Styrbiorn the Strong

waited in the listening gloom. And now was a noise far off, like lashing rain among leaves in a forest, and with it a rolling as of thunders far away, and pale lightnings flickered afar and vanished and flickered again through the night. Very slowly at first, then with swift strides, it drew nearer, until the roar of the tempest was like the roar of cataracts fed to fury by a cloudburst among mountains. Then lightnings streamed in rivers of molten steel and silver from the roof-beams of that hall, which is lofty as the tent of night, and the Einheriar clashed their weapons together and shouted with a shout that was heard above the deafening thunder: “Hail to the choosers! the storm raisers! Hail to the shield-mays of the Lord of Spears, the Father of Ages, the Loving One! Hail to the lords of earth whom they bring to join our fellowship!”

Therewith, their flying steeds swooping and balancing on the gale like seagulls in wild weather, their spearheads and helms of gold a-sparkle in the lightning-flare, those Maidens of Victory rode up the night into Valhalla. When their horses tossed their manes, rain streamed from them, and from the froth of their bitted mouths snow came, and hail and sleet from their nostrils. Terrible and beautiful to look upon were those riding Maidens, as fire or the ruinous thunderbolt. And each bare athwart her saddlebow the bloody corpse of a dead man slain.

Nine times rode they on the whirlwind and the rain high in air above the tables of the blest in Valhalla; then descending did obeisance unto the Most High, praising Him and calling Him by His holy names: Thunderer, Father of the Slain, Feared One, God of the Ravens, Blinder of Hosts, the True One, the Almighty God. Then each in turn showed her chosen one to the All-Father, and craved leave to deliver him to those whose craft it is to mend that which is broken, and put out the arrow, and close up the wound, and wake the great soul to receive again its proper body, now forever fair, forever desirable and strong, capable of all feats and of every pleasure that belongeth to the body of man; but of pain or decay or dissolution as little capable as if a man should go about to blow out the noonday sun like a candle, or to batter down mountain peaks by smiting of them with a straw.

Last of all, rode forth before the All-Father’s face the Valkyrie Skogul. Like the brandishing of swords the lightnings played about her, and her black plunging horse champed flame. Yet sweet showed, even beneath the byrny, the tender division of her breasts; and her countenance was like the golden morning kissing awake the high snow summits in the spring of the year. She cried aloud unto Odin and said, “O God of Hosts, Whisperer in the Wind, the Much-Knowing, I have done Your command. Yet with some sickness of heart I did it, thinking this should add but one jewel to Your crown, O Our Father; but earth goeth destitute for the need of such, and findeth not often one such in a generation of men. Also, he died young.”

But the All-Father, sitting in that seat where that wind blows which telleth of many hidden matters, bent for a while in silence His eternal eyes on that which His shield-may cherished against her bosom. Then He spake, and the sound of His voice was like the music of the evening star when deer trip lightly down the heather-sweet slopes at twilight, and the dews begin to fall. “Frontward are his wounds, and death availed but to tighten his grip on the sword-hilt. Be still and question not: I chose him first I loved the best.”

Note

Styrbiorn fell in 983. In England at that time Ethelred the Unready was King, and the last of the Carolingians in France. Otto II sat on the throne of the Caesars. John Zimisces was Emperor in Byzantium, or (as they called it in the North) King of the Greeks in Micklegarth. Iceland, that new republic of aristocrats founded from Norway by men who could not abide to be under the strong hand of King Harald Hairfair, had just passed her centenary. The great Earl Hakon, called by some the Mighty but by some the Ill, ruled like a King in Norway. Only in Denmark, under Harald Gormson, had Christianity as yet any sure foothold in the North.

Except a few very minor characters all the persons mentioned in this story are historical, or at least of ancient tradition. So too are the main facts, which may be found by the curious or the learned in the brief record entitled “Páttr Styrbjarnar Svíakappa,” printed in the Lives of the Kings (Fornmannasögur, Vol. V, pp. 245⁠–⁠51: Copenhagen, 1830). One reservation must be made from this statement: Styrbiorn’s relations with Sigrid the Haughty have no historical basis save that they were suggested by what is known of the later career of that fatal Queen.

The verses are translations. Those in Chapters V and IX are rendered nearly line for line and word for word, and in an alliterative measure somewhat resembling the original, out of the Elder Edda.

Colophon

Styrbiorn the Strong
was published in 1926 by
E. R. Eddison.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and on digital scans from
Google Books.

The cover page is adapted from
After the Battle of Fyrisvall,
a painting completed circa 1896 by
Mårten Eskil Winge.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
February 18, 2026, 4:45 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-r-eddison/styrbiorn-the-strong.

The volunteer-driven