Shield maidens and the heroic genre

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

There are some notable women warriors in the Bible as well. Not as many as in the other traditions that have been discussed, but they are there.

Judges 4 especially comes to mind. At the time Israel was under attack from Jabin, the king of Canaan, and his general Sisera. The (political) leader of Israel at the time was a prophetess called Deborah, and her general was Barak. Deborah commanded the military over Barak's head:

Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the LORD gone out before thee? JDG 4:14b KJV

and she prophecied Sisera's defeat by a woman:

for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. JDG 4:9b KJV

That woman was Jael, one of the strongest female figures in the Bible. Her husband, Heber, was a traitor to Israel, working with Sisera; so when he came to their tent seeking shelter Jael invited him in. She got him drunk and then drove a tent peg through his temples and into the ground while he slept.

And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples. JDG 4:22 KJV

Sorry I had to use King James, it was the best online version I could find on short notice. But Tolkien's Christianity does play a role in his writing, and the concept of the woman warrior isn't entirely absent in the Bible. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Edit:] Jael falls more into the camp of the avenging woman than the Valkyrie, she was in a sense trying to atone for her husband's treachery. Deborah on the other hand was a strong female leader who was "raised up", and probably trained from childhood.

Sophia

[ April 09, 2003: Message edited by: Sophia the Thunder Mistress ]