Research Catalog
The real Valkyrie : the hidden history of Viking warrior women
- Title
- The real Valkyrie : the hidden history of Viking warrior women / Nancy Marie Brown.
- Author
- Brown, Nancy Marie
- Publication
- New York : St. Martin's Press, 2021.
- ©2021
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 21-8407 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- viii, 320 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm
- Summary
- "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. 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. 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"--
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Introduction: the Valkyrie's grave -- Hervor's song -- Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings -- The Town Beneath the Shining Hall -- Little "Hel-skins" -- Queen Asa's revenge -- The Winter Nights feast -- The Valkyries' task -- The feud -- The Queen of Orkney -- The tragedy of Brynhild -- Shield-maids -- The Red Girl -- Slave girls -- The slave route to Birka -- Red Earth -- A Birka warrior -- The Kaftan -- The East way -- At Linda's stone -- "Gerzkr" caps -- Queen Olga's revenge -- Death of a Valkyrie.
- Call Number
- JFE 21-8407
- ISBN
- 9781250200846
- 1250200849
- LCCN
- 2021006973
- 40030730401
- OCLC
- 1184235216
- Author
- Brown, Nancy Marie, author.
- Title
- The real Valkyrie : the hidden history of Viking warrior women / Nancy Marie Brown.
- Publisher
- New York : St. Martin's Press, 2021.
- Copyright Date
- ©2021
- Edition
- First edition.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Chronological Term
- To 1500
- Other Standard Identifier
- 40030730401
- Research Call Number
- JFE 21-8407