The Völvas: The History and Legacy of the Viking Prophetesses

Over the centuries, the West has become fascinated by the Vikings, one of the most mysterious and interesting European civilizations. In addition to being perceived as a remarkably unique culture among its European counterparts, what’s known and not known about the Vikings’ accomplishments has added an intriguing aura to the historical narrative. Were they fierce and fearsome warriors? Were they the first Europeans to visit North America? It seems some of the legends are true, and some are legend. 

The almost ubiquitous depiction of the Vikings as horn-helmeted, brutish, hairy giants who mercilessly marauded among the settlements of Northern Europe is based on an abundance of prejudicial historical writing by those who were on the receiving end of Viking depredations, and much of the popular picture of the Vikings is a result of the romantic imagination of novelists and artists. 

The völvas stood at the edge of Norse religion and at its center at the same time. They weren't priests in the sense that a medieval Christian understood the word, and they didn't serve at a temple. They traveled, carried staffs, sat on high platforms, sang with their helpers, and saw what other people couldn't. Kings summoned them, farmers fed them, and the god Odin himself, the sources say, rode to the land of the dead to wake one from her grave because she knew what he didn't. The greatest poem of Norse mythology, the account of how the world began and how it ends, is spoken in a völva’s voice.

Then the old religion gave way. The kings who brought Christianity to the north drowned and burned practitioners of the old magic, the new law codes forbade people to seek out prophecies, and the völva passed into history and legend. What remains of the Viking völvas is a handful of poems, a scattering of saga episodes, and a few dozen iron rods that archaeologists have lifted from women's graves across Scandinavia.