Shieldmaiden

The tale of the shieldmaidens

The Norse sagas and the old histories of Scandinavia remember women who chose the sword and the shield instead of the loom. They were called skjaldmeyjar, shieldmaidens, and the Norse, who respected very little, respected them.

Lagertha

The most famous is Lagertha, whose story is told by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus around the year 1200. When a Swedish king invaded Norway and shamed the women of the royal household, the young hero Ragnar Lodbrok came to fight him. Among the women who put on men's clothing and joined his army was Lagertha. Saxo says she fought "with her hair loose over her shoulders" in the very front of the battle, and that everyone marvelled at her deeds.

Ragnar fell in love with her and courted her. She tested him by setting a bear and a great hound to guard her house, and he had to kill them to reach her. They married, though the marriage did not last. Years later, when Ragnar was in trouble in a civil war, Lagertha came to his aid with 120 ships and turned the battle with a charge from behind, saving him.

Women of the sagas

Other shieldmaidens appear in the old stories. Hervor went to her dead father's burial mound and demanded his cursed sword Tyrfing, even as the mound burned around her. Brynhildr was a valkyrie and a shieldmaiden. Saxo also tells of a whole troop of shieldmaidens at the great Battle of Brávellir, led by three women: Visna, Heid and Vebjorg.

History and legend

Historians still argue about how many real Viking women fought. Most women in Viking Age Scandinavia ran farms and households, which was itself hard and important work. But in 2017, DNA tests on a famous 10th-century warrior grave at Birka in Sweden, buried with a sword, axe, spear, arrows, shields, two horses and a strategy game, showed that the warrior was a woman. Whether she was a shieldmaiden of the sagas or a war leader, she was buried as a warrior.

Shieldmaiden in Battle of Myths

The Shieldmaiden is a cost 1 Norse guardian and warrior. Her ability, Shield Wall, locks shields: she shields herself and every ally standing next to her. As her quote says: lock shields, and the sagas will sort out who was brave afterwards. Like every Norse hero, she grows stronger with Ragnarök the longer a fight lasts.

Did you know?

• The shield wall (skjaldborg, "shield fortress") was the core tactic of Viking battles: a line of overlapping shields that warriors held shoulder to shoulder.
• Viking shields were usually made of wooden planks, often linden, painted in bright colours, with an iron boss in the centre.