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concept

The völva

völva

The Norse seeress: a woman who foretold the future, sometimes from beyond the grave. Völuspá, the first poem of the Poetic Edda, is a völva's prophecy spoken to Odin.

Odin og Völven by Frølich
Odin og Völven by Frølich, Lorenz Frølich (1895). Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

A völva is a seeress, a woman who can see what is hidden and what is to come. The Poetic Edda opens with the words of one. Völuspá means "the prophecy of the völva". In it she calls for silence from "Heimdall's sons, both high and low", tells Odin ("Valfather") that she will relate the oldest things she remembers Völuspá 1, and goes on from the creation of the world to its end and renewal.

The poem shows what a völva was for. Odin, the wisest of the gods, comes to her. "Alone I sat when the Old One sought me," she says, and she knows at once where his lost eye is hidden Völuspá 28. He pays her in "necklaces … and rings" Völuspá 30. Her refrain, "would you know yet more?" Völuspá 29, is half offer and half challenge. At the end she sinks away Völuspá 66. In the Old Norse she mostly speaks of herself in the third person ("she sat alone outside"); Bellows turns this into "I".

In Baldrs draumar, Odin rides to Hel to find out why Baldr is dreaming of death. At the eastern door he finds "the wise-woman's grave" and raises her with charms Baldrs draumar 4. She tells him, unwillingly, who will kill Baldr and who will avenge him, until she recognises him and sends him home Baldrs draumar 14. Odin's power to wake the dead with galdr meets the völva's knowledge.

Völuspá also names a seeress called Heith, "the wide-seeing witch", who went from house to house; the Old Norse says she practised seiðr Völuspá 22. That stanza links the völva with seiðr, the sorcery the sagas associate with seeresses.

Outside the Eddas, the best-known description is in Eiríks saga rauða. A völva visits a Greenland farm in a hard season, sits on a raised seat, and after a woman present sings the chant she needs, foretells the end of the famine and a great future for the young woman who sang. Tacitus, writing about the Germanic peoples in the 1st century AD, already mentions women honoured as prophetesses. Archaeologists have suggested that some wealthy female burials of the Viking Age, buried with metal staffs, may be those of seeresses. That is an interpretation, not a certainty.

In the sources

Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.

Hearing I ask from the holy races, From Heimdall's sons, both high and low; Thou wilt, Valfather, that well I relate Old tales I remember of men long ago.
Völuspá 1 The völva opens her prophecy by calling for silence and addressing Odin.
Alone I sat when the Old One sought me, The terror of gods, and gazed in mine eyes:
Völuspá 28 Odin comes to the seeress to question her.
Necklaces had I and rings from Heerfather, Wise was my speech and my magic wisdom;
Völuspá 30 She is paid for her prophecy, as seeresses were in the sagas.
Then Othin rode to the eastern door, There, he knew well, was the wise-woman's grave; Magic he spoke and mighty charms, Till spell-bound she rose, and in death she spoke:
Baldrs draumar 4 Odin raises a dead völva by charms to learn Baldr's fate.
Heith they named her who sought their home, The wide-seeing witch, in magic wise;
Völuspá 22 A wandering seeress named Heith, who practised seiðr.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Whether the speaker of Völuspá is the same as Heith of stanza 22 or as the dead wise-woman of Baldrs draumar; readers have argued for both.

Myths with The völva

Ask and Embla: the first humans Three gods walking by the shore find two lifeless pieces of wood, Ask and Embla, and give them breath, mind, warmth and colour. Völuspá and Snorri agree on the gifts but not on who gave them. Baldr's dreams and death Baldr dreams of his own death; Odin rides to Hel to question a dead seeress; and, in Snorri's telling, Loki puts a sprig of mistletoe into blind Höðr's hand. The gods lose their brightest member and the slide toward Ragnarök begins. Odin's eye and Mímir's well Odin gave one of his eyes as a pledge for a drink from the well of wisdom kept by Mímir. The sources tell it in a few lines, and the eye's hiding-place becomes one of the secrets the seeress of Völuspá throws back at the god. The war of the Æsir and the Vanir The first war in the world, fought between the two families of gods. The surviving texts give only fragments — a witch burned three times, Odin's spear, a broken wall, a truce sealed with spittle and hostages — but they add up to the story of how the Vanir came to live among the Æsir.

Related

Seiðr seiðr A form of Norse sorcery used to see the future and to bend minds, bodies and luck; associated with seeresses, with Freyja and the Vanir, and, shamefully, with Odin. Odin Óðinn Chief of the Æsir: a one-eyed god of wisdom, poetry, magic, war and the dead, who gave an eye and hanged himself on a tree for knowledge, and who dies at Ragnarök. Galdr galdr The Norse spoken or sung charm: magic made with words, used by Odin to wake the dead, by Groa to protect her son and by the skilled to heal, bind, loosen and curse. Baldr Odin and Frigg's son, the brightest and best-loved of the gods. His death by a mistletoe dart, thrown by his blind brother Höðr, is the first great loss on the road to Ragnarök. The Norns nornir The female powers who fix the lives and deaths of gods and men: three named Norns by the well under Yggdrasil, and many lesser norns who come to every birth. Freyja The Vanir goddess of love, wealth and the slain: daughter of Njörðr, owner of the necklace Brísingamen, who takes half of those who fall in battle to her hall Fólkvangr. Dísir dísir Female guardian spirits tied to fate, to families and to childbirth, who received sacrifices; the Eddas mention them only in passing, and Bellows translates the word in several different ways.