Valhalla
in Norse mythology enormous hall located in Asgard
In Norse mythology, Valhalla ( val-HAL-ə, US also vahl-HAH-lə; Old Norse: Valhǫll [ˈwɑlhɒlː], lit. 'Hall of the Slain') is described as a majestic hall located in Asgard and presided over by the god Odin.
Valhalla is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, in the Prose Edda (written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson), in Heimskringla (also written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson), and in stanzas of an anonymous 10th-century poem commemorating the death of Eric Bloodaxe known as Eiríksmál as compiled in Fagrskinna. Valhalla has inspired innumerable works of art, publication titles, and elements of popular culture and is synonymous with a martial (or otherwise) hall of the chosen dead. The name is rendered in modern Scandinavian languages as Valhöll in Icelandic, while the Swedish and Norwegian form is Valhall; in Faroese it is Valhøll, and in Danish it is Valhal.
Etymology
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 which originally referred to a rock, rocks, or mountain; not a hall, thus meaning Valhalla was originally understood as the "rock of the Slain". 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.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Valhalla” as in Norse mythology enormous hall located in Asgard. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as in Norse mythology enormous hall located in Asgard. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q177860. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Valhalla” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.