Shield-maiden as a shield-maiden in the text. Saxo Grammaticus reported that shield-maidens fought on the side of the Danes at the Battle of Brávellir in the year 750: Examples of shield-maidens mentioned by name in the Norse sagas include Brynhildr in the "Vǫlsunga saga", Hervor in "Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks", the Brynhildr of the "Bósa saga ok Herrauðs", the Swedish princess Thornbjǫrg in "Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar" and Princess Hed, Visna and Veborg in "Gesta Danorum". Two shield-maidens appear in certain translations of the "Hervarar saga". The first of these Hervors was known to have taken up typically masculine roles early in
Old Norse orthography regional spelling often changed to reflect this. Sometimes, both phonemes' spellings would be used, but confused. The epenthetic vowel had different regional spellings. In East Norse it was commonly spelled as or , while in West Norse it was often spelled , almost always so in Iceland. The original Icelandic manuscripts which are the main source of our knowledge of Norse mythology did not employ a unified system of spelling. During the Viking Age, many dialects of Old Norse were spoken. While they appear to have been mutually intelligible, the slight variances resulted in various spelling. Thus the same name