A question for the pagans/Norse mythology buffs here...

Mongo

Mongo

Joined
Nov 5, 2001
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Greetings all. We were discussing Valhalla and it's requirements for entry at work today... (don't ask, we're slightly nuts here) and I seem to remember that you could not enter if you didn't have all your body parts. (i.e. you were beheaded, limb chopped off etc.) And that this was a reason why the marauding Vikings chopped off their opponents body parts, often after death and physically separated them from their former owners.
So, has anyone else heard this? Would you prefer Valhalla to heaven? What is your version of Valhalla?
Discuss amongst yourselves...
 
There's a town in NY named Valhalla but I don't suppose you mean that one. All I can help you with is that proper sequence is important , it's rape , pillage, burn.
 
If he doesn't check in here, you can catch Ferrous Wheel over at HI forum. He knows all about this stuff. Interesting topic.
 
There sure is a town in NY named Valhalla. That's where my family's cemetary is located, and why (body parts be damned) I am probably going to Valhalla when I die, too.
 
My youngest son was born in Valhalla, NY. Westchester medical center. Very cool. Although the birth certificate says something else, I still say it was Valhalla.

Ed
 
My Dad used to tutor inmates at the minimum security prison in Valhalla, for their GED. The prison shut down the program, not that it was costing them anything. Too much trouble to think some of the inmates might work their way past a life of crime, and then what would the prison industry do for a living?
 
I have never heard about the severed body parts bit, all that I know is you have to have died in battle to get to Valhall.

It is interesting to see the ruins where the Vikings were buried (ship, family and all). We have one close to where I live and it is HUGE.
 
Couldn't say what the orthodox Vikings think as opposed to the Reformed Vikings, but as far as I know the only requirement for getting into Valhalla is to die well and honorably on the field of battle.
 
Mongo, I've heard that too, I think it was briefly mentioned in the book The Viking Art of War which I read several months ago. Nordic Viking, what site are you near, Sutton Hoo, Oseborg, etc...
Lagarto
 
From what I heard, Valhalla is a place where the vikings could fight and not be hurt for eternity. A place full of pleasure as well (drinking/food/women).
 
mete said:
All I can help you with is that proper sequence is important , it's rape , pillage, burn.
Click to expand...

No, no, no! First you burn to distract the warriors, then you pillage, carrying off the booty on the backs of your new slaves, then rape at your leisure. See, _this_ is why the Italians never out-barbarianed the Germans :p
 
Quick Google on Valhalla:

In Norse mythology, Valhalla ("Hall of the slain") is Odin's hall, the home for those slain gloriously in battle, who are welcomed by Bragi and escorted to Valhalla by the Valkyries. It has five hundred and forty doors, walls made of spears, a roof made of shields and benches covered with armors. It is said that there is room enough for all those chosen, and finding a place in there is much easier than entering. Here, every day, the slain warriors who will assist Odin in the final conflict with the giants arm themselves for battle, and ride forth by thousands to their mimic combat on the plains of Asgard, and at night they return to Valhalla to feast on the flesh of the boar, and to drink the intoxicating mead. Those who do not get to Valhalla end up in the home of the dead, Helheim, a place beneath the underworld, Niflheim.
 
Icon of Sin said:
From what I heard, Valhalla is a place where the vikings could fight and not be hurt for eternity. A place full of pleasure as well (drinking/food/women).
Click to expand...

I damn well hope I end up there! Sounds like the kinda place where I'd like to spend eternity.
 
lagarto said:
Nordic Viking, what site are you near, Sutton Hoo, Oseborg, etc...
Lagarto
Click to expand...

A place called Anundshög (Anunds Mound). I have included a small 10 sec video where I filmed one of the viking graves - from on top of the mound which is about tree height and over 1000 years old. Please excuse the quality of the vid as I took it with a digital camera (HP935).
 
Not all who die in battle go to Valhalla.

The Valkyries are the "Choosers of the Slain". They select the most valiant, the Einherjar. Half go to Odin's hall, Valhalla. The other half go to Freya's hall.

Everyone else ends up in Hel.

Roger
 
lagarto said:
Mongo, I've heard that too, I think it was briefly mentioned in the book The Viking Art of War which I read several months ago. Nordic Viking, what site are you near, Sutton Hoo, Oseborg, etc...
Lagarto
Click to expand...
Sutton Hoo is actually in England, and is pre-Viking, though the artefacts show close contact with Sweden. There is a view of the site on this website http://www.wuffings.co.uk/MySHPages/SHPage.html . The pages on the sword will be of particular interest.

Andrew.
 
Roger Gregory said:
Half go to Odin's hall, Valhalla. The other half go to Freya's hall.
Click to expand...

You mean they're coming over here. :eek: Freyja lives with me along with Thor and Tyr. They takes the form of my white shepherds. Tyr's baby pic is my avatar. :D
 
"A pathologist who studied the skeleton of a ninth century Viking leader found in a churchyard in Repton, Derbyshire, discovered that his body had been systematically mutilated and his genitalia hacked off with an axe.

According to Dr Bob Stoddart, of Manchester University, the unfortunate Dane was stabbed in the head, jaw, arm and thigh and disembowelled. Each of his toes and both his heels were split lengthways.

The skeleton provides the first forensically validated evidence of the way the Saxons behaved towards the invaders.

"The mutilation was clearly done by someone who knew how to do it. It suggests the Saxons were in the habit of doing this when they caught Vikings," said Dr Stoddart.

"Maybe they did it because they knew that Vikings believed they needed their bodies intact if they were going to go to Valhalla."

The skeleton was first discovered in 1986 by two Oxford archaeologists, Prof Martin Biddle and his wife Birthe Kjolby-Biddle, in the churchyard of St Wystan's.

Magister Kjolby-Biddle, who is Danish, said the man would have been killed in a revenge attack after the Vikings destroyed the church and adjoining monastery.

When the Viking's body was buried by his comrades, they compounded the insult to the Christian Saxons by scattering a broken cross over his body."

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/...n06.xml&\sSheet=/news/2001/11/06/ixhomef.html

See here for some more information and a reconstruction of the face of the dead Viking.

maximus otter
 
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