A Vetrnætr feast and the supernatural riders
OLD NORSE
Veizlan var nú búin at vetrnóttum. Kom þar fátt boðsmanna, því at veðr var hvasst ok viðgerðarmikit.
… Hann gekk þá undir viðköstinn, ok heyrði, at riðit var norðan á völlinn. Hann sá, at þat váru konur níu, ok allar í svörtum klæðum, ok höfðu brugðin sverð í höndum. Hann heyrði ok at riðit var sunnan á völlinn; þar váru ok níu konur, allar í ljósum klæðum ok á hvítum hestum. …
Þórhallr svarar: „Þat veit ek eigi; enn geta má ek til, at þetta hafi engar konur verit aðrar enn fylgjur yðrar frænda. … Ætla ek þær dísir yðrar, er fylgt hafa þessum átrúnaði, munu hafa vitat fyrir siðaskifti … enn hinar betri dísir mundu hafa viljat hjálpa honum, ok komust eigi við at svá búnu.“
TRANSLATION
The feast was now prepared at Vetrnætr. Few invited guests came because the weather was harsh and travel difficult.
… He went beneath the woodpile and heard riding from the north onto the field. He saw nine women, all dressed in black, with drawn swords in their hands. He also heard riding from the south onto the field; there too were nine women, all in light-colored clothing and on white horses. …
Þórhallr replies, approximately: “I do not know, but I may suppose that these women were none other than the fylgjur of you kinsmen. … I think that your dísir, who have followed this faith, knew beforehand of the change of religion … while the better dísir would have wished to help him, but were unable to do so at that time.”
DIRECTLY ATTESTED:
A feast is prepared at Vetrnætr; invited guests attend despite severe weather. During that same feast-night Þiðrandi encounters two groups of nine supernatural female riders: one black-clad group bearing drawn swords and one light-clad group riding white horses. In the narrative’s own explanation, Þórhallr explicitly calls the women fylgjur of the family/kinsmen and then refers to them as dísir.
CONTEXTUAL:
The episode connects a Vetrnætr feast with supernatural female beings whom the text itself interprets using both fylgjur and dísir terminology. This makes VET-007 especially important beside VET-003, where a dísablót is explicitly performed at Vetrnætr. The two passages may be compared, but they must not be collapsed into a single rite.
MY INTERPRETATION:
VET-007 strengthens the case that dísir/female supernatural powers belong somewhere in the surviving Vetrnætr evidence. However, the tale frames the riders through a conversion narrative, and the feast itself is never called a dísablót. The safest conclusion is therefore an attested Vetrnætr setting plus an explicit literary identification of the riders as fylgjur/dísir—not a universal Vetrnætr cult rule.
NOT ESTABLISHED:
The passage does not establish that every Vetrnætr observance honored the dísir; that the riders were necessarily ancestors; that fylgjur and dísir were universally synonymous categories; or that the Vetrnætr feast described here was itself a dísablót.
QUOTED FROM:
Þiðranda þáttr ok Þórhalls, preserved in the Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta / Flateyjarbók tradition. Normalized comparison text: Þórleifur Jónsson, Fjörutíu Íslendinga þættir (Reykjavík, 1904), §§3–4.
FIND IT YOURSELF:
Locate Þiðranda þáttr ok Þórhalls §§3–4. Search first for “Veizlan var nú búin at vetrnóttum”; then for “konur níu” and Þórhallr’s explanation beginning “geta má ek til”. The key interpretive words are fylgjur and dísir.