The cartoon stereotype of the Viking age is decidedly male: bearded blond men in boats raiding the coastlines of western Europe, discovering and settling new lands. Yet from the Valkyries of Norse mythology to female prime ministers and presidents, and from legendary shieldmaidens to other trailblazers of socially progressive gender politics, the Nordic world has a long history of extraordinary women.

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No one epitomises this heritage better than Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, a Norse explorer known as the ‘far-traveller’, born on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes peninsula in the latter part of the 10th century. What we know of her life story is derived from two Old Norse sagas, The Saga of Erik the Red and The Saga of the Greenlanders. Together they are known as the ‘Vinland sagas’, because they describe voyages sailing to the fringes of North America around the year 1000. The Norse named these lands ‘Vinland’, apparently because of the wild grapes that grew there.

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