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
Norse mythology been used. Norse mythology is primarily attested in dialects of Old Norse, a North Germanic language spoken by the Scandinavian people during the European Middle Ages, and the ancestor of modern Scandinavian languages. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland, where the oral tradition stemming from the pre-Christian inhabitants of the island was collected and recorded in manuscripts. This occurred primarily in the 13th century. These texts include the "Prose Edda", composed in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and the "Poetic Edda", a collection of poems from earlier traditional material anonymously compiled in the 13th