Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/311

 TJie Ancient Teutonic Priesthood. 299

Huldr is represented as practising seidr on behalf of the Finnish queen Drifa.

The volur seem to be related in some way to the Nornir. The latter are not, it is true, mentioned in any document that can claim to be called historical ; but it seems no unlikely that some primitive custom may be traced in the legends which relate how Norns came to a house to shape the destiny of a newly born child.^ It is probable that in early times but little distinction was drawn between the ' shaping ' and the foretelling of destiny.

The term ' gydiur ' is never applied to the volur, and there is no evidence that they were regarded as priestesses. They have no part in the three distinctive duties of the Germanic priesthood, namely, the offering of public sacrifices, the preservation of the law, and the guardianship of the sanctuary.

On the other hand it is possible that there may have been at certain sanctuaries a class of ' priestesses ' distinct from the Icelandic gydiur, and showing a certain resemblance to the volur. According to Yngl. s. 4, the goddess Freyia was a blot-gydia, ' sacrificial priestess,' and first taught seidr to the Aesir. After Pro's death she kept up the temple and the sacrifices at Upsala, all the other gods being now dead. But it is doubtful if this story is founded on old tradition, for there is no evidence that Freyia was known in Sweden. She was the favourite goddess of Icelandic mythology, and the author may have contrived to bring her into the story by introducing a feature from the political organisation of his own country. It is possible, however, that there were women somewhat resembling volur at the Upsala sanctuary. In the portraiture of the mythical sanc- tuary Asgardr, three maidens, or ' Norns,' are represented as living beneath Yggdrasill's Ash. Their duties were to water the tree from the sacred spring and to shape the destiny of men.- Now it can hardly be doubted that the picture of Asgardr is in great measure drawn from some Northern sanctuary ; and in all probability this was Upsala. It is not indeed stated that there were ' Norns' beneath the evergreen tree or in the neighbourhood of the sacred spring

Cf. Helga kv. Hund., i., 2 ff. ; Sa^a af Nornagesti, 11. Vol. R., 19, 20, 28; Gylf. 15 f.