The giantess Hel is the ruler of the underworld, Helheim, in norse mythology. The underworld is the land of the dead, placed below the surface of the earth.
Hel is a cold giantess, greedy and indifferent to both the living and the dead. Other names under which she has been known is Hella, Holle, or Hulda. Helheim also went by the name of Niflheim.
The trickster god Loki once entered into a relationship with Angrboda, a giantess, and together they produced three children. The first child was the Fenrir - the fenris wolf, the second child was iormungard - the giant snake of the ocean that encircled the earth. The third child was Hel, goddess of the underworld.
Prohesies had told the gods of Asgard that one day three siblings would appear that would only bring evil and disaster to the world. Now the gods figured that Loki and Angrbodas three children were exactly these. The reason for the evil of these siblings were not only that their mother was a giantess, but at least as much that their father was Loki, the trickster god that had bruch much evil about.
When the great god Odin learned about the children he decided that they were to be brought to Asgaard, because that would be the safest. They were to be raised as Aesir - a tribe of warriors of gods and goddesses. Odin ordered the gods to travel to Giantland to catch the children and bring them to Asgaard, which they did.
The child Hel had been born with all the bones on one side of the body fully exposed. This made her life dificult, as all the other gods found her disgusting and terrifying, and everyone would avoid her. For Hel, the existence became dificult and lonesome, and she had no friends. One day, when it became all to much, she dicided to visit Odin, to ask permission to leave Asgaard. Odin sympathised with Hel, and actually granted her her wish. On top of that, Odin granted Hel one of the nine worlds, the world of Niflheim, and named the placed after her, Helheim. And so, Hel became the goddess of the dead.
In return for having been granted a world to rule, Hel also was given certain responsibilities. She now had to care for the dead in Helheim, which were those that had died of old age, sickness, and had not died in battle (those that died in battle had their souls given partly to Freya and partly to Odin). Hel now was the one to judge the souls arriving in Helheim, and the one deciding if they were good or evil, and to what degree. According to this classification she would allocate the souls to one of the nine levels of Helheim.
hel has been known as the Dark Mother Goddess, the Goddess of Death and Afterlife, the Underground Earth Mother, and also as Nefele, Goddess of Shadows. In Denmark she was worshipped as Elder Mother.
Ingen kommentarer:
Send en kommentar