In the Norse belief system, valkyries were supernatural women who determined who lived and died on the battlefield. Hákon, who had spent much of his youth at Æthelstan’s court in England, was an early adopter of Christianity in Norway, but Hákonarmál is steeped in the pagan beliefs to which most of his subjects still subscribed. The Vikings – popularly known as masculine fighting machines who knew no fear – perceived this power as female. In other words, the outcome of the battle was not determined by military tactics or prowess: rather, victory and personal survival depended on a higher power. The poem tells us that, although the pair decided to give Hákon’s side victory, they claimed the leader himself for Odin, the Norse god of war. He was to die soon after from his wounds.Ī poem called Hákonarmál (Words about Hákon), composed in the dead king’s memory by a poet in his retinue, attributes his fate to the will of two valkyries, Gondul and Skogul. Although Hákon once again repelled their challenge, Fitjar would be his last battle. According to a cycle of 13th-century Norse sagas, the Heimskringa, the brothers had made regular, if unsuccessful, attempts at claiming the Norwegian throne for years. The Viking Age was a turbulent period both within Scandinavia and in the extensive lands the Vikings travelled. The Battle of Fitjar, fought in southern Norway in 961, was a struggle between King Hákon ‘the Good’, once the foster-son of King Æthelstan of England, and his nephews, the sons of Erik ‘Bloodaxe’.
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