Viking Woman coloring page

Viking Woman training with Sword

A photo of my awesome niece was the original source or model for this drawing  My niece is holding a Viking style sword.  She trains people in sword fighting skills.  She is also a brilliant illustrator.  Maybe we got the same drawing gene... but she must have got more of it than I did.  

Before you think that Viking women never went to battle, so they would not need to do any training with a sword, I want to let you know that Viking women, at least SOMETIMES did fight in battles.  

The Byzantine era was around A.D. 971.  A historian, from that era, named Johannes Skylitzes, recorded that women were fighting with the men.  He referred to Varangian Vikings in a battle against the Bulgarians. 

The Viking longhouse you see in the background is made of timber frames, walls of wattle and daub... and sporting a thatched roof.  In Iceland, where wood became scarce due to over cutting, the Vikings built houses of sod.  The woven fence you see is a Viking style fence.

The Viking families or family lived in the center section of the longhouse.  One end housed a barn or stable and the other end of the longhouse was often a workshop. Some longhouses were 250 feet long!  That would be over 76 meters! 

This drawing is not of a myth, nor is it fantasy or circus... but I am putting the drawing, in printable form, under the category button labeled "Fantasy, Myths, and Circus" ...because I don't have a historical category.  Maybe I should make one...

So click on the "Fantasy, Myths, and Circus" button up top and scroll down to the bottom of the list of titles to get to this drawing.  I will also let you know that if you know how to save and print the drawing on this blog page, it is a PNG file and it saves and prints better than the PDF files of the printables.  Have fun coloring.