Submitted by: Luca Panaro
Description:
Valhöll ("hall of the slain") is the hall of the god Óðinn (LINK), which is frequently anglicized as Valhalla. According to the eddic poem Grímnismál ("The Words of Grímnir"), Valhöll lies within an area of Ásgarðr (LINK) called Glaðsheimr (LINK) ("Bright Home" or "Glad World"). As the name implies, Valhöll is where Óðinn's chosen warriors who die in battle, the Einherjar, dwell. Here alongside Óðinn, they feast, drink an endless supply of mead, and go out each day to fight and kill each other, reviving and returning to the hall at dinnertime. Drinking horns are carried to guests by valkyrjur, valkyries (LINK). A goat named Heiðrún (LINK) lives on top of the hall, eating the foliage of a tree called Læraðr, and from her udders runs a huge supply of mead that fills an entire vat each day, and this is what the Einherjar drink. There is also a stag named Eikþyrnir ("oak-thorn") on top of Valhöll, eating the leaves of the same tree, but liquid drips from his antlers into Hvergelmir (LINK), a spring which is the source of all waters and rivers.
The hall is described as golden, and thatched with gold shields. It has five hundred and forty doors, out through which the Einherjar will pour when they march to fight against Fenrir (LINK) during Ragnarök (LINK), the apocalypse of Norse mythology. It is thus a large, splendid structure that occupies an important position in the eschatology (things concerning the end of the world or the universe) of Norse mythology.
Scholars have compared the mythic function and nature of Valhöll with archaeological sites of mead halls, building for important social activities and rituals revolving around an elite warrior culture that arose in northern Europe and Scandinavia during a turbulent period known as the Migration Period (variously dated as 400–570 AD, or from as early as 300 AD to 800 AD). Ecological crisis and the upheaval of social and political structures, including the decline of the western Roman Empire, led to the rise of this Scandinavian warrior culture, concentrating a great degree of power, wealth, and religious significance in so called 'central places,' ruled by proto-kings and warlords. This kind of society is epitomized in the Old English epic poem Beowulf, which depicts a Danish society centered on the golden hall, Heorot (LINK), and the retinue (a band of loyal retainers, warriors) of king Hroðgar, which is being disrupted and attacked by the monster Grendel (LINK). Large feasting halls are thus part of the main iconography of Iron Age/Viking Age and Medieval Scandinavian society; the powerful king bestowing rings and swearing oaths, toasting with horns filled with mead or beer, and the exultation of battle and war in the boasting of proud warriors, fearless of death. Scholars have theorized that such social organizations may be the origin of the Norse eschatological (apocalyptic) mythic material involving the close connections of Valhöll (LINK) (which can be seen as THE mead hall, a divine mirror of earthly ones), Óðinn, the Einherjar (LINK) as his retinue, and Ragnarök (LINK), a mythic dimension for the individual death and afterlife. This sort of myth would have granted divine legitimacy and a death-glorifying myth to the king and his loyal warband, respectively.
It is important to remember that these theories are stringing connections between post-Christianization literature and the archaeological remains of sites from hundreds of years before; although there is some sound evidence for the survival of these myths from pre-Christian Norse societies through oral storytelling traditions, and some of these resonances are very direct and clear seeming, we must be cautious not to declare something as absolutely true or certain. The past is always unknowable with any certainty to us, and this unknowability is magnified the further back we are looking.
| Medieval Sources | Description | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Prose Edda/Younger Edda | The Prose or Younger Edda, also called Snorri's Edda, is a treatise on mythology and skaldic poetry compiled in the early 13th century. It is the sour... | none |
| Grímnismál | Grímnismál ("The Words of Grímnir") is one of the poems contained in the Codex Regius ("royal book") of the Hooded traveller |
| Videogame References | Description | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Hall of Valor | The Hall of Valor is an enormous hall building within Sovngarde (LINK), where the souls of dead Nord heroes endlessly feast and drink mead. It is rule... | Place Afterlife Mead Hall |