him helle gescóp, for them he made hell, wælcealde wíc, a dwelling deadly cold, wintre beðeahte: with winter covered: wæter insende water he sent in and wyrmgeardas, and snake-dwellings, atol deór monig many a foul beast írenum hornum; with horns of iron; blódige earnas bloody eagles and bláce nædran; and pale adders; þirst and hungor thirst and hunger and þearle gewin, and fierce conflict, eácne egesan, mighty terror, unrótnisse. joylessness[727]. ----- Footnote 725: So the Greeks: Πῶς ἔτλης Ἄϊδόσδε κατελθέμεν, ἔνθα τε νεκροὶ Ἀφραδέες ναίουσι, βροτῶν εἴδωλα καμόντων; Odyss. xi. 473. Footnote 726: Fire was too cheerful in the North to be sufficiently an object of terror: it appeared otherwise in the East, where coolness is the greatest of luxuries. Footnote 727: Sal. Sat. p. 173. ----- Even in their more orthodox descriptions, ecclesiastical poets, though naturally adopting the Judaic notions, cannot always shake off the old, habitual tradition of their forefathers, but recur to the frost, gloom and serpents of Nástrond, and the realm of Hel; of which a passage already quoted from Beda is ample evidence. As far as we can judge from the descriptions which survive, the Anglosaxons represented Hell to themselves as a close and covered dwelling, a prison duly secured as earthly prisons are by locks, bolts and bars[728]. But the popular fancy had probably even then adopted the notion of a monstrous beast whose _mouth_ was the entrance to the place of torment: this appears not only from the illustrations to Cædmon[729], but from the common expression, so long current, of Hell-mouth. From this peculiar feature however we may believe that a remembrance still lurked among our forefathers of the gigantic or Titanic character of the ancient goddess, who, in Norse mythology, was Loki’s daughter. In nearly every case, the word Hel in Anglosaxon, and especially Anglosaxon prose, has merely the abstract sense we now give it; but here and there a passage may be found in which we discover traces of the personal meaning: thus perhaps in Beówulf where we find these lines, siððan dreámaleás when reft of joy in fenfreoðo in his fen-refuge feorh álegde, he his life laid down, hǽðene sáwle, his heathen soul, ðǽr him Hel onfeng. there Hel received him[730]. ----- Footnote 728: Beda himself speaks of “inferni claustra” (H. E. v. 13), and for this there was supposed to be sufficient authority in the figurative expression, Matt. xvi. 18. Footnote 729: Published by the Society of Antiquaries. Footnote 730: