One finds evidence of the total dependence on mother's milk in one of the Icelandic sagas: the tale of Thorgisl. The infant's mother is murdered with her child in her arms. Although she is lifeless, the child continues to nurse at her breast. After burying the mother, the father spends the long night hours gazing at the baby, and eventually decides to act in order to 'prove his manhood.' He cuts his nipple with a knife until blood gushes forth. When the infant begins to suck, water gushes forth and then milk, and it drinks its fill. ^*

Well, clearly I have been reading the wrong books.

^* Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages, trans. by Chaya Galai (London: Routledge, 1992): 54.