So weave we, weird sisters,
Our warwinning woof.
Now Warwinner walketh
To weave in her turn,
Now Swordswinger steppeth,
Now Swiftstroke, now Storm;
When they speed the shuttle
How spearheads shall flash!
Shields crash, and helmgnawer
On harness bite hard!
- Njál's saga
Five centuries ago thousands of Amazons were taken prisoner by the Greeks after the disastrous Battle of Heraclea. The Amazon prisoners were taken aboard a fleet of ships to transport them across the Aegean to the Greek Cities, where they were to be sold into slavery. However, they were able to free themselves and slay the Greek crews. But not being sailors they could not find their way back home. Instead they drifted and eventually made landfall on the northern shores of the Euxine Sea (Black Sea).
There they encountered the Scythians, and after a minor battle with them, they made peace with the nomads. The Scythians were impressed with the martial prowess of the Amazons, and many wished to have them as wives. The Amazons quarreled with one another over the issue, and in the end were divided. Some of them went with the Scythians, but still refused to return to their settlements with them. Instead they rode off across the plains to the east, where they founded the new Sarmatian people.
The rest of the Amazons marched inland, and after journeying many months they grew tired of wandering and finally gave up hope of ever finding their way back home to Amazonia. So they carved a new home for themselves deep in the forests north of the great plains, in a place they found was rich in gold and teeming with wild game. Here they founded a new city of Vanahemir.
Realizing that without children their people would die out, they kidnapped men from the surrounding tribes to be their husbands, teaching these men their proper place in Amazon society or killing them in the process. These bitter raids and later genocidal wars resulted in the barbarians naming the Amazons "Valkyrja", which in their tongue means "Chooser of the Slain". The name was popular among the Amazons, and eventually it seeped into their culture so thoroughly that they could not think of calling themselves anything else.
It was also at this time that the Valkyrja adopted the dragon as their symbol. To their barbarian neighbors the dragon was a monstrous beast which they all feared. However, the Amazons had always known the serpent as a symbol of women's wisdom and power. A creature of the Underworld that knows the secrets of regeneration and rebirth. They saw the northern dragon as nothing more than a new face upon their old and dearly loved serpent, and laughed at the fools who dreaded it.
The hardships these women survived taught them to be even more independent of mind and spirit and self-sufficient that other Amazons. This is reflected in the government that they adopted: A Democracy, similar to that of the Athenian Greeks, only centuries before them. It is a place where all free women have a voice, and leaders are elected rather than born to theri positions. These women bow to no one, hold no Queen to be above them, and refuse to let anyone other than themselves be the rulers of their destiny. Indeed, their warleaders are simply called "Equals", and their supreme military leader is known as the "First Equal".
It should come as no surprise then that when in time merchants and explorers of the Valkyrja came into contact with similar travelers from their original homeland again relations were not cordial. In fact the first meeting resulted in several deaths when the Amazonians argued that the Valkyrja should pay homage to their Queen and recognize her as their rightful ruler. There has been nothing but bad-blood between the two Amazon nations since.
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