The battlefield had no name anymore. Only the smell of iron and wet earth. The women came after the fighting, not to mourn but to choose. Some rode through the carnage on wolves, others in swan skins. The relationship between Freya and the Valkyries is one of command and purpose: Freya, the goddess of love and war, leads the Valkyries as the chooser of half the slain, while Odin claims the other half. She receives the dead in her hall Sessrúmnir, where they serve as her warriors in the afterlife — a mirror to Odin’s Valhalla.
Who Were Freya and the Valkyries, Really?
The Old Norse sources agree on a division that surprises modern readers. In the poem Grímnismál (stanza 14), Odin says: “The ninth hall is Folkvang, where Freya decides who sits in the hall. Half the dead she chooses each day, and half belongs to Odin.” That line is the core fact. Freya is not a passive love goddess. She rides to battle, claims the warriors, and keeps a separate hall filled with the slain.
The Valkyries are her agents. The word valkyrja means “chooser of the slain.” They are female figures — sometimes divine, sometimes human women elevated after death — who ride over battlefields and decide which warriors die and which survive. They serve both Freya and Odin, but the primary bond is with Freya. Snorri Sturluson, writing in the 13th-century Prose Edda (Gylfaginning 36), says: “Those are called Valkyries. They are sent by Odin to every battle. They choose which men shall die and award victory.” But Snorri also notes that Freya is the leader of the Valkyries in her own right, and that she rides with them.
This complicates the easy notion of Odin as the sole lord of the dead. Freya owns the first pick. She takes the bravest warriors before Odin even sees them.
Where Do the Sources Place Her Command?
The textual evidence comes from two main branches: the Poetic Edda (anonymous poems compiled in the 13th century but older) and the Prose Edda (Snorri’s handbook for skalds, written around 1220 C.E.). The Eiríksmál (a 10th-century skaldic poem) describes Odin sending the Valkyries Hermann and Róta to find a seat for the slain king Eiríkr Blood-axe in Valhalla, but it is Freya’s hall that appears as the alternative. In the Vǫluspá (stanza 30), Freya is mentioned among the goddesses, and later scholars linked her to the Valkyries through her role in seiðr, the shamanic magic that could sway battles from a distance.
The earliest known depiction of a Valkyrie figure appears on the 8th-century picture stone from Hammars, Sweden, showing a female figure holding a horn and a shield. By the Viking age (circa 800–1050 C.E.), small silver figurines of women bearing swords and shields, like the one found at Hårby, Denmark (now in the National Museum of Denmark), are widely interpreted as Valkyries. No inscription names Freya on these artifacts, but the pairing is consistent in later literary records.
The relationship is not romantic. It is military and ritual. Freya taught Odin the secrets of seiðr, and the Valkyries wove that magic into the fabric of war. The 11th-century poem Darraðarljóð describes Valkyries weaving a “web of war” from human intestines, using arrows as shuttles and spears as frames. That web decided the outcome of the Battle of Clontarf (1014 C.E.). The poem does not name Freya directly, but the weaving magic is her domain.
What Did the Relationship Mean for the Living?
For the Norse, the division of the dead meant that two afterlives coexisted. Valhalla was the hall of the slain, where Odin gathered warriors for Ragnarök. But Sessrúmnir, Freya’s hall in Folkvang, was not a lesser place. The Grímnismál calls it “spacious and great.” Warriors who died well could expect to feast there under Freya’s rule.
This had practical consequences in ritual. When a warrior fell in battle, survivors might call on Freya to receive him. Amulets shaped like Freya’s necklace Brísingamen have been found in graves, suggesting the dead were entrusted to her. The Valkyries were the intermediaries: they appeared in visions or in dying moments, offering a final drink of mead or ale before escorting the soul away. That image, a woman holding out a drinking horn, persists on runestones across Scandinavia, most famously on the 11th-century Ramsund carving in Sweden.
The relationship also gave women a sanctioned warrior role. Valkyries could be mortal women who had lived with shield and spear. The historical accounts of Viking-age women buried with weapons (such as the Birka warrior grave Bj 581, reanalyzed in 2017) show that some lived as fighters. The myth provided a bridge: a woman who died in combat could become a Valkyrie herself, serving Freya in the afterlife.
How Freya’s Role Differs from Odin’s
Both deities receive the slain, but the symbolism splits along distinct lines. Odin is the god of ecstatic war, of berserker frenzy and the spear that starts the fight. His warriors are the einherjar, a military force trained for Ragnarök. Freya’s hall, by contrast, is less well described, but the name Sessrúmnir means “filled with seats” or “room of many seats.” It implies a social hall, not a training camp. Warriors go there to live, not to prepare for battle.
The Valkyries themselves switch allegiance based on the day’s battle. Snorri lists names like Göndul, Hildr, and Skögul. Some are daughters of kings. One, Brynhildr, is a mortal woman who defies Odin and is punished. She serves Freya as a Valkyrie before becoming a tragic heroine in the Vǫlsunga saga. That story blurs the line between goddess and servant: Brynhildr obeys Freya but also argues with Odin, suggesting the Valkyries had autonomy.
Freya’s power over the dead also connects to her role in fertility and the afterlife cycle. She is not a grim reaper. She welcomes warriors into a hall that may have been linked to her larger domain of life, death, and rebirth. The same goddess who drives the chariot of cats and weeps tears of red gold is the one who chooses who lives and who falls.
Common Misconceptions
Freya is not a Valkyrie. She is the commander. The confusion arises because both fly over battlefields and both deal with the dead, but Freya is a full goddess of the Vanir tribe, while the Valkyries are a separate class of spirits or beings.
Not all Valkyries are divine. The sagas record several human women who become Valkyries after death, including Sigrún and Kára in the Helgi poems. This made the myth accessible: a living woman could aspire to that role, unlike the unreachable rank of goddess.
Freya is not Frigg. The two were sometimes conflated even in Norse sources (Snorri blurs them in places), but modern scholarship distinguishes them. Frigg is Odin’s wife and a goddess of marriage. Freya is unmarried, sexual, and militaristic. The relationship with the Valkyries belongs exclusively to Freya.
The Valkyries do not have wings. Victorian art gave them swan wings, but the Old Norse sources describe them riding horses, flying in a swan’s shape, or wearing cloaks of feathers. The image of a winged angelic Valkyrie is a 19th-century invention, drawn from Wagner’s operas.
FAQ
Did Freya lead the Valkyries into battle? Yes. The Grímnismál and the Prose Edda place Freya as the chooser of the slain, with the Valkyries as her handmaidens who carry out her will on the battlefield.
How many Valkyries served Freya? The sources give varying numbers. Snorri lists 13 Valkyries by name, but the total is not fixed. The Vǫluspá mentions “many” who serve Odin and Freya.
Can a living woman become a Valkyrie? In the sagas, yes. Women who die in battle or are chosen by the gods can become Valkyries. The hero Helgi Hundingsbane loved the Valkyrie Sigrún, who was a king’s daughter in life.
What happens to warriors in Sessrúmnir? The poems do not describe daily life there. Sessrúmnir is a feast hall where the slain dwell with Freya. Unlike Valhalla, there is no mention of daily combat or training. It may have been a quieter afterlife.
A Relationship That Shaped the Norse View of Death
The bond between Freya and the Valkyries is not a footnote. It is the mechanism by which the Norse understood who died and why. Half the fallen belong to a goddess who also governs love, magic, and the turning seasons. That integration, war inside fertility, death inside desire, mirrors the Norse acceptance of life as a woven whole.
For those who study the old ways, the relationship offers a door into how women held power in the invisible world. Freya does not wait for Odin’s permission. She rides first.
If you want to explore further, we keep notes on the divine feminine in Northern tradition, including a dedicated guide to Freya’s hall and the choosers of the slain. You can also find definitions and cross-references in our glossary entry for the Valkyries.