Essay: the Northman’s He-Witch is the Drag Queen of the Gods
Essay by Robin Spinks
Robert Eggers’ third feature film The Northman is the most accurate on-screen portrayal of Viking history and mythology, period. Norse-history enthusiasts rejoice at the period-accurate costumes, custom-built villages, and allusions to epic sagas – especially Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) catching a spear mid-air and throwing it back to impale a Slavic guard. It also features a cross-dressing shaman, an unusual image for fantasy, but one with roots in ancient myth. To succeed in his quest Amleth must overcome social norms, and does so by transgressing the boundaries of class and gender.
I won’t recount the entire plot here but essentially Amleth is on a quest to kill his uncle Fjolnir to avenge his father and free his mother. If this sounds familiar it’s because the legend of Amleth inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The film depicts a range of significant magic users from Nordic mythology. The court jester Heimir (Willem Dafoe) guides a young Amleth and his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke) in a shapeshifting vision ceremony, wherein they consume psychedelic substances and take on the persona of wolves. Gender becomes a focus of the movie in this scene, with Heimir intones:
“It is women who know the mysteries of men. The Norns that spin and weave at their well of Fate, Freyja the shining goddess, The Choosers of the Slain.”
This scene is mirrored later as a shaman leads adult Amleth and his fellow berserkers in a shapeshifting ceremony to take on the persona of wolves and bears. Bjork appears as a seer to remind Amleth of his destiny. Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy) uses her sorcery (and psychedelic mushrooms) to “break the minds of men”, distracting the guards around Fjolnir’s hold with psychedelic mushrooms. But there was one particular mystical figure that stuck out to me in this film: the He-Witch.
Around the middle of the movie, Amleth has made his way to Fjolnir’s home – a sheep farming village on a remote island – posing as a slave, intending to infiltrate and assassinate his uncle/owner/lord. But he doesn’t have a plan. Throughout the story, Amleth has an affinity with animals, and one fateful night a fox leads him into the forest. The relentless beating of a shamanic drum and a deep, sonorous voice chanting leads him to a cave. Inside he encounters an old man bearing the head of the fool, Heimir (in the style of the famous skull of Yoric in Hamlet). The old man is the He-Witch, a practitioner of ancient and mysterious magic. He wears a dress with tortoise brooches – traditionally strictly female clothing. He tells Amleth of the location of a sword that will help him on his quest, a classic trope in the hero’s journey. This whole scene is a nod to a story about Odin, the main god in Norse mythology.
Modern pop culture (like the TV show Vikings) might have you believing that ancient Nords were rather progressive, with female characters leading tribes, wearing pants and enjoying sexual liberation. Such stories can be entertaining, but they should be portrayed as fantasy, not history.
“But what about valkyries? They’re like super bad-ass female angel-of-death types that fuck shit up on the battlefield!”, I hear you say. In the ancient Norse sagas, the role of Valkyries is to shepherd the souls of fallen warriors to Valhalla, where they serve mead and sleep with the mighty, masculine heroes. In other words, they are a mythical femme fatale designed to induce soldiers to risk death on the battlefield for the promise of an eternal party. Not exactly a feminist archetype.
“Shieldmaidens then! They were fierce female warriors.” There are legends of women rising to powerful positions, like the 13th-century epic of Hervor, but this certainly was not the norm. History is history, and in the remaining legal texts, we have been shown that real Vikings lived in strictly patriarchal societies. The vast majority of Vikings were bound (read: oppressed) by clearly defined gender roles, including different types of work and clothing for men and women. Breaching these social protocols would have been cause for punishment, including exile, enslavement or death. For this reason, the He-Witch in The Northman lives in a cave outside of the village. It may also be the reason he is happy to aid Amleth on his quest for vengeance.
But if gender fluidity was so taboo in Viking culture, why is it so prominent in Norse mythology? The three stories below depict some of the most masculine of the Aesir beaching gender norms, perhaps being able to do so as they are outside of human society. In each story, gender fluidity is seen as a shameful burden that the man must bear.
Odin, the Allfather and mightiest of the Aesir, is obsessed with knowledge. He has spies everywhere in the form of ravens, including in The Northman when he sends a murder of them to free Amleth. In particular, he desires knowledge about seidr, a form of magic practised by women.
On one occasion, Odin learned of an island occupied solely by female witches known as Völvas, who practised seidr. Knowing that he would not be able to take this knowledge by force, Odin concocted a ruse. He went to the island dressed as a woman and ingratiated himself with the Völvas so that he could join in their drumming rituals.
At a later feast among the Aesir, Odin is mocked for this breach of the social convention by Loki – an ironic insult given that he also likes to change genders every now and again.
Many Norse legends begin with Loki – Odin’s blood-brother – either running his mouth or making a foolish wager. ONe such story begins when a giant turns up in Asgard bragging about his strength, and Loki dares him to try to build a giant wall in an impossibly short timeframe. The giant is assisted by a stallion that helps him drag the mountainous blocks of stone required. When it looks like the impossible task will be completed ahead of time, Loki makes a desperate move: he shapeshifts into a mare in heat. Using his feminine pheromones, Loki is able to distract the giant’s horse, and the two disappear into the woods together for almost a year. When Loki returns – in his regular form – he brings a foal, his child, who he names Sleipnir.
Loki doesn’t just change appearance, he completely changes gender and species for an extended period, and bears a child!
Loki also uses a similar gender-swapping tactic to resolve a situation at Freya’s wedding. This wedding was a matter of blackmail, where the giant king Thrym stole Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and demanded Freya’s hand in marriage before he would return it. Freya refuses adamantly but, being a woman, doesn’t really get a say. Luckily, Loki has a plan.
Freya is said to be the most beautiful woman in the nine realms, so Loki tells Thrym she is to appear veiled at their wedding, and to only remove her veil when the feast is complete. In fact, Thor is eagerly waiting to get his hands on Mjolnir beneath the veil and gown so he can smash in Thrym’s face, which is exactly what happens.
So, although none of them are happy about it, the three most notable male figures in Norse mythology all feature in stories of gender fluidity, giving clear precedent for the powerful He-Witch’s appearance in feminine garb.
The Northman is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Foxtel Go and Binge.
Robin is an economist, blacksmith, sewing enthusiast and dungeon master from Dharawal country on the south coast of NSW. A weaver of threads and tales alike, Robin's childhood obsession with fantasy has grown into a love for the magic of history and mythology. To follow Robin's adventures with creative anachronism, check out HexForgeAU on Youtube and Instagram.
This essay was generously donated by Robin.
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