Seeress (Germanic)
 |
A völva, vala, wala (Old High German), seiðkona, spákona or wicce was a female priestess in Norse and Germanic paganism and is a recurring motif in Norse mythology.
Overview
Völvas practiced seiðr, spá and galdr, practices which encompassed shamanism, sorcery, prophecy and other forms of indigenous magic. Seiðr in particular had connotations of ergi (unmanliness), although there were male practitioners called seiðmaðr (or Wicca in Old English). Spákona is an Old Norse term for a woman who practices spæ or spá, meaning prophesy or "fore-telling". The male equivalent is spámaðr.
Historical and mythological depictions of völvas were held to possess such powers that even the father of the gods, Odin himself, consulted a völva for what the future had in store for the gods. This account is preserved in the Völuspá which roughly translates to "spá of the völva".
Examples of völva in Norse literature include the seeress Heidi (alt. Heith) in Völuspá and the witch Gróa in the Svipdagsmál.
Surviving representations
Early possible historic accounts
The earliest descriptor of women filling the role of Völva appear in Roman accounts about the Germanic Cimbri whose priestesses were aged women dressed in white. They sacrificed the prisoners of war and sprinkled their blood (see Blót), the nature of which they believed allowed them to prophesize coming events.
In his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (1, 50) Julius Caesar writes in the course of clashes with Germans under Ariovistus (58 BCE):
- When Caesar inquired of his prisoners, wherefore Ariovistus did not come to an engagement, he discovered this to be the reason -- that among the Germans it was the custom for their matrons to pronounce from lots and divination whether it were expedient that the battle should be engaged in or not; that they had said, "that it was not the will of heaven that the Germans should conquer, if they engaged in battle before the new moon."
Also Tacitus writes about female prophets among the Germans in Histories 4, 61 - notably a certain Veleda:
- [...] by ancient usage the Germans attributed to many of their women prophetic powers and, as the superstition grew in strength, even actual divinity.
Jordanes relates in his Getica (XXIV:121) of Gothic völvas called Aliorumnas. They were driven into exile by King Filimer, when the Goths had settled in Oium (Ukraine). The name is probably a corruption of a Gothic Halju-runnos[1], meaning "hell-runners" or "runners to the realm of the dead" (which refers to their shamanistic experiences during trance). These völvas were condemned to seek refuge far away and engendered the Huns.
A detailed eyewitness account of a human sacrifice by what may have been a Völva was given by Ahmad ibn Fadlan as part of his account of an embassy to the Volga Bulgars in 921. In his description of the funeral of a Scandinavian chieftain, a slave girl volunteers to die with her master. After ten days of festivities, she is stabbed to death by an old woman (a sort of priestess who is referred to as 'Angel of Death') and burnt together with the deceased in his boat (see ship burial, Oseberg).
In Old Norse society
In Old Norse society, a Völva was an elderly woman who had released herself from the strong family bonds that normally surrounded women in the Old Norse clan society. She travelled the land, usually followed by a retinue of young people, and she was summoned in times of crisis. She had immense authority and she charged well for her services.
The Saga of Eric the Red relates that the settlers in Greenland c. 1000 were suffering a time of starvation. In order to prepare for the future, the Völva Þórbjörgr was summoned. Before her arrival the whole household was thoroughly cleaned and prepared. The high seat, which was otherwise reserved for the master and his wife, was furnished with down pillows.
The Völva appeared in the evening and she was dressed in a blue or black cloak, which was decked with gems to the hem, and it reached down to her feet. In her hand, she wielded the symbolic distaff (seiðstafr), which was adorned with brass and decked with gems on the knob. In Örvar-Odd's Saga, the seiðkona also wears a blue or black cloak and carries a distaff (which allegedly has the power of causing forgetfulness in one who is tapped three times on the cheek by it). The colour of the cloak may be less significant than the fact that it was intended to signify the otherness of the seiðkona.
The Saga of Eric the Red further relates that around her neck she wore a necklace of glass pearls, and on her head she wore a headpiece of black lamb trimmed with white cat skin. Around her waist she wore a belt of tinder from which hung a large pouch, where she hid the tools that she used during the seiðr. On her feet she wore shoes of calfskin and the shoelaces had brass knobs in the ends, and on her hands she wore gloves of cat skin, which were white and fluffy inside.
As the Völva entered the room, she was hailed with reverence by the household, and then she was led to the high seat, where she was provided with dishes prepared only for her. She had a porridge made of goat milk and a dish made of hearts from all the kinds of animals at the homestead. She ate the dishes with a brass spoon and a knife whose point was broken off.
The Völva was to sleep at the farm during the night and the next day was reserved for her dance. In order to dance the seiðr, she needed special tools. First, she positioned herself on a special elevated platform and a group of young women sat down around her. The girls sang special songs intended to summon the powers that the Völva wished to communicate with. The session was a success, because the Völva was permitted to see far into the future, and the famine was averted.
Male practitioners
Men who practiced sorcery or magic were not received with the same respect, because they were dealing with a practice that was held to be the privilege of women. The Saga of Eric the Red relates that one of Harald Fairhair's sons by the Sami woman Snöfrid was a seiðmaðr. The king had him burnt to death inside a house with eighty fellow male practitioners.
Disappearance
Their disappearance was due to the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Lutheran and Reformed Churches which along with civil governments had laws enacted against them, as in this Canon law:
- "If any wicca (witch), wiglaer (wizard), false swearer, morthwyrtha (worshipper of the dead) or any foul contaminated, manifest horcwenan (whore), be anywhere in the land, man shall drive them out."
- "We teach that every priest shall extinguish heathendom and forbid wilweorthunga (fountain worship), licwiglunga (incantations of the dead), hwata (omens), galdra (magic), man worship and the abominations that men exercise in various sorts of witchcraft, and in frithspottum (peace-enclosures) with elms and other trees, and with stones, and with many phantoms." (source: 16th Canon law enacted under King Edgar in the 10th century.)
They were persecuted and killed in the course of Christianization, which also led to an extreme polarization of the role of females in Germanic society.
Reference
- Steinsland, G. & Meulengracht Sørensen, P. (1998): Människor och makter i vikingarnas värld. ISBN 9173245917
External links
- Wotan's invocation of Erda Act 3, Scene 1 of Richard Wagner's Siegfried
- Origins of the Words Wicce Witch