Hel

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In Norse mythology, the realm Hel^[1] shares a name with its ruler, Hel. As described in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda it is a place thronged with the shivering and shadowy spectres of those who have died ingloriously of disease or in old age. Hel also houses dishonourable people who have broken oaths. Hel is cold and low in the overall structure of Norse cosmology. It lies beneath Yggdrasil's third root, near Hvergelmir and Náströnd.

Hel is said to be a hall with a roof woven from the spines of serpents which drip poison down onto those who wade in the rivers of blood below. The people who dwell in the halls are given nothing but goat's urine to quench their thirst. The doors of the hall are said to be set in the south, away from Asgard which lies to the north. The Poetic Edda describes the doors as facing north.

The hall is surrounded by a river called Gjoll, which is freezing cold and has knives flowing in it.

The only way across the river is over a bridge guarded by the giantess Móðguð (Modgud). If a living person steps on the bridge, it rings out as if a thousand men walk across it, yet the dead pass without a sound.

It is similar to Hades and the River Styx from Greek mythology.

The name Hel comes from the same Proto-Germanic source as the English word hell.

Notes

1. ^ Sometimes called Helheim, a modern construction not found in the original sources.^{[citation needed]}

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