The woman's grievance wasn't complicated.
The fuse that sparked the massacre of her family was the discovery of several valuable items in their fields. The whole family had been beside themselves with excitement. They'd hoped to pawn some of the items for silver to buy grain, clothes, and bedding for the winter, and save the rest to buy seeds and rent farm tools and draft cattle for spring planting.
The adults could keep their mouths shut, knowing that wealth shouldn't be flaunted. But what little child had that much sense of caution?
Within a couple of days, word got around that the family had come into unexpected wealth.
After keeping watch for a few more days, the culprits had more or less figured out what was going on.
Then came the same old pattern of deceitful plunder.
A local bully tried to seize the items by force. When a fight broke out and someone was injured, he worried it might turn into a murder case and had to back off for the time being. But the more he thought about it afterward, the more unwilling he was to let it go. A wicked plan took shape in his mind: he'd fabricate a story, accusing the family of robbing a wealthy household's ancestral tomb. When that family heard the news, how could they sit still? They sent a steward to investigate. The good news was that it wasn't their ancestral tomb. The even better news was that it was a grand tomb!
The tomb's owner had no surviving descendants.
Whoever owned the fields on top of the tomb could rightfully claim its burial goods. By this point, the solution was simple: if the wealthy family offered some compensation, the tragedy that followed might have been avoided. But they weren't willing to