Tools of Seiðr | Staff, Veil, Voice, and Sacred Breathwork

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Ritual Tools & Sacred Wear

You can learn a lot from what someone carries.

Look close enough and you’ll see what they trust, what they remember, what they’re willing to become when the moment turns sacred.

This part? This is where it gets interesting. The staff. The cloak. The veil. These aren’t things you pick up because they look cool. You pick them up because something in you knows. Some of these tools come straight out of the old stories. Others, we’ve pieced together from grave goods, borrowed rumors, or plain gut instinct. But each one each thread and handle and worn edge—has a job.

They change the shape of the work.
Sometimes they change the shape of you.

Don’t worry about doing it all. Don’t stress if yours looks different. That’s the whole point. This isn’t about matching a museum display. It’s about learning what helps you drop the everyday and step into the real thing. So let’s lay them out and talk through it—what we know, what we wonder, and what some of us have found along the way.

What We Know
There is no direct saga reference that describes a völva wearing a veil during ritual. But veiling was not uncommon in Old Norse culture, especially for women of status. Grave finds suggest textile coverings, hoods, and headdresses were part of ceremonial wear. Some burial mounds have revealed finely woven cloth near the head or face. Whether this was symbolic, protective, or simply practical, we cannot say for certain—but it shows us that covering the head held meaning.
Seiðr is often described as being connected to concealment, transformation, and movement between worlds. And while veils aren't named directly, the act of covering the self to shift identity or sacred role fits the deeper themes of the practice.

What We Think
This is where things get fun.
Because whether or not a völva had a veil, there’s something powerful that happens when you put one on.
It’s not always fabric. Sometimes it’s a shadow. Sometimes it’s a look that says: I’m not here for you—I’m here for the thread.
We think about the veil not just as a garment, but as a signal. A soft boundary between the seen and unseen. It’s the moment the everyday self steps aside, and the older self takes the lead.
Some wear linen. Some wear leather. Some twist cords of horsehair, like Sleipnir’s tail, to remind the body how to move between the worlds.
Because even if the veil wasn’t written down in the sagas, the act of veiling of choosing to become something else, or something more has always been part of the craft.
And really...
what better way to disappear, than on purpose?

What It Means to Me
When I veil, I don’t disappear.
I shift.
I leave the part of me that chatters, worries, performs. And I let something older come forward. The cloth helps.
Not because it’s magical but because I remember what it means when I place it.
I remember that I’m not stepping into a show. I’m stepping into shadow. I’ve worn simple veils. Elaborate headdresses.
A tangle of cords that felt more animal than human.
They all carry weight. They all say the same thing:
Not everything is meant to be seen. And not everything that’s hidden is lost.

My own veil is horsehair. Braided and black, meant to echo Sleipnir. It’s my nod to him.
My call to the nine-legged walker who carries souls between the realms.
When I veil, I ask him to carry me, too.

What We Know
Cloaks were a standard part of Norse dress, worn by both men and women, usually fastened with a brooch at the shoulder. They were practical offering warmth and status but also symbolic. High-status individuals often wore cloaks dyed in rare colors, trimmed with fur or silk, and occasionally adorned with thread or beads.

In Eiríks saga rauða, Þorbjörg the völva is said to wear a blue cloak, again lined with cat fur. Like her hood, it’s described in detail, suggesting it was part of her ritual identity, not just her outfit. The saga pauses to name the color, the trim, the fullness. That means something.

Cloaks also show up in myth. Odin is often described wearing one when he walks the world in disguise. He is called “the cloaked one,” or “Grímnir” a name tied to veiling, masking, and shifting shape. In Lokasenna, he’s mocked for appearing among humans cloaked and hidden, a reference to his wanderings and his use of magic.

While not always called a tool, the cloak seems to appear whenever someone is about to move between roles or worlds.

Sources to explore:
Eiríks saga rauða
Lokasenna
General Norse textile and burial studies
Neil Price, The Viking Way
Symbolic names of Odin (Grímnir, Gangleri)

What We Think
If the veil marks the crossing the cloak lets you travel unseen.

Some believe the cloak was part of ritual concealment not to hide the body, but to cover the self. In Norse tradition, shape-shifting wasn’t always about turning into animals. Sometimes it was about shedding the name, the face, the everyday identity. The cloak made that easier.

The color matters too. Blue was a sacred color. Hard to make, expensive, often tied to depth, death, or second sight. Þorbjörg’s blue cloak wasn’t random. It was chosen.

And Odin? The god who wanders, who hides, who sees from behind the mask? He doesn’t come in blazing armor. He comes cloaked. Half-seen. Half-other. That’s not just storytelling. That’s initiation.

Some völur may have used their cloaks to shift perception to soften the edges of the world they left, or entered. To wrap the self in something that didn’t belong to the village woman or the wife or the elder. Something that belonged to the rite.

Because when you cloak yourself, you aren’t just wearing something.
You’re stepping out of who you were before.

What It Means to Me
The cloak is the first thing I put on when I’m not sure who I am.
When I reach for it, I’m not reaching for fabric. I’m reaching for the space between.
It doesn’t have to be heavy. It just has to cover enough of me that the rest can fall away. It lets me move differently. Breathe differently. It’s not armor, it’s invitation. A soft blur between who I was and who’s arriving.
Sometimes I wear black. Sometimes midnight blue.
Sometimes it still smells like smoke. When I’m cloaked, I walk quieter. I speak slower.
And the ones who listen from the other side...they notice.
Because a cloak isn’t a costume. It’s a shifting skin.

What We Know
The clearest description of a ritual staff comes from Eiríks saga rauða, where the völva Þorbjörg is said to carry a staff adorned with brass and carved with stones. She uses it during the ceremony, holds it in her hand while standing, and rests it on her lap when seated. It’s mentioned not as a common walking stick, but as part of her sacred presence.

In multiple Viking Age graves, especially in Birka, Fyrkat, and the Oseberg ship burial—iron or wooden staffs have been found buried with women believed to be ritual specialists. Some of these staffs are bent, broken, or ritually “killed,” suggesting their use wasn’t ordinary. While scholars debate their exact meaning, the connection between women, magic, and the staff appears consistently.

These aren’t decorative items. They were tools buried with purpose, carried with weight, and described with care when they show up in the lore.

Sources to explore:
Eiríks saga rauða (Thorbjörg’s description)
• Neil Price, The Viking Way
Birka Grave 60, Oseberg Ship Burial
Archaeological studies on seiðstafr finds and burial interpretations

What We Think
If she held it in life and was buried with it in death, it probably meant more than most things she owned.

Some people think the staff was about power. Others think it marked social or spiritual rank. But maybe it was more than a symbol. Maybe it was a tool that helped her shift from one space into another. Maybe it helped her steady herself as she walked between what’s seen and what isn’t.

We don’t have written instructions. But when you look at the pattern the iron, the curve, the way it’s found placed carefully across the body—you start to see the outline. This wasn’t a fashion item. It was a companion in the work.

And those bent or broken ones? That tells a story too. Like a sword snapped after battle. Like saying: this tool has served, and now its work is done.

We don’t know exactly what she did with it. But it keeps showing up. And that means something.

What It Means to Me
I don’t carry my staff to feel powerful. I carry it to remember.
It steadies me when I walk into the unknown. When I tap it into the earth, I feel the line I’m meant to hold. It marks the space not for others, but for me.

Some staffs I’ve carried for years. Others were short-lived. I know when one is done, because the thread goes quiet.

Mine isn’t always carved. It isn’t always pretty. But when I pick it up, I know where I stand and what I’m standing between.

The staff is not a prop. It’s a boundary. A bridge. A question.
And it still answers.

What We Know
There is no direct evidence that the Norse used drums in Seiðr rites as described in the sagas. The most detailed accounts—such as Eiríks saga rauða and Vatnsdæla saga mention staffs, songs, high seats, and veils, but not drums. This sets Norse practice apart from the Sámi traditions, which are known for their sacred use of frame drums in noaidi trance work.

Some scholars, including Neil Price (The Viking Way), explore possible symbolic or cultural overlap between Seiðr and Sámi traditions, but stress that they are distinct. Drums may have existed in Viking Age Scandinavia for musical or celebratory purposes, but none have been found in graves associated with ritual work.

So: we cannot say with certainty that the völur used drums. But many Seiðr practitioners today choose to.

Sources to explore:
• Eiríks saga rauða
• Vatnsdæla saga
• Neil Price, The Viking Way
• Studies on Sámi noaidi drum use (for cultural comparison only)
• Viking Age music and instrument archaeology (non-ritual)

What We Think
The sagas don’t mention a drum. The graves don’t give us one either. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. It just means nobody wrote it down. Or nobody buried it with her. Or maybe they did, and we haven’t found it yet.

But think about it: if she was slipping between worlds, don’t you think a beat might help?

Maybe it wasn’t a drum like we picture now. Maybe it was her staff, thudding against the earth. Maybe it was a chant, repeated so steady it became a drum. Or maybe, just maybe, someone near her kept rhythm while she crossed. A helper. A singer. A heartbeat outside herself.

Some folks say drums are too Sámi. That they don’t belong in Seiðr. But we’re not trying to steal what isn’t ours we’re trying to remember. And sometimes memory comes with rhythm.

So no, we don’t know for sure.

But I say if a drum calls you to the thread, you answer. If a rhythm steadies your spirit, you follow it. And if something ancient in your bones wakes up when the beat begins, maybe that’s the real sign.

What It Means to Me
The beat tells me I’m not alone.

When I drum, I remember the hoofbeats. The pounding of the sea. The heart of the land under my feet.

I don’t need proof to know it works.
I don’t need permission to use what steadies me.

Sometimes I use a frame drum, bare-handed.
Sometimes I use a rattle made of antler and seeds.
Sometimes I don’t touch a thing but I breathe in rhythm, and the beat finds me anyway.

The drum is not always a tool.
Sometimes, it is a companion.

And when I lose myself in it,
I find the thread again.

What We Know
The spindle and distaff were essential tools in Norse daily life, used by women to spin flax or wool into thread. In myth and burial, they take on more than just practical meaning.

The Norns, Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld are said to spin the threads of fate. In Völuspá, they draw water and white clay from the Well of Urd, shape the lives of men, and carve runes. While the loom is often imagined, it’s the spindle that begins the work.

Spindles and whorls have been found in countless female graves throughout the Viking Age. They weren’t just household objects they were buried with intention. Often placed near the waist or in bundles of personal ritual items, sometimes beside amulets or staffs.

In some cases, miniature spindles made of precious metal were worn as jewelry, suggesting symbolic importance beyond daily use.

Sources to explore:
Völuspá, Poetic Edda
Neil Price, The Viking Way
• Judith Jesch, Women in the Viking Age
Archaeological reports on textile tools in female graves
Simek’s entries on Norns and spinning symbolism

What We Think
The spindle doesn’t get talked about as much as the staff or the drum. Maybe because it feels too ordinary. Too quiet. But that might be the very reason it mattered.
It was in nearly every woman’s hands. Every day.
What better place to hide something sacred than in plain sight?
Spinning wasn’t just labor it was rhythm. Repetition. Focus. And maybe even trance. You sit, you twist, you breathe. You lose time. You move between thoughts. You start with raw material and end with something that can bind, weave, wrap, or hold.

Some believe the spindle was used for more than cloth. That it was a way to pull thread from the unseen. A way to shape what hadn’t yet arrived.

And the Norns? They weren’t weaving table linens. They were spinning fate.

So maybe the women who worked thread by day learned something about how to work wyrd by night. Maybe the tool taught them. Maybe the rhythm opened the door.
And maybe some still carry that rhythm in their bones.

What It Means to Me
There’s a silence in the spinning
that speaks louder than most words.
I don’t always use a physical spindle.
Sometimes it’s my breath.
Sometimes it’s my body moving in a slow, steady circle.
But when I do hold one, wooden, bone, stone, I feel her.
The one who sat before me. The one who spun without praise.
The one who knew that thread was power.

I don’t spin to make cloth.
I spin to remember the shape of becoming.
The spindle doesn’t shout.
It doesn’t demand.
It pulls.
And what it pulls from me
is the thread I forgot I was holding.

What We Know
In Norse cosmology, the idea of fate was not a single strand, but a woven structure. The word örlög means “original law”—the primal pattern laid down for each being. It was not destiny in a rigid sense, but the base thread from which a person’s life would be spun. It could be shaped, knotted, tangled—but not entirely undone.

We also have the concept of hamingja, often translated as “luck,” but closer to a spiritual force or presence passed down through kin. Hamingja could be gained, protected, and even transferred. It was sometimes described as traveling between generations—part of your inheritance, and part of your responsibility.

In myth, the Norns are the weavers of fate. Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld sit at the base of Yggdrasill and shape the lives of gods and men alike. They carve into wood. They spin threads. They mark what is becoming.

We don’t have a single source that lays all this out in one place but the Poetic Edda, especially Völuspá and Helgakviða Hundingsbana, shows us the pieces. Fate as a thread. Memory as a pattern. Legacy as a living thing.

Sources to explore:
Völuspá, Helgakviða, and the Poetic Edda
Neil Price, The Viking Way
Terry Gunnell’s writings on fate and performative myth
• Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology (entries on hamingja, örlög, norns)

What We Think
Some say your thread is spun before you’re born. Others say you spin it as you go. And some would argue it's both laid down early, but tugged and tangled with every choice you make.
Here’s what makes people shift in their seat a little:
What if some of the things you carry aren’t yours?
What if the fear, the rage, the pull toward something strange or sacred didn’t start with you at all?
You start hearing stories of people waking up with memories that don’t belong to them. Of uncanny patterns in families that repeat like a curse. Of a skill no one taught you that just shows up in your hands.
Some call that trauma. Some call it inheritance.
The old Norse called it hamingja. Or örlög.
And the truth is, no one fully agrees on what those words mean. Luck? Spirit? Soul-part? Memory?

What’s wild is, even without clear definitions, you feel it.
That thread that pulls. The pattern that echoes.

And when you start working with it, really working with it things change. You dream different. You speak things you didn’t know you knew.
You start to wonder how much of your life was ever just yours to begin with.

What It Means to Me
Sometimes I feel it behind my ribs. Not a weight, a pull.

It doesn’t speak in words.
It tugs.
It remembers.
When I sit with it, I don’t ask for visions.
I ask for presence.
For the courage to feel what didn’t start with me but still lives in me.
The thread doesn’t always look like fate. Sometimes it looks like grief.
Like anger that never had a name.
Like love that crossed oceans to get here.
Like silence, when everyone else forgets. I follow it anyway.
I walk the line between what was given and what can be changed.
I whisper to it in the dark.
I tie it into things
hair, cloth, stones to remember what I come from and what I am still becoming.
Some days it coils.
Some days it frays.
But it never breaks. It waits. And when I listen, it answers.