Hel (Hella, Hell, Halja, *Haljo) the Hospitable One, The Gracious Hostess, Lady of Comfort and Caretaker of the Ancestors

The word *haljō has been reconstructed as the Common Germanic word for the realm of the dead, and its descendants appear in all the Germanic languages, including East Germanic: the Gothic word haljoruna, “Hel-runester,” meant “witch.” The word stems from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱel-, “to cover;” the Latin-derived words cellar and conceal come from this root (Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary, p. 204).

Gylfaginning 49 describes Hermod’s ride on the road to Hel as leading ni›r ok nor›r, down and to the north. Simek notes that this may be a very old concept, because Neolithic burial mounds always have south-facing entrances with the burial chamber on the north side, and Bronze Age ship-settings (shipshaped outlines made of stones) are usually oriented north-south, as are ship burials from the Vendel and Viking Ages. He points out further that the Old Irish word for “cellar” is cuile, derived from the same root as the name of Hel, which suggests that the concept of Hel developed from the mound-covered rock-chamber (Dictionary, pp. 137-138).

At some point—exactly when is not clear—people began to personify death and/or the realm of the dead as a goddess.

Some have argued that Hel was not considered a goddess in pre-Christian times (Simek, Dictionary, p. 138), and in the Poetic Edda she rarely appears as an unambiguous goddess; the name Hel either refers to a realm of the dead, or is used in such a way that it’s not clear whether the goddess or the realm is meant (Abram, “Hel in Early Norse Poetry,” pp. 4-11) However, she is unambiguously described as a goddess in the oldest skaldic poetry, showing that Viking Age skalds, at least, thought of death as a goddess and knew myths about her (Abram, pp. 11-26; Larrington, “Loki’s Children,” pp. 541-542).

The English may also have thought of Hel as a goddess.

The apocryphal Christian Gospel of Nicodemus, originally written in Greek, calls the ruler of the land of the dead itself (who is distinct from Satan) by the Greek god’s name Hades. But in the Old English translation, known as The Harrowing of Hell, the ruler of the land of the dead is called Hel and has feminine grammatical gender (seo Hel). Her power in her realm is nearly absolute: she quarrels with Satan, drives him off his own throne and imprisons him (Raffel, Poems and Prose from the Old English, pp. 183-189). Hel is also personified as female in the Old English poem Christ III where it is said that at the Last Judgment,

Hell eac ongeat, scyldwreccende. . . . heo flæt weorud ageaf,

”Hel also understood, the punisher of guilt. . . she gave up that host” (ed. Krapp and Dobbie, The Exeter

Book, p. 35).

We might add that in the Old Norse translation of the life of St. Bartholomew, Bartolomæus saga postola, a devil refers to Hel drottning vara, “Hel our queen” (transl. Waggoner, Sagas of Imagination, pp. 70, 76). In Scandinavia as well as England, the idea of a female ruler of the underworld persisted for centuries after Christianization.

Hel is presented as Loki’s daughter, a belief that dates at least to the ninth century.

the poem Ynglingatal calls her Loka mær “ Loki’s girl,” Hve›rungs mær “Hvedrung’s [Loki’s] girl,” and Býleists bró›ur mær, “Byleists’s brother’s [Loki’s] girl.” One verse gives multiple kennings for Hel that make her relationship plain (Ynglinga saga 17; ÍF 26, pp. 33-34):

As Loki’s daughter with the jotun Angrboda, she is sister of the Wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent—but while Fenrir is depicted as bound, Hel rules her own realm, with no husband or any other person who might diminish her sovereignty. In the myth of Balder’s death, even all the Æsir cannot force or persuade her to return Balder except on the terms that she alone sets.

Snorri depicts Hel’s realm as dark, dreary, and uncomfortable (Gylfaginning 34)

Even today, some would-be Vikings hold a simplistic view of the Norse afterlife, in which fallen warriors get to enjoy endless partying and fighting in Valhalla, while everyone else sinks down into Hel for a drab, dull eternity.

In Victorian-era retellings of the myths, Hel, Fenrir, and the Midgard Serpent sometimes represent Death, Pain, and Sin, respectively (e.g. Jones, Valhalla, pp. 17, 19, 33; Guerber, Myths of the Norsemen, p. 180). But this is just Victorian sentiment—death is a natural part of the cycle of life, and Heathenry, old or new, has no real equivalent to sin in the Christian theological sense. Ynglingatal implies that the dead man will receive the personal favors of Hel, while in Saxo’s telling of the death of Balder, the dying Balder sees “Proserpina” in a dream, promising that she will embrace him in three days’ time (History of the Danes III.77; transl. Fisher, p. 75).

The older accounts of the death-goddess depict her as more hospitable, and far less “hellish,” than Snorri’s retellings.

In any case, the afterlife possibilities presented in the old lore are far more complex, diverse, and interesting than the choice between Valhall and Hel.

Nor does the realm of Hel seem like an especially bad place, outside of Snorri’s account. Aside from brief references to a place called Nástrandr, “Corpse Beach,” where oathbreakers, murderers, and deceivers are said to wade through venom (Vǫluspá 37-38), the underworld is not described as a place of torment.

Poems like Baldrs draumar describe mead being brewed in Hel’s high halls, with the benches strewn with gold rings. Saxo’s description of a journey to the underworld includes views of sunny fields and vegetation (see Chapter 18).

In a verse preserved in Heiðarvíga saga 27, a poet refers to a woman who wants to see him dead: ann. . . eplis ǫlselja mér Heljar, “the ale-giver [woman] wishes Hel’s apples for me” (ÍF 3, p. 289).

Idunna’s apples preserve life, while presumably Hel’s apples do the exact opposite—but all the same, there are evidently great halls in Hel’s realm, and places with sunshine and plants and trees.

Scandinavian folk stories sometimes depict Hel, or someone very like her, as coming to Midgard to claim the dead herself.

The Black Plague ravaged Scandinavia beginning in 1348, even more severely than in mainland Europe, and stories of the unimaginable death it left in its wake were told for centuries afterwards. The Plague was seen traveling from village to village, in the form of an old woman carrying a rake and a broom.

If she used her rake on a village, some people would survive, but if she used her broom, no one survived (Simpson, Scandinavian Folktales, pp.52-53; Kvideland and Sehmsdorf, Scandinavian Folk Belief 60.2, 60.4, pp. 345-346; Tangherlini, “Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs,” pp. 193-194).

In the older lore, Hel simply welcomes the dead into her halls, but never lets any of them leave.

In the Old English Harrowing of Hell, she says “Many who now dwell within me are anxious to escape. But I know they will not leave me by their own power. . .” (transl. Raffel, Poems and Prose, p. 186) In the myth of Balder’s death, the one being who refuses to weep for Balder is a jotynja named Þǫkk (“Thanks”). Snorri claims that Þǫkk is Loki in disguise. It could very well be that Þǫkk is Hel herself. When Þǫkk says haldi Hel því er hefir—“Let Hel hold what she has”—she may mean that death is inexorable, even if every being in the universe should wish otherwise (Gylfaginning 49).

Hel’s Appearance

Hel is described in Gylfaginning 34 as a stern woman whose body is half blue-black (blár) and half with normal skin tone. As Snorri puts it, því er hon auðkend, “thus she is easy to recognize.” (No doubt!) Corpses are often described as blár, or as either helblár “Hel blue/black” or nábleikr, náfǫlr, “corpse-pale,” and thus some interpret Snorri’s description to mean that she is half corpse and half living. Most Heathens who depict or work with Hel see her halves as left and right, but this is not the only possibility; folk personifications of death in several Indo-European cultures have normal-looking front halves, but hollowed-out or otherwise abnormal back halves (Lincoln, Death, War and Sacrifice, pp. 78-80). As mentioned in Chapter 2, a dead body turns blue in whatever parts are lowermost, thanks to blood pooling under gravity; this is called livor mortis. A corpse will develop pale skin on its upward-facing side and bluish skin on its downward-facing side; if the corpse lies on its side, whichever side is lowermost will turn the same color. This may be the origin of Hel’s appearance.

Alice Karlsdóttir has written of her own experiences with Hel (“The Lady Death,” p. 6):

Leaving scholarly speculations for more mystical ones, I have done a series of meditations on Hel over a few years, trying to find out what sort of deity she is, and have seldom seen her as two-colored. She appears either all hideous (which seems to amuse her greatly as being a huge joke on everyone) or all beautiful, with very pale skin, hair, eyes, and garments, and always with her crown on. Death appears fearsome and ugly to the living, for we see it as an end to all we know and love, often accompanied by pain and fear. But if death is a part of life and the natural cycle of things, and if the soul continues in another life afterwards, might not Death appear beautiful to one who is dying, a welcome release from pain, a doorway to a new existence? When death is truly accepted and understood, it loses its hideous face. Perhaps this is what Hel’s two-faced quality represents. . . . There are as many references to beauty in her realm as ugliness. It comes down to whether we are going to be willing to accept death or not, but willing or not, we must face her sooner or later.

Hel is identified with horses; Ynglingatal names her jódís, “horse-dis.”

She is called glitnis Gná in the same verse—the word glitnir is the name of Forseti’s hall, which seems out of place, but the word also appears as a poetic term for a horse, so glitnis Gná probably means “horse goddess” (with the name Gná being used to stand in for any goddess, a common figure of speech in skaldic poetry; see Abram, “Hel in Early Norse Poetry,” pp. 15-16). The Black Plague appears in folktales as a white horse or a three-legged white goat named Hel (Tangherlini, “Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs,” p. 187). In Iceland, the plague took the shape of a grey bull (Tangherlini, p. 202; Jón Þorkelsson, fijo›sögur og Munnmæli, pp. 270-271), which might also be related to her.

While most Heathens are not especially keen on meeting Hel before their time: there is nothing against her worship and many Heathens today certainly worship Hel.

Modern Heathens often associate black or deep blue (blár) and white with her, as well as the runes hagalaz (ᚺ), isa (ᛁ), and berkano (ᛒ).

Several modern Heathens have the impression that roses are fitting flowers for her; their sharp thorns and soft, sweet blooms might embody the dual nature of death, painful and gentle.

Two of our members have shared with us their thoughts on their relationship with Hel:

Hel is not a patron deity for me, but I do honor her, and I consider her an important deity to my heathen path. I have had powerful experiences in Winter Nights rituals in the kindred I was part of back East, where we honored her as keeper of the dead, especially our ancestors. I do not think these rituals would have been as potent without honoring her. We used a fire to ritually open a portal to Helheim, asking her blessing and help in connecting with our ancestors who we wished to honor. We were careful to close the portal at the end of the ritual.

Offerings were also made at her godpost before and after the ritual, by the kindred as a whole and also by individuals. As an individual, I honor Hel when I make specific efforts to connect with my ancestors. Without Hel, I believe my connections to my ancestors would not be as potent. I also find worship of Hel and reflection on her role to be an important part of my understanding of life and death and heathenry. On the altar I share with my husband, we have skulls to remind us of the dead, and Hel, along with photos of ancestors and an empty frame for the forgotten dead. I believe Hel watches over such people and helps us connect to our archetypal ancestors when we are ready.

A lot of folks new to heathenry are under the impression that Valhalla is either the default “heaven” or a goal. I much prefer the idea of Hel watching over my ancestors, helping me connect to them and waiting together for me to join them at the be appropriate time.

— Saera Uí Chearnaigh

My own journey with her began years ago, as I’ve always loved the darker goddesses of various Pagan traditions—Kali, Hecate, Morrigan, Morgan, and certainly Hela. When my husband was diagnosed with cancer four years ago, it was Hela who helped me deal with it, for she is both living and dead, and a bridge, or gateway, to both worlds. She is a psychopomp for all of us who have fallen between the cracks, and are not warriors bound for Valhalla, Folkvang or other destinations. It is Hela who takes us in and eventually leads us back to life.

She is there for us on both sides of the gate, to ease our pain, fear, and trauma. I originally wrote this article after receiving a diagnosis and surgery for a brain tumor (the operation to remove it was successful and I am recovering). After the first shock, I felt tranquil about the outcome, either way.

I think that is because I have a strong relationship with Hel, and know She is my guide, on either side—life or death. When I was going under the anesthesia for the operation, I felt Her loving presence support me. Hel brings acceptance and diminishes fear.

—Susa Black, “Hel,” Idunna 121, p. 8