Nastrond
Nastrond
The "Strand of the Dead"—the Scandinavian and Icelandic hell, said to be of an icy temperature. It lies in the lowest depths of Niflheim, is a "dark abode far from the sun," and its gates face "the cutting north." Its "walls are formed of wreathed snakes, and their venom is ever falling like rain." It is surrounded by dark and poisonous streams, and Nidhog, the great dragon that dwells beneath the central root of Ygdrassil, torments and gnaws the dead. Here Loki is chained to a splintered rock, where the venom of the snake Skada falls on him unceasingly, and it was believed that his shuddering was the cause of earthquakes.
Nastrond is featured in the Voluspa, a poem in the Icelandic Poetic Edda.
Sources:
The Poetic Edda. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.