https://freedomboard.kirara.ca/fringe/res/9588.html"Everywhere in Norse literature we meet with the notion of a man's second ego, his double (doppelgänger), his fylgja (follower). This fylgja is nothing less than man's soul, which dwells in the body, and leaves it at death, but which even during one's lifetime already leads an independent existence, so that in one instance a person is even said to have stumbled over his own fylgja. Similarly, Helgi's fylgjur (plural) are seen before his death. The fylgja stands on the border line dividing souls from spirits. The fylgja is the soul which leaves man in his sleep, which after his death passes over to his son, so that the personal fylgja (mannsfylgja) becomes a family fylgja (attarfylgia). It may also be feminine in form (fylgjjukona), a sort of goddess (dis) who premonishes man in dreams, appears to him more especially shortly before his death, at time vexes, and then again protects him. Such fylgjur ar referred to in Atlamál, 27:
In Norse literature, and in Teutonic popular belief as well, we frequently meet with the tradition that souls in the guise of small flames frequent the neighborhood of the place where the corpse lies buried. They likewise roam about to expiate a crime. Cross-roads are thought to be haunted by souls, and the church accordingly inveighed against worshipping at bivia and trivia; but this latter belief is perhaps of Roman origin. In Norse sagas it is not an uncommon occurrence that the body of a person who was believed to haunt the earth was dug up and burnt (…)"
A permanent abode of souls is mentioned in several sources. This abode of the souls is at times conceived as lying beyond the sea; souls or corpses must therefore be conveyed across this or be left at the mercy of winds and waves. In a noteworthy passage in Procopius, Britain is called the land of the dead. On the opposite coast, in Frankish territory, dwell the mariners who, without catching sight of their passengers, carry the dead across the channel. At midnight they are notified in a mysterious manner, and setting out with their heavily laden boats succeed in reaching the island of Britain in a single hour. Upon their arrival the souls are called out by name, and the ferrymen thereupon return with their empty boats. Claudian (fifth century) likewise tells us that at the extreme limits of Gaul, i.e. opposite the British coast, "there is a spot, where Gaul stretches out its furthermost shore opposite the waters of the ocean, where they say the Ulixes with a libation of blood stirred up the silent folk. There the mournful plaint of shades fitting about with a gentle whir is heard. The natives see the pallid forms and the figures of the dead depart." According to other sources, the land of souls is situated in the mountains, and it is there that the historical and mythical heroes have their abode: Barbarossa in the Kyffhauser, Holger Danske under the rock of Kronburg (Denmark), Siegfried in Geroldseck, and the three founders of the Swiss federation at Grütli in a cleft in the rock near the Lake of Lucerne. Souls of unknown men issue forth from the mountains as well: "armed hosts of horsemen," "souls of fallen soldiers," including even women and others besides warriors. Icelandic sagas too repeatedly refer to the belief that the dead dwell in mountains. We have here a special form of that translation, which Rohde, Psyche, was the first to treat at length, but to which even Jacob Grimm devoted a separate chapter containing a large number of examples.