Vølve Spirit Companion · Gróa

Meet Gróa.

There is an old poem in the Edda about a young man in terrible danger who goes to his mother’s grave at night and calls to her to wake. She rises from the earth, and from the grave she sings nine charms over him, one after another, so that nothing in the world can harm him on the road ahead. The mother’s name is Gróa. It comes from an old word that means to grow, and to heal.

Our Gróa was named after her.

She was born around the year 920 in Himmerland, in northern Jutland, on a farm at the edge of a great forest. Her mother was a vølve, and so was her grandmother, and her grandmother’s mother, so far back that no one could count them. When Gróa was born, her mother looked at her and said she would be the strongest of them all, and gave her the name from the poem.

She was right.

By twenty, Gróa was travelling from farm to farm across Jutland with her staff, the way vølver did, invited to the great halls when people needed to know what the coming year would bring. She sat on the high seat with a cloak around her and her staff across her knees. She threw henbane seeds onto the fire and breathed the smoke. Then she sang, and the spirits came, and she told the people what she saw. She wore silver rings on her toes, which almost no one else did, and people said you could hear her coming by the small sound they made on the floorboards.

She knew the nine charms from the poem, and many more besides. She sang them over warriors before raids, over women before childbirth, over children who were sick, over ships before they sailed. People said no one she had sung over ever drowned.

She took pupils, girls who had the gift, and taught them for years. Her favourite was a young woman from the east of Jutland, quick and clever, with a laugh like a bell. Gróa taught her everything.

Then the world began to change.

In the 960s, King Harald Bluetooth was baptised, and he raised a great stone at Jelling that says, in runes, that he made the Danes Christian. Priests came. The old halls began to close their doors to the vølver. And around 980, Harald built a huge ring fortress near Hobro, a perfect circle of earth walls called Fyrkat, filled with soldiers and their families.

Gróa’s favourite pupil went to live at Fyrkat. Even there, among the king’s men, people still came to her quietly for the old craft. But she died young, of a fever, and it was Gróa who buried her.

She laid her in the body of a wagon, the way the great women of the old faith were buried, so she could ride to the other world. She put a small leather pouch of henbane seeds beside her, so she would never be without the smoke. And she put silver rings on her toes, like her own.

Archaeologists found that grave a thousand years later. It is one of the most famous graves in Denmark. The woman in it is still called the vølve from Fyrkat.

After that, Gróa would not stay among the Christians any more. She refused to be baptised. She was already old, and she walked into the forest, the great Rold Forest of Himmerland, and built herself a hut of turf under the oaks. She lived there for the rest of her life, which was very long. Moss grew on the roof of her hut. Moss grew on her cloak. People who came looking for her said she looked like part of the forest.

And people did come. Farmers whose cattle were sick. Women who could not have children. Mothers whose sons were going to sea. They came in secret, and they left in secret, and Gróa sang over them all.

The last one to come was a boy of fifteen, about to sail with a ship to England. His mother had died that winter, and he had no one else to sing over him. Gróa did. She stood with her hands on his head and sang all nine charms, slowly, one after the other, the way the Gróa of the poem had sung them over her son.

The boy came home safe the next year and went straight into the forest to thank her. He found her lying under the oak outside her hut, with the moss already growing over her cloak.

Now Gróa walks again.

The nine charms

Gróa still knows all nine charms, and they are what she brings into your life. In her own words, as near as they go into English, she sings:

1. the first, to shake off whatever weighs you down
2. the second, so you never lose your way
3. the third, to turn back the floods when life overwhelms you
4. the fourth, to turn your enemies’ anger into peace
5. the fifth, to loosen every bond that has been put on you
6. the sixth, for calm when the sea of your life is wild
7. the seventh, against the cold, in body and in heart
8. the eighth, against the dead and the dark things that walk at night
9. the ninth, for wisdom, and the right words when you need them most

She is a spirit of protection, guidance, healing and freedom, and she is good for almost everything a life can throw at you.

Over the years

Gróa is very old, and she is in no hurry. She sang over people for most of a century.

At first, she watches you, the way she watched every girl who came to her wanting to learn. Then, slowly, she begins to sing over you. Keepers often say that things start to loosen in the first year: old weights, old bonds, old fears.

Over a long time, she becomes something like the grandmother you go to when you need the truth. She has taught a great many women. She is very good at it.

What she is like

Stern, wise and very old, with a dry humour that comes out when you least expect it. She does not suffer fools, and she has little patience for people who ask for help and then do nothing.

But she has a soft spot for the young, the frightened and anyone about to set out on a long road. She sang over a lot of them.

How she shows herself

The smell of moss, damp earth and oak leaves. A faint, high humming, like a woman singing very far away. A small, clear sound, like silver against wood. Dreams of a hut of turf under great trees, smoke rising from a fire, and an old woman in a green cloak with her hands on someone’s head. And a feeling of hands resting on the top of your own head, just before something hard.

What to do for her

Gróa lived in the forest with almost nothing. She asks for very little:

• Before something difficult, say: “Gróa, sing for me.” That is enough.
• Keep a little moss, a stone or an acorn by her vessel.
• Give her bread with honey, a glass of milk, water or mead.
• Take a piece of string and tie nine knots in it, one for each charm, thinking of what you need. Keep it with her.
• Spend time in a forest when you can, and tell her about it.

She sang over the dead, the living and the unborn for a hundred years. She has a few more charms left in her.

How your companion speaks

Your companion can reach you through dreams, thoughts, words, feelings and images, through a pendulum, through warmth or cold, or through automatic writing. How soon that happens depends on the spirit settling into your home, on their willingness, and on your own ability to connect. Sometimes it begins before the vessel arrives.

Before you choose

Everything known about this spirit is on this page. There are no further images, details or hidden knowledge beyond what is written here, and a printed copy comes with your order. What you discover from there is yours alone.

The pendant you receive is the exact one shown. This listing is for this one item only.

By buying, you confirm that you understand what it means to keep a spirit companion. Please read Help & FAQ first. For my background and the story behind Grimrunes, see About Hazel.

— Hazel