Gnosis Diary: Life as a Heathen
My personal experiences, including religious and spiritual experiences, community interaction, general heathenry, and modern life on my heathen path, which is Asatru.
Novel Gnosi part 37: Valkyries and the Afterlife
Valkyries are psychopomps, beings who carry the dead to the afterlife. They are called choosers of the slain, because they select warriors who die in battle to bring to Freya in Folkvangr or to Odin in Valhalla. Freya is the leader of the Valkyries and gets first pick. When the Valkyries are not attending a battle, they are found with Odin and the Einherjar, Odin's chosen warriors, in Valhalla.
The Fireverse Valkyries mostly have war duties. Although any of them might serve someone a drink in Valhalla, it’s not really exclusively Valkyries who do that. Odin has many dead humans for servants, and some of them are dead women who are basically Valkyrie themed waitresses rather than actual Valkyries. The actual Valkyries are unearthly powers.
Most of the gods of Asgard have dead humans for servants in the Fireverse. Only the servants of Odin, Thor, Freya, and Aegir have much of a role in the story, but it can be assumed they all have them except for Loki and Sigyn.
Sigyn has animal servants as a young woman before her marriage. It's unclear if she still has them after, but they don't come into the house anymore after that, because the spell that called them which had been placed by Sigyn's parents, or maybe just by her mother, was broken when Loki did some housework during their courtship. This spell is known as the Mosswife's Bargain. It doesn't say in the story where humans who served Loki and / or Sigyn go after death.
Image: Valkyrie by Yerson Retamal, creative commons via Pixabay
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