The Old Norse word gjalt is borrowed from Old Irish geilt. William Sayers has described the curse of the Old Irish geilt as that of an inexperienced warrior, struck mad by terror when he hears war cries, who then flees his first battle and thereafter lives for years in the woods like a wild bird, frightened of humans, hunting with nails grown to claws, and sometimes growing feathers. The Old Norse use of the motif of the geilt/gjalt (and this borrowed word) is not so intricate in the Icelandic sagas, where the man who becomes a gjalt is often simply paralyzed by fear temporarily (hence my
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