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150 BELIGION OF THE NOETHMEN.
corporeal being, and Hel obtained only the dust.
But he whose spirit by wickedness and base sensual
lust was drawn away from Heaven, became in all
his being the prey of Hel. His soul was not strong
enough to mount freely up to the celestial abodes
of the Gods, but was drawn down into the abyss by
the dust with which it had ever been clogged. No
doubt the representation of Hel as being half white
and half pale-blue had its real origin in this thought
—that to the Good,. Death appeared as a bright
Goddess of Deliverance, and to the Wicked, as a
dark and punishing Deity.
When the Drowned were supposed to arrive at
the halls of Kan, the Sea-goddess filled the place of
Hel ; Ean claimed the body as her prey, the spirit
ascended to Heaven.
The belief that bondsmen after death should come
to Thor, seems to express the thought that their
spirits had not the power to mount up with freeborn
heroes to the higher celestial abodes, but were com-
pelled to linger midway, as it were, among the low,
floating clouds, under the stem dominion of Thor ;
—a thought painful to the feelings of humanity, but
wholly in accordance with the views of the age and
the people.