Hel, queen of the underworld and Hermod, messenger of the gods. H.A. Guerber, 1909
In Norse mythology, Hel (also known as Hela) is the queen of the underworld of the same name. She is the daughter of Loki and the giantess Angrboða, and sister of Fenrir and Jörmungandr.
Hel is depicted as half-living and half dead, with one side of her body being the colour of living flesh, and the other the blue of frostbite. A somber ruler of her realm, she was appointed to her position by Odin, presumably to keep her busy from causing trouble. This assumption is based on the fate of her siblings, as Fenrir was chained and Jörmungandr was thrown into the deepest parts of the oceans.
Hel as a person[]
Hel is depicted as cold, bordering on cruel. It is her responsibility to house whoever is sent in her vast halls of the dead in Hel. She has many servants in her realm, whom to she delegates minutia details.
The most famous example of her dominion comes from the tale of the death of Baldr. Hermod, a messenger of the Aesir, was sent to plead for Baldr's return to the world of the living. All of the gods have wept for Baldr's untimely death. Hel is unconvinced that only the grief of gods is a good enough reason to let anyone leave her domain. She agrees to let Baldr go, but only if every living and every unliving thing in world would weep for Baldr.
The gods, both Aesir and Vanir, would go across the nine realms, begging for everyone and everything to weep for Baldr. Only one exception refused to do so - a stubborn giant which most retellings of the myth assume to have been Loki in disguise.
Realm of Hel[]
Depending on interpretation, Hel is either a part of, or the whole of the realm of Niflheim, one of the nine world of the cosmology of Norse Mythology, or the whole place is located in Niflheim. Regardless of depiction, this would place the realm of Hel beneath the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree that ensures the nine realms remain connected to each other.