Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 131

The Valkyries in the Heroic Literature
of the North
RITI KROESEN
In recent years valkyries and shield maidens, heroines of some heroic stories of
the North, have been a focus of high interest, mainly because they are so different
from the women of the realistic Islendinga sögur, who move in a quite different
sphere of life. They do not have to submit themselves to male authority as the
Icelandic women, especially unmarried women, have to do. On the contrary, in
the middle of a predominantly male company (often on the battlefield!) they
bend men to do their will. They make their own decisions and choose their own
mates. This makes them very appealing to a modern audience. A number of
studies on these women with a psychological and more or less feminist orientation
have appeared as a result.1 Given that the above description applies to both
valkyries and shield maidens, we can well understand that these studies make no
difference between them.2 3
Yet there are some fundamental differences. Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Dano-
rum describes two kinds of women who are associated with war and the battlefi-
eld. In Book VTI he gives a description of a certain kind of woman, named by
him virgo bellica:
Fuere quondam apud Danos feminœ, quœ formam suam in virilem habitum convertentes
omniapœne temporum momenta ad excolendam militianm conferebant, ne virtutis nervos
luxuriœ contagione hebetari paterentur. Siquidem delicatum vivendi genus perosœ corpus
animumque patientia ac labore durare solebant totamque feminte levitatis mollitiem
abdicantes muliebre ingenium virili uti sœvitia cogebant. Sed et tanta cura rei militaris
notitiam captabant, ut feminœ exuisse quivis putaret. Pmcipue vero, quibus aut ingenii
vigor aut decora corporum proceritas erat, id vitœ genus incidere consueverant. Hœ ergo,
perinde ac native condicionis immemores rigoremque blanditiis anteferentes, bella pro basiis
intentabant sanguinemque, non oscula delibantes armorum potius quam amorum officia
frequentabant manusque, qiuis in telas aptare debuerant, telorum obsequiis exhibebant, ut
iam non lecto, sed leto studentes spiculis appeterent, quos mulcere specie potuissent?
(There were once women in Denmark who dressed themselves to look like men and
spent almost every minute cultivating soldiers’ skills; they did not want the sinews of
their valour to loose tautness and be infected by self-indulgence. Loathing a dainty
1 Strand (1980), Præstgaard Andersen (1982), Holmqvist Larsen (1983).
2 Even Damico mixes them up, which in a mythological study about valkyries is a serious failure.
See Damico (1984).
3 Saxo (1931), p. 192, F/ED (1979-80), p. 212.