Historical Accounts
There are few historical attestations that Viking Age women took part in warfare, but the Byzantine historian Johannes Skylitzes records that women fought in battle when Sviatoslav I of Kiev attacked the Byzantines in Bulgaria in 971. When the Varangians had suffered a devastating defeat, the victors were stunned at discovering armed women among the fallen warriors.
When Leif Ericson's pregnant half-sister Freydís Eiríksdóttir was in America, she is reported to have taken up a sword, and, bare-breasted, scared away the attacking Native Americans. The fight is recounted in the Greenland saga, though Freydís is not explicitly referred to as a shieldmaiden in the text.
Read more about this topic: Shieldmaiden
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or accounts:
“Religion means goal and way, politics implies end and means. The political end is recognizable by the fact that it may be attained—in success—and its attainment is historically recorded. The religious goal remains, even in man’s highest experiences, that which simply provides direction on the mortal way; it never enters into historical consummation.”
—Martin Buber (1878–1965)
“Good friends settle their accounts speedily.”
—Chinese proverb.