THE SCENE: In this domestic scene, a rural peasant couple have a fight about whether to kill their sleeping houseguest. Ultimately, the wife comes up with an ultimatum: kill the stranger or I’m going to go sleep with the stranger.
THE TEXT: The old man came home as evening was coming on. The old woman had worked very little at what she needed to do. He was tired and grouchy when he came home, whenever everything that she should have worked at was undone. The old man said that there must be a great different in their happiness, since he worked every day, more than he was able, but she didn’t feel like doing anything useful.
“Don’t be angry, my husband,” she said, “because you may be able to work for just a little while to make the two of use happy all our lives.”
“What is it?” said the old man.
The old woman answered, “A man has come to our lodgings, and I think he has plenty of money with him for traveling. He is bent by old age, but he must have been the greatest of champions once, yet now he’s very weary. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen anyone like him, but I think that he’s exhausted and asleep.”
Then the old man said, “I don’t think it’s right to betray the few people who come here.”
She answered, “That’s why you’ll always be a weakling: everything looks too big to you. Now do one of two things: you kill him, or I’ll take him for my own husband and we’ll drive you away. I can tell you the words that he said to me this evening, though they’ll seem unworthy to you. He spoke seductively to me. That will be my plan: to take him as my own man, and drive you away or kill you, if you won’t do what I want.
– The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, 13th Century AD
[Image Credit: Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers by Henry Fuseli]
