Valhalla

The Modern English noun Valhalla derives from Old Norse Valhǫll, a compound noun composed of two elements: the masculine noun valr 'the slain' and the feminine noun hǫll 'hall'. The form "Valhalla" comes from an attempt to clarify the grammatical gender of the word. Valr has cognates in other Germanic languages such as Old English wæl 'the slain, slaughter, carnage', Old Saxon wal-dād 'murder', Old High German 'battlefield, blood bath'. All of these forms descend from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun *walaz. Among related Old Norse concepts, valr also appears as the first element of the noun valkyrja 'chooser of the slain, valkyrie'.

The second element, hǫll, is a common Old Norse noun. It is cognate to Modern English hall and offers the same meaning. Both developed from Proto-Germanic *xallō or *hallō, meaning 'covered place, hall', from the Proto-Indo-European root *kol-. As philologists such as Calvert Watkins note, the same Indo-European root produced Old Norse hel, a proper noun employed for both the name of another afterlife location and a supernatural female entity as its overseer, as well as the modern English noun hell. In Swedish folklore, some mountains traditionally regarded as abodes of the dead were also called Valhalla. According to many researcher, the hǫll element derives from hallr, "rock", and referred to an underworld, not a hall.