stephen a. Mitchell
Introduction: Magic as a Concept
Categories of religion geared to contacting unseen power, often referred to in the research literature by the Polynesian term mana, in efforts to know the future and influence its events, have a complex history in modern scholarship (cf. Cunningham 1999). largely shaped by the colonial discourses of earlier eras, discussions by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers framed such activities as bearing a special relationship to, but being separate from, religion and science. one of the most influential of these authors, James george frazer, extended Edward B. Tylor’s earlier views about magic, arguing that magic, science, and religion were to be understood within an evolutionary scheme: magic was perceived as faulty reasoning about causality, which over time was replaced by religion, and that, in turn, would give way to science. Edmund leach (1964: 398) captured the essence of the debate in a particularly succinct locution, noting: ‘The core of the magical act is that it rests on empirically untested belief and is an effort at control — the first aspect distinguishes it from science, the second from religion’. However, debates about the suitability of hiving these sorts of categories off from other religious pursuits have persisted, with many scholars concluding that such special treatment of these areas, the ‘frazerian hangover’, is unwarranted (cf. Tambiah 1990). summarizing the discussion for many, Dorothy Hammond (1970: 1355) concludes: ‘Magic is not an entity distinct from religion but a form of ritual behavior and thus an element of religion’.
a historically useful, if intellectually questionable, approach contrasts so-called supplicative attempts to achieve goals with those that are more manipu-Stephen A. Mitchell, Robert s. and ilse friend Professor of scandinavian and folklore, Harvard University
The Pre-Christian Religions of the North: History and Structures, Volume ii, ed. by Jens Peter schjødt, John lindow, and anders andrén, PCRN-HS 2 (Turn hout: Brepols, 2020) pp. 643–670
BREPols
PUBlisHERs
10.1484/M.PCRN-EB.5.116953
644
Stephen A. Mitchell
lative: according to this view, whereas the religious person (often meaning the practitioner of a more politically powerful religion) implores higher powers through prayer for a particular outcome, the user of magic commands dark, powerful forces to do his bidding. This is a distinction that can be traced back as far as to early Christian writers (e.g., augustine). an especially important perspective in the West, this view’s underlying thesis, that god and the angels cannot be compelled to do the ritual actor’s bidding and thus the results of magic — understood by everyone, Christian or not, to be real — must therefore derive from diabolical forces, led over time to the concept of the satanic pact ( pactum cum diabolo). and critically for modern scholarship, that was the understanding held by those medieval observers and commentators on whose writings we depend for much of our knowledge of magic in the North.
addressing these and related questions in the medieval European context, Richard Kieckhefer points out that with regard to science, there existed a growing interest in so-called ‘natural magic’, a branch of science looking for ‘occult virtues’ or hidden powers within nature, whereas what the authorities viewed as so-called ‘demonic magic’ was not really distinct from religion, ‘but rather a perversion of religion. it was religion that turned away from god and toward demons for their help in human affairs’ (1989: 9; cf. Kieckhefer 1994; Bailey 2007).
against these largely modern, etic considerations of magic, medieval, and thus more proximate, ecclesiastical and secular authorities did not doubt that they knew what magic was. Early textual sources (e.g., legal and penitential documents) frequently cite behaviours abhorrent to churchmen. Thus, for example, the Konungsbók version of Grágás, a medieval icelandic law code, condemns the worship of ‘heiþnar vættir’ (heathen beings) and then goes on to prohibit spells, witchcraft, and lesser forms of magic,1 specifying that using such magic, or getting others to use it, carries a penalty of lesser outlawry, whereas more serious magic, magic that causes the death of men or cattle, is punishable with banishment.2
1 ‘Ef maþr ferr með galldra eþa gørningar. eþa fiolkýngi. þa ferr hann með fiolkyngi ef hann queðr þat eþa kennir. eþa lætr queða. at ser eþa at fe sinv’ (if someone uses spells or witchcraft or magic — he uses magic if he utters or teaches someone else or gets someone else to utter words of magic over himself or his property).
2 ‘Ef maþr ferr með fordæs skap. þat varþar scoggang. þat ero fordæs skapir. ef maþr gérir i orðvm sinvm. eþa fiolkyngi sott eþa bana. fe eþa mavnnvm’ (if a man practises black sorcery, the penalty for that is full outlawry. it is black magic if through his words or his magic a man brings about the sickness or death of livestock or people) ( Grágás 22). The translators’ use of the terms ‘black sorcery’ and ‘black magic’ are not literal but are intended to sharpen the dif-
26 – Magic and Religion
645
We may today view this law’s configuration of magic as many things, but it is not hard to imagine that the people of medieval scandinavia knew exactly what the authorities were saying in such pronouncements: namely, that magic was verbal, as the law’s phrasing indicates (‘queðr, lætr queða, i orðvm sinvm’); teachable; sometimes professional; morally reprehensible; and believed to be potent.
But even if Christian ecclesiastics viewed magic as iniquitous, that does not mean that magical acts as such were not also recognized and used by Christian missionaries and writers as well. The biography, or vita, of st ansgar (801–
65), the so-called ‘apostle of the North’, written by his successor, Rimbert, for example, colourfully details the confrontations between the heathen swedes and Christianity in the swedish trade centre of Birka in the first half of the ninth century. Miracles in saints’ lives have long been recognized as a form of
‘white magic’ (loomis 1948), and what one encounters in Rimbert’s narrative takes advantage of this point to neatly juxtapose the two faith systems. Through a series of miracles involving, for example, protection from violent weather and healing, one of the Christian converts, Herigar, demonstrates the greater magical power of his new religion over native traditions ( Vita Anskarii ch. 17–19).
in each case, the superiority of Christian magic over pagan magic is emphasized in Vita Ankarii and demonstrates the importance of magic as a tool in the missionaries’ kitbag, as a metalanguage in the dialogue between pagan and Christian (cf. Mitchell 2011: 25–40).
Sources and Survey of Data
The body of evidence bequeathed to modern scholarship by a highly serendipi-tous preservation process offers images of magical functions that touch on all aspects of life in an often harsh and violent world, that is, efforts to influence, even control, weather, war, romance, fertility, sex, fortune, health, and so on, as well as the opportunity to protect and to curse through malediction. Perhaps above all other magical functions, the ability to see into the future, to prophesy the outcome of subsequent events, was prized, something already classical writers note (see è25).
in general, our sources for the recovery of pre-Christian magic are either material objects, such as archaeological remains (e.g., talismans), or textual ference between ‘galldra eþa gørningar. eþa fiolkýngi’ (spells or witchcraft or magic) for which lesser outlawry is appropriate and the more sinister form of magic, fordæðuskapr, for which full outlawry is required.
646
Stephen A. Mitchell
sources in one sense or another (e.g., runic inscriptions, laws). all of these materials — amulets, house deposits, laws, literature, historical chronicles, synodal statutes, letters, skaldic poems, sermons, charms — contribute to the emerging picture of how pre-Christian Northern Europeans dealt with life’s daily struggles. But they all also require careful assessment as to their so-called ‘truth value’ (cf. schjødt 2012a).
This important issue may be of special significance when dealing with the icelandic sagas and Eddas, with their alluringly realistic presentations of magic in pagan scandinavia: these tales and poems are demonstrably among our richest and most promising sources but must always be recognized in the forms we have today as products of the post-conversion world, windows onto earlier practices, to be sure, but like all windows, filtering what we see through sometimes distorted glass. after all, in sifting the texts of the post-Conversion world for relevant evidence, we are almost always dependent on the observations of those with clerical training, people whose every professional instinct must have been to condemn the kinds of behaviours that are of most interest to us.
yet that need not mean that these writers were incapable of being accurate observers; moreover, many of the priests and other ecclesiastics themselves came out of the various cultures of Northern Europe and will have possessed more emic views than we sometimes credit them with. still, it would be naïve not to expect that we may sometimes encounter authors whose comments are as much the products of fantasy and clerical lore as anything else. a further factor to bear in mind in searching for evidence of magic in the pre-Christian North is that what we regard as magic today may not always have appeared that way to them, and to the extent that all members of all social levels, including ecclesiastics, practised ‘magic’, these behaviours could sometimes be viewed without prejudice.
The principal sources of information about magic in the pre-Conversion North are for ease of presentation divided here into the following categories: texts with normative functions, narratives, vocabulary, runic inscriptions, and
material culture.
**Texts with Normative Functions **
law codes, synodal statutes, homilies, penitentials, and so on — texts with normative functions — as sources for the understanding of magic have in common that they all offer overtly negative assessments of behaviours deemed unorthodox, frequently amounting to disapproval by church and state authorities of perceived traditional practices. Whether consisting of, for example, homiletic
26 – Magic and Religion
647
jeremiads against the use of aphrodisiacs,3 or reports of magical flight,4 or prohibitions against ‘sitting out’ ( útiseta, sitja úti) on mounds in order to see into the future,5 these kinds of texts represent behavioural strictures an empowered elite wished to impose on society as a whole.
Each of these cases suggests how complicated such witnesses can be: the old Norse homiletic warning against aphrodisiacs is likely connected with originally anglo-saxon sermon literature; the concern with magical flight we know from a saint’s life, but has likely arrived in the far North from penitential and canon traditions which are themselves ultimately based on beliefs derived from continental folk traditions; and the warning against the practice of ‘sitting out’
is generally interpreted as referring to a prophetic ritual, but that is entirely uncertain. The fact that the histories of these materials are often complicated, however, should not suggest that they are without evidentiary value, only that the interpretation of the texts, and what they can, and cannot, tell us, needs to proceed with caution.
occasionally the practices or beliefs being referred to can be especially enigmatic, as when the thirteenth-century swedish Äldre Västgötalagen ( Older Law of Västergötland p. 38) states that among the felonious, actionable insults about a woman is to say, ‘iak sa at þu reet a quiggrindu lösharæþ. ok i trols ham þa alt var iamrift nat ok daghér’ (i saw that you rode on the pen-gate, with your hair loose, and in a witch’s shape, when all was equal between night and day).6
Even more perplexing, a Norwegian law code section begins by speaking of an incomprehensible magical tradition, ‘En ef kona bitr fingr af barne sinu eda to 3 ‘En þer ero sumar konor er gera drycki oc gefa gilmonnum sinum. til þess at þæír skili þa unna þeim væl ok hafa þær at konum sér’ (But there are some women who make drinks and give them to their lovers in order that they should love them well and have them as their wives) ( Hauksbók 168).
4 ‘Kveldriður eða hamleypur þykkiaz með Diana gyðiu oc Herodiade a litilli stundu fara yfir stor hỏf riðandi hvolum eða selum, fuglum eða dyrum, eða yfir stor lond’ (‘Evening-riders’
or ‘shape-shifters’ believe themselves to travel with Diana the goddess and Herodias quickly over great oceans, riding whales or seals, birds or wild animals, or over great lands) ( Jóns saga Baptista 914).
5 for example, ‘oc sva firi morð oc fordæðo skape. oc utisetu at vekia troll upp. at fremia heiðrni með þvi’ ( Gulaþing Law p. 19) (and [those who are killed] for [deeds of ] murder or for
[the practice of ] witchcraft or for going abroad at night to call forth evil spirits and to promote heathendom thereby) (p. 58)
6 important early discussions of this curious passage include lidén (1914); Pipping (1915: 68–71); linderholm (1918: 141–42); cf. the overviews in Svenska landskapslagar, v, pp. xi–xxxvii and Mitchell (2011: 150–52).
648
Stephen A. Mitchell
ok gerer þat til langlifis hon er sæck .iij. morkum’ (But if a woman bites off a finger or toe from her child and does that [in order to secure] long life, she is fined 3 marks). it goes on to specify aspects of what seems a very ordinary set of magical behaviours: ‘En ef fordædoskapr verdr funnin i bædium eda bulstrum manna har eda nægl eda frauda fötr. eda adrer þæir lutir e[r] uenir þickia til gærninga. þa ma sok gefa’ (and if sorcery is found in bedding or bolster, the hair of a man, or nails or frog feet or other talismans which are thought wont in witchcraft, then a charge may be made) ( Borgarþing Law p. 362). Whether such statements are to be taken at face value or as mere phantasms of elite authorities is difficult to assess, but such remarks may over time and with careful assessment prove to be valuable data points.
Narratives
Narratives too are often extremely valuable windows onto the beliefs of the Middle ages, although the degree to which they are equally useful as regards the remote past has been a matter of much debate over the decades. Notable presentations of magic in the icelandic sagas include the enumeration of Óðinn’s magical skills in Ynglinga saga, such as his ability to find hidden treasure, know about future events, and inflict death and misfortune ( Ynglinga saga ch. 6–7); the detailed presentation of Egill’s curse to drive King Eiríkr and Queen gunnhildr from Norway through the use of a níðstǫng ‘scorn pole’
and a verbal charm in Egils saga Skallagrímssonar (ch. 57); Busla’s effective and ribald poetic enchantments of King Hringr through the so-called Buslubæn
‘Busla’s prayer’ and Syrpuvers ‘syrpa Verses’ that force from the king promises of safety for his son and the eponymous hero of Bósa saga (ch. 5); gunnlaugr’s studying witchcraft in Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 16); Þuríðr’s elaborate performance of malicious charm magic against grettir Ásmundarson ( Grettis saga ch. 78); and the seiðr ceremony in Eiríks saga rauða (ch. 4). But these episodes are only a few of the best-known examples from an extremely rich narrative tradition, one carefully ransacked over the decades for evidence of magical practices (e.g., strömbäck 1935; Dillmann 2006; Tolley 2009a; Mitchell 2011).
Recent examinations of the icelandic saga materials have tended to underscore the tendentious character of how magic is presented in the sagas (e.g., Jochens 1996; Mitchell 2011), although this point should not be understood to nullify the sagas’ capacity to report genuine traditions and practices reliably.
one of the most famously detailed — and most frequently cited — scenes of magic being performed in the saga materials is the seiðr ceremony mentioned above and carried out by the lítil-vǫlva ‘little Prophetess’, Þorbjǫrg, in Eiríks
26 – Magic and Religion
649
saga rauða ch. 4. as presented in the fourteenth-century manuscripts of the saga, this scene, in which an apparently semi-professional Þorbjǫrg — a figure minutely described as regards such details as clothing and dietary habits —
employs her prophetic gifts only when certain behaviours have been followed by her host and others. it is notable that Þorbjǫrg is referred to as lítil-vǫlva once and as vísindakona ‘wise woman’ once but as spákona ‘seeress’ a half dozen times, all labels representative of her role in the saga; moreover, she is said to have had nine sisters, all of whom were seeresses: ‘Hon hafði átt sér níu systr, ok váru allar spákonur…’.
on the evening of the second day of her stay, ‘var henni veittr sá umbúningr, sem hon þurfti at hafa til at fremja seiðinn. Hon bað ok fá sér konur þær, er kynni frœði þat, sem til seiðsins þarf ok Varðlokur hétu’ (she was provided with things she required to carry out her magic rites [ seiðr]. she asked for women who knew the chants required for carrying out magic rites [ seiðr], which are called ward songs [ Varðlokur]). These chants turn out to be a special kind of song evidently known only to a Christian woman visiting there, who had learned them from her foster-mother back in iceland, and who is very reluctant to assist in such pagan activities. Convinced by her host that her assistance is necessary, the woman, guðríðr, agrees to help.
slógu þá konur hring um hjallinn, en Þorbjǫrg sat á uppi. Kvað guðríðr þá kvæðit svá fagrt ok vel, at engi þóttisk heyrt hafa með fegri rǫdd kvæði kveðit, sá er þar var hjá. spákonan þakkar henni kvæðit ok kvað margar þær náttúrur nú til hafa sótt ok þykkja fagrt at heyra, er kvæðit var svá vel flutt, — ‘er áðr vildu við oss skiljask ok enga hlýðni oss veita. En mér eru nú margir þeir hlutir auðsýnir, er áðr var ek duldið, ok margir aðrir’. ( Eíriks saga rauða ch. 4)
(The women now formed a circle around [ Slógu […] hring um, lit. ‘(they) surrounded’] the scaffold [ hjallinn] upon which Þorbjörg sat. guðríðr sang the song so beautifully and well, that no one who was there believed they had heard the song sung with a more beautiful voice [ kvæði kveðit]. The seeress thanked her for the song [ kvæði] and said ‘many spirits [ náttúrur] have come here and think it beautiful to hear a song so well-delivered, [spirits] who previously stayed away and would not grant us obedience. and many things are now apparent to me which earlier had been hidden from me and many others’.)7
Whether this scene is a fundamentally accurate description of such activities or the invention of the later author has been at the heart of much discussion (below), and the resolution of that question is one of central significance to our 7 for the sake of accuracy, i provide this literal translation.
650
Stephen A. Mitchell
understanding of magical practices in the pre-Christian North, and to the ability of modern scholarship to access such information (see è30).
generally, other saga references reinforce the same association as the one presented in Eiríks saga rauða, one also in evidence in the laws, of magical practices as pagan survivals from the pre-Christian world. This perspective on magic and superstition as ‘survivals’ is, of course, one made famous by Tylor, when he describes superstitious beliefs as being ‘fragments of a dead lower culture embedded in a living higher one’ (Tylor 1871: i, 65). given this widespread view, one that is hardly the invention of the nineteenth century, it is unsurprising that the persistence of paganism and pagan beliefs is a regular theme in the sagas.
Orkneyinga saga, for example, offers its audience the image of a recently converted sweden, where King ingi despises the old pagan practices and seeks to abolish their prophetic practices, their sorcerers, and their bad customs, an initiative that leads to a popular revolt and the attempt to replace ingi with a different leader, one more sympathetic to pagan traditions ( Orkneyinga saga ch. 35). This episode about so-called ‘sacrifice-sveinn’ (Blót-sveinn) appears elsewhere in icelandic saga literature (e.g., Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks ch. 16) and is referred to in a series of swedish documents, where the usurper is sometimes latinized to sveno Victimarius. it is a tale that may contain elements of historical truth (cf. ljungberg 1938: 233–38; sävborg 2015) — certainly, it is precisely this same image of prolonged magical practices and superstitions, and the need to abolish them, that dominates many of the medieval Nordic sources looking back at the pagan past, as happens in many of the konungasögur and biskopasögur, sagas focusing on the biographies and careers of kings and bishops.
Equally comprehensive, and arguably of greater value in reconstructing Nordic magic in the pre-Christian world, are the skaldic and eddic poems that were preserved in the icelandic Middle ages, but presumably hark back much further. Here we get indications of a vast array of magical practices, although all too often only hinted at. Thus, for example, the master of magic within the old Norse pantheon, Óðinn, claims in Hávamál st. 146–63 to know eighteen different charms, although notably he does so without revealing their secrets. still, he does claim that among his special kinds of knowledge are: charms against sorrows; medical charms; imprecations to blunt his enemies’ weapons; charms to escape from bonds; spells to stop the flight of arrows; magic that allows him to turn charms of hatred back against their conjurer; incantations against fire; charms to still hostility; spells to calm a stormy sea; magic against witches; spells to protect allies in battle; necromantic charms; spells for success in battle; incantations that allow him to know supernatural details; charms that give
26 – Magic and Religion
651
strength, success and wisdom; charms that give him the pleasures of a woman; and spells for romance, as well as an enigmatic eighteenth charm ( Hávamál st.
163; cf. McKinnell 2007).
More detailed in its presentation of magical practices is an eddic poem like Skírnismál, which provides a relatively rare comprehensive image of a charm being worked. The frame story has skírnir, the servant of the god freyr, travelling to the giantess gerðr in order to acquire her for his master. When his various attempts to win her through bribes and threats fail, skírnir engages in a magical performance, finally winning her acquiescence through it. The performance is marked by skírnir’s repeated references to, and uses of, a wand (called a tamsvǫndr and gambanteinn in the poem), the fact that the meter of the poem switches to galdralag (‘incantation metre’, where the final line echoes, sometimes repeats, the penultimate line), and the content and wording of the poem, a portion of which mirrors charm magic known from runic inscriptions (cf. Reichardt 1939; Mitchell 1998, 2007). Busla’s versified enchantment of King Hringr in Bósa saga provides yet another detailed example of an eddic-style imprecation being performed (cf. Thompson 1978; Mitchell 2011: 190).
given its memorial and panegyrical functions, skaldic poetry does not offer the same sort of perspectives on magical performances, if that is what these examples are, but does afford interesting testimony of sorts. so, for example, Ynglingatal, according to tradition composed by Þjóðólfr ór Hvini c. 900, and preserved, for example, in Ynglinga saga in snorri’s Heimskringla, sketches elements of the pre-Christian magical world. When a certain king, Vanlandi, has not made good on his promise to return to his wife, this abandoned mother of his son calls on the help of a female practitioner of magic ( seiðkona) who kills him by riding him in the form of a nightmare:
Enn á vit
Vilja bróður
vitta véttr
Vanlanda kom,
þá s trollkund
of troða skyldi
liðs grimhildr
ljóna bága.
ok sá brann
á beði skútu
menglǫtuðr,
es mara kvalði.
( Ynglingatal 3; cf. Ynglinga saga ch. 13)
652
Stephen A. Mitchell
(and the creature of charms [sorceress] got Vanlandi to visit the brother of Vili
had to trample the fighter of men [king]. and that ring-destroyer [generous man] whom the mara tormented burned on the bank of skúta.) (p. 12)8
in other words, when the ‘witch’ performs her act of supernatural aggression
— ‘En er seiðr var framiðr’ (But when the seiðr was performed) — Vanlandi is killed by the ‘troll-descended grímhildr of strong drink’, the mara (nightmare), riding him to death ( Ynglinga saga ch. 13).
as understandably dominating as such remarkable icelandic texts are in discussions of magic, the icelandic sagas are by no means the only narratives to take up the question of magic in the pagan North. The latin history of the Norwegian kings from the ninth to twelfth centuries, Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, by Theodoricus Monachus provides images of both native traditions and the work’s broader Christian design when it talks of idols and prophecies uttered by demons in connection with ritual specialists of both genders who are called seithmen (i.e., seiðmenn) ‘sorcerers, witches’ in the vernacular (ch. 11). The king has eighty of them gathered into a building and burned. aspects of this tale are also known from icelandic sagas, but the broader question of how much we can trust any of these sources, given their religious purposes and tendentious nature, as well as the classical training of many of their authors, dogs, but does not necessarily prevent, attempts at analysis. The same issue applies, for example, to such information as the presentation of magic and magicians in relation to paganism and godhead in the Gesta Danorum of saxo grammaticus:
olim enim quidam magice artis imbuti, Thor uidelicet et othinus aliique com plures miranda prestigiorum machinatione callentes, obtentis simplicium animis diuinitatis sibi fastigium arrogare coeperunt. Quippe Noruagiam, suetiam ac Dani am uanissime credulitatis laqueis circumuentas ad cultus sibi pendendi stu dium concitantes pre-cipuo ludificationis sue contagio resperserunt. (6.5.3)
(at one time certain indivduals, initiated into the arts of sorcery, namely Thor, odin and a number of others who were skilled at conjuring up marvellous illusions, clouded the minds of simple men and began to appropriate the exalted rank of godhead. Norway, sweden, and Denmark were ensnared in a groundless convic-8 Cf. John lindow’s careful literal translation, ‘But to visit the brother of Vili [Óðinn], the creature of magic arranged for Vanlandi, when the troll-related night Hildr [witch] was to tread underfoot the enemy of the band of men; and that necklace-destroyer [king], whom the nightmare strangled, burned on the bank of skúta’ (lindow 1995: 10).
26 – Magic and Religion
653
tion, urged to a devoted worship of these frauds and infected by the smirch of their gross imposture.9
Vocabulary
The terms used to describe magic-related activities and peoples represents a further significant source of information, even if latin terms (e.g., maleficium
‘witchcraft’, maleficare ‘to bewitch’, incantatio ‘spell’, sortilegium ‘fortune-telling’) are commonly used in many of the legal and ecclesiastical documents treating Nordic magic. at the same time, there are many native terms, which must be counted by the dozens, even hundreds, from which it is possible to tease out a sense of magic’s perceived functions in the non-Christian North. To a degree, the Nordic magical vocabulary reflects usage shared by other indo-European languages, and it is helpful to review the Nordic semantic taxonomy against this important linguistic backdrop (cf. Buck 1949; de Vries 1962a).
a vastly richer hoard of terms exists from medieval iceland than elsewhere, but whether this fact is due to the circumstance that there exist more, and more discursive, medieval icelandic texts, or from the possible explanation that differing attitudes about magic developed in medieval iceland is impossible to know at this remove. The very large Nordic inventory of words for magical acts and actors principally builds on notions of prophecy, wisdom, deeds, performance, transformations and transvection, trollness, the paraphernalia of magic, and paganism, as enumerated below, with illustrative examples; the glosses are drawn from Cleasby and Vigfusson (1957). for more complete terminological catalogues and discussions, see one of the many specialized studies that take up this question (e.g., Jochens 1996; Dillmann 2006; Mitchell 2011).
Prophecy
foretelling the future contributes heavily to the magical vocabulary, with numerous compounds constructed on spá, as a noun ‘a prophecy’ and as a verb ‘to foretell’ (cf. scots spae): thus, for example, spádómr, spáleikr, spámæli, spáorð, spásaga, spásǫgn, all meaning ‘prophecy’, ‘divination’, ‘spae-word’, ‘prophetic words’, and so on. Compounds for women who carry out such activities are often built on this same simplex (i.e., prophecy plus a term for a female, so, spádís, spákerling, spákona, spámær); male counterparts are sometimes called spá-9 Cf. the essays in friis-Jensen (1981).
654
Stephen A. Mitchell
menn (singular spámaðr). Those capable of divination are said to have the ‘gift of prophecy’ ( spádómsgipt, spádómsgjǫf). Ultimately, all of these terms derive from the device used ceremonially for seeing into the future, namely, the simple wood chip, spánn (also: spónn; blótspánn ‘chip used in divination’). other terms referring to prophecy, foreboding, superintendence, and so on reflect usage roughly equivalent to ‘foresight’, with an emphasis on the concept of ‘seeing’ into the future (e.g., forsýn ‘foresight’, ‘foreboding’; forsýnn ‘gifted with foresight’; framsýn ‘foresight’; framsýnn ‘foreseeing, prophetic’) (see è25).
Wisdom
To describe someone as ‘knowledgeable’ kunnigr (< kunna ‘to know’, ‘to understand’) can indicate that he or she is versed in magic, and ‘magic lore’ is thus sometimes styled kunnátta, kunnasta, and kunnusta. Wisdom is also widely used to describe practitioners of magic, especially ‘wise women’, ‘sibyls’, ‘soothsayers’, ‘magicians’ ( vísdómskona, vísendakona, vísindamaðr, vísdómsmaðr).
likewise, spakr ‘wise’ is used with the notion of prophetic vision or second sight; thus, spakfrǫmuðr ‘soothsayer’, ‘sage’. a very productive and widely used part of this category consists of fjǫl- ‘much’ and marg- ‘many’, prefixes which when joined with terms for knowledge and wisdom form compounds indicating preternatural wisdom, or ‘witchcraft’ or ‘magic’, often literally meaning something like ‘much knowing’, ‘knowledgeable about many things’ (e.g., fjǫlkyngi, fjǫlkyngislist, fjǫlkyngisíþrótt, margfrœði, margkunnandi). Terms for those who practise these arts are made by adding words indicating people (e.g., fjǫlkyngisfólk, fjǫlkyngiskona, fjǫlkyngismaðr, or adjectivally, fjǫlkunnigr, margkunnigr).
Deeds
Terms for magic-related activities often build on dáð ‘deed’ or gerning ‘act, doing, deed’. in the case of dáð, the addition of the negative prefix for- generates terms for witchcraft and sorcery itself ( fordæðuskapr) and criminal acts of magic ( fordæðuverk ‘an execrable crime’). Used in the plural, gerningar glosses
‘witchcraft’ and is occasionally found in such concatenations as the alliterative phrase galdrar ok gerningar, in this instance in the old Norwegian laws concerned with recalcitrant paganism ( Nyere Gulathings-Christenret pp. 307–08; cf. pp. 326–27). These ‘deed’ terms are among the most negatively charged in the entire lexicon insofar as they frequently indicate the felonious results of magical acts (e.g., gerningahríð and gerningaveðr both meaning ‘storm raised
26 – Magic and Religion
655
by witchcraft’; gerningasótt ‘sickness caused by sorcery’). This pattern accounts for many of the terms used for those who practise magic, for example, fordæðu-maðr, gerningakarl, gerningamaðr, gerningavættr, all meaning ‘witch’, ‘sorcerer’, or ‘wizard’, also available in feminine forms, fordæða, gerningakona, gerningavíf.
Performance
frequently words for spells and charms are based on terms connected to singing (or the sounds of incantations being produced), nomenclature which has subsequently attached itself both to the individuals carrying out the act, and the act itself. Seiðr ‘magic’, ‘spell’, ‘charm’, ‘enchantment’, ‘incantation’ has been etymologized by some to words for singing, by others to the root for ‘bind’, although other possibilities exist as well (cf. strömbäck 1935: 120–21; de Vries 1962a; Tolley 2009a: 26). Certainly by the time of most written records from old icelandic, it is one of the dominant terms for witchcraft and sorcery. There are a variety of terms that hint at the idea of seiðr as ceremony and ritual (e.g., efla seið, fremja seið, magna seið, seiða seið, phrases that express the sense of performing or exercising seiðr, or practising sorcery). Related meanings are contained in the verbs seiða ‘to enchant by a spell’, ‘to work a spell’, ‘to practise sorcery’ and síða ‘to work a charm’, and those who practise such magic are called seiðberandr ‘practitioner of magic’; seiðkona ‘sorceress’, ‘witch’, ‘magic woman’; seiðmaðr ‘enchanter’, ‘wizard’; and seiðskratti ‘wizard’. a number of terms underscore the idea of seiðr as charm or spell or the execution of such magic: seiðgaldr
‘enchantment by spells’, seiðmagnan ‘the working of a spell’, seiðsla ‘the working of a spell’ (cf. seiðvilla ‘spells to counteract witchcraft’). and a large number of compounds turn on the physical aspects of the actual ritual: seiðhjallr ‘incantation-scaffold’, seiðlæti ‘sounds heard during the incantation’, seiðstafr ‘enchanter’s wand’, seiðstaðr ‘the place where a spell is worked’.
if there is some doubt about the connection between seiðr and singing, the same cannot be said of galdr ‘song’, ‘charm’; ‘witchcraft’, ‘sorcery’ (cf. gala ‘to crow’; ‘to chant’, ‘sing’; latin gallus ‘cock’; English nightingale; yell), a term associated with both singing and magic in other germanic languages (e.g., anglo-saxon galdor ‘sound’, ‘song’, ‘incantation’, ‘spell’, ‘enchantment’; galdorcræft ‘occult art’, ‘incantation’, ‘magic’). Thus, the compound ‘ galdra-man (or woman)’ is a common phrase for witch, sorceress, wizard, and so on (e.g., galdrakarl, galdrak-erling, galdrakind, galdrakona, galdramaðr, galdrameistari, galdraraumr, galdras-miðr); there is also a related simplex gylfra ‘witch’. like seiðr, with which it bears so many similarities, galdr is associated with a large number of terms relating to its practice: galdrabók ‘book of magic’, galdrahríð ‘magic storm’, galdrasmiðja
656
Stephen A. Mitchell
‘articles used in the practice of magic’, galdrastafir ‘magical characters’, galdravél
‘a magical device’. The term valgaldr indicates ‘a kind of necromancy ascribed to Óðinn’, combining galdr with the battle dead, valr.
a number of old Norse terms connect charms with the performance of magic ceremonies: álag (especially plural álǫg) ‘spell’, ‘charm’; andsœlis ‘with-ershins’, ‘against the course of the sun’; atkvæði ‘spell’, ‘charm’, ‘word’, ‘sound’,
‘decision’; bǫlva ‘to curse’, ‘swear’ (cf. bǫlbæn, bǫlvan ‘curse’, ‘imprecation’); heilla ‘to enchant’, ‘spell-bind’, ‘bewitch’; ljóða á ‘to chant at’ [= ‘to enchant’?]; magna ‘empower’, ‘strengthen’; ‘to charm, make strong by a spell’.
Transformations and Transvection
Many phrases used for and about magic in the Norse world concern flight, or other magical transport: renna gǫndum ‘to ride a witch-ride’ (also: gandreið
‘witch ride’; < gandr ‘anything enchanted or an object used by sorcerers’10) connotes one aspect of this idea, as does hamfarir, which has been described (Cleasby and Vigfusson 1957: 236) as ‘a mythical word, the “faring” or travelling in the assumed shape of an animal, fowl or deer, fish or serpent, with magical speed over land and sea, the wizard’s own body meantime lying lifeless and motionless’
(< hamr ‘skin’; ‘shape’; cf. hamhleypa ‘a human being who travels in the shape of an animal; a witch that goes out in ham-farir’; hamramr ‘able to change one’s shape’; hamstolinn, hamstoli ‘prop. a wizard whose skin has been stolen, and hence metaph. frantic, furious’; hamfrær ‘witches’). a variety of other terms refer to the same idea: kveldriða ‘night-hag’, ‘witch’, ‘evening rider’; myrkriða ‘night-rider’, ‘hag’, ‘witch, dark rider’; and túnriða (< ‘hedge rider’) ‘witch’, ‘ghost’.
Related in the sense that these phrases too involve the idea of movement and space, a number of other important and widely used expressions for witchcraft and the magical world have to do with the location of its practice, or where one learns to practise the art. Thus, one can fara til Finna or trúa á Finna ‘travel 10 scholarship on this word complex has a very long and complicated history (e.g., lid 1927): one of its most famous appearances in our source documents comes in Historia Norwegie (4.13–23), where it evidently occurs in the context of sámi shamanism and is referred to as a gandus. Drawing on this and other medieval attestations, etymologies, later folklore materials, and sámi religion, Heide (2006a) notes the connections between the term understood as referring to magical agents which can variously reconnoiter or harm, or even help, individuals, and the word understood as a staff or wand, as well as penis. further noting its association with such senses as ‘spirit’, ‘wind’, ‘breath’, ‘puff ’, and so on, he suggests that such spirits could travel in and out of various bodily orifices, a penetration, and interpretation, which could even be understood sexually, including anal sex. Cf. Tolley (1994, 1995, 2009a) and Mitchell (2003a).
26 – Magic and Religion
657
to (believe in) the sámi for the purpose of witchcraft’, or take a finnfǫr ‘sámi-trip, i.e., visit sámi for the purpose of witchcraft or sorcery’ (cf. finnvitka ‘to sámi-witch, i.e., to bewitch like a sámi’).11 a widely used phrase for the practice of witchcraft, especially in the Norwegian laws, has to do with sitting out of doors: útiseta (also: sitja úti) ‘a sitting out in the open air, esp. of wizards for the practice of sorcery’, whence útisetumaðr ‘wizard’.
Trollness
No lexical complex yields more terms than those built on troll-, including many common medieval designations for magic and witchcraft. at the same time, few terminological complexes have more disputed etymologies — or interpretations — than those associated with trolldómr ‘witchcraft’, trolldóm-ligr ‘belonging to witchcraft’ (< troll ‘a monstrous, evil-disposed being’, ‘not belonging to the human race’; ‘a human being having the nature of a troll’).
it should perhaps be understood in the context of the related verb trylla ‘to enchant, turn into a troll’; ‘reflexively, to be enchanted’; ‘entroll’.12 semantically, several terms point to the other World, madness, and magic. some of the terms
— trollaukinn ‘troll-eked’, ‘possessed by a troll’; trylldr ‘charmed’; ‘to become mad, furious, demonic’; tryllskr ‘bewitched’, ‘the being a troll or a witch’; also trollskapr ‘nature of a troll’, ‘witchcraft’; tryllska ‘witchery’, ‘the being a witch’
— suggest the probability that medieval scandinavians themselves would have done with Óðinn and óðr .
from these words have sprung many of the most commonly employed terms for witchcraft in the non-insular Nordic tongues: trollkarl (Danish troldkarl)
‘magician’, ‘witch’, ‘sorcerer’, ‘necromancer’, and its female equivalents trollker-ling, trollkona. With this group, one might also associate such related terms as ergi ‘lewdness, lust; wickedness, devilry’, galinn ‘mad’, ‘frantic’; ‘voluptuous’, ‘sensual’ (Modern swedish galen) (< gala ‘to crow’; ‘to chant, sing’), and skelmiskapr
‘devilry’ (< skelmir ‘a devil’, ‘rogue’; cf. german Schelm). a further possibility suggests that the terms are to be derived from words having as their common thread the notion of deception. Witches possessed the power to cast spells typically described as sjónhverfiligr ‘eye-deceiving’ (lit., ‘sight-warped’) and deception of this sort was called a sjónhverfing ‘ocular delusion’, ‘worked by a spell’.
11 in this context, sámi is the most likely meaning of Finnar, although the term was used of other non-scandinavian Balto-finnic groups; see (è16) (è17) (è18). ** **
12 in the most comprehensive review of scholarship and interpretations of trolls to date, lindow (2014b: 12) ingeniously proposes ‘entroll’ as a gloss for forms of trylla.
658
Stephen A. Mitchell
Paraphernalia
There are a number of terms that do not easily fit the categories enumerated above. These words typically have to do with accoutrements related to the practice of magic. such paraphernalia include the skáldstǫng ‘libel pole’, ‘a pole with imprecations or charms scratched onto it’, which is specifically mentioned in Kong Sverrers Christenret (p. 430) and has been inferred elsewhere, as in Egils saga, as a means of aggressive magic. similarly, the spágandr ‘divination rod’ or seiðstafr ‘witch’s wand’, also called tamsvǫndr and gambanteinn, are routine elements of the witch’s kit.
another potentially important arena of witchcraft activity pertains to the witch’s possible role as a lifkona ‘herb-woman’, ‘healer’. although healing with plants was clearly important in Norse society, the use of lyfjar ‘herbs’ (to which Cleasby and Vigfusson (1957: 400) add: ‘esp[ecially] with the notion of healing, witchcraft or supernatural power’) can carry a negative connotation in medieval scandinavia. Thus, for example, the Norwegian codes warn that one should avoid lif runir oc galdra ‘herbs-runes and magic runes’ calling them fiandans […] darscapir ‘mockeries of the devil’ ( Erkebiskop Paals tredie Statut p. 286). an important set of terms which may also have its origins in the use of specific paraphernalia (painted runes?) revolves around taufr ‘sorcery’, ‘charms’,
‘talismans’ (cf. german Zauber, oHg zoubar); thus, taufra ‘to enchant’; taufr(a)maðr ‘sorcerer’, ‘enchanter’; but also taufralauss ‘lacking in magic’.13
Paganism
finally, it needs to be said that since the principal concern of the older Nordic laws was the promotion of an exclusively Christian world-view, it is hardly surprising that everything relating to the former pagan world is condemned with exactly this chronological concatenation in mind, typically using compounds of forn- ‘old, ancient’: forneskja ‘old times’; ‘heathenism’; ‘old lore’, ‘witchcraft’
(> forneskjumaðr ‘sorcerer, wizard’); fornfræði ‘old lore (of witchcraft)’ and forn-fróðr ‘skilled in old lore’, ‘versed in witchcraft’; fornspjǫll ‘old spells’, ‘old lore’; fyrnska ‘old lore’, ‘witchcraft’; vita fyrnsku ‘to be skilled in witchcraft’ (cf. fremja heiðni ‘to promote, practise heathen worship’). it is in this context that hindr-vitni ‘idolatry’, ‘superstition’, ‘nonsense’, is forbidden in the Norwegian laws: 13 The argument is sometimes made that taufr is to be associated with anglo-saxon teáfor
‘a pigment, material used for colouring’ through the idea of painted runes. Cf. de Vries (1962a: 583); Bosworth and Toller (1898–1921: 972).
26 – Magic and Religion
659
‘ef madr fær med spadome. runum galdrum. gerningum. eða hindrvitnum sem dǫmiz firir villu’ (if anyone uses prophecy, magical runes, witchcraft, or superstition judged to be heretical) ( Erkebiskop Arnes Statut p. 300).
The terms enumerated above by no means represent all the possible ways of expressing the use of magic in medieval scandinavia: a number of additional terms for magician, witch, sorcerer, and so on exist, including old swedish runokarl and koklare (but also meaning ‘fool’). among the most widely used of these terms is the charged word skratti (also skrattakarl) ‘wizard’, ‘warlock’,
‘wicked wizard’; ‘goblin’, ‘monster’.
To the extent that such usages provide a reliable window in the aggregate into the magical world of Northern Europe, especially in its preliterate phases, these lexemes too suggest, inter alia, beliefs and practices associated with a discursive mix of sometimes harmful, sometimes helpful outsider powers to be tapped into by specialists, as well as valuable opportunities to learn of future events and acquire numinous knowledge.
Runic Inscriptions and Charms
Runic inscriptions relating to magic provide key insights into the thought-world of the pre-Christian North, exactly because the earliest of them antedate by centuries initial acceptance of Christianity by ruling elites, the events usually used as the official dates for the conversion of the various nascent Nordic countries, and even after the Christianization process, the runic materials offer contemporary written data that did not require special training at cathedral schools and the other usual church-related interventions that can cloud written medieval testimony. Caution is, however, very much in order, as there has historically been a tendency to over-interpret the connection between magic and runes, and to regard runes as something other, or more, than an epigraphic system (cf. the overviews and discussions in, e.g., Bæksted 1952 and flowers 1986). Two anthologies of runic inscriptions relating to magic, McKinnell and others (2004), and Macleod and Mees (2006), with generous references to the scholarly literature and debates, have in recent years supplemented the excellent electronic file of transcriptions, transliterations, and translations, Samnordisk runtextdatabas, whose transcriptions and English translations are followed here except where noted.
among the single-word runic texts from the pre-Christian era appear such apparently magical words as laukaR, alu, salu, laþu, and ota, whose meanings are paradoxically at the same time both simple yet largely impervious to easy explanation (cf. McKinnell and others 2004: 85–101). one of the most
660
Stephen A. Mitchell
figure 26.1. Runic amulet of bronze from Högstena in Västergötland (Vg 216, Samnordisk runtextdatabas). illustration: Ksenija Dubrovina, © sofia Pereswetoff-Morath.
straightforward charm texts may be the bronze fibula from strand, Trøndelag, Norway, c. 700 (N 450), siklisnAhli, transliterated as siklis nA hli in Samnordisk runtextdatabas, which normalizes and translates the inscription as sigli’s nauða hlé, ‘The jewellery is protection from (the) needs’. it has been suggested that ná- may be related to nár ‘corpse’ and thus the charm would be meant to ward against, for example, the walking dead, draugar, in general, or perhaps intended to calm the corpse of the buried person with whom it was deposited.14
similar in intent may be the alliterating eleventh-century inscription on the Högstena bronze amulet from Västergötland, sweden (Vg 216, Samnordisk runtextdatabas; McKinnell and others 2004: 171; Macleod and Mees 2006: 130), which reads, ‘ Gal anda viðr, gangla viðr, riðanda viðr, viðr rinnanda, viðr s[it]ianda, viðr sign[and]a, viðr f[a]randa, viðr fliuganda. S[kal] allt fy[r]na ok um døyia’ ([i] practise witchcraft against the spirit, against the walking (spirit), against the riding, against the running, against the sitting, against the sinking, 14 McKinnell and others (2004: 163) normalizes the inscription as sigli’s ná-hlé with the translation: ‘The brooch is protection (against) the dead’. Macleod and Mees (2006: 75) concur, giving Sigli (i)s ná-hlé ‘Brooch (i)s corpse-protection (i.e., against the walking dead)’. Cf.
Mitchell (2008) on the n-rune, nár, and wraiths.
26 – Magic and Religion
661
figure 26.2. fragment of a human skull
dated to the eighth century, from Ribe in Jylland.
on the skull, a runic charm text is inscribed (DR EM85, Samnordisk runtextdatabas). Photo: lennart larsen, Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen.
against the travelling, against the flying. Everything shall lose its vitality and die). one might prefer ‘[i] charm against’, or even ‘[i] sing, or chant, against’, for the central repeated gal viðr, since that is the usage Óðinn himself makes in Hávamál 152 (‘þann kann ec galdr at gala’, ‘i know that charm to chant’, ‘spell to sing’, and so on), and mirrors the term’s etymology; moreover, it reflects a sense of the performance practices likely to have been associated with the actual vocalization of the charm (cf. Mitchell 2013).
The early eighth-century text inscribed on a fragment of human skull from Ribe, Denmark (DR EM85, Samnordisk runtextdatabas; McKinnell and others 2004: 50–51; Macleod and Mees 2006: 25–27, figure 26.2) mentions Óðinn, as well as, it would seem, terms for pain and ‘dwarf ’ ( dværg), a well-known trope in germanic medical lore (cf. Jolly 1996; Hall 2007). although the text, its transliteration, and its meaning are much debated, with sometimes greatly differing outcomes, one possible presentation of the inscription would be ulfuR Auk uþin Auk HutiuR ‘HiAlb buriis uiþR þAiMAuiArkiAuk tuirkuni2n [hole]
buur with the following possible translations, (Ulfr and Óðinn and Hydyr …
… against that pain and … …), (Ulfúrr and Óðinn and Hátyr are help for Burr
662
Stephen A. Mitchell
figure 26.3. Runic amulet from Kvinneby on Öland, dated to the eleventh century (Öl sas1989; 43, Samnordisk runtextdatabas). illustration: Ksenija Dubrovina, © sofia Pereswetoff-Morath.
against these: pain and dwarfstroke. Burr), or (Ulfr and Óðinn and Há-
Help is
The broader context of this Óðinn reference may indicate familiarity with the Norse myth known from later sources about the origins of the world (Macleod and Mees 2006: 25), in what is called a historiola, a reference to a mythic narrative embedded in a magic formula. This is by no means clear in this case, but a consensus holds that the item is an amulet intended to fight against head pain of some sort, presumably the reason behind the choice of a cranial medium for the inscription.
a further example of apotropaic magic may be the early eleventh-century Kvinneby amulet from Öland, sweden (Öl sas1989;43, Samnordisk runt-extsdatabas; McKinnell and others 2004: 65–66; Macleod and Mees 2006: 27–29). it was produced from sheet copper, bears the image of a fish, and has a hole that apparently allowed it to be worn as a periapt. That is about all that modern scholarship agrees on with respect to the amulet, apart from the runic text’s use of another, and in this case, clear, historiola: namely, the myth of Þórr’s fishing for the World serpent and the appearance in it of his hammer, Mjǫllnir.
15 Samnordisk runtextdatabas, with emendations from McKinnell and others (2004: 50–51), who also present an overview of possible interpretations, as suggested by, for example, Klaus Düwel, ottar grønvik, Edith Marold, and Marie stoklund.
26 – Magic and Religion
663
figure 26.4. Runic inscription from søndre søstergården in Bergen, dated to the twelfth century (N B380, Samnordisk runtextdatabas). Photo: Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i oslo, oslo.
That central section of the text reads: ‘En bra haldi illu fran Bofa. Þorr gæti hans með þæim hamri sem uR § B hafi kom’ (…hold all evil away from Bófi. May Þórr protect him with that hammer which came from out of the sea).
By no means were all magical runic inscriptions charms, but charms, often preserved in runic inscriptions, represent an important tradition within Northern magic. Major anthologies of Nordic charms (in, e.g., Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, Norske hexeformularer, Danmarks trylleformler, Signelser ock besvärjelser) often contain medieval magical texts that may reflect in various ways on the pre-Christian traditions, at least to the extent that some of the deities known from the pre-Conversion pantheon, Óðinn and Þórr especially, are mentioned in them. The likelihood, however, that interpretatio Christiana has shaped the tradition must also be borne in mind (cf. Celander 1920; de Vries 1931; Mitchell 2009), although it is also clear that there exist important continuities between various multiforms of charm magic over time (e.g., liestøl 1964; Mitchell 1998). Precisely how such materials were remembered over generations is unclear, although modern studies in such areas as memory studies (e.g., olsan 2004; Hermann 2015) hold out the promise of a better understanding of such mechanisms.
Not infrequently, the magical content, and magical intent, if any, can be difficult to tease out of the runic texts. The late twelfth-century runic inscription from søndre søstergården in Bergen (N B380, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) would be a fine example of this point. With its alliterative character, references to pagan deities, and charm-like structure, it might seem that this rune stick’s meaning would be clear and beyond dispute, but that is not at all the case. it reads, § A Heil(l) sé þú ok í hugum góðum. § B Þórr þik þiggi, Óðinn þik eigi. ‘§ a Hail to you and good thoughts. § B May Þórr receive you, may Óðinn own you’ (cf. liestøl 1964: 37–38; Meulengracht sørensen 1991: 219–20; McKinnell and others 2004: 128; Macleod and Mees 2006: 30–31). But to what does this inscription, composed in galdralag ‘incantation metre’ refer? is it complete or is it simply a portion of a
664
Stephen A. Mitchell
larger work, as liestøl believes? Does this reference to the pagan gods represent a magical act or not? opinions about its meaning and purpose have differed substantially, ranging from the view that it is a private expression of faith by a heathen (Hultgård 1998b: 730) to the possibility that it is nothing more than an antiquarian exercise, perhaps even a parody (Marold 1998a: 680–82).
Material Culture
finally, we have the opportunity to recover pre-Christian magical practices and beliefs from material culture. Here too caution is in order: with the possible exception of runic inscriptions, no area has been more subject to conjecture, misinterpretation, and speculation. indeed, the romantic and overgenerous interpretations of some early practitioners (e.g. stjerna 1912; Nerman 1931) led in turn to, on the one hand, extreme caution among some later scholars, creating an atmosphere where functionalist and materialist interpretations were preferred to alternative explanations of possible magical goods, as well as, on the other hand, a certain disciplinary atomism, a division that has been extensively healed in recent decades.16
Moreover, strict divisions between and among types of and approaches to the data, although understandable and useful scholarly conveniences, can run the risk of hyper-professionalism and, worse still, of obfuscating our understanding of what pagan tradition bearers might have believed. The impossibil-ity of absolute divisions among the sources becomes clear if one considers, for example, runic inscriptions and sagas, whose messages are, strictly speaking, forms of textual evidence, requiring philological expertise: at the same time, they are necessarily preserved as physical objects — talismans, amulets, manuscripts, and so on — the end results of production techniques carried out by human hands, where archaeological methods are also called for (cf. fuglesang 1989; Driscoll 2010). The following examples, selected with an eye toward illustrating varying types of evidence, underscore how a better understanding of the nature and means of magic in the pre-Christian Northmust depend on an omnivorous intellectual approach to data.17
16 for an introduction to this vast topic, see andrén (1997, 1998a), Price (2002), and the essays in steinsland (1986), and Raudvere and schjødt (2012).
17 This point is not intended to detract in any way from the advantages of disciplinary specialization, but it does argue for the necessity of broad interdisciplinarity if we are to begin understanding so multifaceted a topic as archaic magical practices; cf. Mitchell and others (2010) and Mitchell (2011: 17–25).
26 – Magic and Religion
665
figure 26.5. House from the village of
Vallhagar on gotland, dated between
the third and the sixth centuries. in four
postholes and two deposits in the floor,
a quern stone, a ceramic pot, and bones
from horse and sheep have been found.
These finds have been interpreted as house
deposits. Plan: annika Jeppson in Carlie
2004: 129, based on Biörnstad 1955.
in a series of recent studies, important questions have been raised about the nature and meaning of house floor assemblages and other kinds of ritual depositions in scandinavia, variously referred to as ‘house deposits’, ‘foundation sacrifices’, and so on (e.g., Carlie 2004; Hansen 2006; larsson 2007; falk 2008). The iron age ritual building at Uppåkra, for example, was found to have had a metal beaker and glass bowl deposited while the building was in use (larsson 2007). Defining what such materials represent (e.g., an accidental deposit or an intentional one; a deposition connected with magical, ritual and ceremonial purposes, or something buried purely out of security concerns), let alone the spiritual purpose, if any, of such deposits, is not easily addressed, especially in the complete absence of any near-contemporary references to the practice (cf. falk 2008: 51–62).
in this regard, these material echoes of past practices are of special interest since they provide hard evidence of traditional behaviours otherwise completely unnoticed and uncommented on by medieval legal, literary, and historical writers. Both Carlie (2004, 2006) and falk (2006, 2008), for example, demonstrate in their studies the dynamic continuity of such a tradition as part
666
Stephen A. Mitchell
of south scandinavian social life over very long periods, and not only for key central structures like the Uppåkra ritual building but also in the case of family homes, with certain critical turning points in the nature of the ritual practices, for example, from the Migration Era to the Vendel Period. Carlie (2004, 2006) notes that ceramic vessels, quernstones, and tools are among the most commonly deposited items in southern scandinavian sites, with significant regional variations, and although building deposits are found throughout five millennia, these ritual actions are heavily concentrated in the Early iron age and Migration Period. falk (2006, 2008) traces the continuity of these, or similar, practices throughout the Middle ages, with animal bones, especially animal skulls, and ceramics being frequent offerings. given the lack of textual evidence from such routine medieval sources as the laws and the icelandic sagas, without the archaeological record (and much later traditions observed by folklorists), we would simply have no knowledge of these practices or their longevity.
and whereas pre-Christian magical actors — vǫlur, seiðkonur, and so on —
were once largely discussed on the basis of textual evidence alone (e.g., finnur Jónsson 1892), scholarship has in recent years more eagerly integrated archaeology into evaluations of the magical world (e.g., Hauck 1972; Hedeager 1997b, 2011; Price 2002, 2004; solli 2002; gardela 2009; Pentz and others 2009). one line of inquiry has been especially interested in the thousand or so gold bracteates from the Migration Era, a number of which show a figure accompanied by animals believed by some, when interpreted in the light of the later literary sources, to be Óðinn (e.g., Hauck 1972, 1983; cf. Wicker and Williams 2012). That this identification might in turn lead to the interpretation of some of the bracteates as representing Óðinn in the role of a shaman engaged in the practice of seiðr has also been promoted, especially by the archaeologist lotte Hedeager, who argues that a number of these medals show ‘den arketypiske fremstilling af shamanens, sandsynligvis odins, rejse til den anden verden, hvor sjælen er afbildet som et mandshoved, men i fugleham, og hvor håret ofte er udformet som et fuglehoved’
(the archetypal presentation of the shaman’s, probably Óðinn’s, journey to the other world, where the soul is depicted as a manś head, but in bird shape, and where the hair is often shaped like a bird head) (Hedeager 1997b: 274).
following a different line of inquiry, Price, for example, has argued that the sort of witch’s staff referred to in Eiríks saga rauða and Laxdæla saga was no mere literary invention but can be demonstrated to have existed in reality, based on grave goods, part of the so-called ‘archaeology of death’. To make this case, however, required his pushing back against decades of professional views that had interpreted these objects in entirely utilitarian ways, as, for example, spits for roasting meat or, possibly, as measuring sticks; moreover, the under-
26 – Magic and Religion
667
standing of the archaeological goods he presents builds on extensive examination of the textual sources (cf. Price 2002, 2012).
The special circumstances of grave 4 from the Trelleborg-style fortress at fyrkat, beyond the western end of Mariager fjord in Danish Jylland, provide a useful prism through which to view the valuable contributions that can be made by a corresponding ‘archaeology of magic’ (cf. gilchrist 2008). The 1955 excavation of the tenth-century grave and its contents are described in Roesdahl (1977: 83–104). Many aspects of this female grave mark it as having been special: it is one of only a dozen or so Nordic burials where the corpse was placed in a clinker-built wagon body which was deposited in the grave.
Two possible ‘magical staffs’ were found in the grave: one is made of wood and would have been rather thin and flexible; the other possible staff is of metal but, given its condition, of indeterminate length. Remarkably, owl pellets or castings, the jaw of a suckling pig, henbane ( Hyscyamus sp. ), and amulets of various sorts, including one in the shape of a typical Viking age chair, were also found in the grave. This combination of items has been widely interpreted as meaning that the grave is likely to have been that of a woman who had deep connections to other, or perhaps otherworldly, powers. Even the most mundane reading of the evidence leads to the view that she was likely to have been, for example, a healer. in a more extended interpretation of the evidence, she can readily be interpreted as having been a vǫlva or seiðkona (Roesdahl 1977: 91, 97–104; Price 2002: 152–53, 185–86, 200–06; Pentz and others 2009).
Scholarly Trends
The practice of seiðr, with which such women as the figures from Eiríks saga rauða and, perhaps, fyrkat grave 4 are so closely associated, has, in fact, been a central concern throughout the past century and a half of scholarship on magic in these early periods. The historic multiculturalism of the North, especially of adjacent germanic and finno-Ugric cultures, has long suggested itself as a potentially important background against which to judge the origins and nature of Nordic forms of magic, especially seiðr. Thus, many scholars have examined the possibility of cross-cultural, mainly sámi, connections to Norse magic, especially as reified in the practice of seiðr, a line of inquiry with deep roots (e.g., fritzner 1887; Jaide 1937; ohlmarks 1939a).
Whether sámi shamanism, noaidevuohta,18 or other techniques archaïques de l’extase ‘archaic techniques of ecstasy’, in Mircea Eliade’s famous formula-18 on noaidevuohta, see DuBois (1999: 122–38), Price (2002: 233–78), and Tolley (2009a: i, 75–78 passim); and on its relationship to later accusations of witchcraft, see Hagen (2006b).
668
Stephen A. Mitchell
tion about shamanism (Eliade 1951: 15), are to be understood as having an important relationship to neighbouring pre-Christian religious and magical traditions has been intensely examined in recent years, with some (e.g., DuBois 1999; Price 2002, 2004) arguing for the relationship, while others (e.g., Dillmann 2006: 269–308; Tolley 2009a) have taken a more sceptical position. in addition to those drawing heavily on the ethnographic com-paranda have been scholars more focused on the medieval literary testimony (e.g., Buchholz 1968; Hermann Pálsson 1997). among these studies, the work of Dag strömbäck (1935) deserves special attention for its comprehensive, source-critical review of the available materials and the author’s unrivalled ability to combine the fields of folklore and philology in examining the material in favour of the sámi connection.
although the practice of seiðr has, as noted, been a, if not the, central concern in the study of Nordic magic, it has not been the only approach to the intriguing issue of pre-Christian magical practices in the North. Broadly speaking, several other trends have also shaped scholarship on pagan magic in Northern Europe as reviewed in, for example, Price (2002: 76–89), Dillmann (2006: 6–9), and Mitchell (2011: 1–15). one such branch might be characterized as approaching pre-Christian Nordic magic as a world-view and a different perception of reality. Thus, Régis Boyer presents Norse magic as something of a refracted version of Norse religion, Le monde du double (The World of the Double), of his study’s title (1986b). in a similar way, Catherine Raudvere’s fine examinations of medieval scandinavian magic (e.g., 2002b, 2003) also highlight perception, occult knowledge, and insight. Thus, for example, she writes concerning divination rituals and other magical performances that they ‘were expressions of ways of finding the keys to hidden parts of reality and measuring what was given’ (2002b: 96).
The sociological dimensions of magic in the pre-Christian Nordic world, including within the context of cultic practices, have also been a long-standing area of inquiry (e.g., Baetke 1938; ohlmarks 1939b). No work on the subject, however, approaches this issue to the same degree, or with the same fine-grained analysis, as does françois-Xavier Dillmann in his Les magiciens dans l’Islande ancienne: Études sur la représentation de la magie islandaise et de ses agents dans les sources littéraires norroises (2006). one of the main tenets of this extremely thorough review of the relevant medieval icelandic literary evidence is that from the surviving texts, it is possible to develop an accurate image of icelandic practitioners of magic, that is, of their social standing, origins, gender, occupa-tions, familial descent and its prestige, and so on, and of the attitudes of others toward these people and the forms of power they are represented as controlling.
26 – Magic and Religion
669
also concerned with the reconstructed socio-historical outlines of pre-Christian Nordic magic are the works of those who have keyed in on the issue of gender and Norse magic (e.g., Morris 1991; Näsström 1995; solli 2002; Helga Kress 2008). although the total numbers of various magical actors presented of each gender in surviving saga literature is roughly equal, some scholars have argued that it might have been quite different in earlier times, or as one noted historian concludes, ‘women were the original and remained the most powerful magicians, whereas men gained access only later and never attained parity with women, either in numbers or power’ (Jochens 1996: 130–31).
specifically treating the post-Conversion Era, from 1100 to 1525, Mitchell (2011) provides a wide-ranging review of available medieval cultural documents — sagas, legal cases, church art, law codes, ecclesiastical records, runic spells, and so on — from throughout the Nordic world in establishing an image of the fusion taking place in the Middle ages between native traditions and Catholic teaching about magic and related topics.
These studies, like the issues they seek to address, are naturally more complex and subtle than the simple taxonomy used here suggests — all of the works mentioned fit to some extent into more than one of these groups. The categories do, however, give an impression of the main currents in scholarship to date and indicate the likely directions the study of Nordic magic anterior to, and outside of, Christianity will continue to take.
Concluding Remarks
The discussions above have mainly concerned themselves with the question of premillennial and other early magical practices associated with cultures typi-fied by speakers of North germanic dialects, so-called scandinavians, largely to the exclusion of other frameworks. Just as pre-Christian Nordic magic must be assessed against the backdrop of neighbouring finnic peoples, so too must a comprehensive review of the scandinavian materials be placed within the broader historical germanic context, especially as these magical traditions have been explored in anglo-saxon England (e.g., storms 1948; Meaney 1981; Jolly 1996; Hall 2007) and among continental germanic peoples (e.g., Wipf 1975; Holzmann 2001). although of obvious interest, such comparative work has been attempted more rarely than one might expect (e.g., Christiansen 1914; Harris 1975; Macleod and Mees 2006), and even when executed with caution and discernment, forays into comparative historical research of this sort have often faced opposition from those content to say as little of interest about such materials as possible.
670
Stephen A. Mitchell
Clearly, no single, unified view of the character or role of magic in the Northern world emerges from among the works of those specializing in magic in pre-Christian scandinavia; however, the multifaceted nature of modern scholarship’s perspectives on the topic is itself probably a reasonable reflection of actual historical realities: it is highly unlikely that any single view of that part of religious life conceived of in modern terms as magic, that arena of social life believed to allow those with special knowledge to communicate with, and acquire the supernatural assistance of, otherworldly powers, would have dominated uniformly throughout a geographic area stretching from greenland to finland, or in societies with similarly discursive demographic compositions.
That PCRN inherited, borrowed, and developed techniques that were understood to allow particularly active tradition bearers and other specialists to look into the future, protect, charm, heal, employ supernatural aggression, and so on, that is, to make manifest the practitioner’s volition on the environment and on others, is a cultural reality that can be both assumed and adduced from the surviving, mainly later, cultural documents.