Description: Starkaðr and
Vébjörg
fighting in the midst of the Battle of Brávellir in
Louis Moe's retelling of the story. Literal translation of the Danish text for page 82:
With lightning-quick blows Vébjörg meets the warrior. In her
mind’s eye young Haraldr stands before her, just as when the red
blood flowed from the wound in his breast, and the blows fall
even quicker, dazzling and tearing. Starkaðr knows not who the
bold shield-maiden is, whose blows he cannot defect because he
knows not where they will strike. Her fierce beauty dazzles him,
could Valhöll perhaps stand behind her? Is she an invincible
valkyrie? Editor's Note.
Source: Valkyrien: Romantisk Digtning i Billeder og
Tekst
Folio or Page: 82
Medium: Not known
Date: 1930
Dimensions (mm): 130 x 110
Provenance:
This copy of Valkyrien was
donated to the MacPherson Library at the University of Victoria by
Trish Baer.
Call number: PZ54.1 M65 1931
The University of Victoria Library photographed this copy of Valkyrien: Romantisk Digtning i Billeder
og Tekst at the request of Dr. P.A. Baer, Medieval
Studies, as 600 dpi tiffs with a Plustek OpticBook A300 (lrg book
scanner)
Rights:
Illustrations by Louis Moe came into the public domain on January 1,
2017.
Bibliography:
Primary Sources
Moe,
Louis Maria Niels Peder
Halling. Valkyrien:
Romantisk Digtning. København:
Gyldendal, 1930.
Secondary Sources
Cleasby, Richard
and
Vigfússon
Guðbrandur
. An Icelandic-English Dictionary.
Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957.
Saxo (Grammaticus). Danmarks krønike.
Edited by
Fr. Winkel
Horn,
Copenhagen: A. Christiansens
Kunstforlag, 1898.
―. The History of the Danes.
Translated by
Peter
Fisher,
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer,
1976.
Battle of Brávellir (non.)
Battle of Bravellir (en.)
A legendary battle described in Saxo's Gesta
Danorum and elsewhere in eddaic poetry and several
sagas.
Historical Persons, i.e. from Heimskringla, Saxo, sagas etc.
Starkaðr (non.)
Starkad (en.)
A legendary warrior who appears in many sources including Saxo’s
Gesta Danorum (c. 1204) and Olaus Magnus’s
Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555).
Vébjörg (non.)
Vebjorg (en.)
A shield maiden in Saxo's Gesta Danorum who
died at the Battle of Brávellir. She is the shield maiden in Louis Moe's
Valkyrien who becomes a
Valkyrie.
Source Materials:
Danmarks Kronike (da.)
Gesta Danorum (la.)
This edition of Saxo's Gesta Danorum was
translated and published by Fr. Winkel Horn and illustrated by Louis
Moe. Moe recycled some of his illustrations from Winkel Horn's edition
of Noreges konge-sagaer.
Gesta Danorum (la.)
Saxo Grammaticus's thirteenth century prose work concerning Danish
mythology and history.
Valkyrien: Romantisk Digtning (da.)
Valkyrie: An illustrated
romance (en.)
Louis Moe's illustrated retelling of the life and death of the
legendary Danish shield maiden Vébjörg.
Source Persons
Moe,
Louis (no.)
b. 1857
d. 1945
Nationality: Norwegian/Danish.
Occupation: illustrator
Residence: Copenhagen
Moe was an illustrator who was born in Norway but became a Danish
citizen in 1919.
Saxo
Grammaticus (la.)
b. 1150
d. 1220
Nationality: Danish
Occupation: cleric
Saxo wrote the Gesta Danorum, which is known
in English as The History of the Danes . His
account of mythological Norse gods and heroes is heavily
euhemerized.
