48 hel
Hel( 1)( Hela) The goddess of death and the underworld. Hel was the daughter of the god Loki and the ogress Angrboda. Her brothers were Fenrir, the wolf, and Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent.
According to Snorri Sturluson, Hel was terrible to look at, for one-half of her was greenish black and the other a livid white, with flesh that seemed to be rotting like that of a corpse, and her face was gloomy, grim, and sinister.
The great god Odin cast Hel down to Niflheim, the realm of cold, darkness, and death located under one of the roots of Yggdrasil. He ordered her to look after all the wicked and miserable souls who had died of sickness, corruption, and old age.( Dead heroes went to Odin’ s hall Valhalla or to Frigg’ s hall sessrumnir.) Hel’ s palace was called Eljudnir, and here she entertained the dead in a grisly kind of way: Her table was called Hunger; her knife, Starvation; her bed, Sickness; and the curtains around it, Misfortune.
It was said that in times of famine and plague, Hel left her ghastly realm to roam the Earth on her three-legged white horse and to rake up the survivors and sweep them with her broom down to Niflheim.
Although the gods looked upon her with loathing, Hel had more power than Odin. Once someone was in her power, no one, not even Odin, could reclaim that soul unless Hel gave her permission. In the story of Balder, who was killed and went to Niflheim, Hel refused to give him up, even though Odin and Frigg sent the god Hermod to plead and bargain with her.
While Hel is mentioned in the Poetic Edda, most of the details are found in Snorri Sturluson’ s Prose
Edda.
Hel( 2) The world of the dead, a place above Niflheim, the lowest level of the Nine Worlds connected by the tree Yggdrasil.
The Prose Edda and other Norse manuscripts often refer to Hel as a place to which and out of which gods and giants travel. Some scholars suggest that Hel is an older word for Niflheim and that the word was used first for this place and then for the name of the daughter of Loki, also known as Hel( 1), who came to rule over the place.
Helbindi Odin claims the name Helbindi in the poem Grimnismal as one he occasionally uses when he travels in disguise. It is one of the 31 names Odin lists as using in that poem. However, in Gylfaginning, Snorri Sturluson says that the god Loki had two brothers, Byleist and Helbindi. No more is known of Helbindi in either use.
Hermod( HermoÐ) A son of Odin. Hermod was bold and brave. It was he who volunteered to go to Hel’ s underworld and beg her to release his dead brother, Balder.
Hermod rode off on the great eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, passed the test of the maiden guarding the bridge over the river Gjoll, leaped over the gates of Hel( 2), and confronted the goddess of the underworld herself. He received from her only the promise that she would release Balder if everyone in all of creation would weep for the fallen god.
This story is told by Snorri Sturluson in his
Prose Edda, although Hermod is also named in various poems in the Poetic Edda and in the heroic lays, confusing his identity in some of those tales.
Hermod also stood at Odin’ s side at the gates of Valhalla to welcome the dead human heroes brought there from battle by the Valkyries.
heroic legends Stories of famous humans that may be based upon actual events but have taken on dramatic features, often involving aspects of mythology and folklore. The Norse gods are minor characters in the legends. Magic is an important force, and supernatural events occur frequently. Furthermore, humans, not gods, are the central characters of heroic legends and heroic poetry.
Scholars have divided the existing Icelandic manuscripts into several categories. The category of mythological poetry and prose contains the surviving information of the Norse gods, their realms, and their relations with the human world.
Many Icelandic manuscripts contain heroic poems and heroic legends based on the stories that were told about people who probably actually existed. This is another category of works in the manuscripts.
Many of these legends are contained in the skaldic poetry and in the surviving sagas from Iceland, such as the Hervarar saga, which tells of the influence of the great sword Tyrfing and the heroes who owned it. The most famous among the heroic legends is the
Volsunga Saga, which tells the story of the children of King Volsung, his son, Sigurth, and his grandson Sigmund. While humans form the center of these stories, Odin, dwarfs, Valkyrie, and other magical creatures and events influence their lives.
The second part of the Codex Regius of the
Poetic Edda contains 21 poems that most experts consider to be heroic rather than mythical, such as