Yggdrasil · Cold and the Dead

Hel

The realm of the dead ruled by the goddess Hel.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Blackwell’s translation

Hela he cast into Nifelheim, and gave her power over nine worlds (regions), into which she distributes those who are sent to her, that is to say, all who die through sickness or old age.

Myth and literature

What the sources say

In Gylfaginning, Hel is Loki’s daughter by a giantess of Jötunheimr. Odin casts her into Niflheimr and gives her power over nine worlds, so that she can share out lodging among those who are sent to her: all who die of sickness or old age. Her dwelling has very high walls and strong gates, and her hall is called Éljúðnir.

The name Hel is both the goddess and the place. The “nine worlds” in that sentence are not named, and need not be the nine realms of the map: the old texts never list the nine.

  • attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), the passage on Loki’s children
  • Wikipedia contributors, Nine Worlds (opens in a new tab)
Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

Hel is both the name of the realm and of its ruler. It comes from a reconstructed Proto-Germanic word for a concealed place, from a root meaning to cover or hide, and is related to English hall and hell. The sources disagree about it. The Poetic Edda places it beneath one of Yggdrasil's roots, Baldrs draumar mentions Niflhel just outside it, and the Prose Edda puts it in Niflheim and counts it as the ninth world. Gylfaginning sends evil men and those who die of sickness or age there.

Hilda Davidson argued that Snorri's descriptions are chiefly his own work, possibly shaped by Christian ideas. Baldrs draumar is not in the Codex Regius, so its geography is less secure.

Historical evidence

Where the sources attest it

Hel appears as a place in Grímnismál, stanza 31 in Thorpe’s numbering, beneath one of the three roots of the ash, and in Vafþrúðnismál 43 as the destination of those who die. Völuspá 35 mentions a cock crowing in Hel’s halls. Snorri’s Gylfaginning adds Hel as a person: Odin cast her into Niflheim and gave her power over nine worlds, and her hall is Éljúðnir. The poems speak of the place; the personified ruler with her hall is in the prose.

Snorri’s Prose Edda survives in several medieval manuscripts, chiefly Codex Regius, Codex Wormianus and the Uppsala manuscript, so the Gylfaginning accounts rest on those copies rather than on a single text.