shieldmaiden

A shield-maiden ( ) was a female warrior from Scandinavian folklore and mythology.

The term most often shows up in fornaldarsögur such as '' Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks''. However, female warriors are also mentioned in the Latin work ''Gesta Danorum''. Both the fornaldarsögur and Gesta Danorum were written after the Viking Age and are considered fictional. Earlier reports of fighting women occur in some Roman sources from Late Antiquity. They are often associated with the mythical Valkyries, which may have inspired the shieldmaidens. They may have also been inspired by accounts of Amazons.

Etymology and meaning

The term Shield-maiden is a calque of the . Since Old Norse has no word that directly translates to warrior, but rather drengr, rekkr and seggr can all refer to male warrior and bragnar can mean warriors, it is problematic to say that the term meant female warrior to Old Norse speakers. Judith Jesch researched the word in an attempt to find its origin. While she found that it was used to describe Amazons as well as women warriors in Sagas, typically from the East, she found no conclusive evidence that it dates to the Viking Age, and suggests that it may have entered Old Norse in the 13th century. Additionally, the term is found in the name of a ship and in the nickname of a poet.

In modern English, it can refer to a generic female warrior, but is also used to refer specifically to a type of character appearing in the fornaldarsögur. Confusingly, it is sometimes used to refer to hypothetical female warriors in the Viking Age. Jesch argues against this usage in academic works, as to avoid confusion between textual and literal Shield-maidens. The term is also used in modern English as synonymous with valkyrie. Indeed, Brynhildr, a valkyrie, describes herself as a shield-maiden in the Vǫlsunga saga. However, the text was composed in the 13th century, and not in the Viking Age. In the Viking Age, valkyries served drinks in Vahalla and choose the dead in battle, but were not warriors in the same way as shield-maidens in the sagas.

Shield-maidens in literature

Examples 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'', and the Swedish princess Thornbjǫrg in '' Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar''. Princess Hed, Visna, Lagertha and Veborg are female warriors named in ''Gesta Danorum''.

Two shield-maidens appear in ''Hervarar saga''. The first of these Hervors was known to have taken up typically masculine roles early in her childhood and often raided travelers in the woods dressed as a man. Later in her life, she claimed the cursed sword Tyrfing from her father's burial site and became a seafaring raider. She eventually settled and married. Her granddaughter was also named Hervor and commanded forces against attacking Huns. Although the saga remarks on her bravery she is mortally wounded by enemy forces and dies on the battlefield.

Saxo Grammaticus reported that women fought on the side of the Danes at the Battle of Brávellir in the year 750:

Scholars Judith Jesch and Jenny Jochens speculate that shield-maidens' often grim fates or their sudden return to typically female roles is a testament to their role as figures of both male and female fantasy as well as emblematic of the danger of abandoning gender roles.

Brynhildr Buðladóttir and Guðrún Gjúkadóttir

Brynhildr of the ''Vǫlsunga saga'', along with her rival in love, Guðrún Gjúkadóttir, provides an example of how a shield-maiden compares to more conventional aristocratic womanhood in the sagas. Brynhildr is chiefly concerned with honour, much like a male warrior. When she ends up married to Guðrún's brother Gunnarr instead of Sigurðr, the man she intended to marry, Brynhildr speaks a verse comparing the courage of the two men:Jesse L. Byock, trans., ''Saga of the Volsungs'' (University of California Press, 1990).

Brynhildr is married to Gunnarr and not Sigurðr because of deceit and trickery, including a potion of forgetfulness given to Sigurðr so he forgets his previous relationship with her.Byock, Jesse L. (Trans.) ''Saga of the Volsungs.''University of California Press, 1990. Brynhildr is upset not only for the loss of Sigurðr, but also for the dishonesty involved. Similar to her male counterparts, the shield-maiden prefers to do things straightforwardly, without the deception considered stereotypically feminine in much of medieval literature. She enacts her vengeance directly, resulting in the deaths of herself, Sigurðr, and Sigurð's son by Guðrún. By killing the child, she demonstrates an understanding of feud and filial responsibility; if he lived, the boy would grow up to take vengeance on Brynhildr's family.

Guðrún has a similar concern with family ties, but at first does not usually act directly. She is more inclined to incite her male relatives to action than take up arms herself. Guðrún is no shield-maiden, and Brynhildr mocks her for this, saying, "Only ask what is best for you to know. That is suitable for noble women. And it is easy to be satisfied while everything happens according to your desires." In her later marriages, however, she is willing to kill her children, burn down a hall, and send her other sons to avenge the murder of her daughter, Svanhildr. In the world of the sagas, women can be both honorable and remorseless, much like the male heroes.

Historical existence

Much of the study of shield-maidens focuses on them as a literary phenomenon. However, literary shield-maidens have long been seen by some as evidence of historical female warriors in the Viking Age. In the early 1900s a female weapon grave was found in Nordre Kjølen and labeled a shield-maiden. Shield-maidens however were not studied in depth till textual scholars began to examine the issue. Præstgaard Andersen, Jesch and Jochens all began to examine the textual sources. Neil Price, argues that they existed. Some scholars, such as professor Judith Jesch, have cited a lack of evidence for trained or regular female warriors.

Archaeology

Graves of female settlers containing weapons have been uncovered, but scholars do not agree how these should be interpreted. 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. 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. In 2017, DNA analysis confirmed that the person was female, the so-called Birka female Viking warrior.

Historical accounts

Roman sources occasionally mention women fighting among the Germanic peoples they faced; however, such reports are rare, and Hermann Reichert writes that fighting women were probably exceptional, uncommon cases rather than the norm.

There are historical attestations that Viking Age women took part in warfare. The Byzantine historian John Skylitzes records that women fought in battle when Sviatoslav I of Kiev attacked the Byzantines in Bulgaria in 971. When the Varangians

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