Ragnar's Wives and the Women of the Sagas

In this episode, Lucas and Luna step away from the battlefields and blood eagles to explore the women in Ragnar Lothbrok's story—and in the sagas that shaped his legend. From the shieldmaiden Lagertha, whose story in Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum mixes history and myth, to the princess Aslaug, daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild, whose arrival in Ragnar's life involves a mysterious basket and a test of wits. They also look at the real historical women of the Viking Age: the Oseberg ship's two burials, the Birka warrior Bj 581, and what runestones like the Jelling stones reveal about female power. The conversation untangles how saga authors used women as symbols of fate and lineage, and how modern archaeology complicates the old tales. With a careful eye on what's likely historical and what's pure legend, they ask what these stories tell us about Viking society—and our own fascination with it.

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