The Saga of Erik the Red is probably the most comprehensive information today about Norse seeresses.
There was in the settlement the woman whose name was Thorbjorg. She was a prophetess (spae-queen), and was called Litilvolva (little sybil). She had had nine sisters, and they were all spae-queens, and she was the only one now living.
It was written in a time when Christianity had come to Iceland and the old gods were becoming only a memory. Thorbjorg is obviously a very well respected woman. Like many of her ilk, she travels from farmstead to farmstead and is very lavishly received. We are told in great detail what she wears and this is obviously very important as one of the items is a cat-skin cloak. The cat was the sacred animal of Freyja, the originator of seiðr. We are not told what the talismans were, but perhaps they were rune staves.
Now, when she came in the evening, accompanied by the man who had been sent to meet her, she was dressed in such wise that she had a blue mantle over her, with strings for the neck, and it was inlaid with gems quite down to the skirt. On her neck she had glass beads. On her head she had a black hood of lambskin, lined with ermine. A staff she had in her hand, with a knob thereon; it was ornamented with brass, and inlaid with gems round about the knob. Around her she wore a girdle of soft hair, and therein was a large skin-bag, in which she kept the talismans needful to her in her wisdom. She wore hairy calf-skin shoes on her feet, with long and strong-looking thongs to them, and great knobs of latten at the ends. On her hands she had gloves of ermine-skin, and they were white and hairy within.
In Erik the Red’s Saga the writer describes in detail the lavish preparation for the arrival of the spae-queen, Thorbjorg:
It was a custom of Thorbjorg, in the winter time, to make a circuit, and people invited her to their houses, especially those who had any curiosity about the season, or desired to know their fate… He invited, therefore, the spae-queen to his house, and prepared for her a hearty welcome, as was the custom wherever a reception was accorded a woman of this kind. A high seat was prepared for her, and a cushion laid thereon in which were poultry-feathers.
During the evening the tables were set; and now I must tell you what food was made ready for the spae-queen. There was prepared for her porridge of kid’s milk, and hearts of all kinds of living creatures there found were cooked for her. She had a brazen spoon, and a knife with a handle of walrus-tusk, which was mounted with two rings of brass, and the point of it was broken off.
One thing that was very important were the women who were able to chant the “wyrd” songs or fate songs. “Wyrd” was an archaic term referring to fate. We see it in Shakespeare’s “weird sisters”, in his tragic play, Macbeth, the three witches take on the persona of the three Norns of Norse myth. Wyrd became corrupted as “weird” in modern English, to mean something strange and unknown, which when you think about it, is fitting as our fates are pretty strange and unknown to us.
And when the (next) day was far spent, the preparations were made for her which she required for the exercise of her enchantments. She begged them to bring to her those women who were acquainted with the lore needed for the exercise of the enchantments, and which is known by the name of Weird-songs, but no such women came forward. Then was search made throughout the homestead if any woman were so learned.
We see that in Erik the Red’s Saga, that the old ways and the old songs are already becoming lost as Christianity takes hold in Iceland. Gudrid may well be the last generation to know how to chant the spells necessary for spae-magic to take place.
Then answered Gudrid, “I am not skilled in deep learning, nor am I a wise-woman, although Halldis, my foster-mother, taught me, in Iceland, the lore which she called Weird-songs.”
“Then art thou wise in good season,” answered Thorbjorg; but Gudrid replied, “That lore and the ceremony are of such a kind, that I purpose to be of no assistance therein, because I am a Christian woman.”
Then answered Thorbjorg, “Thou mightest perchance afford thy help to the men in this company, and yet be none the worse woman than thou wast before…”
Thorkell thereupon urged Gudrid to consent, and she yielded to his wishes. The women formed a ring round about, and Thorbjorg ascended the scaffold and the seat prepared for her enchantments. Then sang Gudrid the weird-song in so beautiful and excellent a manner, that to no one there did it seem that he had ever before heard the song in voice so beautiful as now.
In The Serpentine Key, Freydis is a seiðkona. Seiðkona means literally “woman of seething”. Freydis walks the nine worlds, speaking to the spirits and sometimes bringing back messages from the gods. In my writing, I leave the experience up to the interpretation of the reader. Did she have a real transcendental experience? Did she become high from the henbane and hempr (old Germanic word for cannabis) seeds thrown on the fire?
She settled the distaff between her thighs as if to begin spinning. But instead of wool, the end of the staff instead carried upon it a carved, whorled head. Instead of spinning, Freydis settled herself on the high platform, the catskin cloak warm over her shoulders. The ends of her fingers tingled and something deep in the pit of her stomach stirred, like a restless animal just beginning to awaken. The beat of the drum thrummed within her. The animal inside was coiled now. Watchful. Waiting. She was ready.
In The Bone Goddess, Freydis’ granddaughter Sigga learns seiðr under the tutelage of the same volva as Freydis did. Málfríðr is by this time, very old. The real Málfríðr was the mother of Vladimir Prince of Kiev and the Russian Primary Chronicle records that she lived to be over a hundred years old and even after the introduction of Christianity, was brought out from her cave (where she was presumably exiled) and called upon to prophesy. Was old Málfríðr (Malusha in the Slavic) actually a seiðkona? We may never know. The Russian Primary Chronicle tells us that she was a bondwoman and it seems unlikely that as powerful and important a woman as a seiðkona would be in bondage.
Seeresses were sometimes viewed with something more like fear. It is important to remember that there was sometimes a differentiation between seiðr and Spa. The spakona was more often likely to do good with her magic; the seiðr seeress was sometimes looked on with suspicion, perhaps because her practice involved sexual elements, though this attitude may have come about more recently with the advent of Christianity. Sometimes they were looked upon as evil, faring forth in the form of a fylgia, most often an animal or bird, intent on doing harm. The Voluspa from the Poetic Edda tells of one such sorceress:
Heid, they named her, who sought their home
The wide-seeing witch, in magic wise;
Minds she bewitched that were moved by magic
To evil women, a joy she was.
Since anything we have about seiðr today is written from a Christian perspective, after the arrival of the religion to Scandinavia, we may never know.
Resources:
Seidr: The Door is Open: Working with Trance Prophesy, the High Seat and Norse Magic by Katie Gerard
Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in North European Paganism by Jenny Blain
Seed of Yggdrasil by Maria Kvilhaug See also the author’s excellent web site: http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/