At some point in the past our ancestor’s view of their journey to death evolved stories
featured a path, or more precisely one path than diverged into two.
One heading for the light, a straight and easy path, the other a dark and dreary, along
a twisting, dangerous road.
And in this video we’re going to examine what our ancestor’s stories say about these
paths and see if we can understand where this motif originates.
So welcome to the story of the two paths of death, and welcome to Crecganford.
Within the Eddas of the Old Norse in Scandinavia, we see descriptions of the “God-way”,
the goðvegr, and the “Hell-way”, the helvegr.
And these can be directly compared to the “Path of the Gods”, the devayāna, and
the “Path of the Fathers”, pitryāna, of the Vedas and Upanişads of India.
And this provides a good starting point to consider this an Indo-European belief, and
allows us to find other mentions of similar paths from other Indo-European texts.
Now in the Ferryman video I made some months ago, I mentioned about the “Bridge of Separation”
from Zoroastrian texts, and this is a bridge all deceased must cross, whilst it is also
near impossible for the living to cross it.
Now once the deceased do cross this bridge the righteous ascend to the “Best existence”
or the “House of Song”, but the liars and unworthy are sent down to the “Worst
existence” or the “House of the Lie”.
We see a similar proposition from Plato in Greek culture, where he writes that one path
leads to the “Isle of the Blessed” and the other to “Tartaros”.
But there are other mentions in Greek texts, from the Orphic hymns to Parmenides Proem.
And so considering these, the Indo-European pattern of belief can be understood, that
there are two paths, one to a good place, the other to a bad place, but did this belief
originate with the Proto Indo-European speaking people?
And what isn’t clear is what this actually means, as whilst we have two paths, and where
they go is always described in the same way, the way you decide your path varies.
We sometimes see criteria, based on ethics, that place a deceased person on a particular
path, and the influence here is often very much religious.
If someone has aligned their values to that of the gods they get to take the path to the
light, or if they were born into the right bloodlines they are more likely to take the
path to the light, and so we see that this was initially something initially only given
to the greatest heroes and believers.
In fact the earliest of texts talking of the Elysian Fields were reserved for those who
had kinship with the gods.
In Plato’s Republic we are told that at the time when Kronos ruled, the living had
the foresight of when they would die.
And since the dead came to their place of judgement fully clothed, those who could afford
so would ensure they wore elaborate and luxurious attire, hoping to go to a better place based
on appearance alone.
But when Zeus took over this ability to foresee death was taken away from mortals, and the
deceased appeared naked at the point of judgement.
We also see a passage in the Prose Edda, the lesser reliable of the Eddas, where Snorri
Sturluson writes a passage that reads; It is the greatest deed when Odin made a man
and gave him a soul, which shall always live and never perish, but the corpse will rot
into earth or be burnt into ashes.
And all men who were upright and well-mannered live there with him, in that place called
Gimlé or Vingólf, while wicked men fare to Hel and onwards to Mist-Hel, which is below
it and is the ninth realm.
Now t his passage clearly reflects a Christian bias due to being written several hundred
years after Iceland converted to Christianity.
Here Snorri use Gimlé as opposed to Valhalla, but still inferring the good go somewhere
different to those citizens that are dishonourable.
But the judgement was more than this, you see we know Valhalla was the place where half
those who had an honourable death went, as this is attested to in the Poetic Edda, but
equally we see in the Prose Edda that those who die of old-age or disease go to Niflheim,
the ninth realm, and place considered the opposite to Valhalla.
In effect we see here that whether one died a warrior’s death made all the difference,
and this ethical judgement aligns with what was written by Plato.
And if we then look as the Zoroastrian Yasna we see the passage; “The Best shall be for
him, the knower who speaks truth to me.
The right formula, which is of the truth, wholeness, and immortality.”
Here the term “The Best”, as used earlier in the phrase “The Best existence” technically
means the Heavenly realm and is saved as place only for the knower to go.
And this is a term we see in Parmenides’ Proem where the author speaks of himself as
“the knower”.
And it is a term that in Greek corresponds directly with the Avestan.
However, what is a knower, what do they know?
You see there was a difference between the type of knowledge a follower of Zoroastrianism
had to have, compared to that of the Greeks, or Old Norse, or Vedic come to that.
We even see in the Rig Veda the phrase “the knower of the God-ways path”, but this is
in a passage that refers not to a path to heaven, but to the god Agni, and not due to
knowledge, but due to having performed a sacrifice.
In effect, we see a purpose for the paths, and reasoning as to why they are used, but
there seems to be a lack of information to which to construct a Proto Indo-European form
of this path.
We see in early Indo-European mythology that the European branch of migration had an agricultural,
and almost raw approach to death, initially with no judgement, and no choice.
And this changed through religious transformation and the hierarchical reforms in society.
Whereas the Indo-Iranian cultures seemed to have picked up this judgement early on, as
seen in stories such as those In the Ferryman video.
In fact, it was the lack of clarity in this motif that made Bruce Lincoln, someone I’d
highly recommend reading, for anyone who is interested in myth and Indo-European cosmology,
it made him change his whole view on how to approach these myths.
To me it is clear that the path motif represented, initially at least, a way of splitting society
into hierarchies.
The priests, nobles and heroes went to the light, the others, to the dark, and this split
evolved and transformed with religion, with ethical conduct influencing the path one could
take.
And so again we see religion evolving and transforming our myths, and our cultures behaviours
and beliefs accordingly.
But the original Proto Indo-European thoughts of the two paths, when put amongst the myths
of Koylo the Coverer, the Ferryman, and the Otherworld, that we may never be able to reconstruct,
apart from saying it is almost certainly a later development though.
So whilst this may be a little disappointing our journey into death doesn’t end here,
because I’ll be talking about dogs next, and they link some of these stories of death
to some of the gods.
And it is a fascinating but lightly trodden subject, and so if that sounds interesting
remember to subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell if you want to be alerted
when that video is released.
And on that note, I’ll take a path out of here, and hope you enjoyed that journey and
learnt something new.
So please stay safe and stay well.
And this was Crecganford