Editing Helsingør (section)

== Etymology ==
The first part of the name, ''Hels'', is believed to derive from the word ''hals'' 'neck; narrow strait', referring to the narrowest point of the [[Øresund]] (Øre Sound) between what is now Helsingør and [[Helsingborg]] in Sweden. The word ''Helsing'' supposedly means 'person/people who live by the neck' and ''ør'' corresponds to old Norse ''aurr'' 'gravel beach' and ''[[wikt:eyrr#Old Norse|eyrr]]'' 'sandy or gravelly shore'. The city was first mentioned as ''Hælsingør'' and the people as ''Helsinger'' in [[Valdemar II of Denmark|King Valdemar the Victorious]]'s ''[[Liber Census Daniæ]]'' from 1231 (not to be confused with the Helsings of [[Hälsingland]] in Sweden).<ref>early records of Helsingør and Flynderborg ("possibly already mentioned by Saxo"): J. D. Qvist, ''Annaler for nordisk oldkyndighed'', Kongelige Nordiske oldskriftselskab, 1836, [https://books.google.com/books?id=InEJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA306 p. 306] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150226190351/https://books.google.ch/books?id=InEJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA306|date=26 February 2015}}</ref> Place names show that the Helsinger may have had their main fort at [[Helsingborg]] and a fortified landing place at Helsingør, to control the ferry route across the strait. The particularly 19th-century tradition to explain toponymies, place names, with features of the landscape does not necessarily exclude the much older tradition of reading place names as eponymous. Although an obscure legendary character, or several, Helsing is quite abundantly present in traces of lost legends in the Nordic countries.

Although probably not the first Helsing, one of the three sons of [[Gandalf Alfgeirsson]] (the antagonist of [[Halfdan the Black]], who was father of King [[Harald Fairhair]], the semi-legendary, historical first king of a feudalist Norway) is called Helsing. He was brother to Hake and Hysing Gandalfson. Also [[Helsinki]] in Finland and [[Hälsingland]] in [[Norrland]], Sweden, refers to Helsing, as "the Land of the Helsing/Helsinger," which makes the landscape theory of the name of Helsingør less likely.