TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

42 G WISE WOMEN.
The award of battle is one part of destiny ; not only norns, but
valkyrs also were imagined spinning and weaving. This is placed
in the clearest light- by the fearfully exciting poem in cap. 158 of
the Nialssaga. Through a crevice in the rock DorruSr sees women
sit singing over a web, at which human heads serve them for
weights, entrails for warp and weft, swords for spools, and arrows
for a comb : in their weird song they describe themselves as
DorruSr. 1
valkyrjur, and their web as intended for the spectator
At length they tear up their work, mount their steeds, and six of
them ride to the south, six to the north. Compare with this the
weaving Wyrd of the AS. poet (p. 415). The parting of the
maidens into two bands that ride in opposite directions, is like
those nine in white and nine in black, who came riding up in suc
cession (p. 421).
I have set norns and fiolpai side by side ; with equal aptness a
comparison can be drawn between valkyrs and /crjpes (without any
verbal affinity, for no doubt the likeness is only an apparent one) :
the KTJP too might be seen on the battlefield in bloody garments,
tending the wounded, dragging away the dead. A tcijp
is allotted
to the child as soon as it is born ; Achilles had two /cfjpes between
whom he might choose, and Zeus put two in the balance, to decide
the death of Hector or Achilles. 2 Hesiod (scut. 249254) makes
the dingy white-toothed icfjpes contend over the fallen warriors,
each throws her talons round the wounded man, eager to drink his
blood, just as he ascribes talons and a thirst for blood to the moirai
(p. 414) : a fresh confirmation of the identity of norns and valkyrs.
The claws of the moirai and keres, the wings of the thriai, point to
their possession of a bird s shape. The later view [Hesiod s] brings
into prominence the sinister side of the keres.
5. SWAN-MAIDENS.
But we have now to make out a new aspect of the valkyrs.
We are told that they travel through air and water, ri5a lopt ok
log/ Saem. 142 b 15 9 b ; theirs is the power to fly and to swim, in
other words, they can assume the body of a swan, they love to
1 (
So at least we may understand vindum, vindum vef Dammar, 3
even if
the name and the whole story first arose out of a *
vef darraSar, web of the
dart, conf. AS. deoreS (jaculum). We know that the Sturlungasaga contains a
very similar narrative.
2
II. 8, 70. 9, 411. 18, 535540. 22, 210. 23, 79. 24, 82.