The real personality of the dead, the one endowed with _litr_, _ódr_, and _önd_, was and remained in the death kingdom, although circumstances might take place that would call him back for a short time. The drink which the happy dead person received in Hades was intended not only to strengthen his _litr_, but also to soothe that longing which the earthly life and its memories might cause him to feel. If a dearly-beloved kinsman or friend mourned the deceased too violently, this sorrow disturbed his happiness in the death kingdom, and was able to bring him back to earth. Then he would visit his grave-mound, and he and his _alter ego_, the _haugbúi_, would become one. This was the case with Helge Hundingsbane (Helge Hund., ii. 40, &c.). The sorrow of Sigrun, his beloved, caused him to return from Valhal to earth and to ride to his grave, where Sigrun came to him and wanted to rest in his arms during the night. But when Helge had told her that her tears pierced his breast with pain, and had assured her that she was exceedingly dear to him, and had predicted that they together should drink the sorrow-allaying liquids of the lower world, he rode his way again, in order that, before the crowing of the cock, he might be back among the departed heroes. Prayer was another means of calling the dead back. At the entrance of his deceased mother's grave-chamber Svipdag beseeches her to awake. Her ashes kept in the grave-chamber (_er til moldar er komin_) and her real personality from the realm of death (_er ór ljodheimum er lidin_) then unite, and Groa speaks out of the grave to her son (Grogaldr., i. 2). A third means of revoking the dead to earth lay in conjuration. But such a use of conjuration was a great sin, which relegated the sinner to the demons. (Cp. Saxo's account of Hardgrep.)
Thus we understand why the dead descended to Hades and still inhabited the grave-mounds. One died "to Hel" and "to the grave" at the same time. That of which earthly man consisted, in addition to his corporal garb, was not the simple being, "the soul," which cannot be divided, but there was a combination of factors, which in death could be separated, and of which those remaining on earth, while they had long been the covering of a personal kernel (_ódr_), could themselves in a new combination form another ego of the person who had descended to Hades.