Shield-maiden and female fantasy as well as emblematic of the danger of abandoning gender roles. Brynhildr of the "Vǫlsunga saga", along with her rival in love, Guðrún Gjúkadóttir, provides an example of how a shield-maiden compares to more conventional aristocratic womanhood in the sagas. Brynhildr is chiefly concerned with honor, much like a male warrior. When she ends up married to Gudrun's brother Gunnarr instead of Sigurðr, the man she intended to marry, Brynhildr speaks a verse comparing the courage of the two men: Brynhildr is married to Gunnarr and not Sigurðr because of deceit and trickery, including a potion of
The Shield Ring The Shield Ring The Shield Ring is a historical novel for children written by Rosemary Sutcliff and published in 1956. It is the last in a sequence of novels, chronologically started with The Eagle of the Ninth, loosely tracing a family of the Roman Empire, then Britain, and finally Norse-Britain, who inherit an emerald seal ring bearing the insignia of a dolphin. It takes place during the Norman Rule of Britain, and tells the story of resistance against the Norman Conquest in the Lake District and North West England. Like many Sutcliff novels, the story of the characters unfold against