Seidr (seidhr, volva, seidh,
galdr, seithr or seith) is an
Old Norse term for a type of sorcery which was practiced in Norse society
during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age. Connected
with Norse religion, its origins are largely unknown, although it gradually
eroded following the Christianization of Scandinavia. The term seidr is most commonly associated with 'witchcraft,' and is used
to describe actions ranging from shamanic magic (spirit journeys, magical
healing, magical psychiatric treatment), to prophecy, channeling the Gods or
the Gods' voices through a human agent, performing magic that affects weather
or animal movements, as well as a wide range of malefic magic.
Accounts
of seidr later made it into
sagas and other literary sources, while further evidence has been unearthed by
archaeologists. Various scholars have
debated the nature of seidr,
some arguing that it was shamanic in context, involving visionary journeys by
its practitioners.
Seidr
is interpreted differently by different groups and practitioners, but is usually
taken to indicate an altered consciousness or even total loss of physical
control. Paxson and her group Hrafnar have attempted
reconstructions of seidr (particularly the oracular form) from historical
material. Fries regards seidr as a form
of 'shamanic trembling', which he relates to 'seething', used as a shamanic
technique, the idea being his own and developed through experimentation. According to Blain, seidr is an intrinsic
part of spiritual practice connecting practitioners to the wider cosmology in
British Germanic Neopaganism.
Seidr practitioners were of both genders, although females are
more widely attested.
In many cases these magical practitioners would have had assistants to
aid them in their rituals. Within
pre-Christian Norse mythology, seidr
was associated with both the God Odin, a deity who was simultaneously
responsible for war, poetry and sorcery, as well as the Goddess Freya, a member
of the Vanir who was believed to have taught the practice to the Aesir.
In
the Viking Age, the practice of seidr by men had connotations of unmanliness or
effeminacy as its manipulative aspects ran counter to masculine ideal of
forthright, open behavior. The magic of
the runes was largely the province of men, although some women knew something
of the runes. Freya and perhaps some of
the other Goddesses of Norse mythology were seidr practitioners, as was God
Odin, a fact for which he is taunted by Loki.
In the poem Lokasenna, Loki, amongst other things, accuses the Gods of
moralistic sexual impropriety, the practice of seidr and bias.
The female practitioners
were religious leaders of the Viking community and usually required the help of
other practitioners to invoke their Deities, Gods or Spirits. The seidr ritual required not just the powers
of a female spiritual medium but of the spiritual participation of other women
within the Norse community; it was a communal effort. As they are described in a number of other
Scandinavian sagas, Saga of Erik the Red in particular, the female
practitioners connected with the spiritual realm through chanting and prayer. Viking texts suggest that the seidr ritual was
used in times of inherent crisis, as a tool used in the process of seeing into
the future, and for cursing and hexing one's enemies. With that said, it could have been used for
great good or destructive evil, as well as for daily guidance.
In
the 13th century Saga of Eric the Red,
there was a seidkona or volva in Greenland named Thorbjorg
('Protected by Thor'). She wore a blue
cloak and a headpiece of black lamb trimmed with white ermine, carried the
symbolic distaff, which was buried with her, and would sit on a high platform. A staff she had in her hand, with a knob
thereon; it was ornamented with brass, and inlaid with gems round about the
knob. On her neck she had glass beads.
From
the time of the ancient Germanic tribes, women were revered by the Northern
peoples as being holy, imbued with magical power, and with a special ability to
prophecy, a reverence which endured in Scandinavia until the advent of
Christianity. The woman of the Viking
Age found magic in her spindle and distaff, wove spells in the threads of her
family's clothing and revenged herself on the powerful using the skills of
sorcery. Seidr was a solitary art, where
the seidr was not a member of a
coven, as in found in other European witch traditions, although a seidr practitioner might have
attendants or a chorus to assist her in the practice of her magic. In a very few rare instances the sagas report
a group of seidr
workers
practicing together, there they are usually kin folk, such as a pair of sisters
or a father and his family.
The
Vikings believed that everyone has a personal fylgja or follower who usually manifests in animal form. Our fylgja
is part of us and with us from birth, and acts as our animal ally during Seidr
work. Other spirits that may attach
themselves to us are kinfylgja
(family spirit guardians), Disir (ancestral women), and other helpers who may
take animal or plant forms.
The seidr is usually
elevated on a platform and surrounded by women who chant to evoke her guardian
spirit to come to her aid. In her
inspired state, the Spirits give her answers to people's requests: weather
forecasts, marriage, misfortune, harvest tidings, travels and so forth. While her body lays in a seemingly lifeless
state, her soul travels to other worlds to seek knowledge.
Music
and dance are useful for achieving altered states. Shamanistic animal dancing, as described by
MacLellan and Harner may be used to assist possession by animal spirits. Dancing to achieve exhaustion may also be
employed. Music is described in Egil's Saga as an aid to the Volvas
to achieve an altered state, chanting being used. Glossolalia or galdr (chanting runes) may be especially useful here along with
power songs, singing the practitioner into gnosis.
According
to Eliade, drumming has long been associated with sharnanic practice but should
not be confused with the random cacophony of beats to the pseudo-evangelical
"we all come from the Goddess" chant that lasts for bursts of up to
ten minutes at some Pagan campfires.
Persistent, rhythmic beats are needed and the longer the drumming, the
more the mind seethes.
In
a seidr trance, the body goes through varying degrees of shuddering and
vibration, ranging from the gentle, undulating swaying of a serpent to the
extremely forceful abandon and violent movements of a wild animal, such as a
wolf or bear. Two wolves are Geri and
Freki, who were the Norse God Odin's faithful pets who were reputed to be 'of
good omen.' Wherever Odin went, the
wolves went with him.
Spinning
is intrinsically connected with fate and with magic in the Old Norse
literature. The Goddesses of spinning
inspected the spindles and distaffs of women of the household at Midwinter,
rewarding the families of industrious spinners with good luck and lazy spinners
with disaster for the coming year; so that the industry of the spinning women
of a house directly influenced the luck of the family. The Norns are also said to spin each man's wyrd (fate or
personal destiny).
Even
though the destiny may be altered by either humans or Gods, there are Norns who
build the initial framework. For that
they use the same tolls as any norn, just with a lowercase 'n', such as weaving
and carving runes.
Germanic women's grave sites
on the Continent and graves from Anglo-Saxon and Danelaw British women's graves
often produce large, somewhat flattened, pentagonal-faceted rock-crystal beads
with disproportionately large holes which have been interpreted as spindle
whorls. Such a spindle whorl would give
off brilliant rainbow flashes, acting as a prism when spun in the
sunlight. Spindle whorls made of amber
and of jet are also found in Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon contexts. How better to 'spin a spell' than with a
magical spindle whorl made of scintillating rock crystal.
Amber is considered sacred to Freya and was used as a
sacrifice to Gods and Goddesses. It is
said that when Freya could not find her husband Odr, she shed tears that became
amber as they hit trees. As reported by the
ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus around 600 BC, a charge could be
accumulated by rubbing fur on various substances, such as amber. The Greeks noted that the charged amber
buttons could attract light objects such as hair. They also noted that if they rubbed the amber
for long enough, they could even get an electric spark to jump. Talk about magic in a time before
electricity.
Healing
was another important part of the magical duties of Norse women. Although men did practice battle-field
medical treatment, they may not have received much in the way of
training for this task other than what they acquired by doing the job. Women were the primary medical practitioners. Red thread was used in medical applications, being used to
bind off the umbilicus of the newborn or to tie packets of herbs to an
afflicted body part to encourage magical healing. Amulets and curing stones were known in
Iceland, being a part of the practice of the healer. The Vikings also used charms,
prayers and runes to help heal the ill.
Good health was seen as an extension of good
luck. So, preventative medicine
consisted primarily of chants and charms that would maintain one's good
fortune. The eddaic poetry is full of
charms of the maintenance of health in daily life, such as those in the
Havamal.
Seidr is a Norse form of shamanism or working
closely with Spirit through trance prophecy and oracular work, rune carving,
magical chants and songs, sitting out on grave mounds, shape shifting, writing poetry
and knowledge competitions. Other practices identified as
seidr include raising storms, divination, journeying or battling in animal
form, sending a nightmare to kill someone by suffocation in his sleep, sex
magic and love spells; all things with which shamans in other cultures are
credited as well. Of all the reconstructed
systems of archaic magical practice, Seidr
seems to be one of the most misunderstood.
This is partly because of its sinister reputation, and partly because of
sexist notions that only women ever practiced divination. The only equipment really needed
for seidr is the mind.
In short, what the Gods have granted us
to do by dint of learning, we must learn. What is hidden from mortals we should
try to find out from the Gods by divination; for to him that is in their grace
the Gods grant signs.
~ Xenophon, Memorabilia
A will-o'-the-wisp are atmospheric ghost lights seen by travelers at
night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes.
It resembles a flickering lamp and is said to recede if approached,
drawing travelers from the safe paths.
The phenomenon is known by a variety of names, including jack-o'-lantern, friars's lantern, hinkypunk
and hobby lantern in English
folk belief, well attested in English folklore and in much of European
folklore. In European folklore, these
lights are held to be either mischievous spirits of the dead, or other
supernatural beings or spirits such as fairies, attempting to lead travelers
astray.
In a jack o' lantern, the
top is cut off the pumpkin to form a lid, and the inside flesh then scooped
out; an image, usually a monstrous face, is carved out of the pumpkin's rind to
expose the hollow interior. To create
the lantern effect, a light source is placed within before the lid is closed. This is traditionally a flame or electric
candle, though pumpkin lights featuring various colors and flickering effects
are also marketed specifically for this purpose. It is common to see jack o' lanterns on
doorsteps and otherwise used as decorations during Halloween. Today, not all pumpkins are carved. Some are painted, glued, inked, glittered, stacked
and more. 
