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## The Shield Maiden in Literature and History: What the Sagas Say
The discovery prompted widespread reference to shield maidens — the *skjaldmær* of Old Norse literary tradition. Understanding what that tradition actually contains, and how it relates to the archaeological evidence, requires care.
The primary sources for female warriors in the Viking Age are post-Viking Age literary compositions. The legendary sagas and Saxo Grammaticus’s *Gesta Danorum* are the most frequently cited. These were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, well after the Viking Age ended, and are generally treated as fictional literature rather than historical records.
In the sagas, specific characters bear the shield-maiden designation or perform warrior roles: Hervor in *Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks*, who dressed as a man and led raids; Brynhildr in *Vǫlsunga saga*; Thornbjörg in *Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar*. Saxo Grammaticus describes women fighting at the Battle of Brávellir, naming Hed, Visna, Lagertha, and Veborg among them. The Byzantine historian John Skylitzes reported armed women among the fallen Varangian warriors at Dorostolon — a more nearly contemporary account, though still at a remove from direct observation.
Judith Jesch — whose scholarship on Viking Age texts is extensive — found no conclusive evidence that the term *skjaldmær* existed during the Viking Age itself, suggesting it may have entered Old Norse in the thirteenth century, contemporary with the literary works that employ it.
The literary tradition and the archaeological record are not the same thing. The existence of literary depictions of female warriors does not establish that Viking Age women routinely fought in battles. The existence of grave Bj 581 does not establish that shield maidens as a social category existed or that the individual in the grave identified with any such category.