Battle spirits play an important role in the lives of warriors. It is considered a bad omen when they appear to warriors previous to battle. They seem to reign over life and death, but are they connected to fate? Are they just evil beings who delight in slaughter and blood or is it possible that they also have a more affectionate, protecting side? Morrígan evidently shows this protectiveness when Cú Chulainn is concerned, but how about the Old-Norse valkyrjur? In this paper I investigate different situations in which battle spirits appear in both the medieval Irish and the Old-Norse literature.
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