Britons and Celts
A Heroic Escape
“He shattered skulls, arms, shoulder-blades and even legs, causing the greatest possible terror, and before he left the spot he had killed seventy men with the stake which he held.” […]
12th Century AD
Britons and Celts
Eat, Drink, and Die Tomorrow
“I have heard tell that the night before the day of battle, the English were very merry, laughing much and enjoying themselves. All night they ate and drank, and never lay down on their beds.” […]
Viking
Bloody-Handed Hamlet
“Then, cutting his body into morsels, he seethed it in boiling water, and flung it through the mouth of an open sewer for the swine to eat, bestrewing the stinking mire with his hapless limbs.” […]
Britons and Celts
Young Merlin Speaks
“There emerged two Dragons, one white, one red. As soon as they were near enough to each other, they fought bitterly, breathing out fire as they panted.” […]
History
A Humbled King
“When the king woke, he asked who it was. ‘It is us,’ he said, ‘the envoys of your father. We have been sent over to you to discuss peace-terms.’ When he gathered this, the king wanted to inquire more closely into how his father was, and he put his head a little way over the gunwale of the ship. Then Palna-Toki grabbed him by the ears and the hair, gave a more powerful heave against his unavailing resistance, and dragged him willy-nilly out of his own ship.” […]
Britons and Celts
On the Eve of History
“He is a fool,” said Gurth, “who believes in luck, which no brave man ought to do. No brave man should trust to luck. Every one has his day of death; you say you were born on a Saturday, and on that day also you may be killed.” […]
Human Affairs
The Insanity Defense
“All he did savoured of utter lethargy. In a word, you would not have thought him a man at all, but some absurd abortion due to a mad fit of destiny.” […]
Britons and Celts
Hengist Goes to Hell
“As each in turn slashed at the other with his sword, the sparks flew from his blows as if he were at once a source of thunder-claps and of lighting-flashes. For a long time it was not clear on which side lay the greater strength.” […]
Britons and Celts
The Bishop of Battle
” Then Odo, the good priest, the bishop of Bayeux, galloped up, and said to them, ‘Stand fast! stand fast! be quiet and move not! fear nothing, for if God please, we shall conquer yet.'” […]
Human Affairs
The Sex-Trap
” His wiliness (said these) would be most readily detected, if a fair woman were put in his way in some secluded place, who should provoke his mind to the temptations of love; all men’s natural temper being too blindly amorous to be artfully dissembled, and this passion being also too impetuous to be checked by cunning. ” […]