3d Witch. That will be ere the set of sun.”
Macbeth (Shakespeare).
The Vala.
Sometimes the Norns bore the name of Vala, or prophetesses, for they had the power of divination—a power which was held in great honor by all the Northern races, who believed it restricted to the female sex. The predictions of the Vala were never questioned, and it is even said that Drusus, the Roman general, was so terrified by the appearance of Veleda, one of these women, forbidding his crossing the Elbe, that he actually beat a retreat. She foretold his approaching death, which actually happened shortly after and was occasioned by a fall from his steed.
These prophetesses, who were also known as Idises, Dises, or Hagedises, officiated at the forest shrines and in the sacred groves, and always accompanied invading armies. Riding ahead, or in the very midst of the host, they vehemently urged the warriors on to victory, and when the battle was over they often cut the bloody-eagle upon the captives. The blood was then collected into great tubs, wherein the Dises plunged their naked arms up to the shoulders, previous to joining in the wild dance with which the ceremony ended.
These women were greatly feared, sacrifices were offered to propitiate them, and it was only in later times that they were degraded to the rank of witches, and sent to join the demon host on the Brocken, or Blocksberg, on Valpurgisnacht.
Besides the Norns or Dises, who were also regarded as protective deities, the Northerners ascribed to each human being a guardian spirit named Fylgie, which attended him through life, either in a human or animal shape, and was invisible except at the moment of death by all except the initiated few.
The allegorical meaning of the Norns and of their web of fate is too patent to need any explanation; still some mythologists have made them demons of the air, and state that their web was the woof of clouds, and that the bands of mists which they strung from rock to tree, and from mountain to mountain, were ruthlessly torn apart by the suddenly rising wind. Some authorities, moreover, declare that Skuld, the third Norn, was at times a Valkyr, and at others personated the party-colored goddess of death, the terrible Hel.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE VALKYRS.
Odin’s special attendants, the Valkyrs, or battle maidens, were either his daughters, like Brunhild, or the offspring of mortal kings, who were privileged to serve this god and remain immortal and invulnerable as long as they implicitly obeyed his orders and remained virgins. They and their steeds were the personification of the clouds, their glittering weapons being the lightning flashes. The ancients imagined that they swept down to earth at Valfather’s command, to choose among the slain the heroes worthy to taste the joys of Valhalla, and brave enough to lend their aid to the gods when the great battle was to be fought.