THE SCENE: Good craftsmen must have been hard to find in medieval Scandinavia, considering how these rude and abrasive metalworkers manage to win the favor of the king after cutting his face.
THE TEXT: Everyone praised their metal work except for the guests. They did not say much. There was a highly finished knife among the metal-working. It was told to the king, and he said that he thought that there was no better metal-working.
He called them to him and said: “Why are you so reluctant to praise that metal work which is brought here, or can you do better?” They told the king that they would try, if he wished, to forge something better. The king bade them do that, until they succeeded, — “if you don’t want to be called imposters.”
They said that they would soon prove that this metal work was of little worth, and not good. They stuck the knife in the edge of the table in front of the king, and the knife-edge broke. They told the king take his treasure, and said that they would try to make another knife. The king bade them do so, and they then made a knife and brought it to the king. He tried it on his beard, and took off the beard as well as the skin, so that it took hold in the flesh.
The king said: “That it rightly said, that you are skillful men, and now you shall make me a gold ring,” and they did so and brought it before the king.
He looked at it and said: “It is rightly said, that I have never seen such treasure in one gold ring,” and everyone else said that this was so.
– The Saga of Asmund the Champion Slayer, Viks, 14th Century AD
