Word: walhalla
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...Walhalla" is a warlike lyric of the old Norse mythological days. The poem mirrors well the rough poetry and god-strength of the life depicted. "Age and Youth" by J. T. Stickney is, curiously enough, a poetical expression of certain ideas which Charles Dudley Warner gave vent to in the last Harper's. The poem - for it is a poem, rather than mere verse - shows promise...
...Viking belief was that the dead were to remain forever in their graves, or at best would inhabit a gloomy hall of death beneath the earth. Many of the higher families, on the other hand, believed that in the fifth of the heavenly regions was a grand palace called Walhalla, so lofty that one could scarcely see the top, with five hundred and forty doors, and with walls hung about with shields and skins, with rafters covered with spears and swords. About the palace was a great wall for a defense, and around the whole ran the roaring stream...
...belief sent all souls to Hel. This was a gloomy land, vast and pathless, in one part of which was the hall of the reigning goddess. A wall and river which surrounded this seem to be almost identically the same as those which the higher families believed were about Walhalla. Much dispute has arisen as to the unity and consistency of the beliefs in Walhalla and Hel. Some of the Eddic songs speak of Hel and Walhalla separately. while others do not mention the latter at all. The beliefs are inconsistent, because by one all souls are sent...