In a new book, Leszek Gardeła returns to a theme, he wrote his thesis on in 2008 and has later treated in a number of shorter articles during the years, beginning with a first exposé, Into Viking Minds: Reinterpreting the Staffs of Sorcery and Unravelling Seiðr, which was published in 2008 . The object of this continued interest is one of the more controversial finds from Viking graves – the long iron rods. Originally understood as roasting spits, they have later been lumped together with corresponding rods of wood and are now generally understood as magic staffs used by professional sorcerers and sorceresses when performing Seiđr. As such these staffs acquired a plenitude of meanings and functions, from symbolic to practical. As such the staff may be understood as the attribute of a völva, the rod keeping up the world, a distaff spinning the future etc.