The Norseman always concentrated his ideas as much as possible. For this reason he knew but three sins—perjury, murder, and adultery; that is, sin against God, sin against the state, and sin against fellow-man; and all these are in fact but one sin—deceitfulness. In the same manner the Norseman concentrated his ideas in regard to the punishment of sin. When the Eddas tell us about the punishment of the wicked, they sum it all up in Naastrand (the strand of corpses), that place far from the sun, that large and terrible cave, the doors of which open to the north. This cave is built of serpents wattled together, and the heads of all the serpents turn into the cave, filling it with streams of poison, in which perjurers, murderers and adulterers have to wade. The suffering is terrible; gory hearts hang outside of their breasts; their faces are dyed in blood; strong venom-dragons fiercely run through their hearts; their hands are riveted together with ever-burning stones; their clothes a wrapped in flames; remorseless ravens tear their eyes from their heads: But all the horrors You cannot know, That Hel’s condemned endure; Sweet sins there Bitterly are punished, False pleasures Reap true pain. The point to be observed is, that all the punishment here described is the same for all the wicked. But with this, the versatile Greek is not content. He multiplies the sins and the punishments. Tartaros is full of despair and tears, and the wicked there suffer a variety of tortures. Enormous vultures continually gnaw the liver of Tityos, but it always grows again. Ixion is lashed with serpents to a wheel, which a strong wind drives continually round and round. Tantalos suffers from an unceasing dread of being crushed by a great rock that hangs over his head; he stands in a stream of water that flows up to his throat, and he almost perishes from thirst; whenever he bends his head to drink the water recedes; delicious fruits hang over his head, whenever he stretches out his hand they evade his grasp. Thus it is to be _tantalized_. The Danaïdes must fill a cistern that has holes in the bottom; all the water they pour in runs out equally fast. Sisyphos, sweating and all out of breath, rolls his huge stone up the mountain side; when he reaches the summit, the stone rolls down again.