The Valkyrie, part 1
Valkyrie
Angelic Beauty,
Sturdy and wise.
She gazes from above,
Into the darkest disguise.
Valkyrie is thee,
Sudden and strange.
Difference is an understatement,
Where royalty reigns.
Beside a Valkyrie,
A scaled beast resides.
Ready to fight,
And to die.
Alongside all Valkyries,
The dragons stand proud,
In armor of white.
They will fight.
The Valkyries,
Angelic and dark.
They will fight,
To save you from the dark...
- Dark Jewel
In mordern wolrd, the Valkyrie has always been the subjects of works of art, musical works, video games and poetry. I hope that we will understand more about the Valkyries through these Valkyrie series articals. According to timelessmyths.com, Valkyrie means “Chooser of the Slain” and they were called by many different names such as battle maidens, shield maidens, swan maidens, wish maidens and mead maidens, through the Valkyries’ names people might know their responsibilities.
The Valkyries are the ones to select among half of the warriors who die in battle (the other half go to the goddess Freyja’s afterlife field which is known as Fólkvangr), the valkyries bring their chosen slain warriors (known as the Einherjar) to the afterlife hall of the slain, in Odin’s hall, called Valhalla. Those slain warriors were chosen to fight with the Aesir gods at Ragnarok.
As it was mentioned above, the Valkyries had another name as “Swan maiden” because of their clothes’ material. The costumes were made of swan feathers so that the Valkyries were capable of flying, grabbing the slain warriors to Valhalla. The Valkyries’s other function was serving mead or ales in drinking-horns or mugs for the Einherjar.
Three Valkyries appeared in the Volsunga Saga. Sigrun ("victory-rune") joined in holy with son of Sigmund, Helgi. The other two Valkyries were Brynhild ("bright battle") and Gudrun ("battle-rune"), and these two were associated with the hero Sigurd, another son of Sigmund. Moreover Gudrun was Helgi’s first wife.
Brynhild was known as the most famous Valkyrie. Brynhild was purnished by Odin for committing the wrong king to die in battlle. Odin forced her to marry a mortal. She gave word of honor that only the bravest hero who could ride through the flame of the Ring of Fire could marry her. And Sigurd had rode through the flame, twice. However the second time, Brynhild was tricked to marry Gunnar, Gudrun’s brother while her bravest hero, Sigurd, married Gudrun. Finally she caused Sigurd’s death and died of grief in Sigurd’s funeral pyre. The whole tale about Brynhild was described in Volsunga Saga.
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