You’ve seen them in shows, you’ve seen them in games: badass Viking women warriors, fighting alongside men. But were they actually real? The answer is way more complicated and interesting than you think.
Okay, so let's get one thing straight. The idea that Viking berserkers had female equivalents called “Valkyries” is… well, not quite right. 😬 Valkyries were totally a thing, but they were mythological figures, not real-life warriors.
In Norse myths, Valkyries were supernatural beings who served the god Odin. Their name literally means “choosers of the slain.” They’d fly over battlefields and select the most heroic warriors to die and go to Valhalla. They were more like supernatural talent scouts for an epic afterlife party than actual fighters. 👻
So if Valkyries weren't real, where did we get the idea of female warriors? From the sagas! These were epic stories written down hundreds of years after the Viking Age. They’re full of incredible characters, including some seriously fierce women.
You’ve got figures like Hervor, who literally dug up her father’s grave to claim a cursed sword, and Freydís Eiríksdóttir, who, while pregnant, single-handedly scared off a group of attackers by slapping a sword against her bare chest. I know, right?! 🤯 These stories are amazing, but most historians see them as legends, not literal history.
For centuries, that’s what everyone thought: shieldmaidens were just myths. But then, in 2017, science dropped a bombshell. 💣 Scientists did a DNA test on a 10th-century Viking grave discovered in Birka, Sweden. This wasn’t just any grave; it was the tomb of a high-ranking warrior.
It was filled with weapons: a sword, an axe, a spear, armor-piercing arrows, and two shields. It even had a full set of game pieces, suggesting the person was a military strategist. For over 100 years, everyone assumed the skeleton was male. The DNA test proved the warrior was a woman. Yes, really. 😱
This discovery was HUGE. It’s the first-ever confirmed grave of a high-status female Viking warrior. But here’s the catch: historians are still debating what it means. Does one grave prove that armies of shieldmaidens existed? Or was this woman a rare exception?
And what about female berserkers? There’s absolutely zero evidence for that. The trance-like fury was a berserker thing, and berserkers were men. The idea of female berserkers is a modern mashup of two different Viking concepts.
The truth is, the Viking world was complex. While women weren’t typically on the battlefield, the Birka warrior proves that at least one woman was respected enough to be buried as a great leader. And honestly? The real story of this one-in-a-million warrior woman is even cooler than the myth. 👑
DNA Suggests Viking Women Were Powerful Warriors - HISTORY
Viking Shieldmaidens & Berserkers: Fact vs. Fiction - TheCollector
