She is a fearsome sight: she exists in a state of equilibrium where half of her body is that of a beautiful enchantress and the other has decayed to the point of a corpse-like appearance.
Her birth marked the introduction of disease. She would ravage lands with plague, seldom leaving survivors. When Odin was made aware of the presence of Loki's spawn, he exiled them to remote lands. Hel was banished to her realm in the underworld and given control over all those in the nine worlds who do not die gloriously in the heat of battle.