Aud “the Deep Minded” Ketilsdottir (830 - 900)
Aud was the daughter of another Viking in our ancestry, Ketill “Flatnose” Bjarnarson, who became King of the Hebrides and other islands in the Irish/Scottish waters. Aud, also sometimes referred to as Unn, was one of the extraordinary women in our ancestry and her story must be told here. Aud, who also was known as Aud “the Profound”, was born in Norway. When her Viking father, Ketill “Flatnose”, conquered the islands west of Scotland, Aud, at a young age, went with her family to live in the Hebrides Islands. Soon, Olaf “the White” brutally raided the islands even though the islanders, like Olaf, were Norse. In order to save what they could, Ketill made a treaty that included giving 17 year old Aud to Olaf in marriage. Aud then went to Dublin and became the Queen of Dublin and bore Olaf five children including Thorstein ”the Red” who became a famous Viking.
In time Aud’s father and her husband had a falling out that included battling one another. To make matters worse, Olaf had entered into a treaty with the Scottish Supreme King, Aed Finnliath and opportunistically married the king’s daughter. Aud had had enough! She left Olaf, took her children and returned to her father in the Hebrides. After several years word came that both her former husband, Olaf, and her son, Thorstein “the Red”, had been killed.
Through her father, son and former husband, she was very wealthy. However, when her father, Ketill, also died, she was very vulnerable to her family's enemies. Aud hatched an audacious scheme. She commissioned a knarr (an ocean going Viking ship) to be built secretly in the forest. She, then, gathered her kin, including her grandson and six granddaughters born to her son Thorstein “the Red”. She also brought several important men who were prisoners captured on Thorstein’s raids and had helped her build her ship, along with a crew of twenty and, as captain, sailed to the Orkney Islands.
The Orkneys were then ruled by other Norse Vikings who were friendly to her family. During a short stay in the Orkneys, she married off her granddaughter, Groa, whose daughter, Grelad, married Thorfinn “the Great” Earl of Orkney thereby uniting two of the Viking families in our ancestry. After resting a bit, Aud and her entourage sailed to the nearby Faroe Islands. There, Aud married off another granddaughter, this time into the Faroe ruling class.
Soon, with favoring winds, Aud, her followers and unmarried grandchildren sailed on to Iceland where her ship was wrecked while attempting to land. According to her account in The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings, she arrived in Iceland by managing "the impressive – and highly praised – feat of landing with crew and cargo intact."
She then trekked overland with some of her followers to get help from her brother, Helgi, who had arrived a short time earlier. After wintering with another brother, Bjorn, she claimed large parcels of land as one of the earliest settlers and established her home farm called Hvamm. There she freed the Celtic captives so they could make their own settlements. One of them was the father of Gudrid Thorbjornsdotter who was part of the Norse attempt to colonize North America and bore the first child of European descent born in North America.
Iceland and other areas, at this time, were experiencing a marked climate warming which continued over many years before returning to its icy normal state. Over the course of several years she married off her remaining granddaughters to the best of the Icelandic settlers.
Only her grandson, Olaf remained. Aud sent an emissary, the peg-legged Onun “Tree Foot”, back to the Hebrides to ask his wife’s cousin, Alfdis, to be Olaf’s bride. The wedding was a grand affair and Aud, after planning her own funeral, announced that her house and belongings now belonged to her grandson, Olaf. She, then, went to bed and died in her sleep.
She was given a ship burial and was interred with many valuables. After Aud, many more settlers came to Iceland and to this day she is regarded as a very important figure in Icelandic history.
She, like many others in this narrative, are portrayed in the television series “The Vikings” and several books have been written about her adventures. Unlike most other Icelandic settlers, Aud was a Christian and is commonly credited with bringing Christianity to Iceland. She raised crosses on her land and prayed regularly on hills now called Krosshólaborg.
It is no wonder that the sagas say she “was peerless among women”.
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