Thanks again to Pirate’s Cove for the Rule Five linkery!

Moving right along:  It sounds too good to be true, but it seems Viking shield maidens may have actually been a real thing.  Excerpt:

Researchers have excavated hundreds of Viking-era graves at Birka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Sweden. One of the graves, originally excavated in the 1880s, was particularly noteworthy for both its position — on a prominent terrace adjacent to what had been a garrison — and for its grave goods, which included a variety of weapons, from a sword to armor-piercing arrows, and two horses.

The grave, archaeologists believed, belonged to a high-ranking warrior. Although the individual buried in the grave was assumed to be male based on the grave goods, some researchers argued that the skeleton belonged to a woman. Controversy and the usual academic kerfuffle ensued.

But thanks to ancient DNA analysis, researchers confirmed this week in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology that Bj 581, as the grave is formally designated, belongs a woman who was at least 30 years old when she died.

While other women of the the Viking era have been found buried with weaponry, none had a grave suggesting a status as high as Lady Bj 581. Among the grave goods, for example, was a game board and full set of game pieces; but we’re not talking Chutes and Ladders here. Researchers believe the game set indicates she was an officer and involved in tactics and strategy.

Am I the only one who finds that strangely hot?

Anyway – this, True Believers, is the actual picture of a strong, independent woman.  Mrs. Animal had a stint of warrior-woman herself, in the Army, albeit in the Medical branches, more concerned with patching people together than taking them apart.

Ironic how the loudest of the modern “feminist” movement seem more self-absorbed than self-empowered; more preoccupied with whining than doing.