Mother of Kings IV - A Woman of Great Dignity

Viking Age Podcast

History, Society & Culture

4.9 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2019

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, we continue to discuss the life and legend of Gunnhild konungamóðir, tracing her path from Norway to Northern England and finally Denmark as her status was rapidly transformed from Royal to Refugee and back again.

Along the way we encounter and discuss shapeshifters, scorn poles, unruly noblemen and treacherous kings. To wrap things up, we explore the presence and influence of households headed by independent woman in the Norse world, studying the life of Auð the Deepminded and seeing what runestones have to tell us about powerful woman in the Viking Age.

For an excellent exploration of Runes and Runestones, please checkout the Rune Cast: http://www.runforum.nordiska.uu.se/runecast/

For more information and a full list of sources, check out our website: https://vikingagepodcast.com/a-woman-of-great-dignity

Transcript

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0:00.0	What you were about to listen to is part four of a multi-part series exploring the portrayal of powerful women in Old Norse literature, focusing particularly on the life and the legend of Ginnhild Canungasmaller, the infamous
0:18.6	Queen of 10th century Norway.
0:22.3	In our last episode, we explored Goodhild's role as a counselor to her husband, and we discussed
0:29.2	the negative portrayal that her advice receives in Old Norse texts. We then zoomed out a bit and explored the way the
0:38.1	words of powerful women are portrayed in Old Norse literature in general.
0:44.0	What we found was that the words of women are given significant power in Old Norse texts.
0:51.2	And the women who spoke these words were often able to exert significant power and influence,
0:58.2	through advice, prophecy, and goading.
1:07.0	Today, we are going to return to our narrative and discuss Gunhild's life following her exile from Norway. We'll follow Gunhild and her family as they settled first in England and then in Denmark,
1:18.0	tracing all of the often tragic events which occurred in between. If you haven't yet listened to the first few parts of this series,
1:27.6	I would highly recommend that you do so before beginning this episode. We are going to once again be heading directly into the story today,
1:37.1	and so it might be a tad bit jarring for you if this is your first time listening.
1:43.0	Either way, with all of that said, let's get on into it.
1:48.0	This is part four of Mother of kings. You're going to do. When we last left Gunhilt, she had been forced to leave Norway when her husband Eric was kicked off of the Norwegian throne by his brother Hakan.
2:31.0	Fleeing the country with their family and whatever remaining supporters they could muster in tow.
2:37.0	Goodhild and Eric endured that age-old transition and status, from royal to refugee.
2:47.8	Our sources aren't in complete agreement
2:50.1	about exactly where that opposed Royals went next. But the most common account is that they first
2:57.2	set a course for the Orkney Isles. There they gathered additional forces, and we were told that Eric spent the following months
3:06.4	leading Viking raids along the coasts of Scotland and England.
3:11.1	About Gunhild specifically, we are told nothing at this time.
3:17.0	After Eric had spent some time raiding, or perhaps immediately after he fled Norway.
	...

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