Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: Pendant Amulet in the Shape of a Woman, Possibly a Valkyrie
  • Creator:
  • Description: This tiny silver pendant in the shape of a woman holding a horn belongs to a group of four amulet-pendants excavated in Öland, Sweden. She wears a long, stylized dress belted with a girdle at the waist. Her hair is pulled away from her face, either worn up or in a cap. The pendant and its companions bear strong resemblance to contemporary images of Valkyries rendered in stone carving, such as the Tjängvide image stone. In the Norse Eddic traditions, Valkyries stalked battlefields and chose which fighters would die, at which time they would escort those who died heroically to their reward, an afterlife in Odin’s hall, Valhalla. The horn the woman on the pendant holds may represent the feast implied upon arrival to Valhalla. Some texts portray the Valkyries as malevolent figures, while others present them as beautiful and kind. The Öland pendant originates from a burial, and its funerary context lends further weight to its interpretation as a Valkyrie.
  • Source: Wikimedia Commons
  • Rights: Public Domain
  • Subject (See Also): Amulets Magic Sweden Valkyries
  • Geographic Area: Scandinavia
  • Century: 10- 11
  • Date: circa 950- 1000
  • Related Work: Alternate views: http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/fid.asp?fid=108864&page=2&in=1; Several pendant amulets in the shape of valkyries from Öland: http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/bild.asp?uid=22806
  • Current Location: Stockholm, The Swedish History Museum, 108864
  • Original Location: Sweden, South East, Öland
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital Images; Metalwork
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Silver; Amulets; Jewelry
  • Donor:
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 4.2/1.2/
  • Inscription:
  • Related Resources: Andersen, Lise Lise Præstgaard. "On Valkyries, Shield-Maidens and Other Armed Women in Old Norse Sources and Saxo Grammaticus," in Mythological Women: Studies in Memory of Lotte Motz, ed. Rudolf Simek and Wilhelm Heizmann. Fassbender, 2002. pp. 291-318; Fuglesang, Signe Horn. "Viking and Medieval Amulets in Scandinavia," Fornvännen 84 (1989), 15-27; Gräslund, Anne-Sofie. "Some Viking Age Amulets: The Birka Evidence" in Cultural Interaction Between East and West: Archaeology, Artefacts and Human Contacts in Northern Europe, ed. Ulf Fransson. Stockholm Universitet, 2007. pp. 90-96; Lionarons, Joyce Tally. "Dísir, Valkyries, Völur, and Norns: The "weise Frauen" of the Deutsche mythologie" in The Shadow-walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous. Ed. Tom Shippey. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005. pp. 271 - 298; Price, Neil. "What's In a Name? An Archaeological Identity Crisis for the Norse Gods (And Some of Their Friends)" in Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions, an International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3-7, 2004, ed. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere. Nordic Academic Presss, 2006. pp. 179-83.