Vefrett Volu--The Oracle of the Vala

In Iceland children use a small knuckle-like bone from a leg of lamb, called a vala, to ask questions about the future, much as adults might consult a horoscope or open a fortune cookie. The children place the one-inch bone on the bridge of their noses or on their foreheads, depending on district customs. Reciting a thula, a rhymed incantation, taught by mothers and grandmothers (ammas) in the age-old ways oral tradition, they implore the bone--addressed as a spakona (woman of vision; soothsayer) or vala--to tell them the truth. A typical thula:

Tell me now, my soothsayer,
what I ask you:
With gold shall I gladden you
and silver feed you,
if you tell me the truth,
but in fire shall I burn you
if you tell me a lie.

The children drop their heads forward, allowing the bone to fall. If the part of the bone with a depression lands upright, the answer is no. When it's opposite side, the convexity--sometimes referred to as the horns--faces upward, the answer is yes. A vala lying on its side indicates maybe, some say. Others understand it to mean the vala doesn't know the answer or is saying, "It's none of your business." Occasionally the vala settles on end (shut up), and the questioner knows to stop asking immediately.

Some adults remember tossing the vala from their hands, as in dice games, having first rubbed it against their foreheads or used their palm to turn it in circles atop the head. Others were taught to simply throw it into the air and let it land.

One respondent to a 1973 National Museum of Iceland questionnaire on the use of animal bones as toys remembered holding the vala beneath her hand, on top of her head, and moving it "sun wise" (clockwise) in three circles--by ancient tradition a magic or sacred number--before letting it fall. Another recalled that it was the person who turned sunwise three times. For some the vala had to be asked three times. Unless the same answer was received each time, the prophecy was not true.

Apparently there are as many variations in the recitation as there are in the ways the vala is handled. Sometimes the incantation offers the spakona a king or a prince and his kingdom of she (spakona and vala are both feminine nouns) tells the truth. Other promises include gold in a shoe, swathing or covering the vala in silk, giving her a piece of fat or meat, and offering the vala both a block of butter from the churn and red toys.

In addition to being cast into the fire if she lies, some also threaten to throw the ashes on the dunghill. Another variation tells the spakona she will be placed in the cream tub for telling the truth but put into the urine barrel for lying, referring to a time when human an animal urine was collected and used for washing woodland, sometimes, for washing women's hair. Later the threat was changed to being drowned, or choked, in the night pot, or chamber pot.

Actually the vala was seldom rewarded or punished, although one eastern Icelandic woman remembered an untruthful vala being burned. A woman from southeastern Iceland recalled putting butter in the hole of the vala when it landed with "the good side up."

In the way an American lass might pull the petals from a daisy to find whether "he loves me or loves me not," the vala was sometimes used by Icelandic youths not yet sure of the allure to determine whom they might wed. Carefully balancing the vala on the bridge of his nose with the convexity up, a pubescent boy would chant:

The hump of my vala is up.
Tell me my soothsayer, what I ask you.
Open if you lie, shut if you tell the truth.
Will it be my wife,
I ask you about?
. …. Will Anna be my wife?

Cosmic Drama

Unbeknownst to the children, their ritual play reenacts a cosmic drama dating from medieval times. The clue to the origins of this game comes from the writings of folk historical Olafur Davidsson, who refers to it as Vefrett Volu or Voluspa, the oracle or prophecy of the vala.

We first learn of the Voluspa in Icelandic literature form the opening lay (short narrative) poem of the Elder or Poetic Edda, a collection of twenty-eight poems by unknown authors. Most of the Eddic poems are believed to have been composed before Christianity came to Iceland (A.D. 1000), but written down later. Experts date the Poetic Edda between A.D. 800-1100, although it is only preserved in manuscripts form the thirteenth century. Not easily translated into English, the title has been variously rendered as "The Prophecy (spa) of the Seeress (volu)," "The Wisdom of the Vala," "The song of the Prophets," "The Song of the Sybil," and "The Sybil's Vision." Sometimes the Vala is translated as a "far-seeing witch."

The Voluspa takes us back to that imaginary, far-off time when gods and goddesses, dwarves, and elves mingled together. Moving among them, with free access to Valholl (the hall of dead heroes) and possessing knowledge of he future denied even the gods, were the volur (plural of vala).

In the Voluspa, the Norse god Odin, inveterate seeker after knowledge of the future, summons as seeress (Vala) from her grave. She speaks first of when the universal was formed: of a time before nigh and new moon knew of the places, of he time when morning and midday received their names. The Vala has seen nine worlds pass since the genesis and predicts the Ragnarok, the fatal destiny or down fall of the present gods. But out of cataclysmic ruins, a new world will arise, where Baldur, god of light, and other beneficent gods will reign anew.

Some say the Voluspa borrows from the Christian story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Others believe it mimics the cyclical regeneration of the earth and that the Vala represents nature's memory of the past.

Two other Eddic poems tell of times when Odin consults a Vala. Once, when the fate of his son Baldur is undecided, Odin descends into the dark, misty Niflheimur, the realm of death, and by the skillful use of runes compels a Vala to awaken from the dead. In the Hyndluljod (Song of Hyndla)--sometimes called the lesser Voluspa--Odin summons the vala Hyndla.

Earthly Women Acquire Prophetic Powers

As the oral tradition of the Eddas faded, sagas documenting important events in the daily lives of medieval Icelanders filled the gap. Likewise making the transition from the cosmic Vala or Volva, the sagas tell of pagan times when volur or volvur (plurals of vala and volva) occupied places of honor at solstice or autumnal feasts and sacrifices, sometimes even deciding difficult questions of law.

More often, however, the volva was invited to an individual home where a special feast was arranged for her. At the home of Thorkel in the Icelandic colony in Greenland, Thorbjorg--whose surname was Little Vala--was seated on a high seat especially prepared for her with a cushion of hen's feathers. Special dishes containing animal hearts and a porridge made "with the milk of goats' beestings" (sometimes translated as goat's milk) were cooked for her.

Thorbjorg wore a black lambskin headdress lined with white catskin and catskin gloves, black on the outside, white and furry on the inside. Her blue cloak was covered with tiny stones, and she wore a necklace of glass beads. Settled on their high seats (seid-hjallur), often a flat stone laid upon three or four posts, "inspired women" such as Thorbjorg chanted spells (seidr) that opened the doors of occult wisdom. The witch scene in Macbeth echoes the ancient seidr as Shakespeare understood it.

A volva might bring with her, or the family might have to seek locally, women who cold sing the vardlokur (weird or fate songs) while the volva received her revelations. Afterwards guests filed by her to learn their individual fates or to seek answers to their individual fates or to seek answers to their most heartfelt wishes. The incantations of the volur also assisted at childbirth and cured serious wounds. Tacitus and Plutarch tell that the volur were greatly venerated among all the Teutonic tribes and were often consulted before battles.

Etymology of Volva

Like other volur or volvur, Thorbjorg carried a stick or staff. Hers bore a copper knob inlaid around the base with precious stones. Etymologists relate the origin of volva to volr, a round pole or stick. However, etymologist Lotte Motz reports that in the few sagas where a volva's staff was mentioned, it was identified as a stafr. She believes vovla derives from the Old Icelandic root word uel, a circular motion that creates an enclosure to cover, shelter, or conceal--a closed, secret place.

The Eddic volva lived near the entrance to the region of the dead. The saga volvur dwelt in special and separate places. Thordis (Vatnsdaela Saga) lived at Spakonufell (the mountain of the witch), while Heimlaug (Thorskfirdinga Saga) lived in volustadr (the homestead of he volva). Thus, another understanding of the meaning of volva is "she of the secret places" or "the hidden one"; one who had access to regions or knowledge unavailable to ordinary men.

Christianity Versus Paganism

With the spread of Christianity through Iceland, pagan celebrations, and the presence of the volur at them, fell into disfavor, and were even banned. Fervent new Christians ardently tried to persuade friends and relatives to give up their old, heathen ways.

The Tale of Thorvald the Far-Farer, or Wide-Faring, describes a son's successful attempt to end his father's loyalty to a soothsayer (not a volva, who was always a woman). Thorvald, son of Kodran, converted to Christianity while abroad and in A.D. 991 returned to Iceland with his bishop, Fridrek. Attending services with his son, Kodran was impressed, but saw little difference between the bishop, who advised his son about the care fro his soul, and his own soothsayer, who advised Kodran on the care of his livestock and other farm matters.

Kodran agreed, however, that if the bishop could drive the soothsayer from the large, handsome rock which was his home he too would convert. For three days the bishop poured holy water, which the soothsayer experienced as boiling water, over the rock while reciting prayers and chanting psalms. The soothsayer fled to the wilderness, and, true to his word, Kodran turned his loyalty from the now "washed-out" spirit to the Christian God.

Even the trolls were shaken by Iceland's conversion to Christianity. One story tells of Thorhallr, a farmer in southwestern Iceland, who looked out his window to see mounds and hills opening up and their troll inhabitants packing to leave.

We said earlier that with the advent of Christianity, pagan rites were banned--but not quite. Iceland remained under the thrall of magic longer than most Scandinavian countries, partly because when the Althing (the ancient parliament) decided all Icelanders should become Christians in A.D. 1000, one of the exceptions made was that the old gods could still be worshipped, but in secret. Probably this exception was intended to aid in a smooth transition from the old ways. Although it was also declared that such worship would be punished if witnessed, none of the ancient writings tell of accusations or punishments.

Bones Replace The Volva

Davidson and Jon Arnason who together collected much of the historical information on the vala as a child's game, write that h4ey have only known it to be used for fun. But at least two lexicographers describe the vala as having been used in heathen times and by the "common people" for fortune telling, and define vala and volva as meaning "a fortune teller."

Certainly the vala's use was common enough to add to Icelandic vernacular. Thus, voluspakur refers to a person who is "knuckle-wise," knowing, possible prophetic. To say someone speaks volumaeltur, bone rolling in his mouth. In more current usage, he speaks indistinctly. In bygone days, neighbors, referring to someone they believed likely to fail in an enterprise, might issue the sage judgment valt er a volubeinid--the vala bone topples over easily--meaning about to fall or go bankrupt.

It is tempting to speculate that in the waning days of he old gods, as Christian missionaries traversed the frozen, sea-battered island, the gap created by the banning of sibyls gradually called forth a new breed of lesser seers who now relied on exterior devices.

Have not sorcerers of all time called upon the blood, skin, entrails, and bones of animals to clear the skylights to the unknown? Very early in man's development, sheep became associated with magical ideas and came to be identified as having oracular significance. Virgil's Aeneid tells of priestesses sleeping on fleeces to promote conversion with the gods.

Perhaps it was, then, that old residents and new émigrés, now separated from their own ancestral cult sites and magic rituals, pursued--even as Odin did--answers to their daylight anxieties. Others may have sought guidance to assuage moonlight fears of trolls and other elemental beings, beliefs destined never to be quite vanquished by the slowly traveling preachers. Even in the early part of this century, a building project in northern Iceland was postponed because someone dreamed that elves living in rocks soon to be blasted needed a few days to move.

It seems possible, then, that with the passage of time lesser sybils within their volubud (fortune teller's tent) set the stage for predicting the future by reverently withdrawing vala bones from their valnpoki (a bag to hold valas). Or, they may have cast small round stones (steinvala, volusteinn)--possibly carved or painted with magic signs or runes. Today a mountain with round stones is referred to as a voluberg. Discarded valas may have been buried, hence the small mound known as a voluleidi.

So worldwide is divination by means of small bones that it has its own name, astragalomancy, and is known to have given rise to board games, dice games, jacks, and so forth. In Iceland, it evolved into a dice game known as voluleikur, and probably into the Vefrett Volu, following the natural progression described by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazier whereby magic "regularly" dwindles into divination before deg4enrating into a simple game. Magnus Gislason, wrote in Swedish that in antiquity (the Swedish forntiden, prehistoric time, can be translated to mean the early centuries of Icelandic settlement), the vala was used as dice for prophecy.

The Vala Bone Becomes Both Precious And Common

Whatever the progression, it is clear that throughout nineteenth century and into the early part of this century the bone itself was still treasured and, at the same time, used in a variety of a common ways. For example, farm children collected valas and employed them in play to represent sheep. They built tiny pens for them, put them out to pasture, rounded them up, and even tied strings on them up, and even tied strings on them and led them around.; indoors they pastured the sheep on the floor bed, walking them in a single row along a headboard "sheep path." Outdoors sheep leg bones represented horses, while jawbones were cows. Tiny bones from the sheep's feet became foxes. Sometimes the valas were transformed into dogs and cats.

While other bones used for toys might be kept outside, valas were kept inside in small boxes or in a small leather bag. A mother might reassure her child with a favorite lullaby:

Sleep, my young love,
outside the rain weeps.
Mother will keep your toys,
old leg bones and a valabox.
Let us not stay awake
in the dark night.

Vala bones were thought to bring good luck. Those who collected and kept them wo7dl become rich and lucky with their livestock. Women sometimes set aside a per4sonal vala, called a spavala, vala of prophecy, which might be specially marked, or dyed green or brown. In the words of one respondent to the museum questionnaire, the vala was "badly needed in the home. It was convenient to seize it and let it tell you things you needed to know about in a hurry. The vala had to be taken good care of." Questions which often concerned the farm housewife were related to the unpredictable Icelandic weather or weather unexpected guests were coming. When she needed answers, a woman retrieved her vala from her own small, wooden chest of possessions. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she straightened her apron and, placing the vala on her head, recited the thula. Bowing her head, she would let the vala fall in to her apron. An eastern Icelandic woman said of the vala, "She was actually a volva, knowledgeable about everything in and on earth, foreseeing everything between heaven and the earth we know."

Children hid the valas for their playmates to seek and find. But even here reverence was still involved, because nothing was to be put on top of the hidden vala. On the other hand, in northeastern Iceland children sometimes used the bones as troops in battle. They were arranged on the floor in two straight lines opposite each other with ample space between each line and every vala. Kneeling behind his troops, a young Baldur would glide a small flat stone across the floor to "shoot down" his sister's opposing forces.

The battle was often lengthy. If the vala was simply moved by the stone, it was pushed back into the line. If a "trooper" fell on his side, rather than being turned upside down, he was considered merely wounded and was returned to battle. The winner was the last player to have a vala left standing.

Women saved the bones for winding clews of yarn (thradarvala). Dyed and decorated, they were often given as presents. A nineteenth-century riddle tells of the transformation of a vala into a thradarvala: "Earlier I had meat on me, and I was supple in my movements, now I am fettered in yarn, and find it hard to move."

When the ball of yarn was almost gone, the vala spun like a top during the weaving. One child's came especially gifted for prophecy if it stayed inside the ball of yarn for a long time. An older child might have grasped the practically of this wondrous explanation given by a grandmother, who may still have needed the vala for weaving, to a probably impatient child who wanted it for play. A woman from southern Iceland poetically described the ongoing "war" between young "sheep owners" and the "spinners," who indentured the bones into adult service: "When the balls of thread were being used for the weaving and the valas started appearing again, we waited impatiently to see our favorite ewes freed from their fetters and brought back into the flock of sheep."

Another battle occurred between children when their individual valas came up with different answers to the same question. Loyalty to one's own vala often resulted in a fight where, in another age-old tradition, the "truth" was determined by the strongest fighter.

"Woe, oh woe," recalls an eastern Icelandic woman, 'when the time was ripe for the prophecy to happen, sometimes the losers had their revenge."

The Second World War and the establishment of military bases on Iceland, together with the formation of trade union, brought new prosperity to the country. Commercial toys became available, and bone play began to disappear. However, in his 1977 book Kvallsvaka, Gislason wrote that the bone was still used for prophecy. Kvallsvaka--in Icelandic kvoldvaka--refers to the time between twilight and bedtime when farm families gather in the common room to work while telling stories and singing. A contemporary employee at the National Museum of Iceland gives the bones to foreign guests as presents because the vala, like stress-reduction objects, feels good in the hand. One way or another, the vala still brings relief.

Connection of Vala with Volva Secure But Speculative

For the most part, investigations into the folklore of things are rare. So even with an examination of Icelandic literature and language, we still can only speculate at the historic and linguistic progression tha led from the cosmic Voluspa, to the "wise-women" (vala and volva) of the sagas, to the possible naming of certain sheep bones as vala because of their long-standing use in divination.

On the other hand, not knowing when the bones were named vala, it is possible that the etymologically unrelated words volva and vala became synonymous by what John Lindow of the University of California at Berkeley calls "folk etymology," a common connection of the two words in everyday language. This would seem to be strengthened by information from a source at the office of the University Dictionary in Reykjavik who advised that in the Voluspa the original word was vala (nominative case). In its other cases it picked up an extra v, thus, vala (nominative), but volvu (accusative and dative). Later the nominative took the second," becoming valva and volva. Kristjan Arnason of the University of Iceland suggests that the confusion and the connection occurred because in the old language the words looked alike in the accusative, dative, and genitive cases.

But it is still not clear when vala, the bone, became linked with volva, the prophetess. The connection may have been strengthened through translations of Icelandic material. For instance, the Icelandic volva is vala in Swedish. Arnason suggests people knew the voluspa and connected it to the vala bone, imagining that he bone also could prophesy.

Whatever were the actual combinations and merging of mythology, common language, folklore, and everyday household possession that took place, the Volva-Vala finally succumbed opt her fate some ten or eleven centuries late and was transformed into a child's game bearing only remnants of her once-lofty ancestry. Combine the continuing prosperity of Iceland with the declining use of bone as toys and the death of elders who value the tradition, and the outcome seems inevitable. As surely as at Delphi Vefrett Volu, the oracle of the vala, will lose her power altogether and vanish into obscurity except in the minds of curious journalists, the dissertations of folklorists, and in a few, also aging, works of reference. Unless . . . leg of lamb, anyone?