Seiðr

Various scholars have debated the nature of seiðr, some of them have argued that it was shamanic in context, involving visionary journeys by its practitioners.

In pre-Christian Norse mythology, seiðr was associated with both the god Óðinn, a deity who was simultaneously responsible for war, poetry and sorcery, and the goddess Freyja, a member of the Vanir who was believed to have taught the practice to the Æsir.

[1] In the 20th century, adherents of various modern Pagan new religious movements adopted forms of magico-religious practice which include seiðr.

In the Viking Age, the practice of seiðr by men had connotations of unmanliness or effeminacy, known as ergi, as its manipulative aspects ran counter to masculine ideal of forthright, open behavior.

[5] Freyja and perhaps some of the other goddesses of Norse mythology were seiðr practitioners, Óðinn was accused by Loki in the Lokasenna of being "unmanly" to which Odin replied with: "Knowest thou that I gave to those I ought not – victory to cowards?

She wore a blue cloak and a headpiece of black lamb trimmed with white ermine, carried the symbolic distaff (seiðstafr), which was buried with her, and would sit on a high platform.

[6] Now, when she came in the evening, accompanied by the man who had been sent to meet her, she was dressed in such wise that she had a blue mantle over her, with strings for the neck, and it was inlaid with gems quite down to the skirt.

Around her she wore a girdle of soft hair (or belt of touch wood[7]), and therein was a large skin-bag, in which she kept the talismans needful to her in her wisdom.

She wore hairy calf-skin shoes on her feet, with long and strong-looking thongs to them, and great knobs of latten at the ends.

Seiðr is mentioned in Icelandic folktales dating to the 19th century (Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri, Jón Árnason).

Neil Price noted that, because of its connection with ergi, seiðr was undoubtedly located on 'one of society's moral and psychological borders'.

Viking texts suggest that the seiðr ritual was used in times of inherent crisis, as a tool for seeing into the future, and for cursing and hexing one's enemies.

[14] In Lokasenna, according to the Poetic Edda, Loki accuses Óðinn of practising seiðr, condemning it as an unmanly art (ergi).

A justification for this may be found in the Ynglinga saga, where Snorri opines that following the practice of seiðr rendered the practitioner weak and helpless.

One possible example of seiðr in Norse mythology is the prophetic vision given to Óðinn in the Vǫluspá by the völva after whom the poem is named.

Her vision is not connected explicitly with seiðr; however, the word occurs in the poem in relation to a character called Heiðr (who is traditionally associated with Freyja but may be identical with the völva).

[26] According to Blain, seiðr is an intrinsic part of spiritual practice connecting practitioners to the wider cosmology in British Germanic neopaganism.