Moderator’s Note: This piece is in co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. To quote Theresa, “by doing this work we are expanding our own writer’s web for nourishment and support.” This was originally posted on their site on April 22th, 2025. You can see more of their posts here.
Most people have heard of the Vikings, the seafaring warriors of Northern Europe. Their travels to Iceland, Greenland and the American continent long before most believed contact was accomplished proved their prowess in navigation and traveling the turbulent waters of the north. Others are familiar with Norse Mythology: the flying Valkyries, god Odin and goddess Freya. But little has been known of the lives of ordinary or extraordinary Viking women until recently.
In The Northwomen: Untold Stories From the Other Half of the Viking World, Heather Pringle does an incredible job of gathering and telling the stories of these erased, ignored and unacknowledged women.
The chapter “Sorceresses and Demigoddesses” detailing the famous Oseberg burial of two high-status women in a Viking ship, is a powerful transmission. Then there is the chapter on recent revelations of the burials of Viking warrior women, which intrigue and astound.
But what is most remarkable about The Northwomen is that Pringle takes the time and care to include the story of the variety of ways women lived their lives in the Viking world. She does not only write about the “exceptional” women of the Vikings—the warriors and the sorceresses and Demigoddesses. She includes stories of women traders, ancestors, protectors, weavers, voyagers, and even the women the Vikings enslaved.
By looking into the myriad ways women lived their lives in Viking society, Pringle sheds light on all the ways women participated, contributed to, and created the culture of the Vikings. This is, of course, true of all cultures of the world. Women have always participated in, contributed to and helped create culture, but often what is seen as women’s work gets left out as unimportant and nonessential. Pringle’s model in this book is a great one for us to follow to be sure that when we talk about women who have been erased, forgotten, and unacknowledged, we include all women, not only the ones we call exceptional —meaning the ones who excelled at what are often considered male accomplishments.
In the case of the women weavers of the Viking age, it becomes clear that without the weavers, there would be no Vikings. And yet, women’s accomplishments in textile arts is are often overlooked and left out of stories of culture and history.
Read Nasty Women Writers post: NastyWomenWeavers: Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s Women’s Work: The First 20,000 years
The people called the Vikings made their presence known to the monasteries of England beginning in 750 CE with the first documented raid. The origin of the term Viking is unknown.
“But whatever its origins, the name stuck. Today, English-language speakers use the term to include anyone, male or female, who lived in Scandinavia during the time now called the Viking Age, which began in the mid-eighth century and wound down after the mid 11th century or so”(NW 17).
The Oseberg ship burial
Many Viking burial mounds have been found and uncovered. In them are graves of high-ranking people, sometimes even buried in a whole ship. Because of the elaborateness of the burial and the wealth of grave goods, these burials were assumed to be that of men. However, the Oseberg ship burial revealed the graves of two high-status Viking women.
I doubt we can fully imagine who these two women were. Pringle does a good job creating a picture from what was found in the burial and what is known from myth and history, but also acknowledges there is much more to this story and we must keep listening. The degree to which these and other powerful female leaders were erased leaves us with a vacuum within which we find ourselves at a loss to even understand or begin to describe.
An interesting feature of the book is fictionalized vignettes at the beginning of each chapter written by Pringle about the women we are to encounter in the following pages. These introductions are compelling and give an intimate framework for the facts to follow. I hope she is planning to write a fictional version of this book and these women.
Within a mound on a farm in Norway called Lille Oseberg, was exposed the burial of a complete Viking longship with an ornate pattern of repeating dragon-like beings carved along its prow and stern. Inside the ship were also carriages, three wooden sleighs, a high wooden throne, an ornate chest and a pouch full of cannabis seeds.
“But the inventory of treasures didn’t end there. Tucked away in the burial chamber, Gustafson and his colleagues found five intricately carved animal heads, each the work of a master artisan. In addition, the team collected hundreds of fragments of delicate cloth. Some were remnants of rich robes trimmed with silk that probably came from Central Asia and the eastern Mediterranean; others were segments of tapestries that had hung in the great hall of someone rich and powerful. Woven by Scandinavian women, those artworks portrayed warriors, shield walls, shape-shifters, sorceresses, ceremonial processions, and human sacrifices”(NW 35).
The fact that this burial housed two women has been known since 1907. This ship is now on display in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. Encountering this ship and learning about this burial twenty years prior to writing this book is what whetted Pringle’s appetite to know more about Viking women.
The bones of the Oseberg ship burial indicated that one of the women was a crone, almost 80 years old, which, for Viking women is beyond old. Most died at 40. The other woman was between 50-55 and may have been from Persia. Both seem to be women of privilege and high rank. Norwegian archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad states:
“That the grave was so rich, so packed with ceremonial regalia and so unlike any other known Viking Burial that it may have contained a woman of extraordinary power—a woman who was at once a queen and a royal broker between the realm of humans and the world of gods and goddesses”(NW 44).
It is well known that some Viking women were sorceresses of magnificent prowess. They could raise a warrior from the dead on the battlefield, see into the future, and create smokescreens and other protections on the high seas. These women were most likely sought out and utilized by warriors as well as highly valued in the general culture.
They were identified by the possession of their magical staffs and box-like thrones that they sat upon to speak their incantations, spells and prophecy. They traveled with a retinue of women who performed chants that induced trance to open portals into the otherworldly realms. They were also herbalists and cast spells by throwing seeds upon a high-burning fire. These women passed the craft on to one another in a continuous lineage. Most likely groups of them travelled together and supported one another in the work.
These women are called Volva (sing) or Volur (pl) which translates to “wand wed.”
“The poetic language surrounding these tools suggested the varied ways in which a sorcery staff could be used. Metaphors often linked magic to spinning, suggesting that a sorceress placed the staff between her legs and spun it, as if spinning an invisible thread onto the rod. In the ancient Nordic world, people believed that a sorceress’s soul left her body as she entered a trance state. Tethered to her by only a slender thread, her soul was then free to roam the spirit world in search of knowledge. Later, to retrieve it, a volva had to reel it back in with her staff”(NW 50).
Though some believe burying people in ships was a metaphor for sailing to the otherworld, Pringle reminds us that many cultures, including the Vikings, believed that a seer could still offer oracle after her death at the site of her burial. This burial mound in Oseberg may well have remained a place of oracular power long after these women were buried.
The women of the Oseberg burial were perhaps leaders of this spiritual lineage and it could be that many made pilgrimage to visit the grave to continue to seek oracle and protection and to honor them.
And perhaps these women were also leaders of the Vikings at a certain point in time. In the ancient world, leaders were also usually spiritual leaders. Whoever they were, they were certainly important to the people who honored them with such a burial.
Part 2 tomorrow . . .
Feminism and Religion 