I have been trying to find folk legends of women who defended their homes/towns/villages etc. and I have not been able to find anything online. I grew up hearing stories of folk heroines like this, specifically they defended again Sherman during his March to the Sea because I live in the south, but I haven’t been able to find a written version of these stories. The character I’m writing defends her small village from a group of British soldiers circa 1740s. Does anyone know a story like this or have a name of a folk heroine I could look into??
IIRC, the Scandanavian eddas had stories of women defending their towns when the men were away on raids of their own. That might be one place to look.
Laura Secord? The chocolate store in Canada. She was some type of heroine in the American civil war....I think? Mata Hari? I know she's not exactly who you mean but she's a woman that fought for her country during war - you could take elements of her legend and fictionalize your own. With regards to Google, I'm not a huge fan - you almost get too much information every single time you search. 5 pages of info is plenty. 500 is a bit much.... Anyways, I did not read any of this but here are two places to look.... http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/women/notable.htm https://www.legendsofamerica.com/women-list/
Btw, this illustrates another problem with Google. Some people trust Google more than the actual, living and breathing experts.... https://www.fmylife.com/article/today-one-of-my-younger-nephews-had-an-epileptic-seizure-my-mom-started-to-administer-wrong-treatm_289295.html
Can't claim to know much Scottish history but from memory most of the folk legends about women are about those who went to fight/commanded armies, rather than stayed behind (eg Christina Bruce). A couple though, you could look into Black Agnes or Kathrine Beaumont (here's hoping that's spelled right) - not exactly small-scale heroes but they both defended their castles or some such while their husbands were off out doing all sorts of murder. Black Agnes in particular held off a big ol' nasty siege sometime after 1300, bit before your period but might be worth looking into, very interesting character. Hope this helps, good luck!
This may or may not be what you're looking for as it isn't taking place in Scotland or in the Anglophone world, but there's this example from Spain you may find interesting. A real person who seems to have walked into the world of legends. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agustina_de_Arag%C3%B3n
Boadicea is one but it's not a myth. I type this into the search engine " folk legends of women defending their home" and got a wiki list of women warriors in legends. Try reading about each of those.
Well I was reading about Lady Godiva awhile back. She is English but her story is interesting. Apparently she was married to a duke or some sort of royalty. She noticed a lot of people were starving and she wanted her husband to help them. He jokingly said if you ride naked through town he would help them. She apparently did. Where the expression peeping tom comes from. There is an app called free books on google play. It has some books on Celtic and Irish fairy tales. Im sure you would find what you are looking for there.
