Valhalla: The Hall of the Slain in Norse Mythology
Explore Valhalla, the great hall of the slain in Norse mythology: its 540 doors, the Einherjar warriors, the Valkyries, and its role in Ragnarok.
Valhalla (Old Norse Valhöll, “hall of the slain”) is the great hall of Odin in Asgard, the destination of half of those who fall gloriously in battle, and the gathering place of the Einherjar — the chosen warriors who will fight on the side of the gods at Ragnarok. The hall is described in the Grímnismál with particular vividness, and the imagery of its 540 doors, its thatched roof of shields, and its benches strewn with armor is one of the most famous in Old Norse poetry.
This page is an encyclopedic account of Valhalla: its location, its structure, its inhabitants, the Valkyries who attend the slain, the feasts and combats that fill the days of the Einherjar, and the role of the hall in the Norse eschatology of Ragnarok.
Location and Description
Valhalla is located in Asgard, the citadel of the gods, and is the principal hall of Odin. The Grímnismál (stanza 8) describes it as follows:
“Valhöll it is called, where the chosen slain go to fight with the Einherjar; there are five hundred doors and forty more; eight hundred warriors will march out of each.”
(The numbers are sometimes given as 540 doors total, with 800 warriors marching abreast from each; modern scholars have noted that Snorri Sturluson, in the Prose Edda, gives the figure as 540 doors, while the Grímnismál’s “five hundred doors and forty more” gives the same number in the form characteristic of Eddic poetry.)
The hall’s roof is thatched with shields, and its walls are hung with mail-coats. The benches are strewn with armor, and the great boar Sæhrímnir is cooked every day and eaten every night, only to be made whole again the next day for the next feast. The goats Heiðrún and Eikþyrnir provide the mead: Heiðrún produces the mead from her udders, and Eikþyrnir’s antlers drip the dew that falls into the well of the world. The hall is described in the Grímnismál as the home of the Einherjar (literally, “those who fight alone”), the chosen slain who are brought there by the Valkyries.
The Valkyries
The Valkyries (“choosers of the slain”) are the war-goddesses who serve Odin and attend the warriors of Valhalla. The Grímnismál describes them as the bringers of mead and ale to the Einherjar, and the Völuspá mentions them as being “at the windows” of the hall. Snorri’s Prose Edda provides the most detailed account of their function, including the great banquet at which they wait on the warriors.
The named Valkyries of the Eddas and the heroic tradition are numerous. The principal ones include:
- Brynhildr (Brünnhilde) of the Völsunga saga, who is at the center of the great tragic love story
- Sigrún, who appears in the Helreið Brynhildar as a Valkyrie who loves the hero Helgi Hundingsbani
- Sváva, who appears in the Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar as the beloved of the hero Helgi Hjörvarðsson
- Sigrdrífa (a name for Brynhildr), who appears in the Sigrdrífumál and gives the hero Sigurd the wisdom of the runes
- Svanhildr, who appears in the Völsunga saga and the Eddaic poems
- Hildr, Hervör alvitr, Gunnr, Hlaðguðr svanhvít, Geirahöð, Skögul, and others listed in the Grímnismál and the Skáldskaparmál
The Valkyries are sometimes described as being swan-maiden in form: they are said to take the form of swans and to fly through the air, with the cry of the swan being the cry of the Valkyrie. The famous valkyrie-bridge at Asgard (sometimes identified with the Bifrost, but more often with a separate bridge called Svadilfari or simply the Valkyrie Bridge) is the place where they are said to gather.
The Einherjar
The Einherjar are the chosen slain warriors of Valhalla. Half of those who fall gloriously in battle are brought to Valhalla by the Valkyries; the other half are taken to Fólkvangr, the hall of Freyja. The Grímnismál states that Freyja receives half of the slain at the same time that Odin receives the other half, and that her hall is no less splendid than his. The relationship between Valhalla and Fólkvangr in the Norse theology of death remains debated, but the implication is clear: a great host of warriors awaits the final battle.
The Einherjar spend their days in combat and their nights in feasting. Each day they march out of the great doors of Valhalla, do battle with one another, are wounded, are healed by the Valkyries, and return to the hall for the night’s feast. The cycle of violence and restoration is a kind of eternal rehearsal for the final battle, in which the Einherjar will at last fight the enemies of the gods. The most excellent of the Einherjar are said to be the great heroes of the Völsunga saga and the Hervarar saga, and the Hervarar saga’s Hervör alvitr is the shield-maiden who summons the dead Angantýr from his burial mound.
The Sources of the Image
The principal source for the image of Valhalla is the Grímnismál, a poem of the Poetic Edda in which the disguised Odin, held captive by King Geirröðr, recites a long cosmographic poem. The Völuspá also mentions the hall, and the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson provides an extended and ordered account. The image of Valhalla is reinforced by the Húsdrápa of Úlfr Uggason (a 10th-century poem preserved in the Skáldskaparmál), which describes the hall in detail and is the basis for a much-cited 12th-century carved panel from the church of Dynna in Iceland, now in the National Museum of Iceland.
The Valhalla image is also reflected in the archaeological record of the late Iron Age and Viking Age Scandinavia. The Vendel and Valsgärde burial sites in Sweden, with their warrior-burials, their sacrificial boats, and their rich grave-goods, are often cited as the material correlates of the Valhalla ideal, although the relationship between the mythic Valhalla and the real warrior-burial is a matter of scholarly debate. The most famous of the Vendel-era boat-burials is the Oseberg ship in Norway, with its 14 human remains and its rich grave-goods, but the iconography of the warrior’s welcome in the hall is also found on the Tjängvide picture-stone and on the Gotlandic picture-stones in general.
The Valkyrie and the Heroic Tradition
The Valkyries of the heroic poetry are complex, fully developed characters. The most famous of them, Brynhildr of the Völsunga saga, is at the center of one of the great tragic cycles of Norse literature. According to the Völsunga saga and the Eddic poems related to it, Brynhildr was a Valkyrie whom Odin punished by giving her the sleep of a mortal. The hero Sigurd (the Norse equivalent of the German Siegfried) awoke her with a kiss, fell in love with her, and gave her the ring Andvaranaut. Through a chain of magical deceptions, Sigurd was separated from Brynhildr and married to Guðrún, while Brynhildr was married to the hero Gunnar. The conflict between the two women and the great love between Brynhildr and Sigurd drove the rest of the saga, ending in Sigurd’s death, Brynhildr’s suicide, and the great funeral pyre.
The figure of Brynhildr was extremely influential in the later Scandinavian and German tradition. She is the Brünnhilde of Wagner’s Ring Cycle (via the Nibelungenlied and the Þiðreks saga), and her figure is one of the most important in the development of the romance tradition. The Hildr of the Atlakviða and the Sigrún of the Helreið Brynhildar are also major figures in the heroic tradition, and the Valkyrie as a literary character is a fundamental figure of the Scandinavian imagination.
Fólkvangr
Fólkvangr (“field of the host” or “field of the people”) is the hall of Freyja, and the Grímnismál states that Freyja receives half of the slain at the same time that Odin receives the other half, and that her hall is no less splendid than his. The location of Fólkvangr is not clearly specified in the sources, but it is generally understood to be in or near Asgard, and to be a parallel hall to Valhalla.
The relationship between Valhalla and Fólkvangr in the theology of the Norse remains debated. Some scholars take the Eddic statement at face value, with Freyja receiving half the slain and Odin the other half. Others have read Fólkvangr as a poetic variant of Valhalla, in which the same destination is described from two different perspectives — Odin’s hall as the place of the martial warriors, and Freyja’s hall as the place of the sexual or amorous warriors. The fact that Freyja is associated with both fertility and war in the Eddas, and the fact that the Disir (the female divine beings) are closely related to the Valkyries, support the view that Fólkvangr is a more specific destination for certain kinds of slain than Valhalla. The Hildr (“battle”) of the Grímnismál is a kenning for the host of the slain, and the name Hildr is also a personal name of a Valkyrie.
The Feasts of the Einherjar
The Einherjar’s nights are spent in feasting. The boar Sæhrímnir is cooked every day in the great kettle Eldhímnir and eaten every night, only to be made whole again the next day for the next feast. The mead is provided by the goat Heiðrún, who produces the mead from her udders, and the dew of the world is provided by the stag Eikþyrnir (“oak-thorny”), whose antlers drip the dew that falls into the well of the world. The hall is said to be lit by the swords of the warriors, whose blades cast a strange, warm light, and the warriors drink from the bones of the great hart Eikþyrnir.
The image of the eternal feast in Valhalla is one of the most famous in Norse mythology, and it has been interpreted in various ways. Some scholars have read it as a reflection of the Viking warrior-class ideal: glory, combat, and feasting, all the pleasures of the warrior’s life, but in a stable and eternal form. Others have read it as a religious image: the eternal feasting is the Christian heaven translated into pagan terms, and the warrior’s welcome in Valhalla is the Norse analogue of the soul’s welcome in the Christian paradise. The older comparative scholarship tended to find Valhalla-like figures in the Celtic Otherworld and the Germanic warrior paradise, but more recent scholarship treats the image as specifically Norse and grounded in the particular cultic and social conditions of the late Iron Age and Viking Age.
The Valhalla in the Theology of the Afterlife
Valhalla is one of several possible destinations for the dead in Norse tradition. The principal destinations are:
- Valhalla — for half of those who die in battle
- Fólkvangr — for the other half of those who die in battle
- Helheim — for those who die of sickness, old age, or any cause other than a glorious death in battle
- The hall of Rán — for those who drown, at the bottom of the sea
- Bilskírnir (or Breiðablik in some readings) — for the righteous dead, in some traditions
The question of which dead go to which destination is a matter of considerable scholarly debate. The most common reading is that the type of death determines the destination: those who die gloriously in battle go to Valhalla or Fólkvangr, those who die of sickness or old age go to Helheim, and those who drown go to Rán. But there are also indications that the manner of life and the disposition of the gods may affect the destination, and the late medieval Icelandic and Norwegian traditions show a tendency to read Valhalla as a specific reward for the warrior class rather than as a universal destination for the dead.
The Cult of the Warrior and the Image of Valhalla
The image of Valhalla is intimately connected to the cult of the warrior in the late Iron Age and Viking Age Scandinavia. The Vendel and Valsgärde burial sites in Sweden, the rich ship-burials at Oseberg and Gokstad in Norway, and the warrior-graves of the entire Viking world reflect a social and religious ideal in which the glorious death in battle is the highest possible end, and the welcome in Valhalla is the eternalization of that ideal.
The figure of the berserker — the bear-skinned warrior of the cult of Odin — is one expression of this ideal. The berserker enters a state of berserkergang (berserker-fury), in which he fights with superhuman strength and is said to be immune to fire and iron. The berserker is in some sense already a denizen of Valhalla, and his welcome in the great hall is the natural consequence of his life. The berserker is the warrior who has gone too far into the animal and who has not yet come back; he is the figure of the excessive warrior, the one who has been chosen by Odin for the great hall.
The connection between the cult of the warrior and the cult of the ship is also important. The ship-burial is a feature of the late Iron Age and Viking Age Scandinavian world, and the most famous example, the Oseberg ship, contains the body of a high-status woman who was buried with great ceremony. The ship-burial is sometimes read as a mythic image: the ship carries the dead to the other world, to the realm of the gods, to England or to Valhalla. The image of the ship as a vehicle of the dead is one of the most important in the Scandinavian tradition, and it is the basis for the famous ship-burials of the Viking Age.
The Runic Image of Valhalla
The runic inscriptions of the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages also preserve images of Valhalla. The Rök Stone in Sweden (c. 9th century) contains one of the longest runic inscriptions known, and it includes a reference to the great hall of the slain. The Järsberg Runestone in Sweden, the Karlevi Runestone on the Swedish island of Öland, and the various Danish and Norwegian runestones also preserve fragments of the Valhalla image. The most famous of the Valhalla-related runestones is the Järsberg Stone (Östergötland, Sweden), which contains the line ek hiaþar runor (“I, Hiaþr, the runes”). The runic tradition of the warrior’s welcome in the hall is thus an important supplementary source to the Eddas and the heroic poetry.
The Valhalla in the Eddic Cycle of Doom
In the larger eschatology of the Völuspá, Valhalla is one of the stages of the world’s end. The signs of Ragnarok include the Fimbulvetr (the great winter of three successive winters without summer), the breaking of the bridge Bifrost, the swallowing of the sun by the wolf Sköll, the shaking of Yggdrasil, the breaking of Fenrir’s bonds, the rising of the World Serpent from the sea, the breaking of Loki’s bonds, and the great battle on the field of Vígríðr. The Einherjar march out of Valhalla as the Gjallarhorn sounds, and they take their place beside the gods on the field.
The final battle is described in vivid detail in the Völuspá. Odin is swallowed by the wolf Fenrir; Thor slays the World Serpent and walks nine paces before falling dead; Týr and the hound Garmr kill each other; Loki and Heimdall kill each other; and Surtr flings fire over all the earth. The Einherjar fight with the gods and fall with them, and the world is consumed by fire.
But the Völuspá does not end with destruction. After the fire, the world rises again from the sea, and a few human beings, Líf and Lífþrasir, emerge from the Hoddmímis holt (the “grove of Hoddmímir”) to repopulate the world. The surviving gods — Vidar, Váli, and the sons of Thor — meet on the recreated Iðavöllr, and the great hall of Valhalla is implicitly present in the renewed world, even though the Völuspá does not name it specifically.
The Valhalla and the Afterlife in the Eddic Eschatology
In the Völuspá’s vision of Ragnarok, the warriors of Valhalla march out with the gods to the final battle. The Völuspá describes the host of the Einherjar marching across the field of Vígríðr, with the gleaming Gjallarhorn sounding and the bridge Bifrost breaking under the feet of the sons of Muspell. The Einherjar fight beside the gods, and they fall with them in the great catastrophe. The few Einherjar who are said to survive include Vidar and Váli (who inherit the new world) and the unnamed warriors who emerge from the Hoddmímis holt with the human beings Líf and Lífþrasir.
The Valhalla of the Völuspá is thus a place that ends with the world it inhabits. The warriors who have been rehearsing for the final battle for ages are at last called upon to fight, and they fall as the gods fall. The image is at once glorious and tragic: the Einherjar are prepared to give their lives in a battle they cannot win, and the final act of Valhalla is the act of mutual destruction with the gods.