Viking Magic

E. Kaman – Éva Pápes

Viking Magic

Forbidden Knowledge Series

Book Two

Translated by Rachel Maltese

Published by Lokay

2024

ISBN number: 978-1-9990366-2-1

© Kaman – Pápes 2024

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or manual, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the publisher

Cover graphic and illustrations: Eva Lokay

Translator: Rachel Maltese

Editor and typesetter: Ibolya Kálmán

Publisher: Lokay

Authors’ website: vikingseeress.com

Table of Contents

Prologue

Fragments

Background

Magical World – Magical Worldview

Like to Like

Hugr – Unity of Mind

King Olaf and the Assembly

Hamingja – The Protective Force

The Hamingja of the Dead King

Fylgja – The Premonition

The Fylgja’s Warning

The Mail-Clad Woman

Þorstein’s Dream

The Bloody He-Goat

Eighteen Wolves

Tomb Dwellers

The Lord of the Burial Mound – The Haugbúinn

Revenants – Afturgöngur

The Draugr

Hel – The Land of the Dead

Sólarljóð

Hel’s Empire

Beyond Death

Trolls

Hetta, the Trollkona

The Wolf Troll

The Troll Who Turned to Stone

The Man-Eater Troll

Trolls on the Internet and in Literature

The Holders of Extranatural Knowledge

Brynhildr’s Wisdom

Óðin, the Mage King

White Magic Or Black?

Effect on Environment and Natural Forces

Objects

Situations

Persons

Beyond the Human Realm

Techniques

Seiðr

Seiðr and Clairvoyance

Seiðr in Spell Casting

Hamr

Illusion

Brynhild’s Betrayal

Types of Illusion

The Power of Words

The Galdr

Verbal Spells

Inverse Magic

Ritual Exposure

Ritual Exposure in Hungary

Skins in Magic

The Whirl

Skins that Block

Rune Magic

The Helm of Awe

The Sleeping Spell

Implements of Magic

Amulets, Talismans and Charms

Viking amulets

Archaeological finds

The Magical Objects of the Dvergar

Implements of the Gods

The Dvergar as Fairytale Helpers

Wands and Staves

The Tein and its Ilk

The Staff

In Lieu of a Moral

Appendices

Deviant Burials

The Oseberg Ship

Elements of the Magical Worldview

Methodology

Hugr

Hamingja

Fylgja

Hamr

Burial Mound

Álfar

Sólarljóð – The Sun Song

Mantra

Joannes Kinnamos

Urban Shamans

The Sami

The Shamanic Drum

Sami Magic

Early Curses

The Curse of Agade

The Curse of Hammurabi

The Curse of Plotius

A Greek Binding Spell

Ahura Mazda

Óðin Hangs from a Tree

Amulets

Alectorius: the Birth of a Legend

Dvergar Craftsmen

The Story of the Mead

The Otter’s Weregild

The Dwarven Past

On Those of Diminutive Stature

Staffrs and wands

List of Abbreviations

Bibliography

Book references

Manuscript references

Old Norse text references

Web References

Index of Illustrations

Prologue

Sharp points of light pierce the black velvet sky. High rocks glint in the brilliance of the full moon. Here and there, the saw-toothed edges of icy black clouds cut through and blot out the moonlight. A long, dark man-snake slithers slowly up the hill, guided by flickering torchlight. A continuous, unwavering droning noise rises from the procession, as if many voices were muttering something all at once. The drone grows to a chant, its pitch never varying. Near the centre of the line, a bier can be seen; on it, the supine figure of a woman. The shoulders of four men bear its poles.

The woman is dead, her skin pale and lifeless, her hair streaked with grey, her arms stretched out alongside her body, her neck encircled by a string of coloured beads, her breast strewn with flowers. Over her brick-red, ankle-length garments, their folds pinned by twin brooches, rests a blue mantle fastened with cords. The pall-bearers wear heavy, fur-edged coats; the woman has no need to keep warm.

The path winds upward to a terraced clearing on the hillside, at its centre, a shallow depression lined with large, unyielding rocks. The men deposit the bier so that the woman’s head points east and her feet west. At that moment, four additional men step forward from the four cardinal directions, halting at the edges of the hollow. The interminable drone is now joined by a new sound – a high-pitched wail with a clear, sharp tone. A woman emerges from the crowd and, circling, sings her terrifying song. The voice gradually intensifies until it nearly drowns out the underlying chanting, then suddenly ceases, and the woman vanishes into the mass of waiting bodies.

The guardian of the East swings tree branches in an arc over the grave, then allows them to fall. The guardian of the South feeds the fire of a torch with his breath, then, plunging it toward the earth, snuffs it out. The guardian of the West pours water into the grave, casting the empty jug in after it. The jug is dashed to bits on the stones. The guardian of the North brings a round, flat plate covered in mounds of earth, which he scatters about.

A tall man, fully armed, his mantle edged with a wide band of fur, steps forward. The droning gives way to silence, and the man begins to speak. As he does so, the guardians raise the body and place it carefully on the left-hand side of the grave.

The woman of the high voice comes forward again, a tiny wooden box in her hand. Other women follow, each bearing some item or other to place, in succession, to the right of the corpse in the grave: the box, a wooden bucket filled with water, a folded coverlet, bird feathers, an iron rattle, seeds, two carved wooden staves, and a small drinking horn. Upon the dead woman’s breast, they lay a knife; about her neck, a small leather pouch. A key is hung from the belt about her waist and a long, iron shaft with a decorative headpiece placed in her hand. Finally, one of the women in attendance covers the body with a measure of light cloth.

The tall man comes forth a second time, now accompanied by two others. One of them holds a hen in his arms, the other leads a dog. The man draws his sword and with a single stroke beheads both. Their blood steams in the cold night. The crowd is silent. The two men lay the animals in the trench, their blood-drenched bodies at the deceased’s feet, their heads in one corner.

Next to join the ritual is a group bearing a hefty rock, flat, but thick. They stand in tight formation at the edge of the grave. Raising his voice, the tall man issues a seeming command, and at that moment, the rock plummets down toward the body. A sound of cracking ribs fills the air.

A sigh escapes the crowd. The men lift another stone and bring it to the grave, this time letting it drop at the woman’s feet. As it reaches its destination, the stone tips, slides sideways, then comes to rest. Everyone watches, but no one moves to adjust its position.

The tall man gives a signal, and people scatter, only to return with new stones. At another signal, they cast the stones into the pit. Some make multiple trips. When the grave is full, the four guardians approach, each coming to rest at his own cardinal point. The silence thickens, within it, a feeling of relief. Those present cast a last glance at the stones that now seal the grave. Calmed, they proceed down the hillside. They are safe: the dead cannot return....

896 A.D.

Fragments

...at least, that is one way it could have happened.

Each of the physical elements included in the above account derives directly from catalogued archaeological findings. The ceremony itself, though a work not of science, but of fiction, has been pieced together with the help of a few additional sources and a healthy dose of imagination.

True or not, one can surmise that it was no ordinary funeral. To posterity, the enormous stones used to crush and pin the body down beg the disturbing conclusion that the funerary crowd had no intention of leaving the deceased woman intact and possibly escape from there. Indeed, to people of former times, the idea that the dead might rise from the grave and return to haunt, exact vengeance on, or interfere in the matters of the living was a terrifying possibility. The deceased, it was thought, might have unfinished business on earth or have had such power and fortitude in life as to want to exercise those qualities after death.

The subject of our imagined burial might certainly have been a woman feared both in life, and afterward; and, just as a vampire can be kept from waking by piercing it through the heart with a silver dagger, the woman in our story may have been weighted down with stones as a similarly preventive measure.

But why was it so important that this woman not come back from the dead? What was the reason for the fear and respect such women commanded?

Archaeological excavations have also uncovered burials where the grave goods around a woman’s body included not only the usual day-to-day items – brooches, knives, grindstones, scissors, small bottles, jewelry, and kitchen implements – but, as in our imagined story, other things, as well.

The tiny leather pouch at the woman’s neck, the key on her belt, the seeds, the poultry feathers, and the carved wooden staves that featured in the description above all point to a person of special status The Oseberg ship mound,¹ for example, yielded a leather pouch containing cannabis seeds, others² tiny sacks of seeds from the plant Hyoscycamus niger (henbane),³ both species known for their hallucinogenic properties.

Of even clearer purpose is the iron staff, emblem archaeologists increasingly concur was used in the practice of magic. In other words, the women buried in this fashion were sorceresses; the staves symbolized their power and the knowledge they possessed. Magical power and extraordinary knowledge: a pairing that would confer special status and significance even today.

But what was it that they knew, and where did their knowledge come from?

Background

The place is northern Europe; the time, the 21st century; the task: to find some surviving trace of life in the times of the Icelandic sagas—of a world that has long passed out of existence. Wherever we look, we see the vestiges of events we cannot explain or that seem hard to believe. The life we find ourselves stepping into is one very different from our present reality, yet not in a way that feels fleshless or vague, like some fantasy constructed upon bygone beliefs. Rather, the world of the Vikings is palpable, bloody, and at the same time, filled with magic, as we are told by the stories left to posterity. Its worldview rests on the cornerstone of dialogue between humans and the gods. The Old Norse people, we find, are different from us; sense things differently than we do. It is this quality—this feeling—that the present volume seeks to explore...

For want of a better word, we have chosen to call the mode of thought that characterized the Viking Age ‘magical,’ though for the purposes of this discussion we will at times substitute the term ‘extranatural’ as a more calculated synonym. The state of existence these words denote was one in which the human imagination had not yet separated itself from reality, had not yet become removed from the foundations of the natural world. It was a time in which individual human beings did not yet possess solid, integral egos, but perceived themselves instead as part of a larger whole. Individual existence was felt to be meaningful only where the will of the gods—of fate, personified by the divine weaver women known as the Nornír—was met.⁴

In the volume of this series entitled Viking Goddesses and Seeresses, we introduce not only these, but also other cultic divinities, referred to collectively as the Three-Faced Goddess, through whom the divine will was understood to flow. They were the goddesses of life, fertility, and love; the Great Mothers; magical noblewomen; matrons whose embrace meant death, and who acted as keepers of the Earth. Later, their strength and power were channeled by sorceresses who were objects of great respect and fear. They, like the northern peoples who revered them, lived hard lives, rife with conflict. Viking women were vastly different from the tender, benevolent maidens of later ages. Viking sorceresses could enter into contact with the invisible forces that directed the physical world—could sense, or in some cases even influence, the energy fields in which they lived.

According to the Prose Edda,⁵ it was one of the Vanir, the goddess Freyja, who taught the Æsir the art of seiðr magic, which before the war between Æsir and the Vanir had been the privilege of the Vanir women alone⁶. In the course of this shift in power and the changes that came with it, the Three-Faced Goddess was gradually displaced by men—a new pantheon, with Óðin as its alpha male. There, among the new gods, Freyja, representative of the ancient feminine knowledge, retained her power, becoming goddess—among other things—of fertility, eroticism, and the magic arts in a process discussed in detail in Viking Goddesses and Seeresses, the first book in this series.

By contrast, the present volume seeks to offer a survey of Viking magic, and to do so effectively requires that we leave the world of the gods behind. Here, we will be examining the Vikings’ magically imbued day-to-day life, with its battles, hunts, voyages, and agricultural practices. The excerpts from the sagas we present will feature love-stricken kings and princesses, jealous wives concocting lethal poisons, beauties whose bodies remained undecayed in death, and fated noblewomen. If our goal is achieved, by the end we will have painted an accurate and meticulously detailed picture of a people inhabiting a world marked by extranatural awareness and will have described their worldview, religion, beliefs, and everything else that made up their collective lives. To do so, however, requires that we avoid treating our subject matter as if it were a fairy tale, that we first take a deeper look into the mentality and thought processes that defined the Old Norse world.

Accordingly, the first part of this book will deal with various key elements of the Norse worldview, starting with its characteristic mental framework—a construction shaped by such unity of awareness as marks groups of people living in close proximity. Also playing a prominent role in Norse life were the phenomena of presentiment and dream speak, features that influenced how lives were lived and decisions were made. As we will show, the Old Norse derived guidance from all manner of protective and operative forces, a panoply that affected even their conception of death, and peopled their worlds—both the human one they knew and the world of the supernatural that lay beyond—with unusual beings, such as the gods, dvergar, álfar, trolls, living dead, and revenants that filled their sagas.

Then, in the second part of the book, we will turn to a consideration of the techniques and paraphernalia of magic, distinguishing between various practitioners, discussing different methods and types of magic, and invoking the forces sorcerers harnessed by means of the stories told about them. Given the paucity of factual information that has been handed down to us, we will not be able to describe the techniques themselves in any great detail; however, since every method we discuss is—for all practical purposes—still in use in some form today, we can still pair each with its modern counterpart, whose particulars are known.

Throughout this volume—as was the case in Viking Goddesses and Seeresses—we use a literal, word-for-word translation of the original surviving Old Norse manuscripts, rather than renderings produced for the purposes of scientific study, entertainment, or artistic or informational purposes. Every text quoted in this volume, including all Icelandic poetry and excerpts from the sagas, along with texts in other languages, have been wholly translated by us. Because the lesser-known Norse names can make the stories difficult to read, we have attempted to facilitate reading either by leaving out non-essential names, or by substituting generally known names for them.

Each translated text is also followed by a note on its subtype. Unless otherwise specified, translations are literal, whole, and extracted from a single location in the original texts. In such cases, the sentences are provided in the same order as they originally appear; no words—apart from certain proper names—have been left out; and the flow of the text is continuous.

Words and expressions without precisely corresponding counterparts in English have, of course, been translated using whatever formula we believe matched their content most closely.

Where a translation is specified as ‘edited,’ either certain words or sentences not directly related to the topic of the section in question have been left out; or names, descriptions, or circumstances important only to a later part of the story have been omitted; or words or phrases have been inserted that render the story clearer or more fluid.

Thirdly, where a translation is marked ‘consolidated,’ its details are not presented in the original material in continuous form, but are spread out over several chapters. In such cases, we have merely extracted the details of the story from their original context and presented them contiguously.

Finally, a ‘summary’ translation should be understood to represent not an original text from the sagas, but one that, though based on our translations of the relevant passages, we have expressed in our own words in condensed form.

Magical World – Magical Worldview

In ages characterized by a holistic worldview, humans lived in much closer relationship with nature than they do today—that is, in a state in which the essences of objects and forms flowed freely through one another. This applied to various non-bodily extensions, as well: to desires, intentions, and feelings. In such an age, the boundaries of the human id had not yet assumed the degree of solidity that typifies the condition of today’s individual, but expanded and contracted as the id took form—or, as was sometimes the case, multiple forms, as we will soon see.

People of holistic times defined themselves with reference not to themselves or others, but to the world as a whole, within which were other invisible, yet—to them—very real worlds, populated with gods and god-like beings, dvergar, jötnar, álfar, spirits, and those that had passed, all existing side by side. The manner in which such worlds were conceived as occupying the same time and space has already been discussed in considerable detail in Viking Goddesses and Seeresses, the first volume of this series.

During the period in question, humans lived in consonance with the elements, being neither as protected, nor as isolated from nature as we are today. Animals, plants, the earth, the waters, and the stones were all within touching distance. People gathered or produced food and clothing with their own hands. They sensed the nature of each thing, object, and element. To them, everything had a soul, an entity they experienced as a nebulous medium through which things were connected to them and to which they, humans, also belonged. They were one with the earth, and the stars spoke to them, while they, too, conversed with the sky and all beneath it.

This continuous awareness of their environment was integral to their existence. Where they came into harm’s way, it was their extrasensory perception that would alert them to the danger. In all probability, in the time of the Vikings, the phenomenon we now call the ‘sixth sense’ constituted a basic tool of survival. After all, the ability to sense impending harm was as important to their continued existence as sight, hearing, smell, touch, or taste. This extranatural link between humans and the dimensions of nature both visible and invisible permitted them to see things we no longer can in our own time.

Today (if only since 1870), artificial light illuminates every corner of our lives, driving the shadows inexorably away. In the millennia before electric lamps, however, unknown forces lurked in the regions beyond the light cast by open fires, tallow candles, and pitch torches and prowled in the shadows behind every tree. Flickering, inconstant flames molded from darkness the forms of eerie, non-human beings, rendering reality, as perceived by humans, considerably more complex than we see it today. A persisting manifestation of this way of thinking is known as ‘wakeful dreaming,’ a variety of perception in which one sees and hears things that are not real—experiences sensations, hunches, or flashing imagery that have no place in physical reality, but are so vivid and detailed, they seem almost palpable.

Not long ago, we—the authors of this book—were witness to just such an event. During the incident in question, a friend of ours was walking in the park when—all of a sudden—both ears became plugged and she felt dizzy. A few paces further on, the sensation seemed to pass and she regained her balance. Thinking out loud, her immediate remark was that the spot in question had had a ’bad vibe,’ as if something tragic had happened there at some point in the past. To test the theory, she returned to the offending location, and the phenomenon repeated itself: the ear buzzing, the dizziness... just as before. Though our friend was no seer, still, her subconscious warned her that there, at that precise spot, some event of note had once taken place, something bad—even tragic.

The mysterious sense that guided her to this conclusion had nothing to do with logic or rational thought, or even her powers of observation. Given the entirely odd and inexplicable nature of the sensation, we decided to check into the matter. As it turns out, from 1876 to 2009, the park buildings had housed an institution for the mentally disabled. Residents there had lived under circumstances that can only be described as inhuman, such that concerned loved ones had alerted the authorities to suspected atrocities on multiple occasions. Later investigations had turned up cases of physical and verbal abuse, along with forced drug therapy, and given this history, one might suspect any manner of horrors to have taken place on the spot where the wave of negative energy overtook our friend that day.

The mysterious sense of having been transmitted a signal, warning, or thrill from beyond space and time—of having had one’s body used as a communications system—is a difficult one to name. Yet no matter how strange it seems, most of us actually encounter this feeling on a daily basis. We might just have been thinking of a person when seconds or minutes later they suddenly turn up, phone, send a message, or cross our path, to give just one very ordinary example. Such occurrences are not even unusual and happen