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Nancy Marie Brown

Biography

Nancy Marie Brown

Nancy Marie Brown is the author of highly praised books of nonfiction, including SONG OF THE VIKINGS and IVORY VIKINGS. They have been favorably reviewed in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Economist, The Times Literary Supplement, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications. Brown has spent decades studying Icelandic literature and culture. She lives on a farm in Vermont where she keeps four Icelandic horses and an Icelandic sheepdog.

Nancy Marie Brown

Books by Nancy Marie Brown

The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women
by Nancy Marie Brown - History, Nonfiction

In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden was actually a woman. THE REAL VALKYRIE weaves together archaeology, history and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined. Nancy Marie Brown uses science to link the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines her life intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as The Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv.