The Norse Sorceress: Mind and Materiality in the Viking World

This study offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and contextualized investigation of the figure of the volva, situating her in the wider context of pre-Christian Nordic religion, culture, and ritual practices.. Old Norse literature abounds with descriptions of magic acts that allow ritual specialists of various kinds to manipulate the world around them, see into the future or the distant past, change weather conditions, influence the outcomes of battles, and more. While magic practitioners are known under myriad terms, the most iconic of them is the volva. As the central figure of the famous mythological poem Voluspá (The Prophecy of the Volva) , the volva commands both respect and fear. In non-mythological texts similar women are portrayed as crucial albeit somewhat peculiar members of society. Always veiled in mystery, the volur and their kind have captured the academic and popular imagination for centuries. Bringing together scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds, this volume provides new insights into the reality of magic and its agents in the Viking world, beyond the pages of medieval texts. It explores new trajectories for the study of past mentalities, beliefs, and rituals as well as the tools employed in these practices and the individuals who wielded them. In doing so, the volume engages with several topical issues of Viking Age research, including the complex entanglements of mind and materiality, the cultural attitudes to animals and the natural world, and the cultural constructions of gender and sexuality. By addressing these complex themes, it offers a nuanced image of the volva and related magic workers in their cultural context. It will appeal to a broad, diverse, and international audience, including experts in the field of Viking and Old Norse studies but also various non-professional history enthusiasts. The Norse Sorceress: Mind and Materiality in the Viking World is a key output of the project Tanken bag Tingene (Thoughts behind Things) conducted at the National Museum of Denmark from 2020 to 2023 and funded by the Krogager Foundation.. Table of Contents. Part 1: Norse myths, rituals, and material culture. An introduction to Old Norse religion(s) and magic. The theoretical and methodological framework: Researching the Viking mind. Gods and other supra-human entities: Communication and manipulation with the Otherworld(s) . The volva's ritual repertoire between magic and divination. Between the material and immaterial: People, texts, and object-agencies in the Viking mind. Religious objects in the Viking world. Gender in the Viking world. Folklore as a resource on Old Nordic religion and belief: Folkloric perspectives on the volva. Part 2: Places and spaces: Rituals and their setting. Inside, outside and in-between: An overview of the spaces and places of Norse rituals. Rituals in temples and other 'holy buildings'. Rituals in the hall. Rituals in domestic work and outbuildings. Rituals in the open landscape. Hoard depositions at elite sites. Processions Funerary practices. Off with their heads: Ritualised executions and human sacrifices in the Viking world. Women and sacrifice: Victims, catalysts, agents or orchestrators?. Surely every live man fades among the dead:Fear and desire in the afterlife of Viking Age graves. Part 3: Animals in ritual practices. Animals in Old Norse religion: An introduction. Birds in Late Iron Age and Viking Period pre-Christian religions and iconography. Horses in Viking Age ritual action. Dogs and wolves. Snakes. The workshops and themes of the Oseberg carvings. Part 4: Ritual specialists. Ritual specialists in the Viking world: An introduction. Gender, prophecies, and magic: Ritual performances in Denmark before the Viking Age. Female sacral leadership: An onomastic-archaeological perspective. The sexual ambiguity of seiðr performers. The archaeology of Viking Age ritual specialists: An introduction. Case study 1: Fyrkat IV. Case study 2: The Birka sorcerers. Case study 3: Klinta. Case study 4: Gutdalen. Case study 5: Gerdrup and Trekroner-Grydehøj. Part 5: The sorcerer's toolkit. Introducing the sorcerer's toolkit. Magic staffs. Amulets and talismans. Case study 1: Miniature chairs. Case study 2: Miniature animals. Case study 3: Miniature weapons: Swords, spears, axes, shields, helmets. Case study 4: Wearing a banner: Cloak pins with miniature weather vanes. Case study 5: Miniature wheels. Case study 6: Beads from volva graves and analogous hoards Nordic masking traditions and the volva Narcotics and make-up