Hel (realm)

In Norse mythology, Hel, the location, shares a name with Hel, a female figure associated with the location. In late Icelandic sources, varying descriptions of Hel are given and various figures are described as being buried with items that will facilitate their journey to Hel after their death. In the Poetic Edda, Brynhildr's trip to Hel after her death is described and Odin, while alive, also visits Hel upon his horse Sleipnir. In Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, Baldr goes to Hel on his death and subsequently Hermóðr uses Sleipnir to attempt to retrieve him.

The Old Norse feminine proper noun Hel is identical to the name of the entity that presides over the realm, Old Norse Hel. The word has cognates in all branches of the Germanic languages, including Old English hell (and thus Modern English hell), Old Frisian helle, Old Saxon hellia, Old High German hella, and Gothic halja. All forms ultimately derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic feminine noun *xaljō or *haljō ('concealed place, the underworld'). In turn, the Proto-Germanic form derives from the o-grade form of the Proto-Indo-European root *kel-, *kol-: 'to cover, conceal, save'.

The term is etymologically related to Modern English hall and therefore also Valhalla, an afterlife 'hall of the slain' in Norse Mythology. Hall and its numerous Germanic cognates derive from Proto-Germanic *hallō 'covered place, hall', from Proto-Indo-European *kol-.

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