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| The Viking shieldmaiden Lagertha, depicted in The Northmen in Britain (1913) by Eleanor Means Hull |
At this point, it is necessary here to clarify exactly what is meant by ‘shieldmaiden’.
In the Old Norse literature, the term ‘shieldmaiden’ ( Skjaldmær in Icelandic) tends to be used with reference to a Viking woman warrior, who decided to take up arms in battles and whose temper is equal to the most ardent and brave men.
The literary sources which narrate the deeds of these women are not completely historically reliable: hence, many scholars affirm that shieldmaidens never existed in the Viking medieval society. Therefore, the intrinsic value of this literary figure needs to be understood regardless of its actual existence.
For Clover, the archetypal shieldmaiden has to embody two essential qualities: she has to be an unmarried young woman and she has to dress and arm herself like a man (Clover, 1993, p. 46). The freedom that derives from the absence of marriage ties is indispensable for a maiden to become what she wants to be. Saxo Grammaticus, a medieval Danish historian from the XII century, describes hundreds of shieldmaidens in his chronicle Gesta Danorum (The Deeds of the Danes) but he as well as many other medieval sources, also asserts that the women warriors’ emancipation ceases the moment they get married, just like in the case of Alfhild, a female pirates whose freedom ceased in the moment she got married (book VII).
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