Aud the Deep-minded — Queen of the Vikings

Louise Mercer
4 min readJun 25, 2021

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Aud the Deep-minded — Queen of the Vikings

Aud the Deep-minded was the queen of Olaf the White and the mother of the warlord Thorstein the Red. She sailed to the Norse colonies in Iceland after the death of her husband and son. The iron will of Aud served her well during her leadership of the Norse settlers in Iceland.

The Laxdaele Saga recounted Aud the Deep-minded wed Olaf the White, the Norse-Gael ruler of Dublin, in the mid-ninth century. She bore their only son, Thorstein the Red, shortly after their marriage. Her absence in the Irish annals suggested she may have remained in the Scottish isles.

Aud the Deep-Minded was born in Norway and travelled to the Hebrides with her father, Ketil Flatnose.

The Scandinavian sagas noted Ketil Flatnose was a hersir, or chieftain, in Norway.Ketil Flatnose proclaimed himself the first Viking king of the Hebrides in the mid-ninth century. He was the independent ruler and only paid nominal allegiance to Harald Fairhair, King of Norway.

Christianity spread from Iona to the Norse settlements on the Hebrides and Scottish islands. Aud the Deep-minded and her family converted to the Christian faith.

Olaf the White was the son of King Ingjald and the Viking king of Dublin. He married Aud, or Unn while visiting the Hebrides. Their only son, Thorstein the Red, was a renowned warlord in Scotland in the late ninth century.

There were scant details of the married life of Olaf the White and Aud the Deep-minded in the Scandinavian sagas.

The marriage of Olaf the White to the daughter of Áedh Findliath, the High King of Ireland, in 862 was in keeping with the polygamous traditions of the Norse kings.

Aud the Deep-minded and her son, Thorstein the Red, sailed the Hebrides after the death of Olaf the White in 874. Thorstein the Red married and had seven children in the Hebrides.

Thorstein the Red allied with Sigurd Eysteinsson, the second earl of Orkney. They were ambitious jarls who sought to expand their influence in Scotland.

Sigurd Eysteinsson and Thorstein the Red conquered half of Scotland in 894. Thorstein the Red took tribute from half of Scotland as the king of the Norwegian enclave.

Aud the Deep-minded and her father, Ketil Flatnose, followed Thorstein the Red to Scotland. She lived in the Viking colony of Caithness until the deaths of Ketil Flatnose in the 890s and Thorstein the Red in 900.

The Scottish chieftains killed Thorstein the Red during a battle and expelled the Norse from their lands.

Aud the Deep-Minded in the Viking Age

Aud the Deep-minded showed courage and wisdom in the face of adversity. She ordered her followers to build ​a knarr, or cargo ship, to take her daughters and grandchildren to Iceland.

The ship set sail from Scotland under her command and stopped briefly in Orkney and the Faroes. The granddaughters of Aud and Thorstein, Groa and Olof, married Thorfinn Torf-Einarsson, the Earl of Orkney and a Viking chieftain of the Faroes.

Aud the Deep-minded continued her voyage across the open sea and moored off the coast of Iceland. She claimed vast swathes of land for her family.

The Laxdaela Saga reported in 920, “Olaf Feilan was the youngest of Thorstein’s children. He was a tall man and strong, goodly to look at, and a man of the greatest mettle”.

The brother of Aud the Deep-minded, Bjorn, and his family were among the Norse colonists to leave the Scottish Isles and migrate to Iceland. There was only a small population in Iceland between the late ninth and tenth centuries.

Historians believed Aud the Deep-minded first brought Christianity to Iceland. She freed the thralls, or slaves, on her arrival and built stone crosses on her lands.

The Norse settlers in Iceland laid Aud the Deep-minded to rest in a howe, or burial mound.

The Laxdaela Saga narrated her funeral reflected her high status among the Vikings. “She was laid in a ship in the cairn, and much treasure with her, and after that, the cairn was closed up”.

Aud the Deep-minded was an intelligent woman and an accomplished leader of the Norwegian colonists in Iceland. She was the worthy matriarch of the royal families of Iceland and the Scottish Isles.

For more information, please visit,

Vikings in Ireland (870–914) (Vikings of Ireland): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096KVNBZK References Wikipedia — Aud the Deep-Minded: https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Aud_the_Deep-Minded_(Ketilsd.... Birlinny Yarn Company — A VARARFELDUR FOR AUŎR THE DEEP MINDED — PART 1 by Meg Rodger: https://www.birlinnyarn.co.uk/.../a-varafeldur-for-aur... Wikipedia — Thorstein the Red: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_the_Red Meg Rodger — AUŎR THE DEEP MINDED (2020): https://www.megrodger.com/auor-the-deep-minded-2020 Project Gutenberg — The Laxdaela Saga Translator Muriel A.C Press: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17803/17803-h/17803-h.htm Wikipedia — Ketil Flatnose :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketill_Flatnose Wikipedia — Aud the Deep-Minded: https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Aud_the_Deep-Minded_(Ketilsd.... Shrine of Dreams — The Saga of Unn the Deep-Minded by Mikulpepper https://shrineodreams.wordpress.com/.../the-saga-of-unn.../

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Louise Mercer
Louise Mercer

Written by Louise Mercer

I am fascinated by our transforming our world. Our concerns about health, natural environment and workplaces are making us reevaluate our future well-being

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