{"id":12310,"date":"2021-04-24T22:44:16","date_gmt":"2021-04-24T22:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=12310"},"modified":"2023-09-18T19:39:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T19:39:22","slug":"until-valhalla-norse-mythology-decoded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/until-valhalla-norse-mythology-decoded\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Until Valhalla&#8221; \u2014 Norse Mythology Decoded!"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>img#mv-trellis-img-1::before{padding-top:56.25%; }img#mv-trellis-img-1{display:block;}<\/style><p>Death is an inescapable part of life, however depressing that might be. Different cultures have reconciled themselves with this fact in different ways.<\/p>\n<p>In Japan, there has traditionally been a Buddhist-inspired acceptance of life&rsquo;s impermanence.<\/p>\n<p>Others believe in doing good works while alive and thus earning themselves a place in a heavenly afterlife.<\/p>\n<p>Some might even argue that much of modern-day United States culture, with its focus on youthful looks and activities, is an attempt to ignore the inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>Today, we&rsquo;ll look at a phrase somewhere in the middle: Until Valhalla.<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>What does the phrase &ldquo;until Valhalla&rdquo; mean?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Valhalla (literally &ldquo;the hall of the slain&rdquo;) is a hall in Norse mythology where dead warriors are taken in the afterlife. The phrase &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; is used by some military groups as an unofficial rallying cry before situations where people may die or as a general parting comment. The phrase has also been picked up by groups of people who revere the armed forces as a way to respect dead soldiers and raise awareness of veteran suicide.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Valhalla: The Hall of the Slain<\/h2>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-14538 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla.jpeg\" alt=\"Until Valhalla\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla.jpeg 854w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-768x432.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-480x270.jpeg 480w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-720x405.jpeg 720w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-320x180.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-735x413.jpeg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-335x188.jpeg 335w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-347x195.jpeg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-520x293.jpeg 520w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-640x360.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-960x540.jpeg 960w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-1080x608.jpeg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) calc(100vw - 20px), 720px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla.jpeg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-14538 size-full eager-load\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201280%20720'%3E%3Crect%20width='1280'%20height='720'%20style='fill:%23e3e3e3'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Until Valhalla\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) calc(100vw - 20px), 720px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla.jpeg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla.jpeg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla.jpeg 854w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-768x432.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-480x270.jpeg 480w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-720x405.jpeg 720w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-320x180.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-735x413.jpeg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-335x188.jpeg 335w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-347x195.jpeg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-520x293.jpeg 520w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-640x360.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-960x540.jpeg 960w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Until-Valhalla-1080x608.jpeg 1080w\" data-svg=\"1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\">In Norse mythology, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.augie.edu\/viking-vocabulary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Valhalla<\/a> <\/strong>(Old Norse Valh&#491;ll) is a hall in Asgard, the realm of the Norse gods and the home of Odin, the god of wisdom, war, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/female-wizard\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sorcery<\/a><\/strong> and many other things.<\/p>\n<p>As befits a god of war, the hall of Valhalla is filled with warriors. Specifically, all those who die in combat are taken to Valhalla, where they are destined to fight at Odin&rsquo;s side during the catastrophic events of a world-shattering battle called Ragnar&ouml;k.<\/p>\n<p>This explanation of the word Valhalla should already make clear some of the phrase &ldquo;Until Valhalla.&rdquo; There are clear martial overtones and a sense of death in combat not being the end.<\/p>\n<p>But what about the rest of the phrase?<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Until as a measurement of time<\/h2>\n<p>The word &ldquo;until&rdquo; is typically used to refer to an action that will continue for a set amount of time.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if you stayed up <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-until\/\">until<\/a> <\/strong>midnight to read this article you&rsquo;ll probably be tired in the morning.<\/p>\n<p>The word can also be used to refer to geographic distances rather than time, especially when giving someone directions like &ldquo;Go straight until you see the stop <a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/tell-tale-sign\/\">sign.&rdquo;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Valhalla is neither a time nor an actual place, so the use of &ldquo;until&rdquo; here seems strange at first. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-or-after-however\/\">However<\/a><\/strong>, there is also a third way to use the word &ldquo;until&rdquo; in a more extended sense.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, the phrase &ldquo;until we meet again&rdquo; refers to something that is not an exact time. Rather, it is a nonspecific future time and place.<\/p>\n<p>The use of &ldquo;until&rdquo; in &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; is similar, suggesting that the people using it will meet there, at least metaphorically.<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>The Meaning of &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo;<\/h2>\n<p>Now that we&rsquo;ve explored the parts of &ldquo;Until Valhalla,&rdquo; we can take a look at the phrase as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>As noted above, in general the sense of this phrase is that the people in the conversation will meet again someday.<\/p>\n<p>However, in practice the phrase &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; is used mostly in the armed forces of various countries as a way to suggest that those who die in combat are gone but not forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>Although the phrase has ties to Norse mythology, its use in modern times does not suggest that the person using the phrase adheres to a particular religious belief system.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, many who use the phrase today are likely to be Christian or some other religion, rather than actual believers in Valhalla.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it&rsquo;s simply a way to acknowledge the danger of combat and suggest that there are rewards for a life spent fighting others.<\/p>\n<h3>Examples<\/h3>\n<p>&ldquo;I hear gunshots. Time to roll.&rdquo;<br>\n&ldquo;Until Valhalla, my friends!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>This imagined conversation before a combat situation shows a typical use of &ldquo;Until Valhalla.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m shipping out next week, so it might be a while before we can hang out again.&rdquo;<br>\n&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a pity, bro. Until Valhalla!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Here, a civilian uses &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; to send off a friend. Note that this is probably not something you should emulate in real life.<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>&ldquo;Til Valhall!&rdquo; and the Norwegian Armed Forces<\/h2>\n<p>&ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; may be tied to a thousand-year-old mythology, but its use in modern times is not without controversy.<\/p>\n<p>One particular branch of the Norwegian armed forces called the Telemark Battalion drew criticism in 2010 when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GxOSqSUgNzE&amp;t=18s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a video<\/a><\/strong> was published of one of its commanders shouting &ldquo;Til Valhall!&rdquo; (Until Valhalla in Norwegian) to a group of soldiers along with suggesting that they were the &ldquo;predators&rdquo; of Afghan Islamist movement the Taliban.<\/p>\n<p>The reason some Norwegians were upset by this is that the armed forces were meant to be in Afghanistan to work with the ISAF, a joint mission from NATO members to improve security in the region and keep Afghani people safe, so their shouting about hunting, death and Valhalla was seen as inappropriate.<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>&ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; and suicide awareness<\/h2>\n<p>More recently, the phrase &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; has been picked up by nonprofit organizations focusing on the high suicide rates among armed forces veterans.<\/p>\n<p>Here as well, the implied meaning is that those who died in combat are being honored and will not be forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>There are several organizations that sell merchandise with the phrase &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; written on it, the proceeds of which goes towards funding suicide awareness and other lifesaving efforts targeted at veterans of the armed forces.<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Using &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; if you&rsquo;re not in the military<\/h2>\n<p>As we&rsquo;ve said before here on Linguaholic, there&rsquo;s no such thing as the language police.<\/p>\n<p>Again, though, it&rsquo;s worth considering whether any phrase you use in conversation is one created by and used by a specific group of people.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, you&rsquo;re probably better off not using &ldquo;Until Valhalla&rdquo; unless you yourself are in the military.<\/p>\n<p>If you&rsquo;re a civilian, your use of the phrase might be seen as trying to pass yourself off as something you&rsquo;re not.<\/p>\n<p>Some members of the armed forces might also not like or use the phrase at all, as its use is certainly far from universal.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to express your appreciation for the risks a soldier puts themself in on the battlefield, try the more general &ldquo;Thank you for your service,&rdquo; instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Death is an inescapable part of life, however depressing that might be. Different cultures have reconciled themselves with this fact in different ways. In Japan, there has traditionally been a Buddhist-inspired acceptance of life&rsquo;s impermanence. Others believe in doing good works while alive and thus earning themselves a place in a heavenly afterlife. Some might &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1117],"tags":[524,523],"class_list":["post-12310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-vocabulary","tag-until-valhalla","tag-valhalla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12310"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14539,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12310\/revisions\/14539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}