Working With The Gods: Hela

In the Norse pantheon, Hel/Hela is the goddess of death, the deity that rules in the underworld and all its denizens. In previous posts I have written about her already. Now, I will not delve much into the subject of who she is and her purpose as a goddess, nor will I talk about her gifts. In this post, I will write about her in a different manner, how to work with her in a spiritual way. To those who already know her, it will be easier to interpret.

The majority of the Norse gods (both genders) are associated with light, but Hela on the other hand, is one of the few Norse deities which represents exactly the opposite. She is associated with darkness, the kind of darkness which absorbs the light, a very powerful negative energy. This is probably one of the reasons people associate her with evil and an horrific afterlife spent in darkness. The christianization of Europe adopted her name to label the terrible afterlife awaiting those who sin, the place where the devil reigns and tortures souls (Hell). This is an awful mistake, Hela has nothing to do with christian beliefs, and she may be associated with darkness, but that doesn't mean that darkness itself is naturally linked to evil. She seldom comes in the lore, and even the most important lore we have about the gods, such as the written works of Snorri Sturluson, had already a christian influence which is perfectly natural at that time, for the christian faith was gaining much ground and none could speak or write about subjects which "defiled" the christian faith. Most of what we really know about the goddess Hela, comes from the spirit-workers who have the honour to work with her. Unfortunatelly, such people are few, but we still can learn a lot about the gods in this manner. We must let go all the mysticism and lies that were created around many pagan gods.

Working with Hela:

When meeting with Hela (if you have such honour, because she really only chooses a handful of spirit-workers once in a life time), she would certainly like to be offered something to drink, be that alcoholic or not, preferably home-brewed. She usually wears long and simple clothing, normally black or grey or both, you will recognize her easily.Also, the her best feature which you will recognize her immediately as soon as you see it, is the fact that she usually wears rings. One ring on every finger of her left hand.

There are some people, Spirit-workers or not, that paint half of their faces resembling a skull, or actually use a mask like that to honour her. Hela will often work with female spirit-workers, but occasionally it is possible for her to also call for a male spirit-worker, but that seldom happens.

Hela walks very slowly and moves quietly. She only speaks to a person at the time, there are no group gatherings around her. Be very quiet, don't interrupt her, listen intently to what she has to say. Her vast knowledge is something that she will not share with most, and if she chooses to share it with you, be certain that you are being given the most honourable audience of all.

Working with the Gods: Baldr

Baldr or Baldur is the Norse god of beauty, naivety and light. He is one of the few gods who as descended into the realm of Hel and do not yet arise from it. His story is a difficult one to understand, very tragic for the Aesir tribe of gods, a story of mischief and sorrow.

In the Norse mythology, Baldr is the youngest son of Odin and Frigga, the most beautiful of thesky gods, the Aesir. His mere presence brought light and merriment to all the gods in Asgard, and from him, a very bright light came to everywhere he went. 

Baldr married the Aesir goddess Nana who took care of the orchards of Asgard. They lived in the hall called Breidablik and in its surroundings nothing that was impure could ever live in such place, everything was naturally beautiful. They had a son called Forseti who would be later be known as the god of justice.

The saga of Baldr, Baldurs Draumar (Baldur’s Dream), tells us of the time when Baldr began to have strange dreams about his oncoming doom, death was approaching to cover in darkness the world of Aesir, light itself would be swallowed by it. Baldr told his parents about the dreams and his mother, Frigga, in a hurry, travelled throughout the nine realms asking every living thing not to harm her beloved son. Every living thing made this oath and when Frigga passed by the mistletoe, she thought that it was too young to make such an oath and she thought it to be harmless. Then she returned to Asgard and told to Baldr what she had done and that he was safe, nothing could harm him. Baldr made a game out of this, every god would throw weapons against him and every single object would bounce off.

Every great tragic story has vengeance in it, and this one isn't different. The god Loki was angry with the Aesir because they had murdered his wife Angrboda and imprisoned one of his sons, Fenrir, so Loki discovered the secret of Baldr's imunity to all things except the mistletoe, so he made a dart out of it and waited until the games of throwing weapons to Baldr began. Loki offered himself to help Hoder, the Blind brother of Baldr, so he could also participate in the games. Hoder agreed, and threw the mistletoe dart to Baldr, killing his own brother.

Meanwhile Loki fled and there was great mourning in Asgard. Many gods offered themselves to avenge Baldr's death, but Odin had other things in mind and none from his family was fit to do the task. So Odin raped the giant goddess Rind and she gave him a son called Váli, the god of vengeance. Váli didn't knew about the true story, all he knew is that his half brother Baldr had been killed by Hoder, and so he murdered the blind god.

Baldr was placed on his ship called Hringhorni and the funeral fire was started. Many were those who came to Baldr's funeral. Thor lost his self control because of the death of his younger brother, and in that rage he kicked a visiting dwarf right into the fire thus killing him. Baldr's wife, Nana, threw herself into the funeral pyre, thus commiting suicide to be with her beloved. Baldr's horse was also burnt along with everything that belonged to the god of light. When the time came to push the ship into the waters, it prove to be too heavy. All of a sudden a female giant called Hyrrokin, ridding a great wolf, came and gave the ship such a shove, that the earth itself trembled. It is said that this mysterious Hyrrokin was none other than Angrboda, Loki's wife, coming to witness her vengeance for the murder attempt on her, and for the kidnapping and later binding of her son Fenrir, and also her child Jormundgand, the great sea serpent.

In the meantime Odin and Frigga gave another task to one of Baldur's brothers, Hermod. He was to ride into Helheim and beg Hela to release Baldr. Hermod rode fro nine days till he finaly reached the Gates of Helheim and entered. He begged to Hela for his brother's life and she told him that she would only release him if every living thing in the nine worlds would weep for him. The Aesir went in all directions asking everyone they met to shed a tear for Baldr. All did so, except for an old female giant called Thokk and thus Baldr was lost forever. It is said that this Thokk figure was no other than Loki himself in disguise, making sure that Baldr stood with her daughter Hela.

There is much speculation in why such an event happened, why did Odin let all of this happen. In a foretelling, Odin knew that Baldr would be slain when Ragnarök started if Baldr was alive by then, on the other hand, being slain, Baldr would come to life after Ragnarök and rule in Asgard. It is said that Baldr's death was arranged by Odin and Loki to protect Baldr and send him to the safest place in the nine realms, the realm of the dead, so he might arise when the time comes and rule in Asgard.

The Saxons had another version of this story, in which Baldr and Hoder were two princes and both wanted the mortal princess Nana. Both fought and Hoder killed Baldr with a sword named Mistletoe and thus he married Nana.

It is clear that behind this story we can see that the only thing that can prevail over the light, is darkness, the opposite. Hoder the blind god is darkness and he took the life of his brother, Baldr, the god of light. When darkness covers the land, death and sorrow comes to mortal men and it is in darkness that Ragnarök starts, when all light fades away. But after te darkness a new light comes forth and life sprouts once more. Baldr revives and will rule in the realm of the Sky Gods.

One thing is also certain, to Baldr was given another task and he became a different god with a new sacred task, he is now the god who gives light in dark places, this also means giving light to those who live a life in darkness, while their mind is, metaphorically speaking, in darkness. Sorrow, sadness, depression, living in hard times, Baldr gives light and a new awakening.


Note: The artwork to illustrate this post is a painting of Baldr made by me. If you have any questions for me or if you want to see my artistic works, check out my Facebook page and make a Like if you can by following this link --> http://www.facebook.com/ArithHarger

Hela The Goddess of the Underworld

Hela is the goddess of the Underworld in the Norse cosmology, that is what everybody knows and hears about her, but she is also the goddess of death and one of the most powerful Jotnar. She is the eldest child of Angrboda and Loki.

Hela usually appears to people ihalf rotten or half skeletal form, at one side and a completly normal figure on the other side. Her hair is usually pale and long on the normal fleshy side, although sometimes it is black, no one is really certain about it, it is possible that she changes are appearance according with some situations, it is also possible to see her sometimes with her living  appearance above the waits andtimes as a pale white woman who merely smells of rotten below it. One thing is certain, she choses to appear in such forms to remind people about death, to show them its true forms and to force people in accepting it the way it is, as a natural part of life, as another part of nature itself, so people might respect this natural process of all things.

Hela is a tall figure, usually wearing a robe with the colours of black or grey. She is very calm, actually the atmosphere around her is quite calm and cold, as if the very air was frozen and still. Her only forms aren't just the rotte or skeletal ones, because she also appears as a beautiful woman, perfectly normal when it comes to welcome people into her Halls or the villages for the dead, so we can't be sure what her true form might be, but the "death mask" she wears is certainly to be used when she needs to deal with death or anything linked to that ( which is quite often ).

It seems that before Hela, the daughter of Loki and Angrboda, there used to be another Hel, she was the goddess of death or at least the keeper of the dead, in a time where human folk didn't exist yet, so she was the keeper of all the dead souls of the Jotnar kin. But when this old Hel died or retired, the dead walked on every place of the Nine Worlds, so there always must exist a keeper of the dead, and so Hela, the daughter of Loki and Angrboda took such a task. We don't know if her name comes after the first goddess of the underworld in homage, or if Hel/Hela is a title that the one who replaces the previous deity of death takes, but one thing is certain, this new Hela reshaped the entire place, Helheim, giving it a better look, wonderful, cosy, eternal Autumn like landscape, and she definitely loves all those who come o live with her and she takes good care of them.


Note: The artwork to illustrate this post is a drawing of  Hela made by me. If you have any questions for me or if you want to see my artistic works, check out my Facebook page and make a Like if you can by following this link --> http://www.facebook.com/ArithHarger

Working with the gods: Hela

Hel or Hela, is the goddess of death and of the underworld in the norse pantheon, i have talked about her in a older post, i will not delve into the subject of who is she and her purpose as a goddess, nor will i talk about her gifts. I will write about her in a different matter. How to work with her and a spiritual manner, of course to those who already know her, it will be easier to interpret.

 Hela is a different kind of deity, while the other gods and goddesses are a symbol of light and we see in them that light which brings us joy and bliss, Hela is the opposite, a darkness that can absorb the light, maybe this is one of the reasons that brought people to fear her, and often mistake her with an evil being, because she also lives in a gloomy place, and with christianity, the term Hell for the underworld, came after her. As you may read in other posts about the gods and mytholgy, you know it isn't such, but it is very hard to work with her, and the spirit-workers working with her, are few, not all have such honor, but those who have, can teach us to think in a different way, and let go all the mysticism and lies that were created around many pagan gods.

Working with Hela:

When meeting with Hela, she likes to drink tea or dark coffee. She also likes alcoholic drinks, but she prefers something that has been home-brewed. Food is rarely important to her.She likes to wear long simple robes of black or in tones of grey. Some Spirit-workers like to paint half of their faces with a "skull-mask" shape in her honor. One of the things that she likes, is to wear a ring on every joint of every finger of the left hand, in order to mimic the feel of hard bones. She may give her left hand to people to kiss. She never holds out her right hand to the living, only to those who have passed on, or are at the moment of dying a physical death. Hela usually works with female spirit-workers, but occasionally, it is possible for her to also call of male spirit-workers.

Hela walks with a limp, slowly, is quiet, and extremely still. When she is speaking, her hands may move and gesture, but the rest of the time she is still as a statue when sitting or standing. She speaks in a hoarse voice, and she is very direct and to the point. If she grips someone's hand or arm in order to say something important to them, some say her touch can burn flesh. 

Suported by Ravenkaldera.

Note: The artwork to illustrate this post is a drawing of Hel made by me. If you have any questions for me or if you want to see my artistic works, check out my Facebook page and make a Like if you can by following this link --> http://www.facebook.com/ArithHarger

Hela The Goddess of the Underworld

Who is Hela?

Hel, or Hela, the Goddess of the Underworld, is the eldest child of Angrboda and Loki. She is also the Goddess of Death in the cosmology of the Nine Worlds, and the Keeper of the Underworld. She is one of the most powerful - some might say the most powerful - of all the Jotun deities.

She usually appears in her half-rotted or half-skeletal form, divided down the middle vertically. Her hair is usually pale and long on her living side, although sometimes it is black. Sometimes she has appeared living above the waist and rotting below it; sometimes as a pale white woman who merely smells of rot. (In fact, the rot smell is always present with her, and it is a good way to know that you are actually speaking with Hela. The general coldness of the atmostphere around her is another tip-off.) Part of her insistence on keeping these shapes rather than a "normal", unrotted form is to force the understanding of Death onto people. She does not hold with any kind of denial around Death; she requires that it be seen and respected as the natural process that it is, and not euphemized or buried or prettied up.

Hela is tall, generally clad only in a long, simple robe of black or grey, and does not stand on ceremony. She has been described by several people as having a low, quiet "whiskey-and-cigarettes" voice, and She moves slowly and sometimes with a limp on her skeletal foot. Her great stillness is one of the things that people notice about Her. When She sits, She may move her hands some to gesture, but very little else; psychically She is like a great pool of black stillness. Every move is made with graceful, ghostly slowness. It is said that She moves fast only when she is angry, and then you're in too much trouble to notice.

If She holds out a hand for you to take, it will be Her skeletal one. This is a test. Remember that She was born in the Iron Wood, where showing your acceptance of the physical deformities of others is part of how you show respect and friendship. Take Her rotting, skeletal hand (which, as some people have reported, feels exactly like a dead limb except that it moves) and kiss it. If you can't bear to do such a thing, you have no business dealing with her. It is said that she only offers her living hand to the Dead, so you should be grateful for small favors.

Hela's History :

Long ago, before the dismemberment of Ymir and the creation of Midgard and Asgard, the underworld was named Jormungrund. It was populated by the dead souls of Jotnar, and some live ones as well - Jotnar are particularly good at traveling to the Deathlands. As far as we can tell, it was looked after by a goddess named Hel, but she was not the Hel who lives there today. Both the name and the job title seem to be something that is passed on. Apparently someone needs to take on the important (and fairly powerful) job of looking after the Dead, and someone is chosen from one of the races when the last Hel retires.

Jotun legend has it that when the old Hel died, the Dead roamed the Nine Worlds for seven years, as there was no one to keep them in check. Every race hoped to have one of its members chosen for this crucial task, which would create an unlimited power-base for whoever was allied with Death, if Death could be persuaded to side with its native race. Mimir, the consort of the last Hel, did what he could to hold things together while everyone waited. Collective breaths were held across the Nine Worlds ... and then Angrboda, the Hagia of the Iron Wood, had a daughter by her consort, the infamous Loki. When the girl-etin was barely walking, it is said, she took on her shapeshifting form, and it was that of a rotting corpse. This was the signal that she was the inheritor of the name and the title, and she was immediately named Hel, or Hela in the Jotun-tongue (the Alfar call her Leikin), and raised to claim the rulership of the Land of the Dead.

Various rumors went around that Loki and Angrboda had done dark magic to make sure that their child would be the Death Goddess; other rumors said that they had merely foreseen that it would be so, and married in order to bring it about. Whether it came about by chance or planning, it was a great disappointment to the other races, who had hoped to pull the Deathlands out of the control of Jotun hands. Odin promptly put a "banishing-spell" on the tiny Hela, which basically banned her from ever entering Asgard, and indeed she has never set foot there.

When Hela came of age, she took over Jormundgrund and entirely recreated it, renaming it Helheim. Mimir handed the care of the place to her and left, going to Asgard to live with the Aesir who had promised him an honored place for his wisdom. Instead of caves and dankness, she opened it to the black sky and planted orchards, and grass grew over the stony burial mounds. She built the castle Elvidnir and swore that no matter how many the Dead, she would find a way to feed them all, if only sparingly. She redesigned Helheim in such a way as to bring maximum peacefulness to those who reside in it; instead of dank caves, it is a subtly ever-changing tapestry of hills and fields and colorful autumn woods.

Since then, she has dutifully tended to her Dead, about whom she feels fiercely protective. She looks down on necromancy and other forms of magic used to "bother the Dead", although she will allow seidhr-workers and others who respect her boundaries to enter a special area close to Hel's Gate, and speak with what Dead wish to come to them.

Supported By RavenKaldera

Note:  This was scheduled to this day.

What is Rökkatru?

Note: The Drawing was made By me and it was an illustration already for the story of the birth of Loki here in my blog, but it serves well for this post as well!

First, there was Asatru, which meant, technically, “True to the Aesir”, or the Norse/Germanic Gods of sky and war and culture. They included Odin, Frigga, Heimdall, Baldur, Iduna, Bragi, and many others. Eventually, those whose religious practice concentrated on the Vanir – the second, more agricultural pantheon of Gods including Frey, Freya, Njord, and Nerthus – decided that they would be called Vanatru. Some time after that, Abby Helasdottir of New Zealand coined the term Rökkatru, for those whose primary focus  was the third pantheon of underworld Gods. These include Hela, Loki, Angrboda, Sigyn, Fenris, Jormundgand, Narvi and Vali, Surt, Mordgud, and Mengloth, among others.

The concept of a World Tree is not limited to northern Europe. Many cultures around the world have world trees, and it is usually the job of the shaman or spirit-worker in that culture to travel from world to world. There are always at least three levels: heaven, earth, and underworld. Each are valued equally and have their own blessings and dangers. There are always spirits of sky, spirits of earth, spirits of the beloved ancestors and those who guard them. Norse cosmology grew from a preliterate culture that followed this pattern, and we follow the same idea. Three pantheons, all valuable, all necessary to the functioning of Yggdrasil.

Those who identify as Rökkatru do not see “dark” as bad, nor “underworld gods” as evil. We feel that this is a Christian concept that has infiltrated some modern interpretations of Norse cosmology, first through the Christians that wrote down (and tainted) the only sources we have of these myths, and second through the Christian upbringings of many converts to Northern religion. Other Neo-Pagan sects have already been down this road and come out the other side; they have learned that underworld Gods are to be honored and revered for many things. Death is not evil; it is part of life. So is rot and decay, and loss, and the passing of all things. So is chaos, so is randomness, so is the destructive parts of Nature that we humans find inconvenient. All these things are sacred and so are the Rökkr. Just as there are those dedicated to Hecate, or Kali, or Hades, or Ereshkigal, or Coyote, so are there those who are dedicated to Loki and Hela and the others.

Currently, at this time, Heathenry (reconstructionist Norse/Germanic religion) prefers to limit itself to worship of the Aesir and Vanir. Northern Tradition Pagans, however, believe that Gods are not divided into categories of “good” and “bad” Gods. They are all worthy of honor, and we honor all of them. Since there are already many lovely websites with information about Asatru and Vanatru but very little for Rökkatru, and since honoring all three pantheons instead of only two is part of what sets us apart, we have chosen to put up a small place of education about this third truth. Not all Northern Tradition Pagans are Rökkatru – they might just as often be dedicated to or favor Aesir or Vanir Gods – but they will all agree that it is good to see all the Gods honored, and have no issue with the followers of underworld Gods.

Supported by RavenKaldera