Her Artifacts Were Not Gold. Viking Women. S2:E13

We say goodbye to Gudrid. Her life after Vinland, her journey to meet the Pope, and a return to Iceland to live out a devoted life. We honor her, praise her and hope every woman can see a little of themselves in her story. Her artifacts were not gold, they were so much more. Enjoy. We sure did!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay. Okay. I'm trying to get this. Okay. Welcome to the Dis Death Podcast. We are just almost finishing up our season two, which is hard to believe, and um all the children are out of school. It's summer, and now it's chaos, but not for me, for you more, Sarah.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

We've survived the chaos, and now I think we're into the happy chaos of just summer vacation. Oh, I love it. Good chaos. Yeah. Yeah. We made it through all the graduation and you know, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

So and your your nest is getting emptied little by little.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Which is good and bad.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

That's mixed feelings on it.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

But yeah. It's interesting because today we're going to talk about um Gudrid after her big Vinland adventure. Um, she settles down in Iceland and she kind of experiences kind of where you're at in your life and where I'm at in my life. She raises her children, and then um she kind of has a go-to-a-mountain moment, or she goes on a big pilgrimage for three years. So um, but today we're gonna, we left you off with Freitas burying her breasts and killing people. That's true. That's true. And but they eventually went home. So we're gonna talk a little bit about Gudrin and Carl Karl Sefni and their baby Snori after they left Finland, um, where they went, what they did, and then her settling to basically settle down in her life and raise her children um in Iceland and see if the prophecies came true for her, and then um kind of just discuss that part of her life. Yeah, and all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah. And do you want to share this Marie book or no?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Oh, yes. Okay. So we were talking about the writer Nancy Marie Brown and how prolific she is at writing histories. And um, I found this book that was printed in um 2007. Oh it's called The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman. And guess which woman she's talking about?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Gudred. Everybody's talking about Gudrid.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Gudrid! And she does a great job of um, she actually kind of I think we'd be good friends with her, but she actually walked through all the the different places Gudrid had been. And um so I think from her, I probably and she she does a good job of synthesizing the sagas. So she doesn't extrapolate, she doesn't, you know, she's not silly with it, but she's good at a good storyteller. Um because if you read the sagas, it basically, you know, the woman erasure happens to even Gudrid, the well-traveled. So she once she gets back in Iceland or gets settled down, basically that's it for most most women just disappear into off into the sunset. And the next thing you see is their gravestone with their epithet of like what a wonderful woman she was. Right. That's it. Uh-huh. Um Gurd at least has some sentences in the sagas about her life as a mother, whatever. Um, but then she does something else which is interesting later. So which is inspiring for empty nest women who's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah, and she's interesting, like we've said a million times, that a lot of the saga wouldn't exist without her input, you know. So you're saying that it there she not only was she not removed from these sagas or sidelined totally, but it has to be her point of view or her perspective and some of the parts of it, which is cool, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

That's so true. That's so true.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

But I do like what you're saying too, that I do feel like I relate to her now, I relate to her all the way through. And then it's so cool to have a woman this far back that we we relate to her as a young mother, as a new bride, as a young girl, and now we get to hear what she does as a crone, you know. Yeah, yeah. So it's cool.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I mean, that's so relatable. It's such a great point, and she's such a good character for a saga or a hero's journey character because we've seen her. You have the three fates, right? One's the maiden, one's the mother, one's the chrome.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I heard I was listening to this, I think it's like the Ramsey Money guy or something. Oh, yeah. And he's like, one of his terms is she's she's a test pilot for the broom factory or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

No, we she's a master at it. Get her in the cockpit. She could drive that through.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Right. You think you're insulting, but whatever. So yeah, so she so yes, like the free the three phases of womanhood the maiden, the mother, and the what you're saying.

unknown 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah. And very rarely do we get a historic woman figure who doesn't fade off into the the sunset, you know, like our colonial women who be, you know, maybe their maidenhood was lascivious, so that's the only reason we know about them. Right. So it's kind of incredible that for 1000 AD, um, she and she's surrounded by not boring men.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

I mean, she's no Carl Sneffey has a whole magmanja comic book about him right now that's super popular. And he's Eric the Red and Lafe Erickson, and she's surrounded by big stories, and yet her shit gets to shine through too, which is I love that.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

That is such a good point.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Um, somebody took care of her, which I guess makes sense because as we'll talk about, the somebody who probably did take care of her story was maybe a great grandson or great great yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

So she was handled with care. Yeah. Yes, that's true. That's a good point. She was. She was. Um so in the saga of the Greenlanders, this is this is what we get of Gudrid's life after. Um it says Carl Sephni now now, of course, it's Carl Stephanie all by himself sailing across the sea. Right, which is not. She's with him very much, so we we've discussed that. Yeah. Not only has she packed them for the three-year vernie journey, she's given them birth, and they're coming back with riches and goods. Um, but here he comes. He sailed across the sea, and his ship came to the land in the north, the Skaga Fjord, where he laid it up for the winter. In the spring, he brought the farm at Glambyerish. I tried to pronounce it. Glam Glambeyrish. Okay. And built a house. He stayed there as long as he lived. He was a great man, and many fine people are descended from him and Gudrid. And when Carl Sephni died, Gudrid took over the farming with her son Snori, who had been born in Vinland. Um, so that's what we get from that saga. The other saga um does give a little more, and sorry, I we can we might need to edit this, but it gives a little more detail in the sense that um that it says then the other one says the next summer, Carl Stefani sailed for Norway. And the saga says, never had a ship so full of riches left Greenland before. So obviously they they went to, they had done their job. They had probably had the barrels of stuff. What would they have been bringing?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

They would have had wood, tons of wood, anything that they got from trading with the indigenous group. They would have had food, lots of food. They brought all those grapes back. They brought whatever type of wheat that was, self-sowing wheat. It would be interesting to we won't to to look at the plant's life in Greenland versus North America. I mean, there's different ways, I guess, seeds that spread from birds and things like that too. But if that would be interesting, if there's anything growing there that was a Vinland original.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, for sure. Because yeah. Um this brown on her book, Impress page. Yeah, I think she's awesome. On page 193, um, she said they Gudri, Karl Stephanie, and their little sons sailed from Vinland in midsummer after the ice went out, their ship laden with timber, furs, butternuts, and grapes crushed and fermenting in baleen-strapped barrels or in leather bags. So cute detail. I know just what you said.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Um I like that she said that because some people are trying to argue that those weren't actually grapes that they found, that they were more of a berry or a yeah, and they're kind of trying to discredit it. But if they've got no, I they know their they knew their the difference between a grape and a berry, and you know, yeah. Yeah. And then she's saying that fermenting and crops or something.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yes, right. Um, yeah, and fermenting. So and the other um saga also does say that they sailed to Norway to the king, and people were very impressed with what they had, the goods they had. So they essentially Karl Stefani and Gudrud did their Norse job and they went and they traded and they got the king's blessing in Norway, and then they headed back to Iceland. Um, I think they stopped. They I don't think they went back to Greenland after that. I think they went.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

I think so either. And I I I don't know this, but I'm wondering if it's the same, was it the same King Olaf Leif's Olaf King that they, or would that have been a different king? That's too hard of a question. But it's possibly yes, because either way, maybe with the uh same errand of conversion Christian spreading Christianity as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, and she would have gotten, and and actually I do believe, and we can double check this when she leaves for her pilgrimage, but I think she parts of the moving parts of her pilgrimage have to do with the king of Norway and his venturing south. So I think that was a connection that probably makes sense. Okay. Um so they're saying they get back to Iceland around 1010-ish. Um and so do you know what happened to them when they the first her well, I'll just say it real qu I'll just bit sketch it out. Okay. So they get there. Um they did sail back from Vinland with three ships, but two of these ships went didn't make it.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

They had worms, like water worms or something. And then the Bjarni guy had to give his life for the younger guy. That's a weird part of the stock. I can't imagine what. Unless they had been there for three years and the bottom of their boats did rot out or something, barnacles or something. I don't know. Yeah, that's possible. That was a scary part.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah. Yeah. So that was lucky. So again, there's her little bit of her land spirits and her water spirits and her ocean spirits um getting her there. Um she said they went to Carl Sephni's childhood home.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And it's near it's on top of Iceland. Okay. Right. Yeah. And it's um oh, I can't read it from here. But it's oh like middle top of Iceland.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Sorry, cat that's um, yes. And so well, okay, so let me just to make sure we're giving the we can ed, can we edit this out? Yeah. Um, so I did get an answer on the king that was there. Um this is again from Brown, who just wrote it. I think she just wrote it so clearly. Um 195, she said, in Norway, Gudrid and Karl Sefni were made much of, the saga says. Um, who hosted them, who heard the news of the land and the people of the West. There were two brothers sharing kingship from 101,000 to 1015. Um, Olaf Tryggveson, Olaf the Fat. Um so it sounds like the same guy, Olaf Tryggvason. Um but then there's no further mention of Vinland. Um the discovery and settlement of the new world a thousand years ago had absolutely no effect on the old world, Brown conjecture.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Isn't that interesting? And if one of the sagas does say that they took two of the indigenous boys, it's the Mick on uh Nova Scotia, there's a tribe, the Mi'kmaq, which that's who they're saying were the more and then the other tribe that they probably met, it doesn't exist anymore. But they took two of the boys from the tribe and learned about, they were taught about these boys taught them about this culture, and maybe they told them enough scary things or to make them not make people fearful of it.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

You know, it became this but then why wouldn't that translate into four or three hundred years later with Columbus's story of not knowing there was land there or I mean do you think it's possible that um because everyone was so euphoric about Christianity now that because it was pagan, they are like, oh, there's no hope. Like they're so big on converting people that that's why they maybe that they're hopeless.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

The other, like if you want to go woo-woo, spooky or conspiracy is the theory that we've lost 300 years of our calendar time, which would actually at make sense. So really, we're right now we're living in the year 17, 20. I've never heard this. Explain it. I can't explain it very well.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

But there are there's a theory out there that we're actually they had uh added 300 years somewhere in the count to Julian calendar, when all the calendars were getting redone, they they added 300 years somehow. So that would mean that if you In the Norse tradition or in our Julian, our Western tradition. Your global conspiracy dude will tell you that.

unknown 16:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

So um but the it makes sense for a couple of reasons, and this is another one that it would make sense for. It makes sense for archaeology, I mean um ah, what's the word? Buildings and not archaeology. Oh. When you archaeological engineering, architect, yes, right. Cathedrals and things like that, and that they say, and then also I guess it would make sense if Columbus and the Vikings were doing the same thing at the same time, then if you took the 300 years like a time wharf, like a time fold. Well, not not even that weird. Just if 1492 minus three would be maybe that's not quite right. But if you could sh make this Vinland exploration match Columbus' exploration, then that would explain why why Spain and Columb Columbus and Italy and all this pretty evolved European culture didn't know about Vinland. Like they had 300 years to communicate with the Norse people that there is land over there.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

So when Columbus got on his boat, why was he so surprised that he bumped into land over there, thinking trying to get to India, unless we were told the wrong thing in school? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Okay, well, he was just an idiot. But it you could also think about it in a a cynical way, like um They didn't want to. They they had not what's in it for them. So in Portugal, obviously they're looking for riches anywhere. What's in it for the Norwegians maybe nothing.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Right. Or Norwegians kept it a secret. Or their back pocket, maybe. Yeah. Or they were probably super freaked out by the people there.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Because eventually they failed because they, you know, that whole they ran away. They did run away. Maybe it wasn't an honorable story to tell.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

No, and the Freitas thing makes it really bad. Yeah. And then um eventually Greenland is is turned back over to its indigenous people for what and I don't n I can't imagine it was a friendly turnover.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

So that was a fail and a lot of people say that was a failed um whether it was because of weather changes or or stuff, but or it there are true there were tribes there, or like we keep saying that there but there were tribes there um who left and then came back, and then they're the ones that are there even to this day.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

But the Dorset I can't remember. I have it.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

So I mean it's possible they may have gained all those the wealth, but you're like you're saying, they probably are like, that's just a not a not worth it.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

And maybe that's the word that spread throughout Europe, like, yeah. But then why would they be so clueless? I don't know, whatever. I don't know. So anyway, that's a theory. And then there's more of that theory, like that. I don't know, then you get really crazy with that theory. If that's true, then you know, whatever. I don't know. What then you get into like different prophecies and things maybe already happened and blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

So I'd like I like your blah blah blahs. Yada yada yada. Like the I mean, that's possible there was a wrinkle in time or whatever. Or just a calendar mishap. Yeah, well, I mean, they you talk Iceland had that same issue where they were losing um in their calendar, it didn't account for half a day, or and so they always in their things they had to keep readjusting for that. So the Protestants didn't they have that too? The our pilgrim oh yeah, they did. They had a weird you're right. There just wasn't a regulated way of keeping time. So yeah.

unknown 21:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

So losing three to four hundred years is a big deal, but anyway, anyway, that's a tangent.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

But that I like I do like your question about why wasn't well, how did that slip away? And part of me maybe is thinking it wasn't an honorable adventure. Right. Maybe they were.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Maybe let's give them credit. Maybe these are the white settlers that didn't want to go kick people off their land.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

And you know, I don't know. They they brought two boys back with them.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

That's all that's true.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

I don't know how moral um but it is interesting, yeah. It's so interesting. So, okay, so then Carl Sephni's bringing Gudrid, their little baby, they've had a success. They are just the young couple that's a great story, right? And so now they're gonna move back to Iceland. Um and they became heat for correct. Carl Sefni, he came home. Um, but they said that the reception when they returned home was not good because Carl Sefni's haughty mother would not have Gudrid in her house that first winter. In her opinion, Carl Sefni had not married well. So why?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

She's a Christian, she's a oh, maybe it was the Eric the Red connection, because Iceland, she would have the mom would have known all about Eric the Red. Yes. Yes and her dad, too. Good dad was kind of a scoundrel in their mind.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

He did yeah, he up and left. Um and I think and Brown conjectures, it's the the slate, the Bill fightful thing that she's the daughter of a slave still, no matter what.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

It doesn't matter how many adventures she took. I mean, she's the great granddaughter of a slave, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, she's the uh granddaughter of a slave. Granddaughter of a slave. Um, but so we're circling back here. We come back to Iceland, and isn't it weird how you can never go home? Like your old stories still live. Yeah. And it no matter what she's accomplished.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Because his Carl Snapney's mom was probably the way he was descended from Odd. Yeah. So it's Odd's slave that her son just married.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a good, you know, don't be that mother-in-law that lives in the sagas as a haughty mother.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Right. And like you're saying, your story travel goes with you. Yeah. So who what can you do, I guess, but and um yeah, so it's it is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

So she had to deal with that, which I'm sure she's she dealt with worse. She'd been with Freitas for three years on an island. She could do whatever. And um, so and then the other version of the saga s just says that they laid up their ship for the winter, and then he bought um Glenbain. I'm trying to say it. Glen Glenbaish, Glenbayish farm. Let's see. And Brown states um that Karlsefni, this farm would stay in the family until it was given to the Christian church in 1295. And it was given to the church by Gudrid Seven Great's granddaughter, Halbera, who became abbess of the number nunnery established there. Um, which is cute.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

So um, so yes, so the farm let's see. Okay. Do you have anything to add on that?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

I just think um I don't know how f full circle we're going, but yeah, so they built he built her a chapel. Well, her son built her a chapel. So Carl Snapney kind of just went back there to live out his life. She she eventually will live her life out, but she's not done living, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

No, they have she only has two children, which um two sons, which is interesting for that time period. And some people say, well, um, Carl's we don't know when or how Carl Carl Sephni dies.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

But we do know that that he it doesn't seem like he raised the kids to their full ages.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

And do you think that he continued being mur being the merchant and traveling, or do you think they were set?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

I get the feeling they were set. I get the feeling they settled down because there's one, there's one place um that it's another saga that's Gretier's saga that mentions someone coming to their farm in Glenbauer and calling it the farm of Mary Noise. Oh, and a happy farm. Um yes. He said, I guess two children met this guy at the gate, and it was a a happy farm, a nice, a nice farm. So that's a third party witness saying her life wasn't bad. Yeah. Um so I think it's kind of cool that she we kind of know she got that moment. Um and so in 2005, apparently, which we didn't I didn't know about, but this Brown talks about this must be her episode. Um they excavated the house um on this farm that Gudrid would have raised her kids in. So cool. Yes, and they found spinning whorls, all different weights in it. Um and so anyway. So we know that she lived her life, she kept on spinning, um, she raised some good kids, and that's what she did for a while.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

That's that was her season. Yeah, and that lends um, so the question of again, the critics or whatever want to say that in Lonzo Meadows, the spinning whirls and the stones that were found could have been fishing net stones, and like, oh, there weren't women here, and this is blah blah blah. Um, but all they have to do is compare the two, you know, and I think they did. I think they eventually discounted that critique or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

No, but that's a so good of you to bring up because I was just reading about that the other night, that how the whorls are weights essentially, and so there can be tiny ones based on whatever yarn you've spun or really heavy big ones. And so for years they were worried they were throwing away these little ones, thinking they were beads, when in fact they're spinning whorls. And so it's like this incredibly intricate, they would have had all different weights. Yeah. Um so yeah. So yeah. So I mean, she apparently from this excavation, they had a full-on weaving house with all the weights and the and the little fire in the corner, and um, so she just carried on doing her thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Um raising her kids, raising her two teenagers, getting along with the mother-in-law, going hardcore on her Christianity worship.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Yeah. Which by the yeah, by the time they got back, the Christianity was full full blown happening. Yeah. Um let's see. Um sorry. I don't know if you're not gonna be able to do it. I was looking up about what her Christianity would have looked like, but I don't know if we care at this point.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Well, I did read somewhere that there wasn't an official so she did obviously uh after he died, and she goes on her pilgrimage, like we talked about in the very beginning, she her son built her a chapel on that land, right? And so, and that is when she became the Incris, where the little room on the side. So her Christianity, even though it was so devout and established, there wasn't the kiddies on my paper. But it wasn't until like a hundred years later that they actually got an actual practicing officially part of the church, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

It was an outpost for all those years until a day later.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Okay. So I wondered what So what does that look like? So baptism was the central sacrament. So you were baptized. That marked you as a Christian. Um, beyond that, formal religious life was thin. There were no, this one source says there's no church bells calling people to church. There were no um libraries of theology, no confession, no bishop in residence. Um, the church in Iceland, according to this source, was organized around local chieftains and their households. Really, a lot like how the pagan things were were done. Um the decentralized structure allowed Norse converts to maintain a sense of independence and self-reliance. Prayer and personal piety would have been largely self-directed, which seems to fit Gudrid. Yeah. So she's kind of just able to, we know she's in touch with the spirits and the spirit world and whatever realm that is. And so she must have still been communicating that way. Um Pagan. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I'm just thinking like her travel to Rome then maybe readjusted some things in her mind that made her come back. Okay, so yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

That's yeah, it is interesting because that um and and next time we will talk about her pilgrimage. So Oh, you don't want to do it this time? I'm not ready, are you? Oh, okay. No. Are you totally ready? No, to talk about her pilgrimage? No. Okay. Oh, that's why it probably seems like I'm like going super slow.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I just that's what I we were Well, then let's do it. If you're ready, I don't know much about it. Well, you can do it. I don't know much about it. Her pilgrimage. I don't know the detail of it. I know that there's not much known about it. So it's not for not trying. But it's um, we kind of talked about what she would have been wearing, and sh and there were speculation that she would have been very obviously a Viking woman dressed the way she's dressed. Um stop me, because you know more than this, but she didn't go by herself, we think she had people that went with her, possibly her son.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

I mean, if we're ready to do it, I could probably do it with you.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Um mine's a very rough, but we I don't know, we've been talking about what you want to say.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

You you kind of put your what you want to say.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

I think that it's interesting the way that the Christian church was practiced in Iceland. Um, and then how long how slow it took, because it was a Iceland was full by then. Really, it was hard to get land, right? So it's not like there wasn't the population to have a diocese or right become officially so like you're saying, maybe it was just I don't know. I can't speculate too much on it. That if you want to do her pilgrimage, do you know, do you feel like it needs to deserve a whole episode?

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Um it's pretty cool because then we could wrap in um but let's try not. Let's see if we can do fine without it. You know what I mean? I guess I do know some things um that it was I I was worried about her because so sh her grandkids are growing up and she um she hands over the farm to her son Snori and says I'm going on a pilgrimage. And I so I looked up, I have the maps and stuff of where she went. Um, it was usually like a group trip. Okay, yeah, like a tour. And at about that same time, um, let's see, I have it. Well, and there are some sources that talk about how the Norse would have done the trip, but it really was a group adventure.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Um Do you think it was um affiliated with the King Olaf? I believe in my mind that would have been too far away.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

In my mind, I think it was because for a few reasons, and I'm not sure if I I have the sources, but I'm gonna just do it off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

But if it doesn't do it justice, we can re-re re-record it.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Um, because there are some first hand sources of a woman named Estrid who did her pilgrimage and kind of talked about it. But um yes, about that time, the king, what you had to do and a pilgrimage, you kind of went on one to secure your if you wanted a promotion in the church, or if you wanted a title, or if you wanted some kind of commendation. So even for a woman, maybe for Iceland, and so you came back to Iceland. Sorry, I'm doing it too. So you came back to Iceland. Um, when she came back, she was actually an abbess or an anchoress, she had a title.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

So almost like it was a training trip.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Yes, and almost like a conference of authority in some sense. So that's why the kings would go down there too. So, and that's why sometimes people would change their names coming back because they were changed.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

So there's some kind of ritual thing that happened.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah. Anointing or some reason why, and I think the pilgrimage then enabled her sons to become all the bishops.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

So I think her doing that, I think she was creating a legacy for her children, like not chieftains anymore, because you're not pagan, but they are, yes, you know, because it's through her sons, her two sons have two daughters, and those two daughters have two sons, and those are the sons that become the bishops. Okay. And so that is um why it took so long for that to happen. I guess the church had to get up, but she was the tool, she was the brought the mantle back, kind of.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

I think she earned the street cred because typically a pilgrimage would take three years. Oh. Um, and but the journey that this particular king went on, and you can look it up, but um the reason I found it is because in there's a church near the Baltics where as the pilgrims would go, they had a set, you know, itinerary. They'd stay at nunneries, um, but there's one document that sort of lists all the groups of uh pilgrimage people that stayed, you know, at this monastery. And so you keep see the and so Gudrid's name is not on there, but there it's the pronunciation is there's close enough Gudrun and da-da-da, with King Olaf's party at that same period of time that has me think that she got wow, she kind of went with them. And the other fact that we hear in sources or or things like that, thoughts that maybe Gudred met the Pope. And so the only way I think she would have is if she was with the king.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

And that's how she came back. So she wasn't just this she was the anchoress, you know, when she came back to Iceland or whatever priesthood a woman could hold. And then that got um transferred.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Do you think Carl Snuffy went with her?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

I don't see that. I think he must have been dead because it really, when a woman went, it was almost like doing your vows as a nun. You were you were changing your life. This pilgrimage would cleanse you in a sense. It was like a big honk and deal.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Um look how much you know. Just awesome. I know.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

I was so worried about her though. You know those. If I was her, I'd want to make sure I was for sure with the king, or for sure, like we were having the four-star tour versus the crawling on your belly tour.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Yes, right. So she probably went to Norway or met up with them somewhere, yeah, and then walked or whatever rode down to Rome.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

It and it would have taken a very uh quite a long time, and they would have stayed at so she would have learned a lot about this faith and this culture, and um, she would have gone through the Balkans, she would have um seen all these civilizations, and so you know really crazy time. Planes, trains, and automobiles and things happen, revolutions happening. I mean, what I kind of want to do is see if what other grandmothers she met coming down. Yes, during that would be cool. Her route, yeah. Yeah. Um, but so I I just I just wonder about like I don't know, it'd be cool to leave after raising your kids, and you're no one wants the mother hanging around and there she goes and she comes back when she returns. Obviously, she's proven that mother-in-law wrong. She's you know, she's obviously in this new world of this new power, Christianity, she's got a piece of it. And um, so I I just think that's so interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

And um I'm trying to think of like the seasons, the warmth of it, the temperature of it, the struggle. I mean, the whole journey itself would have been fascinating. The things that they would have run into. They were crossing uh conflict zones, right? Charlemagne was made king in 1000. When was he? Kitty's on my favorite. But all that was happening with the Burgundy, I think.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah, I mean, we could go through what was going on. Um this one, so the historical records confirm that Viking women did travel to this Reichenau Abbey. It's in southern Germany, like located on Lake Constance. Um, in the Benedictine monastery's surviving guest books, they register hundreds of Scandinavian pilgrims, including notable Viking women. Um let's see. Estrid, a lady named Estrid is one of the most famous. She went with the monastery with her husband, um, and they found, let's see, they journeyed along the ancient European pilgrimage road. Um, and it was an important stopover. They traveled quite a bit on the Rome old Roman roads, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

And they tried to stick to, I mean, it was all like the ultimate old person tour.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Yeah. So um, and then we don't know what year it would have been, but the whole battle of Hastings and the Norman Con, I mean, it was just a really exciting time to be doing this.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the end of what some people say, well, this is the end of the Viking era. So all these famous places, maybe Carl Stephanie had told her about the trading things, um, were winding down. So she's kind of seeing, you don't know how they were receptive people were to the Scandinavians. Um, and so I mean, it just would have been that that's worth a whole a whole book or a whole adventure, just that whole idea of the the pilgrimage. But I guess what stuck out for me was she didn't stop traveling. And the fact that just what we hit upon, she did secure, she's a reckoning woman, so she did secure um a legacy other than being the granddaughter of a slave that could attack. Itself to her sons. So I think what I love about it is you can find Gudrid through the son, the dot and the granddaughters that became the abbess of the nunnery, and they kind of carried her this personality we followed through. And as a woman, it's very rare, unless you're a queen, to have a legacy that comes back to you based on your acts alone.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Yes, right. Well said. So yeah, I mean, in a way, she's like a Icelandic royalty, I guess you could say. Um there weren't any kings or queens or prominent people in Iceland, really. It was groups and so this was um it's just so unique how it were all worked out up there and to have her be the prominent establishment of Christianity in Iceland, right? The first church, the first and then she ends up in a room with a window.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

She's the anchorist, and all the prophecies, whether they were pagan or Christian, were true. Um, and she, as that anchoress, you kind of live, and the pilgrimage did it too. You're setting yourself aside from the community, apart from it. But really, she's on her beautiful farm, she's got her grandkids around, she people are she's available to speak if anyone wants to listen to her. Right. Which um obviously some people did, or we wouldn't have we wouldn't have her whole life showing up at least somewhere on these sources, um, which is a remarkable feat as a woman when we're talking about on this podcast trying to thread out the little whispers of these lives that were lived, and that she lives pretty loudly for a thousand AD, I think. Yeah. Um on her own.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Yeah. You know, it didn't take any people have root discovered her and gone with that, but she her story itself, you don't have to create energy for it. It's the story itself has energy. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Yes. I mean, I I just think we've done what in how many 11 episodes now of her? Twelve.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

This is the 12th one.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

12 episodes of one woman who we got to meet as a young maiden with a mind of her own, you know, and and get to say goodbye to with still her life's bubbling up through all the dirt and the archaeological digs and um and you know, she I you get a kind of a sense of who she was, and you don't hear anything bubbling up bad, which is very rare. Like you don't hear, like her poor mother-in-law, usually the bad outlives the good. And so this mother-in-law, however, wonderful she of Carl Sepsny's mom, she's known as the haughty mother, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:27

The mean mother in-one little blip of history is that she didn't like her daughter-in-law at first.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Which is scary because you're like, man, what blip when I lost my mind and I wanted a diet coke and I was grumpy, is that who I'm my legacy, yeah. Yeah. Um, but Gudra doesn't, it seems like in everywhere you see her, and this could be like you're saying that her posterity, the Christian guys are the one writing everything.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

So Snorri, um our Snorri guy, famous Snorri, Snorgil Sorn. Yeah. Was her great great that's he's a descendant from her. And he's the one who wrote the didn't he translate or wrote the uh many of the sagas.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

And is he a keeper of the story, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Even the prose Edda and and uh Poetic Edda are con are so and he's her descendant, so yes, he would have taken care of, but there's people that in these sagas that Snorri would have been related to also and he didn't take care of. Right, right, right. But he did kind of honor her. And the store the story is um there's no room in it really for her to be a villain or to have done a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Man, there's a lot of room, if I were Gudrid, to be bitchy though. Like, and you just don't see it. Like here she is on a ship.

unknown 49:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

And and having a baby in America. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

And having the bull interrupt you, and you're making some great contact.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Yeah, or you're 15 and people are dying on your ship, and you know, you're some wiener kid wants to propose, and her dad moves everybody away, and um you may or may not know how to love her.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

And then um and widowed three times. Widowed three times, and some people will say Freitas is a fictional character, so maybe she's Freitas.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Oh, some people have talked about the two faces, like the black and the white. So maybe that is maybe, you know, you kind of want her to have a good meltdown at some point because she's doing super hard things. I know. And even going to on a pilgrimage, like there's a point where you just want a hot bath and a good dinner, and you don't want to be pious, you know. You're right.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

And she's hanging out with very big personalities, and she's holding her own and going back. That means she knew how to banter, she could just joke, she could probably throw a joke back. I mean, she's that's true. A little weak woman in a corner with these big Viking men doesn't get her own, does isn't it part of two sagas, you know?

SPEAKER_00 50:37

You're right, and doesn't survive multiple, doesn't no one and people want her on their ship again.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

Which means she could handle her sheat, you know, she could handle her weapons and her she could handle her ship. And she kept her ship together.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Right. And that she um you know there are other women on these boats. There's other women doing this voyage and having this, and they're we don't know who they are. And so she's she's just as big of a personality as these people she's hanging out with. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

She did hold her own.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

She could have been a little bit more than that. So they end up being so pious and living in a that she still had to have had her her personality and her. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

I'm I just think she is truly like the perfect person for a hero's tale, you know? She and um and then I think about all these women in history that we read about or whatever that got trapped into their life. Like I you get told what you are. I'm an Irish peasant woman, and that's what I am, you know. And she kind of lived outside the colors or the borders of her own life and her own time. And um it's not like she was trying to be fancy. I mean, she just was not bound by the story she started with, which is what we all hope for, I think. You know, that we can sort of trans, you know, transgress our bounds a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Yeah. And she um she was never she was not born an elite. She was not, she didn't hang out with the elite.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

She wasn't even educated as far as we know.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Probably not. Maybe just in pagan ways. Right. And um, yeah, she lived this, she's traveling with kings, she's maybe meeting the Pope, she's getting her happy ending. She's live her story is like, okay, one more elite person's great biography, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Yeah. But she's not.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

She was born, she's the slave daughter, or and she's the widow girl, and she's a shipwreck, and she's got dead husbands all over the place. And so it just shows, like you're saying, that she is the epitome of a a Viking, pushing the boundaries, you know, changing the story, changing the the she had I don't know. She's just so perfectly a Viking woman.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Yeah. Yeah. I think she's the best at out of all these women we've looked at, and there are a lot of amazing ones that we can talk about or whatever, but I think the reason we slowed down a little bit and followed her in every life station is because she um I don't know how she did it. And I don't know why more people aren't interested in her. I know. And what I love about it too is her artifacts are not gold in both places in Canada and in Iceland and in Greenland. She kept working, like she kept passing. Yeah, she just kept weaving and working and you know, doing, you know, managing her ship. Yeah. And yet she had some time for what she thought, or caretaking her own spirit, or you know, whatever she felt her like her calling on Earth was. Yes. So I wish I'd love to meet her and go to dinner with her and maybe this Denise Brown. I think we or Nancy Brown, I think we've got to be a good one. Marie Brown. Marie Brown.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Because we fell in love with our Heather Pringle girl, yes, woman, and Neil Price. Yes. And it's just fun to learn, get connected with people through their writings and with the similar interests. Yeah, she would be cool.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

So that's what even for our listeners, we're trying to help these women live louder in history and and learn from them. And I learned a lot from Gudrid, I feel like.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Oh, yeah. I had my Gudrid moment in my personal life with her. She really was a tour guide through this time. It when you think you're gonna sit down and learn about the Viking age, and then you realize, oh well, I need to know about the pantheon of their gods, and I need to know about this ritual, and I need to what? They went to Russia, and just she was the safe tour guide of venture out, go. I mean, we've been reading about her since December now, and it's she was a wonderful deseer. Yeah, she was. Yes, she is, yeah. And and so much that I mean, I feel like I have gotten in tune with uh the Norse uh not religion, but the Norse side of me and the figuring out what speaks to me, these runes, and I would have never um maybe she'd be bummed, she'd probably want me to be Christian, but or put a mass or something, but well, some of our grandmothers did that, so they did it for us. But to have been able, she was just to engage in this historic world, yeah, she was what we needed to be able to do this, you know?

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Because it was overwhelming at first.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

I mean, I think about her, because you know we're new, I'm a news crazy lady, and watching this world that we're in right now, even thinking about her being a reckoning woman and dealing with all the changes she dealt with, and how just thinking about there's a different way to do it than be reactionary. Just do your thing, just go where you're called and do what do your thing, kinda. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

And be who you are wherever you're going. Yeah. Be open to change. Obviously, she had big changes, and kind of being your own best friend throughout it all.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

And yeah, I mean she needs her own manga. She needs like to be the with the boobs that are way out there, and like she probably had the flowing hair.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

I know, she's fascinating. So yeah, yay, we love her, and we're grateful for her.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

And I love the way you said that she is the best tour guide I think we could have had for a thousand AD. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you all for listening. Um, we will be back with more people.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

Yeah. Right? For sure. I think as our idea is to now focus woman by woman by woman, try that out. Yeah. Because this was like, oh, learn this whole world and study these maps, and which was awesome. But I feel like, and we would we love that we got Snow Gudred, and maybe we had a couple of our other women here and there, but are we trying to get more women, women, woman every episode is a different woman?

SPEAKER_00 58:30

I think so. I think we can pick up the pace now and we're comfortable speaking. We can talk Thai or talk pagan or talk Christian, whatever, or Slovenian. We can get in there.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

We need to get over there and get in.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Get over to our thank you for sharing and any comments or any stories you want us to tell, we're happy to do.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

Yeah. And it's oh, that's perfect because we could have someone else's person we could talk to.

SPEAKER_00 59:02

Yeah, we would totally love it if you've got a grandmother. We are ready for her.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

We're ready to do that.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Thank you. Okay. I hate to say goodbye to Gujard, but I maybe we don't have to. She's with us. She travels, she's portable.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

She's portable. She'll she'll come with us to these other ladies.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Okay, good. I know I'm kind of sad. I am too. Were we thinking we were being done with her today?

SPEAKER_00 59:33

No, I was I don't think I was ready. I think we needed to be done.

SPEAKER_01 59:36

But this is an Irish goodbye for Gudrick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

I'm good at Irish goodbyes. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Okay, bye. Bye.