Women Warriors in History: The ACTUAL Truth

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If the figure of Celtic warrior women is a "trope" now rooted in the collective imagination, partly due
to cinematography, we are probably dealing with a forced and specious interpretation of historical
sources in this specific case. These sources certainly offer us the image of female figures who were
more independent compared to those of the classical world, but who did not embrace a true
widespread warrior tradition.
Warrior Women in Irish Myth
The warrior woman is a recurring figure in Irish mythology. However, upon closer analysis, it quickly
becomes clear that this is not a realistic element, but rather something pregnant with allegorical and
initiatory characteristics.
To begin with, the majority of warrior women in Irish myths are never originally from Ireland, but
always come from another nation or territory: from Scotland, Britain, or even Scythia, to emphasize a
sense of otherness.
Moreover, most warrior women always present physical characteristics that separate them from
normal human beings and link them more to fairy creatures, semi-divine beings, or mythological
entities.
For example, the warrior Dornolla, who falls in love with the Celtic hero Cù Chulaìnn, Scáthach,
originally from Scotland, has her feet reversed, with her heels facing outward and her toes inward, a
characteristic that recalls inversion and which in Celtic folklore is typical of fairy beings.
In short: these are not real women, but mythological and archetypal creatures.
In particular, in myth, the function of the warrior woman is almost always to instruct the hero, the
protagonist of the story, in particular martial arts, secret moves, and superlative and unknown
combat techniques.
Through their teaching, the warrior is reborn a hero; from a common fighter, he becomes a heroic
fighter, a champion, and therefore necessarily the figure that allows the warrior to carry forward this
path must be female, as it is a second birth.
So, on closer inspection, these warrior women do not reflect a reality of the Irish world, but on the
contrary, are indeed allegorical figures typical of legend.
Celtic and Germanic Women in Classical Chronicles
The accounts of the Classics have certainly contributed to some extent to the creation of the figure of the Celtic warrior woman.
Celtic women, more independent in some respects than Greek and Roman women, had struck the
imagination of the Mediterranean peoples, who in some cases describe them in great detail.
However, if we analyze their writings in detail, we realize that the Classics never explicitly speak of a properly warrior woman as far as the Celts are concerned.
The first figure that stands out from the chronicles is certainly that of Boudica, the queen of the
Iceni, a Celtic people of Britain whom she leads into battle revolting against the Romans

Boudica is described by Tacitus as haranguing her troops from the top of her war chariot and leading
them into battle, but rather than a warrior woman, the picture that emerges is that of a woman
leader.
Moreover, we are talking about a queen, therefore an exponent of the noble class, not a common
Celtic woman, and who is also a widow and has become at the moment the only point of reference
for her people in an exceptional moment of crisis, which has led the Iceni to clash against their
previous allies, namely the Romans.
So a very particular figure in a very particular context.
There is then a passage, which is often used to leverage the interpretation of Celtic warrior women,
by Ammianus Marcellinus:
"Almost all the Gauls are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond
of quarrelling, and of overbearing insolence. In fact, a whole band of foreigners will be unable to
cope with one of them in a fight, if he calls in his wife, stronger than he by far and with flashing eyes;
least of all when she swells her neck and gnashes her teeth, and poising her huge white arms,
proceeds to rain punches mingled with kicks, like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapult"
Ammianus Marcellinus, Histories, XV, 12, 1-2
Ammianus writes in the 4th century AD and speaks of the Gauls of Transalpine Gaul, which has been a Roman province for over 350 years.

We are clearly facing a passage that is deliberately satirical and comical, and which does not describe
a combat or a battle, but a sort of brawl, with kicks and punches, and which if anything can be used
to emphasize how, in the eyes of the Romans, the women of Northern Europe were of an
indomitable and violent nature, and were much less composed than the solemn Roman matrons

#history #womenwarriors #mythbusting