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146 RELIGION OF THE NOKTHMEN.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE STATE OF BEING AFTER DEATH.
The Asa doctrine positively asserts the Immor-
tality of the Soul in connection with a state of Ketribution
beyond the grave ; and' it appears to have
regarded man as originally created to Immortality,
and the dissolution of the body in death to, have its
type in Baldur's death, and.like.it to be a work of
Loki's malignity..
But although the belief in the immortality of the
soul was firmly established, yet the ideas concerning
the state of exigence after death were dark and
unsettled. The relation between Odin and Hel, be-
tween Gocjheim and Helheim, presented a difficulty
which they strove to solve by various modes. In
the Later Edda it is said that they who are slain in
battle go to Odin, in Valhalla,- but those who die of
sickness or old age go to Hel, in Helheim.* Ac-
cording to this, in a strict sense, it should be the
kind oj" death alone that decided the soul's future
state; only those who fall by weapons ascend to
the glad abodes of Heaven, while all who die of
sickness wander away to the dark world of the
* The L. Edda: Gylfaginning 20 and 34.