Sandra Ballif Straubhaar

Sandra Ballif Straubhaar is a Germanic studies scholar known for her work on women's poetry in Old Norse, and for her contributions to scholarship on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, in particular his use of Scandinavian medieval literature and lore.

[2] Catherine Cox, in South Atlantic Review, called the project of assembling the poetry "admirable", but "flawed by inconsistencies and ambiguities" of attribution and definition of what the "voices of female skalds" actually are, given that both real and imagined women are included.

Heslop understood Straubhaar's frustration over unproductive debates about authenticity, but commented that the rich variety of female skaldic verse "demand[s] an engagement with poetic voice as a textual construct; the poetry .. is no less real for being fictional, after all".

[5] She called the texts accurate and the translations reliable, barring the "notorious cruces" of Völuspá 22, and found the "unavoidably looser verse rendering" attractive.

After describing the chapters in detail, Jochens stated that the poetry is not sufficiently set in context, making pleasurable reading difficult and requiring increased work by teachers.

Straubhaar's book presents Old Norse poetry by or about female figures from the real to the magical. Depicted is the giantess Hyrrokkin , riding on a wolf with vipers as reins.