Hel

The tale of Hel

Hel is the daughter of Loki and the giantess Angrboda, sister of the wolf Fenrir and the World Serpent. When the gods heard the prophecies about Loki's children, Odin threw Hel down into the cold, misty depths below the roots of Yggdrasil and gave her rule over the dead. Her realm carries her name: Helheim, or simply Hel.

She is easy to recognise. One half of her is the colour of living skin, and the other half is blue-black like a corpse, or in some tellings bare bone. She has a stern, grim face. Her hall is called Éljúðnir, "sprinkled with sleet". Her dish is Hunger, her knife is Famine, and her bed is Sickbed.

Not everyone comes to her. Warriors who fall in battle go to Odin or to Freya. Hel receives all the others: those who die of age, of illness or by accident. To reach her they ride down the long road of Hel, cross the river Gjöll on the golden bridge Gjallarbrú, and pass the hound Garm, who guards her gate.

The ransom of Baldr

When the shining god Baldr was killed by Loki's trick with the mistletoe, he too went down to Hel, and Asgard fell into grief. Hermód the Bold, son of Odin, borrowed the eight-legged horse Sleipnir and rode for nine nights through dark valleys to her hall. He found his brother sitting in the seat of honour beside Hel, and begged her to let him go.

Hel set one condition. If everything in the world, alive or dead, would weep for Baldr, she would give him back. The gods sent messengers everywhere, and everything wept: people and animals, stones and trees and metals, the way frost weeps when it thaws. Only one old giantess in a cave, called Thökk, refused. Let Hel hold what she has, she said. Most say the giantess was Loki in disguise. So Baldr stayed with Hel, until the world is made new after Ragnarök.

At the end

At Ragnarök, Hel's people will march out with her father. A ship made of the uncut nails of the dead, Naglfar, will sail against the gods. As the game's Hel says: everyone comes to her in the end. You are merely early.

Hel in Battle of Myths

Hel is a cost 5 Norse mage and mystic. Her ability, Hel's Dominion, strikes every enemy on the board with magic damage and wounds them, while every ally is healed. Like every Norse hero, she grows stronger with Ragnarök the longer a fight lasts.

Did you know?

• The English word hell comes from the same old Germanic word as her name, meaning "the hidden place".
• In the old poems her realm is mostly cold and grey, not fiery. The fire came later, from other beliefs.