There are many accounts of warrior women in the Viking sagas, however, they are only legend. There is much evidence to confirm the existence of male warriors in the Viking age through burials and grave goods, however, there has been little archaeological evidence to suggest that shieldmaidens ever existed.
A grave found in Birka in the 1880s, assumed to be the remains of a Viking male, has in fact been identified as the remains of a warrior women using genome testing. These results have proven controversial however, as the lack of the male (y) chromosome is the only proof needed.
Hey guys,
with less than two months till Christmas, today we want to talk a bit about the Viking god Odin, which some of you will recognise from our T-Shirts, and how he might actually be related to the modern Santa Claus!
Today we want to tell you a bit more about the story behind our newest T-shirt, Odin and the Runes:
In Norse mythology, it is told that Yggdrasil, the world-tree that holds all known nine worlds, grows out of the Well of Urd, often referred to as the Well of Destiny. In this well live three norns (Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld), who carve the destiny of all people into the base of the tree. These carvings are the first account of the use of runes.
We first saw the massive Hiddensee hoard pendants in 2013 at the Vikings exhibition in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, and nothing can prepare you for seeing just how big these pieces of gold jewellery really are! Of course, we were already familiar with the hoard, and the style of pendant is well known from the Viking era, but these individual pieces are just so big, that they were instantly added to the list of designs we wanted to make.