" fascinating overview of women's roles in the Viking world, from infancy to death. In Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir's significant new history, they are brought engagingly to life." - Times Literary Supplement "Valkyries have an obvious appeal, but the real women of the Viking age are more exciting. This book is intelligent, engaging and well written, with many new insights." - BBC History Magazine "Friðriksdóttir weaves a complex picture in which different kinds of evidence successfully illuminate each other to provide a rich and detailed picture. " brilliantly manages to make the Vikings feel far closer to us than ever before. In the process, this fascinating book uncovers the reality behind the myths and legends to reveal the dynamic, diverse lives of Viking women. The women in these stories take full part in the power struggles and upheavals in their communities, for better or worse.ĭrawing on the latest historical and archaeological evidence, Valkyrie introduces readers to the dramatic and fascinating texts recorded in medieval Iceland, a culture able to imagine women in all kinds of roles carrying power, not just in this world, but pulling the strings in the other-world, too. Rather than their death being futile, it is their destiny and good fortune, determined by divine beings. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war - to make the pain and suffering, the lost limbs and deformities, the piles of lifeless bodies of young men, glorious and worthwhile. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows and sword blades into the bodies of others.
Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE
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