An Old Norse Description of a Witch (Patreon)

In Eiríks saga rauða (The Saga of Eirik the Red), there is a semi-famous description of a witch or seeress. The Old Norse text usually calls her a 'spákona,' literally "prophecy-woman," but it also says that she is called 'lítilvǫlva,' i.e. "little-vǫlva." I usually translate 'vǫlva' as "witch" since it brings to mind a woman of great supernatural powers; the woman who narrates the poem Vǫluspá in the Poetic Edda is a vǫlva (and Vǫluspá means "the vǫlva's prophecy").

I thought my myth students at Berkeley (and my Patreon supporters) would be interested in this passage, because the information about what she is wearing and what she eats is so precise and unusual. And I decided to make my own translation of the chapter of this saga in which she appears (Chapter 4), because it uses quite a few color terms. My research on color in Old Norse leads me to translate Old Norse color words somewhat differently than most translators.

The translated chapter is attached to this post; you might have to click on the post directly on the Patreon website in order to get to where you can download the .pdf file.