Asklemmy

Nah this was a deliberately comedic scene in Gautreks Saga where members of a family keep sacrificing themselves for absurd reasons. There is some possibility that something like this could have happened in some parts of Norse society but there’s no evidence it was a requirement for entry into Valhalla (Old Norse Valhǫll).

In fact, whereas the Prose Edda (a 13th-century narrative guide to understanding skaldic poetry) does claim that those who fall in battle end up in Valhǫll, and this is supported by evidence from pre-Christian poems such as Grímnismál, Norse mythological sources are actually littered with attestations of people dying in combat but not going to Valhǫll, as well as people dying outside of combat but still ending up in Valhǫll.

One example of this is the character Sinfjǫtli from Vǫlsunga Saga. Sinfjǫtli is poisoned by his mother-in-law at a party, and his father Sigmundr carries his dead body down to the shore where a ferryman offers to take it across the water. Once the body is on the boat, it turns out the ferryman is Odin and he disappears with the body which is elsewhere confirmed to have ended up in Valhǫll in the poem Eiríksmál.

Scholar Jens Peter Schjødt theorized in Pre-Christian Religions of the North that entry into Valhǫll is predicated on a person being dedicated to Odin, which is something a person could do for themselves ritualistically (there are references to marking oneself with a spear for Odin) or could also be done to you by an enemy who has set out to kill you and intends to “give” you to Odin as a way of showing his own dedication.