Harðsnúin fræði

Spinning and weaving in Viking times and its use in seiðr.

Marianne Guckelsberger
ÞJÓ208G 2012V

Síðan lét Kotkell gera seiðhjall mikinn. Þau færðust þar upp öll.
Þau kváðu þar harðsnúin fræði. Það voru galdrar. Því næst laust á hríð mikilli.
(Laxdæla saga ch 35)

Spinning yarn and weaving fabric for all the needs of a household during the Viking times
was an immense task and occupied most of the women‘s time. From old Icelandic sources
like Búalög and Grágás we learn the staggering amount of woollen cloth that was needed for
clothes, sails, bedspreads, bags, tents, etc. (Helgi Þorláksson 1991, 286-298). In Iceland as
well as in other Scandinavian countries fibers other than wool, nettle and flax were hardly
available throughout the middle ages, all of them being very labour intensive. An activity so
time consuming and monotonous will permeate the mind of the spinner or weaver as it leaves
the thoughts free to wander and make associations to other dimensions of life. Spinning and
weaving have long been a metaphorical image for life, destiny or fate. In classical mythology
the parcae and moirai are the personified fate of each individual, with the goddess Clotho
spinning the thread of life. In Nordic mythology their equivalent were the nornir who were
thought as travelling between places allotting each newborn child its future (Turville-Petre
1964, 222). Night-time was their realm, their verdict was irrevocable and the allotted fate
depended on whether they were benevolent or malevolent. Their counterparts on earth were
the seiðkonur, prophetic women with special magic capabilities to reveal the future in
ceremonies and rituals, described in many places in saga literature (Raudvere 2008, 238).
Thus the motiv of women spinning and weaving the ‘texture‘ of one‘s life is a metaphor of the

1
concrete physical activity, which under certain circumstances becomes a highly symbolic act
charged with magic and supernatural power.
It is the aim of this essay to demonstrate from written sources how spinning and
weaving could be used for purposes of seiðr.

The spindle and the distaff

Preparing the wool for spinning and weaving was a time consuming manual process. Sheep
were either shorn with blade shears or the wool was simply plucked in spring when sheep are
molting and a new coat is growing (Barber 1991, 41). After being washed and dried, the wool
was teased, i.e. fluffed up and disentangled by hand, then combed with wool combs, the kind
with long teeth like the ones found in a woman‘s grave from the 10th c. in Daðastaðir in
Norður-Þingeyjarsýsla (Elsa E. Guðjónsson 1992, 21-23). Combing must be done diligently
so that the tog fibers (the long outer hair of the fleece) lie parallel to each other which is
crucial to spin a strong warp thread (Áslaug Sverrisdóttir 2004, 196). The fibers that remain in
the comb after the tog is pulled off, is the short, soft and curly þel. Due to the radically
different properties of tog and þel fibers the resulting yarns also have different properties
(Larsson 2008, 184). This means that already at this stage the spinner has to decide whether
she is going to spin the yarn for the warp or for the weft on the loom, and also what kind of
fabric she is going to weave. A fine cloth requires a fine yarn which in turn can only be spun
from fine fibers, and coarse wool will only give a coarse yarn which can only be woven into a
coarse fabric. Thus the choice is determined by the raw material itself as well as the
experience and skill of the spinner (Bek-Pedersen 2009, 32-33).
At the time of the vikings and in fact until the 18th century in Iceland, wool was spun
on the spindle. Since knitting was not invented, all fabrics were woven on the upright warp
weighted loom. Tog was used to spin the yarn for the warp, i.e. the vertical threads held in
place by stone weights. They had to be spun with a high degree of twist in order to make a
yarn strong enough to withstand the considerable strain from the stone weights and the
abrasion from the changing sheds, yet it had to be thin and even. It is only for the experienced
spinner to spin a consistent strong warp thread. Þel on the other hand is spun with little twist
into a lofty and soft yarn used as the weft, i.e. the horizontal threads (Østergård 2004, 52).
Being a spinner myself, I can confirm that spinning yarn for the weft is easier and faster than
spinning yarn for the warp as it needs less twist and can even be spun straight from the fleece.
The distaff, Old Icelandic rokkr, is a very useful item for spinning as it helps to keep the
unspun fibers in order. In its simplest form it is a wooden stick, held between the knees of the

2
spinner, stuck into her belt or somewhere else near her. Once the wool has been combed the
unspun fibers are wrapped around the distaff. A fine example, which will be discussed later,
for this we find in Eyrbyggja saga where Katla is sitting on a bench spinning „garn af rokki“
when Þórarinn and Arnkell arrive at Holt in order to take revenge on her son Oddur who has
cut one hand off Auður, Þórarinn‘s wife (Eyrbyggja saga ch. 20).
In Laxdæla saga Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir says to her husband Bolli: „Misjöfn verða
morgunverkin; ég hefi spunnið tólf álna garn en þú hefir vegið Kjartan“ (Laxdæla saga ch.
49), meaning she spun yarn for a 12 álnir long fabric. She does not say whether she spun a
warp thread or a weft thread, but if we assume she spun the warp thread for a fabric 12 álnir
long and 2 álnir wide (1 alin = 48 cm) we can calculate that she spun 3871 m for the warp
alone. To this figure a certain percentage has to be added for shrinkage, so the final length is
4570 m (Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson 1997, 141). Every handspinner will agree that this must be
the utmost production in one day, even for an accomplished spinner. She probably did not
take much of a break either, just as Bolli could not rest during his fight. Guðrún‘s very matter-
of-fact words seem to imply that she judged her accomplishment as out of the ordinary, just as
her husband‘s deed of killing Kjartan (Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson 1997, 142).
It is the ethymology of the word seiðr itself that helps us find a key as to why spinning
is traditionally associated with fate, as e.g. the Old Norse nornir Urður, Verðandi and Skuld
that shape human fate (Gylfaginning ch. 15). Eldar Heide (2006: 164) points out that the
etymology of the word seiðr is ‘snare, cord, string, halter‘, i.e. a thread that is used to bind or
catch spirits or other beings. The whole context of textile production takes place in female,
domestic surroundings and that is where their real power lies. For the trained spinner the
repetitive, monotonous movements of spinning come almost as a reflex. Spinning leaves the
thoughts free to wander and work the mind into a trance like state. To a novice though it looks
like magic, as if ‘something‘ is made out of ‘nothing‘, to transform an amorph lump of wool
into a structured, coherent thread. Spinning can therefore be seen as a metaphor for creation
and growth, for fertility and motherhood, and again it comes as no surprise that the
implements used for spinning, spindle and distaff, have a phallic connotation.
While the spindle and the distaff look innocent and ordinary in normal use, they
change their character in a seiðr séance. In the hands of a seiðkona like Katla in Eyrbyggja
saga the most trivial object, her distaff, will change the scene into something supernatural, we
may say hallucinatory. Confident in her magical powers and ability to take control over
weaker minds, Katla tells the other women to be quiet and let her do the talking. So powerful
is she that the men who have come looking for her son Oddur only see a distaff lying on the

3
bench where Oddur should be sitting. As if this were not enough she manages a second and a
third time to make them see something entirely different than her son. Each time they walk
away they get suspicious whether she has not tricked them ("Hvort mun Katla eigi hafa héðni
veift um höfuð oss? Og hefir þar verið Oddur sonur hennar er oss sýndist rokkurinn.") and
turn back, but they cannot help but seeing first a goat, then a pig, but never Oddur. In their
rage they break the distaff, and only then can her spell be broken, not by them but by her
neighbour Geirríður who arrives. Geirríður is a ‘tröll‘ and Katla‘s tricks will not work on her
since she is the more experienced sorceress: Þá mælti Katla: "Mun Geirríður tröllið þar
komin og mun þá eigi sjónhverfingum einum mega við koma" (Eyrbyggja saga ch. 20).
The example of Katla may illustrate how seiðr works: it is a certain frame of mind, a
way of thinking that changes the function and property of things. As a talented seiðkona she
was able to manipulate weaker minds and trouble the visual perception of the men, and this
happened because she decided to do so, and not because of some inherent quality of the tools
she used.
The motiv of a woman using a distaff in a supernatural way has been a powerful and
persistent visual image through the ages that has inspired folk lore and art. „Die Hexe“, a
copperplate by Albrecht Dürer, where a naked woman is riding on a goat, holding a distaff
may serve as an example.
The importance of the distaff as a main attribute of the völvur (who may be regarded
as chief among the seiðkonur) also becomes clear in the story of Þorbjörg lítilvölva in Eiríks
saga rauða. During a time of famine she was invited to the farm of Þorkell in Herjólfsnes in
Greenland. We hear that she was elaborately dressed in a blue or black cloak decorated with
stones, that she wore a necklace of glass beads, a hood of black lambskin lined with white
catskin, a belt from which a pouch with her charms hung, calfskin shoes and gloves with
white catskin. But the main attribute that signalised her position as a seeress was the staff of
sorcery in her hand: „Staf hafði hún í hendi og var á hnappur. Hann var búinn messingu og
settur steinum ofan um hnappinn“ (Eiríks saga rauða ch. 4). The description of her rich
clothes, her amulets and her staff are verified in numerous graves that have been excavated in
Scandinavia of what are interpreted as burials of powerful and revered seiðkonur, for example
in Fyrkat and Oseberg (Price 2004, 117; Price 2008, 245).

The warp-weighted loom

As mentioned above all weaving in Viking times was done on the so called warp-weighted
loom, also called upright loom, an ancient tool that has been around for thousands of years

4
(Barber 1991, 91). Medieval sources like Búalög and Grágás, though from a slightly later
date, give us an idea of the amount of wool that was needed on an average farm each year: 60
kg for clothing, 30 kg for bedding, 10 kg for sails (Helgi Þorláksson 1991, 297). Bearing in
mind the primitive tools and time-consuming methods it is obvious that girls and women were
spinning and weaving most of their time.
When the yarn was spun according to the desired cloth the warp had to be set up on
the loom. At this point the pattern of the fabric must be planned and the threads are tied to the
heddles accordingly. The heddles are horizontal sticks that lie in front of the warp and divide
the warp threads into different sheds. In the case of vaðmál or 2/2 twill weave there are three
heddles which will open three different sheds, plus the fourth ‘natural‘ shed. Each warp thread
is then tied to one of the three heddles. It is then possible to lift each set of warp threads
individually and pass the weft through the shed. 2/2 twill means that each weft thread goes
over two, under two warp threads, moving to the right by one thread in each row which
creates the typical diagonal pattern (Áslaug Sverrisdóttir 2004, 195). Tying the warp threads
to the heddles must be done painstakingly as any mistake will show all the way through the
fabric and cannot be corrected afterwards. To avoid mistakes (and because it‘s more fun)
often two or more women worked together. An example for this kind of collaboration is the
Darraðarljóð, which will be discussed below.
The next step is to tie the loomweights to the warp, typically in groups of a few dozen
threads, depending on how fine or coarse the threads are. Usually these weights are stones,
but clay weights were also used (Barber 1991, 98ff).
Darraðarljóð dates probably from the early tenth century (Price 2002, 332), and is
part of Njáls saga (ch. 157). It describes a scene where valkyries weave a fabric of battle
which we might interprete as an act of shaping the outcome of the Battle of Clontarf on Good
Friday 1014. The Darraðarljóð confirms the technical details described above, and
interestingly it is the only Norse medieval source so far (Holtsmark 1939, 74) which describes
how a warp-weighted loom is set up, what tools were used and how the weaving was done.
The scene is not a tranquil domestic setting though, but the séance of twelve seiðkonur doing
battlemagic by creating for the listener an apocalyptic vision of horror, blood, destruction and
warfare.
In the year 1014 on Good Friday in Katanes, Northern Scotland, a man named Dörruður sees
twelve men riding towards the women‘s quarters of a house where they disappear. He goes
near and looking through a window he sees twelve women set up a warp-weighted loom.

5
 „Föstudaginn langa varð sá atburðr á Katanesi, at maðr sá, er Dörruðr hét, gekk út. Hann sá, at
menn riðu tólf saman til dyngjy nökkurrar ok hurfu þar allir. Hann gekk til dyngjunnar. Hann
sá í glugg, er á var, og sá, at þar váru konur inni ok höfðu færðan upp vef“ (Njáls saga ch.
157).

The valkyries Hildr, Hjörþrimul, Sanngríðr, Svipul, Gunnr, Göndul (Darr. 3) and their fellow
weavers are setting up a warp of intestines, using men‘s heads for weights („Sás orpinn vefr
ýta þörmum ok harðkléaðr höfðum manna...“), the heddle rods are bloody spears („eru
dreyrrekin dörr at sköftum), arrows serve as pin beaters (... „en örum hrælaðr.“), and each
time the weft has been passed through a shed they beat it up with swords („Skulum slá
sverðum sigrvef þenna.“). The warp is grey („Nú es fyr geirum grár upp kominn vefr“) but the
weft is red („fylla rauðum vefti“). Elsa Guðjónsson has argued convincingly that the term
„járnvarðr yllir“ (Darr. 2) stands for the shed rod, and is a figurative expression for „the long-
handled, high-helved, two-handed battleaxe of the Vikings“. Thus the four main weapons of
the Vikings appear „in a logical sequence for weaving: the spear, the axe, the [bow and]
arrow, and the sword.“ (Elsa Guðjónsson 1989, 193-194).
Seiðr rituals served a variety of household purposes such as divination and
clairvoyance, finding things hidden in the mind as well as in physical locations, for healing,
good luck, good weather, and a successful hunt – and also for the exact opposite of these
things, depending on whom the seiðr was geared to (Price 2002, 64). Battlemagic was another
important aspect of seiðr, that is to have influence on the outcome of a battle. This is what the
valkyries in Darraðarljóð do, and in fact their aggressive, destructive behaviour seems to be
what seiðr is about in most cases (Price 2004, 122). The valkyries‘ names are all battle-
related kenningar: Hildr = Battle; Hjörþrimul = Sword-Noise; Sanngríðr = Very Violent, Very
Cruel; Svipul = Unstable, Changeable; Gunnr = War; Göndul = Wolf, Staff of Sorcery, Staff-
Bearer? (Price 2002, 338 ff.). Though far away from the actual scene, they ‘weave‘ the battle
and its outcome by setting up a terrible loom with bloodstained grey cloth made of human
intestines and heads, chanting magic spells over it while moving back and forth in the process
of weaving, just like their sisters dart between the fighters on the battlefield (Price 2002, 384).
The poem evokes with the listener an atmosphere of screaming laughter of bloodthirsty
women, eager to engage in combat and ecstatic in creating a bloodbath. They seem utterly
self-assured in their ability to set in motion the supernatural forces it needs to strengthen or
weaken the fighters, to cloud or sharpen their vision, to let them make the right, quick move
or a fatal mistake. This seems to be done by „an extension of the mind and its faculties ...
rather than outright violence“ (Price 2002, 64). The poem is nevertheless charged við violence

6
and destruction when the valkyries have completed the fabric. They each grab an end and tear
it apart, speeding off on their bare-backed horses, thus destroying what they have just
created.1
What happens in reality also happens on a supernatural level by magical force, for
instance when „blood-stained spears serve as heddle rods“ and in consequence „the heaven
will be stained with men‘s blood“. They say explicitly that this happens „when our prophecies
can spread abroad“ („er spár várar springa kunnu“) which implies that this faculty was not a
figure of speech, but an image that was generally understood by the Old Norse, the reason
being that their sense of the boundaries between this world and the next were looser than
our‘s today (Price 2008, 146).
Another interesting story connecting in a supernatural way weaving, especially with
the human heads as loomweights, and battlefield is the visionary dream of Ingibjörg in
Jómsvíkinga saga. Ingibjörg dreams that she is weaving a linen cloth, which by the way is
also grey like the one in Darraðarljóð, when one of the weights drops. Picking it up she
notices that all the weights are human heads, and the one that fell off was the head of king
Haraldr Gormsson (Jómsvíkinga saga ch. 8).

Elevation
The concept of elevation, physical or mental, was a widespread aspect in seiðr. Written
sources and archaeological finds from Norse sites as far apart as the Volga Vikings, Fyrkat in
Denmark, Norway and Greenland may serve as examples. Þorbjörg‘s high seat in Eiríks saga
rauða, the door frame in Ibn Fadlan‘s report of the burial of a Rus chieftain, the door or lintel
in Völsa þáttur, as well as visionary flights induced by mind-altering herbs like henbane
(Fyrkat) and cannabis seeds (Oseberg ship) are all ways by which seiðkonur look at the world
from above in a wider perspective. At the same time this elevation stresses the highly
respected social position of the seiðkona.
When the seeress Þorbjörg lítilvölva in Eiríks saga rauða is invited to the farm
Herjólfsnes in Greenland to tell them when the famine will stop, special furniture is provided
so she can perform her rituals. A high seat is erected for her where she sits on a cushion

1
In a famous incident Jimi Hendrix set fire to and destroyed his guitar during a concert. When asked why he
had done this he said: „The time I burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I
love my guitar.“ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jimi_hendrix_2.html#ixzz1ojtGdON8
This illustrates what seems to be an innate willingness in people across the millenia to destroy something for a
greater cause, from ritual human sacrifices and mass destruction of weapons throughout Old Norse culture to
modern pop culture.

7
stuffed with chicken feathers. The feathers remind us of the hawk‘s plumage of Freyja who is
the godess of seiðr, and the miniature chairs cast in silver found in rich female graves in
Oseberg, Fyrkat, Hedeby, and Birka (Gardela 2008, 65) may give an idea what Þorbjörg‘s
seat looked like. It must be said though that they have also been interpreted as Oðinn‘s high
seat in Valhöll from where he observes the worlds (Price 2004, 117). In any case the
association with a higher position from where to look into an other world seems obvious.
Ibn Fadlan‘s report of his travels to the Volga Vikings in the 10th century, especially
his eye-witness account of the cremation of a rich chieftain in a ship in 922, is a unique source
which describes in detail the elaborate rituals before the actual cremation. During ten days of
music, feasting, drinking, the involvement of dozens of people and animal sacrificing, a slave-
girl volunteers to follow her master into death. She is repeatedly made drunk, raped by several
men and finally stabbed to death by the Angel of Death. One observation Ibn Fadlan‘s is
especially noteworthy in our context: „At the time of the evening prayer on Friday they
brought the slave-girl to a thing that they had constructed, like a door-frame. She placed her
feet on the hands of the men and was raised above that door-frame“ (Montgomery 2000, 17).
Three times she is lifted over the ‚door-frame‘ and in a vision of the next world she sees first
her father and her mother, then all of her dead relatives, and finally her master, who is seated
in paradise and summons her to come (Montgomery 2000, 17).
The door motif also appears in Völsa þáttur, a rather burlesque story preserved in
Ólafs saga helga in the fourteenth-century Flateyjarbók. The scene is a farm in Northern
Norway where a pagan family lives with their two slaves. When the horse dies, the slave cuts
off its penis (called vingull or völsi in the poem), and the farm wife keeps it in a chest,
wrapped in linen together with leeks and herbs to prevent it from rotting. Every evening it is
ritually passed around, with each member of the household speaking a verse over it. One
evening King Ólaf and two of his men come to the farm in disguise, looking for shelter. As
usual the phallus is passed around and everyone says a verse, but when it is the King‘s turn he
is so disgusted that he throws the völsi on the floor for the dog to eat. Infuriated the women
jumps up and says:

Hvat er þat manna

mer okunnra
er hundum gefr
hæilagt bleti
hefui mig um hiarra

8
 ok a hurdasa
vita ef ek borgit fæ
blætinu helga. (Völsa þáttr 13)

Perhaps in an attempt to look into the other world to see whether the blæti (e. holy sacrifice)
can be retrieved, the woman asks to be be lifted over the door hinges. The resemblance
between the door frame in Ibn Fadlan‘s report and in the Völsa þáttur and their function to
look over them into other worlds is too striking to be accidental, but must be a part of the
equipment necessary for visions of this kind (Price 2002, 168). Essentially both rituals are
composed of the following elements: „Singing or speaking magical strophes, ritual scenery
(the doors or the ‚door hinges‘ and the ‚door frame‘), and above all strong sexual overtones
and the motif of looking into other worlds or into the world of the dead“ (Gardela 2008, 67).
Again the act of looking over doors, mirrors the idea that in seiðr rituals some sort of
elevation is necessary to get a wider perspective and see things (end of the famine, the master
of the slave-girl, the lost völsi) in another world.
It has been suggested that the door frame in Ibn Fadlan‘s report was really a loom
because of the symbolic meaning of weaving (Gardela 2008, 68ff), and it may well be that as
a male observer and probably unfamiliar with weaving Ibn Fadlan had difficulties with
identifying the construction. Gardela‘s argument is, that the Angel of Death as the ritual
specialist, was also in charge for preparing the dead chieftain‘s garments and therefore a loom
must have been in the Rus‘ camp. Furthermore that the warp-weighted loom is closely
connected to weaving the threads of human fate and magic power over the future (Gardela
2008, 70. Since a loom basically consists of only a few beams that are easy to dismantle it is
quite conceivable that some of them were put together as the door frame, but the
interpretation must remain unproven unless more archaeologic material arises.

Seiðr
Seiðr is the Old Norse term for „a very specific form of shamanistic spiritual practices
performed mainly by skilled seeresses“ (Gardela 2008, 47). It „formed a kind of collective, a
package of techniques and principles for contacting the supernatural powers and either
binding or persuading them to do one’s bidding” (Price 2008, 244). The seeresses, and it was
mostly a female domain, were called ON völur or IS völvur, meaning a female bearer of a
magic staff (Gardela 2008, 47).

9
Seiðr was used for different purposes as can be seen from the examples above which describe
fairly well the setting and surroundings, but what exactly was the thinking behind it? As
mentioned above there were several purposes of seiðr. Its connection to women, the use of
textile implements and its etymology condense in the idea that seiðr was „about spinning an
emissary, sending forth such a spun emisssary, or attracting things or doing other things with
such a mind emissary“ (Heide 2006, 164). If we agree upon that seiðr was conceived as a
thread, it makes good sense that the nornir could spin a thread that represented the fate of
one‘s life. The numerous references in Old Norse literature to the distaff let us assume that it
represented best the supernatural abilities of the seiðkonur, and it has been argued that the
metal staffs found in women‘s graves from the Viking period are their „symbolic or cultic
distaffs“ (Heide 2006, 167).
One might say that the seiðkonur in this world personified the nornir of the other
world, but it must be held in mind that the boundaries between this and the others worlds were
not clearly defined as the supernatural encompassed every aspect of life (Price 2008, 244),
which makes it difficult or even impossible for modern man to understand their mentality, but
the examples discussed above may at least give us a glimpse into their way of thinking.
Old Icelandic sources like Ynglinga saga (ch. 7) state that seiðr was a female domain
and disgraceful for men, and the strong sexual overtones of the seiðstafur may have been part
of why it was thought inappropriate for men. Those who nevertheless practised seiðr were
met with social rejection and the suspicion of being homosexuals which viking society
heavily disapproved of (Price 2008, 245). They were called argir, meaning effeminate,
unmanly, with a homosexual connotation (Gardela 2008, 48). Though Oðinn himself
practised the art of seiðr (after having learned it from Freyja! Ynglinga saga ch. 4; Price 2002,
363), it was shameful for the ordinary man, and meant „so mikil ergi að eigi þótti
karlmönnum skammlaust við að fara og var gyðjunum kennd sú íþrótt.“ (Ynglinga saga ch. 7;
Price 2002, 70; 2004, 111). The ideal of a Viking man was to fight with a sword, whereas
distaff and spindle belonged to the realm of women (Gardela 2008, 48,50) .
Seeresses on the other hand were held in high esteem as they were able to prophecy the
future, inflict good or bad on people, and perform seiðr, „a Norse counterpart to what has
elsewhere been called shamanism“ (Price 2002, 64). Eiríks saga rauða ch. 4 gives a most
detailed description of how the seeress Þorbjörg lítilvölva in Herjólfsnes, Greenland, worked,
of her paraphernalia, the setting of the séance, as well as the social context. She exemplifies
the type of seeresses who were elder women, no longer restrained by family obligations,
which enabled them to lead a vagrant life, wandering from place to place as they were asked

10
to perform the rituals. Þorbjörg lítilvölva has been invited to Herjólfsnes by Þorkell the local
leader, to prophesy when the famine would take an end. The behaviour of the farmers shows
that they not only honour, but also respect and maybe fear Þorbjörg because of her
supernatural abilities. The wise old woman Þorbjörg clearly dominates the scene and is
treated accordingly. She gets the best food that Þorkell‘s kitchen has to offer, a high seat with
a pillow stuffed with chicken feathers, yet she remains distant and speaks little. She cannot
summon the spirits until a woman named Guðríður agrees to sing the varðlokkur while other
women form a circle around Þorbjörg‘s seiðr-platform. Again the element of ritual singing
(and probably dancing) at night, the seeress‘ elevation on a platform and the staff that she
carried give her command over the spirits "er áður vildu frá oss snúast og oss öngva hlýðni
veita. En mér eru nú margir þeir hlutir auðsýnir er áður var bæði eg og aðrir duldir“ („who
before wanted to turn away from us and did not want to obey us. But now I see clearly many
things that before were hidden to me and to others.“ Translation mine. Eiríks saga rauða ch.
4).
Katla, the widow at Holt discussed above (Eyrbyggja saga ch. 20), is another woman
who obviously has great knowledge in seiðr. She is beautiful but not to everybody‘s liking
(„Hún var fríð kona sýnum en eigi var hún við alþýðuskap“ (Eyrbyggja saga ch. 15). Thanks
to her magical skills she manages three times to hide her son from his persecutors: the first
time they come to look for him they only see a distaff where Oddur sat, the second time she
transforms him into a goat, and the third time they see a boar in his place. Three times she
manipulates the perception of the men into seeing something entirely else than what is really
there.

Seiðr thus involves a psychological ability of the völva to take control over weaker
minds, and the theatrical setting of the rituals certainly helped. We may well imagine the
hypnotizing sight of the monotonous, circular movements of the spindle by which an
amorphous lump of wool is transformed in a coherent thread (an image that was generally
understood as spinning the thread of life); the horrible sight of women working together at the
warp-weighted loom strung with intestines and skulls, doing battle magic in order to influence
the outcome of a battle; the singing and dancing in a performance of seiðr, the rich costumes
of the seiðkonur and their paraphernalia, maybe at an open fire with smoke and shadows; a
ritual play that involved all senses evoking associations and images before the inner eye of the
spectators who connect what they see with familiar myths. A theatrical setting like this is

11
certainly conducive to manipulate the audience and turn ordinary things into something
supernatural.
Spinning and weaving and their use for magical purposes have proven a fruitful field
where recent research in archaeology, literature, linguistics and ethnography allow us to get a
better understanding of the concept of seiðr which constituted an integral part of the Vikings‘
world view.

Bibliography

Áslaug Sverrisdóttir, 2004. Tóskapur. Ullarvinna í bændasamfélaginu, Hlutavelta tímans.

Menningararfur á þjóðminjasafni, Þjóðminjasafn Íslands, Reykjavík, 195-203

Barber, Elisabeth J. Wayland, 1991. Prehistoric Textiles: the Development of Cloth in the
Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean. Princeton University Press,
Princeton

Bek-Pedersen, Karen. 2009. Fate and Weaving: Justification of a Metaphor, Viking and
Medieval Scandinavia 5, 23-39

Brennu-Njáls saga. 1985. In Íslendinga sögur. Svart á Hvítu, Reykjavík, 124-345

Elsa E. Guðjónsson. 1989. Járnvarður Yllir. A Fourth Weapon of the Valkyries in

Darraðarljóð?, Textile History 20 (2), 185-197

Eiríks saga rauða. 1985. In Íslendinga sögur. Svart á Hvítu, Reykjavík, 519-536

Eyrbyggja saga. 1985. In Íslendinga sögur. Svart á Hvítu, Reykjavík, 537-624

Gardela, Leszek. 2008. Into Viking Minds: Reinterpreting the Staffs of Sorcery and
Unravelling Seið, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 4, 45-84

Snorri Sturluson. Gylfaginning. 2002. In Snorri Sturluson Ritsafn. Mál og Menning,

Reykjavík, 9-75

Heide, Eldar. 2006. Spinning seiðr. Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives. Origins,
changes, and interactions. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere (eds),
Vägar till Midgård 8, Nordic Academic Press, 164-170

12
Helgi Þorláksson. 1991. Vaðmál og Verðlag. Vaðmál í utanlandsviðskiptum og búskap
Íslendinga á 13. og 14. öld. [Sögufélagið, Reykjavík]

Holtsmark, Anne. 1939. Vefr Darraðar, Maal og Minne, 74-96

Jómsvíkinga saga. 1969. Ólafur Halldórsson bjó til prentunar. Reykjavík

Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson. 1997. Blót í norrænum sið: Rýnt í forn trúarbrögð með
þjóðfræðilegri aðferð, Háskólaútgáfan, Félagsvísindastofnun Reykjavík

Larsson, Annika. 2008. Viking Age Textiles. In Stefan Brink (ed.) in collaboration with Neil
Price, The Viking World, 181-185. Routledge, London, New York

Montgomery, James E. 2000. Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah. Journal of Arabic and Islamic
Studies 3 (2000),1-25. Permanent internet resource, accessed 31 March 2012.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/montgo1.pdf

Ólafs saga helga. 1945. In Flateyjarbók. Annað bindi. Flateyjarútgáfan, Prentverk Akraness,
442-446

Østergård, Else. 2004. Woven into the Earth. Textiles from Norse Greenland. Aarhus
University Press, Aarhus

Price, Neil. 2002. The Viking way: religion and war in late Iron Age Scandinavia. Uppsala
University Press, Uppsala

Price, Neil. 2004. The Archaeology of Seiðr: Circumpolar Traditions in Viking Pre-Christian
Religion. Brathair 4 (2), 2004,109-126

Price, Neil. 2008. Bodylore and the archaeology of embedded religion: dramatic licence in the
funerals of the Vikings. In Whitley, D.M. and Hays-Gilpin, K. (eds) Faith in the Past:
Theorizing Ancient Religion. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek: 143-165

Raudvere, Catharina. 2008. Popular Religion in the Viking Age, in Stefan Brink (ed.) in
collaboration with Neil Price, The Viking World, 235-243. Routledge, London, New York

Turville-Petre, Edward Oswald Gabriel. 1964. Myth and Religion of the North. The Religion
of Ancient Scandinavia. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut

Digital sources

13
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Die_Hexe_(Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer).jpg&fil
etimestamp=20101022200829

http://www.heimskringla.no/wiki/V%C7%ABlsa%C3%BE%C3%A1ttr_(B2)

14