THE SCENE: When a raving Amleth, pretending to be insane, declares that the King of Britain’s mother is a former bondsmaid, the King was livid with anger… until he found out that Amleth was right. Amazed, the King goes on to ask Amleth how he knew this was the case.
THE TEXT: He [The King] asked him why he had aspersed the queen with the reproach that she had demeaned herself like a slave? But while resenting that the courtliness of his wife had been accused in the midnight gossip of guest, he found that her mother had been a bondmaid. For Amleth said he had noted in her three blemishes showing the demeanor of a slave; first, she had muffled her head in her mantle as handmaids do; next, that she had gathered up her gown for walking; and thirdly, that she had first picked out with a splinter, and then chewed up, the remnant of food that stuck in the crevices between her teeth. Further, he mentioned that the king’s mother had been brought into slavery from captivity, lest she should seem servile only in her habits, yet not in her birth. Then the king adored the wisdom of Amleth as though it were inspired, and gave him his daughter to wife; accepting his bare word as though it were a witness from the skies.
– Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus, 12th Century AD
[Image Credit: Peasant Woman Threading a Needle by Jules Breton]
