Hel

The Lady of Helheim

Domain: Norse Underworld
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Element: Darkness
Relics of Power: Black Ice Throne

Speak with Hel

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 8 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Norse & Germanic peoples

Region

Scandinavia & northern Europe

Period

Viking Age, 8th–11th c.

The gods of Asgard were worshipped by the Norse peoples of Scandinavia and by the Germanic tribes, especially during the Viking Age. Warriors sought to die in battle to reach Odin's Valhalla, and the myths were preserved in the Icelandic Eddas. The cult declined with the region's Christianization around the year 1000.

The Norse celebrated blóts, seasonal sacrifices with feasts of meat and mead, such as the Yule of the winter solstice. The great temple at Uppsala, in Sweden, hosted every nine years one of the largest sacrificial festivals of the Viking world.

At a glance

In medieval Norse sources, Hel is both a character and the name of a realm of the dead. In Gylfaginning 34, Snorri presents her as the daughter of Loki and the giantess Angrboda, cast by Odin into Niflheim with power over nine worlds and the task of apportioning dwellings among those sent to her, who in that passage are the people who die of sickness or old age. In the story of Baldr, she receives the messenger Hermóðr and sets the condition that all things must weep for the dead god; a giantess, Þökk, refuses. Other sources give different scenes: in Baldrs draumar, Odin questions a dead prophetess near Hel’s house without speaking to Hel; in Ynglinga saga, a verse on the death of King Dyggvi alludes to “Loki’s maiden”. These texts differ in genre and scope. They do not form a single biography, and they prove neither an organized cult nor a historical geography of the afterlife. The same name serves for the ruler and for the place, so each passage must be read through its own subject and episode.

15 min read · Reviewed on October 13, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

Half-corpse face, the icy realm and the gates of Helheim

Family

Parents

LokiAngrboda

Siblings

Fenrir JörmungandrSleipnir (half-brother)

Hel

Genealogy according to Edda em Prosa de Snorri Sturluson (Gylfaginning 34 e seções 50–55 de Anderson); Edda Poética (Völuspá, Baldrs draumar); Saga dos Ynglingos (Heimskringla)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Snorri Sturluson, The Younger Edda (Gylfaginning). translation: Rasmus B. Anderson, Scott, Foresman and Company, 1901. read
Anonymous (Old Norse tradition), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (Völuspá, Vegtamskviða, Lokasenna, Alvíssmál, Helreið Brynhildar, Sólarljóð). translation: Benjamin Thorpe. read
Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga (Heimskringla), ch. 20. translation: Old Norse text, heimskringla.no. read
Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda (Gylfaginning). translation: Anthony Faulkes, Everyman, 1987.
Anonymous (Old Norse tradition), Poetic Edda. translation: Carolyn Larrington, The Poetic Edda, Oxford World's Classics, 2014.

Studies

Hilda Ellis Davidson, The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1943.
John Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Name and epithets

Hel is the name of Loki’s daughter in Gylfaginning 34 and, in the passages on Baldr, also the place one rides to (“the way to Hel”).

In the ancient sources

Prose Edda (Snorri Sturluson), c. 1220 CE. Hel’s parentage and dominion, the hall Éljúðnir, Hermóðr’s mission, the condition of tears, Þökk’s refusal, the criteria for who goes to Hel, and the “friends of Hel” at Ragnar…

The myths

Loki’s three children and Hel’s fate. In section 34 of Anderson’s translation, Snorri says that Loki had three children with the giantess Angrboda in Jötunheim: the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Jormungand and Hel.

Worship and archaeology

Ynglinga saga and Gylfaginning describe Hel in narratives, genealogies and poetry, genealogies and poetry, but they offer no evidence for an organized historical cult in her honor.

How the god was depicted

Gylfaginning 34, in Anderson’s translation, describes Hel as half blue and half the hue of flesh, with a stern and grim look.

After antiquity

Anderson (1901) already notes that the English word hell derives from the goddess’s name, which makes it easy to confuse the Norse Hel with the Christian hell. The comparison calls for care.

Did you know?

Anderson translates the list of names in Hel’s hall (Famine, Starvation, Stumbling-block, Care, Gleaming Bale) and notes that Ganglate and Ganglot, the servants, both mean “sloth”.

Codex relic

Black Ice Throne. A freezing relic that traps and freezes the soul in the gloomy depths.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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