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.” […]
Mild
Greek and Roman
Totally Normal Behavior
“Then she wrapped the head in a piece of rich cloth, and laid it in a large and elegant pot, of the sort in which she planted several springs of the finest Salernitan basil.” […]
History
Death of a Viking Legend
“In the thick of the fighting, Bui and Sigmundur closed on one another in single combat. Bui was the stronger man, but Sigmundur was the quicker and better with a sword. Sigmundur switched his weapon to his other hand, as he could fight equally well with either hand – something which few or no men can do – and in a blinding slash, he cut off one of Bui’s hands at the wrist.” […]
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.” […]
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” […]
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.” […]
Human Affairs
Conversion by the Sword
“Now I’m going to present you with two extremely unequal options. The better one is that you convert to the true faith and be baptized. If you are unwilling to do this, then the other option is that we’ll kill you right here and now.” […]
History
Beaten with Scorpions
“Hugh proved to be a worthless shoot who took after his father with every kind of evil, but ‘those whom his father beat with whips, he, more despicable than his parent, beat with scorpions.'” […]
Britons and Celts
Ireland: The Promised Land
“t is both pleasanter, and more praiseworthy, for us to suffer death bravely in battle, than, barely dragging on an ignoble existence, to die daily, miserably fettered under the burden of an execrable subjugation.” […]
Supernatural
The Place is Packed with Wizards
“The wizard then enters a room, satisfied to have with him his wife and one other companion, and strikes over an anvil a prescribed number of blows with a hammer on a copper frog or serpent.” […]