How did you initially get interested in Vikings-and female Vikings in particular ?
She also explores the Viking sagas and contemporary sources with a new lens.Ītlas Obscura spoke with Brown about her new book, valkyries, and the assumptions that underlie the history we think we know. Brown imagines the unnamed warrior meeting other prominent Viking women, such as Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, or Queen Olga, ruler of the Rus Vikings in Kiev. Using more evidence from the recent tests conducted on the remains, Brown traces her journey from Norway to the British Isles to Kiev then, finally, to Birka. Viking historian Nancy Marie Brown’s new book, The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women, explores what life might have been like for the warrior woman of Bj 581. Nancy Marie Brown’s new book explores the life of the warrior woman buried in Bj 581. This was a prominent warrior, all right, but the occupant of Bj 581 wasn’t a man. No one was really prepared when DNA tests were conducted in 2017 and a new story began to emerge. The weapons, game pieces, location: Everything told scholars that the man buried in what is known as grave Bj 581 was a prominent, well-respected Viking warrior.
A thousand years ago, the site would’ve abutted the Warrior’s Hall, where a garrison lived to protect the bustling Viking town of Birka.
There was also a full set of hnefatafl, the board game often known as Viking chess, which indicates the strategic thinking and authority of a war leader. It was an astonishing find, especially since Viking warrior graves rarely contain more than three weapons. Around the seated body were the remains of two sacrificed horses, as well as a double-edged sword, a scramasax (a long, thin knife), a bow, a shield, and a spear-every weapon known to the Viking world. In 1871 on the sleepy island of Birka, Sweden, Hjalmar Stolpe, a Swedish entomologist turned archaeologist, discovered the lavish grave of a Viking warrior.
In Atlas Obscura’s Q&A series She Was There, we talk to female scholars who are writing long-forgotten women back into history.