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About Sabine the Wölwa
Sabine the Wölwa
Sabine and Rig at a sacred grove
Northern Germany
Sabine Morrison
was born in Germany but has
inherited roots in Denmark. She comes from a family with long
traditions in the pagan ways of life. A lot of family knowledge
in herbal medicines, magic and religious rites was passed on orally,
that is to say by word of mouth within her kindred for a large number
of generations. She has a deep-rooted love for Norway and a lot
of her work has roots there because of it. Sabine’s northern roots
developed very early for her a strong interest in the Viking Age and
their way of life. She began to study Germanic runes, pagan
rites and magic since the age of 15. She has been researching
the Viking ways of life for
over 30 years now and has amassed a huge
comprehensive field of knowledge on the subject as a result.
Sabine is a
re-enactment “Hobby Viking” as she attends the Viking Re-enactment’s
and Viking markets in Europe and the United Kingdom where she can
show others who are interested the correct workings of a Wolwa.
She gives lectures at these markets to give people an understanding
of the purpose and function of the Wolwa
in ancient pagan times and how the Wolwa
was held in high esteem because of her healing abilities. We
must remember that there were no hospitals or doctors to speak of
and if you fell seriously ill in the dark ages and the Wolwa
could not help you, you died. A high mortality rate existed in
Viking times as the average Vikings lifespan was around their middle
30s due to teeth being destroyed by eating the stone ground flour.
This finding was based on archeological evidence from their remains.
As for
the Viking scene Sabine says," I don’t like profile neurotic
trash Vikings! They make too many compromises whilst they
sit on Viking markets claiming to have an interest in Northern ways
but have very little knowledge about the time if any at all”.
She said that they travel with their “Viking Supermarkets” from
place to place, selling what they claim to be “real authentic” honey
drop sweets in plastic bags. The Vikings had no refined sugar
to make honey drops sweets? Herbal mixtures like Provincial,
Spanish sweets and Celtic rings to give it a Viking touch meet in
between stands? Not forgetting the mandatory bottle of Coca-Cola.
You see Coke has been around a long time.
In
order to keep their tents dry; they drop a plastic sheet over it.
Their costumes clothing are a mixture of Roman shoes, Viking tunics
and Granny's cotton wool bed sheets. And they all claim to be
real authentic Vikings? They are really only interested in
commercial profit. I don’ know what that has to do with trying
to re-live the Viking times as a hobby. Many of them have no
handicrafts to show; rather they buy cheap replicas from Poland and
sell them at the Viking markets for exuberantly inflated prices.
I dislike seeing decent people being ripped off in this manner.
For these kinds of folk, the Viking scene to them is to have an open
flame fire in the evening where they can all get drunk. It is
a poor perception of what the Northern Tradition is. If it
were possible for a real life Viking to time travel to the present
and see this, he or she would be disgusted at how the “Trash
Vikings” are representing what is supposed to have been their way of
life. Sure we cannot really be a hundred percent authentic
because we have all grown too soft with our creature comforts of
modern civilisation but I believe that we should at least try to get
as close as we possibly can if the Viking way of life is your hobby.
I am a
smoker and as all smokers know you can’t just break the bad habit in
the wink of an eye. But you should at least try to be subtler
or conceal your smoking cigarettes especially in view of on watching
tourists or the public at Viking markets. I used to have a
Viking market stand (not like the ones I just described) but I got I
fed up because it had nothing to do really with the hobby.
I try
today to bring to people the real times of this era with accuracy
having corrected some the former misconceptions of the time period
between the 8th and 10th centuries.
Apart from holding lectures, I still do readings for people, show
and teach them nail binding and produce herbal portions and
medicinal thing with me out of the Viking age. They can try it
out or partly purchase the potions from my tent but not to modern
prices. My prices are as far as this is possible to the Viking
age. For instance, honey would have been very expensive in the
dark ages and nobody would have been crazy enough to buy it.
However selling goods at Viking markets is not my main concern.
My main concern is to give the general public that I meet an
understanding and a feeling for the World of the ancient Vikings and
how they may have lived.
I would also like to
comment on the current New Age fashionable practice of the many
self-appointed Godis, Druids, Witches, Wolwas
or whatever. It used to take a long time to acquire and to
learn these ancient skills. But very often I see people
claiming to be a Godi for example. When challenged they
display little or no knowledge about their craft. They can’t
even recite the Havamal or know the Voluspa. Just because you
can tell fortune out of runes does not make you a Wolwa
or a Druid because you know some Celtic gods and self invented
rites. To these people I say, “Please don’t call yourself that
because you would like to be one”. First learn a lot about the
craft you have chosen. To give you an example, I studied for
20 years before I dared call myself a Wolwa
out of respect for my ancestors from the old ages in Denmark and
Norway.
This is how my tent looks at the market
This is the inside of my tent
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