Table of Contents

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1
1. The primary sources ............................................................................................................. 2
1.1 The Norse Vlsung-Nibelungen tradition ...................................................................... 4
1.1.1 The Poetic Edda ...................................................................................................... 5
1.1.2 The Saga of the Vlsungs ........................................................................................ 6
1.2 The Gesta Danorum ....................................................................................................... 8
1.3 The Nitida Saga ........................................................................................................... 10
2. Analysis of the Legendary Women Fighters ...................................................................... 11
2.1 Brunhilde...................................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Lagertha ....................................................................................................................... 13
2.3 Nitida............................................................................................................................ 15
3. Did shieldmaiden really existed? ....................................................................................... 16
3.1 Sceptical scholars ......................................................................................................... 16
3.2 Revisionist scholars...................................................................................................... 18
4. Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................................ 19
Bibliography........................................................................................................................... 21

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Introduction
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in exploring the complex issue
concerning the actual existence of female fighters in medieval Scandinavian societies.
A growing body of literature recognises the importance of women in the warfare of
Nordic middle age but, beyond shieldmaidens real presence on battlefields, the
purpose of my study will relate to their depiction in Old Norse Literature. The aim of
this essay is to explore the relationship between the literary characters representation
given by the sources and their role within the society that produced them.
The procedural approach taken in this study is a mixed methodology based on
primary literary sources like the Poetic Edda, The Saga of the Vlsungs, The Deeds of
the Danes and the Riddarasgur The Nitida Saga. Hereinafter, I collected secondary
sources using the online service of the Royal Library and the Copenhagen University
Library Service. There are several important areas where this study makes an original
contribution, from the new understanding of the female role in medieval Scandinavian
societies to the modern representation of the womens body in the contemporary
media.
This paper begins by giving an overview on the variegated primary sources
which transmit the fragmentary knowledge of the Norse mythology with a peculiar
emphasis on the works of literature belonging to the Scandinavian tradition. Since I
deepen the thematic of female in warfare, I will discuss the foremost records that
narrate the accounts of these women, such as the aforementioned Poetic Edda, The
Saga of the Vlsungs, The Deeds of the Danes and The Nitida Saga. Afterwards, I
continue defying and delineating the key figures of this study: Brunhilde as a Valkyrie
and/or a mortal warrior, Lagherta as a Shieldmaiden and Nitida as a Maiden-King.
Chapter Three begins by laying out Theoretical dimensions of the research, and the
academic controversy about the actual existence of the female warriors in the medieval
Scandinavian societies. The final section presents the findings of my study and I will
try to argue, with regard to the complete analysis of this essay, why the traditional
denial of maiden warriors revolutionary impact might be considered limitative, both
in the light of the new archaeological evidences and for their significance in the literary
imaginary.

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The findings should make an important contribution also to the field of gender studies
and shed new light on the status of women in societies where there is still an
unacceptable degree of inequality in relation to men. Therefore, a new understanding
of maiden warriors revolutionary is essential also to enrich the debate in the academic
fields of gender and women's studies.

1. The primary sources

The Nordic mythology is an unsystematic complex of literary works belonging to
different epochs and remote places. Precisely, numerous philological and historical
analysis on the manuscripts confirm that both the codices and the texts were composed
in distant times and they were put in writing after the XII century, although they record
happenings that took place between the 8th and the XI century. Moreover, the
manuscripts were recovered in diverse zones of Scandinavia, from Iceland, to Norway,
Sweden and Denmark (Chiesa Isnardi, 2013). Nonetheless, the Nordic society based
its culture and traditions on the oral transmission and only the advent of Christianity
brought the Latin alphabet and consequently the writing. The Scandinavia was the last
region of Europe that was converted to Christianity, and it was also the most reluctant
to accept the new religion.
Nevertheless, between the VIII and the XII century the process of
Christianization took place and during the XIII century the Scandinavia was almost
completely converted. The majority of the oral knowledge has been lost but certain
Christian churchmen recovered and preserved fragments of the ancient Norse
traditions. The two principal names are the ones of Snorri Sturluson and Saxo
Grammaticus, author of the Gesta Danorum (The Deeds of the Danes). Consequently,
being two Christians, they could not spread the pagan beliefs, therefore they reported
their information in the light of the Christian religion (Molinari, 1980).
The Prose Edda was probably composed between the 1222 and 1225 by Snorri
Sturluson with the aim to compile a manual for the aspiring skaldic poets. However,
the construction of the complex lyric metaphors known as Kenningar, which were
at the root of the skaldic poetry, required a vast knowledge of the mythological
background and this is precisely why Snorri narrated the happenings of the pagan
Myths (Ibid.).

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Another essential source which transmits the ancient Nordic knowledge is the complex
of the Icelandic Sagas. A Saga is a collection of tales relate to the old Scandinavian
populations, the Germanic tribes, the Vikings' first expeditions, the migrations towards
Iceland and the feuds of the Icelandic dynasties. The noun Saga is a hypernym that
includes a considerable number of works of literature, which in turn differs
considerably one from another, both for their nature, content, place and time of setting:
this is why the Sagas are divided into smaller subgroups (Clover & Lindow, 2005).
The Kings Sagas (Norse: Konungasgur) were composed in Iceland and
Norway between the XII and the XIV century and they narrate the Scandinavian
Kings lives. The Icelanders Sagas (Norse: slendingasgur) are heroic prose tales
written between the XII and the XIV century and describes the feuds of the Icelanders
families occurred between the 930 and the 1030. The Legendary Sagas (Norse:
Fornaldarsgur) were compiled in Iceland in the XIII century or during the second
half of the XIV century and they mingle ancient history with myths and legends.
Unlike the Icelanders Sagas, the Legendary Sagas are set before the colonisation of
Iceland and, in this essay, I will deepen one of the most legendary examples belonging
to the former category, precisely The Saga of the Vlsungs. In the end we find the
Chivalric sagas (Norse: Riddarasgur) which are both translations of the French
Chivalric romances, both original works composed in the same style. Later in my
essay, I will develop the Riddarasgur Nitida Saga since I will analyse the character
of Nitida, one of the most famous Maiden-King or, Meykongr (Ibid.).
Remaining in the Scandinavian area, we now shift from the literary field and
begin to take into account sources of other nature, like statute books. For the
understanding of the Norse culture, not only the laws belonging to the Pagan era are
essential, but also the codices written after the advent of Christianity. In the latter case,
scholars found Christian prohibitions against ancient customs considered averse to the
new doctrine, then these bans demonstrates the persistence of an ancient faith rooted
in the tradition (Ross, 2010).
What is more, there are other indirect sources which were not subjected to the
Christian manipulation, namely the ones provided by archaeology. Archaeological
discoveries are characterised by a rigid objectivity, provided they are correctly
evaluated. I will return on this issue in the following chapters.

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The material of Nordic Mythology is enormously variegated and never homogenous,
therefore it is complicated to depict a consistent and coherent body of myths.
Frequently the spheres of historical facts and mythological tales blend in one with the
other; this is why the aim of this study is not to logically portray the characters I will
analyse, but to give an interpretation of their function within the literary imaginary.
In the section that follows, it will delineate some of the most significant
accounts about the deeds of Brunhilde, Lagherta and Nitida, respectively the Poetic
Edda and The Saga of the Vlsungs, The Deeds of the Danes and The Nitida Saga.

1.1 The Norse Vlsung-Nibelungen tradition

Brunhilde is, together with Sigurdr, the protagonist of the Vlsung-Nibelungen legend,
mythical tales which were principally preserved in two literary sources the Poetic Edda
and The Saga of the Vlsungs.
The Vlsung and the Nibelung are two different legendary clans, whose
glory had been destroyed by the thirst for power caused by the cursed treasure they
jealously guarded. From the Nibelungs royal line, according to the legend, derive the
Burgundians, an East Germanic tribe that from the V century settled on the left bank
of the Rhine. The identity of the various authors, who composed this heterogeneous
whole, remained unknown, nor do we know who firstly put the tales in writing. As a
result of philological and archaeological analysis, it is possible to affirm that the
original nucleus of the legend dates back to attested events that took place between the
V-VI century, the war between Huns and Burgundians (Battaglia, 2014).
The codices which transmit the Vlsung-Nibelungen legend were transcribed
in ancient Germanic languages, from the Anglo-Saxon region (like Beowulf), in
Middle High German (like The Nibelungenlied, (Nibelungen-)Klage and Lied vom
Hrnen Seyfrid), but especially in Old Norse, such as the last fifteen chapters of the
Poetic Edda, some sections of the Prose Edda, The Legends about Theoderic the Great
and The Saga of the Vlsungs (Ibid.).
The main protagonist at the heart of all the stories is the hero called Siegfried
by Middle High German sources, Sigurdr in the Nordic legends, a character devoid
of any historical record. Nevertheless, Sigurdr is not the only protagonist of the story
since every manuscript depicts two predominant female figures: the princess Gudhrun
and the Valkyrie/shieldmaiden Brunhilde.

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They both share the love for the hero Sigurdr and their quarrel will lead to the disputed
mans death. In the second part of the tale, the legend of the Vlsung encounters the
history and the figures of Ermanaric (260 376 A.D.), King Attila (406-453 A.D.) and
Theoderic the Great (454-526 A.D.) who mingle with the myth. In the real course of
events they never met, because they lived in different eras. Nonetheless, in the Vlsung
legend they found themselves playing in the same chessboard: this is why we can never
completely rely on the sources (Ibid).
1.1.1 The Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of poetry which were preserved, primarily, in a
medieval manuscript discovered in Iceland and well known as Codex Regius, copied
around 1270. Nevertheless, the copy was found only in 1645 by the bishop of Skalholt,
Brynjolfur Sveinsson. The manuscript contains twenty-nine poems, some of those
where perfectly preserved whereas others resulted extremely fragmentary. The poems
found in the pages of the Codex Regius correspond to the ones Snorri used in his Prose
Edda and this is the reason why the whole of poems found in 1645 was named the
Poetic Edda. This valuable document, now preserved in the Royal Library of
Copenhagen, is not the only witness of the Eddic tradition (Clover & Lindow, 2005).
A shorter manuscript from the Arnamagnan Collection contains other
versions, sometimes full of lacunae, others more complete, of six poems contained in
the Codex Regius, along with an additional composition not included in the Icelandic
manuscript, Baldrs Draumar (Balders Dreams). In the most majority of the modern
published collections, together with the twenty-nine poems of the Codex Regius, we
can find three more lays from different manuscripts (Rgsula, Hyndlulj,
Svipdagsml) but very similar in style and content to the poems of the Codex Regius.
Finally, the Edda of Snorri contains one further lays which is absent in the Codex
Regius, such as the Grottasngr, which many publishers have added to their edition of
the Poetic Edda. Philological studies on the compositions recovered in the Codex
Regius revealed an enormous heterogeneity of stylistic and metric styles; based on this
evidence, we can say with considerable certainty that behind the Poetic Edda there are
several authors of different times and places. Scholars say that the Codex Regius was
assembled in different moments and following different editorial principles.

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This phenomenon is also reflected in the various interventions on the text from the
publishers, who added between the poems, several prose summaries and combined
verses belonging to different sources around specific thematic units. Nevertheless, it
seems definitely probable that one single publisher edited the code and this evidence
comes from the meticulousness with whom the lays were ordered: a first unit is
characterised by a body of mythological compositions whereas the second part
concerns the heroic cycle of the Vlsung-Nibelungen tradition. What is more, the
second part was organized following a precise chronological criterion, connecting the
lays with prose paragraphs to clarify and fill the gaps of the verses (Molinari, 1980).
The Vlsung-Nibelungen legend, however, presents an extensive lacuna in the
manuscript since, originally, the Codex Regius consisted of forty-five pages, but
sixteen pages after the thirty-second chapter have been lost, and with them their
contents. Nevertheless, the content of the portion belonging to the sixteen missing
pages can be reconstructed by comparing the manuscripts of the Poetic Edda with The
Saga of the Vlsungs (Battaglia, 2014).
1.1.2 The Saga of the Vlsungs
The Saga of the Vlsungs is a legendary saga written in prose by an anonymous author
in Iceland of the late XIII century, although the oldest manuscript traces back to the
1400. The tale narrates the story of the Vlsungs lineage, starting from the ancient
origin of Sigmund, father of Sigurdr and continuing until the fall of the Nibelungs or
Burgundians. The Vlsungsa Saga belongs, as mentioned before, the fornaldarsgur,
namely, sagas that, unlike the sagas of Icelanders, take place in the years before the
settlement of Iceland. These sagas were probably written all in Iceland in the second
half of the XIV century, although some are older and others later, as the Hrlfs Saga
Kraka. The unknown author of The Saga of the Vlsungs compiled his work referring
to numerous completely divergent traditions from the lays preserved in manuscripts
very similar to the Codex Regius, to other sources which did not survived to the present
day (Battaglia, 2014).
Nevertheless, rather than narrating the story of the Vlsungs in verses, the
author of the Saga decided to use a linear prose, paraphrasing the poems and filling
the lacunae with material from other sources, such as The Legends about Theoderic
the Great and probably the same Codex Regius (Ibid.).

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The influence of the latter work is particularly evident in the parallelism between the
chapters of the saga and the songs of the Edda and, owing to this mutual influence,
today we are able to reconstruct the entire story of Sigurdr and his tragic affair with
Brunhilde (Molinari, 1980).
As Sigurur Nordal and G. Turville-Petre explain in the introduction to their
edition of The Saga of the Vlsungs, the vicissitudes of the tale are preserved in a single
manuscript named Ny kgl. Saml. 1824 b 4to and dated 1400. It was found in Iceland
but, amid it, we can recover Norwegian elements such as words, descriptions,
traditions. These proofs, consequently, suggest that Icelandic compiler accurately
copied a text from the Norwegian tradition (The Saga of the Vlsungs, 1965). In the
manuscript, in addition to The Saga of the Vlsungs, it is preserved the Ragnars Saga,
a narration in which the life of the last descendant of Sigurdr and Brunhilde, Aslaug,
is intertwined with the one of King Ragnar, a northern hero somewhere between
history and legend (Ross, 2010).
The tale of the Vlsungs goes up to the years of the ancestors of the Norwegian
King Harald Fairhair (850-933), connecting the king directly with the heroes of the
myth Sigurdr and Sigmund. King Harald Fairhair is remembered for his desire to bring
together the local authorities, in order to create a strong monarchy on the model of
other European countries, a policy that many Norwegians refuse to accept. Those who
refused to obey the king migrated to the western seas, where they found lands not yet
occupied, colonized the Faroes and then Iceland, where they could re-establish their
ideal society (Ibid.).
The Saga of the Vlsungs is, therefore, also to be considered as a praise to King
Harald but it, for the present days, it primarily represents a source of inestimable value
for the knowledge of the Germanic heroic traditions. The original manuscript, of whom
the Ny kgl. Saml. 1824 b 4to is a copy, dates back in all probability to the XIII century,
but the material contained herein draws on one hand to historical events that
presumably took place in the period of the great migrations of Germanic peoples (375
AD - 568 AD), on the other on myths and fairy tales, widely familiar to the cultures of
many Germanic folks (Meli, 1993).

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1.2 The Gesta Danorum

The Gesta Danorum is a historical work of literature written in the XII century by the
Danish author Saxo Grammaticus. This compendium is the most significant work of
literature belonging to the Danish medieval tradition, as well as an essential source for
the reconstruction of the national history of Denmark. Saxo Grammaticus is considered
one of the most notable historians of the Middle Ages and he may fairly be called not
only the earliest chronicler of Denmark, but her earliest writer (Grammaticus, Elton,
& Powell, 1894, p. IX). The Gesta Danorum consist of sixteen tomes of prose with
occasionally excursuses in poetry. The entire work can be categorized into two parts:
the books I-IX, which discuss the ancient history and Norse mythology, and books
from the X-XVI, which consider the medieval history (Ibid.).
The IX volume ends with Gorm the Old, who is the first king of Denmark. The
sixteen books were written in Latin on exhortation of Absalon, who became bishop in
1179. Therefore, we can affirm with reasonable certainty that the entire work was
written after 1179, although some scholars consider that it can also be traced back to
1185, when Sven Aggesen, a Swedish historian contemporary of Saxo, congratulated
the Dane for his excellent report. Even though it is possible to establish with relative
certainty when Saxo begun to write his masterpiece, the order in which the single
books were written remains debated issue among the historians. Besides the difficulties
to date the volumes, it is largely accepted that the whole work of art was not finished
before 1208. In fact, although the last event described in the last book takes place in
1186, when King Canute VI conquered the Pomerania, a territory that was ruled at that
time Bogislaw I, in the preface the conquest of the area north of the Elbe is mentioned,
and it occurred in 1208 (ibid.)
The book XIV, which covers about a quarter of the entire work, ends with the
appointment of Absalon as archbishop in 1178. The vastness of the volume and the
superior relevance of Absalon than King Valdemar suggest that book XIV could have
been the first to be written and, perhaps, it was initially conceived to be a separate
work (Grammaticus, Koch, & Cipolla, 1993).
Successively, it is possible that Saxo expanded the tome XIV with the volumes XV
and XVI, which tell the story of the last years of Valdemar I and the early years of
Canute VI.

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Eventually, the aforementioned Sven Aggesen affirms in his Brevis Historia Regum
Dacian (1886) that Saxo successively decided to write about King Sweyn II and his
sons in books XI, XII and XIII and later added them to the final work. As Elton Oliver,
F.Y. Powell state in their introduction and comment to their edited work on Saxos
volumes It will be understood, from what has been said, that no complete MS. of
Saxo's History is known. (Grammaticus, Elton, & Powell, 1894, p. XIX). In fact,
except for a few indirect evidence and unreliable and four fragments (the Fragment
Angers, Lassen Fragment, Kall-Rasmussen and Plesner Fragment Fragment), the only
witness for Saxos work is an Editio Princeps printed in Paris in 1514 (Boserup, 1981).
A key aspect to deeply comprehend The Gesta Danorum is the understanding
of Saxos purposes. The objectives of Saxo might be interpreted in the light of two
perspectives: on one hand the nationalistic Danish one, whereby Saxo claimed for
inner unity and praise the kings and clergy, with extensive tribute for Absalon and his
family. On the other hand, from an international perspective, Saxo aimed to prove the
dynastic legitimacy of the Danish royal family and, in so doing, he should have been
able to elevate Denmark at the same level of the other Christian countries such as
England and France (Grammaticus, Koch, & Cipolla, 1993). Having to describe all the
aspects of his motherland, Saxo extensively discusses also a specific phenomenon
belonging to the Nordic literature, namely the figures of shield-maidens, female
captains and rulers: hence, in the following chapter I will analyse one of the most
deepen female characters in Saxos text, Lagertha.
The historians of religions recognize as a source of information, besides Saxo,
the aforementioned historian Snorri. The latter, with his works Ynglinga saga and
Prose Edda is, together with Saxo, a leading chronicle, who has reported the ancient
Nordic knowledge (Westergaard, 1952).
Both share the same euhemeristic interpretation of the pagan mythology in
order to reconcile it with Christianity. This is the reason why, as I will explain later,
you cannot always completely rely on the words and explanations of Snorri and Saxo
and this problem will be highly discussed in chapter three. What follows, instead, is
not an account strictly related to the Nordic mythology but to a medieval Icelandic
romance saga, where the protagonist has nothing to do with the world of Gods but is a
woman with the same skills of a man but of human origins.

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1.3 The Nitida Saga

The Nitida Saga belongs to the category of the so-called riddarasgur, or Knights
Sagas, a literary genre which shares specific characteristics. It enormously differentiate
itself from the other Sagas since, unlike all the other Icelandic compositions, the
riddarasgur are nearly always set outside Scandinavia and, what is more, one of the
principal elements specific of this category is the bridal-quest narrative formula.
It is not a case that in the Nitida Saga we can find all of these characteristics: Nitida is
an extremely good-looking, intelligent and powerful maiden-king who rules over
France; hence, not surprisingly, kings from Constantinople, India and Apulia want to
take her as their wife. Nonetheless, Nitida does not consider all these men enough
valiant and, after diplomatically refusing them, she repels them my means of magic
stones. Eventually, when a catastrophic war is about to destroy all her realm, she
arranges a marriage with the King of India, the most clever of them all, the only one
who could intellectually compete with Nitida (Clunies Ross, 2000).
The Nitida Saga was composed in Iceland around the XIV century but the
original witness did not survive until present days. Another peculiarity of this tale
stands in it geopolitics, since, unlike the most majority of medieval tales, the centre of
the narration is in Paris and not in Jerusalem. What is more, the peripheral zones of
the world, such as India, become central pivots: this tendency, according to McDonald,
is to be understood with regard to the loss of importance of Iceland, since it had been
progressively marginalised within the northern scheme of things throughout the
fourteen century (2012, p. 110).
Although the Nitida Saga remains a concise text, it touches sore spots like the religious
borderline ambiguity between pagan traditions and Christianity1, economical changes
in the western lands2 and gender predominance: the latter point will be deeply
discussed in the following chapter (Fridriksdottir, 2013).
In conclusion, as McDonald affirms, due to the fictional and fairy-tale features shared
by nearly all the riddarasgur have been until relatively recently sorely neglected by
scholars (2012, p. 305).

1
An example, on one hand, is given by the magic stones and on the other by the paradise-like
island where Nitida found the formers (Barnes, 2006)
2
The loss of importance of Iceland, the growing influence of eastern societies for the West etc.

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2. Analysis of the Legendary Women Fighters

This chapter follows on from the previous section but before starting with the
description of the three women fighters that I decided to analyse in this essay, it is
necessary to firstly explain what precisely scholars mean with the term shieldmaiden.
In the Old Norse literature, the term shieldmaiden (Skjaldmr in Icelandic)
tends to be used both for the supernatural Valkyries and with reference to a Viking
woman warrior, who decided to take up arms in battles and whose temper is equal to
the most ardent and brave men. In my dissertation, the latter connotation will be used.
The literary sources which narrate the deeds of these women are not completely
historically reliable, as we have seen with historians like Saco and Snorri: hence, many
scholars affirm that maiden warriors never existed in the Viking medieval society. This
aspect of the shieldmaidens phenomenon is vital in order to understand the role of
these women in the Norse literature and this is the precise reason why I will deeply
discuss this controversial issue in the following chapter.
What is more, it is essential to clarify in which way a common woman fighter
differentiate herself from the authentic Viking maiden warrior. Indeed, for Clover, the
archetypal shieldmaiden has to encompass two essential qualities: she has to be an
unmarried young woman and she has to dress and arm herself like a man. The freedom
that derives from the absence of marriage ties is indispensable for a maiden to become
what she wants to be (Maiden Warriors and Other Sons, 1986).
As a matter of fact, three examples of maiden warriors who lived their youth fighting
like men but who lost their autonomy in the moment they became wives are Brunhilde,
Lagherta and Nitida, three of the most legendary women fighters in the Nordic culture.
Consequently, in the next section, I will present the findings of my research on the
significance of the aforementioned shieldmaidens in the Norse literature.

2.1 Brunhilde
Brunhilde is one of the principal protagonists of the Volsunga Saga, a work of
literature that, as I explained in chapter 1.1.2, narrates the deeds of Sigurdr, the
mightiest hero in the Scandinavian literature.
Brunhilde is a Warrior maiden, who would marry only a man of superior power and
strength (Gildersleeve, 1909, p. 3) and it is not by coincidence that she was engaged
to Sigurdr.

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Nonetheless, using deception, the hero made Brunhilde marry the inept King Gunnar
and, being a proud and tenacious woman, she planed her revenge and organised
Sigurdrs homicide at the hands of her husbands brother: Gothorm. In this specific
passage, we can see the central theory of Clover: a woman stop being a shieldmaiden
in the moment she gets married. This is why Brunhilde cannot kill Sigurdr by herself
and she needs another man to do it (Maiden Warriors and Other Sons, 1986).
In the Medieval Norse tradition of the Poetic Edda and Volsunga Saga it is
possible to notice the leitmotiv of the princess awakened by the hero, who, in turn, has
to overcome a dangerous challenge (Bohning, 1945). Moreover, in the Eddic song
Sigrdrfuml (The Lay of Sigrdrfa), Brunhilde is depicted as a Valkyrie who lays
asleep in a mountain surrounded by burning walls of shields and the hero Sigurdr is
the only one who manages to burst into the barrier and reawaken the maiden.
Successively, after spending the night together, Brunhilde and Sigurdr swear each
other fidelity and the story continues in the direction I have already explained
(Gildersleeve, 1909).
Besides the specific phenomenon of the loss of active participation in warfare
after the marriage, Brunhilde is a controversial character also because, as I said in
chapter 1.1, various sources report different versions of her vicissitudes, and the
reasons behind the diversities depend on the ideals and interests of the society that
produced the tales (Gildersleeve, 1909).
Beyond the entire chain of events, a key aspect to understand the role of Brunhilde in
the Nordic works of literature is her double nature of divine Valkyrie and human
shieldmaiden.
As previously mentioned, the Poetic Edda is a fragmentary and incoherent
complex of poems, which contradict each other, and its paraphrase, the Volsunga Saga,
simply reports in prose the same events of the Poetic Edda without resolving its
incongruities.
For this reason, in certain songs, Brunhilde is narrated to be the divine Valkyrie
Sigrdrfa3 whereas other in Lays4 she is a mortal warrior maiden, daughter of King
Budli and Attilas sister.

3
4

The Lay of Fafnir, The Lay of Sigrdrifa, The Hell-ride of Brunhilde and Gripir's Prophecy
The Short Lay of Sigurdr and The fragments of the Lay of Brunhilde

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We cannot know with certainty which is the literary original version, nor which figure
developed in the course of time, but Virginia C. Gildersleeve in her analysis Brynhild
in Legend and Literature, after having offered the explanation of several authors, she
eventually concludes:
As for Brynhild's identity, whatever this may have been in the original and
essential kernel of the story, it seems that several different elements we will
not say different personalities or individuals- ultimately combined in her
figure. There was the mortal maiden fond of war, as she appears in chronicles
of old Germanic times, when, among a war-loving people, even maidens
sometimes donned helmet and hauberk and tasted of the joys of battle.' There
appears also the idea of her fierce aversion to wedlock. At some time there
certainly entered in the Norse conception of the valkyrie: the maiden riding
through the air and hovering over the battlefields, possessed of supernatural
powers of prophecy and allotment of fate in war; sometimes in the service of
Odin, carrying out his will in battle and bearing the dead heroes to Valhalla.
And possibly there were introduced also the "swan maiden" characteristics
which every valkyrie was supposed to have, for a valkyrie was a swan maiden
and something more.
(1909, p. 11)

Consequentially, from Gildersleeves analysis it is possible to assume that,

Brunhildes dual nature depends purely on the society in which her image developed.
From this perspective, she embodies the features of the human woman fighter in the
Germanic tradition like in the Niebelungenlied, being the continental populations by
nature more concerned to warfare, but she is also a divine Valkyrie in the Nordic
literature, since the Norse poets had more familiarity with mythological tales (Brynhild
in Legend and Literatur, 1909).
So far, this chapter has focussed on the double connotation of Brunhilde in the
Norse tradition and the section that follows will discuss another woman fighter who,
unlike Brunhilde, escaped from a marriage where she could not have her liberties,
namely, Lagertha.

2.2 Lagertha
Among them was Ladgerda, a skilled amazon, who, though a maiden, had the
courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose
over her shoulders. All-marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying
down her back betrayed that she was a woman.
(Grammaticus, Elton, & Powell, 1894, p. 363)

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Saxo, with these words, describes Lagertha, or Ladgerda, a maiden warrior who started
to fight due to the invasion of Norway at the hands of the king of Sweden Fr, who, to
make matters worse, put all the defeated king Siwards female relatives in a brothel on
public display. In so doing, the Swedish king unleashed Ragnar Lodbroks anger who
marched towards Norway in order to avenge his grandfather Siward. What is more,
Fr ordered the women in the brothel to dress themselves like men and to fight side by
side with Ragnar, with the intention of diminishing the force the heros armies. Even
if, in Frs plans, this attempt should have damaged Ragnar, the shieldmaiden Lagertha
led Ragnars armies to the victory.
The hero remained stunned by Lagerthas bravery and, from that moment on,
he started to court her. At the very beginning, Lagertha was not interested in Ragnars
wooing but his obstinacy led him to seek her hand and to go to the Gaular valley, where
the shieldmaiden lived. He was assaulted by a bear and a great hound which watched
over Lagerthas home, but Ragnar eventually managed to kill the beasts and, thus, he
conquered the shieldmaiden. Nonetheless, Saxo also wrote that, for some unknown
reasons, Lagertha never gave up inciting savage beasts against the husband, who,
annoyed by the strong temper of the shieldmaiden, divorce his wife.
Once returned to Denmark, Ragnar had to fight a civil war and Lagertha, who still
loved the hero, joined Ragnars army with one-hundred and twenty ships so that she
could help him. Saxo writes:
Ladgerda, who had a matchless spirit though a delicate frame, covered by her
splendid bravery the inclination of the soldiers to waver. For she made a sally
about, and flew round to the rear of the enemy, taking them unawares, and
thus turned the panic of her friends into the camp of the enemy.
(The first nine books of the Danish history of Saxo Grammaticus, 1894, p.
367)

After the abovementioned battle, Lagertha collided with her actual husband, and killed
him with a spearhead. Consequently, Saxo concludes: Then she usurped the whole of
his name and sovereignty; for this most presumptuous dame thought it pleasanter to
rule without her husband than to share the throne with him (The first nine books of
the Danish history of Saxo Grammaticus, 1894, p. 367).

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In depicting Lagertha, Saxo, who was an erudite expert of the Latin culture, was
undoubtedly inspired by the classical characters of amazons (Jesch, 1994).
Nonetheless, Lagertha is not a mere transplanted model of a Mediterranean woman
fighter in the North; she is a unique example, whose significance must be interpreted
in the perspective of the Old Norse traditions, that is to say, as an emancipated woman
who refuses to be subjected to the male authority and the social gendered roles. What
is more, Saxo also relate that Lagherta was able to fly upon the enemies battlefields
and, by means of this depiction, we can notice a direct correspondence with the figures
of the Valkyries. In so doing, the entire story acquires fantasy connotations and it is
for this specific reason that several historians tend not to consider Saxo as a reliable
fount of information.
Moreover, being Saxo a cleric man, he did not conceive such an emancipated
woman; therefore, in The Gesta Danorum the shieldmaidens represent the principle of
the chaos in opposition to the traditional housewives, highly praised by Saxo, who,
quite the opposite, embody the Christian values, the order undermined by the Pagan
maiden warriors. Nonetheless, if we carefully analyse Lagerthas role, it is possible to
notice that, instead, she is not depicted as a negative character and her fictitious aspects
might be seen as Saxos attempts to separate Lagertha from the other female fighters,
by disguising her mortal positive connotations under the mask of the supernatural
Valkyrie (Jesch, 1994).

2.3 Nitida
Nitida is a young, aristocratic, unmarried woman who rules her own prosper kingdom,
without the necessity to have a husband. Either she possess many noble female virtues
such as acumen, persuasiveness and politeness, as well as skills such as embroidery.
She does not remain confined within the traditional gendered role but she turns out to
be an independent woman by rejecting suitors and preventing them to rule over her
realm.
Nitidas kingdom is enormously wealthier and more prosperous than the ones
of her admires, hence she has no reason to marry. Moreover, one of the most powerful
Nitidas weapons is wisdom, since [her] intelligence enables her to protect her
kingdom not only by wise rule but also by building concrete defences (Fririksdttir,
2012, p. 110).

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~ 16 ~
In the incipit, Nitida gives the impression to live and to rule in an extraordinary
romanticised world, where no male authority appears and, as Fririksdttir affirms,
Nitidas realm is perhaps a proto-feminist utopia (Ibid. p. 127) and, just like the most
ideal happy ending, Nitida finally marries Liforinus without any coercion, only when
she resolves that he is sincerely deserving of the highest praise. Liforinus, unlike the
other suitors who attempted to win Nitida over with violence, conquers the maidenking with his tender manners and clever actions and this is the reason why it is possible
to read the Nitida saga as a contribution to the current social debate about gender roles
and marriage in medieval Iceland (McDonald, 2012).
The message that emerges from the character of Nitida is that bullying women
and coercing them into a forced marriage was no longer tolerable and a woman should
be given the opportunity to freely choose a husband and, therefore, her future
(Mcdonald, 2010). What is more, unlike the traditional riddarasgur, Nitida does not
lose her legitimate right to rule at her marriage, nor her kingdom or her economic
independence: eventually, Nitida is not subjected and, although the reader is not
accorded to know the maiden-kings marital life, it is evident that husband and wife
will share mutual respect (Clunies Ross, 2000).
In the end, it is possible to affirm that one key aspect is not the mere dogmatism
on female emancipation, but rather the emphasis on female free will and autonomy in
decision making; secondly, the last lesson that the Saga conveys is:
[I]deal male courtly behaviour and respect toward women, which finds its
parallel in the civilizing role of married women on young warriors []
aspiring to knighthood in European courtly literature.
(Fririksdttir, 2012, p. 129)

3. Did shieldmaiden really existed?

The question whether maiden warriors existed or not is a complex debated issue, which
led scholars of Old Norse literature and Viking studies to give plausible answers on
the basis of literary sources and archaeological evidence.

3.1 Sceptical scholars

The most popular and traditional theory in the field of Nordic Mythology is that the
medieval Scandinavian societies were man-dominated and while men's performances
took place in the official, public realm, women [] defended the honour of the

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~ 17 ~
household in the domestic, private realm (Borovsky, 1999, p. 6). Even if these
women enjoy a vast proliferation in the literary sources, many scholars are still
sceptical about Viking womens emancipation; among those we can find Jenny
Jochens, who affirms that [w]hatever aura of respect Icelandic women derived from
pagan religion, their private life was mixture of rights and limitations (Women in
Old Norse Society, 1995, p. 162).
The principal evidence that the aforementioned experts adduce not to sustain
the existence of shieldmaiden in the Nordic societies is the unreliability of the primary
sources that reports the deeds of these emancipated women, such as Brunhilde,
Lagertha and Nitida, as I have already pointed out in chapter 1. Indeed, it is an
unmistakeably recognised fact that, although the Sagas relate events which occurred
between the 850-1000 A.D., in Scandinavia each work of literature was composed
around the XIII century. What is more, all the codices were revised from a Christian
point of view and, consequently [the posterior] elaborations make it difficult to
distinguish between the figures original features and later additions (Jochens J. , Old
Norse Images of Women, 1996, p. 89).
Furthermore, other scholars of Scandinavian literature suggest that it is not
culturally correct to talk in terms of binary opposition between women and men.
According to them, gender is to be seen as a development rather than an inflexible
entity, or better, as Fririksdttir affirms, it is a set of recurring actions within an
exceedingly strict controlling society, in which gender establish itself with the passing
of time to create the facade of substance (Women in Old Norse Literature, Bodies,
Words, and Power, 2013). Therefore, a woman who dressed herself as a man and
whose attitudes were man-like cannot be easily judged as maiden but, perhaps, as a
third gender (Self, 2014).
Nonetheless, the admission of an intermediate gender in-between female and
male sphere might be considered as an indirect declaration of their existence, simply
not in the traditional way as we are used to consider them. Due to the relevance of
Selfs theory, I will discuss it more deeply in the following chapter, since I consider it
more pertinent to the revisionist academic field.

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~ 18 ~

3.2 Revisionist scholars

In the last thirty years the role of women in the Old Norse literature has been
increasingly studied and a peculiar attention has been paid to the interdisciplinary
analyses, from scholars of gender studies to archaeologists. The former began to
question the gendered model of the medieval Scandinavia society, which was thought
to be purely based on the male domination. From the academic field of Women
Studies, scholars as Carol Clover led to a new interpretation of the recent
archaeological evidences, namely the ones found in female mortuary sites containing
weapons.
The first contribution to the revaluation of maiden warriors came from the
aforementioned Jenny Jochens, who on one hand did not conceive the image of a
strong-willed woman in the ordinary life, while on the other suggested the possibility
of the actual existence of shieldmaidens in medieval Scandinavian societies as
extraordinary examples. Jochens wonders why the maiden warriors have been so
highly depicted and she concludes that, perhaps, churchmen deliberately emphasised
these characters due to the absence of consent in the pagan marriages, a principle that,
instead, is a pillar in the Christian doctrine. Indeed, in her article The Medieval
Icelandic Heroine: Fact or Fiction?, Jochens concludes that:
Although the authors of the [] Sagas were deeply imbued in the native
pagan tradition, they have also received a throughout clerical training at home
and aboard, and had perhaps absorbed the curiously ambivalent attitude
towards women expressed in ecclesiastical legislation and in clerical authors,
result in both positive and hostile traits.
(Jochens J. , 1986, p. 47)

Moreover, in her book Old Norse Images of Women (1996) Jochens also asserted,
Germanic warrior women were, in fact, noticed by classical historians (p. 107). As
a matter of fact, when the Germanic peoples were pushed by the Huns towards the
Roman Empire between the IV and the V century a woman had no choice: or she could
fight for her freedom or she could became a slave for the Roman Legions. In view of
this phenomenon, it is reasonable to consider that the tradition of women who were
familiar with warfare survived until the Viking Era and, consequently, it also justifies
their presence in Sagas and other works of literature which recorded events between
the IX and the XI century (Jochens J. , 1996).

Zappatore
~ 19 ~
Nonetheless, as Self specify, it is essential to consider that the representation of maiden
warriors in primary sources remains a completely fictitious depiction. Indeed,
according to the authentic reports of the sources, the shieldmaidens ought to be
perceived as an exceptional case of hybrid third gender (2014). Undeniably, the Norse
and the modern representations of women fighters are deeply implicated with gender,
since both Valkyries and shieldmaidens were depicted both as men and as women. To
be precise, the female warriors of divine or human origin have been defined with
female connotations by means of linguistic pronouns, the custom of serving drinks to
men and in their being the object of male sexual desire. On the other hand, they shared
at the same time masculine features in their way of dressing, wearing armours and
being violent both in their will and in their attitudes. In the light of the above evidences,
Valkyries and maiden warriors could be perceived as a third gender since, although
the latter are inclined to behave like women once they get married, they experienced
the value freedom, of respectfulness and they can still exert more rights than the other
women also after the marriage (Self, 2014).
Furthermore, the aforementioned analysis carried out by Literary and Gender
studies scholars is reinforced by the new archaeological discoveries and the recovery
of weapons in womens graves. A supporter of Viking womens implication with
warfare and familiarity with weapons is the archaeologist Marianne Moen from the
University of Oslo, who inspected the female burials and funerary materials in the two
Norwegian mortuary sites of Oseberg and Kaupang. She concluded her analysis by
affirming:
I do not believe we can continue to argue for women on the margins when
faced with clear evidence [] of women buried alongside men, in the same
types of locations, and with the same types of material remains as well as
remains of the same types of rituals.
(The Gendered Landscape, A discussion on gender, status and power
expressed in the Viking Age mortuary landscape, 2010, p. 78)

4. Discussion and Conclusion

This paper started by affirming the necessity for a revaluation of maiden warriors
progressive significance both in the collective imaginary of Old Norse literature and
with regard to the modern discoveries from the academic fields of gender studies and
archaeology.

Zappatore
~ 20 ~
The interdisciplinary approach showed that, although no primary witness attested with
systematic evidences the actual existence the shieldmaidens as a recognized part of the
Viking society, their importance within the literary collective imaginary implies a high
degree of consideration by the men who contributed to produce their literary aura.
Moreover, I demonstrated that shieldmaidens are strictly connected to the
rejection of combined marriages organized by their male relatives to expand the
familiar economic network. Therefore, their proliferation in the Nordic myths plays a
critical role in our perception of the Viking society since, in the very moment in which
women rebelled against the will of their fathers, they refuse to submit themselves to
the patriarchal system. What is more, my literary analysis is in agreement with the one
obtained by the new archaeological evidences, which relate a strict link between
weapons, women and warfare.
Additionally, at the current stage of research, it is perhaps too premature to
determine whether shieldmaidens existed beyond the collective literary imaginary.
Nonetheless, I am convinced that, just like modern products of literature created
superheroines like Wonder Woman with hyperbolic and supernatural features in order
to represent a specific female model (for instance, a woman firefighter), the same could
be affirmed in regard to shieldmaidens: their presence in the literary imaginary might
imply more moderate maiden warriors in the society.
Eventually, as Carol Clover affirms, collective fantasy has much to tell us
about the underlying tensions of the society that produced it (Maiden Warriors and
Other Sons, 1986, p. 36); therefore, the underlying literary significance of the woman
fighter is worth to be highly esteemed regardless of their actual existence.
Nevertheless, their literary impact could also be perceived more consistent in the
future, owing to the new archaeological findings in Scandinavia, which might be able
to convince the traditional view of the most sceptical scholars, optimistically sooner
than we would expect.

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~ 21 ~

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