Asgard,Jotunheim and more...

Hello, I wrote you a brief summary of these nine realms in my last post, now it's time to detail them all :)

Asgard

In fact, Asgard is thought to be part of the human world, but Snorri positions it in the sky via the rainbow bridge called Bifrost, which connects to Midgard.

Asgard is the realm of the Aesir gods, the majority of the Norse gods, who fight and make peace with other gods known as the Vanir, and exchange hostages to achieve this peace. Thus, while Asgard is primarily the realm of the Aesir gods, there are Vanaheim deities living there as well as the Aesir in Vanaheim.

The most well-known of the Norse gods are the Aesir and live in Asgard: Odin, Thor, Loki and Baldr. Asgard is depicted as a holy land of high towers surrounded by a great wall.

The famous Valhalla hall, where Odin's throne is located, is in Asgard. However, Hildskjalf is mentioned as a place or object name from which Odin could gaze at the whole world, though it is unclear whether this place was his royal hall or his throne (a separate place from Valhalla).

Jotunheim

Jotunheim (sometimes referred to as Utgard) is a land of rock and ice giants and is located near both Asgard and Midgard. Beyond the realm of order in Jotunheim/Utgard, chaos was considered a primeval place of magic and wilderness.

Loki, the dishonest god of mischief, came from Jotunheim but lived in Asgard. Jotunheim was thought to be best avoided, but there are stories that the gods of Asgard traveled there on purpose.

By the river Iving, which never freezes and is difficult to cross, Asgard and Jotunheim parted ways, but Odin went to Jotunheim to Mimir's fountain of wisdom and to Thor's stronghold of Utgard-Loki.

As the story of Thor and Utgard-Loki indicates, anything can happen to a person in Jotunheim: nothing Thor experiences on his journey is as it seems, and at the end of the story, the castle and everyone in it vanish.

Midgard

The realm of Men was first populated with Ask and Embla, from which all men are descended. Odin, Vili, and Ve, after killing Ymir and creating the world, walk by the sea and find two trees, one Ash and the other Elm. They create the first man from ash wood and the first woman from elm. However, they realize that these beings are helpless and easy prey for the giants, and they use Midgard to protect them.

Hel

Hel (sometimes known as Helheim) is a dark and gloomy realm, ruled by Hel, daughter of Loki and sister of the Midgard serpent and the wolf Fenrir.

Odin knew they would cause trouble and tried to place each one where they could do the least damage. Midgard placed his serpent in the seas surrounding the world, chained Fenrir, and sent Hel to a dark realm beneath the roots of Yggdrasil. Later, this area was surrounded by a wall with only one gate and could only be reached by traveling down a long road (known as the Helveg - the road to Hel) and crossing a dangerous river of guns.

Hel is portrayed as a sullen and brooding female giant, unlike Cate Blanchett's character Hela in the Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok (2017). His realm, for obscure reasons, was originally associated with the souls of the dead who did not die in battle and those who died of disease or old age.

After a while, it became the most populated area of ​​the dead, and most of the people who died were thought to have traveled to the dark realm of Hel, wandering in some kind of twilight, but other than that, they did pretty much the same things they did when they were alive. Considering his status among others, the great hero god Baldr should have gone to Valhalla, for it is not easy to decide who gets to the realm of Hel and how.

Muspelheim

According to Snorri, Muspelheim, which was instrumental in the creation of the world, is the first realm of fire. The fire giant Surtr lives in this realm and will appear in Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods, to destroy Asgard and everything else.

However, today's scholars disagree with Snorri's interpretation and believe that Muspell is actually a giant from the fiery realm, and this giant's only function in true Norse mythology is the part where he will play a role in Ragnarok.

Nidavellir/Svartalheim

The realm of Nidavellir/Svartalheim is the land of dwarves who work below Midgard, in the depths of the earth, and there forges. It is a land illuminated only by fires from the forges and torches on the walls. The gods had decided the realm of the dwarves based on their origin, just as Snorri had done in Gylfafinning.

Dwarves were associated with craftsmanship and magic. They created Thor's hammer Mjolnir, Odin's spear, and also the god Freyr's magic ship that could be folded and carried in his pocket. They are also responsible for the mead that Odin stole from the giants and gave to the gods. They then inspire poets to write their poems through drink.

Niflheim

Niflheim, along with Muspelheim, is the oldest of the nine realms, the first land of ice, fog and snow, where all life began. Snorri equates Niflheim with Nilfhel, which causes Hel to understand it as the location of his country.

Niflhel, if it existed in the pre-Christian Scandinavian universe, appears to be no mention of Niflheim at all, possibly a dark, imprisoned, dreary underworld of dead spirits that has been compared to Tartarus in Greek mythology or later depictions of Hel, a dreary underworld that may have taken place beneath Niflheim.

However, Nilfheim itself has nothing to do with the nether world. It is a cold and misty land where no one lives, not even ice giants. It is said that Odin sent Hel to Nilfheim and later gave him power over the underworld and the lives of beings in the nine realms. Later, however, he is thought to have moved from Nilfheim to Nilfhel (meaning dark realm), where he reigned.

Vanaheim

Vanaheim is the land of the Vanirs, another family of Norse gods associated with fertility and magic. The Aesir went to war with the Vanir, but the exact reason is unclear. The war may have been fought because the Aesir gods found practices such as incest and magic to be unacceptable and dishonorable.

For whatever reason the war broke out, it resulted in a peace treaty in which hostages were exchanged and the Vanir sea god Njord and his two children Freyr and Freyja came to live in Asgard.

Alfheim

Alfheim, on the other hand, is the realm of all elves, not far from Asgard, who also exist in the sky and after the work of the light (or bright) elves as well as Snorri. He was led by his god Freyr, one of the hostages sent from Vanaheim to Asgard at the end of the war. Elves are bright, beautiful, magical beings and they inspire art, music and creativity in general.

Scientist John Lindow (and others) noted that Alfheimar was geographically located on the border between Sweden and Norway, between the mouths of the Gota and Glom rivers, and the people there were deemed to be "more just" than people elsewhere.

For this reason, it is thought that the legendary Alfheim was inspired by this region, but the accuracy of this claim is disputed. The realm is not clearly defined in Norse literature, but elves are thought to be quite amiable by nature.