Only darkness could not be held off by the will of men. - Andre Norton

They’re females right enough, and they can make the impossible happen. I’d say that classifies them as witches.

Stout men, not stout walls, make a well-held city.

Treasure! That word, which had always been so exciting, meant something different now. Fafnir had taken the treasure and turned from man into monster because of his greed for it. Mimir, who had been Sigurd’s master and good friend—when the treasure had lain before him, he, too, became a monster, in another way. Then Sigurd had made his choice, to leave the evil, and so he had gone away a hero.