The Little Bones Women: The Saga of the Legendary Vlva

By Rig Svenson

The Vlva, sometimes referred to as the little bones women, were herbal healing seers who were feared and respected by all. Young and fit, a Vlvas maintained their professional knowledge, protected their skills from outsiders, and safeguarded their practice through illusionary arts. Unfortunately, the church eliminated most of them around the fourteenth century.

In a comprehensive history of these important figures to the Proto-Germanic tribes, Rig Svenson attempts to clear many of the misunderstandings that have been developed through modern interpretations of the Vlva’s original purpose. Within his unique presentation, he shares fascinating details about the Vlva’s wisdom and herbal knowledge, the iron age Nordic female magic, rites of passage, healing magic, magical staffs of old, Heimðallr and other supernatural beings, rune stick divination, hexes and killing arts, the nine main elements of a Vlva, and the chicanery of Seiðr.

The Little Bones Women offers a thought-provoking historical account of the life and times of healing women whose practices during elder times became the forerunners of modern medicinal drugs and holistic therapies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823083782

Book preview

© 2023 Rig Svenson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/24/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8379-9 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8377-5 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8378-2 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 Herbal Knowledge, Vǫlvas’ Wisdom

Chapter 2 Iron Age Nordic Female Magic

Chapter 3 Rites of Passage

Chapter 4 Healing Magic

Chapter 5 Magical Staffs of Old

Chapter 6 Heimðallr and Other Supernatural Beings

Chapter 7 Rune Stick Divination

Chapter 8 Hexes and Killing Arts

Chapter 9 The Nine Main Elements of a Vǫlva

Chapter 10 The Chicanery of Seiðr

Bibliography

Epilogue

Foreword

I first encountered Rig Svenson at an international Viking event near Birmingham. He had already heard from me and was happy to meet me. I am used to people looking at me as a living relic from Viking times. Fans try to profile themselves as knowing me because they have once met me. So I treated this encounter like all the others I had experienced.

But Rig was very different; he didn’t want to build his profile. He was looking for real knowledge. That is a rare thing to find in a person. Over time, a real friendship developed between us which has now lasted for more than twenty-two years. Rig visited me in Germany a few times, and I showed him places that are not known to everyone. This included an Ostara spring. A mineral water company wanted to commercialize the holy well water by selling it in bottles, but since there was historical evidence about this source, that was prevented.

My lineage comes from an old family of Vǫlvas. This knowledge is from my maternal great-grandmother, and her lineage traces back to the year AD 845. It was all passed down orally over the centuries; nothing was ever written down. According to family legend, a Vǫlva named Brinjar Guniar Skjoldson’s Dottir recognised the changes that were coming through Christianity, along with the long-term impact that would have on the old ways. She performed a powerful ritual to ensure that the inherited knowledge was preserved.

According to this, every firstborn daughter should wear her face so that everyone in the clan will recognise who the bearer is. I am a firstborn daughter, and I look like all the firstborn daughters in our family. My own firstborn bears a very strong resemblance to me. When I was a teenager, one of my seven aunts started teaching me the old ways of the Vǫlva. My family has had Norwegian, Danish, and German bloodlines through the ages. My mother was Danish, but my father was Prussian. In the present day, other nations have joined our family line. The world has become smaller.

So, all the misguided people out there who believe that only pure-blood Nordic people can carry this knowledge should think twice. Even a thousand years ago, pure blood didn’t exist. Much has been twisted to make commerce from what were the old ways. The esoteric money-making industry is full of New Age disinformation. Self-proclaimed Vǫlvas, Thules, and Godis don’t even know the main gods. I once instructed people who wanted to learn about the old ways by breaking down my teachings into sections. After the students completed each section, I would award them a certificate. Everyone gave up after the first section because it was too difficult. The truth is, that section only covered the most basic foundation.

I’ve often been asked which books on runes or rune magic I would recommend. I do not usually recommend books about the futhark runes, mainly because they are nearly all reinvented ideas taken from other traditions, usually according to the personal agenda of the author. These New Age rune-magic books are full of pseudo-knowledge or nonsense from the time when the Christian church had already heavily influenced runic spells and writings, stamping its own footprint on them.

However, the guy I came to know as Rig Svenson really put a lot of effort into researching and writing the truth about elder times. There are no absolutes in this life. No matter how diligently a researcher may try, it is possible there may be minor flaws in their work, because no one is perfect. But at least Rig really tries to get the facts right from the start.

So, if I were to recommend a Vǫlva book based on the old ways, this book would be the exception rather than the rule. I wish Rig and all those who enjoy reading this work much illumination as to how these things really get done. I hope that in some way this book preserves the historical past in the written word, and enlightens people seriously interested in the real old ways for many future generations of pagan peoples.

Sabine Morrison

28 August 2022

Acknowledgments

M y thanks to the many friends, fellow researchers, and colleagues who have assisted me with this project, directly or indirectly, over the twenty-five years since the inception of the idea behind this work: Neil Price, Stephen Pollington, Jackson Crawford, Michael P. Barnes, Valerie Wright, Leszak Gardeła, Clive Tolley, Lotte Motz†, Ursula Miriam Dronke†, Russell Scott†, Sabine Morrison, Nina Hale, Galina Krasskova, Danielle MacDonald, and Rebecca Stark.

My special thanks extend to Christopher Bell for his specialised artwork throughout the book, which goes back twenty-two years.

Introduction

A mong the holy women of the early Germanic tribes were little-known herbal-healing seers who held power over and were respected by the local folk. The church eliminated most of them around the fourteenth century, after assimilation attempts failed to convert and use these fiolkyngikona —a word meaning ‘cunning women’, their correct historical name—in their healing houses. The church-assigned term ‘witch’, so often used in the literature of the medieval period, is wrong. ‘Witch’ comes from a much later period. This misunderstood term was used by the church to degrade, demonize, and justify purges of the ‘little bones women’.

Fiolkyngikona were looked on by the church as shadowy figures in league with the devil. Certain references taken from the Icelandic sagas, composed a thousand years later, suggest that such women still existed during the Viking Age, though the power they once wielded was no longer political and had become purely spiritual in nature. Moreover, misunderstanding came about through modern interpretations of what fiolkyngikona or the Vǫlva, also known as the little bones women, were meant to be. Just as the ancient Druids were to the Gauls, so these Vǫlvas were important figures to the proto-Germanic tribes of two thousand years ago.

The little bones women presided over many rites of passage, healed with herbal, runic incantations, and oversaw every important tribal gathering before organised religions were instituted in Northern Europe. They were present at births, to determine newborns’ fates. They acted as oracles to forecast the coming season at the principal religious feasts. They conducted ceremonies for the dead and dying, as well as assisting deaths when requested. They accompanied warband chieftains into battle after determining—through seership skill sets via helpful spirits—the most propitious time to go to war.

This book arose from an idea I had for an account of the life and times of the healing women during what have been called the ‘elder times’. The little bones women were feared and respected by all. Their practices were the forerunners of modern medicinal drugs and holistic therapies that are based on a more scientific approach to understanding the workings of human anatomy.

Historians and writers in many manuscript sources believed that the wife, mother, lady of the house, or female head of the household was responsible for first-line or, in most cases, all medical treatment in the home. On farms and in manorial households, the owner’s wife was expected to provide medical care not only to her own family, but to servants and dependents, including tenants and neighbours of lower status. If she did not provide the care herself, she was responsible for seeing that it was done. In Le Menagier de Paris (written in the late 1300s), the husband instructs his wife to drop everything and see to the care of any servant who has fallen ill. The charities of the Roman noblewoman Francesca Bussi dei Ponziani (also known as St Francesca Romana, 1384–1440) included doctoring not only the members of her wealthy husband’s large household but also neighbours, friends and strangers in need’ (Siriasi).

The Christian church enforced the assimilation of the healing women we know as Vǫlvas around the thirteenth century by forceful conversion. If the women refused, they could be put to death by being burnt at the stake. If they converted, they were made to teach their herbal and healing skills to Christian nuns in healing houses or convents. In this way, the church acquired healing arts from the Vǫlvas. I reiterate, Vǫlvas who remained loyal to their pagan beliefs and refused conversion were put to death by being burnt at the stake.

The full impact of these witch hunts came about during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The clergy decided to eradicate witches and outlaw all forms of healing outside the church’s administration, under pain of death. The reasoning used was that only God, through the hands of those who represented church doctrine, could heal. Any healing not of the church must be the work of the devil. The church sealed the fate of the little bones women, who were eradicated if caught by the witch hunters. The women who escaped the purge went into hiding, secretly practising their craft deep inside vast forests, away from scrutiny.

Healing lore became a tradition that was diluted and ultimately lost over the centuries. Much of it was committed to memory and never written down. When I realized that my early runestone divination practice was a complete fabrication rather than factually based in tradition, I set about looking for the point of origin and the truth. The historically based heathen praxis from the late Iron Age is still out there to be rediscovered by the few who put in the time, hard work, research, and patience to go deeper into the primary and secondary sources.

The terms Heiðni, Heiðinn, and so on that I and others like me use are directly derived from our knowledge of the terms used during the Viking age and prior. From what we understand, these terms were likely to have been connected to a general idea of what northern folk believed in. One has to be careful here, though, because there does not seem to have been much of a conscious, collective ideology or terminology for heathenism in elder northern Europe until Christianity arrived. The coexistence of the two systems necessitated demarcation between the two faiths for the purpose of common definitions and understanding.

In essence, Heiðni—or heithni in English orthography—refers to any sort of continuation and/or reconstruction of the various beliefs and practices that were widespread in elder northern Europe before the Christian invasion. Further, I assert that Asatru (spelled without accent marks) is a modern neopagan religion and has little to connect it with our ancestral Heiðni beliefs, worldview, and cultural ideals. My observations of most Asatruar leads me to conclude they are little more than folk who retain most of their Christian culture and education, but place a veneer of northern spirituality on the surface of it, incorporating a few Wiccan ideas in a great deal of postmodern values.

This is why we who call ourselves Heiðni tend to go to great lengths to disassociate ourselves from Asatru and Asatruar. We do claim kinship with the ideals and goals of the Icelandic Ásatrúarfélag (spelled with accent marks), though there are no formal relations between us other than goodwill and mutual respect.

The 1980s were a period of my life which felt incredibly special. During that time, I worked magic and rune divination at psychic and mystic fairs in the north of England. In time I discovered that these practices were not entirely historical, and perhaps not accurate at all.

I started researching, delving much deeper into the rune mysteries and the living energies behind them. At times, a best guess helped, along with a little luck. The subject area of the elder fuþark runes and seiðr is vast and beyond the scope of any one person’s lifetime or book. The Old Norse religion was a very personal belief based on the immediate family unit, with no hierarchy like the church. Organised religion is about controlling people.

The Old Norse religion was never a collective or group-oriented religion except for the temple at Uppsala in Sweden. Archaeologists from Norway’s University Museum of Bergen unearthed the remains of an eighth-century ‘god house’—a temple dedicated to the gods of the Norse pantheon—in the village of Ose in October 2020. The researchers discovered the structure’s ruins while conducting excavations ahead of the construction of a housing development. It is possible more of these structures are out there, buried under the earth, still to be discovered.

The bias about men practicing seiðr is down to Christian values and not the facts. There were just as many male seiðr practitioners as there were female. Cunning men and women existed throughout the history of Anglo-Saxon England and late Iron Age Northern Europe. But this knowledge was obliterated by the church when it started targeting in earnest all the cunning folk. Sadly, women fared