A fantasy viking woman standing at the beach, looking over the sea, in the sunset

Has been sailing with her father from when she could barely walk, the reason being that her mother died in childbirth (her little brother died soon after).

Knows the star constellations by heart, making her an excellent navigator at night.

Wants to seek her fortune and get her own merchant ship, but doesn’t know how to convince her father who is just a fisherman, not a trader, to let her sail away.

Likes:

  • sailing
  • looking at the horizon, whether from land or sea, and wondering what is beyond
  • the Butterbelly sisters, and considers Ingunn her best friend, but only sees them when they come to the village for supplies
  • smooth surfaces, polished and sharpened tools, fish scales, everything that glitters and reflects light, smooth leather
  • Ómarr and Sólmundr, would like to get to know them better 🤫 (secret) but they are always at sea

Dislikes:

  • wastefulness, and will scold anyone who throws fish guts into the sea instead of making a broth or at least feeding them to the dog
  • Kaðall, since she asked him about working on his ship and he told her no, not because she wasn’t a good sailor, but because she was a woman
  • swimming, even though Ingunn insists that she train every time they meet
  • repairing nets; prefers to bring them to Firuza

Notes

If you want to read a short plot summary of a story involving Sólrún, I asked an AI text generator to come up with her story, but the results were a bit … predictable at best.

Kjallakr is an [Irish] or [Gaelic] name found in the Book of Settlement (the spelling is Old Norse). So Sólrún’s family has [Irish] or [Norse-Gaelic] roots.

Ingunn, Firuza and Kaðall are upcoming characters:

  1. Ingunn is one of three siblings living at a farm who will all be published soon-ish and who I like very much. Their father Haraldr goes by the nickname of Butterbelly and, because Haraldr is a common name, is mostly referred to by his nickname, and so are his children. I have written an entire article on Old Norse names, including nicknames.
  2. Firuza lives in the village and has a [Turk] background. (Read more about my use of country and region names here)
  3. Kaðall the Lucky is a fisherman from [Ireland], if I remember correctly. But with so many characters, I sometimes get them mixed up!

Death in childbirth was a much more common cause of death in the „good old times“, but it still is a horrible and very real threat to women around the world. 👉 Read more about it here.