Group: Vikings

Name: Yrsa Agnarsdotter


Age: 52

Occupation: Elder Weaver

Sexuality: Too old to be interested in that nonsense.

Physical Description:
Yrsa was born a mast post.  She is strong and tall and has the very air of authority.  She walks with a decided limp, her left foot turning inward from a poorly set bone.  She is old, withered with steel gray hair and eyes the color of storm clouds.  She is weathered, deep lines have etched themselves into her features, but there are as many smile lines as there are frowns.

Yrsa despite her injury walks with power in every step.  It would be a mistake to see her as a weak woman. If mobility is not an option- even in her advanced years she can still flatten anyone who is disrespectful to her. The most noticeable part of Yrsa is her hands.  The knots and bends of age have warped and hardened them.

She walks with a cane, using it to support her leg that pains her often.

Personality:
Yrsa is a strong woman who speaks her mind.  She could have been a warrior if it hadn't been for her accident.  Despite her malady she has held to that strong persona.  She equates weaving with the power of the tribe and holds it almost sacred.

She was not a kind master at first.  She is angry that her life has made her unfit to be a warrior and unfit to be a mother.  Much of that anger was taken out on Lynet.  It was only once the girl showed that she could weave, that Yrsa started seeing her as a gift from the Gods.  Over the years Lynet has softened Yrsa's skin.  She's started laughing again and enjoying life once more.

Yrsa is deeply spiritual, believing the wind tells her things.  It is the wind, according to her, that gave her the word to leave her homeland.

Biography:
Yrsa was born as strong as her brothers- or so her mother said.  She was a bear cub of a child- strong and sturdy.  She could out run and out fight her brothers two and five years her senior.  A fall from a horse when she was six crippled the child and she still walks with an in turned foot and a limp.  (The fall also damaged her ability to have children)

Unable to move at much speed, Yrsa was apprenticed to a weaver who taught her the trade.  As a child she loathed the experience and desired nothing more than to run and jump and fight as she once did.  For several years she fought her pain and tried- always she would find herself in too much pain... It was her mentor who took her to the waters and showed her the strength of the loom.  She showed Yrsa the sails and the power of the cloth.  "There is no victory without the loom."

With the same determination- Yrsa took to weaving.  She made her fabric strong and dreamed of the lands and the conquests where her sails would take the warriors.  At the age of 12 she was married to Lars.  It wasn't a bad marriage.  He was a strong, good farmer- who did not look at her injured leg.  She loved him very much- too much.  When her blood never flowed, she knew that she was barren.  The night before she divorced him- she found him with a concubine and knew it would be for the best, though it broke her heart.

Calling their neighbors she declared her divorce and walked away from the marriage.  She took very little- only what Lars forced upon her.  With it, she took up the loom once more, and purchased the scrawny little Saxon girl who would eventually become like a daughter to her.  Lynet's artistry with the loom is like music and it was a joy to teach the girl.

Old age has sapped the bear of a woman and cruelly knotted her knuckles and slowed her fingers.  Lynet never has said a word as she slipped in and finished the work.  To Yrsa's amusement the child plays that she is being selfish and trying to learn, though the old woman knows that her Thrall is saving her from pain.  The only way to stop the girl from working herself to death, Yrsa decided, was to free her.

They now live as mother and daughter in everything but name.  Yrsa also made the decision to travel with the raiding party, returning Lynet to her homeland.  While she is still unsure what the God's plan for the girl, it seemed the right move.

Family:
Yrsa's Mother and Father passed away early on.
Her two brothers have leadership positions in the tribe.
Her former husband Lars is still a farmer with a wife and many striking young boys.