The Household of Hel

“Here she possesses a habitation protected by exceedingly high walls and strongly barred gates. Her hall is called Elvidnir; Hunger is her table; Starvation, her knife; Delay, her man; Slowness, her maid; Precipice, her threshold; Care, her bed; and Burning Anguish forms the hangings of her apartments.”

In Gylfaginning Snorri says the gods cast Hel into Niflheim and gave her power over nine worlds. Her dwelling has high walls and barred gates, and each thing in her hall has a name that is also a hard word: her dish, her knife, her two servants, her threshold, her bed and the hangings. Blackwell gives them in English as Hunger, Starvation, Delay, Slowness, Precipice, Care and Burning Anguish. The hall itself, Elvidnir in this translation, has its own entry (Éljúðnir).

Blackwell translates the names by meaning. In Old Norse editions they are usually given as Hungr (the dish), Sultr (the knife), Ganglati and Ganglöt (the man and the maid), Fallanda forað (the threshold), Kör (the bed) and Blíkjanda böl (the hangings). Spellings and word divisions vary between editions and manuscripts, so these forms are one common choice.