What’s in This Guide
Who Is Hel?
What is Hel the goddess of?
Hel is the Norse goddess of the dead and the sovereign ruler of Helheim, the realm that bears her name, where she receives and governs the souls of all who die of illness, old age, accident, or any cause other than honourable battle, making her the ruler of the vast majority of the human dead and one of the most powerful beings in the Norse cosmos by sheer domain alone.
Her name in Old Norse means "hidden" or "to conceal," from the Proto-Germanic root that also gives us the modern English word "hall" and, eventually, through Christian influence, "hell." That last connection is critical to understand: the Norse Helheim and the Christian hell are not the same place and were never meant to be. Helheim is not a place of punishment or fire. It is a cold, mist-filled realm, quiet and grey, where the dead rest. The heat-as-punishment concept was a Christian import from hotter climates. The Norse understood cold and perpetual grey as the deeper desolation, the absence of warmth and spring rather than the presence of flames.
Hel is the daughter of Loki, the trickster god, and the giantess Angrboda. Her siblings are Fenrir the wolf and the world-serpent Jörmungandr. Odin, concerned about the power of Loki's monstrous children, had all three seized and dealt with: Fenrir was bound, Jörmungandr was cast into the ocean, and Hel was thrown into the underworld. What Odin intended as exile and containment, Hel turned into sovereignty. She built her hall, she established her laws, she ruled her realm. She was not diminished by what was done to her. She was defined by what she made of it.
Hel and the Christian "Hell": Setting the Record Straight
When Christian missionaries encountered Norse culture, they found a ready-made underworld with a ready-made name and adapted both for their own theological purposes. The Norse Hel became conflated with the Christian concept of hell: a place of punishment, fire, and damnation. None of that is in the original sources. In Norse understanding, Helheim was simply where the majority of the dead went: not as punishment for sin but as the natural destination of those who did not die in battle. Some regions of Helheim were more comfortable than others, and Hel herself judged where individuals were directed, but the concept of eternal torment was entirely absent from the original tradition. Working with Hel as a practitioner means working with the pre-Christian understanding of her, not the distorted version.
Her Mythology and the Sources
Hel appears in the Prose Edda (Snorri Sturluson, c.1220 CE) and the Poetic Edda (compiled c.1270 CE), as well as in several of the Eddic poems and sagas. The primary descriptions come from the Prose Edda's Gylfaginning, where Snorri describes her appearance, her realm, and her household.
Her Appearance
Snorri describes Hel as half living and half dead: one side of her body the flesh colour of the living, the other side the blue-black of a corpse. Her expression is described as gloomy and grim. Her hall in Helheim is called Eljudnir, meaning "Sleet-Cold" or "Damp with Sleet." Her dish is called Hunger, her knife is Famine, her threshold is Stumbling-Block, her bed is Sick-Bed, and her bed-curtains are Gleaming-Bale. Every object in her realm is named after aspects of suffering and decline. This is not decoration. It is the acknowledgement that death, aging, illness, and decline are the domain she governs: she does not romanticise what she rules over.
Her manservant is Ganglati (meaning "tardy" or "slow-moving") and her maidservant is Ganglot (the same). Time moves differently in Helheim. Everything is slow, deliberate, weighted. This is not negligence but the nature of the realm: the urgency and velocity of life simply do not apply in the place where life has ended.
The Baldur Story
Hel's most significant mythological appearance is in the story of Baldur's death and Odin's attempt to retrieve him. After Baldur was killed by a mistletoe-tipped arrow thrown by the blind god Hödr (guided by Loki), he descended to Helheim. Odin sent his son Hermod on Sleipnir to ride to Helheim and petition Hel for Baldur's release. Hel agreed, on one condition: every being in all the nine worlds, living and dead, stone and plant and creature, must weep for Baldur. If a single being refused to weep, Baldur would stay. A single giantess, widely understood to be Loki in disguise, refused. Baldur remained in Helheim until after Ragnarök.
This story reveals Hel's character precisely. She was not cruel in her refusal to release Baldur without conditions. She was sovereign. She had laws. Her realm had its own logic and integrity, and she was not willing to abandon that integrity for Odin's grief alone. She offered a genuine path to retrieval and held to the terms when they were not met. This is a being of absolute principle, not malice.
Helheim and the Honoured Dead
Who goes to Helheim and what happens there?
Helheim receives all who die of illness, old age, accident, childbirth, drowning, or any cause other than dying in honourable battle, which means the vast majority of the human dead across all of Norse history went to Hel's realm, making it the most populated of the Norse afterlives and Hel herself the most active of the death-realm rulers.
The Norse afterlife was more complex than a simple Valhalla versus Helheim binary. Freya receives half the battle-slain in Folkvangr. Odin receives the other half in Valhalla. Those who drown at sea may go to Rán's hall. Those buried in mounds might remain there as the haugbui. Helheim received everyone else, which by any measure was the greatest number. The inhabitants of Helheim are not the dishonoured dead in any moral sense. They are simply the ordinary dead: the mothers, the farmers, the children, the elders, the sick. The people who lived and died without the battlefield being their end.
Within Helheim, Hel judges and determines where each soul is directed. Some regions are described as more comfortable than others. The dead in Helheim retain their identities and can be reached through ancestor work, through the practice of sitting out (utiseta) at liminal times, and through the deliberate cultivation of relationship with one's ancestral dead that is central to the Norse magical and spiritual tradition.
Read: Freya, Who Receives Half the Battle-SlainHer Domains in Full
Sacred Symbols and Correspondences
| Correspondence | What It Is | Use in Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Colours | Black and white, grey, pale blue, bone white. The stark contrast of her two-toned form. | Black and white candles together on her altar. Grey altar cloth. No warm colours. |
| Crystals | Black obsidian, black tourmaline, smoky quartz, clear quartz, labradorite, jet, grey moonstone. | Obsidian for descent and shadow work. Moonstone for the liminal. Jet for ancestral connection. |
| Plants and Herbs | Cypress (death and mourning), yew (death and rebirth, sacred in Norse tradition), mugwort (liminal vision), wormwood, elder. | Dried cypress and yew on the altar. Mugwort burned or brewed for ancestral communication rituals. |
| The Rune Hagalaz | The hail rune: disruption, crisis, and the seed of new growth hidden in destruction. Associated with Hel in several runic traditions. | Carve or draw Hagalaz on a candle for shadow work or ancestor rituals in Hel's name. |
| The Rune Nauthiz | The need rune: constraint, necessity, the strength that comes from having no choice but to go through. Connected to Hel's realm of the unavoidable. | Nauthiz in workings of necessary endings, release from what cannot be changed. |
| Numbers | 9: the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, connected by Yggdrasil, with Helheim at the lowest root. | Nine offerings, nine candles, nine days for ancestor work rituals. |
| Animals | The raven (as psychopomp and messenger between worlds), the serpent (her brother Jörmungandr, wisdom in the depths), the wolf (her brother Fenrir, the contained force). | Raven imagery on the altar. Serpent as a symbol of the wisdom available in the depths of her realm. |
| Samhain and the Dark Moon | The two most significant times for Hel work: Samhain when the veil thins and the dead are accessible, and the dark moon when no light penetrates and the liminal is most present. | Schedule major ancestor work and Hel devotional rituals for these windows. |
Signs Hel Is Calling You
How do I know if Hel is calling me to work with her?
Hel calls practitioners who are ready to go into the depths rather than stay at the surface: those drawn to ancestor work, those going through or recovering from a significant loss or period of darkness, those whose spiritual practice is ready to move beyond the acquisition of power into genuine transformation, and those who feel a persistent pull toward the Norse tradition specifically around death, endings, and what lives on the other side of them.
She tends to make herself known quietly rather than dramatically: a persistent interest in ancestor connection that feels like more than curiosity, recurring encounters with death-related themes in divination, a sense of being called to work with the dying or the recently dead, or a strong response to her mythology that feels less like learning something new and more like recognising something already known.
She is also present in the aftermath of significant loss. When grief is the territory you are working in, when something has ended and you are in the cold mist of the aftermath, Hel is the goddess of that experience. Not to fix it or rush through it, but to be sovereign within it. She knows that realm from the inside.
- Drawn to ancestor work or communication with the deceased
- Working through grief, loss, or significant endings
- Called to shadow work that involves integrating the "dead" parts of yourself
- Recurring imagery of the underworld, cold, mist, or the colour grey in dreams or divination
- A sense that your practice needs to go deeper rather than broader
- Working in or adjacent to death care, hospice, or grief support
- The mythology of Baldur and Hel's refusal to bend her laws resonates personally
How to Honour and Work With Hel
Building an Altar to Hel
A Hel altar should be spare, honest, and without warmth or sweetness. She is not a goddess of comfort in the conventional sense. She is a goddess of truth about what has ended and dignity for what remains.
- Colours: black and white, bone, grey. A black altar cloth. White taper candles rather than coloured ones, or a single black pillar candle.
- Images or symbols: a figure with two faces or two-toned colouring, a raven, a skull or bone as a memento mori, the Hagalaz rune carved or drawn.
- Offerings: water (Helheim is a damp, cold realm), black coffee, dark bread, root vegetables, mead poured into the earth. No sweet offerings. No flowers unless they are dried and darkened.
- Crystals: black obsidian as the anchor. Grey moonstone beside it. Black tourmaline for protection during deep ancestral work.
- Ancestor photographs or objects: images or personal items of deceased loved ones belong on a Hel altar more naturally than anywhere else in the Norse tradition.
- Location: low to the ground if possible. Hel's realm is below. A low shelf, the floor, or the lowest level of a tiered altar is appropriate.
Daily and Seasonal Practice
- The dark moon is her time. Light a single black or white candle on the dark moon and sit in silence for at least ten minutes. Speak to your ancestors. This simple practice, done monthly, builds a relationship with Hel's domain over time.
- Samhain is her season. The period from late October through early November, when the veil between living and dead is thinnest, is the most significant time for Hel devotion and ancestor work in the Norse tradition.
- Leave water out for the dead. A cup of cold water on the altar, refreshed regularly, is one of the oldest and simplest offerings across traditions that work with the dead. It signals that you are aware of them and have not forgotten.
- Speak your dead by name. Hel's realm is the place of the named and remembered dead. Naming your ancestors aloud, regularly, is itself an act of devotion in her domain.
Two Free Rituals in Hel’s Name
The Cold Gate: A Ritual for Ancestor Connection in Hel’s Realm
A ritual for communicating with, honouring, or seeking guidance from your ancestral dead. Best performed on the dark moon, Samhain, or the anniversary of a loved one's death. Takes 30 to 45 minutes. This ritual works with the dead who have gone to Helheim, meaning those who died of natural causes, illness, or age rather than in battle.
-
Prepare the space at night, in low light. Place the white candle on the left and the black candle on the right. Set the water offering at the centre. Place the photograph or ancestral object in front of the candles.
-
Ground yourself. Sit with both feet flat on the floor. Breathe slowly until you feel your weight settle. You are about to call across a significant boundary. Steadiness matters more than ceremony here.
-
Call to Hel by name. Speak aloud: "Hel, daughter of Loki, Queen of Helheim, keeper of the quiet dead, I come to your gate with respect. I am not asking you to give back what is yours. I am asking only to remember across the distance, and to be heard."
-
Light the black candle first, then the white. The black is the depth of her realm. The white is the thread of memory connecting the living to the dead.
-
Speak the name of the ancestor you are calling to, three times aloud. Then speak to them directly: what you wished you had said, what you want them to know, what you want to ask. Speak plainly. The dead do not need performance.
-
Sit in silence for at least ten minutes. Do not force anything. You may receive a sense, an impression, a memory, a feeling of presence. You may receive nothing perceptible. Both are valid. The act of calling matters regardless of what is perceptibly returned.
-
Close the ritual. Thank Hel: "I thank you for holding them. I thank you for keeping this gate. I do not ask for what cannot return. I ask only to remember well." Snuff the candles. Pour the water outside into the earth.
Do not perform this ritual if you are in acute grief without grounding support in place. Connection with the dead can intensify grief before it eases it. If you feel overwhelmed during the ritual, close it immediately by extinguishing both candles and returning your attention to the physical room.
The Two-Sided Mirror: A Hel Shadow Work Ritual
A ritual using Hel's two-sided form as a framework for shadow work: identifying the "dead" parts of yourself, the exiled, the denied, the buried, and beginning the process of integrating rather than expelling them. Best performed on the dark moon or during any period of significant internal darkness. Takes 20 to 30 minutes.
-
Light the black candle and if using the mirror, position it so the candlelight falls across your reflection. You are invoking Hel's dual form deliberately: the living half and the dead half, held together without flinching.
-
Hold the obsidian in your non-dominant hand. Call to Hel: "Hel, who holds both sides of the threshold without looking away, I ask you to hold this space with me. I am going into the part of myself that has been treated as dead. I am not expelling it. I am going to look at it."
-
Open your journal. Write at the top: "What have I buried that is still alive?" Then write without stopping for at least ten minutes. Do not edit. Do not slow down. This is not a polished reflection; it is a descent.
-
Read back what you have written. Underline one thing, the one that makes you feel the most resistance as you read it back. That resistance is the location of the work.
-
Write one sentence beginning with "The part of me that was buried here is..." Name it without softening it. You are not fixing it in this ritual. You are naming it. Naming is the first act of integration.
-
Speak to Hel again: "What I have named tonight does not need to go back into the dark. It needs a different place in me. I ask your help in holding it with dignity rather than shame."
-
Sit with the candle for five more minutes. Let the named thing be present without trying to resolve it. Then close: thank Hel, snuff the candle, close the journal. Return to the journal entry in one week and add anything that has surfaced since.
This ritual opens a process rather than completes one. The integration of shadow material takes time and often benefits from returning to the journal entry multiple times. Consider pairing this work with the four stages of alchemy guide, particularly the nigredo section.
Tools for Shadow Work and Ancestor Connection
Black obsidian, protective crystals, ritual candles, and altar supplies for working in Hel's domain. Free shipping on all Australian orders over $35.
