Who plays Porunn in Vikings?
Porunn is played by Gaia Weiss in the original Vikings series.
Explore family, allies and rivals or follow the story sections below.
Cast references: Gaia Weiss.
Explore Porunn / Þórunn’s story
Freedom before romance
Bjorn is attracted to her while their positions remain unequal. Aslaug frees Porunn, changing the conditions under which she can decide what relationship she wants.
A warrior’s ambition and injury
She fights in Mercia, is badly wounded and later gives birth to Siggy. Her distress and eventual departure leave her later fate unresolved within the series.
A distinct identity
Porunn’s ambitions and suffering should not be reduced to stages in Bjorn’s development. Read her wish to fight alongside the reactions of people who try to protect or define her. She is not Thorunn Kjetillsdottir, the Iceland settler played by Mei Bignall; similar spellings do not connect their families or storylines.
Relationships & loyalties
Memorable scenes
Freedom changes the relationship
Season 2, episode 9
Aslaug frees Porunn, giving her connection with Bjorn a different legal and practical basis. Affection while enslaved and a choice after freedom should not be treated as identical circumstances.
Why this moment matters
Bjorn’s affection has existed within an arrangement that gives him far more freedom to choose than Porunn. Her release changes that imbalance without automatically repairing every habit it created. The scene matters because the relationship can now be considered through her decision, rather than through the comfort, status or admiration that someone else believes he is offering.
The injury in Mercia
Season 3, episode 3
Porunn enters the campaign wanting to be a warrior and suffers a severe facial wound. The aftermath challenges both her sense of herself and the expectations others attach to the role she wanted.
Why this moment matters
The wound strikes at an identity Porunn has actively pursued. She wanted recognition as a fighter, and now must live with an injury in a culture that prizes strength and visible composure. Other characters’ reassurance cannot determine how she experiences her changed body, while their concern can become another expectation she feels unable to meet.
Why fans keep talking
The sharp reactions to Porunn reveal competing expectations about what a warrior’s story should look like. Some viewers want freedom, love and military opportunity to produce confident gratitude; others see injury and childbirth disrupting precisely that reassuring trajectory. Frustration with her withdrawal can therefore be frustration with suffering that refuses a quick heroic resolution. Taking her distress seriously does not require inventing a diagnosis, and criticizing the unfinished arc need not mean dismissing the character’s pain.
What resonates
Viewers who defend her story want her injury, childbirth and distress taken seriously rather than expecting an immediately resilient heroine.
What divides viewers
Others find her withdrawal frustrating or feel that the writing gives her suffering more attention than her recovery.
Who plays Porunn / Þórunn?
Gaia Weiss portrays Porunn / Þórunn.
Gaia Weiss’s work beyond Vikings includes Mary Fleming in Mary Queen of Scots (2013); Hebe in The Legend of Hercules (2014); Devin in Overdrive (2017); Lisa in Meander (2020); Rachel Black in Shepherd (2021).