The children of Odin - Germanic Mythology

igo CHILDREN OF ODIN
And hearing this, Odin thought that it were better that Fenrir
the Wolf should range ravenously through Asgard than that
Hela should win one from amongst them" to fill that chair and
lie in that bed.
IE mounted Sleipner, his eight-legged stieed, and
rode down towards the abodes of the Dead. For
three days and three nights of silence and dark-
ness he journeyed on. Once one of the hounds
of Helheim broke loose and bayed upon Sleipner's
tracks. For a day and a night Garm, the hound,
pursued them, and Odin smelled the blood that dripped from
his monstrous jaws.
At last he came to where, wrapped in their shrouds, a field
of the Dead lay. He dismounted from Sleipner and called upon
one to rise and speak with him. It was on Volva, a dead
prophetess, he called. And when he pronounced her name he
uttered a rune that had the power to break the sleep of
the Dead.
There was a groaning in the naiddle of where the shrouded ones
lay. Then Odin cried out, "Arise, Volva, prophetess." There
was a stir in the middle of where the shrouded ones lay, and a
head and shoulders were thrust up from amongst the Dead.
'
' Who calls on Volva the Prophetess ? The rains have drenched
my flesh and the storms have shaken my bones for more seasons
than the living know. No living voice has a right to call me from
my sleep with the Dead."