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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thotas" data-source="post: 2090576" data-attributes="member: 18974">This is a passage I just love; I apologize for it's length, but I think it's worthy.  Anybody recognize it?  I'll be back in a couple of days to check, and if nobody's identified it yet, I'll provide the reference.“Across the Glittering Plains, which stretch as far as the eye can see from the steep rock on which Valhalla is built, Wotan had mustered the Army of the Storm.  In their squadrons and regiments were assembled the Light and Dark Elves, the spirits of the unquiet dead, the hosts of Hela.  At the head of each regiment rode a Valkyrie, dressed in her terrifying armour, the very sight of which is enough to turn the wits of the most fearless of heroes.  Around his shoulders, Wotan cast the Mantle of Terror, and on his head he fastened the helmet that the dwarves had made him from the fingernails of dead champions in the gloomy caverns of Nifleheim. He nodded his head, and Loge brought him the great spear Gungnir, the symbol and source of all his power.  When he had first come to rule the earth, he had cut its shaft from the branches of Yggdrasil, the great ash tree that stands between the worlds, causing the tree to wither and die and making inevitable the final downfall of the Gods.  Onto this spearshaft, Loge had marked the runes of the Great Covenant between the God and his subjects.Wotan raised his right hand, and the Valkyrie Waltraute, who closed the eyes of men in battle, led forward his eight-legged horse, the cloud-trampling Sleipnir.  Above his head hovered two black ravens.Without a word, Wotan vaulted onto the back of his charger.  As the first bolt of lightning ripped the black clouds he brandished the great spear as a sgn to his army to his army, the Wutunde Heer.It was over a thousand years since the hosts of Valhalla had ridden to war on the wings of the storm, and the world had forgotten how to be afraid.  Like a  vast cloud of locusts or a shower of arrows they flew, blotting out the light from the earth.  At the head of the wild procession galloped Wotan; behind him Donner, Tyr, Froh, Heimdall, Njord, and Loge, who carried the banner of darkness.  Close on their heels came the eight Valkyries; Grimgerde, Waltraute, Seigrune, Helmwige, Ortlinde, Schwertleite, Gerhilde, and Rossweise, baying like wolves to spur on the grim company that followed them, the terrible spirits of fear and discord. Each of the eight companies bore its own hideous banner -- Hunger, War, Disease, Intolerance, Ignorance, Greed, Hatred and Despair; these were the badges of Wotan’s army.  Behind the army like a pack of hounds intoxicated by the chase followed the wind and the rain, lashing indiscriminately at friend and foe.  Behind them, forests were flattened, towns and villages were swept away, even the mountains seemed to tremble and cower at the fury of their passing.  With a rush, they swept over the Norn Fells and past the dead branches of the World Ash.  As they passed it, lightning fell among its withered leaves, setting it alight.  Soon the whole fell was burning, and the flames hissed and swayed at the foot of Valhalla Rock.  As the army of the God of Battles passed between the worlds, the castle itself caught fire and began to burn furiously, lighting up the whole world with a bright red glow.The army passed high over the frozen desert of the Arctic, convulsing the ice-covered waters with the shock of their motion, and flitted over Scandinavia like an enormous bird of prey, whose very shadow paralyses the helpless victim.  As they wheeled and banked over Germany, the Rhine rose up as if to meet them, bursting its banks and flooding  the flat plains between Essen  and Nijmegen.  Wotan, his whole form framed with the lightning, laughed when he saw it, and his laughter brought towers and cathedrals crashing to the ground.  And as the army followed its dreadful course, black clouds of squeaking, gibbering  spirits leapt up to swell its numbers, as all the dark, tormented forces of the earth were drawn as if capillary action into the fold of the Lord of Tempests.  The very noise of their wings was deafening, and when they swept low the earth split open, as if shrinking back in horror.  But however vast and awesome this great force might seem, most terrible of all was Wotan, like a burning arrow at its head.  As he flew headlong over the North Sea, the heat of his anger turned the waters to steam, and soon the forests of Scotland were burning as brightly as Valhalla itself.  As the army neared its goal, it seemed to concentrate into a cloud of tangible darkness, forcing its way through the air as it bore down like a meteor on one little village in the West of England.”</blockquote>

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