Woman, Viking, and a Viking Woman: An Introduction to Andie Valles and Gudrid the Far Traveler

The first time I was exposed to Viking culture was in 2010. I sat in a movie theatre with my family and the big screen lit up with the words “How To Train Your Dragon”. At 10 years old, I found myself enamored, not just with the fantastical dragons like the Night Fury or Hideous Zippleback, nor with the rousing song “Test Drive” from Hiccup and Toothless’ first flight—I found myself even more enamored with the fur/pelted clothing, the peat roofed buildings in their village, their horned hats, battle axes, ornate wooden ships, and warring nature that was present in their conflicts with dragons and the crux in the relationship between Hiccup and his father, Stoic. I found myself asking the questions: who were these people, were they real and how much of what I am seeing is true? In my teenage years, later pop culture iterations such as Marvel’s Thor further fueled this my fascination with the Viking period, people and culture. It wasn’t until I became a young adult that I was exposed to the actual history of Vikings beyond these pop culture interpretations, informational YouTube videos or articles about archaeological discoveries I pulled from National Geographic issues.

While these pop culture references to the Viking period might not be the most historically accurate, they often emulate core tenets of the Viking culture/life: the raiding, globetrotting, and sailing, in a palatable way that people, like little 10-year-old Andie Valles get a taste of and develop the insatiable hunger to learn more. The continued creation of pop culture media relating to Vikings, like the motion-picture The Northman, the 2013 TV series Vikings, or perhaps the 2020 game God of War: Ragnarök, are definitive proof that the public continue to be enraptured by medieval Vikings. Whether it be the lives of Lagertha and Ragnar Lothbrok, Amleth’s fall from grace to return to his birthright, or perhaps a young boy named Hiccup and his dragon, there is much to learn from Vikings and different facets of Viking culture and history that draw people in. We hope, throughout the duration of this project, that we can renew and replicate this fascination with the Vikings in a way that cultivates a flourishing, historically informed community.

Gudrid Part 1: Maiden, Wife, Voyager

The sagas of the Viking Age often regale fantastical journeys of great men who make names for themselves through great feats, like marrying a chieftain’s daughter or discovering new lands. Though these sagas are a collection of stories, and in nature, are story like, they are also the largest collection of history on Medieval Scandinavia that we have, as it details family lineages, feuds, settlements, and even intricate details of marriage practices and other laws. In these sagas, people often remember the names of figures such as Eirik the Red, Leif Erikson, Thorstein Karlsefni, all of whom appear in the renowned Vinland Sagas. Though these figures cast large shadows of historical and cultural importance, there is another figure in these sagas that stands on equal footing with these Nordic men and their sense of virile adventurism, and that is, the woman who went with them, and travelled far beyond any Viking before.

Gudrid the “Far-Traveler” is an interesting but somewhat elusive character and historical figure because our primary sources on her, are the two Vinland Sagas: The Saga of Eirik the Red and The Greenlanders Saga. The illusory nature of Gudrid’s character is partially because both sagas provide two different, and often times contradictory accounts of her origins. The other matter of her elusive disposition is that not much is recorded of her character. We know about her travels, her divorces, her children, where she settled and lived; what we don’t know is her motivations, her desires, her personality, or anything really of her character besides that she is considered “fair” (beautiful) and a good match.

Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, or Gudrid the “Far-Traveler” as accounted in Eirik the Red’s saga, Gudrid was the only daughter of the chieftain Thorbjorn of Laugarbrekka, Iceland. The establishment of her lineage gives way to the rest of her short story. When we meet Gudrid she is 15 years old, and characterized as fair/beautiful, which early on attracts marriage offerings beginning with the wealthy but slave-borne Einar, who is rejected. Ancient Norse customs dictate the value of an “even-match”, meaning that a match was only suitable if both parties were of similar social status, wealth and standing. Though Einar had made a fortune for himself and that alone should’ve been enough to entice Thorbjorn who was believed to have been financially strained at the time, the fact that Einar was slave-borne would’ve been an insult to him, thus resulting in an unsuccessful match.

As Einar is cast aside, so then, does Eirik the Red come into the forefront. Eirik the Red, is perhaps one of the most notorious Medieval Scandinavians and Vikings we have to date. He is most famous for being the first Scandinavian to settle permanently into Greenland. Gudrid’s father Thorbjorn, was a loyal follower and friend of Eirik the Red, even after his banishment from Iceland. These connections bring Gudrid to the shores of Greenland in both tales, each carving out a tumultuous first voyage. Sometime between the rejection of Einar and Thorbjorn’s invitation to Greenland, Gudrid is wed to a wealthy Norwegian merchant named Thorir. In the Greenlander’s Saga, Gudrid and her sea-faring companions, including her first husband Thorir, shipwreck; Gudrid becomes a sole survivor of this ordeal and is found and subsequently saved by Leif Eriksson. In Eric the Red’s Saga, Gudrid, Thorir and her father survive the journey over to Greenland. So, either arriving widowed, from her first husband Thorer and alone under the protection of Leif Eriksson or with her father, she arrives in Greenland, at around 1000 AD.

However, as dictated by both Sagas, Gudrid’s first marriage is meant to be short lived. Shortly after arriving to Greenland and settling, Thorir falls ill and dies. Moving from the southern tip of Greenland further north to Brattahlid to unite with Eirik, Gudrid meets her second husband, Leif’s younger brother Thorstein. In the time of the Vikings, widowhood was practiced and viewed differently than in our modern terms. Our modern society would most likely frown upon the speed at which Gudrid remarried from her first husband; however, in the Viking Age remarriage after death was extremely normal, explicitly so in the case of women who still young, sexually mature and viewed as “sexually attractive”. Practices and expectations of remarriage dwindle for women in their later years of life, as we will see in Gudrid’s later stages of life and widowhood. Gudrid’s connection with Eirik and his son Thorstein prompted her first journey to Vinland, to retrieve his brother, Thorvald’s body, which was unsuccessful. They moved to Lysufjord where a harsh winter and sickness ultimately claimed Thorstein’s life. At this point, a 17-year-old Gudrid goes back to Greenland and lives under the care of her father-in-law, Eirik the Red. This then segways into the next section of her life.