Shield Maidens
The debate surrounding the existence of female Viking warriors
The grave of the Birka Warrior, discovered in 1889, has always been held up as the pinnacle of the male Viking fighter. Buried alongside the remains were gifts of weapons, the skeletons of two horses and a board game. The latter may seem strange but it is an indicator that the deceased was a strategist and military leader.
The conclusion that the grave belonged to a high-ranking warrior has existed for almost 130 years but in recent months it has been proven that the skeleton is actually that of a female, not a male. Now the game has changed as the evidence calls into question a long-standing norm — that Viking warriors were all male.
The issue is that, despite this recent archaeological revelation, there is no concrete evidence that shield maidens actually existed. To begin with, the old Norse term ‘vikingar’ itself only applied to men and not to women, so technically there can be no such thing as a female Viking fighter. The majority of information concerning female warriors originates from the Icelandic sagas, which are factually incorrect.
The Medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen spoke of “war-like” women in northern Sweden and Grammaticus mentioned shield maidens, but neither elaborated further. Then again, there are many cultural references to shield maidens in Viking iconography as well as literature, which may one day prove their true existence.