Wedding Tale from 'The Long Ships'

The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson

I'm reading The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. On page 132 I encounter this tale of a viking wedding:

The next day, since they had finished the Yule pork, cabbage soup and mutton appeared on the tables, which they all agreed to be an excellent change. In the evening a man from Halland told them about a great wedding that he had been present at in Finnveden, among the wild people of Smaland. During the celebrations a dispute had broken out concerning a horse deal, and knives had quickly appeared; where upon the bride and her attendant maidens had laughed delightedly and applauded and had encouraged the disputants to settle the matter there and then. However, when the bride, who belonged to a well-known local family, saw her uncles got eye gouged out by one of the bridegrooms kinsmen, she had seized a torch from the wall and hit her bridegroom over the head with it, so that his hair caught fire. One of the bridesmaids, with great presence of mind, had forced her petticoat over his head and twisted it tight, thereby saving his life, though he screamed fearfully and his head, when it appeared again, was burned black and raw. Meanwhile the fire had caught the straw on the floor and eleven drunken or wounded men lying in it had been burned to death; so that this wedding was generally agreed to have been one of the best they had had for years in Finnveden and one that would be long remembered. The bride and bridegroom were now living together in blissful happiness, though he had not been able to grow new hair to replace that which he had lost in the fire.

Oho! Here's what people are really like, not like the facade of civilization we try to maintain. Sounds a whole lot like those neighborhood gun fights they have in Chicago.

I'm about a quarter of the way through this book and so far it's all been like this, short, direct descriptions of what is happening. The story just marches along and the whole thing rings true. It's great.