Bare-Sarked Warrior: A Brief Cultural History of Battlefield Exposure

On the shores of medieval North America, two civilizations — Norse and Native — clash. The descendents of the vikings who had terrorized Europe break and run, quaking in the face of the unknown. Then a lone woman steps in, acting in a most unpredictable way to turn the tide. She is Freydís Eiríksdóttir, the first in a series of bare-sarked warriors whom this book explores. In their darkest hours, as societies teeter on the edge, these paradoxical saviors emerge to perform an alchemical swap: they substitute domesticated, gendered trouble for an unspeakable alien menace. Tracing their topos over a millennium or two, four continents, and a dozen or so languages, this book is about these women’s struggles, their triumphs, and the prices they pay.