Ninth-Century "Well Adjusted"

In recent years it has been remarked by two or three professors — and as something of a corrective to the general academic consensus — that we should not forget that Vikings were under no obligation to observe the Geneva Convention; that while Vikings were not mad, they were often bad and always dangerous to know; even that there was something "psychopathic" about Viking culture.

To which one need only add that twenty-first-century "psychopathic" could be ninth-century "well adjusted."

Tom Shippey, Laughing Shall I Die