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.
Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. Women in the Viking Age explores an unfamiliar aspect of medieval history, and offers a new perspective on viking society, very different from the traditional image of a violent and male-dominated world. JUDITH JESCH is Reader in Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham. Women in the Viking Age explores anunfamiliar aspect of medieval history and offers a new perspective on Viking society, very different from the traditional picture of a violent and male-dominated world. These sources illuminate different aspects of women' s lives in the Viking age, on the farms and in the trading centres of Scandinavia, abroad on Viking expeditions, and as settlers in places such as Iceland and the British Isles. Evidence for their lives is fragmentary, but Judith Jesch assembles the clues provided by archaeology, runic inscriptions, place names and personal names, foreign historical records and Old Norse literature and mythology. GUARDIAN This is the first book-length study in English to investigate what women did in the Viking age, both at home in Scandinavia and in the Viking colonies from Greenland to Russia.
Well-illustrated, closely argued and fascinating.
0 kommentar(er)
