In the tradition of Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra, Brown lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors. In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden, was a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined. Brown uses science to link the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines Hervor's life intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild, Mother of Kings; the Viking leader known as the Red Girl; and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor's short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken for truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data but on outdated Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, law, saga, poetry and myth carry weapons. In this compelling narrative, Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.
