The Mediterranean Origin of the Galdrastafir

Tracing the Transmission of the Learned European Magical Tradition into Icelandic Popular Lore

Abstract

This paper argues that the Icelandic magical staves known as galdrastafir are a peripheral offshoot of the broader European esoteric tradition. Their iconographic and conceptual features indicate a lineage traceable to medieval and early modern grimoires, particularly those in the Solomonic tradition. This paper argues that the galdrastafir emerged through a syncretic process involving the conflation of different ideas taken from the learned European traditions such as the goetia, with the demonic component of the latter displaced and its powers reattributed to the symbolic power of the sigils themselves. The Icelandic tradition thus represents a localised, demythologised, and popularised expression of Renaissance and post Renaissance ceremonial magic, shaped by the transmission of esoteric knowledge from the Mediterranean to the Nordic periphery.