Magical Wands Appeared in Viking Burial Mounds
A volva (völva) in Norse myths was a seeress who spoke her prophecy to her community. So if the Norns in Norse mythology wove the threads of fate for all beings in the cosmos, a volva could see how the fate of each creature might be. She could see things others could not.
This blog post is all about the magical wands belonging to the volva who was buried deep below the land decades ago.
Fyrkat burial mound
In Fyrkat, the archaeologists found out a grave which they assumed to belong to a Viking volva.
Inside the burial, there were remains of a woman. Although the clothes are only fragments and most of them were destroyed, archaeologists could conclude that it was made from the most high-quality fabric dating back to the Viking Age.
Lying next to her was a wand which the scholars believed that she once carried it as a symbol of a volva. Because the word "volva" means "the carrier of the wand.
The volva resting forever on her honoring bed
Trekroner-Grydehøj Viking Burial
The grave was named A505. The archaeologists unearthed the grave at Trekroner-Grydehoj, in Denmark. The burial mound dated sometime back to the ninth century.
In the Viking Age, there were two major ways that they would treat the corpse: to bury or to cremate. Inside A505, there was a woman who was in her 20s or 30s when she died. The grave was 70''x110'' and it was buried 20'' in depth.
And accompanying her in her final resting place were some grave goods. A wooden bucket was next to her. A chest was also found with two knives. A spearhead was still there when the archaeologists broke in. At the foot of the woman were a dog and a sheep. A stone was placed over the hind end of the dog. Over the left side of the woman was a horse. No textile survived the test of time.
First, the scholars believed next to her was a spear. But when linking everything in the burial together, everything started to make sense. It was a wand for a volva. And the woman inside should have been a volva for she was buried in such a formal way.
