Hell, Norway
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Hell is a village in Stjørdal, Norway with a population of 352. It has become a minor tourist attraction because of its name, since people like to take the train there to get photographed in front of the station sign. The station sign reads "Gods-expedition", an old spelling of the Norwegian word for "cargo handling" (godsekspedisjon would be the current spelling).
The name Hell stems from the Old Norse word hellir, which means "overhang", "cliff cave". The Norwegian word hell can also mean "luck". The Old Norse word Hel is the same as today's English Hell, and as a proper noun, Hel was the ruler of Hel. In modern Norwegian the word for hell is helvete. The Norwegian word for "god" is gud.
Among English-speaking tourists, one of those popular Norwegian postcards depicted the station with a heavy frost on the ground. The visual joke was that the picture showed "Hell frozen over", though there was no caption to make the point. Temperatures in Hell can reach -20°C during winter.
The station itself, Hell Station, is a railway junction where the rail line Nordlandsbanen north to Bodø branches off from Meråkerbanen between Trondheim and Storlien in Sweden.
A yearly blues festival, the Hell Blues Festival, takes place in the area around Hell each year. The festival changed its name to Hell Music Festival in 2006 to open their doors for music other than blues. The Hell Music Festival in 2007 was not a complete success however. It failed due to poor ticket sales and weak advertising which left the future of the festival uncertain.
Mona Grudt, Miss Universe 1990, is from a small town near Hell. During the 1990 Miss Universe competition, she listed herself as "The beauty queen from Hell" as a publicity stunt.
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