The Old Norse hel is the abode of oathbreakers, other evil persons, and those unlucky enough to have died of old age or sickness rather than in the glory of the battlefield. The medieval Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson, a Christian, also paints a vivid picture of hel for us in his accounts of Norse myth (although his description may have been influenced by his own Christian conception of hell). The medieval Scandinavians and Icelanders were converted from paganism much later than the Anglo-Saxons, and they preserved a good deal of pagan poetry revealing the ancient Scandinavian vision of the afterworld. But what did hel designate before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons? We can discover some indication of the original pagan meaning of hel by examining its Old Norse equivalent, hel.
Word History: When the Anglo-Saxons became Christian in early medieval times, the Old English word hel was used to translate the Latin word īnfernus, "the lower region, hell," and designate the fiery place of eternal punishment for the damned.
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