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, Soon shall increase The band of the gods: To Odin’s feast Hakon is bidden. The king beheld The beautiful maids Sitting on their horses In shining armor, Their shields before them, Solemnly thoughtful. The king heard The words of their lips, Saw them beckon With pale hands, And thus bespoke them: Mighty goddesses, Were we not worthy You should choose us A better doom? Skogul answered: Thy foes have fallen, Thy land is free, Thy fame is pure; Now we must ride To greener worlds, To tell Odin That Hakon comes. An interpretation of the valkyries is not necessary. The god of war sends his thoughts and his will to the carnage of the battle-field in the form of mighty armed women, in the same manner as he sends his ravens over all the earth. Ethically considered, then, Odin symbolizes the matchless hope of victory that inspired the Norsemen, and from which their daring exploits sprang; and we know that this hope of victory did not leave the hero when he fell bleeding on the field of battle, but followed him borne in valkyrian arms to Valhal, and thence he soared on eagle pinions to Gimle on the everlasting hights. Footnote 35: Compare _Shakespeare_—Shylock and the pound of flesh: ... No jot of blood; The words expressly are “a pound of flesh.” Footnote 36: