Medieval Mentality
Righteous Punishment
“When he was alive he had lacked a brain, and now that he was dead he lacked a heart, for they ripped it from his entrails and impaled it on a stake, swollen as it was with fraud and evil.” […]
Regions
Greek and Roman
The Dolphins and the Fishermen
“They put themselves between the open sea and the shore and drive the mullet into shallow water. Then the fishermen set their nets and lift the fish out of the water with two-pronged spears. The speed of some of the mullet enables them to leap over the barriers, but the dolphins still catch them.” […]
Greek and Roman
The Pharaoh’s Losses
“One thousand and five hundred years, and seventy, less one,
Before the birth, as I have found, of God’s incarnate Son,
Was Pharaoh, following the Jews, in the Red Sea Undone” […]
Greek and Roman
On the Road with a Killer Angel
“The pilgrim turned, and pointed with his finger to the road they were to take; but as he turned, the angel seized him by the shoulders, and precipitated him into the stream below.” […]
Britons and Celts
Wife-Swapping Brits
“Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons, but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited.” […]
Supernatural
The Man in the Jaws of the Dragon
“Then they struck the dragon until it died. Sintram’s sword bit into it like the sharpest shaving knife bites into a beard.” […]
Supernatural
Hail the Viking Wizard-Pirate
“Therefore, to avoid stooping to a trial of strength with pirates at sea, he would cause the waves and winds to rage by means of his sorcery and induce them to wreck his foes.” […]
Britons and Celts
The Honorable Weasel
“She went over to a jug of milk, which had been set aside for the man’s son and heir, stood up on her hind legs, spat the venom which she had inside her body into the milk and so infected it with deadly poison.” […]
Humor
The Dangers of Medieval Comedy
“On seeing him enter, al-Rashid said: ‘They tell me that you say very amusing things. Let us have a sample of your quality; but I must warn you that, if you do not make me laugh, the stick awaits you.'” […]
Medieval Mentality
The City of the Gods
“‘That is a senseless question,’ replied Har, with a smile of derision. ‘Hast thou not been told that the gods made a bridge from earth to heaven, and called it Bifrost? Thou must surely have seen it; but, perhaps, thou callest it the rainbow.'” […]