Summary
The einherjar are the dead of battle whom Odin gathers in his hall Valhalla, where they fight every day and eat and drink every evening until they go out with him to the last battle. In Gylfaginning Snorri says Odin is called Father of the Slain because his chosen sons are all who fall in battle; he gives them Valhalla and the hall Vingólf, "and they are then called einherjar".
Odin himself describes their food in Grímnismál: the cook Andhrímnir boils the boar Sæhrímnir in the cauldron Eldhrímnir, "the best of meat, but few know what the einherjar eat". Odin gives his own food to his two wolves and lives on wine alone. His hall has five hundred and forty doors, and "eight hundred einherjar go out together through one door when they go to fight the wolf". In Vafþrúðnismál Odin asks the giant where men hew at one another every day, and the giant answers: "All the einherjar in Odin's courts hew at one another every day; they choose the slain and ride home from the fight, then sit together reconciled." Grímnismál 18–23; Vafþrúðnismál 40–41.
Snorri fills this out in Gylfaginning. Gangleri asks: everyone who has fallen in battle since the beginning of the world is with Odin; what does he feed them? He is told: the company is huge and will be larger still, and yet it will seem too few when the wolf comes, but the boar Sæhrímnir suffices; it is boiled every day and whole again by evening. He asks: do they drink water? and is told: do you think the All-father would invite kings and earls and then give them water to drink? Many a man who comes to Valhalla would think he had paid dear for a drink of water if nothing better awaited him, after enduring wounds and pain until death. The goat Heiðrún stands on the roof of Valhalla browsing the branches of the tree Læraðr, and from her udders runs mead, which fills a vessel every day, enough to make all the einherjar fully drunk. Every day they dress, put on their armour, go out into the courtyard and fight, and fell one another, "and that is their sport"; when it is time for the meal they ride home to Valhalla and sit down to drink. The valkyries carry ale to them in the hall. And at the end of time the Æsir and all the einherjar arm themselves and go out to the field at Ragnarök. Gylfaginning 36, 38–41 and 51.
The idea their story turns on is that death in battle is a choosing, not a defeat. The slain man is a chosen son of Odin, taken to his lord's house, where he lives a fighter's life at its best: battle every day without real death, food that never runs out, drink that never stops, and reconciliation after every fight. All of it is training for a battle Odin knows is coming, in which his army, however large, will seem too few.
We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method. The project's Norse Semitic essay names the einherjar as the people of Valhalla, and reads Valhalla from wall and hallala, but does not read their name. Einherjar is the plural of einheri, which has two parts, ein- and -herjar. We read the first as ʿayyana: Lane says the taʿyīn of a thing is to distinguish it from the generality and single it out, ʿayyana ʿalā al-sāriq is to single out the thief from among the suspects, and ʿayyana al-ḥarb baynanā is to stir up war between us. The ʿ drops outside the Semitic languages, as in the Juthoor laws. We read the second as harj: Lane says harj is civil strife and confusion, "vehement and much slaughter", and haraja al-nās is that the people fell into conflict and killing. H is h, r is r, and Arabic j answers the Germanic j of herjar. So the einherjar on this reading are "those singled out for the slaughter", which is what the poems make them: Odin's chosen sons, whose sport is to fight one another every day.
Linguistic Root
| Form | Pronunciation | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| einherjar, einheri | AYN-her-yar, AYN-her-i | The people of Valhalla, and the singular |
| einn, ein- | AYN, AYN- | One, alone |
| herr, herjar | HERR, HER-yar | Army; and the form in the compound |
| óskasynir | OHS-ka-si-nir | "Chosen sons", as Snorri calls them |
| ʿayyana, taʿyīn | ʿAY-ya-na, taʿ-YEEN | The Arabic by which we read the first part: singling out from the generality |
| harj | HARJ | The Arabic by which we read the second part: strife and much killing |
Kroonen sets up *aina- as the Germanic numeral one, whence Norse einn, and *harja-, "host, troop, army", whence Gothic harjis, Norse herr and Old English here, with Lithuanian kãras, "war, army", beside it.
So the reading covers both parts: the ʿ, then the y and n in ein-, and h, r and j in -herj-, with -ar as the plural ending. The sense of both parts meets the story: taʿyīn is singling out from the many, and the einherjar are Odin's "chosen" sons from among the slain; harj is much killing, and their sport is to fight every day. The limit of the reading is that Germanic j is a glide, not the Arabic j, and that ein- in Germanic is the numeral one while ʿayyana in Arabic is the verb of singling out: the reading meets the sense of oneness in the numeral without taking the numeral itself.
Key Mythic Narratives
Odin's law of burning
In Ynglinga saga Snorri says Odin made it law that all the dead should be burned and their possessions laid on the pyre with them, "and with such wealth as he had on his pyre each man should come to Valhalla". When Odin himself died of sickness in Sweden he had himself marked with a spear-point, claimed for himself all men who die by weapons, and said he was going to the home of the gods to welcome his friends there. The Swedes believed he often appeared to them before great battles, giving victory to some and inviting others to himself, "and both lots seemed good to them".
Symbolic Reading
The Norse rereading essay reads Valhalla as a system of recruitment in a warrior society: honourable death in battle is the highest value, "fighting every day and recovering every night" is continuous military training, so the hall is "an eternal training camp", and the boar that is whole again every evening is "a dream of abundance" in a society that knew hunger. The text bears the reading out in Gangleri's question about water: a man who bore wounds until death is not to be repaid with water.
Cross-Cultural Parallels
At Ugarit the Rephaim, the dead kings, are invited to a feast: "Come to my house, Rephaim"; they mount their chariots and travel for three days, oxen and sheep are slaughtered for them, they drink the wine of Lebanon for six days, and among them is "Thamaq, the Rapiu of Baal, the warrior of Baal and the warrior of Anat". They are a company of dead fighters eating and drinking in a high house, as the einherjar eat and drink. They differ in purpose: the Rephaim are summoned to bless the living king's throne, the einherjar are gathered for the battle at the end of time.
In the Avesta the spirits of the righteous, the Fravashis, come "with helms of brass, with weapons of brass, with armour of brass, who struggle in the fights for victory in garments of light", killing thousands of daevas, and they turn to whichever side first calls on them, and nations are smitten before them. They too are an army of the armed dead, but they fight beside the living in their battles, while the einherjar fight one another in Odin's courtyard until their day comes.
In the Odyssey Proteus tells Menelaus that he will not die in Argos, but that the immortals will carry him to the Elysian plain at the ends of the earth, "where life is easiest for men", with no snow, storm or rain. This is the reverse of Valhalla: Elysium is rest without fighting, Valhalla is fighting every day.
The einherjar's last fight is part of Ragnarök, the boar that is eaten and made whole again is one of the pictures of food that never runs out, and the valkyries choose the slain on the field.