Half in Shadow

Norse tradition names her Hel; Hela is a later spelling. Snorri describes her as half flesh-coloured and half blue-black, grim to look at and downcast, and says Odin threw her into Niflheim and gave her authority over nine worlds, to apportion lodging to all who are sent to her — those who die of sickness and of age. It is an unusual job description. Not a tormentor, an administrator of the unremarkable dead, and the sources are far more interested in her jurisdiction than in her character.