Stereotypes of Vikings usually conjure up images of muscular men. But over the past few decades, researchers have turned their attention to women of the Viking Age (roughly A.D. 793 to 1066) and the roles they held. For instance, there are stories of "shield maidens" who fought alongside men, and some of these texts mention Viking women who fought in battle. The archaeological record also holds evidence, including graves of Viking Age women who were buried with war-grade weapons and shields.
The answer, experts told Live Science, largely depends on our interpretation of texts, artifacts, and burials of Viking Age women, which often face higher scrutiny than burials of men who were buried with similar (or even fewer) weapons.
One of the most evocative texts was written in the 12th century by the Danish historian and theologian Saxo Grammaticus. In "Gesta Danorum" (Latin for "History of the Danes" and translated by Jenny Jochens), he wrote that "there were once women in Denmark who dressed themselves to look like men and spent almost every minute cultivating [combat] skills." As "if they were forgetful of their true selves they put toughness before allure, aimed at conflicts instead of kisses, tasted blood, not lips, sought the clash of arms rather than the arm's embrace, fitted to weapons hands what should have been weaving, desired not the couch but the kill, and those they could have appeased with looks they attacked with lances."
There's a lot of uncertainty, said Neil Price, an archaeology professor at Uppsala University in Sweden who has written extensively about the Vikings. The text in the "Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh" that refers to the Red Lady is of debatable accuracy, Price told Live Science in an email.
A modern-day reenactment depicting Viking warriors. (Image credit: Yuriy Seleznev via Alamy)
The account written by Saxo Grammaticus is also contentious. Thomas Kristian Heebøll-Holm, a history professor at the University of Southern Denmark, said Saxo Grammaticus is not a reliable source.
Turning to archaeology
Archaeological evidence can also be challenging to interpret. Archaeologists know of about 30 Viking Age female burials containing weapons, including three with swords in Scandinavia. Even more Viking Age women's graves have items that could have been used as weapons — including spears, axes and knives — although these tools also could have been used for hunting or tending to farms. Either way, we can't be sure if these women fought in battle.
This 1889 illustration shows a grave at Birka in Sweden. It is now known that the person buried with war-grade weapons and riding gear is a woman. (Image credit: Evald Hansen/American Journal of Physical Anthropology)
There were likely "some few female warriors, but they were probably only found in the highest ranking families, and their warrior career was probably short-lived," Shepherd said. "They wouldn't have fought in the great armies of later centuries but possibly did fight in pre-Christian skirmishes." (The Vikings began gradually converting to Christianity between the ninth and 12th centuries.)
Ole Kastholm, a curator and senior researcher at the Roskilde Museum in Denmark, said there is a lot of uncertainty regarding how frequently Viking Age women fought in battle.
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That said, there were female warriors in other cultures. "One can also note in passing that female warriors were an almost common feature of central Asian societies for at least a millennium before the Viking Age," Price wrote in his book, "The Sea-King and the Sorceress: Life and Death in the Viking Age" (Basic Books, 2026).
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