The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

I saw the cover unfolded, the sheer thin paper, thinner than anything you can imagine. I
saw the black ancestor in one corner and the golden brown picture in the other. I even saw the
traces of the folds and how he folded it endlessly, in circles, until it looked like any other book
cover, except for the ancestor on the inside.
But that is all an illusion. I know that the folding of the cover is important, but I have
been told, that you will never really remember the ancestors if you don’t dance. If you don’t
dance, naked, twirling through the streets of the town.
Remembering, I dance. My slender, golden brown body naked; my long, dark hair
flowing, as I dance, spinning in circles, endlessly, through the streets of the town.
Dreams have always been my most powerful source of knowledge. It is in
accordance with my ancestry, probably the ancestry of us all. We can read books and
unfold manuscripts, but in addition to that we must dance the dream dance, spinning,
without logic, without our modern culture’s “clothes”, naked. The sagas and myths are
full of dream lore. Not only humans, but also the goð themselves dream, and their dreams
are of utmost importance. In the Edda-poem Baldurs draumar, Óðinn travels to the
Underworld to seek the wisdom of a völva, after having had disturbing dreams. The völva
resides in the realm of the subconscious, and dreams are among her most important
material in her spá.
One of the most impressive dream stories of old is from Ólafs Saga Tryggvasonar
in Flateyjarbók.
Þyri Haraldsdóttir was the daughter of an earl in Holtsetaland. The earl was wise, but his
daughter’s wisdom and knowledge on dreams was such that he sought counsel from her in every
matter. Gormur, king of Denmark, wants to marry this woman, and asks her father for her hand.
The Earl says that she should decide for herself, “since she is much wiser than I am”. Þyri’s
answer is that king Gormur should return to his home, and build a house, big enough to sleep in,
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