Hel
;)
was the daughter of trickster Loki, the fire god, and the frost giantess Angrboda. She was ruler of the Germanic netherworld (also called Hel), to which she had been banished by Odin, the chief god. Once there, however, her powers were stronger than Odin's, for when Odin's son Balder was killed Hel refused to return him to his parents. Her brothers, Fenrir the wolf and Jormungand the serpent, were as terrifying as she, though it was Hel and her ghastly home which were adopted by the Christians as the name for their realm of eternal damnation.
The unpleasantness of Hel's realm stands in marked contrast to the pleasurable and enviable after-life that was enjoyed by the heroic dead who dwelt in Odin's wondrous hall Valhalla. However, Hel's subjects were little more than silent attendants of the semi-decomposed queen. She was only partly decomposed because she had the face and body of a living woman, but her thighs and legs were those of a corpse. Hel's throne was known as the Sick Bed and her subjects were 'all who died through sickness and old age'.