online
- Dronke, Ursula (ed.) (1997) The Poetic Edda: Mythological Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198111819.
- Eysteinn Björnsson (ed.). Snorra-Edda: Formáli & Gylfaginning : Textar fjögurra meginhandrita. 2005. Published online: http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/gg/
