Section X.—Hilda.
Chief among the Valkyrier was Hildur, Hild, or Hiltia, who is never wanting in any enumeration of these warlike spirits. The word, in its original sense, means battle, and has thus attached itself to the principal war-maiden; nay, it has passed from her to be a poetical term for any maiden, and is one of the very commonest terminations to feminine names throughout the Teutonic world, and is likewise often found at the beginning of men’s names, predominating perhaps in Germany.
Alone, it was only used in the North and in England, where the Deiran princess Hildur became the holy abbess Hilda of Whitby, succeeding St. Begga, and leaving a reputation for sanctity enhanced, by the sight of
“The very form of Hilda fair
Hovering upon the sunny air;”
a vision which, though Clara de Clare could not see it, is to be beheld under certain conditions of light, in the windows of Whitby church to the present day; as well as the ammonites, believed, as usual, to have been serpents turned to stone at the prayer of the saint. In honour of her, Hilda is still used as a name about Whitby.
The mother of Rolf Gangr, progenitress of our royalty, who vainly besought Harald Harfagre not to banish her sons from Norway, was named Hildr; and the name still survives in Scandinavia and Iceland, where the Landnama-bok shows it to have been very plentiful, seventeen ladies being recorded as bearing it. There, too, occurs Hildiridur, battle hastener, a thorough Valkyr name, but not very suitable to Fouqué’s sweet Lady Minnetröst, of the moonlight brown eyes.
Hildelildis, Battle Spirit, is an Anglo-Norman lady’s name.
The true Frank form of the aspirate was, however, exceedingly harsh, amounting to the Greek χ, and therefore, usually set down in its transitions through Latin and French as a ch. So we meet, among the Meerwings, with Childebert, who by translation is Hildebert, battle-splendour, and Childebrand, or battle-sword.
These two last names, in their Low German form of Hiltibrant and Hiltibraht, occur again in the old poem, already referred to, of Hiltibrant and Hadubrant, both meaning battle-swords, which goes through a dispute about Hadubrand’s father, and, finally, leaves them in the middle of a single combat.