Shieldmaidens would have looked much more like Brienne on 'Game of Thrones' than a Victoria Secret catalog...
Posted on 09/08/2017 12:21:49 PM PDT by C19fan
I bet she look like Xzena Warrior Princess..?
Scots women on the other hand rode in to battle bare breasted with body paint. They cut off heads as trophies
She insisted on being called Butch.
I used to be into martial arts sparring. At my old dojo I used to have to spar a young woman who was a former Army MP. She was a Game of Thrones Brienne of Tarth in stature. She had me by at least 5-6 inches in height, had me in arm reach and leg reach. Me well I am not tall, basically lets say weightlifting is my sport and its power lifting not body building. So lets just say I am “solid”. Also I might add I was twice her age. She used to get irritated with me if I would hold back, which I always did. I would “up my game” when she would complain, but I still wouldn’t go all out. I still could “block” all her punches and kicks or avoid them. I would let her hit me solid and she couldn’t “stagger” me, she had “power” commiserate with her size. Once with one of her “flying kick” she just bounced off me. I often felt bad when she did stuff like this, because I viewed has as a friend. It bothered me that her “frustration” wasn’t based on realism. Women just can’t generate the power, one can’t change the physics of the reality. I kept telling her that she need to spend more time on joint locks, etc. concentrate on developing the “subtle” aspects of the art not the power. She was so dedicated to “the art” she probably could have easily “kicked my ass” if she did that. Unfortunately she was unrealistically enamored with displaying “power”.
And yes in GOT Brienne sort of way she was cute!
Female armor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSiiJ8uvc60
Exactly
There are examples in Caesar’s Gallic Wars (Yes I know they are not Vikings!) of Celtic women with bows shooting at Romans. And there is the Leif Erikson daughter example in a few sagas that you just cited. However most historians of the Norse era dismiss the whole shield maiden thing as myth.
Now I personally would like it to be true, hot babes with swords in leather! What’s not to like!
Shieldmaidens would have looked much more like Brienne on 'Game of Thrones' than a Victoria Secret catalog...
yep
way funny
Yup. The lyrics to Tannheuser.
Freydís is described as Leif Erikson’s full sister. This was the first saga written in the late twelfth century and is a crude version of the accounts that happened in Vinland. Freydís is mentioned only once in this saga. This is the most famous account we have of Freydís.
After expeditions to Vinland led by Leif Erikson, Þorvaldr Eiríksson and Þorfinnr Karlsefni met with some success, Freydís wants the prestige and wealth associated with a Vinland journey. She makes a deal with two Icelandic men, Helgi and Finnbogi, that they should go together to Vinland and share all profits half-and-half. Freydis asks her brother Leif Erikson to use the homes and stables that he has built in Vinland. He agrees that they all can use the houses. Helgi and Finnbogi agree that they will bring the same number of men and supplies, but Freydis ends up leaving after the brothers because she had smuggled more men into her ship. Helgi and Finnbogi, arriving early, take refuge in the houses until Freydís appears and orders the brothers to move, as the houses were her brothers and meant for her. This is one of the many disagreements that would happen in the time they are there.
In Vinland, there was tension between the two groups. Helgi and Finnbogi set up a settlement separate from Freydis and her crew. Freydis eventually went to the brothers’ hut and asked how they were faring. “Well,” responded the brothers, “but we do not like this ill-feeling that has sprung up between us.” The two sides made peace.
When she returned to her husband, Freydis claimed Helgi and Finnbogi had beaten her, and, calling him a coward, demanded that he exact revenge on her behalf, or else she would divorce him. He gathered his men and killed Helgi and Finnbogi as well as the men in their camp when they were sleeping. When he refused to kill the five women in the camp, Freydis herself picked up an axe and massacred them.
Freydís wanted to conceal her treachery and threatened death to anyone who would tell of the killings. She went back to Greenland after a year’s stay and told her brother Leif Eiriksson that Helgi and Finnbogi had decided to stay in Vinland. However, word of the killings eventually reached the ears of Leif. He had three men from Freydís’s expedition tortured until they confessed the whole occurrence. Thinking ill of the deeds, Leif still did not want “to do that to Freydís, my sister, which she has deserved”. However, he remarked that he foresaw Fredydis’ descendants having little prosperity. The Greenlander Saga concludes that everyone thought ill of her descendants afterwards.
Sounds like a real winner(not).
She calls out, "Why run you away from such worthless creatures, stout men that ye are, when, as seems to me likely, you might slaughter them like so many cattle? Let me but have a weapon; I think I could fight better than any of you." They give no heed to what she says. Freydis is eight months pregnant at the time, but this does not stop her from running out of her tent and grabbing the sword from her fallen brother in arms, Thorbrand, Snorri's son. Then come the Skrælingjar upon her. She lets down her sark so that one breast is exposed, and strikes her breast with the sword, letting out a furious battle cry. At this the Skrælingjar are frightened and rush off to their boats, and flee away.
I have a hard time believing that story.
Not quite how it happened. Lagertha killed Knut because he was trying to rape her. Ragnar was then accused of murdering Knut but was acquitted when his brother testified that Ragnar did kill Knut when he caught him trying to rape Lagertha.
I studied martial arts when I was younger. Got pretty good at it. In my opinion you can be a 10th. degree black belt with long, strong legs, a heavy weight boxer with a mean left hook. But if a good wrestler gets a hold of you you’re dead.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks C19fan. Not pingin', just addin'.
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