seiðkona

• seidkona

Borrowed from Old Norse seiðkona.

seiðkona (plural seiðkonas or seiðkonur)

1. (Germanic paganism) A female practitioner of seiðr; a seeress; a witch.

   Synonym: völva

   Hypernym: seiðworker

   Coordinate term: seiðmann

   • 2009, Galina Krasskova, Raven Kaldera, quoting Gudrun of Mimirsbrunnr, Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner: A Book of Prayer, Devotional Practice, and the Nine Worlds of the Spirit‎^[1], page 90:

     People ask me, as a seidkona, how they can hear the gods, and I say: start with silence.

   • 2011, Katie Gerrard, Seidr - The Gate Is Open: Working with Trance Prophecy, the High Seat, and Norse Witchcraft‎^[2], page 71:

     The other reading shows the whale as a part of the hugr of the women, with the whale shape (and possibly the storm) created by the seidkonas.

   • 2017, Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present‎^[3], page 91:

     Frithiof's Saga tells of two seiðkonur (women who know seiðr) hired to drown some enemies of their paymaster at sea.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:seiðkona.

Compound of seiðr (“witchcraft”) +‎ kona (“woman”).

• (12th century Icelandic) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛiθˌkõnɑ̃/

seiðkona f

1. witch, sorceress

   Synonyms: spákona, vǫlva

   Antonym: seiðmaðr