Veborg

Verborg (also called Webiorg, Vébjörg, or Wigbiorg) was a legendary Viking shield maiden said to have lived around the 8th century AD (700-770). She was known for taking part in the Battle of Brávellir in 770 where she was noted for fighting bravely before being killed in battle.^[1] Veborg's actions were recorded in the Saxo Grammaticus work Gesta Danorum, as well as Olaf Whiteskald's fragmentary saga, Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum around the late 12th to early 13th century. Both of these accounts are thought to be based in Norse oral tradition. Veborg is primarily notable for being one of the few female warriors named in Scandinavian history, setting a precedent for their existence.

Battle of Bravellir

Veborg appears primarily in accounts of the Battle of Brávellir, the battle in which she fought and was killed around the year 770. She is introduced along with several other warrior women of high ranking status such as Visna, bearing the standard of Harald Wartooth, and Hetha, who survives and is at first offered rule over the area of Jutland. The most notable of these accounts are the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, and the saga Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum í Dana- ok Svíaveldi. Both recount the battle with varying levels of detail, and have some slight differences.

In Gesta Danorum

The Gesta Danorum (Achievements of the Danes) contains one of the few mentions of Veborg. It is considered to be the first Danish history, and includes detailed accounts of legendary kings. The work was commissioned by the Archbishop Absalon, intended to glorify the history of Denmark. There is some debate over the exact dates, but the complete work is generally agreed to have been finished by 1208.^[1] Veborg's mention occurs in Book VIII during the account of the Battle of Bravalla (Bravellir). It is estimated to have taken place between 750 and 785. The battle was fought between the aging Danish king Harald Wartooth, and his nephew Sigurd Ring, king of Sweden. The text notes that Harald, having grown very old, wished to die in battle rather than by natural causes.

Veborg is listed as one of many different warriors on the side of Denmark going to fight in the battle. Before the battle begins, she is described as a woman who had the same fighting spirit as any man, along with other shield maidens who took part in the battle right by her side. Veborg and two other women, Hetha and Visna are described as female captains, leading their armies to fight on the side of the Danes under Harald. In the battle, she is described as fighting Sloth the champion, slaying him. As she was threatening to kill other champions, the enemy army littered her with arrows before she could get closer.

In Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum

Another account of the Battle of Bravellir is contained in Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum í Dana- ok Svíaveldi (Fragment of a Saga about Certain Ancient Kings in the Commonwealth of the Danes and Swedes). It is a part of an Old Icelandic saga attributed to Olaf Whiteskald around the year 1250, but is thought to be derived from the now lost Old Norse Skjöldunga saga, from around 1180-1200.^[2] While from around the same time as the Gesta Danorum, it is not likely that the sources would have had any influence on each other, and most similarities can be attributed to the oral tradition they share as a source. The saga serves to preserve the history and cultural identity of Iceland.

The actions of Veborg and the other female captains are much more detailed when compared to the Gesta Danorum. Veborg is noted as charging into the Swedish forces, attacking multiple champions from the enemy forces, including Assault-Soti, eventually slaying him by cutting off his jaw. In that same battle, she is noted as being killed by the warrior Thorkel the Stubborn. After a long well well-fought battle she was able to severely wound Thorkel before he eventually slayed her.

Historiography

Literary instances of women warriors

Due to the nature of Norse oral tradition, many literary instances of shield-maidens, Valkyrie, and warrior women are hardly contemporary with the subjects they describe. For example, both the Gesta Danorum and Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum describe events taking place almost 500 years prior. In this time, much of Scandinavia had transitioned from Paganism to Christianity. For this reason, it is difficult to know exactly how warrior women were viewed in their original context.

Although there are several arguments about the prevalence of real warrior women in Viking society, the literary instances of shieldmaidens and the valkyrie are far more numerous. In several mentions of these women in various texts, they are described as having a combination of male and female attributes. For example, Saxo Grammaticus’ account mentioning Veborg is as follows:

"On these captains, who had the bodies of women, nature bestowed the souls of men. Webiorg was also inspired with the same spirit, and was attended by Bo (Bui) Bramason and Brat the Jute, thirsting for war." -Saxo Grammaticus^[1]

For this reason, historian Kathleen Self argues that shieldmaidens and Valkyrie can be better understood as a third gender, possessing both male and female characteristics as is understood by Viking social norms.^[3] In this case, the male attributes would be a warrior woman’s presence in battle, use of weapons, and attire of masculine armor. The female attributes are apparent in the language used to refer to women, as well as the accounts of sex and specifically reproduction in their stories. Self also notes that if a shield maiden marries, she ceases to be this third gender and instead becomes only female.

Archaeological evidence of women warriors

Due to the biased nature of many of the literary mentions of shield-maids, many instead look to archaeological evidence like burials to learn about Norse society. There have been a few Viking graves excavated that appear to be females buried in the fashion of a warrior, with the most notable being the Bj 581 grave in Birka. In 2017, Hedenstierna-Jonson et al. released an article concerning this grave. The article discussed a previously discovered Viking warrior grave originally thought to be the final resting place of a high-ranking warrior male. Through DNA analysis, the subject was later proven to be biologically female.^[4] The authors discussed that previous research in this area found that the large amount of weaponry and gaming pieces making up the grave goods indicated a professional warrior with “knowledge of tactics and strategy”.  Despite the many literary instances of fierce female warriors such as the valkyrie, Viking battle is typically understood as a male sphere. For this reason, the discovery was shocking to the public and scholars alike.

The conclusion of the article argued that not only was Bj 581 the resting site of a high-ranking female Viking warrior, but also that this suggested women had the ability to be “full members of male dominated spheres”. This conclusion rests fully on the assumption that the site was the burial of a high-status warrior, a claim hardly debated when the individual was assumed to be male but which then raised some red flags. This also raises questions about whether this specific case can or should be applied to the larger Viking societal structure, or whether Bj 581 is an outlier.

Judith Jesch, a well known scholar on Vikings and especially Viking women argued in her 2015 book The Viking Diaspora that while there are several literary instances of warrior women as well as female burials containing weapons, that this is not proof enough to argue the existence of warrior women as commonplace.^[5] She further argues that the only thing that can be determined from this evidence is that Vikings could imagine women to be warriors, and buried them as such. While at the time of her publication, the sex of the Birka grave individual had not yet been identified, Jesch has made clear that she stands by her conclusions in a blog post on the matter shortly after the publication of the Hedenstierna-Jonson article.^[6]

Background

The idea of a warrior woman plays into an image that many have of Viking society - one in which males and females are seen as equals. In reality, this was not usually so. It is commonly said that most Viking women operated “within the threshold”, or within a domestic/household sphere. Viking women were often in charge of running entire farms including laborious textile and dairy production, as men were away for months on raids. While not all of the men went away on raids, it was very typical for a woman to take charge of her husband or son’s farm.

One symbol often used to represent a Viking woman in this role is her ring of keys. While recognizable, there are very few mentions of them in written sources, and only a few burials of females containing keys. In contrast, there are nearly one hundred warrior women named in various sagas and myths.^[7]

Veborg was created in an oral history that would have been passed down by families for generations, often including both fact and myth. Making the exact time frame for her creation is unknown. So it’s better to look at here from a cultural context. Veborg is a shield maiden, a female warrior who is often described in these stories as a secondary gender identity that a woman has before she gets married and greatly changes her life. From a religious perspective, there is precedent for people like this. Primary from the stories of female warrior Valkyries that would carry the dead warriors up to the afterlife. While there has been some research done into the possible existence of real Viking shield maidens. Verborg was most likely made as a living embodiment of the Valkyries that played a small role in Scandinavian religion. In future writings of the story that Veborg would have taken part in. Veborg would remain a warrior. This was very unusual, as most Viking women followed social norms, focusing on their communities' domestic goods and production, while the men went out to trade.

Historical significance

There is evidence of Viking women fighting alongside men. The study of Viking women was turned upside down in 2017 when the subject the Birka grave Bj 581 was confirmed to be female through DNA testing. While commonly referred to as the Birka warrior or by the subject of grave number Bj581, In her book The Real Valkyrie, American author Nancy Marie Brown has instead chosen to refer to the subject as “Hervor” after a warrior woman from an Old Norse poem.^[8] Hervor is thought to have been buried in the mid to late 10th century, a time in which Vikings were exposed to Christianity, but largely still Pagan. Just over two hundred years later, when Saxo Grammaticus’s account was being written, the existence of a warrior woman like Hervor would have been completely unacceptable, rather than just out of the norm. The Christianization of Scandinavia included the enforcing of gender roles such as the idea that women were inherently inferior to men.

While unusual for women to fight, it doesn’t seem like Viking society took issue with the idea. The shield-maidens and valkyrie mentioned in several sagas and myths are portrayed as heroic and taking very high ranking and honorable positions, such as the standard bearer Visna. While conflicting Christian ideas about how a woman should act appear in Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, it is clear that shield-maidens were a very notable part of Norse myth. The fact that their names survived in oral tradition for hundreds of years before being written down raises the question of whether the stories could have inspired real Viking women like Hervor to become warriors.

References

1. Grammaticus, Saxo (1894). Gesta Danorum. Translated by Elton, Oliver. London: David Nutt.
2. Hansen, Anne Mette (2016-06-03). "A fragment of the younger redaction of the lost Skjöldunga saga". manuscript.ku.dk. Retrieved 2025-11-08.
3. Self, Kathleen M. (2014). "The Valkyrie's Gender: Old Norse Shield-Maidens and Valkyries as a Third Gender". Feminist Formations. 26 (1): 143–172. ISSN 2151-7363.
4. Hedenstierna-Jonson, Charlotte; Kjellström, Anna; Zachrisson, Torun; Krzewińska, Maja; Sobrado, Veronica; Price, Neil; Günther, Torsten; Jakobsson, Mattias; Götherström, Anders; Storå, Jan (2017). "A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 164 (4): 853–860. doi:10.1002/ajpa.23308. ISSN 1096-8644. PMC 5724682. PMID 28884802.
5. Jesch, Judith (2015). The Viking diaspora. The medieval world. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-317-48253-6.
6. Viqueen (2017-09-09). "Norse and Viking Ramblings: Let's Debate Female Viking Warriors Yet Again". Norse and Viking Ramblings. Retrieved 2025-11-08.
7. Brown, Nancy Marie (2021). The real Valkyrie: the hidden history of Viking warrior women. Cheltenham: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-9842-0.
8. Brown, Nancy Marie (2021). The real Valkyrie: the hidden history of Viking warrior women. Cheltenham: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-9842-0.

Bibliography

• Brown, Nancy Marie. The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women. St. Martin’s Press. (2021)
• Burrows, Hannah. “Enigma Variations: Hervarar Saga’s Wave-Riddles and Supernatural Women in Old Norse Poetic Tradition.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112, no. 2 (2013): 194–216. https://doi.org/10.5406/jenglgermphil.112.2.0194.
• Gardela, Leszek. “Amazons of the Viking World: BETWEEN MYTH AND REALITY.” Medieval Warfare 7, no. 1 (2017): 8–15. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48578075.
• Grammaticus, Saxo, “The Danish History”, Gutenberg.org. Project Gutenberg, October 29th 2024, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1150/pg1150-images.html,
• Hedenstierna-Jonson C, Kjellström A, Zachrisson T, et al. A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics. Am J Phys Anthropol. (2017; 164.)
• Jesch, Judith. The Viking Diaspora. London; New York: Routledge, 2015.
• Moen, Marianne. “No Man’s Land or Neutral Ground: Perceived Gendered Differences in Ideologies of War.” Viking (Oslo) 84, no. 1 (2021). https://doi.org/10.5617/viking.9049.
• Self, Kathleen M. “The Valkyrie’s Gender: Old Norse Shield-Maidens and Valkyries as a Third Gender.” Feminist Formations 26, no. 1 (2014): 143–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43860730.
• “Trade in the Viking Period.” National Museum of Denmark. Accessed October 28, 2025. https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/expeditions-and-raids/trade-in-the-viking-period/#:~:text=At%20the%20end%20of%20the%201000s%20Hedeby%20was%20attacked%20several,robbed%20of%20all%20their%20possessions.
• Whiteskald, Olaf. Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum í Dana- ok Svíaveldi. trans. Peter Tunstall (1908).
• Winroth, Anders. The Age of the Vikings. (Princeton University Press. 2016.)