A bit of trivia: The Old English words for man and woman were compounds with -man in both of them. In this context, man meant 'adult human'. The beginning of woman was wif and the beginning of male man was a word that sounds like weapon, so a wife-man was a woman and a weapon-man was a male-man. This tidbit comes from Anatoly Liberman's fascinating Word Origins. What's its relevance? Today's feature is on weapon-women or would that be weapon-wife-men?

Read about the powerful fighting ancient queens and amazons: Ancient Women Warriors.