Powerful Viking women were given many titles; volvas, medicine women, witches, healers, seers, and wise women.  Such women were set apart, were revered and feared too.

Gudrid was a volva and she wove spells into the shirts she sewed to keep the wearer safe, sang weaving songs to strengthen the sails  that would take her people over the whale road of the sea to new lands, chanted spells that brought the spirit world close enough to tell what was to come. She was a healer who could brew the potions that cured fever and mixed the salves that healed a poisoned wound. She was there to welcome the birth of a child and was the last to say farewell to the dying.