The ethnic faith used by the Vikings (which is called Asatru by modern doctors) was very diverse and involved religion. For example, unlike modern Christianity (where you go to heaven, hell or extermination), there were twelve places to go after death according to Norway. The virtuous who died in battle were chosen as vallars, to go to Valhalla and accompany Odin, or to go to Sessrumnir and serve in the army of the celestials under the goddess Freya. Those who died in the sea, so that in the courts of the sea god Aegir and his wife Ran perished by poison. Those who have died as faithful husbands and wives are admitted to the court of Frigga, Odin’s wife, where they can continue their faithfulness for all time. And he who had died an inglorious or ignoble death, would go to Hel.
Hel (ador uno L.) is both a man and a place. The daughter of the trickster god Loki and the giant Angrboda, Hel was born half beautiful goddess and half rotting corpse. The sister of Fenrir (the giant wolf who bit the hand of the war god Tyr), and Jormungand (the world serpent who is the sworn enemy of the thunder god Thor), Hel (or Hela as it is sometimes called) was thrown. from Asgard through Odin. A kingdom that fell in the far north, called Nifleheim, and lies at the roots of the world Tree Roots.
Gods and Goddesses don’t just stop at being familiar issues, and Hel was no different. Embracing the barren and cold realms, He did for himself what he had sent him. Although it is not said how Nifleheim was transferred from the great and empty waste that held only the dragon Nidhogg to a realm filled with cold pits and poisoned snakes, it happened.
Much like the witch who presided over the kingdom of death, Helheim had two coins. This was the place where liars, adulterers, thieves, and murderers were punished according to their crimes. On the other side of the coin, Helheim was also a place where those who did not meet the demands of another god or goddess were sent. Those who were honest dead, or at least absent of crimes, who had not been captured in battle, and who had not been united in great love, found themselves in the other half of Helheim. It was not the sky, but it was warm and comfortable, and was not filled with cold and rains of burning poison.
Although he is mentioned in the pagan myth of Ragnarok (the Viking version of Armageddon), and is usually assumed to be with his father and brothers, Hel does not seem to play a big part at the end of the world I don’t like it that way. Cold and sad, Hel cares little for the affairs of the rest of the family, and that is what anyone lives for. Despite this, though, it fills an important corner in Norse mythology, although it is rarely mentioned in the stories told about the Aesir.
“Hel,” by Anonymous at God
“Hel,” by Anonymous at Britannica
