Gullveig

22 She remembers the first war in the world,
when they stuck Gullveig with spears
and in the High-One’s hall they burned her;
three times they burned her, three times she was reborn,
over and over, yet she lives still.

23 Bright One they called her, wherever she came to houses,*
the seer with pleasing prophecies, she practised spirit-magic;
she knew seid, seid she performed as she liked,
she was always a wicked woman’s favourite.

24 Then all the Powers went to the thrones of fate,
the sacrosanct gods, and considered this:
whether the Æsir should yield the tribute
or whether all the gods should share sacrificial feasts.

25 Odin hurled a spear, sped it into the host;
that was war still, the first in the world;
the wooden rampart of the Æsir’s stronghold was wrecked;
the Vanir, with a war-spell, kept on trampling the plain.


- Poetic Edda, Voluspa


("Bright One: (Heid) is usually thought to be a hypostasis of Freyia, like Gullveig in the previous verse. Freyia is said to be skilled in seid (a particular shape-changing form of magic). Heid also has shaman-like powers, employing spirits gandar), the other important ritual practice mentioned in Old Norse sources. The raising of spirits is associated with the kinds of shamanistic ritual usually ascribed to the Lapps. The Vanir thus manifest themselves both in the divine and the human worlds, demanding a share of sacrifice (v. 24). The Æsir at first go to war over this but eventually concede the tribute." - from the Explanatory Notes section included with the translation)