On Hel

And no, that's not a typo. I read this little blurb tucked away from here:

"Hel or Hela, in Scandinavian mythology, goddess of the dead, a child of Loki and the giantess Angurboga, dwelt beneath the roots of the sacred ash, Yggdrasil (q.v.), and ruled the nine worlds of Helheim. In early myth all the dead went to her: in later legend only those who died of old age or sickness; she then became synonymous with suffering and horror"

The commentator then goes on to discuss how the Roman Catholic Church absorbed many pagan ideas / and concepts while trying to convert. My first thought was - aside from "huh, that's kinda cool" was one that reached far back into my English Lit courses of High school where I read Dante's Inferno. One of the first glimpses of hell contained nine rings. Curious coincidence or direct derivative?