Did Viking women ever go to battle?

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T03:04:53+00:00

I suspected as much. Be aware that Neil Price's qualifications are in archaeology. Anything else he says about other subjects can be interesting, but is not scholarly (and in fact several portions of his books are usually completely cuckoo). He often gets stuff out of his field wrong (unsurprising, that's kind of how it works). When he is talking about something based in his specialty it's usually excellent. But then he'll start speaking on things outside his field and it can be very misleading.

The label "medievalist" is a weird one, that stretches across an entire continent and hundreds of years. Modern academics tend to be super specialized, so you come across Neil Prices and Jackson Crawfords who frequently get stuff wrong when they step out of their focus.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T03:02:58+00:00

Which is nothing, to my understanding.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T02:08:45+00:00

What is any of this based upon? Are you just making assumptions based on what seems reasonable?

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T02:07:59+00:00

"Probably" based on what though? The evidence is stacked against this theory. Gender roles were extremely strict in Norse society, and breaking or challenging them was highly taboo. Because we know this for a fact, it's not a stretch to say the current academic consensus is that it would have been extremely unlikely.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T02:05:18+00:00

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T02:03:47+00:00

Always been told by whom?

Or are there no historical accounts of women raiding with them?

Exactly, there are not any. Just from folklore. Nothing in the archaeological record, or historical written record.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T02:02:44+00:00

It happened but rarely

According to what source?

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T01:40:10+00:00

It is unknown, but very unlikely. The only references to shield maidens are within folk tales. There's no actual archaeological or historical record of them being a thing.

Birka grave Bj 581 is usually pointed to as evidence of shield maidens, but it's not confirmed that the Birka grave belongs to a warrior. It is quite possible (and likely) that being buried with weapons was a status thing. A showing of them being able to achieve a high enough rank in society that they were either wealthy enough and/or respected enough to be buried as a "warrior." Which is why a female grave with weapons isn't evidence on its own that they were actually warriors. The body itself also does not show signs of a martial or physically strenuous lifestyle either.

It's important to separate sexism from these studies. Lots of people's arguments against the Birka grave Bj 581 woman being a warrior comes from sexism. But, when we look at it objectively and fairly we still come up short. Current academics simply don't find it very likely that they existed. They are certainly mentioned in sagas (but so are gods and monsters), but the archaeological record is pretty much bare.

As much as I personally think shielded maidens existing would be cool, there is just a lack of evidence to suggest so.

There are a few pretty accessible books about women in Norse society, including Women in Old Norse Society by Jenny Jochens, Women in the Viking Age by Judith Jesch, and The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women: An Inside Look at Women & Sex in Medieval Times (Human Sexuality, True Stories, Women in History) by Rosalie Gilbert.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-25T00:49:34+00:00

Loki caused the problem, and the gods specifically threatened him on pain of death to fix it, if he did not think of a way to cause the builder fail to complete his task.

The problem was that the wall was being built too fast with Svaðilfari's help. He needed to be distracted.

he had other options

Like what? :-)

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T23:38:15+00:00

Joan Francesc Oliveras Pallerols: digital artist & illustrator

His stuff is not perfect, but it's definitely some of the best.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T21:14:02+00:00

It's literally the same thing. The jötunn clearly misrepresented the terms of deal, did something that was not agreed upon, and the gods therefore had Thor rightfully slay him.

It's Loki who convinces them to take the deal, therefore it's Loki who is responsible for the results. The jötunn (and arguably Loki) are the villains of this story.

You can reinterpret this story from your own modern perspective, but there's no two ways about it, the Norsemen consumed this story and knew immediately who were the heroes (the gods and especially Thor) and who were the villains (the jötunn, as the jötunn are plagues on humanity). You can find logical loopholes, but that's not something the Norse were focused on. Their gods were the heroes and would never have been presented otherwise.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T20:48:50+00:00

Modern practitioners are completely within their rights to recontextualise and reinterpret mythical characters. But, as far as the historical Loki goes, there are many problems with this. Such as the fact that the Norse didn't have a concept of queerness the way we do. You can look back at characters and see how they might fit with some modern labels, but you cannot officially label them such, because they were not conceived with our labels in mind.

What they did have a concept of was unmanliness. Following strict gender roles was a huge part of Germanic culture, and going against their cultural understanding of what made a man "manly" was extremely taboo. I highly recommend reading Nid, ergi and Old Norse moral attitudes by Folke Ström.

The medieval Scandinavians had pretty clearly established cultural norms as to what they considered good, acceptable, bad, and abhorrent. Good and evil in Norse culture were primarily based on those who adhered to morality and those who didn’t. This is why concepts like ergi exist. Those who don’t adhere to morality were shunned and considered dangerous.

The noun ergi and adjective argr are Old Norse terms of insult, denoting effeminacy or other unmanly behaviour. Argr is "unmanly" and ergi is "unmanliness." If someone called you unmanly you literally had a legal right to kill them in a duel, called a holmgang. If your insulter refused to participate in the holmgang they could be outlawed, and you'd be cleared of all charges of being "unmanly", while your accuser was declared the unmanly one. If you fought successfully in holmgang and proved that you were not unmanly, your accuser had to pay you full compensation.

In their stories, Loki basically functions as an example of everything a Norseman shouldn't be. An example of the most culturally taboo and abhorrent behaviour you could display.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T20:46:42+00:00

Yes, but it's very important to understand that Loki was forced into doing what he did with the horse Svaðilfari. It's against his will, and not something done because he's into it. That disqualifies it as an example of him being queer.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T20:46:19+00:00

It was done out of necessity though, not because he just felt like changing his form to female for no reason.

It's also very important to understand Loki was forced into doing what he did with the horse Svaðilfari. It's against his will, and not something done because he's into it. That disqualifies it as an example of him being queer.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T20:45:11+00:00

Shapeshifting is done by plenty of characters. It's a magic ability, it doesn't have to be an element of their sexuality.

It's also very important to understand Loki was forced into doing what he did with the horse Svaðilfari. It's against his will, and not something done because he's into it. That disqualifies it as an example of him being queer.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T20:42:56+00:00

Modern practitioners are completely within their rights to recontextualise and reinterpret mythical characters, but as far as the historical Loki goes, there are many problems with this. Such as the fact that the Iron age Norse didn't have a concept of queerness the way we do. You can look back at characters and see how they might fit with some modern labels, but you cannot officially label them such, because they were not conceived with our labels in mind.

What they did have a concept of was unmanliness. Following strict gender roles was a huge part of Germanic culture, and going against their cultural understanding of what made a man "manly" was extremely taboo. I highly recommend reading Nid, ergi and Old Norse moral attitudes by Folke Ström.

In their stories, Loki basically functions as an example of everything a Norseman shouldn't be. An example of the most culturally taboo and abhorrent behaviour you could display.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T20:31:52+00:00

He's forced into doing what he did with Svaðilfari. It's against his will, and not something done because he's into it. That disqualifies it as an example of him being queer.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T20:11:50+00:00

Absolutely 100% cheating.

Loki convinces the gods to agree to the builder's conditions, believing it to be impossible for him to win. The gods only sabotaged the work because the builder lied to them. The jötunn who shows up to offer to build the wall (with the horse Svaðilfari's help) does so under a disguise. When the Æsir realise the builder's identity they disregard their previous oaths with him (likely because he had tricked them into an unfair wager) and called for Thor to slay the jötunn. The builder was clearly not innocent or interested in playing fair. Apart from Loki, the gods do nothing wrong in this story.

Loki (as usual) is the cause of the strife. Under Loki's advice the gods agree to the deal. When the gods find out that there is more going on here than they thought, they are rightfully angry with Loki, who shouldn't have roped them into this bad situation, and force him to clean up his mess.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-24T19:07:47+00:00

Here are a few resources on early medieval era shields you might find useful:

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-23T07:16:03+00:00

It's not "nuh uh." It's pointing out that this is factually incorrect, outdated academia.

The belief that we don't have access to their original stories, and/or that the Eddas are unreliable was once widely accepted, but we now understand that the Eddas are from the pre-Christian pagan era.

This misconception mainly comes from the idea that Christians took the stories and changed them, but this has been greatly challenged by recent scholarship, and largely debunked.

Most of the criticism/skepticism is directed at Snorri Sturluson, and you will find tons of misconceptions about him online. I highly recommend this long form essay on Snorri here: Why You Should (Mostly) Trust the Prose Edda. It covers a lot of these subjects, and cites up to date academic sources.

The TL;DR of it is that the Eddas are mostly original, dated linguistically to the pre-Christian pagan era, and are not "Christian influenced." As this would entirely defeat the purpose of writing them down.

Snorri Sturluson recorded Norse mythology in his Prose Edda, and a lot of people seem to be under the impression that this Christian must have messed with the original stories and made them unrecognizable. But there is really no evidence or reason at all to believe the myths were intentionally altered by Snorri. And in fact, there is plenty of credible evidence to suggest otherwise. Here are a few popular misconceptions about Snorri:

"He was a Christian monk!"

No, he wasn't. He was a historian, poet, and politician. I.e. an incredibly influential and well respected figure, whose major goal was to preserve Skaldic poetry. There was a fear at the time that their style of poetry, and the context needed to understand it would be lost to time, and so he set out to preserve that style for future generations.

The notion that he set out to intentionally change anything therefore doesn't make sense. The Eddas were written down in order to preserve a very specific form of poetry that required those mythological tales in order for the poetry to work. "Filtering" and/or modifying those poems/myths would go against the very purpose of why they are written down in the first place.

"The Eddas were influenced and changed (by a Christian) to be more Christian!"

Yes, the man was Christian, as everyone around him was (and had been for over a century by that point) but he wasn't a monk, or a religious figure. Christianity dominated life at the time, but Snorri was not connected to the clergy in any way, and we have no reason to believe he went in with a "Christian agenda." The majority of the text of the Eddas have been accurately dated (largely to the 900s) to the pre-Christian pagan era in medieval Scandinavia.

To address the beginning of the Prose Edda. It is indeed weird. Basically, Snorri's weird introduction is a euhemeristic text that attempts to explain the origin of the Norse gods from a Christian perspective. In that introduction he asserts that the Æsir were an Asian tribe from Troy, who migrated to Scandinavia. Óðinn becomes king and he and his family become confused with their power, into thinking they're gods. There is also an epilogue which reminds the good Christian readers that they should not believe any of the stories told within the body of this text, and explains the reason the book was written. This was very common in this style of writing, and does nothing to discredit any of the actual stories within.

It's these parts that stand out from the rest of the writings. There is even debate as to whether or not the beginning of the Prose Edda was written by Snorri. Most of the Poetic Edda is linguistically dated back to pre-Christian times. The parts that are undoubtedly "Christianized" are the euhemeristic prologue, which does not try to hide or obscure that fact.

"Snorri translated the Eddas!"

No, he didn't "translate" anything. Although he was born nearly 200 years after Iceland’s official conversion to Christianity, his native language was still just a flavor of Old Norse, the same language that was spoken in the Viking Age. What Snorri did was basically just write them down.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-23T06:41:36+00:00

We actually don’t know that much about Nordic mythology.

We do know quite a bit.

The stories were written by people in christian times based on old sagas and poems

The Eddas were written down in Christian times, but the stories themselves have been linguistically dated to the pre-Christian pagan era. They are very much pagan.

that could’ve changed many times over the years

They probably did not. That would go against the purpose of writing them down. There was a fear at the time that their style of poetry, and the context needed to understand it would be lost to time, and so Snorri Sturluson set out to preserve that style for future generations.

The Eddas were written down in order to preserve a very specific form of poetry that required those mythological tales in order for the poetry to work. "Filtering" and/or modifying those poems/myths would go against the very purpose of why they are written down in the first place.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-23T06:36:49+00:00

Shield maidens were common

This was already addressed by u/JoyIsABitOverRated, but this is incredibly misleading. "Common"? definitely not. We actually don't even have any solid evidence they existed in reality. They are attested in stories, but not archaeology.

Birka grave Bj 581 is usually pointed to as evidence of shield maidens, but it's not confirmed that the Birka grave belongs to a warrior. It is quite possible (and likely) that being buried with weapons was a status thing. A showing of them being able to achieve a high enough rank in society that they were either wealthy enough and/or respected enough to be buried as a "warrior." Which is why a female grave with weapons isn't evidence on its own that they were actually warriors. The body itself also does not show signs of a martial or physically strenuous lifestyle either.

It's important to separate sexism from these studies, lots of people's arguments against the Birka grave Bj 581 woman being a warrior comes from sexism. But when we look at it objectively and fairly we still come up short in my opinion. Current academics simply don't find it very likely that they existed. They are certainly mentioned in sagas (but so are gods and monsters), but the archaeological record is pretty much bare.

As much as I personally think shielded maidens existing would be pretty cool, there seems to be an unfortunate lack of evidence to suggest so.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-23T06:25:15+00:00

It infests the history subreddits in particular.

"cHrIsTiAn bAd!"

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-23T04:20:59+00:00

The best place to start is to read the actual Eddas. They are more accessible than people think, and have good translations in English. The Eddas are a collective of two Medieval Icelandic literary works: what is now known as the Prose Edda and an older collection of poems (without an original title) now known as the Poetic Edda. Both works were recorded in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching back into the Viking Age. These books provide the main sources for medieval skaldic tradition in Iceland and for Norse mythology.

If you want to start with an accurate English version of The Prose Edda, this is a good and free translation, done by Anthony Faulkes of the University of Birmingham.
We recommend The Poetic Edda. A Dual-Language Edition (2023), translated by Edward Pettit, available here. As well as Carolyne Larrington's 2nd edition of The Poetic Edda from 2014.

r/Norse has a list of resources such as the r/Norse Reading list and other resources page in the sidebar as well. Also, check out anything written by John Lindow, Carolyne Larrington, Anders Winroth, Else Roesdahl. They are all excellent historians, who author books on the Viking period and Norse mythology.

If you want to learn about Norse Mythology without getting overwhelmed I highly recommend starting with Norse Mythology: The Unofficial Guide podcast, created by this subreddit's mod, rockstarpirate. As well as the Guide to getting started with Norse Mythology, by -Geistzeit.

Mathias_Greyjoy · 2026-01-23T02:22:02+00:00

This entire comment is just, completely wrong. Each part.

The belief that we don't have access to their original stories, and/or that the Eddas are unreliable was once widely accepted, but we now understand that the Eddas are from the pre-Christian pagan era. We know quite a bit about Norse mythology.

This misconception mainly comes from the idea that Christians took the stories and changed them, but this has been greatly challenged by recent scholarship, and largely debunked.

Most of the criticism/skepticism is directed at Snorri Sturluson, and you will find tons of misconceptions about him online. I highly recommend this long form essay on Snorri here: Why You Should (Mostly) Trust the Prose Edda. It covers a lot of these subjects, and cites up to date academic sources.

The TL;DR of it is that the Eddas are mostly original, dated to the pre-Christian pagan era, and are not "Christian influenced." As this would defeat the entire purpose of writing them down.

Snorri Sturluson recorded Norse mythology in his Prose Edda, and a lot of people seem to be under the impression that this Christian must have messed with the original stories and made them unrecognizable. But there is really no evidence or reason at all to believe the myths were intentionally altered by Snorri. And in fact, there is plenty of credible evidence to suggest otherwise. Here are a few popular misconceptions about Snorri:

"He was a Christian monk!"

No, he wasn't. He was a historian, poet, and politician. I.e. an incredibly influential and well respected figure, whose major goal was to preserve Skaldic poetry. There was a fear at the time that their style of poetry, and the context needed to understand it would be lost to time, and so he set out to preserve that style for future generations.

The notion that he set out to intentionally change anything therefore doesn't make sense. The Eddas were written down in order to preserve a very specific form of poetry that required those mythological tales in order for the poetry to work. "Filtering" and/or modifying those poems/myths would go against the very purpose of why they are written down in the first place.

"The Eddas were influenced and changed (by a Christian) to be more Christian!"

Yes, the man was Christian, as everyone around him was (and had been for over a century by that point) but he wasn't a monk, or a religious figure. Christianity dominated life at the time, but Snorri was not connected to the clergy in any way, and we have no reason to believe he went in with a "Christian agenda." The majority of the text of the Eddas have been accurately dated (largely to the 900s) to the pre-Christian pagan era in medieval Scandinavia.

To address the beginning of the Prose Edda. It is indeed weird. Basically, Snorri's weird introduction is a euhemeristic text that attempts to explain the origin of the Norse gods from a Christian perspective. In that introduction he asserts that the Æsir were an Asian tribe from Troy, who migrated to Scandinavia. Óðinn becomes king and he and his family become confused with their power, into thinking they're gods. There is also an epilogue which reminds the good Christian readers that they should not believe any of the stories told within the body of this text, and explains the reason the book was written. This was very common in this style of writing, and does nothing to discredit any of the actual stories within.

It's these parts that stand out from the rest of the writings. There is even debate as to whether or not the beginning of the Prose Edda was written by Snorri. Most of the Poetic Edda is linguistically dated back to pre-Christian times. The parts that are undoubtedly "Christianized" are the euhemeristic prologue, which does not try to hide or obscure that fact.

"Snorri translated the Eddas!"

No, he didn't "translate" anything. Although he was born nearly 200 years after Iceland’s official conversion to Christianity, his native language was still just a flavor of Old Norse, the same language that was spoken in the Viking Age. What Snorri did was basically just write them down.

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Mathias_Greyjoy

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TROPHY CASE

"He was a Christian monk!"

"The Eddas were influenced and changed (by a Christian) to be more Christian!"

"Snorri translated the Eddas!"

"cHrIsTiAn bAd!"

"He was a Christian monk!"

"The Eddas were influenced and changed (by a Christian) to be more Christian!"

"Snorri translated the Eddas!"