What the Hel

Hello, friends! Party with me as my latest book, Nameless Queen, has dropped today 🥳 It's a 14K-word prequel short story to The Prophecies of Ragnarok trilogy and a retelling of the myths involving Hel, the Norse goddess of death and the queen of the underworld. My friends and readers wanted to know more about the lore and how she ties both to the myths and the series, so here we are!

But first: if you're reading this post, then I'm assuming you've read all the other books in the series except for Nameless Queen — or that you're fine with spoilers. If you are neither of these, please check out the spoiler-free version instead!

Also, I'm just going to write the names as they're spelled in the series.

That said, let's begin! 🥰

Childhood in Asgard

We know from Hodr's memories (Monster Ridge chapter 20) and his account in part 1 of Polar Knight that Hel grew up with him in Asgard. The myths actually say she had been to Asgard at some point before her banishment:

Chapter 34 of the Gylfaginning states that once the gods found that these Loki's children are being brought up in the land of Jötunheimr, and they "traced prophecies that from these siblings great mischief and disaster would arise for them," Odin sent the gods to gather the children and bring them to him. Upon their arrival, Odin threw Hel into Niflheim, and bestowed upon her authority over nine worlds, in that she must "administer board and lodging to those sent to her, and that is those who die of sickness or old age."

Why, though? We've never explicitly stated it in the series, but the fact that Fenris and the Jotnar broke her out of Asgard (per Baldr's trip through memory lane in Midnight Son) imply that she'd been kept there against her will. Then, when they were older and Hodr declared she was his queen, she called it an act of treason — so it hadn't just been a term of endearment. And, well, Meri and I love Game of Thrones. Remember what the Starks did with Theon in the aftermath of the Greyjoy Rebellion? They kept him in Winterfell as the Starks' "ward" to ensure his father's good behavior.

Appearance

The myths describe Hel as half alive, half rotting corpse. But in the series, she was disfigured long before she was banished; Midnight Son confirms that an altercation with Baldr had led to her half-burned face. Still, Silje describes her in Monster Ridge as having "otherworldly beauty" and that her beauty and elegance remained in spite of everything.

This is an artwork of her that I'd commissioned from the talented Ashlee:

And if we were to get lucky and end up with a movie or TV series for these books, I would love love for Brit Marling to play her.

Relationship With Hodr

While the myths say nothing about Hel having a partner, her desire to keep Baldr in the underworld leaves some room for creative interpretation. That, and there are at least two sources that mention the kennings (a kenning is a figure of speech specific to Scandinavian poetry) for Hodr and one of them is "Companion of Hel."

You can see how we rolled with that. Then dialed it up to a hundred.

Niflheim

Niflheim is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology and the homeland of primordial darkness, cold, mist, and ice. The name is from the Old Norse word Niflheimr which means world of fog, and in Mist Gallows, that is certainly Silje's first impression of the realm, as well as "a patchwork of dying landscapes."

We don't say it anywhere in the texts, but Niflheim's vibe is definitely gothic.

In Midnight Son, Baldr notes that "Niflheim constructed dwellings for [the Dead] that resembled their own cities." He makes it sound like Niflheim itself is alive... and it might be. Or, at least, the realm has a lot of magic. According to the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson, the first being, the giant Ymir (the common ancestor of the Aesir and the Jotnar in our series' lore), was born when ice from Niflheim and fire from Muspelheim met in the middle of Ginnungagap, the abyss that had formerly separated them.

Magic

None of the books explicitly call the magic the Jotnar use by name, though we've defined it way back while we were still plotting Hotel Fen. You can now find an entry in the glossary (yes, there's one at the back!) of Nameless Queen that says:

Chaos Magic – Magic that draws power from the Ginnungagap. It is innate to the user, usually a result of bloodline inheritance. Spells do not require invocation, hence why it is often considered emotion-based. Includes shapechanging, reality warping, and elemental magic.

The Jotnar are primarily shapeshifters — Loki (horse), Fenris (wolf), Jormungandr (serpent), Rygi and his family (polar bears), Skadi (eagle). Hel is not, and neither is she an elementalist, but she can create illusions (like when she impersonated Loki in Mist Gallows), an ability that falls under reality warping.

On the other hand, we have:

Rune Magic – Magic that draws power from Yggdrasil, invoked via symbols called runes. It first consumes the user’s life energy before siphoning directly from the Tree. Very difficult to learn.

Which is originally Vanir magic (Freya, Gullveig, Frigg) and later gets taught to the Aesir through Odin. It is worth noting that the Aesir elementalists (Baldr, Thor) are not true wielders of elemental magic; Baldr has rune tattoos, while Thor has Mjölnir.

Hodr is the only exception. He really pulled an Elsa back on Easter Island.

"All things end and all must die"

You probably know this quote best as the tagline of Mist Gallows. But this is actually part of the lyrics of Hel's original song Helfire, written in 2021 — which speaks of Hel's state of mind when she is first banished to Niflheim. You might want to listen to it when you start reading Nameless Queen.

The line appears several times after that. Hel says it to Baldr in Midnight Son, and it's a recurring line in The Prophecy (which you can read in its entirety here or in the back of Mist Gallows).

Reading Order

Now you're ready to get reading! Or rereading. But what's the correct order, you ask? Well, the books are normally read by release:

1. Hotel Fen (August 2021)
2. Monster Ridge (May 2023)
3. Midnight Son (July 2023)
4. Polar Knight (September 2023)
5. Mist Gallows (October 2023)
6. Nameless Queen (November 2023)

But if you'd like to go a bit more "chronological," an alternative order would be:

1. Hotel Fen
2. Midnight Son
3. Polar Knight
4. Monster Ridge
5. Nameless Queen
6. Mist Gallows

Or if you’d prefer what we call “true chronological,” then skip around like this:

1. Polar Knight parts 1-2
2. Midnight Son parts 1-3
3. Polar Knight part 3
4. Nameless Queen part 1
5. Hotel Fen
6. Nameless Queen part 2
7. Midnight Son part 4
8. Polar Knight part 4
9. Monster Ridge
10. Nameless Queen parts 3-4
11. Mist Gallows

Now is also a great time to snag the rest of the series as we're offering the ebooks at bargain prices for the Indie Author Winter Wonderland sale! The event officially begins tomorrow, but in honor of today's release we've popped in our deals early. 😉