Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Síða 132

130
The Valkyries in the Heroic Literature
style of living, they would harden body and mind with toil and endurance, rejecting
the fickle pliancy of girls and compelling their womanish spirits to act with a virile
ruthlessness. They courted military celebrity so earnestly that you would have guessed
they had unsexed themselves. Those especially who had forceful personalities or were
tall and elegant embarked on this way of life. As if they were forgetful of their true
selves they put toughness before allure, aimed at conflicts instead of kisses, tasted blood,
not lips, sought the clash of arms rather than the arm’s embrace, fitted to weapons
hands which should have been weaving, desired not the couch but the kill, and those
they could have appeased with looks they attacked with lances.)
It seems possible that at one time there actually were women like these, even
if already to Saxo they seem to be something from a distant past. However, he
also mentions some other, different, women who also occupied themselves with
war, although he does not give them a name. In Book III they meet his hero
Hotherus:
Eodem forte tempore Hotherus inter venandum errore nebula perductus in quoddam
silvestrium virginum conclave incidit, quibus proprio nomine salutatus, quœnam essent,
perquirit. Illœ suis ductibus auspiciisque maxime bellorum fortuna gubernare testantur.
Sape enim se nemini conspicuas prœliis interesse, clandestinisque subsidiis optatos amicis
pmbere successus. Quippe conciliare prospera, adversa infligere posse pro libito memora-
bant3
(About that time Hother happened to be hunting when he wandered from his path
in a mist and came upon a retreat of forest maidens. As they saluted him by his own
name he asked who they were, to which they replied that their special function was to
control the fortunes of war by their guidance and blessings. They were often invisibly
present on the battlefield and by their secret help afforded the desired outcome to their
favourites, since, they informed him, they were able to award success or defeat at
pleasure.)
The women of the first quotation are human. They are probably to be
identified with the shield maidens, sometimes mentioned in the Fornaldarsögur,
— but never in the realistic Sagas.
The other women are supernatural. What Saxo has to say about them reminds
us of some supernatural women in the heroic texts who are said to be valkyries.
It is clear that there are both similarities and differences between them and the
shield maidens. Both groups occupied themselves with war and the battlefield
and moved among the warriors. We must assume that valkyries also trained
themselves to be warriors, and that they despised things that women usually
occupied themselves with.
Like shield maidens, valkyries do not have any loose love affairs. Shield maidens
can marry, after their military career is over, as for instance Hervör does in the
^ Saxo, pp. 63-64, F/ED, p. 69.