History · the Mongol Empire
The Women Who Ran the Empire
While the Khans rode to war, their mothers, wives, and daughters ruled — and one of them out-wrestled every man who challenged her
Valkyries on the Steppe puts the empire's women in the foreground for once. It isn't artistic license — Mongol women, from the imperial court down to the ordinary yurt, held a kind of authority that would have been unthinkable in most of the medieval world at the time, and the record names them.
The mother and the wife who built the man
Genghis Khan's own rise is unthinkable without two women. Hoelun, his mother, held the family together after his father was poisoned and the clan abandoned them to starve on the steppe — and later, as queen mother of a founded empire, she was formally given charge of the royal household. Börte, his first wife, ran his court, advised him on strategy, and negotiated the marriages of their daughters into a web of alliances that helped hold the empire together. When Mongol men rode out to conquer, it was routine — not exceptional — for their wives to govern in their place.
The regent who ruled an empire outright
That pattern reached its peak with Töregene Khatun. When her husband Ögedei Khan — Genghis Khan's son and successor — died in 1241, Töregene didn't just hold the throne in trust. She ruled the entire Mongol Empire as sole regent for five years, replacing her late husband's ministers with her own and steering the succession until her son Güyük was confirmed as the next Great Khan in 1246. For half a decade, the largest contiguous land empire in human history answered to a woman.
The princess no man could beat
A generation later, Khutulun — great-great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan — became legend for a different reason. She rode into battle beside her father, and by tradition any suitor who wanted to marry her had to beat her in wrestling first; the loser forfeited horses to her. Marco Polo, who claims to have heard of her directly, reports that no man ever won. She stayed unmarried by her own choice for years, undefeated, and remained one of her father's most trusted commanders.
The music it inspired
Valkyries on the Steppe
The empire rides out — but its mothers, wives, and matriarchs are the ones who hold it together. Soft as the feather, sharp as the blade.
“The Matriarch” speaks in a low, commanding alto over funeral drums — spoken word, not sung, because in the album's own words, “you forget who tends the fire” while the men are praised for the sword. “Daughters of the Wind” and the title track “Valkyries of Tengri” complete the cover art's vision: three spectral women riding the sky above the war-band on the ground below.