The Norse Chronicles' most important corrective and its most emotionally resonant installment — the definitive portrait of Hel as she actually appears in Norse sources. Hel is appointed by Odin to govern Niflheim, the realm of those who die of old age, sickness, and accident. She accepts this appointment with the quiet gravity that characterizes everything she does. Her realm is not a punishment — it is the destination of most of humanity, and she governs it with scrupulous fairness. The series shows a single year in Hel's governance: the souls she receives, the judgments she makes, the specific loneliness of being the boundary between living and dead. The great mythological event of the series is Hermóðr's mission to recover Baldr — the only living being who comes to Niflheim to ask for something back. Hel's response to his request is the series' most morally complex moment: she does not refuse out of malice but out of the specific integrity of her governance.
