Danish museum rescues the value of the völvas, enigmatic witches and guides of the Vikings

Copenhagen. The Vikings were fierce warriors, skilled traders and explorers. But little is known about the arch, Half witch, half druid, a key figure in the Scandinavian societies of the time, now on display at the National Museum of Denmark.

“The vault “She is a kind of female shaman. She is a clairvoyant, a prophetess. She can predict the future. She can fly. She can tell you your destiny,” summarises researcher Peter Pentz, who participated in the creation of the exhibition, which opened on Friday.

The sagas, written according to rumors transmitted several hundred years after the Viking era (9th to 11th centuries), say that it was requested to predict future events and could interact with the gods.

In the Copenhagen museum, the visitor is immersed in the fantastic world of the prophecies of the vaultIt is about the future and the end of the world, Ragnarok, now popularized in film and television.

The exhibition It is the first (in the national arena) whose main character is a womanPentz points out.

Jewels, amulets, runes, sagas and archaeological discoveries help to better understand this hitherto unknown character.

“The word vault means cane carrier. A vault It is always a woman, carrying a cane,” explains the researcher in front of a display case that exhibits the remains of a tomb of vault.

“This woman was buried in a fortress of King Harald Blue Tooth. We believe that she could have been an advisor to the king,” he details.

In Northern Europe, women, far from being ignored, could take on the role of advisors.

The women of Scandinavia had a better position than their counterparts in the Mediterranean or in the Frankish empire. They had the right to ask for a divorce if her husband was violent towards them.indicates the researcher.

mystical knowledge

In addition to her famous iron staff, exposed, the buried prophetess had a bag containing hypnotic herbs, surely to reach a trance state necessary to give her predictions, and objects from distant regions.

Artifacts from afar provide mystical knowledgePentz notes.

However, the vaultdespite her established role, was marginalized, like the witches after her, but without the negative connotation that surrounded the latter, according to the researcher.

They were widows or single and lived outside the farm, which is the basic unit of an agricultural society like the Viking one.he emphasizes.

His advantage was his knowledge from nature.

People of all times have questions, questions about life… she had the answershe assures.

With the advent of Christianity, the role of these prophetesses faded into oblivion before scientists studied the Icelandic sagas.

“The functions of the vault They were entrusted to many other figures in medieval society, including priests. She survived, but through different characters,” concludes the researcher.