Blenda

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Blenda is also the name of a Norwegian laundry soap, manufactured by Lilleborg, as well as a Japanese womens' fashion magazine.

Blenda by August Malmström (1829-1901).

Blenda is the heroine of a legend from Småland, who leads the women of Värend in an attack on a pillaging Danish army and annihilates it.

The legend was recorded in the 1680s and according to the legend it took place in the time of the Geatish king Alle (A-S Ælla), when this king lead the Geats in an attack against Norway. King Alle had marshalled not only the West Geats, but also the South Geats (or Riding Geats) of Småland, and so many men had left for Norway that the region was virtually defenseless.

When the Danes learnt of Småland's precarious situation, they took advantage of it and attacked the defenseless small lands. Blenda was a woman of noble descent in the Konga Hundred and she decided to send the fiery cross to rally all the womenfolk in the hundreds of Konga, Albo, Kinnevald, Norrvidinge and Uppvidinge. The women armies assembled on the Brávellir, which according to Smålandish tradition is located in Värend and not in Östergötland.

The women approached the Danes and told them how much they were impressed with the Danish men. They invited the men to a banquet where they were provided with food and drink. After a long evening, the Danish warriors fell asleep and the women killed every single one of them with axes and staffs.

When king Alle returned, he bestowed new rights on the women. They acquired equal inheritance with their brothers and husbands, the right always to wear a belt around their waists as a sign of eternal vigilance, the right to beat the drum at weddings, and so forth. The five hundreds were combined into the land of Värend, which means the "defense", since it was a bulwark for Geatland. Blenda's village was called Värnslanda and a location near the battle ground was called Bländinge.

The girls of Småland by Hugo Hamilton (1830)

[edit] Historicity

Several attempts have been made to support or discredit the legend's historicity. Some authors have proposed that it took place during the battles before the meeting of the three kings Inge I, Magnus Barefoot and Eric Evergood at Kungahälla in 1101, or at the time of Sigurd Jorsalfar's attack on Kalmar, 1123. Lagerbring proposed that it taken place during king Sven Grade's attack on Sweden in the 1150s. Dalin conjectured that the event had taken place in the 1270s when Erik Glipping attacked Småland. However, if it did take place under the reign of king Alle, it would have happened about the year 500, which would make it less surprising, as female soldiers were allowed in Sweden before Christianity, so called Shieldmaidens; three hundred female soldiers were recorded having served during the great battle of Bråvalla in 750. Schlyter has suggested that the legend was invented to explain why the women of Värend had equal share in the inheritance with the men.

The first printed text where the legend has been connected with the inheritance rights appears in Stiernhöök's De iure sueonum et gothorum vetusto (1672:186), where he writes that the inheritance rights were awarded by king Hakon Ring (Sigurd Ring) to the women after the Battle of Brávellir, in which they had shown valour against Harald Wartooth. The legend appears in embellished form in the various pleas made in the 1680s and 1690s in order to defend the equal inheritance and the Church's new prohibitions against church drums. The final forms come probably from Peter Rudbeck, since both the oldest editions of it remind of Rudbeck's methodology and language.

The legend has been rendered as a poem by Erik Johan Stagnelius, and as an opera.