[repr. OE. wælcyrie, -cyrʓe wk. fem., lit. ‘chooser of the slain,’ f. wæl WALE sb.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, walcyrʓe. Ibid., H 87. Herinis, walcriʓʓe. Ibid., T 159. Tisifone, uualcyrʓe.
c. 1000. in Cockayne, Narratiunculæ (1861), 34. Þa deor habbaþ eahta fet and walkyrian eaʓan [L. oculos Gorgoneos].
c. 1050. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 360/3. Bellona, wælcyrʓe. Ibid., 533/26. Allecto, wælcyrʓe.
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 wælcyrjan and unlybwyrhtan.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1577. Wychez & walkyries wonnen to þat sale.
Hence Walkyric a. [-IC], of or pertaining to the Walkyries.
1893. Upper Des Moines, 27 Dec., 7/1. It [Fashion] is inspired now by the caprice of an artist who has become popular for the moment, again by a play in vogue, or by some circumstance. So we have the ‘Walkyric’ swings, [etc.].
1913. A. Harrison in Engl. Rev., Aug., 110. Thompson’s odes read like Walkyric word-battles.
