In a message dated 12/18/00 2:57:57 PM Pacific Standard Time,
beowulf@... writes:

<< Vala is a pebble or stone? How does that, if at all, relate to "vala" in
refering to a woman? Or to the little bone that is used for divination?

A "vala" is also clew for winding yarn. It is often made of a bone. Völur
(plural) are used in spinning. The same type of bone, chicken bone, is
also used for divination. Naturally, they came to be associated with the
norns, who weave the destinies of men.

>You're thinking of the word "völva" (prophetress); in Old Icelandic, that

word used to get confused with "vala" (pebble), because they have common
forms in declension. >>
Wala or Waluburg is also the name of a seeress of the Semnonen, a Germanic
people, in the second century. Her name was found on a clay tablet on
Elephantine, an Agyptian island under Roman occupation ("Waluburg, Semnoni
Sibylla"). It is possible that she was taken from Germania by the Romans to
limit her influence, as was done with the seeress Weleda.
Rudolf Simek thinks that her name was derived from germanic "Walus" = staff.