Warmth, Wisdom and Warfare:

The Roles of Women within Ancient Warrior Cultures

The idea of what makes a “good” woman has changed drastically over time, and no era spent so much time and energy defining this concept as the Victorian age. The ideal woman was a delicate waif, pale and soft spoken and well versed in the “feminine” arts, those being painting, piano, embroidery, among other “delicate” arts and crafts; women were not encouraged to engage in too much physical activity. In fact, the fitness of women only applied to their ability to bring children into the world. Her personality wasn’t taken into account; her job was to produce copies of her husband, and she herself was simply a reflection of her own father. The less personality, outside of being demure and sweet and subordinate, the better. Though the values of the Victorian age built themselves from the medieval idea of women being involved with the concept of “original sin,” female weakness gained popularity during the 19th century. During this time period is when the now debunked psuedo-illness of feminine hysteria also gained popularity, in which symptoms could range anywhere from anxiety, to a high libido, to a tendency for troublemaking. 

It’s entirely possible that this concept of female weakness came about as a reaction to the demasculinization of men during and following colonialism. There was an inordinate amount of effort spent demonizing the “savage” races, while deifying the “civilized” gentlemen of colonial England. Throughout time, the culture of women has been forced to shift itself in reaction to the culture of men in order to survive. Women that did not alter their behavior to complement men over time have been unceremoniously disposed of, whether sent off to a nunnery, stoned in public, or burned at the stake. For example, in the midst of the second World War, when American men were overseas fighting in combat, women stepped up and took jobs working in the Armed Forces, including flying fighter jets, taking the recently vacated factory jobs, or working as code breakers against the Nazis.

Women have historically been excellent at constantly adapting to their environment and what is asked of them. In the ghettos of Nazi Germany, many men who were taken from their homes, their jobs, and most importantly, their power, became severely depressed and in many cases, were unable to find the perseverance to adapt. The women of the ghettos, however, adjusted to their new living situations and rose up to support their families. The resilience of women in adjusting to their ever changing levels of opportunity and power has been a constant throughout time. This is why, in societies in which aggression and violence was commonplace, women were able to meet the aggression of men and demand equal or close to equal rights for themselves. It is only in societies in which men regress their masculinity and aggression that women lose liberties and power. Within the hyper-masculinized and violent ancient warrior cultures of the Vikings, the Irish Celts and the Spartans, the lives of women were vastly more complex than in any other western culture throughout time, shown by the value placed on their part within society, the complexity of what was expected of their character as a woman, and their integral place of power within warrior culture.

  In western warrior cultures, the roles of women in society were just as valued as the roles of men. There was a certain duality involved in their morals, the treatment of their citizens (excluding slaves), and their value systems. In the cultures of the Spartans, the Vikings, and the ancient Irish Celts, women were, without question, in charge of everything that went on within the domestic sphere. The most extreme version of ruling the inner world was found within the Spartan culture.

Spartan men were expected to marry young. In fact, if they did not marry by the time they were thirty, they would be ritualistically shamed by women during religious festivals. However, Spartan men were required to live in the barracks with the other men until they were thirty, and would need to sneak out in order to visit their wives in secrecy under the cover of night. The objective of marital sex was, of course, to produce offspring. But considering that the father would be in the barracks, and his sons would join the barracks as well at age seven, it is no jump to surmise that every Spartan spent their entire childhood under the ruling of women. Therefore, it is fair to say that if a man married at twenty years old and fathers sons, those sons would be raised solely by their mothers and sisters until they moved into the barracks at age seven. This would imply that the deep respect the Spartans had for women began in early childhood. Girls, though they did receive an education at home, did not leave for the barracks, and so male children could be raised not only by their mother, but their older sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and the Helot slave women that took care of all domestic chores within the Spartan society, with little to no input by any male relatives.

  There were no laws against adultery within the Spartan culture, and high ranking men would sometimes “lend” their wives to other high ranking men, in order to produce offspring if their own wives were unable. The “lent” wives were willing, as Cartledge puts it: “As for the wives in these cases, they are said to have welcomed such an arrangement, so Xenophon assures us in his fourth-century essay on Spartan society and its mores, since it gave them the chance to manage more than one household” (Cartledge 169). Since the Helot slaves were in charge of all domestic chores, even poorer Spartan women were free from the tedious day to day monotony of the upkeep, cleaning and cooking within their homes, and could therefore spend their time indulging in furthering their education or extending their power. It could be said that this practice of sharing wives for the sole purpose of breeding legitimate offspring, as opposed to using a Helot slave or even a woman from another culture, was a testament to the Spartan’s value of creating a strong Sparta as a whole, as opposed to simply being concerned with the few aristocratic families of the ruling class.

  The value shown in Spartan women extended as well to their education, something that no other culture during the time period offered even the highest ranking women. Women and girls were expected to participate in physical activities, and competition was interwoven into every activity they participated in; even dancing and singing were extremely competitive. The reason for the competitive natures of not only women but Spartans in general is clear: they wanted to be the best. Not only individually, but as a whole people. Women who were athletically fit and the best within their competitions would pair and produce offspring with men who were held to the same high standards, and slowly their people would become genetically superior. Though of course, the Spartans did not know about eugenics at the time, they had the same idea, though they referred to it as “fitness.” As Cartledge proposes in The Spartans:

One reason [for educating girls] was pragmatic and secular: it was thought that the fittest mothers were, well, the fittest mothers—in other words, that physical fitness conduced directly to eugenic fitness. The other main reason was sociological and symbolic: Spartan females were not regarded as categorically inferior in the way that male outsiders such as Aristotle would ideally have wished. Young girls were given comparable food rations to those of the boys, adolescent girls went through a process of public education and socialization that imbued them with the society’s ideals, to the realization of which their adult behavior was absolutely crucial, and women could inherit, own and manage property in their own right (Cartledge 176).

This is especially important as an insight into the role of women within Spartan culture, because in many other cultures, both contemporaneous as well as throughout time, all that mattered was whether or not a woman came from a good family (i.e., a good father and maternal grandfather), and could produce legitimate offspring that hopefully resembled the physical and mental characteristics of the father.

  It is possible that warrior cultures respected women more so than their less violent counter parts due to the nature of their society, specifically that a long lived life was not guaranteed for any man. When men were constantly marching off to war, it made the role of women that much higher, for they were the bearers of life and more importantly, more warriors. This high mortality rate also takes the focus away from individual survival to survival of the people as a whole, and in order for the people as a whole to survive, all members of the society must be valued and perform their duties implicitly. Since women were regarded as the creators of life, mothers were almost worshipped as they alone were in charge of continuing the culture; if they refused to bear children, or feed their newborns, eventually there would be no one left to continue their way of life. This connection between women and the fate of the people is represented in all warrior cultures through their mythology and legends; the Grecian fates known as the Moirai, the Irish Morrígan, and the Norns and Valkyries of Viking mythology.

  In Greek mythology, of which the Spartan’s adhered to, the three sisters of fate were known as the Moirai. They were described as old wise women. The first sister Clotho spun the thread of life, the second sister Lachesis determined the length of the person’s life by measuring the thread, and the third sister Atropos decided how and when the person would die by cutting the thread with her shears. They were also thought to be all seeing and all knowing, as they control fate and therefore know all that has happened, is happening, and will happen. As described by Buxton in The Complete World of Greek Mythology, he says:

The symbolism underlying these names is that of the spinning, measuring and cutting of a woolen thread, a thread to whose length there corresponds the duration of a mortal’s life. Since this triple process takes place at birth, there is, in theory, no scope for subsequent renegotiation: what’s cut is cut. That certainly applies to the hero Meleager. ‘When he was seven says old, it is said that the Moirai appeared and announced that Meleager would die when the log burning on the fire should be completely consumed.’ His horrified mother Althaia snatched the log and hid it away. But one day, in a fit of anger with her son (who had quarreled with and slain her brothers), Althaia rekindled the log, bringing to pass the fulfillment of the Fates’ prediction (Buxton 86). 

 Similarly, the Vikings worshipped the Norns. Like the fates, they control everything that will happen to both men and Gods alike. It is said that the three girls came from Urd’s well (the well of fate) from the base of Yggdrasill, the tree of life. Their creation is delivered to Odin in The Seeress’s Prophecy:

An ash I know that stands, Yggdrasill it’s called,

a tall tree, drenched with shining loam;

from there come the dews which fall in the valley,

  green, it stands always over Urd’s well.

From there come girls, knowing a great deal,

three from the lake standing under the tree;

Urd one is called, Verdandi another—

they carved on a wooden slip—Skuld the third;

they laid down laws, they chose lives

for the sons of men, the fates of men (Edda 6; line 19-21, in translation). 

In the Viking tradition, it was the job of the Valkyries, the handmaidens of the father god Odin, to choose those doomed to die in battle and take their souls to Valhalla, where the Valkyries would serve horns of mead to the dead warriors (male and female) killed in battle, the most honorable death in Viking culture. In Carolyne Larrington’s introduction to her translation of the Poetic Edda, she summarizes the intersecting roles of Norns, Valkyries, shield-maidens and swan-maidens in Norse and Viking mythology: 

Norns are figures of fate who may be present at a child’s birth, prophesying his future, as in the ‘First Poem of Helgi Hundingsbani.’ As determiners of fate, the Norns are sometimes blamed when events go against human heroes or other mortal beings. […] Valkyries have a double identity. In some poems they are envisaged as divine figures, women who serve mead to the dead warriors in Valhalla, and who fulfill the will of Odin in overseeing battle and making sure that victory is awarded to the right man. Elsewhere some Valkyries are clearly human in origin. When they fall in love with a hero they ensure victory for him, and eventually marry him. Tensions between the valkyrie bride’s family or her defeated suitor and the chosen hero mean that their union is short-lived, despite the strength of their love. Shield-maidens are human girls who, scorning domesticity and female tasks, take up the warrior life; as such they overlap with valkyries. Swan-maidens apparently share some shield-maiden characteristics; they have swan cloaks which enable them to transform themselves into birds, as in Tchaikovsky’s ballet ‘Swan Lake.’ (Edda xvi)  

In Irish Celtic mythology, they too had a triple goddess of fate, known as the three sisters that make up the Morrígan, though in some stories she is an individual, one who decides the fate and doom of men. She is sometimes seen as wise and fearsome, but alternatively she seems to choose sides in battle on pure whim, giving her an element of chaos. She would fly over the field of battle disguised as a raven or crow, similar to the stories of the Valkyrie, and decide who to doom to death or save. As described by Jo Kerrigan in Old Ways, Old Secrets: 

As one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, [the Morrígan] used her powers to fight invaders: the Fir Bolg at the First Battle of Mag Tuiredh, for example, and the Fomorians the Second. As a goddess she could—and often did—use magic to take the side of one chieftain or petty king against another—always assuming that her protege would recognize her power and give her due reverence. The tales of the Morrígan appearing as a hideous old hag who demands that the hero pledge her his love echo the old idea of a great king symbolically mating with a goddess to maintain power. […] If the hero has the courage to accept the hag’s advances, she transforms into a beautiful woman who leads him to victory. If he retreats in disgust, his chances of survival are slim. Cúchulainn refused the Morrígan and she, in the shape of a raven, perched on his shoulder at the moment of his death, cawing in triumph. Such details as these in ancient legend generally represent the war between goddess-based pagan ways and the newer rituals of Christianity that put men, not women, in the leading role. (Kerrigan 76)

This serves to show that though the Morrígan is seen as all powerful, she also still carries stereotypical mythical female archetypes, in that she is spiteful towards those who reject her. Though it could be said that this represents the older ways of Pagan Ireland, when if the crops or weather or the land in general seemed to be against the people, it was determined to be the King’s fault, for not keeping his wife (the goddess of the land) happy. 

It’s interesting to note that although these cultures all shared the commonality of being hyper-masculinized and incredibly violent, both towards their own people as well as outwards toward other societies, they all chose women to be the harbingers of fate. This clearly shows both that women were respected to such an extent that they were theologically placed in a high power, as well as shows that women were feared within the culture. The role of women as the instigators of war, and as the punishers through shaming, can be found in each culture. 

In the Viking culture, the bond between brother and sister was seen as one of the most important, respected and even sacred relationships. In several of their stories, if the brother of a woman is murdered, it is her husband’s job to avenge his death. Though in many circumstances, the husband is at first unwilling, and so it is the wife’s job to shame and humiliate him into taking action, thereby upholding their culture and way of life. If he still refuses, such as in the Gísla Saga, the wife herself will go and avenge her brother’s death; it is said that Gísli was killed by a man named Eyjólfur. Afterwards, Eyjólfur went to visit Börkur and his wife Þórdís, who happened to be the sister of the slain Gísli’s. Börkur insisted that they offer his brother-in-law’s killer hospitality despite Þórdís’s refusal. While they ate dinner, she recognized her dead brother’s sword lying beneath Eyjófulr’s feet. She grabbed the sword and ran Eyjólfur through from beneath the table, wounding him greatly. Börkur grabbed Þórdís, and she announced they were divorced then and there. During these instances of revenge by the wife, instead of the husband, for a murdered family member, the husband would be dishonored. If she won, or was killed, either way it would bring great shame upon the husband who let his wife go into battle alone when it was his duty, according to the morals of their society, to avenge his brother-in-law’s death.

  Similarly, in the Volsunga Sagas, when Sigmund (the father of the famous Sigurd), and his twin sister Signy’s father and nine brothers were killed by Signy’s husband, she spent the rest of her life planning the revenge for their deaths against her husband. In the beginning, it was entirely up to her to save her brother, and she did so, not through might but through cleverness and covert operations. Over the several decades it took to avenge their deaths, she ended up murdering four of her own sons, sleeping with her brother under the guise of being a sorceress, raising up their incestuous child to become fearless in order to kill her husband, and in the end helped set their entire kingdom on fire. However, it was not out of hatred for her husband, though she was married against her will, because once her father and brothers are avenged, she chose to walk into the fire and die together with her husband. This suggests that within ancient Viking culture, it was ingrained in each and every person that the values of their society were more important than any type of personal emotions or relationships.  It could be said that these values were in place in order to keep the culture’s violence in check, as the farther an extended family grew, the less likely it was there would be murder within the group. Another important kinship relationship was that of “sisters’ sons” or maternal male cousins. In the “Seeress’ prophecy,” one of the bringers of the end of the world was that “sisters’ sons will violate the kinship bond,” (Edda 9; line 44). This sacrilege is listed beside the cataclysmic events of the death of Odin and the great wolf Fenrir swallowing the sun, obviously showing that it’s occurrence is on par with crimes against the gods, not just crimes against mortal men.

  Women in these warrior societies were also in charge of the most important thing of all: themselves. Though arranged marriages were common, and though the families had the final say in who their daughters would marry, there were no laws in any of these cultures that could force a woman to marry without her consent. In fact, it was the exact opposite; there were many laws in place to protect and uplift women. For example, in the Viking culture, there were varying punishments put upon men for unwanted physical contact towards women. It wasn’t in order to protect another man’s property, whether it be her husband, father, or brother, but it was in order to protect her, as an individual person with agency. A man could be executed for raping a woman because he raped her, not because he raped another man’s property. Even kissing or handholding, if it wasn’t consented to by the woman in question, would be punished severely.

  It is said in the Kormáks Saga that while walking in the street, Kormákr came upon a woman named Steingeror sitting, and so he sat down beside her and kissed her four times without her consent. Kormákr, saved by surrounding women from being immediately killed by a man who saw it occur, was fined two ounces of gold, which at the time was quite a heavy fine. 

In the Irish tradition, a woman’s right to her own sexuality can be seen in the story of Queen Maeve, arguing with her husband about who benefitted the most from their marriage. In  Old Ways, Old Secrets, Kerrigan paraphrases the story: 

Lying comfortably in bed with his wife one night, Ailill is unwise enough to suggest to Queen Maeve that she was fortunate when she married him. […] Instantly she snaps back that she has brought more [wealth into their marriage]. He disagrees. She starts listing:

I gave you a contract and a bride-price as befits a woman, namely, the raiment of 12 men, a chariot worth thrice seven cumals, the width of your face in red gold, the weight of your left arm in white bronze. Whoever brings shame and annoyance and confusion on you, you have no claim for compensation of honour-price for it, except what claim I have, for you are a man dependent on a woman’s marriage-portion.

Ailill caps Maeve’s list. Furious, [she calls for] servants to bring all their separate wealth immediately, and lay it out so the argument can be settled. […] Despite her confident claims, when it comes down to the very last detail Maeve discovers that she has nothing to match a magnificent white bull owned by Ailill. (Kerrigan 84)

Maeve is distraught, but rebounds quite quickly, and sends her servants out to scour the island to find a bull that will rival her husband’s. They find such a bull, the Brown Bull of Cooley, which belongs to the Kingdom of Ulster, which is the sworn enemy of her Kingdom of Connacht. Maeve sends her messengers to Daire, the owner of the bull, and offers herself to the king for a night in exchange to be lent the bull for a year. Daire is so happy with the offer, he throws her messengers a large banquet of celebration. However, he overhears one of her servants claiming that if he had said no, they would have taken the bull regardless. Enraged, Daire throws them out and refuses her offer. Upon hearing this, Maeve becomes furious and in a refusal to lose against her husband, declares war upon Ulster, leading to the Táin, a brutal war that lasts several years and is the site of many of the stories and legends of ancient Irish Celtic mythology. 

    This shows that, though she was married, it was not seen as taboo that she should indulge in her sexuality and in this case, use it as a form of currency and manipulation. She was not stoned to death or divorced by her husband in response. As Kerrigan describes it, “Ailill is but the son of a king, whereas his wife is absolute queen in her own right” (Kerrigan 84).

Another famous story from the Celtic Irish that embodies the respect of a woman controlling her own life and body is the story of Diarmund and Grania, which some historians have thought to be the origins of the story of King Arthur and Lancelot, and Lancelot’s subsequent betrayal by stealing away the wife of King Arthur. In the original story, the famous Finn, head of the Fianna, had become a widower, and decided to find a new wife because he could not sleep alone after sleeping beside another for so long. Oisin and Diorrang the Druid told him they would go and ask for the hand of Grania, the daughter of the High King of Ireland, who was said to be the most beautiful and who possesses the “best speech” in all of Ireland. When they arrived and spoke to the king, however, he told them: “There is not a son of a king or of a great prince, there is not a champion in Ireland my daughter has not given a refusal to, and it is on me they all lay the blame of that. And I will give you no answer at all, till you go to herself; for it is better for you to get her own answer, than to be displeased with me” (Gregory 232). So the three men went to the house of Grania, and the King asked his daughter what her answer was to the proposal of marriage. Instead of giving a yes or no, however, she simply said “If he is a fitting son-in-law for you, why would he not be a fitting husband for me?” (Gregory 233). Finn’s men went to him and told him of her answer, and so Finn gathered together all of his troops and battalions and set off for Teamhair, the seat of the High King. When Finn and Grania met, he challenged her wit and wisdom, as she had the reputation for being intelligent and quick, by asking a series of riddles. She answered them all immediately and truthfully, but at the end of their talk she realized that she did not love him.

  However, the wedding feast was already underway. During the feast, Grania spotted Diarmuid, who had been given a spot on his forehead by an enchantress that any woman who saw it would immediately fall in love with him. During the feast, his hat fell, and Grania saw the mark and subsequently fell madly in love. She gave everyone at the feast a potion that would cause them to fall asleep, and asked Diarmuid to run away with her. He denied her request, saying that he would not be with a woman promised to Finn. At which point she tells him, “I put you under Druid bonds, to bring me out of this house tonight before the awaking of Finn and of the King of Ireland from their sleep” (Gregory 234). When Diarmuid asks Grania why it had to be him she put the bonds upon, she answers “By my hand, Diarmuid, it is not without cause I laid those bonds on you, for I was at the door a while ago when you were parting the dogs, and my eyes fell on you, and I gave you the love there and then that I never gave to any other, and never will give forever” (Gregory 234). She bid Diarmuid to escape with her, but he was loyal to Finn and refused again. She told him she was leaving, and told him to follow her before disappearing. Diarmuid asked each of his friends what he should do, and they all told him he should follow Grania, because the fact she had given him her love was something they were all envious of, and each of them in turn say that if it was he she had asked, he would go. Diarmuid leaves and follows Grania out, and so they begin their life on the run, though he refuses to marry her, as that would be a betrayal to Finn, to whom he is still loyal. She says she does not care if they are married, but that they will not be parted until death. 

The fact that the beginnings of this famous, and possibly the original, tragic love story starts with a King refusing to give an answer as to his daughter’s hand in marriage, but instead bids them to ask her themselves since she has refused all other suitors, gives an idea as to the independence women had during that time. It is even more surprising that it is the daughter of a King who has the right to choose; throughout time, it was generally the poorer classes that were able to marry at will to some extent, but the aristocracy had little to no say in their marriage partners, especially the brides, as marriage was a way of binding family lines, or even countries, together.

  As mentioned previously, Spartan women faced no backlash against adultery. The most famous adulterous Spartan woman, was of course, Helen of Troy. She left Sparta and lived with a much younger lover for over ten years, causing in part one of the most famous wars of all time, yet she still returned to Sparta after the fighting was done, resumed her duties as Queen, and had no formal punishment held against her. In fact, she was almost worshipped by the Spartans; they dedicated monuments, temples—even entire festivals in her name. Although it’s unlikely adultery was quite as celebrated by the Spartan’s on a day-to-day basis in the way they celebrated Helen of Troy, the fact that the agency of a woman leaving with a passionate lover of her own volition was celebrated rather than condemned gives an insight into their overall values and morals. In another testament to the respect shown towards women in Spartan culture, laws forbade dowries of any kind, which took away the objectification of potential wives as simply a means of monetary gain. Brothels were also not allowed within the city limits; whether this was due to the respect the Spartans had for women, or to discourage men from seeking sex from prostitutes instead of taking a wife and producing more Spartans within a legitimate marriage, is unknown.

  The complexity of women’s lives shown through the accounts and mythologies of these cultures was far greater than during any other period of time. Specifically, a woman had to be many things at once; in the Irish tradition, though it applies to all three of these cultures, a woman had three realms of character: Warmth, Wisdom, and Warfare. The idea of a triple goddess can be found in most pagan cultures, from the three Grecian Fates, the three girls of Urd’s Well in Viking mythology, the three sisters of the Morrígan, and many more.

  The warmth comes from the nurturing side of women; the motherly, caring aspect that is present in stories throughout every culture. She is pleasant, always willing to help, and above all, cares for the children and brings them into adulthood. She knows how to entertain and host guests; her presence alone quiets arguments and calms angry men.

In the Viking tradition, this is shown in the Eyrbyggja saga, in which Þorbjörn and his men illegally search the farm and home of Þórarinn, looking for horses they believed to have been stolen. Since it was illegal and immoral to search a home without consent, Þórarinn’s refused to allow it and attacked the raiding party. The fighting was devastating, and several men were wounded. One of the party’s men, Oddur, could not be touched by the weapons. The fighting only stopped when Þórarinn's wife, Auður, and other women from the farm began to throw clothing onto the men’s weapons to stop them fighting by causing the scene to turn from violent, to absurdly ridiculous. The party stopped fighting and left. The throwing of clothing onto weapons is mentioned several times throughout the Viking sagas. This shows not only that women were respected enough to be allowed to speak in the presence of men, but their presence is a reminder of civility and manners, and bringing men back to their senses. Though the Vikings were historically a violent people, they had very specific morals and laws around civility, especially within their own homes. For example, it is plainly stated in the beginning of The Sayings of the High-One (meaning Odin) how to behave within your home towards others. For example:

Fire is needful for someone who’s come in

and who’s chilled to the knee;

food and clothing are necessary for the man

who’s journeyed over the mountains.

Water is needful for someone who comes to a meal,

a towel and a warm welcome,

a friendly disposition, if he could get it,

speech and silence in return. (Edda 15)

The aspect of ‘warmth’ in Irish mythology is demonstrated by the goddess Brigid, the goddess of Spring, from which the famous Saint Brigid is mirrored after, for Brigid was so beloved by the Irish Celts that they would not let her fade from memory or history. In the stories, she is a woman of magic and wisdom, but she uses her abilities only to heal and help those who ask for it. She is said to have either been born a goddess, the daughter of the original mother-goddess Danu, or to have been born the daughter of a druid, which gave her the power of magic. But in all of her stories and myths of magic, she never once uses the power for herself, or to help win battles, such as the Morrígan loved to do. In this way, she is the perfect embodiment of the caring, self-sacrificing and yet powerful characteristic of warmth within the ancient Celtic Irish traditions.

  The ‘warmth’ in Spartan legends can be found throughout, but possibly defined in the story of Perseus’s mother, Danae. Danae’s father, Akrisios, the king of Argos, received a prophecy from an oracle stating that he would be killed by Danae’s child. He locked her away in “a bronze prison” as stated by Buxton. He goes on:

But Zeus, in the form of golden rain, penetrated the prison and then the prisoner; in due time she bore Perseus, destined to be a mighty hero. However, as any uncomprehending mortal would, Akrisios refused to believe that it was Zeus who had fathered the child, so again he locked his daughter away, this time with her baby, in an ark which he cast adrift on the sea; a fragment by the Archaic lyric poet Simonides wonderfully evokes the isolation and tenderness of the scene. (Buxton 98) 

The fragment mentioned is as follows:

…when in the elaborately wrought chest

the wind blowing

and the turbulent sea

brought her low with terror,

with wetted cheeks she placed her loving arm

around Perseus, and spoke:

‘My child, what trouble I have.

But you sleep, slumbering in your tender way,

in this horrible vessel, bronze-riveted,

shining in the night,

as you lie in the black gloom.

Of the deep spray of the passing wave

over your hair,

and of the wind’s voice,

you take no heed, as you lie wrapped

in your purple covering; a lovely face.

If danger were danger to you,

you would be turning your delicate ear to my words.

But I tell you: sleep, my baby,

and let the sea sleep, and let

our measureless trouble sleep.

From you, Father Zeus,

may there be some change of will;

but if this prayer of mine is too bold, or unjust:

forgive me.’ (Buxton 99)

This story is undoubtedly demonstrating the positive attribute of the characteristic of warmth within a woman’s nature. Though Danae did nothing wrong, for she never consented to sleep with Zeus, and though she had never asked to bear Perseus, she also never once questioned her love for her child, or blamed him for her predicament. It’s possible that if she had simply consented to murder her child, she would not have suffered so; yet, she never once considered it, but instead protected her sleeping baby from the waves and horror of their fate, begging Zeus to help them, but only if it were his will. 

The wisdom is interlinked with not only the intelligence of women in these cultures, but of logic, patience, and craftiness. Women, in every culture throughout time, even in the warrior cultures, were less powerful than the men. Despite the impression of equality, women still had men they answered to. Therefore, women had to learn to quietly exert their influence and power in other ways; in most cases, the subtle manipulation of the men around them.  However, it was not only through cunning and craft that women influenced those around them; in each of these cultures, it was proposed that women were naturally more inclined towards magic and the supernatural than men. Not every woman who practiced magic was seen as evil, though certainly there were those that fit the stereotype and were alternatively feared and condemned. But the dual goddess Freyja/Frigg, the most respected of the Goddesses in Viking culture, was the original master of seid (magic) and it was she that taught the magic to both gods and men. They are sometimes seen as two separate entities, and sometimes used interchangeably for the other, but some scholars believe they are two version of the same goddess; Freyja is the embodiment of the maiden, Frigg the mother/wife. It was also the Seeress, not only a mere mortal but a mortal woman, that Odin went to for information on the end of the world and his own death in the first story in the “Poetic Edda.”  Within the same prophecy, the Seeress tells of the beginnings of time, including the burning and rebirth of “Gullveig,” thought to be another name for Freyja, three times over:

She remembers the first war in the world,

when they stuck Gullveig with spears,

and in the High-One’s hall they burned her;

three times they burned her, three times she was reborn,

over and over, yet she lives still.

Bright one they call her, wherever she came to houses,

the seer with pleasing prophecies, she practiced spirit-magic;

she knew seid, seid she performed as she liked,

she was always a wicked woman’s favorite. (Edda 6; line 22)

It is also noted by Freyja, in an argument with Loki in Loki’s Quarrel, that she believes Frigg to be all knowing, but wisely keeps it to herself: “Mad you are, Loki, when you reckon up your ugly, hateful deeds; Frigg knows, I think, all fate, though she herself does not speak out” (Edda 85, line 29). 

In the Song of Hyndla, Freyia uses her knowledge of seid to help her protege Ottar in finding out his ancestry in order to claim his inheritance. In it, she disguises Ottar as Battle-hog, the pig with golden bristles, and rides upon him to the giantess Hyndla, in order to manipulate information from her about his ancestry through flattery and praise. 

It was not only through the practice of magic and prophecy that women exerted their power without the use of force in Viking legends. There are many stories of women using their cleverness and subterfuge to dispose of their enemies, or encourage their husbands to be brave and uphold their family’s honor. For example, in the story of the Death of Sinfiolti, Borghild, wife of Sigmund, took revenge upon Sigmund’s son Sinfiotli, who had murdered her brother over a woman they were both pursuing. She brought him poison in a horn of ale, and he gave it to his father to drink. Again, she brought him the poisoned drink, and again he gave it to his father who could not be killed by poisons. Upon the third time, Borghild taunted him for his cowardice at drinking his ale. His father told him to strain the drink through his mustache, and so Sinfiotli drank it down, and immediately died. 

In the Spartan mythologies, Cassandra the Seeress is the most powerful prophet of all time, but she was also cursed by Apollo for refusing to sleep with him, making it so no one will ever believe her prophecies when she speaks them. Though she proclaimed that it would be Paris who would abduct Helen from Sparta and take her to Troy, ensuring Troy’s downfall, she was dismissed and insulted. It was she that warned the Trojans about the Spartans hiding inside the Trojan horse, but yet again no one believed her prophecies. In the story, it is said she even took an axe and a torch and ran towards the horse, in an attempt to destroy it before the Spartans could destroy everyone, but the Trojans caught and stopped her before she could reach it.

In the Irish mythologies, women using magic was not unheard of or surprising, even if it was used for evil. For example, in the story “the Wooing of Étain,” King Mider, a member of the immortal Túatha dé Danaan, meets the mortal Étain and is intent on taking her as his second wife. He eventually succeeds, but after bringing her home with him, his first wife Fúamnach becomes jealous and enraged. She is described in the following passage, told to Mider: “Look after the woman you are taking with you, for there awaits you a woman of dreadful sorcery, a woman with all the knowledge and skill and power of her people. She has, moreover, my guarantee of safety against the Túatha Dé Danaan” (Gantz 44).  She then turns Étain into a puddle of water the moment they are alone, and Étain changes in turn from the water, to a worm, and to a giant fly. Upon learning of her transformation, Fúamnach uses the powers she had learned from the druid that raised her to create “a lashing wind that blew Étain out of Brí Léith, so that for seven years there was not a hill or a treetop or a cliff or a summit on which the fly might alight, only the rocks of the ocean and the waves” (Gantz 46).

  The aspect of “warfare” seems to be the most important characteristic for the women in warrior cultures, and is not greatly seen or revered in other cultures. In this way, a woman needs to be aggressive, passionate, and protective as a bear protecting her cubs; she is brave and fearless, and is without a doubt or thought willing to die for her family, her people, or her country. She always faces battles head on if the situation calls for it. 

In the Celtic stories, Queen Boudicca is one of the most hailed leaders of ancient Celtic Ireland, and is still remembered today as a hero of the British Isles. She fought ferociously against the invading Roman Catholics, for the sake of her people and her country, fighting as fiercely as if she were protecting her own children. When her husband—the leader of the Iceni tribe—died, he left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman emperor. His will, however, was ignored by the Romans, who took the opportunity to seize full control. Queen Boudicca was attacked and beaten in front of her people and her young daughters were raped by the Roman soldiers. The Romans stole their property and possessions, and insisted the loans that had been forced upon the Celts were paid back immediately. Boudicca instead led a revolt of Celts against the Roman soldiers, slaughtering several cities and leaving nothing but ash behind. Eventually, her troops were defeated and she is said to have killed herself in order to avoid capture. However, her story was so respected that she has retained her fame to this day. The story of her death was revisited by the poet William Cowper in Boadicea: An Ode:

When the British warrior queen,

Bleeding from the Roman rods,

Sought, with an indignant mien,

Counsel of her country’s gods,

Sage beneath a spreading oak

Sat the Druid, hoary chief;

Every burning word he spoke

Full of rage, and full of grief.

‘Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

’Tis because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

‘Rome shall perish—write that word

In the blood that she has spilt;

Perish, hopeless and abhorred,

Deep in ruin as in guilt.

  […]

She, with all a monarch’s pride,

Felt them in her bosom glow;

Rushed to battle, fought, and died;

Dying, hurled them at the foe.

‘Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due:

Empire is on us bestowed,

Shame and ruin wait for you.’ (English 320; lines 5-40)

It is both due to her ferocity and bravery that she is immortalized in history, but also due to the fact that she was unjustly abused and defiled, as a woman, which was a shameful and unforgivable act, possibly even more so in warrior societies than in their more “civilized” counterparts.

  However, stories of women as having warlike attributes were not always shown as noble or as the upholder of values, but instead are a warning of the brutality capable by angry women. In the Viking tale The Poem of Atli, Gudrun, the sister of king Gunnar, takes revenge against her husband Atli for the murder of her brothers. Instead of simply killing him and being satisfied that her duty was done as is shown in other revenge stories, she slaughters their own children and feeds them to their father and his warriors at a feast. Upon getting the men drunk, she breaks the horrifying news:

‘Your own son’s—sharer-of swords—

hearts, corpse-bloody, you are chewing up with honey;

you are filling your stomach, proud lord, with dead human flesh,

eating it as ale-appetizers and sending it to the high seat.

‘You’ll never again call to your knee,

Erp or Eitil, two boys merry with ale;

you’ll not see them again amidst the seats,

those gold-givers, putting shafts on their spears,

trimming the manes or driving their horses.’

There was uproar on the benches, terrible songs of men,

howling in their costly cloaks, the children of the Huns wept;

all but Gudrun, she who never wept

for her brothers fierce as bears and her dear sons,

young, innocent, whom she had with Atli. (Edda 210; line 36)

After breaking the news, she looses dogs onto the people within the hall, locks them in, and burns the entire place to the ground with everyone trapped inside. She then brought the news to three other kings before dying herself. The idea of a woman driven to such brutality, while seeming to retain her sanity unlike other stories of women driven to madness and murder by grief, shows the innate and disturbing fear the Norse people had for the strength and brutal determination of women.

  It was not only in the form of outward aggression that the aspect of warfare could be found, but in strength of character during times of hardship as well. Spartan women, unlike every other Grecian woman, would not participate in weeping and wailing upon losing a member of her family to death. In The Spartans, Cartledge recounts a report from Xenophon:

It was on the last day of the Gymnopaediae festival that the messenger sent to report the catastrophe arrived in Sparta. The men’s chorus was in the theatre at the time. When the Ephors heard what had happened, they were deeply grieved, as indeed they were bound to be. Yet instead of closing the performance, they allowed the chorus to continue to the end. When they gave the names of all the dead to the respective relatives, they instructed the women to bear their suffering in silence and to stifle any cries of lamentation. On the following day you could see those women whose relatives had been killed going about looking bright and cheerful, whereas those whose relatives had been reported were still alive were not much in evidence, and those few who were out and about were looking gloomy and sorry for themselves. In other words, they did not weep and keen and beat their breasts in a lamentation, they did not put on sackcloth and ashes, and they did not enter into a period of mourning, retreating to the innermost recesses of their houses. On the contrary. The show must go  on. This is how Spartan women ought to behave, and presumably had behaved, without needing to be told, for many years, possibly even centuries, before that. (Cartledge 179)

This stray away from conformity with the other Greeks shows that the Spartans, as a warrior culture, had far different values and in fact far different expectations for their women. The women were not seen as weak, and in their opinion weeping and wailing and the show of mourning would have been viewed as a weakness, and therefore, the society could not abide by it. Instead, women were taught to dig deep, to find the inner resilience and strength and continue on because at the core of it, they were Spartans first, and wives or mothers second. This idea of being a Spartan first is also mirrored in another account of Xenophon’s quoted by Cartledge:

Argileonis, mother of Brasidas, when her son had died, and some of the citizens of Amphilpolis came to Sparta to visit her, asked them whether her son had died finely and as befitted a Spartan. When they praised him to the skies and told her that he was the best of all the Spartans in such deeds of valour, she replied: ‘My friends, it is true that my child was a fine and good man, but Sparta has many men better than he.’ (Cartledge 179)

This statement reflects the warrior idealism found in each of these cultures, that the survival of the whole is more important and worth of praise than simply the survival of the individual alone.

  The triple characteristic of warmth, wisdom and warfare could also be said to mirror these ancient culture’s obsession with the triple identity, which eventually was adopted and adapted into Christianity as the triple figure of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, in these ancient cultures, it was generally a female characteristic to be seen as a triple figure, from the Morrígan, the three sisters of Grecian fate, the three giant women that emerged from the well at the base of the tree of knowledge, to the three sisters that made up the goddess Brigid, and many more. This could be a testament to the many duties and in fact, personas, that women needed to adopt in order to be seen as a whole person within their societies. A woman who was ‘warmth’ alone would not be strong enough to defend her family, or clever enough to foresee trouble before it came. A woman who was only wise, but could not give love or defend herself, would not be able to raise and protect her children, which, despite the somewhat egalitarian society, was in fact her main purpose. A woman who was only brutal and exerted the ‘warfare’ characteristic would inevitably find herself in a situation that could not be won by might alone, which could have been prevented by weighing the options beforehand, and since she could not love, she would have no one at her back to defend her. It is possible that women were valued within their society so highly because it was understood that women needed to be many things at once, and that ability alone was worthy of respect. 

It could be said that the warrior culture could not have sustained without the roles of women. For in fact it was the women that raised their sons to be warriors, the women that instilled the values of their culture into their children, and were the instigators to uphold these values when their husbands seemed to be declining their involvement. In all of these cultures, there is a distinctive commonality: while the men were often away fighting or raiding, the women were left behind to uphold their society, and the values within them. It makes sense then, that if a certain group of people were in charge of the ruler’s livelihood, children, and status while they were away, then that group of people would need to be treated with respect and care, otherwise the system would break down and the rulers wouldn’t be able to leave, thus cutting off their main means of acquiring wealth and status. Women’s integral part within warrior society can also be found in the laws that protected them, and the fact that women could often be found in leadership roles of their own volition, and in the more basic cases, would be allowed to keep and continue managing her own property in the case of her husband dying; in other cultures, it would have been given to a male relative instead, but women were generally seen as having the ability to control their own lives (to an extent) without negative repercussions.

  It is also important to note, as mentioned previously that within these violent warrior cultures, a man living to an old age was not guaranteed. Therefore, it was incredibly important for women to bear and raise children in order to replace the lives of those who would fall in battle. In each of these cultures, the warlike gods seemed to be the most revered, from the great Thor and his powerful hammer, to the fearsome (and sometimes petty) Morrígan, to the bloodthirsty Grecian war god Ares. However, fertility deities were just as revered and the fertility cults are thought, in each of these separate cultures, to have predated the warrior cults. In many of the legends, such as the story of the Vanir and the Æsir at war—and eventually combining—to the legends of the original singular mother goddess Eiru being replaced by the pantheon of Celtic gods and goddesses, to even the story of the goddess Europa being kidnapped by Zeus disguised as a bull, all are thought by scholars to be derived from situations in which fertility cults were invaded and overtaken by the new warlike religious cults. However, sacred fertility was not simply cast out, but instead taken in and combined, to produce the duality found in all of these cultures; the feminine and masculine, light and dark, birth and death. 

As far as leadership went, in each of these cultures it was the men who ruled, but it was not unheard of or taboo if a woman rose to power. However, a woman would have to be exceptionally gifted in order to be respected enough to hold her power, especially in Celtic Ireland, in which Kings could be ousted for things as trite as becoming wounded, or having a drought occur for an unreasonable amount of time.

In Irish mythology, Queen Maeve of Ireland was a warrior Queen who ruled in her own right and was supposedly descended from the Morrígan herself. The respect and fear the people had for their Queen can be shown most impressively and distinctly by the fact that, although the location of her tomb is well known, it has never been excavated. As Kerrigan explains, “[Queen Maeve’s Tomb is] an ancient ritual site, but, despite its historic status, it has never been excavated. Legend has it that to do so would be to awaken the wrath of a goddess queen whose anger is not easily appeased. […] And so, her peace undisturbed, Queen Maeve lies sleeping on Knocknarea, awaiting the day when Ireland has need of her once more” (Kerrigan 78). Whether this is simply local lore rather than the actual reasoning behind leaving her tomb undisturbed, the fact that the legend has retained its importance into the modern age speaks on its own volition. 

In Viking Culture, shield-maidens, though they were not rulers, were invited into the sacred upper class reserved only for warriors, and were well respected within their culture.  The shield-maiden Brynhild is perhaps the most famous of these female warriors, elevated to the level of Valkyrie in some legends. In the Völsunga Saga, Sigurd, one of the most famous warriors known for killing the great dragon Fafnir, falls in love with Brynhild, but is given a potion of forgetfulness by Gunnar’s family so that Sigurd will not remember his relationship with Brynhild, and therefore Gunnar can marry her instead, and Sigurd will marry Gunnar’s sister Gudrun. Brynhild is tricked into marrying Gunnar, thinking it was he that had beaten her challenges, when really it was Sigurd in disguise. When she learns of this treachery, she is upset more by the crafty deception, as shield-maidens, like their counterpart warrior men, were thought to be straight forward and honest, as they did not need to use deception and trickery to get what they wanted. Brynhild in the end kills herself, and in the story Brynhild’s Ride to Hell, her pride and bravery, characteristics generally applied to men, are made apparent. She also repeats her innocence, insisting that she was never improper with Sigurd before she was married to her husband, despite being tricked. When she is reproached by a giantess on her way to Hell, Brynhild fights back, stating:

  Don’t reproach me, lady living in the rock,

that I’ve been on viking expeditions;

I shall be accepted as of better ancestry than you

wherever people compare our lineage. (Edda 187; line 3)

The fact that the stories of Brynhild, as her own woman worthy of fame, and not only as the wife of a famous man, shows that the Vikings had respect for women in leadership roles, if they proved themselves to be worthy of such praise. 

It is entirely possible that the reason these societies were almost obsessively masculinized and violent is because of the constant presence of women in leadership roles within the domestic sphere. If there was no pride or glory to be found in the warrior lifestyle, men would choose other means of spending their time. However, in all of these cultures, the people were found to be extremely pious towards their gods, and due to the violent nature of their deities and the pride in dying during battle found within their religions, the warrior culture stayed intact throughout generations. This led to an almost deification towards the absent father within the household. Children of both genders were raised on the bloody stories of their gods and heroes, only to find that their own fathers have purportedly been away engaging in the same battles the heroes and gods fought. On a daily basis, most especially for the Spartans, the father was not seen, and therefore, his faults were not as apparent. The children of these cultures would see their fathers fresh from months long (or in some cases, years long) raiding expeditions, and would come back with plunder and stories of bravery and daring. In the Irish Celtic tradition, the men actually had scheduled seasons for warring with neighboring clans, as there seemed to be ongoing fighting between tribes, generally with the intention of stealing cattle from each other. The Vikings, as well, had determined raiding seasons on which they would depart to have brilliant, bloody adventures with the other warriors, leaving the children with the mothers, who would then reinforce this deification of the men by recalling the histories of their people, and the heroes within the histories. Therefore, this ideology of what it meant to be a “Man” was sure to be instilled and reinforced at a very young age which would last through their lifetime, similar to their respect for the women who would at times be raising them singlehandedly with a fierce resilience, not only raising the children but keeping their home—and in most cases—farm thriving. 

The deification was not for brave men alone, however. In Sparta, there was a law that graves were only to be marked if a man fell during battle, or if a woman died during childbirth. To have the death of a woman birthing a child be just as revered as a man fighting for the honor and protection of their country shows the impenetrable importance and value women held within the society, and again reinforces the idea that fertility and warfare were seen as equally important and worthy of worship.

  In addition to instilling and reinforcing the values of their culture to their women, it was also the women’s jobs to ensure their values be upheld on a public basis, using the ever feared technique of shame. During the festivals of which every Spartan citizen was required to attend, ritual shaming would befall any man who had not upheld his role of marrying before the age of thirty. Cartledge notes this:

  Spartan women, like women elsewhere in Greece, played a leading role in Spartan public and private religion or quasi-religious manifestations. However, there were, apparently, no citizen women-only festivals at Sparta, not even the Thesmophoria in honour of Demeter, the fertility-giving earth mother goddess. […] Yet, as we have seen, young Spartan girls on the threshold of marriage sang and danced in competitive choruses, and as adult married women sang songs of scorn around an altar to shame reluctant Spartan bachelors into obeying the laws and taking a bride. (Cartledge 177)

The fact that it was up to the women to enforce the rules through shame or subtle manipulation, rather than by the force of the other men or the government as a whole, shows the leading role women took in each of these warrior cultures.

  It is quite interesting, that the ideals modern Western culture enjoys holding up as the very heart of progressivism, such as egalitarianism, equality between the sexes, and civility, indeed have been around for most of  history, but for some reason were discarded in favor of a patriarchal, classist, and generally oppressive society and system of values. It would have been hilarious to suggest to standard Victorian England families, for example, that their wives had the capacity not only to manage the household singularly, but could also be called upon to take up arms and go on raiding parties with the men if she so chooses. Or, as it would seem, to beseech modern day America to accept that a woman could make an adequate president. Although western society generally doesn’t experience any literal witch hunts against powerful women on a day to day basis, or the stoning or burning of adulterous women, there is still an unbalanced power dynamic within modern society that simply was unheard of in these ancient warrior cultures. The idea that it was men, and only men, who had been granted by the singular male God to make all of the decisions alone both in the public and domestic sphere would have been confusing and demeaning to the ancient warrior women. The men would have more than likely been against this idea as well, for the duality of their societies benefitted the men. They could focus on the raids and political affairs between clans and countries, and they could feel secure knowing that their sons and daughters were being raised to be contributing members of society by their knowledgable, strong, and caring wives, just as they had been raised by their mothers. 

Though there was an underlying fear of an angered woman within the societies, it was a healthy sense of fear, that encouraged the men to respect the women in their lives, because the warrior women of these cultures would not simply lie down and be abused. Such behavior would be unbefitting of a member of their society. She would divorce the husband that treated her badly, bringing both shame and financial burden onto the man, or she would simply murder him, his entire family, and burn their home to the ground with everyone inside. But instead of feeling emasculated by the power their women would wield, there seemed to be a certain pride from the men while regarding their beloved and fearsome wives. In the famous quote made by Gorgo, who herself was the daughter of and the wife of Spartan kings, to a non-Spartan woman who was awed by the power women exerted in Spartan society who had asked why only Spartan women ‘ruled’ their men was: “Because we are the only women who give birth to (real) men!” (Cartledge 165). Whether or not this quote is historical rather than fantastical, it does give the impression that holds water within these cultures, and how their duality was viewed, which was a wholly masculine man had nothing to fear from his wife being powerful, as he was confident in his own self, and his own power.

  In this fashion, it could be said that though these ancient cultures lacked the “civility,” technology and global awareness found in modern society, they seemed to have been far more progressive on the stance of equal rights and treatment of women than any civilization found today. In this new modern, seemingly complacent society, which is obsessively enamored with vigilantism and the hyper-masculine archaic cultures that came before, of a society that is so withdrawn from the daily violence and struggles these ancient cultures faced, the idea of gender equality seems almost absurd to pull apart from such a colorful history. However, there is much that can be learned from these societies, not all of which are quite as fantastical as raiding and pillaging, or defending the homeland from invading Romans, or taking on the enemy with only 300 half-naked men, but instead could be something as simple as equal pay for equal work, as these societies we hold on a pedestal to be the personification of everything masculine, strong and fearsome had already worked out long before their adventurous exploits, and had made these decisions without a second thought, for anything less would be an affront to their gods, their culture, and most importantly, the women who had given them life, given their children life, and, it could be said, given their culture life as well.

  Works Cited

Buxton, R.G.A. The Complete World of Greek Mythology. Thames & Hudson, 2004.

Cartledge, Paul. The Spartans. The Overlook Press, 2003.

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald. Vol. XLI. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001. www.bartleby.com/41/. September 22, 2017.

Gantz, Jeffrey, editor. Early Irish Myths and Sagas. Reprint Edition ed., Penguin Books, 1988.

Gregory, and W.B. Yeats. Lady Gregory's Complete Irish Mythology. Bounty Books, 2014.

Kerrigan, Jo, and Richard Mills. Old Ways, Old Secrets: Pagan Ireland: Myth, Landscape, Tradition. The O'Brien Press, 2015.

Larrington, Carolyne, translator. The Poetic Edda. 2nd Edition ed., Oxford University Press, 2014.