Yngnah (repost)

The home is the sphere where a woman many reign supreme.  At least, where the care of such sundry items as child-rearing are concerned.  My mother passed such divine knowledge unto me, in the year of our lord, 912, before the Almighty saw fit to take her life.  My mother taught me things a woman ought to know, even as she lie expiring upon her straw pallet.  She had only me, and although a child still, I was old enough at least to send her off with a dog at her feet and her sword in her hand.  A longship we had no longer, and even if we had, I would not have been strong enough to defend it from thieves.  
    When my mother,the greatest of the shield maidens that had served the great Lagertha had descended beyond even the powers of Ineata, wisewoman of the village, I closed my eyes and laid my brow against her wasted arm.  I prayed to the gods of old, and the Christian one fore good measure, that she may be allowed into the Halls of Valhalla, although she had not died in battle. 
   I knew not the name of the man that sired me, but my mother told me once that he had not come with the wave upon waves of Christians, clad in their rough woolen smocks and shaven heads.  I would have gone to him, if I could have.  If i knew where he was, or even who he was.  I would ask him to learn me in the arts of the Ulfberht; I would ask him to help me become a shield maiden like my mother, most trusted warrior of Lagertha, wife of Ragnar Lodbrok.  
    My mother had not wished a raider and warrior's life for her daughter.  Had I not been born beautiful, it is likely I would have had my way.  Instead, for all my wit, I was cursed with a fair face.  I was raised not to fight, but to bear fighters.  My glories could come only from my sons.  
    A beautiful woman cannot be taken seriously, and an ugly woman cannot be trusted.  This I understood only upon reaching my fourteenth summer.  The pain in my flesh almost rivaled the pain of being alone, bereft of a mother.  This second pain I inflicted upon myself, for a woman scarred, at least, is neither beautiful nor ugly.