Editing Valkyrie (section)

===''Njáls saga''===
[[File:Henry De Groux001.jpg|thumb|''Ride of the Valkyries'' (around 1890) by [[Henry De Groux]]]]
In chapter 156 of ''[[Njáls saga]]'', a man named Dörruð witnesses 12 people riding together to a stone hut on [[Good Friday]] in [[Caithness]]. The 12 go into the hut and Dörruð can no longer see them. Dörruð goes to the hut, and looks through a chink in the wall. He sees that there are women within, and that they have set up a particular [[loom]]; the heads of men are the weights, the entrails of men are the [[warp (weaving)|warp]] and [[weft]], a sword is the [[Shuttle (weaving)|shuttle]], and the [[reel]]s are composed of arrows. The women sing a song called ''[[Darraðarljóð]]'', which Dörruð memorizes.<ref name="HOLLANDER66">Hollander (1980:66).</ref>

The song consists of 11 stanzas, and within it the valkyries weave and choose who is to be slain at the [[Battle of Clontarf]] (fought outside [[Dublin]] in 1014 [[Common Era|CE]]). Of the 12 valkyries weaving, six have their names given in the song: Hildr, [[Hjörþrimul]], [[Sanngriðr]], [[Svipul]], [[Guðr]] and Göndul. Stanza 9 of the song reads:
{{poemquote|Now awful it is to be without,
as blood-red rack races overhead;
is the welkin gory with warriors' blood
as we valkyries war-songs chanted.<ref name="HOLLANDER68">Hollander (1980:68).</ref>}}

At the end of the poem, the valkyries sing "start we swiftly with steeds unsaddled—hence to battle with brandished swords!"<ref name=HOLLANDER68/> The prose narrative picks up again, and says that the valkyries tear their loom down and into pieces. Each valkyrie holds on to what she has in her hands. Dörruð leaves the chink in the wall and heads home, and the women mount their horses and ride away; six to the south and six to the north.<ref name=HOLLANDER66/>