The Comparative Sigrdrífumál

The Comparative Sigrdrífumál: Historical rune magic, advice from a valkyrie, & a pagan prayer. “Branch-runes learn, if a healer wouldst be, And cure for wounds wouldst work; On the bark shalt thou write, and on trees that be With boughs to the eastward bent.”

Linguistically dated to the late pagan period of the Viking Age, Sigrdrífumál is a fascinating poem that features the voice of a valkyrie, here called Sigrdrífa (meaning ‘victory-driver; victory-bringer’). Awoken from her thorn-induced slumber, the valkyrie recites a pagan prayer to the gods before offering a horn of drink and feverishly reciting intense wisdom and runic magic to the hero. Preserved in a fragmentary state, the poem is enigmatic not only for its mysticism and insight into the Younger Futhark, the Viking Age development of the runic alphabet, but also for the Hávamál-like wisdom it provides cloaked in ethereal and uncanny imagery.