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He was far more popular with the Vikings for his main stock-in-trade, which was battle. For Odin, on his eight-legged horse Sleipnir, was the Charging Rider, the Spear Lord, the Army Father, the Battle Blind or the Author of Victory. Odin was also the patron of the war-band’s fearsome elite – or rather, the brawlers who could be persuaded that standing at the front was a good idea. In Viking tradition they were shape-changers, men with the ability to take on animalistic characteristics. In recognition of their shaman-like animal-pelt costumes, they were often known as ‘wolf-skins’ and ‘bear-shirts’ –
ulfhednar
and, more famously,
berserkir
. One is tempted to suggest that such men, dangerous and unpredictable as they were, were liable to attract cautious flattery from any skald who wanted to stay on their good side – they may have been glorified because when those songs were first sung they were standing right next to the singer. Later sagas, written by no-nonsense Icelanders without wars to fight, regard berserkers as dim, oafish nuisances. 10
    Death in battle in the name of Odin was not a bad thing, at least in the eyes of the devout follower. For Odin was also the Chooser of the Slain, the
valkojósandi
. He had female assistants who bore the same name in the feminine form,
valkyrjur
, or valkyries, the terrifying furies of the Viking world. On several occasions in the sagas, there are comedic moments when Viking men seem meekly accepting of a situation, only to have a woman goad them into action – a woman’s worth was heavily reliant on that of her man, and the Viking wives could be fierce in their attempts to preserve it. The last bastion of Viking machismo, it often seems, lay not with themselves, but in their wish to appease their women. The Valkyries were this furious nature personified, betraying a surprising terror and reification of female power. Their names are a catalogue of the things prized most by the belligerent Vikings, the famous
Brynhildr
is Bright Battle, but there are 51 others in extant sources. 11 As with the Inuit and their apocryphal twenty words for snow, the Vikings had many terms for discussing conflict. There was a Valkyrie of drunken brawling, Ale-Rune, and another of Taunts. To the Viking mind Battle herself was a woman, as were War, Tumult, Chaos, Devastation and Clash. The names of other Valkyries invoke images of war-goddesses to be appeased, or moments of belligerence personified: Extreme Cruelty, Sword-Time, or simply Killer. The most ominous is the Valkyrie that invokes that moment just before all hell breaks loose, Silence. Even
Skuld
, the Norn of Necessity, is numbered among the Valkyries on three occasions, her name perhaps better translated there as Blame. More prosaic misogyny may be found in others: Unstable, and the minor but still influential figure of Bossy.
    Odin and his Valkyries would lead wild hunts across the sky, seen from the ground as the haunting silent light displays of the
aurora borealis
. They would observe the bravest warriorsin battle in the quotidian world, and bear the noblest warriors back to Odin’s domain,
Valholl
or Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain. There, deceased Vikings would hunt, drink and fornicate (the Valkyries having a dual purpose) until the end of the world, when they would go into battle at the final conflict between the Viking gods and their enemies. The appeal of this to a war-band is obvious, but Odin is also presented as the ultimate host; to those who praised him at banquets and celebrations, he was the leader to end all leaders, and an example for the kings and earls to follow. The lifestyle of Valhalla seems to be an idealized representation of the way the Vikings saw their lives – an endless round of feasting and fighting, topped, they hoped, by a glorious death in battle. It contains elements of the terrorist who expects luxurious debauchery in paradise, but also of impoverished men with nothing more to lose.
    The