ABSTRACT
Across the seas the marauding pagans came, to pillage and rape, destroy and plunder the riches of nascent Christian Europe. In our imaginations we see them – they are fierce, they wear helmets and carry swords, and they are bearded – they are the very icons of heathen virility. This is the familiar and remarkably resilient popular Western image of a cultural-historical designation we have come to know as “Viking.” It is a strikingly masculine image, forged primarily from sources positioned outside the Viking homeland, and largely constructed in opposition; the savage, plundering pagan hordes juxtaposed against the organized, mercantilist, Christian societies who would someday become the industrious nations of Western Europe. Unsurprisingly it is only minimally related to its historical referent. The image of Vikings at home has long been of interest to nationalist projects of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway (e.g. Arwill-Nordbladh 1991; Orrling 2000). And for some time, this image has been in revision, transitioning toward a picture of civilization in progress, and a dynamic society, progenitor of contemporary nations. This effort is rooted in the recognition that popular impressions of the past serve to legitimize presentist notions about heritage and underwrite arguments about “civilization” and social structure. It has been in the best interest of the countries of Scandinavia to refashion the Vikings as legitimate and productive ancestors rather than barbarous marauders abroad. This refashioning however, in the effort to focus on the dynamics of trade and social development, still omits a crucial element. As the contemporary picture of Vikings is shifting from seafaring warriors to seafaring traders, the people in the picture are still overwhelmingly men. The archaeological data, however, suggest otherwise. Although the Viking woman is no longer “invisible” (as she once was), nearly all our encounters with her are still highly circumscribed by traditional notions of “feminine” domains much in the same way as the popular Viking image colors the acceptance of Viking society as a veritable civilization.
