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Nope. I stopped watching during first season.Damn, I want a shield maiden!
Is that show worth a look?
Nope. I stopped watching during first season.Damn, I want a shield maiden!
Is that show worth a look?
Nope. I stopped watching during first season.
It makes sense why women wouldnt like the show, the one good woman in the show seem to get royally screwed over and the rest are calculating bitches. Its not a perspective of women that normal women would like I would think.
This site is also in question,
Ars Technica is basing their stuff from Judith Jesch (see below for more details) who is University of Nottingham professor of Viking studies and she doesn't seem convinced….
http://norseandviking.blogspot.co.uk/
Anyway the point is that, this not as clear cut as OP implied.
Lucky Day said:The Shield Maiden, a rare, brave and fascinating woman, with the courage of a man
Annoying.
I think female Vikings existed, but I dont think they used swords or two handed swords. It would be one big enigma for me if they found out that female vikings used two handed swords. For one handed swords females had to wield them differently to men and have to be trained specifically for that, I dotn think they had that for Vikings. I struggle to see how a female could wield a two handed sword well, most men cannot do that(I am talking generally in terms of 99% of women wouldnt be able to use a two handed sword properly and 90% of men couldnt either I would think).
Notice how much less foot work is used except for the thrust?
Well lots to go over here. First of all vikings did use swords, but the axe was the preferred weapon. Swords were used, but they had greater weight for warrior symbolism, rather than a tool of war. Also, the swords used by vikings were usually of the short 1h variety, not too different from a roman spatha, as they heavily favored shields. The videos you posted are of the western martial arts style that came out about 500 years later, when armor technology had advanced considerably, dropping the need for shields almost completely, and the longsword had replaced all other swords because of how versatile they were as a 1h or 2h weapon (which is why they're often refered to as a hand and a half sword). Last time I discussed western martial arts fighting with both Sword Academy or Forge (who teach HEMA classes here nearby), they said there's no difference between genders for styles of fighting. There is however different ways to to use longswords, as they're are 4 basic stances and many different versions of the longsword itself. You can see plenty of videos where the longsword is used as a 1h, 2h, staff, or even pommel fighting. On top of that, during those times, advanced armor designs allowed for opponents to even grab and block blades with their hands, fight with the sword by the blade with the hilt towards their enemy, or a combination of both (one hand on the pommel, the other halfway up the blade):
In regards to 2h swords, and greatswords, these were just other labels for a longsword. The real true 2H swords were extremely specialized, or used more as a type of polearm, so in that regard, yes you probably wouldn't see any women using a true 2h weapon, and if they did, they would be using it as if it were a poleaxe.
I recognize that, but wasnt it because the swordfighting style of women was beneficial for men too to get more power that it was adopted but both sexes, but it was originally designed for women? Or am i mistaken with that?
Hmm, not sure, there might be a hybrid style that combines WMA with other styles, but for HEMA a lot of it in the beginning was guessing and practicing with historical manuals. I know they've combined judo and jiu jitsu (since they are quite similar anyways) when they mix grappling with weapons, but as for what you're talking about, i've never heard of it. If you do find more info on it, i'd be interested to hear more.
Shame this thread got derailed because it was mildly interesting before that.
Yeah, I wished there had been more serious talk about Viking history. Seriously.
Grendel's mother, who is never given a name in the text, is the subject of ongoing controversy among medieval scholars. This is due to the ambiguity of a few words in Old English which appear in the original Beowulf manuscript. While there is consensus over the word "modor" (mother), the phrase "ides, aglæcwif" is the subject of scholarly debate.