The Novel Cure: Literary prescriptions for being a coward

Ailment: Coward, being a

Cure: Gunnar's Daughter by Sigrid Undset

Being brave doesn't mean you have to try and stop yourself feeling afraid.

The Viking heroine of Sigrid Undset's extraordinary 1909 novel, Gunnar's Daughter – written in the style of a 12th-century Norse Saga – is the least cowardly woman we know.

A single mother, she more than holds her own against her violent countrymen. What makes her so inspiring is that her courage is born out of terror.

When we first meet her, Vigdis cuts a quintessentially feminine figure: on the verge of womanhood, her cascade of blonde hair reaches right down to her knees.

One day she meets Ljot, a mysterious visitor with dark blue eyes, and there is an immediate chemistry between them. But instead of courting her respectfully, the lustful Ljot rapes her, leaving her pregnant and her reputation shattered.

Furious, Vigdis waits for her chance to fight back. And as revenge leads to counter-revenge, she's forced to become increasingly tough. Her flight on skis through a snow-bound forest full of howling wolves, her two-year-old strapped to her back, is one of the most galvanising scenes in literature. When three of her frost-bitten fingers are chopped off – at her own request – she utters not a squeak.

Over the years, Vigdis becomes wise as well as brave, and wins great admiration for her dealings with outlaws, kings and suitors alike. Her son, when grown, refers to her as the "most mettlesome of women". But one day she reveals that even as she slit the throat of the man who killed her father, her legs were trembling; and that she felt afraid of every man who wooed her, after that first disastrous introduction to carnal love.

Whenever life calls on you to take a big breath and be brave, think of Vigdis the Viking. She felt the fear – and did it anyway.

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