Shamanism

What is shamanism, and to what extent was it PRESENT among the preChristian Norse and other Germanic peoples?
Shamanism, like love, is a notoriously HARD word to define. Any
meaningful discussion of an idea, however, depends on the idea first being
clearly defined so that everyone understands exactly what is being discussed.
For our purposes here, shamanism can be considered to be the practice
of ENTERING an ecstatic trance state in order to contact spirits and/or travel
through spiritual worlds with the intention of accomplishing some specific
purpose.[1] It is a feature of countless magicaland religious traditions from all
over the world, especially animistic ones.
The pre-Christian religion of the Germanic peoples teems with shamanic
elements so much so that it would be impossible to discuss them all here. Our
discussion will have to be confined to those that are the most significant.
Well START with Odin, the father of the gods, who possesses numerous
shamanic traits. From there, well examine shamanism in Norse magical
traditions that were PART of the female sphere of traditional northern
European social life, and then move on to the male sphere of theberserkers and
other warrior-shamans BEFORE concluding.
Odin and Shamanism
Odin, the chief of the gods, is often portrayed as a consummate shamanic
figure in the oldest primary sources that contain information about the preChristian ways of the Germanic peoples. His very NAME suggests this: Odin
(Old Norse inn) is a compound word comprised of r, ecstasy, fury,
inspiration, and the suffix -inn, the masculine definite article, which, when
added to the end of another word like this, means something like the MASTER
of or a perfect example of. The name Odin can therefore be most aptly
translated as The Master of Ecstasy. The eleventh-century historian Adam of
Bremen confirms this when he translates Odin as The Furious.[2]This
establishes a link between Odin and the ecstatic trance states that comprise
one of the defining characteristics of shamanism.
Odins
shamanic
spirit-journeys
are
well-documented.
The Ynglinga
Saga records that he would travel to distant lands on his own errands or those
of others while he appeared to others to be asleep or dead.[3] Another
instance is recorded in the Eddicpoem Baldurs Dreams, where Odin
rides Sleipnir,
an
eight-legged HORSE typical
of
northern
Eurasian
shamanism,[4] to the underworld to consult a dead seeress on behalf of his
son.[5]
Odin, like shamans all over the world,[6] is accompanied by many familiar
spirits, most notably the two ravens Hugin and Munin.
The shaman must typically undergo a ritual death and rebirth in order to
acquire his or her powers,[7] and Odin underwent exactly such an ordeal when
he discovered the runes. Having done so, he became one of the cosmoss
wisest, most knowledgeable, and most magically powerful beings.
He is a renowned practitioner of seidr, which he seems to have learned from
the goddess Freya.

Shamanism in Seidr
Freya is the divine archetype of the vlva, a professional or semi-professional
practitioner of the Germanic magical tradition known as seidr. Seidr (Old
Norse seir) was a form of magic concerned with discerning and altering the
course of destiny by re-weaving part of destinys web.[8] To do this, the
practitioner, with ritual distaff in hand,[9] would ENTER a trance and travel in
spirit throughout the Nine Worldsaccomplishing her intended task.
This GENERALLY took the form of a prophecy, a blessing, or a curse.
The vlva wandered from town to town and farm to farm prophesying and
performing other acts of magic in exchange for room, board, and often other
forms of compensation as well. The most detailed account of such a woman
and her doings comes from The Saga of Erik the Red,[10] but numerous sagas,
as well as some of the mythic poems (most notably the Vlusp, The Insight of
the Vlva) contain sparseaccounts of seidr-workers and their practices.
Like other northern Eurasian shamans, the vlva was set apart from her
wider society, both in a positive and a negative sense she was simultaneously
exalted, sought-after, feared, and, in some instances, reviled.[11] However,
the vlva is very reminiscent of the veleda, a seeress or prophetess who held a
more clearly-defined and highly respected position amongst the Germanic
tribes of the first several centuries CE.[12] In either of these roles, the woman
practitioner of these arts held a more or less dignified role among her people,
even as the degree of her dignity varied considerably over time.
Such was not usually the case for male practitioners of seidr. According to
traditional Germanic gender constructs, it was extremely shameful and
dishonorable for a man to adopt a female social or sexual role. A man who
practiced seidr could expect to be labeled ergi (Old Norse for unmanly) by his
peers one of the gravest insults that could be hurled at a Germanic man.
[13] While there were probably several reasons for seidr being considered ergi,
the greatest seems to have been the centrality of weaving, the paragon of the
traditional female economic sphere, in seidr.[14] Still, this didnt stop numerous
men from engaging in seidr, sometimes even as a profession. A few such men
have had their deeds recorded in the sagas. The foremost among
such seimenn was none other than Odin himself and not even he escaped
the charge of being ergi.[15][16]We can detect a high degree of ambivalence
seething beneath the surface of this taunt; unmanly as seidr may have been
seen as being, it was undeniably a source of incredible power perhaps the
greatest power in the cosmos, given that it could change the course of destiny
itself. Perhaps the sacrifice of social prestige for these abilities wasnt too bad
of a bargain. After all, such men could look to the very ruler of Asgard as an
example and a patron.
Shamanism in Warrior Magic and Religion
In any case, there were other forms of shamanism that were much MORE
socially acceptable for men to practice. One of the CENTRAL institutions of
traditional Germanic society was the band of elite, ecstatic, totemistic warriors.
In earlier times these took the form of tribal militias or warbands, and by the
Viking Age they had become more informal groups such as the berserkers.
These were no ordinary soldiers; the initiation rituals, fighting techniques, and
other spiritual practices of these bands[17] were such that their members
could BE aptly characterized as warrior-shamans.
The divine guide and inspiration of such men was the same as for the seidr-

workers: Odin. The Ynglinga Saga has this to say about them:
Odins men went armor-less into battle and were as crazed as dogs or
wolves and as strong as bears or bulls. They bit their shields and slew
men, while they themselves were harmed by neither fire nor iron. This
is called GOING berserk.[18]
Or in the astute and evocative words of archaeologist Neil Price:
They RUN howling and foaming through the groups of fighting men.
Some of them wear animal skins, some are naked, and some have
thrown away shields and armour to rely on their consuming frenzy
alone. Perhaps some of the greatest warriors do not take the field at
all, but remain behind in their tents, their minds nevertheless focused
on the combat. As huge animals their spirit forms wade through the
battle, wreaking destruction.[19]
This combat frenzy (going berserk) was one of the most common and most
potent forms that Odins ecstasy (r) could take. In such a battle-trance, these
hallowed warriors bit or cast away their shields, the symbolic INDICATORS of
their social persona,[20] and became utterly possessed by the spirit of their
totem animal, sometimes even shifting their shapes to become a bear or a
wolf. By extension, they achieved a state of unification with the MASTER of
these beasts and the giver of this sublime furor: Odin.
Conclusion
Given the prominence of shamanism in other traditional northern Eurasian
societies, it would be shocking if it were absent from traditional Germanic
society. So its hardly surprising to FIND , instead, that the established social
customs of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples brimmed with shamanic
elements.
Its just as important, however, to stress the uniquely Germanic form of these
elements. At the center of the Germanic shamanic complex is the Allfather,
Odin, who inspires the female and transgender seidr-workers and the male
warrior-shamans alike with his perilous gift of ecstasy. This maintains the
communion between the worlds of spirit and the world of flesh thats
so CENTRAL to a robust animistic worldview and way of life. The active
shamanic practitioner receives an additional boon: an upper hand in lifes
battles and a position of dignity and glory within the all-subsuming process of
the cosmoss ceaseless, Nietzschean self-overcoming,[21] a position as an
especially vigorous facilitator of growth, renewal, and re-beautification.
If youve enjoyed this article and want to learn more about Norse mythology, I
recommend picking up one of the books LISTED in this guide: The 10 Best
Norse Mythology Books. And if youre particularly interested in the worldview of
the pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic peoples, you might want to take
a LOOK at my own book, The Love of Destiny: The Sacred and the Profane in
Germanic Polytheism.
References:
[1] This is nearly identical to the definition proposed by ke Hultkrantz: we
may define the shaman as a social functionary who, with the help of guardian
spirits, attains ecstasy in order to create a rapport with the supernatural world
on behalf of his [sic] GROUP members. (1973. A Definition of

Shamanism. In Temenos 9: 25-37. p. 34.)

[2] Adam of Bremen. c. 1080. History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen.
Translated by Francis Joseph Tschan. p. 207.
[3] Snorri Sturluson. Ynglinga Saga 7. In Heimskringla: ea Sgur Noregs
Konunga.
[4] Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated
by Willard R. Trask. p. 380.
[5] The Poetic Edda. Baldrs Draumar.
[6] Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated
by Willard R. Trask. p. 6.
[7] Ibid. p. 14.
[8] Heide, Eldar. 2006. Spinning Seir. In Old Norse Religion in Long-Term
Perspectives: ORIGINS , Changes and Interactions. Edited by Anders Andrn,
Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere. p. 166.
[9] Ibid. p. 166-167.
[10] Eirks Saga Raua 4.
[11] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age
Scandinavia. p. 279-328.
[12] Enright, Michael J. 1996. Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and
Lordship in the European Warband from La Tne to the Viking Age.
[13] Dubois, Thomas A. 1999. Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. p. 135-137.
[14] Heide, Eldar. 2006. Spinning Seir. In Old Norse Religion in Long-Term
Perspectives: ORIGINS , Changes and Interactions. EDITED by Anders
Andrn, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere. p. 167.
[15] Snorri Sturluson. Ynglinga Saga 7. In Heimskringla: ea Sgur Noregs
Konunga.
[16] The Poetic Edda. Lokasenna 24.
[17] Kershaw, Kris. 2000. The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic
Mnnerbnde.
[18] Snorri Sturluson. Ynglinga Saga 6. In Heimskringla: ea Sgur Noregs
Konunga. My translation.
[19] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age
Scandinavia. p. 394.
[20] Tacitus, Cornelius. GERMANIA 13.
[21] Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1954. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: a BOOK for ALL
and None. In The Portable Nietzsche. Edited and translated by Walter
Kaufmann. p. 225-228.

Berserkers and Other Shamanic Warriors

The shamanism of
the
pre-Christian
Norse and other Germanic peoples took
several different forms. Among the most
common of these forms, especially for
men, was the attainment and use of an
ecstatic battle-fury closely linked to a
particulartotem animal, usually a bear or

Ritually costumed weapons dancers on a Migration

Period bronze plate from land, Sweden

a wolf, and often occurring within the context of certain formal, initiatory
military GROUPS .
During the Viking Age, these warrior-shamans typically fell into two groups:
the berserkers (Old Norse berserkir, bear-shirts) and lfhenar (pronounced
oolv-HETH-nahr with a HARD th as in the; Old Norse for wolf-hides).
These groups were a late development of the earlier Germanic warband,
[1] and SHARED much in common with the warlike shamanism of other
circumpolar peoples.[2]
As far as we can tell today, the berserkers and lfhenar SHARED a common
set of shamanic practices, with the only substantial difference being that the
totem animal of the berserkers was, as the name implies, the bear, while that
of the lfhenar was the wolf. These names are a reference to the practice of
dressing in a ritual costume made from the hide of the totem animal, an
outward reminder of the wearers having gone beyond the confines of his
humanity and become a divine predator.[3] Its hard to imagine a grislier or
more frightening thing to encounter on the late Iron Age battlefield.
One of the defining features of shamanic traditions across the world is an
initiation process characterized by a symbolic (and OCCASIONALLY literal)
death and rebirth, whereby the shaman-to-be acquires his or her powers.
[4] Candidates for Germanic shamanic military societies underwent such a
process before being admitted into the group: they spent a period in the
wilderness, LIVING like their totem animal and learning its ways, obtaining
their sustenance through hunting, gathering, and raiding the nearest towns. To
quote the esteemed archaeologist Dominique Briquel, Rapto vivere, to live in
the manner of wolves, is the beginning of this initiation. Thebond with the
savage world is INDICATED not only on the geographic plane life beyond the
limits of the civilized life of the towns but also on what we would consider a
moral plane: their existence is assured by the law of the jungle.[5] The
candidate ceased to be an ordinary human being and became instead a wolfman or a bear-man, more a part of the forest than of civilization.
Thenceforth, he had the ability to induce a state of possession by his kindred
beast, acquiring its strength, fearlessness, and fury. We have only the haziest
idea of the techniques used to reach this ecstatic trance state, but we know
that FASTING , exposure to extreme heat, and ceremonial weapons dances
were among the shamanic toolkit of the ancient Germanic peoples. Its
extremely likely that warrior-shamans used these techniques, alongside
numerous others that have been lost in the centuries of malign neglect that
have passed since these were living traditions.[6]
On the BATTLEFIELD , the berserker or lfheinn would often ENTER the fray
naked but for his animal mask and pelts, howling, roaring, and running amok
with godly or demonic courage. As the Ynglinga Saga puts it,
Odins men [berserkers and lfhenar] went armor-less into battle and
were as crazed as dogs or wolves and as strong as bears or bulls.
They bit their shields and slew men, while they themselves were
harmed by neither fire nor iron. This is called GOING berserk.[7]
In the biting or casting away of their shields, we see a reminder that their
ultimate identity is no longer their social persona, but rather their unity with
the animal world that they have achieved through self-dehumanization.[8] A
warriors shield and weapons were the very emblems of his social persona and
status; they were given to a young man who had COME of age by his father

or closest male relative to mark his newfound arrival into the sphere of the
rights and responsibilities of his societys adult men.[9] In biting or discarding
the shield, the mythical beast triumphed over the petty man, and Odins men
tore through the battle, psychologically impervious to pain by virtue of their
predatory trance.[10]
Like other northern Eurasian shamans, Germanic warrior-shamans
are OCCASIONALLY depicted with spirit-wives, in this case from among
thevalkyries, the female attendant spirits of Odin.[11]
In the polytheistic system of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples, wherein
different sorts of people venerated different sorts of deities, the
berserkers, lfhenar, and other warrior-shamans were exemplary devotees of
Odin, the Allfather of the northern gods and the giver of r,
ecstasy/fury/inspiration, the Nietzschean Will to Power. r is the source of
poetic inspiration and philosophical insight as well as battle frenzy (going
berserk, Old Norse berserksgangr). Thus, it should come as no surprise that
many of Odins men, such as Egill Skallagrmsson and Starkar, were also
warrior-poets. These were no ordinary soldiers; their battle frenzy, with all of its
grotesqueness and violence, was of a rarefied, even poetic, sort and, being
a GIFT from Odin, it was inherently sacred.
If youve enjoyed this article and want to learn more about Norse mythology, I
recommend picking up one of the books LISTED in this guide: The 10 Best
Norse Mythology Books. And if youre particularly interested in the worldview of
the pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic peoples, you might want to take
a LOOK at my own book, The Love of Destiny: The Sacred and the Profane in
Germanic Polytheism.
References:
[1] Kershaw, Kris. 2000. The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic
Mnnerbnde.
[2] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age
Scandinavia.
[3] Kershaw, Kris. 2000. The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic
Mnnerbnde. p. 27.
[4] Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated
by Willard R. Trask. p. 14.
[5] As QUOTED in: Kershaw, Kris. 2000. The One-eyed God: Odin and the
(Indo-)Germanic Mnnerbnde. p. 117.
[6] Examples of shamanic FASTING and exposure to heat can be found in
theHvaml and Grmnisml respectively, both of which, in turn, can be found
in The Poetic Edda. Examples of weapons dancing come from archaeological
evidence, especially Migration Period bracteates, and Tactituss GERMANIA . A
lengthy discussion of these as techniques for inducing ecstatic trance,
including Indo-European parallels, can be found in: Kershaw, Kris. 2000. The
One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Mnnerbnde. p. 79-105.
[7] Snorri Sturluson. Ynglinga Saga 6. In Heimskringla: ea Sgur Noregs
Konunga. My translation.
[8] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age

Scandinavia. p. 382-283.
[9] Tacitus, Cornelius. GERMANIA 13.
[10] Kershaw, Kris. 2000. The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic
Mnnerbnde. p. 79-83.
[11] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age
Scandinavia. p. 336.

Seidr

Seidr
(pronounced
SAY-der;
Old
Norse seir, cord, string, snare[1]) is a
form
of
pre-Christian
Norse magic andshamanism concerned
with discerning and altering the course
of destiny by re-weaving part of destinys
web.[2] To do this, the practitioner, with
ritual distaff in hand,[3] ENTERS a trance
(which could be accomplished through
numerous means) and travels in spirit
throughout theNine Worlds accomplishing
his or her intended task. This GENERALLY
takes the form of a prophecy, a blessing, or
a curse. Archaeologist Neil Price hasOdin and the Prophetess by Emil Doepler (1910)
provided an excellent summary of the
known uses of seidr:
There were seir rituals for divination and clairvoyance; for seeking out
the hidden, both in the secrets of the mind and in physical locations; for
healing the sick; for bringing good luck; for CONTROLLING the weather;
for calling game animals and fish. Importantly, it could also be used for the
opposite of these things to curse an individual or an enterprise; to blight
the land and make it barren; to induce illness; to tell false futures and thus
to set their recipients on a road to disaster; to injure, maim and kill, in
domestic disputes and especially in battle.[4]
The Norns are the foremost MASTERS

of seidr. However much destiny may be

altered by gods, humans, and other beings, its initial framework is established by
the Norns. To do this, they use the same means as any norn (Old Norse for witch)
with a lowercase n: weaving, carving runes, and other mainstays of the toolkit of
pre-Christian Germanic magic.
Two of the Aesir and Vanir deities are noted masters of seidr: the goddess Freya and
the god Odin. Both Freya and Odin, in turn, can be seen as the divine models of seidr
practitioners among their respective genders. Seidr was a HIGHLY

gendered

activity during the Viking Age, so this distinction is of PRIME importance.

Freya is the archetype of the vlva, a professional or semiprofessional practitioner of
seidr. It was she who first brought this art to the gods.[5]
The vlva wandered from town to town and farm to farm performing commissioned
acts of magic in exchange for room, board, and often other forms of compensation
as well. The most detailed ACCOUNT of such a woman and her craft comes
from The Saga of Erik the Red,[6] but numerous sagas, as well as some of the heroic
poems (most notably the Vlusp, The Insight of the Vlva) contain
sparse ACCOUNTS of seidr-workers and their practices.
Like other northern Eurasian shamans, the vlva was set apart from her wider
society, both in a positive and a negative sense she was simultaneously exalted,

sought-after, feared, and, in some instances, reviled. [7] However, the vlva is very
reminiscent of the veleda, a seeress or prophetess who held a more clearly-defined
and highly respected position amongst the Germanic tribes of the first several
centuries CE.[8] (The veleda was also modeled on a goddess who, over the course of
the centuries, became Freyja.) In either of these roles, the woman practitioner of
these arts held a more or less dignified role among her people, even as the degree
of her dignity varied considerably over time.
On the other hand, the sources are clear that, according to the societal norms of the
Viking Age, seidr wasnt a fitting activity for men, to say the least. According to
traditional Germanic gender constructs, it was extremely shameful and dishonorable
for a man to adopt a female social or sexual role. A man who practiced seidr could
expect to be labeled ergi (Old Norse for unmanly) by his peers one of the gravest
insults that could be hurled at a Norseman. [9] While there were probably several
reasons for seidr being considered ergi, the greatest seems to have been the
centrality of weaving, the paragon of the traditional female economic sphere, in
seidr.[10] Still, this didnt stop numerous men from engaging in seidr, sometimes even
as a profession. A few such men have had their deeds recorded in the sagas. The
foremost among such seimenn was, of course, none other than Odin himself and
not even he escaped the charge of beingergi.[11][12] This taunt was nevertheless
fraught with tense ambivalence; unmanly as seidr may have been seen as being, it
was undeniably a source of incredible power perhaps the greatest power in the
cosmos, given that it could change the course of destiny itself. Perhaps the sacrifice
of social prestige for these abilities wasnt too bad of a bargain. After all, such men
could look to the very ruler of Asgard as an example and a patron.
If youve enjoyed this article and want to learn more about Norse mythology, I
recommend picking up one of the books listed in this guide: The 10 Best Norse
Mythology Books. And if youre particularly interested in the worldview of the preChristian Norse and other Germanic peoples, you might want to take a look at my
own book, The Love of Destiny: The Sacred and the Profane in Germanic Polytheism.
References:
[1] Orel, Vladimir. 2003. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. p. 312.
[2] Heide,
Eldar. 2006. Spinning Seir. In Old Norse Religion in Long-Term
Perspectives: ORIGINS , Changes and Interactions. EDITED by Anders Andrn,
Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere. p. 166.
[3] Ibid. p. 166-167.
[4] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia.
p. 64.
[5] Snorri Sturluson. Ynglinga Saga 4. In Heimskringla: ea Sgur Noregs Konunga.
[6] Eirks Saga Raua 4.