![]() ![]() Two shield-maidens appear in certain translations of the Hervarar saga. Legendary accounts Įxamples of shield-maidens mentioned by name in the Norse sagas include Brynhildr in the Vǫlsunga saga, Hervor in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, the Brynhildr of the Bósa saga ok Herrauðs, the Swedish princess Thornbjǫrg in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, Princess Hed, Visna, Lagertha and Veborg in Gesta Danorum. Webiorg was also inspired with the same spirit, and was attended by Bo (Bui) Bramason and Brat the Jute, thirsting for war. On these captains, who had the bodies of women, nature bestowed the souls of men. ![]() Now out of the town of Sle, under the captains Hetha (Heid) and Wisna, with Hakon Cut-cheek came Tummi the Sailmaker. Saxo Grammaticus reported that shield-maidens fought on the side of the Danes at the Battle of Brávellir in the year 750: The fight is recounted in the Greenland saga, which does not explicitly refer to Freydís as a shield-maiden. When Leif Erikson's pregnant half-sister Freydís Eiríksdóttir was in Vinland, she is reported to have taken up a sword and, bare-breasted, scared away the attacking Skrælings. When the Varangians (not to be confused with the Byzantine Varangian Guard) had suffered a devastating defeat in the Siege of Dorostolon, the victors were stunned to discover armed women among the fallen warriors. The Byzantine historian John Skylitzes records that women fought in battle when Sviatoslav I of Kiev attacked the Byzantines in Bulgaria in 971. There are historical attestations that Viking Age women took part in warfare. In 2017, DNA analysis confirmed that the person was female, the so-called Birka female Viking warrior. In a tie-in special to the TV series Vikings, Neil Price showed that a 10th-century Birka-burial excavated in the 1870s containing many weapons and the bones of two horses turned out to be the grave of a woman upon bone analysis by Anna Kjellström. Norse immigrant graves in England and chemical analysis of the remains suggested a somewhat equal distribution of men and women, suggesting husbands took wives, while some of the women were under the burial. Graves of female settlers containing weapons have been uncovered, but scholars do not agree how these should be interpreted. Some scholars, such as professor Judith Jesch, have cited a lack of evidence for trained or regular female warriors. The most recent scholarship, including that of archaeologist Neil Price, argues that they existed. Historical existence The Valkyrie from Hårbyĭespite a mounting body of evidence the historical existence of shield-maidens is still under debated. The mythical Valkyries may have been based on such shield-maidens. They also appear in stories of other Germanic peoples: Goths, Cimbri, and Marcomanni. Shield-maidens are often mentioned in sagas such as Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks and in Gesta Danorum. Female warrior in Norse folklore and mythology Hervor dying after the Battle of the Goths and Huns, by Peter Nicolai ArboĪ shield-maiden ( Old Norse: skjaldmær ) was a female warrior from Scandinavian folklore and mythology. ![]()
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