Dame Patricia Lee Reddy  (born 17 May 1954) is a New Zealand lawyer and businesswoman who served as the 21st governor-general of New Zealand from 2016 to 2021.

Before becoming governor-general, Reddy was a partner of a law firm, headed a major review of intelligence agencies, held multiple directorships, chaired the New Zealand Film Commission and worked as a chief negotiator on Treaty of Waitangi settlements. Prime Minister John Key advised the Queen to appoint Reddy to succeed Sir Jerry Mateparae as the Queen's representative, and Reddy was sworn in for a five-year term on 28 September 2016.

Early life and education
Born in Matamata, New Zealand, on 17 May 1954, Reddy is the daughter of Neil William and Catherine Marjorie "Kay" Reddy, both of whom were schoolteachers. Three of her forebears left Ireland and went to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. A distant cousin, singer Helen Reddy, was descended from the Australian forebear. Reddy was raised in the small Waikato towns of Te Akau and Minginui until her family moved to Hamilton when she was six years old. There, she attended Hillcrest Primary School, Peachgrove Intermediate School and Hamilton Girls' High School.

Reddy completed tertiary study at Victoria University of Wellington, graduating in 1976 as a Bachelor of Laws and in 1979 as a Master of Laws, with first-class honours.

Career
Reddy was a junior lecturer and then lecturer at Victoria University's faculty of law. In 1982 she joined the Wellington firm Watts and Patterson (now Minter Ellison Rudd Watts), becoming their first female partner in 1983. She specialised in tax, corporate and film law. She later took up a position at Brierley Investments, where she was employed for 11 years, and worked on large acquisition negotiations such as the privatisation of Air New Zealand.

Reddy served as chair of the New Zealand Film Commission and Education Payroll Ltd and was a director of Payments NZ Ltd and Active Equity Holdings Ltd. She was a chief Crown negotiator for Treaty of Waitangi settlements and a lead reviewer for the Performance Improvement Framework for the State Services Commission. She was also the deputy chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency. Other directorships included Telecom Corporation of New Zealand Ltd, SKYCITY Entertainment Group, New Zealand Post and Air New Zealand.

In 2016, Reddy and Sir Michael Cullen collaborated on an independent report to the New Zealand government reviewing legislation covering the country's intelligence agencies. Their report was released on 9 March 2016, two weeks before Reddy's appointment as governor-general was publicly announced. The report recommended expanding the Government Communications Security Bureau's rights to monitor the personal communications of New Zealanders, and was met with some controversy.

Reddy was also involved in a number of non-governmental organisations, particularly in the arts and gender equality. She was one of the founding members in 2009 of Global Women New Zealand, a group of prominent women who advocate for inclusion and diversity in leadership.

In December 2022, she was elected chair of New Zealand Rugby.

Governor-General of New Zealand

In March 2016, it was announced that Queen Elizabeth II had approved the appointment of Reddy as the next governor-general of New Zealand, for a five-year term starting in September 2016, on the advice of then Prime Minister John Key. She was officially sworn in as the 21st governor-general by Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias on 28 September. The swearing-in ceremony included a Māori pōwhiri, a 21-gun salute, and music from the Royal New Zealand Air Force Band and the New Zealand Opera Chorus; the ceremony was attended by hundreds of observers, including film-makers Sir Peter Jackson and James Cameron (a former neighbour), with an address by Prime Minister John Key. Reddy became the third woman to hold the position, after Dame Catherine Tizard and Dame Silvia Cartwright.

Reddy gave her first Royal assent as governor-general on 18 October 2016.

On 7 November 2016, Reddy welcomed King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands to New Zealand. She hosted a state banquet.

On 12 December 2016, subsequent to the resignation of John Key, Reddy swore in Bill English as prime minister and Paula Bennett as deputy prime minister.

On 7 February 2017, Reddy delivered her first annual Waitangi Day Bledisloe Address at the Bledisloe Garden reception at Government House, Wellington.

In her first overseas trip, Reddy visited Niue and the Cook Islands, the associated states of New Zealand, on 21 and 22 March 2017 respectively. Reddy was welcomed by Tom Marsters, the Queen's Representative in the Cook Islands.

On 6 May 2017, Reddy travelled to Italy, where she visited various cultural events in Rome and Venice. On 14 May, she visited Barbados, where she met with the Governor-General of Barbados, Elliott Belgrave, and the prime minister, Freundel Stuart.

On 30 September 2017, Reddy travelled to Israel for a two-day trip, in which she represented New Zealand at official commemorations to mark the centennial of the Battle of Beersheba during the First World War. She was received by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and later met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu.

On 26 October 2017, Reddy presided at the swearing-in of the new Executive Council. She signed warrants appointing the new prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and other ministers. On 8 November, Reddy attended the State Opening of Parliament where she addressed MPs from the throne.

On 24 October 2017, Reddy hosted a state welcome for the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, at Government House. A couple of weeks later, Reddy hosted German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Government House from 5 to 7 November 2017. The visit started with a wreath-laying ceremony at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.

On 5 December 2017, Reddy began a three-day trip to Malaysia. The state visit marked the sixtieth year of diplomatic relations between New Zealand and Malaysia. Among several engagements, Reddy had an audience with Sultan Muhammad V, and attended a state banquet.

On 1 January 2018, Reddy issued her New Year video message. She focused on gender equality and respect for women; Reddy also noted the 125th anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand.

Reddy welcomed former US President Barack Obama to Government House on 22 March 2018. On 23 April, Reddy travelled to Turkey to represent New Zealand at commemorative events associated with the Gallipoli campaign; on 26 April, she met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Presidential Palace in Ankara.

On 28 October 2018, Reddy welcomed members of the Royal Family, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, to Wellington. She also hosted a reception at Government House honouring the 125th anniversary of women's suffrage. The following month, on 19 November, Reddy hosted the President of Chile Sebastián Piñera. On 3 December she welcomed the President of the Republic of Korea, Moon Jae-in and his wife Kim Jung-sook to New Zealand during a ceremony at Auckland Government House.

On 15 March 2019, Reddy released a message expressing condolences to the victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings. She remarked "Now more than ever is the time to affirm the values that we hold dear – compassion, kindness and tolerance.".

On 7 June 2019, Reddy represented New Zealand at the commemorations for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Portsmouth in the United Kingdom.

In October 2019 she visited Japan on an official visit.

Reddy's last overseas visit was to Australia in June 2021. She completed her term as Governor-General of New Zealand on 28 September 2021.

Personal life

Reddy is married to the former New Zealand Judicial Conduct Commissioner, Sir David Gascoigne. They married one week before her appointment as governor-general was announced. She and her first husband, Geoff Harley, a tax barrister, divorced in 1988. Both husbands were her associates at Rudd Watts & Stone in Wellington in the 1980s.

Reddy is the first vegan governor-general. Accordingly, the banquet at her swearing-in ceremony was entirely vegan.

Honours and awards

In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours, Reddy was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the arts and business. In June 2016, she was made a Dame of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.

Reddy was promoted as an Additional Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and appointed an Additional Companion of the Queen's Service Order on 27 June 2016 in preparation for becoming governor-general. As governor-general, Reddy is entitled to be styled "Her Excellency" while in office and "The Right Honourable" for life.

Victoria University of Wellington conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Reddy on 13 December 2017.

Reddy was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the 2022 New Year Honours. The president of Hungary awarded Reddy the Commander's Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in 2022.

Arms

See also
 List of female representatives of heads of state

References

External links

 Biography of The Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy GNZM, QSO

1954 births
Companions of the Queen's Service Order
Dames Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
Dames of the Order of St John
Governors-General of New Zealand
Living people
20th-century New Zealand lawyers
New Zealand people of Irish descent
People educated at Hamilton Girls' High School
People from Matamata
Victoria University of Wellington alumni
Academic staff of Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order
21st-century New Zealand lawyers
Commander's Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (civil)
Female governors-general

Patsy Reddy


Handle could mean:

 Handle (grip), a device, attached to an object, that is held to move or use the object
 Handle (mathematics), a term used in topology
 Handle, the friction and flexibility of sheets of material as measured by Handle-o-Meter
 Handle, a pseudonym used in Citizens band radio
 Handle or username, a pseudonym used within an online system
 Adjustment handles let a user interface designer resize a control.
 A handle is a 1.760001 liter (approx. half gallon) bottle of a distilled beverage because bottles of that size often have a handle
 Handle, the total amount bet at a place such as a horse racing track, dog racing track, or jai alai fronton
 A doorhandle.

Handle


Claude Goudimel (c. 1514 to 1520 – between 28 August and 31 August 1572) was a French composer, music editor and publisher, and music theorist of the High Renaissance.

Biography
Claude Goudimel was born in Besançon, modern-day France, which at that time was a French-speaking imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire.  Few details of his life are known until he is documented in Paris in 1549, where he was studying at the University of Paris; in that year he also published a book of chansons.  In the early 1550s he worked with printer , and may have still been studying at the University of Paris until 1555; by 1555 he was also Du Chemin's partner in the publishing business.

Goudimel moved to Metz in 1557, converting to Protestantism, and is known to have been associated with the Huguenot cause there; however he left Metz due to the increasing hostility of the city authorities to Protestants during the Wars of Religion.  First he settled in his native town of Besançon, and later moved to Lyon.

It is supposed Goudimel was murdered in Lyon in August 1572, during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, along with much of the Huguenot population of the city. His last letter to his close friend and poet Melissus, showing Goudimel sick with fever on 23 August 1572, allowed M. Weckerlin to suppose that instead of dying in the massacre of Saint Barthelemy, the master could have died quite simply in his bed. However, there is no definitive evidence to support or contradict either theory of his passing.

The death of Goudimel inspired among the versifiers of this time a respectable number of epitaphs, sonnets and other famous pieces in French, Latin and Greek. That by J. Posthius begins with these lines:

'Claudius, the sweet,

was preferred above the song of the swans,

and [was] the Orpheus of our time.'

Music and influence
Goudimel is most famous for his four-part settings of the psalms of the Genevan Psalter, in the French versions of Clément Marot. In one of his four complete editions he puts - unlike other settings at the time - the melody in the topmost voice, the method which has prevailed in hymnody to the present day.  In addition he composed masses, motets, and a considerable body of secular chansons, almost all of which date from before his conversion to Protestantism (probably around 1560).

In 1554, he became the editor of a large collection of masses, motets and Magnificat of several composers, a collection printed by Nicolas Duchemin, and in which Goudimel appeared as the author of seven Latin and Catholic works. In the year following, Goudimel, still at Duchemin's, brought out a book of pieces for four voices of his composition on the Odes of Horace. However, he felt some contrition about setting work of the pagan poet, and in 1557 he wrote:
"To Monsieur de La Bloctière, Mr. Claude Belot, Angevin, advocate in the court of Parliament of Paris, C. Goudimel, his good friend, wishes good health. Sir, ... [I] present to you this third book of Music of mine on the divine verses of the divine and royal Prophet. Also in no way could I choose the man, who seems to me to favor this little work of better heart than you, who alone amiably forced me to change, even quit, the profane lyre of the profane poet Horace, to memorize in hand and boldly undertake to touch and wield the sacred harp of our great David."

Goudimel's stay in Metz lasted several years. It was there that he addressed, in 1564, the dedication of his first complete psalter to "Mgr Roger de Bellegarde, ordinary gentleman of the king's room," and, in 1565, that of the second psalter to "Mgr d'Auzances, knight of the Order and lieutenant general of the king." On 18 March 1565 he was named godfather of a child at the reformed church of this city. in 1566, he published his seventh book of psalms in the form of motets. It was, therefore, after his departure from Paris that the celebrities Adrien le Roy and Robert Ballard published his masses in 1558; and it was also during his time in Metz that Goudimel began to concentrate all of his artistic ability in the various musical interpretations of the French translation of the psalms by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze. He worked on the continuation of his large collection of motet-shaped psalms, and wrote almost simultaneously two different versions of the complete psalter, each containing one hundred and fifty psalms.

Goudimel's style tends to be homophonic, with an intriguing use of syncopated rhythm and melisma and staggered voice entries to bring out inner parts, especially in the chansons. His Psalm settings, however, are more polyphonic, characteristic of the moderate contrapuntal style exemplified by the chansons of Jacques Arcadelt, an approximate contemporary.

The widespread claim that he taught Palestrina is now regarded as untenable. His Opera Omnia extends to 14 volumes, though several of his works are fragmentary, missing one or more voices.

References and further reading
Michel Brenet, Claude Goudimel: Essai Bio-bibliographique. Besançon, Imprimerie et Lithographie de Paul Jaquin, 1898.
Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance.  New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.
The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed.  Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky.  New York, Schirmer Books, 1993.

Discography
 Psalms de la Réforme (Psalms of the French Reformation), Ensemble Claude Goudimel: Naxos, 1995.
 Psaumes et Chansons de la Réforme (Psalms and Anthems of the Reformation), Dominique Visse, Ensemble Clement Janequin: Harmonia Mundi, 2000.
 Claude Goudimel (1514-1572): Six Psaumes; Mass (Missa) 'Le Bien Que J'Ay''': Erato, 2017.

External links

 The Genevan Psalter Resource Center
 Psalm 25 A toi, mon Dieu, mon coeur monte
 Psalm 25 "A toi, mon Dieu, mon cœur monte" from the Genevan Psalter'' performed at an event at the cathedral in Noyon, France marking the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth in 2009.  YouTube video (3:06)

16th-century births
1572 deaths
Businesspeople from Besançon
Renaissance composers
French Calvinist and Reformed Christians
French classical composers
French male classical composers
French Protestants
Huguenots
People murdered in France
French murder victims
Musicians from Besançon

Claude Goudimel


Robert Michael Winner (30 October 1935 – 21 January 2013) was a British filmmaker, writer, and media personality. He is known for directing numerous action, thriller, and black comedy films in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including several collaborations with actors Oliver Reed and Charles Bronson.

Winner's best-known works include Death Wish (1974) and its first two sequels, the World War II comedy Hannibal Brooks (1969), the hitman thriller The Mechanic (1972), the supernatural horror film The Sentinel (1977), the neo-noir The Big Sleep (1978), the satirical comedy Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), and the Revisionist Westerns Lawman (1971) and Chato's Land (1972).

Winner was known as a media personality in the United Kingdom, appearing regularly on television talk programmes and publishing a restaurant review column for The Sunday Times. He was also a founder of the Police Memorial Trust.

Early life and education
Winner was born at 40 Belsize Grove, Belsize Park, Hampstead, London, England, the only child of Jewish parents George Joseph Winner (1910–1975), of Russian-Jewish origin, and Helen (née Zlota; 1906-1984), of Polish-Jewish parentage. George Winner was a businessman and company director responsible for running a branch of the Winner's clothing chain founded by his father, who became a naturalised British citizen in 1910. Following his father's death, Winner's mother gambled recklessly and sold art and furniture worth around £10m at the time, bequeathed to her not only for her life but to Michael thereafter. She died at the age of 78, in 1984.

Winner was educated at St Christopher School, Letchworth, and Downing College, Cambridge, where he read law and economics. He also edited the university's student newspaper, Varsity, and was the youngest ever editor up to that time, both in age and in terms of his university career (being only in the second term of his second year). Winner had earlier written a newspaper column, "Michael Winner's Showbiz Gossip", in the Kensington Post from the age of fourteen. The first issue of Showgirl Glamour Revue in 1955 had him writing another film and show-business gossip column, "Winner's World". Such jobs allowed him to meet and interview several leading film personalities, including James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. He also wrote for the New Musical Express.

Winner claimed in his memoirs that he avoided National Service by pretending to be gay.

Career

Shorts
Winner directed his first travelogue, This is Belgium (1957), which was largely shot on location in East Grinstead. It was financed by his father. Later, he wrote, produced and directed a short, The Square (1957), starring A. E. Matthews, and which again was financed by Winner's father.

Winner's first on-screen feature credit was earned as a writer for the low-budget crime film Man with a Gun (1958) directed by Montgomery Tully. He went on to direct the shorts Danger, Women at Work (1959) and Watch the Birdie (1959), and was Associate Producer on Floating Fortress (1959), produced by Harold Baim.

Early British feature films
Winner's first feature as director was Shoot to Kill (1960), which he also wrote. Dermot Walsh starred. He followed this with Climb Up the Wall (1960), which was essentially a series of music acts presented by Jack Jackson, but which Winner nonetheless wrote and directed.

Winner's third feature as director was the thriller Murder on the Campus (1961), also known as Out of the Shadow, which Winner also wrote and helped produce. Dermot Walsh starred once again, together with Terence Longdon. Shortly afterwards, Winner wrote and directed the short Girls Girls Girls! (1961) which was narrated by Jackson, and directed the short feature Old Mac (1961), written by Richard Aubrey and starring Charles Lamb, Vi Stevens and Tania Mallet.

Winner directed the shorts Haunted England (1961), It's Magic (1962), and Behave Yourself (1962), the latter of which was based on Emily Post's Book of Manners, and whose cast included Jackson and Dennis Price.

Winner achieved success with a musical he directed, Play It Cool (1962), starring Billy Fury and Michael Anderson Jr., and which was distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated.

Winner's next feature, Some Like It Cool (1962), is the tale of a young woman who introduces her prudish husband and in-laws to the joys of nudism. Filmed at Longleat, Winner was afraid the sight of bare flesh would offend the magistrate for the area, so he confided his worries to the landowner, the Marquess of Bath. 'Don't worry,' said the Marquess, 'I am the local magistrate.' The film cost £9,000 and Winner said it made its money back in a week.

Winner went on to update Gilbert and Sullivan, writing the screenplay and directing a version of The Mikado titled The Cool Mikado (1963), starring Frankie Howerd and Stubby Kaye and which was produced by Harold Baim.

Winner's first significant project was West 11 (1963), a realistic tale of London drifters starring Alfred Lynch, Eric Portman and Diana Dors, and which was based on a script by Hall and Waterhouse.

Oliver Reed
Winner's film The System (1964), also known as The Girl-Getters, began a partnership with actor Oliver Reed that would last for six films over a 25-year period, and was based on a script by Peter Draper. Winner would later receive an offer from Columbia to direct a comedy, You Must Be Joking! (1965). It starred American actor Michael Callan and a supporting cast that included Lionel Jeffries and Denholm Elliott, while Winner also wrote the script.

Winner was reunited with Reed on The Jokers (1967), a comedy where Reed was teamed with Michael Crawford. It was based on a script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais from a story by Winner for his own company, Scimitar Productions (for Universal's English operations, then under Jay Kanter). The resulting movie was a popular hit.

Winner and Reed then made the comedy-drama I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967), co-starring Orson Welles, Carol White and Harry Andrews, also for Scimitar. Draper wrote the script, which was a spoof of the advertising world, and the film was also done for Universal.

Winner did some uncredited directing on A Little of What You Fancy (1967), a documentary about the history of the British music hall. Then he and Reed made their fourth feature together, the World War II satire Hannibal Brooks (1969), again from a Clement/La Frenais script and based on a story by Winner.

In 1970, Winner directed The Games for 20th Century Fox, the film is about the Olympic Games and which starred Ryan O'Neal and Stanley Baker, with script by Eric Segal.

Early American films
Hannibal Brooks drew notice in Hollywood, and Winner soon received an opportunity to direct his first American film, for United Artists; this was Lawman (1971), a Western starring Burt Lancaster and Robert Duvall, and for which Gerald Wilson was the writer.

Back in England, Winner directed Marlon Brando in The Nightcomers (1971), a prequel to The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, the first of many films for which Winner was credited as editor using the pseudonym 'Arnold Crust'.

Charles Bronson
Winner edited, produced and directed Chato's Land (1972), recounting a mixed race native American fighting with white people. It starred Charles Bronson and was made for Scimitar through United Artists. Once more, Gerald Wilson wrote the script. Winner's second film for Bronson and United Artists was The Mechanic (1972), a thriller in which professional assassins are depicted. It was based on a story and script by Lewis John Carlino and Winner also edited, although he did not produce; he replaced Monte Hellman as director.

The following year, Winner cast Lancaster again in the espionage drama Scorpio (1973), co-starring Alain Delon and made for Scimitar and United Artists. Winner also produced and directed a third film with Bronson, The Stone Killer (1973), for Columbia and in collaboration with producer Dino De Laurentiis.

Death Wish
Winner and Bronson collaborated on Death Wish (1974), a film that defined the subsequent careers of both men. Based on a novel by Brian Garfield and adapted for the screen by Wendell Mayes, Death Wish was originally planned for director Sidney Lumet, under contract with United Artists. The commitment of Lumet to another film and UA's questioning of its subject matter, led to the film's eventual production by De Laurentiis through Paramount Pictures. Death Wish follows Paul Kersey, a liberal New York architect who becomes a gun-wielding vigilante after his wife is murdered and daughter is raped. With a script adjusted to Bronson's persona, the film generated controversy during its screenings but was one of the year's highest grossers.

Non-Bronson period
Winner tried to break out of action films with Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), an animal comedy Winner produced and directed, starring Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Art Carney, and Milton Berle. Intended as a satire of Hollywood, it was a financial failure. Of modest success was his horror film The Sentinel (1977), which Winner wrote, produced and directed for Universal, and which was based on the novel by Jeffrey Konvitz.

Winner then wrote, produced and directed the remake of Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep (1978), starring Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe with a strong support cast including John Mills, Sarah Miles, Richard Boone and Candy Clarke. The film was relocated to England, and financed by ITC Films. Also for ITC, Winner produced, edited and directed the organised crime thriller Firepower (1979). It was meant to star Bronson, who withdrew, and wound up starring Sophia Loren and James Coburn.

Reunion with Bronson/Cannon Films
By the early 1980s, Winner found himself in great need of a successful film and accepted Charles Bronson's request to film Death Wish II (1981), a sequel to the 1974 hit. Bronson had already signed a lucrative deal with Cannon Films, independent producer of exploitation fare and marginal art house titles. The sequel, co-starring Bronson's wife Jill Ireland, considerably increased the violence to more graphic levels. Winner said the film was 'the same, but different', to the original. 'That's what sequels are – Rocky II, Rocky III – you don't see Sylvester Stallone move to the Congo and become a nurse. Here the look of LA is what's different. Besides – rape doesn't date!' Death Wish II made a $2 million profit for Cannon films and made an extra $29 million worldwide.

The success of Death Wish II enabled Winner to raise money from Cannon for a dream project: a 1983 remake of 1945's The Wicked Lady, this time starring Faye Dunaway and which Winner wrote, produced and directed.

For Miracle Films, Winner produced and directed the thriller Scream for Help (1984). He also produced the film Claudia (1985), doing some uncredited directing and editing.

Winner was reunited with Bronson and Cannon for Death Wish 3 (1985), which – although set in New York City – was mostly filmed in London for budgetary reasons. Winner produced and edited."

Winner was also attached to direct Cannon's 1990 film Captain America, from a script by James Silke, which he would revise with Stan Hey, and then Stan Lee and Lawrence Block. By 1987, however, Winner was off the project.

Winner's final film for Cannon was an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel Appointment with Death (1989) starring Peter Ustinov as Poirot. Winner produced, edited and directed; but despite a strong support cast including Lauren Bacall and Carrie Fisher, the film flopped.

Final British films
After Cannon Films entered bankruptcy, Winner confined himself to British productions. He produced and directed an adaptation of the Alan Ayckbourn musical play A Chorus of Disapproval (1989) with Anthony Hopkins, and also wrote the script with Ayckbourn.

Winner produced, directed and edited the Michael Caine and Roger Moore farce Bullseye! (1990), based on a story by Winner. The film's reception was generally poor, with the film being described as "appallingly unfunny" in The Radio Times Guide to Films. Later, he wrote, produced and directed Dirty Weekend (1993), starring Lia Williams; and hosted the television series True Crimes, which was cancelled in 1994.

In 1994, Winner appeared as a guest artist – alongside Joan Collins, Christopher Biggins and Marc Sinden (who in 1983 had appeared in Winner's The Wicked Lady) – in Steven Berkoff's film version of his own play Decadence.

Winner's final film as director was Parting Shots (1999), which he also wrote, produced and edited. The film was critically reviled and flopped commercially.

Other media activity
Winner was a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions, and later appeared on television programmes including BBC1's Question Time and BBC2's Have I Got News for You. He was also an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail throughout the 2000s, and an honorary member of BAFTA and of the Directors Guild of Great Britain. His autobiography Winner Takes All: A Life of Sorts was published by Robson Books in 2006, it largely describes his experiences with many big-screen actors. Winner also wrote a dieting book, The Fat Pig Diet Book.

Winner also featured in television commercials that he himself directed for insurance company esure between 2002 and 2009, with his trademark catchphrase "Calm down, dear! It's just a commercial!" He was referred to repeatedly in the QI edition "Illness".

He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 2001 when he was surprised by Michael Aspel while dining with friends at a central London restaurant.

Winner appeared in the first series of The Apprentice UK. He agreed to participate in a charity auction, offering dinner for four and two bottles of house wine at "London's most difficult restaurant to get in," The Ivy. The experience sold for £2,600.

Personal life

Winner became engaged to Geraldine Lynton-Edwards in 2007. They had met in 1957, when he was a 21-year-old filmmaker and she was a 16-year-old actress and ballet dancer. They married on 19 September 2011 at Chelsea Town Hall, London. Michael and Shakira Caine were witnesses to the ceremony.

Winner lived in the former home of painter Luke Fildes in Holland Park, Woodland House, designed for Fildes by Richard Norman Shaw. It was announced in 2008 that Winner intended to leave his house as a museum, but discussions with Kensington and Chelsea council apparently stalled after they were unable to meet the £15 million cost of purchasing the freehold of the property, the lease of which expires in 2046.

On 1 January 2007, Winner acquired the bacterial infection Vibrio vulnificus from eating an oyster in Barbados. He almost had a leg amputated and verged on the brink of death several times. Before recovering, Winner was infected with the 'hospital superbug' MRSA. In September 2011, he was admitted to hospital with food poisoning after eating steak tartare, a raw meat dish, four days in a row. The dish is not recommended for those with a weak immune system, and in retrospect Winner regarded his decision to eat it as "stupid".

Police Memorial Trust
Winner was an active proponent of law enforcement issues and established the Police Memorial Trust after WPC Yvonne Fletcher was murdered in 1984. Thirty-six local memorials honouring police officers who died in the line of duty, have been erected since 1985, beginning with that of Fletcher in St. James's Square, London. The National Police Memorial, opposite St. James's Park at the junction of Horse Guards Road and The Mall, was also unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 26 April 2005.

In 2006, it was revealed that Winner had been offered, but declined, an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for his part in campaigning for the Police Memorial Trust. Winner remarked: "An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King's Cross station." Winner subsequently alleged (on his Twitter page) that he had also turned down a knighthood.

Winner's Dinners
Winner remained prominent in British life for other reasons, including his outspoken restaurant reviews. His fame as a restaurant critic was such that, at a Cornwall cafe, an unconsumed piece of his serving of lemon drizzle cake was incorporated into the Museum of Celebrity Leftovers. Winner wrote his column, "Winner's Dinners", in The Sunday Times for more than twenty years. On 2 December 2012, he announced that he was to contribute his last review because of poor health, which had put him in hospital eight times in the previous seven months.

Political views
Winner was an outspoken character. He was a member of the Conservative Party and supporter of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Winner was praised for having liberal views on gay rights, in particular during an episode of Richard Littlejohn Live and Uncut, where he attacked the presenter (who had been in the midst of an attack on two lesbian guests) for his stance on same-sex marriage and parenting, going so far as to say to him "The lesbians have come over with considerable dignity whereas you have come over as an arsehole." After Winner's death, this moment was brought up many times in eulogies to him. In a 2009 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Winner bemoaned political correctness, and said that if he was Prime Minister, he would be "to the right of Hitler".

Interests and hobbies
Winner was an art collector, and a connoisseur of British illustration. Winner's art collection includes works by Jan Micker, William James, Edmund Dulac, E. H. Shepard, Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen and Beatrix Potter. His collection once included almost 200 signed colour-washed illustrations by Donald McGill.

Winner spent his free time gardening ("my garden is floodlit, so I quite often garden after midnight") or with a string of girlfriends, notably the actress Jenny Seagrove. He claimed that his life had not altered in the past 40 years: "I do essentially the same things I did as an 18-year-old," he said. "I go on dates, I make films, I write. Nothing has really changed."

Death
In an interview with The Times in October 2012, Winner said liver specialists had told him that he had between eighteen months and two years to live. He said he had researched assisted suicide offered at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, but found the bureaucracy of the process off-putting. Winner died at his home, Woodland House in Holland Park, on 21 January 2013, aged 77. Winner was buried following a traditional Jewish funeral at Willesden Jewish Cemetery.

Posthumous controversies
Several stunt men allege Winner was an abusive and dangerous director on film sets to his crew.

In one instance, on the production of Death Wish 3, Rocky Taylor alleges Winner created a dangerous and deceptive work environment that led to him being severely injured during a stunt. The moment called for Taylor to jump off a building and across a controlled blaze and into an arranged set of boxes. However, Taylor says Winner turned up height of the flames while cameras rolled without consulting him. Taylor completed the stunt but missed the boxes by "about a foot," breaking his pelvis, back and receiving some burns. Taylor says Winner visited him in hospital with several newspaper photographers in tow, laid next to Taylor and whispered in his ear "don't think you can sue me, Rocky, because you can't get away with it." Taylor says the injury affected his career and "ruined my life." He recreated and performed the stunt successfully 26 years later in 2011.

Following the allegations made against Harvey Weinstein in October 2017, Winner was accused by three women, Debbie Arnold, Cindy Marshall-Day and an unidentified woman, of demanding they expose their breasts to him – in Arnold's case during an audition at his home. The two named women refused. Actress Marina Sirtis, who was directed by Winner in The Wicked Lady and Death Wish 3, has implied she was mistreated by Winner, as reported by The Stage in 2019:

Filmography
(from 1967 also producer)

Shorts

Feature films

Bibliography
Food writing
 Winner's Dinners: The Good, the Bad and the Unspeakable (1999)
 The Winner Guide to Dining and Whining (2002)
 The Harry's Bar Cookbook (2006, Arrigo Cipriani, foreword by Michael Winner)
 The Fat Pig Diet (2007)
 Winner's Dinners: The Restaurant & Hotel Guide (2009)
 Unbelievable!: My Life in Restaurants and Other Places (2010)
Memoirs
 Winner Takes All: A Life of Sorts (2004)
 Tales I Never Told (2011)
Miscellaneous
 Michael Winner's True Crimes (1992)
 Michael Winner's Hymie Joke Book (2012)
Film criticism
 The Films of Michael Winner (1978, Bill Harding, foreword by Michael Winner)
Film biography
 Fade To Black (2003, Paul Donnelley, foreword by Michael Winner)
Additionally
 Six English Filmmakers (2014, Paul Sutton, contributor Michael Winner)

References

External links

 Michael Winner at BFI Screenonline
 Winner's Dinners review database
 Michael Winner's appearances on Combat Radio

1935 births
2013 deaths
People from Hampstead
People educated at St Christopher School, Letchworth
Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge
English Jews
English people of Polish-Jewish descent
English people of Russian-Jewish descent
English film producers
English screenwriters
English male screenwriters
Film directors from London
English television personalities
English art collectors
Writers from London
English food writers
British restaurant critics
The Sunday Times people
Conservative Party (UK) people
English philanthropists
Burials at Willesden Jewish Cemetery
Action film directors
English male non-fiction writers
20th-century English businesspeople

Michael Winner


In Germanic paganism, a seeress is a woman said to have the ability to foretell future events and perform sorcery. They are also referred to with many other names meaning "prophetess", "staff bearer", "wise woman" and "sorceress", and they are frequently called witches or priestesses both in early sources and in modern scholarship. In Norse mythology the seeress is usually referred to as völva or vala.

Seeresses were an expression of the pre-Christian shamanic traditions of Europe, and they held an authoritative position in Germanic society. Mentions of Germanic seeresses occur as early as the Roman era, when, for example, they at times led armed resistance against Roman rule and acted as envoys to Rome. After the Roman Era, seeresses occur in records among the North Germanic people, where they form a reoccurring motif in Norse mythology. Both the classical and the Norse accounts imply that they used wands, and describe them as sitting on raised platforms during séances.

Ancient Roman and Greek literature records the name of several Germanic seeresses, including Albruna, Veleda, Ganna, and, by way of an archaeological find, Waluburg. Norse mythology mentions several seeresses, some of them by name, including Heimlaug völva, Þorbjörg lítilvölva, Þordís spákona, and Þuríðr Sundafyllir. In North Germanic religion, the goddess Freyja has a particular association with seeresses, and there are indications that the Viking princess and Rus' saint, Olga of Kiev, was one such, serving as a "priestess of Freyja" among the Scandinavian elite in Kievan Rus' before they converted to Christianity.

Archaeologists have identified several graves that appear to be the remains of Scandinavian seeresses. These graves contain objects such as wands, seeds with hallucinogenic and aphrodisiac properties, and a variety of items indicating high status.

Societal beliefs about the practices and abilities of seeresses would contribute to the development of the European concept of "witches", because their practices survived Christianization, although the practitioners became marginalized, and evolved into north European mediaeval witchcraft. Germanic seeresses are mentioned in popular culture in a variety of contexts. In Germanic Heathenry, a modern practice of Germanic pagan religion, seeresses once again play a role.

Names and terminology

Aside from the names of individuals, Roman era accounts do not contain information about how the early Germanic peoples referred to them, but sixth century Goth scholar Jordanes reported in his Getica that the early Goths had called their seeresses  (Goth-Latin). The word also appears in Old English (OE),  ("seeress" or "witch") and in Old High German (OHG) as  ("necromancy") and  ("necromancer"), and from these forms an earlier Proto-Germanic form *χalja-rūnō(n) has been reconstructed, in which the first element is *χaljō, i.e. Hel, the abode of the dead, and the second is *rūnō ("mystery, secret"). At this time the word *rūnō still referred to chanting and not to letters (rune), and in the sense "incantation" it was probably borrowed from Proto-Germanic into Finnish where runo means "poem".

In OE, hellerune ("seeress" or "witch"), or helrūne, has the synonym hægtesse, a term that is also found in Old Dutch, haghetisse ("witch") and in OHG , hagzussa or hagzissa. These West Germanic forms are probably derived from a Proto-Germanic word with positive connotations, *χaʒaz, from which are also derived Old Norse (ON) hagr ("skillful") and Middle High German (MHG) be-hac ("of pleasure"). However, it is sometimes proposed that the first element is a term corresponding to Swedish hage ("wooded paddock") in the sense of "fence", i.e. PGmc *χaʒōn ("pasture", "enclosure"), from whence also English hedge (through *χaʒjaz). In that case it would be etymologically related to ON túnriða and OHG  ("fence rider"), where tún/zûn does not refer to an enclosure but metonymically to the fence surrounding it. In the Westrogothic law , it was a punishable offence to accuse a woman of having ridden a fence-gate, in the appearance (hamr) of a troll. Kluge reconstructs the PGmc form as *haga-tusjō, where the last element *tusjō could mean "spirit", from PIE *dhwes-.

The various names in North Germanic sources may give the impression that there were two types of sorceress, the staff-bearers, or seeresses (vǫlva), and the women who were named for performing magic (seiðkona). However, there is little that the scholar could use to differentiate them, if such a distinction ever existed, and the two types of names are often used synonymously and about the same women.

The term vǫlva means "staff bearer" and is related etymologically to the names of the early Germanic seeresses Ganna, Gambara and Waluburg. The use of wands in divination and clairvoyance appears to have lived on from the classical era into the Viking Age. The name vǫlva and derivations of the name appear 23 times in the sources, and seiðkona ("seiðr woman/wife") appears eight times; the two terms are often used interchangeably. The second most common term is spákona ("prophecy woman/wife") with the variants spákerling ("old prophecy woman") and spámey ("prophecy maiden"), which appears 22 times, again interchangeably with vǫlva and seiðkona to refer to the same woman. There is also the name vísendakona ("wise woman" or "knowing woman"), which appears eight times in the sources. Þorbiorg in Eiríks saga rauða is called both a vísendakona, vǫlva and a spákona. It is possible that the names once had different meanings, but at the time of the saga's composition, they were no longer distinguished in meaning, just as the words sorceress and witch are interchangeable in modern popular language. There are also five instances of a group of rarer names having the element galdr ("incantation"), with the names galdrakonur ("galdr women"), galdrakerling ("old galdr woman") and galdrasnót ("galdr lady"). In addition there is the word galdrakind ("galdr creature") with negative connotations.

There is also the reconstructed word *vitka which may be connected to the Wecha in Gesta Danorum, book III and refer to a kind of sorceress. It seems to be the feminine form of vitki ("sorcerer"), and it is only attested from Lokasenna 24, where Loki accuses Odin of having travelled around the world vitka líki (in the "guise of a vitka").

The personal name Heiðr appears 66 times as a word for sorceress in the prose sources. It appears twice in the Poetic Edda, in Hyndluljóð and in Vǫluspá, where it is a name assumed by Gullveig in connection with the War of the Gods. In a study by McKinnell of Norse sagas and Landnámabók, there is only one instance of a woman named Heiðr who does not act as a seeress. The name has been connected to heath and heathen, but it has also been explained with meanings that connote "radiance and golden light, honour and payment".

Lastly, there is the term fjolkyngiskona that only meant "sorceress", and a number of derogatory names that correspond to "witch" with many negative connotations, and these terms include skass ("ogress"), flagð(kona) ("ogress"), gýgr ("ogress"), fála ("Giantess"), hála and fordæða ("evil doer").

The term shamanism

There has long been an academic debate on whether the seeresses' practice should be regarded as shamanism. However, this does not pertain to the concept of shamanism in a wider definition (see e.g. the definitions of the OED), but rather to what degree similarities can be found between what is preserved about them in Old Norse literature and the shamanism of northern Eurasia in a more restricted sense. The majority of scholars support the "shamanic interpretation, and the presence of ecstatic rituals" (e.g. Ellis Davidson, Ohlmarks, Pálsson, Meulengracht Sørensen, Turville-Petre and de Vries), while a minority is sceptic (e.g. Bugge, Dillmann, Dumézil, Näsström and Schjødt), but there are divergent opinions within the two camps. Clive Tolley, who is among the sceptics, writes that if shamanism is defined as "tundra shamanism" as represented by the Sámi of Scandinavia and as defined by Edward Vajda, then the differences are too great. He allies himself with the position of Ohlmarks, who was familiar with a wide range shamanism and rejected it in 1939, in a debate with Dag Strömbäck who found similarities with Sámi practices. However, Tolley concedes that if shamanism is defined in line with the words of Åke Hultkrantz (1993) as "[...] direct contact with spiritual beings and guardian spirits, together with the mediating role played by a shaman in a ritual setting [...] The presence of guardian spirits during the trance and following shamanic actions [...]" then it is correct to define their practices as "broadly shamanic". However, he considers that in this case shamanism also includes traditional practices from a large part of Europe, such as the witchcraft of medieval Europe and the practices of ancient Greece. An opposing view is held by Neil Price, who has studied circumpolar shamanism, and argues that he finds enough similarities to define the North Germanic seeresses as shamans also in the stricter sense.

Role in society

Fate is central in Germanic literature and mythology, and men's destiny is inextricably linked to supernatural women and seeresses. Morris comments that the importance of fate can not be overstressed, and the seeresses were feared and revered by gods and mortals alike. Even the god Odin himself consulted them. The Norns are an example of the link between women and fate, which was elevated in Germanic society, and the association was incarnated by the seeresses.

The political role that the seeresses played was always present when the Romans were dealing with the Germanic tribes, and the Romans had to take their opinion into account. Ganna's political influence was so considerable that she was taken to Rome together with Masyos, the king of her tribe, where they had an audience with the Roman emperor Domitian and were treated with honours, after which they returned home.
The Roman historian Tacitus, who appears to have met Ganna and to have been informed by her of most of what we know of early Germanic religion, wrote:

Another telling account by Tacitus about their power was a statement by the Batavian tribe to the Romans:

However, the seeresses do not appear to have been just any women, but were those who occupied a special office. Both Mogk and Sundqvist have commented that although the seeresses were referred to as "priestesses" by the Romans, they probably should not be so labelled in a strict sense. As for the later North Germanic version, Näsström writes that the völva did not perform any sacrifices, but her roles as a prophetess and as a sorceress were still important aspects of the spiritual life of her society. Price comments that Katherine Morris has usefully defined these women:

Attestations
Germanic seeresses are first described by the Romans, who discuss the role seeresses played in Germanic society. A gap in the historical record occurs until the North Germanic record began over a millennium later, when the Old Norse sagas frequently mention seeresses among the North Germanic peoples. It is noteworthy that Veleda, who prophesied in a high tower in the first century, finds an echo in the thirteenth-century account of Þorbjörg lítilvölva who prophesied from a raised platform in Eiríks saga rauða. Simek comments that the saga's account of Þorbjörg's raised platform and her wand conveys authentic practices from Germanic paganism.

Roman Era

In his ethnography of the ancient Germanic peoples, Germania, Tacitus expounds on some of these points. In chapter eight, he reports the following about women in then-contemporary Germanic society and the role of seeresses:
A. R. Birley translation (1999):
It is recorded that some armies that were already wavering and on the point of collapse have been rallied by women pleading steadfastly, blocking their path with bared breasts, and reminding their men how near they themselves are to being taken captive. This they fear by a long way more desperately for their women than for themselves. Indeed, peoples who are ordered to include girls of noble family among their hostages are thereby placed under a more effective restraint. They even believe that there is something holy and an element of the prophetic in women, hence they neither scorn their advice nor ignore their predictions. Under the Deified Vespasian we witnessed how Veleda was long regarded by many of them as a divine being; and in former times, too, they revered Albruna and a number of other women, not through servile flattery nor as if they had to make goddesses out of them.
Writing also in the first century AD, Greek geographer and historian Strabo records the following about the Cimbri, a Germanic people, in chapter 2.3 of volume seven of his encyclopedia Geographica:
Horace Leonard Jones translation (1924):
Writers report a custom of the Cimbri to this effect: Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise.
Writing in the second century CE, Roman historian Cassius Dio describes in chapter 50 of his Roman History an encounter between Nero Claudius Drusus and a woman with supernatural abilities among the Cherusci, a Germanic people. According to Diorites Cassius, the woman foresees Drusus's death, and he dies soon thereafter:
Herbert Baldwin Foster and Earnest Cary translation (1917):
The events related happened in the consulship of Iullus Antonius and Fabius Maximus. In the following year Drusus became consul with Titus Crispinus, and omens occurred that were anything but favourable to him. Many buildings were destroyed by storm and by thunderbolts, among them any temples; even that of Jupiter Capitolinus and the gods worshipped with him was injured. Drusus, however, paid no heed to any of these things, but invaded the country of the Chatti and advanced as far as that of the Suebi, conquering with difficulty the territory traversed and defeating the forces that attacked him only after considerable bloodshed. From there he proceeded to the country of the Cherusci, and crossing the Visurgis, advanced as far as the Albis, pillaging everything on his way.

The Albis rises in the Vandalic Mountains, and empties, a mighty river, into the northern ocean. Drusus undertook to cross this river, but failing in the attempt, set up trophies and withdrew. For a woman of superhuman size met him and said: "Whither, pray, art thou hastening, insatiable Drusus? It is not fated that thou shalt look upon all these lands. But depart; for the end alike of thy labours and of thy life is already at hand".

It is indeed marvellous that such a voice should have come to any man from the Deity, yet I cannot discredit the tale; for Drusus immediately departed, and as he was returning in haste, died on the way of some disease before reaching the Rhine. And I find confirmation of the story in these incidents: wolves were prowling about the camp and howling just before his death; two youths were seen riding through the midst of the camp; a sound as of women lamenting was heard; and there were shooting stars in the sky. So much for these events.

Albruna

Veleda

In the first and second centuries CE, Greek and Roman authors—such as Greek historian Strabo, Roman senator Tacitus, and Roman historian Cassius Dio—wrote about the ancient Germanic peoples, and made note of the role of seeresses in Germanic society. Tacitus mentions Germanic seeresses in book 4 of his first century CE Histories.
The legionary commander Munius Lupercus was sent along with other presents to Veleda, an unmarried woman who enjoyed wide influence over the tribe of the Bructeri. The Germans traditionally regard many of the female sex as prophetic, and indeed, by an excess of superstition, as divine. This was a case in point. Veleda's prestige stood high, for she had foretold the German successes and the extermination of the legions. But Lupercus was put to death before he reached her.

Ganna

A seeress named Ganna is mentioned by the Roman historiographer Cassius Dio in the early 3rd century. The context is the campaign east of the Rhine by Emperor Domitian in the 80s of the 1st century CE. Ganna belonged to a tribe called the Semnones who were settled east of the river Elbe, and she appears to have been active in the second half of the 1st century, after Veleda's time. Ganna's political influence was considerable enough that she was taken to Rome together with Masyos, the king of her tribe, where they had an audience with the Roman emperor and were treated with honours, after which they returned home. This probably happened in 86 AD, the year after his final war with the Chatti, when he made a treaty with the Cherusci, who were settled between the rivers Weser and the Elbe.

During their stay in Rome, Ganna and Masyos appear also to have met with the Roman historian Tacitus who reports that he discussed the Semnoni religious practices with informants from that tribe, who considered themselves the noblest of the Suebi. Bruce Lincoln (1986) discusses Tacitus' meeting with Ganna and what the Roman historian learnt of the mythological traditions of the early Germanic tribes, and of the Semnoni's ancestral relationships with the other tribes from Ing (Yngvi), Ist and Irmin (Odin), the sons of Mannus, the son of Tuisto. The Semnoni reenacted the "horrific origins" of their nation with a human sacrifice, with each victim representing Tuisto (the "twin") and being cut up to repeat the "acts of creation", which can be compared to how Odin and his brothers cut up the body of the primordial giant Ymir (the "twin") to form the world in Norse mythology. Rudolf Simek notes that Tacitus also learnt that the Semnoni performed their rites at a holy grove that was the cradle of the tribe's inception, and that could only be entered when they were fettered. The god who was worshiped was probably Odin, and being fettered may have been an imitation of Odin's self-sacrifice. This grove has for a long time been identified with the Grove of Fetters, where the hero was sacrificed to Odin in the Eddic poem, Helgakviða Hundingsbana II.

It is notable that Ganna is not referred to as a sibylla, but as a theiázousa in Greek, which means "someone making prophesies". Her name Ganna is usually interpreted as Proto-Germanic Gan-no and compared with Old Norse gandr in the meaning "magical staff" (for the meanings of gan- and gandr, see the section on magical Projection); Ganna would mean the "one who carries the magical staff" or "she who controls the magical staff or something similar". Her name is thus grouped with other seeresses with staff names, like Gambara ("wand-bearer") and Waluburg from walu-, "staff" (ON vǫlr), and the same word is found in the name of North Germanic seeresses, the vǫlur. Simek analyses gandr as a "magic staff" and the "insignia of her calling", but in a later work he adds that it meant "magic object or being" and instead of referring to a wand as her tool or insignia, her name may instead have been a reference to her function among the Germanic tribes (like Veleda's name). Sundqvist suggests that the name may have referred instead to her abilities, like de Vries who connects her name directly to the ablaut grade ginn- ("magical ability"), also treated further down in the section on magical Projection.

Waluburg

Dating from the second century CE, an ostracon with a Greek inscription reading Waluburg. Se[m]noni Sibylla (Greek 'Waluburg, sibyl from the Semnones') was discovered in the early twentieth century on Elephantine, an Egyptian island. The name occurs among a list of Roman and Graeco-Egyptian soldier names, perhaps indicating its use as a payroll.

The first element *- is probably Proto-Germanic * 'staff', which could be a reference to the seeresses' insignia, the magic staff, and which connects her name semantically to that of her fellow tribeswoman, the seeress Ganna, who probably taught her the craft and who had an audience with emperor Domitian in Rome. In the same way, her name may also be connected to the name of another Germanic seeress, Gambara, which can be interpreted as 'staff bearer' (* or *), see . The staffs are also reflected in the North Germanic word for seeress,  'staff bearer'. In North Germanic accounts, the seeresses were always equipped with a staff, a vǫlr, from the same Proto-Germanic root *.

Schubart proposes that she may have been a war prisoner accompanying a Roman soldier in his career that led to him being stationed in Egypt at the first cataract. Simek considers her to have been deported by the Roman authorities, and he writes that it is uncertain how she arrived at Elephantine, but it is not surprising considering the significant and obvious influence that the Germanic seeresses wielded politically. Clement of Alexandria who lived in Egypt at the same time as Waluburg, and the earlier Plutarch, mentioned that the Germanic seeresses also could predict the future while studying the eddies, the whirling and the splashing of currents, and Schubart suggests that this is the reason why Waluburg found herself at the swirling waters of the First Cataract of the Nile.

Early Middle Ages

Gambara

The Origo Gentis Langobardorum (Origin of the Lombard/Langobard people), a seventh-century Latin account, and the Historia Langobardorum (History of the Lombard/Langobards), from the 8th c., relate the legend that before, or after, the Langobard people, then known as the Winnili, emigrated from Scandinavia, led by the brothers Ibor and Agio, their neighbours, the Vandals, demanded that they pay tribute, but their mother Gambara advised them not to. Before the battle, the Vandals called on Odin (Godan) to give them victory, but Gambara invoked Odin's wife Frigg (Frea) instead. Frigg advised them to trick Odin, by having the Winnili women spread their hair in front of their faces so as to look bearded and stand before the window from which Odin looked down on Earth. Odin was embarrassed and asked who the "long-beards" (longobarbae) were, and thus naming them he became their godfather and had to grant them victory.

Gambara is called phitonissa in Latin which means "priestess" or "sorceress", and in the Chronicum Gothanum, she is also specifically called sibylla, i.e. "seeress". Pohl comments that Gambara lived in a world and era where prophecy was important, and not being a virgin like Veleda, she combined the roles of priestess, wise woman, mother and queen. Her name may mean "wand-bearer" (*gand-bera or *gand-bara) with the same meaning as Old Norse vǫlva, while the name of her son Ibor means "boar", the animal sacred to the Norse god Freyr, the god of fertility and the main god of the Vanir clan of the gods. Hauck argues that the legend goes back to a time when the early Lombards primarily worshiped the mother goddess Freyja, as part of the Scandinavian Vanir worship, and he adds that a Lombard counterpart of Uppsala has been discovered in Žuráň, near Brno in the modern day Czech republic.

In Lombard, Odin and Frigg were called Godan and Frea, while they were called Uodan and Friia in Old High German and Woden and Frig in Old English. The window from which Odin looked down on earth recalls the Hliðskjálf of Norse mythology, from where he could see everything, and where Frigg also conspires against Odin in the poem Grímnismál, in a parallel with the Lombard myth. Frigg's infidelity and connection with prophecy normally belong to Freyja, and her association with magic (seiðr), but there are many similarities between them, and Freyja and Frigg may originally have been the same goddess. Scholars may identify Frea as Frigg/Freyja, or simply as Freyja.

Haliurunas

Getica, a 6th century work on the history of the Goths, reports that the early Goths had called their seeresses haliurunas (or haliurunnae, etc.) (Goth-Latin). They were in the words of Wolfram "women who engaged in magic with the world of the dead", and they were banished from their tribe by Filimer who was the last pre-Amal dynasty king of the migrating Goths. They found refuge in the wilderness where they were impregnated by unclean spirits from the Steppe, and engendered the Huns, which Pohl compares with the origin of the Sarmatians as presented by Herodotus. The account serves as an explanation for the origins of the Huns.

The account may be based on a historic event when Filimer banished his seeresses as scapegoats for a defeat when their prophesy had proved wrong, They may also have represented the conservative faction and resisted change. This change may have been the rise of the Amal clan and their claims of ancestry from the anses (the Aesir clan of gods). As in the case of the early Lombards, this would have taken place after a decisive victory that saved a tribe whose existence had been threatened by enemies. Odin was still a new god, and the Goths worshiped instead the "old" god Gaut who was made the Scandinavian great-grandfather of Amal, the founder of the new ruling clan.

Wagner argues that the demonization of both the women and the Huns shows that the account was written in a Christian context. Morris (1991) comments that it was a precedent for future Christian tradition, where demonic women have intercourse with the Devil or with demons. In the Anglo-Saxon Leechbook from the 10th century, there is a prescription for a salve against "women with whom the Devil has sexual intercourse," and in the 11th century, there appeared the idea that witches and heretics had sexual orgies during their meetings at night.

North Germanic corpus
Few records of myths among the Germanic peoples survive to modern times. The North Germanic record is an exception, containing the vast majority of material that survives about the mythology of the Germanic peoples. These sources mention numerous seeresses among the North Germanic peoples, including the following:

Eiríks saga rauða provides a particularly detailed account of the appearance and activities of a seeress. For example, regarding the seeress Þorbjörg Lítilvölva:
A high seat was set for her, complete with a cushion. This was to be stuffed with chicken feathers.

When she arrived one evening, along with the man who had been sent to fetch her, she was wearing a black mantle with a strap, which was adorned with precious stones right down to the hem. About her neck she wore a string of glass beads and on her head a hood of black lambskin lined with white catskin. She bore a staff with a knob at the top, adorned with brass set with stones on top. About her waist she had a linked charm belt with a large purse. In it she kept the charms which she needed for her predictions. She wore calfskin boots lined with fur, with long, sturdy laces and large pewter knobs on the ends. On her hands she wore gloves of catskin, white and lined with fur.

When she entered, everyone was supposed to offer her respectful greetings, and she responded by according to how the person appealed to her. Farmer Thorkel took the wise woman by the hand and led her to the seat which had been prepared for her. He then asked her to survey his flock, servants and buildings. She had little to say about all of it.

That evening tables were set up and food prepared for the seeress. A porridge of kid's milk was made for her and as meat she was given the hearts of all the animals available there. She had a spoon of brass and a knife with an ivory shaft, its two halves clasped with bronze bands, and the point of which had broken off.

Olga of Kiev

There are indications that Olga of Kiev may have served as a Völva, and as a "priestess of Freyja", before converting to Christianity. In the Primary Chronicle, she is described by the noblemen as the "wisest of all women", where wise has several meanings and her reputation as being wise goes back to her pre-conversion years. Her wisdom is also reported by Óláfs saga Tryggvassonar, where she is called Allogia and mistaken for Vladimir the Great's old mother, although she was his grand-mother. There she is described as "very wise" and her main function at the court was as a prophetess, one whose predictions also came true. When the king of Kievan Rus' celebrated Yule, he asked her to predict the future and to do so she was carried to him on a chair which recalls the elevated platforms of the seeresses. Although he may not have transmitted a historical event, Oddr Snorrason, who wrote the saga in the 12th c., clearly identified Olga as a völva.

Olga is strongly associated with birds in the sources, which also was true of the goddess Freyja, the goddess of magic (seiðr). The goddess was popular among Scandinavian women in general, and especially among aristocratic women who profited from corollary authority and power. Older scholarship believed that the aristocratic Norse women passively waited at home for their husbands, but the modern view is that they actively took part in warfare from home with seiðr, a magic reflected in the Norse poem Darraðarljóð. Consequently, Olga may have been regarded as a high priestess of Freyja, a status which would not only have appealed to her Scandinavian kinsmen but also to her Slavic subjects who would have identified Freyja with the Slavic goddess Mokosh, who was represented as the only goddess among the six raised idols in Kiev.

In 2008, a Scandinavian chamber grave called N°6 was excavated in Pskov, where Olga was born. It was a syncretic grave containing elements from Norse paganism and from Christianity; it has been dated to c. 960. It contained an object called a jartegn, a token given to officials by Scandinavian kings and Rus' rulers, indicating that the buried man had political influence. On the front side it has a bident, which later evolved into a trident and was a symbol of the Rurik dynasty. Above the bident there is a key, and keys were a symbol of the Scandinavian mistress, as Scandinavian women carried the keys of the homestead; Kovalev (2012) argues that the key was also a symbol of Freyja. According to Kovalev, during her regency, before Sviatoslav I came of age, Olga may have chosen to add the key to the seal of the ruler of Kievan Rus', the key being a symbol whose significance would have been understood all over northern Europe, not only as the symbol of a woman who has authority, but also as a symbol of guardianship. On the reverse side the jartegn has the image of a falcon, a bird not only associated with the Swedish and Rus' elite of the Viking Age, but also especially associated with the goddesses Freyja and Frigg, who can transform themselves into falcons.). The falcon also appears to wear a cloak of the type worn by Scandinavian women. There is a cross above the falcon; coins bearing the falcon and the cross are dated to Olga's time in the 950s and the 960s. Images of women with a bird's head have also been found on the Norwegian 9th c. Oseberg tapestry fragments, and the women have been identified as priestesses of Freyja wearing bird masks. Several scholars consider the woman who was buried with the tapestry to have been a völva.

Archaeological Record
The archaeological record for Viking Age society features a variety of graves that are identified as those of North Germanic seeresses. A notable example occurs at Fyrkat, in the northern Jutland region of Denmark. Fyrkat is the site of a former Viking Age ring fortress; the cemetery section of the site contains, among about 30 others, the grave of a woman buried within a horse-drawn carriage and wearing a red and blue dress embroidered with gold thread, all signs of high status. While the grave contains items commonly found in female Viking Age graves such as scissors and spindle whorls, it also contains a variety of other rare and exotic items. For example, the woman wore silver toe rings (otherwise unknown in the Scandinavian record) and her burial contained two bronze bowls originating from Central Asia.

The grave also contained a small purse with seeds from henbane, a poisonous plant, inside it, and a partially disintegrated metal wand, used by seeresses in the Old Norse record. According to the National Museum of Denmark:
If these seeds are thrown onto a fire, a mildly hallucinogenic smoke is produced. Taken in the right quantities, they can produce hallucinations and euphoric states. Henbane was often used by the witches of later periods. It could be used as a "witch's salve" to produce a psychedelic effect, if the magic practitioners rubbed it into their skin. Did the woman from Fyrkat do this? In her belt buckle was white lead, which was sometimes used as an ingredient in skin ointment.
Henbane's aphrodisiac properties may have also been relevant to its use by the seeress. At the feet of the corpse was a small box, called a box brooch and originating from the Swedish island of Gotland, which contained owl pellets and bird bones. The grave also contained amulets shaped like a chair, potentially a reflection of the long-standing association of seeresses and chairs (as described in Strabo's Geographica from the first century CE, discussed above).

A ship setting grave in Köpingsvik, a location on the Swedish island of Öland, also appears to have contained a seeress. The woman was buried wrapped in bear fur with a variety of notable grave goods: the grave contained a bronze-ornamented staff with a small house atop it, a jug made in Central Asia, and a bronze cauldron smithed in Western Europe. The grave contained animals and humans, perhaps sacrificed.

The Oseberg ship burial also may have contained a seeress. The ship contained the remains of two people, one a woman of elevated status and the other possibly a slave. Along with a variety of other objects, the grave contained a purse containing cannabis seeds and a wooden wand.

Another notable grave containing what has been identified as the remains of a seeress was excavated by archaeologists in Hagebyhöga in Östergötland, Sweden. The grave contained female human remains interred with an iron wand or staff, a carriage, horses, and Arabic bronze jugs. The grave also contained a small silver figurine of a woman with a large necklace, which has been interpreted by archaeologists as representing the goddess Freyja, a deity strongly associated with seiðr, death, and sex.

Activities

In Scandinavian sources, seeresses work as diviners using a practice called seiðr on a ritual platform called seiðhjallr (see below), which is associated with shamanism. They also take part in other activities, but they do not appear to perform sacrifices. They are described as ritual specialists travelling from settlement to settlement, sometimes with a group of followers, and late sources tell that they received payment for their services.

Chanting

In the Roman era, the Germanic word for chanting was similar to the reconstructed Proto-Germanic form *ʒalđran, which later evolved into Old Norse galdr ("song, charm; witchcraft, sorcery"), OHG  ("incantation, charm") and Old English ʒealdor with the same meaning, also rendered as galdor ("sound, song, incantation, spell, enchantment"). It is derived from *ʒalanan, which became ON gala ("to crow, sing"), OHG  ("to incantate") and OE  ("to sing"). It is related to the English nightingale and yell, to Latin gallus ("cock") and it appears in ON gylfra ("witch"). The many uses of chanting are revealed in the words that are derived from galdr, such as galdrabók ("book of magic"), galdrasmiðja ("objects used for magic"), galdravél ("a magic device"), galdrahríð ("magic storm"), galdrastafir ("magical characters") and valgaldr (a kind of Odinic necromancy). The modern Swedish word galen ("crazy", literally "having been chanted") is derived from the word for this practice.

Other names for the songs are varðlok(k)ur and seiðlæti, where the latter simply means "seiðr songs". The former term is more complex, and scholars such as Cleasby and Vigfússon, Tolley, Strömbäck and Price have derived it from vǫrðr ("guard, protector"). Several scholars have also compared it to the Scotting dialect word warlock, and scholars such as Cleasby, Vigfússon and Strömbäck consider it to be the origin of the Scottish word. Katherine Morris translates the word as "warlock-song".

In Eiríks saga rauða, the songs are said to be sung or spoken by the seeresses' followers, but at the same time there is only one woman who knows them and sings them. Price argues that since the name appears with two spellings (depending on the manuscript), it is possible to interpret the name in two ways, either by referring to loka ("fastening") or lokka ("lure"). He interprets the spelling varðlokkur as meaning "to lure the spirits", and varðlokur as meaning "locking the spirits under the seeress' power". In this way the term can be simultaneously interpreted as attracting the spirits and locking them under the summoner's power, and probably also securing them as protection against hostile entities. In the poem Grógaldr, urðarlokkur, the norn of fate Urðr's lokkur, are said to protect a person on all sides, and they are also likely bound to that individual. Tolley points out that the form urðarlok(k)ur for these protective spells is probably a reinterperation of an older vǫrðlokur ("ward spells"), or more likely another possible form with the same meaning, varðarlokur ("spells of warding").

The chants appear to have been sung with a high pitch, and they are reported to have been pleasing to the ear. In the Laxdœla saga, the sweetness of a chant (seiðlæti) lures a boy to his death, as intended, and a pleasing sound would also have been understood as attracting spirits to the summoner. Price suggests that the nearest equivalent to these high pitched and pleasing chants are the traditional Swedish herding calls (lockrop in modern Swedish, which still contains the linguistic element lokk-).

Summoning

While the varðlok(k)ur (mentioned above) attracted protective spirits that provided information to the enchantress, there were animal spirits that were sent out to collect information for her, and to perform other tasks. Consequently, the task of the sorceress was to control spirits, and the name that appears to have been used for these spirits and for several other aspects in sorcery is gandr (pl. gandir); the relationship between the extended meanings of gandr is complex and a matter of discussion among scholars. The original meaning appears to be "something which is connected with the soul of the magician and can be sent out from him or her in sleep or extasy".

According to de Vries, the origin of gandr is a word gan- meaning "magic", of which there was an ablaut grade gin- (in English there is still a semantic relationship between the ablaut grades swam and swim, and sat and sit) that may be found in the name of the primordial chasm Ginnungagap ("space filled with magic powers"), and on the migration age Björketorp and Stentoften runestones, it appears in the sense "magically powerful" in Proto-Norse ginnarunaʀ ("powerful runes"). It was also used as an intensifier in the compounds ginnregin ("great powers", i.e. the gods) and ginnheilagr ("extremely holy"). As a noun it meant "falsehood" and "deception", while the verb ginna meant "to dupe or to fool someone".

The gan- ablaut grade was combined with the suffix -đra-, the same as in galdr, from gala, "chant" (see section on Chanting, above). Tolley argues that the original meaning cannot have included "staff", but rather that it would have meant "sorcerer spirit" from which would have been derived the additional meanings "wand", "wolf" and "serpent" (Jörmungandr). The "sorcerer's spirit" (gandr) could be summoned or sent out to gather information; this spirit is in animal form, but possibly not always. The extension to the meanings "wolf" and "serpent" is due to the fact that spirits had animal form, and the term gandreið originally meant the ride of a sorcerer on a spirit in animal form such as that of a wolf. Supernatural creatures could also use wolves as steeds; later the term came to refer to the sorcerer riding on a staff.

In Old Norse sources, the noun gandreið and the verb renna gand (or renna gǫndum) can refer to going out to gather information in a non-corporeal sense, but it can also refer to magically flying on a staff in a physical sense. Price disagrees with Tolley's argument that "staff" was not part of the original meaning of gandr and suggests that the staff/wand (gandr or gǫndull) was part of the ritual of summoning and releasing the gandir ("spirits") for the purpose of clairvoyance or prophesy, and sometimes in order to harm people. The use of the staff may have implied sexual magic and sexual acts while it was used, and the staff was possibly also ridden in order to hurt enemies.

Some examples of aggressive projection are also preserved in Old English poems, such as the "Nine Herbs Charm", "Against a Dwarf" and "Wið færstice". Especially the last poem contains many Germanic pagan elements that are also found in Old Norse sources, such as sorceresses (hægtessan), elves (ylfa), Æsir gods (esa), the magic of smiths, and the presence of women that are like Valkyries.

During the eighth decade of the first century, the Semnonian seeress Ganna succeeded the Bructerian seeress Veleda as the leader of an alliance of Germanic tribes when the latter had been captured and deported by the Romans. Her name "Ganna" is usually linked to the ON word gandr – Simek comments that instead of being a reference to a wand as her tool or insignia, her name may be a reference to her function among the Germanic tribes (like Veleda's name). Sundqvist also comments that the name may have referred instead to her abilities, like de Vries who connects her name directly to the grade gin(n)- (see above).

Prophesying
There are two ways in which the seeress conveys the acquired information to the audience. One of them is by having a seizure during the trance and gasping for air with a wide open mouth (Hrólfs saga kraka and Hauks þáttr hábrókar). She delivers her prophesy during the trance, and it may be said that a song appears from elsewhere in her mouth (Ǫrvar-Odds saga and Hrólfs saga kraka). In Hrólfs saga kraka, it is in the beginning of the trance that she breathes in, and Tolley considers that this may represent a breathing in of spirits rather than her letting out her soul. Price comments that as far as textual criticism is concerned, this detail can not have been borrowed from those of the neighbouring Fenno-Ugric peoples, because the closest practitioners are the Yukaghir people on the other side of Eurasia, whose practices were inaccessible for the saga writers.

The other situation occurs when the seeress has returned from her trance and tells about it while awake (Eiríks saga rauða and Vatnsdœla saga).

Attributes

Wands

Platforms
There appears to be a continuity between elements such as the first century Bructerian seeress Veleda's tower and the seiðhjallr that played an important role in Scandinavian sources. The word seiðhjallr means "incantation scaffold", for performing magic.

Hallucinogens

The notion of ecstatic experience induced or complemented by the use of intoxicants in the context of Nordic pagan religion is not new, and there have been several attempts to reconstruct such practices. Little evidence to confirm the Viking Age ingestion of hallucinogens such as psilocybin mushrooms or other entheogens has been found, with the exception of two archaeological finds:

Several hundred seeds of henbane were found in grave 4 at Fyrkat. Their presence in the grave is likely significant, and the herb's deliriant properties suggest aspects of the rituals that might have been performed with it. There are many medieval accounts describing henbane's use as an ingredient in witches' ointments, used when a sorceress wished to change physical form. Henbane contains the psychoactive drug scopolamine, and when consumed as a tea, or when its juice is made into a topical salve and rubbed into the skin, especially around the armpits and chest, hallucinations can be experienced. A strong sensation of flight is often felt, which remains vivid for several hours. Bilsenkraut, the German name of henbane, is derived from the Indo-European bhelena; according to some sources, it originally meant "plant of madness". The proto-Germanic bil seems to have meant "vision, hallucination" or "magical power."

Four seeds of the mind-altering plant cannabis sativa were found in the Oseberg ship burial, among the piles of pillows thrown into the prow of the ship when the grave was robbed. A single seed of cannabis was also found embedded in a clump of decayed leather, bound by a thin woollen cord, apparently the remains of a small leather pouch with a draw-string; it is possible that all the seeds were originally contained in this bag. The pouch was too small to hold enough seeds for planting, suggesting that they might have had symbolic significance, and could have been connected with the higher status woman's religious functions.

Cats

All over the world cats are often linked to magical practices, and the goddess Freyja, who was the first divinity reported to have practiced magic, was associated with cats. Cats and catskins appear to have been important symbols for the seeresses. In Eiríks saga rauða, the account of Þorbjörg lítilvölva tells that her ritual dress had a black lambskin hood that was lined with white catskin and on her hands she wore catskin gloves. Ellis Davidson argues that the catskin represents the seeresses' helping animal spirits (see the section on magical projection, above), and Price connects these cat spirits with the cats that pull Freyja's wagon.

The most opulent female grave from the Viking Age is the extremely rich Oseberg ship burial from the first half of the 9th c. that contained two women. Although previously considered to be the grave of a queen, several scholars, such as Stine Ingstad, Neil Price and Leszek Gardeła note that the finds indicate that it was instead the grave of a seeress. In addition to a staff and cannabis it contained a chest with catskins, and a wagon that had one end decorated with nine cats (a significant number), animals sacred to Freyja , which suggests that it was a reference to the goddess whose wagon is pulled by cats, according to Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál. About 50 graves from Medelpad, the Mälaren Valley and Gotland, most of which are identified as the graves of wealthy women, contain lynx skins; it has been argued that these powerful women had a special connection with the goddess Freyja.

Christianity

The seeresses rarely appear in the earliest Scandinavian written sources, such as runestones and skaldic poetry, and they do not appear in place names which suggests a marginal position in society; older research has cast them in a negative light. Simek comments that all our sources on Germanic seeresses have passed through the filter of Roman and Christian interpretations. The Romans interpreted them as similar to their augurs, while the Christian writers considered them to be "more or less witches". In sources from the Christian era, their rituals are described as suspicious and sometimes evil. This attitude can even be seen in some Eddic lays, and in the Ynglinga saga, Snorri Sturluson writes that their practice was so evil that "manly men considered it too shameful to practise it, and so it was taught to priestesses". It is possible that the Christian scribes wanted to minimize and deprecate them and their rites and turn them into an oddity. Price comments that the associations with Freyja and the Vanir gods lingered for a long time in Christian medieval Scandinavia, but the Viking Age views were replaced by negative views influenced by Christian attitudes towards female sexuality as something dangerous that had to be contained. This was related to the same fears that later led to witchcraft hysteria, manifested as what Ellis Davidson referred to as "the sinister light which played round [Freyja's] cult for the story-tellers of a Christian age".

Modern archaeological finds, however, do not confirm that the North Germanic seeresses had a marginal position at the bottom of society as depicted by older scholarship and Christian sources, but instead they suggest the contrary. The seeresses have been cast in a new light by a recent detailed analysis of Landnámabók, the Íslendingasögur and the Íslendingaþættir, which point out that the practitioners of magic were respected and well integrated in society. They were often connected to the highest echelons of society, they were free and they owned land. In a Norwegian setting they usually belong to Norwegian families, and in Iceland they do not live in caves or on islands, but in settlements with other people. Nor are they described as perverted or as sexual deviants. Moreover, archaeological studies from Norway and Sweden, such as that of the Oseberg burial, show that they belonged to the highest elite and were part of aristocratic society.

Late Middle Ages

The seeresss tradition did not disappear, at least not during the Middle Ages. Mitchell writes in his book Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages (2011) that not even the most triumphalist Christian, nor even the most sceptic scholar, can deny the continued survival of the practices of these women. However, it is also clear that during centuries of transmission, their practices changed through external influences, and evolved. Attitudes also changed and sorcery was increasingly considered to be witchcraft during the Middle Ages, and by the 15th century society appears no longer to have distinguished between sorcesses and healers such as midwives and wise women. The witch was inherently evil, she could fly to the sabbath and have intercourse with the devil, and she ate infants.

Witch-hunts

The Malleus Maleficarum extended the concept of "witch" to more women, and concepts that used to be separate – folklore and witchcraft - merged with the concept of heresy. Morris argues that without this book there would probably never have been witch-hunts, and that the printing press helped spread the notion of diabolical witchcraft from the ecclesiastical elite to a larger part of the population. This was also the time of the revival of "high magic" during the renaissance, but the Church did not separate the two and persecuted both the "low magic" and "high magic" as heresy. About eighty per cent of those accused of witchcraft were women, and the accusations included Devil worship, having sex with the Devil, sex both oral and anal, incest and cannibalism of infants. Morris comments that the accusations reveal more about the inquisitors than about the women who were accused. The accusations were characterized by ecclesiastical attitudes towards female sexuality, and it is notable that the practices they were accused of were preventive to procreation. Morris argues that the evolution from Germanic pagan seeresses to witches during the witch-hunts is a case study in how attitudes towards magic were affected by the change of religion.

Modern influence

The concept of the Germanic seeress has had influence in a variety of areas of popular culture. For example, in 1965, the Icelandic scholar Sigurður Nordal coined the Icelandic language term for computer—tölva— by blending the words tala (number) and völva.

The seeress Veleda has inspired a number of artworks, including German writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's 1818 novel Welleda und Ganna, an 1844 marble statue by French sculptor Hippolyte Maindron, an illustration, Veleda, die Prophetin der Brukterer, by K. Sigrist, and Polish-American composer Eduard Sobolewski's 1836 opera Velleda.

Practitioners of Germanic Heathenry, the modern revival of Germanic paganism, seek to revive the concept of the Germanic seeress.

The asteroid 131 Vala is named for the ancient Norse vǫlva.

See also
 Göndul, a name meaning 'wand-wielder' applied to a valkyrie in the Old Norse corpus and later appearing in a 14th-century charm used as evidence in a Norwegian witchcraft trial
 Norse cosmology, the cosmology of the North Germanic peoples

References

Sources

 Birley, A. R. 1999. Trans. Tacitus, Agricola Germany. Oxford World's Classics.
 Cary, Earnest. 1917. Trans. Dio's Roman History, vol. 6. Harvard University Press. Available at Archive.org.
 Cary, Earnest. 1927. Trans. Dio's Roman History, vol. 8. Harvard University Press.

 Harrison, Dick & Svensson Kristina. (2007). Vikingaliv. Natur och Kultur.

 Jones, Horace Leonard. 1924. Trans. The Geography of Strabo, vol. 3. Harvard University Press. Available at Archive.org.

 Wellesley, Kenneth. 1972 [1964]. Trans. Tacitus, the Histories. Penguin Classics.

 Zhang, Sarah. 2019. "Icelandic Has the Best Words for Technology". Gizmodo, 5 July 2015. Online. Last accessed August 21, 2019.

External links

Seeress (Germanic)


Chedwel is a small community in Chautauqua County, New York, United States, on the north shore of Chautauqua Lake, about halfway between Bemus Point and Mayville, between State Route 430 and the lake. It is at an elevation of 1335 ft (407 m) above sea level.

History

The area gained its name as the estate of Dr. Charles Edgar Welch (hence Ch-ed-wel), youngest son of Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welch, who pioneered the development of unfermented grape juice as a drink. Charles Edgar, who shared his father's profession of dentistry, became involved in the grape juice enterprise as a young man, and began to run the Vineland, New Jersey, business independently in 1875. Within two decades, he founded the Welch's Grape Juice Company, and in 1897 relocated it to Westfield, New York, on the shores of Lake Erie just a few miles northwest of the tip of Chautauqua Lake. The estate at Chedwel included two main houses built by the Welchs, with adjacent cottages for guests, a tennis court, and a croquet court.  Charles Edgar Welch was, among other things, six-time mayor of Westfield, a New York State gubernatorial candidate in 1916, and a trustee of Chautauqua Institution, located directly across the lake from Chedwel. The property was parceled and sold by the mid-twentieth century.  The community presently includes, besides the former Welch domiciles, several other homes built along its two streets, Chedwel Road and Overlook Avenue.

One of the original buildings was a large log cabin. The interior of the cabin, including the accessories, was built entirely from logs and branches of trees. The beds, light fixtures, towel racks, door openers, even the toilet paper holders, are made from logs and tree branches. These pieces were gathered by the brother of Elbert Hubbard, of Roycroft fame, who spent untold hours walking through the woods looking for branches of just the right shape for various purposes in the cabin.

See also
Thomas Bramwell Welch
Welch's
Grape juice
Ellery, New York

References

External links
"Charles Edgar Welch" in The History of New York State
"Milestones in the History of Welch's"
"Milestones: Jan. 18, 1926". Time. January 18, 1926. Obituary of Charles Edgar Welch.

Hamlets in New York (state)
Hamlets in Chautauqua County, New York

Chedwel, New York


The Lachlan River is an important river in central New South Wales, Australia.

Course

The river starts in the central mountains of New South Wales, near Gunning. Other rivers that join the Lachlan River are the Boorowa River, the Belubula River and the Abercrombie River. They join the Lachlan near the town of Cowra.

Wyangala Dam was built near Cowra to control the amount of water in the river.  The Lachlan does not get its water from melting snow like the Murrumbidgee River or the Murray River. It does not have a regular amount of water flowing down it. In 1944 the flow was less than 1,000 megalitres (810 acre-feet). Six years later (1950) there was a flow of 10,900,000 megalitres (8.8 million acre feet). In dry years, for example April 1944 to April 1945, the Lachlan may have no water flowing in it at all. The Lachlan has flooded every 7 years since 1887 at Forbes.

The Lachlan River flows west and then south, finishes in the Great Cumbung swamp. This swamp is near Oxley between Hay and Balranald. Water from this big (500 km²) swamp finally goes into the Murrumbidgee River. Water from the Lachlan is used for farming.

History
The Lachlan river is in the area where the aboriginal people called the Wiradjuri lived. The Wiradjuri land has been called "the land of the three rivers, the Wambool (Macquarie), the Kalare (Lachlan) and the Murrumbidjeri (Murrumbidgee) . The Murray River was the south side of Wiradjuri land. The change from forest to open grassland was the east side."

The first European to find the Lachlan River in 1815 was Acting-Surveyor George William Evans. He named the river after Lachlan Macquarie, the Governor of New South Wales. The Lachlan River was explored by John Oxley in 1817.

In the early days of New South Wales, the south part of the Lachlan was known as Fish River. With more exploration it was realized that two rivers were the same river and the name Fish River was dropped.

In 1870 the river flooded. The top of the flood water was measured at 15.9 metres at Cowra. Since 1887, the highest flood level at Forbes was in June 1952. The river got to 10.8m (35 feet 3 inches) at the Forbes Iron Bridge.   More than 900 families had to move away. Many were saved from roof-tops by boat and helicopter. During the flood in August 1990, 132 houses in Forbes were flooded. The water covered their floors. Floods in 1992 were smaller than 1990, but Lachlan Valley farmers lost about 30 percent of their lucerne crops just before harvest. At least 500 sheep were drowned on farms in the Eugowra/Trundle area. Most of Eugowra's 400 residents were moved for safety.  Other  big floods were in: 1891, 1916, 1951, 1956, 1961, 1974, 1976, 1993, 1998.

Now indigenous and white people live on the Lachlan river.

Economy
More than 100,000 people live in the Lachlan area. 14% of NSW farm goods come from the area which is about 10% of NSW. 24 local governments look after the Lachlan area.

Related pages
Major rivers that flow into the Lachlan

 Abercrombie River
 Boorowa River
 Belubula River
 Crookwell River

Towns along the Lachlan

Breadalbane
Bevandale
Reids Flat
Wyangala Dam
Darbys Falls
Cowra
Gooloogong
Paytens Bridge
Tomanbil
Forbes
Jemalong
Bedgerebong
Waroo
Fairholme
Condobolin
Gunebang
Eubalong
Hillston
Booligal
Oxley

References

Other websites
Map of the Lachlan River catchment
Lachlan Catchment Management Authority website

Rivers of New South Wales

Lachlan River