Note to Anon (Vǫlsa) 13I
[5-6]: The reference to the housewife demanding to be lifted ‘over door-hinges and onto door-beams’ is reminiscent of part of Ibn Fadlan’s description of a Rus funerary rite (for which, see Smyser 1965, 99; Lunde and Stone 2012, 52; see Price 2002, 168, 217-19 on connections between Ibn Fadlan’s account and Vǫlsa). Here, a slave-girl who is to die and accompany her master to the other world is said to be raised three times in order to see over a type of door frame, which seems to represent the limen between the worlds of the living and the dead. With the help of this particular mantic practice, the housewife in Vǫlsa hopes to be able to save Vǫlsi (Steinsland and Vogt 1981, 103-4; Näsström 2002, 150). In Steinsland’s opinion this pushes the Völsi rite towards a vǫlva (seeress) cult.
References
- Bibliography
- Näsström, Britt-Mari. 2002. Blot: Tro och offer i det förkristna norden. Stockholm: Norstedts Förlag.
- Steinsland, Gro and Kari Vogt. 1981. ‘“Aukinn ertu Uolse ok vpp vm tekinn”. En religionshistorisk analyse av Vǫlsa þáttr i Flateyjarbók’. ANF 96, 87-106.
- Smyser, H. M. 1965. ‘Ibn Fadlān’s Account of the Rūs, with some Commentary and some Allusions to Beowulf’. In Bessinger et al. 1965, 92-119.
- Price, Neil. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Aun 31. Uppsala: Dept. of Archaeology and Ancient History.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Vǫlsa þáttr’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=28> (accessed 24 April 2024)