Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/275

 things. No Homer sang of these Norse warriors and sea-kings, but their heroic deeds and wild deaths are the ever-recurring theme of the skalds.

The death of the Norse viking is beautifully described in the following strophe from Professor Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen's poem, entitled Odin's Ravens:

In the prow with head uplifted Stood the chief like wrathful Thor; Through his locks the snow-flakes drifted Bleached their hue from gold to hoar. Mid the crash of mast and rafter Norsemen leaped through death with laughter Up through Valhal's wide-flung door.

Regner Lodbrok thus ends his famous song, the Krákumál:

Cease, my strain! I hear a voice From realms where martial souls rejoice; I hear the maids of slaughter call, Who bid me hence to Odin's hall: High-seated in their blest abodes I soon shall quaff the drink of gods. The hours of life have glided by, I fall, but smiling shall I die.

And in the death-song of Hakon (Hákonarmál) we find the valkyries Gondul and Skogul in the heat of battle:

The god Tyr sent Gondul and Skogul To choose a king Of the race of Ingve, To dwell with Odin In roomy Valhal.

The battle being described, the skald continues:

When lo! Gondul, Pointing with her spear, Said to her sister,