Hjaðningavíg

The Hjaðningavíg is the never-ending battle of Norse legend. Two armies destroy each other every day, and every night a woman's sorcery puts the corpses back on their feet to do it again until the end of the world. It is one of the oldest European images of the dead raised in mass by magic and compelled to act with no will of their own. The motif of an army that cannot stay dead recurs throughout later fantasy and horror.1