Across the river Gjöll there was a bridge. It was broad and long and made of gold that glittered, and on the other side of the bridge lay Helheim, where the dead went.
At the bridge stood Módguðr. She was a guard, and it was her job to ask everyone who came the same question.
"What is your name, and how did you die?"
Most of them were old. They came slowly, with tired feet, and they answered quietly. "My name is Grim. I died of old age." Or: "My name is Sigrid. I fell ill in the winter." Módguðr nodded and let them pass, and they walked across the bridge with their tired feet and disappeared into the mist on the other side.
Sometimes children came. That was the hardest part. They did not quite know what had happened, and they asked for their mothers and fathers, and Módguðr crouched down and said: "They will come too. Everyone comes here in the end."
One day a woman came who was not old and not ill. She stopped in front of Módguðr and said: "My name is Nanna. I died of grief."
"Of grief?" said Módguðr.
"My husband died," said Nanna. "Baldr. They shot him with a mistletoe branch. And my grief was so great that my heart stopped beating."
Módguðr had heard about Baldr. Everyone had heard about Baldr. He was the brightest and kindest of all the gods, and his death was the saddest news that had ever travelled across the bridge.
"He is already here," said Módguðr. "He crossed the bridge yesterday."
Nanna smiled. It was the first smile Módguðr had seen at the bridge in a very long time.
"Thank you," said Nanna, and walked on.
Módguðr stayed. She always stayed. It was her place, at the bridge, between the living and the dead, and sometimes it was sad and sometimes it was beautiful, and often it was simply what it was.
The next person came. Módguðr asked her question.
"What is your name, and how did you die?"
And the story went on. As it always does.