All roads to Hell lead down, whether it be from Asgard, Midgard or Jotunheim...
Not only dead men are to be found there, but in Hell there also dwell the phantoms of gods and giants...
The sinners from Midgard are nor excluded, especially oath-breakers, murderers and those who have been disloyal...
In Norse folklore, Hel [(meaning "to bury," and "grave")] is a giantess and goddess, who presides over Helheim; the realm of the dead or the World of Darkness (Niflheim), where she receives a portion of the dead...
Hel is the youngest child of the trickister god Loki and the giantess Angrboda. She is the sister of the wolf Fenrir and the world serpent Jormungand...
The gods had abducted Hel and her brothers from Angrboda's hall.
They cast her in the underworld, into which she distributes those who are send to her; the wicked and those who died of sickness or old age.
Her hall in Helheim is called Eljudnir, home of the dead. Her manservant is Ganglati and her maidservant is Ganglot (which both can be translated as "tardy").
However, mention is made in an early poem of the nine worlds of Niflheim. It was said that those who fell in battle did not go to Hel but to the god Odin, in Valhalla, the hall of the slain...
She is usually described as a horrible hag, half alive and half dead, with a gloomy and grim expression.
Her face and body are those of a living woman, but her thighs and legs are those of a corpse, mottled and moldering...
She is cold, aloof and indifferent to the suffering of her constituents (as evidenced by her role in the saga of Balder's death, among others)...
Hel is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson.
In addition, she is mentioned in poems recorded in Heimskringla and Egils saga that date from the 9th and 10th centuries, respectively.
An episode in the Latin work Gesta Danorum, written in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus, is generally considered to refer to Hel, and Hel may appear on various Migration Period bracteates....
Resources:
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