#valhöll

Sometimes it's loud when I'm seiðing near Valhöll. There's drums, beating through the ground like a frenzying pulse. Steel and shield clashing together with thundering death-rattle.

A drawing from one of my notebooks. A cimmerian steeple for an old and wicked god.

The third root [of Yggdrasil] ran through Niflheim, and by it was the Well (or spring) of Hvergelmir.  This was the source of several rivers, and was replenished by liquid dripping from the horns of the stag Eikthyrnir.  Eikthyrnir stood atop Odin's hall (the hall of Valhöll where heroic warriors went after death) and fed from the foliage of Yggdrasil.  Hvergelmir does not appear to have had magical properties as such, but it was so full of snakes that no language had a word for how many there were.  Nearby lived the dragon Níðhöggr, who gnawed on the root of Yggdrasil and the corpses of the dead.

The Valkyries [valkyrjur, singular valkyrja] were choosers of the slain.  Their task was to decide which warriors would be taken to Fólkvangr or Valhöll to prepare for the great battle of Ragnarok.  The rest were the concern of Hel, but Odin wanted the best of the best to fight on his side in the final battle. The Valkyries are usually depicted in modern times as beautiful warrior-women, and there is evidence from the Norse tales that they could be attractive.  Many Valkyries are noted as being the daughters or royalty.  Some became lovers of human warriors, heroes and kings, and bore them children.  However, the original form of the Valkyries, at least some of the time, was rather less pleasant.  Associated with death and the aftermath of battle, Valkyries are often depicted as accompanied by crows and other carrion-eating creatures, but in fact this may have been the form in which they came to the battlefield. There is some evidence that the original 'real' Valkyries were hags who tended sacred groves where human sacrifice took place.  Human sacrifice was not prevalent, but occurred at times of great crisis.  According to some sources, sacrifices were made to Odin by hanging men from trees, in the manner of Odin's self-impalement, and that captured warriors could be sacrificed to Odin using a spear.  If so, then the original Valkyrie may have been elderly priestesses who decided who was worthy of being sacrificed, or how important an individual was required to ensured an end to the present crisis.  Records indicate that sacrifices were mainly captives and outlaws, but on one occasion a king was sacrificed to end a desperate famine. The mythical Valkyries did not merely choose who among the slain was worthy of Fólkvangr or Valhöll, they also had a hand in choosing who would be slain.  Valkyries could use magic to assist or hamper whoever they thought deserved it, and could alter the course of a battle or the fate of an individual warrior by this means.  When not out in the world as choosers or lovers of mortal warriors, the Valkyries also brought mead to the dead warriors of Valhöll.

Valhöll not Valhalla