These maidens were the Valkyrias, those Valkyrias whom ever since the poets and painters of the Ossianic school have reproduced in a thousand forms. Nor must it be forgotten that this remarkable school, which the Scotchman Macpherson revived towards the end of the eighteenth century, counted among its most ardent admirers two enthusiastic Frenchmen, whose names were Napoleon and Lamartine.
These Valkyrias, beautiful nymphs of carnage as they were, delighted in the clash of arms, the shedding of blood, and the dying groans of the wounded, even in the odors exhaled by the dying,—a taste which seems little suited to fair, blue-eyed maidens. These unnatural tastes were, however, justified to a certain extent, by the peculiar mission which they had to fulfill, a mission of kindness and tender compassion. They walked to and fro on the battlefield, not to carry off the dead, but to gather the souls of those who had fallen. Of the Seola (such was the sweet name of the Soul among the nations of Germanic or Scandinavian race), they rapidly asked these questions:—
“Seola, did you belong to a free man or to a slave?
“Seola, did your master honor the gods and the priests of those gods?
“Did he keep his pledged word?
“Did he die like a brave man, with his face to the enemy and not a fear in his heart?
“Seola, did he ever fight against the men of his own blood and his own race?”
The human soul, as soon as it escapes from the wretched bondage of this earth, no longer possesses the sad power of being able to tell a falsehood; Seola, therefore, answered these questions truthfully, even though it were to its own condemnation. In the latter case the Valkyrias left it to the black Alfs, a kind of demons who belonged to hell; but if the Seola had belonged to a brave and loyal warrior, the Valkyria instantly unfolded her white wines and took it to Walhalla, the home of the gods and the paradise of heroes.
This paradise, exclusively intended for free men, was still open to slaves also, if they had fallen by the side of their masters, or if they had thrown themselves voluntarily into the fire of the funeral pile for the purpose of continuing their service in the future life.
Let us see whether the delights of Walhalla were sufficiently attractive to warrant such selfimmolation.