According to Njal's Saga, on the morning of the Battle of Clontarf, a Caithness man, named Dörruðr (Daurrud), watched the "choosers of the slain" - the Valkyries - as they worked on a grisly loom, on which they controlled the fates of the armies in far off Ireland. Their song, known as Darraðarljoð, was still recited in the Norn language in North Ronaldsay in the late eighteenth century. "On Good-Friday that event happened in Caithness that a man whose name was Daurrud went out. He saw folk riding twelve together to a bower, and there they were all lost to his sight. He went to that bower and looked in through a window slit that was in it, and saw that there were women inside, and they had set up a loom. Men's heads were the weights, but men's entrails were the warp and weft, a sword was the shuttle, and the reels were arrows. They sang these songs, and he learnt them by heart: "See! warp is stretched

For warriors' fall,

Lo! weft in loom 'Tis wet with blood;

Now fight foreboding,

'Neath friends' swift fingers,

Our grey woof waxeth

With war's alarms,

Our warp bloodred,

Our weft corseblue. "This woof is y-woven

With entrails of men,

This warp is hardweighted

With heads of the slain,

Spears blood-besprinkled

For spindles we use,

Our loom ironbound,

And arrows our reels;

With swords for our shuttles

This war-woof we work;

So weave we, weird sisters,

Our warwinning woof. "Now Warwinner walketh

To weave in her turn,

Now Swordswinger steppeth,

Now Swiftstroke, now Storm;

When they speed the shuttle

How spearheads shall flash!

Shields crash, and helmgnawer

On harness bite hard! "Wind we, wind swiftly

Our warwinning woof

Woof erst for king youthful

Foredoomed as his own,

Forth now we will ride,

Then through the ranks rushing

Be busy where friends

Blows blithe give and take. "Wind we, wind swiftly

Our warwinning woof,

After that let us steadfastly

Stand by the brave king;

Then men shall mark mournful

Their shields red with gore,

How Swordstroke and Spearthrust

Stood stout by the prince. "Wind we, wind swiftly

Our warwinning woof.

When sword-bearing rovers

To banners rush on,

Mind, maidens, we spare not

One life in the fray!

We corse-choosing sisters

Have charge of the slain. "Now new-coming nations

That island shall rule,

Who on outlying headlands

Abode ere the fight;

I say that King mighty

To death now is done,

Now low before spearpoint

That Earl bows his head. "Soon over all Ersemen

Sharp sorrow shall fall,

That woe to those warriors

Shall wane nevermore;

Our woof now is woven.

Now battlefield waste,

O'er land and o'er water

War tidings shall leap. "Now surely 'tis gruesome

To gaze all around.

When bloodred through heaven

Drives cloudrack o'er head;

Air soon shall be deep hued

With dying men's blood

When this our spaedom

Comes speedy to pass. "So cheerily chant we

Charms for the young king,

Come maidens lift loudly

His warwinning lay;

Let him who now listens

Learn well with his ears

And gladden brave swordsmen

With bursts of war's song. "Now mount we our horses,

Now bare we our brands,

Now haste we hard, maidens,

Hence far, far, away." Then they plucked down the woof and tore it asunder, and each kept what she had hold of. Now Daurrud goes away from the slit, and home; but they got on their steeds and rode six to the south, and the other six to the north. A like event befell Brand Gneisti's son in the Faroe Isles." Njal's Saga - Ch 156