"Loud were they, lo
when they rode over the barrow.
Bold were they, when they rode over the land.
When the mighty women
made ready their strength
and they sent forth the screaming spears."
A story from North Mythology is attached
The Valkyrie is an Old Norse Germanic Goddess whose name, "Valkyrja" literally means: "Chooser of the Slain".
Valkyries (from the Old Norse Valkyrja), in Norse mythology, daughters of the principal god Odin, are often called Odin's maidens. At his bidding, they flew on their horses over the fields of every battle to choose the souls of the heroic dead. Belief in the existence of magic horsewomen from heaven was widespread in Germanic and Scandinavia cultures, though they were called by different names.
The Valkyries carried out the will of Odin in determining the victors in battle and of course the war. As each Valkyrie performed differing tasks according to Odin's instruction, it was their prime duty to ride into the battlefield and choose the fallen heroes of the field. To be chosen by a Valkyrie and carried off on her white steed to Valhalla was considered an honor to the dying Viking warrior, for Valkyries only chose the bravest of the slain, gathering souls found deserving of an afterlife. They traveled far-and-wide searching for the dead in battlefields, oceans and seas for mortal men worthy of the grand hall. However, if the Viking warriors are deemed unworthy by the Valkyries, the goddess Hel in a cheerless underground world received them after their death.
The Valkyries were depicted as young, beautiful, but fierce women who dressed splendidly in full armor and swords when riding their horses. The were also know to turn themselves into swans, wolves or ravens. In later historical periods, the Valkyries, as a Demi-goddess of death, had their legend replaced with the folklore motif of the swan maiden (young girls who are able to take on the form of a swan, sometimes as the result of a curse). She frequently shape-shifted into a semblance of a swan as a means of camouflage. In her role as a swan maiden, the Valkyrie can travel "through air and through water."
A Valkyries horse was created from air, and when they traveled to Earth, frost and dewdrops would fall from their manes onto the ground. The Valkyrie was also Odins messengers and when they ride forth on their errands, their armor causes the strange flickering lights known as the "Aurora Borealis" or Northern Lights.
Often the Valkyries would make personal visits upon the earth appearing as a swan searching for a stream to bathe in. This act was dangerous for the Valkyrie goddess, for if any man secured the swans plumage the Valkyrie could not return to Valhalla and if he so desired, she was destined to become his mate. If one could capture and hold a swan maiden, a feather or her feathered cloak, one could extract a wish. This is why Valkyries were sometimes also known as wish maidens.
Midway between the third and eleventh centuries, the Valkyries began to assume a more benign roll. Small amulets or pictures on memorial stones begin to depict the figure of a beautiful woman welcoming the deceased hero with a horn of mead into the afterlife. The Valkyries were considered to be young and beautiful with each one possessing mystical attributes befitting their names. The Goddesses are usually bestowed with silky fair skin, long flowing golden hair beneath a silver winged helm or headdress of "spiritual light feathers" and having blue-eyes. A Valkyries armor may consist of a scarlet corselet, a shield known as the "shield-maiden of truth" and a spear. Modern artists' renderings depict her in a silver metal fish-scaled breast and back-plate armor and sometimes a short sword at her side, however this has not been established by any historical writings or Viking artifacts.
It's often said, that if you see a Valkyrie before battle "you will die in that battle." The Vikings believed that when a brave warrior was about to die in the midst of fighting, he would suddenly see the figure of a Valkyrie, there to take him into the sky and transport him to Valhalla. To all others in the fray she would remain invisible. Before battles, the name of Odin was invoked, so that he could send the Valkyries to choose the best of those fighters who would die.