THE SCENE: This passage makes an extremely strong case for mixing viper saliva in with your food (WARNING: Do not try this at home!)
THE TEXT: Kraka, a Norwegian woman, intending to provide for the future good fortune of her son Roller, prepared a dish of food, into which she let drip the putrid saliva of three vipers hanging above it from a slender cord. But Erik, Kraka’s stepson, transferred the dish meant for her son, Roller, to himself; refreshed by this lucky meal, he came, through its inward workings, to the highest pitch of human wisdom. Indeed, the food’s potency implanted in him an abundance of every sort of knowledge, quite beyond belief, to the extent that he became versed in understanding the voices of wild beasts and domestic animals. Nor was he expert only in men’s affairs, but could also interpret the way animal noises made sense and indicated feelings. Moreover his conversation was so graceful and refined that, whatever he desired to discuss, he would at once adorn with a flow of proverbial wit.
– A Description of the Northern Peoples, Olaus Magnus, 16th Century AD
