Spaewife

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Spaewife, spey-wife or spákona is an Old Norse term for a woman who practices spæ or spá, meaning prophesy or "fore-telling". The male equivalent is spámaðr.This word still survives in modern Scottish and it may be etymologically related to the word "spy".

1 In Norse literature
2 In fiction
- 2.1 Melville
3 Modern usages of the term
4 References
5 External links

[edit] In Norse literature

In Eiríks Saga Rauða, a spae ritual and a spae-wife are detailed in great detail.[1]

In Flateyjarbók, toward the end of Norna-Gests þáttr, Norna-Gest details that "spákonur traveled around the country-side and fore-told the fates of men."[2]

In the prologue of Snorri's Snorra Edda, the origin of Thor's wife Sif is detailed, where she is said to be a spákona. Snorri contextually correlates Sif with the oracular seeress Sibyl on this basis.[3][4]

[edit] In fiction

The term Spaewife was used as the title for several fictional works: Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "The Spaewife"; John Galt's historical romance The Spaewife: A Tale of the Scottish Chronicles; and John Boyce's The Spaewife, or, The Queen's Secret (under the pen-name Paul Peppergrass).

[edit] Melville

Francis Melville describes a spae-wife as a type of elf in The Book of Faeries.

"No taller than a human finger, fairy spae wives are usually dressed in the clothes of a peasant. However, when properly summoned, the attire changes from common to magnificent: blue cloak with a gem-lined collar and black lambskin hood lined with catskin, calfskin boots, and catskin gloves. Like human spae wives, they can also predict the future, through runes, tea leaves and signs generated by natural phenomena, and are good healers. They are said to be descended from the erectors of the standing stones."

[edit] Modern usages of the term

Several Germanic neopagan groups interchangeably use the word Seid with Spae to detail their practices, based on oracular practices mentioned in the Eddas.