Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World

I was excited for Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World to arrive, and was equally happy to read it! It met all my expectations, and confirmed more than a few pet theories of my own on the topic. It is always a pleasure to read a book backed by scholarly rigor that is also concise and easy to read. I've read many academic works and even published my own research, and personally rather enjoy a wickedly complex, data-driven argument full of jargon. But most people don't, and so a great deal of fascinating research stays unnoticed by most non-academics. This is a work I hope will escape that fate! From the first page, the reader is taken into a world lost a thousand years ago, but still teems with relevance to today's world. That this world is inhabited by Norse and Viking women is a big part of why the work is so compelling - there remains a frustrating emphasis on the masculine aspects of Viking culture in most published work in this area. Ironically, many contemporary writers repeat the mistake of Snorri Sturluson and his compatriots all those centuries ago - they center their analysis of life in Northern Europe on the doings of men. Typically, aristocratic men who ***probably*** tried very hard to influence how other people saw them and told stories about them, like all political types do. But Valkyrie's emphasis on women's lives, based on an excellent collection of high quality data collected over the past century, offers a far more complex and ultimately compelling vision of the world of the Viking Era, roughly 800-1200 CE, when the climate of the North Atlantic was warmer than it is today (though this is, of course, changing fast). Then as now, people lived, broadly speaking, as they always have - trying to make a living and avoid the worst perils of the world. Some, the lucky ones, were able to take advantage of the Norse maritime prowess to travel widely, raiding and trading and becoming court poets - all pathways to wealth and glory. Women played a crucial role in this, as they do in the history of all peoples, whether it was written down by mostly-male monks and historians or not. And Valkyrie offers a lifecycle portrait of what that role was and how they made their way through a world that, while freer in some ways than the patriarchal societies most humans live in today, still actively discriminated against women and restricted their life choices. Still, despite the fact that *most* women probably never traveled far from home during their often difficult lives, many beat the odds and despite the barriers they faced carved out an autonomous life for themselves. Evidence is evaluated from grave sites across Northern Europe detailing the kinds of objects women were sent to the afterlife with, and beyond that there exists a vast body of literature written during and in the centuries after the Viking Age. The many Norse sagas offer an additional glimpse into the time, often including remarkable details that, even if exaggerated or played up for entertainment purposes - the sagas and books of poetry represented an early form of mass media - shed valuable light on the nature of life as a woman in the era. I strongly recommend this concise and thoroughly researched book to anyone with an interest in the history of Northern Europe or Viking society. If you have read and enjoyed any of the sagas, Valkyrie highlights the role of the female characters and puts their portrayal in context. If you are an instructor looking for a text, I think you'll find that students can really engage with this one, perhaps alongside sections of the relevant sagas, handily indexed. Only criticism I can come up with is that, being a scholarly work, there are limits to what can be published without pushing too far into the realm of speculation. But I have a suspicion that there are greater depths still to explore, that may help explain the interesting revival in interest into Norse culture that appears to be taking place. Well done, and thank you for this book!

Fantastic book. I am totally not bias because I love vikings, history and one of my best friend sis from Iceland. I studied the Sagas one semester in college. I am addicted to anything and everything Scandinavian history. The best part if that this is written from the woman's point of view. What little we do know about daily life and a few famous women mentioned in the Sagas is really explained well in this book. I really cannot speak any higher praise for a historical read than I can for this book. It is the best one I have read to date.

Notice how the people who give a bad review of this book happen to be mostly men? Misogyny is real. There is no feminist agenda pushed in this book. The sources used are reliable, the only agenda here is to better understand how women of the Viking age lived, what was expected of them, and their journey from being young to being mature. It is endorsed by someone who is the best professor of archeology, Neil Price; among other serious names and institutions, so the only way I can rationalize the bad reviews is, there are too many misogynistic"people" who still think women belong in the kitchen, even back then. The language used is easy to understand, the sources cited are easy to confirm. In overall, this is a much needed book on the subject. This book should be rated at eleven out of ten stars.

Great book!

I used this book as a guide for a literature review of the Valkyries, that focuses on the agency of Valkyrie women in lore. There is absolutely no equal of this book available on the market. Friddriksdottir supplies a thorough explanation of life for Valkyrie women in everyday life, in battle, in folklore, and in their abilities to survive, thrive, and make magic. This book is great as a reference as well as for general reading. The information is presented in a logical fashion, and presents the contraditions and parallels with the folklore that is provided by several sources, with valid commentary about the validity of sources as well as the reasons why these women are presented in certain ways in different manuscripts. I learned more about Viking women from this book than all of the 50 some odd sources that I compiled. Bravo for this magnificent piece.

This book is destined to be a classic in the field of Viking studies. It's impeccably researched and eminently readable. Great source material for some Viking-themed novels I'm writing. Excellent! I've send copies to several friends.

I thought this book would be an overview of what we know about the lives of Viking women combining archeological analysis, with legal and literary sources. It's more like a rambling and inconclusive look at 2-4 saga sources each for different themes of Viking women's lives like "Teenage girls: Betrothal." I think a literary approach could have merit but it should either be systematic and inventory a number of texts for patterns or stick to the literary analysis itself. It comes across as "Well, it's hard to say what it all really means but this one story portrayed this Viking lady this way and another one said this other wierd and contradictory thing about this other lady."

Fantastic read ,great for historical study not many books on the Vikings in general a great addition to your library

Beautiful book and well written

Es gibt bisher nur wenige Bücher - meist nur kurze Kapitel - die sich mit dem Thema der Walküren beschäftigen. Daher habe ich diese Neuerscheinung sehr begrüßt! Ein absolut faszinierendes Buch und eine absolute Leseempfehlung! Sachkundig geschrieben, aber auch für Laien und Interessierte sehr gut verständlich.

A brilliant piece of work that would appeal to anyone interested in the Viking Age, whether they are an academic or not. The author writes in a way that is both informative and also easy to understand. The research is impeccable, and the author's presentation of the archaeological findings combined with the information gleaned from the written records supports the entirety of this work. I highly recommend Valkyrie, Women of the Viking World.

I've only just started but so far so good. Also the runes on the front cover reads "Crush the Patriarchy" which is HILARIOUS!!

Unfortunately, Fridriksdottir, rather than following the evidence to form conclusions, has conclusions she searches for evidence to justify. She rejects or accepts things with no justification whatsoever, making her arguments worthless. The book's organization receives no justification or rationalization either. This is a coffee table book for people of her class and not to be taken seriously.