History Extra Podcast – "Inside the Viking Battle of the Genders"

Date: December 29, 2025
Host: James Osborne
Guest: Dr. Jackson Crawford

Episode Overview

This episode explores how Old Norse mythology—especially as preserved in the Poetic Edda—relates to Viking Age ideas about masculinity and femininity. Host James Osborne speaks with Old Norse expert Dr. Jackson Crawford about Crawford's new translation of the Poetic Edda, what makes these poems so rich and strange, and what the ancient texts reveal (and conceal) about gender, power, and the complexity of Norse society. Along the way, they engage with memorable myths, unpack shifting cultural values, and reflect on the power (and peril) of projecting modern ideas onto ancient stories.

1. The Poetic Edda: Context and Content

[02:24–05:41]

• Definition and Origins

  • Poetic Edda: A compilation of traditional Old Norse oral poems, written down around AD 1270 but drawing on much older material, possibly from the 900s.
  • Prose Edda: Written by Snorri Sturluson in the 1200s to preserve the rules and forms of Old Norse poetry, but more an instructional manual than a collection of folk materials.
  • Crawford notes: "The Poetic Edda is our most direct source of Norse mythology because nothing is written down during the Viking Age about the gods, other than occasionally their names will show up on a runestone." ([03:56])

• Living Tradition

  • The oral tradition persisted: "It does seem like this remained a living oral tradition for a few centuries until the 1200s." ([05:37])

2. Translating Old Norse: Balancing Accessibility and Strangeness

[06:06–08:21]

• Modernizing the Ancient
  • Crawford aims for clarity without diluting the text's oddness: "I wanted you to not notice the translation. I wanted you to notice what it said and have something that you could read on the bus...without me having to explain what Shakespearean English meant." ([07:38])
  • He preserves confusion when the text is unclear: "When I just did not understand what the heck something meant in the original, I have left it confusing rather than try to 'fix' it." ([08:01])

3. Christian Influence on the Eddas

[08:58–11:12]

• Compilation in a Christian Context
  • The Eddas are not ‘holy books’—they were compiled after Iceland’s conversion to Christianity: "Their compilers, as you say, were Christians... They certainly did not have anti-Christian goals in compiling it." ([09:27])
  • No liturgy or worship details: "There's nothing in there about worship, about praying, about ritual, even about holidays or anything like that. It is stories about characters..." ([09:39])
  • The myths became cultural touchstones rather than religious texts: "They become, in a sense, the Robin Hood, the Achilles, the King Arthur of early Christian medieval Iceland." ([10:31])
  • Modern analogy: "It becomes the Star Wars of early medieval Iceland, where even people who aren’t deeply versed in it understand references to it." ([10:42])

4. Highlights from the Poetic Edda: Story Examples

[11:24–17:21]

• “Thrym’s Poem” (Þrymskviða): Thor in Drag

  • Oldest surviving poem about the gods; features cross-dressing and gender play.
  • “It’s a really kind of goofy adventure comedy story where Thor wakes up one morning and finds out that his hammer...is missing.” ([11:49])
  • Freya refuses to marry the giant Thrym; Thor has to pose as her instead. Loki accompanies in female form.
  • “There’s obviously a lot of comedy playing off the gender roles here, with Thor being the archetypical masculine god dressed up as a bride at a wedding.” ([13:05])
  • The story is full of wordplay and “needling” banter between Loki and Thor, vividly showing Norse humor and attitudes toward gender performance.

• “The First Poem of Gudrun” (Guðrúnarkviða I): Women’s Grief

  • Gudrun, central female character, is unable to cry over her murdered husband—other women share their own tragedies in attempts to help.
  • Only able to grieve after a direct, intimate confrontation with her husband’s corpse: “Kiss the bloody mouth of your husband—as if he were living; greet him as if he were living.” ([16:49])
  • “In a culture where men are getting killed in conflicts...why can this not be the emotions of a Viking Age woman? I say I find that pretty fascinating.” ([17:01])

5. Norse Worldview and Social Values

[17:48–20:47]

• Implicit and Explicit Values

  • The Edda’s values are mostly implicit: “The dominant worldview and values and assumptions are the unspoken ones.” ([17:55])
  • Poems like Havamal give practical (sometimes subversive) wisdom, such as moderation in drinking, even if real Vikings weren’t always so moderate: “Throughout all of the other poems and sagas, men are constantly drunk, and it causes them all kinds of problems...” ([18:53])
  • Osborne draws modern parallels: “Like you wouldn’t expect to see in a modern text, an exact reflection of the way in which society today works...” ([19:23])
  • Crawford offers a memorable metaphor: “Probably watching Star Wars is a decent example...The values are mostly in the assumptions that they make, rather than anything that's explicitly articulated.” ([20:01, 20:12])

• Memorable Quote

  • “You’re going to do a better job of learning [about the culture] from the assumptions they make rather than from the positions they explicitly articulate.” —Dr. Jackson Crawford [20:47]

6. Gender in the Poetic Edda: Masculinity and Femininity

[23:18–27:41]

Masculinity

• The ‘Drengr’ Ideal
  • The drengr is “the man who stands alone...recklessly courageous.” ([24:25])
  • “This word is used all the time on Viking Age runestones to praise a dead man...My father was a drengr, I want to die like a drengr. This is such a culturally littered word, and it never occurs in Havamal.” ([24:36])
  • Havamal values are distinct: “It’s about what the wise man does, maybe the man who’s a little too old to engage in the activities that would mark him as a drengr.” ([24:39])

Femininity

• Women’s Agency and Caricature

  • Oldest stanzas about the sexes are blunt: “No man should ever trust what a woman says...Their hearts are shaped on a wobbly wheel and deception is planted in their breasts.” (Havamal 84) ([25:34])
  • But men are also shown as deceptive: “I've known men and women both, men lie to women and we tell the biggest lies when we speak the most eloquently.” (Havamal 91) ([26:00])
  • Women’s “power is in words. It’s not typically women doing the stabbing, but it is sometimes.” Gudrun, for example, kills her second husband in revenge ([29:12]).
  • In the sagas, women are often depicted as the voice or manipulator behind male violence: “The counsels of women are cold.” (Kol deru kvenaroz, Njals saga) ([30:12])
  • The Norns, female fates, “stand at the absolute fountainhead of all violence in these stories.” ([31:08])

• Notable Quotes:

  • “They figure very, very prominently and often as the manipulator of words and the manipulated by words.” —Dr. Jackson Crawford [30:48]
  • “In a sense, women stand at the absolute fountainhead of all violence in these stories.” —Dr. Jackson Crawford [31:28]

• Complexity and Gaps

  • Osborne: “While they do have this agency ... they do also almost universally seem to be caricatured in this way that positions them as either manipulating men to do bad things directly or being the reason why a man is inspired to do bad things.” ([28:46])
  • Dr. Crawford: “There may really have been women who occupied a very different social position than we would expect.” ([29:50])
  • Stories of goddesses are sparse: “Mostly, when we hear about the divine beings, we’re hearing about men. The major exception is Freya...she tends to be more of a playing piece on the board between the men than a really active participant.” ([33:07])

7. Lost Voices and Women’s Stories

[32:05–34:20]

• Missing Women’s Perspectives
  • Crawford: “We have certainly lost many, many, many stories...It may be slightly prejudiced toward content that's more masculine in focus or intent...” ([32:05])
  • “There are a few poems that are plausibly composed by women...Gudrun's poem and Audrinn's poem feature only women speaking and could easily be the work of a woman.” ([32:44], [34:09])
  • The scarcity of goddess narratives is notable and may indicate lost traditions.

8. Hypermasculinity and Gender Tension: Modern Parallels

[34:22–35:42]

• Norse Hypermasculinity
  • Norse society was certainly masculine and competitive, but not uniquely so among ancient cultures.
  • The contradictory attitude toward women mirrors dynamics in certain modern all-male environments: “Women are looked at as manipulative, but also as manipulable...It really reminds me a little bit of that attitude.” ([35:03])
  • Quote: “This is the very hypocritical, very contradictory view of women that young men, who are in fact often isolated from women, can get in any culture.” ([35:42])

9. In Closing: Ideals and Diversity in Norse Society

[36:36–39:24]

• Masculinity’s Demands and Countercurrents

  • Osborne recalls a saga: “Thorsten's father tells him that he would rather have no son than have a coward for a son.” ([36:36])
  • Crawford: “He’d rather have a dead son than a cowardly son.” ([36:47])
  • Yet Havamal offers a counter: "It’s better to be alive no matter what…That’s a somewhat subversive thought in a society like this." ([37:18])
  • Final meta-point: “We are looking at a big diversity of opinions in these sources. Just like the Bible is not one single monolithic text by one person at one time…” ([37:42])

• Femininity: No Single Ideal

  • Osborne: “Do you think there’s an equivalent that gets to the heart of how the Norse see what women should be like?” ([38:12])
  • Crawford: “There are many different models of what a good woman might be...I think stoic fidelity in life and death is probably pretty close to encapsulating that feminine ideal.” ([39:24])

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Edda as a cultural text:
  • “It becomes the Star Wars of early medieval Iceland, where even people who aren’t deeply versed in it understand references.” —Dr. Jackson Crawford [10:42]
• On translation choices:
  • “I wanted you to not notice the translation. I wanted you to notice what it said...without me having to explain what Shakespearean English meant.” —Dr. Jackson Crawford [07:38]
• On Norse humor:
  • “It’s ridiculous, it’s short, it’s goofy, but it is apparently a very old story and a reminder that as seriously as people who believed in these gods no doubt took them, they could also have fun with them.” —Dr. Jackson Crawford [14:40]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:24] — What is the Poetic Edda?
• [06:06] — Translating Old Norse for modern readers.
• [08:58] — Christian influence on Norse texts.
• [11:24] — Examples of Edda stories: Thor’s comedy, Gudrun’s tragedy.
• [17:48] — Do the Eddas show Norse values?
• [23:18] — Masculinity and femininity: ideals and complexities.
• [29:32] — Warrior women in myth and archaeology.
• [32:05] — Missing women’s voices and perspectives.
• [36:36] — Norse ideals: Brave sons and complex women’s roles.

Conclusion

In this episode, Dr. Jackson Crawford and James Osborne reveal the multidimensionality of Viking Age gender ideals—from the heroic drengr to the complex, sometimes contradictory depictions of women as both powerful and perilous. The Poetic Edda, while a treasure trove of stories, is shaped by the society that preserved it—one where humor, tragedy, manipulation, fidelity, and subversion all sit side by side. Crawford’s translation invites modern readers to connect with the ancient past—without losing sight of its strangeness and surprise.