540 Doors

Then spoke Gangleri: ‘That is amazing information that you
have just given. Val-hall must be a terribly large building, it must
often be pretty crowded around the doorways.’

Then High replied: ‘Why don’t you ask how many doors there
are in Val-hall, and how wide they are? If you hear about this then
what you will say is that on the contrary it is amazing if everyone
cannot go out and in that wants to. But to tell the truth it is not
more crowded when it is occupied than when it is being entered.
You can hear about it here in Grimnismal:

Five hundred doors and yet forty more, that is what I think
are in Val-hall. Eight hundred Einheriar will go at once
through one doorway when they and the wolf go to fight.’

Then spoke Gangleri: ‘There is a very large number of people in
Val-hall. I declare by my salvation that Odin is a very great lord
when he commands such a great troop. But what entertainment
do the Einheriar have when they are not drinking?’


- Prose Edda, Gylfaginning