No, I’m not talking about that Hell. I’m talking about Hel (also known as Hella), the Norse Goddess of the Underworld and one of the most misunderstood characters in the Norse Pantheon. The reason for this is because I’ve been watching the show Runes on Bentkey now that the season is over and unfortunately, she’s one of the villains in the show who’s working to free her father, Loki, from Rollo’s spell. And it’s not just Runes that portrays her as a villainous, blood-thirsty monster, Disney did it a few years ago in Thor: Ragnarok. Now, I think it’s time to put the record straight that though she seems scary, she wasn’t a horrible person in the stories and might’ve actually been one of the more levelheaded ones.
Hel mostly appears in the Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, with a few mentions in the Heimskringla and Eglis saga as the daughter of Loki who was appointed to be the ruler of the Underworld (also called Hel) by Odin (contrast this to Thor: Ragnarok where she’s Odin’s daughter). She’s described as being blue – possibly frost-bitten – on one side, while the other side is still healthy, and she always looks gloomy and fierce. Her home is in Niflhiem, under one of the three roots of the World Tree, where she keeps the mansion of the dead.
If you’re wondering something along the lines of, “Wait! Don’t the dead go to Valhalla?” the answer is yes…but only if they die the right way, the right way being brutal, bloody, and “honorably” (i.e. dying while killing as many people as you can). The way you managed to get into Hel was by dying peacefully of natural causes, so if you think about it, it wasn’t that horrible. Sure, you didn’t get the mead halls and you didn’t get to hang out with the rest of the Asgardians, but you at least got to live a longer life than your pillaging friends.
Hel mostly neutral and takes a role most notably in the death of the god Baldr. The story goes that Baldr was the son of Odin and had his father’s clairvoyant nature. One day, he had a dream that he would be killed and told his mother, Frigg about it, but left out an important bit about how the thing that would kill him would be made out of mistletoe since he thought, “Eh…it’s mistletoe. It can’t be that bad, right?”(Spoiler alert: it was that bad.) Frigg, being a protective mother, made everything on Earth vow that it would never hurt Baldr and at the end of the day, she thought that he was safe.
Unfortunately for Baldr, however, Loki knew about his weakness and the gods had already decided to make a game out of shooting, throwing, or hitting Baldr with things and watching as they bounced harmlessly off of him. This was the perfect time to try out the new mistletoe spear that Loki had been working on, so he went to where the game was happening and handed the spear to Baldr’s brother, Höðr (don’t ask me how to pronounce that), who was blind. With Loki guiding his hand, Höðr threw the spear at his brother and hit him dead on, killing him instantly.
Loki, of course, got away with it for a while and all the blame was initially put on Höðr, who was killed by his half-brother, Váli, who was born for the sole purpose of killing him. The Asgardians then held a funeral for Baldr where a bunch of super notable people showed up to send him off and burn the funeral boat.
Now, this is where Hel comes in.
Because Baldr hadn’t died killing a bunch of people, his soul went to Hel when he died, giving the goddess leave to do with him what she wanted. Knowing this, Frigg asked the Asgardians ride down to Hel to bring Baldr back to life in return for “all her love and favor.” All the Asgardians denied her request except for the god Hermóðr, who rode to Hel’s abode and asked her for Baldr the morning after arriving. He told her about how sad everyone was over his death and how much it would mean to them if he could come back to life…yada, yada…and after some thought, Hel agreed that Badr would be allowed to go home if everyone in the world mourned for him and didn’t say anything bad about him.
That seemed like a good trade to Hermóðr in a world where things were often much more difficult and everyone got to work being sad for Baldr, except for a giantess named Þökk, who just wanted to be a jerk and said, “…let Hel hold what she has.” This action eventually helped kick off the events that started Ragnarok, but that’s a post for a different time.
Until next time,
M.J.
The Tanuki Corner 
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