THE SCENE: When a peasant man and his wife decide to adopt a striking little girl whom they discover, they have one basic problem: they are far too ugly for anyone to believe they could have given birth to such a beautiful child.
THE TEXT: “That’s obvious,” said Grima. “She shall be named Kraka, after my mother.”
Now the old man said, “How will we provide for this child?”
The old woman replied, “I see a good plan. We will say that she is our daughter and raise her.”
“No one will believe that,” said the old man “This child is much more attractive than we are. We’re both completely ugly, and it won’t seem likely that the two of us would have such a child, as horrid as we both are.”
The old woman said, “You don’t know this, but I have a certain trick to make her seem ugly. I will shave her head, and smear it with tar and other things when her hair is likely to grow back. She shall wear a hood after that. She will also not be well dressed. Then she will take on our appearance. Maybe people will believe that I was very beautiful when I was young. And she will do the worst chores.”
– The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, 13th Century AD
[Image Credit: Áke and Grima discover Aslaug by Mårten Eskil Winge]
