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According to religion and mythology, Hell is a place in the hereafter where bad souls are subjected to punitive torment, most commonly by torture, as a permanent punishment after death. Hell is frequently shown as a permanent destiny in religions with a narrative divine history, such as Christianity and Islam. Still, faiths that believe in reincarnation commonly represent hell as a transitional phase between incarnations, as with dharmic religions. Hell is usually located in another realm or beneath the Earth’s surface, according to religions. Heaven, Paradise, Purgatory, Limbo, and the Underworld are some of the other afterlife locations.

Other religions, which do not see the hereafter as a place of retribution or reward, simply refer to the grave as a resting place for the deceased, a neutral location under the Earth’s surface (for example, see Kur, Hades, and Sheol). These regions are frequently referred to as “hell,” however a more accurate translation would be “underworld” or “world of the dead.”

The living’s entrance to the underworld is found in ancient Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, and Finnic religions.

The current English word hell is derived from the Anglo-Saxon pagan term hel, helle (first used about 725 AD to allude to the nether world of the dead). Old Norse hel (which refers to both a place and a goddess-like person in Norse mythology), Old Frisian helle, Old Saxon hellia, Old High German hella, and Gothic halja all have cognates in the Germanic languages. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic feminine noun *xalj or *halj (‘hidden place, the underworld’) is the source of all variants. On the other hand, the Proto-Germanic word comes from the o-grade form of the Proto-Indo-European root *kel-, *kol-, which means ‘to cover, conceal, or save.’ Latin clre (“to hide,” linked to the English term cellar) and early Irish ceilid are Indo-European cognates (“hides”).

Extensions of the Proto-Germanic *xalj were reinterpreted to indicate the underworld in Christian mythology when the Germanic peoples were Christianized (see Gehenna).

Proto-Germanic *xalja-rn(n), a feminine compound noun, and *xalja-wtjan, a neutral compound noun, are related early Germanic words and concepts. This form is derived from the Latinized Gothic plural noun *haliurunnae (attested by Jordanes; according to philologist Vladimir Orel, meaning ‘witches’), Old English helle-rne (‘sorceress, necromancer,’ according to Orel), and Old High German helli-rna’magic,’ according to Orel. *xalj (*halj) and *rn, the Proto-Germanic predecessor to Modern English rune, are the two parts that make up the combination. However, the second part in the Gothic haliurunnae might be an agent noun derived from the verb rinnan (“to run, go”), giving it the literal sense of “one who journeys to the netherworld.”

Old Norse hel-vti ‘hell,’ Old English helle-wte ‘hell-torment,’ Old Saxon helli-wti ‘hell,’ and the Middle High German feminine noun helle-wze combine to form Proto-Germanic *xalja-wtjan (or *halja-wtjan). The word is made up of *xalj (discussed above) and *wtjan (reconstructed from Old English witt ‘right mind, wits,’ Old Saxon gewit ‘understanding,’ and Gothic un-witi ‘foolishness, understanding’).

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