Modern introductions to Norse magic often present seiðr, galdur and fjölkynngi as three separate branches: trance magic, spoken magic and learned magic. The division is memorable. It is also much tidier than the surviving evidence.

Old Norse and Icelandic sources do not give us a handbook with three clearly labelled schools. They give us poems, sagas, laws, sermons, annals, court records, folklore and handwritten books produced across many centuries. The same act may be described differently according to the author, period and purpose of the text. One term can identify a particular practice in one passage and function as a broad word for sorcery in another.

The distinction still matters. Seiðr usually names a recognisable but varied kind of magic in Old Norse literature, strongly associated with obtaining hidden knowledge and influencing people or events. Galdr, the older form of modern Icelandic galdur, centres on spells, incantation and the power of performed words, although galdur later becomes a broad term for magic. Fjölkynngi emphasises extraordinary knowledge and magical ability rather than one fixed ritual method.

The most revealing evidence may be that a single medieval author could use all three words together. In Ynglinga saga, Snorri Sturluson describes Óðinn’s magical songs as galdrar, calls his most powerful art seiðr, and then refers to the practice and his wider learning as fjölkynngi.

These are not three sealed boxes. They are three different ways of speaking about performance, practice and knowledge within a changing magical vocabulary.

Why One English Word Is Not Enough

English translations commonly render seiðr, galdr, fjölkynngi, trolldómr and several other Old Norse words as “magic,” “sorcery” or “witchcraft.” Sometimes that is the only readable choice. It can also erase distinctions present in the original language.

“Witchcraft” is especially difficult. To a modern reader it may suggest the European witch hunts, modern Wicca, folk healing, Satanism or fantasy. None is a neutral equivalent for every medieval Nordic term.

The problem works in the opposite direction too. Retaining an Old Norse word can create an illusion of precision. Writing seiðr instead of “magic” does not mean that scholars know exactly what every historical practitioner did. The corpus is limited, and many of its most detailed descriptions were written by Christian Icelanders centuries after the pre-Christian period they portray. Linguistic researcher Ellora Nimbkar Rich notes that the independent noun seiðr appears only twenty-four times in Old Norse prose, across sixteen sagas and one ecclesiastical text. Its translations vary because its uses vary.

The best method is therefore to keep the original terms while explaining what a particular source allows us to say—and what it does not.

Seiðr, Galdur and Fjölkynngi at a Glance

All three could be used positively, negatively or ambiguously. The moral judgement often depends less on the technique than on who uses it, against whom, and with what result.

The Spellings Readers Encounter

Historical and modern spellings often appear side by side online.

There is no need to strip away Icelandic letters to understand the subject, but simplified spellings are useful for search and accessibility. In this article, seiðr and galdr refer primarily to the Old Norse terms, while galdur is used when discussing later or modern Icelandic usage.

Seiðr: A Practice with No Single Surviving Manual

Of the three terms, seiðr has attracted the most modern attention and the most confident definitions. It is often described as prophecy performed by a woman on a raised seat, or as a Norse form of shamanism involving trance and spirit travel.

Those descriptions reflect real strands of evidence. Neither covers every occurrence.

Across Old Norse literature, seiðr is credited with a wide range of effects. Practitioners discover future events, alter another person’s mind or strength, cause illness or death, create dangerous weather, produce illusion, draw someone towards a destination, curse an enemy or shape the options available to fate. Some episodes describe a public consultation; others describe secret and destructive action.

This breadth is why “divination” is too narrow. It is also why “shamanism” should be used as a comparison rather than a complete translation. Scholars have identified possible parallels involving altered states, spirit relationships, soul travel and circumpolar traditions, including Sámi practices. Yet the Old Norse evidence does not establish one uniform institution that can simply be labelled Norse shamanism.

Seiðr is best treated as a historical category of magic whose full boundaries are lost.

Freyja, Óðinn and the Mythic Origin of Seiðr

In Ynglinga saga, Freyja is said to be the first to teach seiðr among the Æsir, where it had previously been customary among the Vanir. Later in the same work, Óðinn is presented as its greatest practitioner.

This pair is important. Freyja gives seiðr a divine teacher associated with the Vanir, while Óðinn embodies the pursuit of knowledge regardless of danger, sacrifice or social convention. The myth does not make seiðr exclusively feminine: Óðinn practises it. It does make gender central to how the practice is judged.

Snorri wrote Ynglinga saga in thirteenth-century Christian Iceland. His story is not a transcript of a Viking-Age ceremony. It is a learned medieval account combining inherited poetry, oral tradition, political history, Christian interpretation and the author’s own system-building. The Old Norse text remains one of the clearest sources for the medieval Icelandic understanding of these terms, but it must be read as medieval literature about an older past.

What Óðinn’s Seiðr Could Do

Snorri says Óðinn used seiðr to know people’s fates and events that had not yet happened. He could also bring death, misfortune or illness, take intelligence or strength from one person and give it to another.

The list unites two functions sometimes separated in modern explanations:

• Revelation: learning fate and future events
• Intervention: changing health, fortune, capacity or power

In other words, seiðr could be represented as both a way of knowing and a way of acting. The distinction between prophecy and manipulation may have been less absolute than modern categories suggest. Knowledge of what may happen is itself a form of power; changing the conditions around a person alters what may become possible.

Other saga episodes add more effects, but they should not all be assembled into a reconstructed ritual manual. A literary author may use seiðr to explain a storm, a fatal attraction or an antagonist’s unnatural advantage without preserving the steps by which an historical specialist would have worked.

Þorbjörg lítilvölva: The Most Detailed Seiðr Scene

The best-known ritual account appears in chapter four of Eiríks saga rauða. Greenland is suffering famine and sickness when a travelling prophetess named Þorbjörg lítilvölva, “Þorbjörg the Little Völva,” is invited to a prosperous farm.

The saga describes her in striking detail. She wears a blue mantle, beads, an animal-skin hood and gloves, and carries an ornamented staff. A special seat is prepared for her. She receives ritual food and sleeps before the consultation. The next day, she asks for women who know the song required for the ceremony.

Only Guðríður knows it. She learned the chant called varðlokkur from her foster-mother in Iceland but hesitates because she is Christian. After being persuaded that she can help the community without abandoning her faith, she sings while the women form a circle around Þorbjörg’s seat. The song draws previously uncooperative beings or powers near, and Þorbjörg can then see what was hidden. She predicts the end of the famine and sickness and gives Guðríður a detailed account of her future.

The saga’s surviving account gives us several elements often associated with seiðr:

• A recognised travelling specialist
• Community hospitality and payment or honour
• A high or specially prepared seat
• An ornamented staff
• Female assistants forming a circle
• A learned vocal performance
• Contact with non-human powers
• Prophecy serving an entire settlement

This is invaluable evidence. It is not a complete template for all seiðr.

The saga was composed in the thirteenth century, although the scene is set around the period of conversion roughly two centuries earlier. Its detailed clothing may preserve cultural memory, literary symbolism or antiquarian reconstruction. The scene also stages a Christian dilemma: Guðríður knows the old song but belongs to the new religion. The ritual succeeds through her voice, yet the narrative continues towards a Christian future.

Modern “high-seat seiðr” draws heavily on this episode. That makes it a source-based reconstruction, not proof of an unchanged thousand-year transmission.

Does Seiðr Always Require Trance, a Staff and a High Seat?

No surviving source says that every act of seiðr used all three.

The Þorbjörg episode includes a raised seat, a staff, a song and communication with powers. Other texts mention a seiðhjallr, a platform or scaffold associated with the performance. Some describe chanting assistants. Many simply state that someone performed seiðr or seiðed against another person without giving any ritual detail.

Trance is a plausible interpretation of some passages, particularly when compared with spirit-working traditions. It should not be inserted automatically into every scene. The same applies to drums, masks, nine-world journeys and other features of modern practice: they may be meaningful religious techniques today without being directly documented for every historical use of seiðr.

The absence of instructions is not an invitation to fill every gap with certainty. It is evidence that our knowledge remains partial.

Völva, Seiðkona and Spákona Are Not Exact Synonyms

Þorbjörg is called a völva and a spákona, a prophetic woman. Modern summaries often call every völva a seiðkona and every act of prophecy seiðr. The vocabulary is more flexible.

• Völva is a title for a female seer or ritual specialist, commonly connected etymologically with a staff.
• Spákona means a prophetic or foreseeing woman.
• Seiðkona identifies a woman associated specifically with seiðr.
• Seiðmaðr identifies a male practitioner of seiðr.

One person could fit more than one description. The words still foreground different things: office or identity, prophecy, and technique. A source may call a woman fjölkunnig—magically knowledgeable—without calling her a völva. It may describe foreknowledge without using the word seiðr.

Treating every title as interchangeable makes the historical world appear more systematised than the texts themselves.

Seiðr, Gender and Ergi

Seiðr is strongly gendered in Old Norse literature, but the familiar slogan “seiðr was women’s magic” requires explanation.

Women frequently appear as respected, feared or marginal ritual specialists. Men also practise seiðr. Óðinn is the greatest divine example, and human male practitioners appear in several narratives. The difference lies in social judgement.

In Ynglinga saga, Snorri says the practice carried such ergi that men could not engage in it without shame. In Lokasenna, Loki weaponises Óðinn’s seiðr as part of a sexual and gendered insult.

Ergi belongs to an Old Norse vocabulary of unmanliness, cowardice, sexual accusation and unacceptable gendered behaviour. It was a serious social charge. It should not be translated casually as “gay,” “transgender” or any other modern identity. The sources are describing medieval norms and insults, not providing a direct account of a practitioner’s orientation or identity.

Why seiðr acquired this stigma remains debated. Proposed explanations include passive bodily roles, the feminine coding of prophecy or textile work, sexual symbolism, spirit receptivity and the threat posed by secret power. No single explanation has won universal agreement.

The key point is a paradox: a practice could be shameful for a man and still be a source of immense power. Óðinn accepts the transgression because knowledge matters more to him than conventional honour.

Archaeology and the So-Called Völva Staffs

Archaeology provides material evidence that may connect with literary seeresses. A number of wealthy female graves from Viking-Age Scandinavia contain unusual iron staffs. Some resemble the ornamented staff carried by Þorbjörg and have been interpreted as ritual staffs belonging to völur.

The evidence is significant but not self-explanatory. The Swedish History Museum’s discussion of the Klinta staff notes that comparable objects have previously been identified as roasting spits, measuring rods or sceptres. Their interpretation changed as scholars reconsidered the burial contexts and literary parallels. The National Museum of Denmark similarly connects mysterious iron staffs in wealthy women’s graves with seeresses and seiðr.

These finds make ritual specialists materially plausible. They do not tell us the words spoken, the practitioner’s title or the precise meaning of every object. “Interpreted as a völva’s staff” is stronger history than “proven seiðr wand.”

Galdr and Galdur: Magic Given Voice

Where seiðr names a broad and difficult-to-define practice, galdr has a clearer centre: the magical use of sound and words.

The Old Norse noun galdr is related to the verb gala, used of singing, chanting, calling and the cries of birds. The official Dictionary of Old Norse Prose gives meanings including incantation, magic spell, sorcery, witchcraft and magic. The range already shows semantic expansion: a word rooted in vocal performance could also name magical power more generally.

Sound matters here. A galdr was not merely an abstract intention. It could be a performed verbal act: sung, chanted, recited or cried. Repetition, rhythm, alliteration and poetic structure helped make words memorable and set them apart from ordinary speech.

That does not mean we know one authentic “galdr voice.” Claims that every galdr used a high falsetto, a growl or one specific melody go beyond the evidence. Nor does the etymology mean that an incantation had to imitate a bird literally. It shows a deep linguistic relationship between calling, song and spell.

Galdr in Eddic Poetry

The Eddic poems repeatedly imagine voiced knowledge as power.

In the final section of Hávamál, Óðinn lists eighteen songs or charms. They can loosen fetters, stop weapons, calm wind, protect companions, wake the dead and gain knowledge. Forms of the verb gala appear in several stanzas as Óðinn says that he chants the charm. Some of the passage uses galdralag, a poetic form associated with incantatory repetition.

In Grógaldr, the dead Gróa chants protective spells for her son before his journey. In Oddrúnargrátr, powerful incantations assist a difficult birth. Elsewhere, spoken formulae harm, protect, reveal or compel.

These poems show two things at once:

1. Galdr could be useful as well as destructive.
2. Magical speech was not restricted to one gender.

The poems do not preserve audio, choreography or a complete ritual setting. Modern performances that repeat rune names or sustain particular tones may be inspired by the historical importance of voice, but they are modern methods unless a source documents the specific form.

Were Galdr and Seiðr Separate?

Sometimes the terms distinguish different aspects of magic. Galdr may refer to the words being performed, while seiðr names the wider operation in which a song is used. The Þorbjörg scene, for example, makes vocal performance essential to the seeress’s work. In Ynglinga saga, Óðinn teaches arts through runes and songs called galdrar, then performs the art called seiðr.

At other times, galdr stands on its own. A person chants over an object, corpse, wound or enemy without the action being called seiðr. Later galdur can encompass written material and sorcery generally.

So the most accurate answer is:

• Galdr and seiðr can be distinguished.
• They can also overlap.
• The source must determine the relationship.

The popular equation “women performed seiðr; men performed galdr” is not supported as a universal rule. Both women and men are associated with incantation, and both women and men appear as practitioners of seiðr—even though the gendered consequences differed.

From Galdr to Galdur

As Icelandic developed, Old Norse galdr became modern galdur. Its meaning broadened into magic, sorcery or a magical trick. The root remains visible across Iceland’s magical vocabulary:

This survival can mislead modern readers. Because galdrastafur contains galdur, an Icelandic magical stave is sometimes described as a written record of ancient Viking chanting. The historical evidence does not support that shortcut.

The surviving Icelandic galdrastafir belong mainly to post-medieval manuscript culture. Their designs and instructions combine Icelandic traditions with Christian prayers, learned European magic, alphabetic and cryptographic forms and other imported material. Some were spoken over; some were written, carved or carried. Their name reflects the broad Icelandic world of galdur, not proof that each symbol descended unchanged from an oral Viking-Age galdr.

Fjölkynngi: Magic as Extraordinary Knowledge

Fjölkynngi is less famous internationally, but it may reveal the intellectual structure of Icelandic magic more clearly than either of the better-known terms.

Scholar Lucie Korecká glosses fjölkynngi literally as “much knowledge” and the related adjective fjölkunnigr as “much knowing.” Her analysis emphasises that Old Norse sources do not draw a simple boundary between wisdom and magical power. Fjölkynngi is not ordinary information in large quantity. It is knowledge understood to be qualitatively extraordinary, secret and capable of producing effects. Korecká’s study shows how such knowledge could function as unofficial power—sometimes threatening social order and sometimes defending it when ordinary authority failed.

This makes “manifold knowledge,” “occult knowledge” or “magical expertise” more helpful than treating fjölkynngi as the name of one rite.

A person described as fjölkunnigr might know how to create illusion, affect weather, protect a family, injure an enemy or perceive hidden events. The adjective marks the person as possessing dangerous or remarkable capability. It does not tell us whether the action used seiðr, galdr, runes, learned books or another method unless the passage adds that information.

Fjölkynngi Is Not a Third Magical School

Online taxonomies sometimes define fjölkynngi as an advanced synthesis taught only after seiðr and galdr. No medieval source establishes such a curriculum.

The mistake comes from treating every different noun as a different department. In practice, the terms can operate on different levels:

• Galdr can identify the incantation or verbal performance.
• Seiðr can identify a magical practice or operation.
• Fjölkynngi can identify the knowledge and power that make magic possible.

This is a useful interpretive model, not an absolute grammar. In another passage, galdur or fjölkynngi may simply mean sorcery in a broad sense.

The word also carries social tension. Secret knowledge cannot be easily inspected or regulated. A healer, poet, seer or learned outsider may be valuable when solving a problem and suspicious when blamed for causing one. Fjölkynngi marks that unstable border between respected wisdom and illicit power.

Three Words in One Description: Óðinn in Ynglinga saga

Snorri’s account of Óðinn offers the clearest correction to the three-school model.

Snorri does not pause to define a formal system. His language moves between medium, practice and capability. The words illuminate different aspects of the same magical figure.

This does not prove that the three terms were always interchangeable. It proves that they could overlap without contradiction.

Other Old Norse and Icelandic Words for Magic

The vocabulary extends well beyond the three terms in the title.

This larger vocabulary is another reason to resist a single diagram of “Norse magical systems.” Medieval language recorded overlapping actions, reputations and judgements rather than a modern occult course catalogue.

From Pre-Christian Practice to Christian Iceland

Iceland officially accepted Christianity around the year 1000, but magical language did not disappear overnight. Instead, practices, stories and labels were transformed.

The surviving timeline is uneven:

This is change, not simple survival or total extinction. A spoken charm could absorb Christian names. A magical book could combine a Latin prayer with an Icelandic stave. Saga writers could condemn pagan magic while preserving its vocabulary in unforgettable scenes.

Galdur in the Icelandic Witch Trials

By the seventeenth century, galdur was a broad Icelandic word for forbidden magic. The court cases do not show a straightforward continuation of Viking-Age seiðr.

Between 1625 and 1683, twenty-one Icelanders were burned for magic. The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft reports that roughly a third of charges involved causing illness in people or livestock, while another third involved owning grimoires or pages bearing galdrastafir. Only one of those burned was a woman.

The difference matters. Early modern defendants were prosecuted within a Christian legal world influenced by imported European demonology, local conflicts and Icelandic manuscript magic. Their galdur might involve a written sign, a curse, a healing act, a page from a book or a reputation for secret knowledge. It was not necessary for an accuser to identify the act as seiðr or describe a high-seat ritual.

Terms such as galdur and fjölkynngi had become flexible enough to gather many suspicious acts under the same legal and moral shadow.

Seiðr Is Not the Same as Galdrastafir

This distinction is essential for understanding Icelandic magical history.

Seiðr belongs primarily to Old Norse literary descriptions of pre-Christian or legendary magic. Galdrastafir are magical signs preserved mainly in late medieval and early modern Icelandic manuscripts and later copies.

They can belong to the same long history of Icelandic magical thought without being the same technique.

There is no good evidence that:

• Every seiðr practitioner drew galdrastafir
• Famous stave designs were used by Viking-Age völur
• Vegvísir or the manuscript form of Ægishjálmur belonged to Þorbjörg’s ritual
• Chanting rune names over a modern stave reconstructs a documented medieval ceremony

The chronological gap is not an embarrassment. It reveals how Icelandic magic changed through contact with Christianity, European learned traditions, books, law and folklore.

Modern Seiðr, Galdr and Reconstruction

Seiðr is practised today within some forms of Heathenry, Ásatrú, Paganism and contemporary spirituality. Methods include high-seat prophecy, guided trance, spirit journeying, healing, divination and communal song. Modern galdr may involve chanting rune names, poetry, breath, repetition or devotional vocal work.

These practices can be sincere, meaningful and religiously alive. Historical care requires only that they be labelled honestly.

Anthropologist Jenny Blain documented modern Heathen communities building oracular seiðr from the Þorbjörg episode, scholarship and parallels with other trance traditions. She stresses that different groups use seiðr differently and do not possess one final recovered meaning. Her study of contemporary reconstruction is useful precisely because it treats revival as an active process rather than invisible continuity.

A responsible modern description might say:

• “This practice is inspired by the high-seat scene in Eiríks saga rauða.”
• “This galdr method is a contemporary devotional use of historical vocabulary.”
• “The historical source is incomplete, so these steps are reconstructed.”

That wording does not make the practice less authentic to its present community. It prevents modern innovation from being projected backwards as established Viking-Age fact.

Common Myths About Icelandic Magical Traditions

Myth: Seiðr, galdr and fjölkynngi were three formal schools

The sources use the words with overlapping meanings. They do not describe institutions, initiation grades or a universal three-part curriculum.

Myth: Seiðr was only prophecy

Prophecy is prominent, but texts also associate seiðr with harm, attraction, mental influence, weather, illness, strength, luck and other interventions.

Myth: Seiðr was exclusively women’s magic

Women are central, and male practice could attract the stigma of ergi. Men nevertheless practised seiðr in myth and literature.

Myth: Galdr was exclusively male warrior magic

Both women and men perform incantatory magic. Galdr can protect, harm, assist childbirth, reveal knowledge or wake the dead; it is not one gendered combat technique.

Myth: Galdr means chanting rune names

Galdr centres on voiced magic, and runes can be involved. The now-common system of sustaining individual rune names and tones is not a complete practice documented in medieval Icelandic sources.

Myth: Fjölkynngi was the highest rank of Icelandic magic

Fjölkynngi means extraordinary magical knowledge or sorcery. It is not a surviving degree title.

Myth: Every völva performed the same seiðr ceremony

The most detailed description concerns Þorbjörg. It cannot be assumed to represent all seeresses across Scandinavia and every century.

Myth: Viking-Age staffs prove exactly how seiðr worked

Some grave objects are convincingly interpreted as ritual staffs, but their use remains reconstructed through context and literary comparison.

Myth: Icelandic magical staves are direct records of seiðr

Most surviving staves belong to a later Christian manuscript world. They are historically important without needing to be Viking-Age symbols.

Myth: Modern reconstruction is fake

Reconstruction can be a legitimate modern religious and creative process. The historical error occurs only when a new method is falsely presented as uninterrupted ancient fact.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does seiðr mean?

Seiðr is an Old Norse term for a varied kind of magic associated with obtaining hidden knowledge and influencing people, conditions or events. No single English word captures every use.

Is seiðr Icelandic or Norse?

The word and its literary tradition belong to the wider Old Norse-speaking world. Many of the surviving descriptions were written in medieval Iceland, while their stories are set across Iceland, Norway, Greenland and legendary Scandinavia.

What is the modern Icelandic form of seiðr?

The modern Icelandic form is seiður. English writers also use seidr, seidhr, seidh and other simplified spellings.

Was seiðr a form of shamanism?

Seiðr has features that scholars and practitioners compare with shamanic traditions, including spirit communication, altered states and the acquisition of hidden knowledge. “Norse shamanism” is an interpretation, not a perfect historical synonym.

What is galdr?

Galdr is the Old Norse word for an incantation, magical spell or voiced magical performance. The related modern Icelandic word galdur can mean magic or sorcery more broadly.

Did galdr have to be sung?

Its linguistic and literary associations strongly connect it with voice, chant, song and calling. The sources do not preserve one required melody, register or performance style.

What is fjölkynngi?

Fjölkynngi is extraordinary, secret or magical knowledge expressed as power. It can be translated as sorcery, magical expertise or—more literally—“much” or “manifold knowledge.”

Is fjölkynngi a kind of ritual?

Not usually in the way seiðr can name a practice or galdr an incantation. Fjölkynngi more often describes magical knowledge, capability or sorcery broadly.

What is the difference between a völva and a seiðkona?

A völva is a female seer or ritual specialist, while a seiðkona is specifically a woman associated with seiðr. The categories can overlap but are not automatic synonyms.

Why was seiðr shameful for men?

Old Norse texts associate male seiðr with ergi, a serious accusation involving unmanliness and gendered or sexual transgression. Scholars debate the precise reason, and the term should not be reduced to a modern identity label.

Did Óðinn practise seiðr or galdr?

Both. Ynglinga saga presents him using and teaching galdrar, practising seiðr, and possessing immense fjölkynngi. His example demonstrates the overlap between the terms.

Are galdrastafir a form of galdr?

Their name places them within the wider Icelandic vocabulary of galdur, but they are primarily written or drawn magical signs from a later manuscript tradition. They should not be equated automatically with ancient vocal galdr.

Can people practise seiðr today?

Many people do. Modern seiðr is a living reconstructed practice informed by sagas, scholarship, contemporary religious experience and sometimes comparison with other traditions. Its present meaning should not be confused with complete historical continuity.

A Vocabulary of Power, Not a Lost Course Catalogue

Seiðr, galdr and fjölkynngi open three windows onto Icelandic and Old Norse ideas about magic.

Seiðr shows magic as a practice of hidden knowledge and intervention. Galdr reveals the power given to voice, poetry, rhythm and deliberate words. Fjölkynngi shows that magic could be understood as knowledge so unusual that it became power—and so secret that it could inspire dependence, fear or accusation.

Their boundaries move because the sources move. A pagan deity, a saga seeress, a medieval poet, a Christian scribe and a seventeenth-century court did not use the same vocabulary for exactly the same purpose. The terms survived by changing.

The most honest approach does not force them into a perfect system. It lets each source tell us whether it is describing a song, a ritual, a skill, a reputation or a crime.

That uncertainty is not a failure. It is the clearest view we have of a magical world in which knowledge, language and power were never entirely separate.

Continue Exploring Icelandic Witchcraft

• Icelandic Witchcraft: A History of Magic, Witch Trials and Survival
• Icelandic Folk Magic: Everyday Charms, Beliefs and Superstitions
• Galdrastafir: The History and Meaning of Icelandic Magical Staves
• Icelandic Grimoires: Magic Preserved in Handwritten Books
• The Icelandic Witch Trials: The People Behind the Burning Times
• Ægishjálmur: The History and Meaning of the Helm of Awe
• Vegvísir: The True History of the Icelandic Wayfinder
• Magic in Strandir: Iceland’s Land of Sorcerers and Folklore

Historical Sources and Further Reading

• Ynglinga saga in Old Norse — Heimskringla.no
• Eiríks saga rauða, chapter 4 — SagaDB
• Ellora Nimbkar Rich, Seið the Magic Words: Two Case Studies in Old Norse Etymology — University of Iceland
• Lucie Korecká, “The Practitioners of Magic and the Old Norse Concept of Power”
• Dictionary of Old Norse Prose: galdr — University of Copenhagen
• Dictionary of Old Norse Prose: fjǫlkynngi — University of Copenhagen
• The Klinta staff — Swedish History Museum
• The magic staffs of the Viking seeresses? — National Museum of Denmark
• Jenny Blain, “Seiðr as Shamanistic Practice: Reconstituting a Tradition of Ambiguity”
• Historical context — Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft
• The witch-hunts in Iceland — Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft