Question: What does the word spæ mean?

Answer: The Old Norse word spæ its self means literally "spying" but in the sense of "seeing with secondsight."  Its relationship to Old Norse speja is roughly as seer is to  "to see."  Both are related to Old English spyrian"to investigate."

Question: I have heard the term oracular seidh used. How does spæ differ from "oracular seidh"?

Answer: There are many different interpretations of what spæ and oracular seidh are. However, in general there are two schools of thought when it comes to spæ and oracular seidh. The first school refers to what they do as spæ, and uses a technique that involves summoning spirits to them, and very rarely spirit jounreying to obtain information. They maintain that spirit journeys (called in Old Norse hamfara) were never used for spæ of the type seen in Eiriksagarauðr (Eirk the Red's Saga), and that it is a seperate art. They also maintain that seidh or seiðR is a seperate art altogether. This method can be read about in the article An Alternative Spæ Rite. There are a few that use spirit journeying, but refer to what they do as spæ. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the use of the terms oracular seidh and spæin this regard.

The second school, the one made popular by Hrafnar uses a spirit journey variously to Hel or the Well of Wyrd (or both) to obtain information from the spirits there. The audience is taken along on these journeys. They derive this method from Óðinn's journeys in the Voluspá, BaldersdraumR, and Vöuspá hin skamma. In each of these, he journeys to the underworld to get information from a dead Völva. The first school maintains this was because Óðinn was a god and could safely undertake such journeys, and that mortal spæ workers relied on the means described in Eiriksagarauðr alone. The second school sees Óðinn's journeys as the way it was done in Eiriksagarauðr as well.

Beyond these differences in methods of getting to the spirits to get information, the rites of both are not terribly different. Both involve communication with spirits, and both involve the spæ worker (called sometimes völva or seiðkona or seiðmaðr) going into a trance. It could well be we are dealing with two different methods of spæ in the lore, both represented by the two schools of thought today. One appears in the Elder Edda, the other in Eiriksagarauðr. One involves journeying to Hel to talk to the spirits, the other involves summoning them to them.

Question: Was spæ a form of seiðR?

Answer: Mondern spæ workers differ on this. Some feel that spæ is a part of seiðR, while others feel it does not meet the criteria. The Heathen scholar Eric Wodening maintains that seiðr is basicly an art of soul manipulation. If that is so, then spæ does not meet the criteria for seiðR. On the other hand, if one sees the spæ worker as manipulating the spirits into talking with them, then it would meet the criteria. Too, if one sees the spæ worker as reading one's orlog directly, then it would also meet the criteria for seiðR.

Question: Does seiðR involve soul retrieval, psychic healing, or sex magic?

Answer: It does not seem the ancient Germanics belived parts of the soul could be lost, at least not in the sense of other cultures. For example, one's luck could be stolen or given away, and that is a part of one's soul. However, their mind or spirit form (the hama) could not. Too, there are no examples of soul retrieval in the lore. As for psychic healing, seiðR involved soul manipulation, so it is possible it could have been used for psychic healing, even though there are no examples in the lore. As for sex magic, there is no documentation whatsoever to link seiðR to sex magic in the lore. This is not to say sex magic did not exist, but that it apparently was not considered seiðR by the ancients.