Over the battlefields of the Norse imagination ride the valkyries. They are Odin’s warrior-women, armed with spears and helmets, mounted on horses that fly through the air. They decide who will fall and who will live, and they carry the bravest of the dead to Valhalla, where they serve them mead. Their name, valkyrja in Old Norse, means “chooser of the slain” — from valr, the dead on the battlefield, and kjósa, to choose.
Today valkyries are usually imagined as glamorous, heroic shield-maidens — an image shaped largely by Wagner’s opera Die Walküre and its famous “Ride of the Valkyries.” But the oldest sources paint a darker picture. The earliest valkyries were grim, bloodthirsty spirits of slaughter, closer to ravens and wolves than to romantic heroines.
Odin’s Maidens
In the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson says the valkyries are sent by Odin to every battle. “They choose which men are to die and they decide victory.” Snorri lists several of their names and says that some serve drink in Valhalla and look after the tableware.
The valkyries are closely associated with Odin as the god of war and death, who gathers the bravest warriors to fight for him at Ragnarök. They carry out his will on the battlefield, and bring him the einherjar — the “lone fighters” or “once-fighters” — who will feast in Valhalla until the final battle (see Valhalla: The Hall of the Slain).
According to the Eddic poem Grímnismál, Freya also receives half of the battle-dead in her hall, Fólkvangr, while Odin takes the other half. Some scholars suggest that Freya may have been regarded as a leader of the valkyries.
Their Names
The valkyries’ names, preserved in lists in the Grímnismál, the Völuspá, and Snorri’s Edda, are revealing. They include:
- Hildr — “battle”
- Göndul — “wand-wielder”
- Skögul — “shaker” or “raging one”
- Hrist — “shaker”
- Mist — “cloud” or “mist”
- Geirskögul — “spear-Skögul”
- Þrúðr — “strength” (also a daughter of Thor)
- Hlökk — “noise, battle”
- Randgríðr — “shield-truce”
- Reginleif — “gods’ heir”
- Skuld — “debt” or “future,” also the name of one of the three Norns
Almost all the names relate to war, violence, and noise. They personify the chaos of battle.
The Darker Valkyries
Some of the oldest poetic sources present valkyries in terrifying form. In the Old Norse poem Darraðarljóð, preserved in Njáls saga, a man in Caithness on the morning of the Battle of Clontarf (1014) looks through a window and sees twelve women weaving at a loom. The loom is made of human entrails, weighted with human heads; the shuttle is an arrow, and the beater a sword. As they weave, they sing of the battle they are shaping, and of who will die. When the song ends, they tear the web apart, mount their horses, and ride away — six to the north and six to the south.
In the Old English world, the related word wælcyrge appears in glossaries to translate the names of Roman Furies and war goddesses like Bellona and Erinys. In one Old English sermon, wælcyrian are listed among witches and sorceresses. These grim figures are far from Wagner’s heroines.
Swan-Maidens and Shield-Maidens
In the heroic poetry of the Poetic Edda, however, the valkyries take on a more human, romantic aspect. They become princesses who ride through the air, protect favoured heroes, and fall in love with them.
- Sigrún, in the Helgakviða Hundingsbana, is a valkyrie who protects the hero Helgi and becomes his bride. After Helgi’s death, she visits him in his burial mound and spends a night with him there. When she dies of grief, the poem says, they were reborn.
- Sváva is the protector and beloved of another Helgi, in the Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar.
- Brynhild, or Sigrdrífa, is put to sleep by Odin for defying him and woken by the hero Sigurd (see Brynhild: The Valkyrie Who Loved Sigurd).
In the Völundarkviða, three valkyries in the form of swan-maidens fly to earth, take off their swan cloaks, and marry three brothers — including Völundr, the legendary smith (Wayland in English). After nine years they fly away to battle and do not return. The swan-maiden motif, in which a supernatural woman is bound to a mortal while he holds her feathered garment, is found across the world (see also Selkies: The Seal-Folk of Celtic Folklore).
Horses, Ravens, and Armour
The valkyries are often described as riding horses through the sky, and some poems say that dew falls from the manes of their horses into the valleys and hail onto the high trees. Their spears and armour gleam. A popular idea, not found in the medieval sources, holds that the aurora borealis was the light reflecting from their armour.
They are also closely linked with ravens, Odin’s birds, which feed on the dead. In skaldic poetry the raven is called “the valkyrie’s hawk,” and battle is “the valkyries’ storm.”
Valkyries in Archaeology
Small silver figures of women from the Viking Age, found across Scandinavia and England, are often identified as valkyries. They show a woman with long hair tied in a knot, wearing a trailing dress, and often holding a drinking horn — perhaps welcoming a warrior to Valhalla. Other figures show armed women with shields and swords. A silver figure found at Hårby, Denmark, in 2012 shows a woman with a sword and shield; whether she is a valkyrie or a shield-maiden is debated.
The picture stones of Gotland, in Sweden, often show a rider arriving at a hall and being greeted by a woman holding a horn. These have been read as scenes of a dead warrior’s arrival in Valhalla.
Were There Real Shield-Maidens?
Norse sagas and Saxo Grammaticus describe skjaldmeyjar, “shield-maidens,” women who fought as warriors. For a long time, historians treated these as literary inventions. But the 2017 DNA analysis of a richly furnished warrior grave at Birka, Sweden (grave Bj 581), showed that its occupant was biologically female, reopening the debate about whether some women in the Viking Age were warriors. The interpretation of the grave remains contested.
Wagner’s Valkyries
The modern image of the valkyrie comes above all from Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (1870), the second part of Der Ring des Nibelungen. The heroine Brünnhilde, Wotan’s favourite daughter, defies her father out of compassion for the doomed hero Siegmund. The “Ride of the Valkyries,” which opens Act 3, is one of the most famous pieces of orchestral music ever written, used memorably in the film Apocalypse Now (1979). Wagner’s costume designs — the breastplates and winged or horned helmets — became the popular image of Norse women warriors.
Valkyries Today
Valkyries appear throughout modern culture: in Marvel’s Thor films, in video games such as God of War and Valkyrie Profile, in fantasy novels, and as symbols of women’s strength. The Nazi-era plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 was code-named Operation Valkyrie after a contingency plan of the same name. The image of the chooser of the slain — whether terrible or heroic — remains one of the most powerful to come out of the Norse world.
Last reviewed: September 2026.