Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

valkyries, riding at the head of their chosen heroes, as well as the gods, have found solid
roads advantageous, and the course they took with their favorites was not the one
presented in our mythological textbooks. Grímnismál (str. 21; see No. 93) informs us that
the breadth of the atmospheric sea is too great and its currents too strong for those riding
on their horses from the battlefield to wade across (árglaumur þykir ofmikill valglaumi að
vaða). 30 In the 45th chapter of Egil Skallagrimson's Saga we read how Egil saved himself
from men, whom King Erik Blood-axe sent in pursuit of him to Saud Isle. While they
were searching for him there, he had stolen to the vicinity of the place where the boat lay
in which those in pursuit had rowed across. Three warriors guarded the boat. Egil
succeeded in surprising them, and in giving one of them his death-wound before the latter
was able to defend himself. The second fell in a duel on the beach. The third, who sprang
into the boat to loose it, fell there after an exchange of blows. The saga has preserved a
strophe in which Egil mentions this exploit to his brother Thorolf and his friend
Arinbjorn, whom he met after his flight from Saud Isle. There he says:
at þrymreynis þjónar
þrír nökkurir Hlakkar,
til hásalar Heljar
helgengnir, för dvelja.
"Three of those who serve the tester of the valkyrie-din (the warlike Erik Bloodaxe)
will late return; they have gone to the lower world, to Hel's high hall."
The fallen ones were king's men and warriors. They were slain by weapons and
fell at their posts of duty, one from a sudden, unexpected wound, the others in open
conflict. According to the conception of the mythological textbooks, these sword-slain
men should have been conducted by valkyries through the air to Valhal. But the skald
Egil, who as a heathen born about the year 904, and who as a contemporary of the sons of
Harald Fairhair must have known the mythological views of his fellow-heathen believers
better than the people of our time, assures us positively that these men from King Erik's
body-guard, instead of going immediately to Valhal, went to the lower world and to Hel's
high hall there. He certainly would not have said anything of the sort if those for whom
he composed the strophe had not regarded this idea as both possible and correct.
The question now is: Does this Egil's statement stand alone and is it in conflict
with those other statements touching the same point which the ancient heathen records
have preserved for us? The answer is, that in these ancient records there is not found a
single passage in conflict with Egil's idea, but that they all, on the contrary, fully agree
with his words, and that this harmony continues in the reports of the first Christian
centuries in regard to this subject.
All the dead and also those fallen by the sword come first to Hel. From there the
sword-slain come to Asgard, if they have deserved this destiny.
In Gisli Surson's saga (ch. 24) is mentioned the custom of binding Hel-shoes on
the feet of the dead. Warriors in regard to whom there was no doubt that Valhall was their
30 "The river current seems too great for the noisy crowd of the slain to wade."