Do NOT write a woman love poetry
The reputation of a woman represented the honor of the family in Viking culture. The prohibitions against love poetry help to explain why courtships were little practiced in the Viking period. While the goddess Freyja was the patroness of mansongar, and delighted in love poetry, mortal women had to be more cautious. Love poems were viewed in law as a distinct slur upon a woman’s reputation, suggesting that the poet had had a more intimate knowledge of his beloved than was considered seemly. But Viking culture could sometimes be a bit confusing, considering intimacy out of wedlock was not prohibited. It wasn’t encouraged, but it seems as though it was fairly common to have relations prior to marriage.
Skalds also made mansongr, “maiden-songs” or love poems, composed despite laws ordaining outlawry or death for the skald who dared to make them: “Well considered, the woman’s worth the whole of Iceland…/ Heavy though my heart… of Hunland, and of Denmark;/ Not for all of England’s earth and kingdoms would I / Forego the golden-braided girl, ay, nor for Ireland.” (The Skalds: A Selection of their Poems with Introduction and Notes). Another touching passage sings the song of love: ” I little reck… to reach her risked I have my life oft… / Though I be slain within the arms of my beloved, / Sleeping in the Sif-of-silken-gowns’ embraces: / For the fair-haired woman feel I love unending.” (Ibid., p. 134).