As some one who is pretty familiar with Seid or Seior as it is in the Old Norse, I take issue with the seer or spaekona in the series being a maimed male. They show him taking mushrooms and other plants to see, which is accurate. But Seior was almost exclusively practiced by women, in certain places in the Scandinavian countries it was punishable by death for a man to practice Seior. Possibly because a good part of Seid rituals involved sex and being the penetrated partner.

Which is why the Aesir make fun of Loki for practicing magic, because he’s acting as the recieving partner during sex. Not necessarily with a man either as the staffs of volva, female practitioners, were phallic in nature. 

Also Seid rituals were vitally important to the culture and didn’t just involve volva but normal women from all over the village. “Vikings” is a show on history channel and is purporting itself to be semi-historically accurate. So in excluding the importance of women, other than Lagertha as a shield maiden, they are missing out on a major part of Viking culture and misrepresenting women in their show as simply wives and daughters. 

Men were buried with their swords. Women were buried with their wands. It was that important in their society.

Completely ignoring or excluding this just shows that seeing women as more than passive objects that history happens to rather than participants in history is beyond the producers of network television. Apparently the only way a woman can be shown to have power is when she acts and fights like a man. There was no such thing as an important female power structure in ancient cultures apparently. 

Ugh. 

"Don't you worry about a thing.... < 3"


doodle.