Geirríðr

Geirrid is the wise-woman of Eyrbyggja saga who is wrongly accused of one of the darkest crimes the Norse imagination knew — 'night-riding', the witch's sending of a malign spirit to crush and sicken a sleeping man. When a young man falls grievously ill after evil dreams and names Geirrid as the hag who rode him in the night, she is brought to the Thing to answer a charge that could cost her life. The saga uses her case to show the law grappling with the uncanny: cleared at the Thing by oath and the failure of proof, Geirrid stands as the wronged wise-woman, knowledgeable in old lore but innocent of the malice laid against her. She belongs to the corpus's rich strand of the supernatural-at-law — the figure on the edge between respected wisdom and feared witchcraft, whom a frightened community is quick to blame, and whom the law, at its best, protects.