How frequently did Viking women fight in battle?
He suspects that Viking women fought in battle but not frequently.
Key points
- The archaeological record also holds evidence, including graves of Viking Age women who were buried with war-grade weapons and shields.
- But over the past few decades, researchers have turned their attention to women of the Viking Age (roughly A.D.
- Even more Viking Age women's graves have items that could have been used as weapons — including spears, axes and knives — although these tools also could have been used for hunting or tending to farms.
For instance, there are stories of "shield maidens" who fought alongside men, and some of these texts mention Viking women who fought in battle.
The answer, experts told Live Science, largely depends on our interpretation of texts, artifacts, and burials of Viking Age women, which often face higher scrutiny than burials of men who were buried with similar (or even fewer) weapons.
Additional details
- Either way, we can't be sure if these women fought in battle.
- Archaeologists know of about 30 Viking Age female burials containing weapons, including three with swords in Scandinavia.
- "Furthermore, these writings are not accurate, but moral and fictitious," Heebøll-Holm said, noting that, in some instances, Saxo Grammaticus seemed to be drawing on the stories of the Amazons, a group of legendary female warriors whom the ancient Greeks believed in with stories about them dating back more than 2,500 years.
- "The first concern is that the weapons were really used by the deceased and were not merely included as signs of special status or social rank acquired through inheritance," Deborah Shepherd, an independent researcher who holds a doctorate in archaeology and has studied the Vikings extensively, told Live Science in an email.
- "Saxo Grammaticus does write about female warriors, but only in the parts of his work concerned [with] the legendary past of Denmark," Heebøll-Holm told Live Science in an email.
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