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The shield wall or skjaldborg was a main formation in which accomplished Viking warriors would create a line of interlocked shields and thrust spears at adversaries. Other notable tactics included the svinfylking "boar battle formation", in which warriors would create a wedge configuration and attempt to burst through the front line of nearby foes.
The shield-wall was commonly used in many parts of Northern Europe such as in England and Scandinavia.. A mention of "ſcild ƿeall" (shield-wall) in Beowulf. In the battles between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes in England, most of the Saxon army would have consisted of the inexperienced fyrd, a militia composed of free peasants.
The term Shield-maiden is a calque of the Old Norse: skjaldmær.Since Old Norse has no word that directly translates to warrior, but rather drengr, rekkr and seggr can all refer to male warrior and bragnar can mean warriors, it is problematic to say that the term meant female warrior to Old Norse speakers.
Birka grave Bj 581 held a female Viking warrior buried with weapons during the 10th century in Birka, Sweden. Although the remains had been thought to be of a male warrior since the grave's excavation in 1878, both a 2014 osteological analysis and a 2017 DNA study proved that the remains were of a female.
Evidence indicates that alder, willow, and poplar wood were the most common types; shields of maple, birch, ash, and oak have also been discovered. [91] The diameter of shields greatly varied, ranging from 0.3 to 0.92 m (1 to 3 ft), although most shields were between 0.46 to 0.66 m (1 ft 6 in to 2 ft 2 in) in diameter. [92]
But Alfhild, advised by her mother, fled from Alf dressed as a man, and she became a shield maiden. Alf and his Scanian comrade, Borgar, together with their Danish sea-warriors, searched for and eventually found Alfhild and her fleet by the coast of southern Finland. After some deadly fighting aboard the ships, Alfhild's helmet was knocked off ...
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In the shield wall, the Vikings would stand close together in order to overlap their shields, thus creating a wall out of shields. Another formation that was also used, called the Svinfylking , was a variation to the shield wall but with several wedge-like formations pointing towards the enemy, creating a zig-zag pattern.