Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women

The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women

Brown, Nancy Marie

Paperback

Scandinavian History

Publisher Price: $18.00

ISBN10: 1250442508
ISBN13: 9781250442505
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: Aug 31 2021
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.90
Height: 0.84 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

In the tradition of Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra, Brown lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors

Once again, Brown brings Viking history to vivid, unexpected life--and in the process, turns what we thought we knew about Norse culture on its head. Superb. --Scott Weidensaul, author of New York Times bestselling A World on the Wing

Magnificent. It captured me from the very first page. --Pat Shipman, author of The Invaders

In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history, and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined.

Nancy Marie Brown uses science to link the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines her life intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as The Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor's short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data, but on nineteenth-century Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, law, saga, poetry, and myth carry weapons. These women brag, As heroes we were widely known--with keen spears we cut blood from bone. In this compelling narrative Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.


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