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![]() | The contents of the Þuríðr Sundafyllir page were merged into Seeress (Germanic) on 2 September 2016. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
Cite needed for spaewife cognates - I did some Googling and found the identical text repeated on many sites without attribution. It isn't clear which, if any, of these might be a secondary or tertiary source (maybe they're all quaternary?), so we need a philologist with a library of Norse & OE lexicons here! D A Patriarche ( talk) 00:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Is "seiðmaðr" (here & in section Male Practitioners) correct or should it be "seiðrmaðr"? The source [1] that led me to look up this term used the Anglicized "seidrmadr". I realize fiction is hardly a reliable reference but it did make me wonder whether "seiðmaðr" was a typo. D A Patriarche ( talk) 09:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
I looked for "Spæwīfe" on the BT Anglo-Saxon dictionary and did not find it. As well, in that citation, does not even have the said word. It would be wise to call this word a reconstruction than a "attested word" until proven otherwise. Leornendeealdenglisc ( talk) 23:16, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
" Völva" redirects here, while " Vala" links to "völva" (mentioning that "vala" is a "spelling variant"). Therefore they both need an early and clear mention/definition in this article. Before my edit: "völva" occurs abruptly without introduction in the third paragraph. There is also not a clear introduction to the word in the Names section. The "vala" variant is not mentioned at all.
=> I took the liberty of adding to the initial paragraph:
"In Norse mythology the seeress is usually referred to as völva or vala."
(Anders Hallström)
165.1.243.180 (
talk) 09:32, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
It is to notify that the temrinus 'shaman' is originated in the Tchutchen-Siberian language, which means 'wanderer of the worlds'. Even if voelvas have partially similar methods, they cannot legitimally be called 'shamans' - because they are not following the same path.
SvarturVölva ( talk) 20:55, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
I have noticed that in one part of the article, the Volvas' wands are compared pretty convincingly with distaff tools, whilst later in the article, it says that this has no foundation and they are actually phallic symbols. Even if there is contradictory evidence, shouldn't we just point both sides out rather than contradicting ourselves? 85.158.139.99 ( talk) 15:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
This article is skewed somewhat against "the competing Roman Catholic Church". The most obviously POV statement is that "they were demonized", meaning that they were represented as evil. This I'll change myself; other points that imply a certain bias and merit a look from others include:
-- Perey 07:07, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm reverting the edits by 68.198.87.154 ( Talk). One is just changing Roman Catholic Church to Catholic Church (a redirect to the former; this user is doing this all over the place), and the other changes this sentence:
The change is from course to name. Now I'm not happy with that sentence as it stands anyway, but I'll at least let it stand with 'course' in there. That way, it looks something like an NPOV statement of historical events (even if 'persecuted, slandered and killed' can't help but sound harsh), instead of a statement of the reasons for doing so ('in the name of...'). It's a subtle point, but so be it. (Incidentally, I'll capitalise and link 'Christianization' at the same time.) -- Perey 05:32, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm removing the 'slandered' from that sentence chiefly because it's rather difficult to tell what was slander and what wasn't; there's much less doubt about the persecution and killing. I'm curious about the change in women's position in society; the sentence leaves one wondering how did it change? For better, for worse, or just different? Without some kind of elaboration, the article would be better off not mentioning it. Wesley 04:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Anyone know why Seidman redirects to here? I see no mention of that term in the body of the article. There are four articles on people with that last name, so it should probably be a disamb page, but I can't even see why this would be listed as a possible meaning. Matchups 02:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC) (friend of the non-notable Dan Seidman)
I'd point out that the final part, about how this tradition died out, is incoherent. It blames pretty much everyone in the history of Western theology. I'm not clear, for example, how the Reformed Churches could have crushed this style of practice, given that they are a product of the Sixteenth Century, and spent most of their earlier time avoiding being hunted down by the Catholics. I can't see any connection between the witches killed under King James and this tradition at all. The author quotes "canon law under King Edgar", which seems fine until you realise that until the formation of the Church of England, the king of England has very little to do with the formation of canon (that is to say, church) law, and so this is just another attempt to spread about the blame.
I don't mind pagans mentioning the horrors of Christianistion, but perhaps they might also point out that one of the main reasons there were no practitioners of this tradition left was because very large numbers of Germans volunteered to change religions? This idea that medieval peasants were children that were tricked into Christianity by the Church has no foundation.
What is rational for using the name Volva as the page namee? Normally page names should be in English. What language is "Volva" (old Norse?) and each of the other varients? This shold be stated and each language with period identified if its multilingual. Thank you. Goldenrowley 00:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I tried looking up this source for this entry: "In the grave, there were also four seeds from the cannabis plant which probably had been in the pillows that supported the corpses.[13] Moreover, additional cannabis seeds were discovered in a small leather pouch.[13] Since the pouch contained too few seeds to have anything to do with the cultivation of cannabis, they were probably used for something else.[13] If the queen who had been buried in Oseberg had smoked these seeds, she would not only have sensed a feeling of weightlessness and happiness, but she would also have had a distorted experience of time and space.[13]" I don't know where this person got this information but it's completely wrong. Perhaps the seeds were supposed to represent what the plant did. However ingesting or smoking cannabis seeds wouldn't have had any effect. In fact if a person was going to try to smoke seeds, they'd find the seeds would pop or burst, not smoke! If there's a creditable reason for this being here, I'll leave it, if not I'm taking this rubbish out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justgivemeanaccount ( talk • contribs) 15:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It is dubious, possibly New Age fluff, to simply equate oracles, priestesses, shamans and witches. Do we have sources equating Völva, Seiðkona and Spákona as implied by the lead? Even if we do, Old English Wicce is clearly the odd one out still. Looking through the article, it would seem appropriate to {{ split}} it into a discussion of Völva (proper), and a more general treatment of "magic and sorcery in early Germanic society". It is a completely flawed notion recurring in poorly informed neopaganism that somehow pagan priestesses "turned into witches" due to Christianization. It's not that simple. There was belief in witches (i.e. people trying to do damage by magical means) all along, throughout the pagan period, and Christianity actually combatted belief in witchcraft as pagan superstition, and a bona fide priestess would probably not have been amused to be equated with a witch. Per WP:REDFLAG, any claim lumping together priesthood, shamanism and witchcraft needs solid academic support in order to avoid WP:SYN -- dab (𒁳) 14:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I find it hard to believe the shoddy scholarship present here was actually undertaken by "prominent" historians, and that if it was, it is certainly being presented with a point of view in mind. This entire article is a real let down and certain sections reads like a Neopagan version of "the burning times" stories Wiccan circles go on about. I think the initial poster is right to ask for sources demonstrating how volva, spaekona, witches, etc. were equivalent. Also, did anyone notice how in several places the article mentions how "very likely" some of its own conclusions were? This should alarm anyone trying to defend its composition... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.236.159.89 ( talk) 17:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The summary of the ship burial observed by ibn Fadlan states that the slave girl was raped, whereas the refered text only says that she had went from tent to tent having sex with various men. As she agreed to the rite and her own death and she then voluntarily acted as a Volva, the voluntary nature of sex is credible. The strange sexual rites of distant people may disturb modern readers but that does not make them rape.JDN —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.174.236 ( talk) 22:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the Harrison & Svensson source does not impress me based on the statements cited to it here. This article needs to be rewritten using more of the specialised sources including those which are not so sensationalistic. It will be a big task, but it does need to be done. Yngvadottir ( talk) 04:33, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
I noticed a lack of vandalism of the main article, which surprised me, due to the term's similarity to that for a certain part of the female anatomy and the similarity to a certain car brand's name. I guess the word "volva" isn't that famous. Otherwise, some folks would've been all over it. 198.151.130.51 ( talk) 18:24, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
D A Patriarche ( talk) 09:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
"straight member" for "Rettilbein" is a mistranslation. "Straight-limbed" might possibly be passable, but the literal translation is Straight-Bone, with "bein" also being the word for "leg", i.e. Straight-Leg.
T 88.89.219.147 ( talk) 23:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
There is nothing demonstrating that the accounts of witches, prophetesses and priestesses among various early Germanic peoples as given in the "early accounts" section represent something specifically like the Norse vǫlur. Witches, prophetesses, priestesses, shamans and the like existed in many cultures. What makes these intrinsically linked as some sort of precursors to the vǫlur, other than the fact that they presumably spoke Germanic languages? The link seems altogether anachronistic as it is given here, we're talking about a separation of over half a millennium in the case of the haliurunnas and even more in the other cases: assuming these represent some ur-Germanic archetype of a vǫlva seems a bit much. — Mnemosientje ( t · c) 20:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
I've prepared a rewrite of this article, which is now live. I rewrote the article for the following reasons:
I'll be expanding this and related articles as time permits. :bloodofox: ( talk) 02:50, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
I note that as part of their rewrite covered in the section above, Bloodofox moved this article from its original title, Völva. While I don't doubt that the rewrite was beneficial in making the article more neutral and separating supposition from fact, the material on vǫlur and their relationship to spækonar is fundamentally Norse and I believe justifies a separate völva page with the material on Veleda and on what possibly may have gone on outside the Old Norse-speaking areas, with their distinct textual basis, more usefully discussed at the Seeress (Germanic) title. I suggested SvarturVölva start this section, since they have been editing the redirect created by the move in order to establish a separate article, so since they didn't do so, I'm instead pinging them here. I think this should be discussed separately from the rewrite itself. Yngvadottir ( talk) 17:03, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
I propose to merge Þorbjörg Lítilvölva into Seeress (Germanic). I think that the content in the Þorbjörg Lítilvölva article can easily be explained in the context of Seeress (Germanic), and the Germanic Seeresses article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Þorbjörg Lítilvölva will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. PepperBeast (talk) 20:42, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
I just realized that I started this article on February 19, 2004, when I was a Ph.D. student.-- Berig (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
I am reading The Viking Way by Neil Price (archaeologist) and he points out something that has concerned me since this article was moved from Völva to Seeress. The roles of "prophetess" and "magic worker" don't appear to have been separate occupations, but performed by the same people. I don't know how to fix this, though, since the term prophetess seems intrenched in this topic, while sorceress might be a more correct term. Also, other concepts that may be relevant to discuss here are pagan priestess, witch, wise women and shaman.-- Berig (talk) 06:41, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
If anyone is curious about how their chanting sounded, Price writes that it was probably equivalent to the traditional Swedish herd-calling. This makes sense as the Völva's chanting was a high-pitched call for summoning spirits, and it had a pleasing sound. Maybe I can integrate this into the article later.-- Berig (talk) 19:07, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
I see some "integrity problems" with the wikilinks back and forth here. In general I think links between articles should run both ways when the subjects are sufficiently related. Two problems:
(Anders Hallström)
165.1.243.180 (
talk) 10:29, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
Some quick and where we're at right now:
Yes, I don't believe for a second that it is Frigg, but I think it is a nice illustration of one of the semantic extensions of the gandreið. There is a lot that speaks for continuity between the perception of the seeresses and the perception of the medieval witches, in the Germanic speaking countries, and I hope to find more scholary literature on this later for a final section.-- Berig (talk) 11:55, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Yup! I found a reference in Mitchell's book. Here we have a Harvard professor, who writes that the traditions of these women survived and evolved during the Middle Ages. There are people who sneer at neo-pagans who claim that the burning of women at the stakes was an attempt to end an old continuous tradition, but this may very well have been the case.-- Berig (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
Using the book by Katherine Morris that is authoritative enough to be quoted by Neil Price, it appears that these neo-pagans are right. The church declared this tradition to be a heresy, so yes, we have WP:RS that the ecclesiastical elite effectively proclaimed genocide on the practitioners of this tradition. It becomes heavier and heavier to write this article.-- Berig (talk) 11:40, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
I am trying to keep a balance between coverage and size, and I think the primary sources would simply be too massive to include with translations. Although, I usually agree with the approach you are mentioning Bloodofox, I think this article is better served by going into secondary sources, and having the primary sources and the translations in the specific articles on the individual seeresses. The reason why I made Gambara (Lombard) into a redirect is because it was hardly a stub and in its present state it served the readers best as a redirect. Later, I (or someone else) may expand it with primary source quotations and translations.-- Berig (talk) 11:55, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
On second thought Bloodofox, I will merge the content into the article, and refer to it, as you suggested.-- Berig (talk) 08:02, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() | The contents of the Þuríðr Sundafyllir page were merged into Seeress (Germanic) on 2 September 2016. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
Cite needed for spaewife cognates - I did some Googling and found the identical text repeated on many sites without attribution. It isn't clear which, if any, of these might be a secondary or tertiary source (maybe they're all quaternary?), so we need a philologist with a library of Norse & OE lexicons here! D A Patriarche ( talk) 00:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Is "seiðmaðr" (here & in section Male Practitioners) correct or should it be "seiðrmaðr"? The source [1] that led me to look up this term used the Anglicized "seidrmadr". I realize fiction is hardly a reliable reference but it did make me wonder whether "seiðmaðr" was a typo. D A Patriarche ( talk) 09:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
I looked for "Spæwīfe" on the BT Anglo-Saxon dictionary and did not find it. As well, in that citation, does not even have the said word. It would be wise to call this word a reconstruction than a "attested word" until proven otherwise. Leornendeealdenglisc ( talk) 23:16, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
" Völva" redirects here, while " Vala" links to "völva" (mentioning that "vala" is a "spelling variant"). Therefore they both need an early and clear mention/definition in this article. Before my edit: "völva" occurs abruptly without introduction in the third paragraph. There is also not a clear introduction to the word in the Names section. The "vala" variant is not mentioned at all.
=> I took the liberty of adding to the initial paragraph:
"In Norse mythology the seeress is usually referred to as völva or vala."
(Anders Hallström)
165.1.243.180 (
talk) 09:32, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
It is to notify that the temrinus 'shaman' is originated in the Tchutchen-Siberian language, which means 'wanderer of the worlds'. Even if voelvas have partially similar methods, they cannot legitimally be called 'shamans' - because they are not following the same path.
SvarturVölva ( talk) 20:55, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
I have noticed that in one part of the article, the Volvas' wands are compared pretty convincingly with distaff tools, whilst later in the article, it says that this has no foundation and they are actually phallic symbols. Even if there is contradictory evidence, shouldn't we just point both sides out rather than contradicting ourselves? 85.158.139.99 ( talk) 15:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
This article is skewed somewhat against "the competing Roman Catholic Church". The most obviously POV statement is that "they were demonized", meaning that they were represented as evil. This I'll change myself; other points that imply a certain bias and merit a look from others include:
-- Perey 07:07, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm reverting the edits by 68.198.87.154 ( Talk). One is just changing Roman Catholic Church to Catholic Church (a redirect to the former; this user is doing this all over the place), and the other changes this sentence:
The change is from course to name. Now I'm not happy with that sentence as it stands anyway, but I'll at least let it stand with 'course' in there. That way, it looks something like an NPOV statement of historical events (even if 'persecuted, slandered and killed' can't help but sound harsh), instead of a statement of the reasons for doing so ('in the name of...'). It's a subtle point, but so be it. (Incidentally, I'll capitalise and link 'Christianization' at the same time.) -- Perey 05:32, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm removing the 'slandered' from that sentence chiefly because it's rather difficult to tell what was slander and what wasn't; there's much less doubt about the persecution and killing. I'm curious about the change in women's position in society; the sentence leaves one wondering how did it change? For better, for worse, or just different? Without some kind of elaboration, the article would be better off not mentioning it. Wesley 04:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Anyone know why Seidman redirects to here? I see no mention of that term in the body of the article. There are four articles on people with that last name, so it should probably be a disamb page, but I can't even see why this would be listed as a possible meaning. Matchups 02:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC) (friend of the non-notable Dan Seidman)
I'd point out that the final part, about how this tradition died out, is incoherent. It blames pretty much everyone in the history of Western theology. I'm not clear, for example, how the Reformed Churches could have crushed this style of practice, given that they are a product of the Sixteenth Century, and spent most of their earlier time avoiding being hunted down by the Catholics. I can't see any connection between the witches killed under King James and this tradition at all. The author quotes "canon law under King Edgar", which seems fine until you realise that until the formation of the Church of England, the king of England has very little to do with the formation of canon (that is to say, church) law, and so this is just another attempt to spread about the blame.
I don't mind pagans mentioning the horrors of Christianistion, but perhaps they might also point out that one of the main reasons there were no practitioners of this tradition left was because very large numbers of Germans volunteered to change religions? This idea that medieval peasants were children that were tricked into Christianity by the Church has no foundation.
What is rational for using the name Volva as the page namee? Normally page names should be in English. What language is "Volva" (old Norse?) and each of the other varients? This shold be stated and each language with period identified if its multilingual. Thank you. Goldenrowley 00:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I tried looking up this source for this entry: "In the grave, there were also four seeds from the cannabis plant which probably had been in the pillows that supported the corpses.[13] Moreover, additional cannabis seeds were discovered in a small leather pouch.[13] Since the pouch contained too few seeds to have anything to do with the cultivation of cannabis, they were probably used for something else.[13] If the queen who had been buried in Oseberg had smoked these seeds, she would not only have sensed a feeling of weightlessness and happiness, but she would also have had a distorted experience of time and space.[13]" I don't know where this person got this information but it's completely wrong. Perhaps the seeds were supposed to represent what the plant did. However ingesting or smoking cannabis seeds wouldn't have had any effect. In fact if a person was going to try to smoke seeds, they'd find the seeds would pop or burst, not smoke! If there's a creditable reason for this being here, I'll leave it, if not I'm taking this rubbish out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justgivemeanaccount ( talk • contribs) 15:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It is dubious, possibly New Age fluff, to simply equate oracles, priestesses, shamans and witches. Do we have sources equating Völva, Seiðkona and Spákona as implied by the lead? Even if we do, Old English Wicce is clearly the odd one out still. Looking through the article, it would seem appropriate to {{ split}} it into a discussion of Völva (proper), and a more general treatment of "magic and sorcery in early Germanic society". It is a completely flawed notion recurring in poorly informed neopaganism that somehow pagan priestesses "turned into witches" due to Christianization. It's not that simple. There was belief in witches (i.e. people trying to do damage by magical means) all along, throughout the pagan period, and Christianity actually combatted belief in witchcraft as pagan superstition, and a bona fide priestess would probably not have been amused to be equated with a witch. Per WP:REDFLAG, any claim lumping together priesthood, shamanism and witchcraft needs solid academic support in order to avoid WP:SYN -- dab (𒁳) 14:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I find it hard to believe the shoddy scholarship present here was actually undertaken by "prominent" historians, and that if it was, it is certainly being presented with a point of view in mind. This entire article is a real let down and certain sections reads like a Neopagan version of "the burning times" stories Wiccan circles go on about. I think the initial poster is right to ask for sources demonstrating how volva, spaekona, witches, etc. were equivalent. Also, did anyone notice how in several places the article mentions how "very likely" some of its own conclusions were? This should alarm anyone trying to defend its composition... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.236.159.89 ( talk) 17:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The summary of the ship burial observed by ibn Fadlan states that the slave girl was raped, whereas the refered text only says that she had went from tent to tent having sex with various men. As she agreed to the rite and her own death and she then voluntarily acted as a Volva, the voluntary nature of sex is credible. The strange sexual rites of distant people may disturb modern readers but that does not make them rape.JDN —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.174.236 ( talk) 22:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the Harrison & Svensson source does not impress me based on the statements cited to it here. This article needs to be rewritten using more of the specialised sources including those which are not so sensationalistic. It will be a big task, but it does need to be done. Yngvadottir ( talk) 04:33, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
I noticed a lack of vandalism of the main article, which surprised me, due to the term's similarity to that for a certain part of the female anatomy and the similarity to a certain car brand's name. I guess the word "volva" isn't that famous. Otherwise, some folks would've been all over it. 198.151.130.51 ( talk) 18:24, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
D A Patriarche ( talk) 09:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
"straight member" for "Rettilbein" is a mistranslation. "Straight-limbed" might possibly be passable, but the literal translation is Straight-Bone, with "bein" also being the word for "leg", i.e. Straight-Leg.
T 88.89.219.147 ( talk) 23:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
There is nothing demonstrating that the accounts of witches, prophetesses and priestesses among various early Germanic peoples as given in the "early accounts" section represent something specifically like the Norse vǫlur. Witches, prophetesses, priestesses, shamans and the like existed in many cultures. What makes these intrinsically linked as some sort of precursors to the vǫlur, other than the fact that they presumably spoke Germanic languages? The link seems altogether anachronistic as it is given here, we're talking about a separation of over half a millennium in the case of the haliurunnas and even more in the other cases: assuming these represent some ur-Germanic archetype of a vǫlva seems a bit much. — Mnemosientje ( t · c) 20:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
I've prepared a rewrite of this article, which is now live. I rewrote the article for the following reasons:
I'll be expanding this and related articles as time permits. :bloodofox: ( talk) 02:50, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
I note that as part of their rewrite covered in the section above, Bloodofox moved this article from its original title, Völva. While I don't doubt that the rewrite was beneficial in making the article more neutral and separating supposition from fact, the material on vǫlur and their relationship to spækonar is fundamentally Norse and I believe justifies a separate völva page with the material on Veleda and on what possibly may have gone on outside the Old Norse-speaking areas, with their distinct textual basis, more usefully discussed at the Seeress (Germanic) title. I suggested SvarturVölva start this section, since they have been editing the redirect created by the move in order to establish a separate article, so since they didn't do so, I'm instead pinging them here. I think this should be discussed separately from the rewrite itself. Yngvadottir ( talk) 17:03, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
I propose to merge Þorbjörg Lítilvölva into Seeress (Germanic). I think that the content in the Þorbjörg Lítilvölva article can easily be explained in the context of Seeress (Germanic), and the Germanic Seeresses article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Þorbjörg Lítilvölva will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. PepperBeast (talk) 20:42, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
I just realized that I started this article on February 19, 2004, when I was a Ph.D. student.-- Berig (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
I am reading The Viking Way by Neil Price (archaeologist) and he points out something that has concerned me since this article was moved from Völva to Seeress. The roles of "prophetess" and "magic worker" don't appear to have been separate occupations, but performed by the same people. I don't know how to fix this, though, since the term prophetess seems intrenched in this topic, while sorceress might be a more correct term. Also, other concepts that may be relevant to discuss here are pagan priestess, witch, wise women and shaman.-- Berig (talk) 06:41, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
If anyone is curious about how their chanting sounded, Price writes that it was probably equivalent to the traditional Swedish herd-calling. This makes sense as the Völva's chanting was a high-pitched call for summoning spirits, and it had a pleasing sound. Maybe I can integrate this into the article later.-- Berig (talk) 19:07, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
I see some "integrity problems" with the wikilinks back and forth here. In general I think links between articles should run both ways when the subjects are sufficiently related. Two problems:
(Anders Hallström)
165.1.243.180 (
talk) 10:29, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
Some quick and where we're at right now:
Yes, I don't believe for a second that it is Frigg, but I think it is a nice illustration of one of the semantic extensions of the gandreið. There is a lot that speaks for continuity between the perception of the seeresses and the perception of the medieval witches, in the Germanic speaking countries, and I hope to find more scholary literature on this later for a final section.-- Berig (talk) 11:55, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Yup! I found a reference in Mitchell's book. Here we have a Harvard professor, who writes that the traditions of these women survived and evolved during the Middle Ages. There are people who sneer at neo-pagans who claim that the burning of women at the stakes was an attempt to end an old continuous tradition, but this may very well have been the case.-- Berig (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
Using the book by Katherine Morris that is authoritative enough to be quoted by Neil Price, it appears that these neo-pagans are right. The church declared this tradition to be a heresy, so yes, we have WP:RS that the ecclesiastical elite effectively proclaimed genocide on the practitioners of this tradition. It becomes heavier and heavier to write this article.-- Berig (talk) 11:40, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
I am trying to keep a balance between coverage and size, and I think the primary sources would simply be too massive to include with translations. Although, I usually agree with the approach you are mentioning Bloodofox, I think this article is better served by going into secondary sources, and having the primary sources and the translations in the specific articles on the individual seeresses. The reason why I made Gambara (Lombard) into a redirect is because it was hardly a stub and in its present state it served the readers best as a redirect. Later, I (or someone else) may expand it with primary source quotations and translations.-- Berig (talk) 11:55, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
On second thought Bloodofox, I will merge the content into the article, and refer to it, as you suggested.-- Berig (talk) 08:02, 1 October 2021 (UTC)