Wicked witches or worldly women? Gender, power, and magic in medieval literature

Though other scholars have examined magic in medieval literature, this study provides a specific analysis of valkyries, their use of magic as a means of attaining adequate social power to gain freedom from a wholly domestic existence, and an analysis of how this representation contrasts with other contemporary English and French literary tendencies. This study examines the valkyries without the scholarly bias of wickedness and malevolence, which highlights their central position in Old Norse-Icelandic culture. Without the stigma of the categorization of "witched witches," it becomes clear that the valkyries were not marginalized women; rather, they were part of the mainstream cultural existence of Old Norse-Icelandic society. This study provides a fuller picture of the Germanic world, including Nordic, Icelandic, and Scandinavian cultures, and its literature---where women and men were valued based on their strength and fortitude, rather than solely on their biological sex.