#women warrior

While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
Yell’d and shriek’d between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy.

`They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain’s barbarous populaces,
Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating?
Shall I heed them in their anguish? shall I brook to be supplicated?
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Must their ever-ravening eagle’s beak and talon annihilate us?
Tear the noble hear of Britain, leave it gorily quivering?
Bark an answer, Britain’s raven! bark and blacken innumerable,
Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton,
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it,
Till the face of Bel be brighten’d, Taranis be propitiated.
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune!
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary.
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot.
Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cassivelaun!

`Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian!
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer’d, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant.
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances,
Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aerially,
Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred,
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies.
Bloodily flow’d the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men;
Then a phantom colony smoulder’d on the refluent estuary;
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering–
There was one who watch’d and told me–down their statue of Victory fell.
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Camulodune,
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful?
Shall we deal with it as an infant? shall we dandle it amorously?

`Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating,
There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony,
Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses.
“Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets!
Tho’ the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho’ the gathering enemy narrow thee,
Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet!
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated,
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable,
Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises,
Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God.”
So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier?
So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now.

Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty,
Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash’d and humiliated,
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian violators!
See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy!
Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to be satiated.
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Camulodune!
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory,
Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britoness–
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable.
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant,
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl’d.
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cunobeline!
There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay,
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy.
There they dwelt and there they rioted; there–there–they dwell no more.
Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary,
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable,
Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness,
Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash’d and humiliated,
Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out,
Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.’

So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like,
Yell’d and shriek’d between her daughters in her fierce volubility.
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated,
Madly dash’d the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments,
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January,
Roar’d as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices,
Yell’d as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously,
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies.
Perish’d many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary.
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodune.

 

 



Boadicea by Alfred Lord Tennyson

(The Oseberg ship, Norway, with which two women were buried)

“There are many theories about who these two women were. A queen and her slave? A sorceress and her assistant? A king’s mother and her companion? A queen and her mother, herself a queen? No one knows. One woman was between twenty-five and fifty-five, the other fifty to eighty, depending on how their ages are assessed; the higher the age at death, the less reliable are the estimates. One or both of the Oseberg women may have fought in battle: The younger woman had a broken collarbone that had begun to heal, as well as a fractured skull. The older woman badly injured her knee in her youth and had massive arm muscles; she died of cancer. Which one was Queen Asa? Probably neither. Though Asa has been linked to Oseberg since the ship burial was discovered in 1904 (one translation of “Oseberg” is “Asa’s Mound”), the scientific dating of the burial to 834 does not sync with the dates historians have deduced from Snorri’s sagas. DNA tests, likewise, kill the mother-daughter theory: The younger woman seems to have come from Persia.

 The Oseberg grave mound was built to impress. It called for coordinated teams of laborers and the destruction of enormous wealth. The process took months. A deep pit 144 feet long was dug into the heavy blue clay, its bottom below the water table. A dragonship was floated up the narrow river, then portaged over a roadway of logs into the pit—by then a muddy pool—and turned so its high spiral stem faced the fjord, before being moored to a large stone.

(…) 

After the beautiful Oseberg ship was moored in the valley floor, beside the narrow Slag-Bank River, a burial chamber of sturdy logs was erected on the ship’s deck behind the mast. Aft of this chamber a complete kitchen was assembled, with iron pots, a frying pan, a dough trough, a quernstone, cups and platters, knives and spoons, and at least one black glass goblet. An ox was butchered and other foods were gathered: Archaeologists have found traces of rye flour, blueberries, apples, plums, and spices, including cumin, horseradish, and mustard.

The chamber itself was furnished as a royal bedroom. Long, narrow tapestries lined the walls, one showing a battle scene, the other a ritual procession. Carved wooden beds with feather pillows and blankets woven of red and white wool filled most of the floor space. There were iron lamps on long poles, a chair, a stool, and a bast-fiber floor mat. A line of chests along the far wall had once held clothing (scraps of wool and silk showed their fine quality). There were shoes and combs, but no jewelry except for seven glass beads.

The archaeologists who opened the grave in 1904 were also surprised to find no weapons, except for two hand axes. Instead there was a plethora of textile tools—looms, spindles, scissors, yarn—and other objects that seem to have had ritual use: a leather pouch of cannabis seeds for invoking a shamanistic trance; musical instruments, including a long wooden horn called a lur, whistles and a small bell, and five sets of rattles made of large, linked iron loops. One rattle was attached with rope to a splendidly carved wooden post topped with a snarling animal head. Four similar animal-head posts were found outside the room.”

The real valkyrie, The hidden history of viking warrior women, Nancy Marie Brown