Arabic silver, eastern European beads, ceramics, rare fabrics and a glass goblet are the among the items discovered here. Merchants came here from across Europe–and possibly beyond–to trade valuables. Nowhere can the Norsemen's status as great traders be better seen than on Björkö. Known as Sweden’s first town, Birka has such strong historical and cultural importance that the settlement on Björkö island is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Did women join Viking battle ships? Most scholars say no. All set? Then let's dive into the details. A captive ransomed could be as lucrative as and much less trouble than one that had to be fed and clothed.Today, Norwegian women enjoy positions of power in business and politics, but what exactly were things like during the long history of the Vikings? Most people know the legend of the valkyries and have heard of supposed female Viking warriors known as shield maidens.īut what was life like for Viking women? Did they really join the raids? We've gathered together the latest research, plus the assumptions based on sagas and other records to pull together this guide. This last master, longing to see his native land again, gathered his companions together and took Findan and others with him into captivity.įrom the account of Findan's sister and some others (such as the ransoming of two Moroccan girls referred to above), we might conclude that vikings practised kidnapping rather than slave trading. Then, according to custom, his Norse master, not wishing to return to his homeland, sold him to another, who sold him to a third, who in turn sold him to a fourth. But her fate may have been very similar to that which befell Findan later on: We have to assume that he never found his sister. His father then gave his son Findan some money and ordered him to buy his sister back and return her to her father.įindan is not successful, as he is very soon captured by 'pagans' himselfĪnd from then on the narrative follows his trials and tribulations. This involved capture by Norsemen but, before Findan himself is captured, his sister suffers the same fate:įoreigners called Norsemen had captured Findan's sister, along with other women during raids on that Scottish island called Ireland. It concentrates on his youth and the dramatic events that led to his life of religious exile on the continent. This is the Life of St Findan, a Leinster monk who, like so many other Irishmen, spent most of his adult life on the continent, at the monastery of Rheinau (in present-day Switzerland), where he died in about 878. The abduction of Irish women to be sold as slaves is confirmed by a contemporary source of a somewhat different type.

Women in the Viking Age by Judith Jesch