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Fóstbrǿðra saga (“The Saga of the Sworn Brothers”), chapter 23
En er hún vaknar hratt hún mǿðilega ǫndunni. Bǫðvarr son hennar mælti þá: “Þú lézt illa í svefni móðir, eða hefir nokkut fyrir þik borit?" Þórdís svarar: "Víða hefi ek gǫndum rennt í nótt; ok em ek nú vís orðin þeira hluta, er ek vissa eigi áðr."
And, awakening, she was painfully short of breath. Badwar, her son, then said: "You sounded pained in your sleep, mother, or has something happened to thee?" Thurdis answers: "I have roamed far with my gands tonight, and am now wise about such things as I knew not before."
Her eptir samnaz saman með Hertnið konungi mikill her. Ok hans kona Ostacia ferr út ok rærði sinn gand—þat kǫllom vér at hon færi at seiða, svá sem gǫrt var í forneskju—at fjǫlkungar konur, þær er vér kǫllom vǫlur, skyldu seiða hónum seið. Svá mikit gerði hon af sér i fjǫlkyngi ok trollskap, at hon seiddi til sin margskonar dýr, léona ok bjǫrnu ok flugdreka stóra. Hon tamði þá alla þar til at þeir lýddo henni, ok hon mátti vísa þeim á hendr sínom úvinum.
After this a great army gathers around king Hertnid, and his wife Ostacia goes out and reared her gand—by which we mean that she went out to practice magic (seiðr) as was done in ancient times—that the sorcerous women which we call walas should aid him by seiðr. She accomplished so much by sorcery and trollship that she bewitched for herself all kinds of animals; lions and bears and great flying dragons. She tamed them all until they obeyed her and she could set them upon her enemies.
This word, though commonly glossed simply as “staff” or “wand”, is by no means a neutral term. It is exclusively used in the context of a peculiar type of sorcery. See further the quotes from the Historia Norwegiae at the entry for Latingandus.