United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


We'll be her escort to the gates of hell, for there she's bound if ever woman was." Then, without murmur or complaint, almost in silence, indeed, they formed Odin's Ring, that triple circle of the Northmen doomed to die; the terrible circle that on many a battlefield has been hidden at last beneath the heap of fallen foes. The regiments moved up; there were three of them of full strength.

And Gilbert of Ghent, keeping Lincoln Castle for the Conqueror, was perplexed in mind, and looked well to gates and bars and sentinels; for Hereward sent him at once a message, that forasmuch as he had forgotten his warning in Bruges street, and put a rascal cook into his mother's manors, he should ride Odin's horse on the highest ash in the Bruneswold.

"Tell me," he cried, "did any one fall at the tree yonder?" "Yes; Gissur the White." "Then luck failed me, for that arrow was aimed for Earl Haakon." And he fell over on the deck, with death at his heart-strings. The viking had sent a herald on before, to announce his coming at Odin's court.

King Hialprek lends him force; by Odin's guidance he finds them out, routs their army, and slays all those brothers. On his return, his foster-father still eggs him on to slay the Dragon, and thus to shew that there was still a Volsung left.

It is called Odin's Stone; and till a very recent period it was the local custom to take an oath by joining hands through the hole in it; and this oath was considered even by the regular courts of Orkney as peculiarly solemn and binding; the person who violated it being accounted infamous and excluded from society.

Hang your famous starry necklace about your neck, and don your bravest robe; for in eight days there will be a wedding, and Thor's hammer is to pay." Then Freia fell to weeping. "I cannot go! I will not go!" she cried. "I will not leave the home of gladness and Father Odin's table to dwell in the land of horrors!

Now she took the sword, and heaved it up, and looked at the runes and said, "A strange writing truly." "How runs it, housekeeper?" said Asmund. "Thus, lord, if my skill is not at fault: "Whitefire is my name Dwarf-folk forged me Odin's sword was I Eric's sword was I Eric's sword shall I be And where I fall there he must follow me."

According to the old notion, those who were not Odin's guests went either to Thor's house, who had all the thralls, or to Freyja, who even claimed a third part of the slain on every battle-field with Odin, or to Hel, the cold comfortless goddess already mentioned, who was still no tormentor, though she ruled over nine worlds, and though her walls were high, and her bolts and bars huge; traits which come out in 'the Master-Smith', No. xvi, when the Devil, who here assumes Hel's place, orders the watch to go back and lock up all the nine locks on the gates of Hell a lock for each of the goddesses nine worlds and to put a padlock on besides.

The outline gathered from the poems is as follows: Baldr, Odin's son, is killed by his brother Höd through a mistletoe spray; Loki is in some way concerned in his death, which is an overwhelming misfortune to the Gods; but it is on Höd that his death is avenged. He will be absent from the great fight at Ragnarök, but Völuspa adds that he will return afterwards.

"Look, men of the Lorens," Hagen cried, still pointing. "I will give immortality to the men who bring me those two alive." The first two to reach Gunnar and Odin died at the end of Gunnar's and Odin's swords. "Your immortality does not last very long, Grim Hagen," Gunnar shouted as he wiped his blade. Then another man came up the stairway.