ABSTRACT
THE fact that at one time Gothic women in particular took part in the heaviest fighting should not be lightly marvelled at or disbelieved, for from the very cradle they were brought up to strict conduct and soldierly training, 1 and did not permit the sinews of their valour to be instructed by riotous living, unseemly behaviour, or wantonness, but rather at almost every moment by the use of arms; shrinking from a dainty way of life, they were able to steel their bodies and spirits with endurance and toil, cast away all feminine irresolution and skittishness, and exchange a woman’s temperament for a virile ruthlessness, especially those girls in whom signs denoting forcefulness of character or nimbleness of body were more evidently conspicuous. Just as if they were oblivious of the sex into which they had been born, they preferred toughness to allure, conflicts to kisses, the clash of arms to the arm’s embrace, and chose swords before sweethearts, since their taste was for blood rather than lips. Their hands, which should have been given to weaving, they applied to weapons, so that now, with an eye not to the couch but the kill, they attacked with lances those whom they could have softened by their looks alone. 1 No small number of them relinquished pleasures and answered with great readiness to this prospect of military service. The reasons why their parents allowed this to happen were by no means negligible: with their weapons these females wished to preserve their chastity unsullied by arrogant champions who were not restrained by any dread of crime and rape from inflicting dishonour on the other sex; nor did they want to let the violence of malevolent men trouble their country, their parents, and innocent people, whom Nature’s bounty had protected with a gracious exemption from harm. Among these women we find Stikla, a Norwegian girl of high renown, 2 and Alvild, as was related above in Ch. 27.
Women trained in arms from the cradle
Signs of fierce spirit and nimbleness
Arms before love; spears before spindles
Chastity unsullied
Stikla Alvild
