more divine and poetic mission than that of bond breakers is assigned to the Valkyries i.e., choosers of the slain or Walmaids. Odin, the supreme god of the Germanic Olympus, sends them out to every battlefield to turn the tide of battle and to make choice of those who are to be slain. Glittering in their armor and their waving golden hair, bright as the sun, they ride through the air and above the sea with shields and helmets and sparkling breastplates to execute the orders of the war god, whose handmaidens they are. With their spears they designate the heroes who shall fall and whom they afterward conduct to Valhalle (Valholl), the hall of the slain, the heaven longed for by the Germanic warrior. This magnificent hall is in Asgard, the garden of the Ases, the gods of Old Norse mythology. Here Odin receives and welcomes the gods and all the einherjes, the brave warriors who died in battle.

The hall is resplendent with gold; spears support its ceiling, it is roofed with shields, and coats of mail adorn it. According to the Elder Edda it has six hundred and forty doors, through which nine hundred and sixty einherjes may enter side by side. The Valkyries make it a perfect paradise. As the servants of the divine host they bear the drink, take care of the mead horns and wait upon the table. Here they appear in the loveliness of their peaceful, housewifely mission. This unwarlike side of their nature should be emphasized, for it is apt to be forgotten when we think of Valkyries as spirits of the clouds flying over land and sea, driven by the wind, messengers of the storm god, shining in lightning, rattling in thunder.

Nowhere does the poetry inherent in the primitive Germanic conscience, in spite of all its apparent, warlike savagery, appear in a brighter light than in the many sagas relative to those superhuman, semi-divine beings. Their conception sheds a brilliant light upon the soul life of the primitive German as we consider it in connection with womanhood, and especially with womanhood elevated to the level of the divine.

In one way might the Valkyries be brought into subjection to man. A hero who surprised them bathing in the quiet forest lake obtained power over them if he succeeded in carrying off their feather garments, for he thus prevented them from flying away. In this respect the swan-maiden and the Valkyries are identical. A swan-maiden thus surprised must then follow the hero as his wife, until she perchance finds again her feather garment, for this will permit her to fly away as a swan. One of the loveliest passages in the Nibelungenlied is the story where fierce Hagen, the slayer of the sunny hero Siegfried, surprises the prophetesses of the Danube by stealing their raiment, and thereby forces them to reveal to him the future fate of himself and of the Burgundians wandering to the court of the Hunnish king Attila, or Etzel:

The number of the Valkyries varies; more than a dozen are named in the Elder Edda. The belief prevailed that heroic women of transcendent beauty could become Valkyries through Odin's choice and love. In the Norse sagas we find Valkyries in the suites of great kings. In the poems of the Edda, which deal with the Volsungs and the Hniflungs, with their wonderful power, there are accounts of love between Valkyries and earthly heroes, ending in the premature tragic death of the hero. Best known and of the highest poetic value is the Volsung-saga of Brunhild (Brynhildr), the daughter of Odin, immortalized again in Richard Wagner's music-drama, Die Walküre.

In defiance of the order of Odin, Brunhild chooses victory for her favorite, Siegmund the Volsung. At the last decisive moment of the battle the Father of the Universe appears. Siegmund's spear is broken to splinters by Odin's sword, and he himself sinks dead to the ground to expiate the crime against Hunding's marital honor. The disobedient Valkyrie tries to flee from the terrible wrath of Odin; but he overtakes her and decrees that she shall lie and sleep until a man discovers her and kisses her lips; to him shall she then belong. Moved by the sorrow of the proud maiden and mindful of his former love for her, Odin modifies his punishment by surrounding the sleeping beauty with a blazing fire, to frighten back every cowardly and unworthy man. Finally, after long, long years, Siegmund's son, the incomparable hero Siegfried (Sigurd), penetrates the fire and carries away the divine bride, kissed to life again, whose passionate outburst of delight is characteristic of the fallen Valkyrie:

In her unbridled passion lies the cause of her destruction and also that of the beloved Sigurd. After their union, Sigurd abandons her for the love of Gudrun, and even inflicts upon her the disgrace of winning her for Gunnar, whom he impersonates. In an altercation with Gudrun, the Nibelung princess, she learns that it was Sigurd, not Gunnar, who conquered her and subjected her. Her wrath is unbounded. She causes the Nibelungs to murder Sigurd, but in reawakened love she kills herself to be united in death with her beloved.

Here we have the source of the lovely fairy tales of Dornroschen and Sneewittchen. In the former, the Valkyrie Brunhild is pictured as a beautiful princess, and the glowing flame becomes a hedge of thorns. Instead of intrepid Siegfried (Sigurd), who penetrates the flames, a fairy prince appears, and rescues the sleeping beauty, through a magic kiss, from the doom of eternal sleep. In the second story, the metamorphosis of Brunhild is accomplished through a poisoned comb which is thrust in Sneewittchen's head: as Brunhild sleeps in her brilliant castle, so the maiden sleeps in the mountains in a glass coffin, guarded by seven dwarfs, until the prince rescues her.

But not in all cases are the divine women thus transformed into lovely fairies. Under the influence of mediæval theology and scholasticism and their hostility toward the lingering ancient faith, they are distorted into malicious, hideous beings witches. Thrud, the name of a Valkyrie, is the mediæval designation for "witch."

In the oldest Germanic sagas we find frequently confounded with the Valkyries, the Norns, the rulers of the fate of gods and men. It is characteristic, indeed, of the Germanic world conception, as, in fact, also of the cognate Greek and Roman mythology, that the fate of men and gods rests in the hands of divine women; for where the Valkyries act by order of Odin, the Norns act independently and by their own free will. They weave the web of men's lives, "stretching it from the radiant dawn to the glowing sunset." The destiny of the world lies with them, and nothing that is, is exempt from their irrevocable decrees. Time and space are embraced in