[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.]
The End of the Old Wise-Women and the Völva Institution
In Red Eric´s Saga, we are invited to a late sejd-performance, in Greenland.[1] In the two versions of this saga, recorded in c.1200CE, taking place c.1000CE, we are witnessing what may well be the closing swan-song of the Nordic völva institution. The scene setting has the walk-about Lill-Vala, Thorbjörg invited to perform a sejd-ritual by Torkel to his farm, where there was acute distress, caused famine. The sejd-session is pictured not as a strong and flowering tradition at its peak; instead we are left with the impression of a flickering shadow of what sejd once may have been. The Lill-Völva (Little Völva) recalls that once she had nine older sisters, now dead, but all of them more skilled than she.[2] The helper-women, gathered to do the singing during the sejding, are all reluctant, and practically none of them remembers the songs, the galders and varðlokkur any more. They had all become good Christians (year 1000CE). The only one, who remembers it, must be persuaded to sing it by both the Lill-Völva and the farm-owner, Thorkel. The account may well depict a völva performing an authentic sejd-ritual for the very last time. In later sagas like Norna-Gest´s Saga Cap.11; Örvar Odd´s Saga Cap.2; or the Laxdalingar Saga, the shamanic skills are vulgarized, and the völvas are degraded to piquant elements in royal court entertainments as soothsayers. By then the sejding women were seen as mere sly and low-down, capable of evil acts.[3] To the question of what became of the Norse Völva institution after the Asir and later Christian take-overs, we have found interesting similarities between the Welsh Minstrels, recorded of by Robert Graves in The White Goddess, and the late fate of the Scandinavian völvas.
Robert Graves states of the Welsh Minstrels that in ancient times they used to belong to a venerated institution of holy men [and women? authors], skilled in divination, music and oral transmission of ancient knowledge, and rooted far back in the Bronze and Stone Ages. Patriarchy established in the medieval era, shut down the institution of Welsh Minstrels, Graves records, and reduced them to walkabouts touring from village to village offering their services of divination.[4] Graves notes that despite it all, the Welsh Minstrels surprisingly managed, practically up to our days, to keep alive their ancient practices in folk-tradition, folk-music, folk-songs and orally transmitted legends often tied to holy sites in landscape. We have come to conclude that once the shamanic institution of the Vanirs was a similar and powerful institution associated with the borgs.
It is not totally clear to us, if this institution was female throughout. Considering that Graves is inclined to talk solely about a male institution of Welsh Minstrels on the British Islands, and also that archeological Scandinavian Bronze Age male graves are found, containing traditional shaman items e.g. the Hvidegårdsmand, Denmark, 1300-1100 BCE, these facts may support that idea that men may have been engaged in Scandinavian shamanism, too – the only thing is that the Hvidegårds-man is from Early Bronze Age grave from the tumulus building period (1700-1100BCE), and he is described as a shaman-warrior.[5] To our knowledge later graves, from the Bronze Age B period, containing shamanic items are all female. Archaeologist Leif Karlenby argues that the two functions, warrior and shaman, became separated in Late Bronze Age B (1300-500BCE).[6] For comparison with neighboring cultures, Pentikäinen attests for the Siberian shamans that the most prominent shamans were, and still are, women. In medieval literature, Sami individuals skilled in shamanism count both women and men.[7] Further research is needed, but left to us are the many rich woman graves, containing classical emblems of shamanism, which suggest that the institution of the Valas was certainly primarily female.
The thousands of borgs all over Scandinavia (and Europe) originate from the beginning of 1300BCE and onwards.[8] For long, they were interpreted by archeologists as military fortresses and locations for defense. This understanding is now heavily questioned by most scholars.[9] Non-strategic locations of many borgs, as well as the very idea of their construction discredits any military purpose. Instead the borgs tell stories of peace.
Excavating have been conducted on only few Swedish borg-sites and generally they show poor evidence of permanent settlings. This fact will in turn explain the sparse findings. The borgs are often characterized as “empty”, but when findings appear they count practically nothing but pearls, combs, weaving and spinning tools, pottery and metal manufacturing, and cooking pits. And noteworthy, except for the finding of only one single arrow head found (Gotland), there is a total lack of weapons in the borgs.[10] Rare graves associated to the borgs are generally considered female. The borgs tell woman history.[11]
The findings even count deep layers of coal, speaking of centuries of continuous use of big fires. The women at the borgs are due to have known everything about fire-handling, a fact that also the deliberately vitrifying (ceramic burning/glasing) conducted in situ on a number of whole and entire borgs, will bear witness to.[12] The repeated use of bon-fires seems to tell stories of collective festivities of transitions and initiations, and annual celebrations, not least supported by the fact that many borgs are still used for this purpose today, e.g. at Valborg (Beltain).
Scrutinizing the geographical names of the thousands of Old Scandinavian borgs, dating from Bronze Age, we have found the majority to be connected to Old Scandinavian culture.
Sten [Stone] is a frequent name in combination, and is probably an old name for borg or berg (mountain).[13] Other names will most often belong to the groups, Omma-Hags-Cailleach-Hel-Wise-Bride-Mother (Omma, Hag, Kärring, Hel, Vis, Brud, Fröa (later converted into Fru or Maria), or to the group of their associated animals (also classic shamanic animals) like Eagle, Dear, Snake, Bear; or borgs names will relate to Elven-Vaner-White-Finn-Giant-Sun-Fire-group, and to Glass (vitrifying).[14] None of the Bronze Age borgs have names echoing warfare. Only the late 5th century borgs-sites, presumably built for military training and initiation into the occult Asir order, have theophoric names like Torsborg (Thor´s fortification) and Sigtuna (Odin´s Estate).[15]
For the function of the borgs, scholars have various suggestions. In Late Bronze Age (1100-500BCE) the dead were again de-individualized by cremating, and burials were again mostly collective and equal. Due also to the heavy layers of coal and ashes, centuries deep, Carlsson suggests that the borgs were used for handling the cremation of the dead, but also for celebrations and meals, maybe in connection with the funeral.[16] It may well be one of the functions, but we want to broaden the idea.
For these beautifully located places with their breath-taking views over valleys and waters, Wall stresses the point that Bronze Age and Early Iron Age borgs were important junctures or meeting-places for the community characterized as collective and mythical.[17] We understand Wall´s idea as the borgs being places for collective transitions and initiations, marked out by bon-fires that would naturally invite friends and neighboring people to come and participate. Although controversial and speculative, we will take a steep further and suggest that the old Mother-Mountains and Borg-sites were parts of former teaching-and-performing centers led by Wise-Women (the Visa), the Valas, the Haggor (hags) and the Kärringar (Karlings/Cailleachs) – all titles of honor. By means of visor (songs) the Visa (Wise-Women) would pass on oral visdom (wisdom) of female skills, ancient knowledge, traditions, and sejd to the next generation of women (Fig. 34, 35, 36).
The Old culture Wise-Women are testified to have been associated with birth-giving as midwives, and called (even today) jordemødre, lysmødre, or barnmorskor – earth-mothers, light-mothers, or child-mothers.[18] As cremation was an established part of this older culture, the Wise-Women, highly skilled in fire-handling, would have monitored also the transition of the dead. Their field of work may therefore be symbolized in the cutting and binding of strings, the string of life and death – and all in between. They would hold the red tread of life in their hands, cut or bind with their very specific symbol, the simple and solid Granny´s Knot(Fig. 37).[19]
Archaeologist Jessica Höglund-Giertz has added a further and more specific use of the borgs, namely that they may also have been a northern equivalent to the ancient menstrual hut and moon lodge tradition, known from many places around the world, sometimes referred to as the Red Tent practice. Women would employ these sites as collective resting and retreat areas during their moon blood period, maybe even during their birth-giving periods, secured and surrounded here by familiar and skilled fellow-women.[20] This usage together with other commune celebrations of various natural cycles would explain the lack of permanent settlements at the borg-sites, and the absence of signs of trivial, every-day life, but make the more often sporadic findings of pearls, weaving tools and cooking pits understandable.
According to Wall´s reports concerning Södertörn (Sweden), settlements in the area were mobile before the 5th century. Later settlement became stable as the farm-steads (gård) became the historical and inherited center, and the focal point of individual patriarchal families. In the new society, the borg-sites lost their symbolic function as collective centers and nodes for the moving-around-tribes – a process that started much earlier in Denmark.[21]
It is tempting to believe that the ancient and powerful female and autonomous institution would have been a severe challenge to the expanding new warfare society, and there seems to have been a long and bitter trial of strength, not abating until long after 900 CE. In different ways a systematic deconstruction of the Old Ways seems to have been put at work. Besides war and raids, murder or deportations of skilled crafts-people and young girls as slaves,[22] also other strategies were employed.
One strategy used was legislation. Indo-European legislation all-over, from India to Europe, seems to have been based on and followed similar premises, when the warrior-elites introduced new laws.[23] Legislation was fabricated to be used as a weapon in the take-over. As mentioned earlier, this is true for the new laws concerning women and marriage. The Völva/Vala was rådare, and guardian of a certain område, area of land, an office that may have encompassed overseeing farming, trading and foreign contact nets. The office seems to have been inherited or subject to succession. Through marrying the völvas and leading women by force, the new patriarchal laws automatically admitted men to obtain all legal rights to the females´ land and office, which they in turn would inherit it to theirsons. The principle is clear. Gradually, land was legally put under the control of the expanding aristocracy.[24] The Eddas provide a brilliant example in the Saga of Gudröd Vejde-King (Blue-clad-King[25]), and both the procedure and its underlying principles are still clear in the 9th century; King Gudröd murders Åsa´s royal family, after which he marries her by force. As she is the only daughter and heir left, he automatically inherits her land according to the new laws.
Burials were probably another strategy. The extravagant burial of the Oseberg ship may not be too far-fetched as example of burial used also as a tool to erase the Old System. This particular burial may actually have played a crucial role, and signal the beginning of the final extinction of the Old Scandinavian Vala institution.
The Burial of two estimated Valor/Völvor in the Oseberg Ship
In Norway 834CE, two women of highest dignity were laid to rest in the gigantic and magnificently built ship, the Oseberg ship. The ship, apparently built some decennials earlier is huge, well preserved and covered with elaborate animal ornamentation. It was never meant for raiding and ocean voyages, instead it had been sailed peacefully and majestic along the home shores – letting our imagination wander to the slow and peaceful blessing-tours of När (Nerthus) in the heifer-drawn wagon. The ship was loaded with riches unmatched “north of the Egyptian Pyramids”, and besides 15 horses, exquisite and elaborated wagons, sleighs and boats, and a multitude of artefacts among others the greatest and most varied collection of woven wool and silk, dyed in costly blue and red colors.[26] But no weapons.
So what may this burial have been about? Already the fact that two so high-ranked women happened to die simultaneously may wake suspicion. Earlier explanation for this co-incident has been that the older woman, despite her rich clothing was a slave or servant to the younger one, and therefore murdered to follow her mistress in the grave.[27] Today, both women are most often titled, Queens. But this titling has never been accompanied by any convincing account for their possible noble historicity; their prime heritage, names, roles, or functions in the royal level of the Norwegian society in the 9th Century. If belonging to the Norwegian aristocracy also the size of their tumulus and the extravagant riches would advocate some knowledge of who they were. Therefore it could be possible that they did not belong to the Norwegian prime layer of nobles.
What is also most often left out of the picture of the Oseberg burial mound is the highly electrified political tension in contemporary time between the two ruling systems in society, the Old matriarchal Ways and the New patriarchy of the Vikings desperately fighting to gain control. Despite their burial on the West side of the Oslo fjord, Viken, inhabited by Viking kings, the two women seem to originate from the East side, still to a great extend on the hands of the Old society. Further and on top, Christianity was now gaining ground in the North, and Christianity´s rising hysteria (the Millenarianism) about the approaching millennium shift may also have paid its contribution. Year 1000CE was believed to mark the return of Christ, and everybody had to be baptized and christened by then.
Generally, historical periods of major social changes are characterized by severe collisions between old and new political orders of society, between the Old matriarchal Ways (female guided) and the New patriarchal (male ruled) systems. As already discussed, the rulers´ set up new legislation concerning land, marriages and burials to ratify far-reaching strategies in order to shut down the Old Ways and suspend its female representatives.[28] By means of a far older giant tumulus burial, the Vix grave in the northern Burgundy, north of the Alps, dating the end of late Hallstatt period c. 500BCE, we would like to speculate in possible explanations for the death and burial of the two Norwegian Oseberg women, often interpreted as high-ranked ritualists or shamans of their time.
The Burial of an estimated Vala in the Vix grave mound
The costly Vix grave contained a gracile woman around 35-40 years old. Items in the grave, the extravagant riches and (theocratic) symbols (a wooden wagon, heavy gold torc, the world famous krater and nine-piece set of drinking and eating vessels, etc.) and even her small body size and physical disabilities (hip dysplasia, torticollis) that sometimes characterize shamans,[29] have led researchers, among others Professor of Biological Anthropology, Christopher Knüsel to suggest her being a ritualist or shaman in her society.[30] There is for sure a considerable time span between the Vix and Oseberg graves, but several things seem to add to a link between them. The tumuli were both constructed at the closing end of an era, foreboding profound social changes; laid to rest and surrounded by tremendous and stunning riches and symbols – except weapons – the three females show indications of being a combination of highest political leaders and highest ritualists/shamans of their societies, shortly after to vanish. “Due to this involvement they become the targets of ritual sanctions that include punitive rites, ritualized deaths, and suppression during periods of rapid social change, both from within their own societies and from without,” Knüselconcludes.[31] Their unambiguous importance is registered by the new rulers as competitive.
About the cause of her death, it may first be stated that whilst preserved fragments of the excavated skeletons do not show signs violence, this does not automatically preclude a violent death (poison or soft tissue damage could also have caused death). PhD Archeologist Hazel Butler suggests that, in line with other European Iron Age sacrifices (e.g. bog bodies) the Vix woman may have been a victim of sacrifice at the end of the Hallstatt era, maybe “in order to avert something catastrophic befalling the community to which the individual belonged ...or “in exchange for the healing of her community,”[32] This is not an invalid explanation. Still we want to pursue the case a little further.
Knüsel in the film, The Celts Ep. 1, 1987 (32:21) concludes for the Vix ritualist: “I suspect it was intentional that this person was being removed, and the objects that may have been associated with her or with some wastage (?) of her life – or actual, it is intentional; and I think, it has a very strong socio-political dimension to it. In a sense, the burial is like a hoard, removed from view, removed from circulation, and it suggests a certain finality. It is the end of something.” (32:52) Speaker: “Indeed it was! Shortly after her death, Mt. Lassois was deserted. Great changes were happening throughout the Celtic world.”[33]
Knüsel´s statement on the removal of a strong socio-political person from view and significant objects associated with her from further circulation could indicate that she, the Vix woman, top-figure of her society, for political reasons was either murdered by the new rulers, or at least that the new rulers took immediate advantage of her natural death and had tokens of the former system removed with her to facilitate their take-over. A scenario like this, we are not unwilling to accept for the Oseberg women in the giant ship buried in a grandiose tumulus in Norway in c. 834CE.
Summing up, we imagine the whole idea of the burial of the Oseberg ship to be a spectacular political show set up by the new rulers to mark the final and definite closing of the female institution in Norway (and Vix). The strategy may well have been to stage a grandiose and breath-taking burial performance (for the local kinspeople), exceeding all frames of hitherto known extravagance, pretending a lavish honoring of celebrities of the past. Old-Way-jewelry and treasures were donated by the locals (by force?!), and piled up within the grave as departure-gifts – an arrangement effectively stopping highly symbolic core items and reminders from view, and further circulation. When then finally sealing the grave, every memory of the old institution, its representatives, and objects would have vanished for good, thus irreversibly concluding and stating the domination of the new rulers.[34]
The Oseberg grave, containing two highly esteemed women ritualists stood open for half a year, maybe to complete the collection of cultural objects signifying their culture. When finally sealed, an enormous burial mound, 40 meters in diameter, 6 meters high, was raised over the huge ship, and given the name Oseberg, meaning Asir Mound, for ever after.[35]
… but they are still here.
From the Migration Period onwards, freedom and sovereignty of women had been on a constant decline. In the Law of Gulating, Norway from c. 900 CE, free-born women are still allowed a certain amount of civil rights concerning heritage, marriage, violence within marriage, divorce and trading.[36] Based on grave gifts from the 10th century, archeologist Hans Bolin has showed that for the rural population, gender was still not an issue. Rural people in the 10th century still lived and died in an egalitarian way.[37] Gradually however, legislation limiting women became palpable. Christianity continued the downwards trend, and took it still further.[38]
When the patriarchal take-over by elitist rulers was accomplished, the institution of Valas was undermined, its holy sites, borgs, groves and lake-sites vanishing. It seems that its wise-women were degraded, and driven off to walk about with their staffs from village to village, feared, called names, and commonly regarded as sneaky and evil witches – conspicuous in the portrait of the Lill-Völva. In order to make a living, they may have offered their old skills of divination to whoever wanted it, in quite the same way as Graves describes it for the Welsh Minstrels. The Lill-Völva on Greenland seems to portray one of these last authentic völvas. In later depictions of völvas, entertaining royal courts with south-sayings and divination, the whole system is evidently corrupted.
Soon enough, at least after the completion of the Christian take-over (1000CE), death penalty for ergi was implemented. Ergi included divination (sejd). Already before the millennium shift, the valas and wise-women of old seem to have met their fate, the last boat graves of völvas with staffs are dated just before 1000CE; and their titles of honor; Kärring (Cailleach), Hagga (Hag), Kona (Crone), Norna, etc. came to denote the opposite in modern languages, namely evil old women – and worse.[39] The Asir-believing elite had fought them because of their unlimited rights to the land. The Christians fought them for their complete denial of receiving Christian baptism – in this period not an individual choice, but a severe part of the king´s lawful responsibility and duty secure the Christening of all his subjects.[40]
Now lacking the völvas for personal need of divination, warfare society in Scandinavia turned to the Sami noijades (shamans) in the North. The Sami, already living at the edge of (or out-side) established society, were both wanted and hated for their “witchcraft.” Icelandic Sagas provide plenty of evidence that the Viking elite kept seeking the Sami for divination. Royal families would also (still) send their daughters to be taught divination by the Sami noijades and the Lapp women, skilled in troll-magic.[41] But the old Vanir wise-women – marginalized, degraded, scorned, demonized, and put to death as witches – managed to survive in different ways.
The medieval lay-order for women, the Beguines/Begines, peaking in the Netherlands around 1200CE, allegedly derived from St. Begga (Bega, Begge) on Ireland in the 6th century, may well initially have been a women’s attempt to save their freedom, and keep their wisdom alive. The medieval Beguine women set their own rules, and lived together in their own all-female towns, unwilling to marry. Despite, their status as lay-order-subjects, they were frequently accused of heresy and prosecuted. The Beguine order was thought extinct, but in Central Europe it has indeed survived, and is flowering today.[42]
Also, in every fairytale we still find the Wise-Women.[43]
The Wise-Woman is Frau Holle (Mor Hulda or Hyldemor) living alone in her little house with her black cat, on a hill in the forests, always at the edge of society, offering her medicine and skills to those who seek her. Young girls will come to her to receive female-knowledge, in nowadays-fairytales dressed in appropriate but transparent symbols, like the young girl falling into the well (shamanic travel to underworld); picking ripe apples (gaining knowledge of sex and procreation); taking out bread from the oven (midwifery); shaking feather-cushions (controling weather/great powers); talking as a friend with trees and animals and being their ally and (animism); and sweeping with their brooms (using of the world-tree and völva-staff). Old songs like Enebærbusk /the Mulberry Bush (the English version may have got quite a patriarchal twist from the original?) were once a way to learn to systematize practical work.[44]
Memories of wise-women with all their might resisting horse-borne heroes from stealing away very young girls from their “studies” at the borg-sites and glass-mountains, before fully skilled for womanhood, has been preserved in legends like St. George and the Dragon (Fig. 38) – as well as in every fairytale on the theme, hero liberating princess from cruel witch in cave.[45] Information though, how wise-women once urged (and still instruct) young girls to maintain their sovereignty and flee, has been preserved all the way until present day in odd (but transparent) stories like the Brethren Grimms’ The Hare’s Bride.[46]
(To be Continued)
(Meet Mago Contributor) Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen.
[1] Jónsson, Erik den Rødes, Islændingesagaerna, Cap.4
[2] Nine sisters may well indicate nine earlier generations.
[3] Alexander Bugge, ed., Norrøne heltensagn og eventyr.Fortællingen om Orvar-Odd gjenfortalt for ungdommen. (Orvar-Odd) (Kristiania. 1915), Cap. 1, 16.
[4] Robert Graves, The White Goddess (New York: The Noonday Press, 1966), 9ff.
[5] Leif Karlenby, Stenbärarna, Kult och rituell praktik i skandinavisk bronsålder (PhD.Diss. Uppsala University, 2011), 59.
[6] Karlenby, Stenbärarna, 3, 259, 285 (English summery).
[7] Juha Pentikäinen states for the Sibirian shamans that the most renowned of them were women. Louise Bäckman states for the Sami that written accounts, explicitly on female nojades is not assessable, but in practical life all Sami is familiar with the skill. Lecture with Bäckman & Pentikäinen at Jokkmokk Winter Market, Februari 2007.
[8] In foremost the southern part of Sweden c. 1300 borgs are registered, dating between Bronze Age and Migration Period. Norway and Denmark will probably show similarity (as all over northern Europe), see Acc. Riksantikvarieämbetet Fornminneregistret (FMIS Fornsök), http://www.fmis.raa.se/cocoon/fornsok/search.html. Wall, Hägnade bergens, 65.
[9] Deckel, Berg, murar, 16ff. Carlsson, Tankar Torsten, 168. Wall, Hägnade bergens, 19ff, 96, 177-196. Johan Engström, Fornborgen på Grogarnsberget i Östergarn (Visby: Gotländskt arkiv, 1984b), 100ff.
[10] Deckel, Berg, murar, 15-16,
[11] Deckel, Berg, murar, 1997. Archeologically, Swedish borgs excavated contain women´s tools. It is still a riddle why there seems to be similarities in findings, names and function between the Scandinavian borgs and the far older Strongholds of Korea, led by Shaman Queens. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, The Mago Way, Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Vol. 1. 2015, and Goddesses in History, Myth, and Culture, cap. 1 and 13.
[12] Deckel, Berg, murar, 12. Kresten and Ambrosiani, Swedish Vitrified. 1992. Big open air fires reaches a maximum of 600C. Ceramics glazing needs 1200C within an oven, but the borgs of boulders are glazed in open air.
[13] Carlsson, Tankar Torsten, 164. Wall, Hägnade bergens, 170f.
[14] Fin/Finn meaning white (as snow).
[15] Carlsson, Tolkande arkeologi, 158-9, 199-200.
[16] Carlsson, Tolkande arkeologi, 98, 158.
[17] Wall, Hägnade bergens, 104, 193.
[18] Magnusson, Ældre Edda. Vol.1, 6. Lysmoder is a pendent to the Roman midwife goddess, Lucina (from lux – light) “to see the light of day when born”. Näsström, Forntida, 192.
[19] Brunsgaard Clausen, Scandinavian Cailleach.
[20] Jessica Högberg Giertz, interviewed by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, 30th March 2019
[21] Wall, Hägnade, 167, 183. Kristiansen, and Larsson, Rise of Bronze, 317.
[22] Vetenskapens värld, Birkas smutsiga hemlighet (SVT Play, 2016).
[23] Näsström, Forntida, 73.
[24] Jónsson, Ynglingesaga, Cap. 48. Johansson ed., Snorri Sturlason, Snorres Edda (Prologue), Cap. 9ff. Parallels to Greek dramas are inevitable.
[25] The northern plant, woad (Isatis tinctoria) for dying the expensive blue color.
[26] Gro Steinsland, Husfruer, Gydjer og Volver: Den skjulte tradition i norrøn religion. In Hun: En Antologi om Kunnskap fra Kvinners Liv, ed. Gjertrud Sæter, 23-57 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1996).
[27] UiO, Museum of Cultural History, The women in the Oseberg burial, published July 8, 2016.
[28] Merlin Stone, When God was a woman (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), 45ff. Bettany Hughes, Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World (New York: Vintage Books, 2005), 78ff.
[29] Miranda, and Stephen Aldhouse-Green, The Quest for the Shaman: Shape-Shifters, Sorcerers and Spirit Healers of Ancient Europe, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005), 17, 63
[30] Christopher J. Knüsel, More Circe than Cassandra. The Princess of Vix in Ritualized Social Context. In European Journal of Archeology Vol. 5, Issus 3, 275-308, (Cambridge: Sage Publications, 2002).
[31] Knüsel, Journal of Archeology, 275.
[32] Hazel Butler, Community and the ‘Princess’ of Vix: A Reinterprettion of the Late Hallstatt Tumuli. (Cardiff: Bangor University, 2009), 14. https://www.academia.edu/9030445/Community_and_the_Princess_of_Vix_A_Reinterprettion_of_the_Late_Hallstatt_Tumuli
[33] Christopher J. Knüsel in The Celts – BBC Series Ep 1. In the Beginning. Minute: 32:21. YouTube, 1987. [190701].
[34] At a guided visit to the Oseberg ship by Professor of Viking Archeology, Jan Bill we learned that professional “mound-breakers” robbed the ship relatively shortly after its sealing. The robbers left wooden spades which made it possible by dendrochronology to date the break-in, which seemingly took place during the domination of Norway by the Danish King Harald from 870CE. For further reading see: Bill, Jan and Aoife Daly. The plundering of the ship graves from Oseberg and Gokstad.
[35] Old Norse: ǫ́ss or áss, ás, plural æsir Old English: ōs – meaning Asir.
[36] R. Keyser, and P.A. Munch, Eds. Den ældre Gulathings-Lov (Dating 10th century), Norges Love ældre end Kong Magnus Haakonssöns Regjerings-Tiltrædelse i 1263. Vol. 1. (Christiania: Ifölge offentlig Foranstaltning og tillige med Understöttelse af det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab, 1847), 1-118. https://no.wikisource.org/wiki/Norges_gamle_Love
[37] Bolin, Abcence of Gender, 1-18.
[38] Bergstedt, Märta-Lena. Kvinnors roller i det vikingatida samhället (MA, Södertörn University, 2014). Keyser and Munch, eds., Ældre Gulathings-Lov. https://no.wikisource.org/wiki/Norges_gamle_Love
[39] The Estonian Võlur became witch. The Isl. Norn became witch; see Bek-Pedersen, Norns, 1.
[40] Cecilia Nordberg, Gud, Konung och undersåter. Politisk predikan under tidigmodern tid. In Ericsson, Peter. Gud, konung och undersåtar Politisk predikan i Sverige under tidigmodern tid (Stockholm: Swedish Science Press. 2007. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:626582/FULLTEXT02.pdf), 37-41ff
[41] The ancient Estonian words for shamans, nõid and võlur, today in modern Estonian denotes witches and magic players. As discussed in the text, shamans have a specialized contact with the spiritual side of nature; they are not like magicians (druids) skilled in playing tricks.
Strömbäck, Sejd, 1935.
[42] Leche, et. al., Nordisk familjebok, 1205.
Beguine lay-orders still flourish e.g. in Kloster Malgarten, Osnabrück, Germany, www.forum-kloster-malgarten.de
[43] Mother Holle/Hulda (Hyldemor, Danish) is Hel in person. Hyldefolk equals Ellefolk (/Elder/Elven people). Lidegaard, Danske Höje, 156. She figures in tales by the Grim Brothers and H.C.Andersen.
Zsuzsanna Budapest. Grandmother Moon, (Washington, D.C: Library of Congress Cataloging, 1991), 18. Näsström, Fornskandinavisk, 96.
[44] Swedish: Enbärsbusk (Juniper bush) and Nu ska vi skörda linet idag etc. teaches washing/cleaning, harvesting flax, spin and weave.
[45] Found in Christian legends, Grimms´ Fairytales, Folk tales etc.
[46] Grimm, Bdr., Grimms Eventyr: Komplet udgave (København: Sesam forlag, 2004), 505, No. 066 (The English translation has a strike on the head, instead of the original German a box on the ear, indicating male violence.
(To be Continued)
(Meet Mago Contributor) Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen.