She was originally from Iceland but went with her father and Erik the Red to settle Greenland. 970/980 CE) was among the earliest explorers of North America, according to both The Saga of the Greenlanders and Erik the Red's Saga. ![]() Unlike the more clearly mythological and legendary characters discussed above, Freydis has a higher chance of reflecting an actual historical person, as the consensus is that these two sagas that mention Vinland remember real people and events that were at least partly preserved through an oral tradition. It is likely that this second story, written later than the first, is an attempt to discredit the strong female figure from the earlier saga. Her husband and his men kill the brothers and their party but will not hurt the women so Freydis kills all the women herself with an axe. She dislikes the brothers and feels they are too presumptuous so she frames them, telling her husband they abused and beat her and that she will divorce him if he does not avenge the insult. In The Saga of the Greenlanders she accompanies her husband, his men, and two brothers/business partners to Vinland. Even though she is unwell (possibly pregnant) and alone, Freydis grabs a sword from a dead comrade and, tearing open her shirt and beating her breasts with the blade, defies the enemy who retreat from her, thus saving her party. She calls out to them, "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” (Chapter 12). They are attacked by a group of natives and the men of the party retreat, leaving Freydis alone. In Erik the Red's Saga, Freydis, daughter of Erik the Red, accompanies a party to Vinland (Newfoundland, North America). She appears in Erik the Red's Saga (where she is the heroine) and The Saga of the Greenlanders (a villainess). 1004 CE) was either a great woman warrior or an evil, conniving murderess depending on which of the two stories about her one reads. ![]() Freydis Eiríksdóttirįreydis Eiríksdóttir (c. The most impressive part of the saga is Hervor's defiance of convention and refusal to back down at her father's grave until she is given what she came for. After his death, the sword passes to his daughter Hervor, who ends up dying in battle. Her son Heidrek inherits the sword which causes him as many problems as it did his mother. The sword brings its owner nothing but trouble and Hervor has a number of adventures before settling down and getting married. Finally, he opens his grave and gives her the magic sword. Her father's ghost pleads with her to abandon her quest but she will not be denied. Hervor travels with her crew to the island of Samsø in the Kattegat region where Angantyr is buried and summons his spirit, demanding the sword. Hervor's father, Angantyr, had a magic sword called Tyrfing but was killed in a duel and the sword was buried with him. Hervor is the heroine of the 13th century CE Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks and is also the name of her granddaughter, the daughter of her son Heidrek. He is greeted by a number of women dressed as men who volunteer to help him and, as Saxo writes,īernard Walsh (Copyright, fair use) Hervor The legendary hero Ragnar Lothbrok comes to Norway to avenge the death of his grandfather Siward and the humiliation of his wives and kinfolk at the hands of Frø, the King of Sweden. ![]() Lagertha (also known as Ladgerda) is only known from Chapter IX of Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum ('History of the Danes'). According to the sagas, they somehow had a daughter in the midst of all this drama: Aslaug, one of the wives of Ragnar Lothbrok. As she rides with him to the afterlife in Hel, she encounters a giantess who chides her for her behavior but Brynhild is unrepentant, saying how she and Sigurd will now live their lives together as they were intended. As his funeral pyre is lighted, she leaps into it and dies with him. She kills Sigurd's young son and then has Sigurd killed in his sleep. In an argument with Gudrun, Brynhild learns that it was Sigurd who rescued her but then forsook her and swears revenge on them all. ![]() Sigurd shape-shifts into Gunnar's form, rescues Brynhild, and she marries Gunnar, believing he was the one who rescued her. The sorceress also orchestrates Brynhild's rescue by her son Gunnar who will then marry her, but Gunnar cannot cross the ring of fire. As Brynhild rides with Sigurd to the afterlife, a giantess chides her for her behavior but Brynhild is unrepentant: she & Sigurd will now live their lives together as intended.
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