Chooser of the slain

“Now awful it is to be without,
as blood-red rack races overhead;
is the welkin gory with warriors' blood
as we valkyries war-songs chanted.”

- Darraðarljóð, skaldic poem in chapter 157 of Njáls saga, Hollander translation

Valkyrie means “chooser of the slain,” which refers to their role in Norse Mythology as the winged women who choose which of the dead who died in battle will be carried to Valhalla, Odin’s hall, to spend their afterlife amongst the other honored dead. Like all stories there is truth in this tale.

An older truth refers to the priestesses who would go amongst the prisoners and select which of them would be sacrificed to honor the gods, especially those prisoners taken in battle.

In “Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe” H.R. Ellis Davidson points out that Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan's detailed account of a 10th-century Rus ship funeral on the Volga River features an "old Hunnish woman, massive and grim to look upon" (who Fadlan refers to as the "Angel of Death") who organizes the killing of the slave girl, and has two other women with her that Fadlan refers to as her daughters. Davidson says that "it would hardly be surprising if strange legends grew up about such women, who must have been kept apart from their kind due to their gruesome duties. Since it was often decided by lot which prisoners should be killed, the idea that the god "chose" his victims, through the instrument of the priestesses, must have been a familiar one, apart from the obvious assumption that some were chosen to fall in war." Davidson says that it appears that from "early times" the Germanic peoples "believed in fierce female spirits doing the command of the war god, stirring up disorder, taking part in battle, seizing and perhaps devouring the slain."

This role of “Chooser of the Slain” is so powerful that it resonates throughout history as we honor the Valkyrie to this day.

The original fantasy painting was done in oil and measures 18" x 24".