Walkyrie
(wɒlˈkɪrɪ)
[repr. OE. wælcyrie, -cyrᵹe wk. fem., lit. ‘chooser of the slain’, f. wæl wale n.1 + *cur- ablaut-root of céosan choose v. Cf. Valkyrie.]
1. OE. Mythol. The designation of a class of goddesses or female dæmons supposed to hover in or ride through the air over battle-fields and decide who should be slain: corresponding to the Scandinavian Valkyrie.
The OE. word (apart from the transferred sense 2) is found only as the rendering of L. Bellona, the goddess of war, or of names of the Furies and Gorgons of classical mythology. Possibly the conception may have been less definite in Old English heathendom than in the Scandinavian belief of later times, according to which these ‘war-maidens’ were twelve in number. (The Ger. Walküre, widely known from Wagner's dramas, is from ON., not from OE.).
| c 725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) E 351 Eurynis, walcyrᵹe. Ibid. H 87 Herinis, walcriᵹᵹe. Ibid. T 159 Tisifone, uual⁓cyrᵹe. c 1000 in Cockayne Narratiunculæ (1861) 34 Þa deor habbaþ eahta fet and walkyrian eaᵹan [L. oculos Gorgoneos]. c 1050 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 360/3 Bellona, wælcyrᵹe. Ibid. 533/26 Allecto, wælcyrᵹe. |
| attrib. 1915 Q. Rev. Oct. 379 It [Napoleon's overrunning Europe] was a romantic, almost Walkyrie dash. |
† 2. Used for: A witch, sorceress.
Obs.| a 1023 Wulfstan Hom. (1883) 298/18 Wyccan and wæl⁓cyrjan and unlybwyrhtan. 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 1577 Wychez & walkyries wonnen to þat sale. |
Hence
Walˈkyric a. [
-ic], of or pertaining to the Walkyries.
| 1913 A. Harrison in Engl. Rev. Aug. 110 Thompson's odes read like Walkyric word-battles. |