Recent research sheds new light on the role of pregnant women in Viking society, revealing a complex interplay between motherhood and warrior culture. The study titled "Womb Politics: The Pregnant Body and Archaeologies of Absence," published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, shifts focus from warriors and traders to the social and symbolic role of pregnant women, examining the risks, expectations, and power associated with their condition.
One saga examined closely by Dr. Katherine Marie Olley tells the story of a fetus, still in his mother's womb, who is fated to avenge his father, being inscribed even before birth into complex social and political dynamics of kinship, feuds, and violence, as reported by Newsweek. This inclusion of unborn children in societal narratives underscores the significance of pregnancy in Viking culture.
"Among the words used, there are evocative terms like 'bellyfull', 'unlight', and 'not to walk alone as a woman', which give an insight into how pregnancy was conceptualized," said Olley, as reported by Newsweek. These terms reflect the unique perceptions of pregnancy during the Viking Age, offering a glimpse into the linguistic expressions surrounding expectant women.
In the Saga of Erik the Red, the heavily pregnant Freydís Eiríkssdóttir picks up a sword, bares her breast, and strikes the sword against it to scare away assailants, causing panic among her attackers. This act by Freydís breaks the passive image traditionally associated with motherhood. Despite her condition, she embodies both the protective maternal figure and the fierce warrior, challenging conventional gender roles.
Among the most striking pieces of evidence discussed in the study is a small Viking Age silver figurine found in a 10th-century Swedish burial. The figurine represents a pregnant woman in female dress with arms wrapped around her protruding belly, wearing a helmet with a prominent noseguard. This is the only known depiction of pregnancy from the Viking Age, reflecting a perception of pregnancy not as a state of weakness, but as a latent strength associated with heroism and resilience.
"Although we avoid simplistic narratives of warrior pregnant women, it must be recognized that at least in art and stories, ideas circulated about pregnant women equipped for combat. They are not passive or pacified bodies," said Dr. Marianne Hem Eriksen, according to Medievalists.net. The perspective emphasizes the active roles pregnant women could play, both socially and symbolically, in Viking society.
Researchers, including Olley, analyzed Old Norse literature to illuminate Viking Age beliefs about pregnancy, despite the challenges of using texts written after the Viking Age. The study finds that these texts reflect beliefs and ideas inherited by their direct descendants, preserving echoes of older thoughts. Though pregnant women are seldom visible in Viking narratives, it is fascinating to see words, concepts, and memories of pregnancy in these sources that may have their roots in the earlier Viking period.
Perhaps most puzzling is how little evidence survives of pregnant women and infants in Viking burial contexts. Only a handful of mother-infant burials have been documented despite the likelihood of high maternal and infant mortality rates. The absence of maternal and infant burials raises questions about who was considered worthy of formal burial and how social identity, including pregnancy, was acknowledged or erased in death.
Infants are generally underrepresented in the Viking Age burial record. While some have been found in domestic settings, it is otherwise unknown what happened to them or if they were afforded a burial in the same way adults were. When found in graves with other bodies, infants may have been included as a "grave good" for other people in the grave, indicating a gap in the archaeological record regarding maternal and infant burials.
The study goes beyond individual stories to examine legal and social structures. The team discusses how laws treated pregnant women, particularly enslaved ones. A pregnancy could be seen as a "defect" when purchasing an enslaved woman, and the children born to such women were the property of their owners. This shows how pregnancy could leave bodies open to volatility, risk, and exploitation.
"It verges on the banal to say, but pregnancy is an absolute necessity for all forms of reproduction—demographic, social, economic, political. Without pregnant bodies, none of us would be here," remarked Eriksen, as noted by GEO France. The notion of "womb politics" is central to understanding gender, bodies, and sexual politics in the Viking Age and beyond.
The researchers suggest that the pregnant body is rarely represented, poorly studied, and often silenced in historical narratives. The study reveals the complexity of perceptions of the body, motherhood, and the fetus not only as a biological reality but as an influential social and cultural entity. Pregnancy was deeply political and shaped ideas of social status, kinship, and personhood in Viking Age communities.
Through linguistic, iconographic, and archaeological analyses, the study questions the striking absence of pregnancy in narratives, objects, and graves from the Viking past, despite its fundamental role. The absence of representations of pregnant women is interpreted as evidence of the marginalization of the pregnant body, resulting from social practices, literary discourses, and historiographical biases.
"These are not passive, or pacified, pregnant bodies," Olley states, according to Newsweek. "While we are careful not to present simplified narratives about pregnant warrior women, we must acknowledge that at least in art and stories, ideas were circulating about pregnant women with martial equipment." Taken together, these strands of evidence show that pregnant women could be engaged with violence and weapons in art and stories.
Written with the help of a news-analysis system.