The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

she is the chooser of the slain, a woman of örlög. From Urðarbrunnur (The Well of
Urður), - from which the nornir emerged at time’s beginning, and where they dwell -,
there were born two swans, álftir 49 (Snorra Edda, Gylfaginning, ch.15 and 16). As we
shall see, the valkyrja’s bird form is often a swan and they appear in groups of three, six,
nine, 12 or 21.
The sacred III, clearly a central element in Old European art and symbolism, as
well as in the myths from Inanna’s descent to Christ’s resurrection, and divine images
from the triple goddess to the church’s trinity, is very much alive in the Islandic myths,
Völuspá as elsewhere. The goddess Gullveig 50 is burned three times, and three times she
is born anew. The triple three, nine, and other multiplications of three also played a
central role in the old customs. In the opening stanza of Völuspá there is a reference to
Heimdallur’s kin or children, the human race or races, whom this god begat with three
women of different origin and status and whose saga is told in another poem, Rígsþula 51 .
The eldest of the three is Edda (Great-grandmother), then there is Amma (Grandmother)
and last Móðir (Mother). In the second stanza of Völuspá the völva reveals her own
origin, the memory of nine worlds and nine great women, elsewhere identified as that
same Heimdallur’s nine mothers, at the time when the tree of life, Yggdrasill, was but a
bud beneath the earth.
Unz þríar kvámu –‘till three came’
Remembering is not an easy task. Our remembrance gets distorted with time, and
so there are many different versions of the great saga of our origin and existence. In
Völuspá the völva recites her earliest memory:
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