What you are about to listen to is part two of a multi-part mini-series exploring the portrayal of powerful women in Old Norse literature, with a particular focus on the life and legend of Gunhild Canungammother, or mother of kings, the infamous semi-legendary queen. of the

10th century Norway.

Having spent our last episode, setting up the background for this series and establishing the role of

gender and gender roles in the sagas. Today we are going to properly dive into the

tales which we are told of Gunhild's early life

and explore the way that she is portrayed by Norwegian and Icelandic authors of the 12 and 1300s.

If you haven't yet listened to the first part of this series, I would highly recommend doing

so before you begin on this episode.

We are going to be diving right in without too much of an introduction today.

And so it might be a little bit disorienting if this is your first time listening.

Either way, I hope you enjoy.

And I'll see you on the other side.

This is part two, of Mother of Kings. You're going to do. So this is the point in any good story where I'm supposed to tell you something like the following.

Gunhild was born in some place and such in such a year.

That her mother was X and her father was Y.

And then I'm supposed to segue into some telling childhood anecdote. But unfortunately, in

Gunhill's case, we are lacking just about every detail needed to fill in that age-old mad lib.

For instance, we have no idea where or when Gunhild was born?

A best guest would place her birth sometime in the early 900s, in either Denmark or Norway.

But even these broad parameters could well be wrong. There simply isn't any reliable

information to work with when it comes to placing the year or location of Gunhild's birth.

We do have rather more information available to us regarding Gunhild's parentage. But even here our sources are contradictory, and as almost goes without saying,

...