Abstract
The paper presents an insight into the social conventions of the Scandinavian elites in the 13th and 14th centuries as well as into the customs portrayed in literary texts, which are attested in this period. We have chosen the topos of female reaction to a warrior returning home or visiting his allies.
There are different - and sometimes none at all - depictions of such scenes throughout the Old Norse literary genres. Naturally, the translated chivalric literature from continent tends to focus on different aspects of behaviour and of the storyline than the genres which respect oral tradition about Icelanders of the Viking Age.
Such scenes are not without meaning for the whole text and for its recipients, emphasis - or omitting - makes sense within the non-literary reality as well. There are deeper implications that can be made concerning the social and cultural conventions and their alleged transformations due to chivalric impulses.
We have also considered the problem of medieval textuality.