About the work

A closer look.

She sits on a chair carved with knotwork, staff across her knees, two ravens at her back, rune-bones scattered on the pelt, a grey storm coast behind. The volva is the Viking-age seeress: the woman a chieftain went to before he risked his ships, the one who tells Odin what is coming and says it anyway. She is working seiðr, the Norse magic a seeress sings to find what is hidden. Households paid her in food and silver for one night of it. The chair is hers, and so is the storm. One JPG that prints clean at 20x16 in. The telling says what a volva actually was: the seeress a chieftain paid in food and silver before he risked his ships. Print it yourself, or take the file to any print shop and ask for 20x16. It is the same picture either way.