ABSTRACT
In this chapter I intend to introduce some theorising of ‘shamanism’ as engagement between practitioner and spirits, emphasising the ‘reality’ of spirits to the participant and hence the need to ‘take spirits seriously’. It should be stated at once that Norse culture of 1,000 years ago was not obviously ‘shamanic’ in the sense in which Tungus or Sámi or Déné culture is said to be or have been shamanic: the sense in which Guédon says that ‘Shamanism permeates all of Nabesna culture: the worldview, the subsistence patterns, and the life cycles’ (Guédon 1994). In the saga descriptions we find neither a reliance on a shamanic worldview nor a ‘shamanic complex’ of activities; no ‘shaman’ is described as central to community life. There are kings and queens and battle-leaders, godar associated with different deities, and in Iceland the emergence of a representative system of godar, as regional administrators, coordinated by a ‘lawspeaker’ – and no shamans, only occasional seidworkers and other magic practitioners. Yet there are occasions – particularly in times of trouble or famine – where these seidworkers become important, as in the episode of the Greenland Seeress.
