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Originally Posted by WhiteWarrior
Everything. Haha.
What were the tools, what were the ceremonies, and how do they compare with what we are doing in our time?
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Alright, well we have very scant records of seidr. As such, we don't know exactly what the seiðkona (seid-woman) and seiðmaðr (seid-man) of the Viking Age did when they worked it. Besides the fact that it usually involved sitting under a cloak, upon a roof, platform or seashore (all liminal places).
One of the most prominent features of seidr is that it's generally seen as a baleful type of magic (in contrast to the spácraft of the volva), most of the usage of it in Icelandic literature is that of deceit or harm, like causing landslides, illness, nightmares, or insanity. Understandably, it was seen with a lot of suspicion - especially due to the fact that most of the people connected with it were foreigners, like Lapplanders and Finns, which is interesting, since they were both shamanic cultures, and magic was seen as being their forte. Another reason that seidr itself was seen with dislike was the fact that many men who performed it were considered
argr, which is a complex term that's closely associated with sexual perversion and weakness. Which has led to theories about seidr rites involving men being penetrated, or acting out other sexual practices. But, it doesn't have a ton of evidence to support that theory. Even so, seidr was closely associated with unmanliness; possibly because it allowed a person who defeat their enemies without open confrontation, which was considered dishonorable in Old Norse culture.
Nowadays there's a few people and groups who are working to reconstruct practices of seidr in modern context. One of the most prominent groups here in the USA is one created by Diana Paxson, whose group performs something they call oracular seidr - which is less historical seidr and more like spácraft built upon some large shamanistic elements. Spácraft itself is a form of soothsaying used to peer into the Ørlǫg of a group and thus see what the future may hold.
Another person who practices modern day seidr is Bil Linzie, who uses Saami shamanism to fill in some gaps in his own practice.
This is a marvelous introduction to the historical seidr:
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/seidhr.shtml
Diana Paxson's website:
http://www.hrafnar.org/articles.html
Her article about recovering oracular practice:
http://www.hrafnar.org/seidh.html
An essay by kvedulf Gundarsson:
http://www.scribd.com/cosmic_soul/d/...-and-Shamanism
Jordsvin's seidr bibliography:
http://home.earthlink.net/~jordsvin/...bliography.htm (it should be noted that not all of these books are worth their weight in salt. but he seems to list them for the sake of giving people a chance to read them and decide for themselves)
And Bil Linzie's site, for interest; even though he doesn't really talk about seidr itself, and more about Germanic heathenry, but he does mention his own practice at times:
http://www.angelfire.com/nm/seidhman/index.html
Hope it helps a little
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