The Soul
There are at least two currently known interpretations of soul from accounts of ancient Norse belief. The last breath a person took was understood to be an evaporation of the life principle into a source of life that was primeval and common, and which was in the world of the gods, nature and the universe. There was also a "free soul" or "dream soul" that could only leave the body during moments of unconsciousness, ecstasy, trance and sleep. The conscious soul which comprised emotions and will was located in the body and it could only be released when the body was destroyed through decay or immolation. When the body had been broken down, the conscious soul could start its journey to the realm of the dead, possibly by using the free soul as an intermediary.
Read more about this topic: Death In Norse Paganism
Famous quotes containing the word soul:
“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive ...”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)
“Thus to him, to this schoolboy under the bending dome of day, is suggested that he and it proceed from one root; one is leaf and one is flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that root? Is not that the soul of his soul?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)