March is Women’s History Month and every March, we highlight women with amazing achievements, like inventors and astronauts, record-breakers and disruptors who inspired societal change. They are all astounding women and should be acknowledged, but sometimes I see other women in history that I think are a little bit more relatable because they have done things that just make me, personally, go “She’s so real for this.”
Aunt Jenny Johnston
There are plenty of stories and myths about Aunt Jenny Johnston across the internet, from TikToks mentioning she used a skull of one of her enemies to drink out of, to blogs about her ghost haunting parts of Appalachia--none of which I can confirm, though they all sound like fun stories to tell around a campfire. Here’s what I do know:
Louisa Jane "Aunt Jenny" Brooks Johnston’s husband was killed by some Confederate guards after he fed deserters. In retaliation, she swore a blood oath to hunt these men down and kill every single one of them. She even trained her sons to shoot pistols, so I feel it’s pretty safe to say she meant business. A librarian at the Haleyville Public Library, Carla Waldrep, dresses as Aunt Jenny every Halloween and told the Franklin County Times, “Aunt Jenny was a woman you did not want to mess with, but she was also a loving mother and wife,” Waldrep said.
No one has confirmed whether the cane she carried actually had notches for every confirmed death of the men who killed her husband, so that’s a bummer.
Jeanne De Clisson
French noblewoman turned privateer who earned the nickname the Lioness of Brittany? Yes, please!
Her third husband, Olivier IV de Clisson, was beheaded for treason after being convicted of spying on France for England.
Jeanne was married off to her first husband when she was 12, and he died, and her marriage to her second husband was annulled after his family raised complaints to the Bishop to protect their heritage. She had a child out of wedlock with Olivier while still married to her first husband, so I think we can safely say he was the man she had loved all along (also she was 12 when she first became a wife so it’s not like she was allowed much autonomy). The evidence against Olivier wasn’t publicly available and was loose at best, and Jeanne subsequently swore retribution against King Philip VI and raised an army of about 400 men to attack French ships. She named her ship My Revenge and is said to always be sure to leave at least one sailor alive to carry her message of vengeance. What a Queen.
Olga of Kiev
There is a definite trend with the women I’ve selected, and I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now: they, so far, are women who have sought revenge against the people who killed their husbands. This is no different for Olga of Kiev, though I think her motivations might have been slightly less about revenge for the death of her husband and more about the insult of it against her.
Olga, who ruled a kingdom in what is now eastern Europe & western Russia in the 10th century, was married to Prince Igor I of Kiev. He was brutally murdered by the Drevlians, an eastern Slavic tribe, after demanding they pay more tribute than they had just paid (it was a complicated relationship). Olga then took over the throne and the Drevlians sent messengers to Olga to boast that they had killed her husband and that she should marry their prince. She responded by telling them to return the next day so that she could honor them. When they arrived, the people of Kiev carried them in and then dumped them into a trench where they were buried alive. Olga watched and reportedly asked them if this honor was to their taste.
She then went on to kill the next group of messengers, and laid siege on all of the Drevlians. She gave new meaning to the phrase “going scorched Earth” because her final act against the Drevlians was, after they said they were afraid that she was going to continue avenging her husband, she asked for three pigeons and three sparrows from each house. Then she tied Sulphur to each bird, set it ablaze, and released them back to the Drevlians, causing a fire so intense it was impossible to put out. Now that I think about it, she might have been the creator of the tactic rather than giving it a new meaning.
She never remarried.
Want more strong women in history? I’ve got you!
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