Viking
The Most Famous Last Stand of All
“They attacked harder than every, thrusting at Gisli with their spears until guts spilled out. Gisli gathered the guts up together in his shirt, and bound them with a cord.” […]
Death
Human Affairs
Soothsayer, Sooth Thyself!
“Poor diviner indeed must he be about me, who could predict nought about himself. If the things to come were known to him, he might well have foreseen his own death.” […]
Greek and Roman
What Will People Say When You Die?
“There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen.” […]
Greek and Roman
The Death of Theseus
“But Lycomedes, either because he feared a man of such fame, or as a favour to Menestheus, led him up to the high places of the land, on pretence of showing him from thence his lands, threw him down the cliffs, and killed him. Some, however, say that he slipped and fell down of himself while walking there after supper, as was his custom.” […]
Britons and Celts
Vortigern’s Dying Wish
“Renwein collected all the information she could about noxious poisons and then, by the hands of one of his servants whom she had first corrupted with innumerable bribes, she gave Vortimer a poison to drink.” […]
Human Affairs
Marriage in the Afterlife
“They give the dead girl to the dead boy as a wife and draw up a deed of matrimony. Then they burn this deed, and declare that the smoke that rises into the air goes to their children in the other world and that they get wind of it and regard themselves as husband and wife.” […]
Greek and Roman
Night, Whom Even the Deathless Gods Fear
“And there, all in their order, are the sources and ends of gloomy earth and misty Tartarus and the unfruitful sea and starry heaven, loathsome and dank, which even the gods abhor.” […]
Britons and Celts
Curiosity Killed the Bacon
“They alighted out of the coach, and went into a woman woman’s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen, and make the woman exenterate [disembowel] it, and then stuff the body with snow.” […]
Greek and Roman
O, That This Too Solid Flesh Would Melt
” After making his will he did in fact attempt to kill himself again; when the dagger was taken from him he became more violent. He sought poison from a doctor, who killed himself to avoid giving it.” […]
History
The Desert’s Lethal Defenses
“Next morning, when they were on the point of setting out, the hot wind came down on them and stifled them all, so that not one survived to carry back the news to their lord.” […]