Norse Mythology Coloring Pages for Kids
Valkyrie Coloring Pages
Valkyrie means “chooser of the slain”, and that was exactly their job. These warrior maidens rode through the sky above battlefields and picked the bravest fighters to carry off to Odin’s great hall, Valhalla. The chosen heroes feasted all night and trained all day, ready to fight beside the gods in the final battle at the end of the world.
Stories say the Valkyries also poured the drinks at those feasts. Fighting in the morning and serving mead at night is quite a work day! Artists have been drawing them for centuries, from Viking carvings to the shining armour of grand opera.
Valkyrie
with descriptive text
Valkyrie
Valkyrie Helm
Brünnhilde (Valkyrie)
Brünnhilde was one of Odin's Valkyries until she let the wrong warrior win a battle. Odin's punishment was an enchanted sleep on a mountaintop, with a ring of fire around her that only the bravest hero could cross.
Sigrdrífa (Valkyrie)
Sigrdrífa means "victory bringer". In one old poem a hero finds her asleep on a mountain, and when she wakes she teaches him magic runes and how to live wisely. Some storytellers say she's really Brünnhilde under another name.
Skögul (Valkyrie)
Skögul's name means "high-flying". An old poem says Odin sent her and a sister Valkyrie to choose which king would join him in Valhalla, and the chosen king was welcomed like a hero.
Göndul (Valkyrie)
Göndul's name means "wand wielder". She's the sister Valkyrie who went with Skögul to choose a king for Valhalla, and in the poem she leans on her spear to announce that the gods are about to get a new guest.
Mist (Valkyrie)
Mist's name means "cloud". In an old poem Odin calls for her by name and asks her and a sister Valkyrie to bring him the drinking horn. Not even the king of the gods poured his own!
Hrist (Valkyrie)
Hrist means "shaker". She's the sister Valkyrie named right beside Mist in the poem where Odin asks for his drinking horn, so those two make quite a team!
The Swan Maidens (Hervor, Olrun and Svanhvit)
Some Valkyries could turn into swans. In one old poem three of them land by a lake with their swan feather cloaks beside them and sit spinning flax, until three brothers find them and take them home. After seven winters the maidens long for battle again and fly away, leaving the brothers behind. The poem gives their names but no personalities, so each picture has its own mood: calm Svanhvít, sly and all-wise Hervör and wistful Ölrún.
Sváva (Valkyrie)
Sváva is the Valkyrie who gave a nameless boy his name. In an old poem a young prince grows up without one until she rides in, calls him Helgi and tells him where to find a mighty sword. After that she watched over him in battle.
Hildr (Valkyrie)
Hildr is a name found on old lists of Valkyries... Hildr simply means "battle", and the word is stitched into lots of Valkyrie names. Even Brünnhilde's name is built from it, roughly "armour" plus "battle", so a Valkyrie's name often told you her job.
Skuld and the Norns
Skuld shows up on some lists of Valkyries, but she's better known as one of the three Norns, the sisters who weave the fates of gods and people at the roots of the world tree. Her name means "what shall be", and her job was the future...
Valkyries in Art and Opera
Those big feathered wings were never in the old stories. The poems have Valkyries riding horses through the sky, and a few mention swan feather cloaks. Later artists gave them wings and winged helmets, and the look stuck.Opera did the most to shape the Valkyrie we picture today. In Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkyries" Brünnhilde has eight sisters: Gerhilde, Ortlinde, Waltraute, Schwertleite, Helmwige, Siegrune, Grimgerde and Rossweisse. They gallop through a stormy sky on flying horses, and you've probably heard the music somewhere without knowing it!
