Spoken words: equality and dynamics within a group of women skalds in the third century ad, Skovgårde, Denmark.

IRON Age; BEADS in folklore; SCALDS & scaldic poetry; ARCHAEOLOGY; SOCIAL status; HISTORY; ANTIQUITIES

In the third century ad a group of women, who wore a certain kind of bead set on the chest, was buried in a burial ground in Skovgårde in the southern part of Zealand in Denmark. I suggest that these women constituted a sub-group in which the members shared the skill of skalding and that the pieces in the bead sets, of which many were exotic and old already when they were worn, had been used as mnemonics during the composing of stories and poetry. The members of this sub-group were societal equals in the matter of class and gender but, nonetheless, a hierarchical order probably existed within the group based on skill, age and experience. However, the relations between the members of the group were probably mainly of a cooperative nature and as a sub-group they may have had opportunities for common strategies in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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