Sword and Crozier is a historical drama by Icelandic playwright Indridi Einarsson, first performed in 1885. The play is set in the 11th century and explores the conflict between the Viking warrior spirit and the growing influence of Christianity in Iceland. The central character, Thorodd, is a powerful Viking leader who faces internal and external struggles as he must decide whether to accept Christianity, which is being imposed upon the Icelandic people, or remain loyal to the traditional...

Excerpt: "One evening in the beginning of the eighteenth century—as nearly as we can conjecture, the year might be that of 1720—some time about the end of April, a young man named Lamh Laudher O'Rorke, or Strong-handed O'Eorke, was proceeding from his father's house, with a stout oaken cudgel in his hand, towards an orchard that stood at the skirt of a country town, in a part of the kingdom which, for the present, shall be nameless. Though known by the epithet of Lamh Laudher, his Christia...

Excerpt: "Honest, blustering, good-humored Ned was the indefatigable merchant of the village; ever engaged in some ten or twenty pound speculation, the capital of which he was sure to extort, perhaps for the twelfth time, from the savings of Nancy's frugality, by the equivocal test of a month or six weeks' consecutive sobriety, and which said speculation he never failed to wind up by the total loss of the capital for Nancy, and the capital loss of a broken head for himself. Ned had eternal...