“...The leader makes a characteristic gesture with his palm. Some of the Vikings with their throats cut at night lie on the grass. The remaining fifteen people are seated at intervals on a huge log lying near the burnt village. Their hands are tied behind their backs, between their backs and the binding there is a stake driven into the ground behind a log, so that its top sticks out at the level of their shoulder blades: do not twitch. Two warriors drag the next Viking by the shoulders and put him on a log, the third pushes a stake from above behind his back under the bindings of his arms and drives it into the ground with a stone until the top goes below the level of the neck of the person sitting. A bear-like fighter with a wide ax approaches the log and intercepts the ax at the very end of the long handle, makes a wide circular horizontal swing - and the head of the extreme Viking bounces and rolls. A quiet, approved roar of his comrades...”