Kattegat's Seer is played by John Kavanagh, who brings a perfect mixture of sagely wisdom and downright creepiness to the part. An Old Norse term for someone who practised sorcery in Iron Age Scandinavia, seior played a huge part in Viking society at the time, seen as having a direct connection with the Gods, a connection that is often eluded to and exploited on the show. Typically, seior were female sorceresses, though the practice was undertaken by men on occasion, despite it being a social taboo. In fact, as Vikings believed that men should act in an open, forthright way, male seior were seen as effeminate and were often persecuted for 'ergi', which translates as 'unmanliness'. To accuse a fellow man of being 'argr' (unmanly) was called scolding, and it was taken seriously in Viking courts. If the accused was found guilty of this Iron Age form of cowardliness he faced being outlawed, however if the court ruled in favour of the accused then the those making the accusations would have to pay compensation, something that rarely happened when it came to male seior. The 13th century saga Eric The Red tells of a female seior from Greenland who went by the name Thorbj rg (which meant protected by Thor, a hammer-wielding God of thunder who also practised this kind of witchcraft and was often chewed out by mischievous God Loki over it). She wore a lamb headpiece with a blue cloak and carried around a symbolic distaff, a tool used in spinning. Perhaps because the majority of them were female, certain aspects of the seior's role were thought to be sexual in nature, with British archaeologist Neil Price deducing that their meetings with clients more than likely included sexual acts. In fact, the staffs that seior carried are described as being very phallic-like in various Icelandic sagas. Thank the Gods that Kavanagh's character only ever asks for his palm to be licked!
