Which Viking Shieldmaiden Are You?

Hervor was fearless. Of course, all Viking shieldmaidens could be called fearless, but Hervor was tops. Her moodiness and hot temper helped. She really, REALLY wanted her dead father's magic sword and went alone onto an island of ghosts to get it. They tried everything to scare her away, but it only made her angrier. Finally, her father's ghost told her she had to reach into the fire to get it. She did.

Lagertha was beautiful and appeared delicate, but woe to any man that was fooled by her looks. Once she revealed her true purpose, it was too late for those men to escape. There was one man that she showed mercy: her ex-husband, Ragnar Lodbrok, who was perhaps the most romantic of the Vikings. Even though he left her for another woman, Lagertha later came to his aid in battle. She later killed her husband to take his throne and didn't even feel bad about it.

Brynhildr didn't balk at following her own mind. When she was asked to decide a fight between two kings, she chose the one that she knew Odin didn't like. He punished her Rapunzel-style by making her a mortal and locking her in a castle protected by a ring of fire. She was saved by one man who betrayed her, and then she married another after his witch mother asked for her help in dream interpretation. In another tale, the men cheated at games to win her in marriage. In any case, Brynhildr was whip smart, but when her anger was up, she lost her senses and got duped.

When Alwilda's mom poisoned her mind about her boyfriend, Alwilda went off and started a band of savage female pirates. When she and her crew came upon a ship full of seasoned pirates whose leader had just died, they were so impressed that a pretty woman had become a pirate leader that they elected her as their leader as well. She later met her old boyfriend on the field of battle, and he won her back. The daughter they raised became a pirate herself.

Unn, or Aud, was a formidable political strategist. She was a mother of Iceland, having secretly built a ship in the woods and then captaining it first to the Hebrides and then to Iceland, thus saving her crew and many captives of Ireland that she had picked up there. She was from a wealthy dynasty of Viking pirates that had died out, leaving her alone with a lot of wealth and even more pissed-off Irishmen. She talked slaves into building the ship in exchange for freedom and land. Once established in Iceland, she learned that several of the slaves were former royalty, and she married her grandchildren into their families so that her brood would have legal footholds in several nations.

Aud was under fire for the way she dressed, but she didn't care. Her husband left her to be with Gudrun, saying that Aud might as well be a man, because she dressed like one. Cross-dressing was a legal defense for divorce at the time. She gave him a sword to the thigh for that one.