THE SCENE: The following passage highlights some of the complexities of gender relations in the viking world, where women had significant rights relative to the rest of Europe.
THE TEXT: His mother, Thorgerd Thorstein’s-daughter, was still a young and very beautiful woman at that time. After Dala-Koll’s death she could find no happiness in Iceland and told her son Hoskuld she wanted to go abroad with her share of the estate. Hoskuld said he was distressed that they should part, but added that he would no more oppose her wishes in this than in anything else. He bought her a half-share in a ship lying at Dogurdarness, and Thorgerd went on board with a large cargo of valuables. Then she put out to sea and had a good voyage to Norway.
Thorgerd had strong family ties in Norway and many kinsmen of noble birth. They welcomed her warmly and offered her anything she cared to accept from them. Thorgerd was pleased, and told them that it was her intention to settle there in Norway. She had not been a widow for long before a suitor asked for her hand, a man called Herjolf. He was a landowner by rank, and was wealthy and highly respected. Herjolf was a big, powerful man, not at all handsome but very imposing in appearance, and exceptionally skilled in arms.
When the marriage-offer was made it was Thorgerd’s right, as a widow, to give her own answer, and with the full approval of her kinsmen she did not refused the proposal. So Thorgerd married Herjolf and went with him to his home, and they came to love one another dearly. Thorgerd quickly proved what an exceptionally capable woman she was, and Herjolf was considered to have enhanced his prestige and standing greatly by winning such a wife as Thorgerd.
– Laxdaela Saga, 13th Century AD
[Image Credit: Erik Werenskiold]
