Nastrond

Nastrond (written with the appropriate accents as Náströnd) is one of the halls in the afterlife, Hel, according to Norse Religion. While there are many good halls, Náströnd is not one of them.

Nastrond translates to “Strand of the Dead” or “Corpse Shores”. It is the final location of the dead who are guilty of murder, and the most severe examples of oath-breaking. Náströnd is associated with Hvergelmir, where the dragon Nithrhogg eats corpses on the shore.

Nástrand in the Prose Edda

When Gangleri (King Gylfi of Sweden in disguise) asks High, Just-as-High, and Third what happens in the afterlife — in the narrative found in the Prose Edda — Third answers first of the good halls in the afterlife where the gods and champions of mankind dwell for eternity.

Nastrond, on the other hand, is one of the many ill halls that exist in the afterlife. One of the worst, aside from Hvergelmir. Third describes Nástrand as a great hall filled with evil. Its doors face towards the north (the significance being that are directed towards Nifleheim/Hel presumably).

The hall is woven with snake-skin (“serpent-backs”) like a wattle-and-daub house. The walls are lined with snake heads turned in so that they blow their venom inwards, which run in poisonous rivers through the hall.

This is the final destination of murderers and oath-breakers, who are doomed to wade the rivers of poison for eternity.

In Third’s own words:

“On Nástrand 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…” — LII, Gylfaginning, Prose Edda^[1]

Nástrand is described in the Poetic Edda in the following way:

“I know a hall standing
far from the sun,
In Nástrand: the doors;
to northward are turned;
Venom-drops fill
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.
— Poetic Edda¹

Notes

• Orthography: In standardized Old Norse orthography the name was written as Nástrǫnd. But in Modern Icelandic orthography, the letter ‘ǫ’ was changed to ‘ö’ — from “o” with an ogonek to “o” with an uml, respectively — and it is written as Náströnd.

Resources

1. Sturluson, Snorri. “LII, Gylfaginning, Prose Edda“. Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur translation. 1916. <Read Online>. Accessed 09 Dec 2024.
2. “Náströnd“. Wikipedia. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Náströnd> Accessed 09 Dec 2024.