Hel The Norse Goddess Of The Underworld

Hel is Loki's daughter by the giantess Angrboda, and she rules the realm that carries her name. Snorri describes her as half blue-black and half the color of flesh down the length of her, which usually gets retold as half living and half dead.

Her realm is where you go if you die of illness or of age rather than in battle, which in Snorri's account is to say where almost everybody goes. That is what makes her worth sitting with. She does not preside over punishment or glory. She presides over the ordinary end, and over the enormous majority of the dead who were never going to be sung about.

Good to Know

Stands approximately 3.5 inches tall.

Cold-cast bronze, which means real bronze powder blended into resin rather than poured metal. You get the surface and the fine detail of a cast bronze at a fraction of the cost, and real heft in the hand, though it is lighter than solid metal and it ships already sealed rather than developing a patina over time. Veronese Design make these, and the detail is where the money went.

How to Use It

A statue on an altar is not decoration and it is not a substitute for practice. It is a place to put your attention. Give it somewhere it will be seen daily rather than a shelf you dust twice a year, keep the space around it clear, and if you leave offerings, take them away before they spoil.

Pair It With

The twelve-figure Norse set covers the rest of the pantheon. For work at the threshold, mugwort and the black and silver pentacle holder. More in totems and statues.