Editing Valkyrie (section)

==Old English attestations==
[[File:Sermo Lupi.jpg|thumb|A page from {{lang|la|[[Sermo Lupi ad Anglos]]}} (''"The [[Sermon]] of the Wolf to the English"'')]]
The Old English {{lang|ang|wælcyrge}} appears several times in Old English manuscripts, generally to translate foreign concepts into Old English. It is used in the sermon {{lang|la|[[Sermo Lupi ad Anglos]]}}, where it is thought to appear as a word for a human "sorceress".<ref name="NORTH106">North (1997:106).</ref> An early 11th-century manuscript of Aldhelm's {{lang|la|De laudis virginitatis}} (Oxford, Bodleian library, Digby 146) [[gloss (annotation)|glosses]] {{lang|la|ueneris}} with {{lang|ang|wælcyrge}} (with {{lang|ang|gydene}} meaning "goddess"). {{lang|ang|wælcyrge}} is used to translate the names of the [[Classical mythology|classical]] [[Erinyes|furies]] in two manuscripts ([[Cotton Cleopatra]] A. iii, and the older ''Corpus Glossary''). In the manuscript Cotton Cleopatra A. iii, {{lang|ang|wælcyrge}} is also used to gloss the [[Roman mythology|Roman goddess]] [[Bellona (goddess)|Bellona]]. A description of a raven flying over the Egyptian army appears as {{lang|ang|wonn wælceaseg}} (meaning "dark one choosing the slain"). Scholarly theories debate whether these attestations point to an indigenous belief among the Anglo-Saxons shared with the Norse, or if they were a result of later Norse influence (see section below).<ref name="NORTH106"/>