[expand]
The prophetic women stood in ambiguous relationship to divine powers. They were not priestesses serving gods through prescribed rituals. They were seers accessing knowledge through their own gift, their own perception of patterns that gods also could see but that existed independently of divine will.
Some seers claimed their visions came from gods—particularly Woden, who sought knowledge obsessively, who gave his eye for wisdom, who walked disguised among humans gathering information. A seer might describe Woden appearing in her dreams, showing her what would come, using her as voice to deliver messages to mortals. Whether this was literal truth or metaphorical understanding of the gift’s source, the effect was identical—the seer spoke truth that proved accurate.
Other seers made no claim of divine communication. They simply saw what they saw, read patterns that were woven into time’s structure, spoke what they perceived without claiming to know why they could perceive it. The source of the gift mattered less than its accuracy.
[/expand]