The 7-Step Plan for Climbing Out of Hel
("Hell")
“On the other hand, a goddess of death who represents the horrors of slaughter and decay is something well known elsewhere; the figure of Kali in India is an outstanding example. Like Snorri’s Hel, she is terrifying to in appearance, black or dark in colour, usually naked, adorned with severed heads or arms or the corpses of children, her lips smeared with blood. She haunts the battlefield or cremation ground and squats on corpses. Yet for all this she is ‘the recipient of ardent devotion from countless devotees who approach her as their mother’
Hilda Ellis Davidson (2002 [1998]).
Roles of the Northern Goddess. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13611-3