ABSTRACT
The idea that the soul of a newly dead person is embarking on a voyage to reach another place to dwell in the afterlife is widespread in time and space (see e.g. Assmann 2005: 209–210, 389–391, 398–402; Johnson and McGee 1998: 266–269, 272–275). Skaldic poetry, supported by iconographic evidence from Gotlandic picture stones and bracteates, suggest that in Late Iron and Viking Age too, Scandinavian ideas of such posthumous voyages existed, be it to the nether world Hel (only later turned into the appalling Hell) or to the banquet halls of the gods in their heavenly world, Asgard (Andrén 1993: 41; Davidson 1943: 65–83; Pesch 2002: 67, 70). These ideas existed alongside other, probably older ones, which envisaged an afterlife in the grave or inside holy mountains together with the ancestors (Davidson 1943: 87–96; Steinsland and Meulengracht Sørensen 1994: 89–91).
