Guide · The Eddas
Valhalla vs Folkvangr: Who Goes Where
Where the Norse sources send the dead, and where they stop saying.
Short answer: Odin takes half of those killed in battle to Valhalla, and Freyja takes the other half to Folkvangr. The Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda say exactly that, and neither says more about how the halves are chosen. Those who die of sickness or old age go to Hel.
Valhalla, Folkvangr and Hel side by side
| Feature | Valhalla | Folkvangr | Hel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruler | Odin, in Asgard | Freyja, in her hall Sessrumnir | Hel, in Helheim |
| Who goes | Half of the slain in battle, chosen each day | The other half of the slain, chosen by Freyja | Those who die of sickness or old age |
| What the dead do | The einherjar fight each day, are healed, and feast | Not stated in the sources | Cold monotony, per the atlas entry; not a place of punishment |
| Main passages | Grimnismal 8, 18, 23; Vafthruthnismal 41 | Grimnismal 14; Gylfaginning | Gylfaginning |
What the Poetic Edda says
Grimnismal is a poem in which Odin, in disguise, lists the halls of the gods. Two stanzas decide the question. Quotations are from Henry Adams Bellows's translation.
The fifth is Glathsheim, and gold-bright there / Stands Valhall stretching wide; / And there does Othin each day choose / The men who have fallen in fight.
The ninth is Folkvang, where Freyja decrees / Who shall have seats in the hall; / The half of the dead each day does she choose, / And half does Othin have.
The same poem describes Valhalla in some detail. Its rafters are spears and its roof is shields (stanza 9). The cook Andhrimnir boils the boar Saehrimnir for the warriors (stanza 18). The hall has 540 doors, and 800 fighters go through each when they march against the wolf (stanza 23). The goat Heidrun stands by the hall and fills a pitcher with mead (stanza 25). Valkyries bring the warriors beer (stanza 36). In Vafthruthnismal 41, the giant says the heroes in Odin's hall go out to fight each day, and “fare from the fight / All healed full soon to sit.”
What the Prose Edda adds
Snorri Sturluson wrote the Prose Edda around 1220 as a handbook for poets, and it is the other main source for both halls.
Freyja is the most famous of the goddesses. She has in heaven a dwelling which is called Folkvang, and when she rides to the battle, one half of the slain belong to her, and the other half to Odin.
Snorri repeats the half-and-half split from Grimnismal and names Freyja's hall: Sessrumnir, which he calls great and fair. He also lists “Possessor of the Slain” among her titles in the Skaldskaparmal. For the third destination he gives the goddess Hel her own realm:
Hel he cast into Niflheim, and gave her power over nine worlds, that she should appoint abodes to them that are sent to her, namely, those who die from sickness or old age.
Where the sources differ
- Ynglinga saga. In Snorri's history of the early Swedish kings (Heimskringla, chapter 8), Odin makes a law that all dead men be burned with their property, so that “every one will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile.” Here Valhalla receives the cremated dead, with no mention of battle or of Freyja's half (Laing translation).
- Egil's saga. After her brother dies, Egil's daughter Thorgerd refuses supper: “none will I have till I sup with Freyja.” She expects to be with Freyja without having fallen in battle, which neither Edda mentions.
- When the choice is made. Grimnismal has both Odin and Freyja choose “each day.” Snorri ties Freyja's share to the moment she “rides to the battle.” The two texts do not say the same thing about timing.
What the sources do not say
- No passage on this page gives a rule for how Freyja or Odin chooses. Valor, rank, weapon or sex are all modern guesses.
- Nothing quoted here says what the dead do in Folkvangr. The feasting and fighting belong to Valhalla.
- Hel is not described as a place of punishment. The atlas entry for Helheim calls it a cold, continuing place, not a moral furnace, which differs from Christian ideas of hell.
- The Eddas were written down in Christian Iceland, in the 1200s, centuries after the beliefs they describe. Treat each as one medieval voice, not a pagan creed (the atlas's Asgard entry makes the same point about Snorri).
Questions readers ask
- Who goes to Valhalla?
- Half of those who die in battle. The Poetic Edda has Odin choose them each day in his hall Valhalla (Grimnismal 8, 14). There they fight each day, are healed, and feast (Vafthruthnismal 41, Grimnismal 18).
- Who goes to Folkvangr?
- The other half of those who die in battle, chosen by Freyja (Grimnismal 14; Gylfaginning). The sources do not say how she chooses or what the dead do there, beyond that her hall in the field is called Sessrumnir.
- Where do people who die of illness or old age go?
- To Hel. The Prose Edda gives the goddess Hel power over nine worlds and says she appoints abodes to those who die from sickness or old age (Gylfaginning). The atlas notes this is a cold, continuing place, not a Christian hell.
- Is Folkvangr only for women or for peaceful people?
- No passage quoted on this page says so. Grimnismal and Gylfaginning both describe a split of the battle dead between Odin and Freyja. The idea that Folkvangr receives women, or the dead who did not fight, is a modern reading, not a stated rule.
- What does Folkvangr mean?
- Roughly 'field of the folk', which is how Bellows renders it in his notes to the Poetic Edda. Freyja's hall inside it is Sessrumnir, which Snorri calls great and fair.
- Does every Norse source agree?
- No. Grimnismal and Gylfaginning split the slain between Odin and Freyja. Snorri's Ynglinga saga instead has Odin's law send the cremated dead to Valhalla with their goods, and Egil's saga has a woman say she will not eat until she sups with Freyja.