Yggdrasil · Humankind

The Woman Buried at Fyrkat

A tenth-century Danish grave whose odd objects have been read as a seeress’s, with no name and no proof.

Myth and literature

The story

Archaeological interpretation: what follows is a reading of objects found in a grave, not a record of a person.

Fyrkat is a circular fortress in northern Jutland, built in the later tenth century and used for only a short time. Beside it lay a cemetery. In one grave, larger than the others, a woman had been laid in the body of a wagon. Beside her were things most graves of the time do not hold: a thin iron rod with metal knobs, a long iron spit, a small chair-shaped charm and a pouch of henbane seeds, along with ordinary household tools for spinning and sewing and a few rare foreign items.

Some archaeologists see a woman who served as a ritual specialist, the kind of person the sagas call a völva. Others are cautious. Her name, her own beliefs and what she did in life are unknown. Freyja appears in the myths as the one who taught seiðr to the gods, which is why this entry sits near Vanaheim. That link is a theme from the myths. The excavation does not show it.

Myth and literature · Context

What we know, and what we do not

What is recorded: a grave existed and held these objects. Each kind of object tells us something narrow. The rod and spit might have been carried as staffs, but a spit is also simply a cooking tool, and the shaft survives only in traces. The henbane seeds show the plant was kept with her; burnt, the seeds give a smoke that can affect the mind, but a pouch of seeds does not show it was used that way. The chair-shaped charm may echo the high seat a seeress sits on in the sagas, or it may be jewellery. Spinning and sewing tools show she did the ordinary household crafts many women did. The foreign vessel and rare ornaments show wealth and far contacts. The wagon and the grave’s size show high standing.

What is not recorded: her name, her age at death, her beliefs, her job, and whether she served any god. No text mentions her. For many years scholars rejected magical readings of such finds, and some still treat the völva as a literary figure from sagas written centuries later. Calling her a seeress is an interpretation of the finds, and a link to Freyja is not established.

Historical evidence

The evidence

The grave was dug in the 1950s among about thirty graves at the Fyrkat cemetery in Himmerland, Denmark. The National Museum of Denmark and a popular archaeology article both describe it as a female burial of the period 975 to 1000, and as the largest grave there, about 4.85 metres long. The woman lay in the box of a horse-drawn wagon.

The finds named in these accounts are: a small fragmented iron rod with copper-alloy knobs; a one-metre iron roasting spit; traces of a wooden shaft that may have had a round metal end; a chair-shaped amulet; a pouch of henbane seeds; scissors and spindle whorls; a small whetstone; two silver toe rings; a bronze vessel from Central Asia; small animal and bird bones; and a brooch from Gotland holding white lead.

The fortress itself was excavated by C. G. Schultz between 1950 and 1958. Its building is dated to about 980.