Warrior woman

FRIGGA, the cunning woman, wife of the trader Edwin, is an impressive sight. Weighed down with jewellery, her arms covered in silver arm rings retrieved on the battlefield from the bodies of Viking warriors, and guarded by the fearsome looking Ragnar, complete with axe and sword, she is definitely not a lady to mess with.

"Cunning means knowledge," she explains graciously. "I know about magic and medicines. I am a witch and a shape-changer. I can take the form of any living creature. I make sacrifices, animal and..." - she glances at me disdainfully - "...human."

Gulp.

So it comes as quite a relief when she shape-changes into Colleen Devanney, a mother and grandmother who works part-time at the Jorvik Viking Centre in York.

Colleen's Viking self is much more than a job, more of a second life really. "I am definitely a Viking," she says, in full Frigga kit, incongruously drinking coffee in the pavement cafe next to the Jorvik queues, while Ragnar stands guard, complete with six foot axe. "My family has always lived in York. They've been traced back to the 1600s, so the chances are that they were here long before that too, so yes, there's probably a lot of Viking in me.

"I've always been fascinated by the Vikings. They're all around you in York, so it's hard not to get involved, and I've always read and researched a lot about them. One of the great things about them is that women were the equal of men. Girls were educated alongside boys and when they married, their husbands handed over the keys and financial control to them. That sounds all right to me."

Colleen chose her own character of Frigga. Cunning women were much in demand for their medicinal skills.

"All these different beads and jewellery would have been payment for her services, so they're like a walking advert, showing how good you must be," she says. "The cowrie shell is from the Red Sea - the equivalent of a month's wage for a working man. York was a world trading centre."

The necklace also includes charms including Thor's hammer, a picture of Odin, and Loki, the god of mischief. Now that seems appropriate.

"They had fun too," says Colleen. "I don't tell the children this one, but one of the most famous cunning women was the wife of Erik Bloodaxe. Very rich, very powerful. She used to take three men into bed at the same time."

We pause for a moment to admire her energy.

"Sometimes I'm a 10th Century nun," says Colleen, sipping her 21st Century coffee. "And that wasn't bad either. Very comfortable."

As one of the Jorvik Vikings, Frigga's role is to entertain the children in the queues, to take the whingeing out of waiting. Inside the exhibition, she and other Vikings are in the workshops as they were in 10th Century York, where they demonstrate arts, crafts and skills, such as coin striking and shoe-making, and answer the children's many questions.

"You have a laugh with the kids, a bit of back-chat, scare them a bit, especially some of the bigger boys. They love being scared. I tell them I'm a witch with the all-seeing eye. That's the way they get involved and remember things, not by lecturing at them. But the Vikings were so fascinating that it's easy to tell them things, get them asking questions. They love it. They're enjoying themselves so much they don't realise they're learning too."

Colleen makes her own costumes - the underdress, the overdress, or pinny-style hannarock, the leather shoes, and a wimple tied back with a piece of braided silk.

"The wimple's a sign that I'm married," says Colleen. "On the other hand, I have a bit of hair peeking just to show, well, you know, I might be on the look-out."

Her dress is decorated with elaborate tablet weaving decoration. "The more tablet weaving you had, the richer you were. I've got lots." Of course.

It's all a glorious, if educational, form of dressing up and play acting and it helps, of course, that Colleen hasn't quite grown up herself yet, despite being married and becoming a mother of two when still in her teens. Now she's in her 50s and still full of enthusiasm, with a cheeky grin that kids respond to.

"My daughter's nearly 40 and runs her own business. She's much more grown-up than I am," says Colleen. "I used to work for her but then she went into computers and this seemed more fun. I started here seven years ago, working in the shop, but when the chance came to be one of the Vikings, they couldn't hold me back. I was born to do this."

Colleen's first husband - "He even looked like a Viking" - died when they'd been married for 28 years. For the past 11 years Colleen has been married to Ron, also known as Edwin the Trader at Jorvik and a dab hand at making chain mail. Let's face it, there aren't many men of whom a wife could say fondly "He makes all his own chain mail..."

But even though she and Ron love their Viking lives and devote much of their spare time to reading and researching, it's only part of their time-travelling preoccupation.

They don't just have double lives. They have triple or even quadruple lives. Half the time they can hardly know who they are or what century they're in.

"We do World War I and World War II re-enactments. At Crich Tram Museum in Derbyshire recently I was Emmeline Pankhurst leading a riot. I was trying to save a horse, rallying all the supporters behind me, causing chaos. It was great."

She and Ron have a 1937 Morris 8 and about half a dozen bikes, none of them newer than the 1940s, and like nothing more than pedalling out in full period kit.

"We've even got a 1902 tandem that we take to re-enactments. I fell off it once and put my teeth through my bottom lip. There was blood everywhere," says Colleen. "All the costumes we wear are authentic. We've got to do things properly, so we spend a lot of time going round charity shops and car boot sales."

She's even got the grandchildren involved.

"In October we do the World War II re-enactment on the railway at Pickering. It's brilliant. Germans in one station, Americans on another, French on another. You have to have a special pass or you get taken prisoner."

This year they're going on their bikes and their ten-year-old grandson's going too. "On a bike and we've found him a genuine Scout uniform," says Colleen. "It's all based on genuine history but it's a bit of fun. And I'm always up for fun."

Her coffee finished, she picks up her Viking bag - embroidered with a sea horse - and turns back towards the queues. A subtle shape-change takes place and Colleen has become Frigga again.

A couple of boys trying on swords and helmets pretend to attack her. She quells them with a look. Behind her back, they giggle nervously.

It is all pretend. Isn't it?