 Davidson places emphasis on the fact that valkyrie literally means " chooser of the slain " . She compares Wulfstan 's mention of a " chooser of the slain " in his Sermo Lupi ad Anglos sermon , which appears among " a blacklist of sinners , witches and evildoers " , to " all the other classes whom he [ Wulfstan ] mentions " , and concludes as those " are human ones , it seems unlikely that he has introduced mythological figures as well . " Davidson points out that Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan 's detailed account of a 10th @-@ century Rus ship funeral on the Volga River features an " old Hunnish woman , massive and grim to look upon " ( who Fadlan refers to as the " Angel of Death " ) who organises the killing of the slave girl , and has two other women with her that Fadlan refers to as her daughters . Davidson says that " it would hardly be surprising if strange legends grew up about such women , who must have been kept apart from their kind due to their gruesome duties . Since it was often decided by lot which prisoners should be killed , the idea that the god " chose " his victims , through the instrument of the priestesses , must have been a familiar one , apart from the obvious assumption that some were chosen to fall in war . " Davidson says that it appears that from " early times " the Germanic peoples " believed in fierce female spirits doing the command of the war god , stirring up disorder , taking part in battle , seizing and perhaps devouring the slain . " 
