The best-known examples of staff burials in the archaeological record come from graves that researchers have associated with practitioners of seidr, a form of Norse ritual practice that involved altered states of consciousness and communication between worlds.

Such practitioners, typically identified in the textual sources as volvas or seidkonur, are described in sagas as carrying staffs as symbols of their role and power.

However, interpreting the apple wood staffs in Conquest Man’s burial through this lens requires significant caution.

First, the identification of staff burials with seidr practitioners is based primarily on graves of women, not men.

Male seidr practitioners are mentioned in some sources but are comparatively rare and sometimes stigmatized in the textual record.