Hel: Complete Story of the Quiet Goddess Who Ruled the Norse Underworld | Norse Mythology for Sleep

Hel: Complete Story of the Quiet Goddess Who Ruled the Norse Underworld | Norse Mythology for SleepA slow, quiet retelling of the story of Hel, told from the beginning and made for falling asleep to.The whole story of the goddess who ruled the Norse underworld, at a pace that's deliberately too slow to follow properly. That's the point. You're not meant to reach the end.She's the least dramatic figure in Norse myth and possibly the most unsettling, because she doesn't do anything. She was one of three children born to a father the gods didn't trust and a mother from the other side, and when it became clear what all three of them were, she was the one thrown down rather than bound or sunk. What she was given was a place far below, cold and slow and enormous, and the responsibility for everyone who died the ordinary way — not in battle, just of illness or age or bad luck, which is nearly everybody. What follows is where she came from, what her hall was said to be like, and the one story in which the gods actually needed something from her: a rider sent all the way down to ask for someone back, and the answer she gave, which was fair and reasonable and impossible. She never raises her voice in any of it. She simply keeps what she's owed.But the point of this recording isn't really the story. It's the hour or two spent drifting through it. The voice stays low and even the whole way through. No music, no sound effects, nothing that rises or drops or suddenly arrives. Nothing in it is built to frighten you. Every sentence sits at roughly the same level as the one before it, so nothing ever pulls your attention back up to the surface.That's what makes it work on the nights when your head won't switch off. It's just interesting enough to give your thoughts something to hold, and slow enough that they let go of it on their own. You don't have to follow along. You don't have to remember any of it in the morning. If you drift off somewhere near the beginning and wake up much later, far below, you've used this exactly the way it's meant to be used. Most people don't make it past the first half hour, and the rest will still be here tomorrow night.Put it on, turn the volume down, and let it go on without you.Mythology & Folklore for Sleep — long, calm retellings of Greek myths, Norse legends, Egyptian tales, Hindu epics, Chinese classics and old folklore from around the world, made for insomnia and the hours when you can't sleep. Bedtime stories for adults, told in a slow, quiet voice. New episodes every day.