In Germanic paganism, a seeress is a woman said to have the ability to foretell future events and perform sorcery. They are also referred to with many other names meaning "prophetess", "staff bearer" and "sorceress", and they are frequently called witches both in early sources and in modern scholarship. In Norse mythology the seeress is usually referred to as völva or vala.
Seeresses were an expression of the pre-Christian shamanic traditions of Europe, and they held an authoritative position in Germanic society. Mentions of Germanic seeresses occur as early as the Roman era, when, for example, they at times led armed resistance against Roman rule and acted as envoys to Rome. After the Roman Era, seeresses occur in records among the North Germanic people, where they form a reoccurring motif in Norse mythology. Both the classical and the Norse accounts imply that they used wands, and describe them as sitting on raised platforms during séances.
