Æstrid Firthgestdottir

Shipbuilder / Shield Maiden Village of Skagen

Name: Æstrid (Aestrid) - means divine strength and divine beauty
Last name: Firthgestdottir
Title: none
Age: 30 years old
Place of birth: Unknown
Place of residence: Skagen
Rank: Shipbuilder | Shield maiden
Faceclaim: Keira Knightly

Personality:
~ Eccentric ~ Æstrid is quite an usual women, and has some centerpieces that she hasn't broken because she was actually born in foreign lands. Often, she will speak in a way that causes eyes to raise. It isn't blasphemous, but more like out of left field. Æstrid very much marches to the beat of another drummer. It is well-known by those in the village that the pretty brunette is bi-romantic and bisexual, with an eye towards both sides. And well, Æstrid is a devout follower of Freya, the Vanir goddess that joined the Aesir and has become famous for her fondness of love, fertility, beauty, fine material possessions and the “party girl” of the Aesir. The reason this really fits with Æstrid because she is quite promiscuous. She is hot-blooded, and forceful, so you had better be able to handle the heat!

~ Volatile & Unpredictable Emotionally  ~ In general, she has a very upbeat and magnetic personality. One of the most difficult things when dealing with her is that she tends to be living at two ends of a personality spectrum - half the time there is a sensitive side to her when she is fine and happy, and the other half, there is a bold & brash fire in the belly as a whirling tornadic bitch. In her more sensitive times, Æstrid will literally go to pieces over what she did in her angry times.

~ Independent & Spunky ~ Overall, she is very independent, and believes strongly that her gender is just as equal as men - hence why she has worked hard to train herself to fight very well & become a shield maiden. Every since she was very young, Æstrid has been incredibly spunky & courageous, such as when as a six year old, she snuck into Firthgest's camp to steal meat & fought twice against vikings - even though it wasn't effective. Although, there is also a very selfish side to her nature. If confronted, Æstrid can be quite childish & aggressive and are known to have temper tantrums should she not get her way.

~ Explorer & Risk-taker ~ Æstrid is incorrigibly curious, and has a love of exploring around & hunting. Æstrid's navigation and orientation skills are quite good, and she learnt how to move quickly & quietly keeping to cover for when she hunts. She is also willing to take risks and gamble, and likely to just walk away if it doesn't work.

She is notorious for not finishing what she has begun, and tends to have to be prodded back to it, as she has a low tolerance for boredom and lack of patience. It also explains her habits of promiscuity.

~ Devoted to her son ~ Æstrid is a very good mother and will do anything for her son, Asvard Ragisson. She enjoys telling him stories and spending time with him teaching him how to fight & how to continue the traditions of Skagen ship-building.

~ Friendly & Optimistic ~ Æstrid is always looking out for her friends with caring and generosity, and will protect them should the need arise and encourage them with her natural optimism. Nothing will get her down and she will always try to see the sunny side of situations - even in the middle of a rainstorm, combat or in a thunderstorm.

~ Exceptional Shipbuilder ~ Æstrid is quite proud of her shipbuilding & carpentry skills that are the culmination of centuries of experimental boat-building, how to keep the relationships between many factors like the length of the keel, the size of the stem post, the number of planks, and the radius of curvature of the plank lines at the stem.

She learnt a lot from her father and other shipbuilders as a shipbuilding apprentice about construction building from the outside & then internal framing, how to make the most streamlined hulls in the clinker style and how to make sails & rigging that help allow the Skagen ships to be some of the best. She also developed a natural sense of how to select only the best wood from trees by touch, smell & sight and when she is working with just an axe, Æstrid knows how to followed the grain of the wood, to get the most strength and flexibility for the lowest weight.

Æstrid feels a real sense of affection for all the ships that she builds, considering them to be her other children and secretly carves their names with runes as a personal touch.

Appareance:
Æstrid has a bit of a foreign look to her, and has a naturally feral demeanor. Her skin is pale and she has dark-brown hair that is often quite bedraggled. Her body is quite slim, only weighing 119 lbs, but she's quite tall at 5' 7". And she's quite flat in the chest area to her dismay. Æstrid has a tendency to feel the cold as she is quite slim and so wraps up in furs when she is working outside.

When she goes into battle, she likes to paint her skin with natural pigments and has a tendency to be one of the first rushing in charging - often with lots of screaming. Æstrid's choice of weaponry matches her adaptability in that it depends on the situation that she sees she could be in - alternating between a Viking bow, two smaller swords in dual-wield style or a larger sword and shield. That being said, she is also quite adept with an axe being a shipbuilder, but finds that they are a bit too clumsy for combat.

Æstrid's ship-building tools were quite extensive - often using adzes, augers, axes, chisels, draw knives, files, gouges, moulding irons, planes, rasps, saws and lathes. She isn't as good as a blacksmith and relies on others for that, although she knows the basics.

Partners:
Ragi Granisson (deceased)

Children:
Asvard Ragisson (10 years old)

Parents:
Biologically - unknown.
Adoptive - Firthgest Svipdaysson (deceased) and Una Bergdottir, both of Skagen

Siblings:
Sigeweard Firthgestsson (deceased)
Tofa Firthgestdottir
Hoskuld Firthgestsson

History:
Æstrid is not a native of viking lands, and instead was brought there by an Viking radningar, Firthgest Svipdaysson, who found her on the shores of some other land he didn't know the name of & took her in. The story of how they met started when she was six years old and the Skagen ships were damaged in a storm, so they sought shelter.

She had been scared and alone - but when the Vikings found her, she fought bravely and belted one of them with a branch she grabbed. when one of the Vikings picked her up to stop her, she turned and bit him on the arm hard, causing him to drop her and she ran off.

She hid in the undergrowth and wasn't found, but eventually the Vikings gave up and made camp. The little girl didn't know where her family was as they had left her when fleeing, and she stayed close to the strange men who had peaked her curiosity.

At some point, she closed her eyes and slept a little, waking to hear them still going. Her tummy rumbled at the smell of roasting meat, and spotting a group that seem distracted, the little girl slinked down & crawled out carefully with the intent to knick some.

But she was caught and tried to fight to escape, but there was no chance. The spunky little girl was brought over to Firthgest, who took pity on her and decided to keep her around. He told them to let her go and held out some meat, before watching her take it and eat.

She didn't really understand them and they couldn't say her real name right, but Firthgest began calling her Æstrid & begin to teach her their language that night. Firthgest, a ship builder by trade, led the repairs the next morning, and the little girl who would become Æstrid watched with interest.

When they were leaving a couple of days later, Æstrid came with them back to the village of Skagen. Firthgest introduced her to his wife, Una Bergdottir, and his two children, Sigeweard Firthgestsson and Tofa Firthgestdottir. The family all accepted Æstrid, and she was fascinated with the Viking life. She picked up their language quite easily although some bits she always managed to mangle a little. Eventually, she forgot her real name and would by Æstrid Firthgestdottir.

Æstrid was a foreigner in strange lands, and she latched onto a number of role models - her mother Una, her sister Tofa and the daughter of the earl, Gunnvor Skaeringsdóttir.

Firthgest took his children including Æstrid out hunting though, and Æstrid proved to be quite a good aim with a bow - better then even Firthgest. Una and Tofa also began trying to teach Æstrid all the women's skills she might need for when she ever got married, although she was quite vocal that the idea was horrible and she was pretty bad with that sort of thing.

Sigeweard wasn't really interested in ship-building and Tofa did not very much lean towards that sort of thing, so when Æstrid began showing interest and asking questions, Firthgest finally took pity on her watching when she was 8 years old and began showing the little girl how to use the different tools - although she wasn't strong enough to swing an axe at that age. Æstrid showed a good ability in learning and was quite creative, being very good at carving.

But Æstrid was also growing into very much a tomboy and always out fighting with the boys when not learning about shipbuilding. So one day when she was 9, he called her over while she was watching her brother training and gave her a sword before smacking her on the backside to get in there.  Æstrid proved to be good, and managed to hold her own enough & gain the respect of others.

She was ten when her mother went into childbirth again and Æstrid was able to help Una and Tofa look after her new brother, Hoskuld. Tofa was quite amused about Æstrid's obvious incompetence with womanly knowledge.

But it was when Æstrid was twelve, her life was turned upside down once again when Halfdan and Harald Pääkkönsson invaded the village, and because she was young, Æstrid was unable to really do much and just protected the less able people like Tofa and the younger children including Hoskuld.

Both Firthgest and Sigeweard died trying to protect the Earl, Skaering Styrbiarnasson, and the others including Æstrid were spared by the Halfdan and Harald - mainly because they had a purpose.

Una had a talk to Tofa, Æstrid and Hoskuld about how Firthgest would want them to live on in his name and that they needed to accept the new way of life & swear their fealty to the new Earl. Æstrid did so willingly, and was allowed to keep training and working as a shipbuilder's apprentice. Æstrid has shown strong loyalty and bravery since.

By the time she was 17 though, Una decided that Æstrid was old enough and that she needed to be married off - also because Æstrid had developed a bit of a reputation that pretty well fit with her favored deity, Freya, who was just as loose as Æstrid. As she was quite pretty, numerous men became interested in courting her, and Una reminded Æstrid not to rock the boat. So over the next year, Una looked for a good husband and Æstrid decided that the husband she needed was a rather stupid one who she could easily bully into doing what she wanted.

Through being picky and sabotaging things, Æstrid whittled down the selection to a Viking named Ragi Granisson, who was a fair bit older then her. It wasn't that difficult for Æstrid to continue her promiscuity in secret and Ragi got Una off her back. One thing that Æstrid did delight in was that Ragi was also quite handsome and very well-built - although seriously, she could think of trees with more brain power then Ragi. He was like a big dumb gentle puppy-dog with a really big axe that others couldn't really lift, as he was really strong and people who messed with him didn't last long - he often didn't have to use the axe and could just thump them. He proved to be quite useful for a ship-builder, as he could easily drag back trees for his 'Little Asty' as he liked to call her.

Barely less then a year later, Æstrid began feeling sick in the morning, and talk around the village was quite obvious that it might not be from Ragi - although no one said it to his face. When she did give birth to a son, she named him Asvard Ragisson, and Ragi delighted in it.

After about three years of marriage, Ragi died in a raid that he went on. By that time, Æstrid had risen up in rank to become a full shipbuilder and a shield maiden - having grown into a fierce Viking & adopted her new homeland's customs.

When Æstrid was 25 and Asvard was about three, Una left the village one night with Hoskuld, not thinking it was safe, but Æstrid stayed. Since then, Æstrid began teaching Asvard how to fight and now, he has recently turned eleven. Æstrid has had to rebuff a few possible suitors, which is getting harder, and she knows that she could be claimed soon & be unable to stop it without her adoptive parents.

Now that there is talk of a possible continuation of the Viking exploration down to the Mediterranean, Æstrid plans to go ask Earl Halfdan for permission to go with them, as she has proven herself as both a ahip-builder and a shield maiden, and that her expertise in repairs could be quite useful. She knows that she won't be able to take Asvard as he is one year short of coming of age.