“She gives her lord wine to drink in bowls, pondering all things with zealous preparation; she bids the cooked meats be roasted, and intends them for a second fire.

“Wantonly she feeds her husband like a hog; a shameless whore, trusting....

“She roasts the boiled, and recooks the roasted meats, planning the meal with spendthrift extravagance, careless of right and wrong, practising sin, a foul woman.

“Wanton in arrogance, a soldier of Love, longing for dainties, she abjures the fair ways of self-control, and also provides devices for gluttony.

“With craving stomach she desires turnip strained in a smooth pan, cakes with thin juice, and shellfish in rows.

“I do not remember the Great Frode putting his hand to the sinews of birds, or tearing the rump of a cooked fowl with crooked thumb.

“What former king could have been so gluttonous as to stir the stinking filthy flesh, or rummage in the foul back of a bird with plucking fingers?

“The food of valiant men is raw; no need, methinks, of sumptuous tables for those whose stubborn souls are bent on warfare.

“It had been fitter for thee to have torn the stiff beard, biting hard with thy teeth, than greedily to have drained the bowl of milk with thy wide mouth.

“We fled from the offence of the sumptuous kitchen; we stayed our stomach with rancid fare; few in the old days loved cooked juices.

“A dish with no sauce of herbs gave us the flesh of rams and swine.  We partook temperately, tainting nothing with bold excess.

“Thou who now lickest the milk-white fat, put on, prithee, the spirit of a man; remember Frode, and avenge thy father’s death.

“The worthless and cowardly heart shall perish, and shall not parry the thrust of death by flight, though it bury itself in a valley, or crouch in darkling dens.

“Once we were eleven princes, devoted followers of King Hakon, and here Geigad sat above Helge in the order of the meal.

“Geigad used to appease the first pangs of hunger with a dry rump of ham; and plenty of hard crust quelled the craving of his stomach.

“No one asked for a sickly morsel; all took their food in common; the meal of mighty men cost but slight display.

“The commons shunned foreign victual, and the greatest lusted not for a feast; even the king remembered to live temperately at little cost.

“Scorning to look at the mead, he drank the fermented juice of Ceres; he shrank not from the use of undercooked meats, and hated the roast.

“The board used to stand with slight display, a modest salt-cellar showed the measure of its cost; lest the wise ways of antiquity should in any wise be changed by foreign usage.

“Of old, no man put flagons or mixing-bowls on the tables; the steward filled the cup from the butt, and there was no abundance of adorned vessels.

“No one who honoured past ages put the smooth wine-jars beside the tankards, and of old no bedizened lackey heaped the platter with dainties.