i finished reading "Beowulf" today, a bilingual version translated by Seamus Heaney. It was a great narrative, but I kept an eye out for "hell," and when I found any instances, checked the facing page for the Anglo-Saxon equivalent. I found "hell" twelve times in the English, and the Anglo-Saxon broke down like this:
"helle" five times
"hel" two times
"hell" one time.
Four times I could not find the Anglo-Saxon equivalent, maybe because I'm not an Anglo-Saxon scholar, but you get the gist, yes? Now, "Beowulf" has a Christian overlay, but the events and people are clearly pagan, so I went through this exercise to bolster my position that the word "hell" comes to us from the languages of pagan north Europe. Compare with this from the OED:
Old English, aka Anglo-Saxon – hel
Old Frisian – helle, hille
Old Saxon – hellja, hella
Middle Dutch – helle
Old High German – helle
Old Norse – hel, heljar
Gothic – halja
Original Teutonic - halja.
Why was Hell spelled Hel in parts of the KJV-1611 Bible?
Did you know that the secular meaning behind the word 'hell,' just as the original meaning of 'hades' simply meant hidden, out of sight? Yep, in the ancient German, when two young folks went to a dark place to hide for some necking, they went to hel, they hid somewhere. Our English words helmut, hall, hole, and heel, all stem from the German word hele. The religious meaning of the word Hell came from Germany too -- actually it came from Teutonic mythology.
Hele was a goddess of the underworld in ancient folklore.
Hel is the name of the Norse underworld, and its ruler. Hel/Hela, in Norse mythology, was the hideous daughter of the Giant Loki, banished to the netherworld, Helheim (literally, 'house of Hel'), world of the dead, by the Chief God, Odin. The distinctive looking Goddess, whose skin is black on one side, rules over the dead until Ragnarok and the coming birth of the new world.
Hel is sister of Fenris, the wolf, and Jormungand, the world-serpent.
The name for the Christian world of torment "Hell" is derived from Hela's abode. Unlike the Christian version, however, Hel's realm was home to all who did not die in battle - miserable as it was, good behavior wasn't any more likely to get one a reprieve. Helheim's entrance works only in one direction- once one has entered, even a God, one cannot leave - like the Greek Hades, Helheim is guarded by a monstrous hound, and encircled by an impassable river. According to legend, the dead will remain in Hel's kingdom until the last days of Ragnarok.
A very good study brothers!
It all seems related.. the nonChristian myths that is - including ET.. the serpent turns up in myth.. sometimes the dragon.. I even read once how satanism, some forms of it have as myth the ancientdragon 'gids' sent the lesser serpent 'gods' to enlighten mankind into 'freedom' away from the intruder 'mean' god who didn't want man to be liberally 'free' where anything goes - the so called enlightenment, orsetting free.. which of course we know is no freedom.
Which I guess is straying from the hel myth originally dreamt up be the old king, priest collisions to keep the ppl in line.. Then passed on down through time and from the separating of the ppl by separating the languages..
Moses writings of history/genesis inspired by God but the other handed down fuzzy memories of eve "mother of all" - the first mother goddesses? And flood legends.. and then the afterlife torment legends (created) which permeated the culture by time the Bible translation into english, etc.. So translated right into the Bible.. A strongly held delusion as we know..