Types of Spiritual Gifts - A Complete Guide
Not all spirit work looks the same. Some gifts smoulder quietly, like embers that demand patient tending, while others arrive with the force of a storm - loud, undeniable, and sometimes overwhelming. A person may carry only one such gift in their life or several interwoven together, shaping who they are and how they move through the world.
In modern spirituality, it is common to treat gifts as skills or talents that can be picked up and displayed almost like tools on a shelf. The Norse did not think this way. In their worldview, gifts were not “party tricks” or ornaments for status. They were woven into a person’s wyrd - their personal fate thread within the great web that the Norns spin. A gift was not simply an advantage; it was also a burden, an oath, and a responsibility. To misuse it was to twist one’s wyrd into knots, often with lasting consequences not only for the individual but for their kin.
For the seer, the poet, the rune worker or the one who bore the weight of others grief, their gift was a calling. It set them apart, demanded discipline, and bound them to roles that were not always easy. Some were honoured for what they could do. Others were feared. All were marked.
This guide aims to map those gifts in a way that makes sense to us today. First, I will speak in modern terms - the language many now use to describe being empathic, visionary, or energy sensitive. From there, I will step into the Northern sources themselves: the sagas, the Eddas, the scattered lore and practices that show us how the Norse recognised these same capacities in their own people.
These two perspectives (the modern and the Norse) are not identical, but they overlap in fascinating ways. They offer a full spectrum picture of spiritual gifts: how they arise, how they are understood, and most importantly, how they must be carried with honour.
Modern Spiritual Gift Types (and where they echo Norse practice)
1) Energy Workers
What it is:
Energy workers are those who can sense, shape, and redirect subtle currents that flow through people, animals, and places. To them, a home can feel “stale” or “alive,” a person can radiate heaviness or light, and their own hands often become conduits for change. Many work with cleansing, grounding, or healing, though the gift is not limited to one form. Their presence alone can shift the atmosphere of a room.
Signs:
Palms or fingertips that tingle, heat, or buzz when near others.
Heightened sensitivity to “dense” or “light” spaces - instinctively opening windows, burning incense, or cleansing.
Feeling the need to “smooth” or “repair” energy when someone is upset.
Easily drained by chaotic environments, yet naturally uplifting to others when centred.
The Norse Echo:
The Norse did not use the term “energy” in our modern sense, but they recognised flows of mægen (might, strength), hamingja (fortune/luck), and the threads of wyrd (fate). In saga accounts, seið workers were said to “tie and untie” luck, illness, or harm. A healthy person’s wyrd thread was smooth and flowing; a sick or cursed one was tangled or bound. Through ritual acts (chanting, staff work, offerings, or trance) the seið worker would weave balance back into the fabric.
This is the Norse parallel to modern energy work: the craft of shifting unseen forces to restore harmony. The varðlokkur (warding songs) sung in seiðr rites acted as a kind of energetic tuning, calling helpful spirits while shielding against harmful ones. Rune magic, too, often worked at the level of energetic flow carved symbols placed to ward, heal, or strengthen.
Burden and Responsibility:
An energy worker’s gift is two-edged. Their sensitivity means they often absorb what is not theirs - sickness, sorrow, restlessness. Without boundaries (mörk), they risk exhaustion or even harm. The Norse völva always worked within a ritual frame, seated on the high seat, surrounded by attendants who sang and protected her - This was necessary safeguard.
For the modern energy worker, the lesson is the same: cleanse and ground yourself, shield when needed, and never forget that the flows you touch are threads of wyrd. To heal, balance, or strengthen someone’s energy is not simply a service - it is an act that ripples out into their fate. That requires patience, respect, and a willingness to carry responsibility.
2) Truth-Bearers
What it is:
Truth bearers are those who carry an uncompromising clarity of sight. They are compelled to name what is real, even when that reality wounds pride or shatters illusions. While others may soften their words or hide behind comfort, the truth bearer feels a deep inner pressure to speak plainly. Their gift is not always welcome (truth is often heavy, disruptive, or unsettling) but it is necessary. Without truth, there can be no genuine healing, no right order, and no wise path forward.
Signs:
A natural ability to detect falsehood or insincerity in others.
A reputation for “always speaking your mind,” even if it causes tension.
Dreams or visions that cut through pretence, revealing what lies beneath.
A restless conscience - difficulty in remaining silent when deception or self delusion is present.
Others may confide in you, sometimes unwillingly, because they sense you will name what is hidden.
The Norse Echo:
In the Norse tradition, truth was not about comfort but about alignment with wyrd. The seeress of Völuspá does not flatter her listeners with a pleasant future. Instead, she declares the truth of Ragnarök (the twilight of the gods) because that is what is woven. Her role is not to ease, but to reveal.
The völva and other seeresses often spoke words that unsettled or frightened, yet their truth carried weight because it was unbending. In Germanic and Norse culture, the sannindi (truth, reality) was sacred. To bear truth was to act in alignment with the Norns, who wove not what mortals wished but what must be.
Odin himself is depicted in this role at times: he seeks wisdom not for ease but at great cost - hanging on Yggdrasil for nine nights, giving his eye at Mímir’s well. These sacrifices show that truth is never free; it demands suffering, endurance, and change.
Burden and Responsibility:
The truth bearer’s gift is as heavy as it is powerful. Truth isolates. Many around the truth bearer will resist, deny, or lash out against what is revealed. They may accuse the truth bearer of harshness, cruelty, or arrogance. Yet without this gift, communities fall into delusion, repeating chaos cycles.
The Norse recognised that to speak prophecy or to name fate was to hold tremendous responsibility. To wield truth carelessly could sow fear, despair, or even social collapse. But to withhold it entirely could be worse allowing wyrd to strike unacknowledged.
The lesson is balance: truth must be spoken with virðing (respect), never as a weapon for ego. It must be placed in context, grounded in compassion and responsibility.
3) Empaths
What it is:
Empaths are those who feel the emotions, moods, and often even the unspoken pain of others as if it were their own. Unlike simple intuition, this is not merely reading body language or guessing at tone - empaths experience a visceral resonance in their body, heart, or spirit. Joy may uplift them until they overflow, grief may strike them like their own wound and conflict may churn in their gut long before words are spoken.
This gift is as heavy as it is profound. It allows an empath to comfort, to heal, to stabilise, and to act as a living mirror of truth. Yet it also leaves them vulnerable to overwhelm, exhaustion, or even identity loss if they do not learn to establish boundaries.
Signs:
Feeling drained or even sick after spending time in crowds or conflict heavy spaces.
Sudden shifts in mood that don’t reflect your own life circumstances but mirror those around you.
A strong need to retreat, cleanse, or be alone after social situations.
An instinctive urge to comfort, mediate, or “fix” tension in others.
Being told by others: “You always seem to understand,” or, conversely, “You take things too personally.”
The Norse Echo:
The Norse worldview did not use the modern term empath, yet their culture placed enormous weight on the ability to sense and maintain frith - sacred peace and harmony within the hall, family, and kin group. Frith was more than absence of conflict: it was a living web of right order, trust, and balance. To “feel” when frith was breaking, when unspoken grievances simmered or when a hall’s energy soured, was a crucial skill.
In saga literature, disharmony often leads swiftly to feud and bloodshed. Those who could sense tension early, and work to resolve or balance it, were guardians of their people’s survival. This is the Norse echo of the empath’s role: one who feels the emotional fabric of the group as if it were woven into their own skin.
Some empaths may also overlap with the gift of fylgja sight, perceiving the animal or spiritual companion of others - a sign of their state of being or fate. To feel another’s inner state was to know their wyrd-thread, even if only dimly.
Burden and Responsibility:
The burden of the empath is porousness. Without boundaries (mörk), every mood, wound, and conflict of others floods inward. This can leave the empath depleted, lost in others pain, or entangled in cycles that are not their own.
In Norse practice, the völva on the high seat was never left unguarded. Attendants sang varðlokkur (warding songs) to keep away unwanted spirits and to give shape to what was called in. This offers a lesson: sensitivity must always be paired with protection. An empath’s gift becomes sustainable only when balanced with shielding, grounding, and deliberate closure of channels.
The responsibility of the empath is twofold:
To respect their own well-being enough to shield and replenish.
To use their sensitivity not to manipulate or control, but to guide others toward harmony (frith) and truth.
Properly honoured, this gift becomes a sacred thread in the web: the empath as peace weaver, mediator, and healer, carrying the pulse of the hall or community within their own heart.
4) Dreamers & Visionaries
What it is:
Dreamers and visionaries are those whose night soul is restless and active, wandering beyond the body into realms of symbol, omen, and prophecy. Their dreams are not idle phantoms of the mind but doorways, bearing messages from the gods, ancestors, or the deep wyrd web itself. Visions may arrive in sleep, trance, or sudden waking moments - striking images, words, or signs that linger until fulfilled.
This gift is both blessing and weight. It allows glimpses into what is coming, warnings before danger, and symbolic keys to hidden truths. But it can also unsettle: seeing what others cannot, or bearing witness to inevitabilities one is powerless to prevent.
Signs:
Dreams that recur with strong symbols or motifs, often carrying meaning only revealed later.
Premonitory dreams that “come true,” whether in detail or in essence.
Waking visions or inner flashes that arrive unbidden, often at liminal times (twilight, dawn, threshold moments).
A deep pull toward recording, interpreting, or seeking meaning in dreams and omens.
Others may notice you “foresaw” something they overlooked.
The Norse Echo:
In Norse tradition, dreams (draumar) were considered sacred communications. The sagas abound with dream prophecies: warnings of betrayal, foreshadowings of battles or signs of death. Njáls saga and Gísla saga both contain striking examples of dreams that foretell doom or conflict. These were not dismissed as superstition - they were taken seriously, consulted and often feared.
Odin himself exemplifies this gift. In Baldrs draumar, troubled by dreams foretelling Baldr’s death, he rides to Hel and awakens a dead völva to reveal what lies ahead. This shows that even the High One sought confirmation of dream visions, treating them as threads of wyrd woven into the fabric of fate.
Visionary experience also belonged to the völva seated on the seiðhjallr. In trance, she would describe visions of hidden realms, speaking with spirits or glimpsing outcomes yet to unfold. Whether in sleep or in altered state, the gift of sight was treated as both dangerous and holy.
Burden and Responsibility:
The dreamer’s burden is twofold. First, the weight of knowing: to see what others cannot is isolating, especially when the vision is dire. Prophecies in the sagas often alienated their bearers, who were sometimes shunned for bringing unwelcome truth. Second, the danger of misinterpretation: dreams are layered, symbolic, and easily twisted by ego or fear. To mistake one’s own desires or anxieties for true vision can cause harm.
The responsibility of the dreamer and visionary is therefore discipline. Record dreams faithfully, without immediate judgment. Return to them after time has passed, to see what wyrd has revealed. Approach visions with humility, understanding that not all are meant to be acted upon. And above all, speak carefully: words have weight, and a prophecy once spoken cannot be unsaid.
When honoured, this gift weaves the dreamer into the wyrd web as a bridge between seen and unseen. They become the voice of symbols, the watcher of thresholds, and the guide who prepares others for what lies ahead.
5) Flame-Bearers (Inspirers)
What it is:
Flame bearers are those who carry within them a spark that cannot be contained - an inner fire that pours out in words, song, art, or vision. Their gift is not simply creativity, but inspiration in its truest sense: a channel through which the sacred flows into form. Their works arrive whole, as though whispered or sung by another voice. When they create, they ignite others - their songs lift hearts, their words spark courage, their art awakens memory or longing.
This gift is not limited to artists in the modern sense. In the ancient world, poetry, music, and storytelling were not decoration - they were living magic, carrying power to shape memory, inspire warriors, and weave fame (lof) that outlasted death. To bear the flame is to carry a sacred trust: what you speak, sing, or craft echoes into the wyrd web itself.
Signs:
Creative works “arrive” whole, as if gifted rather than invented.
Others are deeply moved, inspired, or stirred to action by your words, songs, or creations.
Compulsion to create - neglecting it leads to frustration or even physical unease.
Inspiration often comes in liminal times (night, solitude, altered states).
A sense that you are “carrying” something bigger than yourself when in creative flow.
The Norse Echo:
In Norse thought, inspiration was not a personal talent - it was a sacred force. The word óðr means both “mind, song, poetry” and “frenzy, divine inspiration.” It was seen as a breath or fire from beyond. Odin himself embodies this gift: he sought the Mead of Poetry from the giantess Gunnlöð, a potent drink that bestowed the gift of inspiration. From that mead came the voices of poets, skalds, and visionaries who could shape fame and memory with their words.
The skalds (court poets) were flame bearers of their time, keepers of lineage and shapers of wyrd. A warrior could die, but the skald’s song carried his name into eternity. In Hávamál, Odin lists rune songs that carry power through speech - showing that inspiration and spoken art were also magical acts. Words were spells, and to bear the flame was to wield living power.
Burden and Responsibility:
The flame burns brightly, but it also consumes. Flame bearers often struggle with intensity - creative surges followed by exhaustion, or an inability to “turn off” the flood of ideas. Some feel alienated, as if others cannot understand the compulsion to create. Others fall into despair if their flame is unrecognised or mocked.
The Norse myth of the Mead of Poetry reminds us that inspiration is a gift, but also a theft and a burden - Odin had to risk and suffer for it. The flame is not “yours”; it flows through you. The responsibility of the flame bearer is to honour it with discipline, to refine their craft so the fire is given form rather than scattered, and to use it in service of wyrd rather than ego.
When carried with respect, this gift becomes a torch passed hand to hand. The flame bearer lights the hall in dark times, reminds kin of their honour, and awakens memory that weaves human lives into the eternal fabric of story and song.
6) Shadow Walkers
What it is:
Shadow Walkers are those whose path runs through death, the underworld and the forbidden edges of human experience. While many turn away from grief, decay, or taboo, the Shadow Walker feels drawn toward it - not out of morbid curiosity, but because something within them knows that wisdom hides in darkness. They are comfortable at thresholds: graves, ruins, times of mourning, moments of crisis. They may guide others through death and grief, speak with the departed, or face the shadow aspects of life that most people suppress.
At their core, Shadow Walkers are bridges between the living and the dead, between light and shadow, between what is denied and what must be integrated. Their gift is psychopompic (guiding souls), necromantic (communing with the dead), and initiatory (walking through darkness to find transformation).
Signs:
Unusual comfort in places of mourning, cemeteries, or ruins.
Heavy, vivid dreams of death, decay, or underworld landscapes.
A lifelong fascination with liminal states: dusk, thresholds, silence, solitude.
Others instinctively turn to you in moments of loss or trauma.
A deep instinct to face what is forbidden or taboo, not to shock, but to understand.
The Norse Echo:
In Norse and wider Germanic lore, necromancy and death work were part of the seiðr tradition. The gods themselves are shown practicing it. In Baldrs draumar (The Dreams of Baldr), Odin rides to Hel to awaken a dead völva, demanding prophecy of his son’s fate. The völva, disturbed from her rest, reluctantly speaks truth before sending Odin away. This is necromantic seiðr at its highest level: not simple curiosity, but seeking forbidden knowledge from beyond the grave.
Sagas and myth fragments also hint at practices of raising the dead or “sitting out” (útiseta) at burial mounds to commune with ancestors and spirits. These acts were not considered safe - they were dangerous, powerful, and often taboo. Yet they were necessary, because the dead held wisdom the living could not ignore.
In Germanic mythology more broadly, shadow walking connects to the role of Hel goddess of the underworld, who holds the souls of the dead in her realm. To work with death was, in a sense, to walk in Her shadow and to touch the realities most feared and least spoken of.
Burden and Responsibility:
The Shadow Walker’s path is never easy. Their gift isolates them: most people avoid death, ignore grief, and resist shadow work. To carry this gift is to walk where others will not, often misunderstood or feared. The weight of death dreams, the pull of grief, or the pressure of ancestral voices can be overwhelming if the gift is not balanced with grounding and protection.
The responsibility of the Shadow Walker is to use their gift with reverence. To raise or contact the dead must never be done lightly; every such act disturbs the veil. The sagas warn of consequences for reckless necromancy, from restless draugar (undead spirits) to cursed lineages. This gift demands patience, ritual safeguards, and humility.
Properly honoured, the Shadow Walker becomes a healer of deep wounds: guiding souls to rest, helping the living face mortality, and unearthing the wisdom hidden in the dark. They remind us that death is not the end but part of the great cycle of wyrd and that no light can exist without shadow.
7) Wyrd Workers
What it is:
Wyrd Workers are those who sense the hidden threads that underlie events, relationships, and lives. Where others see coincidence, the Wyrd Worker feels pattern. Where others repeat cycles blindly, they sense the knot before it tightens. Their gift is to see the weaving of fate as a living tapestry - recognising when threads snarl, when repetition signals an unlearned lesson and when a life is tugged toward a turning point.
Unlike simple intuition, this is not only about “gut feeling.” It is the ability to perceive deep structures of cause and effect - what others might call karma, destiny, or ancestral weight. Wyrd Workers may help others untangle harmful cycles, find clarity at crossroads, or understand how personal choices ripple out through generations.
Signs:
Strong déjà vu - knowing a moment has unfolded before, often with insight into how it will play out.
Sensitivity to “loops” in your own or others’ lives (repeating relationships, failures, or conflicts).
A knack for pointing out the unseen root of a recurring problem.
Others may come to you at life’s crossroads, seeking clarity.
Feeling “called” to ancestral healing, past life echoes or deep family patterns.
The Norse Echo:
The Norse concept of wyrd (from Old English wyrd, related to Old Norse urðr) is the woven fabric of fate. The Norns Urðr (What Has Become), Verðandi (What Is Becoming), and Skuld (What Shall Be) sit at the roots of Yggdrasil, shaping the destinies of gods and mortals alike. Their work is described in weaving terms: threads spun, measured, and cut.
Seiðr itself was often framed as thread work. To practice seiðr was to “tie” or “untie” the strands of fate - shifting fortune, loosening bindings, or knotting curses. The sagas speak of women weaving battle webs from human entrails, their loom weighted with severed heads - an extreme, poetic vision of seiðr as literal fate weaving.
The Wyrd Worker is a living echo of this. They do not wield the full power of the Norns, but their gift mirrors it: the ability to sense threads, to untangle snarls, and to perceive the deeper weave beneath daily life.
Burden and Responsibility:
To see wyrd is heavy. It is not always comforting to perceive where a thread is leading, nor is it simple to intervene. Sometimes the Wyrd Worker must accept that certain knots cannot be undone without cost or that some patterns are too large for mortal hands to shift.
The danger lies in pride: believing oneself equal to the Norns or trying to control every weave. This leads to burnout, hubris, or entanglement in others fate webs. Just as importantly, meddling without consent can create backlash: the wyrd of one person is bound to kin and community, and tugging their thread tugs others.
The responsibility of the Wyrd Worker is to act with humility, patience, and clarity. Their role is not to rewrite destiny, but to help others recognise patterns, break free of destructive cycles, and align with the stronger strands of their wyrd. In this, they serve as guardians of clarity and alignment - mirrors of the Norns themselves, though mortal and fallible.
Properly honoured, the Wyrd Worker becomes a guide at life’s crossroads, a healer of ancestral tangles and a keeper of balance within the web.
8) Wyrd Walkers
What it is:
Wyrd Walkers are those whose spirit is not bound tightly to the body but slips, drifts and travels between the realms. In dream, trance, or deliberate working, they journey beyond the skin into landscapes of symbol, gods, ancestors and spirits. Their gift is the ability to consciously cross thresholds - to step into the world tree itself and walk its branches.
This is not daydreaming or imagination alone. The Wyrd Walker experiences otherworld journeys with a vividness that carries weight: messages are received, knowledge is gained and encounters echo in waking life. They are drawn to liminal places and states (twilight, thresholds, wilderness, ritual silence) because such spaces open the way between.
Signs:
Ease in slipping into altered states - trance, deep meditation or “drifting away” from the body.
Spontaneous out-of-body experiences, often since childhood.
Vivid, structured dreamscapes that feel more “real” than waking life.
Strong pull toward drumming, chanting or rhythmic ritual that deepens trance.
Others notice you have a “magnetic” or liminal presence, as if not fully anchored in one world.
The Norse Echo:
The clearest image of this gift in Norse tradition is the seiðhjallr rite described in Eiríks saga rauða. The völva is seated on a high seat, staff in hand, as women circle her singing varðlokkur (warding songs). These songs open the path and protect her as she travels into the unseen realms calling spirits to her and gaining vision.
Soul journeying is also hinted at in Ynglinga saga, where Odin himself is said to send his spirit forth in trance, while his body lay as if asleep or dead. In this state, he could travel across worlds, speak with the dead or gather knowledge unseen by ordinary eyes.
The concept is echoed in útiseta (sitting out), where practitioners would sit at night in wilderness or on burial mounds, entering trance to commune with spirits, fetches, or the dead. All of these point to a deep rooted Norse recognition of the Wyrd Walker’s path: the ability to leave the body, journey between worlds, and bring back what is seen.
Burden and Responsibility:
The gift of walking between worlds is powerful, but also dangerous. Without boundaries (mörk), the Wyrd Walker risks becoming unmoored, lost in trance or unable to fully return. Some may experience exhaustion, illness or disorientation if they travel too often or without protection.
The sagas remind us that no one journeyed without safeguards. The völva had attendants and songs. Odin used chants and runes. The rite was framed carefully because to wander the unseen is to step into realms where not all spirits are friendly.
The responsibility of the Wyrd Walker is therefore to ground, shield, and close each journey. They must discern what visions to share and what to keep, and they must never mistake trance imagery for literal truth without reflection. Properly honoured, their gift makes them bridges: carriers of wisdom from the otherworld, guides for souls in need and living links between Midgard and the higher and lower realms of Yggdrasil.
The Wyrd Walker, when disciplined and rooted becomes a true staff carrier - able to walk the roads others cannot and return with sight that illuminates the woven web of wyrd.
9) Voice Singers (Galdr workers)
What it is:
Voice Singers are those whose gift flows through breath, tone, and vibration. Their words are never “just words”- they carry weight, shaping the air around them. Whether through chanting, song, or spoken incantation, they wield sound as a tool of focus and power. For them, language is not passive description but active shaping: speaking is doing.
Their gift may show itself in a compulsion to hum or chant, in the way their voice calms or unsettles, or in their instinct to use repeated words, syllables, or tones when focusing intention. To the Voice Singer, the voice is not simply self expression - it is spellcraft.
Signs:
A voice that naturally shifts the atmosphere of a room (soothing, commanding, stirring).
Feeling compelled to chant, sing, or repeat words when concentrating, healing, or grounding.
Noticing that others remember or repeat your words long after you’ve spoken them.
Sensitivity to sound and vibration - music deeply alters your mood or state.
Words or songs come to you spontaneously, often in ritual or heightened emotion.
The Norse Echo:
The Norse called this gift galdr - chanting spells through voice, rhythm, and intention. Galdr was not mere “singing”; it was spoken magic, the shaping of reality through vibration and word.
In the Hávamál, Odin himself recounts eighteen rune - songs (galdrar) he learned through sacrifice and ordeal. These included spells for healing, binding, calming storms, inspiring warriors, and even raising the dead. Each was a fusion of rune, sound, and will - showing that song was not performance but sacred act.
Saga literature also preserves echoes of galdr. In Eiríks saga rauða, the attendants sing varðlokkur (warding songs) during the völva’s rite, summoning spirits and creating protection. This shows galdr as not only individual but communal: voice work weaving a shared energy field.
Runes themselves were often paired with galdr - scratched into wood, bone, or stone, and then “sung” alive through incantation. The carved symbol was static; the spoken sound activated it.
Burden and Responsibility:
The gift of galdr is potent and volatile. Words linger. A careless curse can echo, and a song meant to heal can bind if wielded with anger or pride. The galdr worker must therefore discipline not only their voice but their intent, aligning sound with responsibility (ábyrgð).
Another burden is exhaustion: voice workers may find their throat or chest strained, their dreams filled with echoing songs or their energy drained after chanting. Like the seið worker, they must ground and close their workings, lest the vibration linger unchecked.
The responsibility of the Voice Singer is to remember that their gift is not mere art but action. Every galdr is an offering and an exchange with the web of wyrd. Properly honoured, this gift becomes one of the most versatile: calming storms within and without, awakening courage in halls, banishing harm, or opening the way to vision.
The Norse Catalogue of Gifts & Roles
Note: Norse sources are scattered and poetic; some categories overlap or are attested indirectly. I group them for clarity and give a lore touchstone where possible.
1) Seiðr (seer-work, fate-weaving, spirit-journey)
Scope:
Seiðr was the most infamous and most complex of the Norse magical arts. It included prophecy, spirit journeying, healing, cursing, weather working, mind influence, and manipulation of luck (hamingja). At its core, seiðr is thread magic - loosening or tightening strands of wyrd.
Ritual Features:
A seið worker often sat on the seiðhjallr (a high seat), staff in hand, while attendants sang varðlokkur (warding/calling songs). The völva would then slip into trance and “travel” to gather visions or to reweave what was tangled.
Lore:
Eiríks saga rauða preserves the most detailed rite: the hosted völva Þorbjǫrg Lítilvölva, seated on the high seat with ward songs sung to protect and empower her.
Ynglinga saga and Lokasenna both note that seiðr was considered “unmanly” for men, dangerous and powerful for women, yet Odin himself practiced it, blurring those boundaries.
2) Galdr (incantation / song-magic)
Scope:
The art of spoken and sung spells. Galdr was the shaping of reality through sound: healing, protection, victory in battle, ship luck, or binding enemies.
Lore:
In Hávamál, Odin recounts 18 rune songs - each a galdr with specific power: to blunt swords, heal wounds, bind foes, calm storms, and more.
Saga scenes preserve the sense that chanting aloud was an active magical act: not description, but deed.
3) Runecraft (inscription + chant)
Scope:
Runes were never mere writing. They were carved, inked, and sung with intention: for healing, warding, cursing, or guiding fate. Runecraft always paired with galdr, since the carving had to be “activated” by chant.
Lore:
Egils saga tells how a girl fell sick because untrained runes were carved beneath her bed. Egill Skallagrímsson corrected them, carved anew, and sang over them - restoring her health. This story warns that careless rune use causes harm.
4) Spá (prophetic sight)
Scope:
Sight gifted outside of ritual - dreams, visions, or inner knowing without the full seiðr ceremony. Some were born spákona (prophetess), able to foresee without staff or ward-song.
Lore:
The seeress of Völuspá embodies this gift, revealing the cosmic story from creation to Ragnarök.
Many sagas feature prophetic men and women whose words alter the course of families and battles.
5) Draum-sight (dream-augury)
Scope:
Dreams as prophecy - sometimes symbolic, sometimes literal. Dreams were seen as messages from gods, ancestors, or the deep wyrd-web.
Lore:
Njáls saga and Gísla saga contain recurring dream prophecies of doom.
In Baldrs draumar, Odin himself consults the dead to confirm the truth of Baldr’s fatal dreams.
6) Fylgja-sight (seeing spirit-companions)
Scope:
The fylgja (follower) was a spirit double often in animal form, reflecting a person’s fate, health or character. Seeing another’s fylgja could reveal their destiny.
Lore:
Some sagas describe characters foreseeing deaths by sighting a fylgja (e.g. a wolf or woman spirit).
Fylgjur could be familial (lineage spirits) as well as individual.
7) Hamfarir / Hamhleypa (soul-journeys)
Scope:
Sending the hamr (soul-form) away from the body - appearing elsewhere, influencing events, or scouting. From outside, this looked like shapeshifting or out-of-body presence.
Lore:
The phrase hamfarir means “shape-journey.”
In sagas, ‘witches and warriors’ are sometimes seen in multiple places at once, or their spirit animal form is witnessed while they lie in trance.
8) Hugr-working (thought/mind magic)
Scope:
Projecting one’s hugr (mind/will) outward: sending a thought, dream, or urge into another’s awareness. The language of the sagas suggests a blurred line between strong intent and literal psychic projection.
Lore:
Expressions like “he sent his hugr out” survive in Old Norse prose, hinting at practical belief in thought magic.
9) Hamingja-bearing & sharing
Scope:
Hamingja is personal fortune, luck and spiritual might. Some could strengthen their own, gift it to others or lend it in times of need (e.g. kings blessing voyages or warriors).
Lore:
In saga language, a follower often succeeds “because of the king’s hamingja.”
10) Frith-weaving
Scope:
Keeping frith (sacred peace) was itself a spiritual skill. Those sensitive to tension acted as mediators, peace-weavers, and ritual hosts, preventing feuds and protecting the community’s wyrd.
Lore:
Hospitality, ritual drinking, and oath making in the hall were all arenas where frith weaving gifts mattered most.
11) Oath-binding / Truth-keeping
Scope:
Words sworn on sacred rings or gods bound wyrd. Those gifted in oath-binding upheld truth, called out perjury and ensured social order remained aligned with divine law.
Lore:
Oath breaking is universally condemned in sagas, bringing both social wrath and divine punishment.
12) Níð / Scorn-pole
Scope:
Ritualised curse poetry or carved scorn poles (níðstöng) erected to shame enemies and call spirits against them.
Lore:
Egill Skallagrímsson raised a scorn-pole against King Eiríkr and Queen Gunnhild, cursing them and calling Norway’s land-spirits to turn against them.
13) Landvættir-work
Scope:
Alliance with land spirits. Rituals ensured peace with the landvættir, guardians of place.
Lore:
Ships approaching Iceland had to remove carved figureheads, lest they frighten the landvættir (recorded in Landnámabók).
14) Weather-weaving / Sea-calling
Scope:
Calling or calming winds, raising storms or ensuring ship luck.
Lore:
Hints appear in sagas where witches or seeresses are blamed for sudden storms. Often grouped under seiðr.
15) Warding & Varðlokkur
Scope:
Protection and filtering of spirits. Varðlokkur (ward songs) were sung during seiðr rites to keep out what did not belong and invite helpful powers.
Lore:
In Eiríks saga rauða, varðlokkur are sung while the völva works, anchoring the rite.
16) Nekra-seiðr / Necromancy
Scope:
Calling up the dead for counsel or laying them to rest.
Lore:
Odin awakens a dead völva in Baldrs draumar.
Other saga fragments describe mound sitting to consult the dead.
17) Ancestor-binding
Scope:
Working with fylgjur ættar (ancestral spirits), honouring them and weaving their strength into the living family’s fortune.
Use:
Strengthening lineage, protecting kin, gaining counsel in dreams or rites.
18) Animal-ally & Animal-speech
Scope:
Special connection with beasts, omens or animal spirits. Sometimes gifted the ability to “speak with” or call them.
Lore:
Often bound up with fylgja lore (e.g. a wolf fylgja indicating ferocity or doom).
19) Hamrammr / Berserksgangr
Scope:
Odin-linked ecstatic fury: warriors entering battle in bear or wolf aspect (hamrammr, “shape-strong”).
Lore:
Berserkers and ulfheðnar fought in altered states, described as half-human, half-beast. Dangerous, powerful, and socially costly.
20) Sacred-tree and Well Work
Scope:
Worship and rites centred on holy trees and wells. These were thresholds to the divine and sites of sacrifice.
Lore:
Adam of Bremen describes the great evergreen at Uppsala with a sacred well beside it, stained with sacrifices.
21) Temple / Thing-space Keepers
Scope:
Those charged with holding ritual space - maintaining peace at blót (sacrifice) and law-assemblies. To break frith there was both crime and sacrilege.
Lore:
The “ring of law” at the thing was sacral. Oaths sworn there bound men to gods and community alike.
You do not need every gift. You need your gift - carried cleanly, honoured and lived with steadiness.
In the North, true gifts were never common. They were not party tricks, not stages for display. They were rare burdens laid by the gods or by wyrd itself, marks that set a person apart. Most people lived good and worthy lives without such fire, keeping frith, honour, and kinship as their measure. Only a few were chosen (or cursed) with sight beyond sight, voice that carried power, or hands that shifted unseen threads.
A völva’s word could shape kings, but she was seldom loved. A berserker carried Odin’s fury, but often at the cost of home and kin. Gifts were edged with peril. To mistake common sensitivity for a sacred gift is to court danger, because the gods rarely waste their marks - and when they do give them, they demand a price.
The Norse did not prize spectacle. They prized steadiness, truth, and honour. Whether your gift is sight or song, storm or silence, it is enough. Do not chase what is not yours. The roots of wyrd twist when you grasp beyond your thread.
Whatever your gift, the path remains the same: respect, patience, boundaries, truth, and responsibility. These laws are the staff on which all gifts rest. Without them, every gift becomes curse. With them, even the heaviest gift becomes not a burden you merely survive, but a craft you serve - a way of weaving your strand into the web with clarity and strength.