With their warrior culture and reputation for violence,
it's easy to think that the Viking world was a macho, male-orientated place.
But actually, Viking women were powerful, influential and important too.
The discovery in 2017 that a grave containing two sacrificed horses
and an armoury of weapons belonged to a woman
has led to suggestions that women could fight as warriors.
Grave goods show that women held the keys to property, conducted trade,
travelled long distances and acted as religious leaders.
They could even divorce their husbands for wearing women's clothing!
So it's not entirely surprising to discover
that one of the first people to settle Iceland in
the 9th Century wasn't a bearded, strong Scandinavian man,
but rather a woman from Scotland
with the excellent name, 'Aud the Deepminded'.
Her father was a military leader from Norway called Ketill Flatnose,
and she travelled with him around the British Isles to Ireland.
Here she married the self-styled 'King of Dublin', Olaf the White,
and they had a son named Thorstein the Red.
The Vikings liked elaborate nicknames and others include
Eystein Foul-Fart, Eirik Ale-lover and Thorgeir the Clumsy.
Aud's name - 'the Deepminded' - suggests she was known for her wisdom,
but she also developed a reputation as someone
who could turn the fates to her own ends.
One text says that no one "has ever got out of a state of war
with so much wealth and so great a following."
When her husband died she left Ireland and relocated to Scotland with her son,
but his death in battle meant she was in search of a new place to settle.
Aud commissioned a huge ship, known as
a ‘knarr’, which she had built secretly in the Hebridean forests.
Then she packed up her remaining family
and with twenty followers, set sail for the Arctic north.
She is described as the 'captain' of the ship,
and sets about diplomatic wrangling,
marrying off various daughters along the way.
When the crew finally reached
the inhospitable Icelandic terrain, Aud took charge once again.
She freed slaves then partitioned off sections of land to her followers.
Her life is recorded in many of the Old Norse sagas, and
she is still celebrated in Iceland as the grand matriarch of the population.
In fact, when a DNA study was conducted on families that had lived in Iceland
for many generations, it showed that the earliest inhabitants were descended
from men that originated in Scandinavia, and women from Scotland and Ireland.
Aud may be a direct ancestor of many people in Iceland today.
The details of her old age are touching and help us to imagine a real woman
- her health deteriorating after her many adventures:
"Old age fell now fast on Aud so that she didn't get up
till mid-day and went to bed early.
She didn't allow anyone to come to her for advice
between the time she went to sleep and nighttime.
And she was very angry if anyone asked how it fared with her strength".
She is described as "a woman both tall and portly"
and was buried with great ceremony in a ship surrounded by treasure.
While we don't know exactly where Aud was buried,
a discovery in Norway showed that women could be buried in the most lavish way.
The Oseberg ship is the finest Viking boat ever discovered.
Inside its elaborately carved 20 metre-long hull,
two women were buried with everything they would need to feast,
fight and have fun in the afterlife.
There were beds, clothes, cauldrons of food, carts, sledges,
and even a dog collar which still looks like it was made yesterday.
These women were considered so important by their community
that an entire hall full of treasures were buried alongside them.
The Oseberg ship and Aud the Deepminded
show us a different side to the Viking world;
one where it was women who were the movers, shakers and decision makers.