{"id":3771,"date":"2014-11-24T16:35:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T16:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=3771"},"modified":"2014-11-24T16:36:09","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T16:36:09","slug":"fighting-viking-women-style-pt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2014\/11\/24\/fighting-viking-women-style-pt-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting, Viking-women Style pt.2!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Viking Woman Warrior by Hans Splinter on Flickr.<\/p><\/div>\n

What would be the biggest difference between Medieval Icelandic women who fought using weapons as opposed to using their wits? I’d say it would be in the amount of casualties. Let’s count!<\/p>\n

Au\u00f0ur V\u00e9steinnsd\u00f3ttir<\/strong> (G\u00edsla saga S\u00farssonar)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – 0, Injuries inflicted – at least\u00a02 severe ones.<\/p>\n

Au\u00f0ur is one of the most loyal wives of all sagas. Not only does she fight alongside her husband but also refuses to betray his whereabouts to his enemies, not even when faced with threats of maiming or death. Bribery doesn’t work either, one of her injury count actually comes from smacking\u00a0a man in the face with a bag of silver that he offers her\u00a0so she’d tell him where her husband is hiding. She may have in fact caused more injuries: at the final battle she fights an armed warrior wielding only a club but the warrior still fares badly against her. Besides he’s wearing whatever men wore when they went to a battle, she’s wearing a\u00a0nightie.<\/p>\n

\u00de\u00f3rd\u00eds S\u00farsd\u00f3ttir<\/strong> (G\u00edsla saga S\u00farssonar)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – 0, Injuries inflicted – 1 severe one.<\/p>\n

When her husband insists that she serve her brother’s killer food \u00de\u00f3rd\u00eds becomes the only known woman of the Icelandic sagas who actually uses a sword. Seeing her dead brother’s sword with his murderer \u00de\u00f3rd\u00eds feigns dropping a box of spoons, bends down to pick them up but grabs the sword instead and attempts to run him through with it. The only thing that saves his life is that a table is on the way and therefore she merely cuts him in the thigh.<\/p>\n

\"2569113034_40e917660a_z\"<\/a>

Brakarsund by Luc Van Braekel on Flickr. Skalla-Gr\u00edmur is throwing a rock at \u00deorger\u00f0ur br\u00e1k who’s seen trying to swim to safety.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00deorger\u00f0ur br\u00e1k<\/strong> (Egils saga)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – 0, Injuries inflicted – 0.<\/p>\n

Wait, why am I mentioning this lady? For one reason – she went alone and unarmed against Skalla-Gr\u00edmur who was in full berserk rage. He was attacking his own son Egill and would have killed him had \u00deorger\u00f0ur stopped\u00a0him. He then turned towards her instead and drowned her in a place now known as Br\u00e1karsund, named after her. She may not have caused any damage but there’s no way that wasn’t a courageous\u00a0move, especially considering that among all the people gathered she was the only one who dared to step in.<\/p>\n

\u00deorbj\u00f6rg katla<\/strong> (Har\u00f0ar saga og h\u00f3lmverja)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – 1, Injuries inflicted – 0.<\/p>\n

Upon seeing a man attempt to assassinate her son she attacks him and bites him to death<\/em>. Yes, that’s what happened.<\/p>\n

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Viking woman by Hans Splinter on Flickr.<\/p><\/div>\n

Steinger\u00f0ur \u00deorkellsd\u00f3ttir<\/strong> (Korm\u00e1ks saga)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – 0, Injuries inflicted – not mentioned but likely many.<\/p>\n

Steinger\u00f0ur and Korm\u00e1kur’s love story is somewhat unusual: first they’re engaged to be married but due to a curse Korm\u00e1kur breaks off the engagement. Steinger\u00f0ur is married to someone else, at which Korm\u00e1kur stops at nothing, following her and occasionally harassing her (on at least two counts forcibly kissing her). At one point he hits her husband on the head with an oar and Steinger\u00f0ur takes this so badly she steers their ship over Korm\u00e1kur’s, capsizing it. No one dies, the saga says, but only because there are other ships nearby to save Korm\u00e1kur’s crew.<\/p>\n

Au\u00f0ur, also called Br\u00f3ka-Au\u00f0ur<\/strong> (Laxd\u00e6la saga)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – 0, Injuries inflicted – 1 severe one.<\/p>\n

Here we finally have a woman who deliberately takes on a man’s role as part of her vengeance. Her husband \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0ur falls in love with another woman and divorces Au\u00f0ur on a lie that she’s a cross-dresser. Au\u00f0ur then indeed dons men’s\u00a0clothes and attempts to murder \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0ur in his sleep.\u00a0Only luck saves his life and\u00a0he gets gravely wounded, his arm never healing completely. This act by Au\u00f0ur is curiously not only praised by her brothers but also accepted by \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0ur himself, who says she did only as she should have done.<\/p>\n

Freyd\u00eds Eir\u00edksd\u00f3ttir<\/strong> (Vinland saga and Gr\u00e6nlendinga saga)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – 65, Injuries inflicted – none mentioned.<\/p>\n

This one’s a real piece of work. On one hand she\u00a0stands up against a group of natives while heavily pregnant; she’s that saga lady who cuts her shirt\u00a0open and presses\u00a0a sword against her bare breast, spooking the attackers to\u00a0retreat. On another she also kills five unarmed\u00a0women with an axe because they’re witnesses to her earlier plotting that lead to the deaths of their husbands and other men in their group, 60 altogether.<\/p>\n

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Kjartan’s death by Andreas Bloch on Wikimedia Commons. A far more typical casualty of a saga woman hellbent on revenge.<\/p><\/div>\n

This actually brings me to the next point, casualty comparisons between women who fought with weapons and those who used the more typical fighting styles of Medieval Norse women that I spoke of in the previous part<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hallger\u00f0ur H\u00f6skuldsd\u00f3ttir<\/strong> (Brennu-Nj\u00e1ls saga)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths – at least\u00a06\u00a0, Injuries inflicted – many.<\/p>\n

Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra Skarph\u00e9\u00f0insd\u00f3ttir<\/strong> (Brennu-Nj\u00e1ls saga)<\/em><\/p>\n

Deaths\u00a0– at least\u00a07, Injuries inflicted – many, also it could be said it was Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra who began the hostilities by publicly humiliating Hallger\u00f0ur.<\/p>\n

These two stand together because they waged a war against each other. Not alone, mind you, there were other people who had their interests in the battles and sought to further stir things up. It’s also possible I may have overlooked some deaths because the saga is long and many, many people die in it! Most of the deaths here are caused by sending men to kill others, which is actually something that men in sagas do far more often than women – women typically ask their male family members to avenge a death, but Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra and Hallger\u00f0ur actually command forces just like chieftains of their time would have done.<\/p>\n

\"Gisle_med_Aud_och_Gudrid\"<\/a>

G\u00edsli, Au\u00f0ur and Gu\u00f0r\u00ed\u00f0ur their foster daughter from Wikimedia Commons. Note the clubs the ladies are carrying!<\/p><\/div>\n

An example of a more traditional role is\u00a0Hildigunnur Starka\u00f0ard\u00f3ttir<\/strong>, whose uncle Fl\u00f3si does not agree to avenge her husband. She then fetches her husband’s cloak into which she mopped up his blood and body parts, and throws it over Fl\u00f3si. At this he can no longer back off from the deed, so we can maybe set\u00a0Hildigunnur’s casualty count\u00a0to\u00a06 – Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra, her husband, their three sons and a nephew. It’s thanks to this lady that the whole burning from which Brennu-Nj\u00e1ls saga takes its name happened.<\/p>\n

And of course there’s Gu\u00f0r\u00fan \u00d3sv\u00edfsd\u00f3ttir<\/strong> from Laxd\u00e6la – the very same whose second husband was the aforementioned \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0ur. Death count at\u00a04 but injury count through the roof, Gu\u00f0r\u00fan’s not only one of the smartest but also most ruthless. She has Kjartan, the love of her life killed in revenge to him humiliating her, stands up to the murderer of her husband when he wipes the murder weapon clean on her clothes and eventually sends her 12-years old son to avenge his father’s death. Near the end of her life her son asks her which one of her men she had loved the most, to which she gives the famous reply “\u00deeim var eg verst er eg unni mest” – the one I treated the worst was the one I loved the best<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Previous parts of this series:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fighting, Viking-style!<\/a><\/p>\n

Fighting, Viking-women style!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

What would be the biggest difference between Medieval Icelandic women who fought using weapons as opposed to using their wits? I’d say it would be in the amount of casualties. Let’s count! Au\u00f0ur V\u00e9steinnsd\u00f3ttir (G\u00edsla saga S\u00farssonar)\u00a0 Deaths – 0, Injuries inflicted – at least\u00a02 severe ones. Au\u00f0ur is one of the most loyal wives…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":3779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[90791,91060],"tags":[3,178,9933,91396,91400],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-culture","category-icelandic-history","tag-culture","tag-history","tag-sagas","tag-so-icelandic","tag-viking-era"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3771"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3783,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions\/3783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}