Spinning and weaving are the constant occupation of Teutonic goddesses and heroines: Holda and Bertha spin[755], and so do all the representatives of these goddesses in popular tradition even down to the fairies. But the Valkyriur or Shieldmays also weave, and in this function, as well as their immediate action in the battle-field, as choosers of the slain[756], they have some points of contact with the Norns and Wyrd[757]. Gray has transferred to our language from the Nials Saga a fine poem[758] which throws some light upon the weaving of the Valkyriur, the wígspéda gewiofu. The Anglosaxon belief in the Shieldmaidens comes to us indeed in a darkened form, yet we can hardly doubt that it survived. The word Wælcyrge occurs in glossaries to explain _Bellona_, the goddess of war, and one gloss calls eyes Wælcyrigean, _gorgonei_, terrible as those of Gorgo; the flashing of the eyes was very probably one mark of a Wælcyrge in the old belief[759], as she floated or rode above the closing ranks of battle. In the superstitions of a later period however we find a clear allusion to these supernatural maidens. A spell preserved in a Harleian manuscript[760] contains the following passages: Hlúde wǽon hí lá hlúde, ðá hý ofer ðone hlǽw ridon; wǽron anmóde, ðá hý ofer land ridon. “Loud, lo! loud were they, as they rode over the hill: bold were they, as they rode over the land.” Stód under linde under leóhtum scylde ðǽr ða mihtigan wíf hyra mægen berǽddon, and hý gyllende gáras sendon. “I stood beneath my linden shield, beneath my light shield, where the mighty women exercised their power, and sent the yelling javelins!” Another spell from a MS. in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, appears to name them more distinctly: Sitte ge, sígewíf, sígað tó eorðan, næfre ge wilde tó wuda fleógan; beó ge swá gemindige mínes gódes, swá bið manna gehwilc metes and éðeles. ----- Footnote 755: “As tems ou Berte filait,” i. e. in a period anterior to the memory of man: in the days of heathendom, of the _goddess_ Bertha, not the queen. Footnote 756: Wælcyrige is derived from Wæl _the slain_ and ceósan _to choose_. Footnote 757: I do not know whether the expression Hine Wyrd gecéas, can be found in Saxon poetry; but ceósan is a very common word in phrases denoting death, though by Christian poets transferred to the doomed hero, from the god or goddess: ǽr ðon forðcure, wintrum wæl reste. Cædm. p. 99. “Priusquam annis [i. e. vita] praetulerit mortiferam quietem.” Footnote 758: