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When a hero had gloriously lost his life, the Valkyries, the nine warrior daughters of Odin, brought his body up to Valhalla on their white horses that gallop the clouds. There they lived forever after in happiness, enjoying the things that they had most loved upon earth. Every morning they armed themselves and went out to fight with one another in the great courtyard.
Wept the Alruna-wife; Kissed her fair Freya 'Far off in the morning land High in Valhalla, A window stands open, Its sill is the snow-peaks, Its posts are the water-spouts Storm rack its lintel, Gold cloud-flakes above it Are piled for the roofing. Far up to the Elfin-home, High in the wide-blue.
But we must suppose that Odin, the god of the Norsemen, had thought it time to reward him by calling him off from his earthly battles to the Halls of Valhalla." Captain Gordon here approached us, and whilst he and Mr. Drever were bidding each other goodnight, I stood looking into the fire, meditating upon the strange thing my schoolmaster had told me.
When they were wearied of such enjoyments, the sprites of the Brave exercised themselves in single combat, hacked each other to pieces on the floor of Valhalla, resumed their former shape, and returned to their lard and their hydromel.
By turning to the surviving poems of the Skalds, whose dates can be approximately reckoned from the sagas, we can fix an inferior limit for certain of the legends given above, placing them definitely in the heathen time. Reference has already been made to the corroboration of the Valhalla belief supplied by the elegies on Eirik Bloodaxe and Hakon the Good.
This island battle among dead and living is peculiar to the Norse version, and coloured by, if not originating in, the Valhalla idea: Högni and Hedin and their men are the Einherjar who fight every day and rest and feast at night, Hild is a war-goddess.
And Thor came in, and threw his hammer upon the earth, and said, 'I am weary of walking up and down in the earth, of smiting and slaying; and I know not how to bind or heal up, and I am too old to learn. And Freya said, 'I am weary of Valhalla and the birds and trees, the perpetual sunshine and the feasts and laughter. So also said all the Gods.
When recently his bones were returned to American shores, may we not believe that from some valhalla of the heroes, where the mighty men of the past mingle in peace and amity, he saw and took pride in the great if tardy outpouring of our fellow citizens to greet this first sea-king of our flag?
"All thou hast named," the stranger said, "were as swords of Odin to send men to Valhalla, Odin's Hall of Heroes. And of all that thou hast named there were none but were chosen by Odin's Valkyries for battles in Asgard." Cried Sigurd, "Too much of what is brave and noble in the world is taken by Odin for his battles in Asgard." The stranger leaned on his staff and his head was bowed.
There was a strange, almost thunderstruck expression on Kevin's face. Then he broke out of it. He shook his head. "We aren't really going across huh, Donnell?" He gave a brittle little laugh. "Of course we are!" Alan looked around nervously, hoping no one from the Valhalla had spotted him in all this time.
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