Among those shadowy _Edda_ matters, amid all that fantastic congeries of
assertions, and traditions, in their musical Mythologies, the main
practical belief a man could have was probably not much more than this: of
the _Valkyrs_ and the _Hall of Odin_; of an inflexible _Destiny_; and that
the one thing needful for a man was _to be brave_. The _Valkyrs_ are
Choosers of the Slain: a Destiny inexorable, which it is useless trying to
bend or soften, has appointed who is to be slain; this was a fundamental
point for the Norse believer;--as indeed it is for all earnest men
everywhere, for a Mahomet, a Luther, for a Napoleon too. It lies at the
basis this for every such man; it is the woof out of which his whole system
of thought is woven. The _Valkyrs_; and then that these _Choosers_ lead
the brave to a heavenly _Hall of Odin_; only the base and slavish being
thrust elsewhither, into the realms of Hela the Death-goddess: I take this
to have been the soul of the whole Norse Belief. They understood in their
heart that it was indispensable to be brave; that Odin would have no favor
for them, but despise and thrust them out, if they were not brave.
Consider too whether there is not something in this! It is an everlasting
duty, valid in our day as in that, the duty of being brave. _Valor_ is
still _value_. The first duty for a man is still that of subduing _Fear_.
We must get rid of Fear; we cannot act at all till then. A man's acts are
slavish, not true but specious; his very thoughts are false, he thinks too
as a slave and coward, till he have got Fear under his feet. Odin's creed,
if we disentangle the real kernel of it, is true to this hour. A man shall
and must be valiant; he must march forward, and quit himself like a
man,--trusting imperturbably in the appointment and _choice_ of the upper
Powers; and, on the whole, not fear at all. Now and always, the
completeness of his victory over Fear will determine how much of a man he
is.