THE SCENE: Abandoned by her kinsmen and afraid of what might happen after she meets the Danish Prince Alf, Princess Hjordis convinced her servant to switch clothes with her. Unfortunately, the servant has little training in acting noble, and the princess has little conception of what a servant’s life was like.
THE TEXT: When he had been home a short while, the queen asked her son Alf: “Why does the fairer woman wear fewer rings and lesser clothing? It seems to me that she is nobler whom you have made less of.” He replied: “I have suspected that her manner is not that of a servingwoman’s. When we first met, she well knew how to greet men of rank. I shall put this to the test.”
Now one time while they were drinking, the king talked with the women and said: “How do you note the break of day, when the night grows light, if you can not see the heavenly bodies?” The maidservant answered: “This is how I note it: as a child I was in the habit of drinking quite a bit before dawn. And when I stopped doing that, I would still wake up at the same time, and that is my signal.” The king smiled at this reply and said: “That is a poor habit for a king’s daughter.”
Then he turned to Hjordis and asked her the same. She answered him: “My father gave me a small gold ring with these characteristics: Just before daybreak it becomes cold on my finger. That is how I know.” The king answered: “Gold was certainly abundant if the serving girls wore it. And you have hidden from me long enough. I would have treated you as if we were both children of the same king, if you had told me. But I shall treat you in even a better way, as you deserve. You shall be my wife and I shall pay your dowry.” She stayed there now with much honor and was thought the most worthy of women.
– Saga of the Volsungs, 13th Century AD
