The Valkyrie

• Watchlist

Over in Denmark they still believe in Valkyries. Legend has it that Valkyries are earth-banished goddesses of war who have excited the ire of the great god, Thor, so that he has shot them down to earth on zig-zag bolts of lightning. The daughter of anyone is likely to be a Valkyrie, believe the superstitious Danes and it was this ingrained superstition that one little Danish girl, the descendant of a long line of Norse kings, found out to her sorrow to be a real cause of trouble and woe. For some reason, probably because she was so beautiful and light and gay herself, a report began to spread that she was a Valkyrie, and so to be avoided. The poor little girl could not understand why her mountain neighbors (she lived in the mountains herself with an aunt, since her family fortunes had long since fled) avoided her and made her generally unhappy. Things for her reached a climax when a pretty little mountain girl tried to emulate her dancing in the woods and slipped and fell into a marsh and was drowned. The death of the mountain girl was the signal for a general uprising of the superstitious neighbors. However, such a circumstance hurt the girl herself; it vastly pleased her aunt, who saw in it a way to force the girl to marry a wealthy old nobleman who had long tried to force the young girl to marry him, only to be ridiculed for his pains. The girl refused to marry him, and the nobleman made sneering remarks about her. A young American, who heard the criticism, resented it and the quarrel resulted in a duel in which the nobleman was wounded. Upon the advice of his friends the American left for American shores. Of course, the departure of the American again left a clear field for the old man, who, after all, was only slightly injured, but it did him no good, as the girl decided to go out in the world and make her own way. She became a famous dancer. Her beauty attracted the attention of those interested in the "Valkyrie Laurels," the king's prize, given every five years to the Norse maiden most closely typifying all the Norse ideals, with the result that she entered the contest, and won. She received an offer to go to America and there her successes in dancing were multiplied. One day she met the American whom she had seen a few times while she was a wood nymph. He did not recognize her. And she, poor, foolish girl, believed it was because he did not want to. It really seemed there was nothing left for her to do but to accept the rich old nobleman, who had closely followed her wherever her fortunes led, until another day, when she was visiting some newfound friends at their country place in Long Island she came to know the real nature of her aged wooer. She accidentally came across the nobleman plotting with the young American's jockey to ruin the young man by causing his horse to lose a race on which his fortune depended. The dancer went immediately to the young American's trainer, exposed the plot and offered to ride the horse herself. She won the race and the old nobleman threatened to make all kinds of trouble until he met the substituted jockey who told him to leave the country at once, or face exposure. The dancer and the young American were brought together at last, and everything ends happily.