The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

people to their graves. Freyja receives some chosen ones, like Þorgerður daughter of
Egill, who was willing to take her life in honor of her brother and father. One can guess
that the women, who followed their husbands or lovers to death, also get a seat in
Freyja’s hall.
We must bear in mind that when Snorri was writing Edda and Heimskringla,
remembering the old culture, Island was immersed in civil war. In the Kurgan or Æsir
culture described by Snorri, the warriors were the chosen ones. We have no images
neither in prose or poetry, nor pictures of life at Freyja’s place, but many such remain
from Valhöll. There the warriors gather as they rise from the valur (battlefield). They’re
welcomed by the valkyrjur, who serve them the reviving mead and keep them company
during the night, so that they can fight again the next day.
Before the war, in the Old European or Vanir culture, there can neither have been
a Valhöll, nor a Fólkvangur, as we know them from the myths. Neither can there have
been a valkyrja, choosing the slain and serving and healing the warriors. All people
would have descended or ascended to the Bird Goddess, after their journey on Earth, this
goddess at that time being an aspect of the one later called Freyja. The name of her
domain, Fólkvangur, is one that could have existed before and after the first war. As
strange as it may seem, the noun fólk means all of the following: ‘people’, ‘group of
people’, ‘folks’, ‘humans’, ‘army’, ‘sword’ and ‘battle’ (Ásgeir B. Magnússon, 1989). In
a world where life revolves around war, ‘people’ or ‘humans’ will have become
equivalent with ‘fighting men’, ‘warriors’, and then the word goes from there to the
sword and the battle itself. Vangur is ‘a field’, ‘meadow’ or ‘pasture’, a place where new
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