eople of the Middle Ages ascribed to the witches of their day.

But in thus adopting the superstitions of the ancients, the conquerors
of the Roman Empire combined them with similar articles of belief which
they had brought with them from their original settlements in the North,
where the existence of hags of the same character formed a great feature
in their Sagas and their Chronicles. It requires but a slight
acquaintance with these compositions to enable the reader to recognize
in the Galdrakinna of the Scalds the _Stryga_ or witch-woman of more
classical climates. In the northern ideas of witches there was no
irreligion concerned with their lore. On the contrary, the possession of
magical knowledge was an especial attribute of Odin himself; and to
intrude themselves upon a deity, and compel him to instruct them in what
they desired to know, was accounted not an act of impiety, but of
gallantry and high courage, among those sons of the sword and the spear.
Their matrons possessed a high reputation for magic, for prophetic
powers, for creating illusions; and, if not capable of transformations
of the human body, they were at least able to impose such fascination on
the sight of their enemies as to conceal for a period the objects of
which they were in search.

There is a remarkable story in the Eyrbiggia Saga ("Historia
Eyranorum"), giving the result of such a controversy between two of
these gifted women, one of whom was determined on discovering and
putting to death the son of the other, named Katla, who in a brawl had
cut off the hand of the daughter-in-law of Geirada. A party detached to
avenge this wrong, by putting Oddo to death, returned deceived by the
skill of his mother. They had found only Katla, they said, spinning flax
from a large distaff. "Fools," said Geirada, "that distaff was the man
you sought." They returned, seized the distaff, and burnt it. But this
second time, the witch disguised her son under the appearance of a tame
kid. A third time he was a hog, which grovelled among the ashes. The
party returned yet again; augmented as one of Katla's maidens, who kept
watch, informed her mistress, by one in a blue mantle. "Alas!" said
Katla, "it is the sorceress Geirada, against whom spells avail not."
Accordingly, the hostile party, entering for the fourth time, seized on
the object of their animosity, and put him to death.[15] This species of
witchcraft is well known in Scotland as the _glamour,_ or _dece