Náströnd

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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

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

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:''

: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

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:

: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

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/

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