Hel – Mistress of the Dead

Not every dead man came to Valhalla. Most people – all who died of sickness and age – went to Hel. She is the mistress of the death-world, Loki’s daughter, half living and half dead: one of the grimmest and yet most dignified figures of the North – cruel to some, gentle to others, to each as they deserve.

The name Hel originally means „the concealing, the veiling one" and denotes both the goddess and her realm, Helheim. Unlike the Christian word „hell", which derives from it in sound, the Norse Hel is no place of punishment but simply the realm of the ordinary dead – cool, still, but not tormenting.

Child of Loki and the Giantess Angrboða

Hel is the daughter of Loki and the giantess Angrboða – sister of the wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent. When the gods beheld the uncanny siblings, Odin cast Hel down into Niflheim and gave her power over nine worlds: she was to give lodging to all who die of sickness and age. So the outcast child became a queen.

Half Living, Half Dead

Snorri describes Hel as flesh-coloured and living on one side, dark and corpse-blue on the other – her body itself the image of her nature: on the border between the worlds, wholly neither one nor the other. „Grim and gloomy" is her look, it is said. And yet she is no demon, but a steward – just, incorruptible, inescapable.

The Two Faces of Hel

Here lies what most fascinates about her: Hel has two faces. For the one who comes full of fear and a bad conscience, her realm is a place of cold – her hall bears names that freeze the blood. But for the one who steps to her in dignity and at peace with his life, it is a still, honourable resting-place. Hel does not judge by good and evil like a lord of hell; she gives each what befits his life – the hard to the hard, the gentle to the gentle.

“Hunger is her dish, Famine her knife, Slow her manservant and Slothful her maid, Stumbling-block her threshold, Sick-bed her bed, and Gleaming-woe her hangings.”— after Snorri, Gylfaginning 34 (public-domain translation)

Eljúðnir – the Court of the Dead

Hel’s hall is called Eljúðnir („the rain-drenched"). Everything within bears those grim names – and yet it is an ordered household with servant and maid, hearth and bed. Whoever comes here is not tortured; he is lodged. It is the image of a Viking farmstead in winter: bare, dim, but a roof overhead and a place at the long table.

Hel and the Death of Baldr

Her greatest hour is the death of Baldr. When the brightest of the gods dies, even he comes to Hel’s realm – and is received there with all honour, on the high seat, served with mead. The messenger Hermóðr rides to Helheim and begs for Baldr’s return. Hel sets a single condition: if every being in the world weeps for Baldr, she will free him. Almost every being weeps – only a giantess in a cave who calls herself Þökk („Thanks“) refuses her tears: „Þökk will weep dry tears for Baldr’s death.“ So Baldr stays with Hel. It is whispered that this was Loki in the giantess’s shape – but that is not certain: Snorri himself only says that „people believe“ it was Loki. Hel, at any rate, keeps her word and keeps him. Hard? Yes. But just: she had named her condition, and she stands by it.