“Magic” is a modern umbrella term for practices carrying different names and social meanings in the sources. Seiðr, galdr, divination, healing, cursing, and protection should not automatically be fused into one system.
Eddic poetry and sagas offer the fullest scenes but were mostly written down in the Christian Middle Ages. They preserve older ideas while reshaping them for literary purposes and from historical distance.
Runic inscriptions, amulets, graves, and deposits come closer to the period itself. Yet an unusual object is not automatically “magical”; context, wear, and comparison matter.
Confidence grows where independent evidence converges. Hrafnspeki therefore marks whether a claim is directly attested, debated, reconstructed, or part of modern practice.