Usually, you think of the Vikings as men with swords, charging into villages, plundering, and drinking mead out of animal horns. If you picture women, it’s in the background, stirring cauldrons or braiding hair. But the truth is far stranger and far more intriguing: the Vikings had their own brand of magic. It was seidr: a tangled mix of shamanism, prophecy, and energy manipulation.
Seidr was the art of bending fate. The practitioners, the ones who carried this strange knowledge, were called völvas: women who traveled from settlement to settlement with staffs and chants and the kind of reputation that made you both want them near and want them far away.
If you’ve ever felt the allure of the mystical, or caught yourself asking whether the past might hold keys to the present, you’ll find yourself oddly at home with seidr. And if you want to see how these ancient practices echo into the present, you can start with https://online-psychic-readings.com/.
The Origins of Seidr
Let’s start with the name. Seidr comes from Old Norse and is often translated as “cord” or “string.” Think about that for a second: the metaphor is that fate is a thread, something you can spin, weave, knot, or unravel. If you’ve ever thought your life felt like it was hanging by a thread, well—the Norse would agree.
The practice probably originated in pre-Christian Scandinavia, but like most things, it didn’t stay neatly in one box. There are echoes of Siberian shamanism, a sprinkle of animism, and a good dash of the universal human tendency to look at the stars and wonder if they’re talking to us. The Norse weren’t just warriors—they were farmers, sailors, and parents. They needed something to explain the inexplicable: the weather, the harvest, the random cruelty of illness. Seidr became that tool.
The Völvas: Women at the Edge of Power
You can’t talk about seidr without talking about the women who practiced it. The völva was not your everyday village woman. She was itinerant, carrying her staff, her bag of ritual items, and her aura of otherness. People both revered and feared her. Invite her in, and she might tell you your crops would flourish—or she might hint that your son wouldn’t survive the winter.
What’s interesting is that the völva had power in a society that otherwise didn’t give much of it to women. Seidr was both a gift and a stigma. It gave women a voice in matters usually dominated by men, but it also marked them as dangerous, outside, uncanny.
And then there were the men. Some men practiced seidr too, but it came with a heavy dose of social risk. The Norse word ergi, meaning “unmanly” or “shameful,” was often hurled at men who engaged in seidr. Magic, apparently, was gendered, and stepping into that space meant stepping out of the rigid masculinity of Viking culture. Still, even Odin—the chief of the gods, the All-Father himself—was said to practice seidr. So if Odin could dabble, maybe the stigma was worth it.
Rituals, Chants, and the Mechanics of Seidr
How exactly did seidr work? That’s the frustrating part: the sagas give us glimpses, not manuals. But from what we know, it often involved ritual chants (galdr), drumming, altered states of consciousness, and sometimes hallucinogens. The völva would enter a trance and journey—yes, literally journey, in her mind or spirit—into other realms to find answers or weave threads of fate.
Imagine the scene: a longhouse filled with flickering firelight, villagers gathered in nervous silence, and a woman at the center, chanting, swaying, her staff striking the ground in rhythm. You’d feel it in your bones. You’d believe, whether or not you intended to. Because ritual, at its core, works not only on the one performing it but on everyone watching.
What Seidr Was Used For
Seidr wasn’t about pulling rabbits out of hats. It was practical, sometimes brutally so.
- Divination: What will the future bring? War, famine, prosperity? The völva was the one you asked.
- Weather Magic: Sailors depended on favorable winds. Seidr could supposedly summon or still a storm.
- Healing and Harm: Like most magic, it could go both ways. You could soothe a sick child—or curse an enemy.
- Love and Fertility: Because what society doesn’t try to control love with a little magic?
- Fate Weaving: The big one. Nudging destiny, twisting threads. Never full control, but influence.
You read this and realize: it’s not so far from what people still seek. Guidance. Control. Hope.
The Christian Backlash
Like many pagan practices, seidr didn’t fare well under Christianity. What was once sacred became suspicious, then heretical. Women who once held power as völvas became witches in the eyes of the Church. Seidr didn’t disappear entirely, but it went underground, woven into folklore and whispers.
This is where the story turns bittersweet. A practice that once gave voice and agency was recast as evil. And yet—it survived, in fragments. Songs, charms, stories. The Norse were nothing if not stubborn.
Why Seidr Still Matters
You might wonder: why care about any of this? After all, you’re not about to pick up a staff and start chanting in Old Norse. But here’s the thing: seidr is a reminder of something that never really leaves us. The desire to know, to influence, to connect.
When you shuffle a tarot deck, when you light incense, when you whisper a wish into the universe, you’re not doing anything so different from what the völvas did. You’re acknowledging that there is more to life than what you can measure. You’re admitting you want to believe in threads you can’t see.
How to Bring Seidr Into Your Life
You don’t need to cosplay as a Viking to take something from seidr. You just need to notice the parallels and adopt what resonates.
- Ritual: Create small rituals that mark transitions. Morning coffee as invocation. Journaling as chant.
- Connection to Nature: The Norse lived by the sea, the land, the sky. Go outside. Notice. Pay attention.
- Divination Tools: Runes, tarot, astrology—different symbols, same impulse. Use them as conversation starters with yourself.
- Trance States: No need for mushrooms if that’s not your thing. Meditation works just fine. Breath is a powerful doorway.
- Weaving Fate: Remember, seidr wasn’t about absolute control. It was about influence. You can influence your own life more than you think.
Closing the Circle
You probably started this with an image of Vikings as brawny warriors. You may end it realizing that even they, in all their ferocity, looked to the unseen. They believed that life wasn’t just about muscle and steel, but about threads, chants, whispers in the dark.
And maybe that’s the real gift of seidr: the reminder that even the toughest, most pragmatic among us crave mystery. That deep down, you too are still wondering if you can twist fate, or at least catch a glimpse of what’s coming next.
Because in the end, seidr is less about Vikings than it is about you—standing in your kitchen, asking questions of the universe. And maybe that’s why it still pulls at you, across centuries.
