Violence
A Just Castration
“Caught taking part in this terrible ploy, he was mercifully condemned to losing his eyes and genitals when he deserved to be choked to death by a noose.” […]
Gore
Greek and Roman
The Ugly Birth of All Things
Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing. But vast Earth groaned within, being straitened, and she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle, and told her plan to her dear sons. […]
Britons and Celts
Single Combat with Honor
“Their shields were split and broken, their coats of chainmail torn and damaged. They turned their horses around and rushed at each other again.” […]
Human Affairs
The Dangerous World of Ice-Skating
“You are never in greater peril or nearer to death than when you set off skating while the ice is covered with even the thinnest layer of snow.” […]
Britons and Celts
Three Knights Versus the City of London
“The fighting was so fierce that the gutters of every street ran with blood. So many men lay dead that the waters of the Thames turned the colour of blood.” […]
Viking
The Bloody Poetry Rushes Forth
“A warm, foamy stream of Danish blood, squeezed from their veins, gathers in waves to form broad lakes, an inundation which rolls the scattered corpses.” […]
Viking
The Fall of Grettir and Illugi
“Grettir swung his short-sword at Hjalti Thordarson’s follower Vikar, striking him on the left shoulder as he jumped down into the hut and cutting right through his shoulders and down his right side. The man was chopped clean in half and his body fell on top of Grettir in two pieces.” […]
Orient
A Massacre of Demons
“He grabbed him by the head and ears, and holding on to his shoulders with his other hand tore the demon’s head off, like a ravening lion, and flung it covered in blood into the crowd of warriors.” […]
Britons and Celts
The Revenge of Gawain
“Then he rode into the host, hacking through helmets,
Riving off rivets and ripping through shields,
Causing carnage in the ranks but keeping his course,
Rampaging through the rearguard and riding onward,
Then reigning back, that right royal battler,
And returning to the ranks of his own Round Table.” […]
Viking
The Failed Ambush
“Kolskegg said: ‘No need to look! It’s just as you thought; the leg is off!’ Then Kol fell dead to the ground.” […]