Stav, Seidr & Galdr

Stav- finding the wisdom in the Younger Futhark runes.

As a woman practising Stav for over twenty years, the balance of Seidr and Galdr is something that is really important to me.

The standard “Stav” conversation goes something like this:

Galdr is masculine, logical and structured.Seidr is feminine, intuitive and unquantifiable.

Therefore, because the core of Stav, the stances, is taught in a structured way, Stav is galdr.

As a very “seidr” female in a predominantly masculine tradition, it can be hard to find my place.

And yet...

A key tool used in Stav is a web made of nine lines. Within this web can be found the sixteen runes. It is perceived as a tool to understand anything, from martial patterns to the cosmos. It’s a curiously simple pattern, yet the deeper you explore it the more it reveals.

Many years ago I had it explained to me that galdr are the lines, there to fully understand. Seidr is the spaces between the lines, harder to fully understand, but still a part of the cohesive whole.

I have studied the martial arts, rune lore and lokk seidr. The deeper I go into seidr, the more I need galdr. And the more galdr I weave into my life, the more I need seidr.

Or, as I like to think of it, don’t mess with the gaps. They matter. The intuitive feminine is needed within Stav.