Einherjar Meaning: Odin’s Chosen Warriors

Einherjar is the name for the warriors who die in battle and are brought to Valhalla by the valkyries. The word is usually read as ‘those who fight alone’ or ‘the lone champions’.

Grímnismál describes their hall: five hundred and forty doors, and when the day comes to fight the wolf, eight hundred warriors will walk out of each of them side by side. Until then, each morning the Einherjar arm themselves, go out to the yard and fight. By evening the dead are whole again and they ride home to the feast.

They eat the boar Sæhrímnir, cooked each day in the cauldron Eldhrímnir by the cook Andhrímnir, and the boar is whole again by the next. Their drink is mead from the udder of the goat Heiðrún, who feeds on the leaves of the tree Læraðr. All of this is training for one day: when Ragnarök comes they march out to fight alongside Odin.

Sources: Poetic Edda (Grímnismál, Völuspá) and Snorri’s Prose Edda (Gylfaginning).