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The Real Valkyrie
The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women | Nancy Marie Brown
4 posts | 1 read
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 "A complex, important, and delightful addition to women’s history." —Pamela D. Toler, author of Women Warriors: An Unexpected History 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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annamatopoetry
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I read 27 books in 2023, and while I enjoyed most (no dnfs), these... challenges my patience:

The Real Valkyrie: you can't call a book factual and then have 70% of it be made up, fictional, story with the barest support in archeology.

Girly Drinks: often ignorant author who seemed more interested in going "yay, booze!" than in having any kind of in-depth analysis of how at times, alcohol has actively made the lives of women worse.

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annamatopoetry
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Mehso-so

My friend recommended this a while after I first learned of the newly female-reidentified remains on Birka, & I was expecting something better tbh. I don't know how much I like Brown's strategy of creating fiction around who she could have been (and the fact that the sagas did the same thing, well, they're 800 years old) and the translations of both personal and place names made me want to chew my arm off. But the facts presented are interesting.

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annamatopoetry
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1) a king is a giver of rings.
2) not sure about the decision to keep the older translation of Kolmården, Mirkwood
Yes, it's where Papa Tolkien got it, but it has other associations now. I'm usually 100% pro exonyms but like. They're both equally impenetrable.
3) a lil too much emphasis on the pop in pop archeology, again. I need to start reading PhD theses..

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shanaqui

This is heavy on the imaginative reconstruction, which bugs me a lot. Also, though there is a bibliography, there aren't any footnotes, so it's hard to source any claims.

I'm enjoying it as a light read, but I'd hoped for more. I remembered quite enjoying the author's work on the Lewis Chessmen, but maybe I'm misremembering?! Or her style/intended audience has changed?

It's a shame, because I love rediscovering our non-male warriors!