Andlang

Andlang is attested in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, which records a ninefold scheme of heavens and names Andlang as the second heaven. Modern scholars (e.g., Holtsmark, Simek) argue that Snorri's depiction may have been influenced by medieval Christian-Latin concepts of a 'spiritual heaven' (Latin Coelus Spiritualis) as found in the Elucidarius; Holtsmark proposed that an Icelandic formulation andlegr himinn ('spiritual heaven') informed Snorri's terminology and that the and- element encouraged associations with Old Norse andi/önd ('spirit'/'breath'). The conception of Andlang as a distinct heavenly tier with a post-Ragnarök refuge function is thus preserved in Snorri's text and interpreted by later scholars in light of possible syncretism with Christian theological vocabulary.

The primary attestations do not provide sensory or pictorial description of Andlang's landscapes or structures; Snorri identifies it only by its position as the second heaven between the gods' heaven and Vídbláin. Scholarly commentary draws on etymological possibilities—associations with andlegr ('spiritual'), andi/önd ('spirit'/'breath'), or senses of extension such as 'extended' or 'endlessly long'—to suggest conceptual resonances (spiritual heaven, extended aether) but the sources contained in the provided material give no concrete visual, auditory, or material details.

As a cosmological region rather than an animate being, Andlang's described function in the sources is ontological: it 'will serve as a shelter and dwelling place for the souls of the dead during and after the destruction of Ragnarök.' The realm's capacity is therefore to receive and house souls in the eschatological aftermath; no agency, motion, speech, or active behavior is attributed to Andlang itself in the cited texts.