Norse mythology brims with fierce, fabulous women. Here are 5 of my favourites
- Written by Lisa Bennett, Associate Professor, Flinders University
Norse myths have captured the popular imagination for centuries. Ever since they were translated for European audiences in the late 18th century, these tales have been reinterpreted for stage, page and screens: from Wagner’s Ring cycle to Marvel movies to comic books, fantasy novels and video games.
Most stories about Vikings and their gods shine the spotlight on larger-than-life bruisers – Thor, Odin, Eirik the Red, Ragnar Lothbrok and sons – or beguiling tricksters like Loki.
If or when accounts of Viking Age women get retold these days, it’s usually a few legendary figures.
Freyja, goddess of love, war and death, best known for her beauty and a shiny, dwarf-forged necklace. Lagertha, a very minor character in the Gesta Danorum, a late 12th century history of the Danish people and now (thanks to TV’s Vikings) the poster girl for shieldmaidens. And the Valkyrie, “chooser of the slain,” who swoops down from the heavens with her battle-maiden sisters to whisk worthy warriors to an afterlife in Valhalla.
But there are so many other remarkable women in these stories who haven’t received as much attention. Here are five of my favourite formidable female characters in Norse myths.
Angrboða
In Old Norse, Angrboða’s name means “bringer of grief or sorrows” and it’s not hard to see why. This giantess is Loki the trickster-god’s lover and by him she bears three monstrous children.
First comes Jormungand, the sea serpent whose enormous body encircles Midgard, a.k.a. Middle Earth (where we all live and, thanks to Tolkien, also home to wizards, elves, dwarves and hobbits). According to prophecy, when Jormungand stops biting his own tail, the end of the world is nigh.
Next is Fenrir, a gigantic wolf fated to kill Odin (the All-Father, highest of the gods) during Ragnarök, a series of events culminating in a final battle between the gods and giants (and the end of the universe as they know it …).
Youngest is a daughter, Hel, who becomes ruler of the dead. Since all three pose existential threats to the gods, Odin takes them from Angrboða and imprisons them in different places: Jormungand is bound to the sea, Fenrir to a great boulder and Hel to the afterlife.
Angrboða never sees them again.
In most sources, Hel is known by reputation rather than action. She is ruler of the underworld, land of the dead (known, confusingly, also as Hel) and is therefore both mentioned in curses (“Hel can take him!”) and believed to be in charge of receiving the unworthy dead (those who are too old, too young, too sick, or too female to have died on the battlefield).
In the Prose Edda, however, Hel is given a voice and a form; she’s a character who holds the fate of beautiful Baldr (Odin’s favourite son) in her undead hands.
When Baldr is tragically killed in what we’ll call a freak accident, he enters Hel’s realm, where he will be forced to stay for eternity … unless, Hel declares, every single thing in the world, living and dead, weeps for him.
“Fulfil this condition”, she tells the gods’ messenger, who has come to plead for beloved Baldr’s return, and she’ll send him back to the land of the living.
This episode smacks of the earlier Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice, so modern audiences already know the mission will fail. The impending doom not only heightens the story’s drama, but underscores Hel’s powerful position in Norse mythology.
Skaði
At the dawn of time, Odin and his brothers killed the first giant, Ymir, from whose enormous body worlds were created. Ymir’s skull became the sky, his blood the rivers and so on.
Ever since, there has been animosity between giants and gods. Tension comes to a fatal head at the final battle of Ragnarök, when these two immortal factions face off and obliterate each other.
Skadi Hunting in the Mountains.
Wikimedia Commons
Given this, the figure of Skaði is fascinating. She’s a giant who becomes a goddess associated with winter, mountains, skiing and hunting, but who never quite feels at home in Asgard (the realm of the Æsir, the top tier gods). This position of being both/neither grants Skaði incredible freedom. She moves between worlds without interference and, significantly, she is in charge of her own life.
Sort of.
After the gods kill her father, Thjazi, Skaði travels to Asgard wearing a helmet, armour, and carrying “all the weapons of war” to negotiate a fair settlement for his death. Everything about this setup tells us Skaði is bent on revenge and this warrior attitude alone makes her story worth reading.
But if that isn’t enough, there’s a mystifying plot twist. Out for blood, Skaði instead winds up choosing herself a god-husband – based solely (no pun intended) on the look of his feet. She accidentally picks Njörd (god of the sea), thinking his lovely, white feet must belong to Odin’s golden-boy Baldr.
Disappointed, Skaði only agrees to this matchmaking farce if the gods can do something impossible, given her foul mood: make her laugh. Though Loki and a goat manage this feat, Njörd and Skaði’s marriage is short-lived.
Yet the strangeness of this myth – especially Skaði’s fury deflating into laughter – always draws me back to her story.
Aslaug
Fans of television’s Vikings will recognise Aslaug as the second wife of the charming and daring protagonist, Ragnar. In this fantastical mashup of the Tales of Ragnar’s Sons and other medieval Icelandic sagas, Aslaug is utterly overshadowed by her predecessor, the shieldmaiden Lagertha.
While I do love Lagertha’s character in this show, I want to champion the literary Aslaug as the real, bad-arse, warrior woman people should know about.
As the daughter of the famous heroes Sigurd and Brynhild from Völsunga saga (among other sources), Aslaug is hot property; after her parents’ tragic deaths, she is in a vulnerable position.
To keep her safe, her foster father Heimer tucks Aslaug into an oversized harp – along with a trove of jewels, silks and gold – and smuggles her out of the grasp of greedy kings.
After the pair travel incognito all the way to Norway’s far north, the gig is up when a poor couple spy rich ribbons trailing out of the harp case.
Young Aslaug in the harp.
Mårten Eskil Winge, Wikimedia Commons
They kill Heimer and claim Aslaug (and her wealth) as their own, then treat her as a drudge/daughter for many years – until, as a gorgeous 18-year-old, she outwits them and Ragnar and secures a much greater future for herself.
There is certainly something folkloric about Aslaug’s beginnings, but as a grown woman, she becomes a clever and determined warrior whose character provides the blueprint for other fictional shieldmaidens.
Literary Aslaug is much more impressive than Lagertha or her husband Ragnar in the sagas. She’s the one who wins great battles overseas, she fights for, and alongside, her famous sons (such as Ivar the Boneless) and, indeed, she saves Ragnar’s bacon on more than one occasion. This Aslaug lives up to her mythical, heroic ancestry.
Gunnhild
Unlike the other women I’ve highlighted so far, Gunnhild konungsmóðir (Mother of Kings, c.910-980) is the only one on this list who was (arguably) a real person.
As the wife of Eirik Blood-axe and Queen of Norway, the Orkneys and York, Gunnhild appears in more early medieval Icelandic sagas and Norwegian historiographies than any other Viking Age woman.
She maintains a level of power and influence that few (if any) other female characters enjoyed in this period, yet she is one of the most inconsistently represented figures in Old Norse-Icelandic history and literature.
The sagas love and hate her in equal measure.
Gunnhild’s biography is cobbled together from rumour, hearsay and snippets – the earliest source about her was written at least a century after her death – and is thus riddled with contradictions. She’s beautiful and generous but small and selfish. She’s a heathen but a Christian.
She damages Eirik’s reputation (by association) and relentlessly goads him into killing men she considers rivals but their powerful sons all defer to her ráð – a word in Old Norse that literally means “advice or counsel”, also carrying connotations of “wisdom”.
Gunnhild is said to be a witch and poisoner, but she’s as likely to spit curses as she is to commission soul-wrenching elegies.
Gunnhild egging on her sons.
Wikimedia Commons
She’s the nemesis of saga heroes, like the infamous warrior-poet Egil Skallagrimsson, and she holds a grudge like nobody else.
No matter which way you look at her, Gunnhild is wonderful and horrible. Soft-hearted and ruthless. Despicable and totally awesome.
Yet She Lives: Fierce and Fantastical Women of Norse Mythology is published by Thames and Hudson
Authors: Lisa Bennett, Associate Professor, Flinders University
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