Thora Haraldsdóttir

My parents named me Thora Haraldsdóttir
Age me twenty-and-five
People call me I have earned no title, although I hope to someday
I was born in Uddevalla
But I currently call Kattegat my home
I am a shieldmaiden
But when not raiding, I am a farmer, and I breed horses. Sometimes people bring their sick or injured horses to me for care.
My parents were Harald Eiriksson and Ingibjorg Vidarsdóttir
I have two brothers, Audun and Eirik, and one sister, Jorunn
As for my looks: I am average height for a woman of my age, but am quite athletic and strong. One has to be to stand in a shield wall, to withstand the harsh winters of my home. We are a hearty people, and I am no exception. My hair is long and gold-blond, usually pulled back in simple braids. Whenever my father would go to the market or on a raid when I was a girl, he would always bring me back a bead to braid into my hair, and I still wear them to this day. There are about a dozen beads, of varying colors and sizes, always plaited into my hair. My eyes are large and light green, and around the first wou+und I received in battle--a scar on the outside of my sword arm--is a large knotwork tattoo that frames it. I also have one of Odin's ravens on each shoulder blade, facing each other.
People say I am: Quiet, sometimes proud, I tend to keep to myself. Farm life, with all the many things that go wrong, taught me humor from an early age. While I do not make jokes often myself, I find humor in the oddest places. I believe words can be weapons, and so I employ them carefully. I trust easily, my experiences in the shield wall have taught me that no one survives alone. That being said, most of the time I do live alone on my small farm on the edge of town, so I am both independent and quiet, but not aloof.

My story: I grew up on a farm in Uddevalla, learning to swing swords with my older brothers. But my father also instilled in me a love for the land, for raising horses in particular, and so that is the path I chose. After the death of my father, whom, I was very close to, I ventured to Kattegat to make my own way, and have lived here ever since. My life has been nothing remarkable, a happy childhood, the youngest of four siblings. I began fighting in the shield wall at the age of seventeen, and at twenty I was married. It was not a happy marriage, and my father took me back into his house when I divorced my husband. After his death is when I came to Kattegat.

Faceclaim: Gaia Weiss