Gunnhildr

Gunnhild — Eiríkr Bloodaxe's queen, 'the king-mother' — is one of the great malign women of the sagas, a sorceress whose hatred drives feuds across two generations. Beautiful, clever, and implacable, she is the power behind her violent husband and then behind her sons, scheming tirelessly to win and keep them the throne of Norway. In Egil's saga she is the hero's lifelong supernatural enemy, working witchcraft against him and never forgiving him; in Heimskringla she outlives Eiríkr and spends her widowhood pressing her sons' war against the good King Hakon, the tireless engine of the wars that finally kill him. Gunnhild is the saga world's image of the woman whose weapon is influence and magic rather than the sword — feared, hated, and never defeated, a queen whose long memory and longer malice reach out of one reign into the next. The implacable king-mother who would not let her sons' claim die.