Viking Women (Radio Edit)

Summary

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You're Dead to Me – Viking Women (Radio Edit)

Podcast: You’re Dead to Me (BBC Radio 4)
Date: November 28, 2025
Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (historian, Bath Spa University) & Chloe Petts (comedian)

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Overview

This episode of You’re Dead to Me dives beneath the horned-helmet clichés to explore the roles, realities, and remarkable stories of Viking women. Host Greg Jenner is joined by specialist Dr. Eleanor Barraclough and comedian Chloe Petts as they discuss what Viking women’s lives were actually like, challenge popular myths, and examine the evidence for female warriors, matriarchs, and everything in between. The tone, as always, is witty, irreverent, but deeply informed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Who Were the Vikings? (04:17)

• Historical and Geographic Context: The Viking Age is dated roughly between 793 (Lindisfarne raid) and 1100, spanning Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) and massive expansion across Europe, up to North America and Baghdad.

• Notable Insight: Vikings weren’t isolated; they were prolific travelers, settlers, and traders. Their world changed over time, notably shifting from paganism to Christianity around 1000 AD.

  “They go east down the waterways of what’s now Russia, Ukraine…end up in the Byzantine Empire…even around Baghdad…a really important part of what they are.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (04:17)

2. Female Societal Roles: More Than Pillagers’ Wives (06:21)

• Homefront Contributions: Viking women were fundamental – producing textiles (including sails for ships), managing food, raising children, and running farms in men’s absence.

• Vital Yet Overlooked: Removing women from the equation means “hungry, naked men in a rowing boat.”

• Diversity of Experience: A Viking woman’s life varied greatly depending on her social status—whether enslaved or elite.

  “Take away the women and you’ve got some hungry, naked men in a rowing boat, which is a Channel 4 documentary I would watch.”
  — Greg Jenner (07:34)

3. Girlhood and Upbringing (07:45)

• Work Begins Young: Most girls learned domestic crafts like weaving early, with little time for play. Experiences varied greatly across classes.

  “At the point where…children nowadays might be going out on their skateboards, these girls are probably in there learning how to weave.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (08:48)

• Harsh Realities: Likely prevalence of female infanticide due to a preference for sons; grim but necessary to acknowledge.

4. Marriage, Divorce, and Widow Power (10:05)

• Arranged Marriages: Parents—usually fathers—chose daughters’ husbands, often for social gain.

• Legal Agency: Surprisingly, both men and women could initiate divorce by declaring it with witnesses—more progressive than other medieval societies.

• Status of Widows: Being a widow could grant a woman significant autonomy and status; widowed women sometimes led large household migrations, founded settlements, or established matriarchal communities.

  “Some of the first settlers, the big settlers, are women…once she’s a widow she gathers her family…and sets up this sort of matriarchy.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (11:06)

5. Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Magic (11:46)

• Dangerous Undertaking: Childbirth was perilous; many women and children died.

• Spiritual Protection: Magical runes (“helping runes”) were used for protection in childbirth; rare artifacts hint at complex spiritual practices.

  “There’s an amazing…rune stick…inscription is to the baby…it says, ‘Come out hairless one. The Lord calls you into the light.’”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (13:23)

6. Managing the Household: Beyond the Kitchen (13:26)

• Women oversaw not just immediate families but entire farmstead communities.

• Responsibilities included food storage for harsh winters, textile production, medicine, and sometimes magic (e.g., seidr).

• Women as Healers and Magicians: Noted mentions of women performing healing (e.g., smelling garlic in wounds) and magic; female magicians called vǫlur.

  “There’s a type of…magic called seidr…that women are particularly meant to practice. The old Norse word for a female practitioner…is a vulva.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (14:30)

7. Elite Women and Afterlife (17:38)

• Oseberg Burial: Famous ship burial of two elite women in Norway—contained luxurious grave goods: carved wagons, sacrificed animals, intricate textiles depicting ominous imagery.

  “One of the most sumptuous burials…it’s, there’s nothing like it…wagons all beautifully carved…buckets…sacrificed horses…incredible tapestry…trees are full of hanging bodies.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (18:47)

8. Women as Settlers and Explorers (17:05)

• Women actively migrated and braved dangerous sea journeys to settle new lands (e.g., Iceland, Greenland). Inscriptions confirm women died during these voyages.
• They were integral to the Viking ethos of expansion.

9. Olga of Kyiv: Queen of Vengeance (19:32)

• Saga of Bloody Revenge: Olga, a Norse princess and later a saint, engineered elaborate revenge against her husband’s murderers—burying ambassadors alive, burning men to death in saunas, and torching settlements—then converted and was canonized.

  “So the first lot, yeah. She basically buries the ambassadors alive…then [lures] nobleman…sauna…sets fire to him…burns the whole settlement to the ground…then she converts to Christianity and is made a saint.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (21:06–21:46)

10. Women Warriors – Myth or Fact? (22:05)

• The Birka Burial: A 10th-century grave in Sweden, long assumed male due to warrior accoutrements, was confirmed in 2017 via DNA as female. This opens up questions:

  • Did women fight? Was this a symbolic burial? Was gender expression more fluid?
  • The absence of battle injuries complicates the interpretation but fascinates historians.

• Media portrayals (e.g., shield maidens) may project modern desires for strong female characters, but the evidence is tantalizingly ambiguous.

  “They look at the DNA and there’s—it’s female DNA…that doesn’t mean that she was a practicing warrior…there’s all sorts of possibilities…”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (22:33)

  “Question marks are exciting.”
  — Greg Jenner (23:47)

11. History, Nuance, and Stereotypes (24:05; 25:23)

• Both patriarchy and feminism play a role in modern readings—some want to see women as sword-wielding badasses, others prefer nuanced realities.

• Dr. Barraclough emphasizes meeting these historical women on their own terms—not caricaturing them solely as “apeing male role models.”

  “Their lives are so much more nuanced and multidimensional, more varied than these cartoon stereotypes…and so for me, that is my nuance window—that women themselves are nuanced.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (26:23)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On stripping women from Viking society:
  “Take away the women and you’ve got some hungry naked men in a rowing boat.”
  — Greg Jenner (07:34)

• On the hard realities of childhood:
  “At the point where…children nowadays might be going out on their skateboards, these girls are probably in there learning how to weave.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (08:48)

• On the afterlife and elite status:
  “You see the trees [on the funeral tapestry] are full of hanging bodies.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (19:01)

• On Olga of Kyiv’s notorious retribution:
  “She basically buries the ambassadors alive…blocks [others] in the sauna…sets fire…burns the whole settlement to the ground…then she converts to Christianity and is made a saint.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (21:06–21:46)

• On the reinterpretation of archaeological evidence:
  “They look at the DNA…and it’s female DNA…Question marks are exciting.”
  — Greg Jenner (22:33; 23:47)

• The Nuance Window takeaway:
  “When we look back in history and these hyper masculine periods of history from our perspectives, it’s even more important—meet [women] on their own terms.”
  — Dr. Eleanor Barraclough (26:23)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Historical overview and geography: 04:17–05:43
• Viking women’s roles and essential contributions: 06:21–07:45
• Girlhood and realities of female upbringing: 07:45–09:20
• Marriage, divorce, and widowhood: 10:05–11:46
• Childbirth and magical practices: 11:46–13:26
• Household management and medicine: 13:26–15:14
• Weaving, women’s quarters, and myth: 15:14–16:54
• Elite female burials (Oseberg): 17:38–18:49
• Women as settlers and travelers: 17:05–17:38
• Olga of Kyiv’s story: 19:32–21:46
• Women warriors and the Birka burial: 22:05–23:55
• Discussing nuance and modern readings: 24:05–26:23
• Nuance Window (Dr. Barraclough): 25:23–27:09

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Final Thought

The episode expertly balances myth-busting humor with thoughtful historical analysis, reminding listeners that Viking women were as complex, multifaceted, and vital as any men of their age—and deserving of stories told on their own terms.

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Transcript

[Chloe Petts]

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[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

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[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

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[Greg Jenner]

Hello and welcome to youo're Dead to me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are loading our loom weights and launching our longship as we sail back to medieval Scandinavia to learn all about Viking women. And to help us, we have two very special guests in History Corner. She's a historian, writer and broadcaster based at Bath Spa University, where her research focuses on the cultures, literatures and languages of the medieval North. You may have read her sensational new book, Embers of the Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. It's a wonderful book and you will definitely remember her from our episode on Leif Eriksson. It's Dr. Eleanor Barraclough. Welcome back, Eleanor.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yay. Thank you so much for having me back.

[Greg Jenner]

Delighted to have you back. And in Comedy Corner, they're an award winning. Sorry. And in Comedy Corner, they're an award nominated stand up comedian.

[Chloe Petts]

When it comes to awards, I am famously always the bridesmaid, never the bride. And what you just did, your mouth typo just cut deep.

[Greg Jenner]

I'm so sorry, Clara. Okay. And in Comedy Corner, they're an award nominated stand up comedian. You might have seen them on tv, on Celebrity, Pointless, Richard Osmond's House of Games, Jonathan Ross Comedy Club, or commenting on the Women's Football Euro on Sky Sports. Maybe you caught their recent Stand up tour. How youw See Me, how youw Don't. Awesome. Supporting Ed Gamble. It's Chloe Petts. Welcome to the show, Chloe.

[Chloe Petts]

Thank you so much for having me, Chloe.

[Greg Jenner]

First time on the pod? Yeah. How are you with history? Did you like it at school? Are you comfort zone?

[Chloe Petts]

I did like it.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

I think I did it for A level.

[Chloe Petts]

Did I do it for A level, you think?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Did I do it for you?

[Greg Jenner]

You're not that old. What did I. I think that's across.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Like we're gonna know.

[Chloe Petts]

Oh, my God.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

You did it for A level.

[Chloe Petts]

I think I must have because I really like it.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Did I do it for A level?

[Chloe Petts]

Now I'm gonna list my A levels. I definitely did English because I did that at uni. I did maths.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh.

[Chloe Petts]

History, Theatre studies.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Oh.

[Chloe Petts]

And then I did classics as well. The area of history that I enjoy the most because I really like consuming history via novels. So I'm a big fan of, like, the Victorian era and the Regents era.

[Greg Jenner]

Gotcha. Those are my areas of fine specialty. So if I say to you Vikings, did your brain just go?

[Chloe Petts]

No, Slightly.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Chloe Petts]

I mean, I don't have any sort of context of really where they're located in history. They seem like kind of vacuum packed in their little. In their little section. So, yeah, getting a bit of, like, context of where they're located in human history will be really interesting.

[Greg Jenner]

So what do you know? Now, This is the. So what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And I reckon when you hear Viking, you're probably thinking big hairy men in historically inaccurate horned helmets, no horns. But today we're horning. Ah, sorry. Honing in on the women. Now, you might be imagining fearsome warriors tossing axes while tossing their immaculate blond braids. And maybe you're thinking also of the mythological Valkyries made famous in Wagner's opera and the Marvel Thor movies. Of course, you might have seen the TV show Vikings with the scary shieldmaiden Lagertha and her bloody post divorce glow up. Or you've watched Skade, the sinister sorceress in the Last Kingdom. What was life really like for the average Viking gal about town? And how many people can you incinerate and still be made a saint? Let's find out. Eleanor, let's start with the basics, because Chloe said vacuum pack them for it for us.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Let's give some dates. Okay, so we're talking first raids that we know about. We think of Vikings being sort of really raidy on the British Isles end of the 8th century. So like 793 classic raid on Lindsfarne, possibly a little bit before then. All right, and then how long the Viking age goes on for. Sort of depends on how we're defining it, but let's say kind of up to 1100, except a lot of the evidence actually comes from after that. Then, in terms of where we're talking geographically, the homelands are Scandinavia, so Denmark, Norway and Sweden. That's where it all starts. Except a really exciting thing about the Viking Age is that it's all about expansion, colonization, exploration. You know, people are coming into contact with each other across this vast area. So, you know, they expand across the North Atlantic. They make it all the way to Iceland and Greenland, even to the edge of the North American continent around the year 1000. They go east down the waterways of what's now Russia, Ukraine. They end up in the Byzantine Empire, which is centered on what's now Istanbul in Turkey. And then they end up further east than that. They end up sort of around Baghdad, that sort of region. So they're really far traveling, and that's a really important part of what they are. But also because it's over several hundred years, there are big changes over that time. So, for example, they start pagan, but then around the year 1000 or so, we see this sort of conversion to Christianity.

[Chloe Petts]

The fact that you're like, the Vikings went to the Byzantine lands, it feels like a Marvel DC kind of crossover.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

They knew each other, didn't know about each other.

[Chloe Petts]

Like, they saw the big, hairy ginger men.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Okay. So, Chloe, what do you imagine the Viking women were up to while the lads were on tour? You know, they're off doing all these gallivanting around half the world. What are the women up to?

[Chloe Petts]

I hope a lot of intense lesbianism, if I'm honest. That must have been more.

[Greg Jenner]

There's probably some. I mean, let's be honest, there's probably some.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Oh, yeah, there's. There's sort of later prohibitions against it, which suggests people are up to things.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, we're talking. We're trying to reframe the picture because I think it's quite easy to think of men in their long boats going off to pillage and to plunder and to settle. How did the women feel? What is their life like? How does it. How does it sort of fit into that story?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Well, there's no Viking age without the women, for start, you know, so. So if you. If you. So for a start, it's. Things like that sound a little bit tedious or worthy if you're. If you're into Vikings because they're glittery and cool and fun and dramatic things like textile production. You need clothes. But you also need sails to. If you're going to go across the ocean, if you're looking to trade or to raid or to settle or to colonize, find new lands. You need wind power to actually get across that ocean without the women. You don't have sales. You don't have clothes. You also don't have children. And that's because obviously some people are having the children, but other people are also helping bring up the children, you know, so you need that next generation. So on a very, very basic level, take away the women and you've got nothing. Also, they're doing most of the food preparation. They're looking after the houses when. When all the long houses and the farms, when sort of the men might be on their hunting or their raiding expeditions, whatever it is. And so you take away the women and you've got some hungry naked men in a rowing boat, which is a.

[Greg Jenner]

Channel 4 documentary that I would watch. We need to start, I suppose, with the life of women, actually. Let's start with girlhood. Right. What would you expect of a Viking girl's upbringing? Chloe?

[Chloe Petts]

She's probably getting taught just to do the classic stuff, the food making.

[Greg Jenner]

Skateboarding. Yeah, yeah.

[Chloe Petts]

She's a couple of ollies.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chloe Petts]

I think probably skateboarding.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah.

[Chloe Petts]

You took the words out of my mouth.

[Greg Jenner]

Sorry.

[Chloe Petts]

Is it skateboarding?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, skateboarding.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

I don't know.

[Greg Jenner]

Sorry. I ruined it. You're making a very sensible point and I ruined it.

[Chloe Petts]

No, no, I think it's important.

[Greg Jenner]

I think it's important that we allow.

[Chloe Petts]

Intrusive thoughts to win on this podcast.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

It's really important to say up top, there's no such thing as an average experience. We've got to think, you know, we've already said the Viking age extends over hundreds of years. And then within that, you've got lots and lots of different social strata. And so someone who is. Know, a young child who is enslaved is going to have a very different experience growing up compared to someone who is much further up that social pecking order. But exactly as you say. Yeah, a lot of it's going to be learning from a young age. Domestic crafts and sort of textile manufacture.

[Chloe Petts]

Was there any culture of play amongst kids?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

That's a really good question. Well, I think there's a very. I don't know what you think, like, children play. Play is sort of a universal impulse. The question is, at what point does that stop? And I think that certainly compared to today, you know, at the point where, yeah, children nowadays might be going out on their skateboards. You Know, these girls are probably in there learning how to weave. There's also slightly less pleasant stuff. So, for example, it looks like there's a higher rate of female infanticides.

[Chloe Petts]

I was wondering whether that might be the case.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah, that seems likely. It's really hard to prove it.

[Greg Jenner]

So just to be clear that that is the deliberate killing of little baby girls because you don't want a girl, you want a boy.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

Which is horrible. You know, we're a comedy show, but that is, you know, we have to talk about this stuff. Does it improve for teenagers? Like, you know, is it fun?

[Chloe Petts]

You know the answer to that.

[Greg Jenner]

I don't know the answer.

[Chloe Petts]

It's not going to improve for teenagers if they're killing girls at birth and then putting them to work at 8. I don't think all of a sudden they're going to be like, okay, off.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

You go into the world.

[Chloe Petts]

Now you can go to university when.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

You get to sort of be of childbearing age and pretty young Mar. Which is obviously on the cards. And that is an important part of teenagehood as you sort of head towards the latter part of that, if you're lucky.

[Greg Jenner]

And do the girls get to pick their hubbies or does dad go, I've chosen Sven. He's exactly what you need.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

I think, more to the point, exactly what I need. Certainly, once again, when you look at the latest saga evidence, bearing in mind sagas are not history as we would think of history, they're stories. But they do sort of reflect something of that earlier time and the time in which they're writt. But certainly, yes, it's. It's. I have picked out. You're going to be marrying him whether you like it or not.

[Chloe Petts]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Can a man divorce a woman easily?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

You can. You call witnesses and you say, I'm divorced. And it can be all sorts of reasons. And this is true, I think, of the men and the women. So as far as the. But the important thing is that women can do it too.

[Greg Jenner]

So the interesting thing about the Viking age, historians often say that women in the Viking era were better off than anywhere else in the Viking. Sorry, anywhere else in the European Christian world. Like they had more rights, more laws, more freedoms. We've heard maybe that's not entirely true. There's quite a lot of pressure so on. But yeah, widowhood kind of is. That's kind of a. Quite a. That's what you're aiming for. That's the ideal.

[Liberty Mutual Insurance Ad Voice]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

But you have really. I mean. So for example, we mentioned ICELAND being settled second part of the 9th century. Some of the first settlers, the big settlers are women. There's one in particular she called either or Unnur, the deep minded. And it's only once she's a widow she able. She sort of gathers her family and her followers and her. And her sort of like slaves at that point around her and takes them off to Iceland, frees the enslaved people and sort of sets up this sort of matriarchy out.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, this community of women. Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

I mean she ends up. It's on the night, I think it's her grandchild. On the night of her grandchild's wedding, she dies upright in bed, having basically just sorted everyone out. She's an EastEnders matriarch.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, exactly. Get out of my pub, Longhouse. Sorry. Okay. We should talk about a childbirth which obviously, obviously, you know, you mentioned before that obviously in order to keep having Vikings going out into the world, you need children that grow up, we need babies. I mean, obviously childbirth is dangerous at any time in history. In the Viking world there are, there are kind of rituals, routines, there's magical spells, there's all sorts of ways of trying to protect a woman in childbirth and a baby. Can you talk us through some of those?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah, so, I mean. Yeah, exactly as you say. So mortality rates were huge, as they always have been. There's a really touching grave from Orkney, Rousey. And it's a woman, but she is. She's buried with an infant who's full term and so the likelihood is that she, she's died in childbirth and so is the child. So exactly as you say that there has to be measures in place. One of these is called. They're called Bjag Runner. Sort of helping runes, runes of protection. Those seem to have been used. We've got like sort of just evidence on the edge. Often with childbirth, with pregnancy, everything is on the edge because it's female histories and they don't, you know, they just don't get record recorded. But we have sort of a few little runic inscriptions that might sort of back that up. There's an amazing. Again, it's later, it's very much within a Christian context, but it's a rune stick and it looks like basically the baby's gone over term and is still, you know, inside. And this runic inscription is to the baby and it ends and it says, come out hairless one. The Lord calls you into the light.

[Greg Jenner]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

It's beautiful. It's a lovely.

[Greg Jenner]

I love that one.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

But let's get back to a Woman's work, you know, the kind of daily domestic. She's not just obviously giving birth. Next generation. There's a lot she's got to look after in the house.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yes, definitely. So they're very much in charge of the household. The household isn't just sort of immediate family or relatives. You know, you've got quite a community, depending on how big this farmstead is. You've got responsibilities for making sure everyone stays alive throughout the winters. You've got to be able to cook, but you've got to be able to store food. You're going to be looking after the farmsteads, as I said before. You're going to be textile production, medicine. Exactly. So that's the other. And again, yeah, so there's a really interesting episode from Heimskringler, which is sort of a big group of king sagas, essentially, where there's a battle, someone's injured, and they go into the tent and there's a healing woman there, and she basically feeds them this mixture of sort of garlic and herbs and nasty stuff. Because the idea is that once you eat it, if you can sort of smell the garlic from the wound, you know it's gone through and it's sort of a fatal wound, essentially.

[Chloe Petts]

That's one of the worst things I've ever heard in my life. I think I'd rather just not know.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

But that is.

[Chloe Petts]

Would you rather just die, not stink in a garden?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

That's what the character says. He's like, no, I'm cool, thanks very much. So, nah, you keep your garlic soon. But the fact is, there's women in there doing that. There's also sort of religious aspect. There's a type of sort of magic called seidr. And again, we're back in sort of more pagan context here. That woman is particularly meant to practice. The old Norse word for a female practitioner of magic, or siris, is a vulva. So there you go. Yes.

[Chloe Petts]

So is that where we get that?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

That it's spelled differently? And then, of course, there's sort of textile production, which is just like. I know it sounds boring to keep on going on about, but it's so important. Like, if we didn't have textile production, we would all be sitting here naked.

[Chloe Petts]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

It's like we would. Nothing happens.

[Greg Jenner]

And we get a strongly worded email from hr, wouldn't we?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

But, yeah, but there's this special sort of women's quarters called the dingya and the dinghya. It's not necessarily just for textile production, but in the archaeological record, all over the Norse world. So Greenland is a really good example of this. You see these sort of textile production spaces where you have women, where you have children. The sagas again have episodes where, you know, women sit there talking about, for example, their former lovers in one case, where one of the husbands hears. Doesn't go well.

[Greg Jenner]

And in terms of weaving, it's not just humans who are doing the weaving. The gods weave too. Do you know what the gods would weave with when they were determining people's futures? Oh, the clouds. Oh, that's. Oh, that's charming.

[Chloe Petts]

That's beautiful.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, you're so wrong, but it's.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

No, I'm gonna say you're not so wrong.

[Greg Jenner]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Because you've got these supernatural beings called the norns, the Nornir, there's these three. And they're responsible for weaving the. The fates of humans, essentially. I like to think. Yeah, they're basically just like pulling down threads from the clouds. So I'm like totally with you there.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, but that's a nastier one. Yeah, Come on. Yeah, let's have the gory one.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Right, so the gory one, it's Valkyries this time, you know? Right. That's how we know Valkyries on their horses coming down, blah, blah, blah. Right. And there is an episode from again, it's in Njao saga. Essentially on the night before a battle, someone sees these women going into one of these dingyon, one of these weaving rooms. He peeps inside and he sees them and they're singing as they weave on this big loom. But what it is is that the entrails of the dead and there's like kind of heads hanging from.

[Greg Jenner]

So that's the loom weights are severed heads.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Exactly. The loom weights are severed head.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, the thread is just guts. Yeah, just Viking guts.

[Chloe Petts]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Do women go out on the ships? Right, so we've heard them at home. They're doing the farming, they're doing the medicine, they're doing the weaving, they're looking after the kids. But like, do they get on longships and go and settle? Iceland and Greenland? Yeah, absolutely.

[Chloe Petts]

They do.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

This is really important. So Iceland, we've already talked about this like matriarch at the beginning. One of the widows who goes out there unither deep minded. Greenland is a really interesting. So Greenland gets settled first of all from Iceland in sort of Eric the Red. It's kind of 985 or something. And there are women. Absolutely. Going out there to settle. There's a rune stick that they found in one of the Graveyards from Greenland. And it's not got a body in it, but it says, you know, this woman, she died on the Greenland Sea. So basically she died on the journey over very much part of that cultural sphere.

[Greg Jenner]

Let's talk about the lives of the rich Viking women, the elite.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

I've got a favorite here. Okay, so this is Norway. Oseberg. So sort of southern Norway. Oh my God.

[Greg Jenner]

The classic.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

The classic. But it's, there's a reason it's an oldie and it's a goodie. Right, so this is one of the, the most sumptuous burials. It's a ship burial. It hasn't been burnt, but these two.

[Chloe Petts]

A what? Burial ship. Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

What did you hear?

[Chloe Petts]

Really bad burial. Absolutely rubbish burial.

[Greg Jenner]

One of the worst I've ever seen.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

These two women have been placed in it. One of them is really quite old, sort of over 70. The other sort of late middle age, kind of maybe in her 50s. But it's, there's nothing like it. You know, there's, there's wagons all like beautifully carved with cats and, and faces and possibly the cats. You know, that's that sort of the classically linked to Freya, one of the goddesses. There's, there's wagons, there's, there's beautiful things like sort of buckets and like sacrificed horses and all. Also, I mean it, there is nothing like it in terms of the amount of stuff that has been placed into it. They can even tell exactly what time of year this initial. Yeah. Crab apples have been found.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, beautiful.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

But also talking of this sort of organic material, henbane seeds. I think either henbane or cannabis. One of. There's, there's also this incredible tapestry. Think beautiful. Look closely. You see the trees are full of hanging bodies.

[Greg Jenner]

Right. So sorry, these ladies sound terrified. I know. Yes. You think, what a lovely granny. Hang on a minute. Dead bodies. What?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

This is the woman I want to meet from the Viking age. I'm like, I could have fun with you.

[Chloe Petts]

Right, so.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

But that's it. They're so elite, high status. It used to be thought that one of them was a queen. The other one may be her. We could say handmaiden. She could be an enslaved person. But. So it's very much this sense of these high status women possibly with some sort of magical position in society.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, the. See the thing maybe. Or the, you know, hallucinogenic medicine.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, obviously we have rich Christian widows who leave money to the church. They found nunneries and churches and monasteries and they build bridges and churches and roads, you know, they're kind of putting back into the community, which is amazing, too. But we need to talk about Olga of Kyiv.

[Chloe Petts]

Of course we do.

[Greg Jenner]

It's very important that we love. She's one of the most.

[Chloe Petts]

I was getting answers.

[Greg Jenner]

You were thinking, when are we getting to Olga of Kyiv? I mean, again, listeners might be thinking Kyiv's in Ukraine. Yes. I mean, the Vikings really get very far afield. Olga of Kyiv, Chloe, how did she get revenge on the men who killed her husband?

[Chloe Petts]

I guess she killed him back. I'm thinking of a sort of. I'm thinking of a sort of John Wicks kind of scenario where I think she's. Yeah, she's gathered up all of her weapons.

[Greg Jenner]

Like ballerina, Like. Yeah, that kind of.

[Chloe Petts]

Yeah, yeah, exactly like ballerina. Maybe she, like, kills someone.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

What did John Wick kill in, like, John Wick 3?

[Chloe Petts]

He kills him with books or something like that.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

I mean, it's not far off.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

I mean, if anything, she's more badass than that. Olga, by the way, sounds like a very sort of Slavic name. It's actually old Norse. Olga is helga.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

10Th century. And she is. It's sort of. Her husband is called Igor. Again, very Norse name. Doesn't sound it, but Ingvar. Norse name.

[Chloe Petts]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

He is killed by sort of a local tribe called the Drevlian. They've got beef with them.

[Greg Jenner]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

So Olga then says, oh, ambassadors, please come see me.

[Chloe Petts]

Did she make a pie?

[Greg Jenner]

Did she bake a pie?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

There are pies in Norse.

[Greg Jenner]

Not this one.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

There are Norse. There are women who bake their children. Okay, we're not even gonna go there.

[Greg Jenner]

I'm still gonna get.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Right. No, no, stick with Olga.

[Greg Jenner]

Stick with Olga.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Okay, so the first lot. Yeah. She basically buries the ambassadors alive. Okay.

[Chloe Petts]

How?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Well, it's all there in, I think, the sources from the sort of the 12th century. So it's maybe slightly exaggerated. But then the next lot, she lures the nobleman. She's like, oh, please come. Please come have a bath.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, have a sauna, isn't it? Come have a sauna. Come have a nice spiking sauna.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

And then she blocks them in the sauna. And then she sets fire to him.

[Greg Jenner]

Yep, yep.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

So that's the next lot. And then she just for good measure, burns the whole settlement to the ground.

[Chloe Petts]

Wick.

[Greg Jenner]

And then she converts to Christianity and is made a saint.

[Chloe Petts]

Well, you know, if you're gonna get forgiven, if you like. If you're gonna. If you're gonna convert to Christianity and Get forgiven for all your sins then I think I would just like really sin.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Do you know what I mean?

[Chloe Petts]

Like, I'm not just doing like, you know, I've worn mixed fabrics. I'm doing like I've killed, I've killed all of my husband's murderers.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. Okay. So Olga's bloody revenge leads us nicely to the warrior women who we would have seen in TV shows. So I mentioned Vikings. I mentioned. And you know, the Last Kingdom. It's a bit of a trope. Yeah. Kind of shield maiden thing.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Is that pure Hollywood? Do we have any evidence for women going into battle?

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah, it's not pure Hollywood. So there's a skeleton found on the island of Birka in Sweden. Very important sort of trading settlement in that period. People always thought, oh, well, that's a man. Because it was buried with weapons.

[Greg Jenner]

It was found in the 19th century.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

So for well over 100 years we.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Were like, yeah, exactly. Then 2017, they look at the DNA and there's. It's female DNA. They're like, oh, okay. So but the question is then no one checks. Well, to be fair, I don't think they had DNA sampling in the 19th century.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

To be fair to them. But it's the fact that, yeah, you see one thing and you assume that's what it must be.

[Chloe Petts]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Now that doesn't mean that that was a, that she was a practicing warrior. There's all sorts of possibilities.

[Greg Jenner]

She's buried with swords and all the kind of accoutrement of a warrior.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Exactly, exactly. And it's possible that she, what we would call the terms don't really apply, but we need to sort of fight. She, she was sort of non binary or she, she kind of presented as more male than, you know, there's, that's, there's sort of possibilities there.

[Chloe Petts]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

There's also the possibility that, yes, she was a warrior, but it's like there's no evidence of sort of healed injuries and there's no evidence of, you know, you often see sort of one arm is bigger than the other because they're used to wielding weapons. So you don't have that. It's possible that say her father was a warrior and she's the only surviving child or something. And so therefore she becomes the encapsulation of that warrior lineage. There's all sorts of possibilities.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

It doesn't make it. I think it makes it more exciting. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

We don't, we don't know. Right. We have this fascinating burial and we've Got. And science has gone. It's not what you think. And now we've got question marks. And question marks are exciting.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

But we don't. We can't pin it down. There could be multiple identities for this person or, you know, one. But it's really interesting, and that's how archaeological science is changing quite a lot of what we think of the Vikings in some ways.

[Chloe Petts]

I guess what's so interesting also about history is, like, we're always reading it through our own very partial lens. And I think we're in a moment now where, like, we probably want to go the other way and have women as, like, these, like, total independent badasses, because a. We're sort of like in a feminist rewriting of his history. But also, I think there's also an element of, like, men find hot Viking women wielding swords titillating.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. It's definitely a niche corner of the Internet that's dedicated to that. Yeah.

[Chloe Petts]

So it is simultaneously like an incredible. Like a feminist reading of history, but also quite a patriarchal.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The lads want blunt warriors. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[Chloe Petts]

With like, sort of like shells over their boobs or something.

[Greg Jenner]

I don't know. Yeah. But I think what we've learned so far, women could be all sorts of different things. Yeah, exactly. And the evidence points in different directions.

[Chloe Petts]

And we like that place on record that women can be all sorts of things.

[Greg Jenner]

The Nuance window. Time now for the Nuance Window. This is the part of the show where Chloe and I weave in the ding Diart for two minutes while Dr. Eleanor spins us a yarn about something we need to know about Viking women. My stopwatch is ready. You have two minutes. Take it away, Dr. Elena Eleanor.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

But I think Chloe's pretty much done it for me because I want to pick up on exactly that last point that you've been talking about. And it ties us back also to the images that, you know, Greg, you conjured up at the beginning. It's sort of like Valkyrie shield maidens hotness, or not so hot. You know, it's like. It's feminist, and it's also sort of quite reductive. And that's. It's a really tricky thing because there's a reason we love that.

[Greg Jenner]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

They're badass. I didn't go into Viking Age history because I want to sort of look into at textile production. I mean, don't get me wrong, plenty of people do, but I didn't. I like the badass stuff.

[Chloe Petts]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

But there is an issue there, which is when we look back in time, especially at this sort of like stereotypical hyper masculine eras, such as the Viking age. It's that idea that almost women are only exciting or interesting or worth talking about if they're aping male role models, and sort of quite extreme ones at that. And what I'm trying to do in Embers of the Hands, this book, it's like meet ordinary humans on their own terms. And that's particularly true of the women. It's a way to find, you know, it's how to bring their stories to life not by shoving swords or axes in their hands, but, you know, although that does happen. In fact, there's one saga where a woman actually says, put an axe in my hand. Okay, so that, that does happen there. But I think historically speaking, women actually deserve better than that because their lives are so much more nuanced and multi dimensional, more varied than these cartoon stereotyp. And so for me, that is my nuance window, that women themselves are nuanced. And when we look back in history and these hyper masculine periods of history from our perspectives, it's even more important. Meet them on their own terms brilliantly.

[Greg Jenner]

Any final thoughts on that? Oh, applause, you've got a clap and you've got.

[Chloe Petts]

I can see you've got 25 seconds left, so I'll do quite a long time.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Cook me.

[Greg Jenner]

Do a really long one.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Yeah, there we go. I want those 25 seconds of clapping.

[Greg Jenner]

25. It's like a standing ovation at Cannes. We're all just like, very good, good, very good nuance window. Thanks so much, Chloe. And also, of course, thank you, Dr. Elena Barraclaf. Listener. If you want more Vikings, check out our episode on Leif Eriksen. Also, we have one on Norse literature, which is lots of fun. K Curd. And for more warrior women, why not listen to our episode on Njinka of Indomo and Matamba, which is good fun as well. And remember, if you enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with your friends. Subscribe to youo're Dead to me on BBC Sounds to get the episodes 28 days earlier than on any other app. Switch on your notifications so you never miss an episode. I'd just like to say a huge thank you. Thank you to our guests. In History Corner, we have the excellent Dr. Eleanor Barraclough from Bath Spa University. Thank you, Eleanor.

[Dr. Eleanor Barraclough]

Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

And in Comedy Corner, we have the incredible Chloe Petts. Thank you, Chloe.

[Chloe Petts]

That was amazing. Thank you so much to you both.

[Greg Jenner]

And to you, lovely listener. Join me next time as we unearth more buried historical secrets. But for now, I'm off the gun. Suggest entrail weaving as a fun craft activity for my daughter's school. Bye. You're dead to me. To BBC studios audio production for BBC radio 4.

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