Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/310

 The Ancient Teutonic Priesthood,

iii. 4, iv. lo, Vatnsd. s. 27, and a Thorlaug gyctia in Landn., i., 21, but in these cases the reason for the title is not stated. There is no ground for supposing that the gydiur laid claim to prophetic powers, any more than the godar. Outside Iceland there is no historical evidence for the name, though there is no reason why such persons should not have existed, at least in Norway.^

The volva or ' wise woman ' is a being of an entirely different class. The Icelandic volur were women who wandered from place to place foretelling the future and practising seiAr ('magic').- They had no recognised position in the state, but volur who had acquired a reputa- tion were often received with great honour, and were accompanied by a considerable number of attendants.'^ Their character seems to have been much the same in Norway and other Northern lands ; their powers were not doubted, and in the mythological poems, Voliispd and Vcgtamskvida, we find them consulted even by the gods. Yet they appear to be more or less in opposition to the orthodox religion of the North ; the mythological poems represent them as hostile to the gods, and the latter disguise themselves when they consult them. It seems probable that the volur are survivals of a more primitive form of religion. They are to be compared with the Haliarimos, or sorceresses, who, according to the legend related by lordanes (c 24), were expelled by the Gothic king Filimer from his territories. They seem to have been largely of Lappish or Finnish nationality.'* In Vatnsdacla s. 10, and Landn. iii., 2, we find mention of a Lappish volva named Heidr. This seems to be a generic name ; it is applied also to a mythical volva in Voluspd (R. 29). In Hynd- luliod 31, Heidr and HrossJ?i6fr are said to be sister and brother ; the latter is the Rostiophus Phinnicus, who, according to Saxo (iii., p. 126), was consulted by Othin after Balder's death. -^ In Yngl. s. 16, the mythical volva

' Hof-gydiur, ' temple-priestresses,' are mentioned in Zi'i?;';-c«a!f s. ok Bosa, 8, and Siiniaiigs s. Siarfsania, i8. In both cases, however, the temples are Finnish. In the former case the deity worshipped is the Finnish god lomali, and in the latter ' Thor ' probably denotes the same deity.

- We find men also practising seidr, e.g.., in Laxdctla s., 37 ; but this was probably always forbidden by the law; (/. V/igl. s. 7, Haralds s. HArf., 36.

3 Examples are given by Golther, Germ. Myth. , p. 649 f.


 * Cf. Golther, op. cit., p. 657 f.

^ In VegtaiHskvida it is a volva.