Helgøya is an island in the lake

Mjøsa Mjøsa is Norway's largest lake, as well as one of the deepest lakes in Norway and in Europe. It is the fourth-deepest lake in Norway. It is located in the southern part of Norway, about north of the city of Oslo. Its main tributary is the rive ...

. The island is located in

Ringsaker Municipality is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Hedemarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Brumunddal. Other settlements in Ringsaker include the town of Moelv and the vi ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). The ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The island is the largest freshwater island in Norway. The island is located south of the

Nes The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

peninsula, and it has been connected to the mainland by the Nessundet Bridge since 1957. The island was formerly a part of the

Nes Municipality Nes is a municipality in Akershus in Viken county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Romerike. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Årnes. Name The municipality (originally the parish) is named af ...

until 1964. The island consists of 32 farms. The most notable of these are the old manor ''Hovinsholm'' which had its own church until 1612. Another old farm is ''Eik'' ('

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

') which is the source of the name of the tallest hill on the island: ''Eksberget''. Another farm is ''Høvelsrud'' with its 17th century gardens. The island is generally rich in traces of medieval history. Helgøya Church (''Helgøya kirke'') was inaugurated on 7 December 1870. The chapel was built in timber and blockwork in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. The church has about 200 seats. The building was restored and partially rebuilt in the 1970s.

Name

The

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

forms of the name were ''Helgøy'' and ''Øyin helga'', both meaning 'holy island'. The farm name ''Hovin'' ( non, Hofvin - later re-named ''Hovinsholm'') on the southern tip of the island is a compound of '' hof'' which means "pagan temple (for the

Norse gods Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nors ...

)" and ''vin'' which means "meadow".

Name

See also

References

Further reading