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Women in Viking Age Folk Narratives

  • 07/01/2025
  • 19:00-20:30
  • online talk

Gudrun setting fire to Attila's residence. Woodcut designed by Edward Burne-Jones for William Morris, Sigurd the Volsung (London: Kelmscott Press, 1898) (wikimedia commons)

Women in Viking Age Folk Narratives

A Folklore Society online talk

by

Rosalind Kerven

Tuesday 7 January 2025, 19:00 GMT

Tune in to meet the colourful women of old Norse myths and legends from the earliest reliable sources: The Prose Edda, compiled by a 13th-century Icelandic folklorist; and the slightly later Poetic Edda, narrative poems transcribed from ancient oral tradition. With input from medieval Sagas based on Viking Age oral histories.

Discover:

• The goddesses, for example: Frigg, who bent the entire living world to her will in an attempt to save her son’s life; Hel, grotesque guardian of the Underworld; Freyja, goddess of love, abandoned by her husband, and outrageously insulted by the trickster god Loki; Idun, keeper of the Apples of Youth, essential to maintain the deities’ vigour.

• The Valkyries, renowned for transporting slain warriors from the battlefield to enjoy eternal feasting and fighting in Odin’s hall. Sometimes depicted as shape-shifting ‘swan maidens’, familiar from folk tales from around the world. Including the famous Brynhild, murderous heroine of the Vikings’ favourite legend, the Saga of the Volsungs.

• The Norns, virginal seeresses who decide people’s fates at birth and shape their destinies throughout life.

• Oral histories of real life women, transcribed in the later Middle Ages. Including: Aud the Deep Minded, a queen-consort who founded an egalitarian community in Iceland; Freydis Eiriksdottir, entrepreneurial pioneer in the short-lived Viking Age colony in North America.

• The giantesses, also known as troll wives. Including: The formidable Hyrrokkin who rides a wolf with vipers as reins; Vulnerable young Gunnlodd, incarcerated by her giant father to guard the fabled Mead of Poetry.

An independent researcher, Rosalind has been working with world myths, legends and folktales for over 40 years, and most of her 70+ books published in 22 countries are in that genre. Her full-length collections from many cultures for adults are meticulously researched from the oldest archives. These have been highly praised by reviewers in The Times Literary Supplement (two books), The Independent, Grammarye and The Folklore Society’s own journal, Folklore. She has written both fiction and non-fiction set in the Viking Age including the bestselling Viking Myths & Sagas (featured on the BBC History Extra website), and The Viking Queen’s Cunning, a novel about the legendary Aud the Deep-Minded. Rosalind has presented a number of papers and online talks for the Folklore Society and also for the Richard Hall Vikings Symposium in York.

See her websites: https://workingwithmythsandfairytales.blogspot.com/ and https://vikingmythsandsagas.blogspot.com/

Tickets £6.00 (£4.00 for Folklore Society members with the Promo Code: log in to the Members Only area to get the Promo Code), from: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-in-viking-age-folk-narratives-tickets-1044234592777

Every ticket sold helps to support the work of The Folklore Society

Image credit: Gudrun setting fire to Attila’s residence. Woodcut designed by Edward Burne-Jones for William Morris, Sigurd the Volsung (London: Kelmscott Press, 1898) (wikimedia commons)