When I am not in the throes of worldbuilding or developing a novel, I am a cat-owning, tea-drinking garden enthusiast with a serious bread addiction. I live very quietly, and because of my many chronic health conditions spend most of my time either devouring good period dramas when I'm in the mood for TV, pursuing my artistic projects, or dwelling in ninth-tenth century Norway. I love reading sagas, Eddic poetry, and chronicles.
In case you're not familiar with the term, a "scald", or more properly, "skald", is an old word for a poet. It's borrowed from the Old Norse "skáldr". In ancient times, throughout Germanic culture, the function of poets and formal poetry was purely reserved for the courts of earls and kings. Like all roles within a noble's court, it was predominantly masculine. However, there were instances of lady court poets or scalds, notably a 10th-century Norwegian girl called Jórunn skáldmær—Jórunn the poet-maiden, or as I put it playfully, the "scaldic maide".
