The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

seiður are old and monstrous, others are young or ageless and beautiful. All are powerful,
and the ugly ones are no less sexual than the young, bold and beautiful, as we see from
this saga.
Heiður wore a leather-garment, as Sámi women did in those times, their dresses
made of reindeer-skin. The word skinnkirtla (skin-cloak) was used for Sámi women as
well as giantesses, and may be one of many indications that in this Christian patriarchal
literature they were one and the same (Hermann Pálsson, 1997, p.23). The Sámi can very
well have been (and be) some of the last guardians of the Old European cultures. They, in
their symbolic form as the jötnar, were the first humans; and they seem to be the last to
keep the seiður and the memories of old alive. In the multi-hybrid culture of Island they
got some help from their sisters and brothers from Ireland and the Hebrides. Þorbjörg
may also have been of the indigenous people of Greenland, who have been keepers of
their kind of seiður. There is nothing in her saga that indicates her origin, other than her
name, which is very Norse and relates her to Þór.
Þór was a warrior, like his father Óðinn. The völva not only prepared her warriors
for battle, with her rubbing and prophesizing, she sometimes followed them to the battle-
scene itself. With the integration of the Vanir and Æsir cultures and introduction of war
into the lives of the gyðjur and their lovers, the völva and the valkyrja seem to melt into
one another. This is true for the great völva and valkyrja Vanadís, as well as her earthly
counterparts.
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