THE SCENE: Egil, a slave in medieval Iceland, was promised his freedom if he killed two men named Bjorn and Thord. A good deal, if Egil was a man equipped with even a minimum of competence as an assassin.
THE TEXT: The games were not yet finished, but it was very late, and the fires were now blazing away so that the shed was full of smoke. And Egil made his way there. He had got quite stiff crouching up on the mountain. He had tasseled shoe-laces, as was the custom then, and one of the laces had become untied so that the tassel trailed along the ground. The slave went into the entrance hall of the shed. When he went into the main hall, he wanted to move silently because he could see Bjorn and Thord sitting by the fire, and Egil felt it would only be a little while before he earned for himself everlasting freedom. But when he went to step across the threshold, he trod on the loose tassel. When he tried to step forward with his other foot, the tassel held fast, causing him to trip, and he fell forward on to the floor of the hall. There was a huge thud as if the skinned carcass of a cow had been thrown down on the floor.
Thord leapt up and asked what enemy was there. Bjorn leapt up too and grabbed hold of Egil before he could get to his feet, and asked him who he was. […] Then they put fetters on Egil’s feet. In the evening when people had come back to the shed, Egil recounted how his journey was meant to have turned out, in full hearing of everyone. He stayed there that night, but the next morning they led him up the mountain pass, which is now known as Egilsskard, and there they killed him.
– The Saga of the People of Eyri, 13th Century AD
