Written sources tell us thatVolvas wielded magical staffs (the Norse word völvaliterally means ‘staff-bearer’), and that they were gen-erally feared and considered dangerous because oftheir access to the supernatural. Yet archaeologically,graves containing their eponymous staffs are usuallyfound in distinctly well-to-do, elaborate burials (for adetailed discussion of such graves, see Price 2002),suggesting that such women were honoured andrespected

‘I saw her as a young, oldwitch, massive and somber’

She is also theone who displays the most violent behaviour. Sheencourages the girl to imbibe a drink to the pointof inebriation, muddling the girl’s wits, numbingher to the realities of her final moments.

suggest the fascinationwith slave girls may be something of a modernimposition on the ultimate reading of these sources.

‘When a great man dies, the members of his familysay to his slave girls and young slave boys: “whichof you will die with him?”’

Hilda Ellis (1969, 57) suggests that by choosing todie with her master, the slave girl earns the right tocall him her husband, thereby significantly improv-ing her social standing and position in the afterlife.

‘the slave girl whowanted to be killed’

schema

Though his women are silent, and he himself islikewise silent about their motivations and agency (ageneral issue discussed in Berkey 2013, 57), we cannevertheless be sure that, as living beings, theywould have had both.

and a slavevolunteers to die with him

accoutrements

karkaddan

The clergy also playedthe predominant role in pursuing and repressing subversive iueas. In 1660the only state without an official and active apparatus of censorship was theDutch republic

lebrating women’s coopera-tion, they acknowledged their contribution in achieving victory overBritain. Both sexes, noted Richard Dinsmore, ‘‘gloried in the appella-tion rebel.’’