One of the important things in exploring a deity, or examining the interaction with gods in our life, is to find a precedent. Gods tend to follow a formula, they have personality, and not only does this help us identify them but it provides evidence through consistency that the interaction/god is valid. There are moments of UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) but generally there's still some connection to myth or folklore.
if you've seen the sky and you know it's blue,the grass is green and it's not a question of it,why would I be thinking gee maybe the sky is really yellow and the grass is possibly pink,I never thought of it that way.....does that help?
This is a great analogy. Because while grass is green and the sky blue there ARE variations. If you had never seen grass or color, would you know that the first grass you were looking at was yellow from lack of water? Would you know the sky was gray with clouds? The foundations of it are there, and that would be correct, but the actual expression of it would be slightly off.
There isn't any historical evidence of Hel visiting Midgard just to visit. Anytime she has come to men she precedes their death. Spirit journeys to Hel are difficult (impossible?), it takes the gods themselves nine days to get there. This isn't just poetic lore; somehow Hel is set up in such a way that it is far-removed and safe from the ravages and fall-out of Ragnarok.
But-
There is Holle. If Hel is the late Icelandic model (there's some controvery on whether Hel actually existed as a personality, or was only the personification of a place) then Holle is the early Germanic predecessor. And this is where I think you should open your mind to the possibility of
shades of expression.
"Holle's name is linguistically related to the word Halja, which means "covering", and is the ancient Teutonic name for Hel, the Norse land of the dead. Holle is called the Queen of the Dead, and resides in the 'nether' regions. She possibly lent her name to the country Holland, 'the land of Holle', which is also called the Netherlands because many parts of the country are below sea-level."
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/holle.html
Holle does visit households (to check on laziness), and is associated with weaving and spinning (witchcraft). She also is associated with the Weiss Weiven (women known to sit by the water and brush their hair). If she came to visit and look around your house, then had you brush and weave/braid her hair it sounds like we've found some consistency.
"Holle is theorized as an ancient Germanic supreme goddess of birth, death and reincarnation who predates most of the Germanic pantheon, dating back to the Neolithic before Indo-European invasion of Europe"...."Hulda is the goddess to whom children who died as infants go, and alternatively known as both the Dark Grandmother and the White Lady," "Perchta is often identified as stemming from the same Germanic goddess as Holda and other female figures of German folklore (see Frija-Frigg). According to Jacob Grimm and Lotte Motz, Perchta is Holda's southern cousin or equivalent, as they both share the role as a "guardian of the beasts"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holle_(goddess)
Alot of information out there. Like I said, the germanic pantheon is complex. Would Holle say Hel because she knew that's what you're familiar with? Would you even known what Perchta was, or how to spell it/research it?
I *do* feel that there is a Hel being, but I don't have any reason to believe that she is the goddess of dead that visits man. Not that it's up to me.
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