Editing Hel (location) (section)

===''Gesta Danorum''===
Book I of ''[[Gesta Danorum]]'' contains an account of what has often been interpreted as a trip to Hel. While having dinner, King [[Hadingus]] is visited by a woman bearing stalks of [[Conium|hemlock]] who asks him if he knows where such fresh herbs grow in winter. Hadingus wants to know; so the woman muffles him with her cloak, pulls him into the ground, and they vanish. [[Saxo Grammaticus|Saxo]] reasons that the gods wished for Hadingus to visit in the flesh where he will go when he dies.<ref name=FISHER30-31>Davidson (1998:30-31).</ref>

The two penetrate a dark and misty cloud, and then continue along a path worn from heavy use over the ages. The two see men wearing rich-looking robes, and nobles wearing purple. Passing them, they finally reach sunny regions where the herbs the woman presented Hadingus grow.<ref name=FISHER30-31/>

Hadingus and the woman continue until they arrived at a river of blue-black water that is fast-moving, full of rapids, and filled with various weapons. They cross the bridge, and see two "strongly-matched" armies meeting. Hadingus asks the woman about their identity, and she responds that they are men that have met their death by sword, and that they present an everlasting display of their destruction while attempting to equal the activity of their past lives.<ref name=FISHER30-31/>

Moving forward, the two encounter a wall that they cannot find a way over. The woman attempts to leap over it, but despite her slender and wrinkled body, cannot. The woman removes the head of a cock that she was carrying and throws it over the wall. The bird crows immediately; it has returned to life. Hadingus returns to his wife, and foils a threat by pirates.<ref name=FISHER30-31/>