Gróa

The sources identify Gróa simply as a völva and practitioner of seiðr within Old Norse literary tradition. In the Prose Edda (Skáldskaparmál) she appears as the wife of Aurvandil the Bold and is called upon to heal Thor after his fight with the jötunn Hrungnir; in the Poetic Edda section Grógaldr (within Svipdagsmál) she is presented as the mother of Svipdagr, whom he summons from her burial mound to obtain nine charms. The traditions do not supply a fuller etiological mythic origin for her beyond these narrative roles, and secondary summaries note that the name may derive from Old Norse for 'growing' (presented as a possible etymology).

The supplied sources do not provide a physical description of Gróa. She is characterized by role and activity (völva, seiðr-practitioner, wife of Aurvandil, mother of Svipdagr) rather than by bodily features in the cited summaries.

Gróa functions as a practicing seiðr-worker and a posthumous prophetic authority. In Skáldskaparmál she undertakes a ritual to remove fragments of Hrungnir's whetstone embedded in Thor's head (a healing/extraction rite performed by a völva/seiðr practitioner), but the spell fails when Thor distracts her by recounting a story. In Grógaldr (Svipdagsmál) she is awakened at the door of her burial mound by her son and utters nine charms that aid him—examples given in the summaries include calming storms at sea, blunting the edges of enemies' weapons, and freeing him from fetters when he breathes on them—demonstrating that a völva's prophetic and magical powers were conceived as persisting after death and accessible by ritual summons at the mound entrance.