the anglo-saxon chronicle originally compiled on the orders of king alfred the great, approximately a.d. , and subsequently maintained and added to by generations of anonymous scribes until the middle of the th century. the original language is anglo-saxon (old english), but later entries are essentially middle english in tone. translation by rev. james ingram (london, ), with additional readings from the translation of dr. j.a. giles (london, ). ***************************************************************** preparer's note: at present there are nine known versions or fragments of the "anglo-saxon chronicle" in existence, all of which vary (sometimes greatly) in content and quality. the translation that follows is not a translation of any one chronicle; rather, it is a collation of readings from many different versions. the nine known "anglo-saxon chronicle" ms. are the following: a-prime the parker chronicle (corpus christi college, cambridge, ms. ) a cottonian fragment (british museum, cotton ms. otho b xi, ) b the abingdon chronicle i (british museum, cotton ms. tiberius a vi.) c the abingdon chronicle ii (british museum, cotton ms. tiberius b i.) d the worcester chronicle (british museum, cotton ms. tiberius b iv.) e the laud (or "peterborough") chronicle (bodleian, ms. laud ) f the bilingual canterbury epitome (british museum, cotton ms. domitian a viii.) note: entries in english and latin. h cottonian fragment (british museum, cotton ms. domitian a ix.) i an easter table chronicle (british museum, cotton ms. caligula a xv.) this electronic edition contains primarily the translation of rev. james ingram, as published in the everyman edition of this text. excerpts from the translation of dr. j.a. giles were included as an appendix in the everyman edition; the preparer of this edition has elected to collate these entries into the main text of the translation. where these collations have occurred i have marked the entry with a double parenthesis (()). warning: while i have elected to include the footnotes of rev. ingram in this edition, please note that they should be used with extreme care. in many cases the views expressed by rev. ingram are severally out of date, having been superseded by almost years of active scholarship. at best, these notes will provide a starting point for inquiry. they should not, however, be treated as absolute. selected bibliography: original text-- classen, e. and harmer, f.e. (eds.): "an anglo-saxon chronicle from british museum, cotton ms. tiberius b iv." (manchester, ) flower, robin and smith, hugh (eds.): "the peterborough chronicle and laws" (early english text society, original series , oxford, ). taylor, s. (ed.): "the anglo-saxon chronicle: ms b" <aka "the abingdon chronicle i"> (cambridge, ) other translations-- garmonsway, g.n.: "the anglo-saxon chronicle" (everyman press, london, , ). highly recommended. contains side-by-side translations of all nine known texts. recommended reading-- bede: "a history of the english church and people" <aka "the ecclesiastical history">, translated by leo sherley-price (penguin classics, london, , ). poole, a.l.: "domesday book to magna carta" (oxford university press, oxford, , ) stenton, sir frank w.: "anglo-saxon england" (oxford university press, oxford, , , ) ***************************************************************** original introduction to ingram's edition [ ] england may boast of two substantial monuments of its early history; to either of which it would not be easy to find a parallel in any nation, ancient or modern. these are, the record of doomsday ( ) and the "saxon chronicle" ( ). the former, which is little more than a statistical survey, but contains the most authentic information relative to the descent of property and the comparative importance of the different parts of the kingdom at a very interesting period, the wisdom and liberality of the british parliament long since deemed worthy of being printed ( ) among the public records, by commissioners appointed for that purpose. the other work, though not treated with absolute neglect, has not received that degree of attention which every person who feels an interest in the events and transactions of former times would naturally expect. in the first place, it has never been printed entire, from a collation of all the mss. but of the extent of the two former editions, compared with the present, the reader may form some idea, when he is told that professor wheloc's "chronologia anglo-saxonica", which was the first attempt ( ) of the kind, published at cambridge in , is comprised in less than folio pages, exclusive of the latin appendix. the improved edition by edmund gibson, afterwards bishop of london, printed at oxford in , exhibits nearly four times the quantity of the former; but is very far from being the entire ( ) chronicle, as the editor considered it. the text of the present edition, it was found, could not be compressed within a shorter compass than pages, though the editor has suppressed many notes and illustrations, which may be thought necessary to the general reader. some variations in the mss. may also still remain unnoticed; partly because they were considered of little importance, and partly from an apprehension, lest the commentary, as it sometimes happens, should seem an unwieldy burthen, rather than a necessary appendage, to the text. indeed, till the editor had made some progress in the work, he could not have imagined that so many original and authentic materials of our history still remained unpublished. to those who are unacquainted with this monument of our national antiquities, two questions appear requisite to be answered:-- "what does it contain?" and, "by whom was it written?" the indulgence of the critical antiquary is solicited, whilst we endeavour to answer, in some degree, each of these questions. to the first question we answer, that the "saxon chronicle" contains the original and authentic testimony of contemporary writers to the most important transactions of our forefathers, both by sea and land, from their first arrival in this country to the year . were we to descend to particulars, it would require a volume to discuss the great variety of subjects which it embraces. suffice it to say, that every reader will here find many interesting facts relative to our architecture, our agriculture, our coinage, our commerce, our naval and military glory, our laws, our liberty, and our religion. in this edition, also, will be found numerous specimens of saxon poetry, never before printed, which might form the ground-work of an introductory volume to warton's elaborate annals of english poetry. philosophically considered, this ancient record is the second great phenomenon in the history of mankind. for, if we except the sacred annals of the jews, contained in the several books of the old testament, there is no other work extant, ancient or modern, which exhibits at one view a regular and chronological panorama of a people, described in rapid succession by different writers, through so many ages, in their own vernacular language. hence it may safely be considered, nor only as the primaeval source from which all subsequent historians of english affairs have principally derived their materials, and consequently the criterion by which they are to be judged, but also as the faithful depository of our national idiom; affording, at the same time, to the scientific investigator of the human mind a very interesting and extraordinary example of the changes incident to a language, as well as to a nation, in its progress from rudeness to refinement. but that the reader may more clearly see how much we are indebted to the "saxon chronicle", it will be necessary to examine what is contained in other sources of our history, prior to the accession of henry ii., the period wherein this invaluable record terminates. the most ancient historian of our own island, whose work has been preserved, is gildas, who flourished in the latter part of the sixth century. british antiquaries of the present day will doubtless forgive me, if i leave in their original obscurity the prophecies of merlin, and the exploits of king arthur, with all the knights of the round table, as scarcely coming within the verge of history. notwithstanding, also, the authority of bale, and of the writers whom he follows, i cannot persuade myself to rank joseph of arimathea, arviragus, and bonduca, or even the emperor constantine himself, among the illustrious writers of great britain. i begin, therefore, with gildas; because, though he did not compile a regular history of the island, he has left us, amidst a cumbrous mass of pompous rhapsody and querulous declamation some curious descriptions of the character and manners of the inhabitants; not only the britons and saxons, but the picts and scots ( ). there are also some parts of his work, almost literally transcribed by bede, which confirm the brief statements of the "saxon chronicle" ( ). but there is, throughout, such a want of precision and simplicity, such a barrenness of facts amidst a multiplicity of words, such a scantiness of names of places and persons, of dates, and other circumstances, that we are obliged to have recourse to the saxon annals, or to venerable bede, to supply the absence of those two great lights of history--chronology and topography. the next historian worth notice here is nennius, who is supposed to have flourished in the seventh century: but the work ascribed to him is so full of interpolations and corruptions, introduced by his transcribers, and particularly by a simpleton who is called samuel, or his master beulanus, or both, who appear to have lived in the ninth century, that it is difficult to say how much of this motley production is original and authentic. be that as it may, the writer of the copy printed by gale bears ample testimony to the "saxon chronicle", and says expressly, that he compiled his history partly from the records of the scots and saxons ( ). at the end is a confused but very curious appendix, containing that very genealogy, with some brief notices of saxon affairs, which the fastidiousness of beulanus, or of his amanuensis, the aforesaid samuel, would not allow him to transcribe. this writer, although he professes to be the first historiographer ( ) of the britons, has sometimes repeated the very words of gildas ( ); whose name is even prefixed to some copies of the work. it is a puerile composition, without judgment, selection, or method ( ); filled with legendary tales of trojan antiquity, of magical delusion, and of the miraculous exploits of st. germain and st. patrick: not to mention those of the valiant arthur, who is said to have felled to the ground in one day, single-handed, eight hundred and forty saxons! it is remarkable, that this taste for the marvelous, which does not seem to be adapted to the sober sense of englishmen, was afterwards revived in all its glory by geoffrey of monmouth in the norman age of credulity and romance. we come now to a more cheering prospect; and behold a steady light reflected on the "saxon chronicle" by the "ecclesiastical history" of bede; a writer who, without the intervention of any legendary tale, truly deserves the title of venerable ( ). with a store of classical learning not very common in that age, and with a simplicity of language seldom found in monastic latinity, he has moulded into something like a regular form the scattered fragments of roman, british, scottish, and saxon history. his work, indeed, is professedly ecclesiastical; but, when we consider the prominent station which the church had at this time assumed in england, we need not be surprised if we find therein the same intermixture of civil, military, and ecclesiastical affairs, which forms so remarkable a feature in the "saxon chronicle". hence gibson concludes, that many passages of the latter description were derived from the work of bede ( ). he thinks the same of the description of britain, the notices of the roman emperors, and the detail of the first arrival of the saxons. but, it may be observed, those passages to which he alludes are not to be found in the earlier mss. the description of britain, which forms the introduction, and refers us to a period antecedent to the invasion of julius caesar; appears only in three copies of the "chronicle"; two of which are of so late a date as the norman conquest, and both derived from the same source. whatever relates to the succession of the roman emperors was so universally known, that it must be considered as common property: and so short was the interval between the departure of the romans and the arrival of the saxons, that the latter must have preserved amongst them sufficient memorials and traditions to connect their own history with that of their predecessors. like all rude nations, they were particularly attentive to genealogies; and these, together with the succession of their kings, their battles, and their conquests, must be derived originally from the saxons themselves, and not from gildas, or nennius, or bede ( ). gibson himself was so convinced of this, that he afterwards attributes to the "saxon chronicle" all the knowledge we have of those early times ( ). moreover, we might ask, if our whole dependence had been centered in bede, what would have become of us after his death? ( ) malmsbury indeed asserts, with some degree of vanity, that you will not easily find a latin historian of english affairs between bede and himself ( ); and in the fulness of self-complacency professes his determination, "to season with roman salt the barbarisms of his native tongue!" he affects great contempt for ethelwerd, whose work will be considered hereafter; and he well knew how unacceptable any praise of the "saxon annals" would be to the normans, with whom he was connected ( ). he thinks it necessary to give his reasons, on one occasion, for inserting from these very "annals" what he did not find in bede; though it is obvious, that the best part of his materials, almost to his own times, is derived from the same source. the object of bishop asser, the biographer of alfred, who comes next in order, was to deliver to posterity a complete memorial of that sovereign, and of the transactions of his reign. to him alone are we indebted for the detail of many interesting circumstances in the life and character of his royal patron ( ); but most of the public transactions will be found in the pages of the "saxon chronicle": some passages of which he appears to have translated so literally, that the modern version of gibson does not more closely represent the original. in the editions of parker, camden, and wise, the last notice of any public event refers to the year . the interpolated copy of gale, called by some pseudo-asserius, and by others the chronicle of st. neot's, is extended to the year ( ). much difference of opinion exists respecting this work; into the discussion of which it is not our present purpose to enter. one thing is remarkable: it contains the vision of drihtelm, copied from bede, and that of charles king of the franks, which malmsbury thought it worth while to repeat in his "history of the kings of england". what gale observes concerning the "fidelity" with which these annals of asser are copied by marianus, is easily explained. they both translated from the "saxon chronicle", as did also florence of worcester, who interpolated marianus; of whom we shall speak hereafter. but the most faithful and extraordinary follower of the "saxon annals" is ethelwerd; who seems to have disregarded almost all other sources of information. one great error, however, he committed; for which malmsbury does nor spare him. despairing of the reputation of classical learning, if he had followed the simplicity of the saxon original, he fell into a sort of measured and inverted prose, peculiar to himself; which, being at first sufficiently obscure, is sometimes rendered almost unintelligible by the incorrect manner in which it has been printed. his authority, nevertheless, in an historical point of view, is very respectable. being one of the few writers untainted by monastic prejudice ( ), he does not travel out of his way to indulge in legendary tales and romantic visions. critically considered, his work is the best commentary on the "saxon chronicle" to the year ; at which period one of the mss. which he seems to have followed, terminates. brevity and compression seem to have been his aim, because the compilation was intended to be sent abroad for the instruction of a female relative of high rank in germany ( ), at her request. but there are, nevertheless, some circumstances recorded which are not to be found elsewhere; so that a reference to this epitome of saxon history will be sometimes useful in illustrating the early part of the "chronicle"; though gibson, i know not on what account, has scarcely once quoted it. during the sanguinary conflicts of the eleventh century, which ended first in the temporary triumph of the danes, and afterwards in the total subjugation of the country by the normans, literary pursuits, as might be expected, were so much neglected, that scarcely a latin writer is to be found: but the "saxon chronicle" has preserved a regular and minute detail of occurrences, as they passed along, of which subsequent historians were glad to avail themselves. for nearly a century after the conquest, the saxon annalists appear to have been chiefly eye-witnesses of the transactions which they relate ( ). the policy of the conqueror led him by degrees to employ saxons as well as normans: and william ii. found them the most faithful of his subjects: but such an influx of foreigners naturally corrupted the ancient language; till at length, after many foreign and domestic wars, tranquillity being restored on the accession of henry ii., literature revived; a taste for composition increased; and the compilation of latin histories of english and foreign affairs, blended and diversified with the fabled romance and legendary tale, became the ordinary path to distinction. it is remarkable, that when the "saxon chronicle" ends, geoffrey of monmouth begins. almost every great monastery about this time had its historian: but some still adhered to the ancient method. florence of worcester, an interpolator of marianus, as we before observed, closely follows bede, asser, and the "saxon chronicle" ( ). the same may be observed of the annals of gisburne, of margan, of meiros, of waverley, etc.; some of which are anonymous compilations, whilst others have the name of an author, or rather transcriber; for very few aspired to the character of authors or original historians. thomas wikes, a canon of oseney, who compiled a latin chronicle of english affairs from the conquest to the year , tells us expressly, that he did this, not because he could add much to the histories of bede, william of newburgh, and matthew paris, but "propter minores, quibus non suppetit copia librorum." ( ) before the invention of printing, it was necessary that numerous copies of historical works should be transcribed, for the instruction of those who had not access to libraries. the transcribers frequently added something of their own, and abridged or omitted what they thought less interesting. hence the endless variety of interpolators and deflorators of english history. william of malmsbury, indeed, deserves to be selected from all his competitors for the superiority of his genius; but he is occasionally inaccurate, and negligent of dates and other minor circumstances; insomuch that his modern translator has corrected some mistakes, and supplied the deficiencies in his chronology, by a reference to the "saxon chronicle". henry of huntingdon, when he is not transcribing bede, or translating the "saxon annals", may be placed on the same shelf with geoffrey of monmouth. as i have now brought the reader to the period when our "chronicle" terminates, i shall dismiss without much ceremony the succeeding writers, who have partly borrowed from this source; simon of durham, who transcribes florence of worcester, the two priors of hexham, gervase, hoveden, bromton, stubbes, the two matthews, of paris and westminster, and many others, considering that sufficient has been said to convince those who may not have leisure or opportunity to examine the matter themselves, that however numerous are the latin historians of english affairs, almost everything original and authentic, and essentially conducive to a correct knowledge of our general history, to the period above mentioned, may be traced to the "saxon annals". it is now time to examine, who were probably the writers of these "annals". i say probably, because we have very little more than rational conjecture to guide us. the period antecedent to the times of bede, except where passages were afterwards inserted, was perhaps little else, originally, than a kind of chronological table of events, with a few genealogies, and notices of the death and succession of kings and other distinguished personages. but it is evident from the preface of bede and from many passages in his work, that he received considerable assistance from saxon bishops, abbots, and others; who not only communicated certain traditionary facts "viva voce", but also transmitted to him many written documents. these, therefore, must have been the early chronicles of wessex, of kent, and of the other provinces of the heptarchy; which formed together the ground-work of his history. with greater honesty than most of his followers, he has given us the names of those learned persons who assisted him with this local information. the first is alcuinus or albinus, an abbot of canterbury, at whose instigation he undertook the work; who sent by nothelm, afterwards archbishop of that province, a full account of all ecclesiastical transactions in kent, and in the contiguous districts, from the first conversion of the saxons. from the same source he partly derived his information respecting the provinces of essex, wessex, east anglia, and northumbria. bishop daniel communicated to him by letter many particulars concerning wessex, sussex, and the isle of wight. he acknowledges assistance more than once "ex scriptis priorum"; and there is every reason to believe that some of these preceding records were the "anglo-saxon annals"; for we have already seen that such records were in existence before the age of nennius. in proof of this we may observe, that even the phraseology sometimes partakes more of the saxon idiom than the latin. if, therefore, it be admitted, as there is every reason to conclude from the foregoing remarks, that certain succinct and chronological arrangements of historical facts had taken place in several provinces of the heptarchy before the time of bede, let us inquire by whom they were likely to have been made. in the province of kent, the first person on record, who is celebrated for his learning, is tobias, the ninth bishop of rochester, who succeeded to that see in . he is noticed by bede as not only furnished with an ample store of greek and latin literature, but skilled also in the saxon language and erudition ( ). it is probable, therefore, that he left some proofs of this attention to his native language and as he died within a few years of bede, the latter would naturally avail himself of his labours. it is worthy also of remark, that bertwald, who succeeded to the illustrious theodore of tarsus in , was the first english or saxon archbishop of canterbury. from this period, consequently, we may date that cultivation of the vernacular tongue which would lead to the composition of brief chronicles ( ), and other vehicles of instruction, necessary for the improvement of a rude and illiterate people. the first chronicles were, perhaps, those of kent or wessex; which seem to have been regularly continued, at intervals, by the archbishops of canterbury, or by their direction ( ), at least as far as the year , or by even ; for the benet ms., which some call the plegmund ms., ends in the latter year; the rest being in latin. from internal evidence indeed, of an indirect nature, there is great reason to presume, that archbishop plegmund transcribed or superintended this very copy of the "saxon annals" to the year ( ); the year in which he came to the see; inserting, both before and after this date, to the time of his death in , such additional materials as he was well qualified to furnish from his high station and learning, and the confidential intercourse which he enjoyed in the court of king alfred. the total omission of his own name, except by another hand, affords indirect evidence of some importance in support of this conjecture. whether king alfred himself was the author of a distinct and separate chronicle of wessex, cannot now be determined. that he furnished additional supplies of historical matter to the older chronicles is, i conceive, sufficiently obvious to every reader who will take the trouble of examining the subject. the argument of dr. beeke, the present dean of bristol, in an obliging letter to the editor on this subject, is not without its force;--that it is extremely improbable, when we consider the number and variety of king alfred's works, that he should have neglected the history, of his own country. besides a genealogy of the kings of wessex from cerdic to his own time, which seems never to have been incorporated with any ms. of the "saxon chronicle", though prefixed or annexed to several, he undoubtedly preserved many traditionary facts; with a full and circumstantial detail of his own operations, as well as those of his father, brother, and other members of his family; which scarcely any other person than himself could have supplied. to doubt this would be as incredulous a thing as to deny that xenophon wrote his "anabasis", or caesar his "commentaries". from the time of alfred and plegmund to a few years after the norman conquest, these chronicles seem to have been continued by different hands, under the auspices of such men as archbishops dunstan, aelfric, and others, whose characters have been much misrepresented by ignorance and scepticism on the one hand; as well as by mistaken zeal and devotion on the other. the indirect evidence respecting dunstan and aelfric is as curious as that concerning plegmund; but the discussion of it would lead us into a wide and barren field of investigation; nor is this the place to refute the errors of hickes, cave, and wharton, already noticed by wanley in his preface. the chronicles of abingdon, of worcester, of peterborough, and others, are continued in the same manner by different hands; partly, though not exclusively, by monks of those monasteries, who very naturally inserted many particulars relating to their own local interests and concerns; which, so far from invalidating the general history, render it more interesting and valuable. it would be a vain and frivolous attempt ascribe these latter compilations to particular persons ( ), where there were evidently so many contributors; but that they were successively furnished by contemporary writers, many of whom were eye-witnesses of the events and transactions which they relate, there is abundance of internal evidence to convince us. many instances of this the editor had taken some pains to collect, in order to lay them before the reader in the preface; but they are so numerous that the subject would necessarily become tedious; and therefore every reader must be left to find them for himself. they will amply repay him for his trouble, if he takes any interest in the early history of england, or in the general construction of authentic history of any kind. he will see plagarisms without end in the latin histories, and will be in no danger of falling into the errors of gale and others; not to mention those of our historians who were not professed antiquaries, who mistook that for original and authentic testimony which was only translated. it is remarkable that the "saxon chronicle" gradually expires with the saxon language, almost melted into modern english, in the year . from this period almost to the reformation, whatever knowledge we have of the affairs of england has been originally derived either from the semi-barbarous latin of our own countrymen, or from the french chronicles of froissart and others. the revival of good taste and of good sense, and of the good old custom adopted by most nations of the civilised world--that of writing their own history in their own language--was happily exemplified at length in the laborious works of our english chroniclers and historians. many have since followed in the same track; and the importance of the whole body of english history has attracted and employed the imagination of milton, the philosophy of hume, the simplicity of goldsmith, the industry of henry, the research of turner, and the patience of lingard. the pages of these writers, however, accurate and luminous as they generally are, as well as those of brady, tyrrell, carte, rapin, and others, not to mention those in black letter, still require correction from the "saxon chronicle"; without which no person, however learned, can possess anything beyond a superficial acquaintance with the elements of english history, and of the british constitution. some remarks may here be requisite on the chronology of the "saxon chronicle". in the early part of it ( ) the reader will observe a reference to the grand epoch of the creation of the world. so also in ethelwerd, who closely follows the "saxon annals". it is allowed by all, that considerable difficulty has occurred in fixing the true epoch of christ's nativity ( ), because the christian aera was not used at all till about the year ( ), when it was introduced by dionysius exiguus; whose code of canon law, joined afterwards with the decretals of the popes, became as much the standard of authority in ecclesiastical matters as the pandects of justinian among civilians. but it does not appear that in the saxon mode of computation this system of chronology was implicitly followed. we mention this circumstance, however, not with a view of settling the point of difference, which would not be easy, but merely to account for those variations observable m different mss.; which arose, not only from the common mistakes or inadvertencies of transcribers, but from the liberty which the original writers themselves sometimes assumed in this country, of computing the current year according to their own ephemeral or local custom. some began with the incarnation or nativity of christ; some with the circumcision, which accords with the solar year of the romans as now restored; whilst others commenced with the annunciation; a custom which became very prevalent in honour of the virgin mary, and was not formally abolished here till the year ; when the gregorian calendar, commonly called the new style, was substituted by act of parliament for the dionysian. this diversity of computation would alone occasion some confusion; but in addition to this, the indiction, or cycle of fifteen years, which is mentioned in the latter part of the "saxon chronicle", was carried back three years before the vulgar aera, and commenced in different places at four different periods of the year! but it is very remarkable that, whatever was the commencement of the year in the early part of the "saxon chronicle", in the latter part the year invariably opens with midwinter-day or the nativity. gervase of canterbury, whose latin chronicle ends in , the aera of "legal" memory, had formed a design, as he tells us, of regulating his chronology by the annunciation; but from an honest fear of falsifying dates he abandoned his first intention, and acquiesced in the practice of his predecessors; who for the most part, he says, began the new year with the nativity ( ). having said thus much in illustration of the work itself, we must necessarily be brief in our account of the present edition. it was contemplated many years since, amidst a constant succession of other occupations; but nothing was then projected beyond a reprint of gibson, substituting an english translation for the latin. the indulgence of the saxon scholar is therefore requested, if we have in the early part of the chronicle too faithfully followed the received text. by some readers no apology of this kind will be deemed necessary; but something may be expected in extenuation of the delay which has retarded the publication. the causes of that delay must be chiefly sought in the nature of the work itself. new types were to be cast; compositors to be instructed in a department entirely new to them; manuscripts to be compared, collated, transcribed; the text to be revised throughout; various readings of great intricacy to be carefully presented, with considerable additions from unpublished sources; for, however unimportant some may at first sight appear, the most trivial may be of use. with such and other difficulties before him, the editor has, nevertheless, been blessed with health and leisure sufficient to overcome them; and he may now say with gervase the monk at the end of his first chronicle, "finito libro reddatur gratia christo." ( ) of the translation it is enough to observe, that it is made as literal as possible, with a view of rendering the original easy to those who are at present unacquainted with the saxon language. by this method also the connection between the ancient and modern language will be more obvious. the same method has been adopted in an unpublished translation of gibson's "chronicle" by the late mr. cough, now in the bodleian library. but the honour of having printed the first literal version of the "saxon annals" was reserved for a learned lady, the elstob of her age ( ); whose work was finished in the year . these translations, however, do not interfere with that in the present edition; because they contain nothing but what is found in the printed texts, and are neither accompanied with the original, nor with any collation of mss. endnotes: ( ) whatever was the origin of this title, by which it is now distinguished, in an appendix to the work itself it is called "liber de wintonia," or "the winchester-book," from its first place of custody. ( ) this title is retained, in compliance with custom, though it is a collection of chronicles, rather than one uniform work, as the received appellation seems to imply. ( ) in two volumes folio, with the following title: "domesday-book, seu liber censualis willelmi primi regis angliae, inter archlyos regni in domo capitulari westmonasterii asservatus: jubente rege augustissimo georgio tertio praelo mandatus typis mdcclxxxiii" ( ) gerard langbaine had projected such a work, and had made considerable progress in the collation of mss., when he found himself anticipated by wheloc. ( ) "nunc primum integrum edidit" is gibson's expression in the title-page. he considers wheloc's mss. as fragments, rather than entire chronicles: "quod integrum nacti jam discimus." these mss., however, were of the first authority, and not less entire, as far as they went, than his own favourite "laud". but the candid critic will make allowance for the zeal of a young bachelor of queen's, who, it must be remembered, had scarcely attained the age of twenty-three when this extraordinary work was produced. ( ) the reader is forcibly reminded of the national dress of the highlanders in the following singular passage: "furciferos magis vultus pilis, quam corporum pudenda, pudendisque proxima, vestibus tegentes." ( ) see particularly capp. xxiii. and xxvi. the work which follows, called the "epistle of gildas", is little more than a cento of quotations from the old and new testament. ( ) "de historiis scotorum saxonumque, licet inimicorum," etc. "hist. brit. ap." gale, xv. script. p. . see also p. of the same work; where the writer notices the absence of all written memorials among the britons, and attributes it to the frequent recurrence of war and pestilence. a new edition has been prepared from a vatican ms. with a translation and notes by the rev. w. gunn, and published by j. and a. arch. ( ) "malo me historiographum quam neminem," etc. ( ) he considered his work, perhaps, as a lamentation of declamation, rather than a history. but bede dignifies him with the title of "historicus," though he writes "fiebili sermone." ( ) but it is probable that the work is come down to us in a garbled and imperfect state. ( ) there is an absurd story of a monk, who in vain attempting to write his epitaph, fell asleep, leaving it thus: "hac sunt in fossa bedae. ossa:" but, when he awoke, to his great surprise and satisfaction he found the long-sought epithet supplied by an angelic hand, the whole line standing thus: "hac sunt in fossa bedae venerabilis ossa." ( ) see the preface to his edition of the "saxon chronicle". ( ) this will be proved more fully when we come to speak of the writers of the "saxon chronicle". ( ) preface, "ubi supra". ( ) he died a.d. , according to our chronicle; but some place his death to the following year. ( ) this circumstance alone proves the value of the "saxon chronicle". in the "edinburgh chronicle" of st. cross, printed by h. wharton, there is a chasm from the death of bede to the year ; a period of years. ( ) the cold and reluctant manner in which he mentions the "saxon annals", to which he was so much indebted, can only be ascribed to this cause in him, as well as in the other latin historians. see his prologue to the first book, "de gestis regum," etc. ( ) if there are additional anecdotes in the chronicle of st. neot's, which is supposed to have been so called by leland because he found the ms. there, it must be remembered that this work is considered an interpolated asser. ( ) the death of asser himself is recorded in the year ; but this is no more a proof that the whole work is spurious, than the character and burial of moses, described in the latter part of the book of "deuteronomy", would go to prove that the pentateuch was not written by him. see bishop watson's "apology for the bible". ( ) malmsbury calls him "noble and magnificent," with reference to his rank; for he was descended from king alfred: but he forgets his peculiar praise--that of being the only latin historian for two centuries; though, like xenophon, caesar, and alfred, he wielded the sword as much as the pen. ( ) this was no less a personage than matilda, the daughter of otho the great, emperor of germany, by his first empress eadgitha or editha; who is mentioned in the "saxon chronicle", a.d. , though not by name, as given to otho by her brother, king athelstan. ethelwerd adds, in his epistle to matilda, that athelstan sent two sisters, in order that the emperor might take his choice; and that he preferred the mother of matilda. ( ) see particularly the character of william i. p. , written by one who was in his court. the compiler of the "waverley annals" we find literally translating it more than a century afterwards:--"nos dicemus, qui eum vidimus, et in curia ejus aliquando fuimus," etc.--gale, ii. . ( ) his work, which is very faithfully and diligently compiled, ends in the year ; but it is continued by another hand to the imprisonment of king stephen. ( ) "chron. ap." gale, ii. . ( ) "virum latina, graec, et saxonica lingua atque eruditione multipliciter instructum."--bede, "ecclesiastical history", v. . "chron. s. crucis edinb. ap.", wharton, i. . ( ) the materials, however, though not regularly arranged, must be traced to a much higher source. ( ) josselyn collated two kentish mss. of the first authority; one of which he calls the history or chronicle of st. augustine's, the other that of christ church, canterbury. the former was perhaps the one marked in our series "c.t." a vi.; the latter the benet or plegmund ms. ( ) wanley observes, that the benet ms. is written in one and the same hand to this year, and in hands equally ancient to the year ; after which it is continued in different hands to the end. vid. "cat." p. . ( ) florence of worcester, in ascertaining the succession of the kings of wessex, refers expressly to the "dicta aelfredi". ethelwerd had before acknowledged that he reported many things--"sicut docuere parentes;" and then he immediately adds, "scilicet aelfred rex athulfi regis filius; ex quo nos originem trahimus." vid. prol. ( ) hickes supposed the laud or peterborough chronicle to have been compiled by hugo candidus (albus, or white), or some other monk of that house. ( ) see a.d. xxxiii., the aera of christ's crucifixion, p. , and the notes below. ( ) see playfair's "system of chronology", p. . ( ) playfair says : but i follow bede, florence of worcester, and others, who affirm that the great paschal cycle of dionysius commenced from the year of our lord's incarnation --the year in which the code of justinian was promulgated. "vid. flor. an." , , and . see also m. west. "an." . ( ) "vid. prol. in chron." bervas. "ap. x." script. p. . ( ) often did the editor, during the progress of the work, sympathise with the printer; who, in answer to his urgent importunities to hasten the work, replied once in the classical language of manutius: "precor, ut occupationibus meis ignoscas; premor enim oneribus, et typographiae cura, ut vix sustineam." who could be angry after this? ( ) miss gurney, of keswick, norfolk. the work, however, was not published. the anglo-saxon chronicle the island britain ( ) is miles long, and miles broad. and there are in the island five nations; english, welsh (or british) ( ), scottish, pictish, and latin. the first inhabitants were the britons, who came from armenia ( ), and first peopled britain southward. then happened it, that the picts came south from scythia, with long ships, not many; and, landing first in the northern part of ireland, they told the scots that they must dwell there. but they would not give them leave; for the scots told them that they could not all dwell there together; "but," said the scots, "we can nevertheless give you advice. we know another island here to the east. there you may dwell, if you will; and whosoever withstandeth you, we will assist you, that you may gain it." then went the picts and entered this land northward. southward the britons possessed it, as we before said. and the picts obtained wives of the scots, on condition that they chose their kings always on the female side ( ); which they have continued to do, so long since. and it happened, in the run of years, that some party of scots went from ireland into britain, and acquired some portion of this land. their leader was called reoda ( ), from whom they are named dalreodi (or dalreathians). sixty winters ere that christ was born, caius julius, emperor of the romans, with eighty ships sought britain. there he was first beaten in a dreadful fight, and lost a great part of his army. then he let his army abide with the scots ( ), and went south into gaul. there he gathered six hundred ships, with which he went back into britain. when they first rushed together, caesar's tribune, whose name was labienus ( ), was slain. then took the welsh sharp piles, and drove them with great clubs into the water, at a certain ford of the river called thames. when the romans found that, they would not go over the ford. then fled the britons to the fastnesses of the woods; and caesar, having after much fighting gained many of the chief towns, went back into gaul ( ). ((b.c. . before the incarnation of christ sixty years, gaius julius the emperor, first of the romans, sought the land of britain; and he crushed the britons in battle, and overcame them; and nevertheless he was unable to gain any empire there.)) a.d. . octavianus reigned fifty-six winters; and in the forty-second year of his reign christ was born. then three astrologers from the east came to worship christ; and the children in bethlehem were slain by herod in persecution of christ. a.d. . this year died herod, stabbed by his own hand; and archelaus his son succeeded him. the child christ was also this year brought back again from egypt. a.d. . from the beginning of the world to this year were agone five thousand and two hundred winters. a.d. . this year herod the son of antipater undertook the government in judea. a.d. . this year philip and herod divided judea into four kingdoms. ((a.d. . this year judea was divided into four tetrarchies.)) a.d. . this year tiberius succeeded to the empire. a.d. . this year pilate began to reign over the jews. a.d. . this year was christ baptized; and peter and andrew were converted, together with james, and john, and philip, and all the twelve apostles. a.d. . this year was christ crucified; ( ) about five thousand two hundred and twenty six winters from the beginning of the world. ( ) a.d. . this year was st. paul converted, and st. stephen stoned. a.d. . this year the blessed peter the apostle settled an episcopal see in the city of antioch. a.d. . this year ( ) pilate slew himself with his own hand. a.d. . this year caius undertook the empire. a.d. . this year the blessed peter the apostle settled an episcopal see at rome; and james, the brother of john, was slain by herod. a.d. . this year died herod, who slew james one year ere his own death. a.d. . this year claudius, the second of the roman emperors who invaded britain, took the greater part of the island into his power, and added the orkneys to rite dominion of the romans. this was in the fourth year of his reign. and in the same year ( ) happened the great famine in syria which luke mentions in the book called "the acts of the apostles". after claudius nero succeeded to the empire, who almost lost the island britain through his incapacity. ((a.d. . this year the emperor claudius came to britain, and subdued a large part of the island; and he also added the island of orkney to the dominion of the romans.)) a.d. . this year mark, the evangelist in egypt beginneth to write the gospel. ((a.d. . this was in the fourth year of his reign, and in this same year was the great famine in syria which luke speaks of in the book called "actus apostolorum".)) ((a.d. . this year claudius, king of the romans, went with an army into britain, and subdued the island, and subjected all the picts and welsh to the rule of the romans.)) a.d. . this year paul was sent bound to rome. a.d. . this year james, the brother of christ, suffered. a.d. . this year mark the evangelist departed this life. a.d. . this year peter and paul suffered. a.d. . this year vespasian undertook the empire. a.d. . this year titus, son of vespasian, slew in jerusalem eleven hundred thousand jews. a.d. . this year titus came to the empire, after vespasian, who said that he considered the day lost in which he did no good. a.d. . this year domitian, the brother of titus, assumed the government. a.d. . this year john the evangelist in the island patmos wrote the book called "the apocalypse". a.d. . this year simon, the apostle, a relation of christ, was crucified: and john the evangelist rested at ephesus. a.d. . this year died pope clement. a.d. . this year bishop ignatius suffered. a.d. . this year hadrian the caesar began to reign. a.d. . this year marcus antoninus and aurelius his brother succeeded to the empire. ((a.d. . this year eleutherius succeeded to the popedom, and held it fifteen years; and in the same year lucius, king of the britons, sent and begged baptism of him. and he soon sent it him, and they continued in the true faith until the time of diocletian.)) a.d. . this year severus came to the empire; and went with his army into britain, and subdued in battle a great part of the island. then wrought he a mound of turf, with a broad wall thereupon, from sea to sea, for the defence of the britons. he reigned seventeen years; and then ended his days at york. his son bassianus succeeded him in the empire. his other son, who perished, was called geta. this year eleutherius undertook the bishopric of rome, and held it honourably for fifteen winters. to him lucius, king of the britons, sent letters, and prayed that he might be made a christian. he obtained his request; and they continued afterwards in the right belief until the reign of diocletian. a.d. . in this year was found the holy rood. ( ) a.d. . this year suffered saint alban the martyr. a.d. . this year died st. nicolaus. a.d. . this year gratian succeeded to the empire. a.d. . this year maximus the caesar came to the empire. he was born in the land of britain, whence he passed over into gaul. he there slew the emperor gratian; and drove his brother, whose name was valentinian, from his country (italy). the same valentinian afterwards collected an army, and slew maximus; whereby he gained the empire. about this time arose the error of pelagius over the world. a.d. . this year the romans collected all the hoards of gold ( ) that were in britain; and some they hid in the earth, so that no man afterwards might find them, and some they carried away with them into gaul. a.d. . this year theodosius the younger succeeded to the empire. a.d. . this year bishop palladius was sent from pope celesrinus to the scots, that he might establish their faith. a.d. . this year patricius was sent from pope celestinus to preach baptism to the scots. ((a.d. . this year patrick was sent by pope celestine to preach baptism to the scots.)) a.d. . this year the goths sacked the city of rome; and never since have the romans reigned in britain. this was about eleven hundred and ten winters after it was built. they reigned altogether in britain four hundred and seventy winters since gaius julius first sought that land. a.d. . this year sent the britons over sea to rome, and begged assistance against the picts; but they had none, for the romans were at war with atila, king of the huns. then sent they to the angles, and requested the same from the nobles of that nation. a.d. . this year died st. martin. a.d. . this year john the baptist showed his head to two monks, who came from the eastern country to jerusalem for the sake of prayer, in the place that whilom was the palace of herod. ( ) a.d. . this year marcian and valentinian assumed the empire, and reigned seven winters. in their days hengest and horsa, invited by wurtgern, king of the britons to his assistance, landed in britain in a place that is called ipwinesfleet; first of all to support the britons, but they afterwards fought against them. the king directed them to fight against the picts; and they did so; and obtained the victory wheresoever they came. they then sent to the angles, and desired them to send more assistance. they described the worthlessness of the britons, and the richness of the land. they then sent them greater support. then came the men from three powers of germany; the old saxons, the angles, and the jutes. from the jutes are descended the men of kent, the wightwarians (that is, the tribe that now dwelleth in the isle of wight), and that kindred in wessex that men yet call the kindred of the jutes. from the old saxons came the people of essex and sussex and wessex. from anglia, which has ever since remained waste between the jutes and the saxons, came the east angles, the middle angles, the mercians, and all of those north of the humber. their leaders were two brothers, hengest and horsa; who were the sons of wihtgils; wihtgils was the son of witta, witta of wecta, wecta of woden. from this woden arose all our royal kindred, and that of the southumbrians also. ((a.d. . and in their days vortigern invited the angles thither, and they came to britain in three ceols, at the place called wippidsfleet.)) a.d. . this year hengest and horsa fought with wurtgern the king on the spot that is called aylesford. his brother horsa being there slain, hengest afterwards took to the kingdom with his son esc. a.d. . this year hengest and esc fought with the britons on the spot that is called crayford, and there slew four thousand men. the britons then forsook the land of kent, and in great consternation fled to london. a.d. . this year hengest and esc fought with the welsh, nigh wippedfleet; and there slew twelve leaders, all welsh. on their side a thane was there slain, whose name was wipped. a.d. . this year hengest and esc fought with the welsh, and took immense booty. and the welsh fled from the english like fire. a.d. . this year came ella to britain, with his three sons, cymen, and wlenking, and cissa, in three ships; landing at a place that is called cymenshore. there they slew many of the welsh; and some in flight they drove into the wood that is called andred'sley. a.d. . this year the blessed abbot benedict shone in this world, by the splendour of those virtues which the blessed gregory records in the book of dialogues. a.d. . this year ella fought with the welsh nigh mecred's-burnsted. a.d. . this year esc succeeded to the kingdom; and was king of the men of kent twenty-four winters. a.d. . this year ella and cissa besieged the city of andred, and slew all that were therein; nor was one briten left there afterwards. a.d. . this year came two leaders into britain, cerdic and cynric his son, with five ships, at a place that is called cerdic's-ore. and they fought with the welsh the same day. then he died, and his son cynric succeeded to the government, and held it six and twenty winters. then he died; and ceawlin, his son, succeeded, who reigned seventeen years. then he died; and ceol succeeded to the government, and reigned five years. when he died, ceolwulf, his brother, succeeded, and reigned seventeen years. their kin goeth to cerdic. then succeeded cynebils, ceolwulf's brother's son, to the kingdom; and reigned one and thirty winters. and he first of west-saxon kings received baptism. then succeeded cenwall, who was the son of cynegils, and reigned one and thirty winters. then held sexburga, his queen, the government one year after him. then succeeded escwine to the kingdom, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and held it two years. then succeeded centwine, the son of cynegils, to the kingdom of the west-saxons, and reigned nine years. then succeeded ceadwall to the government, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and held it three years. then succeeded ina to the kingdom of the west-saxons, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and reigned thirty-seven winters. then succeeded ethelheard, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and reigned sixteen years. then succeeded cuthred, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and reigned sixteen winters. then succeeded sigebriht, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and reigned one year. then succeeded cynwulf, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and reigned one and thirty winters. then succeeded brihtric, whose kin goeth to cerdic, and reigned sixteen years. then succeeded egbert to the kingdom, and held it seven and thirty winters, and seven months. then succeeded ethelwulf, his son, and reigned eighteen years and a half. ethelwulf was the son of egbert, egbert of ealmund, ealmund of eafa, eafa of eoppa, eoppa of ingild, ingild of cenred (ina of cenred, cuthburga of cenred, and cwenburga of cenred), cenred of ceolwald, ceolwald of cuthwulf, cuthwulf of cuthwine, cuthwine of celm, celm of cynric, cynric of creoda, creoda of cerdic. then succeeded ethelbald, the son of ethelwulf, to the kingdom, and held it five years. then succeeded ethelbert, his brother, and reigned five years. then succeeded ethelred, his brother, to the kingdom, and held it five years. then succeeded alfred, their brother, to the government. and then had elapsed of his age three and twenty winters, and three hundred and ninety-six winters from the time when his kindred first gained the land of wessex from the welsh. and he held the kingdom a year and a half less than thirty winters. then succeeded edward, the son of alfred, and reigned twenty-four winters. when he died, then succeeded athelstan, his son, and reigned fourteen years and seven weeks and three days. then succeeded edmund, his brother, and reigned six years and a half, wanting two nights. then succeeded edred, his brother, and reigned nine years and six weeks. then succeeded edwy, the son of edmund, and reigned three years and thirty-six weeks, wanting two days. when he died, then succeeded edgar, his brother, and reigned sixteen years and eight weeks and two nights. when he died, then succeeded edward, the son of edgar, and reigned-- a.d. . this year porta and his two sons, beda and mela, came into britain, with two ships, at a place called portsmouth. they soon landed, and slew on the spot a young briton of very high rank. a.d. . this year cerdic and cynric slew a british king, whose name was natanleod, and five thousand men with him. after this was the land named netley, from him, as far as charford. a.d. . this year st. benedict, the abbot, father of all the monks, ( ) ascended to heaven. a.d. . this year came the west-saxons into britain, with three ships, at the place that is called cerdic's-ore. and stuff and wihtgar fought with the britons, and put them to flight. a.d. . this year cerdic and cynric undertook the government of the west-saxons; the same year they fought with the britons at a place now called charford. from that day have reigned the children of the west-saxon kings. a.d. . this year cerdic and cynric fought with the britons in the place that is called cerdic's-ley. a.d. . this year cerdic and cynric took the isle of wight, and slew many men in carisbrook. a.d. . this year died cerdic, the first king of the west-saxons. cynric his son succeeded to the government, and reigned afterwards twenty-six winters. and they gave to their two nephews, stuff and wihtgar, the whole of the isle of wight. a.d. . this year the sun was eclipsed, fourteen days before the calends of march, from before morning until nine. a.d. . this year the sun was eclipsed on the twelfth day before the calends of july; and the stars showed themselves full nigh half an hour over nine. a.d. . this year died wihtgar; and men buried him at carisbrook. a.d. . this year ida began his reign; from whom first arose the royal kindred of the northumbrians. ida was the son of eoppa, eoppa of esa, esa of ingwy, ingwy of angenwit, angenwit of alloc, alloc of bennoc, bennoc of brand, brand of balday, balday of woden. woden of fritholaf, fritholaf of frithowulf, frithowulf of finn, finn of godolph, godolph of geata. ida reigned twelve years. he built bamburgh-castle, which was first surrounded with a hedge, and afterwards with a wall. a.d. . this year cynric fought with the britons on the spot that is called sarum, and put them to flight. cerdic was the father of cynric, cerdic was the son of elesa, elesa of esla, esla of gewis, gewis of wye, wye of frewin, frewin of frithgar, frithgar of brand, brand of balday, balday of woden. in this year ethelbert, the son of ermenric, was born, who on the two and thirtieth year of his reign received the rite of baptism, the first of all the kings in britain. a.d. . this year cynric and ceawlin fought with the britons at beranbury. a.d. . this year ceawlin undertook the government of the west-saxons; and ella, on the death of ida, that of the northumbrians; each of whom reigned thirty winters. ella was the son of iff, iff of usfrey, usfrey of wilgis, wilgis of westerfalcon, westerfalcon of seafowl, seafowl of sebbald, sebbald of sigeat, sigeat of swaddy, swaddy of seagirt, seagar of waddy, waddy of woden, woden of frithowulf. this year ethelbert came to the kingdom of the cantuarians, and held it fifty-three winters. in his days the holy pope gregory sent us baptism. that was in the two and thirtieth year of his reign. and columba, the mass-priest, came to the picts, and converted them to the belief of christ. they are the dwellers by the northern moors. and their king gave him the island of hii, consisting of five hides, as they say, where columba built a monastary. there he was abbot two and thirty winters; and there he died, when he was seventy-seven years old. the place his successors yet have. the southern picts were long before baptized by bishop ninnia, who was taught at rome. his church or monastery is at hwiterne, hallowed in the name of st. martin, where he resteth with many holy men. now, therefore, shall there be ever in hii an abbot, and no bishop; and to him shall be subject all the bishops of the scots; because columba was an abbot--no bishop. ((a.d. . this year columba the presbyter came from the scots among the britons, to instruct the picts, and he built a monastery in the island of hii.)) a.d. . this year ceawlin, and cutha the brother of ceawlin, fought with ethelbert, and pursued him into kent. and they slew two aldermen at wimbledon, oslake and cnebba. a.d. . this year cuthulf fought with the britons at bedford, and took four towns, lenbury, aylesbury, benson, and ensham. and this same year he died. a.d. . this year cuthwin and ceawlin fought with the britons, and slew three kings, commail, and condida, and farinmail, on the spot that is called derham, and took from them three cities, gloucester, cirencester, and bath. a.d. . this year mauricius succeeded to the empire of the romans. a.d. . this year ceawlin and cutha fought with the britons on the spot that is called fretherne. there cutha was slain. and ceawlin took many towns, as well as immense booty and wealth. he then retreated to his own people. a.d. . this year died king ella; and ethelric reigned after him five years. a.d. . this year there was a great slaughter of britons at wanborough; ceawlin was driven from his kingdom, and ceolric reigned six years. a.d. . this year gregory succeeded to the papacy at rome. a.d. . this year died ceawlin, and cwichelm, and cryda; and ethelfrith succeeded to the kingdom of the northumbrians. he was the son of ethelric; ethelric of ida. a.d. . this year pope gregory sent augustine to britain with very many monks, to preach the word of god to the english people. a.d. . this year began ceolwulf to reign over the west-saxons; and he constantly fought and conquered, either with the angles, or the welsh, or the picts, or the scots. he was the son of cutha, cutha of cynric, cynric of cerdic, cerdic of elesa, elesa of gewis, gewis of wye, wye of frewin, frewin of frithgar, frithgar of brand, brand of balday, and balday of woden. this year came augustine and his companions to england. ( ) a.d. . this year pope gregory sent the pall to archbishop augustine in britain, with very many learned doctors to assist him; and bishop paulinus converted edwin, king of the northumbrians, to baptism. a.d. . this year aeden, king of the scots, fought with the dalreathians, and with ethelfrith, king of the northumbrians, at theakstone; where he lost almost all his army. theobald also, brother of ethelfrith, with his whole armament, was slain. none of the scottish kings durst afterwards bring an army against this nation. hering, the son of hussa, led the army thither. ((a.d. . this year aethan, king of the scots, fought against the dalreods and against ethelfrith, king of the north-humbrians, at daegsanstane [dawston?], and they slew almost all his army. there theodbald, ethelfrith's brother, was slain with all his band. since then no king of the scots has dared to lead an army against this nation. hering, the son of hussa, led the enemy thither.)) a.d. . this year augustine consecrated two bishops, mellitus and justus. mellitus he sent to preach baptism to the east-saxons. their king was called seabert, the son of ricola, ethelbert's sister, whom ethelbert placed there as king. ethelbert also gave mellitus the bishopric of london; and to justus he gave the bishopric of rochester, which is twenty-four miles from canterbury. ((a.d. . this year augustine consecrated two bishops, mellitus and justus. he sent mellitus to preach baptism to the east-saxons, whose king was called sebert, son of ricole, the sister of ethelbert, and whom ethelbert had there appointed king. and ethelbert gave mellitus a bishop's see in london, and to justus he gave rochester, which is twenty-four miles from canterbury.)) a.d. . this year died gregory; about ten years since he sent us baptism. his father was called gordianus, and his mother silvia. a.d. . this year ceolwulf fought with the south-saxons. and ethelfrith led his army to chester; where he slew an innumerable host of the welsh; and so was fulfilled the prophecy of augustine, wherein he saith "if the welsh will not have peace with us, they shall perish at the hands of the saxons." there were also slain two hundred priests, ( ) who came thither to pray for the army of the welsh. their leader was called brocmail, who with some fifty men escaped thence. a.d. . this year cynegils succeeded to the government in wessex, and held it one and thirty winters. cynegils was the son of ceol, ceol of cutha, cutha of cynric. a.d. . this year cynegils and cwichelm fought at bampton, and slew two thousand and forty-six of the welsh. a.d. . this year died ethelbert, king of kent, the first of english kings that received baptism: he was the son of ermenric. he reigned fifty-six winters, and was succeeded by his son eadbald. and in this same year had elapsed from the beginning of the world five thousand six hundred and eighteen winters. this eadbald renounced his baptism, and lived in a heathen manner; so that he took to wife the relict of his father. then laurentius, who was archbishop in kent, meant to depart southward over sea, and abandon everything. but there came to him in the night the apostle peter, and severely chastised him, ( ) because he would so desert the flock of god. and he charged him to go to the king, and teach him the right belief. and he did so; and the king returned to the right belief. in this king's days the same laurentius, who was archbishop in kent after augustine, departed this life on the second of february, and was buried near augustine. the holy augustine in his lifetime invested him bishop, to the end that the church of christ, which yet was new in england, should at no time after his decease be without an archbishop. after him mellitus, who was first bishop of london, succeeded to the archbishopric. the people of london, where mellitus was before, were then heathens: and within five winters of this time, during the reign of eadbald, mellitus died. to him succeeded justus, who was bishop of rochester, whereto he consecrated romanus bishop. ((a.d. . in that time laurentius was archbishop, and for the sorrowfulness which he had on account of the king's unbelief he was minded to forsake this country entirely, and go over sea; but st. peter the apostle scourged him sorely one night, because he wished thus to forsake the flock of god, and commanded him to teach boldly the true faith to the king; and he did so, and the king turned to the right (faith). in the days of this same king, eadbald, this laurentius died. the holy augustine, while yet in sound health, ordained him bishop, in order that the community of christ, which was yet new in england, should not after his decease be at any time without an archbishop. after him mellitus, who had been previously bishop of london, succeeded to the archbishopric. and within five years of the decease of laurentius, while eadbald still reigned, mellitus departed to christ.)) a.d. . this year was ethelfrith, king of the northumbrians, slain by redwald, king of the east-angles; and edwin, the son of ella, having succeeded to the kingdom, subdued all britain, except the men of kent alone, and drove out the ethelings, the sons of ethelfrith, namely, enfrid. oswald, oswy, oslac, oswood. oslaf, and offa. a.d. . this year died archbishop mellitus. a.d. . this year paulinus was invested bishop of the northumbrians, by archbishop justus, on the twelfth day before the calends of august. ((a.d. . this year archbishop justus consecrated paulinus bishop of the north-humbrians.)) a.d. . this year came eamer from cwichelm, king of the west-saxons, with a design to assassinate king edwin; but he killed lilla his thane, and forthere, and wounded the king. the same night a daughter was born to edwin, whose name was eanfleda. then promised the king to paulinus, that he would devote his daughter to god, if he would procure at the hand of god, that he might destroy his enemy, who had sent the assassin to him. he then advanced against the west-saxons with an army, felled on the spot five kings, and slew many of their men. this year eanfleda, the daughter of king edwin, was baptized, on the holy eve of pentecost. and the king within twelve months was baptized, at easter, with all his people. easter was then on the twelfth of april. this was done at york, where he had ordered a church to be built of timber, which was hallowed in the name of st. peter. there the king gave the bishopric to paulinus; and there he afterwards ordered a larger church to be built of stone. this year penda began to reign; and reigned thirty winters. he had seen fifty winters when he began to reign. penda was the son of wybba, wybba of creoda, creoda of cynewald, cynewald of cnebba, cnebba of icel, icel of eomer, eomer of angelthew, angelthew of offa, offa of wearmund, wearmund of whitley, whitley of woden. a.d. . this year was king edwin baptized at easter, with all his people, by paulinus, who also preached baptism in lindsey, where the first person who believed was a certain rich man, of the name of bleek, with all his people. at this time honorius succeeded boniface in the papacy, and sent hither to paulinus the pall; and archbishop justus having departed this life on the tenth of november, honorius was consecrated at lincoln archbishop of canterbury by paulinus; and pope honorius sent him the pall. and he sent an injunction to the scots, that they should return to the right celebration of easter. ((a.d. . this year, at easter, paulinus baptized edwin king of the north-humbrians, with his people; and earlier within the same year, at pentecost, he had baptized eanfled, daughter of the same king.)) a.d. . this year cynegils and cwichelm fought with penda at cirencester, and afterwards entered into a treaty there. a.d. . this year was orpwald baptized. a.d. . this year king edwin was slain by cadwalla and penda, on hatfield moor, on the fourteenth of october. he reigned seventeen years. his son osfrid was also slain with him. after this cadwalla and penda went and ravaged all the land of the northumbrians; which when paulinus saw, he took ethelburga, the relict of edwin, and went by ship to kent. eadbald and honorius received him very honourably, and gave him the bishopric of rochester, where he continued to his death. a.d. . this year osric, whom paulinus baptized, succeeded to the government of deira. he was the son of elfric, the uncle of edwin. and to bernicia succeeded eanfrith, son of ethelfrith. this year also bishop birinus first preached baptism to the west-saxons, under king cynegils. the said birinus went thither by the command of pope honorius; and he was bishop there to the end of his life. oswald also this year succeeded to the government of the northumbrians, and reigned nine winters. the ninth year was assigned to him on account of the heathenism in which those lived who reigned that one year betwixt him and edwin. a.d. . this year king cynegils was baptized by bishop birinus at dorchester; and oswald, king of the northumbrians, was his sponsor. a.d. . this year king cwichelm was baptized at dorchester, and died the same year. bishop felix also preached to the east-angles the belief of christ. a.d. . this year birinus baptized king cuthred at dorchester, and received him as his son. a.d. . this year died eadbald, king of kent, after a reign of twenty-five winters. he had two sons, ermenred and erkenbert; and erkenbert reigned there after his father. he overturned all the idols in the kingdom, and first of english kings appointed a fast before easter. his daughter was called ercongota--holy damsel of an illustrious sire! whose mother was sexburga, the daughter of anna, king of the east-angles. ermenred also begat two sons, who were afterwards martyred by thunnor. a.d. . this year oswald, king of the northumbrians, was slain by penda, king of the southumbrians, at mirfield, on the fifth day of august; and his body was buried at bardney. his holiness and miracles were afterwards displayed on manifold occasions throughout this island; and his hands remain still uncorrupted at barnburgh. the same year in which oswald was slain, oswy his brother succeeded to the government of the northumbrians, and reigned two less than thirty years. a.d. . this year kenwal succeeded to the kingdom of the west-saxons, and held it one and thirty winters. this kenwal ordered the old ( ) church at winchester to be built in the name of st. peter. he was the son of cynegils. a.d. . this year died at rochester, on the tenth of october, paulinus, who was first archbishop at york, and afterwards at rochester. he was bishop nineteen winters, two months, and one and twenty days. this year the son of oswy's uncle (oswin), the son of osric, assumed the government of deira, and reigned seven winters. a.d. . this year king kenwal was driven from his dominion by king penda. a.d. . this year king kenwal was baptized. a.d. . this year kenwal gave his relation cuthred three thousand hides of land by ashdown. cuthred was the son of cwichelm, cwichelm of cynegils. a.d. . this year egelbert, from gaul, after birinus the romish bishop, obtained the bishopric of the west-saxons. ((a.d. . this year birinus the bishop died, and agilbert the frenchman was ordained.)) a.d. . this year king oswin was slain, on the twentieth day of august; and within twelve nights afterwards died bishop aidan, on the thirty-first of august. a.d. . this year kenwal fought at bradford by the avon. a.d. . this year, the middle-angles under alderman peada received the right belief. a.d. . this year king anna was slain, and botolph began to build that minster at icanhoe. this year also died archbishop honorius, on the thirtieth of september. a.d. . this year penda was slain at wingfield, and thirty royal personages with him, some of whom were kings. one of them was ethelhere, brother of anna, king of the east-angles. the mercians after this became christians. from the beginning of the world had now elapsed five thousand eight hundred and fifty winters, when peada, the son of penda, assumed the government of the mercians. in his time came together himself and oswy, brother of king oswald, and said, that they would rear a minster to the glory of christ, and the honour of st. peter. and they did so, and gave it the name of medhamsted; because there is a well there, called meadswell. and they began the groundwall, and wrought thereon; after which they committed the work to a monk, whose name was saxulf. he was very much the friend of god, and him also loved all people. he was nobly born in the world, and rich: he is now much richer with christ. but king peada reigned no while; for he was betrayed by his own queen, in easter-tide. this year ithamar, bishop of rochester, consecrated deus-dedit to canterbury, on the twenty-sixth day of march. a.d. . this year was peada slain; and wulfhere, son of penda, succeeded to the kingdom of the mercians. in his time waxed the abbey of medhamsted very rich, which his brother had begun. the king loved it much, for the love of his brother peada, and for the love of his wed-brother oswy, and for the love of saxulf the abbot. he said, therefore, that he would dignify and honour it by the counsel of his brothers, ethelred and merwal; and by the counsel of his sisters, kyneburga and kyneswitha; and by the counsel of the archbishop, who was called deus-dedit; and by the counsel of all his peers, learned and lewd, that in his kingdom were. and he so did. then sent the king after the abbot, that he should immediately come to him. and he so did. then said the king to the abbot: "beloved saxulf, i have sent after thee for the good of my soul; and i will plainly tell thee for why. my brother peada and my beloved friend oswy began a minster, for the love of christ and st. peter: but my brother, as christ willed, is departed from this life; i will therefore intreat thee, beloved friend, that they earnestly proceed on their work; and i will find thee thereto gold and silver, land and possessions, and all that thereto behoveth." then went the abbot home, and began to work. so he sped, as christ permitted him; so that in a few years was that minster ready. then, when the king heard say that, he was very glad; and bade men send through all the nation, after all his thanes; after the archbishop, and after bishops: and after his earls; and after all those that loved god; that they should come to him. and he fixed the day when men should hallow the minster. and when they were hallowing the minster, there was the king, wulfere, and his brother ethelred, and his sisters, kyneburga and kyneswitha. and the minster was hallowed by archbishop deusdedit of canterbury; and the bishop of rochester, ithamar; and the bishop of london, who was called wina; and the bishop of the mercians, whose name was jeruman; and bishop tuda. and there was wilfrid, priest, that after was bishop; and there were all his thanes that were in his kingdom. when the minster was hallowed, in the name of st. peter, and st. paul, and st. andrew, then stood up the king before all his thanes, and said with a loud voice: "thanks be to the high almighty god for this worship that here is done; and i will this day glorify christ and st. peter, and i will that you all confirm my words.--i wulfere give to-day to st. peter, and the abbot saxulf, and the monks of the minster, these lands, and these waters, and meres, and fens, and weirs, and all the lands that thereabout lye, that are of my kingdom, freely, so that no man have there any ingress, but the abbot and the monks. this is the gift. from medhamsted to northborough; and so to the place that is called foleys; and so all the fen, right to ashdike; and from ashdike to the place called fethermouth; and so in a right line ten miles long to ugdike; and so to ragwell; and from ragwell five miles to the main river that goeth to elm and to wisbeach; and so about three miles to trokenholt; and from trokenholt right through all the fen to derworth; that is twenty miles long; and so to great cross; and from great cross through a clear water called bradney; and thence six miles to paxlade; and so forth through all the meres and fens that lye toward huntingdon-port; and the meres and lakes shelfermere and wittlesey mere, and all the others that thereabout lye; with land and with houses that are on the east side of shelfermere; thence all the fens to medhamsted; from medhamsted all to welmsford; from welmsford to clive; thence to easton; from easton to stamford; from stamford as the water runneth to the aforesaid northborough."--these are the lands and the fens that the king gave unto st. peter's minster.--then quoth the king: "it is little--this gift-- but i will that they hold it so royally and so freely, that there be taken there from neither gild nor gable, but for the monks alone. thus i will free this minster; that it be not subject except to rome alone; and hither i will that we seek st. peter, all that to rome cannot go." during these words the abbot desired that he would gant him his request. and the king granted it. "i have here (said he) some good monks that would lead their life in retirement, if they wist where. now here is an island, that is called ankerig; and i will request, that we may there build a minster to the honour of st. mary; that they may dwell there who will lead their lives in peace and tranquillity." then answered the king, and quoth thus: "beloved saxulf, not that only which thou desirest, but all things that i know thou desirest in our lord's behalf, so i approve, and grant. and i bid thee, brother ethelred, and my sisters, kyneburga and kyneswitha, for the release of your souls, that you be witnesses, and that you subscribe it with your fingers. and i pray all that come after me, be they my sons, be they my brethren, or kings that come after me, that our gift may stand; as they would be partakers of the life everlasting, and as they would avoid everlasting punishment. whoso lesseneth our gift, or the gift of other good men, may the heavenly porter lessen him in the kingdom of heaven; and whoso advanceth it, may the heavenly porter advance him in the kingdom of heaven." these are the witnesses that were there, and that subscribed it with their fingers on the cross of christ, and confirmed it with their tongues. that was, first the king, wulfere, who confirmed it first with his word, and afterwards wrote with his finger on the cross of christ, saying thus: "i wulfere, king, in the presence of kings, and of earls, and of captains, and of thanes, the witnesses of my gift, before the archbishop deus-dedit, i confirm it with the cross of christ." (+)--"and i oswy, king of the northumbrians, the friend of this minster, and o[oe] the abbot saxulf, commend it with the cross of christ." (+)--"and i sighere, king, ratify it with the cross of christ." (+)--"and i sibbi, king, subscribe it with the cross of christ." (+)--"and i ethelred, the king's brother, granted the same with the cross of christ." (+)--"and we, the king's sisters, kyneburga and kyneswitha, approve it."--"and i archbishop of canterbury, deus-dedit, ratify it."--then confirmed it all the others that were there with the cross of christ (+): namely, ithamar, bishop of rochester; wina, bishop of london; jeruman, bishop of the mercians; and tuda, bishop; and wilfrid, priest, who was afterwards bishop; and eoppa, priest, whom the king, wulfere, sent to preach christianity in the isle of wight; and saxulf, abbot; and immine, alderman, and edbert, alderman, and herefrith, alderman, and wilbert, alderman, and abo, alderman; ethelbald, brord, wilbert, elmund, frethegis. these, and many others that were there, the king's most loyal subjects, confirmed it all. this charter was written after our lord's nativity --the seventh year of king wulfere--the ninth year of archbishop deus-dedir. then they laid god's curse, and the curse of all saints, and all christian folks, on whosoever undid anything that there was done. "so be it," saith all. "amen."--when this thing was done, then sent the king to rome to the pope vitalianus that then was, and desired, that he would ratify with his writ and with his blessing, all this aforesaid thing. and the pope then sent his writ, thus saying: "i vitalianus, pope, grant thee, king wulfere, and deus-dedit, archbishop, and abbot saxulf, all the things that you desire. and i forbid, that any king, or any man, have any ingress, but the abbot alone; nor shall he be subject to any man, except the pope of rome and the archbishop of canterbury. if any one breaketh anything of this, st. peter with his sword destroy him. whosoever holdeth it, st. peter with heaven's key undo him the kingdom of heaven."--thus was the minster of medhamsted begun, that was afterwards called peter-borough. afterwards came another archbishop to canterbury, who was called theodorus; a very good man and wise; and held his synod with his bishops and with his clerk. there was wilfrid, bishop of the mercians, deprived of his bishopric; and saxulf, abbot, was there chosen bishop; and cuthbald, monk of the same minster, was chosen abbot. this synod was holden after our lord's nativity six hundred and seventy-three winters. a.d. . this year kenwal fought with the welsh at pen, and pursued them to the parret. this battle was fought after his return from east-anglia, where he was three years in exile. penda had driven him thither and deprived him of his kingdom, because he had discarded his sister. a.d. . this year bishop egelbert departed from kenwal; and wina held the bishopric three years. and egbert accepted the bishopric of paris, in gaul, by the seine. a.d. . this year, at easter, kenwal fought at pontesbury; and wulfere, the son of penda, pursued him as far as ashdown. cuthred, the son of cwichelm, and king kenbert, died in one year. into the isle of wight also wulfere, the son of penda, penetrated, and transferred the inhabitants to ethelwald, king of the south-saxons, because wulfere adopted him in baptism. and eoppa, a mass-priest, by command of wilfrid and king wulfere, was the first of men who brought baptism to the people of the isle of wight. a.d. . this year the sun was eclipsed, on the eleventh of may; and erkenbert, king of kent, having died, egbert his son succeeded to the kingdom. colman with his companions this year returned to his own country. this same year there was a great plague in the island britain, in which died bishop tuda, who was buried at wayleigh--chad and wilferth were consecrated--and archbishop deus-dedit died. a.d. . this year oswy and egbert sent wighard, a priest, to rome, that he might be consecrated there archbishop of canterbury; but he died as soon as he came thither. ((a.d. . this year wighard went to rome, even as king oswy, and egbert had sent him.)) a.d. . this year theodore was consecrated archbishop, and sent into britain. a.d. . this year king egbert gave to bass, a mass-priest, reculver--to build a minster upon. a.d. . this year died oswy, king of northumberland, on the fifteenth day before the calends of march; and egferth his son reigned after him. lothere, the nephew of bishop egelbert, succeeded to the bishopric over the land of the west-saxons, and held it seven years. he was consecrated by archbishop theodore. oswy was the son of ethelfrith, ethelfrith of ethelric, ethelric of ida, ida of eoppa. a.d. . this year happened that great destruction among the fowls. a.d. . this year died king cenwal; and sexburga his queen held the government one year after him. a.d. . this year died egbert, king of kent; and the same year there was a synod at hertford; and st. etheldritha began that monastery at ely. a.d. . this year escwin succeeded to the kingdom of wessex. he was the son of cenfus, cenfus of cenferth, cenferth of cuthgils, cuthgils of ceolwulf, ceolwulf of cynric, cynric of cerdic. a.d. . this year wulfere, the son of penda, and escwin, the son of cenfus, fought at bedwin. the same year died wulfere, and ethelred succeeded to the government. in his time sent he to rome bishop wilfrid to the pope that then was, called agatho, and told him by word and by letter, how his brothers peada and wulfere, and the abbot saxulf, had wrought a minster, called medhamsted; and that they had freed it, against king and against bishop, from every service; and he besought him that he would confirm it with his writ and with his blessing. and the pope sent then his writ to england, thus saying: "i agatho, pope of rome, greet well the worthy ethelred, king of the mercians, and the archbishop theodorus of canterbury, and saxulf, the bishop of the mercians, who before was abbot, and all the abbots that are in england; god's greeting and my blessing. i have heard the petition of king ethelred, and of the archbishop theodorus, and of the bishop saxulf, and of the abbot cuthbald; and i will it, that it in all wise be as you have spoken it. and i ordain, in behalf of god, and of st. peter, and of all saints, and of every hooded head, that neither king, nor bishop, nor earl, nor any man whatever, have any claim, or gable, or gild, or levy, or take any service of any kind, from the abbey of medhamsted. i command also, that no shire-bishop be so bold as to hold an ordination or consecration within this abbacy, except the abbot intreat him, nor have there any claim to proxies, or synodals, or anything whatever of any kind. and i will, that the abbot be holden for legate of rome over all that island; and whatever abbot is there chosen by the monks that he be consecrated by the archbishop of canterbury. i will and decree, that, whatever man may have made a vow to go to rome, and cannot perform it, either from infirmity, or for his lord's need, or from poverty, or from any other necessity of any kind whatever, whereby he cannot come thither, be he of england, or of whatever other island he be, he may come to that minster of medhamsted, and have the same forgiveness of christ and st. peter, and of the abbot, and of the monks, that he should have if he went to rome. now bid i thee, brother theodorus, that thou let it be proclaimed through all england, that a synod be gathered, and this writ be read and observed. also i tell thee, bishop saxulf, that, as thou desirest it, that the minster be free, so i forbid thee, and all the bishops that after thee come, from christ and from all his saints, that ye have no demand from that minster, except so much as the abbot will. now will i say in a word, that, whoso holdeth this writ and this decree, then be he ever dwelling with god almighty in the kingdom of heaven. and whoso breaketh it, then be he excommunicated, and thrust down with judas, and with all the devils in hell, except he come to repentance. amen!" this writ sent the pope agatho, and a hundred and twenty-five bishops, by wilfrid, archbishop of york, to england. this was done after our lord's nativity , the sixth year of king ethelred. then the king commanded the archbishop theodorus, that he should appoint a general wittenmoot at the place called hatfield. when they were there collected, then he allowed the letter to be read that the pope sent thither; and all ratified and confirmed it. then said the king: "all things that my brother peada, and my brother wulfere, and my sisters, kyneburga and kyneswitha, gave and granted to st. peter and the abbot, these i will may stand; and i will in my day increase it, for their souls and for my soul. now give i st. peter to-day into his minster, medhamsted, these lands, and all that thereto lyeth; that is, bredon, repings, cadney, swineshead, hanbury, lodeshall, scuffanhall, cosford, stratford, wattleburn, lushgard, ethelhun-island, bardney. these lands i give st. peter just as freely as i possessed them myself; and so, that none of my successors take anything therefrom. whoso doeth it, have he the curse of the pope of rome, and the curse of all bishops, and of all those that are witnesses here. and this i confirm with the token of christ." (+) "i theodorus, archbishop of canterbury, am witness to this charter of medhamsted; and i ratify it with my hand, and i excommunicate all that break anything thereof; and i bless all that hold it." (+) "i wilfrid, archbishop of york, am witness to this charter; and i ratify this same curse." (+) "i saxulf, who was first abbot, and now am bishop, i give my curse, and that of all my successors, to those who break this."--"i ostritha, ethelred's queen, confirm it."--"i adrian, legate, ratify it."--"i putta, bishop of rochester, subscribe it."--"i waldhere, bishop of london, confirm it."--"i cuthbald, abbot, ratify it; so that, whoso breaketh it, have he the cursing of all bishops and of all christian folk. amen." a.d. . this year, in which hedda succeeded to his bishopric, escwin died; and centwin obtained the government of the west-saxons. centwin was the son of cynegils, cynegils of ceolwulf. ethelred, king of the mercians, in the meantime, overran the land of kent. a.d. . this year appeared the comet-star in august, and shone every morning, during three months, like a sunbeam. bishop wilfrid being driven from his bishopric by king everth, two bishops were consecrated in his stead, bosa over the deirians, and eata over the bernicians. about the same time also eadhed was consecrated bishop over the people of lindsey, being the first in that division. a.d. . this year elwin was slain, by the river trent, on the spot where everth and ethelred fought. this year also died st. etheldritha; and the monastery of coldingiham was destroyed by fire from heaven. a.d. . this year archbishop theodore appointed a synod at hatfield; because he was desirous of rectifying the belief of christ; and the same year died hilda, abbess of whitby. a.d. . this year trumbert was consecrated bishop of hexham, and trumwin bishop of the picts; for they were at that time subject to this country. this year also centwin pursued the britons to the sea. a.d. . this year everth sent an army against the scots, under the command of his alderman, bright, who lamentably plundered and burned the churches of god. a.d. . this year king everth commanded cuthbert to be consecrated a bishop; and archbishop theodore, on the first day of easter, consecrated him at york bishop of hexham; for trumbert had been deprived of that see. the same year everth was slain by the north sea, and a large army with him, on the thirteenth day before the calends of june. he continued king fifteen winters; and his brother elfrith succeeded him in the government. everth was the son of oswy. oswy of ethelferth, ethelferth of ethelric, ethelric of ida, ida of eoppa. about this time ceadwall began to struggle for a kingdom. ceadwall was the son of kenbert, kenbert of chad, chad of cutha, cutha of ceawlin, ceawlin of cynric, cynric of cerdic. mull, who was afterwards consigned to the flames in kent, was the brother of ceadwall. the same year died lothhere, king of kent; and john was consecrated bishop of hexham, where he remained till wilferth was restored, when john was translated to york on the death of bishop bosa. wilferth his priest was afterwards consecrated bishop of york, and john retired to his monastery ( ) in the woods of delta. this year there was in britain a bloody rain, and milk and butter were turned to blood. ((a.d. . and in this same year cuthbert was consecrated bishop of hexham by archbishop theodore at york, because bishop tumbert had been driven from the bishopric.)) a.d. . this year ceadwall and his brother mull spread devastation in kent and the isle of wight. this same ceadwall gave to st. peter's minster, at medhamsted, hook; which is situated in an island called egborough. egbald at this time was abbot, who was the third after saxulf; and theodore was archbishop in kent. a.d. . this year was mull consigned to the flames in kent, and twelve other men with him; after which, in the same year, ceadwall overran the kingdom of kent. a.d. . this year ceadwall went to rome, and received baptism at the hands of sergius the pope, who gave him the name of peter; but in the course of seven nights afterwards, on the twelfth day before the calends of may, he died in his crisom-cloths, and was buried in the church of st. peter. to him succeeded ina in the kingdom of wessex, and reigned thirty-seven winters. he founded the monastery of glastonbury; after which he went to rome, and continued there to the end of his life. ina was the son of cenred, cenred of ceolwald; ceolwald was the brother of cynegils; and both were the sons of cuthwin, who was the son of ceawlin; ceawlin was the son of cynric, and cynric of cerdic. ((a.d. . this year king caedwalla went to rome, and received baptism of pope sergius, and he gave him the name of peter, and in about seven days afterwards, on the twelfth before the kalends of may, while he was yet in his baptismal garments, he died: and he was buried in st. peter's church. and ina succeeded to the kingdom of the west-saxons after him, and he reigned twenty-seven years.)) a.d. . this year archbishop theodore, who had been bishop twenty-two winters, departed this life, ( ) and was buried within the city of canterbury. bertwald, who before this was abbot of reculver, on the calends of july succeeded him in the see; which was ere this filled by romish bishops, but henceforth with english. then were there two kings in kent, wihtred and webherd. a.d. . this year was bertwald consecrated archbishop by godwin, bishop of the gauls, on the fifth day before the nones of july; about which time died gifmund, who was bishop of rochester; and archbishop bertwald consecrated tobias in his stead. this year also dryhtelm ( ) retired from the world. a.d. . this year the people of kent covenanted with ina, and gave him , pounds in friendship, because they had burned his brother mull. wihtred, who succeeded to the kingdom of kent, and held it thirty-three winters, was the son of egbert, egbert of erkenbert, erkenbert of eadbald, eadbald of ethelbert. and as soon as he was king, he ordained a great council to meet in the place that is called bapchild; in which presided wihtred, king of kent, the archbishop of canterbury, brihtwald, and bishop tobias of rochester; and with him were collected abbots and abbesses, and many wise men, all to consult about the advantage of god's churches that are in kent. now began the king to speak, and said, "i will that all the minsters and the churches, that were given and bequeathed to the worship of god in the days of believing kings, my predecessors, and in the days of my relations of king ethelbert and of those that followed him--shall so remain to the worship of god, and stand fast for evermore. for i wihtred, earthly king, urged on by the heavenly king, and with the spirit of righteousness annealed, have of our progenitors learned this, that no layman should have any right to possess himself of any church or of any of the things that belong to the church. and, therefore, strongly and truly, we set and decree, and in the name of almighty god, and of all saints, we forbid all our succeeding kings, and aldermen, and all lawmen, ever, any lordship over churches, and over all their appurtenances, which i or my elders in old days have given for a perpetual inheritance to the glory of christ and our lady st. mary, and the holy apostles. and look! when it happeneth, that bishop, or abbot, or abbess, depart from this life, be it told the archbishop, and with his counsel and injunction be chosen such as be worthy. and the life of him, that shall be chosen to so holy a thing, let the archbishop examine, and his cleanness; and in no wise be chosen any one, or to so holy a thing consecrated, without the archbishop's counsel. kings shall appoint earls, and aldermen, sheriffs, and judges; but the archbishop shall consult and provide for god's flock: bishops, and abbots, and abbesses, and priests, and deacons, he shall choose and appoint; and also sanctify and confirm with good precepts and example, lest that any of god's flock go astray and perish--" a.d. . this year the southumbrians slew ostritha, the queen of ethelred, the sister of everth. a.d. . this year the picts slew alderman burt. a.d. . this year kenred assumed the government of the southumbrians. a.d. . this year died bishop hedda, having held the see of winchester twenty-seven winters. a.d. . this year ethelred, the son of penda, king of mercia, entered into a monastic life, having reigned twenty-nine winters; and cenred succeeded to the government. a.d. . this year died ealdferth, king of the northumbrians, on the nineteenth day before the calends of january, at driffield; and was succeeded by his son osred. bishop saxulf also died the same year. a.d. . this year died aldhelm, who was bishop by westwood. the land of the west-saxons was divided into two bishoprics in the first days of bishop daniel; who held one whilst aldhelm held the other. before this it was only one. forthere succeeded to aldhelm; and ceolred succeeded to the kingdom of mercia. and cenred went to rome; and offa with him. and cenred was there to the end of his life. the same year died bishop wilferth, at oundle, but his body was carried to ripon. he was the bishop whom king everth compelled to go to rome. a.d. . this year acca, priest of wilferth, succeeded to the bishopric that wilferth ere held; and alderman bertfrith fought with the picts between heugh and carau. ina also, and nun his relative, fought with grant, king of the welsh; and the same year hibbald was slain. a.d. . this year died guthlac the holy, and king pepin. a.d. . this year ina and ceolred fought at wanborough; ( ) and king dagobert departed this life. a.d. . this year osred, king of the northumbrians, was slain near the southern borders. he reigned eleven winters after ealdferth. cenred then succeeded to the government, and held it two years; then osric, who held it eleven years. this same year died ceolred, king of the mercians. his body lies at lichfield; but that of ethelred, the son of penda, at bardney. ethelbald then succeeded to the kingdom of mercia, and held it one and forty winters. ethelbald was the son of alwy, alwy of eawa, eawa of webba, whose genealogy is already written. the venerable egbert about this time converted the monks of iona to the right faith, in the regulation of easter, and the ecclesiastical tonsure. a.d. . this year died ingild, the brother of ina. cwenburga and cuthburga were their sisters. cuthburga reared the monastery of wimburn; and, though given in marriage to ealdferth, king of northumberland, they parted during their lives. a.d. . this year bishop daniel went to rome; and the same year ina slew cynewulf, the etheling. this year also died the holy bishop john; who was bishop thirty-three years, and eight months, and thirteen days. his body now resteth at beverley. a.d. . this year queen ethelburga destroyed taunton, which ina had formerly built; ealdbert wandered a wretched exile in surrey and sussex; and ina fought with the south-saxons. a.d. . this year died wihtred, king of kent, on the ninth day before the calends of may, after a reign of thirty-two winters. his pedigree is above; and he was succeeded by eadbert. ina this year also fought with the south-saxons, and slew ealdbert, the etheling, whom he had before driven into exile. a.d. . this year died tobias, bishop of rochester: and archbishop bertwald consecrated aldulf bishop in his stead. a.d. . this year ( ) ina went to rome, and there gave up the ghost. he was succeeded in the kingdom of wessex by ethelhard his relative, who held it fourteen years; but he fought this same year with oswald the etheling. oswald was the son of ethelbald, ethelbald of cynebald, cynebald of cuthwin, cuthwin of ceawlin. a.d. . this year appeared the comet-star, and st. egbert died in iona. this year also died the etheling oswald; and osric was slain, who was eleven winters king of northumberland; to which kingdom ceolwulf succeeded, and held it eight years. the said ceolwulf was the son of cutha, cutha of cuthwin, cuthwin of leodwald, leodwald of egwald, egwald of ealdhelm, ealdhelm of occa, occa of ida, ida of eoppa. archbishop bertwald died this year on the ides of january. he was bishop thirty-seven winters, and six months, and fourteen days. the same year tatwine, who was before a priest at bredon in mercia, was consecrated archbishop by daniel bishop of winchester, ingwald bishop of london, aldwin bishop of lichfield, and aldulf bishop of rochester, on the tenth day of june. he enjoyed the archbishopric about three years. ((a.d. . and the same year osric died; he was king eleven years; then ceolwulf succeeded to the kingdom, and held it eight years.)) a.d. . this year ethelbald took somerton; the sun was eclipsed; and acca was driven from his bishopric. a.d. . this year was the moon as if covered with blood; and archbishop tatwine and bede departed this life; and egbert was consecrated bishop. a.d. . this year bishop egbert received the pall at rome. a.d. . this year archbishop nothelm received the pall from the bishop of the romans. a.d. . this year bishop forthere and queen frithogitha went to rome; and king ceolwulf received the clerical tonsure, giving his kingdom to edbert, his uncle's son: who reigned one and twenty winters. bishop ethelwold and acca died this year, and cynewulf was consecrated bishop. the same year also ethelbald ravaged the land of the northumbrians. a.d. . this year eadbery, the son of eata the son of leodwald, succeeded to the northumbrian kingdom, and held it one and twenty winters. archbishop egbert, the son of eata, was his brother. they both rest under one porch in the city of york. a.d. . this year died king ethelhard; and cuthred, his relative, succeeded to the west-saxon kingdom, which he held fourteen winters, during which time he fought many hard battles with ethelbald, king of the mercians. on the death of archbishop nothelm, cuthbert was consecrated archbishop, and dunn, bishop of rochester. this year york was on fire. a.d. . this year there was a large synod assembled at cliff's-hoo; and there was ethelbald, king of mercia, with archbishop cuthbert, and many other wise men. a.d. . this year ethelbald, king of mercia, and cuthred, king of the west-saxons, fought with the welsh. a.d. . this year daniel resigned the see of winchester; to which hunferth was promoted. the stars went swiftly shooting; and wilferth the younger, who had been thirty winters bishop of york, died on the third day before the calends of may. a.d. . this year died daniel. forty-three winters had then elapsed since he received the episcopal function. a.d. . this year was king selred slain. a.d. . this year was slain cynric, etheling of the west-saxons; edbert, king of kent, died; and ethelbert, son of king wihtred, succeeded to the kingdom. a.d. . this year cuthred, king of the west-saxons, fought with the proud chief ethelhun. a.d. . this year, the twelfth of his reign, cuthred, king of the west-saxons, fought at burford ( ) with ethelbald, king of the mercians, and put him to flight. a.d. . this year cuthred, king of the west-saxons, fought against the welsh. a.d. . this year died cuthred, king of the west-saxons; and sebright, his relative, succeeded to the kingdom, which he held one year; cyneard succeeded humferth in the see of winchester; and canterbury was this year on fire. a.d. . this year cynewulf, with the consent of the west-saxon council, deprived sebright, his relative, for unrighteous deeds, of his kingdom, except hampshire; which he retained, until he slew the alderman who remained the longest with him. then cynewulf drove him to the forest of andred, where he remained, until a swain stabbed him at privett, and revenged the alderman, cumbra. the same cynewulf fought many hard battles with the welsh; and, about one and thirty winters after he had the kingdom, he was desirous of expelling a prince called cyneard, who was the brother of sebright. but he having understood that the king was gone, thinly attended, on a visit to a lady at merton, ( ) rode after him, and beset him therein; surrounding the town without, ere the attendants of the king were aware of him. when the king found this, he went out of doors, and defended himself with courage; till, having looked on the etheling, he rushed out upon him, and wounded him severely. then were they all fighting against the king, until they had slain him. as soon as the king's thanes in the lady's bower heard the tumult, they ran to the spot, whoever was then ready. the etheling immediately offered them life and rewards; which none of them would accept, but continued fighting together against him, till they all lay dead, except one british hostage, and he was severely wounded. when the king's thanes that were behind heard in the morning that the king was slain, they rode to the spot, osric his alderman, and wiverth his thane, and the men that he had left behind; and they met the etheling at the town, where the king lay slain. the gates, however, were locked against them, which they attempted to force; but he promised them their own choice of money and land, if they would grant him the kingdom; reminding them, that their relatives were already with him, who would never desert him. to which they answered, that no relative could be dearer to them than their lord, and that they would never follow his murderer. then they besought their relatives to depart from him, safe and sound. they replied, that the same request was made to their comrades that were formerly with the king; "and we are as regardless of the result," they rejoined, "as our comrades who with the king were slain." then they continued fighting at the gates, till they rushed in, and slew the etheling and all the men that were with him; except one, who was the godson of the alderman, and whose life he spared, though he was often wounded. this same cynewulf reigned one and thirty winters. his body lies at winchester, and that of the etheling at axminster. their paternal pedigree goeth in a direct line to cerdic. the same year ethelbald, king of the mercians, was slain at seckington; and his body lies at repton. he reigned one and forty years; and bernred then succeeded to the kingdom, which he held but a little while, and unprosperously; for king offa the same year put him to flight, and assumed the government; which he held nine and thirty winters. his son everth held it a hundred and forty days. offa was the son of thingferth, thingferth of enwulf, enwulf of osmod, osmod of eawa, eawa of webba, webba of creoda, creoda of cenwald, cenwald of cnebba, cnebba of icel, icel of eomer, eomer of angelthew, angelthew of offa, offa of wermund, wermund of witley, witley of woden. ((a.d. . this year cynewulf deprived king sigebert of his kingdom; and sigebert's brother, cynehard by name, slew cynewulf at merton; and he reigned thirty-one years. and in the same year ethelbald, king of the mercians, was slain at repton. and offa succeeded to the kingdom of the mercians, bernred being driven out.)) a.d. . this year eadbert, king of the northumbrians, received the tonsure, and his son osulf the kingdom; which he held one year. him his own domestics slew on the ninth day before the kalends of august. a.d. . this year died archbishop cuthbert. he held the archbishopric eighteen years. a.d. . this year bregowin was invested archbishop at michaelmas, and continued four years. mull ethelwold this year succeeded to the northumbrian kingdom, held it six winters, and then resigned it. a.d. . this year died ethelbert, king of kent, who was the son of king wihtred, and also of ceolwulf. a.d. . this year was the severe winter; and mull, king of the northumbrians, slew oswin at edwin's-cliff, on the eighth day before the ides of august. a.d. . this year died archbishop bregowin. a.d. . this year eanbert was invested archbishop, on the fortieth day over mid-winter; and frithwald, bishop of whitern, died on the nones of may. he was consecrated at york, on the eighteenth day before the calends of september, in the sixth year of the reign of ceolwulf, and was bishop nine and twenty winters. then was petwin consecrated bishop of whitern at adlingfleet, on the sixteenth day before the calends of august. a.d. . this year archbishop eanbert received the pall. a.d. . this year alred succeeded to the kingdom of the northumbrians, and reigned eight winters. a.d. . this year died archbishop egbert at york, on the thirteenth day before the calends of december, who was bishop thirty-six winters; and frithbert at hexham, who was bishop there thirty-four winters. ethelbert was consecrated to york, and elmund to hexham. a.d. . this year died king eadbert, the son of eata, on the fourteenth day before the calends of september. a.d. . this year died bishop mildred. a.d. . this year the northumbrians banished their king, alred, from york at easter-tide; and chose ethelred, the son of mull, for their lord, who reigned four winters. this year also appeared in the heavens a red crucifix, after sunset; the mercians and the men of kent fought at otford; and wonderful serpents were seen in the land of the south-saxons. a.d. . this year cynewulf and offa fought near bensington, and offa took possession of the town. in the days of this king, offa, there was an abbot at medhamsted, called beonna; who, with the consent of all the monks of the minster, let to farm, to alderman cuthbert, ten copyhold lands at swineshead, with leasow and with meadow, and with all the appurtenances; provided that the said cuthbert gave the said abbot fifty pounds therefore, and each year entertainment for one night, or thirty shillings in money; ( ) provided also, that after his decease the said lands should revert to the monastery. the king, offa, and king everth, and archbishop hibbert, and bishop ceolwulf, and bishop inwona, and abbot beonna, and many other bishops, and abbots, and rich men, were witnesses to this. in the days of this same offa was an alderman, of the name of brorda, who requested the king for his sake to free his own monastery, called woking, because he would give it to medhamsted and st. peter, and the abbot that then was, whose name was pusa. pusa succeeded beonna; and the king loved him much. and the king freed the monastery of woking, against king, against bishop, against earl, and against all men' so that no man should have any claim there, except st. peter and the abbot. this was done at the king's town called free-richburn. a.d. . this year died bishop petwin, on the thirteenth day before the calends of october, having been bishop fourteen winters. the same year ethelbert was consecrated bishop of whitern, at york, on the seventeenth day before the calends of july. a.d. . this year ethelbald and herbert slew three high-sheriffs--eldulf, the son of bosa, at coniscliff; cynewulf and eggo at helathyrn--on the eleventh day before the calends of april. then elwald, having banished ethelred from his territory, seized on his kingdom, and reigned ten winters. a.d. . this year a battle was fought between the old-saxons and the franks; and the high-sheriffs of northumbria committed to the flames alderman bern at silton, on the ninth day before the calends of january. the same year archbishop ethelbert died at york, and eanbald was consecrated in his stead; bishop cynewulf retired to holy-island; elmund, bishop of hexham, died on the seventh day before the ides of september, and tilbert was consecrated in his stead, on the sixth day before the nones of october; hibbald was consecrated bishop of holy-island at sockbury; and king elwald sent to rome for a pall in behoof of archbishop eanbald. a.d. . this year died werburga, queen of ceolred, and bishop cynewulf, in holy-island; and the same year there was a synod at acley. a.d. . this year cyneard slew king cynewulf, and was slain himself, and eighty-four men with him. then bertric undertook the government of the west-saxons, and reigned sixteen years. his body is deposited at wareham; and his pedigree goeth in a direct line to cerdic. at this time reigned elmund king in kent, the father of egbert; and egbert was the father of athulf. a.d. . this year died bothwin, abbot of ripon, and a litigious synod was holden at chalk-hythe; archbishop eanbert resigned some part of his bishopric, hibbert was appointed bishop by king offa, and everth was consecrated king. in the meantime legates were sent from rome to england by pope adrian, to renew the blessings of faith and peace which st. gregory sent us by the mission of bishop augustine, and they were received with every mark of honour and respect. a.d. . this year king bertric took edburga the daughter of offa to wife. and in his days came first three ships of the northmen from the land of robbers. the reve ( ) then rode thereto, and would drive them to the king's town; for he knew not what they were; and there was he slain. these were the first ships of the danish men that sought the land of the english nation. a.d. . this year there was a synod assembled at fingall in northumberland, on the fourth day before the nones of september; and abbot albert departed this life. a.d. . this year elwald, king of the northumbrians, was slain by siga, on the eleventh day before the calends of october; and a heavenly light was often seen on the spot where he was slain. he was buried in the church of hexham; and osred, the son of alred, who was his nephew, succeeded him in the government. this year there was a synod assembled at acley. a.d. . this year archbishop eanbert died, and abbot ethelherd was chosen archbishop the same year. osred, king of the northumbrians, was betrayed and banished from his kingdom, and ethelred, the son of ethelwald, succeeded him. a.d. . this year baldulf was consecrated bishop of whitern, on the sixteenth day before the calends of august, by archbishop eanbald and bishop ethelbert. a.d. . this year offa, king of mercia, commanded that king ethelbert should be beheaded; and osred, who had been king of the northumbrians, returning home after his exile, was apprehended and slain, on the eighteenth day before the calends of october. his body is deposited at tinemouth. ethelred this year, on the third day before the calends of october, took unto himself a new wife, whose name was elfleda. a.d. . this year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery, dragons flying across the firmament. these tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of january in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of god in holy-island, by rapine and slaughter. siga died on the eighth day before the calends of march. a.d. . this year died pope adrian; and also offa, king of mercia, on the fourth day before the ides of august, after he had reigned forty winters. ethelred, king of the northumbrians, was slain by his own people, on the thirteenth day before the calends of may; in consequence of which, bishops ceolwulf and eadbald retired from the land. everth took to the government of mercia, and died the same year. eadbert, whose other name was pryn, obtained the kingdom of kent; and alderman ethelherd died on the calends of august. in the meantime, the heathen armies spread devastation among the northumbrians, and plundered the monastery of king everth at the mouth of the wear. there, however, some of their leaders were slain; and some of their ships also were shattered to pieces by the violence of the weather; many of the crew were drowned; and some, who escaped alive to the shore, were soon dispatched at the mouth of the river. a.d. . this year was the moon eclipsed, between cock-crowing and dawn, ( ) on the fifth day before the calends of april; and erdulf succeeded to the northumbrian kingdom on the second before the ides of may. he was afterwards consecrated and raised to his throne, at york, on the seventh day before the calends of june, by archbishop eanbald, and bishops ethelbert, hibbald, and baldulf. a.d. . this year died archbishop eanbald, on the fourth day before the ides of august; and his body is deposited at york. the same year also died bishop ceolwulf; and another eanbald was consecrated to the see of the former, on the nineteenth day before the calends of september. about the same time cynewulf, king of mercia, made inroads upon the inhabitants of kent as far as the marsh; and the mercians seized edbert pryn, their king, led him bound into mercia, and suffered men to pick out his eyes, and cut off his hands. ( ) and ethelard, archbishop of canterbury, held a synod, wherein he ratified and confirmed, by command of pope leo, all things concerning god's monasteries that were fixed in witgar's days, and in other king's days, saying thus: "i ethelard, the humble archbishop of canterbury, with the unanimous concurrence of the whole synod, and of all the congregations of all the minsters, to which in former days freedom was given by faithful men, in god's name and by his terrible judgment do decree, as i have command from pope leo, that henceforth none dare to choose them lords from lewd men over god's inheritance; but, as it is in the writ that the pope has given, or holy men have settled, our fathers and our teachers, concerning holy minsters, so they continue untainted without any resistance. if there is any man that will not observe this decree of god, of our pope, and of us, but overlooketh it, and holdeth it for nought, let them know, that they shall give an account before the judgment-seat of god. and i ethelard, archbishop, with twelve bishops, and with three and twenty abbots, this same with the rood-token of christ confirm and fasten." ((a.d. . this year offa, king of the mercians, died on the fourth before the kalends of august; he reigned forty years.)) a.d. . this year the romans cut out the tongue of pope leo, put out his eyes, and drove him from his see; but soon after, by the assistance of god, he could see and speak, and became pope as he was before. eanbald also received the pall on the sixth day before the ides of september, and bishop ethelherd died on the third before the calends of november. a.d. . this year a severe battle was fought in the northumbrian territory, during lent, on the fourth day before the nones of april, at whalley; wherein alric, the son of herbert, was slain, and many others with him. a.d. . this year archbishop ethelbert, and cynbert, bishop of wessex, went to rome. in the meantime bishop alfun died at sudbury, and was buried at dunwich. after him tidfrith was elected to the see; and siric, king of the east saxons, went to rome. in this year the body of witburga was found entire, and free from decay, at dercham, after a lapse of five and fifty years from the period of her decease. a.d. . this year was the moon eclipsed, at eight in the evening, on the seventeenth day before the calends of february; and soon after died king bertric and alderman worr. egbert succeeded to the west-saxon kingdom; and the same day ethelmund, alderman of the wiccians, rode over the thames at kempsford; where he was met by alderman woxtan, with the men of wiltshire, and a terrible conflict ensued, in which both the commanders were slain, but the men of wiltshire obtained the victory. ((a.d. . this year beornmod was ordained bishop of rochester.)) a.d. . this year was the moon eclipsed, at dawn, on the thirteenth day before the calends of january; and bernmod was consecrated bishop of rochester. a.d. . this year died hibbald, bishop of holy-island, on the twenty-fourth of june, and egbert was consecrated in his stead, on the thirteenth of june following. archbishop ethelherd also died in kent, and wulfred was chosen archbishop in his stead. abbot forthred, in the course of the same year, departed this life. a.d. . this year archbishop wulfred received his pall. a.d. . this year died king cuthred in kent, and abbess colburga, and alderman herbert. a.d. . this year was the moon eclipsed, on the first of september; erdwulf, king of the northumbrians, was banished from his dominions; and eanbert, bishop of hexham, departed this life. this year also, on the next day before the nones of june, a cross was seen in the moon, on a wednesday, at the dawn; and afterwards, during the same year, on the third day before the calends of september, a wonderful circle was displayed about the sun. a.d. . this year was the sun eclipsed, precisely at eleven in the morning, on the seventeenth day before the calends of august. a.d. . this year died the emperor charlemagne, after a reign of five and forty winters; and archbishop wulfred, accompanied by wigbert, bishop of wessex, undertook a journey to rome. a.d. . this year archbishop wulfred returned to his own see, with the blessing of pope leo; and king egbert spread devastation in cornwall from east to west. a.d. . this year died leo, the noble and holy pope; and stephen succeeded him in the papal government. a.d. . this year died pope stephen; and paschalis was consecrated pope after him. this same year the school of the english nation at rome was destroyed by fire. a.d. . this year died cenwulf, king of mercia; and ceolwulf ( ) succeeded him. alderman eadbert also departed this life. a.d. . this year ceolwulf was deprived of his kingdom. a.d. . this year two aldermen were slain, whose names were burhelm and mucca; and a synod was holden at cliff's-hoo. a.d. . this year a battle was fought between the welsh in cornwall and the people of devonshire, at camelford; and in the course of the same year egbert, king of the west-saxons, and bernwulf, king of mercia, fought a battle at wilton, in which egbert gained the victory, but there was great slaughter on both sides. then sent he his son ethelwulf into kent, with a large detachment from the main body of the army, accompanied by his bishop, elstan, and his alderman, wulfherd; who drove baldred, the king, northward over the thames. whereupon the men of kent immediately submitted to him; as did also the inhabitants of surrey, and sussex, and essex; who had been unlawfully kept from their allegiance by his relatives. the same year also, the king of the east-angles, and his subjects besought king egbert to give them peace and protection against the terror of the mercians; whose king, bernwulf, they slew in the course of the same year. a.d. . this year ludecan, king of mercia, was slain, and his five aldermen with him; after which wiglaf succeeded to the kingdom. a.d. . this year was the moon eclipsed, on mid-winter's mass-night; and king egbert, in the course of the same year, conquered the mercian kingdom, and all that is south of the humber, being the eighth king who was sovereign of all the british dominions. ella, king of the south-saxons, was the first who possessed so large a territory; the second was ceawlin, king of the west-saxons: the third was ethelbert, king of kent; the fourth was redwald, king of the east-angles; the fifth was edwin, king of the northumbrians; the sixth was oswald, who succeeded him; the seventh was oswy, the brother of oswald; the eighth was egbert, king of the west-saxons. this same egbert led an army against the northumbrians as far as dore, where they met him, and offered terms of obedience and subjection, on the acceptance of which they returned home. a.d. . this year wiglaf recovered his mercian kingdom, and bishop ethelwald departed this life. the same year king egbert led an army against the people of north-wales, and compelled them all to peaceful submission. a.d. . this year died archbishop wulfred; and abbot feologild was after him chosen to the see, on the twenty-fifth of april, and consecrated on a sunday, the eleventh of june. on the thirteenth of august he was dead! a.d. . this year ceolnoth was chosen and consecrated archbishop on the death of abbot feologild. a.d. . this year archbishop ceolnoth received the pall. a.d. . this year heathen men overran the isle of shepey. a.d. . this year fought king egbert with thirty-five pirates at charmouth, where a great slaughter was made, and the danes remained masters of the field. two bishops, hereferth and wigen, and two aldermen, dudda and osmod, died the same year. a.d. . this year came a great naval armament into west-wales, where they were joined by the people, who commenced war against egbert, the west-saxon king. when he heard this, he proceeded with his army against them and fought with them at hengeston, where he put to flight both the welsh and the danes. a.d. . this year died king egbert. him offa, king of mercia, and bertric, the west-saxon king, drove out of england into france three years before he was king. bertric assisted offa because he had married his daughter. egbert having afterwards returned, reigned thirty-seven winters and seven months. then ethelwulf, the son of egbert, succeeded to the west-saxon kingdom; and he gave his son athelstan the kingdom of kent, and of essex, and of surrey, and of sussex. a.d. . this year alderman wulfherd fought at hamton with thirty-three pirates, and after great slaughter obtained the victory, but he died the same year. alderman ethelhelm also, with the men of dorsetshire, fought with the danish army in portland-isle, and for a good while put them to flight; but in the end the danes became masters of the field, and slew the alderman. a.d. . this year alderman herbert was slain by the heathens, and many men with him, among the marshlanders. the same year, afterwards, in lindsey, east-anglia, and kent, were many men slain by the army. a.d. . this year there was great slaughter in london, canterbury, and rochester. a.d. . this year king ethelwulf fought at charmouth with thirty-five ship's-crews, and the danes remained masters of the place. the emperor louis died this year. a.d. . this year alderman eanwulf, with the men of somersetshire, and bishop ealstan, and alderman osric, with the men of dorsetshire, fought at the mouth of the parret with the danish army; and there, after making a great slaughter, obtained the victory. a.d. . this year alderman ceorl, with the men of devonshire, fought the heathen army at wemburg, and after making great slaughter obtained the victory. the same year king athelstan and alderman elchere fought in their ships, and slew a large army at sandwich in kent, taking nine ships and dispersing the rest. the heathens now for the first time remained over winter in the isle of thanet. the same year came three hundred and fifty ships into the mouth of the thames; the crew of which went upon land, and stormed canterbury and london; putting to flight bertulf, king of the mercians, with his army; and then marched southward over the thames into surrey. here ethelwulf and his son ethelbald, at the head of the west-saxon army, fought with them at ockley, and made the greatest slaughter of the heathen army that we have ever heard reported to this present day. there also they obtained the victory. a.d. . about this time abbot ceolred of medhamsted, with the concurrence of the monks, let to hand the land of sempringham to wulfred, with the provision, that after his demise the said land should revert to the monastery; that wulfred should give the land of sleaford to meohamsted, and should send each year into the monastery sixty loads of wood, twelve loads of coal, six loads of peat, two tuns full of fine ale, two neats' carcases, six hundred loaves, and ten kilderkins of welsh ale; one horse also each year, and thirty shillings, and one night's entertainment. this agreement was made in the presence of king burhred. archbishop ceolnoth, bishops tunbert, kenred, aldhun, and bertred; abbots witred and weftherd, aldermen ethelherd and hunbert, and many others. a.d. . this year burhred, king of mercia, with his council, besought king ethelwulf to assist him to subdue north-wales. he did so; and with an army marched over mercia into north-wales, and made all the inhabitants subject to him. the same year king ethelwulf sent his son alfred to rome; and leo, who was then pope, consecrated him king, and adopted him as his spiritual son. the same year also elchere with the men of kent, and huda with the men of surrey, fought in the isle of thanet with the heathen army, and soon obtained the victory; but there were many men slain and drowned on either hand, and both the aldermen killed. burhred, the mercian king, about this time received in marriage the daughter of ethelwulf, king of the west-saxons. a.d. . this year the heathen men ( ) for the first time remained over winter in the isle of shepey. the same year king ethelwulf registered a tenth of his land over all his kingdom for the honour of god and for his own everlasting salvation. the same year also he went to rome with great pomp, and was resident there a twelvemonth. then he returned homeward; and charles, king of the franks, gave him his daughter, whose name was judith, to be his queen. after this he came to his people, and they were fain to receive him; but about two years after his residence among the franks he died; and his body lies at winchester. he reigned eighteen years and a half. and ethelwulf was the son of egbert, egbert of ealhmund, ealhmund of eafa, eafa of eoppa, eoppa of ingild; ingild was the brother of ina, king of the west-saxons, who held that kingdom thirty-seven winters, and afterwards went to st. peter, where he died. and they were the sons of cenred, cenred of ceolwald, ceolwald of cutha, cutha of cuthwin, cuthwin of ceawlin, ceawlin of cynric, cynric of creoda, creoda of cerdic, cerdic of elesa, elesa of esla, esla of gewis, gewis of wig, wig of freawine, freawine of frithugar, frithugar of brond, brond of balday, balday of woden, woden of frithuwald, frithuwald of freawine, freawine of frithuwualf, frithuwulf of finn, finn of godwulf, godwulf of great, great of taetwa, taetwa of beaw, beaw of sceldwa, sceldwa of heremod, heremod of itermon, itermon of hathra, hathra of hwala, hwala of bedwig, bedwig of sceaf; that is, the son of noah, who was born in noah's ark: laznech, methusalem, enoh, jared, malalahel, cainion, enos, seth, adam the first man, and our father, that is, christ. amen. then two sons of ethelwulf succeeded to the kingdom; ethelbald to wessex, and ethelbert to kent, essex, surrey, and sussex. ethelbald reigned five years. alfred, his third son, ethelwulf had sent to rome; and when the pope heard say that he was dead, he consecrated alfred king, and held him under spiritual hands, as his father ethelwulf had desired, and for which purpose he had sent him thither. ((a.d. . and on his return homewards he took to (wife) the daughter of charles, king of the french, whose name was judith, and he came home safe. and then in about two years he died, and his body lies at winchester: and he reigned eighteen years and a half, and he was the son of egbert. and then his two sons succeeded to the kingdom; ethelbald to the kingdom of the west-saxons, and ethelbert to the kingdom of the kentish-men, and of the east-saxons, and of surrey, and of the south-saxons. and he reigned five years.)) a.d. . this year died king ethelbald, and his body lies at sherborn. ethelbert his brother then succeeded to the whole kingdom, and held it in good order and great tranquillity. in his days came a large naval force up into the country, and stormed winchester. but alderman osric, with the command of hampshire, and alderman ethelwulf, with the command of berkshire, fought against the enemy, and putting them to flight, made themselves masters of the field of battle. the said ethelbert reigned five years, and his body lies at sherborn. a.d. . this year died st. swithun, bishop. a.d. . this year sat the heathen army in the isle of thanet, and made peace with the men of kent, who promised money therewith; but under the security of peace, and the promise of money, the army in the night stole up the country, and overran all kent eastward. a.d. . this year ethered, ( ) brother of ethelbert, took to the west-saxon government; and the same year came a large heathen army into england, and fixed their winter-quarters in east-anglia, where they were soon horsed; and the inhabitants made peace with them. a.d. . this year the army went from the east-angles over the mouth of the humber to the northumbrians, as far as york. and there was much dissension in that nation among themselves; they had deposed their king osbert, and had admitted aella, who had no natural claim. late in the year, however, they returned to their allegiance, and they were now fighting against the common enemy; having collected a vast force, with which they fought the army at york; and breaking open the town, some of them entered in. then was there an immense slaughter of the northumbrians, some within and some without; and both the kings were slain on the spot. the survivors made peace with the army. the same year died bishop ealstan, who had the bishopric of sherborn fifty winters, and his body lies in the town. a.d. . this year the same army went into mercia to nottingham, and there fixed their winter-quarters; and burhred, king of the mercians, with his council, besought ethered, king of the west-saxons, and alfred, his brother; that they would assist them in fighting against the army. and they went with the west-saxon army into mercia as far as nottingham, and there meeting the army on the works, they beset them within. but there was no heavy fight; for the mercians made peace with the army. a.d. . this year the army went back to york, and sat there a year. a.d. . this year the army rode over mercia into east-anglia, and there fixed their winter-quarters at thetford. and in the winter king edmund fought with them; but the danes gained the victory, and slew the king; whereupon they overran all that land, and destroyed all the monasteries to which they came. the names of the leaders who slew the king were hingwar and hubba. at the same time came they to medhamsted, burning and breaking, and slaying abbot and monks, and all that they there found. they made such havoc there, that a monastery, which was before full rich, was now reduced to nothing. the same year died archbishop ceolnoth; and ethered, bishop of witshire, was chosen archbishop of canterbury. a.d. . this year came the army to reading in wessex; and in the course of three nights after rode two earls up, who were met by alderman ethelwulf at englefield; where he fought with them, and obtained the victory. there one of them was slain, whose name was sidrac. about four nights after this, king ethered and alfred his brother led their main army to reading, where they fought with the enemy; and there was much slaughter on either hand, alderman ethelwulf being among the skain; but the danes kept possession of the field. and about four nights after this, king ethered and alfred his brother fought with all the army on ashdown, and the danes were overcome. they had two heathen kings, bagsac and healfden, and many earls; and they were in two divisions; in one of which were bagsac and healfden, the heathen kings, and in the other were the earls. king ethered therefore fought with the troops of the kings, and there was king bagsac slain; and alfred his brother fought with the troops of the earls, and there were slain earl sidrac the elder, earl sidrac the younger, earl osbern, earl frene, and earl harold. they put both the troops to flight; there were many thousands of the slain, and they continued fighting till night. within a fortnight of this, king ethered and alfred his brother fought with the army at basing; and there the danes had the victory. about two months after this, king ethered and alfred his brother fought with the army at marden. they were in two divisions; and they put them both to flight, enjoying the victory for some time during the day; and there was much slaughter on either hand; but the danes became masters of the field; and there was slain bishop heahmund, with many other good men. after this fight came a vast army in the summer to reading. and after the easter of this year died king ethered. he reigned five years, and his body lies at winburn-minster. then alfred, his brother, the son of ethelwulf, took to the kingdom of wessex. and within a month of this, king alfred fought against all the army with a small force at wilton, and long pursued them during the day; but the danes got possession of the field. this year were nine general battles fought with the army in the kingdom south of the thames; besides those skirmishes, in which alfred the king's brother, and every single alderman, and the thanes of the king, oft rode against them; which were accounted nothing. this year also were slain nine earls, and one king; and the same year the west-saxons made peace with the army. ((a.d. . and the danish-men were overcome; and they had two heathen kings, bagsac and halfdene, and many earls; and there was king bagsac slain, and these earls; sidrac the elder, and also sidrac the younger, osbern, frene, and harold; and the army was put to flight.)) a.d. . this year went the army to london from reading, and there chose their winter-quarters. then the mercians made peace with the army. a.d. . this year went the army against the northumbrians, and fixed their winter-quarters at torksey in lindsey. and the mercians again made peace with the army. a.d. . this year went the army from lindsey to repton, and there took up their winter-quarters, drove the king, burhred, over sea, when he had reigned about two and twenty winters, and subdued all that land. he then went to rome, and there remained to the end of his life. and his body lies in the church of sancta maria, in the school of the english nation. and the same year they gave ceolwulf, an unwise king's thane, the mercian kingdom to hold; and he swore oaths to them, and gave hostages, that it should be ready for them on whatever day they would have it; and he would be ready with himself, and with all those that would remain with him, at the service of the army. a.d. . this year went the army from repton; and healfden advanced with some of the army against the northumbrians, and fixed his winter-quarters by the river tine. the army then subdued that land, and oft invaded the picts and the strathclydwallians. meanwhile the three kings, guthrum, oskytel, and anwind, went from repton to cambridge with a vast army, and sat there one year. this summer king alfred went out to sea with an armed fleet, and fought with seven ship-rovers, one of whom he took, and dispersed the others. a.d. . this year rolla penetrated normandy with his army; and he reigned fifty winters. and this year the army stole into wareham, a fort of the west-saxons. the king afterwards made peace with them; and they gave him as hostages those who were worthiest in the army; and swore with oaths on the holy bracelet, which they would not before to any nation, that they would readily go out of his kingdom. then, under colour of this, their cavalry stole by night into exeter. the same year healfden divided the land of the northumbrians; so that they became afterwards their harrowers and plowers. ((a.d. . and in this same year the army of the danes in england swore oaths to king alfred upon the holy ring, which before they would not do to any nation; and they delivered to the king hostages from among the most distinguished men of the army, that they would speedily depart from his kingdom; and that by night they broke.)) a.d. . this year came the danish army into exeter from wareham; whilst the navy sailed west about, until they met with a great mist at sea, and there perished one hundred and twenty ships at swanwich. ( ) meanwhile king alfred with his army rode after the cavalry as far as exeter; but he could not overtake them before their arrival in the fortress, where they could not be come at. there they gave him as many hostages as he required, swearing with solemn oaths to observe the strictest amity. in the harvest the army entered mercia; some of which they divided among them, and some they gave to ceolwulf. a.d. . this year about mid-winter, after twelfth-night, the danish army stole out to chippenham, and rode over the land of the west-saxons; where they settled, and drove many of the people over sea; and of the rest the greatest part they rode down, and subdued to their will;--all but alfred the king. he, with a little band, uneasily sought the woods and fastnesses of the moors. and in the winter of this same year the brother of ingwar and healfden landed in wessex, in devonshire, with three and twenty ships, and there was he slain, and eight hundred men with him, and forty of his army. there also was taken the war-flag, which they called the raven. in the easter of this year king alfred with his little force raised a work at athelney; from which he assailed the army, assisted by that part of somersetshire which was nighest to it. then, in the seventh week after easter, he rode to brixton by the eastern side of selwood; and there came out to meet him all the people of somersersetshire, and wiltshire, and that part of hampshire which is on this side of the sea; and they rejoiced to see him. then within one night he went from this retreat to hey; and within one night after he proceeded to heddington; and there fought with all the army, and put them to flight, riding after them as far as the fortress, where he remained a fortnight. then the army gave him hostages with many oaths, that they would go out of his kingdom. they told him also, that their king would receive baptism. and they acted accordingly; for in the course of three weeks after, king guthrum, attended by some thirty of the worthiest men that were in the army, came to him at aller, which is near athelney, and there the king became his sponsor in baptism; and his crisom-leasing was at wedmor. he was there twelve nights with the king, who honoured him and his attendants with many presents. a.d. . this year went the army from chippenham to cirencester, and sat there a year. the same year assembled a band of pirates, and sat at fulham by the thames. the same year also the sun was eclipsed one hour of the day. a.d. . this year went the army from cirencester into east-anglia, where they settled, and divided the land. the same year went the army over sea, that before sat at fulham, to ghent in frankland, and sat there a year. a.d. . this year went the army higher up into frankland, and the franks fought with them; and there was the army horsed after the battle. a.d. . this year went the army up along the maese far into frankland, and there sat a year; and the same year went king alfred out to sea with a fleet; and fought with four ship-rovers of the danes, and took two of their ships; wherein all the men were slain; and the other two surrendered; but the men were severely cut and wounded ere they surrendered. a.d. . this year went the army up the scheldt to conde, and there sat a year. and pope marinus sent king alfred the "lignum domini". the same year led sighelm and athelstan to rome the alms which king alfred ordered thither, and also in india to st. thomas and to st. bartholomew. then they sat against the army at london; and there, with the favour of god, they were very successful after the performance of their vows. a.d. . this year went the army up the somne to amiens, and there remained a year. this year died the benevolent bishop athelwold. a.d. . this year separated the before-mentioned army in two; one part east, another to rochester. this city they surrounded, and wrought another fortress around themselves. the people, however, defended the city, until king alfred came out with his army. then went the enemy to their ships, and forsook their work. there were they provided with horses; and soon after, in the same summer, they went over sea again. the same year sent king alfred a fleet from kent into east-anglia. as soon as they came to stourmouth, there met them sixteen ships of the pirates. and they fought with them, took all the ships, and slew the men. as they returned homeward with their booty, they met a large fleet of the pirates, and fought with them the same day; but the danes had the victory. the same year, ere midwinter, died charles, king of the franks. he was slain by a boar; and one year before his brother died, who had also the western kingdom. they were both the sons of louis, who also had the western kingdom, and died the same year that the sun was eclipsed. he was the son of that charles whose daughter ethelwulf, king of the west-saxons, had to wife. and the same year collected a great fleet against old-saxony; and there was a great fight twice in the year, and the saxons had the victory. there were the frieslanders with them. and the same year succeeded charles to the western kingdom, and to all the territory this side of the mediterranean and beyond, as his great-grandfather held it, except the lidwiccians. the said charles was the son of louis, who was the brother of that charles who was the father of judith, whom ethelwulf, king of the west-saxons, married. they were the sons of louis, who was the son of the elder charles, who was the son of pepin. the same year died the good pope martin, who freed the english school at the request of alfred, king of the west-saxons. and he sent him great gifts in relics, and a part of the rood on which christ suffered. and the same year the army in east-anglia brake the truce with king alfred. a.d. . this year went the army back again to the west, that before were bent eastward; and proceeding upwards along the seine, fixed their winter-quarters in the city of paris. ( ) the same year also king alfred fortified the city of london; and the whole english nation turned to him, except that part of it which was held captive by the danes. he then committed the city to the care of alderman ethered, to hold it under him. a.d. . this year the army advanced beyond the bridge at paris; ( ) and then upwards, along the seine, to the marne. then upwards on the marne as far as chezy; and in their two stations, there and on the yonne, they abode two winters. this same year died charles, king of the franks. arnulf, his brother's son, had six weeks before his death bereft him of his kingdom; which was now divided into five portions, and five kings were consecrated thereto. this, however, was done with the consent of arnulf; and they agreed that they should hold in subjection to him; because none of them had by birth any claim on the father's side, except him alone. arnulf, therefore, dwelt in the country eastward of the rhine; rodulf took to the middle district; oda to the western; whilst berenger and witha became masters of lombardy and the cisalpine territory. but they held their dominion in great discord; fought two general battles, and frequently overran the country in partial encounters, displacing each other several times. the same year also, in which the danish army advanced beyond the bridge at paris, alderman ethelhelm led the alms of the west-saxons and of king alfred to rome. a.d. . this year alderman beeke conducted the alms of the west-saxons and of king alfred to rome; but queen ethelswith, who was the sister of king alfred, died on the way to rome; and her body lies at pavia. the same year also ethered, archbishop of canterbury and alderman ethelwold, died in one month. a.d. . this year there was no journey to rome; except that king alfred sent two messengers with letters. a.d. . this year abbot bernhelm conducted the alms of the west-saxons and of king alfred to rome; and guthrum, king of the northern men, departed this life, whose baptismal name was athelstan. he was the godson of king alfred; and he abode among the east-angles, where he first established a settlement. the same year also went the army from the seine to saint lo, which is between the bretons and the franks; where the bretons fought with them, obtained the victory, and drove them out into a river, in which many of them were drowned. this year also was plegmund chosen by god and all his saints to the archbishopric in canterbury. a.d. . this year went the army eastward; and king arnulf fought with the land-force, ere the ships arrived, in conjunction with the eastern franks, and saxons, and bavarians, and put them to flight. and three scots came to king alfred in a boat without any oars from ireland; whence they stole away, because they would live in a state of pilgrimage, for the love of god, they recked not where. the boat in which they came was made of two hides and a half; and they took with them provisions for seven nights; and within seven nights they came to land in cornwall, and soon after went to king alfred. they were thus named: dubslane, and macbeth, and maelinmun. and swinney, the best teacher that was among the scots, departed this life. and the same year after easter, about the gang-days or before, appeared the star that men in book-latin call "cometa": some men say that in english it may be termed "hairy star"; for that there standeth off from it a long gleam of light, whilom on one side, whilom on each. a.d. . this year went the large army, that we before spoke about, back from the eastern district westward to bologne; and there were shipped; so that they transported themselves over at one time with their horses withal. and they came up with two hundred and fifty ships into the mouth of the limne, which is in east-kent, at the east end of the vast wood that we call andred. this wood is in length, east and west, one hundred and twenty miles, or longer, and thirty miles broad. the river that we before spoke about lieth out of the weald. on this river they towed up their ships as far as the weald, four miles from the mouth outwards; and there destroyed a fort within the fen, whereon sat a few churls, and which was hastily wrought. soon after this came hasten up with eighty ships into the mouth of the thames, and wrought him there a work at milton, and the other army at appledore. a.d. . this year, that was about twelve months after they had wrought a work in the eastern district, the northumbrians and east-angles had given oaths to king alfred, and the east-angles six hostages; nevertheless, contrary to the truce, as oft as the other plunderers went out with all their army, then went they also, either with them, or in a separate division. upon this king alfred gathered his army, and advanced, so that he encamped between the two armies at the highest point he could find defended by wood and by water, that he might reach either, if they would seek any field. then went they forth in quest of the wealds, in troops and companies, wheresoever the country was defenceless. but they were also sought after most days by other companies, either by day or by night, both from the army and also from the towns. the king had divided his army into two parts; so that they were always half at home, half out; besides the men that should maintain the towns. the army came not all out of their stations more than twice; once, when they first came to land, ere the forces were collected, and again, when they wished to depart from their stations. they had now seized much booty, and would ferry it northward over thames into essex, to meet their ships. but the army rode before them, fought with them at farnham, routed their forces, and there arrested the booty. and they flew over thames without any ford, then up by the colne on an island. then the king's forces beset them without as long as they had food; but they had their time set, and their meat noted. and the king was advancing thitherwards on his march with the division that accompanied him. but while he was advancing thitherwards, the other force was returning homewards. the danes, however, still remained behind; for their king was wounded in the fight, so that they could not carry him. then collected together those that dwell in northumbria and east-anglia about a hundred ships, and went south about; and with some forty more went north about, and besieged a fort in devonshire by the north sea; and those who went south about beset exeter. when the king heard that, then went he west towards exeter with all his force, except a very considerable part of the eastern army, who advanced till they came to london; and there being joined by the citizens and the reinforcements that came from the west, they went east to barnfleet. hasten was there with his gang, who before were stationed at milton, and also the main army had come thither, that sat before in the mouth of the limne at appledore. hasten had formerly constructed that work at barnfleet, and was then gone out on plunder, the main army being at home. then came the king's troops, and routed the enemy, broke down the work, took all that was therein money, women, and children and brought all to london. and all the ships they either broke to pieces, or burned, or brought to london or to rochester. and hasten's wife and her two sons they brought to the king, who returned them to him, because one of them was his godson, and the other alderman ethered's. they had adopted them ere hasten came to bamfleet; when he had given them hostages and oaths, and the king had also given him many presents; as he did also then, when he returned the child and the wife. and as soon as they came to bamfleet, and the work was built, then plundered he in the same quarter of his kingdom that ethered his compeer should have held; and at another time he was plundering in the same district when his work was destroyed. the king then went westward with the army toward exeter, as i before said, and the army had beset the city; but whilst he was gone they went to their ships. whilst he was thus busied there with the army, in the west, the marauding parties were both gathered together at shobury in essex, and there built a fortress. then they both went together up by the thames, and a great concourse joined them, both from the east-angles and from the northumbrians. they then advanced upward by the thames, till they arrived near the severn. then they proceeded upward by the severn. meanwhile assembled alderman ethered, alderman ethelm, alderman ethelnoth, and the king's thanes, who were employed at home at the works, from every town east of the parret, as well as west of selwood, and from the parts east and also north of the thames and west of the severn, and also some part of north-wales. when they were all collected together, they overtook the rear of the enemy at buttington on the banks of the severn, and there beset them without on each side in a fortress. when they had sat there many weeks on both sides of the water, and the king meanwhile was in devonshire westward with the naval force, then were the enemy weighed down with famine. they had devoured the greater part of their horses; and the rest had perished with hunger. then went they out to the men that sat on the eastern side of the river, and fought with them; but the christians had the victory. and there ordhelm, the king's thane, was slain; and also many other king's thanes; and of the danes there were many slain, and that part of them that came away escaped only by flight. as soon as they came into essex to their fortress, and to their ships, then gathered the remnant again in east-anglia and from the northumbrians a great force before winter, and having committed their wives and their ships and their booty to the east-angles, they marched on the stretch by day and night, till they arrived at a western city in wirheal that is called chester. there the army could not overtake them ere they arrived within the work: they beset the work though, without, some two days, took all the cattle that was thereabout, slew the men whom they could overtake without the work, and all the corn they either burned or consumed with their horses every evening. that was about a twelvemonth since they first came hither over sea. a.d. . soon after that, in this year, went the army from wirheal into north-wales; for they could not remain there, because they were stripped both of the cattle and the corn that they had acquired by plunder. when they went again out of north-wales with the booty they had acquired there, they marched over northumberland and east-anglia, so that the king's army could not reach them till they came into essex eastward, on an island that is out at sea, called mersey. and as the army returned homeward that had beset exeter, they went up plundering in sussex nigh chichester; but the townsmen put them to flight, and slew many hundreds of them, and took some of their ships. then, in the same year, before winter, the danes, who abode in mersey, towed their ships up on the thames, and thence up the lea. that was about two years after that they came hither over sea. a.d. . this same year wrought the aforesaid army a work by the lea, twenty miles above the city of london. then, in the summer of this year, went a large party of the citizens, and also of other folk, and made an attack on the work of the danes; but they were there routed, and some four of the king's thanes were slain. in the harvest afterward the king encamped close to the city, whilst they reaped their corn, that the danes might not deprive them of the crop. then, some day, rode the king up by the river; and observed a place where the river might be obstructed, so that they could not bring out their ships. and they did so. they wrought two works on the two sides of the river. and when they had begun the work, and encamped before it, then understood the army that they could not bring out their ships. whereupon they left them, and went over land, till they came to quatbridge by severn; and there wrought a work. then rode the king's army westward after the enemy. and the men of london fetched the ships; and all that they could not lead away they broke up; but all that were worthy of capture they brought into the port of london. and the danes procured an asylum for their wives among the east-angles, ere they went out of the fort. during the winter they abode at quatbridge. that was about three years since they came hither over sea into the mouth of the limne. a.d. . in the summer of this year went the army, some into east-anglia, and some into northumbria; and those that were penniless got themselves ships, and went south over sea to the seine. the enemy had not, thank god, entirely destroyed the english nation; but they were much more weakened in these three years by the disease of cattle, and most of all of men; so that many of the mightiest of the king's thanes, that were in the land, died within the three years. of these, one was swithulf bishop of rochester, ceolmund alderman in kent, bertulf alderman in essex, wulfred alderman in hampshire, elhard bishop of dorchester, eadulf a king's thane in sussex, bernuff governor of winchester, and egulf the king's horse-thane; and many also with them; though i have named only the men of the highest rank. this same year the plunderers in east-anglia and northumbria greatly harassed the land of the west-saxons by piracies on the southern coast, but most of all by the esks which they built many years before. then king alfred gave orders for building long ships against the esks, which were full-nigh twice as long as the others. some had sixty oars, some more; and they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher than the others. they were not shaped either after the frisian or the danish model, but so as he himself thought that they might be most serviceable. then, at a certain turn of this same year, came six of their ships to the isle of wight; and going into devonshire, they did much mischief both there and everywhere on the seacoast. then commanded the king his men to go out against them with nine of the new ships, and prevent their escape by the mouth of the river to the outer sea. then came they out against them with three ships, and three others were standing upwards above the mouth on dry land: for the men were gone off upon shore. of the first three ships they took two at the mouth outwards, and slew the men; the third veered off, but all the men were slain except five; and they too were severely wounded. then came onward those who manned the other ships, which were also very uneasily situated. three were stationed on that side of the deep where the danish ships were aground, whilst the others were all on the opposite side; so that none of them could join the rest; for the water had ebbed many furlongs from them. then went the danes from their three ships to those other three that were on their side, be-ebbed; and there they then fought. there were slain lucomon, the king's reve, and wulfheard, a frieslander; ebb, a frieslander, and ethelere, a frieslander; and ethelferth, the king's neat-herd; and of all the men, frieslanders and english, sixty-two; of the danes a hundred and twenty. the tide, however, reached the danish ships ere the christians could shove theirs out; whereupon they rowed them out; but they were so crippled, that they could not row them beyond the coast of sussex: there two of them the sea drove ashore; and the crew were led to winchester to the king, who ordered them to be hanged. the men who escaped in the single ship came to east-anglia, severely wounded. this same year were lost no less than twenty ships, and the men withal, on the southern coast. wulfric, the king's horse-thane, who was also viceroy of wales, died the same year. a.d. . this year died ethelm, alderman of wiltshire, nine nights before midsummer; and heahstan, who was bishop of london. a.d. . this year died alfred, the son of ethelwulf, six nights before the mass of all saints. he was king over all the english nation, except that part that was under the power of the danes. he held the government one year and a half less than thirty winters; and then edward his son took to the government. then prince ethelwald, the son of his paternal uncle, rode against the towns of winburn and of twineham, without leave of the king and his council. then rode the king with his army; so that he encamped the same night at badbury near winburn; and ethelwald remained within the town with the men that were under him, and had all the gates shut upon him, saying, that he would either there live or there die. but in the meantime he stole away in the night, and sought the army in northumberland. the king gave orders to ride after him; but they were not able to overtake him. the danes, however, received him as their king. they then rode after the wife that ethelwald had taken without the king's leave, and against the command of the bishops; for she was formerly consecrated a nun. in this year also died ethered, who was alderman of devonshire, four weeks before king alfred. a.d. . this year was the great fight at the holme ( ) between the men of kent and the danes. ((a.d. . this year elswitha died.)) a.d. . this year died alderman ethelwulf, the brother of elhswitha, mother of king edward; and virgilius abbot of the scots; and grimbald the mass-priest; on the eighth day of july. this same year was consecrated the new minster at winchester, on st. judoc's advent. a.d. . this year came ethelwald hither over sea with all the fleet that he could get, and he was submitted to in essex. this year the moon was eclipsed. a.d. . this year ethelwald enticed the army in east-anglia to rebellion; so that they overran all the land of mercia, until they came to cricklade, where they forded the thames; and having seized, either in bradon or thereabout, all that they could lay their hands upon, they went homeward again. king edward went after, as soon as he could gather his army, and overran all their land between the foss and the ouse quite to the fens northward. then being desirous of returning thence, he issued an order through the whole army, that they should all go out at once. but the kentish men remained behind, contrary to his order, though he had sent seven messengers to them. whereupon the army surrounded them, and there they fought. there fell aldermen siwulf and sigelm; eadwold, the king's thane; abbot kenwulf; sigebriht, the son of siwulf; eadwald, the son of acca; and many also with them; though i have named the most considerable. on the danish side were slain eohric their king, and prince ethelwald, who had enticed them to the war. byrtsige, the son of prince brihtnoth; governor ysop; governor oskytel; and very many also with them that we now cannot name. and there was on either hand much slaughter made; but of the danes there were more slain, though they remained masters of the field. ealswitha died this same year; and a comet appeared on the thirteenth day before the calends of november. ((a.d. . this year king edward, from necessity, concluded a peace both with the army of east-anglia and of north-humbria.)) a.d. . this year died alfred, who was governor of bath. the same year was concluded the peace at hitchingford, as king edward decreed, both with the danes of east-anglia, and those of northumberland; and chester was rebuilt. a.d. . this year died denulf, who was bishop of winchester; and the body of st. oswald was translated from bardney into mercia. a.d. . this year frithestan took to the bishopric of winchester; and asser died soon after, who was bishop of sherborne. the same year king edward sent an army both from wessex and mercia, which very much harassed the northern army by their attacks on men and property of every kind. they slew many of the danes, and remained in the country five weeks. this year the angles and the danes fought at tootenhall; and the angles had the victory. the same year ethelfleda built the fortress at bramsbury. ((a.d. . this year the army of the angles and of the danes fought at tootenhall. and ethelred, ealdor of the mercians, died; and king edward took possession of london, and of oxford, and of all the lands which owed obedience thereto. and a great fleet came hither from the south, from the lidwiccas (brittany), and greatly ravaged by the severn; but they were, afterwards, almost all perished.)) a.d. . this year the army in northumberland broke the truce, and despised every right that edward and his son demanded of them; and plundered the land of the mercians. the king had gathered together about a hundred ships, and was then in kent while the ships were sailing along sea by the south-east to meet him. the army therefore supposed that the greatest part of his force was in the ships, and that they might go, without being attacked, where that ever they would. when the king learned on enquiry that they were gone out on plunder, he sent his army both from wessex and mercia; and they came up with the rear of the enemy as he was on his way homeward, and there fought with him and put him to flight, and slew many thousands of his men. there fell king eowils, and king healfden; earls ohter and scurf; governors agmund, othulf, and benesing; anlaf the swarthy, and governor thunferth; osferth the collector, and governor guthferth. ((a.d. . then the next year after this died ethelred, lord of the mercians.)) a.d. . this year died ethered, alderman of mercia; and king edward took to london, and to oxford, and to all the lands that thereunto belonged. this year also came ethelfleda, lady of the mercians, on the holy eve called the invention of the holy cross, to shergate, and built the fortress there, and the same year that at bridgenorth. a.d. . this year, about martinmas, king edward had the northern fortress built at hertford, betwixt the memer, and the benwic, and the lea. after this, in the summer, betwixt gang-days and midsummer, went king edward with some of his force into essex, to maldon; and encamped there the while that men built and fortified the town of witham. and many of the people submitted to him, who were before under the power of the danes. and some of his force, meanwhile, built the fortress at hertford on the south side of the lea. this year by the permission of god went ethelfleda, lady of mercia, with all the mercians to tamworth; and built the fort there in the fore-part of the summer; and before lammas that at stafford: in the next year that at eddesbury, in the beginning of the summer; and the same year, late in the autumn, that at warwick. then in the following year was built, after mid-winter, that at chirbury and that at warburton; and the same year before mid-winter that at runkorn. ((a.d. . this year was warwick built.)) a.d. . this year was the innocent abbot egbert slain, before midsummer, on the sixteenth day before the calends of july. the same day was the feast of st. ciricius the martyr, with his companions. and within three nights sent ethelfleda an army into wales, and stormed brecknock; and there took the king's wife, with some four and thirty others. a.d. . this year rode the army, after easter, out of northampton and leicester; and having broken the truce they slew many men at hookerton and thereabout. then, very soon after this, as the others came home, they found other troops that were riding out against leighton. but the inhabitants were aware of it; and having fought with them they put them into full flight; and arrested all that they had taken, and also of their horses and of their weapons a good deal. a.d. . this year came a great naval armament over hither south from the lidwiccians; ( ) and two earls with it, ohter and rhoald. they went then west about, till they entered the mouth of the severn; and plundered in north-wales everywhere by the sea, where it then suited them; and took camlac the bishop in archenfield, and led him with them to their ships; whom king edward afterwards released for forty pounds. after this went the army all up; and would proceed yet on plunder against archenfield; but the men of hertford met them, and of glocester, and of the nighest towns; and fought with them, and put them to flight; and they slew the earl rhoald, and the brother of ohter the other earl, and many of the army. and they drove them into a park; and beset them there without, until they gave them hostages, that they would depart from the realm of king edward. and the king had contrived that a guard should be set against them on the south side of severnmouth; west from wales, eastward to the mouth of the avon; so that they durst nowhere seek that land on that side. nevertheless, they eluded them at night, by stealing up twice; at one time to the east of watchet, and at another time at porlock. there was a great slaughter each time; so that few of them came away, except those only who swam out to the ships. then sat they outward on an island, called the flat-holms; till they were very short of meat, and many men died of hunger, because they could not reach any meat. thence went they to dimmet, and then out to ireland. this was in harvest. after this, in the same year, before martinmas, went king edward to buckingham with his army, and sat there four weeks, during which he built the two forts on either side of the water, ere he departed thence. and earl thurkytel sought him for his lord; and all the captains, and almost all the first men that belonged to bedford; and also many of those that belonged to northampton. this year ethelfleda, lady of the mercians, with the help of god, before laminas, conquered the town called derby, with all that thereto belonged; and there were also slain four of her thanes, that were most dear to her, within the gates. ((a.d. . but very shortly after they had become so, she died at tamworth, twelve days before midsummer, the eighth year of her having rule and right lordship over the mercians; and her body lies at gloucester, within the east porch of st. peter's church.)) a.d. . this year king edward went with his army to bedford, before martinmas, and conquered the town; and almost all the burgesses, who obeyed him before, returned to him; and he sat there four weeks, and ordered the town to be repaired on the south side of the water, ere he departed thence. ((a.d. . this year also the daughter of ethelred, lord of the mercians, was deprived of all dominion over the mercians, and carried into wessex, three weeks before mid-winter; she was called elfwina.)) a.d. . this year, before midsummer, went king edward to maldon; and repaired and fortified the town, ere he departed thence. and the same year went earl thurkytel over sea to frankland with the men who would adhere to him, under the protection and assistance of king edward. this year ethelfleda got into her power, with god's assistance, in the early part of the year, without loss, the town of leicester; and the greater part of the army that belonged thereto submitted to her. and the yorkists had also promised and confirmed, some by agreement and some with oaths, that they would be in her interest. but very soon after they had done this, she departed, twelve nights before midsummer, at tamworth, the eighth year that she was holding the government of the mercians with right dominion; and her body lieth at glocester, in the east porch of st. peter's church. this year also was the daughter of ethered, lord of the mercians, deprived of all authority over the mercians, and led into wessex, three weeks before midwinter. her name was healfwina. a.d. . this year, before easter, king edward ordered his men to go to the town of towcester, and to rebuild it. then again, after that, in the same year, during the gang-days, he ordered the town of wigmore to be repaired. the same summer, betwixt lammas and midsummer, the army broke their parole from northampton and from leicester; and went thence northward to towcester, and fought against the town all day, and thought that they should break into it; but the people that were therein defended it, till more aid came to them; and the enemy then abandoned the town, and went away. then again, very soon after this, they went out at night for plunder, and came upon men unaware, and seized not a little, both in men and cattle, betwixt burnham-wood and aylesbury. at the same time went the army from huntington and east-anglia, and constructed that work at ternsford; which they inhabited and fortified; and abandoned the other at huntingdon; and thought that they should thence oft with war and contention recover a good deal of this land. thence they advanced till they came to bedford; where the men who were within came out against them, and fought with them, and put them to flight, and slew a good number of them. then again, after this, a great army yet collected itself from east-anglia and from mercia, and went to the town of wigmore; which they besieged without, and fought against long in the day; and took the cattle about it; but the men defended the town, who were within; and the enemy left the town, and went away. after this, the same summer, a large force collected itself in king edward's dominions, from the nighest towns that could go thither, and went to temsford; and they beset the town, and fought thereon; until they broke into it, and slew the king, and earl toglos, and earl mann his son, and his brother, and all them that were therein, and who were resolved to defend it; and they took the others, and all that was therein. after this, a great force collected soon in harvest, from kent, from surrey, from essex, and everywhere from the nighest towns; and went to colchester, and beset the town, and fought thereon till they took it, and slew all the people, and seized all that was therein; except those men who escaped therefrom over the wall. after this again, this same harvest, a great army collected itself from east-anglia, both of the land-forces and of the pirates, which they had enticed to their assistance, and thought that they should wreak their vengeance. they went to maldon, and beset the town, and fought thereon, until more aid came to the townsmen from without to help. the enemy then abandoned the town, and went from it. and the men went after, out of the town, and also those that came from without to their aid; and put the army to flight, and slew many hundreds of them, both of the pirates and of the others. soon after this, the same harvest, went king edward with the west-saxon army to passham; and sat there the while that men fortified the town of towcester with a stone wall. and there returned to him earl thurferth, and the captains, and all the army that belonged to northampton northward to the welland, and sought him for their lord and protector. when this division of the army went home, then went another out, and marched to the town of huntingdon; and repaired and renewed it, where it was broken down before, by command of king edward. and all the people of the country that were left submitted to king edward, and sought his peace and protection. after this, the same year, before martinmas, went king edward with the west-saxon army to colchester; and repaired and renewed the town, where it was broken down before. and much people turned to him, both in east-anglia and in essex, that were before under the power of the danes. and all the army in east-anglia swore union with him; that they would all that he would, and would protect all that he protected, either by sea or land. and the army that belonged to cambridge chose him separately for their lord and protector, and confirmed the same with oaths, as he had advised. this year king edward repaired the town of gladmouth; and the same year king sihtric slew neil his brother. a.d. . this year, betwixt gang-days and midsummer, went king edward with his army to stamford, and ordered the town to be fortified on the south side of the river. and all the people that belonged to the northern town submitted to him, and sought him for their lord. it was whilst he was tarrying there, that ethelfleda his sister died at tamworth, twelve nights before midsummer. then rode he to the borough of tamworth; and all the population in mercia turned to him, who before were subject to ethelfleda. and the kings in north-wales, howel, and cledauc, and jothwel, and all the people of north-wales, sought him for their lord. then went he thence to nottingham, and secured that borough, and ordered it to be repaired, and manned both with english and with danes. and all the population turned to him, that was settled in mercia, both danish and english. a.d. . this year went king edward with an army, late in the harvest, to thelwall; and ordered the borough to be repaired, and inhabited, and manned. and he ordered another army also from the population of mercia, the while he sat there to go to manchester in northumbria, to repair and to man it. this year died archbishop plegmund; and king reynold won york. a.d. . this year, before midsummer, went king edward with an army to nottingham; and ordered the town to be repaired on the south side of the river, opposite the other, and the bridge over the trent betwixt the two towns. thence he went to bakewell in peakland; and ordered a fort to be built as near as possible to it, and manned. and the king of scotland, with all his people, chose him as father and lord; as did reynold, and the son of eadulf, and all that dwell in northumbria, both english and danish, both northmen and others; also the king of the strathclydwallians, and all his people. ((a.d. . this year edward was chosen for father and for lord by the king of the scots, and by the scots, and king reginald, and by all the north-humbrians, and also the king of the strath-clyde britons, and by all the strath-clyde britons.)) ((a.d. . this year king edward died among the mercians at farndon; and very shortly, about sixteen days after this, elward his son died at oxford; and their bodies lie at winchester. and athelstan was chosen king by the mercians, and consecrated at kingston. and he gave his sister to ofsae (otho), son of the king of the old-saxons.)) a.d. . this year died king edward at farndon in mercia; and elward his son died very soon after this, in oxford. their bodies lie at winchester. and athelstan was chosen king in mercia, and consecrated at kingston. he gave his sister to otho, son of the king of the old-saxons. st. dunstan was now born; and wulfhelm took to the archbishopric in canterbury. this year king athelstan and sihtric king of the northumbrians came together at tamworth, the sixth day before the calends of february, and athelstan gave away his sister to him. ((a.d. . this year bishop wulfhelm was consecrated. and that same year king edward died.)) a.d. . this year appeared fiery lights in the northern part of the firmament; and sihtric departed; and king athelstan took to the kingdom of northumbria, and governed all the kings that were in this island:--first, howel, king of west-wales; and constantine, king of the scots; and owen, king of monmouth; and aldred, the son of eadulf, of bamburgh. and with covenants and oaths they ratified their agreement in the place called emmet, on the fourth day before the ides of july; and renounced all idolatry, and afterwards returned in peace. a.d. . this year king athelstan expelled king guthfrith; and archbishop wulfhelm went to rome. a.d. . william took to normandy, and held it fifteen years. ((a.d. . this year died frithstan, bishop of winchester, and brinstan was blessed in his place.)) a.d. . this year burnstan was invested bishop of winchester on the fourth day before the calends of june; and he held the bishopric two years and a half. a.d. . this year died bishop frithestan; and edwin the atheling was drowned in the sea. a.d. . this year went king athelstan into scotland, both with a land-force and a naval armament, and laid waste a great part of it; and bishop burnstan died at winchester at the feast of all saints. a.d. . this year bishop elfheah took to the bishopric of winchester. ((a.d. . this year king athelstan and edmund his brother led a force to brumby, and there fought against anlaf; and, christ helping, had the victory: and they there slew five kings and seven earls.)) a.d. . here athelstan king, of earls the lord, rewarder of heroes, and his brother eke, edmund atheling, elder of ancient race, slew in the fight, with the edge of their swords, the foe at brumby! the sons of edward their board-walls clove, and hewed their banners, with the wrecks of their hammers. so were they taught by kindred zeal, that they at camp oft 'gainst any robber their land should defend, their hoards and homes. pursuing fell the scottish clans; the men of the fleet in numbers fell; 'midst the din of the field the warrior swate. since the sun was up in morning-tide, gigantic light! glad over grounds, god's candle bright, eternal lord!-- 'till the noble creature sat in the western main: there lay many of the northern heroes under a shower of arrows, shot over shields; and scotland's boast, a scythian race, the mighty seed of mars! with chosen troops, throughout the day, the west-saxons fierce press'd on the loathed bands; hew'd down the fugitives, and scatter'd the rear, with strong mill-sharpen'd blades, the mercians too the hard hand-play spared not to any of those that with anlaf over the briny deep in the ship's bosom sought this land for the hardy fight. five kings lay on the field of battle, in bloom of youth, pierced with swords. so seven eke of the earls of anlaf; and of the ship's-crew unnumber'd crowds. there was dispersed the little band of hardy scots, the dread of northern hordes; urged to the noisy deep by unrelenting fate! the king of the fleet with his slender craft escaped with his life on the felon flood;-- and so too constantine, the valiant chief, returned to the north in hasty flight. the hoary hildrinc cared not to boast among his kindred. here was his remnant of relations and friends slain with the sword in the crowded fight. his son too he left on the field of battle, mangled with wounds, young at the fight. the fair-hair'd youth had no reason to boast of the slaughtering strife. nor old inwood and anlaf the more with the wrecks of their army could laugh and say, that they on the field of stern command better workmen were, in the conflict of banners, the clash of spears, the meeting of heroes, and the rustling of weapons, which they on the field of slaughter played with the sons of edward. the northmen sail'd in their nailed ships, a dreary remnant, on the roaring sea; over deep water dublin they sought, and ireland's shores, in great disgrace. such then the brothers both together king and atheling, sought their country, west-saxon land, in right triumphant. they left behind them raw to devour, the sallow kite, the swarthy raven with horny nib, and the hoarse vultur, with the eagle swift to consume his prey; the greedy gos-hawk, and that grey beast the wolf of the weald. no slaughter yet was greater made e'er in this island, of people slain, before this same, with the edge of the sword; as the books inform us of the old historians; since hither came from the eastern shores the angles and saxons, over the broad sea, and britain sought,-- fierce battle-smiths, o'ercame the welsh, most valiant earls, and gained the land. a.d. . this year king athelstan died in glocester, on the sixth day before the calends of november, about forty-one winters, bating one night, from the time when king alfred died. and edmund atheling took to the kingdom. he was then eighteen years old. king athelstan reigned fourteen years and ten weeks. this year the northumbrians abandoned their allegiance, and chose anlaf of ireland for their king. ((a.d. . this year king edmund received king anlaf at baptism; and that same year, a good long space after, he received king reginald at the bishop's hands.)) a.d. . here edmund king, of angles lord, protector of friends, author and framer of direful deeds. o'erran with speed the mercian land. whete'er the course of whitwell-spring, or humber deep, the broad brim-stream, divides five towns. leicester and lincoln. nottingham and stamford, and derby eke. in thraldom long to norman danes they bowed through need, and dragged the chains of heathen men; till, to his glory, great edward's heir, edmund the king, refuge of warriors, their fetters broke. a.d. . this year anlaf stormed tamworth; and much slaughter was made on either hand; but the danes had the victory, and led away with them much plunder. there was wulfrun taken, in the spoiling of the town. this year king edmund beset king anlaf and archbishop wulfstan in leicester; and he might have conquered them, were it not that they burst out of the town in the night. after this anlaf obtained the friendship of king edmund, and king edmund then received king anlaf in baptism; and he made him royal presents. and the same year, after some interval, he received king reynold at episcopal hands. this year also died king anlaf. a.d. . this year king edmund reduced all the land of the northumbrians to his dominion, and expelled two kings, anlaf the son of sihtric, and reynold the son of guthferth. a.d. . this year king edmund overran all cumberland; and let it all to malcolm king of the scots, on the condition that he became his ally, both by sea and land. a.d. . this year king edmund died, on st. augustine's mass day. that was widely known, how he ended his days:--that leof stabbed him at pucklechurch. and ethelfleda of damerham, daughter of alderman elgar, was then his queen. and he reigned six years and a half: and then succeeded to the kingdom edred atheling his brother, who soon after reduced all the land of the northumbrians to his dominion; and the scots gave him oaths, that they would do all that he desired. a.d. . this year came king edred to tadden's-cliff; and there archbishop wulfstan and all the council of the northumbrians bound themselves to an allegiance with the king. and within a little space they abandoned all, both allegiance and oaths. a.d. . this year king edred overran all northumberland; because they had taken eric for their king; and in the pursuit of plunder was that large minster at rippon set on fire, which st. wilferth built. as the king returned homeward, he overtook the enemy at york; but his main army was behind at chesterford. there was great slaughter made; and the king was so wroth, that he would fain return with his force, and lay waste the land withal; but when the council of the northumbrians understood that, they then abandoned eric, and compromised the deed with king edred. a.d. . this year came anlaf curran to the land of the northumbrians. a.d. . this year died elfeah, bishop of winchester, on st. gregory's mass day. a.d. . this year the northumbrians expelled king anlaf, and received eric the son of harold. this year also king edred ordered archbishop wulfstan to be brought into prison at jedburgh; because he was oft bewrayed before the king: and the same year the king ordered a great slaughter to be made in the town of thetford, in revenge of the abbot, whom they had formerly slain. a.d. . this year the northumbrians expelled eric; and king edred took to the government of the northumbrians. this year also archbishop wulfstan received a bishopric again at dorchester. a.d. . this year died king edred, on st. clement's mass day, at frome.( ) he reigned nine years and a half; and he rests in the old minster. then succeeded edwy, the son of king edmund, to the government of the west-saxons; and edgar atheling, his brother, succeeded to the government of the mercians. they were the sons of king edmund and of st. elfgiva. ((a.d. . and edwy succeeded to the kingdom of the west-saxons, and edgar his brother succeeded to the kingdom of the mercians: and they were the sons of king edmund and of s. elfgiva.)) a.d. . this year died wulfstan, archbishop of york, on the seventeenth day before the calends of january; and he was buried at oundle; and in the same year was abbot dunstan driven out of this land over sea. a.d. . this year archbishop oda separated king edwy and elfgiva; because they were too nearly related. a.d. . this year died king edwy, on the calends of october; and edgar his brother took to the government of the west-saxons, mercians, and northumbrians. he was then sixteen years old. it was in this year he sent after st. dunstan, and gave him the bishopric of worcester; and afterwards the bishopric of london. in his days it prosper'd well; and god him gave, that he dwelt in peace the while that he lived. whate'er he did, whate'er he plan'd, he earn'd his thrift. he also rear'd god's glory wide, and god's law lov'd, with peace to man, above the kings that went before in man's remembrance. god so him sped, that kings and earls to all his claims submissive bow'd; and to his will without a blow he wielded all as pleased himself. esteem'd he was both far and wide in distant lands; because he prized the name of god, and god's law traced, god's glory rear'd, both far and wide, on every side. wisely he sought in council oft his people's good, before his god, before the world. one misdeed he did, too much however, that foreign tastes he loved too much; and heathen modes into this land he brought too fast; outlandish men hither enticed; and to this earth attracted crowds of vicious men. but god him grant, that his good deeds be weightier far than his misdeeds, to his soul's redemption on the judgment-day. a.d. . this year departed odo, the good archbishop, and st. dunstan took to the archbishopric. this year also died elfgar, a relative of the king, in devonshire; and his body lies at wilton: and king sifferth killed himself; and his body lies at wimborn. this year there was a very great pestilence; when the great fever was in london; and st. paul's minster was consumed with fire, and in the same year was afterwards restored. in this year athelmod. the masspriest, went to rome, and there died on the eighteenth before the calends of september. a.d. . this year died wulfstan, the deacon, on childermass-day; ( ) and afterwards died gyric, the mass-priest. in the same year took abbot athelwold to the bishopric of winchester; and he was consecrated on the vigil of st. andrew, which happened on a sunday. on the second year after he was consecrated, he made many minsters; and drove out the clerks ( ) from the bishopric, because they would hold no rule, and set monks therein. he made there two abbacies; one of monks, another of nuns. that was all within winchester. then came he afterwards to king edgar, and requested that he would give him all the minsters that heathen men had before destroyed; for that he would renew them. this the king cheerfully granted; and the bishop came then first to ely, where st. etheldritha lies, and ordered the minster to be repaired; which he gave to a monk of his, whose name was britnoth, whom he consecrated abbot: and there he set monks to serve god, where formerly were nuns. he then bought many villages of the king, and made it very rich. afterwards came bishop athelwold to the minster called medhamsted, which was formerly ruined by heathen folk; but he found there nothing but old walls, and wild woods. in the old walls at length he found hid writings which abbot hedda had formerly written;--how king wulfhere and ethelred his brother had wrought it, and how they freed it against king and against bishop, and against all worldly service; and how pope agatho confirmed it with his writ, as also archbishop deusdedit. he then ordered the minster to be rebuilt; and set there an abbot, who was called aldulf; and made monks, where before was nothing. he then came to the king, and let him look at the writings which before were found; and the king then answered and said: "i edgar grant and give to-day, before god and before archbishop dunstan, freedom to st. peter's minster at medhamsted, from king and from bishop; and all the thorps that thereto lie; that is, eastfield, and dodthorp, and eye, and paston. and so i free it, that no bishop have any jurisdiction there, but the abbot of the minster alone. and i give the town called oundle, with all that thereto lieth, called eyot-hundred, with market and toll; so freely, that neither king, nor bishop, nor earl, nor sheriff, have there any jurisdiction; nor any man but the abbot alone, and whom he may set thereto. and i give to christ and st. peter, and that too with the advice of bishop athelwold, these lands;--that is, barrow, warmington, ashton, kettering, castor, eylesworth, walton, witherington, eye, thorp, and a minster at stamford. these lands and al the others that belong to the minster i bequeath clear; that is, with sack and sock, toll and team, and infangthief; these privileges and all others bequeath i clear to christ and st. peter. and i give the two parts of whittlesey-mere, with waters and with wears and fens; and so through meerlade along to the water that is called nen; and so eastward to kingsdelf. and i will that there be a market in the town itself, and that no other be betwixt stamford and huntingdon. and i will that thus be given the toll;--first, from whittlesey-mere to the king's toll of norman-cross hundred; then backward again from whittlesey-mere through meerlade along to the nen, and as that river runs to crowland; and from crowland to must, and from must to kingsdelf and to whittlesey-mere. and i will that all the freedom, and all the privileges, that my predecessors gave, should remain; and i write and confirm this with the rood-token of christ." (+)--then answered dunstan, the archbishop of canterbury, and said: "i grant, that all the things that here are given and spoken, and all the things that thy predecessors and mine have given, shall remain firm; and whosoever breaketh it, then give i him god's curse, and that of all saints, and of all hooded heads, and mine, unless he come to repentance. and i give expressly to st. peter my mass-hackle, and my stole, and my reef, to serve christ." "i oswald, archbishop of york, confirm all these words through the holy rood on which christ was crucified." (+) "i bishop athelwold bless all that maintain this, and i excommunicate all that break it, unless they come to repentance."--here was bishop ellstan, bishop athulf, and abbot eskwy, and abbot osgar, and abbot ethelgar, and alderman elfere; alderman ethelwin, britnoth and oslac aldermen, and many other rich men; and all confirmed it and subscribed it with the cross of christ. (+) this was done in the year after our lord's nativity , the sixteenth year of this king. then bought the abbot aldulf lands rich and many, and much endowed the minster withal; and was there until oswald, archbishop of york, was dead; and then he was chosen to be archbishop. soon after another abbot was chosen of the same monastery, whose name was kenulf, who was afterwards bishop of winchester. he first made the wall about the minster, and gave it then the name of peterborough, which before was medhamsted. he was there till he was appointed bishop of winchester, when another abbot was chosen of the same monastery, whose name was elfsy, who continued abbot fifty winters afterwards. it was he who took up st. kyneburga and st. kyneswitha, that lay at castor, and st. tibba, that lay at ryhall; and brought them to peterborough, and offered them all to st. peter in one day, and preserved them all the while he was there. ((a.d. . this year, by king edgar, st. ethelwold was chosen to the bishoprick at winchester. and the archbishop of canterbury, st. dunstan, consecrated him bishop on the first sunday of advent; that was on the third before the kalends of december.)) a.d. . this year drove king edgar the priests of winchester out of the old minster, and also out of the new minster; and from chertsey; and from milton; and replaced them with monks. and he appointed ethelgar abbot to the new minster, and ordbert to chertsey, and cyneward to milton. ((a.d. . this year were the canons driven out of the old-minster by king edgar, and also from the new-minster, and from chertsey and from milton; and he appointed thereto monks and abbots: to the new-minster ethelgar, to chertsey ordbert, to milton cyneward.)) a.d. . this year king edgar took elfrida for his queen, who was daughter of alderman ordgar. a.d. . this year thored, the son of gunner, plundered westmorland; and the same year oslac took to the aldermanship. a.d. . this year king edgar ordered all thanet-land to be plundered. a.d. . this year died archbishop oskytel; who was first consecrated diocesan bishop at dorchester, and afterwards it was by the consent of king edred and all his council that he was consecrated archbishop of york. he was bishop two and twenty winters; and he died on alhallow-mas night, ten nights before martinmas, at thame. abbot thurkytel, his relative, carried the bishop's body to bedford, because he was the abbot there at that time. a.d. . this year died edmund atheling, and his body lies at rumsey. ((a.d. . this year edgar the etheling was consecrated king at bath, on pentecost's mass-day, on the fifth before the ides of may, the thirteenth year since he had obtained the kingdom; and he was then one less than thirty years of age. and soon after that, the king led all his ship-forces to chester; and there came to meet him six kings, and they all plighted their troth to him, that they would be his fellow-workers by sea and by land.)) a.d. . here was edgar, of angles lord, with courtly pomp hallow'd to king at akemancester, the ancient city; whose modern sons, dwelling therein, have named her bath. much bliss was there by all enjoyed on that happy day, named pentecost by men below. a crowd of priests, a throng of monks, i understand, in counsel sage, were gather'd there. then were agone ten hundred winters of number'd years from the birth of christ, the lofty king, guardian of light, save that thereto there yet was left of winter-tale, as writings say, seven and twenty. so near had run of the lord of triumphs a thousand years, when this was done. nine and twenty hard winters there of irksome deeds had edmund's son seen in the world, when this took place, and on the thirtieth was hallow'd king. ( ) soon after this the king led all his marine force to chester; and there came to meet him six kings; and they all covenanted with him, that they would be his allies by sea and by land. a.d. . here ended his earthly dreams edgar, of angles king; chose him other light, serene and lovely, spurning this frail abode, a life that mortals here call lean he quitted with disdain. july the month, by all agreed in this our land, whoever were in chronic lore correctly taught; the day the eighth, when edgar young, rewarder of heroes, his life--his throne--resigned. edward his son, unwaxen child, of earls the prince, succeeded then to england's throne. of royal race ten nights before departed hence cyneward the good-- prelate of manners mild. well known to me in mercia then, how low on earth god's glory fell on every side: chaced from the land, his servants fled,-- their wisdom scorned; much grief to him whose bosom glow'd with fervent love of great creation's lord! neglected then the god of wonders, victor of victors, monarch of heaven,-- his laws by man transgressed! then too was driv'n oslac beloved an exile far from his native land over the rolling waves,-- over the ganet-bath, over the water-throng, the abode of the whale,-- fair-hair'd hero, wise and eloquent, of home bereft! then too was seen, high in the heavens, the star on his station, that far and wide wise men call-- lovers of truth and heav'nly lore-- "cometa" by name. widely was spread god's vengeance then throughout the land, and famine scour'd the hills. may heaven's guardian, the glory of angels, avert these ills, and give us bliss again; that bliss to all abundance yields from earth's choice fruits, throughout this happy isle. ( ) ((a.d. . the eighth before the ides of july. here edgar died, ruler of angles, west-saxons' joy, and mercians' protector. known was it widely throughout many nations. "thaet" offspring of edmund, o'er the ganet's-bath, honoured far, kings him widely bowed to the king, as was his due by kind. no fleet was so daring, nor army so strong, that 'mid the english nation took from him aught, the while that the noble king ruled on his throne. and this year edward, edgar's son, succeeded to the kingdom; and then soon, in the same year, during harvest, appeared "cometa" the star; and then came in the following year a very great famine, and very manifold commotions among the english people. in his days, for his youth, god's gainsayers god's law broke; eldfere, ealdorman, and others many; and rule monastic quashed, and minsters dissolved, and monks drove out, and god's servants put down, whom edgar, king, ordered erewhile the holy bishop ethelwold to stablish; and widows they plundered, many times and oft: and many unrighteousnesses, and evil unjust-deeds arose up afterwards: and ever after that it greatly grew in evil. and at that rime, also, was oslac the great earl banished from england.)) a.d. . this year was the great famine in england. a.d. . this year was that great council at kirtlington, ( ) after easter; and there died bishop sideman a sudden death, on the eleventh day before the calends of may. he was bishop of devonshire; and he wished that his resting-place should be at crediton, his episcopal residence; but king edward and archbishop dunstan ordered men to carry him to st. mary's minster that is at abingdon. and they did so; and he is moreover honourably buried on the north side in st. paul's porch. a.d. . this year all the oldest counsellors of england fell at calne from an upper floor; but the holy archbishop dunstan stood alone upon a beam. some were dreadfully bruised: and some did not escape with life. this year was king edward slain, at eventide, at corfe-gate, on the fifteenth day before the calends of april. and he was buried at wareham without any royal honour. no worse deed than this was ever done by the english nation since they first sought the land of britain. men murdered him but god has magnified him. he was in life an earthly king--he is now after death a heavenly saint. him would not his earthly relatives avenge--but his heavenly father has avenged him amply. the earthly homicides would wipe out his memory from the earth--but the avenger above has spread his memory abroad in heaven and in earth. those, who would not before bow to his living body, now bow on their knees to his dead bones. now we may conclude, that the wisdom of men, and their meditations, and their counsels, are as nought against the appointment of god. in this same year succeeded ethelred etheling, his brother, to the government; and he was afterwards very readily, and with great joy to the counsellors of england, consecrated king at kingston. in the same year also died alfwold, who was bishop of dorsetshire, and whose body lieth in the minster at sherborn. a.d. . in this year was ethelred consecrated king, on the sunday fortnight after easter, at kingston. and there were at his consecration two archbishops, and ten diocesan bishops. this same year was seen a bloody welkin oft-times in the likeness of fire; and that was most apparent at midnight, and so in misty beams was shown; but when it began to dawn, then it glided away. ((a.d. . this year was king edward slain at even-tide, at corfe-gate, on the fifteenth before the kalends of april, and then was he buried at wareham, without any kind of kingly honours. there has not been 'mid angles a worse deed done than this was, since they first britain-land sought. men him murdered, but god him glorified. he was in life an earthly king; he is now after death a heavenly saint. him would not his earthly kinsmen avenge, but him hath his heavenly father greatly avenged. the earthly murderers would his memory on earth blot out, but the lofty avenger hath his memory in the heavens and on earth wide-spread. they who would not erewhile to his living body bow down, they now humbly on knees bend to his dead bones. now we may understand that men's wisdom and their devices, and their councils, are like nought 'gainst god's resolves. this year ethelred succeeded to the kingdom; and he was very quickly after that, with much joy of the english witan, consecrated king at kingston.)) a.d. . in this year was ethelgar consecrated bishop, on the sixth day before the nones of may, to the bishopric of selsey; and in the same year was southampton plundered by a pirate-army, and most of the population slain or imprisoned. and the same year was the isle of thanet overrun, and the county of chester was plundered by the pirate-army of the north. in this year alderman alfere fetched the body of the holy king edward at wareham, and carried him with great solemnity to shaftsbury. a.d. . in this year was st. petroc's-stow plundered; and in the same year was much harm done everywhere by the sea-coast, both upon devonshire and wales. and in the same year died elfstan, bishop of wiltshire; and his body lieth in the minster at abingdon; and wulfgar then succeeded to the bishopric. the same year died womare, abbot of ghent. ((a.d. . this year came first the seven ships, and ravaged southampton.)) a.d. . in this year came up in dorsetshire three ships of the pirates, and plundered in portland. the same year london was burned. in the same year also died two aldermen, ethelmer in hampshire, and edwin in sussex. ethelmer's body lieth in winchester, at new-minster, and edwin's in the minster at abingdon. the same year died two abbesses in dorsetshire; herelufa at shaftsbury, and wulfwina at wareham. the same year went otho, emperor of the romans, into greece; and there met he a great army of the saracens, who came up from the sea, and would have proceeded forthwith to plunder the christian folk; but the emperor fought with them. and there was much slaughter made on either side, but the emperor gained the field of battle. he was there, however, much harassed, ere he returned thence; and as he went homeward, his brother's son died, who was also called otho; and he was the son of leodulf atheling. this leodulf was the son of otho the elder and of the daughter of king edward. a.d. . this year died alderman alfere, and alfric succeeded to the same eldership; and pope benedict also died. a.d. . this year died the benevolent bishop of winchester, athelwold, father of monks; and the consecration of the following bishop, elfheah, who by another name was called godwin, was on the fourteenth day before the calends of november; and he took his seat on the episcopal bench on the mass-day of the two apostles simon and jude, at winchester. a.d. . this year was alderman alfric driven out of the land; and in the same year was edwin consecrated abbot of the minster at abingdon. a.d. . this year the king invaded the bishopric of rochester; and this year came first the great murrain of cattle in england. a.d. . this year was the port of watchet plundered. a.d. . this year was goda, the thane of devonshire, slain; and a great number with him: and dunstan, the holy archbishop, departed this life, and sought a heavenly one. bishop ethelgar succeeded him in the archbishopric; but he lived only a little while after, namely, one year and three months. a.d. . this year died abbot edwin, and abbot wulfgar succeeded to the abbacy. siric was this year invested archbishop, and went afterwards to rome after his pall. a.d. . this year was ipswich plundered; and very soon afterwards was alderman britnoth ( ) slain at maidon. in this same year it was resolved that tribute should be given, for the first time, to the danes, for the great terror they occasioned by the sea-coast. that was first , pounds. the first who advised this measure was archbishop siric. a.d. . this year the blessed archbishop oswald departed this life, and sought a heavenly one; and in the same year died alderman ethelwin. then the king and all his council resolved, that all the ships that were of any account should be gathered together at london; and the king committed the lead of the land-force to alderman elfric, and earl thorod, and bishop elfstan, and bishop escwy; that they should try if they could anywhere without entrap the enemy. then sent alderman elfric, and gave warning to the enemy; and on the night preceding the day of battle he sculked away from the army, to his great disgrace. the enemy then escaped; except the crew of one ship, who were slain on the spot. then met the enemy the ships from east-anglia, and from london; and there a great slaughter was made, and they took the ship in which was the alderman, all armed and rigged. then, after the death of archbishop oswald, succeeded aldulf, abbot of peterborough, to the sees of york and of worcester; and kenulf to the abbacy of peterborough. ((a.d. . this year oswald the blessed archbishop died, and abbot eadulf succeeded to york and to worcester. and this year the king and all his witan decreed that all the ships which were worth anything should be gathered together at london, in order that they might try if they could anywhere betrap the army from without. but aelfric the ealdorman, one of those in whom the king had most confidence, directed the army to be warned; and in the night, as they should on the morrow have joined battle, the selfsame aelfric fled from the forces; and then the army escaped.)) a.d. . this year came anlaf with three and ninety ships to staines, which he plundered without, and went thence to sandwich. thence to ipswich, which he laid waste; and so to maidon, where alderman britnoth came against him with his force, and fought with him; and there they slew the alderman, and gained the field of battle; whereupon peace was made with him, and the king received him afterwards at episcopal hands by the advice of siric, bishop of canterbury, and elfeah of winchester. this year was bamborough destroyed, and much spoil was there taken. afterwards came the army to the mouth of the humber; and there did much evil both in lindsey and in northumbria. then was collected a great force; but when the armies were to engage, then the generals first commenced a flight; namely, frene and godwin and frithgist. in this same year the king ordered elfgar, son of alderman elfric, to be punished with blindness. ((a.d. . in this year came olave with ninety-three ships to staines, and ravaged there about, and then went thence to sandwich, and so thence to ipswich, and that all overran; and so to maldon. and there britnoth the ealdorman came against them with his forces, and fought against them: and they there slew the ealdorman, and had possession of the place of carnage. and after that peace was made with them; and him (anlaf) the king afterwards received at the bishop's hands, through the instruction of siric, bishop of the kentish-men, and of aelphege of winchester.)) a.d. . this year died archbishop siric: and elfric, bishop of wiltshire, was chosen on easter-day, at amesbury, by king ethelred and all his council. this year came anlaf and sweyne to london, on the nativity of st. mary, with four and ninety-ships. and they closely besieged the city, and would fain have set it on fire; but they sustained more harm and evil than they ever supposed that any citizens could inflict on them. the holy mother of god on that day in her mercy considered the citizens, and ridded them of their enemies. thence they advanced, and wrought the greatest evil that ever any army could do, in burning and plundering and manslaughter, not only on the sea-coast in essex, but in kent and in sussex and in hampshire. next they took horse, and rode as wide as they would, and committed unspeakable evil. then resolved the king and his council to send to them, and offer them tribute and provision, on condition that they desisted from plunder. the terms they accepted; and the whole army came to southampton, and there fixed their winter-quarters; where they were fed by all the subjects of the west-saxon kingdom. and they gave them , pounds in money. then sent the king; after king anlaf bishop elfeah and alderman ethelwerd; ( ) and, hostages being left with the ships, they led anlaf with great pomp to the king at andover. and king ethelred received him at episcopal hands, and honoured him with royal presents. in return anlaf promised, as he also performed, that he never again would come in a hostile manner to england. a.d. . this year appeared the comet-star. a.d. . this year was elfric consecrated archbishop at christ church. ( ) a.d. . this year went the army about devonshire into severn-mouth, and equally plundered the people of cornwall, north-wales, ( ) and devon. then went they up at watchet, and there much evil wrought in burning and manslaughter. afterwards they coasted back about penwithstert on the south side, and, turning into the mouth of the tamer, went up till they came to liddyford, burning and slaying everything that they met. moreover, ordulf's minster at tavistock they burned to the ground, and brought to their ships incalculable plunder. this year archbishop elfric went to rome after his staff. a.d. . this year coasted the army back eastward into the mouth of the frome, and went up everywhere, as widely as they would, into dorsetshire. often was an army collected against them; but, as soon as they were about to come together, then were they ever through something or other put to flight, and their enemies always in the end had the victory. another time they lay in the isle of wight, and fed themselves meanwhile from hampshire and sussex. a.d. . this year came the army about again into the thames, and went up thence along the medway to rochester; where the kentish army came against them, and encountered them in a close engagement; but, alas! they too soon yielded and fled; because they had not the aid that they should have had. the danes therefore occupied the field of battle, and, taking horse, they rode as wide as they would, spoiling and overrunning nearly all west-kent. then the king with his council determined to proceed against them with sea and land forces; but as soon as the ships were ready, then arose delay from day to day, which harassed the miserable crew that lay on board; so that, always, the forwarder it should have been, the later it was, from one time to another;--they still suffered the army of their enemies to increase;--the danes continually retreated from the sea-coast;--and they continually pursued them in vain. thus in the end these expeditions both by sea and land served no other purpose but to vex the people, to waste their treasure, and to strengthen their enemies." a.d. . this year the king went into cumberland, and nearly laid waste the whole of it with his army, whilst his navy sailed about chester with the design of co-operating with his land-forces; but, finding it impracticable, they ravaged anglesey. the hostile fleet was this summer turned towards the kingdom of richard. a.d. . this year there was great commotion in england in consequence of an invasion by the danes, who spread terror and devastation wheresoever they went, plundering and burning and desolating the country with such rapidity, that they advanced in one march as far as the town of alton; where the people of hampshire came against them, and fought with them. there was slain ethelwerd, high-steward of the king, and leofric of whitchurch, and leofwin, high-steward of the king, and wulfhere, a bishop's thane, and godwin of worthy, son of bishop elfsy; and of all the men who were engaged with them eighty-one. of the danes there was slain a much greater number, though they remained in possession of the field of battle. thence they proceeded westward, until they came into devonshire; where paley came to meet them with the ships which he was able to collect; for he had shaken off his allegiance to king ethelred, against all the vows of truth and fidelity which he had given him, as well as the presents which the king had bestowed on him in houses and gold and silver. and they burned teignton, and also many other goodly towns that we cannot name; and then peace was there concluded with them. and they proceeded thence towards exmouth, so that they marched at once till they came to pin-hoo; where cole, high-steward of the king, and edsy, reve of the king, came against them with the army that they could collect. but they were there put to flight, and there were many slain, and the danes had possession of the field of battle. and the next morning they burned the village of pin-hoo, and of clist, and also many goodly towns that we cannot name. then they returned eastward again, till they came to the isle of wight. the next morning they burned the town of waltham, and many other small towns; soon after which the people treated with them, and they made peace. ((a.d. . this year the army came to exmouth, and then went up to the town, and there continued fighting stoutly; but they were very strenuously resisted. then went they through the land, and did all as was their wont; destroyed and burnt. then was collected a vast force of the people of devon and of the people of somerset, and they then came together at pen. and so soon as they joined battle, then the people gave way: and there they made great slaughter, and then they rode over the land, and their last incursion was ever worse than the one before: and then they brought much booty with them to their ships. and thence they went into the isle of wight, and there they roved about, even as they themselves would, and nothing withstood them: nor any fleet by sea durst meet them; nor land force either, went they ever so far up. then was it in every wise a heavy time, because they never ceased from their evil doings.)) a.d. . this year the king and his council agreed that tribute should be given to the fleet, and peace made with them, with the provision that they should desist from their mischief. then sent the king to the fleet alderman leofsy, who at the king's word and his council made peace with them, on condition that they received food and tribute; which they accepted, and a tribute was paid of , pounds. in the meantime alderman leofsy slew eafy, high-steward of the king; and the king banished him from the land. then, in the same lent, came the lady elfgive emma, richard's daughter, to this land. and in the same summer died archbishop eadulf; and also, in the same year the king gave an order to slay all the danes that were in england. this was accordingly done on the mass-day of st. brice; because it was told the king, that they would beshrew him of his life, and afterwards all his council, and then have his kingdom without any resistance. a.d. . this year was exeter demolished, through the french churl hugh, whom the lady had appointed her steward there. and the army destroyed the town withal, and took there much spoil. in the same year came the army up into wiltshire. then was collected a very great force, from wiltshire and from hampshire; which was soon ready on their march against the enemy: and alderman elfric should have led them on; but he brought forth his old tricks, and as soon as they were so near, that either army looked on the other, then he pretended sickness, and began to retch, saying he was sick; and so betrayed the people that he should have led: as it is said, "when the leader is sick the whole army is hindered." when sweyne saw that they were not ready, and that they all retreated, then led he his army into wilton; and they plundered and burned the town. then went he to sarum; and thence back to the sea, where he knew his ships were. a.d. . this year came sweyne with his fleet to norwich, plundering and burning the whole town. then ulfkytel agreed with the council in east-anglia, that it were better to purchase peace with the enemy, ere they did too much harm on the land; for that they had come unawares, and he had not had time to gather his force. then, under the truce that should have been between them, stole the army up from their ships, and bent their course to thetford. when ulfkytel understood that, then sent he an order to hew the ships in pieces; but they frustrated his design. then he gathered his forces, as secretly as he could. the enemy came to thetford within three weeks after they had plundered norwich; and, remaining there one night, they spoiled and burned the town; but, in the morning, as they were proceeding to their ships, came ulfkytel with his army, and said that they must there come to close quarters. and, accordingly, the two armies met together; and much slaughter was made on both sides. there were many of the veterans of the east-angles slain; but, if the main army had been there, the enemy had never returned to their ships. as they said themselves, that they never met with worse hand-play in england than ulfkytel brought them. a.d. . this year died archbishop elfric; and bishop elfeah succeeded him in the archbishopric. this year was the great famine in england so severe that no man ere remembered such. the fleet this year went from this land to denmark, and took but a short respite, before they came again. a.d. . this year elfeah was consecrated archbishop; bishop britwald succeeded to the see of wiltshire; wulfgeat was deprived of all his property; ( ) wulfeah and ufgeat were deprived of sight; alderman elfelm was slain; and bishop kenulf ( ) departed this life. then, over midsummer, came the danish fleet to sandwich, and did as they were wont; they barrowed and burned and slew as they went. then the king ordered out all the population from wessex and from mercia; and they lay out all the harvest under arms against the enemy; but it availed nothing more than it had often done before. for all this the enemy went wheresoever they would; and the expedition did the people more harm than either any internal or external force could do. when winter approached, then went the army home; and the enemy retired after martinmas to their quarters in the isle of wight, and provided themselves everywhere there with what they wanted. then, about midwinter, they went to their ready farm, throughout hampshire into berkshire, to reading. and they did according to their custom,--they lighted their camp-beacons as they advanced. thence they marched to wallingford, which they entirely destroyed, and passed one night at cholsey. they then turned along ashdown to cuckamsley-hill, and there awaited better cheer; for it was often said, that if they sought cuckamsley, they would never get to the sea. but they went another way homeward. then was their army collected at kennet; and they came to battle there, and soon put the english force to flight; and afterwards carried their spoil to the sea. there might the people of winchester see the rank and iniquitous foe, as they passed by their gates to the sea, fetching their meat and plunder over an extent of fifty miles from sea. then was the king gone over the thames into shropshire; and there he fixed his abode during midwinter. meanwhile, so great was the fear of the enemy, that no man could think or devise how to drive them from the land, or hold this territory against them; for they had terribly marked each shire in wessex with fire and devastation. then the king began to consult seriously with his council, what they all thought most advisable for defending this land, ere it was utterly undone. then advised the king and his council for the advantage of all the nation, though they were all loth to do it, that they needs must bribe the enemy with a tribute. the king then sent to the army, and ordered it to be made known to them, that his desire was, that there should be peace between them, and that tribute and provision should be given them. and they accepted the terms; and they were provisioned throughout england. ((a.d. . this year elphege was consecrated archbishop [of canterbury].)) a.d. . in this year was the tribute paid to the hostile army; that was, , pounds. in this year also was edric appointed alderman over all the kingdom of the mercians. this year went bishop elfeah to rome after his pall. a.d. . this year bade the king that men should speedily build ships over all england; that is, a man possessed of three hundred and ten hides to provide on galley or skiff; and a man possessed of eight hides only, to find a helmet and breastplate ( ). a.d. . this year were the ships ready, that we before spoke about; and there were so many of them as never were in england before, in any king's days, as books tell us. and they were all transported together to sandwich; that they should lie there, and defend this land against any out-force. but we have not yet had the prosperity and the honour, that the naval armament should be useful to this land, any more than it often before was. it was at this same time, or a little earlier, that brihtric, brother of alderman edric, bewrayed wulnoth, the south-saxon knight, father of earl godwin, to the king; and he went into exile, and enticed the navy, till he had with him twenty ships; with which he plundered everywhere by the south coast, and wrought every kind of mischief. when it was told the navy that they might easily seize him, if they would look about them, then took brihtric with him eighty ships; and thought that he should acquire for himself much reputation, by getting wulnoth into his hands alive or dead. but, whilst they were proceeding thitherward, there came such a wind against them, as no man remembered before; which beat and tossed the ships, and drove them aground; whereupon wulnoth soon came, and burned them. when this was known to the remaining ships, where the king was, how the others fared, it was then as if all were lost. the king went home, with the aldermen and the nobility; and thus lightly did they forsake the ships; whilst the men that were in them rowed them back to london. thus lightly did they suffer the labour of all the people to be in vain; nor was the terror lessened, as all england hoped. when this naval expedition was thus ended, then came, soon after lammas, the formidable army of the enemy, called thurkill's army, to sandwich; and soon they bent their march to canterbury; which city they would quickly have stormed, had they not rather desired peace; and all the men of east-kent made peace with the army, and gave them , pounds for security. the army soon after that went about till they came to the isle of wight; and everywhere in sussex, and in hampshire, and also in berkshire, they plundered and burned, as their custom is. ( ) then ordered the king to summon out all the population, that men might hold firm against them on every side; but nevertheless they marched as they pleased. on one occasion the king had begun his march before them, as they proceeded to their ships, and all the people were ready to fall upon them; but the plan was then frustrated through alderman edric, as it ever is still. then after martinmas they went back again to kent, and chose their winter-quarters on the thames; obtaining their provisions from essex, and from the shires that were next, on both sides of the thames. and oft they fought against the city of london; but glory be to god, that it yet standeth firm: and they ever there met with ill fare. then after midwinter took they an excursion up through chiltern, ( ) and so to oxford; which city they burned, and plundered on both sides of the thames to their ships. being fore-warned that there was an army gathered against them at london, they went over at staines; and thus were they in motion all the winter, and in spring, appeared again in kent, and repaired their ships. a.d. . this year came the aforesaid army, after easter, into east anglia; and went up at ipswich, marching continually till they came where they understood ulfcytel was with his army. this was on the day called the first of the ascension of our lord. the east-angles soon fled. cambridgeshire stood firm against them. there was slain athelstan, the king's relative, and oswy, and his son, and wulfric, son of leofwin, and edwy, brother of efy, and many other good thanes, and a multitude of the people. thurkytel myrehead first began the flight; and the danes remained masters of the field of slaughter. there were they horsed; and afterwards took possession of east-anglia, where they plundered and burned three months; and then proceeded further into the wild fens, slaying both men and cattle, and burning throughout the fens. thetford also they burned, and cambridge; and afterwards went back southward into the thames; and the horsemen rode towards the ships. then went they west-ward into oxfordshire, and thence to buckinghamshire, and so along the ouse till they came to bedford, and so forth to temsford, always burning as they went. then returned they to their ships with their spoil, which they apportioned to the ships. when the king's army should have gone out to meet them as they went up, then went they home; and when they were in the east, then was the army detained in the west; and when they were in the south, then was the army in the north. then all the privy council were summoned before the king, to consult how they might defend this country. but, whatever was advised, it stood not a month; and at length there was not a chief that would collect an army, but each fled as he could: no shire, moreover, would stand by another. before the feast-day of st. andrew came the enemy to northampton, and soon burned the town, and took as much spoil thereabout as they would; and then returned over the thames into wessex, and so by cannings-marsh, burning all the way. when they had gone as far as they would, then came they by midwinter to their ships. a.d. . this year sent the king and his council to the army, and desired peace; promising them both tribute and provisions, on condition that they ceased from plunder. they had now overrun east-anglia [ ], and essex [ ], and middlesex [ ], and oxfordshire [ ], and cambridgeshire [ ], and hertfordshire [ ], and buckinghamshire [ ], and bedfordshire [ ], and half of huntingdonshire [ ], and much of northamptonshire [ ]; and, to the south of the thames, all kent, and sussex, and hastings, and surrey, and berkshire, and hampshire, and much of wiltshire. all these disasters befel us through bad counsels; that they would not offer tribute in time, or fight with them; but, when they had done most mischief, then entered they into peace and amity with them. and not the less for all this peace, and amity, and tribute, they went everywhere in troops; plundering, and spoiling, and slaying our miserable people. in this year, between the nativity of st. mary and michaelmas, they beset canterbury, and entered therein through treachery; for elfmar delivered the city to them, whose life archbishop elfeah formerly saved. and there they seized archbishop elfeah, and elfward the king's steward, and abbess leofruna, ( ) and bishop godwin; and abbot elfmar they suffered to go away. and they took therein all the men, and husbands, and wives; and it was impossible for any man to say how many they were; and in the city they continued afterwards as long as they would. and, when they had surveyed all the city, they then returned to their ships, and led the archbishop with them. then was a captive he who before was of england head and christendom;-- there might be seen great wretchedness, where oft before great bliss was seen, in the fated city, whence first to us came christendom, and bliss 'fore god and 'fore the world. and the archbishop they kept with them until the time when they martyred him. a.d. . this year came alderman edric, and all the oldest counsellors of england, clerk and laity, to london before easter, which was then on the ides of april; and there they abode, over easter, until all the tribute was paid, which was , pounds. then on the saturday was the army much stirred against the bishop; because he would not promise them any fee, and forbade that any man should give anything for him. they were also much drunken; for there was wine brought them from the south. then took they the bishop, and led him to their hustings, on the eve of the sunday after easter, which was the thirteenth before the calends of may; and there they then shamefully killed him. they overwhelmed him with bones and horns of oxen; and one of them smote him with an axe-iron on the head; so that he sunk downwards with the blow; and his holy blood fell on the earth, whilst his sacred soul was sent to the realm of god. the corpse in the morning was carried to london; and the bishops, ednoth and elfhun, and the citizens, received him with all honour, and buried him in st. paul's minster; where god now showeth this holy martyr's miracles. when the tribute was paid, and the peace-oaths were sworn, then dispersed the army as widely as it was before collected. then submitted to the king five and forty of the ships of the enemy; and promised him, that they would defend this land, and he should feed and clothe them. a.d. . the year after that archbishop elfeah was martyred, the king appointed lifing to the archiepiscopal see of canterbury. and in the same year, before the month august, came king sweyne with his fleet to sandwich; and very soon went about east-anglia into the humber-mouth, and so upward along the trent, until he came to gainsborough. then soon submitted to him earl utred, and all the northumbrians, and all the people of lindsey, and afterwards the people of the five boroughs, and soon after all the army to the north of watling-street; and hostages were given him from each shire. when he understood that all the people were subject to him, then ordered he that his army should have provision and horses; and he then went southward with his main army, committing his ships and the hostages to his son knute. and after he came over watling-street, they wrought the greatest mischief that any army could do. then he went to oxford; and the population soon submitted, and gave hostages; thence to winchester, where they did the same. thence went they eastward to london; and many of the party sunk in the thames, because they kept not to any bridge. when he came to the city, the population would not submit; but held their ground in full fight against him, because therein was king ethelred, and thurkill with him. then went king sweyne thence to wallingford; and so over thames westward to bath, where he abode with his army. thither came alderman ethelmar, and all the western thanes with him, and all submitted to sweyne, and gave hostages. when he had thus settled all, then went he northward to his ships; and all the population fully received him, and considered him full king. the population of london also after this submitted to him, and gave hostages; because they dreaded that he would undo them. then bade sweyne full tribute and forage for his army during the winter; and thurkill bade the same for the army that lay at greenwich: besides this, they plundered as oft as they would. and when this nation could neither resist in the south nor in the north, king ethelred abode some while with the fleet that lay in the thames; and the lady ( ) went afterwards over sea to her brother richard, accompanied by elfsy, abbot of peterborough. the king sent bishop elfun with the ethelings, edward and alfred, over sea; that he might instruct them. then went the king from the fleet, about midwinter, to the isle of wight; and there abode for the season; after which he went over sea to richard, with whom he abode till the time when sweyne died. whilst the lady was with her brother beyond sea, elfsy, abbot of peterborough, who was there with her, went to the abbey called boneval, where st. florentine's body lay; and there found a miserable place, a miserable abbot, and miserable monks: because they had been plundered. there he bought of the abbot, and of the monks, the body of st. florentine, all but the head, for pounds; which, on his return home, he offered to christ and st. peter. a.d. . this year king sweyne ended his days at candlemas, the third day before the nones of february; and the same year elfwy, bishop of york, was consecrated in london, on the festival of st. juliana. the fleet all chose knute for king; whereupon advised all the counsellors of england, clergy and laity, that they should send after king ethelred; saying, that no sovereign was dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would govern them better than he did before. then sent the king hither his son edward, with his messengers; who had orders to greet all his people, saying that he would be their faithful lord--would better each of those things that they disliked--and that each of the things should be forgiven which had been either done or said against him; provided they all unanimously, without treachery, turned to him. then was full friendship established, in word and in deed and in compact, on either side. and every danish king they proclaimed an outlaw for ever from england. then came king ethelred home, in lent, to his own people; and he was gladly received by them all. meanwhile, after the death of sweyne, sat knute with his army in gainsborough until easter; and it was agreed between him and the people of lindsey, that they should supply him with horses, and afterwards go out all together and plunder. but king ethelred with his full force came to lindsey before they were ready; and they plundered and burned, and slew all the men that they could reach. knute, the son of sweyne, went out with his fleet (so were the wretched people deluded by him), and proceeded southward until he came to sandwich. there he landed the hostages that were given to his father, and cut off their hands and ears and their noses. besides all these evils, the king ordered a tribute to the army that lay at greenwich, of , pounds. this year, on the eve of st. michael's day, came the great sea-flood, which spread wide over this land, and ran so far up as it never did before, overwhelming many towns, and an innumerable multitude of people. a.d. . this year was the great council at oxford; where alderman edric betrayed sigferth and morcar, the eldest thanes belonging to the seven towns. he allured them into his bower, where they were shamefully slain. then the king took all their possessions, and ordered the widow of sigferth to be secured, and brought within malmsbury. after a little interval, edmund etheling went and seized her, against the king's will, and had her to wife. then, before the nativity of st. mary, went the etheling west-north into the five towns, ( ) and soon plundered all the property of sigferth and morcar; and all the people submitted to him. at the same time came king knute to sandwich, and went soon all about kent into wessex, until he came to the mouth of the frome; and then plundered in dorset, and in wiltshire, and in somerset. king ethelred, meanwhile, lay sick at corsham; and alderman edric collected an army there, and edmund the etheling in the north. when they came together, the alderman designed to betray edmund the etheling, but he could not; whereupon they separated without an engagement, and sheered off from their enemies. alderman edric then seduced forty ships from the king, and submitted to knute. the west-saxons also submitted, and gave hostages, and horsed the army. and he continued there until midwinter. a.d. . this year came king knute with a marine force of one hundred and sixty ships, and alderman edric with him, over the thames into mercia at cricklade; whence they proceeded to warwickshire, during the middle of the winter, and plundered therein, and burned, and slew all they met. then began edmund the etheling to gather an army, which, when it was collected, could avail him nothing, unless the king were there and they had the assistance of the citizens of london. the expedition therefore was frustrated, and each man betook himself home. after this, an army was again ordered, under full penalties, that every person, however distant, should go forth; and they sent to the king in london, and besought him to come to meet the army with the aid that he could collect. when they were all assembled, it succeeded nothing better than it often did before; and, when it was told the king, that those persons would betray him who ought to assist him, then forsook he the army, and returned again to london. then rode edmund the etheling to earl utred in northumbria; and every man supposed that they would collect an army king knute; but they went into stafforddhire, and to shrewsbury, and to chester; and they plundered on their parts, and knute on his. he went out through buckinghamshire to bedfordshire; thence to huntingdonshire, and so into northamptonshire along the fens to stamford. thence into lincolnshire. thence to nottinghamshire; and so into northumbria toward york. when utred understood this, he ceased from plundering, and hastened northward, and submitted for need, and all the northumbrians with him; but, though he gave hostages, he was nevertheless slain by the advice of alderman edric, and thurkytel, the son of nafan, with him. after this, king knute appointed eric earl over northumbria, as utred was; and then went southward another way, all by west, till the whole army came, before easter, to the ships. meantime edmund etheling went to london to his father: and after easter went king knute with all his ships toward london; but it happened that king ethelred died ere the ships came. he ended his days on st. george's day; having held his kingdom in much tribulation and difficulty as long as his life continued. after his decease, all the peers that were in london, and the citizens, chose edmund king; who bravely defended his kingdom while his time was. then came the ships to greenwich, about the gang-days, and within a short interval went to london; where they sunk a deep ditch on the south side, and dragged their ships to the west side of the bridge. afterwards they trenched the city without, so that no man could go in or out, and often fought against it: but the citizens bravely withstood them. king edmund had ere this gone out, and invaded the west-saxons, who all submitted to him; and soon afterward he fought with the enemy at pen near gillingham. a second battle he fought, after midsummer, at sherston; where much slaughter was made on either side, and the leaders themselves came together in the fight. alderman edric and aylmer the darling were assisting the army against king edmund. then collected he his force the third time, and went to london, all by north of the thames, and so out through clayhanger, and relieved the citizens, driving the enemy to their ships. it was within two nights after that the king went over at brentford; where he fought with the enemy, and put them to flight: but there many of the english were drowned, from their own carelessness; who went before the main army with a design to plunder. after this the king went into wessex, and collected his army; but the enemy soon returned to london, and beset the city without, and fought strongly against it both by water and land. but the almighty god delivered them. the enemy went afterward from london with their ships into the orwell; where they went up and proceeded into mercia, slaying and burning whatsoever they overtook, as their custom is; and, having provided themselves with meat, they drove their ships and their herds into the medway. then assembled king edmund the fourth time all the english nation, and forded over the thames at brentford; whence he proceeded into kent. the enemy fled before him with their horses into the isle of shepey; and the king slew as many of them as he could overtake. alderman edric then went to meet the king at aylesford; than which no measure could be more ill-advised. the enemy, meanwhile, returned into essex, and advanced into mercia, destroying all that he overtook. when the king understood that the army was up, then collected he the fifth time all the english nation, and went behind them, and overtook them in essex, on the down called assingdon; where they fiercely came together. then did alderman edric as he often did before--he first began the flight with the maisevethians, and so betrayed his natural lord and all the people of england. there had knute the victory, though all england fought against him! there was then slain bishop ednoth, and abbot wulsy, and alderman elfric, and alderman godwin of lindsey, and ulfkytel of east-anglia, and ethelward, the son of alderman ethelsy ( ). and all the nobility of the english nation was there undone! after this fight went king knute up with his army into glocestershire, where he heard say that king edmund was. then advised alderman edric, and the counsellors that were there assembled, that the kings should make peace with each other, and produce hostages. then both the kings met together at olney, south of deerhurst, and became allies and sworn brothers. there they confirmed their friendship both with pledges and with oaths, and settled the pay of the army. with this covenant they parted: king edmund took to wessex, and knute to mercia and the northern district. the army then went to their ships with the things they had taken; and the people of london made peace with them, and purchased their security, whereupon they brought their ships to london, and provided themselves winter-quarters therein. on the feast of st. andrew died king edmund; and he is buried with his grandfather edgar at gastonbury. in the same year died wulfgar, abbot of abingdon; and ethelsy took to the abbacy. a.d. . this year king knute took to the whole government of england, and divided it into four parts: wessex for himself, east-anglia for thurkyll, mercia for edric, northumbria for eric. this year also was alderman edric slain at london, and norman, son of alderman leofwin, and ethelward, son of ethelmar the great, and britric, son of elfege of devonshire. king knute also banished edwy etheling, whom he afterwards ordered to be slain, and edwy, king of the churls; and before the calends of august the king gave an order to fetch him the widow of the other king, ethelred, the daughter of richard, to wife. ((a.d. . this year canute was chosen king.)) a.d. . this year was the payment of the tribute over all england; that was, altogether, two and seventy thousand pounds, besides that which the citizens of london paid; and that was ten thousand five hundred pounds. the army then went partly to denmark; and forty ships were left with king knute. the danes and angles were united at oxford under edgar's law; and this year died abbot ethelsy at abingdon, to whom ethelwine succeeded. a.d. . this year went king knute with nine ships to denmark, where he abode all the winter; and archbishop elfstan died this year, who was also named lifing. he was a very upright man both before god and before the world. ((a.d. . and this winter died archbishop elfstan [of canterbury]: he was named living; and he was a very provident man, both as to god and as to the world.)) a.d. . this year came king knute back to england; and there was at easter a great council at cirencester, where alderman ethelward was outlawed, and edwy, king of the churls. this year went the king to assingdon; with earl thurkyll, and archbishop wulfstan, and other bishops, and also abbots, and many monks with them; and he ordered to be built there a minster of stone and lime, for the souls of the men who were there slain, and gave it to his own priest, whose name was stigand; and they consecrated the minster at assingdon. and ethelnoth the monk, who had been dean at christ's church, was the same year on the ides of november consecrated bishop of christ's church by archbishop wulfstan. ((a.d. . and caused to be built there [canterbury] a minster of stone and lime, for the souls of the men who there were slain, and gave it to one of his priests, whose name was stigand.)) a.d. . this year king knute, at martinmas, outlawed earl thurkyll; and bishop elfgar, the abundant giver of alms, died in the morning of christmas day. a.d. . this year went king knute out with his ships to the isle of wight. and bishop ethelnoth went to rome; where he was received with much honour by benedict the magnificent pope, who with his own hand placed the pall upon him, and with great pomp consecrated him archbishop, and blessed him, on the nones of october. the archbishop on the self-same day with the same pall performed mass, as the pope directed him, after which he was magnificently entertained by the pope himself; and afterwards with a full blessing proceeded homewards. abbot leofwine, who had been unjustly expelled from ely, was his companion; and he cleared himself of everything, which, as the pope informed him, had been laid to his charge, on the testimony of the archbishop and of all the company that were with him. ((a.d. . and afterwards with the pall he there [at rome] performed mass as the pope instructed him: and he feasted after that with the pope; and afterwards went home with a full blessing.)) a.d. . this year returned king knute to england; and thurkyll and he were reconciled. he committed denmark and his son to the care of thurkyll, whilst he took thurkyll's son with him to england. this year died archbishop wulfstan; and elfric succeeded him; and archbishop egelnoth blessed him in canterbury. this year king knute in london, in st. paul's minster, gave full leave ( ) to archbishop ethelnoth, bishop britwine, and all god's servants that were with them, that they might take up from the grave the archbishop, saint elphege. and they did so, on the sixth day before the ides of june; and the illustrious king, and the archbishop, and the diocesan bishops, and the earls, and very many others, both clergy and laity, carried by ship his holy corpse over the thames to southwark. and there they committed the holy martyr to the archbishop and his companions; and they with worthy pomp and sprightly joy carried him to rochester. there on the third day came the lady emma with her royal son hardacnute; and they all with much majesty, and bliss, and songs of praise, carried the holy archbishop into canterbury, and so brought him gloriously into the church, on the third day before the ides of june. afterwards, on the eighth day, the seventeenth before the calends of july, archbishop ethelnoth, and bishop elfsy, and bishop britwine, and all they that were with them, lodged the holy corpse of saint elphege on the north side of the altar of christ; to the praise of god, and to the glory of the holy archbishop, and to the everlasting salvation of all those who there his holy body daily seek with earnest heart and all humility. may god almighty have mercy on all christian men through the holy intercession of elphege! ((a.d. . and he caused st. elphege's remains to be borne from london to canterbury.)) a.d. . this year went king knute to denmark with a fleet to the holm by the holy river; where against him came ulf and eglaf, with a very large force both by land and sea, from sweden. there were very many men lost on the side of king knute, both of danish and english; and the swedes had possession of the field of battle. a.d. . this year went bishop elfric to rome, and received the pall of pope john on the second day before the ides of november. a.d. . this year went king knute from england to norway with fifty ships manned with english thanes, and drove king olave from the land, which he entirely secured to himself. a.d. . this year king knute returned home to england. a.d. . this year returned king olave into norway; but the people gathered together against him, and fought against him; and he was there slain, in norway, by his own people, and was afterwards canonised. before this, in the same year, died hacon the doughty earl, at sea. ((a.d. . this year came king olave again into norway, and the people gathered against him, and fought against him; and he was there slain.)) a.d. . this year returned king knute; and as soon as he came to england he gave to christ's church in canterbury the haven of sandwich, and all the rights that arise therefrom, on either side of the haven; so that when the tide is highest and fullest, and there be a ship floating as near the land as possible, and there be a man standing upon the ship with a taper-axe in his hand, whithersoever the large taper-axe might be thrown out of the ship, throughout all that land the ministers of christ's church should enjoy their rights. this year went king knute to rome; and the same year, as soon as he returned home, he went to scotland; and malcolm, king of the scots, submitted to him, and became his man, with two other kings, macbeth and jehmar; but he held his allegiance a little while only. robert, earl of normandy, went this year to jerusalem, where he died; and william, who was afterwards king of england, succeeded to the earldom, though he was a child. a.d. . this year appeared that wild fire, such as no man ever remembered before, which did great damage in many places. the same year died elfsy, bishop of winchester; and elfwin, the king's priest, succeeded him. a.d. . this year died bishop merewhite in somersetshire, who is buried at glastonbury; and bishop leofsy, whose body resteth at worcester, and to whose see brihteh was promoted. a.d. . this year died bishop etheric, who lies at ramsey. a.d. . this year died king knute at shaftesbury, on the second day before the ides of november; and he is buried at winchester in the old minster. he was king over all england very near twenty winters. soon after his decease, there was a council of all the nobles at oxford; wherein earl leofric, and almost all the thanes north of the thames, and the naval men in london, chose harold to be governor of all england, for himself and his brother hardacnute, who was in denmark. earl godwin, and all the eldest men in wessex, withstood it as long as they could; but they could do nothing against it. it was then resolved that elfgiva, the mother of hardacnute, should remain at winchester with the household of the king her son. they held all wessex in hand, and earl godwin was their chief man. some men said of harold, that he was the son of king knute and of elfgive the daughter of alderman elfelm; but it was thought very incredible by many men. he was, nevertheless, full king over all england. harold himself said that he was the son of knute and of elfgive the hampshire lady; though it was not true; but he sent and ordered to be taken from her all the best treasure that she could not hold, which king knute possessed; and she nevertheless abode there continually within the city as long as she could. a.d. . this year came hither alfred the innocent etheling, son of king ethelred, and wished to visit his mother, who abode at winchester: but earl godwin, and other men who had much power in this land, did not suffer it; because such conduct was very agreeable to harold, though it was unjust. him did godwin let, and in prison set. his friends, who did not fly, they slew promiscuously. and those they did not sell, like slaughter'd cattle fell! whilst some they spared to bind, only to wander blind! some ham-strung, helpless stood, whilst others they pursued. a deed more dreary none in this our land was done, since englishmen gave place to hordes of danish race. but repose we must in god our trust, that blithe as day with christ live they, who guiltless died-- their country's pride! the prince with courage met each cruel evil yet; till 'twas decreed, they should him lead, all bound, as he was then, to ely-bury fen. but soon their royal prize bereft they of his eyes! then to the monks they brought their captive; where he sought a refuge from his foes till life's sad evening close. his body ordered then these good and holy men, according to his worth, low in the sacred earth, to the steeple full-nigh, in the south aile to lie of the transept west-- his soul with christ doth rest. ((a.d. . this year died king canute at shaftesbury, and he is buried at winchester in the old-minster: and he was king over all england very nigh twenty years. and soon after his decease there was a meeting of all the witan at oxford; and leofric, the earl, and almost all the thanes north of the thames, and the "lithsmen" at london, chose harold for chief of all england, him and his brother hardecanute who was in denmark. and godwin the earl and all the chief men of wessex withstood it as long as they could; but they were unable to effect anything in opposition to it. and then it was decreed that elfgive, hardecanute's mother, should dwell at winchester with the king's, her son's, household, and hold all wessex in his power; and godwin the earl was their man. some men said of harold that he was son of king canute and of elfgive, daughter of elfelm the ealdorman, but it seemed quite incredible to many men; and he was nevertheless full king over all england.)) a.d. . this year men chose harold king over all; and forsook hardacnute, because he was too long in denmark; and then drove out his mother elgiva, the relict of king knute, without any pity, against the raging winter! she, who was the mother of edward as well as of king hardacnute, sought then the peace of baldwin by the south sea. then came she to bruges, beyond sea; and earl baldwin well received her there; and he gave her a habitation at bruges, and protected her, and entertained her there as long as she had need. ere this in the same year died eafy, the excellent dean of evesham. ((a.d. . this year was driven out elfgive, king canute's relict; she was king hardecanute's mother; and she then sought the protection of baldwin south of the sea, and he gave her a dwelling in bruges, and protected and kept her, the while that she there was.)) a.d. . this year died ethelnoth, the good archbishop, on the calends of november; and, within a little of this time, bishop ethelric in sussex, who prayed to god that he would not let him live any time after his dear father ethelnoth; and within seven nights of this he also departed. then, before christmas, died bishop brihteh in worcestershire; and soon after this, bishop elfric in east anglia. then succeeded bishop edsy to the archbishopric, grimkytel to the see of sussex, and bishop lifing to that of worcester shire and gloucestershire. ((a.d. . this year died ethelnoth, the good archbishop, on the kalends of november, and a little after, ethelric, bishop in sussex, and then before christmas, briteagus, bishop in worcestershire, and soon after, elfric, bishop in east-anglia.)) a.d. . this year happened the terrible wind; and bishop britmar died at lichfield. the welsh slew edwin, brother of earl leofric, and thurkil, and elfget, and many good men with them. this year also came hardacnute to bruges, where his mother was. ((a.d. . this year king harold died at oxford, on the sixteenth before the kalends of april, and he was buried at westminster. and he ruled england four years and sixteen weeks; and in his days sixteen ships were retained in pay, at the rate of eight marks for each rower, in like manner as had been before done in the days of king canute. and in this same year came king hardecanute to sandwich, seven days before midsummer. and he was soon acknowledged as well by english as by danes; though his advisers afterwards grievously requited it, when they decreed that seventy-two ships should be retained in pay, at the rate of eight marks for each rower. and in this same year the sester of wheat went up to fifty-five pence, and even further.)) a.d. . this year died king harold at oxford, on the sixteenth before the calends of april; and he was buried at westminster. he governed england four years and sixteen weeks; and in his days tribute was paid to sixteen ships, at the rate of eight marks for each steersman, as was done before in king knute's days. the same year they sent after hardacnute to bruges, supposing they did well; and he came hither to sandwich with sixty ships, seven nights before midsummer. he was soon received both by the angles and danes, though his advisers afterwards severely paid for it. they ordered a tribute for sixty-two ships, at the rate of eight marks for each steersman. then were alienated from him all that before desired him; for he framed nothing royal during his whole reign. he ordered the dead harold to be dragged up and thrown into a ditch. this year rose the sester of wheat to fifty-five pence, and even further. this year archbishop edsy went to rome. ((a.d. . this year was the tribute paid; that twenty-one thousand pounds and ninety-nine pounds. and after that they paid to thirty-two ships, eleven thousand and forty-eight pounds. and, in this same year, came edward, son of king ethelred, hither to land, from weal-land; he was brother of king hardecanute: they were both sons of elfgive; emma, who was daughter of earl richard.)) a.d. . this year was the tribute paid to the army; that was, , pounds; and afterwards to thirty-two ships, , pounds. this year also ordered hardacnute to lay waste all worcestershire, on account of the two servants of his household, who exacted the heavy tribute. that people slew them in the town within the minster. early in this same year came edward, the son of king ethelred, hither to land, from weal-land to madron. he was the brother of king hardacnute, and had been driven from this land for many years: but he was nevertheless sworn as king, and abode in his brother's court while he lived. they were both sons of elfgive emma, who was the daughter o[oe] earl richard. in this year also hardacnute betrayed eadulf, under the mask of friendship. he was also allied to him by marriage. this year was egelric consecrated bishop of york, on the third day before the ides of january. ((a.d. . this year died king hardecanute at lambeth, on the sixth before the ides of june: and he was king over all england two years wanting ten days; and he is buried in the old-minster at winchester with king canute his father. and his mother, for his soul, gave to the new-minster the head of st. valentine the martyr. and before he was buried, all people chose edward for king at london: may he hold it the while that god shall grant it to him! and all that year was a very heavy time, in many things and divers, as well in respect to ill seasons as to the fruits of the earth. and so much cattle perished in the year as no man before remembered, as well through various diseases as through tempests. and in this same time died elsinus, abbot of peterborough; and then arnwius the monk was chosen abbot, because he was a very good man, and of great simplicity.)) a.d. . this year died king hardacnute at lambeth, as he stood drinking: he fell suddenly to the earth with a tremendous struggle; but those who were nigh at hand took him up; and he spoke not a word afterwards, but expired on the sixth day before the ides of june. he was king over all england two years wanting ten nights; and he is buried in the old minster at winchester with king knute his father. and his mother for his soul gave to the new minster the head of st. valentine the martyr: and ere he was buried all people chose edward for king in london. and they received him as their king, as was natural; and he reigned as long as god granted him. all that year was the season very severe in many and various respects: both from the inclemency of the weather, and the loss of the fruits of the earth. more cattle died this year than any man ever remembered, either from various diseases, or from the severity of the weather. at this same time died elfsinus, abbot of peterborough; and they chose arnwy, a monk, for their abbot; because he was a very good and benevolent man. a.d. . this year was edward consecrated king at winchester, early on easter-day, with much pomp. then was easter on the third day before the nones of april. archbishop edsy consecrated him, and before all people well admonished him. and stigand the priest was consecrated bishop over the east angles. and this year, fourteen nights before the mass of st. andrew, it was advised the king, that he and earl leofric and earl godwin and earl siward with their retinue, should ride from gloucester to winchester unawares upon the lady; and they deprived her of all the treasures that she had; which were immense; because she was formerly very hard upon the king her son, and did less for him than he wished before he was king, and also since: but they suffered her to remain there afterwards. and soon after this the king determined to invest all the land that his mother had in her hands, and took from her all that she had in gold and in silver and in numberless things; because she formerly held it too fast against him. soon after this stigand was deprived of his bishopric; and they took all that he had into their hands for the king, because he was nighest the counsel of his mother; and she acted as he advised, as men supposed. ((a.d. . this year was edward consecrated king at winchester on the first day of easter. and this year, fourteen days before andrew's-mass, the king was advised to ride from gloucester, and leofric the earl, and godwin the earl, and sigwarth [siward] the earl, with their followers, to winchester, unawares upon the lady [emma]; and they bereaved her of all the treasures which she possessed, they were not to be told, because before that she had been very hard with the king her son; inasmuch as she had done less for him than he would, before he was king, and also since: and they suffered her after that to remain therein. this year king edward took the daughter [edgitha] of godwin the earl for his wife. and in this same year died bishop brithwin, and he held the bishopric thirty-eight years, that was the bishopric of sherborne, and herman the king's priest succeeded to the bishopric. and in this year wulfric was hallowed abbot of st. augustine's at christmas, on stephen's mass-day, by leave of the king, and, on account of his great infirmity, of abbot elfstun.)) a.d. . this year archbishop edsy resigned his see from infirmity, and consecrated siward, abbot of abingdon, bishop thereto, with the permission and advice of the king and earl godwin. it was known to few men else before it was done; because the archbishop feared that some other man would either beg or buy it, whom he might worse trust and oblige than him, if it were known to many men. this year there was very great hunger over all england, and corn so dear as no man remembered before; so that the sester of wheat rose to sixty pence, and even further. and this same year the king went out to sandwich with thirty-five ships; and athelstan, the churchwarden, succeeded to the abbacy of abingdon, and stigand returned to his bishopric. in the same year also king edward took to wife edgitha, the daughter of earl godwin, ten nights before candlemas. and in the same year died britwold, bishop of wiltshire, on the tenth day before the calends of may; which bishopric he held thirty-eight winters; that was, the bishopric of sherborn. and herman, the king's priest, succeeded to the bishopric. this year wulfric was consecrated abbot of st. augustine's, at christmas, on the mass-day of st. stephen, by the king's leave and that of abbot elfstan, by reason of his great infirmity. ((a.d. . this year died living, bishop in devonshire, and leoftic succeeded thereto; he was the king's priest. and in this same year died elfstan, abbot of st. augustine's, on the third before the nones of july. and in this same year was outlawed osgod clapa.)) a.d. . this year died elfward, bishop of london, on the eighth day before the calends of august. he was formerly abbot of evesham, and well furthered that monastery the while that he was there. he went then to ramsey, and there resigned his life: and mannie was chosen abbot, being consecrated on the fourth day before the ides of august. this year gunnilda, a woman of rank, a relative of king knute, was driven out, and resided afterwards at bruges a long while, and then went to denmark. king edward during the year collected a large fleet at sandwich, through the threatening of magnus of norway; but his contests with sweyne in denmark prevented him from coming hither. ((a.d. . this year died grimkytel, bishop in sussex, and heca, the king's priest, succeeded thereto. and in this year died alwyn, bishop of winchester, on the fourth before the kalends of september; and stigand, bishop to the north [flanders], succeeded thereto. and in the same year sweyn the earl went out to baldwin's land [of elmham] to bruges and abode there all the winter; and then in summer he went out.)) a.d. . this year died lifting, the eloquent bishop, on the tenth day before the calends of april. he had three bishoprics; one in devonshire, one in cornwall, and another in worcestershire. then succeeded leofric, who was the king's priest, to devonshire and to cornwall, and bishop aldred to worcestershire. this year died elfwine, bishop of winchester, on the fourth day before the calends of september; and stigand, bishop of norfolk, was raised to his see. ere this, in the same year, died grimkytel, bishop of sussex; and he lies at christ-church, in canterbury. and heca, the' king's priest, succeeded to the bishopric. sweyne also sent hither, and requested the aid of fifty ships against magnus, king of the norwegians; but it was thought unwise by all the people, and it was prevented, because that magnus had a large navy: and he drove sweyne out, and with much slaughter won the land. the danes then gave him much money, and received him as king. the same year magnus died. the same year also earl sweyne went out to baldwin's land, to bruges; and remained there all the winter. in the summer he departed. a.d. . this year went earl sweyne into wales; and griffin, king of the northern men with him; and hostages were delivered to him. as he returned homeward, he ordered the abbess of leominster to be fetched him; and he had her as long as he list, after which he let her go home. in this same year was outlawed osgod clapa, the master of horse, before midwinter. and in the same year, after candlemas, came the strong winter, with frost and with snow, and with all kinds of bad weather; so that there was no man then alive who could remember so severe a winter as this was, both through loss of men and through loss of cattle; yea, fowls and fishes through much cold and hunger perished. ((a.d. . this year died brithwin, bishop in wiltshire, and herman was appointed to his see. in that year king edward gathered a large ship-force at sandwich, on account of the threatening of magnus in norway: but his and sweyn's contention in denmark hindered his coming here. this year died athelstan, abbot of abingdon, and sparhawk, monk of st. edmund's-bury, succeeded him. and in this same year died bishop siward, and archbishop eadsine again obtained the whole bishopric. and in this same year lothen and irling came with twenty-five ships to sandwich, and there took unspeakable booty, in men, and in gold, and in silver, so that no man knew how much it all was. and they then went about thanet, and would there do the like; but the land's-folk strenuously withstood them, and denied them as well landing as water; and thence utterly put them to flight. and they betook themselves then into essex, and there they ravaged, and took men, and property, and whatsoever they might find. and they betook themselves then east to baldwine's land, and there they sold what they had plundered; and after that went their way east, whence they before had come. in this year was the great synod at st. remi's [rheins]. thereat was leo the pope, and the archbishop of burgundy [lyons], and the archbishop of besancon, and the archbishop of treves, and the archbishop of rheims; and many men besides, both clergy and laity. and king edward sent thither bishop dudoc [of wells], and wulfric, abbot of st. augustine's, and abbot elfwin [of ramsey], that they might make known to the king what should be there resolved on for christendom. and in this same year king edward went out to sandwich with a great fleet. and sweyn the earl, son of godwin the earl, came in to bosham with seven ships; and he obtained the king's protection, and he was promised that he should be held worthy of everything which he before possessed. then harold the earl, his brother, and beorn the earl contended that he should not be held worthy of any of the things which the king had granted to them: but a protection of four days was appointed him to go to his ships. then befell it during this, that word came to the king that hostile ships lay westward, and were ravaging. then went godwin the earl west about with two of the king's ships; the one commanded harold the earl, and the other tosty his brother; and forty-two of the people's ships. then harold the earl was removed from the king's ship which harold the earl before had commanded. then went they west to pevensey, and lay there weather-bound. upon this, after two days, then came sweyn the earl thither, and spoke with his father, and with beorn the earl, and begged of beorn that he would go with him to the king at sandwich, and help him to the king's friendship: and he granted it. then went they as if they would go to the king. then whilst they were riding, then begged sweyn of him that he would go with him to his ships: saying that his seamen would depart from him unless he should at the soonest come thither. then went they both where his ships lay. when they came thither, then begged sweyn the earl of him that he would go with him on ship-board. he strenuously refused, so long as until his seamen seized him, and threw him into the boat, and bound him, and rowed to the ship, and put him there aboard. then they hoisted up their sails and ran west to exmouth, and had him with them until they slew him: and they took the body and buried it in a church. and then his friends and litsmen came from london, and took him up, and bore him to winchester to the old-minster, and he is there buried with king canute his uncle. and sweyn went then east to baldwin's land, and sat down there all the winter at bruges, with his full protection. and in the same year died eadnoth [ii.] bishop [of dorchester] of the north and ulf was made bishop.)) a.d. . this year died athelstan, abbot of abingdon, on the fourth day before the calends of april; and sparhawk, monk of st. edmundsbury, succeeded him. easter day was then on the third day before the nones of april; and there was over all england very great loss of men this year also. the same year came to sandwich lothen and irling, with twenty-five ships, and plundered and took incalculable spoil, in men, and in gold, and in silver, so that no man wist what it all was; and went then about thanet, and would there have done the same; but the land-folk firmly withstood, and resisted them both by land and sea, and thence put them to flight withal. they betook themselves thence into essex, where they plundered and took men, and whatsoever they could find, whence they departed eastward to baldwin's land, and having deposited the booty they had gained, they returned east to the place whence they had come before. ((a.d. . this year died living the eloquent bishop, on the tenth before the kalends of april, and he had three bishoprics; one in devonshire, and in cornwall, and in worcester. then leofric ( ) succeeded to devonshire and to cornwall, and bishop aldred to worcester. and in this year osgod, the master of the horse, was outlawed: and magnus [king of norway] won denmark. in this year there was a great council in london at mid-lent, and nine ships of lightermen were discharged, and five remained behind. in this same year came sweyn the earl into england. and in this same year was the great synod at rome, and king edward sent thither bishop heroman and bishop aldred; and they came thither on easter eve. and afterwards the pope held a synod at vercelli, and bishop ulf came thereto; and well nigh would they have broken his staff, if he had not given very great gifts; because he knew not how to do his duty so well as he should. and in this year died archbishop eadsine, on the fourth before the kalends of november.)) a.d. . this year came sweyne back to denmark; and harold, the uncle of magnus, went to norway on the death of magnus, and the northmen submitted to him. he sent an embassy of peace to this land, as did also sweyne from denmark, requesting of king edward naval assistance to the amount at least of fifty ships; but all the people resisted it. this year also there was an earthquake, on the calends of may, in many places; at worcester, at wick, and at derby, and elsewhere wide throughout england; with very great loss by disease of men and of cattle over all england; and the wild fire in derbyshire and elsewhere did much harm. in the same year the enemy plundered sandwich, and the isle of wight, and slew the best men that were there; and king edward and the earls went out after them with their ships. the same year bishop siward resigned his bishopric from infirmity, and retired to abingdon; upon which archbishop edsy resumed the bishopric; and he died within eight weeks of this, on the tenth day before the calends of november. ((a.d. . this year was the severe winter: and this year died alwyn, bishop of winchester, and bishop stigand was raised to his see. and before that, in the same year, died grinketel, bishop in sussex, and heca the priest succeeded to the bishopric. and sweyn also sent hither, begging assistance against magnus, king of norway; that fifty ships should be sent to his aid. but it seemed unadvisable to all people: and it was then hindered by reason that magnus had a great ship-force. and he then drove out sweyn, and with much man-slaying won the land: and the danes paid him much money and acknowledged him as king. and that same year magnus died. in this year king edward appointed robert, of london, archbishop of canterbury, during lent. and in the same lent he went to rome after his pall: and the king gave the bishopric of london to sparhafoc, abbot of abingdon; and the king gave the abbacy of abingdon to bishop rodulf, his kinsman. then came the archbishop from rome one day before st. peter's mass-eve, and entered on his archiepiscopal see at christ's church on st. peter's mass-day; and soon after went to the king. then came abbot sparhafoc to him with the king's writ and seal, in order that he should consecrate him bishop of london. then the archbishop refused, and said that the pope had forbidden it him. then went the abbot to the archbishop again for that purpose, and there desired episcopal ordination; and the archbishop constantly refused him, and said that the pope had forbidden it him. then went the abbot to london, and occupied the bishopric which the king before had granted him, with his full leave, all the summer and the harvest. and then came eustace [earl of boulogne] from beyond sea soon after the bishop, and went to the king, and spoke with him that which he then would, and went then homeward. when he came to canterbury, east, then took he refreshment there, and his men, and went to dover. when he was some mile or more, on this side of dover, then he put on his breast-plate, and so did all his companions, and went to dover. when they came thither, then would they lodge themselves where they chose. then came one of his men, and would abide in the house of a householder against his will, and wounded the householder; and the householder slew the other. then eustace got upon his horse, and his companions upon theirs; and they went to the householder, and slew him within his own dwelling; and they went up towards the town, and slew, as well within as without, more than twenty men. and the townsmen slew nineteen men on the other side, and wounded they knew not how many. and eustace escaped with a few men, and went again to the king, and made known to him, in part, how they had fared. and the king became very wroth with the townsmen. and the king sent off godwin the earl, and bade him go into kent in a hostile manner to dover: for eustace had made it appear to the king, that it had been more the fault of the townsmen than his: but it was not so. and the earl would not consent to the inroad, because he was loth to injure his own people. then the king sent after all his council, and bade them come to gloucester, nigh the aftermass of st. mary. then had the welshmen erected a castle in herefordshire among the people of sweyn the earl, and wrought every kind of harm and disgrace to the king's men there about which they could. then came godwin the earl, and sweyn the earl, and harold the earl, together at beverstone, and many men with them, in order that they might go to their royal lord, and to all the peers who were assembled with him, in order that they might have the advice of the king and his aid, and of all this council, how they might avenge the king's disgrace, and the whole nation's. then were the welshmen with the king beforehand, and accused the earls, so that they might not come within his eyes' sight; because they said that they were coming thither in order to betray the king. thither had come siward the earl [of northumbria] and leofric the earl [of mercia], and much people with them, from the north, to the king; and it was made known to the earl godwin and his sons, that the king and the men who were with him, were taking counsel concerning them: and they arrayed themselves on the other hand resolutely, though it were loathful to them that they should stand against their royal lord. then the peers on either side decreed that every kind of evil should cease: and the king gave the peace of god and his full friendship to either side. then the king and his peers decreed that a council of all the nobles should be held for the second time in london at the harvest equinox; and the king directed the army to be called out, as well south of the thames as north, all that was in any way most eminent. then declared they sweyn the earl an outlaw, and summoned godwin the earl and harold the earl, to the council, as quickly as they could effect it. when they had come thither, then were they summoned into the council. then required he safe conduct and hostages, so that he might come, unbetrayed, into the council and out of the council. then the king demanded all the thanes whom the earls before had: and they granted them all into his hands. then the king sent again to them, and commanded them that they should come with twelve men to the king's council. then the earl again required safe conduct and hostages, that he might defend himself against each of those things which were laid to him. then were the hostages refused him; and he was allowed a safe conduct for five nights to go out of the land. and then godwin the earl and sweyn the earl went to bosham, and shoved out their ships, and betook themselves beyond sea, and sought baldwin's protection, and abode there all the winter. and harold the earl went west to ireland, and was there all the winter within the king's protection. and soon after this happened, then put away the king the lady who had been consecrated his queen [editha], and caused to be taken from her all which she possessed, in land, and in gold, and in silver, and in all things, and delivered her to his sister at wherwell. and abbot sparhafoc was then driven out of the bishopric of london, and william the king's priest was ordained thereto. and then odda was appointed earl over devonshire, and over somerset, and over dorset, and over the welsh. and algar, the son of leofric the earl, was appointed to the earldom which harold before held.)) a.d. . ( ) this year the emperor gathered an innumerable army against baldwin of bruges, because he had destroyed the palace of nimeguen, and because of many other ungracious acts that he did against him. the army was immense that he had collected together. there was leo, the pope of rome, and the patriarch, and many other great men of several provinces. he sent also to king edward, and requested of him naval aid, that he might not permit him to escape from him by water. whereupon he went to sandwich, and lay there with a large naval armament, until the emperor had all that he wished of baldwin. thither also came back again earl sweyne, who had gone from this land to denmark, and there ruined his cause with the danes. he came hither with a pretence, saying that he would again submit to the king, and be his man; and he requested earl beorn to be of assistance to him, and give him land to feed him on. but harold, his brother, and earl beorn resisted, and would give him nothing of that which the king had given them. the king also refused him everything. whereupon swevne retired to his ships at bosham. then, after the settlement between the emperor and baldwin, many ships went home, and the king remained behind sandwich with a few ships. earl godwin also sailed forty-two ships from sandwich to pevensey, and earl beorn went with him. then the king gave leave to all the mercians to return home, and they did so. then it was told the king that osgod lay at ulps with thirty-nine ships; whereupon the king sent after the ships that he might dispatch, which before had gone homewards, but still lay at the nore. then osgod fetched his wife from bruges; and they went back again with six ships; but the rest went towards essex, to eadulf's-ness, and there plundered, and then returned to their ships. but there came upon them a strong wind, so that they were all lost but four persons, who were afterwards slain beyond sea. whilst earl godwin and earl beorn lay at pevensey with their ships, came earl sweyne, and with a pretence requested of earl beorn, who was his uncle's son, that he would be his companion to the king at sandwich, and better his condition with him; adding, that he would swear oaths to him, and be faithful to him. whereupon beorn concluded, that he would not for their relationship betray him. he therefore took three companions with him, and they rode to bosham, where his ( ) ships lay, as though they should proceed to sandwich; but they suddenly bound him, and led him to the ships, and went thence with him to dartmouth, where they ordered him to be slain and buried deep. he was afterwards found, and harold his cousin fetched him thence, and led him to winchester, to the old minster, where he buried him with king knute, his uncle. then the king and all the army proclaimed sweyne an outlaw. a little before this the men of hastings and thereabout fought his two ships with their ships, and slew all the men, and brought the ships to sandwich to the king. eight ships had he, ere he betrayed beorn; afterwards they all forsook him except two; whereupon he went eastward to the land of baldwin, and sat there all the winter at bruges, in full security. in the same year came up from ireland thirty-six ships on the welsh coast, and thereabout committed outrages, with the aid of griffin, the welsh king. the people were soon gathered against them, and there was also with them bishop eldred, but they had too little assistance, and the enemy came unawares on them very early in the morning, and slew on the spot many good men; but the others burst forth with the bishop. this was done on the fourth day before the calends of august. this year died the good bishop ednoth in oxfordshire; and oswy, abbot of thomey; and wulfnoth, abbot of westminster; and king edward gave the bishopric which ednoth had to ulf his priest, but it ill betided him; and he was driven from it, because he did nought like a bishop therein, so that it shameth us now to say more. bishop siward also died who lies at abingdon. in this same year king edward put nine ships out of pay; and the crews departed, and went away with the ships withal, leaving five ships only behind, for whom the king ordered twelve months pay. the same year went bishops hereman and aldred to the pope at rome on the king's errand. this year was also consecrated the great minster at rheims, in the presence of pope leo and the emperor. there was also a great synod at st. remy; ( ) at which was present pope leo, with the archbishops of burgundy, of besancon, of treves, and of rheims; and many wise men besides, both clergy and laity. a great synod there held they respecting the service of god, at the instance of st. leo the pope. it is difficult to recognise all the bishops that came thither, and also abbots. king edward sent thither bishop dudoc, and abbot wulfric, of st. augustine's, and elfwin, abbot of ramsey, with the intent that they should report to the king what was determined there concerning christendom. this same year came earl sweyne into england. ((a.d. . this year sweyn came again to denmark, and harold. uncle of magnus, went to norway after magnus was dead; and the normans acknowledged him: and he sent hither to land concerning peace. and sweyn also sent from denmark, and begged of king edward the aid of his ships. they were to be at least fifty ships: but all people opposed it. and this year also there was an earthquake, on the kalends of may, in many places in worcester, and in wick, and in derby, and elsewhere; and also there was a great mortality among men, and murrain among cattle: and moreover, the wild-fire did much evil in derbyshire and elsewhere.)) a.d. . this year returned the bishops home from rome; ( ) and earl sweyne had his sentence of outlawry reversed. the same year died edsy, archbishop of canterbury, on the fourth day before the calends of november; and also in the same year elfric, archbishop of york, on the eleventh before the calends of february, a very venerable man and wise, and his body lies at peterborough. then had king edward a meeting of the great council in london, in mid-lent, at which he appointed robert the frank, who was before bishop of london, archbishop of canterbury; and he, during the same lent, went to rome after his pall. the king meanwhile gave the see of london to sparhawk, abbot of abingdon, but it was taken from him again before he was consecrated. the king also gave the abbacy of abingdon to bishop rodulph his cousin. the same year he put all the lightermen out of pay. ( ) the pope held a council again, at vercelli; and bishop ulf came thither, where he nearly had his staff broken, had he not paid more money, because he could not perform his duties so well as he should do. the same year king edward abolished the danegeld which king ethelred imposed. that was in the thirty-ninth year after it had begun. that tribute harassed all the people of england so long as is above written; and it was always paid before other imposts, which were levied indiscriminately, and vexed men variously. ((a.d. . thither also came sweyn the earl, who before had gone from this land to denmark, and who there had ruined himself with the danes. he came thither with false pretences; saying that he would again be obedient to the king. and beorn the earl promised him that he would be of assistance to him. then, after the reconciliation of the emperor and of baldwin, many of the ships went home, and the king remained behind at sandwich with a few ships; and godwin the earl also went with forty-two ships from sandwich to pevensey, and beorn the earl went with him. then was it made known to the king that osgood lay at ulps with thirty-nine ships; and the king then sent after the ships which before had gone home, that he might send after him. and osgod fetched his wife from bruges, and they went back again with six ships. and the others landed in sussex [essex] at eadulf-ness, and there did harm, and went again to their ships: and then a strong wind came against them, so that they were all destroyed, except four, whose crews were slain beyond sea. while godwin the earl and beorn the earl lay at pevensey, then came sweyn the earl, and begged beorn the earl, with fraud, who was his uncle's son, that he would be his companion to the king at sandwich, and better his affairs with him. he went then, on account of the relationship, with three companions, with him; and he led him then towards bosham, where his ships lay: and then they bound him, and led him on ship-board. then went he thence with him to dartmouth, and there ordered him to be slain, and deeply buried. afterwards he was found, and borne to winchester, and buried with king canute his uncle. a little before that, the men of hastings and thereabout, fought two of his ships with their ships; and slew all the men, and brought the ships to sandwich to the king. eight ships he had before he betrayed beorn; after that all forsook him except two. in the same year arrived in the welsh axa, from ireland, thirty-six ships, and thereabout did harm, with the help of griffin the welsh king. the people were gathered together against them; bishop aldred [of worchester] was also there with them; but they had too little power. and they came unawares upon them at very early morn; and there they slew many good men, and the others escaped with the bishop: this was done on the fourth before the kalends of august. this year died, in oxfordshire, oswy, abbot of thorney, and wulfnoth, abbot of westminster; and ulf the priest was appointed as pastor to the bishopric which eadnoth had held; but he was after that driven away; because he did nothing bishop-like therein: so that it shameth us now to tell more about it. and bishop siward died: he lieth at abingdon. and this year was consecrated the great minster at rheims: there was pope leo [ix.] and the emperor [henry iii]; and there they held a great synod concerning god's service. st. leo the pope presided at the synod: it is difficult to have a knowledge of the bishops who came there, and how many abbots: and hence, from this land were sent two--from st. augustine's and from ramsey.)) a.d. . this year came archbishop robert hither over sea with his pall from rome, one day before st. peter's eve: and he took his archiepiscopal seat at christ-church on st. peter's day, and soon after this went to the king. then came abbot sparhawk to him with the king's writ and seal, to the intent that he should consecrate him bishop o[oe] london; but the archbishop refused, saying that the pope had forbidden him. then went the abbot to the archbishop again for the same purpose, and there demanded episcopal consecration; but the archbishop obstinately refused, repeating that the pope had forbidden him. then went the abbot to london, and sat at the bishopric which the king had before given him, with his full leave, all the summer and the autumn. then during the same year came eustace, who had the sister of king edward to wife, from beyond sea, soon after the bishop, and went to the king; and having spoken with him whatever he chose, he then went homeward. when he came to canterbury eastward, there took he a repast, and his men; whence he proceeded to dover. when he was about a mile or more on this side dover, he put on his breast-plate; and so did all his companions: and they proceeded to dover. when they came thither, they resolved to quarter themselves wherever they lived. then came one of his men, and would lodge at the house of a master of a family against his will; but having wounded the master of the house, he was slain by the other. then was eustace quickly upon his horse, and his companions upon theirs; and having gone to the master of the family, they slew him on his own hearth; then going up to the boroughward, they slew both within and without more than twenty men. the townsmen slew nineteen men on the other side, and wounded more, but they knew not how many. eustace escaped with a few men, and went again to the king, telling him partially how they had fared. the king was very wroth with the townsmen, and sent off earl godwin, bidding him go into kent with hostility to dover. for eustace had told the king that the guilt of the townsmen was greater than his. but it was not so: and the earl would not consent to the expedition, because he was loth to destroy his own people. then sent the king after all his council, and bade them come to gloucester nigh the after-mass of st. mary. meanwhile godwin took it much to heart, that in his earldom such a thing should happen. whereupon be began to gather forces over all his earldom, and earl sweyne, his son, over his; and harold, his other son, over his earldom: and they assembled all in gloucestershire, at langtree, a large and innumerable army, all ready for battle against the king; unless eustace and his men were delivered to them handcuffed, and also the frenchmen that were in the castle. this was done seven nights before the latter mass of st. mary, when king edward was sitting at gloucester. whereupon he sent after earl leofric, and north after earl siward, and summoned their retinues. at first they came to him with moderate aid; but when they found how it was in the south, then sent they north over all their earldom, and ordered a large force to the help of their lord. so did ralph also over his earldom. then came they all to gloucester to the aid of the king, though it was late. so unanimous were they all in defence of the king, that they would seek godwin's army if the king desired it. but some prevented that; because it was very unwise that they should come together; for in the two armies was there almost all that was noblest in england. they therefore prevented this, that they might not leave the land at the mercy of our foes, whilst engaged in a destructive conflict betwixt ourselves. then it was advised that they should exchange hostages between them. and they issued proclamations throughout to london, whither all the people were summoned over all this north end in siward's earldom, and in leofric's, and also elsewhere; and earl godwin was to come thither with his sons to a conference; they came as far as southwark, and very many with them from wessex; but his army continually diminished more and more; for they bound over to the king all the thanes that belonged to earl harold his son, and outlawed earl sweyne his other son. when therefore it could not serve his purpose to come to a conference against the king and against the army that was with him, he went in the night away. in the morning the king held a council, and proclaimed him an outlaw, with his whole army; himself and his wife, and all his three sons--sweyne and tosty and grith. and he went south to thorney, ( ) with his wife, and sweyne his son, and tosty and his wife, a cousin of baldwin of bruges, and his son grith. earl harold with leofwine went to bristol in the ship that earl sweyne had before prepared and provisioned for himself; and the king sent bishop aldred from london with his retinue, with orders to overtake him ere he came to ship. but they either could not or would not: and he then went out from the mouth of the avon; but he encountered such adverse weather, that he got off with difficulty, and suffered great loss. he then went forth to ireland, as soon as the weather permitted. in the meantime the welshmen had wrought a castle in herefordshire, in the territory of earl sweyne, and brought as much injury and disgrace on the king's men thereabout as they could. then came earl godwin, and earl sweyne, and earl harold, together at beverstone, and many men with them; to the intent that they might go to their natural lord, and to all the peers that were assembled with him; to have the king's counsel and assistance, and that of all the peers, how they might avenge the insult offered to the king, and to all the nation. but the welshmen were before with the king, and bewrayed the earls, so that they were not permitted to come within the sight of his eyes; for they declared that they intended to come thither to betray the king. there was now assembled before the king ( ) earl siward, and earl leofric, and much people with them from the north: and it was told earl godwin and his sons, that the king and the men who were with him would take counsel against them; but they prepared themselves firmly to resist, though they were loth to proceed against their natural lord. then advised the peers on either side, that they should abstain from all hostility: and the king gave god's peace and his full friendship to each party. then advised the king and his council, that there should be a second time a general assembly of all the nobles in london, at the autumnal equinox: and the king ordered out an army both south and north of the thames, the best that ever was. then was earl sweyne proclaimed an outlaw; and earl godwin and earl harold were summoned to the council as early as they could come. when they came thither and were cited to the council, then required they security and hostages, that they might come into the council and go out without treachery. the king then demanded all the thanes that the earls had; and they put them all into his hands. then sent the king again to them, and commanded them to come with twelve men to the king's council. then desired the earl again security and hostages, that he might answer singly to each of the things that were laid to his charge. but the hostages were refused; and a truce of five nights was allowed him to depart from the land. then went earl godwin and earl sweyne to bosham, and drew out their ships, and went beyond sea, seeking the protection of baldwin; and there they abode all the winter. earl harold went westward to ireland, and was there all the winter on the king's security. it was from thorney ( ) that godwin and those that were with him went to bruges, to baldwin's land, in one ship, with as much treasure as they could lodge therein for each man. wonderful would it have been thought by every man that was then in england, if any person had said before this that it would end thus! for he was before raised to such a height, that he ruled the king and all england; his sons were earls, and the king's darlings; and his daughter wedded and united to the king. soon after this took place, the king dismissed the lady who had been consecrated his queen, and ordered to be taken from her all that she had in land, and in gold, and in silver, and in all things; and committed her to the care of his sister at wherwell. soon after came earl william from beyond sea with a large retinue of frenchmen; and the king entertained him and as many of his companions as were convenient to him, and let him depart again. then was abbot sparhawk driven from his bishopric at london; and william the king's priest was invested therewith. then was oddy appointed earl over devonshire, and over somerset, and over dorset, and over wales; and algar, the son of earl leofric, was promoted to the earldom which harold before possessed. ((a.d. . in this year died eadsine, archbishop of canterbury; and the king gave to robert the frenchman, who before had been bishop of london, the archbishopric. and sparhafoc, abbot of abingdon, succeeded to the bishopric of london; and it was afterwards taken from him before he was consecrated. and bishop heroman and bishop aldred went to rome.)) a.d. . this year, on the second day before the nones of march, died the aged lady elfgiva emma, the mother of king edward and of king hardacnute, the relict of king ethelred and of king knute; and her body lies in the old minster with king knute. at this time griffin, the welsh king, plundered in herefordshire till he came very nigh to leominster; and they gathered against him both the landsmen and the frenchmen from the castle; and there were slain very many good men of the english, and also of the french. this was on the same day thirteen years after that edwin was slain with his companions. in the same year advised the king and his council, that ships should be sent out to sandwich, and that earl ralph and earl odda should be appointed headmen thereto. then went earl godwin out from bruges with his ships to ysendyck; and sailed forth one day before midsummer-eve, till he came to the ness that is to the south of romney. when it came to the knowledge of the earls out at sandwich, they went out after the other ships; and a land-force was also ordered out against the ships. meanwhile earl godwin had warning, and betook himself into pevensey: and the weather was so boisterous, that the earls could not learn what had become of earl godwin. but earl godwin then went out again until he came back to bruges; and the other ships returned back again to sandwich. then it was advised that the ships should go back again to london, and that other earls and other pilots should be appointed over them. but it was delayed so long that the marine army all deserted; and they all betook themselves home. when earl godwin understood that, he drew up his sail and his ship: and they ( ) went west at once to the isle of wight; and landing there, they plundered so long that the people gave them as much as they required of them. then proceeded they westward until they came to portland, where they landed and did as much harm as they could possibly do. meanwhile harold had gone out from ireland with nine ships, and came up at potlock with his ships to the mouth of the severn, near the boundaries of somerset and devonshire, and there plundered much. the land-folk collected against him, both from somerset and from devonshire: but he put them to flight, and slew there more than thirty good thanes, besides others; and went soon after about penwithstert, where was much people gathered against him; but he spared not to provide himself with meat, and went up and slew on the spot a great number of the people--seizing in cattle, in men, and in money, whatever he could. then went he eastward to his father; and they went both together eastward ( ) until they came to the isle of wight, where they seized whatever had been left them before. thence they went to pevensey, and got out with them as many ships as had gone in there, and so proceeded forth till they came to the ness; ( ) getting all the ships that were at romney, and at hithe, and at folkstone. then ordered king edward to fit out forty smacks that lay at sandwich many weeks, to watch earl godwin, who was at bruges during the winter; but he nevertheless came hither first to land, so as to escape their notice. and whilst he abode in this land, he enticed to him all the kentish men, and all the boatmen from hastings, and everywhere thereabout by the sea-coast, and all the men of essex and sussex and surrey, and many others besides. then said they all that they would with him live or die. when the fleet that lay at sandwich had intelligence about godwin's expedition, they set sail after him; but he escaped them, and betook himself wherever he might: and the fleet returned to sandwich, and so homeward to london. when godwin understood that the fleet that lay at sandwich was gone home, then went he back again to the isle of wight, and lay thereabout by the sea-coast so long that they came together--he and his son earl harold. but they did no great harm after they came together; save that they took meat, and enticed to them all the land-folk by the sea-coast and also upward in the land. and they proceeded toward sandwich, ever alluring forth with them all the boatmen that they met; and to sandwich they came with an increasing army. they then steered eastward round to dover, and landing there, took as many ships and hostages as they chose, and so returned to sandwich, where they did the same; and men everywhere gave them hostages and provisions, wherever they required them. then proceeded they to the nore, and so toward london; but some of the ships landed on the isle of shepey, and did much harm there; whence they steered to milton regis, and burned it all, and then proceeded toward london after the earls. when they came to london, there lay the king and all his earls to meet them, with fifty ships. the earls ( ) then sent to the king, praying that they might be each possessed of those things which had been unjustly taken from them. but the king resisted some while; so long that the people who were with the earl were very much stirred against the king and against his people, so that the earl himself with difficulty appeased them. when king edward understood that, then sent he upward after more aid; but they came very late. and godwin stationed himself continually before london with his fleet, till he came to southwark; where he abode some time, until the flood ( ) came up. on this occasion he also contrived with the burgesses that they should do almost all that he would. when he had arranged his whole expedition, then came the flood; and they soon weighed anchor, and steered through the bridge by the south side. the land-force meanwhile came above, and arranged themselves by the strand; and they formed an angle with the ships against the north side, as if they wished to surround the king's ships. the king had also a great land-force on his side, to add to his shipmen: but they were most of them loth to fight with their own kinsmen--for there was little else of any great importance but englishmen on either side; and they were also unwilling that this land should be the more exposed to outlandish people, because they destroyed each other. then it was determined that wise men should be sent between them, who should settle peace on either side. godwin went up, and harold his son, and their navy, as many as they then thought proper. then advanced bishop stigand with god's assistance, and the wise men both within the town and without; who determined that hostages should be given on either side. and so they did. when archbishop robert and the frenchmen knew that, they took horse; and went some west to pentecost castle, some north to robert's castle. archbishop robert and bishop ulf, with their companions, went out at eastgate, slaying or else maiming many young men, and betook themselves at once to eadulf's-ness; where he put himself on board a crazy ship, and went at once over sea, leaving his pall and all christendom here on land, as god ordained, because he had obtained an honour which god disclaimed. then was proclaimed a general council without london; and all the earls and the best men in the land were at the council. there took up earl godwin his burthen, and cleared himself there before his lord king edward, and before all the nation; proving that he was innocent of the crime laid to his charge, and to his son harold and all his children. and the king gave the earl and his children, and all the men that were with him, his full friendship, and the full earldom, and all that he possessed before; and he gave the lady all that she had before. archbishop robert was fully proclaimed an outlaw, with all the frenchmen; because they chiefly made the discord between earl godwin and the king: and bishop stigand succeeded to the archbishopric at canterbury. at the council therefore they gave godwin fairly his earldom, so full and so free as he at first possessed it; and his sons also all that they formerly had; and his wife and his daughter so full and so free as they formerly had. and they fastened full friendship between them, and ordained good laws to all people. then they outlawed all frenchmen--who before instituted bad laws, and judged unrighteous judgment, and brought bad counsels into this land--except so many as they concluded it was agreeable to the king to have with him, who were true to him and to all his people. it was with difficulty that bishop robert, and bishop william, and bishop ulf, escaped with the frenchmen that were with them, and so went over sea. earl godwin, and harold, and the queen, sat in their stations. sweyne had before gone to jerusalem from bruges, and died on his way home at constantinople, at michaelmas. it was on the monday after the festival of st. mary, that godwin came with his ships to southwark: and on the morning afterwards, on the tuesday, they were reconciled as it stands here before recorded. godwin then sickened soon after he came up, and returned back. but he made altogether too little restitution of god's property, which he acquired from many places. at the same time arnwy, abbot of peterborough, resigned his abbacy in full health; and gave it to the monk leofric, with the king's leave and that of the monks; and the abbot arnwy lived afterwards eight winters. the abbot leofric gilded the minster, so that it was called gildenborough; and it then waxed very much in land, and in gold, and in silver. ((a.d. . this year died alfric, archbishop of york, a very pious man, and wise. and in the same year king edward abolished the tribute, which king ethelred had before imposed: that was in the nine-and-thirtieth year after he had begun it. that tax distressed all the english nation during so long a time, as it has been written; that was ever before other taxes which were variously paid, and wherewith the people were manifestly distressed. in the same year eustace [earl of boulougne] landed at dover: he had king edward's sister to wife. then went his men inconsiderately after quarters, and a certain man of the town they slew; and another man of the town their companion; so that there lay seven of his companions. and much harm was there done on either side, by horse and also by weapons, until the people gathered together: and then they fled away until they came to the king at gloucester; and he gave them protection. when godwin, the earl, understood that such things should have happened in his earldom, then began he to gather together people over all his earldom, ( ) and sweyn, the earl, his son, over his, and harold, his other son, over his earldom; and they all drew together in gloucestershire, at langtree, a great force and countless, all ready for battle against the king, unless eustace were given up, and his men placed in their hands, and also the frenchmen who were in the castle. this was done seven days before the latter mass of st. mary. then was king edward sitting at gloucester. then sent he after leofric the earl [of mercia] and north after siward the earl [of northumbria] and begged their forces. and then they came to him; first with a moderate aid, but after they knew how it was there, in the south, then sent they north over all their earldoms, and caused to be ordered out a large force for the help of their lord; and ralph, also, over his earldom: and then came they all to gloucester to help the king, though it might be late. then were they all so united in opinion with the king that they would have sought out godwin's forces if the king had so willed. then thought some of them that it would be a great folly that they should join battle; because there was nearly all that was most noble in england in the two armies, and they thought that they should expose the land to our foes, and cause great destruction among ourselves. then counselled they that hostages should be given mutually; and they appointed a term at london, and thither the people were ordered out over all this north end, in siward's earldom, and in leofric's, and also elsewhere; and godwin, the earl, and his sons were to come there with their defence. then came they to southwark, and a great multitude with them, from wessex; but his band continually diminished the longer he stayed. and they exacted pledges for the king from all the thanes who were under harold, the earl, his son; and then they outlawed sweyn, the earl, his other son. then did it not suit him to come with a defence to meet the king, and to meet the army which was with him. then went he by night away; and the king on the morrow held a council, and, together with all the army, declared him an outlaw, him and all his sons. and he went south to thorney, and his wife, and sweyn his son, and tosty and his wife, baldwin's relation of bruges, and grith his son. and harold, the earl, and leofwine, went to bristol in the ship which sweyn, the earl, had before got ready for himself, and provisioned. and the king sent bishop aldred [of worcester] to london with a force; and they were to overtake him ere he came on ship-board: but they could not or they would not. and he went out from avonmouth, and met with such heavy weather that he with difficulty got away; and there he sustained much damage. then went he forth to ireland when fit weather came. and godwin, and those who were with him, went from thorney to bruges, to baldwin's land, in one ship, with as much treasure as they might therein best stow for each man. it would have seemed wondrous to every man who was in england if any one before that had said that it should end thus; for he had been erewhile to that degree exalted, as if he ruled the king and all england; and his sons were earls and the king's darlings, and his daughter wedded and united to the king: she was brought to wherwell, and they delivered her to the abbess. then, soon, came william, the earl [of normandy], from beyond seas with a great band of frenchmen; and the king received him, and as many of his companions as it pleased him; and let him away again. this same year was given to william, the priest, the bishopric of london, which before had been given to sparhafoc.)) ((a.d. . this year died elfgive, the lady, relict of king ethelred and of king canute, on the second before the nones of march. in the same year griffin, the welsh king, plundered in herefordshire, until he came very nigh to leominster; and they gathered against him, as well the landsmen as the frenchmen of the castle, and there were slain of the english very many good men, and also of the frenchmen; that was on the same day, on which, thirteen years before, eadwine had been slain by his companions.)) ((a.d. . in this year died elgive emma, king edward's mother and king hardecanute's. and in this same year, the king decreed, and his council, that ships should proceed to sandwich; and they set ralph, the earl, and odda, the earl [of devon], as headmen thereto. then godwin, the earl, went out from bruges with his ships to ysendyck, and left it one day before midsummer's-mass eve, so that he came to ness, which is south of romney. then came it to the knowledge of the earls out at sandwich; and they then went out after the other ships, and a land-force was ordered out against the ships. then during this, godwin, the earl, was warned, and then he went to pevensey; and the weather was very severe, so that the earls could not learn what was become of godwin, the earl. and then godwin, the earl, went out again, until he came once more to bruges; and the other ships returned again to sandwich. and then it was decreed that the ships should return once more to london, and that other earls and commanders should be appointed to the ships. then was it delayed so long that the ship-force all departed, and all of them went home. when godwin, the earl, learned that, then drew he up his sail, and his fleet, and then went west direct to the isle of wight, and there landed and ravaged so long there, until the people yielded them so much as they laid on them. and then they went westward until they came to portland, and there they landed, and did whatsoever harm they were able to do. then was harold come out from ireland with nine ships; and then landed at porlock, and there much people was gathered against him; but he failed not to procure himself provisions. he proceeded further, and slew there a great number of the people, and took of cattle, and of men, and of property as it suited him. he then went eastward to his father; and then they both went eastward until they came to the isle of wight, and there took that which was yet remaining for them. and then they went thence to pevensey and got away thence as many ships as were there fit for service, and so onwards until he came to ness, and got all the ships which were in romney, and in hythe, and in folkstone. and then they went east to dover, and there landed, and there took ships and hostages, as many as they would, and so went to sandwich and did "hand" the same; and everywhere hostages were given them, and provisions wherever they desired. and then they went to north-mouth, and so toward london; and some of the ships went within sheppey, and there did much harm, and went their way to king's milton, and that they all burned, and betook themselves then toward london after the earls. when they came to london, there lay the king and all the earls there against them, with fifty ships. then the earls sent to the king, and required of him, that they might be held worthy of each of those things which had been unjustly taken from them. then the king, however, resisted some while; so long as until the people who were with the earl were much stirred against the king and against his people, so that the earl himself with difficulty stilled the people. then bishop stigand interposed with god's help, and the wise men as well within the town as without; and they decreed that hostages should be set forth on either side: and thus was it done. when archbishop robert and the frenchmen learned that, they took their horses and went, some west to pentecost's castle, some north to robert's castle. and archbishop robert and bishop ulf went out at east-gate, and their companions, and slew and otherwise injured many young men, and went their way to direct eadulf's-ness; and he there put himself in a crazy ship, and went direct over sea, and left his pall and all christendom here on land, so as god would have it, inasmuch as he had before obtained the dignity so as god would not have it. then there was a great council proclaimed without london: and all the earls and the chief men who were in this land were at the council. there godwin bore forth his defence, and justified himself, before king edward his lord, and before all people of the land, that he was guiltless of that which was laid against him, and against harold his son, and all his children. and the king gave to the earl and his children his full friendship, and full earldom, and all that he before possessed, and to all the men who were with him. and the king gave to the lady [editha] all that she before possessed. and they declared archbishop robert utterly an outlaw, and all the frenchmen, because they had made most of the difference between godwin, the earl, and the king. and bishop stigand obtained the archbishopric of canterbury. in this same time arnwy, abbot of peterborough, left the abbacy, in sound health, and gave it to leofric the monk, by leave of the king and of the monks; and abbot arnwy lived afterwards eight years. and abbot leofric then (enriched) the minster, so that it was called the golden-borough. then it waxed greatly, in land, and in gold, and in silver.)) ((a.d. . and went so to the isle of wight, and there took all the ships which could be of any service, and hostages, and betook himself so eastward. and harold had landed with nine ships at porlock, and slew there much people, and took cattle, and men, and property, and went his way eastward to his father, and they both went to romney, to hythe, to folkstone, to dover, to sandwich, and ever they took all the ships which they found, which could be of any service, and hostages, all as they proceeded; and went then to london.)) a.d. . about this time was the great wind, on the mass-night of st. thomas; which did much harm everywhere. and all the midwinter also was much wind. it was this year resolved to slay rees, the welsh king's brother, because he did harm; and they brought his head to gloucester on the eve of twelfth-day. in this same year, before allhallowmas, died wulfsy, bishop of lichfield; and godwin, abbot of winchcomb; and aylward, abbot of glastonbury; all within one month. and leofwine, abbot of coventry, took to the bishopric at lichfield; bishop aldred to the abbacy at winchcomb; and aylnoth took to the abbacy at glastonbury. the same year died elfric, brother of odda, at deerhurst; and his body resteth at pershore. in this year was the king at winchester, at easter; and earl godwin with him, and earl harold his son, and tosty. on the day after easter sat he with the king at table; when he suddenly sunk beneath against the foot-rail, deprived of speech and of all his strength. he was brought into the king's chamber; and they supposed that it would pass over: but it was not so. he continued thus speechless and helpless till the thursday; when he resigned his life, on the seventeenth before the calends of may; and he was buried at winchester in the old minster. earl harold, his son, took to the earldom that his father had before, and to all that his father possessed; whilst earl elgar took to the earldom that harold had before. the welshmen this year slew a great many of the warders of the english people at westbury. this year there was no archbishop in this land: but bishop stigand held the see of canterbury at christ church, and kinsey that of york. leofwine and wulfwy went over sea, and had themselves consecrated bishops there. wulfwy took to the bishopric which ulf had whilst he was living and in exile. ((a.d. . this year was the great wind on thomas's-mass-night, and also the whole midwinter there was much wind; and it was decreed that rees, the welsh king's brother, should be slain, because he had done harm; and his head was brought to gloucester on twelfth-day eve. and the same year, before all hallows-mass, died wulfsy, bishop of lichfield, and godwin, abbot of winchcomb, and egelward, abbot of clastonbury, all within one month, and leofwine succeeded to the bishopric of lichfield, and bishop aidred [of worcester] took the abbacy at winchcomb, and egelnoth succeeded to the abbacy at glastonbury. and the same year died elfric, odda's brother at deorhurst; and his body resteth at pershore. and the same year died godwin the earl; and he fell ill as he sat with the king at winchester. and harold his son succeeded to the earldom which his father before held; and elgar, the earl, succeeded to the earldom which harold before held.)) ((a.d. . in this year died godwin, the earl, on the seventeenth before the kalends of may, and he is buried at winchester, in the old-minster; and harold, the earl, his son, succeeded to the earldom, and to all that which his father had held: and elgar, the earl, succeeded to the earldom which harold before held.)) a.d. . this year died leo the holy pope, at rome: and victor was chosen pope in his stead. and in this year was so great loss of cattle as was not remembered for many winters before. this year went earl siward with a large army against scotland, consisting both of marines and landforces; and engaging with the scots, he put to flight the king macbeth; slew all the best in the land; and led thence much spoil, such as no man before obtained. many fell also on his side, both danish and english; even his own son, osborn, and his sister's son, sihward: and many of his house-carls, and also of the king's, were there slain that day, which was that of the seven sleepers. this same year went bishop aldred south over sea into saxony, to cologne, on the king's errand; where he was entertained with great respect by the emperor, abode there well-nigh a year, and received presents not only from the court, but from the bishop of cologne and the emperor. he commissioned bishop leofwine to consecrate the minster at evesham; and it was consecrated in the same year, on the sixth before the ides of october. this year also died osgod clapa suddenly in his bed, as he lay at rest. ((a.d. . this year went siward the earl with a great army into scotland, both with a ship-force and with a landforce, and fought against the scots, and put to flight king macbeth, and slew all who were the chief men in the land, and led thence much booty, such as no man before had obtained. but his son osborn, and his sister's son siward, and some of his house-carls, and also of the king's, were there slain, on the day of the seven sleepers. the same year went bishop aldred to cologne, over sea, on the king's errand; and he was there received with much worship by the emperor [henry iii], and there he dwelt well nigh a year; and either gave him entertainment, both the bishop of cologne and the emperor. and he gave leave to bishop leofwine [of lichfield] to consecrate the minster at evesham on the sixth before the ides of october. in this year died osgod suddenly in his bed. and this year died st. leo the pope; and victor was chosen pope in his stead.)) a.d. . this year died earl siward at york; and his body lies within the minster at galmanho, ( ) which he had himself ordered to be built and consecrated, in the name of god and st. olave, to the honour of god and to all his saints. archbishop kinsey fetched his pall from pope victor. then, within a little time after, a general council was summoned in london, seven nights before mid-lent; at which earl elgar, son of earl leofric, was outlawed almost without any guilt; because it was said against him that he was the betrayer of the king and of all the people of the land. and he was arraigned thereof before all that were there assembled, though the crime laid to his charge was unintentional. the king, however, gave the earldom, which earl siward formerly had, to tosty, son of earl godwin. whereupon earl elgar sought griffin's territory in north-wales; whence he went to ireland, and there gave him a fleet of eighteen ships, besides his own; and then returned to wales to king griffin with the armament, who received him on terms of amity. and they gathered a great force with the irishmen and the welsh: and earl ralph collected a great army against them at the town of hereford; where they met; but ere there was a spear thrown the english people fled, because they were on horses. the enemy then made a great slaughter there--about four hundred or five hundred men; they on the other side none. they went then to the town, and burned it utterly; and the large minster ( ) also which the worthy bishop athelstan had caused to be built, that they plundered and bereft of relic and of reef, and of all things whatever; and the people they slew, and led some away. then an army from all parts of england was gathered very nigh; ( ) and they came to gloucester: whence they sallied not far out against the welsh, and there lay some time. and earl harold caused the dike to be dug about the town the while. meantime men began to speak of peace; and earl harold and those who were with him came to bilsley, where amity and friendship were established between them. the sentence of outlawry against earl elgar was reversed; and they gave him all that was taken from him before. the fleet returned to chester, and there awaited their pay, which elgar promised them. the slaughter was on the ninth before the calends of november. in the same year died tremerig, the welsh bishop, soon after the plundering; who was bishop athelstan's substitute, after he became infirm. ((a.d. . in this year died siward the earl at york, and he lies at galmanho, in the minster which himself caused to be built, and consecrated in god's and olave's name. and tosty succeeded to the earldom which he had held. and archbishop kynsey [of york], fetched his pall from pope victor. and soon thereafter was outlawed elgar the earl, son of leofric the earl, well-nigh without guilt. but he went to ireland and to wales, and procured himself there a great force, and so went to hereford: but there came against him ralph the earl, with a large army, and with a slight conflict he put them to flight, and much people slew in the flight: and they went then into hereford-port, and that they ravaged, and burned the great minster which bishop athelstan had built, and slew the priests within the minster, and many in addition thereto, and took all the treasures therein, and carried them away with them. and when they had done the utmost evil, this counsel was counselled: that elgar the earl should be inlawed, and be given his earldom, and all that had been taken from him. this ravaging happened on the th before the kalends of november. in the same year died tremerin the welsh bishop [of st. david's] soon after that ravaging: and he was bishop athelstan's coadjutor from the time that he had become infirm.)) ((a.d. . in this year died siward the earl: and then was summoned a general council, seven days before mid-lent; and they outlawed elgar the earl, because it was cast upon him that he was a traitor to the king and to all the people of the land. and he made a confession of it before all the men who were there gathered; though the word escaped him unintentionally. and the king gave the earldom to tosty, son of earl godwin, which siward the earl before held. and elgar the earl sought griffin's protection in north-wales. and in this year griffin and elgar burned st. ethelbert's minster, and all the town of hereford.)) a.d. . this year bishop egelric resigned his bishopric at durham, and retired to peterborough minster; and his brother egelwine succeeded him. the worthy bishop athelstan died on the fourth before the ides of february; and his body lies at hereford. to him succeeded leofgar, who was earl harold's mass-priest. he wore his knapsack in his priesthood, until he was a bishop. he abandoned his chrism and his rood--his ghostly weapons--and took to his spear and to his sword, after his bishophood; and so marched to the field against griffin the welsh king. ( ) but he was there slain, and his priests with him, and elnoth the sheriff, and many other good men with them; and the rest fled. this was eight nights before midsummer. difficult is it to relate all the vexation and the journeying, the marching and the fatigue, the fall of men, and of horses also, which the whole army of the english suffered, until earl leofric, and earl harold, and bishop eldred, came together and made peace between them; so that griffin swore oaths, that he would be a firm and faithful viceroy to king edward. then bishop eldred took to the bishopric which leofgar had before eleven weeks and four days. the same year died cona the emperor; and earl odda, whose body lies at pershore, and who was admitted a monk before his end; which was on the second before the calends of september; a good man and virtuous and truly noble. a.d. . this year came edward etheling, son of king edmund, to this land, and soon after died. his body is buried within st. paul's minster at london. he was brother's son to king edward. king edmund was called ironside for his valour. this etheling king knute had sent into hungary, to betray him; but he there grew in favour with good men, as god granted him, and it well became him; so that he obtained the emperor's cousin in marriage, and by her had a fair offspring. her name was agatha. we know not for what reason it was done, that he should see his relation, king edward. alas! that was a rueful time, and injurious to all this nation--that he ended his life so soon after he came to england, to the misfortune of this miserable people. the same year died earl leofric, on the second before the calends of october; who was very wise before god, and also before the world; and who benefited all this nation. ( ) he lies at coventry ( ): and his son elgar took to his territory. this year died earl ralph, on the twelfth before the calends of january; and lies at peterborough. also died bishop heca, in sussex; and egelric was elevated to his see. this year also died pope victor; and stephen was chosen pope, who was abbot of monut cassino. ((a.d. . in this year edward etheling, king edmund's son, came hither to land, and soon after died, and his body is buried within st. paul's minster at london. and pope victor died, and stephen [ix.] was chosen pope: he was abbot of mont-cassino. and leofric the earl died, and elgar his son succeeded to the earldom which the father before held.)) a.d. . this year was earl elgar banished: but he soon came in again by force, through griffin's assistance: and a naval armament came from norway. it is tedious to tell how it all fell out. in this same year bishop aldred consecrated the minster church at gloucester, which he himself had raised ( ) to the honour of god and st. peter; and then went to jerusalem ( ) with such dignity as no other man did before him, and betook himself there to god. a worthy gift he also offered to our lord's sepulchre; which was a golden chalice of the value of five marks, of very wonderful workmanship. in the same year died pope stephen; and benedict was appointed pope. he sent hither the pall to bishop stigand; who as archbishop consecrated egelric a monk at christ church, bishop of sussex; and abbot siward bishop of rochester. ((a.d. . this year died pope stephen, and benedict was consecrated pope: the same sent hither to land a pall to archbishop stigand. and in this year died heca, bishop of sussex; and archbishop stigand ordained algeric, a monk at christchurch, bishop of sussex, and abbot siward bishop of rochester.)) a.d. . this year was nicholas chosen pope, who had been bishop of florence; and benedict was expelled, who was pope before. this year also was consecrated the steeple ( ) at peterborough, on the sixteenth before the calends of november. a.d. . this year was a great earthquake on the translation of st. martin, and king henry died in france. kinsey, archbishop of york, died on the eleventh before the calends of january; and he lies at peterborough. bishop aldred succeeded to the see, and walter to that of herefordshire. dudoc also died, who was bishop of somersetshire; and gisa the priest was appointed in his stead. a.d. . this year went bishop aldred to rome after his pall; which he received at the hands of pope nicholas. earl tosty and his wife also went to rome; and the bishop and the earl met with great difficulty as they returned home. in the same year died bishop godwin at st. martin's, ( ) on the seventh before the ides of march; and in the self-same year died wulfric, abbot of st. augustine's, in the easterweek, on the fourteenth before the calends of may. pope nicholas also died; and alexander was chosen pope, who was bishop of lucca. when word came to the king that the abbot wulfric was dead, then chose he ethelsy, a monk of the old minster, to succeed; who followed archbishop stigand, and was consecrated abbot at windsor on st. augustine's mass-day. ((a.d. . in this year died dudoc, bishop of somerset, and giso succeeded. and in the same year died godwin, bishop of st. martin's, on the seventh before the ides of march. and in the self-same year died wulfric, abbot of st. augustine's, within the easter week, on the fourteenth before the kalends of may. when word came to the king that abbot wulfric was departed, then chose he ethelsy the monk thereto, from the old-minster, who then followed archbishop stigand, and was consecrated abbot at windsor, on st. augustine's mass-day.)) a.d. . this year went earl harold, after mid-winter, from gloucester to rhyddlan; which belonged to griffin: and that habitation he burned, with his ships and all the rigging belonging thereto; and put him to flight. then in the gang-days went harold with his ships from bristol about wales; where he made a truce with the people, and they gave him hostages. tosty meanwhile advanced with a land-force against them, and plundered the land. but in the harvest of the same year was king griffin slain, on the nones of august, by his own men, through the war that he waged with earl harold. he was king over all the welsh nation. and his head was brought to earl harold; who sent it to the king, with his ship's head, and the rigging therewith. king edward committed the land to his two brothers, blethgent and rigwatle; who swore oaths, and gave hostages to the king and to the earl, that they would be faithful to him in all things, ready to aid him everywhere by water and land, and would pay him such tribute from the land as was paid long before to other kings. ((a.d. . this year went harold the earl, and his brother tosty the earl, as well with a land-force as a shipforce, into wales, and they subdued the land; and the people delivered hostages to them, and submitted; and went afterwards and slew their king griffin, and brought to harold his head: and he appointed another king thereto.)) a.d. . this year, before lammas, ordered earl harold his men to build at portskeweth in wales. but when he had begun, and collected many materials, and thought to have king edward there for the purpose of hunting, even when it was all ready, came caradoc, son of griffin, with all the gang that he could get, and slew almost all that were building there; and they seized the materials that were there got ready. wist we not who first advised the wicked deed. this was done on the mass-day of st. bartholomew. soon after this all the thanes in yorkshire and in northumberland gathered themselves together at york, and outlawed their earl tosty; slaying all the men of his clan that they could reach, both danish and english; and took all his weapons in york, with gold and silver, and all his money that they could anywhere there find. they then sent after morkar, son of earl elgar, and chose him for their earl. he went south with all the shire, and with nottinghamshire and derbyshire and lincolnshire, till he came to northampton; where his brother edwin came to meet him with the men that were in his earldom. many britons also came with him. harold also there met them; on whom they imposed an errand to king edward, sending also messengers with him, and requesting that they might have morcar for their earl. this the king granted; and sent back harold to them, to northampton, on the eve of st. simon and st. jude; and announced to them the same, and confirmed it by hand, and renewed there the laws of knute. but the northern men did much harm about northampton, whilst he went on their errand: either that they slew men, and burned houses and corn; or took all the cattle that they could come at; which amounted to many thousands. many hundred men also they took, and led northward with them; so that not only that shire, but others near it were the worse for many winters. then earl tosty and his wife, and all they who acted with him, went south over sea with him to earl baldwin; who received them all: and they were there all the winter. about midwinter king edward came to westminster, and had the minster there consecrated, which he had himself built to the honour of god, and st. peter, and all god's saints. this church-hallowing was on childermas-day. he died on the eve of twelfth-day; and he was buried on twelfth-day in the same minster; as it is hereafter said. here edward king, ( ) of angles lord, sent his stedfast soul to christ. in the kingdom of god a holy spirit! he in the world here abode awhile, in the kingly throng of council sage. four and twenty winters wielding the sceptre freely, wealth he dispensed. in the tide of health, the youthful monarch, offspring of ethelred! ruled well his subjects; the welsh and the scots, and the britons also, angles and saxons relations of old. so apprehend the first in rank, that to edward all the noble king were firmly held high-seated men. blithe-minded aye was the harmless king; though he long ere, of land bereft, abode in exile wide on the earth; when knute o'ercame the kin of ethelred, and the danes wielded the dear kingdom of engle-land. eight and twenty winters' rounds they wealth dispensed. then came forth free in his chambers, in royal array, good, pure, and mild, edward the noble; by his country defended-- by land and people. until suddenly came the bitter death and this king so dear snatched from the earth. angels carried his soul sincere into the light of heaven. but the prudent king had settled the realm on high-born men-- on harold himself, the noble earl; who in every season faithfully heard and obeyed his lord, in word and deed; nor gave to any what might be wanted by the nation's king. this year also was earl harold hallowed to king; but he enjoyed little tranquillity therein the while that he wielded the kingdom. ((a.d. . and the man-slaying was on st. bartholomew's mass-day. and then, after michael's-mass, all the thanes in yorkshire went to york, and there slew all earl tosty's household servants whom they might hear of, and took his treasures: and tosty was then at britford with the king. and then, very soon thereafter, was a great council at northampton; and then at oxford on the day of simon and jude. and there was harold the earl, and would work their reconciliation if he might, but he could not: but all his earldom him unanimously forsook and outlawed, and all who with him lawlessness upheld, because he robbed god first, and all those bereaved over whom he had power of life and of land. and they then took to themselves morkar for earl; and tosty went then over sea, and his wife with him, to baldwin's land, and they took up their winter residence at st. omer's.)) a.d. . this year came king harold from york to westminster, on the easter succeeding the midwinter when the king (edward) died. easter was then on the sixteenth day before the calends of may. then was over all england such a token seen as no man ever saw before. some men said that it was the comet-star, which others denominate the long-hair'd star. it appeared first on the eve called "litania major", that is, on the eighth before the calends off may; and so shone all the week. soon after this came in earl tosty from beyond sea into the isle of wight, with as large a fleet as he could get; and he was there supplied with money and provisions. thence he proceeded, and committed outrages everywhere by the sea-coast where he could land, until he came to sandwich. when it was told king harold, who was in london, that his brother tosty was come to sandwich, he gathered so large a force, naval and military, as no king before collected in this land; for it was credibly reported that earl william from normandy, king edward's cousin, would come hither and gain this land; just as it afterwards happened. when tosty understood that king harold was on the way to sandwich, he departed thence, and took some of the boatmen with him, willing and unwilling, and went north into the humber with sixty skips; whence he plundered in lindsey, and there slew many good men. when the earls edwin and morkar understood that, they came hither, and drove him from the land. and the boatmen forsook him. then he went to scotland with twelve smacks; and the king of the scots entertained him, and aided him with provisions; and he abode there all the summer. there met him harold, king of norway, with three hundred ships. and tosty submitted to him, and became his man. ( ) then came king harold ( ) to sandwich, where he awaited his fleet; for it was long ere it could be collected: but when it was assembled, he went into the isle of wight, and there lay all the summer and the autumn. there was also a land-force every where by the sea, though it availed nought in the end. it was now the nativity of st. mary, when the provisioning of the men began; and no man could keep them there any longer. they therefore had leave to go home: and the king rode up, and the ships were driven to london; but many perished ere they came thither. when the ships were come home, then came harald, king of norway, north into the tine, unawares, with a very great sea-force--no small one; that might be, with three hundred ships or more; and earl tosty came to him with all those that he had got; just as they had before said: and they both then went up with all the fleet along the ouse toward york. ( ) when it was told king harold in the south, after he had come from the ships, that harald, king of norway, and earl tosty were come up near york, then went he northward by day and night, as soon as he could collect his army. but, ere king harold could come thither, the earls edwin and morkar had gathered from their earldoms as great a force as they could get, and fought with the enemy. ( ) they made a great slaughter too; but there was a good number of the english people slain, and drowned, and put to flight: and the northmen had possession of the field of battle. it was then told harold, king of the english, that this had thus happened. and this fight was on the eve of st. matthew the apostle, which was wednesday. then after the fight went harold, king of norway, and earl tosty into york with as many followers as they thought fit; and having procured hostages and provisions from the city, they proceeded to their ships, and proclaimed full friendship, on condition that all would go southward with them, and gain this land. in the midst of this came harold, king of the english, with all his army, on the sunday, to tadcaster; where he collected his fleet. thence he proceeded on monday throughout york. but harald, king of norway, and earl tosty, with their forces, were gone from their ships beyond york to stanfordbridge; for that it was given them to understand, that hostages would be brought to them there from all the shire. thither came harold, king of the english, unawares against them beyond the bridge; and they closed together there, and continued long in the day fighting very severely. there was slain harald the fair-hair'd, king of norway, and earl tosty, and a multitude of people with them, both of normans and english; ( ) and the normans that were left fled from the english, who slew them hotly behind; until some came to their ships, some were drowned, some burned to death, and thus variously destroyed; so that there was little left: and the english gained possession of the field. but there was one of the norwegians who withstood the english folk, so that they could not pass over the bridge, nor complete the victory. an englishman aimed at him with a javelin, but it availed nothing. then came another under the bridge, who pierced him terribly inwards under the coat of mail. and harold, king of the english, then came over the bridge, followed by his army; and there they made a great slaughter, both of the norwegians and of the flemings. but harold let the king's son, edmund, go home to norway with all the ships. he also gave quarter to olave, the norwegian king's son, and to their bishop, and to the earl of the orkneys, and to all those that were left in the ships; who then went up to our king, and took oaths that they would ever maintain faith and friendship unto this land. whereupon the king let them go home with twenty-four ships. these two general battles were fought within five nights. meantime earl william came up from normandy into pevensey on the eve of st. michael's mass; and soon after his landing was effected, they constructed a castle at the port of hastings. this was then told to king harold; and he gathered a large force, and came to meet him at the estuary of appledore. william, however, came against him unawares, ere his army was collected; but the king, nevertheless, very hardly encountered him with the men that would support him: and there was a great slaughter made on either side. there was slain king harold, and leofwin his brother, and earl girth his brother, with many good men: and the frenchmen gained the field of battle, as god granted them for the sins of the nation. archbishop aldred and the corporation of london were then desirous of having child edgar to king, as he was quite natural to them; and edwin and morkar promised them that they would fight with them. but the more prompt the business should ever be, so was it from day to day the later and worse; as in the end it all fared. this battle was fought on the day of pope calixtus: and earl william returned to hastings, and waited there to know whether the people would submit to him. but when he found that they would not come to him, he went up with all his force that was left and that came since to him from over sea, and ravaged all the country that he overran, until he came to berkhampstead; where archbishop aldred came to meet him, with child edgar, and earls edwin and morkar, and all the best men from london; who submitted then for need, when the most harm was done. it was very ill-advised that they did not so before, seeing that god would not better things for our sins. and they gave him hostages and took oaths: and he promised them that he would be a faithful lord to them; though in the midst of this they plundered wherever they went. then on midwinter's day archbishop aldred hallowed him to king at westminster, and gave him possession with the books of christ, and also swore him, ere that he would set the crown on his head, that he would so well govern this nation as any before him best did, if they would be faithful to him. neverrhetess he laid very heavy tribute on men, and in lent went over sea to normandy, taking with him archbishop stigand, and abbot aylnoth of glastonbury, and the child edgar, and the earls edwin, morkar, and waltheof, and many other good men of england. bishop odo and earl william lived here afterwards, and wrought castles widely through this country, and harassed the miserable people; and ever since has evil increased very much. may the end be good, when god will! in that same expedition ( ) was leofric, abbot of peterborough; who sickened there, and came home, and died soon after, on the night of allhallow-mass. god honour his soul! in his day was all bliss and all good at peterborough. he was beloved by all; so that the king gave to st. peter and him the abbey at burton, and that at coventry, which the earl leofric, who was his uncle, had formerly made; with that of croyland, and that of thorney. he did so much good to the minster of peterborough, in gold, and in silver, and in shroud, and in land, as no other ever did before him, nor any one after him. but now was gilden-borough become a wretched borough. the monks then chose for abbot provost brand, because he was a very good man, and very wise; and sent him to edgar etheling, for that the land-folk supposed that he should be king: and the etheling received him gladly. when king william heard say that, he was very wroth, and said that the abbot had renounced him: but good men went between them, and reconciled them; because the abbot was a good man. he gave the king forty marks of gold for his reconciliation; and he lived but a little while after--only three years. afterwards came all wretchedness and all evil to the minster. god have mercy on it! ((a.d. . this year died king edward, and harold the earl succeeded to the kingdom, and held it forty weeks and one day. and this year came william, and won england. and in this year christ-church [canterbury] was burned. and this year appeared a comet on the fourteenth before the kalends of may.)) ((a.d. . ...and then he [tosty] went thence, and did harm everywhere by the sea-coast where he could land, as far as sandwich. then was it made known to king harold, who was in london, that tosty his brother was come to sandwich. then gathered he so great a ship-force, and also a land force, as no king here in the land had before gathered, because it had been soothly said unto him, that william the earl from normandy, king edward's kinsman, would come hither and subdue this land: all as it afterwards happened. when tosty learned that king harold was on his way to sandwich, then went he from sandwich, and took some of the boatmen with him, some willingly and some unwillingly; and went then north into humber, and there ravaged in lindsey, and there slew many good men. when edwin the earl and morcar the earl understood that, then came they thither, and drove him out of the land. and he went then to scotland: and the king of scots protected him, and assisted him with provisions; and he there abode all the summer. then came king harold to sandwich, and there awaited his fleet, because it was long before it could be gathered together. and when his fleet was gathered together, then went he into the isle of wight, and there lay all the summer and the harvest; and a land-force was kept everywhere by the sea, though in the end it was of no benefit. when it was the nativity of st. mary, then were the men's provisions gone, and no man could any longer keep them there. then were the men allowed to go home, and the king rode up, and the ships were dispatched to london; and many perished before they came thither. when the ships had reached home, then came king harald from norway, north into tyne, and unawares, with a very large ship-force, and no small one; that might be, or more. and tosty the earl came to him with all that he had gotten, all as they had before agreed; and then they went both, with all the fleet, along the ouse, up towards york. then was it made known to king harold in the south, as he was come from on ship-board, that harald king of norway and tosty the earl were landed near york. then went he northward, day and night, as quickly as he could gather his forces. then, before that king harold could come thither, then gathered edwin the earl and morcar the earl from their earldom as great a force as they could get together; and they fought against the army, and made great slaughter: and there was much of the english people slain, and drowned, and driven away in flight; and the northmen had possession of the place of carnage. and this fight was on the vigil of st. matthew the apostle, and it was wednesday. and then, after the fight, went harald, king of norway, and tosty the earl, into york, with as much people as seemed meet to them. and they delivered hostages to them from the city, and also assisted them with provisions; and so they went thence to their ships, and they agreed upon a full peace, so that they should all go with him south, and this land subdue. then, during this, came harold, king of the angles, with all his forces, on the sunday, to tadcaster, and there drew up his force, and went then on monday throughout york; and harald, king of norway, and tosty the earl, and their forces, were gone from their ships beyond york to stanfordbridge, because it had been promised them for a certainty, that there, from all the shire, hostages should be brought to meet them. then came harold, king of the english, against them, unawares, beyond the bridge, and they there joined battle, and very strenuously, for a long time of the day, continued fighting: and there was harald, king of norway, and tosty the earl slain, and numberless of the people with them, as well of the northmen as of the english: and the northmen fled from the english. then was there one of the norwegians who withstood the english people, so that they might not pass over the bridge, nor obtain the victory. then an englishman aimed at him with a javelin, but availed nothing; and then came another under the bridge, and pierced him terribly inwards under the coat of mail. then came harold, king of the english, over the bridge, and his forces onward with him, and there made great slaughter, as well of norwegians as of flemings. and the king's son, edmund, harold let go home to norway, with all the ships.)) ((a.d. . in this year was consecrated the minster at westminster, on childer-mass-day. and king edward died on the eve of twelfth-day; and he was buried on twelfth-day within the newly consecrated church at westminster. and harold the earl succeeded to the kingdom of england, even as the king had granted it to him, and men also had chosen him thereto; and he was crowned as king on twelfth-day. and that same year that he became king, he went out with a fleet against william [earl of normandy]; and the while, came tosty the earl into humber with sixty ships. edwin the earl came with a land-force and drove him out; and the boatmen forsook him. and he went to scotland with twelve vessels; and harald, the king of norway, met him with three hundred ships, and tosty submitted to him; and they both went into humber, until they came to york. and morcar the earl, and edwin the earl, fought against them; and the king of the norwegians had the victory. and it was made known to king harold how it there was done, and had happened; and he came there with a great army of english men, and met him at stanfordbridge, and slew him and the earl tosty, and boldly overcame all the army. and the while, william the earl landed at hastings, on st. michael's-day: and harold came from the north, and fought against him before all his army had come up: and there he fell, and his two brothers, girth and leofwin; and william subdued this land. and he came to westminster, and archbishop aldred consecrated him king, and men paid him tribute, delivered him hostages, and afterwards bought their land. and then was leofric, abbot of peterborough, in that same expedition; and there he sickened, and came home, and was dead soon thereafter, on all-hallows-mass-night; god be merciful to his soul! in his day was all bliss and all good in peterborough; and he was dear to all people, so that the king gave to st. peter and to him the abbacy at burton, and that of coventry, which leofric the earl, who was his uncle, before had made, and that of crowland, and that of thorney. and he conferred so much of good upon the minster of peterborough, in gold, and in silver, and in vestments, and in land, as never any other did before him, nor any after him. after, golden-borough became a wretched borough. then chose the monks for abbot brand the provost, by reason that he was a very good man, and very wise, and sent him then to edgar the etheling, by reason that the people of the land supposed that he should become king: and the etheling granted it him then gladly. when king william heard say that, then was he very wroth, and said that the abbot had despised him. then went good men between them, and reconciled them, by reason that the abbot was a good man. then gave he the king forty marks of gold for a reconciliation; and then thereafter, lived he a little while, but three years. after that came every tribulation and every evil to the minster. god have mercy on it!)) a.d. . this year came the king back again to england on st. nicholas's day; and the same day was burned the church of christ at canterbury. bishop wulfwy also died, and is buried at his see in dorchester. the child edric and the britons were unsettled this year, and fought with the castlemen at hereford, and did them much harm. the king this year imposed a heavy guild on the wretched people; but, notwithstanding, let his men always plunder all the country that they went over; and then he marched to devonshire, and beset the city of exeter eighteen days. there were many of his army slain; out he had promised them well, and performed ill; and the citizens surrendered the city because the thanes had betrayed them. this summer the child edgar departed, with his mother agatha, and his two sisters, margaret and christina, and merle-sweyne, and many good men with them; and came to scotland under the protection of king malcolm, who entertained them all. then began king malcolm to yearn after the child's sister, margaret, to wife; but he and all his men long refused; and she also herself was averse, and said that she would neither have him nor any one else, if the supreme power would grant, that she in her maidenhood might please the mighty lord with a carnal heart, in this short life, in pure continence. the king, however, earnestly urged her brother, until he answered yea. and indeed he durst not otherwise; for they were come into his kingdom. so that then it was fulfilled, as god had long ere foreshowed; and else it could not be; as he himself saith in his gospel: that "not even a sparrow on the ground may fall, without his foreshowing." the prescient creator wist long before what he of her would have done; for that she should increase the glory of god in this land, lead the king aright from the path of error, bend him and his people together to a better way, and suppress the bad customs which the nation formerly followed: all which she afterwards did. the king therefore received her, though it was against her will, and was pleased with her manners, and thanked god, who in his might had given him such a match. he wisely bethought himself, as he was a prudent man, and turned himself to god, and renounced all impurity; accordingly, as the apostle paul, the teacher of all the gentries, saith: "salvabitur vir infidelis per mulierem fidelem; sic et mulier infidelis per virum fidelem," etc.: that is in our language, "full oft the unbelieving husband is sanctified and healed through the believing wife, and so belike the wife through the believing husband." this queen aforesaid performed afterwards many useful deeds in this land to the glory of god, and also in her royal estate she well conducted herself, as her nature was. of a faithful and noble kin was she sprung. her father was edward etheling, son of king edmund. edmund was the son of ethelred; ethelred the son of edgar; edgar the son of edred; and so forth in that royal line: and her maternal kindred goeth to the emperor henry, who had the sovereignty over rome. this year went out githa, harold's mother, and the wives of many good men with her, to the flat-holm, and there abode some time; and so departed thence over sea to st. omer's. this easter came the king to winchester; and easter was then on the tenth before the calends of april. soon after this came the lady matilda hither to this land; and archbishop eldred hallowed her to queen at westminster on whit sunday. then it was told the king, that the people in the north had gathered themselves together, and would stand against him if he came. whereupon he went to nottingham, and wrought there a castle; and so advanced to york, and there wrought two castles; and the same at lincoln, and everywhere in that quarter. then earl gospatric and the best men went into scotland. amidst this came one of harold's sons from ireland with a naval force into the mouth of the avon unawares, and plundered soon over all that quarter; whence they went to bristol, and would have stormed the town; but the people bravely withstood them. when they could gain nothing from the town, they went to their ships with the booty which they had acquired by plunder; and then they advanced upon somersetshire, and there went up; and ednoth, master of the horse, fought with them; but he was there slain, and many good men on either side; and those that were left departed thence. a.d. . this year king william gave earl robert the earldom over northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. soon afterwards edgar etheling came with all the northumbrians to york; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but king william came from the south unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. st. peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the etheling went back again to scotland. after this came harold's sons from ireland, about midsummer, with sixty-four ships into the mouth of the taft, where they unwarily landed: and earl breon came unawares against them with a large army, and fought with them, and slew there all the best men that were in the fleet; and the others, being small forces, escaped to the ships: and harold's sons went back to ireland again. a.d. . this year died aldred, archbishop of york; and he is there buried, at his see. he died on the day of protus and hyacinthus, having held the see with much dignity ten years wanting only fifteen weeks. soon after this came from denmark three of the sons of king sweyne with two hundred and forty ships, together with earl esborn and earl thurkill, into the humber; where they were met by the child edgar, and earl waltheof, and merle-sweyne, and earl gospatric with the northumbrians, and all the landsmen; riding and marching full merrily with an immense army: and so all unanimously advanced to york; where they stormed and demolished the castle, and won innumerable treasures therein; slew there many hundreds of frenchmen, and led many with them to the ships; but, ere that the shipmen came thither, the frenchmen had burned the city, and also the holy minster of st. peter had they entirely plundered, and destroyed with fire. when the king heard this, then went he northward with all the force that he could collect, despoiling and laying waste the shire withal; whilst the fleet lay all the winter in the humber, where the king could not come at them. the king was in york on christmas day, and so all the winter on land, and came to winchester at easter. bishop egelric, who was at peterborough, was this year betrayed, and led to westminster; and his brother egelwine was outlawed. this year also died brand, abbot of peterborough, on the fifth before the calends of december. a.d. . this year landfranc, who was abbot of caen, came to england; and after a few days he became archbishop of canterbury. he was invested on the fourth before the calends of september in his own see by eight bishops, his suffragans. the others, who were not there, by messengers and by letter declared why they could not be there. the same year thomas, who was chosen bishop of york, came to canterbury, to be invested there after the ancient custom. but when landfranc craved confirmation of his obedience with an oath, he refused; and said, that he ought not to do it. whereupon archbishop landfranc was wroth, and bade the bishops, who were come thither by archbishop landfranc's command to do the service, and all the monks to unrobe themselves. and they by his order so did. thomas, therefore, for the time, departed without consecration. soon after this, it happened that the archbishop landfranc went to rome, and thomas with him. when they came thither, and had spoken about other things concerning which they wished to speak, then began thomas his speech: how he came to canterbury, and how the archbishop required obedience of him with an oath; but he declined it. then began the archbishop landfranc to show with clear distinction, that what he craved he craved by right; and with strong arguments he confirmed the same before the pope alexander, and before all the council that was collected there; and so they went home. after this came thomas to canterbury; and all that the archbishop required of him he humbly fulfilled, and afterwards received consecration. this year earl waltheof agreed with the king; but in the lent of the same year the king ordered all the monasteries in england to be plundered. in the same year came king sweyne from denmark into the humber; and the landsmen came to meet him, and made a treaty with him; thinking that he would overrun the land. then came into ely christien, the danish bishop, and earl osbern, and the danish domestics with them; and the english people from all the fen-lands came to them; supposing that they should win all that land. then the monks of peterborough heard say, that their own men would plunder the minster; namely hereward and his gang: because they understood that the king had given the abbacy to a french abbot, whose name was thorold;--that he was a very stern man, and was then come into stamford with all his frenchmen. now there was a churchwarden, whose name was yware; who took away by night all that he could, testaments, mass-hackles, cantel-copes, and reefs, and such other small things, whatsoever he could; and went early, before day, to the abbot thorold; telling him that he sought his protection, and informing him how the outlaws were coming to peterborough, and that he did all by advice of the monks. early in the morning came all the outlaws with many ships, resolving to enter the minster; but the monks withstood, so that they could not come in. then they laid on fire, and burned all the houses of the monks, and all the town except one house. then came they in through fire at the bull-hithe gate; where the monks met them, and besought peace of them. but they regarded nothing. they went into the minster, climbed up to the holy rood, took away the diadem from our lord's head, all of pure gold, and seized the bracket that was underneath his feet, which was all of red gold. they climbed up to the steeple, brought down the table that was hid there, which was all of gold and silver, seized two golden shrines, and nine of silver, and took away fifteen large crucifixes, of gold and of silver; in short, they seized there so much gold and silver, and so many treasures, in money, in raiment, and in books, as no man could tell another; and said, that they did it from their attachment to the minster. afterwards they went to their ships, proceeded to ely, and deposited there all the treasure. the danes, believing that they should overcome the frenchmen, drove out all the monks; leaving there only one, whose name was leofwine lang, who lay sick in the infirmary. then came abbot thorold and eight times twenty frenchmen with him, all full-armed. when he came thither, he found all within and without consumed by fire, except the church alone; but the outlaws were all with the fleet, knowing that he would come thither. this was done on the fourth day before the nones of june. the two kings, william and sweyne, were now reconciled; and the danes went out of ely with all the aforesaid treasure, and carried it away with them. but when they came into the middle of the sea, there came a violent storm, and dispersed all the ships wherein the treasures were. some went to norway, some to ireland, some to denmark. all that reached the latter, consisted of the table, and some shrines, and some crucifixes, and many of the other treasures; which they brought to a king's town, called ----, and deposited it all there in the church. afterwards through their own carelessness, and through their drunkenness, in one night the church and all that was therein was consumed by fire. thus was the minster of peterborough burned and plundered. almighty god have mercy on it through his great goodness. thus came the abbot thorold to peterborough; and the monks too returned, and performed the service of christ in the church, which had before stood a full week without any kind of rite. when bishop aylric heard it, he excommunicated all the men who that evil deed had done. there was a great famine this year: and in the summer came the fleet in the north from the humber into the thames, and lay there two nights, and made afterwards for denmark. earl baldwin also died, and his son arnulf succeeded to the earldom. earl william, in conjunction with the king of the franks, was to be his guardian; but earl robert came and slew his kinsman arnulf and the earl, put the king to flight, and slew many thousands of his men. a.d. . this year earl edwin and earl morkar fled out, ( ) and roamed at random in woods and in fields. then went earl morkar to ely by ship; but earl edwin was treacherously slain by his own men. then came bishop aylwine, and siward barn, and many hundred men with them, into ely. when king william heard that, then ordered he out a naval force and land force, and beset the land all about, and wrought a bridge, and went in; and the naval force at the same time on the sea-side. and the outlaws then all surrendered; that was, bishop aylwine, and earl morkar, and all that were with them; except hereward ( ) alone, and all those that would join him, whom he led out triumphantly. and the king took their ships, and weapons, and many treasures; ( ) and all the men he disposed of as he thought proper. bishop aylwine he sent to abingdon, where he died in the beginning of the winter. a.d. . this year king william led a naval force and a land force to scotland, and beset that land on the sea-side with ships, whilst he led his land-force in at the tweed; ( ) but he found nothing there of any value. king malcolm, however, came, and made peace with king william, and gave hostages, and became his man; whereupon the king returned home with all his force. this year died bishop aylric. he had been invested bishop of york; but that see was unjustly taken from him, and he then had the bishopric of durham given him; which he held as long as he chose, but resigned it afterwards, and retired to peterborough minster; where he abode twelve years. after that king william won england, then took he him from peterborough, and sent him to westminster; where he died on the ides of october, and he is there buried, within the minster, in the porch of st. nicholas. a.d. . this year led king william an army, english and french, over sea, and won the district of maine; which the english very much injured by destroying the vineyards, burning the towns, and spoiling the land. but they subdued it all into the hand of king william, and afterwards returned home to england. a.d. . this year king william went over sea to normandy; and child edgar came from flanders into scotland on st. grimbald's mass-day; where king malcolm and his sister margaret received him with much pomp. at the same time sent philip, the king of france, a letter to him, bidding him to come to him, and he would give him the castle of montreuil; that he might afterwards daily annoy his enemies. what then? king malcolm and his sister margaret gave him and his men great presents, and many treasures; in skins ornamented with purple, in pelisses made of martin-skins, of grey-skins, and of ermine-skins, in palls, and in vessels of gold and silver; and conducted him and his crew with great pomp from his territory. but in their voyage evil befel them; for when they were out at sea, there came upon them such rough weather, and the stormy sea and the strong wind drove them so violently on the shore, that all their ships burst, and they also themselves came with difficulty to the land. their treasure was nearly all lost, and some of his men also were taken by the french; but he himself and his best men returned again to scotland, some roughly travelling on foot, and some miserably mounted. then king malcolm advised him to send to king william over sea, to request his friendship, which he did; and the king gave it him, and sent after him. again, therefore, king malcolm and his sister gave him and all his men numberless treasures, and again conducted him very magnificently from their territory. the sheriff of york came to meet him at durham, and went all the way with him; ordering meat and fodder to be found for him at every castle to which they came, until they came over sea to the king. then king william received him with much pomp; and he was there afterwards in his court, enjoying such rights as he confirmed to him by law. a.d. . this year king william gave earl ralph the daughter of william fitz-osborne to wife. this same ralph was british on his mother's side; but his father, whose name was also ralph, was english; and born in norfolk. the king therefore gave his son the earldom of norfolk and suffolk; and he then led the bride to norwich. there was that bride-ale the source of man's bale. there was earl roger, and earl waltheof, and bishops, and abbots; who there resolved, that they would drive the king out of the realm of england. but it was soon told the king in normandy how it was determined. it was earl roger and earl ralph who were the authors of that plot; and who enticed the britons to them, and sent eastward to denmark after a fleet to assist them. roger went westward to his earldom, and collected his people there, to the king's annoyance, as he thought; but it was to the great disadvantage of himself. he was however prevented. ralph also in his earldom would go forth with his people; but the castlemen that were in england and also the people of the land, came against him, and prevented him from doing anything. he escaped however to the ships at norwich. ( ) and his wife was in the castle; which she held until peace was made with her; when she went out of england, with all her men who wished to join her. the king afterwards came to england, and seized earl roger, his relative, and put him in prison. and earl waltheof went over sea, and bewrayed himself; but he asked forgiveness, and proffered gifts of ransom. the king, however, let him off lightly, until he ( ) came to england; when he had him seized. soon after that came east from denmark two hundred ships; wherein were two captains, cnute swainson, and earl hacco; but they durst not maintain a fight with king william. they went rather to york, and broke into st. peter's minster, and took therein much treasure, and so went away. they made for flanders over sea; but they all perished who were privy to that design; that was, the son of earl hacco, and many others with him. this year died the lady edgitha, who was the relict of king edward, seven nights before christmas, at winchester; and the king caused her to be brought to westminster with great pomp; and he laid her with king edward, her lord. and the king was then at westminster, at midwinter; where all the britons were condemned who were at the bride-ale at norwich. some were punished with blindness; some were driven from the land; and some were towed to scandinavia. so were the traitors of king william subdued. a.d. . this year died sweyne, king of denmark; and harold his son took to the kingdom. and the king gave the abbacy of westminster to abbot vitalis, who had been abbot of bernay. this year also was earl waltheof beheaded at winchester, on the mass-day of st. petronilla; ( ) and his body was carried to croyland, where he lies buried. king william now went over sea, and led his army to brittany, and beset the castle of dol; but the bretons defended it, until the king came from france; whereupon william departed thence, having lost there both men and horses, and many of his treasures. a.d. . this year were reconciled the king of the franks and william, king of england. but it continued only a little while. this year was london burned, one night before the assumption of st. mary, so terribly as it never was before, since it was built. this year the moon was eclipsed three nights before candlemas; and in the same year died aylwy, the prudent abbot of evesham, on the fourteenth day before the calends of march, on the mass-day of st. juliana; and walter was appointed abbot in his stead; and bishop herman also died, on the tenth day before the calends of march, who was bishop in berkshire, and in wiltshire, and in dorsetshire. this year also king malcolm won the mother of malslaythe.... and all his best men, and all his treasures, and his cattle; and he himself not easily escaped.... this year also was the dry summer; and wild fire came upon many shires, and burned many towns; and also many cities were ruined thereby. a.d. . this year robert, the son of king william, deserted from his father to his uncle robert in flanders; because his father would not let him govern his earldom in normandy; which he himself, and also king philip with his permission, had given him. the best men that were in the land also had sworn oaths of allegiance to him, and taken him for their lord. this year, therefore, robert fought with his father, without normandy, by a castle called gerberoy; and wounded him in the hand; and his horse, that he sat upon, was killed under him; and he that brought him another was killed there right with a dart. that was tookie wiggodson. many were there slain, and also taken. his son william too was there wounded; but robert returned to flanders. we will not here, however, record any more injury that he did his father. this year came king malcolm from scotland into england, betwixt the two festivals of st. mary, with a large army, which plundered northumberland till it came to the tine, and slew many hundreds of men, and carried home much coin, and treasure, and men in captivity. a.d. . this year was bishop walker slain in durham, at a council; and an hundred men with him, french and flemish. he himself was born in lorrain. this did the northumbrians in the month of may. ( ) a.d. . this year the king led an army into wales, and there freed many hundreds of men. a.d. . this year the king seized bishop odo; and this year also was a great famine. a.d. . this year arose the tumult at glastonbury betwixt the abbot thurstan and his monks. it proceeded first from the abbot's want of wisdom, that he misgoverned his monks in many things. but the monks meant well to him; and told him that he should govern them rightly, and love them, and they would be faithful and obedient to him. the abbot, however, would hear nothing of this; but evil entreated them, and threatened them worse. one day the abbot went into the chapter-house, and spoke against the monks, and attempted to mislead them; ( ) and sent after some laymen, and they came full-armed into the chapter-house upon the monks. then were the monks very much afraid ( ) of them, and wist not what they were to do, but they shot forward, and some ran into the church, and locked the doors after them. but they followed them into the minster, and resolved to drag them out, so that they durst not go out. a rueful thing happened on that day. the frenchmen broke into the choir, and hurled their weapons toward the altar, where the monks were; and some of the knights went upon the upper floor, ( ) and shot their arrows downward incessantly toward the sanctuary; so that on the crucifix that stood above the altar they stuck many arrows. and the wretched monks lay about the altar, and some crept under, and earnestly called upon god, imploring his mercy, since they could not obtain any at the hands of men. what can we say, but that they continued to shoot their arrows; whilst the others broke down the doors, and came in, and slew ( ) some of the monks to death, and wounded many therein; so that the blood came from the altar upon the steps, and from the steps on the floor. three there were slain to death, and eighteen wounded. and in this same year departed matilda, queen of king william, on the day after all-hallow-mass. and in the same year also, after mid-winter, the king ordained a large and heavy contribution ( ) over all england; that was, upon each hide of land, two and seventy pence. a.d. . in this year died wulfwold, abbot of chertsey, on the thirteenth day before the calends of may. a.d. . in this year men reported, and of a truth asserted, that cnute, king of denmark, son of king sweyne, was coming hitherward, and was resolved to win this land, with the assistance of robert, earl of flanders; ( ) for cnute had robert's daughter. when william, king of england, who was then resident in normandy (for he had both england and normandy), understood this, he went into england with so large an army of horse and foot, from france and brittany, as never before sought this land; so that men wondered how this land could feed all that force. but the king left the army to shift for themselves through all this land amongst his subjects, who fed them, each according to his quota of land. men suffered much distress this year; and the king caused the land to be laid waste about the sea coast; that, if his foes came up, they might not have anything on which they could very readily seize. but when the king understood of a truth that his foes were impeded, and could not further their expedition, ( ) then let he some of the army go to their own land; but some he held in this land over the winter. then, at the midwinter, was the king in glocester with his council, and held there his court five days. and afterwards the archbishop and clergy had a synod three days. there was mauritius chosen bishop of london, william of norfolk, and robert of cheshire. these were all the king's clerks. after this had the king a large meeting, and very deep consultation with his council, about this land; how it was occupied, and by what sort of men. then sent he his men over all england into each shire; commissioning them to find out "how many hundreds of hides were in the shire, what land the king himself had, and what stock upon the land; or, what dues he ought to have by the year from the shire." also he commissioned them to record in writing, "how much land his archbishops had, and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots, and his earls;" and though i may be prolix and tedious, "what, or how much, each man had, who was an occupier of land in england, either in land or in stock, and how much money it were worth." so very narrowly, indeed, did he commission them to trace it out, that there was not one single hide, nor a yard ( ) of land, nay, moreover (it is shameful to tell, though he thought it no shame to do it), not even an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was there left, that was not set down in his writ. and all the recorded particulars were afterwards brought to him. ( ) a.d. . this year the king bare his crown, and held his court, in winchester at easter; and he so arranged, that he was by the pentecost at westminster, and dubbed his son henry a knight there. afterwards he moved about so that he came by lammas to sarum; where he was met by his councillors; and all the landsmen that were of any account over all england became this man's vassals as they were; and they all bowed themselves before him, and became his men, and swore him oaths of allegiance that they would against all other men be faithful to him. thence he proceeded into the isle of wight; because he wished to go into normandy, and so he afterwards did; though he first did according to his custom; he collected a very large sum from his people, wherever he could make any demand, whether with justice or otherwise. then he went into normandy; and edgar etheling, the relation of king edward, revolted from him, for he received not much honour from him; but may the almighty god give him honour hereafter. and christina, the sister of the etheling, went into the monastery of rumsey, and received the holy veil. and the same year there was a very heavy season, and a swinkful and sorrowful year in england, in murrain of cattle, and corn and fruits were at a stand, and so much untowardness in the weather, as a man may not easily think; so tremendous was the thunder and lightning, that it killed many men; and it continually grew worse and worse with men. may god almighty better it whenever it be his will. a.d. . after the birth of our lord and saviour christ, one thousand and eighty-seven winters; in the one and twentieth year after william began to govern and direct england, as god granted him, was a very heavy and pestilent season in this land. such a sickness came on men, that full nigh every other man was in the worst disorder, that is, in the diarrhoea; and that so dreadfully, that many men died in the disorder. afterwards came, through the badness of the weather as we before mentioned, so great a famine over all england, that many hundreds of men died a miserable death through hunger. alas! how wretched and how rueful a time was there! when the poor wretches lay full nigh driven to death prematurely, and afterwards came sharp hunger, and dispatched them withall! who will not be penetrated with grief at such a season? or who is so hardhearted as not to weep at such misfortune? yet such things happen for folks' sins, that they will not love god and righteousness. so it was in those days, that little righteousness was in this land with any men but with the monks alone, wherever they fared well. the king and the head men loved much, and overmuch, covetousness in gold and in silver; and recked not how sinfully it was got, provided it came to them. the king let his land at as high a rate as he possibly could; then came some other person, and bade more than the former one gave, and the king let it to the men that bade him more. then came the third, and bade yet more; and the king let it to hand to the men that bade him most of all: and he recked not how very sinfully the stewards got it of wretched men, nor how many unlawful deeds they did; but the more men spake about right law, the more unlawfully they acted. they erected unjust tolls, and many other unjust things they did, that are difficult to reckon. also in the same year, before harvest, the holy minster of st. paul, the episcopal see in london, was completely burned, with many other minsters, and the greatest part, and the richest of the whole city. so also, about the same time, full nigh each head-port in all england was entirely burned. alas! rueful and woeful was the fate of the year that brought forth so many misfortunes. in the same year also, before the assumption of st. mary, king william went from normandy into france with an army, and made war upon his own lord philip, the king, and slew many of his men, and burned the town of mante, and all the holy minsters that were in the town; and two holy men that served god, leading the life of anachorets, were burned therein. this being thus done, king william returned to normandy. rueful was the thing he did; but a more rueful him befel. how more rueful? he fell sick, and it dreadfully ailed him. what shall i say? sharp death, that passes by neither rich men nor poor, seized him also. he died in normandy, on the next day after the nativity of st. mary, and he was buried at caen in st. stephen's minster, which he had formerly reared, and afterwards endowed with manifold gifts. alas! how false and how uncertain is this world's weal! he that was before a rich king, and lord of many lands, had not then of all his land more than a space of seven feet! and he that was whilom enshrouded in gold and gems, lay there covered with mould! he left behind him three sons; the eldest, called robert, who was earl in normandy after him; the second, called william, who wore the crown after him in england; and the third, called henry, to whom his father bequeathed immense treasure. if any person wishes to know what kind of man he was, or what honour he had, or of how many lands he was lord, then will we write about him as well as we understand him: we who often looked upon him, and lived sometime in his court. this king william then that we speak about was a very wise man, and very rich; more splendid and powerful than any of his predecessors were. he was mild to the good men that loved god, and beyond all measure severe to the men that gainsayed his will. on that same spot where god granted him that he should gain england, he reared a mighty minster, and set monks therein, and well endowed it. in his days was the great monastery in canterbury built, and also very many others over all england. this land was moreover well filled with monks, who modelled their lives after the rule of st. benedict. but such was the state of christianity in his time, that each man followed what belonged to his profession--he that would. he was also very dignified. thrice he bare his crown each year, as oft as he was in england. at easter he bare it in winchester, at pentecost in westminster, at midwinter in glocester. and then were with him all the rich men over all england; archbishops and diocesan bishops, abbots and earls, thanes and knights. so very stern was he also and hot, that no man durst do anything against his will. he had earls in his custody, who acted against his will. bishops he hurled from their bishoprics, and abbots from their abbacies, and thanes into prison. at length he spared not his own brother odo, who was a very rich bishop in normandy. at baieux was his episcopal stall; and he was the foremost man of all to aggrandise the king. he had an earldom in england; and when the king was in normandy, then was he the mightiest man in this land. him he confined in prison. but amongst other things is not to be forgotten that good peace that he made in this land; so that a man of any account might go over his kingdom unhurt with his bosom full of gold. no man durst slay another, had he never so much evil done to the other; and if any churl lay with a woman against her will, he soon lost the limb that he played with. he truly reigned over england; and by his capacity so thoroughly surveyed it, that there was not a hide of land in england that he wist not who had it, or what it was worth, and afterwards set it down in his book. ( ) the land of the britons was in his power; and he wrought castles therein; and ruled anglesey withal. so also he subdued scotland by his great strength. as to normandy, that was his native land; but he reigned also over the earldom called maine; and if he might have yet lived two years more, he would have won ireland by his valour, and without any weapons. assuredly in his time had men much distress, and very many sorrows. castles he let men build, and miserably swink the poor. the king himself was so very rigid; and extorted from his subjects many marks of gold, and many hundred pounds of silver; which he took of his people, for little need, by right and by unright. he was fallen into covetousness, and greediness he loved withal. he made many deer-parks; and he established laws therewith; so that whosoever slew a hart, or a hind, should be deprived of his eyesight. as he forbade men to kill the harts, so also the boars; and he loved the tall deer as if he were their father. likewise he decreed by the hares, that they should go free. his rich men bemoaned it, and the poor men shuddered at it. but he was so stern, that he recked not the hatred of them all; for they must follow withal the king's will, if they would live, or have land, or possessions, or even his peace. alas! that any man should presume so to puff himself up, and boast o'er all men. may the almighty god show mercy to his soul, and grant him forgiveness of his sins! these things have we written concerning him, both good and evil; that men may choose the good after their goodness, and flee from the evil withal, and go in the way that leadeth us to the kingdom of heaven. many things may we write that were done in this same year. so it was in denmark, that the danes, a nation that was formerly accounted the truest of all, were turned aside to the greatest untruth, and to the greatest treachery that ever could be. they chose and bowed to king cnute, and swore him oaths, and afterwards dastardly slew him in a church. it happened also in spain, that the heathens went and made inroads upon the christians, and reduced much of the country to their dominion. but the king of the christians, alphonzo by name, sent everywhere into each land, and desired assistance. and they came to his support from every land that was christian; and they went and slew or drove away all the heathen folk, and won their land again, through god's assistance. in this land also, in the same year, died many rich men; stigand, bishop of chichester, and the abbot of st. augustine, and the abbot of bath, and the abbot of pershore, and the lord of them all, william, king of england, that we spoke of before. after his death his son, called william also as the father, took to the kingdom, and was blessed to king by archbishop landfranc at westminster three days ere michaelmas day. and all the men in england submitted to him, and swore oaths to him. this being thus done, the king went to winchester, and opened the treasure house, and the treasures that his father had gathered, in gold, and in silver, and in vases, and in palls, and in gems, and in many other valuable things that are difficult to enumerate. then the king did as his father bade him ere he was dead; he there distributed treasures for his father's soul to each monastery that was in england; to some ten marks of gold, to some six, to each upland ( ) church sixty pence. and into each shire were sent a hundred pounds of money to distribute amongst poor men for his soul. and ere he departed, he bade that they should release all the men that were in prison under his power. and the king was on the midwinter in london. a.d. . in this year was this land much stirred, and filled with great treachery; so that the richest frenchmen that were in this land would betray their lord the king, and would have his brother robert king, who was earl in normandy. in this design was engaged first bishop odo, and bishop gosfrith, and william, bishop of durham. so well did the king by the bishop [odo] that all england fared according to his counsel, and as he would. and the bishop thought to do by him as judas iscariot did by our lord. and earl roger was also of this faction; and much people was with him all frenchmen. this conspiracy was formed in lent. as soon as easter came, then went they forth, and harrowed, and burned, and wasted the king's farms; and they despoiled the lands of all the men that were in the king's service. and they each of them went to his castle, and manned it, and provisioned it as well as they could. bishop gosfrith, and robert the peace-breaker, went to bristol, and plundered it, and brought the spoil to the castle. afterwards they went out of the castle, and plundered bath, and all the land thereabout; and all the honor ( ) of berkeley they laid waste. and the men that eldest were of hereford, and all the shire forthwith, and the men of shropshire, with much people of wales, came and plundered and burned in worcestershire, until they came to the city itself, which it was their design to set on fire, and then to rifle the minster, and win the king's castle to their hands. the worthy bishop wulfstan, seeing these things, was much agitated in his mind, because to him was betaken the custody of the castle. nevertheless his hired men went out of the castle with few attendants, and, through god's mercy and the bishop's merits, slew or took five hundred men, and put all the others to flight. the bishop of durham did all the harm that he could over all by the north. roger was the name of one of them; ( ) who leaped into the castle at norwich, and did yet the worst of all over all that land. hugh also was one, who did nothing better either in leicestershire or in northamptonshire. the bishop odo being one, though of the same family from which the king himself was descended, went into kent to his earldom, and greatly despoiled it; and having laid waste the lands of the king and of the archbishop withal, he brought the booty into his castle at rochester. when the king understood all these things, and what treachery they were employing against him, then was he in his mind much agitated. he then sent after englishmen, described to them his need, earnestly requested their support, and promised them the best laws that ever before were in this land; each unright guild he forbade, and restored to the men their woods and chaces. but it stood no while. the englishmen however went to the assistance of the king their lord. they advanced toward rochester, with a view to get possession of the bishop odo; for they thought, if they had him who was at first the head of the conspiracy, they might the better get possession of all the others. they came then to the castle at tunbridge; and there were in the castle the knights of bishop odo, and many others who were resolved to hold it against the king. but the englishmen advanced, and broke into the castle, and the men that were therein agreed with the king. the king with his army went toward rochester. and they supposed that the bishop was therein; but it was made known to the king that the bishop was gone to the castle at pevensea. and the king with his army went after, and beset the castle about with a very large force full six weeks. during this time the earl of normandy, robert, the king's brother, gathered a very considerable force, and thought to win england with the support of those men that were in this land against the king. and he sent some of his men to this land, intending to come himself after. but the englishmen that guarded the sea lighted upon some of the men, and slew them, and drowned more than any man could tell. when provisions afterwards failed those within the castle, they earnestly besought peace, and gave themselves up to the king; and the bishop swore that he would depart out of england, and no more come on this land, unless the king sent after him, and that he would give up the castle at rochester. just as the bishop was going with an intention to give up the castle, and the king had sent his men with him, then arose the men that were in the castle, and took the bishop and the king's men, and put them into prison. in the castle were some very good knights; eustace the young, and the three sons of earl roger, and all the best born men that were in this land or in normandy. when the king understood this thing, then went he after with the army that he had there, and sent over all england. and bade that each man that was faithful should come to him, french and english, from sea-port and from upland. then came to him much people; and he went to rochester, and beset the castle, until they that were therein agreed, and gave up the castle. the bishop odo with the men that were in the castle went over sea, and the bishop thus abandoned the dignity that he had in this land. the king afterwards sent an army to durham, and allowed it to beset the castle, and the bishop agreed, and gave up the castle, and relinquished his bishopric, and went to normandy. many frenchmen also abandoned their lands, and went over sea; and the king gave their lands to the men that were faithful to him. a.d. . in this year the venerable father and favourer of monks, archbishop landfranc, departed this life; but we hope that he is gone to the heavenly kingdom. there was also over all england much earth-stirring on the third day before the ides of august, and it was a very late year in corn, and in every kind of fruits, so that many men reaped their corn about martinmas, and yet later. a.d. . indiction xiii. these things thus done, just as we have already said above, by the king, and by his brother and by this men, the king was considering how he might wreak his vengeance on his brother robert, harass him most, and win normandy of him. and indeed through his craft, or through bribery, he got possession of the castle at st. valeri, and the haven; and so he got possession of that at albemarle. and therein he set his knights; and they did harm to the land in harrowing and burning. after this he got possession of more castles in the land; and therein lodged his horsemen. when the earl of normandy, robert, understood that his sworn men deceived him, and gave up their castles to do him harm, then sent he to his lord, philip, king of the franks; and he came to normandy with a large army, and the king and the earl with an immense force beset the castle about, wherein were the men of the king of england. but the king william of england sent to philip, king of the franks; and he for his love, or for his great treasure, abandoned thus his subject the earl robert and his land; and returned again to france, and let them so remain. and in the midst of these things this land was much oppressed by unlawful exactions and by many other misfortunes. a.d. . in this year the king william held his court at christmas in westminster, and thereafter at candlemas he went, for the annoyance of his brother, out of england into normandy. whilst he was there, their reconciliation took place, on the condition, that the earl put into his hands feschamp, and the earldom of ou, and cherbourg; and in addition to this, that the king's men should be secure in the castles that they had won against the will of the earl. and the king in return promised him those many [castles] that their father had formerly won, and also to reduce those that had revolted from the earl, also all that his father had there beyond, except those that he had then given the king, and that all those, that in england before for the earl had lost their land, should have it again by this treaty, and that the earl should have in england just so much as was specified in this agreement. and if the earl died without a son by lawful wedlock, the king should be heir of all normandy; and by virtue of this same treaty, if the king died, the earl should be heir of all england. to this treaty swore twelve of the best men of the king's side, and twelve of the earl's, though it stood but a little while afterwards. in the midst of this treaty was edgar etheling deprived of the land that the earl had before permitted him to keep in hand; and he went out of normandy to the king, his sister's husband, in scotland, and to his sister. whilst the king william was out of england, the king malcolm of scotland came hither into england, and overran a great deal of it, until the good men that governed this land sent an army against him and repulsed him. when the king william in normandy heard this, then prepared he his departure, and came to england, and his brother, the earl robert, with him; and he soon issued an order to collect a force both naval and military; but the naval force, ere it could come to scotland, perished almost miserably, a few days before st. michael's mass. and the king and his brother proceeded with the land-force; but when the king malcolm heard that they were resolved to seek him with an army, he went with his force out of scotland into lothaine in england, and there abode. when the king william came near with his army, then interceded between them earl robert, and edgar etheling, and so made the peace of the kings, that the king malcolm came to our king, and did homage, ( ) promising all such obedience as he formerly paid to his father; and that he confirmed with an oath. and the king william promised him in land and in all things whatever he formerly had under his father. in this settlement was also edgar etheling united with the king. and the kings then with much satisfaction departed; yet that stood but a little while. and the earl robert tarried here full nigh until christmas with the king, and during this time found but little of the truth of their agreement; and two days before that tide he took ship in the isle of wight, and went into normandy, and edgar etheling with him. a.d. . in this year the king william with a large army went north to carlisle, and restored the town, and reared the castle, and drove out dolphin that before governed the land, and set his own men in the castle, and then returned hither southward. and a vast number of rustic people with wives and with cattle he sent thither, to dwell there in order to till the land. a.d. . in this year, during lent, was the king william at glocester so sick, that he was by all reported dead. and in his illness he made many good promises to lead his own life aright; to grant peace and protection to the churches of god, and never more again with fee to sell; to have none but righteous laws amongst his people. the archbishopric of canterbury, that before remained in his own hand, he transferred to anselm, who was before abbot of bec; to robert his chancellor the bishopric of lincoln; and to many minsters he gave land; but that he afterwards took away, when he was better, and annulled all the good laws that he promised us before. then after this sent the king of scotland, and demanded the fulfilment of the treaty that was promised him. and the king william cited him to glocester, and sent him hostages to scotland; and edgar etheling, afterwards, and the men returned, that brought him with great dignity to the king. but when he came to the king, he could not be considered worthy either of our king's speech, or of the conditions that were formerly promised him. for this reason therefore they parted with great dissatisfaction, and the king malcolm returned to scotland. and soon after he came home, he gathered his army, and came harrowing into england with more hostility than behoved him; and robert, the earl of northumberland, surrounded him unawares with his men, and slew him. morel of barnborough slew him, who was the earl's steward, and a baptismal friend ( ) of king malcolm. with him was also slain edward his son; who after him should have been king, if he had lived. when the good queen margaret heard this--her most beloved lord and son thus betrayed she was in her mind almost distracted to death. she with her priests went to church, and performed her rites, and prayed before god, that she might give up the ghost. and the scots then chose ( ) dufenal to king, malcolm's brother, and drove out all the english that formerly were with the king malcolm. when duncan, king malcolm's son, heard all that had thus taken place (he was then in the king william's court, because his father had given him as a hostage to our king's father, and so he lived here afterwards), he came to the king, and did such fealty as the king required at his hands; and so with his permission went to scotland, with all the support that he could get of english and french, and deprived his uncle dufenal of the kingdom, and was received as king. but the scots afterwards gathered some force together, and slew full nigh all his men; and he himself with a few made his escape. ( ) afterwards they were reconciled, on the condition that he never again brought into the land english or french. a.d. . this year the king william held his court at christmas in glocester; and messengers came to him thither from his brother robert of normandy; who said that his brother renounced all peace and conditions, unless the king would fulfil all that they had stipulated in the treaty; and upon that he called him forsworn and void of truth, unless he adhered to the treaty, or went thither and explained himself there, where the treaty was formerly made and also sworn. then went the king to hastings at candlemas; and whilst he there abode waiting the weather, he let hallow the minster at battel, and deprived herbert losang, the bishop of thetford, of his staff; and thereafter about mid-lent went over sea into normandy. after he came, thither, he and his brother robert, the earl, said that they should come together in peace (and so they did), and might be united. afterwards they came together with the same men that before made the treaty, and also confirmed it by oaths; and all the blame of breaking the treaty they threw upon the king; but he would not confess this, nor even adhere to the treaty; and for this reason they parted with much dissatisfaction. and the king afterwards won the castle at bures, and took the earl's men therein; some of whom he sent hither to this land. on the other hand the earl, with the assistance of the king of france, won the castle at argence, and took therein roger of poitou, ( ) and seven hundred of the king's knights with him; and afterwards that at hulme; and oft readily did either of them burn the towns of the other, and also took men. then sent the king hither to this land, and ordered twenty thousand englishmen to be sent out to normandy to his assistance; but when they came to sea, they then had orders to return, and to pay to the king's behoof the fee that they had taken; which was half a pound each man; and they did so. and the earl after this, with the king of france, and with all that he could gather together, went through the midst of normandy, towards ou, where the king william was, and thought to besiege him within; and so they advanced until they came to luneville. there was the king of france through cunning turned aside; and so afterwards all the army dispersed. in the midst of these things the king william sent after his brother henry, who was in the castle at damfront; but because he could not go through normandy with security, he sent ships after him, and hugh, earl of chester. when, however, they should have gone towards ou where the king was, they went to england, and came up at hamton, ( ) on the eve of the feast of all saints, and here afterwards abode; and at christmas they were in london. in this same year also the welshmen gathered themselves together, and with the french that were in wales, or in the neighbourhood, and had formerly seized their land, stirred up war, and broke into many fastnesses and castles, and slew many men. and when their followers had increased, they divided themselves into larger parties. with some part of them fought hugh, earl of shropshire, ( ) and put them to flight. nevertheless the other part of them all this year omitted no evil that they could do. this year also the scots ensnared their king, duncan, and slew him; and afterwards, the second time, took his uncle dufenal to king, through whose instruction and advice he was betrayed to death. a.d. . in this year was the king william the first four days of christmas at whitsand, and after the fourth day came hither, and landed at dover. and henry, the king's brother, abode in this land until lent, and then went over sea to normandy, with much treasure, on the king's behalf, against their brother, earl robert, and frequently fought against the earl, and did him much harm, both in land and in men. and then at easter held the king his court in winchester; and the earl robert of northumberland would not come to court. and the king was much stirred to anger with him for this, and sent to him, and bade him harshly, if he would be worthy of protection, that he would come to court at pentecost. in this year was easter on the eighth day before the calends of april; and upon easter, on the night of the feast of st ambrose, that is, the second before the nones of april, ( ) nearly over all this land, and almost all the night, numerous and manifold stars were seen to fall from heaven; not by one or two, but so thick in succession, that no man could tell it. hereafter at pentecost was the king at windsor, and all his council with him, except the earl of northumberland; for the king would neither give him hostages, nor own upon truth, that he might come and go with security. and the king therefore ordered his army, and went against the earl to northumberland; and soon after he came thither, he won many and nearly all the best of the earl's clan in a fortress, and put them into custody; and the castle at tinemouth he beset until he won it, and the earl's brother therein, and all that were with him; and afterwards went to bamborough, and beset the earl therein. but when the king saw that he could not win it, then ordered he his men to make a castle before bamborough, and called it in his speech "malveisin"; that is in english, "evil neighbour". and he fortified it strongly with his men, and afterwards went southward. then, soon after that the king was gone south, went the earl one night out of bamborough towards tinemouth; but they that were in the new castle were aware of him, and went after him, and fought him, and wounded him, and afterwards took him. and of those that were with him some they slew, and some they took alive. among these things it was made known to the king, that the welshmen in wales had broken into a castle called montgomery, and slain the men of earl hugo, that should have held it. he therefore gave orders to levy another force immediately, and after michaelmas went into wales, and shifted his forces, and went through all that land, so that the army came all together by all saints to snowdon. but the welsh always went before into the mountains and the moors, that no man could come to them. the king then went homeward; for he saw that he could do no more there this winter. when the king came home again, he gave orders to take the earl robert of northumberland, and lead him to bamborough, and put out both his eyes, unless they that were therein would give up the castle. his wife held it, and morel who was steward, and also his relative. through this was the castle then given up; and morel was then in the king's court; and through him were many both of the clergy and laity surrendered, who with their counsels had conspired against the king. the king had before this time commanded some to be brought into prison, and afterwards had it very strictly proclaimed over all this country, "that all who held land of the king, as they wished to be considered worthy of protection, should come to court at the time appointed." and the king commanded that the earl robert should be led to windsor, and there held in the castle. also in this same year, against easter, came the pope's nuncio hither to this land. this was bishop walter, a man of very good life, of the town of albano; and upon the day of pentecost on the behalf of pope urban he gave archbishop anselm his pall, and he received him at his archiepiscopal stall in canterbury. and bishop walter remained afterwards in this land a great part of the year; and men then sent by him the rome-scot, ( ) which they had not done for many years before. this same year also the weather was very unseasonable; in consequence of which throughout all this land were all the fruits of the earth reduced to a moderate crop. a.d. . in this year held the king william his court at christmas in windsor; and william bishop of durham died there on new-year's day; and on the octave of the epiphany was the king and all his councillors at salisbury. there geoffry bainard challenged william of ou, the king's relative, maintaining that he had been in the conspiracy against the king. and he fought with him, and overcame him in single combat; and after he was overcome, the king gave orders to put out his eyes, and afterwards to emasculate him; and his steward, william by name, who was the son of his stepmother, the king commanded to be hanged on a gibbet. then was also eoda, earl of champagne, the king's son-in-law, and many others, deprived of their lands; whilst some were led to london, and there killed. this year also, at easter, there was a very great stir through all this nation and many others, on account of urban, who was declared pope, though he had nothing of a see at rome. and an immense multitude went forth with their wives and children, that they might make war upon the heathens. through this expedition were the king and his brother, earl robert, reconciled; so that the king went over sea, and purchased all normandy of him, on condition that they should be united. and the earl afterwards departed; and with him the earl of flanders, and the earl of boulogne, and also many other men of rank ( ). and the earl robert, and they that went with him, passed the winter in apulia; but of the people that went by hungary many thousands miserably perished there and by the way. and many dragged themselves home rueful and hunger-bitten on the approach of winter. this was a very heavy-timed year through all england, both through the manifold tributes, and also through the very heavy-timed hunger that severely oppressed this earth in the course of the year. in this year also the principal men who held this land, frequently sent forces into wales, and many men thereby grievously afflicted, producing no results but destruction of men and waste of money. a.d. . in this year was the king william at christmas in normandy; and afterwards against easter he embarked for this land; for that he thought to hold his court at winchester; but he was weather-bound until easter-eve, when he first landed at arundel; and for this reason held his court at windsor. and thereafter with a great army he went into wales, and quickly penetrated that land with his forces, through some of the welsh who were come to him, and were his guides; and he remained in that country from midsummer nearly until august, and suffered much loss there in men and in horses, and also in many other things. the welshmen, after they had revolted from the king, chose them many elders from themselves; one of whom was called cadwgan, ( ) who was the worthiest of them, being brother's son to king griffin. and when the king saw that he could do nothing in furtherance of his will, he returned again into this land; and soon after that he let his men build castles on the borders. then upon the feast of st. michael, the fourth day before the nones of october, ( ) appeared an uncommon star, shining in the evening, and soon hastening to set. it ( ) was seen south-west, and the ray that stood off from it was thought very long, shining south-east. and it appeared on this wise nearly all the week. many men supposed that it was a comet. soon after this archbishop anselm of canterbury obtained leave ( ) of the king (though it was contrary to the wishes of the king, as men supposed), and went over sea; because he thought that men in this country did little according to right and after his instruction. and the king thereafter upon st. martin's mass went over sea into normandy; but whilst he was waiting for fair weather, his court in the county where they lay, did the most harm that ever court or army could do in a friendly and peaceable land. this was in all things a very heavy-timed year, and beyond measure laborious from badness of weather, both when men attempted to till the land, and afterwards to gather the fruits of their tilth; and from unjust contributions they never rested. many counties also that were confined to london by work, were grievously oppressed on account of the wall that they were building about the tower, and the bridge that was nearly all afloat, and the work of the king's hall that they were building at westminster; and many men perished thereby. also in this same year soon after michaelmas went edgar etheling with an army through the king's assistance into scotland, and with hard fighting won that land, and drove out the king dufnal; and his nephew edgar, who was son of king malcolm and of margaret the queen, he there appointed king in fealty to the king william; and afterwards again returned to england. a.d. . in this year at christmas was the king william in normandy; and walkelin, bishop of winchester, and baldwin, abbot of st. edmund's, within this tide ( ) both departed. and in this year also died turold, abbot of peterborough. in the summer of this year also, at finchamstead in berkshire, a pool welled with blood, as many true men said that should see it. and earl hugh was slain in anglesey by foreign pirates, ( ) and his brother robert was his heir, as he had settled it before with the king. before michaelmas the heaven was of such an hue, as if it were burning, nearly all the night. this was a very troublesome year through manifold impositions; and from the abundant rains, that ceased not all the year, nearly all the tilth in the marsh-lands perished. a.d. . this year was the king william at midwinter in normandy, and at easter came hither to land, and at pentecost held his court the first time in his new building at westminster; and there he gave the bishopric of durham to ranulf his chaplain, who had long directed and governed his councils over all england. and soon after this he went over sea, and drove the earl elias out of maine, which he reduced under his power, and so by michaelmas returned to this land. this year also, on the festival of st. martin, the sea-flood sprung up to such a height, and did so much harm, as no man remembered that it ever did before. and this was the first day of the new moon. and osmond, bishop of salisbury, died in advent. a.d. . in this year the king william held his court at christmas in glocester, and at easter in winchester, and at pentecost in westminster. and at pentecost was seen in berkshire at a certain town blood to well from the earth; as many said that should see it. and thereafter on the morning after lammas day was the king william shot in hunting, by an arrow from his own men, and afterwards brought to winchester, and buried in the cathedral. ( ) this was in the thirteenth year after that he assumed the government. he was very harsh and severe over his land and his men, and with all his neighbours; and very formidable; and through the counsels of evil men, that to him were always agreeable, and through his own avarice, he was ever tiring this nation with an army, and with unjust contributions. for in his days all right fell to the ground, and every wrong rose up before god and before the world. god's church he humbled; and all the bishoprics and abbacies, whose elders fell in his days, he either sold in fee, or held in his own hands, and let for a certain sum; because he would be the heir of every man, both of the clergy and laity; so that on the day that he fell he had in his own hand the archbishopric of canterbury, with the bishopric of winchester, and that of salisbury, and eleven abbacies, all let for a sum; and (though i may be tedious) all that was loathsome to god and righteous men, all that was customary in this land in his time. and for this he was loathed by nearly all his people, and odious to god, as his end testified:--for he departed in the midst of his unrighteousness, without any power of repentance or recompense for his deeds. on the thursday he was slain; and in the morning afterwards buried; and after he was buried, the statesmen that were then nigh at hand, chose his brother henry to king. and he immediately ( ) gave the bishopric of winchester to william giffard; and afterwards went to london; and on the sunday following, before the altar at westminster, he promised god and all the people, to annul all the unrighteous acts that took place in his brother's time, and to maintain the best laws that were valid in any king's day before him. and after this the bishop of london, maurice, consecrated him king; and all in this land submitted to him, and swore oaths, and became his men. and the king, soon after this, by the advice of those that were about him, allowed men to take the bishop ranulf of durham, and bring him into the tower of london, and hold him there. then, before michaelmas, came the archbishop anselm of canterbury hither to this land; as the king henry, by the advice of his ministers had sent after him, because he had gone out of this land for the great wrongs that the king william did unto him. and soon hereafter the king took him to wife maud, daughter of malcolm, king of scotland, and of margaret the good queen, the relative of king edward, and of the right royal ( ) race of england. and on martinmas day she was publicly given to him with much pomp at westminster, and the archbishop anselm wedded her to him, and afterwards consecrated her queen. and the archbishop thomas of york soon hereafter died. during the harvest of this same year also came the earl robert home into normandy, and the earl robert of flanders, eustace, earl of boulogne, from jerusalem. and as soon as the earl robert came into normandy, he was joyfully received by all his people; except those of the castles that were garrisoned with the king henry's men. against them he had many contests and struggles. a.d. . in this year at christmas held the king henry his court in westminster, and at easter in winchester. and soon thereafter were the chief men in this land in a conspiracy against the king; partly from their own great infidelity, and also through the earl robert of normandy, who with hostility aspired to the invasion of this land. and the king afterwards sent ships out to sea, to thwart and impede his brother; but some of them in the time of need fell back, and turned from the king, and surrendered themselves to the earl robert. then at midsummer went the king out to pevensey with all his force against his brother, and there awaited him. but in the meantime came the earl robert up at portsmouth twelve nights before lammas; and the king with all his force came against him. but the chief men interceded between them, and settled the brothers on the condition, "that the king should forego all that he held by main strength in normandy against the earl; and that all then in england should have their lands again, who had lost it before through the earl, and earl eustace also all his patrimony in this land; and that the earl robert every year should receive from england three thousand marks of silver; and particularly, that whichever of the brothers should survive the other, he should be heir of all england and also of normandy, except the deceased left an heir by lawful wedlock." and this twelve men of the highest rank on either side then confirmed with an oath. and the earl afterwards remained in this land till after michaelmas; and his men did much harm wherever they went, the while that the earl continued in this land. this year also the bishop ranulf at candlemas burst out of the tower of london by night, where he was in confinement, and went into normandy; through whose contrivance and instigation mostly the earl robert this year sought this land with hostility. a.d. . in this year at the nativity was the king henry at westminster, and at easter in winchester. and soon thereafter arose a dissention between the king and the earl robert of belesme, who held in this land the earldom of shrewsbury, that his father, earl roger, had before, and much territory therewith both on this side and beyond the sea. and the king went and beset the castle at arundel; but when he could not easily win it, he allowed men to make castles before it, and filled them with his men; and afterwards with all his army he went to bridgenorth, and there continued until he had the castle, and deprived the earl robert of his land, and stripped him of all that he had in england. and the earl accordingly went over sea, and the army afterwards returned home. then was the king thereafter by michaelmas at westminster; and all the principal men in this land, clerk, and laity. and the archbishop anselm held a synod of clergy; and there they established many canons that belong to christianity. and many, both french and english, were there deprived of their staves and dignity, which they either obtained with injustice, or enjoyed with dishonour. and in this same year, in the week of the feast of pentecost, there came thieves, some from auvergne, ( ) some from france, and some from flanders, and broke into the minster of peterborough, and therein seized much property in gold and in silver; namely, roods, and chalices, and candlesticks. a.d. . in this year, at midwinter, was the king henry at westminster. and soon afterwards departed the bishop william giffard out of this land; because he would not against right accept his hood at the hands of the archbishop gerard of york. and then at easter held the king his court at winchester, and afterwards went the archbishop anselm from canterbury to rome, as was agreed between him and the king. this year also came the earl robert of normandy to speak with the king in this land; and ere he departed hence he forgave the king henry the three thousand marks that he was bound by treaty to give him each year. in this year also at hamstead in berkshire was seen blood [to rise] from the earth. this was a very calamitous year in this land, through manifold impositions, and through murrain of cattle, and deficiency of produce, not only in corn, but in every kind of fruit. also in the morning, upon the mass day of st. laurence, the wind did so much harm here on land to all fruits, as no man remembered that ever any did before. in this same year died matthias, abbot of peterborough, who lived no longer than one year after he was abbot. after michaelmas, on the twelfth day before the calends of november, he was in full procession received as abbot; and on the same day of the next year he was dead at glocester, and there buried. a.d. . in this year at christmas held the king henry his court at westminster, and at easter in winchester, and at pentecost again at westminster. this year was the first day of pentecost on the nones of june; and on the tuesday following were seen four circles at mid-day about the sun, of a white hue, each described under the other as if they were measured. all that saw it wondered; for they never remembered such before. afterwards were reconciled the earl robert of normandy and robert de belesme, whom the king henry had before deprived of his lands, and driven from england; and through their reconciliation the king of england and the earl of normandy became adversaries. and the king sent his folk over sea into normandy; and the head-men in that land received them, and with treachery to their lord, the earl, lodged them in their castles, whence they committed many outrages on the earl in plundering and burning. this year also william, earl of moreton ( ) went from this land into normandy; but after he was gone he acted against the king; because the king stripped and deprived him of all that he had here in this land. it is not easy to describe the misery of this land, which it was suffering through various and manifold wrongs and impositions, that never failed nor ceased; and wheresoever the king went, there was full licence given to his company to harrow and oppress his wretched people; and in the midst thereof happened oftentimes burnings and manslaughter. all this was done to the displeasure of god, and to the vexation of this unhappy people. a.d. . in this year, on the nativity, held the king henry his court at windsor; and afterwards in lent he went over sea into normandy against his brother earl robert. and whilst he remained there he won of his brother caen and baieux; and almost all the castles and the chief men in that land were subdued. and afterwards by harvest he returned hither again; and that which he had won in normandy remained afterwards in peace and subjection to him; except that which was anywhere near the earl william of moretaine. this he often demanded as strongly as he could for the loss of his land in this country. and then before christmas came robert de belesme hither to the king. this was a very calamitous year in this land, through loss of fruits, and through the manifold contributions, that never ceased before the king went over [to normandy], or while he was there, or after he came back again. a.d. . in this year was the king henry on the nativity at westminster, and there held his court; and at that season robert de belesme went unreconciled from the king out of his land into normandy. hereafter before lent was the king at northampton; and the earl robert his brother came thither from normandy to him; and because the king would not give him back that which he had taken from him in normandy, they parted in hostility; and the earl soon went over sea back again. in the first week of lent, on the friday, which was the fourteenth before the calends of march, in the evening appeared an unusual star; and a long time afterwards was seen every evening shining awhile. the star appeared in the south-west; it was thought little and dark; but the train of light which stood from it was very bright, and appeared like an immense beam shining north-east; and some evening this beam was seen as if it were moving itself forwards against the star. some said that they saw more of such unusual stars at this time; but we do not write more fully about it, because we saw it not ourselves. on the night preceding the lord's supper, ( ) that is, the thursday before easter, were seen two moons in the heavens before day, the one in the east, and the other in the west, both full; and it was the fourteenth day of the moon. at easter was the king at bath, and at pentecost at salisbury; because he would not hold his court when he was beyond the sea. after this, and before august, went the king over sea into normandy; and almost all that were in that land submitted to his will, except robert de belesme and the earl of moretaine, and a few others of the principal persons who yet held with the earl of normandy. for this reason the king afterwards advanced with an army, and beset a castle of the earl of moretaine, called tenerchebrai. ( ) whilst the king beset the castle, came the earl robert of normandy on michaelmas eve against the king with his army, and with him robert of belesme, and william, earl of moretaine, and all that would be with them; but the strength and the victory were the king's. there was the earl of normandy taken, and the earl of moretaine, and robert of stutteville, and afterwards sent to england, and put into custody. robert of belesme was there put to flight, and william crispin was taken, and many others forthwith. edgar etheling, who a little before had gone over from the king to the earl, was also there taken, whom the king afterwards let go unpunished. then went the king over all that was in normandy, and settled it according to his will and discretion. this year also were heavy and sinful conflicts between the emperor of saxony and his son, and in the midst of these conflicts the father fell, and the son succeeded to the empire. a.d. . in this year at christmas was the king henry in normandy; and, having disposed and settled that land to his will, he afterwards came hither in lent, and at easter held his court at windsor, and at pentecost in westminster. and afterwards in the beginning of august he was again at westminster, and there gave away and settled the bishoprics and abbacies that either in england or in normandy were without elders and pastors. of these there were so many, that there was no man who remembered that ever so many together were given away before. and on this same occasion, among the others who accepted abbacies, ernulf, who before was prior at canterbury, succeeded to the abbacy in peterborough. this was nearly about seven years after the king henry undertook the kingdom, and the one and fortieth year since the franks governed this land. many said that they saw sundry tokens in the moon this year, and its orb increasing and decreasing contrary to nature. this year died maurice, bishop of london, and robert, abbot of st. edmund's bury, and richard, abbot of ely. this year also died the king edgar in scotland, on the ides of january, and alexander his brother succeeded to the kingdom, as the king henry granted him. a.d. . in this year was the king henry on the nativity at westminster, and at easter at winchester, and by pentecost at westminster again. after this, before august, he went into normandy. and philip, the king of france, died on the nones of august, and his son louis succeeded to the kingdom. and there were afterwards many struggles between the king of france and the king of england, while the latter remained in normandy. in this year also died the archbishop girard of york, before pentecost, and thomas was afterwards appointed thereto. a.d. . in this year was the king henry at christmas and at easter in normandy; and before pentecost he came to this land, and held his court at westminster. there were the conditions fully settled, and the oaths sworn, for giving his daughter ( ) to the emperor. ( ) this year were very frequent storms of thunder, and very tremendous; and the archbishop anselm of canterbury died on the eleventh day before the calends of april; and the first day of easter was on "litania major". a.d. . in this year held the king henry his court at christmas in westminster, and at easter he was at marlborough, and at pentecost he held his court for the first time in new windsor. this year before lent the king sent his daughter with manifold treasures over sea, and gave her to the emperor. on the fifth night in the month of may appeared the moon shining bright in the evening, and afterwards by little and little its light diminished, so that, as soon as night came, ( ) it was so completely extinguished withal, that neither light, nor orb, nor anything at all of it was seen. and so it continued nearly until day, and then appeared shining full and bright. it was this same day a fortnight old. all the night was the firmament very clear, and the stars over all the heavens shining very bright. and the fruits of the trees were this night sorely nipt by frost. afterwards, in the month of june, appeared a star north-east, and its train stood before it towards the south-west. thus was it seen many nights; and as the night advanced, when it rose higher, it was seen going backward toward the north-west. this year were deprived of their lands philip of braiose, and william mallet, and william bainard. this year also died earl elias, who held maine in fee-tail ( ) of king henry; and after his death the earl of anjou succeeded to it, and held it against the king. this was a very calamitous year in this land, through the contributions which the king received for his daughter's portion, and through the badness of the weather, by which the fruits of the earth were very much marred, and the produce of the trees over all this land almost entirely perished. this year men began first to work at the new minster at chertsey. a.d. . this year the king henry bare not his crown at christmas, nor at easter, nor at pentecost. and in august he went over sea into normandy, on account of the broils that some had with him by the confines of france, and chiefly on account of the earl of anjou, who held maine against him. and after he came over thither, many conspiracies, and burnings, and harrowings, did they between them. in this year died the earl robert of flanders, and his son baldwin succeeded thereto. ( ) this year was the winter very long, and the season heavy and severe; and through that were the fruits of the earth sorely marred, and there was the greatest murrain of cattle that any man could remember. a.d. . all this year remained the king henry in normandy on account of the broils that he had with france, and with the earl of anjou, who held maine against him. and whilst he was there, he deprived of their lands the earl of evreux, and william crispin, and drove them out of normandy. to philip of braiose he restored his land, who had been before deprived of it; and robert of belesme he suffered to be seized, and put into prison. this was a very good year, and very fruitful, in wood and in field; but it was a very heavy time and sorrowful, through a severe mortality amongst men. a.d. . in this year was the king henry on the nativity and at easter and at pentecost in normandy. and after that, in the summer, he sent hither robert of belesme into the castle at wareham, and himself soon ( ) afterwards came hither to this land. a.d. . in this year held the king henry his court on the nativity at windsor, and held no other court afterwards during the year. and at midsummer he went with an army into wales; and the welsh came and made peace with the king. and he let men build castles therein. and thereafter, in september, he went over sea into normandy. this year, in the latter end of may, was seen an uncommon star with a long train, shining many nights. in this year also was so great an ebb of the tide everywhere in one day, as no man remembered before; so that men went riding and walking over the thames eastward of london bridge. this year were very violent winds in the month of october; but it was immoderately rough in the night of the octave of st. martin; and that was everywhere manifest both in town and country. in this year also the king gave the archbishopric of canterbury to ralph, who was before bishop of rochester; and thomas, archbishop of york, died; and turstein succeeded thereto, who was before the king's chaplain. about this same time went the king toward the sea, and was desirous of going over, but the weather prevented him; then meanwhile sent he his writ after the abbot ernulf of peterborough, and bade that he should come to him quickly, for that he wished to speak with him on an interesting subject. when he came to him, he appointed him to the bishopric of rochester; and the archbishops and bishops and all the nobility that were in england coincided with the king. and he long withstood, but it availed nothing. and the king bade the archbishop that he should lead him to canterbury, and consecrate him bishop whether he would or not. ( ) this was done in the town called bourne ( ) on the seventeenth day before the calends of october. when the monks of peterborough heard of this, they felt greater sorrow than they had ever experienced before; because he was a very good and amiable man, and did much good within and without whilst he abode there. god almighty abide ever with him. soon after this gave the king the abbacy to a monk of sieyes, whose name was john, through the intreaty of the archbishop of canterbury. and soon after this the king and the archbishop of canterbury sent him to rome after the archbishop's pall; and a monk also with him, whose name was warner, and the archdeacon john, the nephew of the archbishop. and they sped well there. this was done on the seventh day before the calends of october, in the town that is yclept rowner. and this same day went the king on board ship at portsmouth. a.d. . this year was the king henry on the nativity in normandy. and whilst he was there, he contrived that all the head men in normandy did homage and fealty to his son william, whom he had by his queen. and after this, in the month of july, he returned to this land. this year was the winter so severe, with snow and with frost, that no man who was then living ever remembered one more severe; in consequence of which there was great destruction of cattle. during this year the pope paschalis sent the pall into this land to ralph, archbishop of canterbury; and he received it with great worship at his archiepiscopal stall in canterbury. it was brought hither from rome by abbot anselm, who was the nephew of archbishop anselm, and the abbot john of peterborough. a.d. . in this year was the king henry on the nativity at st. alban's, where he permitted the consecration of that monastery; and at easter he was at odiham. and there was also this year a very heavy-timed winter, strong and long, for cattle and for all things. and the king soon after easter went over sea into normandy. and there were many conspiracies and robberies, and castles taken betwixt france and normandy. most of this disturbance was because the king henry assisted his nephew, theobald de blois, who was engaged in a war against his lord, louis, the king of france. this was a very vexatious and destructive year with respect to the fruits of the earth, through the immoderate rains that fell soon after the beginning of august, harassing and perplexing men till candlemas-day. this year also was so deficient in mast, that there was never heard such in all this land or in wales. this land and nation were also this year oft and sorely swincked by the guilds which the king took both within the boroughs and without. in this same year was consumed by fire the whole monastery of peterborough, and all the buildings, except the chapter-house and the dormitory, and therewith also all the greater part of the town. all this happened on a friday, which was the second day before the nones of august. a.d. . all this year remained the king henry, in normandy, on account of the hostility of the king of france and his other neighbours. and in the summer came the king of france and the earl of flanders with him with an army into normandy. and having stayed therein one night, they returned again in the morning without fighting. but normandy was very much afflicted both by the exactions and by the armies which the king henry collected against them. this nation also was severely oppressed through the same means, namely, through manifold exactions. this year also, in the night of the calends of december, were immoderate storms with thunder, and lightning, and rain, and hail. and in the night of the third day before the ides of december was the moon, during a long time of the night, as if covered with blood, and afterwards eclipsed. also in the night of the seventeenth day before the calends of january, was the heaven seen very red, as if it were burning. and on the octave of st. john the evangelist was the great earthquake in lombardy; from the shock of which many minsters, and towers, and houses fell, and did much harm to men. this was a very blighted year in corn, through the rains that scarcely ceased for nearly all the year. and the abbot gilbert of westminster died on the eighth day before the ides of december; and faritz, abbot of abingdon, on the seventh day before the calends of march. and in this same year.... a.d. . all this year abode the king henry in normandy on account of the war of the king of france and the earl of anjou, and the earl of flanders. and the earl of flanders was wounded in normandy, and went so wounded into flanders. by this war was the king much exhausted, and he was a great loser both in land and money. and his own men grieved him most, who often from him turned, and betrayed him; and going over to his foes surrendered to them their castles, to the injury and disappointment of the king. all this england dearly bought through the manifold guilds that all this year abated not. this year, in the week of the epiphany, there was one evening a great deal of lightning, and thereafter unusual thunder. and the queen matilda died at westminster on the calends of may; and there was buried. and the earl robert of mellent died also this year. in this year also, on the feast of st. thomas, was so very immoderately violent a wind, that no man who was then living ever remembered any greater; and that was everywhere seen both in houses and also in trees. this year also died pope paschalis; and john of gaeta succeeded to the popedom, whose other name was gelasius. a.d. . all this year continued the king henry in normandy; and he was greatly perplexed by the hostility of the king of france, and also of his own men, who with treachery deserted from him, and oft readily betrayed him; until the two kings came together in normandy with their forces. there was the king of france put to flight, and all his best men taken. and afterwards many of king henry's men returned to him, and accorded with him, who were before, with their castellans, against him. and some of the castles he took by main strength. this year went william, the son of king henry and queen matilda, into normandy to his father, and there was given to him, and wedded to wife, the daughter of the earl of anjou. on the eve of the mass of st. michael was much earth-heaving in some places in this land; though most of all in glocestershire and in worcestershire. in this same year died the pope gelasius, on this side of the alps, and was buried at clugny. and after him the archbishop of vienna was chosen pope, whose name was calixtus. he afterwards, on the festival of st. luke the evangelist, came into france to rheims, and there held a council. and the archbishop turstin of york went thither; and, because that he against right, and against the archiepiscopal stall in canterbury, and against the king's will, received his hood at the hands of the pope, the king interdicted him from all return to england. and thus he lost his archbishopric, and with the pope went towards rome. in this year also died the earl baldwin of flanders of the wounds that he received in normandy. and after him succeeded to the earldom charles, the son of his uncle by the father's side, who was son of cnute, the holy king of denmark. a.d. . this year were reconciled the king of england and the king of france; and after their reconciliation all the king henry's own men accorded with him in normandy, as well as the earl of flanders and the earl of ponthieu. from this time forward the king henry settled his castles and his land in normandy after his will; and so before advent came to this land. and in this expedition were drowned the king's two sons, william and richard, and richard, earl of chester, and ottuel his brother, and very many of the king's household, stewards, and chamberlains, and butlers, and men of various abodes; and with them a countless multidude of very incomparable folk besides. sore was their death to their friends in a twofold respect: one, that they so suddenly lost this life; the other, that few of their bodies were found anywhere afterwards. this year came that light to the sepulchre of the lord in jerusalem twice; once at easter, and the other on the assumption of st. mary, as credible persons said who came thence. and the archbishop turstin of york was through the pope reconciled with the king, and came to this land, and recovered his bishopric, though it was very undesirable to the archbishop of canterbury. a.d. . this year was the king henry at christmas at bramton, and afterwards, before candlemas, at windsor was given him to wife athelis; soon afterwards consecrated queen, who was daughter of the duke of louvain. and the moon was eclipsed in the night of the nones of april, being a fortnight old. and the king was at easter at berkley; and after that at pentecost he held a full court at westminster; and afterwards in the summer went with an army into wales. and the welsh came against him; and after the king's will they accorded with him. this year came the earl of anjou from jerusalem into his land; and soon after sent hither to fetch his daughter, who had been given to wife to william, the king's son. and in the night of the eve of "natalis domini" was a very violent wind over all this land, and that was in many things evidently seen. a.d. . in this year was the king henry at christmas in norwich, and at easter in northampton. and in the lent-tide before that, the town of glocester was on fire: the while that the monks were singing their mass, and the deacon had begun the gospel, "praeteriens jesus", at that very moment came the fire from the upper part of the steeple, and burned all the minster, and all the treasures that were there within; except a few books, and three mass-hackles. that was on the eighth day before the ides of marcia. and thereafter, the tuesday after palm-sunday, was a very violent wind on the eleventh day before the calends of april; after which came many tokens far and wide in england, and many spectres were both seen and heard. and the eighth night before the calends of august was a very violent earthquake over all somersetshire, and in glocestershire. soon after, on the sixth day before the ides of september, which was on the festival of st. mary, ( ) there was a very violent wind from the fore part of the day to the depth of the night. this same year died ralph, the archbishop of canterbury; that was on the thirteenth day before the calends of november. after this there were many shipmen on the sea, and on fresh water, who said, that they saw on the north-east, level with the earth, a fire huge and broad, which anon waxed in length up to the welkin; and the welkin undid itself in four parts, and fought against it, as if it would quench it; and the fire waxed nevertheless up to the heaven. the fire they saw in the day-dawn; and it lasted until it was light over all. that was on the seventh day before the ides of december. a.d. . in this year was the king henry, at christmastide at dunstable, and there came to him the ambassadors of the earl of anjou. and thence he went to woodstock; and his bishops and his whole court with him. then did it betide on a wednesday, which was on the fourth day before the ides of january, that the king rode in his deer-fold; ( ) the bishop roger of salisbury ( ) on one side of him, and the bishop robert bloet of lincoln on the other side of him. and they rode there talking together. then sank down the bishop of lincoln, and said to the king, "lord king, i die." and the king alighted down from his horse, and lifted him betwixt his arms, and let men bear him home to his inn. there he was soon dead; and they carried him to lincoln with great worship, and buried him before the altar of st. mary. and the bishop of chester, whose name was robert pecceth, buried him. soon after this sent the king his writ over all england, and bade all his bishops and his abbots and his thanes, that they should come to his wittenmoot on candlemas day at glocester to meet him: and they did so. when they were there gathered together, then the king bade them, that they should choose for themselves an archbishop of canterbury, whomsoever they would, and he would confirm it. then spoke the bishops among themselves, and said that they never more would have a man of the monastic order as archbishop over them. and they went all in a body to the king, and earnestly requested that they might choose from the clerical order whomsoever they would for archbishop. and the king granted it to them. this was all concerted before, through the bishop of salisbury, and through the bishop of lincoln ere he was dead; for that they never loved the rule of monks, but were ever against monks and their rule. and the prior and the monks of canterbury, and all the other persons of the monastic order that were there, withstood it full two days; but it availed nought: for the bishop of salisbury was strong, and wielded all england, and opposed them with all his power and might. then chose they a clerk, named william of curboil. he was canon of a monastery called chiche. ( ) and they brought him before the king; and the king gave him the archbishopric. and all the bishops received him: but almost all the monks, and the earls, and the thanes that were there, protested against him. about the same time departed the earl's messengers ( ) in hostility from the king, reckless of his favour. during the same time came a legate from rome, whose name was henry. he was abbot of the monastery of st. john of angeli; and he came after the rome-scot. and he said to the king, that it was against right that men should set a clerk over monks; and therefore they had chosen an archbishop before in their chapter after right. but the king would not undo it, for the love of the bishop of salisbury. then went the archbishop, soon after this, to canterbury; and was there received, though it was against their will; and he was there soon blessed to bishop by the bishop of london, and the bishop ernulf of rochester, and the bishop william girard of winchester, and the bishop bernard of wales, and the bishop roger of salisbury. then, early in lent, went the archbishop to rome, after his pall; and with him went the bishop bernard of wales; and sefred, abbot of glastonbury; and anselm, abbot of st. edmund's bury; and john, archdeacon of canterbury; and gifard, who was the king's court-chaplain. at the same time went the archbishop thurstan of york to rome, through the behest of the pope, and came thither three days ere the archbishop of canterbury came, and was there received with much worship. then came the archbishop of canterbury, and was there full seven nights ere they could come to a conference with the pope. that was, because the pope was made to understand that he had obtained the archbishopric against the monks of the minster, and against right. but that overcame rome, which overcometh all the world; that is, gold and silver. and the pope softened, and gave him his pall. and the archbishop (of york) swore him subjection, in all those things, which the pope enjoined him, by the heads of st. peter and st. paul; and the pope then sent him home with his blessing. the while that the archbishop was out of the land, the king gave the bishopric of bath to the queen's chancellor, whose name was godfrey. he was born in louvain. that was on the annunciation of st. mary, at woodstock. soon after this went the king to winchester, and was all easter-tide there. and the while that he was there, gave he the bishopric of lincoln to a clerk hight alexander. he was nephew of the bishop of salisbury. this he did all for the love of the bishop. then went the king thence to portsmouth, and lay there all over pentecost week. then, as soon as he had a fair wind, he went over into normandy; and meanwhile committed all england to the guidance and government of the bishop roger of salisbury. then was the king all this year ( ) in normandy. and much hostility arose betwixt him and his thanes; so that the earl waleram of mellent, and hamalric, and hugh of montfort, and william of romare, and many others, went from him, and held their castles against him. and the king strongly opposed them: and this same year he won of waleram his castle of pont-audemer, and of hugh that of montfort; and ever after, the longer he stayed, the better he sped. this same year, ere the bishop of lincoln came to his bishopric, almost all the borough of lincoln was burned, and numberless folks, men and women, were consumed: and so much harm was there done as no man could describe to another. that was on the fourteenth day before the calends of june. a.d. . all this year was the king henry in normandy. that was for the great hostility that he had with the king louis of france, and with the earl of anjou, and most of all with his own men. then it happened, on the day of the annunciation of st. mary, that the earl waleram of mellent went from one of his castles called belmont to another called watteville. with him went the steward of the king of france, amalric, and hugh the son of gervase, and hugh of montfort, and many other good knights. then came against them the king's knights from all the castles that were thereabout, and fought with them, and put them to flight, and took the earl waleram, and hugh, the son of gervase, and hugh of montfort, and five and twenty other knights, and brought them to the king. and the king committed the earl waleram, and hugh, the son of gervase, to close custody in the castle at rouen; but hugh of montfort he sent to england, and ordered him to be secured with strong bonds in the castle at glocester. and of the others as many as he chose he sent north and south to his castles in captivity. after this went the king, and won all the castles of the earl waleram that were in normandy, and all the others that his enemies held against him. all this hostility was on account of the son of the earl robert of normandy, named william. this same william had taken to wife the younger daughter of fulke, earl of anjou: and for this reason the king of france and all the earls held with him, and all the rich men; and said that the king held his brother robert wrongfully in captivity, and drove his son william unjustly out of normandy. this same year were the seasons very unfavourable in england for corn and all fruits; so that between christmas and candlemas men sold the acre-seed of wheat, that is two seedlips, for six shillings; and the barley, that is three seedlips, for six shillings also; and the acre-seed of oats, that is four seedlips, for four shillings. that was because that corn was scarce; and the penny was so adulterated, ( ) that a man who had a pound at a market could not exchange twelve pence thereof for anything. in this same year died the blessed bishop ernulf of rochester, who before was abbot of peterborough. that was on the ides of march. and after this died the king alexander of scotland, on the ninth day before the calends of may. and david his brother, who was earl of northamptonshire, succeeded to the kingdom; and had both together, the kingdom of scotland and the earldom in england. and on the nineteenth day before the calends of january died the pope of rome, whose name was calixtus, and honorius succeeded to the popedom. this same year, after st. andrew's mass, and before christmas, held ralph basset and the king's thanes a wittenmoot in leicestershire, at huncothoe, and there hanged more thieves than ever were known before; that is, in a little while, four and forty men altogether; and despoiled six men of their eyes and of their testicles. many true men said that there were several who suffered very unjustly; but our lord god almighty, who seeth and knoweth every secret, seeth also that the wretched people are oppressed with all unrighteousness. first they are bereaved of their property, and then they are slain. full heavy year was this. the man that had any property, was bereaved of it by violent guilds and violent moots. the man that had not, was starved with hunger. a.d. . in this year sent the king henry, before christmas, from normandy to england, and bade that all the mint-men that were in england should be mutilated in their limbs; that was, that they should lose each of them the right hand, and their testicles beneath. this was because the man that had a pound could not lay out a penny at a market. and the bishop roger of salisbury sent over all england, and bade them all that they should come to winchester at christmas. when they came thither, then were they taken one by one, and deprived each of the right hand and the testicles beneath. all this was done within the twelfth-night. and that was all in perfect justice, because that they had undone all the land with the great quantity of base coin that they all bought. in this same year sent the pope of rome to this land a cardinal, named john of crema. he came first to the king in normandy, and the king received him with much worship. he betook himself then to the archbishop william of canterbury; and he led him to canterbury; and he was there received with great veneration, and in solemn procession. and he sang the high mass on easter day at the altar of christ. afterwards he went over all england, to all the bishoprics and abbacies that were in this land; and in all he was received with respect. and all gave him many and rich gifts. and afterwards he held his council in london full three days, on the nativity of st. mary in september, with archbishops, and diocesan bishops, and abbots, the learned and the lewd; ( ) and enjoined there the same laws that archbishop anselm had formerly enjoined, and many more, though it availed little. thence he went over sea soon after michaelmas, and so to rome; and (with him) the archbishop william of canterbury, and the archbishop thurstan of york, and the bishop alexander of lincoln, and the bishop j. of lothian, and the abbot g. of st. alban's; and were there received by the pope honorius with great respect; and continued there all the winter. in this same year was so great a flood on st. laurence's day, that many towns and men were overwhelmed, and bridges broken down, and corn and meadows spoiled withal; and hunger and qualm ( ) in men and in cattle; and in all fruits such unseasonableness as was not known for many years before. and this same year died the abbot john of peterborough, on the second day before the ides of october. a.d. . all this year was the king henry in normandy--all till after harvest. then came he to this land, betwixt the nativity of st. mary and michaelmas. with him came the queen, and his daughter, whom he had formerly given to the emperor henry of lorrain to wife. and he brought with him the earl waleram, and hugh, the son of gervase. and the earl he sent to bridgenorth in captivity: and thence he sent him afterwards to wallingford; and hugh to windsor, whom he ordered to be kept in strong bonds. then after michaelmas came david, the king of the scots, from scotland to this land; and the king henry received him with great worship; and he continued all that year in this land. in this year the king had his brother robert taken from the bishop roger of salisbury, and committed him to his son robert, earl of glocester, and had him led to bristol, and there put into the castle. that was all done through his daughter's counsel, and through david, the king of the scots, her uncle. a.d. . this year held the king henry his court at christmas in windsor. there was david the king of the scots, and all the head men that were in england, learned and lewd. and there he engaged the archbishops, and bishops, and abbots, and earls, and all the thanes that were there, to swear england and normandy after his day into the hands of his daughter athelicia, who was formerly the wife of the emperor of saxony. afterwards he sent her to normandy; and with her went her brother robert, earl of glocester, and brian, son of the earl alan fergan; ( ) and he let her wed the son of the earl of anjou, whose name was geoffry martel. all the french and english, however, disapproved of this; but the king did it for to have the alliance of the earl of anjou, and for to have help against his nephew william. in the lent-tide of this same year was the earl charles of flanders slain in a church, as he lay there and prayed to god, before the altar, in the midst of the mass, by his own men. and the king of france brought william, the son of the earl of normandy, and gave him the earldom; and the people of that land accepted him. this same william had before taken to wife the daughter of the earl of anjou; but they were afterwards divorced on the plea of consanguinity. this was all through the king henry of england. afterwards took he to wife the sister of the king's wife of france; and for this reason the king gave him the earldom of flanders. this same year he ( ) gave the abbacy of peterborough to an abbot named henry of poitou, who retained in hand his abbacy of st. john of angeli; but all the archbishops and bishops said that it was against right, and that he could not have two abbacies on hand. but the same henry gave the king to understand, that he had relinquished his abbacy on account of the great hostility that was in the land; and that he did through the counsel and leave of the pope of rome, and through that of the abbot of clugny, and because he was legate of the rome-scot. but, nevertheless, it was not so; for he would retain both in hand; and did so as long as god's will was. he was in his clerical state bishop of soissons; afterwards monk of clugny; and then prior in the same monastery. afterwards he became prior of sevigny; and then, because he was a relation of the king of england, and of the earl of poitou, the earl gave him the abbacy of st. john's minster of angeli. afterwards, through his great craft, he obtained the archbishopric of besancon; and had it in hand three days; after which he justly lost it, because he had before unjustly obtained it. afterwards he procured the bishopric of saintes; which was five miles from his abbey. that he had full-nigh a week ( ) in hand; but the abbot of clugny brought him thence, as he before did from besancon. then he bethought him, that, if he could be fast-rooted in england, he might have all his will. wherefore he besought the king, and said unto him, that he was an old man--a man completely broken--that he could not brook the great injustice and the great hostility that were in their land: and then, by his own endearours, and by those of all his friends, he earnestly and expressly entreated for the abbacy of peterborough. and the king procured it for him, because he was his relation, and because he was the principal person to make oath and bear witness when the son of the earl of normandy and the daughter of the earl of anjou were divorced on the plea of consanguinity. thus wretchedly was the abbacy given away, betwixt christmas and candlemas, at london; and so he went with the king to winchester, and thence he came to peterborough, and there he dwelt ( ) right so as a drone doth in a hive. for as the drone fretteth and draggeth fromward all that the bees drag toward [the hive], so did he.--all that he might take, within and without, of learned and lewd, so sent he over sea; and no good did there--no good left there. think no man unworthily that we say not the truth; for it was fully known over all the land: that, as soon as he came thither, which was on the sunday when men sing "exurge quare o d---- etc." immediately after, several persons saw and heard many huntsmen hunting. the hunters were swarthy, and huge, and ugly; and their hounds were all swarthy, and broad-eyed, and ugly. and they rode on swarthy horses, and swarthy bucks. this was seen in the very deer-fold in the town of peterborough, and in all the woods from that same town to stamford. and the monks heard the horn blow that they blew in the night. credible men, who watched them in the night, said that they thought there might well be about twenty or thirty horn-blowers. this was seen and heard from the time that he ( ) came thither, all the lent-tide onward to easter. this was his entry; of his exit we can as yet say nought. god provide. a.d. . all this year was the king henry in normandy, on account of the hostility that was between him and his nephew, the earl of flanders. but the earl was wounded in a fight by a swain; and so wounded he went to the monastery of st. bertin; where he soon became a monk, lived five days afterwards, then died, and was there buried. god honour his soul. that was on the sixth day before the calends of august. this same year died the bishop randulph passeflambard of durham; and was there buried on the nones of september. and this same year went the aforesaid abbot henry home to his own minster at poitou by the king's leave. he gave the king to understand, that he would withal forgo that minster, and that land, and dwell with him in england, and in the monastery of peterborough. but it was not so nevertheless. he did this because he would be there, through his crafty wiles, were it a twelvemonth or more, and come again afterwards. may god almighty extend his mercy over that wretched place. this same year came from jerusalem hugh of the temple to the king in normandy; and the king received him with much honour, and gave him rich presents in gold and in silver. and afterwards he sent him into england; and there he was received by all good men, who all gave him presents, and in scotland also: and by him they sent to jerusalem much wealth withal in gold and in silver. and he invited folk out to jerusalem; and there went with him and after him more people than ever did before, since that the first expedition was in the day of pope urban. though it availed little; for he said, that a mighty war was begun between the christians and the heathens; but when they came thither, then was it nought but leasing. ( ) thus pitifully was all that people swinked. ( ) a.d. . in this year sent the king to england after the earl waleram, and after hugh, the son of gervase. and they gave hostages for them. and hugh went home to his own land in france; but waleram was left with the king: and the king gave him all his land except his castle alone. afterwards came the king to england within the harvest: and the earl came with him: and they became as good friends as they were foes before. soon after, by the king's counsel, and by his leave, sent the archbishop william of canterbury over all england, and bade bishops, and abbots, and archdeacons, and all the priors, monks, and canons, that were in all the cells in england, and all who had the care and superintendence of christianity, that they should all come to london at michaelmas, and there should speak of all god's rights. when they came thither, then began the moot on monday, and continued without intermission to the friday. when it all came forth, then was it all found to be about archdeacons' wives, and about priests' wives; that they should forgo them by st. andrew's mass; and he who would not do that, should forgo his church, and his house, and his home, and never more have any calling thereto. this bade the archbishop william of canterbury, and all the diocesan bishops that were then in england, but the king gave them all leave to go home. and so they went home; and all the ordinances amounted to nothing. all held their wives by the king's leave as they did before. this same year died the bishop william giffard of winchester; and was there buried, on the eighth day before the calends of february. and the king henry gave the bishopric after michaelmas to the abbot henry of glastonbury, his nephew, and he was consecrated bishop by the archbishop william of canterbury on the fifteenth day before the calends of december. this same year died pope honorius. ere he was well dead, there were chosen two popes. the one was named peter, who was monk of clugny, and was born of the richest men of rome; and with him held those of rome, and the duke of sicily. the other was gregory: he was a clerk, and was driven out of rome by the other pope, and by his kinsmen. with him held the emperor of saxony, and the king of france, and the king henry of england, and all those on this side of the alps. now was there such division in christendom as never was before. may christ consult for his wretched folk. this same year, on the night of the mass of st. nicholas, a little before day, there was a great earthquake. a.d. . this year was the monastery of canterbury consecrated by the archbishop william, on the fourth day before the nones of may. there were the bishops john of rochester, gilbert universal of london, henry of winchester, alexander of lincoln, roger of salisbury, simon of worcester, roger of coventry, geoffry of bath, evrard of norwich, sigefrith of chichester, bernard of st. david's, owen of evreux in normandy, john of sieyes. on the fourth day after this was the king henry in rochester, when the town was almost consumed by fire; and the archbishop william consecrated the monastery of st. andrew, and the aforesaid bishops with him. and the king henry went over sea into normandy in harvest. this same year came the abbot henry of angeli after easter to peterborough, and said that he had relinquished that monastery ( ) withal. after him came the abbot of clugny, peter by name, to england by the king's leave; and was received by all, whithersoever he came, with much respect. to peterborough he came; and there the abbot henry promised him that he would procure him the minster of peterborough, that it might be subject to clugny. but it is said in the proverb, "the hedge abideth, that acres divideth." may god almighty frustrate evil designs. soon after this, went the abbot of clugny home to his country. this year was angus slain by the army of the scots, and there was a great multitude slain with him. there was god's fight sought upon him, for that he was all forsworn. a.d. . this year, after christmas, on a monday night, at the first sleep, was the heaven on the northern hemisphere ( ) all as if it were burning fire; so that all who saw it were so dismayed as they never were before. that was on the third day before the ides of january. this same year was so great a murrain of cattle as never was before in the memory of man over all england. that was in neat cattle and in swine; so that in a town where there were ten ploughs going, or twelve, there was not left one: and the man that had two hundred or three hundred swine, had not one left. afterwards perished the hen fowls; then shortened the fleshmeat, and the cheese, and the butter. may god better it when it shall be his will. and the king henry came home to england before harvest, after the mass of st. peter "ad vincula". this same year went the abbot henry, before easter, from peterborough over sea to normandy, and there spoke with the king, and told him that the abbot of clugny had desired him to come to him, and resign to him the abbacy of angeli, after which he would go home by his leave. and so he went home to his own minster, and there remained even to midsummer day. and the next day after the festival of st. john chose the monks an abbot of themselves, brought him into the church in procession, sang "te deum laudamus", rang the bells, set him on the abbot's throne, did him all homage, as they should do their abbot: and the earl, and all the head men, and the monks of the minster, drove the other abbot henry out of the monastery. and they had need; for in five-and-twenty winters had they never hailed one good day. here failed him all his mighty crafts. now it behoved him, that he crope in his skin into every corner, if peradventure there were any unresty wrench, ( ) whereby he might yet once more betray christ and all christian people. then retired he into clugny, where he was held so fast, that he could not move east or west. the abbot of clugny said that they had lost st. john's minster through him, and through his great sottishness. then could he not better recompense them; but he promised them, and swore oaths on the holy cross, that if he might go to england he should get them the minster of peterborough; so that he should set there the prior of clugny, with a churchwarden, a treasurer, and a sacristan: and all the things that were within the minster and without, he should procure for them. thus he departed into france; and there remained all that year. christ provide for the wretched monks of peterborough, and for that wretched place. now do they need the help of christ and of all christian folk. a.d. . this year came king henry to this land. then came abbot henry, and betrayed the monks of peterborough to the king, because he would subject that minster to clugny; so that the king was well nigh entrapped, and sent after the monks. but through the grace of god, and through the bishop of salisbury, and the bishop of lincoln, and the other rich men that were there, the king knew that he proceeded with treachery. when he no more could do, then would he that his nephew should be abbot of peterborough. but christ forbade. not very long after this was it that the king sent after him, and made him give up the abbey of peterborough, and go out of the land. and the king gave the abbacy to a prior of st. neot's, called martin, who came on st. peter's mass-day with great pomp into the minster. a.d. . in this year went the king henry over sea at the lammas; and the next day, as he lay asleep on ship, the day darkened over all lands, and the sun was all as it were a three night old moon, and the stars about him at midday. men were very much astonished and terrified, and said that a great event should come hereafter. so it did; for that same year was the king dead, the next day after st. andrew's mass-day, in normandy. then was there soon tribulation in the land; for every man that might, soon robbed another. then his sons and his friends took his body, and brought it to england, and buried it at reading. a good man he was; and there was great dread of him. no man durst do wrong with another in his time. peace he made for man and beast. whoso bare his burthen of gold and silver, durst no man say ought to him but good. meanwhile was his nephew come to england, stephen de blois. he came to london, and the people of london received him, and sent after the archbishop william curboil, and hallowed him to king on midwinter day. in this king's time was all dissention, and evil, and rapine; for against him rose soon the rich men who were traitors; and first of all baldwin de redvers, who held exeter against him. but the king beset it; and afterwards baldwin accorded. then took the others, and held their castles against him; and david, king of scotland, took to wessington against him. nevertheless their messengers passed between them; and they came together, and were settled, but it availed little. a.d. . this year went the king stephen over sea to normandy, and there was received; for that they concluded that he should be all such as the uncle was; and because he had got his treasure: but he dealed it out, and scattered it foolishly. much had king henry gathered, gold and silver, but no good did men for his soul thereof. when the king stephen came to england, he held his council at oxford; where he seized the bishop roger of sarum, and alexander, bishop of lincoln, and the chancellor roger, his nephew; and threw all into prison till they gave up their castles. when the traitors understood that he was a mild man, and soft, and good, and no justice executed, then did they all wonder. they had done him homage, and sworn oaths, but they no truth maintained. they were all forsworn, and forgetful of their troth; for every rich man built his castles, which they held against him: and they filled the land full of castles. they cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works; and when the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. then took they those whom they supposed to have any goods, both by night and by day, labouring men and women, and threw them into prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted on them unutterable tortures; for never were any martyrs so tortured as they were. some they hanged up by the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke; and some by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. they tied knotted strings about their heads, and twisted them till the pain went to the brains. they put them into dungeons, wherein were adders, and snakes, and toads; and so destroyed them. some they placed in a crucet-house; that is, in a chest that was short and narrow, and not deep; wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrust the man therein, that they broke all the limbs. in many of the castles were things loathsome and grim, called "sachenteges", of which two or three men had enough to bear one. it was thus made: that is, fastened to a beam; and they placed a sharp iron [collar] about the man's throat and neck, so that he could in no direction either sit, or lie, or sleep, but bear all that iron. many thousands they wore out with hunger. i neither can, nor may i tell all the wounds and all the pains which they inflicted on wretched men in this land. this lasted the nineteen winters while stephen was king; and it grew continually worse and worse. they constantly laid guilds on the towns, and called it "tenserie"; and when the wretched men had no more to give, then they plundered and burned all the towns; that well thou mightest go a whole day's journey and never shouldest thou find a man sitting in a town, nor the land tilled. then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter; for none was there in the land. wretched men starved of hunger. some had recourse to alms, who were for a while rich men, and some fled out of the land. never yet was there more wretchedness in the land; nor ever did heathen men worse than they did: for, after a time, they spared neither church nor churchyard, but took all the goods that were therein, and then burned the church and all together. neither did they spare a bishop's land, or an abbot's, or a priest's, but plundered both monks and clerks; and every man robbed another who could. if two men, or three, came riding to a town, all the township fled for them, concluding them to be robbers. the bishops and learned men cursed them continually, but the effect thereof was nothing to them; for they were all accursed, and forsworn, and abandoned. to till the ground was to plough the sea: the earth bare no corn, for the land was all laid waste by such deeds; and they said openly, that christ slept, and his saints. such things, and more than we can say, suffered we nineteen winters for our sins. in all this evil time held abbot martin his abbacy twenty years and a half, and eight days, with much tribulation; and found the monks and the guests everything that behoved them; and held much charity in the house; and, notwithstanding all this, wrought on the church, and set thereto lands and rents, and enriched it very much, and bestowed vestments upon it. and he brought them into the new minster on st. peter's mass-day with much pomp; which was in the year, from the incarnation of our lord, , and in the twenty-third from the destruction of the place by fire. and he went to rome, and there was well received by the pope eugenius; from whom he obtained their privileges:--one for all the lands of the abbey, and another for the lands that adjoin to the churchyard; and, if he might have lived longer, so he meant to do concerning the treasury. and he got in the lands that rich men retained by main strength. of william malduit, who held the castle of rockingham, he won cotingham and easton; and of hugh de walteville, he won hirtlingbury and stanwick, and sixty shillings from oldwinkle each year. and he made many monks, and planted a vine-yard, and constructed many works, and made the town better than it was before. he was a good monk, and a good man; and for this reason god and good men loved him. now we will relate in part what happened in king stephen's time. in his reign the jews of norwich bought a christian child before easter, and tortured him after the same manner as our lord was tortured; and on long-friday ( ) hanged him on a rood, in mockery of our lord, and afterwards buried him. they supposed that it would be concealed, but our lord showed that he was a holy martyr. and the monks took him, and buried him with high honour in the minster. and through our lord he worketh wonderful and manifold miracles, and is called st. william. a.d. . in this year came david, king of scotland, with an immense army to this land. he was ambitious to win this land; but against him came william, earl of albemarle, to whom the king had committed york, and other borderers, with few men, and fought against them, and routed the king at the standard, and slew very many of his gang. a.d. . in this year wished the king stephen to take robert, earl of gloucester, the son of king henry; but he could not, for he was aware of it. after this, in the lent, the sun and the day darkened about the noon-tide of the day, when men were eating; and they lighted candles to eat by. that was the thirteenth day before the kalends of april. men were very much struck with wonder. thereafter died william, archbishop of canterbury; and the king made theobald archbishop, who was abbot of bec. after this waxed a very great war betwixt the king and randolph, earl of chester; not because he did not give him all that he could ask him, as he did to all others; but ever the more he gave them, the worse they were to him. the earl held lincoln against the king, and took away from him all that he ought to have. and the king went thither, and beset him and his brother william de romare in the castle. and the earl stole out, and went after robert, earl of glocester, and brought him thither with a large army. and they fought strenuously on candlemas day against their lord, and took him; for his men forsook him and fled. and they led him to bristol, and there put him into prison in close quarters. then was all england stirred more than ere was, and all evil was in the land. afterwards came the daughter of king henry, who had been empress of germany, and now was countess of anjou. she came to london; but the people of london attempted to take her, and she fled, losing many of her followers. after this the bishop of winchester, henry, the brother of king stephen, spake with earl robert, and with the empress, and swore them oaths, "that he never more would hold with the king, his brother," and cursed all the men that held with him, and told them, that he would give them up winchester; and he caused them to come thither. when they were therein, then came the king's queen with all her strength, and beset them, so that there was great hunger therein. when they could no longer hold out, then stole they out, and fled; but those without were aware, and followed them, and took robert, earl of glocester, and led him to rochester, and put him there into prison; but the empress fled into a monastery. then went the wise men between the king's friends and the earl's friends; and settled so that they should let the king out of prison for the earl, and the earl for the king; and so they did. after this settled the king and earl randolph at stamford, and swore oaths, and plighted their troth, that neither should betray the other. but it availed nothing. for the king afterwards took him at northampton, through wicked counsel, and put him into prison; and soon after he let him out again, through worse counsel, on the condition that he swore by the crucifix, and found hostages, that he would give up all his castles. some he gave up, and some gave he not up; and did then worse than he otherwise would. then was england very much divided. some held with the king, and some with the empress; for when the king was in prison, the earls and the rich men supposed that he never more would come out: and they settled with the empress, and brought her into oxford, and gave her the borough. when the king was out, he heard of this, and took his force, and beset her in the tower. ( ) and they let her down in the night from the tower by ropes. and she stole out, and fled, and went on foot to wallingford. afterwards she went over sea; and those of normandy turned all from the king to the earl of anjou; some willingly, and some against their will; for he beset them till they gave up their castles, and they had no help of the king. then went eustace, the king's son, to france, and took to wife the sister of the king of france. he thought to obtain normandy thereby; but he sped little, and by good right; for he was an evil man. wherever he was, he did more evil than good; he robbed the lands, and levied heavy guilds upon them. he brought his wife to england, and put her into the castle at... ( ) good woman she was; but she had little bliss with him; and christ would not that he should long reign. he therefore soon died, and his mother also. and the earl of anjou died; and his son henry took to the earldom. and the queen of france parted from the king; and she came to the young earl henry; and he took her to wife, and all poitou with her. then went he with a large force into england, and won some castles; and the king went against him with a much larger force. nevertheless, fought they not; but the archbishop and the wise men went between them, and made this settlement: that the king should be lord and king while he lived, and after his day henry should be king: that henry should take him for a father; and he him for a son: that peace and union should be betwixt them, and in all england. this and the other provisions that they made, swore the king and the earl to observe; and all the bishops, and the earls, and the rich men. then was the earl received at winchester, and at london, with great worship; and all did him homage, and swore to keep the peace. and there was soon so good a peace as never was there before. then was the king stronger than he ever was before. and the earl went over sea; and all people loved him; for he did good justice, and made peace. a.d. . in this year died the king stephen; and he was buried where his wife and his son were buried, at faversham; which monastery they founded. when the king died, then was the earl beyond sea; but no man durst do other than good for the great fear of him. when he came to england, then was he received with great worship, and blessed to king in london on the sunday before midwinter day. and there held he a full court. the same day that martin, abbot of peterborough, should have gone thither, then sickened he, and died on the fourth day before the nones of january; and the monks, within the day, chose another of themselves, whose name was william de walteville, ( ) a good clerk, and good man, and well beloved of the king, and of all good men. and all the monks buried the abbot with high honours. and soon the newly chosen abbot, and the monks with him, went to oxford to the king. and the king gave him the abbacy; and he proceeded soon afterwards to peterborough; where he remained with the abbot, ere he came home. and the king was received with great worship at peterborough, in full procession. and so he was also at ramsey, and at thorney, and at.... and at spalding, and at.... endnotes: ( ) this introductory part of the "chronicle" to an. i. first printed by gibson from the laud ms. only, has been corrected by a collation of two additional mss. in the british museum, "cotton tiberius b" lv. and "domitianus a" viii. some defects are also here supplied. the materials of this part are to be found in pliny, solinus, orosius, gildas, and bede. the admeasurement of the island, however inaccurate, is from the best authorities of those times, and followed by much later historians. ( ) gibson, following the laud ms. has made six nations of five, by introducing the british and welsh as two distinct tribes. ( ) "de tractu armoricano."--bede, "ecclesiastical history" i. i. the word armenia occurring a few lines above in bede, it was perhaps inadvertently written by the saxon compiler of the "chronicle" instead of armorica. ( ) in case of a disputed succession, "ubi res veniret in dabium," etc.--bede, "ecclesiastical history" i. i. ( ) reada, aelfr.; reuda, bede, hunt. etc. perhaps it was originally reutha or reotha. ( ) this is an error, arising from the inaccurately written mss. of orosius and bede; where "in hybernia" and "in hiberniam" occur for "in hiberna". the error is retained in wheloc's bede. ( ) labienus = laberius. venerable bede also, and orosius, whom he follows verbatim, have "labienus". it is probably a mistake of some very ancient scribe, who improperly supplied the abbreviation "labius" (for "laberius") by "labienus". ( ) of these early transactions in britain king alfred supplies us with a brief but circumstantial account in his saxon paraphrase of "orosius". ( ) " die aprilis", flor. m. west. ( ) gibbon regrets this chronology, i.e. from the creation of the world, which he thinks preferable to the vulgar mode from the christian aera. but how vague and uncertain the scale which depends on a point so remote and undetermined as the precise time when the world was created. if we examine the chronometers of different writers we shall find a difference, between the maximum and the minimum, of years. the saxon chronology seems to be founded on that of eusebius, which approaches the medium between the two extremes. ( ) an. , flor. this act is attributed by orosius, and bede who follows him, to the threatening conduct of caligula, with a remark, that it was he (pilate) who condemned our lord to death. ( ) an. , flor. see the account of this famine in king alfred's "orosius". ( ) those writers who mention this discovery of the holy cross, by helena the mother of constantine, disagree so much in their chronology, that it is a vain attempt to reconcile them to truth or to each other. this and the other notices of ecclesiastical matters, whether latin or saxon, from the year to the year of the laud ms. and of the printed chronicle, may be safely considered as interpolations, probably posterior to the norman conquest. ( ) this is not to be understood strictly; gold being used as a general term for money or coin of every description; great quantities of which, it is well known, have been found at different times, and in many different places, in this island: not only of gold, but of silver, brass, copper, etc. ( ) an interpolated legend, from the "gesta pontificum", repeated by bede, florence, matth. west., fordun, and others. the head was said to be carried to edessa. ( ) merely of those called from him "benedictines". but the compiler of the cotton ms., who was probably a monk of that order, seems not to acknowledge any other. matthew of westminster places his death in . ( ) for an interesting and minute account of the arrival of augustine and his companions in the isle of thanet, their entrance into canterbury, and their general reception in england, vid. bede, "hist. eccles." i. , and the following chapters, with the saxon translation by king alfred. the succeeding historians have in general repeated the very words of bede. ( ) it was originally, perhaps, in the mss. icc. the abbreviation for , ; which is the number of the slain in bede. the total number of the monks of bangor is said to have been , ; most of whom appear to have been employed in prayer on this occasion, and only fifty escape by flight. vide bede, "hist. eccles." ii. , and the tribe of latin historians who copy him. ( ) literally, "swinged, or scourged him." both bede and alfred begin by recording the matter as a vision, or a dream; whence the transition is easy to a matter of fact, as here stated by the norman interpolators of the "saxon annals". ( ) this epithet appears to have been inserted in some copies of the "saxon chronicle" so early as the tenth century; to distinguish the "old" church or minster at winchester from the "new", consecrated a.d. . ( ) beverley-minster, in yorkshire. ( ) he was a native of tarsus in cilicia, the birth-place of st. paul. ( ) this brief notice of dryhtelm, for so i find the name written in "cotton tiberius b iv." is totally unintelligible without a reference to bede's "ecclesiastical history", v. ; where a curious account of him may be found, which is copied by matthew of westminster, anno. . ( ) wothnesbeorhge, ethelw.; wonsdike, malmsb.; wonebirih, h. hunt; wodnesbeorh, flor.; wodnesbirch, m. west. there is no reason, therefore, to transfer the scene of action to woodbridge, as some have supposed from an erroneous reading. ( ) the establishment of the "english school" at rome is attributed to ina; a full account of which, and of the origin of "romescot" or "peter-pence" for the support of it, may be seen in matthew of westminster. ( ) beorgforda, ethelw.; beorhtforda, flor.; hereford and bereford, h. hunt; beorford, m. west. this battle of burford has been considerably amplified by henry of huntingdon, and after him by matthew of westminster. the former, among other absurdities, talks of "amazonian" battle-axes. they both mention the banner of the "golden dragon" etc. ( ) the minuteness of this narrative, combined with the simplicity of it, proves that it was written at no great distance of time from the event. it is the first that occurs of any length in the older mss. of the "saxon chronicle". ( ) penga in the original, i.e. "of pence", or "in pence"; because the silver penny, derived from the roman "denarius", was the standard coin in this country for more than a thousand years. it was also used as a weight, being the twentieth part of an ounce. ( ) since called "sheriff"; i.e. the reve, or steward, of the shire. "exactor regis".--ethelw. ( ) this is the grecian method of computation; between the hours of three and six in the morning. it must be recollected, that before the distribution of time into hours, minutes, and seconds, the day and night were divided into eight equal portions, containing three hours each; and this method was continued long afterwards by historians. ( ) this wanton act of barbarity seems to have existed only in the depraved imagination of the norman interpolator of the "saxon annals", who eagerly and impatiently dispatches the story thus, in order to introduce the subsequent account of the synod at bapchild, so important in his eyes. hoveden and wallingford and others have repeated the idle tale; but i have not hitherto found it in any historian of authority. ( ) st. kenelm is said to have succeeded cenwulf: "in the foure and twentithe yere of his kyngdom kenulf wente out of this worlde, and to the joye of hevene com; it was after that oure lord in his moder alygte eigte hondred yet and neygentene, by a countes rigte, seint kenelm his yonge sone in his sevende yere kyng was ymad after him, theg he yong were." --"vita s. kenelmi, ms. coll. trin oxon." no. . arch. ( ) i.e. the danes; or, as they are sometimes called, northmen, which is a general term including all those numerous tribes that issued at different times from the north of europe, whether danes, norwegians, sweons, jutes, or goths, etc.; who were all in a state of paganism at this time. ( ) aetheredus,--asser, ethelwerd, etc. we have therefore adopted this orthography. ( ) it is now generally written, as pronounced, "swanage". ( ) for a more circumstantial account of the danish or norman operations against paris at this time, the reader may consult felibien, "histoire de la ville de paris", liv. iii. and the authorities cited by him in the margin. this is that celebrated siege of paris minutely described by abbo, abbot of fleury, in two books of latin hexameters; which, however barbarous, contain some curious and authentic matter relating to the history of that period. ( ) this bridge was built, or rebuilt on a larger plan than before, by charles the bald, in the year , "to prevent the danes or normans (says felibien) from making themselves masters of paris so easily as they had already done so many times," etc.--"pour empescher que les normans ne se rendissent maistres de paris aussi facilement qu'ils l'avoient deja fait tant de lois," etc.--vol. i. p. , folio. it is supposed to be the famous bridge afterwards called "grand pont" or "pont au change",--the most ancient bridge at paris, and the only one which existed at this time. ( ) or, in holmsdale, surry: hence the proverb-- "this is holmsdale, never conquer'd, never shall." ( ) the pirates of armorica, now bretagne; so called, because they abode day and night in their ships; from lid, a ship, and wiccian, to watch or abide day and night. ( ) so i understand the word. gibson, from wheloc, says--"in aetatis vigore;" a fact contradicted by the statement of almost every historian. names of places seldom occur in old mss. with capital initials. ( ) i.e. the feast of the holy innocents; a festival of great antiquity. ( ) i.e. the secular clergy, who observed no rule; opposed to the regulars, or monks. ( ) this poetical effusion on the coronation, or rather consecration, of king edgar, as well as the following on his death, appears to be imitated in latin verse by ethelwerd at the end of his curious chronicle. this seems at least to prove that they were both written very near the time, as also the eulogy on his reign, inserted . ( ) the following passage from cotton tiberius b iv., relating to the accession of edward the martyr, should be added here-- in his days, on account of his youth, the opponents of god broke through god's laws; alfhere alderman, and others many; and marr'd monastic rules; minsters they razed, and monks drove away, and put god's laws to flight-- laws that king edgar commanded the holy saint ethelwold bishop firmly to settle-- widows they stript oft and at random. many breaches of right and many bad laws have arisen since; and after-times prove only worse. then too was oslac the mighty earl hunted from england's shores. ( ) florence of worcester mentions three synods this year; kyrtlinege, calne, and ambresbyrig. ( ) vid. "hist. eliens." ii. . he was a great benefactor to the church of ely. ( ) this was probably the veteran historian of that name, who was killed in the severe encounter with the danes at alton (aethelingadene) in the year . ( ) i.e. at canterbury. he was chosen or nominated before, by king ethelred and his council, at amesbury: vid. an. . this notice of his consecration, which is confirmed by florence of worcester, is now first admitted into the text on the authority of three mss. ( ) not the present district so-called, but all that north of the sea of severn, as opposed to west-wales, another name for cornwall. ( ) see a more full and circumstantial account of these events, with some variation of names, in florence of worcester. ( ) the successor of elfeah, or alphege, in the see of winchester, on the translation of the latter to the archiepiscopal see of canterbury. ( ) this passage, though very important, is rather confused, from the variations in the mss.; so that it is difficult to ascertain the exact proportion of ships and armour which each person was to furnish. "vid. flor." an. . ( ) these expressions in the present tense afford a strong proof that the original records of these transactions are nearly coeval with the transactions themselves. later mss. use the past tense. ( ) i.e. the chiltern hills; from which the south-eastern part of oxfordshire is called the chiltern district. ( ) "leofruna abbatissa".--flor. the insertion of this quotation from florence of worcester is important, as it confirms the reading adopted in the text. the abbreviation "abbt", instead of "abb", seems to mark the abbess. she was the last abbess of st. mildred's in the isle of thanet; not canterbury, as harpsfield and lambard say. ( ) this was a title bestowed on the queen. ( ) the "seven" towns mentioned above are reduced here to "five"; probably because two had already submitted to the king on the death of the two thanes, sigferth and morcar. these five were, as originally, leicester, lincoln, stamford, nottingham, and derby. vid. an. , . ( ) there is a marked difference respecting the name of this alderman in mss. some have ethelsy, as above; others, elfwine, and ethelwine. the two last may be reconciled, as the name in either case would now be elwin; but ethelsy, and elsy are widely different. florence of worcester not only supports the authority of ethelwine, but explains it "dei amici." ( ) matthew of westminster says the king took up the body with his own hands. ( ) leofric removed the see to exeter. ( ) so florence of worcester, whose authority we here follow for the sake of perspicuity, though some of these events are placed in the mss. to very different years; as the story of beorn. ( ) i.e. the ships of sweyne, who had retired thither, as before described. ( ) "vid. flor." a.d. , and verbatim from him in the same year, sim. dunelm. "inter x. script. p. , i, . see also ordericus vitalis, a.d. . this dedication of the church of st. remi, a structure well worth the attention of the architectural antiquary, is still commemorated by an annual loire, or fair, on the first of october, at which the editor was present in the year , and purchased at a stall a valuable and scarce history of rheims, from which he extracts the following account of the synod mentioned above:-- "il fut assemble a l'occasion de la dedicace de la nouvelle eglise qu' herimar, abbe de ce monastere, avoit fait batir, seconde par les liberalites des citoyens, etc." ("hist. de reims", p. .) but, according to our chronicle, the pope took occasion from this synod to make some general regulations which concerned all christendom. ( ) hereman and aldred, who went on a mission to the pope from king edward, as stated in the preceding year. ( ) nine ships were put out of commission the year before; but five being left on the pay-list for a twelvemonth, they were also now laid up. ( ) the ancient name of westminster; which came into disuse because there was another thorney in cambridgeshire. ( ) i.e. at gloucester, according to the printed chronicle; which omits all that took place in the meantime at london and southwark. ( ) now westminster. ( ) i.e. earl godwin and his crew. ( ) i.e. from the isle of portland; where godwin had landed after the plunder of the isle of wight. ( ) i.e. dungeness; where they collected all the ships stationed in the great bay formed by the ports of romney, hithe, and folkstone. ( ) i.e. godwin and his son harold. ( ) i.e. the tide of the river. ( ) godwin's earldom consisted of wessex, sussex, and kent: sweyn's of oxford, gloucester, hereford, somerset, and berkshire: and harold's of essex, east-anglia, huntingdon, and cambridgeshire. ( ) the church, dedicated to st. olave, was given by alan earl of richmond, about thirty-three years afterwards, to the first abbot of st. mary's in york, to assist him in the construction of the new abbey. it appears from a ms. quoted by leland, that bootham-bar was formerly called "galman-hithe", not galmanlith, as printed by tanner and others. ( ) called st. ethelbert's minster; because the relics of the holy king ethelbert were there deposited and preserved. ( ) the place where this army was assembled, though said to be very nigh to hereford, was only so with reference to the great distance from which some part of the forces came; as they were gathered from all england. they met, i conjecture, on the memorable spot called "harold's cross", near cheltenham, and thence proceeded, as here stated, to gloucester. ( ) this was no uncommon thing among the saxon clergy, bishops and all. the tone of elevated diction in which the writer describes the military enterprise of leofgar and his companions, testifies his admiration. ( ) see more concerning him in florence of worcester. his lady, godiva, is better known at coventry. see her story at large in bromton and matthew of westminster. ( ) he died at his villa at bromleage (bromley in staffordshire).--flor. ( ) he built a new church from the foundation, on a larger plan. the monastery existed from the earliest times. ( ) florence of worcester says, that he went through hungary to jerusalem. ( ) this must not be confounded with a spire-steeple. the expression was used to denote a tower, long before spires were invented. ( ) lye interprets it erroneously the "festival" of st. martin.--"ad s. martini festum:" whereas the expression relates to the place, not to the time of his death, which is mentioned immediately afterwards. ( ) this threnodia on the death of edward the confessor will be found to correspond, both in metre and expression, with the poetical paraphrase of genesis ascribed to caedmon. ( ) these facts, though stated in one ms. only, prove the early cooperation of tosty with the king of norway. it is remarkable that this statement is confirmed by snorre, who says that tosty was with harald, the king of norway, in all these expeditions. vid "antiq. celto-scand." p. . ( ) i.e. harold, king of england; "our" king, as we find him afterwards called in b iv., to distinguish him from harald, king of norway. ( ) not only the twelve smacks with which he went into scotland during the summer, as before stated, but an accession of force from all quarters. ( ) on the north bank of the ouse, according to florence of worcester; the enemy having landed at richale (now "riccal"). simeon of durham names the spot "apud fulford," i.e. fulford-water, south of the city of york. ( ) it is scarcely necessary to observe that the term "english" begins about this time to be substituted for "angles"; and that the normans are not merely the norwegians, but the danes and other adventurers from the north, joined with the forces of france and flanders; who, we shall presently see, overwhelmed by their numbers the expiring, liberties of england. the franks begin also to assume the name of frencyscan or "frenchmen". ( ) i.e. in the expedition against the usurper william. ( ) i.e.--threw off their allegiance to the norman usurper, and became voluntary outlaws. the habits of these outlaws, or, at least, of their imitators and descendants in the next century, are well described in the romance of "ivanhoe". ( ) the author of the gallo-norman poem printed by sparke elevates his diction to a higher tone, when describing the feasts of this same hereward, whom he calls "le uthlage hardi." ( ) or much "coin"; many "scaettae"; such being the denomination of the silver money of the saxons. ( ) florence of worcester and those who follow him say that william proceeded as far as abernethy; where malcolm met him, and surrendered to him. ( ) whence he sailed to bretagne, according to flor. s. dunelm, etc.; but according to henry of huntingdon he fled directly to denmark, returning afterwards with cnute and hacco, who invaded england with a fleet of sail. ( ) i.e. earl waltheof. ( ) this notice of st. petronilla, whose name and existence seem scarcely to have been known to the latin historians, we owe exclusively to the valuable ms. "cotton tiberius" b lv. yet if ever female saint deserved to be commemorated as a conspicuous example of early piety and christian zeal, it must be petronilla. ( ) the brevity of our chronicle here, and in the two following years, in consequence of the termination of "cotton tiberius" b iv., is remarkable. from the year it assumes a character more decidedly anglo-norman. ( ) i.e. in the service; by teaching them a new-fangled chant, brought from feschamp in normandy, instead of that to which they had been accustomed, and which is called the gregorian chant. ( ) literally, "afeared of them"--i.e. terrified by them. ( ) probably along the open galleries in the upper story of the choir. ( ) "slaegan", in its first sense, signifies "to strike violently"; whence the term "sledge-hammer". this consideration will remove the supposed pleonasm in the saxon phrase, which is here literally translated. ( ) "gild," sax.; which in this instance was a land-tax of one shilling to a yardland. ( )--and of clave kyrre, king of norway. vid. "antiq. celto-scand". ( ) because there was a mutiny in the danish fleet; which was carried to such a height, that the king, after his return to denmark, was slain by his own subjects. vid. "antiq. celto-scand", also our "chronicle" a.d. . ( ) i.e. a fourth part of an acre. ( ) at winchester; where the king held his court at easter in the following year; and the survey was accordingly deposited there; whence it was called "rotulus wintoniae", and "liber wintoniae". ( ) an evident allusion to the compilation of doomsday book, already described in a.d. . ( ) uppe-land, sax.--i.e. village-church. ( ) i.e. jurisdiction. we have adopted the modern title of the district; but the saxon term occurs in many of the ancient evidences of berkeley castle. ( ) i.e. of the conspirators. ( ) literally "became his man"--"ic becom eowr man" was the formula of doing homage. ( ) literally a "gossip"; but such are the changes which words undergo in their meaning as well as in their form, that a title of honour formerly implying a spiritual relationship in god, is now applied only to those whose conversation resembles the contemptible tittle-tattle of a christening. ( ) from this expression it is evident, that though preference was naturally and properly given to hereditary claims, the monarchy of scotland, as well as of england, was in principle "elective". the doctrine of hereditary, of divine, of indefeasible "right", is of modern growth. ( ) see the following year towards the end, where duncan is said to be slain. ( ) peitevin, which is the connecting link between "pictaviensem" and "poitou". ( ) now called southampton, to distinguish it from northampton, but the common people in both neighbourhoods generally say "hamton" to this day ( ). ( ) the title is now earl of shrewsbury. ( ) the fourth of april. vid. "ord. vit." ( ) commonly called "peter-pence". ( ) literally "head-men, or chiefs". the term is still retained with a slight variation in the north of europe, as the "hetman" platoff of celebrated memory. ( ) this name is now written, improperly, cadogan; though the ancient pronunciation continues. "cadung", "ann. wav." erroneously, perhaps, for "cadugn". ( ) it was evidently, therefore, not on michaelmas day, but during the continuance of the mass or festival which was celebrated till the octave following. ( ) in the original "he"; so that the saxons agreed with the greeks and romans with respect to the gender of a comet. ( ) literally "took leave": hence the modern phrase to signify the departure of one person from another, which in feudal times could not be done without leave or permission formally obtained. ( ) that is, within the twelve days after christmas, or the interval between christmas day, properly called the nativity, and the epiphany, the whole of which was called christmas-tide or yule-tide, and was dedicated to feasting and mirth. ( ) the king of norway and his men. "vid. flor." ( ) his monument is still to be seen there, a plain gravestone of black marble, of the common shape called "dos d'ane"; such as are now frequently seen, though of inferior materials, in the churchyards of villages; and are only one remove from the grassy sod. ( ) i.e. before he left winchester for london; literally "there-right"--an expression still used in many parts of england. neither does the word "directly", which in its turn has almost become too vulgar to be used, nor its substitute, "immediately", which has nearly superseded it, appear to answer the purpose so well as the saxon, which is equally expressive with the french "sur le champ". ( ) this expression shows the adherence of the writer to the saxon line of kings, and his consequent satisfaction in recording this alliance of henry with the daughter of margaret of scotland. ( ) "auvergne" at that time was an independent province, and formed no part of france. about the middle of the fourteenth century we find jane, countess of auvergne and boulogne, and queen of france, assisting in the dedication of the church of the carmelites at paris, together with queen jeanne d'evreux, third wife and widow of charles iv., blanche of navarre, widow of philip vi., and jeanne de france, queen of navarre.--felib. "histoire de paris", vol. i, p. . ( ) a title taken from a town in normandy, now generally written moretaine, or moretagne; de moreteon, de moritonio, flor. ( ) "cena domini"--commonly called maundy thursday. ( ) now tinchebrai. ( ) matilda, mathilde, or maud. ( ) henry v. of germany, the son of henry iv. ( ) or, "in the early part of the night," etc. ( ) that is, the territory was not a "fee simple", but subject to "taillage" or taxation; and that particular species is probably here intended which is called in old french "en queuage", an expression not very different from that in the text above. ( ) i.e. to the earldom of flanders. ( ) "mense julio".--flor. ( ) we have still the form of saying "nolo episcopari", when a see is offered to a bishop. ( ) i.e. east bourne in sussex; where the king was waiting for a fair wind to carry him over sea. ( ) the nativity of the virgin mary. ( ) i.e. an inclosure or park for deer. this is now called blenheim park, and is one of the few old parks which still remain in this country. ( ) this may appear rather an anticipation of the modern see of salisbury, which was not then in existence; the borough of old saturn, or "saresberie", being then the episcopal seat. ( ) st. osythe, in essex; a priory rebuilt a. , for canons of the augustine order, of which there are considerable remains. ( ) i.e. of the earl of anjou. ( ) the writer means, "the remainder of this year"; for the feast of pentecost was already past, before the king left england. ( ) the pennies, or pence, it must be remembered, were of silver at this time. ( ) i.e. clergy and laity. ( ) this word is still in use, but in a sense somewhat different; as qualms of conscience, etc. ( ) see an account of him in "ord. vit." . conan, another son of this alan, earl of brittany, married a daughter of henry i. ( ) i.e. henry, king of england. ( ) "a se'nnight", the space of seven nights; as we still say, "a fortnight", i.e. the space of fourteen nights. the french express the space of one week by "huit jours", the origin of the "octave" in english law; of two by "quinte jours". so "septimana" signifies "seven mornings"; whence the french word "semaine". ( ) literally, "woned". vid chaucer, "canterbury tales", v. . in scotland, a lazy indolent manner of doing anything is called "droning". ( ) the abbot henry of angeli. ( ) "thou shalt destroy them that speak `leasing,'" etc. "psalms". ( ) i.e. vexed, harassed, fatigued, etc. milton has used the word in the last sense. ( ) the monastery of angeli. ( ) aurora borealis, or the northern lights. ( ) "any restless manoeuvre or stratagem." both words occur in chaucer. see "troilus and criseyde", v. , and "canterbury tales", v. . the idea seems to be taken from the habits of destructive and undermining vermin. ( ) now called "good-friday". ( ) the tower of the castle at oxford, built by d'oyley, which still remains. ( ) the ms. is here deficient. ( ) or vaudeville. [end of "the anglo-saxon chronicle"] this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book vi. ambition. chapter i. there was great rejoicing in england. king edward had been induced to send alred the prelate [ ] to the court of the german emperor, for his kinsman and namesake, edward atheling, the son of the great ironsides. in his childhood, this prince, with his brother edmund, had been committed by canute to the charge of his vassal, the king of sweden; and it has been said (though without sufficient authority), that canute's design was, that they should be secretly made away with. the king of sweden, however, forwarded the children to the court of hungary; they were there honourably reared and received. edmund died young, without issue. edward married a daughter of the german emperor, and during the commotions in england, and the successive reigns of harold harefoot, hardicanute, and the confessor, had remained forgotten in his exile, until now suddenly recalled to england as the heir presumptive of his childless namesake. he arrived with agatha his wife, one infant son, edgar, and two daughters, margaret and christina. great were the rejoicings. the vast crowd that had followed the royal visitors in their procession to the old london palace (not far from st. paul's) in which they were lodged, yet swarmed through the streets, when two thegns who had personally accompanied the atheling from dover, and had just taken leave of him, now emerged from the palace, and with some difficulty made their way through the crowded streets. the one in the dress and short hair imitated from the norman,--was our old friend godrith, whom the reader may remember as the rebuker of taillefer, and the friend of mallet de graville; the other, in a plain linen saxon tunic, and the gonna worn on state occasions, to which he seemed unfamiliar, but with heavy gold bracelets on his arms, long haired and bearded, was vebba, the kentish thegn, who had served as nuncius from godwin to edward. "troth and faith!" said vebba, wiping his brow, "this crowd is enow to make plain roan stark wode. i would not live in london for all the gauds in the goldsmith's shops, or all the treasures in king edward's vaults. my tongue is as parched as a hay-field in the weyd-month. [ ] holy mother be blessed! i see a cumen-hus [ ] open; let us in and refresh ourselves with a horn of ale." "nay, friend," quoth godrith, with a slight disdain, "such are not the resorts of men of our rank. tarry yet awhile, till we arrive near the bridge by the river-side; there, indeed, you will find worthy company and dainty cheer." "well, well, i am at your hest, godrith," said the kent man, sighing; "my wife and my sons will be sure to ask me what sights i have seen, and i may as well know from thee the last tricks and ways of this burly-burly town." godrith, who was master of all the fashions in the reign of our lord king edward, smiled graciously, and the two proceeded in silence, only broken by the sturdy kent man's exclamations; now of anger when rudely jostled, now of wonder and delight when, amidst the throng, he caught sight of a gleeman, with his bear or monkey, who took advantage of some space near convent garden, or roman ruin, to exhibit his craft; till they gained a long low row of booths, most pleasantly situated to the left of this side london bridge, and which was appropriated to the celebrated cookshops, that even to the time of fitzstephen retained their fame and their fashion. between the shops and the river was a space of grass worn brown and bare by the feet of the customers, with a few clipped trees with vines trained from one to the other in arcades, under cover of which were set tables and settles. the place was thickly crowded, and but for godrith's popularity amongst the attendants, they might have found it difficult to obtain accommodation. however, a new table was soon brought forth, placed close by the cool margin of the water, and covered in a trice with tankards of hippocras, pigment, ale, and some gascon, as well as british wines: varieties of the delicious cake- bread for which england was then renowned; while viands, strange to the honest eye and taste of the wealthy kent man, were served on spits. "what bird is this?" said he, grumbling. "o enviable man, it is a phrygian attagen [ ] that thou art about to taste for the first time; and when thou hast recovered that delight, i commend to thee a moorish compound, made of eggs and roes of carp from the old southweorc stewponds, which the cooks here dress notably." "moorish!--holy virgin!" cried vebba, with his mouth full of the phrygian attagen, "how came anything moorish in our christian island?" godrith laughed outright. "why, our cook here is moorish; the best singers in london are moors. look yonder! see those grave comely saracens!" "comely, quotha, burnt and black as a charred pine-pole!" grunted vebba; "well, who are they?" "wealthy traders; thanks to whom, our pretty maids have risen high in the market." [ ] "more the shame," said the kent man; "that selling of english youth to foreign masters, whether male or female, is a blot on the saxon name." "so saith harold our earl, and so preach the monks," returned godrith. "but thou, my good friend, who art fond of all things that our ancestors did, and hast sneered more than once at my norman robe and cropped hair, thou shouldst not be the one to find fault with what our fathers have done since the days of cerdic." "hem," said the kent man, a little perplexed, "certainly old manners are the best, and i suppose there is some good reason for this practice, which i, who never trouble myself about matters that concern me not, do not see." "well, vebba, and how likest thou the atheling? he is of the old line," said godrith. again the kent man looked perplexed, and had recourse to the ale, which he preferred to all more delicate liquor, before he replied: "why, he speaks english worse than king edward! and as for his boy edgar, the child can scarce speak english at all. and then their german carles and cnehts!--an i had known what manner of folk they were, i had not spent my mancuses in running from my homestead to give them the welcome. but they told me that harold the good earl had made the king send for them: and whatever the earl counselled must, i thought, be wise, and to the weal of sweet england." "that is true," said godrith with earnest emphasis, for, with all his affectation of norman manners, he was thoroughly english at heart, and now among the staunchest supporters of harold, who had become no less the pattern and pride of the young nobles than the darling of the humbler population,--"that is true--and harold showed us his noble english heart when he so urged the king to his own loss." as godrith thus spoke, nay, from the first mention of harold's name, two men richly clad, but with their bonnets drawn far over their brows, and their long gonnas so worn as to hide their forms, who were seated at a table behind godrith and had thus escaped his attention, had paused from their wine-cups, and they now listened with much earnestness to the conversation that followed. "how to the earl's loss?" asked vebba. "why, simple thegn," answered godrith, "why, suppose that edward had refused to acknowledge the atheling as his heir, suppose the atheling had remained in the german court, and our good king died suddenly,-- who, thinkest thou, could succeed to the english throne?" "marry, i have never thought of that at all," said the kent man, scratching his head. "no, nor have the english generally; yet whom could we choose but harold?" a sudden start from one of the listeners was checked by the warning finger of the other; and the kent man exclaimed: "body o' me! but we have never chosen king (save the danes) out of the line of cerdic. these be new cranks, with a vengeance; we shall be choosing german, or saracen, or norman next!" "out of the line of cerdic! but that line is gone, root and branch, save the atheling, and he thou seest is more german than english. again i say, failing the atheling, whom could we choose but harold, brother-in-law to the king: descended through githa from the royalties of the norse, the head of all armies under the herr-ban, the chief who has never fought without victory, yet who has always preferred conciliation to conquest--the first counsellor in the witan--the first man in the realm--who but harold? answer me, staring vebba?" "i take in thy words slowly," said the kent man, shaking his head, "and after all, it matters little who is king, so he be a good one. yes, i see now that the earl was a just and generous man when he made the king send for the atheling. drink-hael! long life to them both!" "was-hael," answered godrith, draining his hippocras to vebba's more potent ale. "long life to them both! may edward the atheling reign, but harold the earl rule! ah, then, indeed, we may sleep without fear of fierce algar and still fiercer gryffyth the walloon--who now, it is true, are stilled for the moment, thanks to harold--but not more still than the smooth waters in gwyned, that lie just above the rush of a torrent." "so little news hear i," said vebba, "and in kent so little are we plagued with the troubles elsewhere, (for there harold governs us, and the hawks come not where the eagles hold eyrie!)--that i will thank thee to tell me something about our old earl for a year [ ], algar the restless, and this gryffyth the welch king, so that i may seem a wise man when i go back to my homestead." "why, thou knowest at least that algar and harold were ever opposed in the witan, and hot words thou hast heard pass between them!" "marry, yes! but algar was as little match for earl harold in speech as in sword play." now again one of the listeners started, (but it was not the same as the one before,) and muttered an angry exclamation. "yet is he a troublesome foe," said godrith, who did not hear the sound vebba had provoked, "and a thorn in the side both of the earl and of england; and sorrowful for both england and earl was it, that harold refused to marry aldyth, as it is said his father, wise godwin, counselled and wished." "ah! but i have heard scops and harpers sing pretty songs that harold loves edith the fair, a wondrous proper maiden, they say!" "it is true; and for the sake of his love, he played ill for his ambition." "i like him the better for that," said the honest kent man: "why does he not marry the girl at once? she hath broad lands, i know, for they run from the sussex shore into kent." "but they are cousins five times removed, and the church forbids the marriage; nevertheless harold lives only for edith; they have exchanged the true-lofa [ ], and it is whispered that harold hopes the atheling, when he comes to be king, will get him the pope's dispensation. but to return to algar; in a day most unlucky he gave his daughter to gryffyth, the most turbulent sub-king the land ever knew, who, it is said, will not be content till he has won all wales for himself without homage or service, and the marches to boot. some letters between him and earl algar, to whom harold had secured the earldom of the east angles, were discovered, and in a witan at winchester thou wilt doubtless have heard, (for thou didst not, i know, leave thy lands to attend it,) that algar [ ] was outlawed." "oh, yes, these are stale tidings; i heard thus much from a palmer-- and then algar got ships from the irish, sailed to north wales, and beat rolf, the norman earl, at hereford. oh, yes, i heard that, and," added the kent man, laughing, "i was not sorry to hear that my old earl algar, since he is a good and true saxon, beat the cowardly norman,--more shame to the king for giving a norman the ward of the marches!" "it was a sore defeat to the king and to england," said godrith, gravely. "the great minster of hereford built by king athelstan was burned and sacked by the welch; and the crown itself was in danger, when harold came up at the head of the fyrd. hard is it to tell the distress and the marching and the camping, and the travail, and destruction of men, and also of horses, which the english endured [ ] till harold came; and then luckily came also the good old leofric, and bishop alred the peacemaker, and so strife was patched up--gryffyth swore oaths of faith to king edward, and algar was inlawed; and there for the nonce rests the matter now. but well i ween that gryffyth will never keep troth with the english, and that no hand less strong than harold's can keep in check a spirit as fiery as algar's: therefore did i wish that harold might be king." "well," quoth the honest kent man, "i hope, nevertheless, that algar, will sow his wild oats, and leave the walloons to grow the hemp for their own halters; for, though he is not of the height of our harold, he is a true saxon, and we liked him well enow when he ruled us. and how is our earl's brother tostig esteemed by the northmen? it must be hard to please those who had siward of the strong arm for their earl before." "why, at first, when (at siward's death in the wars for young malcolm) harold secured to tostig the northumbrian earldom, tostig went by his brother's counsel, and ruled well and won favour. of late i hear that the northmen murmur. tostig is a man indeed dour and haughty." after a few more questions and answers on the news of the day, vebba rose and said: "thanks for thy good fellowship; it is time for me now to be jogging homeward. i left my ceorls and horses on the other side the river, and must go after them. and now forgive me my bluntness, fellow- thegn, but ye young courtiers have plenty of need for your mancuses, and when a plain countryman like me comes sight-seeing, he ought to stand payment; wherefore," here he took from his belt a great leathern purse, "wherefore, as these outlandish birds and heathenish puddings must be dear fare--" "how!" said godrith, reddening, "thinkest thou so meanly of us thegns of middlesex as to deem we cannot entertain thus humbly a friend from a distance? ye kent men i know are rich. but keep your pennies to buy stuffs for your wife, my friend." the kent man, seeing he had displeased his companion, did not press his liberal offer,--put up his purse, and suffered godrith to pay the reckoning. then, as the two thegns shook hands, he said: "but i should like to have said a kind word or so to earl harold--for he was too busy and too great for me to come across him in the old palace yonder. i have a mind to go back and look for him at his own house." "you will not find him there," said godrith, "for i know that as soon as he hath finished his conference with the atheling, he will leave the city; and i shall be at his own favourite manse over the water at sunset, to take orders for repairing the forts and dykes on the marches. you can tarry awhile and meet us; you know his old lodge in the forest land?" "nay, i must be back and at home ere night, for all things go wrong when the master is away. yet, indeed, my good wife will scold me for not having shaken hands with the handsome earl." "thou shalt not come under that sad infliction," said the good-natured godrith, who was pleased with the thegn's devotion to harold, and who, knowing the great weight which vebba (homely as he seemed) carried in his important county, was politically anxious that the earl should humour so sturdy a friend,--"thou shalt not sour thy wife's kiss, man. for look you, as you ride back you will pass by a large old house, with broken columns at the back." "i have marked it well," said the thegn, "when i have gone that way, with a heap of queer stones, on a little hillock, which they say the witches or the britons heaped together." "the same. when harold leaves london, i trow well towards that house will his road wend; for there lives edith the swan's-neck, with her awful grandam the wicca. if thou art there a little after noon, depend on it thou wilt see harold riding that way." "thank thee heartily, friend godrith," said vebba, taking his leave, "and forgive my bluntness if i laughed at thy cropped head, for i see thou art as good a saxon as e'er a franklin of kent--and so the saints keep thee." vebba then strode briskly over the bridge; and godrith, animated by the wine he had drunk, turned gaily on his heel to look amongst the crowded tables for some chance friend with whom to while away an hour or so at the games of hazard then in vogue. scarce had he turned, when the two listeners, who, having paid their reckoning, had moved under shade of one of the arcades, dropped into a boat which they had summoned to the margin by a noiseless signal, and were rowed over the water. they preserved a silence which seemed thoughtful and gloomy until they reached the opposite shore; then one of them, pushing back his bonnet, showed the sharp and haughty features of algar. "well, friend of gryffyth," said he, with a bitter accent, "thou hearest that earl harold counts so little on the oaths of thy king, that he intends to fortify the marches against him; and thou hearest also, that nought save a life, as fragile as the reed which thy feet are trampling, stands between the throne of england and the only englishman who could ever have humbled my son-in-law to swear oath of service to edward." "shame upon that hour," said the other, whose speech, as well as the gold collar round his neck, and the peculiar fashion of his hair, betokened him to be welch. "little did i think that the great son of llewellyn, whom our bards had set above roderic mawr, would ever have acknowledged the sovereignty of the saxon over the hills of cymry." "tut, meredydd," answered algar, "thou knowest well that no cymrian ever deems himself dishonoured by breaking faith with the saxon; and we shall yet see the lions of gryffyth scaring the sheepfolds of hereford." "so be it," said meredydd, fiercely. "and harold shall give to his atheling the saxon land, shorn at least of the cymrian kingdom." "meredydd," said algar, with a seriousness that seemed almost solemn, no atheling will live to rule these realms! thou knowest that i was one of the first to hail the news of his coming--i hastened to dover to meet him. methought i saw death writ on his countenance, and i bribed the german leach who attends him to answer my questions; the atheling knows it not, but he bears within him the seeds of a mortal complaint. thou wottest well what cause i have to hate earl harold; and were i the only man to oppose his way to the throne, he should not ascend it but over my corpse. but when godrith, his creature, spoke, i felt that he spoke the truth; and, the atheling dead, on no head but harold's can fall the crown of edward." "ha!" said the cymrian chief, gloomily; "thinkest thou so indeed?" "i think it not; i know it. and for that reason, meredydd, we must wait not till he wields against us all the royalty of england. as yet, while edward lives, there is hope. for the king loves to spend wealth on relics and priests, and is slow when the mancuses are wanted for fighting men. the king too, poor man! is not so ill-pleased at my outbursts as he would fain have it thought; he thinks, by pitting earl against earl, that he himself is the stronger [ ]. while edward lives, therefore, harold's arm is half crippled; wherefore, meredydd, ride thou, with good speed, back to king gryffyth, and tell him all i have told thee. tell him that our time to strike the blow and renew the war will be amidst the dismay and confusion that the atheling's death will occasion. tell him, that if we can entangle harold himself in the welch defiles, it will go hard but what we shall find some arrow or dagger to pierce the heart of the invader. and were harold but slain--who then would be king in england? the line of cerdic gone--the house of godwin lost in earl harold, (for tostig is hated in his own domain, leofwine is too light, and gurth is too saintly for such ambition)--who then, i say, can be king in england but algar, the heir of the great leofric? and i, as king of england, will set all cymry free, and restore to the realm of gryffyth the shires of hereford and worcester. ride fast, o meredydd, and heed well all i have said." "dost thou promise and swear, that wert thou king of england, cymry should be free from all service?" "free as air, free as under arthur and uther: i swear it. and remember well how harold addressed the cymrian chiefs, when he accepted gryffyth's oaths of service." "remember it--ay," cried meredydd, his face lighting up with intense ire and revenge; "the stern saxon said, 'heed well, ye chiefs of cymry, and thou gryffyth the king, that if again ye force, by ravage and rapine, by sacrilege and murther, the majesty of england to enter your borders, duty must be done: god grant that your cymrian lion may leave us in peace--if not, it is mercy to human life that bids us cut the talons, and draw the fangs." "harold, like all calm and mild men, ever says less than he means," returned algar; "and were harold king, small pretext would he need for cutting the talons and drawing the fangs." "it is well," said meredydd, with a fierce smile. "i will now go to my men who are lodged yonder; and it is better that thou shouldst not be seen with me." "right; so st. david be with you--and forget not a word of my message to gryffyth my son-in-law." "not a word," returned meredydd, as with a wave of his hand he moved towards an hostelry, to which, as kept by one of their own countrymen, the welch habitually resorted in the visits to the capital which the various intrigues and dissensions in their unhappy land made frequent. the chief's train, which consisted of ten men, all of high birth, were not drinking in the tavern--for sorry customers to mine host were the abstemious welch. stretched on the grass under the trees of an orchard that backed the hostelry, and utterly indifferent to all the rejoicings that animated the population of southwark and london, they were listening to a wild song of the old hero-days from one of their number; and round them grazed the rough shagged ponies which they had used for their journey. meredydd, approaching, gazed round, and seeing no stranger was present, raised his hand to hush the song, and then addressed his countrymen briefly in welch--briefly, but with a passion that was evident in his flashing eyes and vehement gestures. the passion was contagious; they all sprang to their feet with a low but fierce cry, and in a few moments they had caught and saddled their diminutive palfreys, while one of the band, who seemed singled out by meredydd, sallied forth alone from the orchard, and took his way, on foot, to the bridge. he did not tarry there long; at the sight of a single horseman, whom a shout of welcome, on that swarming thoroughfare, proclaimed to be earl harold, the welcbman turned, and with a fleet foot regained his companions. meanwhile harold, smilingly, returned the greetings he received, cleared the bridge, passed the suburbs, and soon gained the wild forest land that lay along the great kentish road. he rode somewhat slowly, for he was evidently in deep thought; and he had arrived about half-way towards hilda's house when he heard behind quick pattering sounds, as of small unshod hoofs: he turned, and saw the welchmen at the distance of some fifty yards. but at that moment there passed, along the road in front, several persons bustling into london to share in the festivities of the day. this seemed to disconcert the welch in the rear, and, after a few whispered words, they left the high road and entered the forest land. various groups from time to time continued to pass along the thoroughfare. but still, ever through the glades, harold caught glimpses of the riders; now distant, now near. sometimes he heard the snort of their small horses, and saw a fierce eye glaring through the bushes; then, as at the sight or sound of approaching passengers, the riders wheeled, and shot off through the brakes. the earl's suspicions were aroused; for (though he knew of no enemy to apprehend, and the extreme severity of the laws against robbers made the high roads much safer in the latter days of the saxon domination than they were for centuries under that of the subsequent dynasty, when saxon thegns themselves had turned kings of the greenwood,) the various insurrections in edward's reign had necessarily thrown upon society many turbulent disbanded mercenaries. harold was unarmed, save the spear which, even on occasions of state, the saxon noble rarely laid aside, and the ateghar in his belt; and, seeing now that the road had become deserted, he set spurs to his horse, and was just in sight of the druid temple, when a javelin whizzed close by his breast, and another transfixed his horse, which fell head foremost to the ground. the earl gained his feet in an instant, and that haste was needed to save his life; for while he rose ten swords flashed around him. the welchmen had sprung from their palfreys as harold's horse fell. fortunately for him, only two of the party bore javelins, (a weapon which the welch wielded with deadly skill,) and those already wasted, they drew their short swords, which were probably imitated from the romans, and rushed upon him in simultaneous onset. versed in all the weapons of the time, with his right hand seeking by his spear to keep off the rush, with the ateghar in his left parrying the strokes aimed at him, the brave earl transfixed the first assailant, and sore wounded the next; but his tunic was dyed red with three gashes, and his sole chance of life was in the power yet left him to force his way through the ring. dropping his spear, shifting his ateghar into the right hand, wrapping round his left arm his gonna as a shield, he sprang fiercely on the onslaught, and on the flashing swords. pierced to the heart fell one of his foes--dashed to the earth another--from the hand of a third (dropping his own ateghar) he wrenched the sword. loud rose harold's cry for aid, and swiftly he strode towards the hillock, turning back, and striking as he turned; and again fell a foe, and again new blood oozed through his own garb. at that moment his cry was echoed by a shriek so sharp and so piercing that it startled the assailants, it arrested the assault; and, ere the unequal strife could be resumed, a woman was in the midst of the fray; a woman stood dauntless between the earl and his foes. "back! edith. oh, god! back, back!" cried the earl, recovering all his strength in the sole fear which that strife had yet stricken into his bold heart; and drawing edith aside with his strong arm, he again confronted the assailants. "die!" cried, in the cymrian tongue, the fiercest of the foes, whose sword had already twice drawn the earl's blood; "die, that cymry may be free!" meredydd sprang, with him sprang the survivors of his band; and, by a sudden movement, edith had thrown herself on harold's breast, leaving his right arm free, but sheltering his form with her own. at that sight every sword rested still in air. these cymrians, hesitating not at the murder of the man whose death seemed to their false virtue a sacrifice due to their hopes of freedom, were still the descendants of heroes, and the children of noble song, and their swords were harmless against a woman. the same pause which saved the life of harold, saved that of meredydd; for the cymrian's lifted sword had left his breast defenceless, and harold, despite his wrath, and his fears for edith, touched by that sudden forbearance, forbore himself the blow. "why seek ye my life?" said he. "whom in broad england hath harold wronged?" that speech broke the charm, revived the suspense of vengeance. with a sudden aim, meredydd smote at the head which edith's embrace left unprotected. the sword shivered on the steel of that which parried the stroke, and the next moment, pierced to the heart, meredydd fell to the earth, bathed in his gore. even as he fell, aid was at hand. the ceorls in the roman house had caught the alarm, and were hurrying down the knoll, with arms snatched in haste, while a loud whoop broke from the forest land hard by; and a troop of horse, headed by vebba, rushed through the bushes and brakes. those of the welch still surviving, no longer animated by their fiery chief, turned on the instant, and fled with that wonderful speed of foot which characterised their active race; calling, as they fled, to their welch pigmy steeds, which, snorting loud, and lashing out, came at once to the call. seizing the nearest at hand, the fugitives sprang to selle, while the animals unchosen paused by the corpses of their former riders, neighing piteously, and shaking their long manes. and then, after wheeling round and round the coming horsemen, with many a plunge, and lash, and savage cry, they darted after their companions, and disappeared amongst the bushwood. some of the kentish men gave chase to the fugitives, but in vain; for the nature of the ground favoured flight. vebba, and the rest, now joined by hilda's lithsmen, gained the spot where harold, bleeding fast, yet strove to keep his footing, and, forgetful of his own wounds, was joyfully assuring himself of edith's safety. vebba dismounted, and recognising the earl, exclaimed: "saints in heaven! are we in tine? you bleed--you faint!--speak, lord harold. how fares it?" "blood enow yet left here for our merrie england!" said harold, with a smile. but as he spoke, his head drooped, and he was borne senseless into the house of hilda. chapter ii. the vala met them at the threshold, and testified so little surprise at the sight of the bleeding and unconscious earl, that vebba, who had heard strange tales of hilda's unlawful arts, half-suspected that those wild-looking foes, with their uncanny diminutive horses, were imps conjured by her to punish a wooer to her grandchild--who had been perhaps too successful in the wooing. and fears so reasonable were not a little increased when hilda, after leading the way up the steep ladder to the chamber in which harold had dreamed his fearful dream, bade them all depart, and leave the wounded man to her care. "not so," said vebba, bluffly. "a life like this is not to be left in the hands of woman, or wicca. i shall go back to the great town, and summon the earl's own leach. and i beg thee to heed, meanwhile, that every head in this house shall answer for harold's." the great vala, and highborn hleafdian, little accustomed to be accosted thus, turned round abruptly, with so stern an eye and so imperious a mien, that even the stout kent man felt abashed. she pointed to the door opening on the ladder, and said, briefly: "depart! thy lord's life hath been saved already, and by woman. depart!" "depart, and fear not for the earl, brave and true friend in need," said edith, looking up from harold's pale lips, over which she bent; and her sweet voice so touched the good thegn, that, murmuring a blessing on her fair face, he turned and departed. hilda then proceeded, with a light and skilful hand, to examine the wounds of her patient. she opened the tunic, and washed away the blood from four gaping orifices on the breast and shoulders. and as she did so, edith uttered a faint cry, and falling on her knees, bowed her head over the drooping hand, and kissed it with stifling emotions, of which perhaps grateful joy was the strongest; for over the heart of harold was punctured, after the fashion of the saxons, a device--and that device was the knot of betrothal, and in the centre of the knot was graven the word "edith." chapter iii. whether, owing to hilda's runes, or to the merely human arts which accompanied them, the earl's recovery was rapid, though the great loss of blood he had sustained left him awhile weak and exhausted. but, perhaps, he blessed the excuse which detained him still in the house of hilda, and under the eyes of edith. he dismissed the leach sent to him by vebba, and confided, not without reason, to the vala's skill. and how happily went his hours beneath the old roman roof! it was not without a superstition, more characterised, however, by tenderness than awe, that harold learned that edith had been undefinably impressed with a foreboding of danger to her betrothed, and all that morning she had watched his coming from the old legendary hill. was it not in that watch that his good fylgia had saved his life? indeed, there seemed a strange truth in hilda's assertions, that in the form of his betrothed, his tutelary spirit lived and guarded. for smooth every step, and bright every day, in his career, since their troth had been plighted. and gradually the sweet superstition had mingled with human passion to hallow and refine it. there was a purity and a depth in the love of these two, which, if not uncommon in women, is most rare in men. harold, in sober truth, had learned to look on edith as on his better angel; and, calming his strong manly heart in the hour of temptation, would have recoiled, as a sacrilege, from aught that could have sullied that image of celestial love. with a noble and sublime patience, of which perhaps only a character so thoroughly english in its habits of self-control and steadfast endurance could have been capable, he saw the months and the years glide away, and still contented himself with hope;--hope, the sole godlike joy that belongs to men! as the opinion of an age influences even those who affect to despise it, so, perhaps, this holy and unselfish passion was preserved and guarded by that peculiar veneration for purity which formed the characteristic fanaticism of the last days of the anglo-saxons,--when still, as aldhelm had previously sung in latin less barbarous than perhaps any priest in the reign of edward could command: "virginitas castam servans sine crimine carnem caetera virtutem vincit praeconia laudi-- spiritus altithroni templum sibi vindicat almus;" [ ] when, amidst a great dissoluteness of manners, alike common to church and laity, the opposite virtues were, as is invariable in such epochs of society, carried by the few purer natures into heroic extremes. "and as gold, the adorner of the world, springs from the sordid bosom of earth, so chastity, the image of gold, rose bright and unsullied from the clay of human desire." [ ] and edith, though yet in the tenderest flush of beautiful youth, had, under the influence of that sanctifying and scarce earthly affection, perfected her full nature as woman. she had learned so to live in harold's life, that--less, it seemed, by study than intuition--a knowledge graver than that which belonged to her sex and her time, seemed to fall upon her soul--fall as the sunlight falls on the blossoms, expanding their petals, and brightening the glory of their hues. hitherto, living under the shade of hilda's dreary creed, edith, as we have seen, had been rather christian by name and instinct than acquainted with the doctrines of the gospel, or penetrated by its faith. but the soul of harold lifted her own out of the valley of the shadow up to the heavenly hill. for the character of their love was so pre-eminently christian, so, by the circumstances that surrounded it--so by hope and self-denial, elevated out of the empire, not only of the senses, but even of that sentiment which springs from them, and which made the sole refined and poetic element of the heathen's love, that but for christianity it would have withered and died. it required all the aliment of prayer; it needed that patient endurance which comes from the soul's consciousness of immortality; it could not have resisted earth, but from the forts and armies it won from heaven. thus from harold might edith be said to have taken her very soul. and with the soul, and through the soul, woke the mind from the mists of childhood. in the intense desire to be worthy the love of the foremost man of her land; to be the companion of his mind, as well as the mistress of his heart, she had acquired, she knew not how, strange stores of thought, and intelligence, and pure, gentle wisdom. in opening to her confidence his own high aims and projects, he himself was scarcely conscious how often he confided but to consult--how often and how insensibly she coloured his reflections and shaped his designs. whatever was highest and purest, that, edith ever, as by instinct, beheld as the wisest. she grew to him like a second conscience, diviner than his own. each, therefore, reflected virtue on the other, as planet illumines planet. all these years of probation then, which might have soured a love less holy, changed into weariness a love less intense, had only served to wed them more intimately soul to soul; and in that spotless union what happiness there was! what rapture in word and glance, and the slight, restrained caress of innocence, beyond all the transports love only human can bestow! chapter iv. it was a bright still summer noon, when harold sate with edith amidst the columns of the druid temple, and in the shade which those vast and mournful relics of a faith departed cast along the sward. and there, conversing over the past, and planning the future, they had sate long, when hilda approached from the house, and entering the circle, leant her arm upon the altar of the war-god, and gazing on harold with a calm triumph in her aspect, said: "did i not smile, son of godwin, when, with thy short-sighted wisdom, thou didst think to guard thy land and secure thy love, by urging the monk-king to send over the seas for the atheling? did i not tell thee, 'thou dost right, for in obeying thy judgment thou art but the instrument of fate; and the coming of the atheling shall speed thee nearer to the ends of thy life, but not from the atheling shalt thou take the crown of thy love, and not by the atheling shall the throne of athelstan be filled'?" "alas," said harold, rising in agitation, "let me not hear of mischance to that noble prince. he seemed sick and feeble when i parted from him; but joy is a great restorer, and the air of the native land gives quick health to the exile." "hark!" said hilda, "you hear the passing bell for the soul of the son of ironsides!" the mournful knell, as she spoke, came dull from the roofs of the city afar, borne to their ears by the exceeding stillness of the atmosphere. edith crossed herself, and murmured a prayer according to the custom of the age; then raising her eyes to harold, she murmured, as she clasped her hands: "be not saddened, harold; hope still." "hope!" repeated hilda, rising proudly from her recumbent position, "hope! in that knell from st. paul's, dull indeed is thine ear, o harold, if thou hearest not the joy-bells that inaugurate a future king!" the earl started; his eyes shot fire; his breast heaved. "leave us, edith," said hilda, in a low voice; and after watching her grandchild's slow reluctant steps descend the knoll, she turned to harold, and leading him towards the gravestone of the saxon chief, said: "rememberest thou the spectre that rose from this mound?--rememberest thou the dream that followed it?" "the spectre, or deceit of mine eye, i remember well," answered the earl; "the dream, not;--or only in confused and jarring fragments." "i told thee then, that i could not unriddle the dream by the light of the moment; and that the dead who slept below never appeared to men, save for some portent of doom to the house of cerdic. the portent is fulfilled; the heir of cerdic is no more. to whom appeared the great scin-laeca, but to him who shall lead a new race of kings to the saxon throne!" harold breathed hard, and the colour mounted bright and glowing to his cheek and brow. "i cannot gainsay thee, vala. unless, despite all conjecture, edward should be spared to earth till the atheling's infant son acquires the age when bearded men will acknowledge a chief [ ], i look round in england for the coming king, and all england reflects but mine own image." his head rose erect as he spoke, and already the brow seemed august, as if circled by the diadem of the basileus. "and if it be so," he added, "i accept that solemn trust, and england shall grow greater in my greatness." "the flame breaks at last from the smouldering fuel!" cried the vala, "and the hour i so long foretold to thee hath come!" harold answered not, for high and kindling emotions deafened him to all but the voice of a grand ambition, and the awakening joy of a noble heart. "and then--and then," he exclaimed, "i shall need no mediator between nature and monkcraft;--then, o edith, the life thou hast saved will indeed be thine!" he paused, and it was a sign of the change that an ambition long repressed, but now rushing into the vent legitimately open to it, had already begun to work in the character hitherto so self-reliant, when he said in a low voice, "but that dream which hath so long lain locked, not lost, in my mind; that dream of which i recall only vague remembrances of danger yet defiance, trouble yet triumph,--canst thou unriddle it, o vala, into auguries of success?" "harold," answered hilda, "thou didst hear at the close of thy dream, the music of the hymns that are chaunted at the crowning of a king,-- and a crowned king shalt thou be; yet fearful foes shall assail thee-- foreshown in the shapes of a lion and raven, that came in menace over the bloodred sea. the two stars in the heaven betoken that the day of thy birth was also the birthday of a foe, whose star is fatal to thine; and they warn thee against a battle-field, fought on the day when those stars shall meet. farther than this the mystery of thy dream escapes from my lore;--wouldst thou learn thyself, from the phantom that sent the dream;--stand by my side at the grave of the saxon hero, and i will summon the scin-laeca to counsel the living. for what to the vala the dead may deny, the soul of the brave on the brave may bestow!" harold listened with a serious and musing attention which his pride or his reason had never before accorded to the warnings of hilda. but his sense was not yet fascinated by the voice of the charmer, and he answered with his wonted smile, so sweet yet so haughty: "a hand outstretched to a crown should be armed for the foe; and the eye that would guard the living should not be dimmed by the vapours that encircle the dead." chapter v. but from that date changes, slight, yet noticeable and important, were at work both in the conduct and character of the great earl. hitherto he had advanced on his career without calculation; and nature, not policy, had achieved his power. but henceforth he began thoughtfully to cement the foundations of his house, to extend the area, to strengthen the props. policy now mingled with the justice that had made him esteemed, and the generosity that had won him love. before, though by temper conciliatory, yet, through honesty, indifferent to the enmities he provoked, in his adherence to what his conscience approved, he now laid himself out to propitiate all ancient feuds, soothe all jealousies, and convert foes into friends. he opened constant and friendly communication with his uncle sweyn, king of denmark; he availed himself sedulously of all the influence over the anglo-danes which his mother's birth made so facile. he strove also, and wisely, to conciliate the animosities which the church had cherished against godwin's house: he concealed his disdain of the monks and monkridden: he showed himself the church's patron and friend; he endowed largely the convents, and especially one at waltham, which had fallen into decay, though favourably known for the piety of its brotherhood. but if in this he played a part not natural to his opinions, harold could not, even in simulation, administer to evil. the monasteries he favoured were those distinguished for purity of life, for benevolence to the poor, for bold denunciation of the excesses of the great. he had not, like the norman, the grand design of creating in the priesthood a college of learning, a school of arts; such notions were unfamiliar in homely, unlettered england. and harold, though for his time and his land no mean scholar, would have recoiled from favouring a learning always made subservient to rome; always at once haughty and scheming, and aspiring to complete domination over both the souls of men and the thrones of kings. but his aim was, out of the elements he found in the natural kindliness existing between saxon priest and saxon flock, to rear a modest, virtuous, homely clergy, not above tender sympathy with an ignorant population. he selected as examples for his monastery at waltham, two low-born humble brothers, osgood and ailred; the one known for the courage with which he had gone through the land, preaching to abbot and thegn the emancipation of the theowes, as the most meritorious act the safety of the soul could impose; the other, who, originally a clerk, had, according to the common custom of the saxon clergy, contracted the bonds of marriage, and with some eloquence had vindicated that custom against the canons of rome, and refused the offer of large endowments and thegn's rank to put away his wife. but on the death of that spouse he had adopted the cowl, and while still persisting in the lawfulness of marriage to the unmonastic clerks, had become famous for denouncing the open concubinage which desecrated the holy office, and violated the solemn vows, of many a proud prelate and abbot. to these two men (both of whom refused the abbacy of waltham) harold committed the charge of selecting the new brotherhood established there. and the monks of waltham were honoured as saints throughout the neighbouring district, and cited as examples to all the church. but though in themselves the new politic arts of harold seemed blameless enough, arts they were, and as such they corrupted the genuine simplicity of his earlier nature. he had conceived for the first time an ambition apart from that of service to his country. it was no longer only to serve the land, it was to serve it as its ruler, that animated his heart and coloured his thoughts. expediencies began to dim to his conscience the healthful loveliness of truth. and now, too, gradually, that empire which hilda had gained over his brother sweyn began to sway this man, heretofore so strong in his sturdy sense. the future became to him a dazzling mystery, into which his conjectures plunged themselves more and more. he had not yet stood in the runic circle and invoked the dead; but the spells were around his heart, and in his own soul had grown up the familiar demon. still edith reigned alone, if not in his thoughts at least in his affections; and perhaps it was the hope of conquering all obstacles to his marriage that mainly induced him to propitiate the church, through whose agency the object he sought must be attained; and still that hope gave the brightest lustre to the distant crown. but he who admits ambition to the companionship of love, admits a giant that outstrides the gentler footsteps of its comrade. harold's brow lost its benign calm. he became thoughtful and abstracted. he consulted edith less, hilda more. edith seemed to him now not wise enough to counsel. the smile of his fylgia, like the light of the star upon a stream, lit the surface, but could not pierce to the deep. meanwhile, however, the policy of harold throve and prospered. he had already arrived at that height, that the least effort to make power popular redoubled its extent. gradually all voices swelled the chorus in his praise; gradually men became familiar to the question, "if edward dies before edgar, the grandson of ironsides, is of age to succeed, where can we find a king like harold?" in the midst of this quiet but deepening sunshine of his fate, there burst a storm, which seemed destined either to darken his day or to disperse every cloud from the horizon. algar, the only possible rival to his power--the only opponent no arts could soften--algar, whose hereditary name endeared him to the saxon laity, whose father's most powerful legacy was the love of the saxon church, whose martial and turbulent spirit had only the more elevated him in the esteem of the warlike danes in east anglia (the earldom in which he had succeeded harold), by his father's death, lord of the great principality of mercia--availed himself of that new power to break out again into rebellion. again he was outlawed, again he leagued with the fiery gryffyth. all wales was in revolt; the marches were invaded and laid waste. rolf, the feeble earl of hereford, died at this critical juncture, and the normans and hirelings under him mutinied against other leaders; a fleet of vikings from norway ravaged the western coasts, and sailing up the menai, joined the ships of gryffyth, and the whole empire seemed menaced with dissolution, when edward issued his herr-bane, and harold at the head of the royal armies marched on the foe. dread and dangerous were those defiles of wales; amidst them had been foiled or slaughtered all the warriors under rolf the norman; no saxon armies had won laurels in the cymrian's own mountain home within the memory of man; nor had any saxon ships borne the palm from the terrible vikings of norway. fail, harold, and farewell the crown!-- succeed, and thou hast on thy side the ultimam rationem regum (the last argument of kings), the heart of the army over which thou art chief. chapter vi. it was one day in the height of summer that two horsemen rode slowly, and conversing with each other in friendly wise, notwithstanding an evident difference of rank and of nation, through the lovely country which formed the marches of wales. the younger of these men was unmistakably a norman; his cap only partially covered the head, which was shaven from the crown to the nape of the neck [ ], while in front the hair, closely cropped, curled short and thick round a haughty but intelligent brow. his dress fitted close to his shape, and was worn without mantle; his leggings were curiously crossed in the fashion of a tartan, and on his heels were spurs of gold. he was wholly unarmed; but behind him and his companion, at a little distance, his war-horse, completely caparisoned, was led by a single squire, mounted on a good norman steed; while six saxon theowes, themselves on foot, conducted three sumpter-mules, somewhat heavily laden, not only with the armour of the norman knight, but panniers containing rich robes, wines, and provender. at a few paces farther behind, marched a troop, light-armed, in tough hides, curiously tanned, with axes swung over their shoulders, and bows in their hands. the companion of the knight was as evidently a saxon, as the knight was unequivocally a norman. his square short features, contrasting the oval visage and aquiline profile of his close-shaven comrade, were half concealed beneath a bushy beard and immense moustache. his tunic, also, was of hide, and, tightened at the waist, fell loose to his knee; while a kind of cloak, fastened to the right shoulder by a large round button or brooch, flowed behind and in front, but left both arms free. his cap differed in shape from the norman's, being round and full at the sides, somewhat in shape like a turban. his bare, brawny throat was curiously punctured with sundry devices, and a verse from the psalms. his countenance, though without the high and haughty brow, and the acute, observant eye of his comrade, had a pride and intelligence of its own--a pride somewhat sullen, and an intelligence somewhat slow. "my good friend, sexwolf," quoth the norman in very tolerable saxon, "i pray you not so to misesteem us. after all, we normans are of your own race: our fathers spoke the same language as yours." "that may be," said the saxon, bluntly, "and so did the danes, with little difference, when they burned our houses and cut our throats." "old tales, those," replied the knight, "and i thank thee for the comparison; for the danes, thou seest, are now settled amongst ye, peaceful subjects and quiet men, and in a few generations it will be hard to guess who comes from saxon, who from dane." "we waste time, talking such matters," returned the saxon, feeling himself instinctively no match in argument for his lettered companion; and seeing, with his native strong sense; that some ulterior object, though he guessed not what, lay hid in the conciliatory language of his companion; "nor do i believe, master mallet or gravel--forgive me if i miss of the right forms to address you--that norman will ever love saxon, or saxon norman; so let us cut our words short. there stands the convent, at which you would like to rest and refresh yourself." the saxon pointed to a low, clumsy building of timber, forlorn and decayed, close by a rank marsh, over which swarmed gnats, and all foul animalcules. mallet de graville, for it was he, shrugged his shoulders, and said, with an air of pity and contempt: "i would, friend sexwolf, that thou couldst but see the houses we build to god and his saints in our normandy; fabrics of stately stone, on the fairest sites. our countess matilda hath a notable taste for the masonry; and our workmen are the brethren of lombardy, who know all the mysteries thereof." "i pray thee, dan-norman," cried the saxon, "not to put such ideas into the soft head of king edward. we pay enow for the church, though built but of timber; saints help us indeed, if it were builded of stone!" the norman crossed himself, as if he had heard some signal impiety, and then said: "thou lovest not mother church, worthy sexwolf?" "i was brought up," replied the sturdy saxon, "to work and sweat hard, and i love not the lazy who devour my substance, and say, 'the saints gave it them.' knowest thou not, master mallet, that one-third of all the lands of england is in the hands of the priests?" "hem!" said the acute norman, who, with all his devotion, could stoop to wring worldly advantage from each admission of his comrade; "then in this merrie england of thine thou hast still thy grievances and cause of complaint?" "yea indeed, and i trow it," quoth the saxon, even in that day a grumbler; "but i take it, the main difference between thee and me is, that i can say what mislikes me out like a man; and it would fare ill with thy limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land of thy heretogh." "now, notre dame stop thy prating," said the norman, in high disdain, while his brow frowned and his eye sparkled. "strong judge and great captain as is william the norman, his barons and knights hold their heads high in his presence, and not a grievance weighs on the heart that we give not out with the lip." "so have i heard," said the saxon, chuckling; "i have heard, indeed, that ye thegns, or great men, are free enow, and plainspoken. but what of the commons--the sixhaendmen and the ceorls, master norman? dare they speak as we speak of king and of law, of thegn and of captain?" the norman wisely curbed the scornful "no, indeed," that rushed to his lips, and said, all sweet and debonnair: "each land hath its customs, dear sexwolf: and if the norman were king of england, he would take the laws as he finds them, and the ceorls would be as safe with william as edward." "the norman king of england!" cried the saxon, reddening to the tips of his great ears, "what dost thou babble of, stranger? the norman!-- how could that ever be?" "nay, i did but suggest--but suppose such a case," replied the knight, still smothering his wrath. "and why thinkest thou the conceit so outrageous? thy king is childless; william is his next of kin, and dear to him as a brother; and if edward did leave him the throne--" "the throne is for no man to leave," almost roared the saxon. "thinkest thou the people of england are like cattle and sheep, and chattels and theowes, to be left by will, as man fancies? the king's wish has its weight, no doubt, but the witan hath its yea or its nay, and the witan and commons are seldom at issue thereon. thy duke king of england! marry! ha! ha!" "brute!" muttered the knight to himself; then adding aloud, with his old tone of irony (now much habitually subdued by years and discretion), "why takest thou so the part of the ceorls? thou a captain, and well-nigh a thegn!" "i was born a ceorl, and my father before me," returned sexwolf, "and i feel with my class; though my grandson may rank with the thegns, and, for aught i know, with the earls." the sire de graville involuntarily drew off from the saxon's side, as if made suddenly aware that he had grossly demeaned himself in such unwitting familiarity with a ceorl, and a ceorl's son; and he said, with a much more careless accent and lofty port than before: "good man, thou wert a ceorl, and now thou leadest earl harold's men to the war! how is this? i do not quite comprehend it." "how shouldst thou, poor norman?" replied the saxon, compassionately. "the tale is soon told. know that when harold our earl was banished, and his lands taken, we his ceorls helped with his sixhaendman, clapa, to purchase his land, nigh by london, and the house wherein thou didst find me, of a stranger, thy countryman, to whom they were lawlessly given. and we tilled the land, we tended the herds, and we kept the house till the earl came back." "ye had moneys then, moneys of your own, ye ceorls!" said the norman, avariciously. "how else could we buy our freedom? every ceorl hath some hours to himself to employ to his profit, and can lay by for his own ends. these savings we gave up for our earl, and when the earl came back, he gave the sixhaendman hides of land enow to make him a thegn; and he gave the ceorls who hade holpen clapa, their freedom and broad shares of his boc-land, and most of them now hold their own ploughs and feed their own herds. but i loved the earl (having no wife) better than swine and glebe, and i prayed him to let me serve him in arms. and so i have risen, as with us ceorls can rise." "i am answered," said mallet de graville, thoughtfully, and still somewhat perplexed. "but these theowes, (they are slaves,) never rise. it cannot matter to them whether shaven norman or bearded saxon sit on the throne?" "thou art right there," answered the saxon; "it matters as little to them as it doth to thy thieves and felons, for many of them are felons and thieves, or the children of such; and most of those who are not, it is said, are not saxons, but the barbarous folks whom the saxons subdued. no, wretched things, and scarce men, they care nought for the land. howbeit, even they are not without hope, for the church takes their part; and that, at least, i for one think church-worthy," added the saxon with a softened eye. "and every abbot is bound to set free three theowes on his lands, and few who own theowes die without freeing some by their will; so that the sons of theowes may be thegns, and thegns some of them are at this day." "marvels!" cried the norman. "but surely they bear a stain and stigma, and their fellow-thegns flout them?" "not a whit--why so? land is land, money money. little, i trow, care we what a man's father may have been, if the man himself hath his ten hides or more of good boc-land." "ye value land and the moneys," said the norman, "so do we, but we value more name and birth." "ye are still in your leading-strings, norman," replied the saxon, waxing good-humoured in his contempt. "we have an old saying and a wise one, 'all come from adam except tib the ploughman: but when tib grows rich all call him "dear brother."'" "with such pestilent notions," quoth the sire de graville, no longer keeping temper, "i do not wonder that our fathers of norway and daneland beat ye so easily. the love for things ancient--creed, lineage, and name, is better steel against the stranger than your smiths ever welded." therewith, and not waiting for sexwolf's reply, he clapped spurs to his palfrey, and soon entered the courtyard of the convent. a monk of the order of st. benedict, then most in favour [ ], ushered the noble visitor into the cell of the abbot; who, after gazing at him a moment in wonder and delight, clasped him to his breast and kissed him heartily on brow and cheek. "ah, guillaume," he exclaimed in the norman tongue, this is indeed a grace for which to sing jubilate. thou canst not guess how welcome is the face of a countryman in this horrible land of ill-cooking and exile." "talking of grace, my dear father, and food," said de graville, loosening the cincture of the tight vest which gave him the shape of a wasp--for even at that early period, small waists were in vogue with the warlike fops of the french continent--"talking of grace, the sooner thou say'st it over some friendly refection, the more will the latin sound unctuous and musical. i have journeyed since daybreak, and am now hungered and faint." "alack, alack!" cried the abbot, plaintively, "thou knowest little, my son, what hardships we endure in these parts, how larded our larders, and how nefarious our fare. the flesh of swine salted--" "the flesh of beelzebub," cried mallet de graville, aghast. "but comfort thee, i have stores on my sumpter-mules--poulardes and fishes, and other not despicable comestibles, and a few flasks of wine, not pressed, laud the saints! from the vines of this country: wherefore, wilt thou see to it, and instruct thy cooks how to season the cheer?" "no cooks have i to trust to," replied the abbot; "of cooking know they here as much as of latin; nathless, i will go and do my best with the stew-pans. meanwhile, thou wilt at least have rest and the bath. for the saxons, even in their convents, are a clean race, and learned the bath from the dane." "that i have noted," said the knight, "for even at the smallest house at which i lodged in my way from london, the host hath courteously offered me the bath, and the hostess linen curious and fragrant; and to say truth, the poor people are hospitable and kind, despite their uncouth hate of the foreigner; nor is their meat to be despised, plentiful and succulent; but pardex, as thou sayest, little helped by the art of dressing. wherefore, my father, i will while the time till the poulardes be roasted, and the fish broiled or stewed, by the ablutions thou profferest me. i shall tarry with thee some hours, for i have much to learn." the abbot then led the sire de graville by the hand to the cell of honour and guestship, and having seen that the bath prepared was of warmth sufficient, for both norman and saxon (hardy men as they seem to us from afar) so shuddered at the touch of cold water, that a bath of natural temperature (as well as a hard bed) was sometimes imposed as a penance,--the good father went his way, to examine the sumpter- mules, and admonish the much suffering and bewildered lay-brother who officiated as cook,--and who, speaking neither norman nor latin, scarce made out one word in ten of his superior's elaborate exhortations. mallet's squire, with a change of raiment, and goodly coffers of soaps, unguents, and odours, took his way to the knight, for a norman of birth was accustomed to much personal attendance, and had all respect for the body; and it was nearly an hour before, in long gown of fur, reshaven, dainty, and decked, the sire de graville bowed, and sighed, and prayed before the refection set out in the abbot's cell. the two normans, despite the sharp appetite of the layman, ate with great gravity and decorum, drawing forth the morsels served to them on spits with silent examination; seldom more than tasting, with looks of patient dissatisfaction, each of the comestibles; sipping rather than drinking, nibbling rather than devouring, washing their fingers in rose water with nice care at the close, and waving them afterwards gracefully in the air, to allow the moisture somewhat to exhale before they wiped off the lingering dews with their napkins. then they exchanged looks and sighed in concert, as if recalling the polished manners of normandy, still retained in that desolate exile. and their temperate meal thus concluded, dishes, wines, and attendants vanished, and their talk commenced. "how camest thou in england?" asked the abbot abruptly. "sauf your reverence," answered de graville, "not wholly for reason different from those that bring thee hither. when, after the death of that truculent and orgulous godwin, king edward entreated harold to let him have back some of his dear norman favourites, thou, then little pleased with the plain fare and sharp discipline of the convent of bec, didst pray bishop william of london to accompany such train as harold, moved by his poor king's supplication, was pleased to permit. the bishop consented, and thou wert enabled to change monk's cowl for abbot's mitre. in a word, ambition brought thee to england, and ambition brings me hither." "hem! and how? mayst thou thrive better than i in this swine-sty!" "you remember," renewed de graville, "that lanfranc, the lombard, was pleased to take interest in my fortunes, then not the most flourishing, and after his return from rome, with the pope's dispensation for count william's marriage with his cousin, he became william's most trusted adviser. both william and lanfranc were desirous to set an example of learning to our latinless nobles, and therefore my scholarship found grace in their eyes. in brief since then i have prospered and thriven. i have fair lands by the seine, free from clutch of merchant and jew. i have founded a convent, and slain some hundreds of breton marauders. need i say that i am in high favour? now it so chanced that a cousin of mine, hugo de magnaville, a brave lance and franc-rider, chanced to murder his brother in a little domestic affray, and, being of conscience tender and nice, the deed preyed on him, and he gave his lands to odo of bayeux, and set off to jerusalem. there, having prayed at the tomb," (the knight crossed himself,) "he felt at once miraculously cheered and relieved; but, journeying back, mishaps befell him. he was made slave by some infidel, to one of whose wives he sought to be gallant, par amours, and only escaped at last by setting fire to paynim and prison. now, by the aid of the virgin, he has got back to rouen, and holds his own land again in fief from proud odo, as a knight of the bishop's. it so happened that, passing homeward through lycia, before these misfortunes befell him, he made friends with a fellow-pilgrim who had just returned, like himself, from the sepulchre, but not lightened, like him, of the load of his crime. this poor palmer lay broken- hearted and dying in the hut of an eremite, where my cousin took shelter; and, learning that hugo was on his way to normandy, he made himself known as sweyn, the once fair and proud earl of england, eldest son to old godwin, and father to haco, whom our count still holds as a hostage. he besought hugo to intercede with the count for haco's release and return, if king edward assented thereto; and charged my cousin, moreover, with a letter to harold, his brother, which hugo undertook to send over. by good luck, it so chanced that, through all his sore trials, cousin hugo kept safe round his neck a leaden effigy of the virgin. the infidels disdained to rob him of lead, little dreaming the worth which the sanctity gave to the metal. to the back of the image hugo fastened the letter, and so, though somewhat tattered and damaged, he had it still with him on arriving in rouen." "knowing, then, my grace with the count, and not, despite absolution and pilgrimage, much wishing to trust himself in the presence of william, who thinks gravely of fratricide, he prayed me to deliver the message, and ask leave to send to england the letter." "it is a long tale," quoth the abbot. "patience, my father! i am nearly at the end. nothing more in season could chance for my fortunes. know that william has been long moody and anxious as to matters in england. the secret accounts he receives from the bishop of london make him see that edward's heart is much alienated from him, especially since the count has had daughters and sons; for, as thou knowest, william and edward both took vows of chastity in youth [ ], and william got absolved from his, while edward hath kept firm to the plight. not long ere my cousin came back, william had heard that edward had acknowledged his kinsman as natural heir to his throne. grieved and troubled at this, william had said in my hearing, 'would that amidst yon statues of steel, there were some cool head and wise tongue i could trust with my interests in england! and would that i could devise fitting plea and excuse for an envoy to harold the earl!' much had i mused over these words, and a light-hearted man was mallet de graville when, with sweyn's letter in hand, he went to lanfranc the abbot and said, 'patron and father! thou knowest that i, almost alone of the norman knights, have studied the saxon language. and if the duke wants messenger and plea, here stands the messenger, and in his hand is the plea. then i told my tale. lanfranc went at once to duke william. by this time, news of the atheling's death had arrived, and things looked more bright to my liege. duke william was pleased to summon me straightway, and give me his instructions. so over the sea i came alone, save a single squire, reached london, learned the king and his court were at winchester (but with them i had little to do), and that harold the earl was at the head of his forces in wales against gryffyth the lion king. the earl had sent in haste for a picked and chosen band of his own retainers, on his demesnes near the city. these i joined, and learning thy name at the monastery at gloucester, i stopped here to tell thee my news and hear thine." "dear brother," said the abbot, looking enviously on the knight, "would that, like thee, instead of entering the church, i had taken up arms! alike once was our lot, well born and penniless. ah me!--thou art now as the swan on the river, and i as the shell on the rock." "but," quoth the knight, "though the canons, it is true, forbid monks to knock people on the head, except in self-preservation, thou knowest well that, even in normandy, (which, i take it, is the sacred college of all priestly lore, on this side the alps,) those canons are deemed too rigorous for practice: and, at all events, it is not forbidden thee to look on the pastime with sword or mace by thy side in case of need. wherefore, remembering thee in times past, i little counted on finding thee--like a slug in thy cell! no; but with mail on thy back, the canons clean forgotten, and helping stout harold to sliver and brain these turbulent welchmen." "ah me! ah me! no such good fortune!" sighed the tall abbot. "little, despite thy former sojourn in london, and thy lore of their tongue, knowest thou of these unmannerly saxons. rarely indeed do abbot and prelate ride to the battle [ ]; and were it not for a huge danish monk, who took refuge here to escape mutilation for robbery, and who mistakes the virgin for a valkyr, and st. peter for thor,-- were it not, i say, that we now and then have a bout at sword-play together, my arm would be quite out of practice." "cheer thee, old friend," said the knight, pityingly, "better times may come yet. meanwhile, now to affairs. for all i hear strengthens all william has heard, that harold the earl is the first man in england. is it not so?" "truly, and without dispute." "is he married, or celibate? for that is a question which even his own men seem to answer equivocally." "why, all the wandering minstrels have songs, i am told by those who comprehend this poor barbarous tongue, of the beauty of editha pulchra, to whom it is said the earl is betrothed, or it may be worse. but he is certainly not married, for the dame is akin to him within the degrees of the church." "hem, not married! that is well; and this algar, or elgar, he is not now with the welch, i hear." "no; sore ill at chester with wounds and much chafing, for he hath sense to see that his cause is lost. the norwegian fleet have been scattered over the seas by the earl's ships, like birds in a storm. the rebel saxons who joined gryffyth under algar have been so beaten, that those who survive have deserted their chief, and gryffyth himself is penned up in his last defiles, and cannot much longer resist the stout foe, who, by valorous st. michael, is truly a great captain. as soon as gryffyth is subdued, algar will be crushed in his retreat, like a bloated spider in his web; and then england will have rest, unless our liege, as thou hintest, set her to work again." the norman knight mused a few moments, before he said: "i understand, then, that there is no man in the land who is peer to harold:--not, i suppose, tostig his brother?" "not tostig, surely, whom nought but harold's repute keeps a day in his earldom. but of late--for he is brave and skilful in war--he hath done much to command the respect, though he cannot win back the love, of his fierce northumbrians, for he hath holpen the earl gallantly in this invasion of wales, both by sea and by land. but tostig shines only from his brother's light; and if gurth were more ambitious, gurth alone could be harold's rival." the norman, much satisfied with the information thus gleaned from the abbot, who, despite his ignorance of the saxon tongue, was, like all his countrymen, acute and curious, now rose to depart. the abbot, detaining him a few moments, and looking at him wistfully, said, in a low voice: "what thinkest thou are count william's chances of england?" "good, if he have recourse to stratagem; sure, if he can win harold." "yet, take my word, the english love not the normans, and will fight stiffly." "that i believe. but if fighting must be, i see that it will be the fight of a single battle, for there is neither fortress nor mountain to admit of long warfare. and look you, my friend, everything here is worn out! the royal line is extinct with edward, save in a child, whom i hear no man name as a successor; the old nobility are gone, there is no reverence for old names; the church is as decrepit in the spirit as thy lath monastery is decayed in its timbers; the martial spirit of the saxon is half rotted away in the subjugation to a clergy, not brave and learned, but timid and ignorant; the desire for money eats up all manhood; the people have been accustomed to foreign monarchs under the danes; and william, once victor, would have but to promise to retain the old laws and liberties, to establish himself as firmly as canute. the anglo-danes might trouble him somewhat, but rebellion would become a weapon in the hands of a schemer like william. he would bristle all the land with castles and forts, and hold it as a camp. my poor friend, we shall live yet to exchange gratulations,--thou prelate of some fair english see, and i baron of broad english lands." "i think thou art right," said the tall abbot, cheerily, and marry, when the day comes, i will at least fight for the duke. yea--thou art right," he continued, looking round the dilapidated walls of the cell; "all here is worn out, and naught can restore the realm, save the norman william, or----" "or who?" "or the saxon harold. but thou goest to see him--judge for thyself." "i will do so, and heedfully," said the sire de graville; and embracing his friend he renewed his journey. chapter vii. messire mallet de graville possessed in perfection that cunning astuteness which characterised the normans, as it did all the old pirate races of the baltic; and if, o reader, thou, peradveuture, shouldst ever in this remote day have dealings with the tall men of ebor or yorkshire, there wilt thou yet find the old dane-father's wit --it may be to thy cost--more especially if treating for those animals which the ancestors ate, and which the sons, without eating, still manage to fatten on. but though the crafty knight did his best, during his progress from london into wales, to extract from sexwolf all such particulars respecting harold and his brethren as he had reasons for wishing to learn, he found the stubborn sagacity or caution of the saxon more than a match for him. sexwolf had a dog's instinct in all that related to his master; and he felt, though he scarce knew why, that the norman cloaked some design upon harold in all the cross- questionings so carelessly ventured. and his stiff silence, or bluff replies, when harold was mentioned, contrasted much the unreserve of his talk when it turned upon the general topics of the day, or the peculiarities of saxon manners. by degrees, therefore, the knight, chafed and foiled, drew into himself; and seeing no farther use could be made of the saxon, suffered his own national scorn of villein companionship to replace his artificial urbanity. he therefore rode alone, and a little in advance of the rest, noticing with a soldier's eye the characteristics of the country, and marvelling, while he rejoiced, at the insignificance of the defences which, even on the marches, guarded the english country from the cymrian ravager [ ]. in musings of no very auspicious and friendly nature towards the land he thus visited, the norman, on the second day from that in which he had conversed with the abbot, found himself amongst the savage defiles of north wales. pausing there in a narrow pass overhung with wild and desolate rocks, the knight deliberately summoned his squires, clad himself in his ring mail, and mounted his great destrier. "thou dost wrong, norman," said sexwolf, "thou fatiguest thyself in vain--heavy arms here are needless. i have fought in this country before: and as for thy steed, thou wilt soon have to forsake it, and march on foot." "know, friend," retorted the knight, "that i come not here to learn the horn-book of war; and for the rest, know also, that a noble of normandy parts with his life ere he forsakes his good steed." "ye outlanders and frenchmen," said sexwolf, showing the whole of his teeth through his forest of beard, "love boast and big talk; and, on my troth, thou mayest have thy belly full of them yet; for we are still in the track of harold, and harold never leaves behind him a foe. thou art as safe here, as if singing psalms in a convent." "for thy jests, let them pass, courteous sir," said the norman; "but i pray thee only not to call me frenchman [ ]. i impute it to thy ignorance in things comely and martial, and not to thy design to insult me. though my own mother was french, learn that a norman despises a frank only less than he doth a jew." "crave your grace," said the saxon, "but i thought all ye outlanders were the same, rib and rib, sibbe and sibbe." "thou wilt know better, one of these days. march on, master sexwolf." the pass gradually opened on a wide patch of rugged and herbless waste; and sexwolf, riding up to the knight, directed his attention to a stone, on which was inscribed the words, "hic victor fuit haroldus,"--here harold conquered. "in sight of a stone like that, no walloon dare come," said the saxon. "a simple and classical trophy," remarked the norman, complacently, "and saith much. i am glad to see thy lord knows the latin." "i say not that he knows latin," replied the prudent saxon; fearing that that could be no wholesome information on his lord's part, which was of a kind to give gladness to the norman--"ride on while the road lets ye--in god's name." on the confines of caernarvonshire, the troop halted at a small village, round which had been newly dug a deep military-trench. bristling with palisades, and within its confines might be seen,--some reclined on the grass, some at dice, some drinking,--many men, whose garbs of tanned hide, as well as a pennon waving from a little mound in the midst, bearing the tiger heads of earl harold's insignia, showed them to be saxons. "here we shall learn," said sexwolf, "what the earl is about--and here, at present, ends my journey." "are these the earl's headquarters, then?--no castle, even of wood--no wall, nought but ditch and palisades?" asked mallet de graville in a tone between surprise and contempt. "norman," said sexwolf, "the castle is there, though you see it not, and so are the walls. the castle is harold's name, which no walloon will dare to confront; and the walls are the heaps of the slain which lie in every valley around." so saying, he wound his horn, which was speedily answered, and led the way over a plank which admitted across the trench. "not even a drawbridge!" groaned the knight. sexwolf exchanged a few words with one who seemed the head of the small garrison, and then regaining the norman, said: "the earl and his men have advanced into the mountainous regions of snowdon; and there, it is said, the blood-lusting gryffyth is at length driven to bay. harold hath left orders that, after as brief a refreshment as may be, i and my men, taking the guide he hath left for us, join him on foot. there may now be danger: for though gryffyth himself may be pinned to his heights, he may have met some friends in these parts to start up from crag and combe. the way on horse is impassable: wherefore, master norman, as our quarrel is not thine nor thine our lord, i commend thee to halt here in peace and in safety, with the sick and the prisoners." "it is a merry companionship, doubtless," said the norman; "but one travels to learn, and i would fain see somewhat of thine uncivil skirmishings with these men of the mountains; wherefore, as i fear my poor mules are light of the provender, give me to eat and to drink. and then shalt thou see, should we come in sight of the enemy, if a norman's big words are the sauce of small deeds." "well spoken, and better than i reckoned on," said sexwolf, heartily. while de graville, alighting, sauntered about the village, the rest of the troop exchanged greetings with their countrymen. it was, even to the warrior's eye, a mournful scene. here and there, heaps of ashes and ruin-houses riddled and burned--the small, humble church, untouched indeed by war, but looking desolate and forlorn--with sheep grazing on large recent mounds thrown over the brave dead, who slept in the ancestral spot they had defended. the air was fragrant with spicy smells of the gale or bog myrtle; and the village lay sequestered in a scene wild indeed and savage, but prodigal of a stern beauty to which the norman, poet by race, and scholar by culture, was not insensible. seating himself on a rude stone, apart from all the warlike and murmuring groups, he looked forth on the dim and vast mountain peaks, and the rivulet that rushed below, intersecting the village, and lost amidst copses of mountain ash. from these more refined contemplations he was roused by sexwolf, who, with greater courtesy than was habitual to him, accompanied the theowes who brought the knight a repast, consisting of cheese, and small pieces of seethed kid, with a large horn of very indifferent mead. "the earl puts all his men on welch diet," said the captain, apologetically. "for indeed, in this lengthy warfare, nought else is to be had!" the knight curiously inspected the cheese, and bent earnestly over the kid. "it sufficeth, good sexwolf," said he, suppressing a natural sigh. "but instead of this honey-drink, which is more fit for bees than for men, get me a draught of fresh water: water is your only safe drink before fighting." "thou hast never drank ale, then!" said the saxon; "but thy foreign tastes shall be heeded, strange man." a little after noon, the horns were sounded, and the troop prepared to depart. but the norman observed that they had left behind all their horses: and his squire, approaching, informed him that sexwolf had positively forbidden the knight's steed to be brought forth. "was it ever heard before," cried sire mallet de graville, "that a norman knight was expected to walk, and to walk against a foe too! call hither the villein,--that is, the captain." but sexwolf himself here appeared, and to him de graville addressed his indignant remonstrance. the saxon stood firm, and to each argument replied simply, "it is the earl's orders;" and finally wound up with a bluff--"go or let alone: stay here with thy horse, or march with us on thy feet." "my horse is a gentleman," answered the knight, "and, as such, would be my more fitting companion. but as it is, i yield to compulsion--i bid thee solemnly observe, by compulsion; so that it may never be said of william mallet de graville, that he walked, bon gre, to battle." with that, he loosened his sword in the sheath, and, still retaining his ring mail, fitting close as a shirt, strode on with the rest. a welch guide, subject to one of the underkings (who was in allegiance to england, and animated, as many of those petty chiefs were, with a vindictive jealousy against the rival tribe of gryffyth, far more intense than his dislike of the saxon), led the way. the road wound for some time along the course of the river conway; penmaen-mawr loomed before them. not a human being came in sight, not a goat was seen on the distant ridges, not a sheep on the pastures. the solitude in the glare of the broad august sun was oppressive. some houses they passed--if buildings of rough stones, containing but a single room, can be called houses--but they were deserted. desolation preceded their way, for they were on the track of harold the victor. at length, they passed the cold conovium, now caer-hen, lying low near the river. there were still (not as we now scarcely discern them, after centuries of havoc,) the mighty ruins of the romans,--vast shattered walls, a tower half demolished, visible remnants of gigantic baths, and, proudly rising near the present ferry of tal-y-cafn, the fortress, almost unmutilated, of castell-y-bryn. on the castle waved the pennon of harold. many large flat-bottomed boats were moored to the river-side, and the whole place bristled with spears and javelins. much comforted, (for,--though he disdained to murmur, and rather than forego his mail, would have died therein a martyr,--mallet de graville was mightily wearied by the weight of his steel,) and hoping now to see harold himself, the knight sprang forward with a spasmodic effort at liveliness, and found himself in the midst of a group, among whom he recognised at a glance his old acquaintance, godrith. doffing his helm with its long nose-piece, he caught the thegn's hand, and exclaimed: "well met, ventre de guillaume! well met, o godree the debonnair! thou rememberest mallet de graville, and in this unseemly guise, on foot, and with villeins, sweating under the eyes of plebeian phoebus, thou beholdest that much-suffering man!" "welcome indeed," returned godrith, with some embarrassment; "but how camest thou hither, and whom seekest thou?" "harold, thy count, man--and i trust he is here." "not so, but not far distant--at a place by the mouth of the river called caer gyffin [ ]. thou shalt take boat, and be there ere the sunset." "is a battle at hand? yon churl disappointed and tricked me; he promised me danger, and not a soul have we met." "harold's besom sweeps clean," answered godrith, smiling. "but thou art like, perhaps, to be in at the death. we have driven this welch lion to bay at last. he is ours, or grim famine's. look yonder;" and godrith pointed to the heights of penmaen-mawr. "even at this distance, you may yet descry something grey and dim against the sky." "deemest thou my eye so ill practised in siege, as not to see towers? tall and massive they are, though they seem here as airy as roasts, and as dwarfish as landmarks." "on that hill-top, and in those towers, is gryffyth, the welch king, with the last of his force. he cannot escape us; our ships guard all the coasts of the shore; our troops, as here, surround every pass. spies, night and day, keep watch. the welch moels (or beacon-rocks) are manned by our warders. and, were the welch king to descend, signals would blaze from post to post, and gird him with fire and sword. from land to land, from hill to hill, from hereford to caerleon, from caerleon to milford, from milford to snowdon, through snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants, --through defile and through forest, over rock, through morass, we have pressed on his heels. battle and foray alike have drawn the blood from his heart; and thou wilt have seen the drops yet red on the way, where the stone tells that harold was victor." "a brave man and true king, then, this gryffyth," said the norman, with some admiration; "but," he added in a colder tone, "i confess, for my own part, that though i pity the valiant man beaten, i honour the brave man who wins; and though i have seen but little of this rough land as yet, i can well judge from what i have seen, that no captain, not of patience unwearied, and skill most consummate, could conquer a bold enemy in a country where every rock is a fort." "so i fear," answered godrith, "that thy countryman rolf found; for the welch beat him sadly, and the reason was plain. he insisted on using horses where no horses could climb, and attiring men in full armour to fight against men light and nimble as swallows, that skim the earth, then are lost in clouds. harold, more wise, turned our saxons into welchmen, flying as they flew, climbing where they climbed; it has been as a war of the birds. and now there rests but the eagle, in his last lonely eyrie." "thy battles have improved thy eloquence much, messire godree," said the norman, condescendingly. "nevertheless, i cannot but think a few light horse----" "could scale yon mountain-brow?" said godrith, laughing, and pointing to penmaen-mawr. the norman looked and was silent, though he thought to himself, "that sexwolf was no such dolt after all!" on the ruin of britain (de excidio britanniae) by gildas translation by j.a. giles the works of gildas surnamed "sapiens", or the wise. i. the preface . whatever in this my epistle i may write in my humble but well meaning manner, rather by way of lamentation than for display, let no one suppose that it springs from contempt of others or that i foolishly esteem myself as better than they; for alas! the subject of my complaint is the general destruction of every thing that is good, and the general growth of evil throughout the land;--but that i rejoice to see her revive therefrom: for it is my present purpose to relate the deeds of an indolent and slothful race, rather than the exploits of those who have been valiant in the field*. i have kept silence, i confess, with much mental anguish, compunction of feeling and contrition of heart, whilst i revolved all these things within myself; and, as god the searcher of the reins is witness, for the space of even ten years or more, [my inexperience, as at present also, and my unworthiness preventing me from taking upon myself the character of a censor. but i read how the illustrious lawgiver, for one word's doubting, was not allowed to enter the desired land; that the sons of the high-priest, for placing strange fire upon god's altar, were cut off by a speedy death; that god's people, for breaking the law of god, save two only, were slain by wild beasts, by fire and sword in the deserts of arabia, though god had so loved them that he had made a way for them through the red sea, had fed them with bread from heaven, and water from the rock, and by the lifting up of a hand merely had made their armies invincible; and then, when they had crossed the jordan and entered the unknown land, and the walls of the city had fallen down flat at the sound only of a trumpet, the taking of a cloak and a little gold from the accursed things caused the deaths of many: and again the breach of their treaty with the gibeonites, though that treaty had been obtained by fraud, brought destruction upon many; and i took warning from the sins of the people which called down upon them the reprehensions of the prophets and also of jeremiah, with his fourfold lamentations written in alphabetical order. i saw moreover in my own time, as that prophet also had complained, that the city had sat down lone and widowed, which before was full of people; that the queen of nations and the princess of provinces (i.e. the church), had been made tributary; that the gold was obscured, and the most excellent colour (which is the brightness of god's word) changed; that the sons of sion (i.e. of holy mother church), once famous and clothed in the finest gold, grovelled in dung; and what added intolerably to the weight of grief of that illustrious man, and to mine, though but an abject, whilst he had thus mourned them in their happy and prosperous condition, "her nazarites were fairer than snow, more ruddy than old ivory, more beautiful than the saphire." these and many other passages in the ancient scriptures i regarded as a kind of mirror of human life, and i turned also to the new, wherein i read more clearly what perhaps to me before was dark, for the darkness fled, and truth shed her steady light-i read therein that the lord had said, "i came not but to the lost sheep of the house of israel;" and on the other hand, "but the children of this kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth:" and again, "it is not good to take the children's meat and to give it to dogs:" also, "woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!" i heard how "many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with abraham, isaac, and jacob in the kingdom of heaven:" and on the contrary, "i will then say to them 'depart from me, ye workers of iniquity!'" i read, "blessed are the barren and the teats which have not given suck;" and on the contrary, "those, who were ready, entered with him to the wedding; afterwards came the other virgins also, saying 'lord, lord, open to us:' to whom it was answered, 'i do not know you.'" i heard, forsooth, "whoever shall believe and be baptized, shall be saved, but whoever shall not believe shall be damned." i read in the words of the apostle that the branch of the wild olive was grafted upon the good olive, but should nevertheless be cut off from the communion of the root of its fatness, if it did not hold itself in fear, but entertained lofty thoughts. i knew the mercy of the lord, but i also feared his judgment: i praised his grace, but i feared the rendering to every man according to his works: perceiving the sheep of the same fold to be different, i deservedly commended peter for his entire confession of christ, but called judas most wretched, for his love of covetousness: i thought stephen most glorious on account of the palm of martyrdom, but nicholas wretched for his mark of unclean heresy: i read assuredly, "they had all things common:" but likewise also, as it is written, "why have ye conspired to tempt the spirit of god?" i saw, on the other hand, how much security had grown upon the men of our time, as if there were nothing to cause them fear. these things, therefore, and many more which for brevity's sake we have determined to omit, i revolved again and again in my amazed mind with compunction in my heart, and i thought to myself, "if god's peculiar people, chosen from all the people of the world, the royal seed, and holy nation, to whom he had said, 'my first begotten israel,' its priests, prophets, and kings, throughout so many ages, his servant and apostle, and the members of his primitive church, were not spared when they deviated from the right path, what will he do to the darkness of this our age, in which, besides all the huge and heinous sins, which it has common with all the wicked of the world committed, is found an innate, indelible, and irremediable load of folly and inconstancy?" "what, wretched man (i say to myself) is it given to you, as if you were an illustrious and learned teacher, to oppose the force of so violent a torrent, and keep the charge committed to you against such a series of inveterate crimes which has spread far and wide, without interruption, for so many years? hold thy peace: to do otherwise, is to tell the foot to see, and the hand to speak. britain has rulers, and she has watchmen: why dost thou incline thyself thus uselessly to prate?" she has such, i say, not too many, perhaps, but surely not too few: but, because they are bent down and pressed beneath so heavy a burden, they have not time allowed them to take breath. my senses, therefore, as if feeling a portion of my debt and obligation, preoccupied themselves with such objections, and with others yet more strong. they struggled, as i said, no short time, in fearful strait, whilst i read, "there is a time for speaking, and a time for keeping silence." at length, the creditor's side prevailed and bore off the victory: if (said he) thou art not bold enough to be marked with the comely mark of golden liberty among the prophetic creatures, who enjoy the rank as reasoning beings next to the angels, refuse not the inspiration of the understanding ass, to that day dumb, which would not carry forward the tiara'd magician who was going to curse god's people, but in the narrow pass of the vineyard crushed his loosened foot, and thereby felt the lash; and though he was, with his ungrateful and furious hand, against right justice, beating her innocent sides, she pointed out to him the heavenly messenger holding the naked sword, and standing in his way, though he had not seen him.] * notwithstanding this remark of gildas, the britons must have shown great bravery and resolution in their battles against the saxons, or they would not have resisted their encroachments so long. when gildas was writing, a hundred years had elapsed, and the britons still possessed a large portion of their native country. wherefore in zeal for the house of god and for his holy law, constrained either by the reasonings of my own thoughts, or by the pious entreaties of my brethren, i now discharge the debt so long exacted of me; humble, indeed, in style, but faithful, as i think, and friendly to all christ's youthful soldiers, but severe and insupportable to foolish apostates; the former of whom, if i am not deceived, will receive the same with tears flowing from god's love; but the others with sorrow, such as is extorted from the indignation and pusillanimity of a convicted conscience. . i will, therefore, if god be willing, endeavour to say a few words about the situation of britain, her disobedience and subjection, her rebellion, second subjection and dreadful slavery--of her religion, persecution, holy martyrs, heresies of different kinds--of her tyrants, her two hostile and ravaging nations--of her first devastation, her defence, her second devastation, and second taking vengeance--of her third devastation, of her famine, and the letters to agitius*-of her victory and her crimes--of the sudden rumour of enemies--of her famous pestilence-of her counsels--of her last enemy, far more cruel than the first-of the subversion of her cities, and of the remnant that escaped; and finally, of the peace which, by the will of god, has been granted her in these our times. * or aetius ii. the history . the island of britain, situated on almost the utmost border of the earth, towards the south and west, and poised in the divine balance, as it is said, which supports the whole world, stretches out from the south-west towards the north pole, and is eight hundred miles long and two hundred broad[ ], except where the headlands of sundry promontories stretch farther into the sea. it is surrounded by the ocean, which forms winding bays, and is strongly defended by this ample, and, if i may so call it, impassable barrier, save on the south side, where the narrow sea affords a passage to belgic gaul. it is enriched by the mouths of two noble rivers, the thames and the severn, as it were two arms, by which foreign luxuries were of old imported, and by other streams of less importance. it is famous for eight and twenty cities, and is embellished by certain castles, with walls, towers, well barred gates, and houses with threatening battlements built on high, and provided with all requisite instruments of defence. its plains are spacious, its hills are pleasantly situated, adapted for superior tillage, and its mountains are admirably calculated for the alternate pasturage of cattle, where flowers of various colours, trodden by the feet of man, give it the appearance of a lovely picture. it is decked, like a man's chosen bride, with divers jewels, with lucid fountains and abundant brooks wandering over the snow white sands; with transparent rivers, flowing in gentle murmurs, and offering a sweet pledge of slumber[ ] to those who recline upon their banks, whilst it is irrigated by abundant lakes, which pour forth cool torrents of refreshing water. [ ] the description of britain is given in very nearly the same terms, by orosius, bede, and others, but the numbers denoting the length and breadth and other dimensions, are different in almost every ms. copy. [ ] "soporem" in some mss., "saporem" in others; it is difficult from the turgidity and superabundance of the style to determine which is the best meaning. . this island, stiff--necked and stubborn--minded, from the time of its being first inhabited, ungratefully rebels, sometimes against god, sometimes against her own citizens, and frequently also, against foreign kings and their subjects. for what can there either be, or be committed, more disgraceful or more unrighteous in human affairs, than to refuse to show fear to god or affection to one's own countrymen, and (without detriment to one's faith) to refuse due honour to those of higher dignity, to cast off all regard to reason, human and divine, and, in contempt of heaven and earth, to be guided by one's own sensual inventions? i shall, therefore, omit those ancient errors common to all the nations of the earth, in which, before christ came in the flesh, all mankind were bound; nor shall i enumerate those diabolical idols of my country, which almost surpassed in number those of egypt, and of which we still see some mouldering away within or without the deserted temples, with stiff and deformed features as was customary. nor will i call out upon the mountains, fountains, or hills, or upon the rivers, which now are subservient to the use of men, but once were an abomination and destruction to them, and to which the blind people paid divine honour. i shall also pass over the bygone times of our cruel tyrants, whose notoriety was spread over to far distant countries; so that porphyry, that dog who in the east was always so fierce against the church, in his mad and vain style added this also, that "britain is a land fertile in tyrants."* i will only endeavour to relate the evils which britain suffered in the times of the roman emperors, and also those which she caused to distant states; but so far as lies in my power, i shall not follow the writings and records of my own country, which (if there ever were any of them) have been consumed in the fires of the enemy, or have accompanied my exiled countrymen into distant lands, but be guided by the relations of foreign writers, which, being broken and interrupted in many places are therefore by no means clear. * gildas here confuses the modern idea of a tyrant with that of an usurper. the latter is a sense in which britain was said to be fertile in tyrants, viz. in usurpers of the imperial dignity. . for when the rulers of rome had obtained the empire of the world, subdued all the neighbouring nations and islands towards the east, and strengthened their renown by the first peace which they made with the parthians, who border on india, there was a general cessation from war throughout the whole world; the fierce flame which they kindled could not be extinguished or checked by the western ocean, but passing beyond the sea, imposed submission upon our island without resistance, and entirely reduced to obedience its unwarlike but faithless people, not so much by fire and sword and warlike engines, like other nations, but threats alone, and menaces of judgments frowning on their countenance, whilst terror penetrated to their hearts. . when afterwards they returned to rome, for want of pay, as is said, and had no suspicion of an approaching rebellion, that deceitful lioness (boadicea) put to death the rulers who had been left among them, to unfold more fully and to confirm the enterprises of the romans. when the report of these things reached the senate, and they with a speedy army made haste to take vengeance on the crafty foxes,* as they called them, there was no bold navy on the sea to fight bravely for the country; by land there was no marshalled army, no right wing of battle, nor other preparation for resistance; but their backs were their shields against their vanquishers, and they presented their necks to their swords, whilst chill terror ran through every limb, and they stretched out their hands to be bound, like women; so that it has become a proverb far and wide, that the britons are neither brave in war nor faithful in time of peace. * the britons who fought under boadicea were anything but "crafty foxes." "bold lions" is a much more appropriate appellation; they would also have been victorious if they had half the military advantages of the romans. . the romans, therefore, having slain many of the rebels, and reserved others for slaves, that the land might not be entirely reduced to desolation, left the island, destitute as it was of wine and oil, and returned to italy, leaving behind them taskmasters, to scourge the shoulders of the natives, to reduce their necks to the yoke, and their soil to the vassalage of a roman province; to chastise the crafty race, not with warlike weapons, but with rods, and if necessary to gird upon their sides the naked sword, so that it was no longer thought to be britain, but a roman island; and all their money, whether of copper, gold, or silver, was stamped with caesar's image. . meanwhile these islands, stiff with cold and frost, and in a distant region of the world, remote from the visible sun, received the beams of light, that is, the holy precepts of christ, the true sun, showing to the whole world his splendour, not only from the temporal firmament, but from the height of heaven, which surpasses every thing temporal, at the latter part, as we know, of the reign of tiberius caesar, by whom his religion was propagated without impediment, and death threatened to those who interfered with its professors. . these rays of light were received with lukewarm minds by the inhabitants, but they nevertheless took root among some of them in a greater or less degree, until the nine years' persecution of the tyrant diocletian, when the churches throughout the whole world were overthrown, all the copies of the holy scriptures which could be found burned in the streets, and the chosen pastors of god's flock butchered, together with their innocent sheep, in order that not a vestige, if possible, might remain in some provinces of christ's religion. what disgraceful flights then took place-what slaughter and death inflicted by way of punishment in divers shapes,--what dreadful apostacies from religion; and on the contrary, what glorious crowns of martyrdom then were won,--what raving fury was displayed by the persecutors, and patience on the part of the suffering saints, ecclesiastical history informs us; for the whole church were crowding in a body, to leave behind them the dark things of this world, and to make the best of their way to the happy mansions of heaven, as if to their proper home. . god, therefore, who wishes all men to be saved, and who calls sinners no less than those who think themselves righteous, magnified his mercy towards us, and, as we know, during the above-named persecution, that britain might not totally be enveloped in the dark shades of night, he, of his own free gift, kindled up among us bright luminaries of holy martyrs, whose places of burial and of martyrdom, had they not for our manifold crimes been interfered with and destroyed by the barbarians, would have still kindled in the minds of the beholders no small fire of divine charity. such were st. alban of verulam, aaron and julius, citizens of carlisle, * and the rest, of both sexes, who in different places stood their ground in the christian contest. * or caerleon. . the first of these martyrs, st. alban, for charity's sake saved another confessor who was pursued by his persecutors, and was on the point of being seized, by hiding him in his house, and then by changing clothes with him, imitating in this example of christ, who laid down his life for his sheep, and exposing himself in the other's clothes to be pursued in his stead. so pleasing to god was this conduct, that between his confession and martyrdom, he was honoured with the performance of wonderful miracles in presence of the impious blasphemers who were carrying the roman standards, and like the israelites of old, who trod dry-foot an unfrequented path whilst the ark of the covenant stood some time on the sands in the midst of jordan; so also the martyr, with a thousand others, opened a path across the noble river thames, whose waters stood abrupt like precipices on either side; and seeing this, the first of his executors was stricken with awe, and from a wolf became a lamb; so that he thirsted for martyrdom, and boldly underwent that for which he thirsted. the other holy martyrs were tormented with divers sufferings, and their limbs were racked in such unheard of ways, that they, without delay, erected the trophies of their glorious martyrdom even in the gates of the city of jerusalem. for those who survived, hid themselves in woods and deserts, and secret caves, waiting until god, who is the righteous judge of all, should reward their persecutors with judgment, and themselves with protection of their lives. . in less than ten years, therefore, of the above-named persecution, and when these bloody decrees began to fail in consequence of the death of their authors, all christ's young disciples, after so long and wintry a night, begin to behold the genial light of heaven. they rebuild the churches, which had been levelled to the ground; they found, erect, and finish churches to the holy martyrs, and everywhere show their ensigns as token of their victory; festivals are celebrated and sacraments received with clean hearts and lips, and all the church's sons rejoice as it were in the fostering bosom of a mother. for this holy union remained between christ their head and the members of his church, until the arian treason, fatal as a serpent, and vomiting its poison from beyond the sea, caused deadly dissension between brothers inhabiting the same house, and thus, as if a road were made across the sea, like wild beasts of all descriptions, and darting the poison of every heresy from their jaws, they inflicted dreadful wounds upon their country, which is ever desirous to hear something new, and remains constant long to nothing. . at length also, new races of tyrants sprang up, in terrific numbers, and the island, still bearing its roman name, but casting off her institutes and laws, sent forth among the gauls that bitter scion of her own planting maximus, with a great number of followers, and the ensigns of royalty, which he bore without decency and without lawful right, but in a tyrannical manner, and amid the disturbances of the seditious soldiery. he, by cunning arts rather than by valour, attaching to his rule, by perjury and falsehood, all the neighbouring towns and provinces, against the roman state, extended one of his wings to spain, the other to italy, fixed the seat of his unholy government at treves, and so furiously pushed his rebellion against his lawful emperors that he drove one of them out of rome, and caused the other to terminate his most holy life. trusting to these successful attempts, he not long after lost his accursed head before the walls of aquileia, whereas he had before cut off the crowned heads of almost all the world. . after this, britain is left deprived of all her soldiery and armed bands, of her cruel governors, and of the flower of her youth, who went with maximus, but never again returned; and utterly ignorant as she was of the art of war, groaned in amazement for many years under the cruelty of two foreign nations--the scots from the north-west, and the picts from the north. . the britons, impatient at the assaults of the scots and picts, their hostilities and dreadful oppressions, send ambassadors to rome with letters, entreating in piteous terms the assistance of an armed band to protect them, and offering loyal and ready submission to the authority of rome, if they only would expel their foes. a legion is immediately sent, forgetting their past rebellion, and provided sufficiently with arms. when they had crossed over the sea and landed, they came at once to close conflict with their cruel enemies, and slew great numbers of them. all of them were driven beyond the borders, and the humiliated natives rescued from the bloody slavery which awaited them. by the advice of their protectors, they now built a wall across the island from one sea to the other, which being manned with a proper force, might be a terror to the foes whom it was intended to repel, and a protection to their friends whom it covered. but this wall, being made of turf instead of stone, was of no use to that foolish people, who had no head to guide them. . the roman legion had no sooner returned home in joy and triumph, than their former foes, like hungry and ravening wolves, rushing with greedy jaws upon the fold which is left without a shepherd, and wafted both by the strength of oarsmen and the blowing wind, break through the boundaries, and spread slaughter on every side, and like mowers cutting down the ripe corn, they cut up, tread under foot, and overrun the whole country. . and now again they send suppliant ambassadors, with their garments rent and their heads covered with ashes, imploring assistance from the romans, and like timorous chickens, crowding under the protecting wings of their parents, that their wretched country might not altogether be destroyed, and that the roman name, which now was but an empty sound to fill the ear, might not become a reproach even to distant nations. upon this, the romans, moved with compassion, as far as human nature can be, at the relations of such horrors, send forward, like eagles in their flight, their unexpected bands of cavalry by land and mariners by sea, and planting their terrible swords upon the shoulders of their enemies, they mow them down like leaves which fall at the destined period; and as a mountain-torrent swelled with numerous streams, and bursting its banks with roaring noise, with foaming crest and yeasty wave rising to the stars, by whose eddying currents our eyes are as it were dazzled, does with one of its billows overwhelm every obstacle in its way, so did our illustrious defenders vigorously drive our enemies' band beyond the sea, if any could so escape them; for it was beyond those same seas that they transported, year after year, the plunder which they had gained, no one daring to resist them. . the romans, therefore, left the country, giving notice that they could no longer be harassed by such laborious expeditions, nor suffer the roman standards, with so large and brave an army, to be worn out by sea and land by fighting against these unwarlike, plundering vagabonds; but that the islanders, inuring themselves to warlike weapons, and bravely fighting, should valiantly protect their country, their property, wives and children, and, what is dearer than these, their liberty and lives; that they should not suffer their hands to be tied behind their backs by a nation which, unless they were enervated by idleness and sloth, was not more powerful than themselves, but that they should arm those hands with buckler, sword, and spear, ready for the field of battle; and, because they thought this also of advantage to the people they were about to leave, they, with the help of the miserable natives, built a wall different from the former, by public and private contributions, and of the same structure as walls generally, extending in a straight line from sea to sea, between some cities, which, from fear of their enemies, had there by chance been built. they then give energetic counsel to the timorous natives, and leave them patterns by which to manufacture arms. moreover, on the south coast where their vessels lay, as there was some apprehension lest the barbarians might land, they erected towers at stated intervals, commanding a prospect of the sea; and then left the island never to return. . no sooner were they gone, than the picts and scots, like worms which in the heat of the mid-day come forth from their holes, hastily land again from their canoes, in which they had been carried beyond the cichican* valley, differing one from another in manners, but inspired with the same avidity for blood, and all more eager to shroud their villainous faces in bushy hair than to cover with decent clothing those parts of their body which required it. moreover, having heard of the departure of our friends, and their resolution never to return, they seized with greater boldness than before on all the country towards the extreme north as far as the wall. to oppose them there was placed on the heights a garrison equally slow to fight and ill adapted to run away, a useless and panic-struck company, who slumbered away days and nights on their unprofitable watch. meanwhile the hooked weapons of their enemies were not idle, and our wretched countrymen were dragged from the wall and dashed against the ground. such premature death, however, painful as it was, saved them from seeing the miserable sufferings of their brothers and children. but why should i say more? they left their cities, abandoned the protection of the wall, and dispersed themselves in flight more desperately than before. the enemy, on the other hand, pursued them with more unrelenting cruelty than before, and butchered our countrymen like sheep, so that their habitations were like those of savage beasts; for they turned their arms upon each other, and for the sake of a little sustenance, imbrued their hands in the blood of their fellow countrymen. thus foreign calamities were augmented by domestic feuds; so that the whole country was entirely destitute of provisions, save such as could be procured in the chase. * the meaning of this expression is not known. o'connor thinks it is the irish sea. . again, therefore, the wretched remnant, sending to aetius, a powerful roman citizen, address him as follow:--"to aetius,* now consul for the third time: the groans of the britons." and again a little further, thus:--"the barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians: thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned." the romans, however, could not assist them, and in the meantime the discomfited people, wandering in the woods, began to feel the effects of a severe famine, which compelled many of them without delay to yield themselves up to their cruel persecutors, to obtain subsistence: others of them, however, lying hid in mountains, caves and woods, continually sallied out from thence to renew the war. and then it was, for the first time, that they overthrew their enemies, who had for so many years been living in their country; for their trust was not in man, but in god; according to the maxim of philo, "we must have divine assistance, when that of man fails." the boldness of the enemy was for a while checked, but not the wickedness of our countrymen; the enemy left our people, but the people did not leave their sins. * or agitius, according to another reading. . for it has always been a custom with our nation, as it is at present, to be impotent in repelling foreign foes, but bold and invincible in raising civil war, and bearing the burdens of their offences: they are impotent, i say, in following the standard of peace and truth, but bold in wickedness and falsehood. the audacious invaders therefore return to their winter quarters, determined before long again to return and plunder. and then, too, the picts for the first time seated themselves at the extremity of the island, where they afterwards continued, occasionally plundering and wasting the country. during these truces, the wounds of the distressed people are healed, but another sore, still more venomous, broke out. no sooner were the ravages of the enemy checked, than the island was deluged with a most extraordinary plenty of all things, greater than was before known, and with it grew up every kind of luxury and licentiousness. it grew with so firm a root, that one might truly say of it, "such fornication is heard of among you, as never was known the like among the gentiles." but besides this vice, there arose also every other, to which human nature is liable and in particular that hatred of truth, together with her supporters, which still at present destroys every thing good in the island; the love of falsehood, together with its inventors, the reception of crime in the place of virtue, the respect shown to wickedness rather than goodness, the love of darkness instead of the sun, the admission of satan as an angel of light. kings were anointed, not according to god's ordinance, but such as showed themselves more cruel than the rest; and soon after, they were put to death by those who had elected them, without any inquiry into their merits, but because others still more cruel were chosen to succeed them. if any one of these was of a milder nature than the rest, or in any way more regardful of the truth, he was looked upon as the ruiner of the country, every body cast a dart at him, and they valued things alike whether pleasing or displeasing to god, unless it so happened that what displeased him was pleasing to themselves. so that the words of the prophet, addressed to the people of old, might well be applied to our own countrymen: "children without a law, have ye left god and provoked to anger the holy one of israel?* why will ye still inquire, adding iniquity? every head is languid and every heart is sad; from the sole of the foot to the crown, there is no health in him." and thus they did all things contrary to their salvation, as if no remedy could be applied to the world by the true physician of all men. and not only the laity did so, but our lord's own flock and its shepherds, who ought to have been an example to the people, slumbered away their time in drunkenness, as if they had been dipped in wine; whilst the swellings of pride, the jar of strife, the griping talons of envy, and the confused estimate of right and wrong, got such entire possession of them, that there seemed to be poured out (and the same still continueth) contempt upon princes, and to be made by their vanities to wander astray and not in the way. * isa. i. , . in most of these quotations there is great verbal variation from the authorised version: the author probably quoted from memory, if not from the latin version. . meanwhile, god being willing to purify his family who were infected by so deep a stain of woe, and at the hearing only of their calamities to amend them; a vague rumour suddenly as if on wings reaches the ears of all, that their inveterate foes were rapidly approaching to destroy the whole country, and to take possession of it, as of old, from one end to the other. but yet they derived no advantage from this intelligence; for, like frantic beasts, taking the bit of reason between their teeth, they abandoned the safe and narrow road, and rushed forward upon the broad downward path of vice, which leads to death. whilst, therefore, as solomon says, the stubborn servant is not cured by words, the fool is scourged and feels it not: a pestilential disease morally affected the foolish people, which, without the sword, cut off so large a number of persons, that the living were not able to bury them. but even this was no warning to them, that in them also might be fulfilled the words of isaiah the prophet, "and god hath called his people to lamentation, to baldness, and to the girdle of sackcloth; behold they begin to kill calves, and to slay rams, to eat, to drink, and to say, 'we will eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.'" for the time was approaching, when all their iniquities, as formerly those of the amorrhaeans, should be fulfilled. for a council was called to settle what was best and most expedient to be done, in order to repel such frequent and fatal irruptions and plunderings of the above-named nations. . then all the councillors, together with that proud tyrant gurthrigern [vortigern], the british king, were so blinded, that, as a protection to their country, they sealed its doom by inviting in among them like wolves into the sheep-fold), the fierce and impious saxons, a race hateful both to god and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations. nothing was ever so pernicious to our country, nothing was ever so unlucky. what palpable darkness must have enveloped their minds-darkness desperate and cruel! those very people whom, when absent, they dreaded more than death itself, were invited to reside, as one may say, under the selfsame roof. foolish are the princes, as it is said, of thafneos, giving counsel to unwise pharaoh. a multitude of whelps came forth from the lair of this barbaric lioness, in three cyuls, as they call them, that is, in there ships of war, with their sails wafted by the wind and with omens and prophecies favourable, for it was foretold by a certain soothsayer among them, that they should occupy the country to which they were sailing three hundred years, and half of that time, a hundred and fifty years, should plunder and despoil the same. they first landed on the eastern side of the island, by the invitation of the unlucky king, and there fixed their sharp talons, apparently to fight in favour of the island, but alas! more truly against it. their mother-land, finding her first brood thus successful, sends forth a larger company of her wolfish offspring, which sailing over, join themselves to their bastard-born comrades. from that time the germ of iniquity and the root of contention planted their poison amongst us, as we deserved, and shot forth into leaves and branches. the barbarians being thus introduced as soldiers into the island, to encounter, as they falsely said, any dangers in defence of their hospitable entertainers, obtain an allowance of provisions, which, for some time being plentifully bestowed, stopped their doggish mouths. yet they complain that their monthly supplies are not furnished in sufficient abundance, and they industriously aggravate each occasion of quarrel, saying that unless more liberality is shown them, they will break the treaty and plunder the whole island. in a short time, they follow up their threats with deeds. . for the fire of vengeance, justly kindled by former crimes, spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean. in these assaults, therefore, not unlike that of the assyrian upon judea, was fulfilled in our case what the prophet describes in words of lamentation; "they have burned with fire the sanctuary; they have polluted on earth the tabernacle of thy name." and again, "o god, the gentiles have come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled," &c. so that all the columns were levelled with the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests, and people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around them on every side. lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press;* and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds; with reverence be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels. so entirely had the vintage, once so fine, degenerated and become bitter, that, in the words of the prophet, there was hardly a grape or ear of corn to be seen where the husbandman had turned his back. . some therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation. "thou hast given us as sheep to be slaughtered, and among the gentiles hast thou dispersed us." others, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests, and to the rocks of the seas (albeit with trembling hearts), remained still in their country. but in the meanwhile, an opportunity happening, when these most cruel robbers were returned home, the poor remnants of our nation (to whom flocked from divers places round about our miserable countrymen as fast as bees to their hives, for fear of an ensuing storm), being strengthened by god, calling upon him with all their hearts, as the poet says,--"with their unnumbered vows they burden heaven," that they might not be brought to utter destruction, took arms under the conduct of ambrosius aurelianus, a modest man, who of all the roman nation was then alone in the confusion of this troubled period by chance left alive. his parents, who for their merit were adorned with the purple, had been slain in these same broils, and now his progeny in these our days, although shamefully degenerated from the worthiness of their ancestors, provoke to battle their cruel conquerors, and by the goodness of our lord obtain the victory. . after this, sometimes our countrymen, sometimes the enemy, won the field, to the end that our lord might in this land try after his accustomed manner these his israelites, whether they loved him or not, until the year of the siege of bath-hill, when took place also the last almost, though not the least slaughter of our cruel foes, which was (as i am sure) forty-four years and one month after the landing of the saxons, and also the time of my own nativity. and yet neither to this day are the cities of our country inhabited as before, but being forsaken and overthrown, still lie desolate; our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil troubles still remaining. for as well the remembrance of such terrible desolation of the island, as also of the unexpected recovery of the same, remained in the minds of those who were eyewitnesses of the wonderful events of both, and in regard thereof, kings, public magistrates, and private persons, with priests and clergymen, did all and every one of them live orderly according to their several vocations. but when these had departed out of this world, and a new race succeeded, who were ignorant of this troublesome time, and had only experience of the present prosperity, all the laws of truth and justice were so shaken and subverted, that not so much as a vestige or remembrance of these virtues remained among the above-named orders of men, except among a very few who, compared with the great multitude which were daily rushing headlong down to hell, are accounted so small a number, that our reverend mother, the church, scarcely beholds them, her only true children, reposing in her bosom; whose worthy lives, being a pattern to al men, and beloved of god, inasmuch as by their holy prayers, as by certain pillars and most profitable supporters, our infirmity is sustained up, that it may not utterly be broken down, i would have no one suppose i intended to reprove, if forced by the increasing multitude of offences, i have freely, aye, with anguish, not so much declared as bewailed the wickedness of those who are become servants, not only to their bellies, but also to the devil rather than to christ, who is our blessed god, world without end. this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book ix. the bones of the dead. chapter i. william, count of the normans, sate in a fair chamber of his palace of rouen; and on the large table before him were ample evidences of the various labours, as warrior, chief, thinker, and statesman, which filled the capacious breadth of that sleepless mind. there lay a plan of the new port of cherbourg, and beside it an open ms. of the duke's favourite book, the commentaries of caesar, from which, it is said, he borrowed some of the tactics of his own martial science; marked, and dotted, and interlined with his large bold handwriting, were the words of the great roman. a score or so of long arrows, which had received some skilful improvement in feather or bolt, lay carelessly scattered over some architectural sketches of a new abbey church, and the proposed charter for its endowment. an open cyst, of the beautiful workmanship for which the english goldsmiths were then pre-eminently renowned, that had been among the parting gifts of edward, contained letters from the various potentates near and far, who sought his alliance or menaced his repose. on a perch behind him sate his favourite norway falcon unhooded, for it had been taught the finest polish in its dainty education--viz., "to face company undisturbed." at a kind of easel at the farther end of the hall, a dwarf, misshapen in limbs, but of a face singularly acute and intelligent, was employed in the outline of that famous action at val des dunes, which had been the scene of one of the most brilliant of william's feats in arms--an outline intended to be transferred to the notable "stitchwork" of matilda the duchess. upon the floor, playing with a huge boar-hound of english breed, that seemed but ill to like the play, and every now and then snarled and showed his white teeth, was a young boy, with something of the duke's features, but with an expression more open and less sagacious; and something of the duke's broad build of chest and shoulder, but without promise of the duke's stately stature, which was needed to give grace and dignity to a strength otherwise cumbrous and graceless. and indeed, since william's visit to england, his athletic shape had lost much of its youthful symmetry, though not yet deformed by that corpulence which was a disease almost as rare in the norman as the spartan. nevertheless, what is a defect in the gladiator is often but a beauty in the prince; and the duke's large proportions filled the eye with a sense both of regal majesty and physical power. his countenance, yet more than his form, showed the work of time; the short dark hair was worn into partial baldness at the temples by the habitual friction of the casque, and the constant indulgence of wily stratagem and ambitious craft had deepened the wrinkles round the plotting eye and the firm mouth: so that it was only by an effort like that of an actor, that his aspect regained the knightly and noble frankness it had once worn. the accomplished prince was no longer, in truth, what the bold warrior had been,--he was greater in state and less in soul. and already, despite all his grand qualities as a ruler, his imperious nature had betrayed signs of what he (whose constitutional sternness the norman freemen, not without effort, curbed into the limits of justice) might become, if wider scope were afforded to his fiery passions and unsparing will. before the duke, who was leaning his chin on his hand, stood mallet de graville, speaking earnestly, and his discourse seemed both to interest and please his lord. "eno'!" said william, "i comprehend the nature of the land and its men,--a land that, untaught by experience, and persuaded that a peace of twenty or thirty years must last till the crack of doom, neglects all its defences, and has not one fort, save dover, between the coast and the capital,--a land which must be won or lost by a single battle, and men (here the duke hesitated,) and men," he resumed with a sigh, "whom it will be so hard to conquer that, pardex, i don't wonder they neglect their fortresses. enough i say, of them. let us return to harold,--thou thinkest, then, that he is worthy of his fame?" "he is almost the only englishman i have seen," answered de graville, "who hath received scholarly rearing and nurture; and all his faculties are so evenly balanced, and all accompanied by so composed a calm, that methinks, when i look at and hear him, i contemplate some artful castle,--the strength of which can never be known at the first glance, nor except by those who assail it." "thou art mistaken, sire de graville," said the duke, with a shrewd and cunning twinkle of his luminous dark eyes. "for thou tellest me that he hath no thought of my pretensions to the english throne,--that he inclines willingly to thy suggestions to come himself to my court for the hostages,--that, in a word, he is not suspicious." "certes, he is not suspicious," returned mallet. "and thinkest thou that an artful castle were worth much without warder or sentry,--or a cultivated mind strong and safe, without its watchman,--suspicion?" "truly, my lord speaks well and wisely," said the knight, startled; "but harold is a man thoroughly english, and the english are a gens the least suspecting of any created thing between an angel and a sheep." william laughed aloud. but his laugh was checked suddenly; for at that moment a fierce yell smote his ears, and looking hastily up, he saw his hound and his son rolling together on the ground, in a grapple that seemed deadly. william sprang to the spot; but the boy, who was then under the dog, cried out, "laissez aller! laissez aller! no rescue! i will master my own foe;" and, so saying, with a vigorous effort he gained his knee, and with both hands griped the hound's throat, so that the beast twisted in vain, to and fro, with gnashing jaws, and in another minute would have panted out its last. "i may save my good hound now," said william, with the gay smile of his earlier days, and, though not without some exertion of his prodigious strength, he drew the dog from his son's grasp. "that was ill done, father," said robert, surnamed even then the courthose, "to take part with thy son's foe." "but my son's foe is thy father's property, my vaillant," said the duke; "and thou must answer to me for treason in provoking quarrel and feud with my own fourfooted vavasour." "it is not thy property, father; thou gavest the dog to me when a whelp." "fables, monseigneur de courthose; i lent it to thee but for a day, when thou hadst put out thine ankle bone in jumping off the rampire; and all maimed as thou went, thou hadst still malice enow in thee to worry the poor beast into a fever." "give or lent, it is the same thing, father; what i have once, that will i hold, as thou didst before me, in thy cradle." then the great duke, who in his own house was the fondest and weakest of men, was so doltish and doting as to take the boy in his arms and kiss him, nor, with all his far-sighted sagacity, deemed he that in that kiss lay the seed of the awful curse that grew up from a father's agony; to end in a son's misery and perdition. even mallet de graville frowned at the sight of the sire's infirmity, --even turold the dwarf shook his head. at that moment an officer entered, and announced that an english nobleman, apparently in great haste (for his horse had dropped down dead as he dismounted), had arrived at the palace, and craved instant audience of the duke. william put down the boy, gave the brief order for the stranger's admission, and, punctilious in ceremonial, beckoning de graville to follow him, passed at once into the next chamber, and seated himself on his chair of state. in a few moments one of the seneschals of the palace ushered in a visitor, whose long moustache at once proclaimed him saxon, and in whom de graville with surprise recognised his old friend, godrith. the young thegn, with a reverence more hasty than that to which william was accustomed, advanced to the foot of the days, and, using the norman language, said, in a voice thick with emotion: "from harold the earl, greeting to thee, monseigneur. most foul and unchristian wrong hath been done the earl by thy liegeman, guy, count of ponthieu. sailing hither in two barks from england, with intent to visit thy court, storm and wind drove the earl's vessels towards the mouth of the somme [ ]; there landing, and without fear, as in no hostile country, he and his train were seized by the count himself, and cast into prison in the castle of belrem [ ]. a dungeon fit but for malefactors holds, while i speak, the first lord of england, and brother-in-law to its king. nay, hints of famine, torture, and death itself, have been darkly thrown out by this most disloyal count, whether in earnest, or with the base view of heightening ransom. at length, wearied perhaps by the earl's firmness and disdain, this traitor of ponthieu hath permitted me in the earl's behalf to bear the message of harold. he came to thee as to a prince and a friend; sufferest thou thy liegeman to detain him as a thief or a foe?" "noble englishman," replied william, gravely, "this is a matter more out of my cognisance than thou seemest to think. it is true that guy, count of ponthieu, holds fief under me, but i have no control over the laws of his realm. and by those laws, he hath right of life and death over all stranded and waifed on his coast. much grieve i for the mishap of your famous earl, and what i can do, i will; but i can only treat in this matter with guy as prince with prince, not as lord to vassal. meanwhile i pray you to take rest and food; and i will seek prompt counsel as to the measures to adopt." the saxon's face showed disappointment and dismay at this answer, so different from what he had expected; and he replied with the natural honest bluntness which all his younger affection of norman manners had never eradicated: "food will i not touch, nor wine drink, till thou, lord count, hast decided what help, as noble to noble, christian to christian, man to man, thou givest to him who has come into this peril solely from his trust in thee." "alas!" said the grand dissimulator, "heavy is the responsibility with which thine ignorance of our land, laws, and men would charge me. if i take but one false step in this matter, woe indeed to thy lord! guy is hot and haughty, and in his droits; he is capable of sending me the earl's head in reply to too dure a request for his freedom. much treasure and broad lands will it cost me, i fear, to ransom the earl. but be cheered; half my duchy were not too high a price for thy lord's safety. go, then, and eat with a good heart, and drink to the earl's health with a hopeful prayer." "and it please you, my lord," said de graville, "i know this gentle thegn, and will beg of you the grace to see to his entertainment, and sustain his spirits." "thou shalt, but later; so noble a guest none but my chief seneschal should be the first to honour." then turning to the officer in waiting, he bade him lead the saxon to the chamber tenanted by william fitzosborne (who then lodged within the palace), and committed him to that count's care. as the saxon sullenly withdrew, and as the door closed on him, william rose and strode to and fro the room exultingly. "i have him! i have him!" he cried aloud; "not as free guest, but as ransomed captive. i have him--the earl!--i have him! go, mallet, my friend, now seek this sour-looking englishman; and, hark thee! fill his ear with all the tales thou canst think of as to guy's cruelty and ire. enforce all the difficulties that lie in my way towards the earl's delivery. great make the danger of the earl's capture, and vast all the favour of release. comprehendest thou?" "i am norman, monseigneur," replied de graville, with a slight smile; "and we normans can make a short mantle cover a large space. you will not be displeased with my address." "go then--go," said william, "and send me forthwith--lanfranc--no, hold--not lanfranc, he is too scrupulous; fitzosborne--no, too haughty. go, first, to my brother, odo of bayeux, and pray him to seek me on the instant." the knight bowed and vanished, and william continued to pace the room, with sparkling eyes and murmuring lips. chapter ii. not till after repeated messages, at first without talk of ransom and in high tone, affected, no doubt, by william to spin out the negotiations, and augment the value of his services, did guy of ponthieu consent to release his illustrious captive,--the guerdon, a large sum and un bel maneir [ ] on the river eaulne. but whether that guerdon were the fair ransom fee, or the price for concerted snare, no man now can say, and sharper than ours the wit that forms the more likely guess. these stipulations effected, guy himself opened the doors of the dungeon; and affecting to treat the whole matter as one of law and right, now happily and fairly settled, was as courteous and debonnair as he had before been dark and menacing. he even himself, with a brilliant train, accompanied harold to the chateau d'eu [ ], whither william journeyed to give him the meeting; and laughed with a gay grace at the earl's short and scornful replies to his compliments and excuses. at the gates of this chateau, not famous, in after times, for the good faith of its lords, william himself, laying aside all the pride of etiquette which he had established at his court, came to receive his visitor; and aiding him to dismount embraced him cordially, amidst a loud fanfaron of fifes and trumpets. the flower of that glorious nobility, which a few generations had sufficed to rear out of the lawless pirates of the baltic, had been selected to do honour alike to guest and host. there were hugo de montfort and roger de beaumont, famous in council as in the field, and already grey with fame. there was henri, sire de ferrers, whose name is supposed to have arisen from the vast forges that burned around his castle, on the anvils of which were welded the arms impenetrable in every field. there was raoul de tancarville, the old tutor of william, hereditary chamberlain of the norman counts; and geoffroi de mandeville, and tonstain the fair, whose name still preserved, amidst the general corruption of appellations, the evidence of his danish birth; and hugo de grantmesnil, lately returned from exile; and humphrey de bohun, whose old castle in carcutan may yet be seen; and st. john, and lacie, and d'aincourt, of broad lands between the maine and the oise; and william de montfichet, and roger, nicknamed "bigod," and roger de mortemer; and many more, whose fame lives in another land than that of neustria! there, too, were the chief prelates and abbots of a church that since william's accession had risen into repute with rome and with learning, unequalled on this side the alps; their white aubes over their gorgeous robes; lanfranc, and the bishop of coutance, and the abbot of bec, and foremost of all in rank, but not in learning, odo of bayeux. so great the assemblage of quens and prelates, that there was small room in the courtyard for the lesser knights and chiefs, who yet hustled each other, with loss of norman dignity, for a sight of the lion which guarded england. and still, amidst all those men of mark and might, harold, simple and calm, looked as he had looked on his war-ship in the thames, the man who could lead them all! from those, indeed, who were fortunate enough to see him as he passed up by the side of william, as tall as the duke, and no less erect--of far slighter bulk, but with a strength almost equal, to a practised eye, in his compacter symmetry and more supple grace,--from those who saw him thus, an admiring murmur rose; for no men in the world so valued and cultivated personal advantages as the norman knighthood. conversing easily with harold, and well watching him while he conversed, the duke led his guest into a private chamber in the third floor [ ] of the castle, and in that chamber were haco and wolnoth. "this, i trust, is no surprise to you," said the duke, smiling; "and now i shall but mar your commune." so saying, he left the room, and wolnoth rushed to his brother's arms, while haco, more timidly, drew near and touched the earl's robe. as soon as the first joy of the meeting was over, the earl said to haco, whom he had drawn to his breast with an embrace as fond as that bestowed on wolnoth: "remembering thee a boy, i came to say to thee, 'be my son;' but seeing thee a man, i change the prayer;--supply thy father's place, and be my brother! and thou, wolnoth, hast thou kept thy word to me? norman is thy garb, in truth; is thy heart still english?" "hist!" whispered haco; "hist! we have a proverb, that walls have ears." "but norman walls can hardly understand our broad saxon of kent, i trust," said harold, smiling, though with a shade on his brow. "true; continue to speak saxon," said haco, "and we are safe." "safe!" echoed harold. "haco's fears are childish, my brother," said wolnoth, "and he wrongs the duke." "not the duke, but the policy which surrounds him like an atmosphere," exclaimed haco. "oh, harold, generous indeed wert thou to come hither for thy kinsfolk--generous! but for england's weal, better that we had rotted out our lives in exile, ere thou, hope and prop of england, set foot in these webs of wile." "tut!" said wolnoth, impatiently; "good is it for england that the norman and saxon should be friends." harold, who had lived to grow as wise in men's hearts as his father, save when the natural trustfulness that lay under his calm reserve lulled his sagacity, turned his eye steadily on the faces of his two kinsmen; and he saw at the first glance that a deeper intellect and a graver temper than wolnoth's fair face betrayed characterised the dark eye and serious brow of haco. he therefore drew his nephew a little aside, and said to him: "forewarned is forearmed. deemest thou that this fairspoken duke will dare aught against my life?" "life, no; liberty, yes." harold startled, and those strong passions native to his breast, but usually curbed beneath his majestic will, heaved in his bosom and flashed in his eye. "liberty!--let him dare! though all his troops paved the way from his court to his coasts, i would hew my way through their ranks." "deemest thou that i am a coward?" said haco, simply, "yet contrary to all law and justice, and against king edward's well-known remonstrance, hath not the count detained me years, yea, long years, in his land? kind are his words, wily his deeds. fear not force; fear fraud." "i fear neither," answered harold, drawing himself up, "nor do i repent me one moment--no! nor did i repent in the dungeon of that felon count, whom god grant me life to repay with fire and sword for his treason--that i myself have come hither to demand my kinsmen. i come in the name of england, strong in her might, and sacred in her majesty." before haco could reply, the door opened, and raoul de tancarville, as grand chamberlain, entered, with all harold's saxon train, and a goodly number of norman squires and attendants, bearing rich vestures. the noble bowed to the earl with his country's polished courtesy, and besought leave to lead him to the bath, while his own squires prepared his raiment for the banquet to be held in his honour. so all further conference with his young kinsmen was then suspended. the duke, who affected a state no less regal than that of the court of france, permitted no one, save his own family and guests, to sit at his own table. his great officers (those imperious lords) stood beside his chair; and william fitzosborne, "the proud spirit," placed on the board with his own hand the dainty dishes for which the norman cooks were renowned. and great men were those norman cooks; and often for some "delicate," more ravishing than wont, gold chain and gem, and even "bel maneir," fell to their guerdon [ ]. it was worth being a cook in those days! the most seductive of men was william in his fair moods; and he lavished all the witcheries at his control upon his guest. if possible, yet more gracious was matilda the duchess. this woman, eminent for mental culture, for personal beauty, and for a spirit and ambition no less great than her lord's, knew well how to choose such subjects of discourse as might most flatter an english ear. her connection with harold, through her sister's marriage with tostig, warranted a familiarity almost caressing, which she assumed towards the comely earl; and she insisted, with a winning smile, that all the hours the duke would leave at his disposal he must spend with her. the banquet was enlivened by the song of the great taillefer himself, who selected a theme that artfully flattered alike the norman and the saxon; viz., the aid given by rolfganger to athelstan, and the alliance between the english king and the norman founder. he dexterously introduced into the song praises of the english, and the value of their friendship; and the countess significantly applauded each gallant compliment to the land of the famous guest. if harold was pleased by such poetic courtesies, he was yet more surprised by the high honour in which duke, baron, and prelate evidently held the poet: for it was among the worst signs of that sordid spirit, honouring only wealth, which had crept over the original character of the anglo- saxon, that the bard or scop, with them, had sunk into great disrepute, and it was even forbidden to ecclesiastics [ ] to admit such landless vagrants to their company. much, indeed, there was in that court which, even on the first day, harold saw to admire--that stately temperance, so foreign to english excesses, (but which, alas! the norman kept not long when removed to another soil)--that methodical state and noble pomp which characterised the feudal system, linking so harmoniously prince to peer, and peer to knight--the easy grace, the polished wit of the courtiers--the wisdom of lanfranc, and the higher ecclesiastics, blending worldly lore with decorous, not pedantic, regard to their sacred calling--the enlightened love of music, letters, song, and art, which coloured the discourse both of duke and duchess and the younger courtiers, prone to emulate high example, whether for ill or good--all impressed harold with a sense of civilisation and true royalty, which at once saddened and inspired his musing mind--saddened him when he thought how far behind-hand england was in much, with this comparatively petty principality--inspired him when he felt what one great chief can do for his native land. the unfavorable impressions made upon his thoughts by haco's warnings could scarcely fail to yield beneath the prodigal courtesies lavished upon him, and the frank openness with which william laughingly excused himself for having so long detained the hostages, "in order, my guest, to make thee come and fetch them. and, by st. valery, now thou art here, thou shalt not depart, till, at least, thou hast lost in gentler memories the recollection of the scurvy treatment thou hast met from that barbarous count. nay, never bite thy lip, harold, my friend, leave to me thy revenge upon guy. sooner or later, the very maneir he hath extorted from me shall give excuse for sword and lance, and then, pardex, thou shalt come and cross steel in thine own quarrel. how i rejoice that i can show to the beau frere of my dear cousin and seigneur some return for all the courtesies the english king and kingdom bestowed upon me! to-morrow we will ride to rouen; there, all knightly sports shall be held to grace thy coming; and by st. michael, knight-saint of the norman, nought less will content me than to have thy great name in the list of my chosen chevaliers. but the night wears now, and thou sure must need sleep;" and, thus talking, the duke himself led the way to harold's chamber, and insisted on removing the ouche from his robe of state. as he did so, he passed his hand, as if carelessly, along the earl's right arm. "ha!" said he suddenly, and in his natural tone of voice, which was short and quick, "these muscles have known practice! dost think thou couldst bend my bow!" "who could bend that of--ulysses?" returned the earl, fixing his deep blue eye upon the norman's. william unconsciously changed colour, for he felt that he was at that moment more ulysses than achilles. chapter iii. side by side, william and harold entered the fair city of rouen, and there, a succession of the brilliant pageants and knightly entertainments, (comprising those "rare feats of honour," expanded, with the following age, into the more gorgeous display of joust and tourney,) was designed to dazzle the eyes and captivate the fancy of the earl. but though harold won, even by the confession of the chronicles most in favour of the norman, golden opinions in a court more ready to deride than admire the saxon,--though not only the "strength of his body," and "the boldness of his spirit," as shown in exhibitions unfamiliar to saxon warriors, but his "manners," his "eloquence, intellect, and other good qualities," [ ] were loftily conspicuous amidst those knightly courtiers, that sublime part of his character, which was found in his simple manhood and intense nationality, kept him unmoved and serene amidst all intended to exercise that fatal spell which normanised most of those who came within the circle of norman attraction. these festivities were relieved by pompous excursions and progresses from town to town, and fort to fort, throughout the duchy, and, according to some authorities, even to a visit to philip the french king at compiegne. on the return to rouen, harold and the six thegns of his train were solemnly admitted into that peculiar band of warlike brothers which william had instituted, and to which, following the chronicles of the after century, we have given the name of knights. the silver baldrick was belted on, and the lance, with its pointed banderol, was placed in the hand, and the seven saxon lords became norman knights. the evening after this ceremonial, harold was with the duchess and her fair daughters--all children. the beauty of one of the girls drew from him those compliments so sweet to a mother's ear. matilda looked up from the broidery on which she was engaged, and beckoned to her the child thus praised. "adeliza," she said, placing her hand on the girl's dark locks, "though we would not that thou shouldst learn too early how men's tongues can gloze and flatter, yet this noble guest hath so high a repute for truth, that thou mayest at least believe him sincere when he says thy face is fair. think of it, and with pride, my child; let it keep thee through youth proof against the homage of meaner men; and, peradventure, st. michael and st. valery may bestow on thee a mate valiant and comely as this noble lord." the child blushed to her brow; but answered with the quickness of a spoiled infant--unless, perhaps, she had been previously tutored so to reply: "sweet mother, i will have no mate and no lord but harold himself; and if he will not have adeliza as his wife, she will die a nun." "froward child, it is not for thee to woo!" said matilda, smiling. "thou heardst her, noble harold: what is thine answer? "that she will grow wiser," said the earl, laughing, as he kissed the child's forehead. "fair damsel, ere thou art ripe for the altar, time will have sown grey in these locks; and thou wouldst smile indeed in scorn, if harold then claimed thy troth." "not so," said matilda, seriously; "highborn damsels see youth not in years but in fame--fame, which is young for ever!" startled by the gravity with which matilda spoke, as if to give importance to what had seemed a jest, the earl, versed in courts, felt that a snare was round him; and replied in a tone between jest and earnest: "happy am i to wear on my heart a charm, proof against all the beauty even of this court." matilda's face darkened; and william entering at that time with his usual abruptness, lord and lady exchanged glances, not unobserved by harold. the duke, however, drew aside the saxon; and saying gaily, "we normans are not naturally jealous; but then, till now, we have not had saxon gallants closeted with our wives;" added more seriously, "harold, i have a grace to pray at thy hands--come with me." the earl followed william into his chamber, which he found filled with chiefs, in high converse; and william then hastened to inform him that he was about to make a military expedition against the bretons; and knowing his peculiar acquaintance with the warfare, as with the language and manners, of their kindred welch, he besought his aid in a campaign which he promised him should be brief. perhaps the earl was not, in his own mind, averse from returning william's display of power by some evidence of his own military skill, and the valour of the saxon thegns in his train. there might be prudence in such exhibition, and, at all events, he could not with a good grace decline the proposal. he enchanted william therefore by a simple acquiescence; and the rest of the evening--deep into night--was spent in examining charts of the fort and country intended to be attacked. the conduct and courage of harold and his saxons in this expedition are recorded by the norman chroniclers. the earl's personal exertions saved, at the passage of coesnon, a detachment of soldiers, who would otherwise have perished in the quicksands; and even the warlike skill of william, in the brief and brilliant campaign, was, if not eclipsed, certainly equalled, by that of the saxon chief. while the campaign lasted, william and harold had but one table and one tent. to outward appearance, the familiarity between the two was that of brothers; in reality, however, these two men, both so able-- one so deep in his guile, the other so wise in his tranquil caution-- felt that a silent war between the two for mastery was working on, under the guise of loving peace. already harold was conscious that the politic motives for his mission had failed him; already he perceived, though he scarce knew why, that william the norman was the last man to whom he could confide his ambition, or trust for aid. one day, as, during a short truce with the defenders of the place they were besieging, the normans were diverting their leisure with martial games, in which taillefer shone pre-eminent: while harold and william stood without their tent, watching the animated field, the duke abruptly exclaimed to mallet de graville, "bring me my bow. now, harold, let me see if thou canst bend it." the bow was brought, and saxon and norman gathered round the spot. "fasten thy glove to yonder tree, mallet," said the duke, taking that mighty bow in his hand, and bending its stubborn yew into the noose of the string with practised ease. then he drew the arc to his ear; and the tree itself seemed to shake at the shock, as the shaft, piercing the glove, lodged half-way in the trunk. "such are not our weapons," said the earl; "and ill would it become me, unpractised, so to peril our english honour, as to strive against the arm that could bend that arc and wing that arrow. but, that i may show these norman knights, that at least we have some weapon wherewith we can parry shaft and smite assailer,--bring me forth, godrith, my shield and my danish axe." taking the shield and axe which the saxon brought to him, harold then stationed himself before the tree. "now, fair duke," said he, smiling, "choose thou thy longest shaft--bid thy ten doughtiest archers take their bows; round this tree will i move, and let each shaft be aimed at whatever space in my mailless body i leave unguarded by my shield." "no!" said william, hastily; "that were murder." "it is but the common peril of war," said harold, simply; and he walked to the tree. the blood mounted to william's brow, and the lion's thirst of carnage parched his throat. "an he will have it so," said he, beckoning to his archers; "let not normandy be shamed. watch well, and let every shaft go home; avoid only the head and the heart; such orgulous vaunting is best cured by blood-letting." the archers nodded, and took their post, each at a separate quarter; and deadly indeed seemed the danger of the earl, for as he moved, though he kept his back guarded by the tree, some parts of his form the shield left exposed, and it would have been impossible, in his quick-shifting movements, for the archers so to aim as to wound, but to spare life; yet the earl seemed to take no peculiar care to avoid the peril; lifting his bare head fearlessly above the shield, and including in one gaze of his steadfast eye, calmly bright even at the distance, all the shafts of the archers. at one moment five of the arrows hissed through the air, and with such wonderful quickness had the shield turned to each, that three fell to the ground blunted against it, and two broke on its surface. but william, waiting for the first discharge, and seeing full mark at harold's shoulder as the buckler turned, now sent forth his terrible shaft. the noble taillefer with a poet's true sympathy cried, "saxon, beware!" but the watchful saxon needed not the warning. as if in disdain, harold met not the shaft with his shield, but swinging high the mighty axe, (which with most men required both arms to wield it,) he advanced a step, and clove the rushing arrow in twain. before william's loud oath of wrath and surprise left his lips, the five shafts of the remaining archers fell as vainly as their predecessors against the nimble shield. then advancing, harold said, cheerfully: "this is but defence, fair duke--and little worth were the axe if it could not smite as well as ward. wherefore, i pray you, place upon yonder broken stone pillar, which seems some relic of druid heathenesse, such helm and shirt of mail as thou deemest most proof against sword and pertuizan, and judge then if our english axe can guard well our english land." "if thy axe can cleave the helmet i wore at bavent, when the franks and their king fled before me," said the duke, grimly, "i shall hold caesar in fault, not to have invented a weapon so dread." and striding back into his pavilion, he came forth with the helm and shirt of mail, which was worn stronger and heavier by the normans, as fighting usually on horseback, than by dane and saxon, who, mainly fighting on foot, could not have endured so cumbrous a burthen: and if strong and dour generally with the norman, judge what solid weight that mighty duke could endure! with his own hand william placed the mail on the ruined druid stone, and on the mail the helm. harold looked long and gravely at the edge of the axe; it was so richly gilt and damasquined, that the sharpness of its temper could not well have been divined under that holiday glitter. but this axe had come to him from canute the great, who himself, unlike the danes, small and slight [ ], had supplied his deficiency of muscle by the finest dexterity and the most perfect weapons. famous had been that axe in the delicate hand of canute--how much more tremendous in the ample grasp of harold! swinging now in both hands this weapon, with a peculiar and rapid whirl, which gave it an inconceivable impetus, the earl let fall the crushing blow: at the first stroke, cut right in the centre, rolled the helm; at the second, through all the woven mail (cleft asunder, as if the slightest filigree work of the goldsmith,) shore the blade, and a great fragment of the stone itself came tumbling on the sod. the normans stood aghast, and william's face was as pale as the shattered stone. the great duke felt even his matchless dissimulation fail him; nor, unused to the special practice and craft which the axe required, could he have pretended, despite a physical strength superior even to harold's, to rival blows that seemed to him more than mortal. "lives there any other man in the wide world whose arm could have wrought that feat?" exclaimed bruse, the ancestor of the famous scot. "nay," said harold, simply, "at least thirty thousand such men have i left at home! but this was but the stroke of an idle vanity, and strength becomes tenfold in a good cause." the duke heard, and fearful lest he should betray his sense of the latent meaning couched under his guest's words, he hastily muttered forth reluctant compliment and praise; while fitzosborne, de bohun, and other chiefs more genuinely knightly, gave way to unrestrained admiration. then beckoning de graville to follow him, the duke strode off towards the tent of his brother of bayeux, who, though, except on extraordinary occasions, he did not join in positive conflict, usually accompanied william in his military excursions, both to bless the host, and to advise (for his martial science was considerable) the council of war. the bishop, who, despite the sanctimony of the court, and his own stern nature, was (though secretly and decorously) a gallant of great success in other fields than those of mars [ ], sate alone in his pavilion, inditing an epistle to a certain fair dame in rouen, whom he had unwillingly left to follow his brother. at the entrance of william, whose morals in such matters were pure and rigid, he swept the letter into the chest of relics which always accompanied him, and rose, saying, indifferently: "a treatise on the authenticity of st. thomas's little finger! but what ails you? you are disturbed!" "odo, odo, this man baffles me--this man fools me; i make no ground with him. i have spent--heaven knows what i have spent," said the duke, sighing with penitent parsimony, "in banquets, and ceremonies, and processions; to say nothing of my bel maneir of yonne, and the sum wrung from my coffers by that greedy ponthevin. all gone--all wasted --all melted like snow! and the saxon is as saxon as if he had seen neither norman splendour, nor been released from the danger by norman treasure. but, by the splendour divine, i were fool indeed if i suffered him to return home. would thou hadst seen the sorcerer cleave my helmet and mail just now, as easily as if they had been willow twigs. oh, odo, odo, my soul is troubled, and st. michael forsakes me!" while william ran on thus distractedly, the prelate lifted his eyes inquiringly to de graville, who now stood within the tent, and the knight briefly related the recent trial of strength. "i see nought in this to chafe thee," said odo; "the man once thine, the stronger the vassal, the more powerful the lord." "but he is not mine; i have sounded him as far as i dare go. matilda hath almost openly offered him my fairest child as his wife. nothing dazzles, nothing moves him. thinkest thou i care for his strong arm? tut, no: i chafe at the proud heart that set the arm in motion; the proud meaning his words symbolled out, 'so will english strength guard english land from the norman--so axe and shield will defy your mail and your shafts.' but let him beware!" growled the duke, fiercely, "or----" "may i speak," interrupted de graville, "and suggest a counsel?" "speak out, in god's name!" cried the duke. "then i should say, with submission, that the way to tame a lion is not by gorging him, but daunting. bold is the lion against open foes; but a lion in the toils loses his nature. just now, my lord said that harold should not return to his native land----" "nor shall he, but as my sworn man!" exclaimed the duke. "and if you now put to him that choice, think you it will favour your views? will he not reject your proffers, and with hot scorn?" "scorn! darest thou that word to me?" cried the duke. "scorn! have i no headsman whose axe is as sharp as harold's? and the neck of a captive is not sheathed in my norman mail." "pardon, pardon, my liege," said mallet, with spirit; but to save my chief from a hasty action that might bring long remorse, i spoke thus boldly. give the earl at least fair warning:--a prison, or fealty to thee, that is the choice before him!--let him know it; let him see that thy dungeons are dark, and thy walls impassable. threaten not his life--brave men care not for that!--threaten thyself nought, but let others work upon him with fear of his freedom. i know well these saxish men; i know well harold; freedom is their passion, they are cowards when threatened with the doom of four walls." [ ] "i conceive thee, wise son," exclaimed odo. "ha!" said the duke, slowly; "and yet it was to prevent such suspicion that i took care, after the first meeting, to separate him from haco and wolnoth, for they must have learned much in norman gossip, ill to repeat to the saxon." "wolnoth is almost wholly norman," said the bishop, smiling; "wolnoth is bound par-amours, to a certain fair norman dame; and, i trow well, prefers her charms here to the thought of his return. but haco, as thou knowest, is sullen and watchful." "so much the better companion for harold now," said de graville. "i am fated ever to plot and to scheme!" said the duke, groaning, as if he had been the simplest of men; "but, nathless, i love the stout earl, and i mean all for his own good,--that is, compatibly with my rights and claims to the heritage of edward my cousin." "of course," said the bishop. chapter iv. the snares now spread for harold were in pursuance of the policy thus resolved on. the camp soon afterwards broke up, and the troops took their way to bayeux. william, without greatly altering his manner towards the earl, evaded markedly (or as markedly replied not to) harold's plain declarations, that his presence was required in england, and that he could no longer defer his departure; while, under pretence of being busied with affairs, he absented himself much from the earl's company, or refrained from seeing him alone, and suffered mallet de graville, and odo the bishop, to supply his place with harold. the earl's suspicions now became thoroughly aroused, and these were fed both by the hints, kindly meant, of de graville, and the less covert discourse of the prelate: while mallet let drop, as in gossiping illustration of william's fierce and vindictive nature, many anecdotes of that cruelty which really stained the norman's character, odo, more bluntly, appeared to take it for granted that harold's sojourn in the land would be long. "you will have time," said he, one day, as they rode together, "to assist me, i trust, in learning the language of our forefathers. danish is still spoken much at bayeux, the sole place in neustria [ ] where the old tongue and customs still linger; and it would serve my pastoral ministry to receive your lessons; in a year or so i might hope so to profit by them as to discourse freely with the less frankish part of my flock." "surely, lord bishop, you jest," said harold, seriously; "you know well that within a week, at farthest, i must sail back for england with my young kinsmen." the prelate laughed. "i advise you, dear count and son, to be cautious how you speak so plainly to william. i perceive that you have already ruffled him by such indiscreet remarks; and you must have seen eno' of the duke to know that, when his ire is up, his answers are short but his arms are long." "you most grievously wrong duke william," cried harold, indignantly, "to suppose, merely in that playful humor, for which ye normans are famous, that he could lay force on his confiding guest?" "no, not a confiding guest,--a ransomed captive. surely my brother will deem that he has purchased of count guy his rights over his illustrious prisoner. but courage! the norman court is not the ponthevin dungeon; and your chains, at least, are roses." the reply of wrath and defiance that rose to harold's lip, was checked by a sign from de graville, who raised his finger to his lip with a face expressive of caution and alarm; and, some little time after, as they halted to water their horses, de graville came up to him and said in a low voice, and in saxon: "beware how you speak too frankly to odo. what is said to him is said to william; and the duke, at times, so acts on the spur of the moment that--but let me not wrong him, or needlessly alarm you." "sire de graville," said harold, "this is not the first time that the prelate of bayeux hath hinted at compulsion, nor that you (no doubt kindly) have warned me of purpose hostile or fraudful. as plain man to plain man, i ask you, on your knightly honour, to tell me if you know aught to make you believe that william the duke will, under any pretext, detain me here a captive?" now, though mallet de graville had lent himself to the service of an ignoble craft, he justified it by a better reason than complaisance to his lords; for, knowing william well, his hasty ire, and his relentless ambition, he was really alarmed for harold's safety. and, as the reader may have noted, in suggesting that policy of intimidation, the knight had designed to give the earl at least the benefit of forewarning. so, thus adjured, de graville replied sincerely: "earl harold, on my honour as your brother in knighthood i answer your plain question. i have cause to believe and to know that william will not suffer you to depart, unless fully satisfied on certain points, which he himself will, doubtless, ere long make clear to you." "and if i insist on my departure, not so satisfying him?" "every castle on our road hath a dungeon as deep as count guy's; but where another william to deliver you from william?" "over yon seas, a prince mightier than william, and men as resolute, at least, as your normans." "cher et puissant, my lord earl," answered de graville, "these are brave words, but of no weight in the ear of a schemer so deep as the duke. think you really, that king edward--pardon my bluntness--would rouse himself from his apathy, to do more in your behalf than he has done in your kinsmen's--remonstrate and preach?--are you even sure that on the representation of a man he hath so loved as william, he will not be content to rid his throne of so formidable a subject? you speak of the english people; doubtless you are popular and beloved, but it is the habit of no people, least of all your own, to stir actively and in concert, without leaders. the duke knows the factions of england as well as you do. remember how closely he is connected with tostig, your ambitious brother. have you no fear that tostig himself, earl of the most warlike part of the kingdom, will not only do his best to check the popular feeling in your favour, but foment every intrigue to detain you here, and leave himself the first noble in the land? as for other leaders, save gurth (who is but your own vice earl), who is there that will not rejoice at the absence of harold? you have made foes of the only family that approaches the power of your own--the heirs of leofric and algar.--your strong hand removed from the reins of the empire, tumults and dissensions ere long will break forth that will distract men's minds from an absent captive, and centre them on the safety of their own hearths, or the advancement of their own interests. you see that i know something of the state of your native land; but deem not my own observation, though not idle, sufficed to bestow that knowledge. i learn it more from william's discourses; william, who from flanders, from boulogne, from england itself, by a thousand channels, hears all that passes between the cliffs of dover and the marches of scotland." harold paused long before he replied, for his mind was now thoroughly awakened to his danger; and, while recognising the wisdom and intimate acquaintance of affairs with which de graville spoke, he was also rapidly revolving the best course for himself to pursue in such extremes. at length he said: "i pass by your remarks on the state of england, with but one comment. you underrate gurth, my brother, when you speak of him but as the vice earl of harold. you underrate one, who needs but an object, to excel, in arms and in council, my father godwin himself.--that object a brother's wrongs would create from a brother's love, and three hundred ships would sail up the seine to demand your captive, manned by warriors as hardy as those who wrested neustria from king charles." "granted," said de graville. "but william, who could cut off the hands and feet of his own subjects for an idle jest on his birth, could as easily put out the eyes of a captive foe. and of what worth are the ablest brain, and the stoutest arm, when the man is dependent on another for very sight!" harold involuntarily shuddered, but recovering himself on the instant, he replied, with a smile: "thou makest thy duke a butcher more fell than his ancestor rolfganger. but thou saidst he needed but to be satisfied on certain points. what are they?" "ah, that thou must divine, or he unfold. but see, william himself approaches you." and here the duke, who had been till then in the rear, spurred up with courteous excuses to harold for his long defection from his side; and, as they resumed their way, talked with all his former frankness and gaiety. "by the way, dear brother in arms," said he, "i have provided thee this evening with comrades more welcome, i fear, than myself--haco and wolnoth. that last is a youth whom i love dearly: the first is unsocial eno', and methinks would make a better hermit than soldier. but, by st. valery, i forgot to tell thee that an envoy from flanders to-day, amongst other news, brought me some, that may interest thee. there is a strong commotion in thy brother tostig's northumbrian earldom, and the rumour runs that his fierce vassals will drive him forth and select some other lord: talk was of the sons of algar--so i think ye called the stout dead earl. this looks grave, for my dear cousin edward's health is failing fast. may the saints spare him long from their rest!" "these are indeed ill tidings," said the earl; "and i trust that they suffice to plead at once my excuse for urging any immediate departure. grateful i am for thy most gracious hostship, and thy just and generous intercession with thy liegeman" (harold dwelt emphatically on the last word), "for my release from a capture disgraceful to all christendom. the ransom so nobly paid for me i will not insult thee, dear my lord, by affecting to repay; but such gifts as our cheapmen hold most rare, perchance thy lady and thy fair children will deign to receive at my hands. of these hereafter. now may i ask but a vessel from thy nearest port." "we will talk of this, dear guest and brother knight, on some later occasion. lo, yon castle--ye have no such in england. see its vawmures and fosses!" "a noble pile," answered harold. "but pardon me that i press for--" "ye have no such strongholds, i say, in england?" interrupted the duke petulantly. "nay," replied the englishman, "we have two strongholds far larger than that--salisbury plain and newmarket heath! [ ]--strongholds that will contain fifty thousand men who need no walls but their shields. count william, england's ramparts are her men, and her strongest castles are her widest plains." "ah!" said the duke, biting his lip, "ah, so be it--but to return:--in that castle, mark it well, the dukes of normandy hold their prisoners of state;" and then he added with a laugh; "but we hold you, noble captive, in a prison more strong--our love and our heart." as he spoke, he turned his eye full upon harold, and the gaze of the two encountered: that of the duke was brilliant, but stern and sinister; that of harold, steadfast and reproachful. as if by a spell, the eye of each rested long on that of the other--as the eyes of two lords of the forest, ere the rush and the spring. william was the first to withdraw his gaze, and as he did so, his lip quivered and his brow knit. then waving his hand for some of the lords behind to join him and the earl, he spurred his steed, and all further private conversation was suspended. the train pulled not bridle before they reached a monastery, at which they rested for the night. chapter v. on entering the chamber set apart for him in the convent, harold found haco and wolnoth already awaiting him; and a wound he had received in the last skirmish against the bretons, having broken out afresh on the road, allowed him an excuse to spend the rest of the evening alone with his kinsmen. on conversing with them--now at length, and unrestrainedly--harold saw everything to increase his alarm; for even wolnoth, when closely pressed, could not but give evidence of the unscrupulous astuteness with which, despite all the boasted honour of chivalry, the duke's character was stained. for, indeed in his excuse, it must be said, that from the age of eight, exposed to the snares of his own kinsmen, and more often saved by craft than by strength, william had been taught betimes to justify dissimulation, and confound wisdom with guile. harold now bitterly recalled the parting words of edward, and recognised their justice, though as yet he did not see all that they portended. fevered and disquieted yet more by the news from england, and conscious that not only the power of his house and the foundations of his aspiring hopes, but the very weal and safety of the land, were daily imperilled by his continued absence, a vague and unspeakable terror for the first time in his life preyed on his bold heart--a terror like that of superstition, for, like superstition, it was of the unknown; there was everything to shun, yet no substance to grapple with. he who could have smiled at the brief pangs of death, shrunk from the thought of the perpetual prison; he, whose spirit rose elastic to every storm of life, and exulted in the air of action, stood appalled at the fear of blindness;--blindness in the midst of a career so grand;--blindness in the midst of his pathway to a throne;-- blindness, that curse which palsies the strong and enslaves the free, and leaves the whole man defenceless;--defenceless in an age of iron. what, too, were those mysterious points on which he was to satisfy the duke? he sounded his young kinsmen; but wolnoth evidently knew nothing; haco's eye showed intelligence, but by his looks and gestures he seemed to signify that what he knew he would only disclose to harold. fatigued, not more with his emotions than with that exertion to conceal them so peculiar to the english character (proud virtue of manhood so little appreciated, and so rarely understood!) he at length kissed wolnoth, and dismissed him, yawning, to his rest. haco, lingering, closed the door, and looked long and mournfully at the earl. "noble kinsman," said the young son of sweyn, "i foresaw from the first, that as our fate will be thine;--only round thee will be wall and fosse; unless, indeed, thou wilt lay aside thine own nature--it will give thee no armour here--and assume that which----" "ho!" interrupted the earl, shaking with repressed passion, "i see already all the foul fraud and treason to guest and noble that surround me! but if the duke dare such shame he shall do so in the eyes of day. i will hail the first boat i see on his river, or his sea-coast; and woe to those who lay hand on this arm to detain me!" haco lifted his ominous eyes to harold's; and there was something in their cold and unimpassioned expression which seemed to repel all enthusiasm, and to deaden all courage. "harold," said he, "if but for one such moment thou obeyest the impulses of thy manly pride, or thy just resentment, thou art lost for ever; one show of violence, one word of affront, and thou givest the duke the excuse he thirsts for. escape! it is impossible. for the last five years, i have pondered night and day the means of flight; for i deem that my hostageship, by right, is long since over; and no means have i seen or found. spies dog my every step, as spies, no doubt, dog thine." "ha! it is true," said harold; "never once have i wandered three paces from the camp or the troop, but, under some pretext, i have been followed by knight or courtier. god and our lady help me, if but for england's sake! but what counsellest thou? boy, teach me; thou hast been reared in this air of wile--to me it is strange, and i am as a wild beast encompassed by a circle of fire." "then," answered haco, "meet craft by craft, smile by smile. feel that thou art under compulsion, and act,--as the church itself pardons men for acting, so compelled." harold started, and the blush spread red over his cheeks. haco continued. "once in prison, and thou art lost evermore to the sight of men. william would not then dare to release thee--unless, indeed, he first rendered thee powerless to avenge. though i will not malign him, and say that he himself is capable of secret murder, yet he has ever those about him who are. he drops in his wrath some hasty word; it is seized by ready and ruthless tools. the great count of bretagne was in his way; william feared him as he fears thee; and in his own court, and amongst his own men, the great count of bretagne died by poison. for thy doom, open or secret, william, however, could find ample excuse." "how, boy? what charge can the norman bring against a free englishman?" "his kinsman alfred," answered haco, "was blinded, tortured, and murdered. and in the court of rouen, they say these deeds were done by godwin, thy father. the normans who escorted alfred were decimated in cold blood; again, they say godwin thy father slaughtered them." "it is hell's own lie!" cried harold, "and so have i proved already to the duke." "proved? no! the lamb does not prove the cause which is prejudged by the wolf. often and often have i heard the normans speak of those deeds, and cry that vengeance yet shall await them. it is but to renew the old accusation, to say godwin's sudden death was god's proof of his crime, and even edward himself would forgive the duke for thy bloody death. but grant the best; grant that the more lenient doom were but the prison; grant that edward and the english invaded normandy to enforce thy freedom; knowest thou what william hath ere now done with hostages? he hath put them in the van of his army, and seared out their eyes in the sight of both hosts. deemest thou he would be more gentle to us and to thee? such are thy dangers. be bold and frank,--and thou canst not escape them; be wary and wise, promise and feign,--and they are baffled: cover thy lion heart with the fox's hide until thou art free from the toils." "leave me, leave me," said harold, hastily. "yet, hold. thou didst seem to understand me when i hinted of--in a word, what is the object william would gain from me?" haco looked around; again went to the door--again opened and closed it--approached, and whispered, "the crown of england!" the earl bounded as if shot to the heart; then, again he cried: "leave me. i must be alone--alone now. go! go!" chapter vi. only in solitude could that strong man give way to his emotions; and at first they rushed forth so confused and stormy, so hurtling one the other, that hours elapsed before he could serenely face the terrible crisis of his position. the great historian of italy has said, that whenever the simple and truthful german came amongst the plotting and artful italians and experienced their duplicity and craft, he straightway became more false and subtle than the italians themselves: to his own countrymen, indeed, he continued to retain his characteristic sincerity and good faith; but, once duped and tricked by the southern schemers, as if with a fierce scorn, he rejected troth with the truthless; he exulted in mastering them in their own wily statesmanship; and if reproached for insincerity, retorted with naive wonder, "ye italians, and complain of insincerity! how otherwise can one deal with you--how be safe amongst you?" somewhat of this revolution of all the natural elements of his character took place in harold's mind that stormy and solitary night. in the transport of his indignation, he resolved not doltishly to be thus outwitted to his ruin. the perfidious host had deprived himself of that privilege of truth,--the large and heavenly security of man;-- it was but a struggle of wit against wit, snare against snare. the state and law of warfare had started up in the lap of fraudful peace; and ambush must be met by ambush, plot by plot. such was the nature of the self-excuses by which the saxon defended his resolves, and they appeared to him more sanctioned by the stake which depended on success--a stake which his undying patriotism allowed to be far more vast than his individual ambition. nothing was more clear than that if he were detained in a norman prison, at the time of king edward's death, the sole obstacle to william's design on the english throne would be removed. in the interim, the duke's intrigues would again surround the infirm king with norman influences; and in the absence both of any legitimate heir to the throne capable of commanding the trust of the people, and of his own preponderating ascendancy both in the witan and the armed militia of the nation, what could arrest the designs of the grasping duke? thus his own liberty was indissolubly connected with that of his country; and for that great end, the safety of england, all means grew holy. when the next morning he joined the cavalcade, it was only by his extreme paleness that the struggle and agony of the past night could be traced, and he answered with correspondent cheerfulness william's cordial greetings. as they rode together--still accompanied by several knights, and the discourse was thus general, the features of the country suggested the theme of the talk. for, now in the heart of normandy, but in rural districts remote from the great towns, nothing could be more waste and neglected than the face of the land. miserable and sordid to the last degree were the huts of the serfs; and when these last met them on their way, half naked and hunger-worn, there was a wild gleam of hate and discontent in their eyes, as they louted low to the norman riders, and heard the bitter and scornful taunts with which they were addressed; for the norman and the frank had more than indifference for the peasants of their land; they literally both despised and abhorred them, as of different race from the conquerors. the norman settlement especially was so recent in the land, that none of that amalgamation between class and class which centuries had created in england, existed there; though in england the theowe was wholly a slave, and the ceorl in a political servitude to his lord, yet public opinion, more mild than law, preserved the thraldom from wanton aggravation; and slavery was felt to be wrong and unchristian. the saxon church-- not the less, perhaps, for its very ignorance--sympathised more with the subject population and was more associated with it, than the comparatively learned and haughty ecclesiastics of the continent, who held aloof from the unpolished vulgar. the saxon church invariably set the example of freeing the theowe and emancipating the ceorl, and taught that such acts were to the salvation of the soul. the rude and homely manner in which the greater part of the saxon thegns lived-- dependent solely for their subsistence on their herds and agricultural produce, and therefore on the labour of their peasants--not only made the distinctions of rank less harsh and visible, but rendered it the interest of the lords to feed and clothe well their dependents. all our records of the customs of the saxons prove the ample sustenance given to the poor, and a general care of their lives and rights, which, compared with the frank laws, may be called enlightened and humane. and above all, the lowest serf ever had the great hope both of freedom and of promotion; but the beast of the field was holier in the eyes of the norman, than the wretched villein [ ]. we have likened the norman to the spartan, and, most of all, he was like him in his scorn of the helot. thus embruted and degraded, deriving little from religion itself, except its terrors, the general habits of the peasants on the continent of france were against the very basis of christianity-- marriage. they lived together for the most part without that tie, and hence the common name, with which they were called by their masters, lay and clerical, was the coarsest word contempt can apply to the sons of women. "the hounds glare at us," said odo, as a drove of these miserable serfs passed along. "they need ever the lash to teach them to know the master. are they thus mutinous and surly in england, lord harold?" "no: but there our meanest theowes are not seen so clad, nor housed in such hovels," said the earl. "and is it really true that a villein with you can rise to be a noble?" "of at least yearly occurrence. perhaps the forefathers of one-fourth of our anglo-saxon thegns held the plough, or followed some craft mechanical." duke william politicly checked odo's answer, and said mildly: "every land its own laws: and by them alone should it be governed by a virtuous and wise ruler. but, noble harold, i grieve that you should thus note the sore point in my realm. i grant that the condition of the peasants and the culture of the land need reform. but in my childhood, there was a fierce outbreak of rebellion among the villeins, needing bloody example to check, and the memories of wrath between lord and villein must sleep before we can do justice between them, as please st. peter, and by lanfranc's aid, we hope to do. meanwhile, one great portion of our villeinage in our larger towns we have much mitigated. for trade and commerce are the strength of rising states; and if our fields are barren our streets are prosperous." harold bowed, and rode musingly on. that civilisation he had so much admired bounded itself to the noble class, and, at farthest, to the circle of the duke's commercial policy. beyond it, on the outskirts of humanity, lay the mass of the people. and here, no comparison in favour of the latter could be found between english and norman civilisation. the towers of bayeux rose dim in the distance, when william proposed a halt in a pleasant spot by the side of a small stream, overshadowed by oak and beech. a tent for himself and harold was pitched in haste, and after an abstemious refreshment, the duke, taking harold's arm, led him away from the train along the margin of the murmuring stream. they were soon in a remote, pastoral, primitive spot, a spot like those which the old menestrels loved to describe, and in which some pious hermit might, pleased, have fixed his solitary home. halting where a mossy bank jutted over the water, william motioned to his companion to seat himself, and reclining at his side, abstractedly took the pebbles from the margin and dropped them into the stream. they fell to the botton with a hollow sound; the circle they made on the surface widened, and was lost; and the wave rushed and murmured on, disdainful. "harold," said the duke at last, "thou hast thought, i fear, that i have trifled with thy impatience to return. but there is on my mind a matter of great moment to thee and to me, and it must out, before thou canst depart. on this very spot where we now sit, sate in early youth, edward thy king, and william thy host. soothed by the loneliness of the place, and the music of the bell from the church tower, rising pale through yonder glade, edward spoke of his desire for the monastic life, and of his content with his exile in the norman land. few then were the hopes that he should ever attain the throne of alfred. i, more martial, and ardent for him as myself, combated the thought of the convent, and promised, that, if ever occasion meet arrived, and he needed the norman help, i would, with arm and heart, do a chief's best to win him his lawful crown. heedest thou me, dear harold?" "ay, my host, with heart as with ear." "and edward then, pressing my hand as i now press thine, while answering gratefully, promised, that if he did, contrary to all human foresight, gain his heritage, he, in case i survived him, would bequeath that heritage to me. thy hand withdraws itself from mine." "but from surprise: duke william, proceed." "now," resumed william, "when thy kinsmen were sent to me as hostages for the most powerful house in england--the only one that could thwart the desire of my cousin--i naturally deemed this a corroboration of his promise, and an earnest of his continued designs; and in this i was reassured by the prelate, robert, archbishop of canterbury, who knew the most secret conscience of your king. wherefore my pertinacity in retaining those hostages; wherefore my disregard to edward's mere remonstrances, which i not unnaturally conceived to be but his meek confessions to the urgent demands of thyself and house. since then, fortune or providence hath favoured the promise of the king, and my just expectations founded thereon. for one moment, it seemed indeed, that edward regretted or reconsidered the pledge of our youth. he sent for his kinsman, the atheling, natural heir to the throne. but the poor prince died. the son, a mere child, if i am rightly informed, the laws of thy land will set aside, should edward die ere the child grown a man; and, moreover, i am assured, that the young edgar hath no power of mind or intellect to wield so weighty a sceptre as that of england. your king, also, even since your absence, hath had severe visitings of sickness, and ere another year his new abbey may hold his tomb." william here paused; again dropped the pebbles into the stream, and glanced furtively on the unrevealing face of the earl. he resumed: "thy brother tostig, as so nearly allied to my house, would, i am advised, back my claims; and wert thou absent from england, tostig, i conceive, would be in thy place as the head of the great party of godwin. but to prove how little i care for thy brother's aid compared with thine, and how implicitly i count on thee, i have openly told thee what a wilier plotter would have concealed--viz., the danger to which thy brother is menaced in his own earldom. to the point, then, i pass at once. i might, as my ransomed captive, detain thee here, until, without thee, i had won my english throne, and i know that thou alone couldst obstruct my just claims, or interfere with the king's will, by which that appanage will be left to me. nevertheless, i unbosom myself to thee, and would owe my crown solely to thine aid. i pass on to treat with thee, dear harold, not as lord with vassal, but as prince with prince. on thy part, thou shalt hold for me the castle of dover, to yield to my fleet when the hour comes; thou shalt aid me in peace, and through thy national witan, to succeed to edward, by whose laws i will reign in all things conformably with the english rites, habits, and decrees. a stronger king to guard england from the dane, and a more practised head to improve her prosperity, i am vain eno' to say thou wilt not find in christendom. on my part, i offer to thee my fairest daughter, adeliza, to whom thou shalt be straightway betrothed: thine own young unwedded sister, thyra, thou shalt give to one of my greatest barons: all the lands, dignities, and possessions thou holdest now, thou shalt still retain; and if, as i suspect, thy brother tostig cannot keep his vast principality north the humber, it shall pass to thee. whatever else thou canst demand in guarantee of my love and gratitude, or so to confirm thy power that thou shalt rule over thy countships as free and as powerful as the great counts of provence or anjou reign in france over theirs, subject only to the mere form of holding in fief to the suzerain, as i, stormy subject, hold normandy under philip of france,--shall be given to thee. in truth, there will be two kings in england, though in name but one. and far from losing by the death of edward, thou shalt gain by the subjection of every meaner rival, and the cordial love of thy grateful william.--splendour of god, earl, thou keepest me long for thine answer!" "what thou offerest," said the earl, fortifying himself with the resolution of the previous night, and compressing his lips, livid with rage, "is beyond my deserts, and all that the greatest chief under royalty could desire. but england is not edward's to leave, nor mine to give: its throne rests with the witan." "and the witan rests with thee," exclaimed william sharply. "i ask but for possibilities, man; i ask but all thine influence on my behalf; and if it be less than i deem, mine is the loss. what dost thou resign? i will not presume to menace thee; but thou wouldst indeed despise my folly, if now, knowing my designs, i let thee forth --not to aid, but betray them. i know thou lovest england, so do i. thou deemest me a foreigner; true, but the norman and dane are of precisely the same origin. thou, of the race of canute, knowest how popular was the reign of that king. why should william's be less so? canute had no right whatsoever, save that of the sword. my right will be kinship to edward--edward's wish in my favour--the consent through thee of the witan--the absence of all other worthy heir--my wife's clear descent from alfred, which, in my children, restore the saxon line, through its purest and noblest ancestry, to the throne. think over all this, and then wilt thou tell me that i merit not this crown?" harold yet paused, and the fiery duke resumed: "are the terms i give not tempting eno' to my captive--to the son of the great godwin, who, no doubt falsely, but still by the popular voice of all europe, had power of life and death over my cousin alfred and my norman knights? or dost thou thyself covet the english crown; and is it to a rival that i have opened my heart?" "nay," said harold in the crowning effort of his new and fatal lesson in simulation. "thou hast convinced me, duke william: let it be as thou sayest." the duke gave way to his joy by a loud exclamation, and then recapitulated the articles of the engagement, to which harold simply bowed his head. amicably then the duke embraced the earl, and the two returned towards the tent. while the steeds were brought forth, william took the opportunity to draw odo apart; and, after a short whispered conference, the prelate hastened to his barb, and spurred fast to bayeux in advance of the party. all that day, and all that night, and all the next morn till noon, courtiers and riders went abroad, north and south, east and west, to all the more famous abbeys and churches in normandy, and holy and awful was the spoil with which they returned for the ceremony of the next day. chapter vii. the stately mirth of the evening banquet seemed to harold as the malign revel of some demoniac orgy. he thought he read in every face the exultation over the sale of england. every light laugh in the proverbial ease of the social normans rang on his ear like the joy of a ghastly sabbat. all his senses preternaturally sharpened to that magnetic keenness in which we less hear and see than conceive and divine, the lowest murmur william breathed in the ear of odo boomed clear to his own; the slightest interchange of glance between some dark-browed priest and large-breasted warrior, flashed upon his vision. the irritation of his recent and neglected wound combined with his mental excitement to quicken, yet to confuse, his faculties. body and soul were fevered. he floated, as it were, between a delirium and a dream. late in the evening he was led into the chamber where the duchess sat alone with adeliza and her second son william--a boy who had the red hair and florid hues of the ancestral dane, but was not without a certain bold and strange kind of beauty, and who, even in childhood, all covered with broidery and gems, betrayed the passion for that extravagant and fantastic foppery for which william the red king, to the scandal of church and pulpit, exchanged the decorous pomp of his father's generation. a formal presentation of harold to the little maid was followed by a brief ceremony of words, which conveyed what to the scornful sense of the earl seemed the mockery of betrothal between infant and bearded man. glozing congratulations buzzed around him; then there was a flash of lights on his dizzy eyes, he found himself moving through a corridor between odo and william. he was in his room hung with arras and strewed with rushes; before him in niches, various images of the virgin, the archangel michael, st. stephen, st. peter, st. john, st. valery; and from the bells in the monastic edifice hard by tolled the third watch [ ] of the night--the narrow casement was out of reach, high in the massive wall, and the starlight was darkened by the great church tower. harold longed for air. all his earldom had he given at that moment, to feel the cold blast of his native skies moaning round his saxon wolds. he opened his door, and looked forth. a lanthorn swung on high from the groined roof of the corridor. by the lanthorn stood a tall sentry in arms, and its gleam fell red upon an iron grate that jealously closed the egress. the earl closed the door, and sat down on his bed, covering his face with his clenched hand. the veins throbbed in every pulse, his own touch seemed to him like fire. the prophecies of hilda on the fatal night by the bautastein, which had decided him to reject the prayer of gurth, the fears of edith, and the cautions of edward, came back to him, dark, haunting, and overmasteringly. they rose between him and his sober sense, whenever he sought to re-collect his thoughts, now to madden him with the sense of his folly in belief, now to divert his mind from the perilous present to the triumphant future they foretold; and of all the varying chaunts of the vala, ever two lines seemed to burn into his memory, and to knell upon his ear, as if they contained the counsel they ordained him to pursue: "guile by guile oppose, and never crown and brow shall force dissever!" so there he sat, locked and rigid, not reclining, not disrobing, till in that posture a haggard, troubled, fitful sleep came over him; nor did he wake till the hour of prime [ ], when ringing bells and tramping feet, and the hum of prayer from the neighbouring chapel, roused him into waking yet more troubled, and well-nigh as dreamy. but now godrith and haco entered the room, and the former inquired with some surprise in his tone, if he had arranged with the duke to depart that day; "for," said he, "the duke's hors-thegn has just been with me, to say that the duke himself, and a stately retinue, are to accompany you this evening towards harfleur, where a ship will be in readiness for our transport; and i know that the chamberlain (a courteous and pleasant man) is going round to my fellow-thegns in your train, with gifts of hawks, and chains, and broidered palls." "it is so," said haco, in answer to harold's brightening and appealing eye. "go then, at once, godrith," exclaimed the earl, bounding to his feet, "have all in order to part at the first break of the trump. never, i ween, did trump sound so cheerily as the blast that shall announce our return to england. haste--haste!" as godrith, pleased in the earl's pleasure, though himself already much fascinated by the honours he had received and the splendor he had witnessed, withdrew, haco said, "thou has taken my counsel, noble kinsman?" "question me not, haco! out of my memory, all that hath passed here!" "not yet," said haco, with that gloomy and intense seriousness of voice and aspect, which was so at variance with his years, and which impressed all he said with an indescribable authority. "not yet; for even while the chamberlain went his round with the parting gifts, i, standing in the angle of the wall in the yard, heard the duke's deep whisper to roger bigod, who has the guard of the keape, 'have the men all armed at noon in the passage below the council-hall, to mount at the stamp of my foot: and if then i give thee a prisoner--wonder not, but lodge him--' the duke paused; and bigod said, 'where, my liege?' and the duke answered fiercely, 'where? why, where but in the tour noir?--where but in the cell in which malvoisin rotted out his last hour?' not yet, then, let the memory of norman wile pass away; let the lip guard the freedom still." all the bright native soul that before haco spoke had dawned gradually back on the earl's fair face, now closed itself up, as the leaves of a poisoned flower; and the pupil of the eye receding, left to the orb that secret and strange expression which had baffled all readers of the heart in the look of his impenetrable father. "guile by guile oppose!" he muttered vaguely; then started, clenched his hand, and smiled. in a few moments, more than the usual levee of norman nobles thronged into the room; and what with the wonted order of the morning, in the repast, the church service of tierce, and a ceremonial visit to matilda, who confirmed the intelligence that all was in preparation for his departure, and charged him with gifts of her own needlework to his sister the queen, and various messages of gracious nature, the time waxed late into noon without his having yet seen either william or odo. he was still with matilda, when the lords fitzosborne and raoul de tancarville entered in full robes of state, and with countenances unusually composed and grave, and prayed the earl to accompany them into the duke's presence. harold obeyed in silence, not unprepared for covert danger, by the formality of the counts, as by the warnings of haco; but, indeed, undivining the solemnity of the appointed snare. on entering the lofty hall, he beheld william seated in state; his sword of office in his hand, his ducal robe on his imposing form, and with that peculiarly erect air of the head which he assumed upon all ceremonial occasions [ ]. behind him stood odo of bayeux, in aube and gallium; some score of the duke's greatest vassals; and at a little distance from the throne chair, was what seemed a table; or vast chest, covered all over with cloth of gold. small time for wonder or self-collection did the duke give the saxon. "approach, harold," said he, in the full tones of that voice, so singularly effective in command; "approach, and without fear, as without regret. before the members of this noble assembly--all witnesses of thy faith, and all guarantees of mine--i summon thee to confirm by oath the promises thou mad'st me yesterday; namely, to aid me to obtain the kingdom of england on the death of king edward, my cousin; to marry my daughter adeliza; and to send thy sister hither, that i may wed her, as we agreed, to one of my worthiest and prowest counts. advance thou, odo, my brother, and repeat to the noble earl the norman form by which he will take the oath." then odo stood forth by that mysterious receptacle covered with the cloth of gold, and said briefly, "thou wilt swear, as far as is in thy power, to fulfil thy agreement with william, duke of the normans, if thou live, and god aid thee; and in witness of that oath thou wilt lay thy hand upon the reliquaire," pointing to a small box that lay on the cloth of gold. all this was so sudden--all flashed so rapidly upon the earl, whose natural intellect, however great, was, as we have often seen, more deliberate than prompt--so thoroughly was the bold heart, which no siege could have sapped, taken by surprise and guile--so paramount through all the whirl and tumult of his mind, rose the thought of england irrevocably lost, if he who alone could save her was in the norman dungeons--so darkly did all haco's fears, and his own just suspicions, quell and master him, that mechanically, dizzily, dreamily, he laid his hand on the reliquaire, and repeated, with automaton lips: "if i live, and if god aid me to it!" then all the assembly repeated solemnly: "god aid him!" and suddenly, at a sign from william, odo and raoul de tancarville raised the gold cloth, and the duke's voice bade harold look below. as when man descends from the gilded sepulchre to the loathsome charnel, so at the lifting of that cloth, all the dread ghastliness of death was revealed. there, from abbey and from church, from cyst and from shrine, had been collected all the relics of human nothingness in which superstition adored the mementos of saints divine; there lay, pell mell and huddled, skeleton and mummy--the dry dark skin, the white gleaming bones of the dead, mockingly cased in gold, and decked with rubies; there, grim fingers protruded through the hideous chaos, and pointed towards the living man ensnared; there, the skull grinned scoff under the holy mitre;--and suddenly rushed back, luminous and searing upon harold's memory, the dream long forgotten, or but dimly remembered in the healthful business of life--the gibe and the wirble of the dead men's bones. "at that sight," say the norman chronicles, "the earl shuddered and trembled." "awful, indeed, thine oath, and natural thine emotion," said the duke; "for in that cyst are all those relics which religion deems the holiest in our land. the dead have heard thine oath, and the saints even now record it in the halls of heaven! cover again the holy bones!" this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book iii. the house of godwin. chapter i. and all went to the desire of duke william the norman. with one hand he curbed his proud vassals, and drove back his fierce foes. with the other, he led to the altar matilda, the maid of flanders; and all happened as lanfranc had foretold. william's most formidable enemy, the king of france, ceased to conspire against his new kinsman; and the neighbouring princes said, "the bastard hath become one of us since he placed by his side the descendant of charlemagne." and mauger, archbishop of rouen, excommunicated the duke and his bride, and the ban fell idle; for lanfranc sent from rome the pope's dispensation and blessing [ ], conditionally only that bride and bridegroom founded each a church. and mauger was summoned before the synod, and accused of unclerical crimes; and they deposed him from his state, and took from him abbacies and sees. and england every day waxed more and more norman; and edward grew more feeble and infirm, and there seemed not a barrier between the norman duke and the english throne, when suddenly the wind blew in the halls of heaven, and filled the sails of harold the earl. and his ships came to the mouth of the severn. and the people of somerset and devon, a mixed and mainly a celtic race, who bore small love to the saxons, drew together against him, and he put them to flight. [ ] meanwhile, godwin and his sons sweyn, tostig, and gurth, who had taken refuge in that very flanders from which william the duke had won his bride,--(for tostig had wed, previously, the sister of matilda, the rose of flanders; and count baldwin had, for his sons-in-law, both tostig and william,)--meanwhile, i say, these, not holpen by the count baldwin, but helping themselves, lay at bruges, ready to join harold the earl. and edward, advised of this from the anxious norman, caused forty ships [ ] to be equipped, and put them under command of rolf, earl of hereford. the ships lay at sandwich in wait for godwin. but the old earl got from them, and landed quietly on the southern coast. and the fort of hastings opened to his coming with a shout from its armed men. all the boatmen, all the mariners, far and near, thronged to him, with sail and with shield, with sword and with oar. all kent (the foster- mother of the saxons) sent forth the cry, "life or death with earl godwin." [ ] fast over the length and breadth of the land, went the bodes [ ] and riders of the earl; and hosts, with one voice, answered the cry of the children of horsa, "life or death with earl godwin." and the ships of king edward, in dismay, turned flag and prow to london, and the fleet of harold sailed on. so the old earl met his young son on the deck of a war-ship, that had once borne the raven of the dane. swelled and gathering sailed the armament of the english men. slow up the thames it sailed, and on either shore marched tumultuous the swarming multitudes. and king edward sent after more help, but it came up very late. so the fleet of the earl nearly faced the julliet keape of london, and abode at southwark till the flood-tide came up. when he had mustered his host, then came the flood tide. [ ] chapter ii. king edward sate, not on his throne, but on a chair of state, in the presence-chamber of his palace of westminster. his diadem, with the three zimmes shaped into a triple trefoil [ ] on his brow, his sceptre in his right hand. his royal robe, tight to the throat, with a broad band of gold, flowed to his feet; and at the fold gathered round the left knee, where now the kings of england wear the badge of st. george, was embroidered a simple cross [ ]. in that chamber met the thegns and proceres of his realm; but not they alone. no national witan there assembled, but a council of war, composed at least one third part of normans--counts, knights, prelates, and abbots of high degree. and king edward looked a king! the habitual lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow. his spirit seemed to have risen from the weight it took from the sluggish blood of his father, ethelred the unready, and to have remounted to the brighter and earlier sources of ancestral heroes. worthy in that hour he seemed to boast the blood and wield the sceptre of athelstan and alfred. [ ] thus spoke the king: "right worthy and beloved, my ealdermen, earls, and thegns of england; noble and familiar, my friends and guests, counts and chevaliers of normandy, my mother's land; and you, our spiritual chiefs, above all ties of birth and country, christendom your common appanage, and from heaven your seignories and fiefs,--hear the words of edward, the king of england under grace of the most high. the rebels are in our river; open yonder lattice, and you will see the piled shields glittering from their barks, and hear the hum of their hosts. not a bow has yet been drawn, not a sword left its sheath; yet on the opposite side of the river are our fleets of forty sail--along the strand, between our palace and the gates of london, are arrayed our armies. and this pause because godwin the traitor hath demanded truce and his nuncius waits without. are ye willing that we should hear the message? or would ye rather that we dismiss the messenger unheard, and pass at once, to rank and to sail, the war-cry of a christian king, 'holy crosse and our lady!'" the king ceased, his left hand grasping firm the leopard head carved on his throne, and his sceptre untrembling in his lifted hand. a murmur of notre dame, notre dame, the war-cry of the normans, was heard amongst the stranger-knights of the audience; but haughty and arrogant as those strangers were, no one presumed to take precedence, in england's danger, of men english born. slowly then rose alred, bishop of winchester, the worthiest prelate in all the land. [ ] "kingly son," said the bishop, "evil is the strife between men of the same blood and lineage, nor justified but by extremes, which have not yet been made clear to us. and ill would it sound throughout england were it said that the king's council gave, perchance, his city of london to sword and fire, and rent his land in twain, when a word in season might have disbanded yon armies, and given to your throne a submissive subject, where now you are menaced by a formidable rebel. wherefore, i say, admit the nuncius." scarcely had alred resumed his seat, before robert the norman prelate of canterbury started up,--a man, it was said, of worldly learning-- and exclaimed: "to admit the messenger is to approve the treason. i do beseech the king to consult only his own royal heart and royal honour. reflect-- each moment of delay swells the rebel hosts, strengthens their cause; of each moment they avail themselves to allure to their side the misguided citizens. delay but proves our own weakness; a king's name is a tower of strength, but only when fortified by a king's authority. give the signal for--war i call it not--no--for chastisement and justice." "as speaks my brother of canterbury, speak i," said william, bishop of london, another norman. but then there rose up a form at whose rising all murmurs were hushed. grey and vast, as some image of a gone and mightier age towered over all, siward, the son of beorn, the great earl of northumbria. "we have naught to do with the normans. were they on the river, and our countrymen, dane or saxon, alone in this hall, small doubt of the king's choice, and niddering were the man who spoke of peace; but when norman advises the dwellers of england to go forth and slay each other, no sword of mine shall be drawn at his hest. who shall say that siward of the strong arm, the grandson of the berserker, ever turned from a foe? the foe, son of ethelred, sits in these halls; i fight thy battles when i say nay to the norman! brothers-in-arms of the kindred race and common tongue, dane and saxon long intermingled, proud alike of canute the glorious and alfred the wise, ye will hear the man whom godwin, our countryman, sends to us; he at least will speak our tongue, and he knows our laws. if the demand he delivers be just, such as a king should grant, and our witan should hear, woe to him who refuses; if unjust be the demand, shame to him who accedes. warrior sends to warrior, countryman to countryman; hear we as countrymen, and judge as warriors. i have said." the utmost excitement and agitation followed the speech of siward,-- unanimous applause from the saxons, even those who in times of peace were most under the norman contagion; but no words can paint the wrath and scorn of the normans. they spoke loud and many at a time; the greatest disorder prevailed. but the majority being english, there could be no doubt as to the decision; and edward, to whom the emergence gave both a dignity and presence of mind rare to him, resolved to terminate the dispute at once. he stretched forth his sceptre, and motioning to his chamberlain, bade him introduce the nuncius. [ ] a blank disappointment, not unmixed with apprehensive terror, succeeded the turbulent excitement of the normans; for well they knew that the consequences, if not condition, of negotiations, would be their own downfall and banishment at the least;--happy, it might be, to escape massacre at the hands of the exasperated multitude. the door at the end of the room opened, and the nuncius appeared. he was a sturdy, broad-shouldered man, of middle age, and in the long loose garb originally national with the saxon, though then little in vogue; his beard thick and fair, his eyes grey and calm--a chief of kent, where all the prejudices of his race were strongest, and whose yeomanry claimed in war the hereditary right to be placed in the front of battle. he made his manly but deferential salutation to the august council as he approached; and, pausing midway between the throne and door, he fell on his knees without thought of shame, for the king to whom he knelt was the descendant of woden, and the heir of hengist. at a sign and a brief word from the king, still on his knees, vebba, the kentman, spoke. "to edward, son of ethelred, his most gracious king and lord, godwin, son of wolnoth, sends faithful and humble greeting, by vebba, the thegn-born. he prays the king to hear him in kindness, and judge of him with mercy. not against the king comes he hither with ships and arms; but against those only who would stand between the king's heart and the subject's: those who have divided a house against itself, and parted son and father, man and wife." at those last words edward's sceptre trembled in this hand, and his face grew almost stern. "of the king, godwin but prays with all submiss and earnest prayer, to reverse the unrighteous outlawry against him and his; to restore him and his sons their just possessions and well-won honours; and, more than all, to replace them where they have sought by loving service not unworthily to stand, in the grace of their born lord and in the van of those who would uphold the laws and liberties of england. this done-- the ships sail back to their haven; the thegn seeks his homestead and the ceorl returns to the plough; for with godwin are no strangers; and his force is but the love of his countrymen." "hast thou said?" quoth the king. "i have said." "retire, and await our answer." the thegn of kent was then led back into an ante-room, in which, armed from head to heel in ring-mail, were several normans whose youth or station did not admit them into the council, but still of no mean interest in the discussion, from the lands and possessions they had already contrived to gripe out of the demesnes of the exiles;--burning for battle and eager for the word. amongst these was mallet de graville. the norman valour of this young knight was, as we have seen, guided by norman intelligence; and he had not disdained, since william's departure, to study the tongue of the country in which he hoped to exchange his mortgaged tower on the seine, for some fair barony on the humber or the thames. while the rest of his proud countrymen stood aloof, with eyes of silent scorn, from the homely nuncius, mallet approached him with courteous bearing, and said in saxon: "may i crave to know the issue of thy message from the reb--that is from the doughty earl?" "i wait to learn it," said vebba, bluffly. "they heard thee throughout, then?" "throughout." "friendly sir," said the sire de graville, seeking to subdue the tone of irony habitual to him, and acquired, perhaps, from his maternal ancestry, the franks. "friendly and peace-making sir, dare i so far venture to intrude on the secrets of thy mission as to ask if godwin demands, among other reasonable items, the head of thy humble servant --not by name indeed, for my name is as yet unknown to him--but as one of the unhappy class called normans?" "had earl godwin," returned the nuncius, "thought fit to treat for peace by asking vengeance, he would have chosen another spokesman. the earl asks but his own; and thy head is not, i trow, a part of his goods and chattels." "that is comforting," said mallet. "marry, i thank thee, sir saxon; and thou speakest like a brave man and an honest. and if we fall to blows, as i suspect we shall, i should deem it a favour of our lady the virgin if she send thee across my way. next to a fair friend i love a bold foe." vebba smiled, for he liked the sentiment, and the tone and air of the young knight pleased his rough mind, despite his prejudices against the stranger. encouraged by the smile, mallet seated himself on the corner of the long table that skirted the room, and with a debonnair gesture invited vebba to do the same; then looking at him gravely, he resumed: "so frank and courteous thou art, sir envoy, that i yet intrude on thee my ignorant and curious questions." "speak out, norman." "how comes it, then, that you english so love this earl godwin?--still more, why think you it right and proper that king edward should love him too? it is a question i have often asked, and to which i am not likely in these halls to get answer satisfactory. if i know aught of your troublous history, this same earl has changed sides oft eno'; first for the saxon, then for canute the dane--canute dies, and your friend takes up arms for the saxon again. he yields to the advice of your witan, and sides with hardicanute and harold, the danes--a letter, nathless, is written as from emma, the mother to the young saxon princes, edward and alfred, inviting them over to england, and promising aid; the saints protect edward, who continues to say aves in normandy--alfred comes over, earl godwin meets him, and, unless belied, does him homage, and swears to him faith. nay, listen yet. this godwin, whom ye love so, then leads alfred and his train into the ville of guildford, i think ye call it,--fair quarters enow. at the dead of the night rush in king harold's men, seize prince and follower, six hundred men in all; and next morning, saving only every tenth man, they are tortured and put to death. the prince is born off to london, and shortly afterwards his eyes are torn out in the islet of ely, and he dies of the anguish! that ye should love earl godwin withal may be strange, but yet possible. but is it possible, cher envoy, for the king to love the man who thus betrayed his brother to the shambles?" "all this is a norman fable," said the thegn of kent, with a disturbed visage; "and godwin cleared himself on oath of all share in the foul murder of alfred." "the oath, i have heard, was backed," said the knight drily, "by a present to hardicanute, who after the death of king harold resolved to avenge the black butchery; a present, i say, of a gilt ship, manned by fourscore warriors with gold-hilted swords, and gilt helms.--but let this pass." "let it pass," echoed vebba with a sigh. "bloody were those times, and unholy their secrets." "yet answer me still, why love you earl godwin? he hath changed sides from party to party, and in each change won lordships and lands. he is ambitious and grasping, ye all allow; for the ballads sung in your streets liken him to the thorn and the bramble, at which the sheep leaves his wool. he is haughty and overbearing. tell me, o saxon, frank saxon, why you love godwin the earl? fain would i know; for, please the saints (and you and your earl so permitting), i mean to live and die in this merrie england; and it would be pleasant to learn that i have but to do as earl godwin, in order to win love from the english." the stout vebba looked perplexed; but after stroking his beard thoughtfully, he answered thus: "though of kent, and therefore in his earldom, i am not one of godwin's especial party; for that reason was i chosen his bode. those who are under him doubtless love a chief liberal to give and strong to protect. the old age of a great leader gathers reverence, as an oak gathers moss. but to me, and those like me, living peaceful at home, shunning courts, and tempting not broils, godwin the man is not dear-- it is godwin the thing." "though i do my best to know your language," said the knight, "ye have phrases that might puzzle king solomon. what meanest thou by 'godwin the thing'?" "that which to us godwin only seems to uphold. we love justice; whatever his offences, godwin was banished unjustly. we love our laws; godwin was dishonoured by maintaining them. we love england, and are devoured by strangers; godwin's cause is england's, and-- stranger, forgive me for not concluding." then examining the young norman with a look of rough compassion, he laid his large hand upon the knight's shoulder and whispered: "take my advice--and fly." "fly!" said de graville, reddening. "is it to fly, think you, that i have put on my mail, and girded my sword?" "vain--vain! wasps are fierce, but the swarm is doomed when the straw is kindled. i tell you this--fly in time, and you are safe; but let the king be so misguided as to count on arms, and strive against yon multitude, and verily before nightfall not one norman will be found alive within ten miles of the city. look to it, youth! perhaps thou hast a mother--let her not mourn a son!" before the norman could shape into saxon sufficiently polite and courtly his profound and indignant disdain of the counsel, his sense of the impertinence with which his shoulder had been profaned, and his mother's son had been warned, the nuncius was again summoned into the presence-chamber. nor did he return into the ante-room, but conducted forthwith from the council--his brief answer received--to the stairs of the palace, he reached the boat in which he had come, and was rowed back to the ship that held the earl and his sons. now this was the manoeuvre of godwin's array. his vessels having passed london bridge, had rested awhile on the banks of the southward suburb (suth-weorde)--since called southwark--and the king's ships lay to the north; but the fleet of the earl's, after a brief halt, veered majestically round, and coming close to the palace of westminster, inclined northward, as if to hem the king's ships. meanwhile the land forces drew up close to the strand, almost within bow-shot of the king's troops, that kept the ground inland; thus vebba saw before him, so near as scarcely to be distinguished from each other, on the river the rival fleets, on the shore the rival armaments. high above all the vessels towered the majestic bark, or aesca, that had borne harold from the irish shores. its fashion was that of the ancient sea-kings, to one of whom it had belonged. its curved and mighty prow, richly gilded, stood out far above the waves: the prow, the head of the sea-snake; the stern its spire; head and spire alike glittering in the sun. the boat drew up to the lofty side of the vessel, a ladder was lowered, the nuncius ascended lightly and stood on deck. at the farther end grouped the sailors, few in number, and at respectful distance from the earl and his sons. godwin himself was but half armed. his head was bare, nor had he other weapon of offence than the gilt battle-axe of the danes--weapon as much of office as of war; but his broad breast was covered with the ring mail of the time. his stature was lower than that of any of his sons; nor did his form exhibit greater physical strength than that of a man, well shaped, robust, and deep of chest, who still preserved in age the pith and sinew of mature manhood. neither, indeed, did legend or fame ascribe to that eminent personage those romantic achievements, those feats of purely animal prowess, which distinguished his rival, siward. brave he was, but brave as a leader; those faculties in which he appears to have excelled all his contemporaries, were more analogous to the requisites of success in civilised times, than those which won renown of old. and perhaps england was the only country then in europe which could have given to those faculties their fitting career. he possessed essentially the arts of party; he knew how to deal with vast masses of mankind; he could carry along with his interests the fervid heart of the multitude; he had in the highest degree that gift, useless in most other lands--in all lands where popular assemblies do not exist--the gift of popular eloquence. ages elapsed, after the norman conquest, ere eloquence again became a power in england. [ ] but like all men renowned for eloquence, he went with the popular feeling of his times; he embodied its passions, its prejudices--but also that keen sense of self-interest, which is the invariable characteristic of a multitude. he was the sense of the commonalty carried to its highest degree. whatever the faults, it may be the crimes, of a career singularly prosperous and splendid, amidst events the darkest and most terrible,--shining with a steady light across the thunder-clouds,--he was never accused of cruelty or outrage to the mass of the people. english, emphatically, the english deemed him; and this not the less that in his youth he had sided with canute, and owed his fortunes to that king; for so intermixed were danes and saxons in england, that the agreement which had given to canute one half the kingdom had been received with general applause; and the earlier severities of that great prince had been so redeemed in his later years by wisdom and mildness--so, even in the worst period of his reign, relieved by extraordinary personal affability, and so lost now in men's memories by pride in his power and fame,--that canute had left behind him a beloved and honoured name [ ], and godwin was the more esteemed as the chosen counsellor of that popular prince. at his death, godwin was known to have wished, and even armed, for the restoration of the saxon line; and only yielded to the determination of the witan, no doubt acted upon by the popular opinion. of one dark crime he was suspected, and, despite his oath to the contrary, and the formal acquittal of the national council, doubt of his guilt rested then, as it rests still, upon his name; viz., the perfidious surrender of alfred, edward's murdered brother. but time had passed over the dismal tragedy; and there was an instinctive and prophetic feeling throughout the english nation, that with the house of godwin was identified the cause of the english people. everything in this man's aspect served to plead in his favour. his ample brows were calm with benignity and thought; his large dark blue eyes were serene and mild, though their expression, when examined, was close and inscrutable. his mien was singularly noble, but wholly without formality or affected state; and though haughtiness and arrogance were largely attributed to him, they could be found only in his deeds, not manner--plain, familiar, kindly to all men, his heart seemed as open to the service of his countrymen as his hospitable door to their wants. behind him stood the stateliest group of sons that ever filled with pride a father's eye. each strikingly distinguished from the other, all remarkable for beauty of countenance and strength of frame. sweyn, the eldest [ ], had the dark hues of his mother the dane: a wild and mournful majesty sat upon features aquiline and regular, but wasted by grief or passion; raven locks, glossy even in neglect, fell half over eyes hollow in their sockets, but bright, though with troubled fire. over his shoulder he bore his mighty axe. his form, spare, but of immense power, was sheathed in mail, and he leant on his great pointed danish shield. at his feet sate his young son haco, a boy with a countenance preternaturally thoughtful for his years, which were yet those of childhood. next to him stood the most dreaded and ruthless of the sons of godwin --he, fated to become to the saxon what julian was to the goth. with his arms folded on his breast stood tostig; his face was beautiful as a greek's, in all save the forehead, which was low and lowering. sleek and trim were his bright chestnut locks; and his arms were damascened with silver, for he was one who loved the pomp and luxury of war. wolnoth, the mother's favourite, seemed yet in the first flower of youth, but he alone of all the sons had something irresolute and effeminate in his aspect and bearing; his form, though tall, had not yet come to its full height and strength; and, as if the weight of mail were unusual to him, he leant with both hands upon the wood of his long spear. leofwine, who stood next to wolnoth, contrasted him notably; his sunny locks wreathed carelessly over a white unclouded brow, and the silken hair on the upper lip quivered over arch lips, smiling, even in that serious hour. at godwin's right hand, but not immediately near him, stood the last of the group, gurth and harold. gurth had passed his arm over the shoulder of his brother, and, not watching the nuncius while he spoke, watched only the effect his words produced on the face of harold. for gurth loved harold as jonathan loved david. and harold was the only one of the group not armed; and had a veteran skilled in war been asked who of that group was born to lead armed men, he would have pointed to the man unarmed. "so what says the king?" asked earl godwin. "this; he refuses to restore thee and thy sons, or to hear thee, till thou hast disbanded thine army, dismissed thy ships, and consented to clear thyself and thy house before the witanagemot." a fierce laugh broke from tostig; sweyn's mournful brow grew darker; leofwine placed his right hand on his ateghar; wolnoth rose erect; gurth kept his eyes on harold, and harold's face was unmoved. "the king received thee in his council of war," said godwin, thoughtfully, "and doubtless the normans were there. who were the englishmen most of mark?" "siward of northumbria, thy foe." "my sons," said the earl, turning to his children, and breathing loud as if a load were off his heart; "there will be no need of axe or armour to-day. harold alone was wise," and he pointed to the linen tunic of the son thus cited. "what mean you, sir father?" said tostig, imperiously. "think you to----" "peace, son, peace;" said godwin, without asperity, but with conscious command. "return, brave and dear friend," he said to vebba, "find out siward the earl; tell him that i, godwin, his foe in the old time, place honour and life in his hands, and what he counsels that will we do.--go." the kent man nodded, and regained his boat. then spoke harold. "father, yonder are the forces of edward; as yet without leaders, since the chiefs must still be in the halls of the king. some fiery norman amongst them may provoke an encounter; and this city of london is not won, as it behoves us to win it, if one drop of english blood dye the sword of one english man. wherefore, with your leave, i will take boat, and land. and unless i have lost in my absence all right here in the hearts of our countrymen, at the first shout from our troops which proclaims that harold, son of godwin, is on the soil of our fathers, half yon array of spears and helms pass at once to our side." "and if not, my vain brother?" said tostig, gnawing his lip with envy. "and if not, i will ride alone into the midst of them, and ask what englishmen are there who will aim shaft or spear at this breast, never mailed against england!" godwin placed his hand on harold's head, and the tears came to those close cold eyes. "thou knowest by nature what i have learned by art. go, and prosper. be it as thou wilt." "he takes thy post, sweyn--thou art the elder," said tostig, to the wild form by his side. "there is guilt on my soul, and woe in my heart," answered sweyn, moodily. "shall esau lose his birthright, and cain retain it?" so saying, he withdrew, and, reclining against the stern of the vessel, leant his face upon the edge of his shield. harold watched him with deep compassion in his eyes, passed to his side with a quick step, pressed his hand, and whispered, "peace to the past, o my brother!" the boy haco, who had noiselessly followed his father, lifted his sombre, serious looks to harold as he thus spoke; and when harold turned away, he said to sweyn, timidly, "he, at least, is ever good to thee and to me." "and thou, when i am no more, shalt cling to him as thy father, haco," answered sweyn, tenderly smoothing back the child's dark locks. the boy shivered; and, bending his head, murmured to himself, "when thou art no more! no more? has the vala doomed him, too? father and son, both?" meanwhile, harold had entered the boat lowered from the sides of the aesca to receive him; and gurth, looking appealingly to his father, and seeing no sign of dissent, sprang down after the young earl, and seated himself by his side. godwin followed the boat with musing eyes. "small need," said he, aloud, but to himself, "to believe in soothsayers, or to credit hilda the saga, when she prophesied, ere we left our shores, that harold--" he stopped short, for tostig's wrathful exclamation broke on his reverie. "father, father! my blood surges in my ears, and boils in my heart, when i hear thee name the prophecies of hilda in favour of thy darling. dissension and strife in our house have they wrought already; and if the feuds between harold and me have sown grey in thy locks, thank thyself when, flushed with vain soothsayings for thy favoured harold, thou saidst, in the hour of our first childish broil, 'strive not with harold; for his brothers will be his men.'" "falsify the prediction," said godwin, calmly; "wise men may always make their own future, and seize their own fates. prudence, patience, labour, valour; these are the stars that rule the career of mortals." tostig made no answer; for the splash of oars was near, and two ships, containing the principal chiefs that had joined godwin's cause, came alongside the runic aesca to hear the result of the message sent to the king. tostig sprang to the vessel's side, and exclaimed, "the king, girt by his false counsellors, will hear us not, and arms must decide between us." "hold, hold! malignant, unhappy boy!" cried godwin, between his grinded teeth, as a shout of indignant, yet joyous ferocity broke from the crowded ships thus hailed. "the curse of all time be on him who draws the first native blood in sight of the altars and hearths of london! hear me, thou with the vulture's blood-lust, and the peacock's vain joy in the gaudy plume! hear me, tostig, and tremble. if but by one word thou widen the breach between me and the king, outlaw thou enterest england, outlaw shalt thou depart--for earldom and broad lands; choose the bread of the stranger, and the weregeld of the wolf!" the young saxon, haughty as he was, quailed at his father's thrilling voice, bowed his head, and retreated sullenly. godwin sprang on the deck of the nearest vessel, and all the passions that tostig had aroused, he exerted his eloquence to appease. in the midst of his arguments, there rose from the ranks on the strand, the shout of "harold! harold the earl! harold and holy crosse!" and godwin, turning his eye to the king's ranks, saw them agitated, swayed, and moving; till suddenly, from the very heart of the hostile array, came, as by irresistible impulse, the cry, "harold, our harold! all hail, the good earl!" while this chanced without,--within the palace, edward had quitted the presence-chamber, and was closeted with stigand, the bishop. this prelate had the more influence with edward, inasmuch as though saxon, he was held to be no enemy to the normans, and had, indeed, on a former occasion, been deposed from his bishopric on the charge of too great an attachment to the norman queen-mother emma [ ]. never in his whole life had edward been so stubborn as on this occasion. for here, more than his realm was concerned, he was threatened in the peace of his household, and the comfort of his tepid friendships. with the recall of his powerful father-in-law, he foresaw the necessary reintrusion of his wife upon the charm of his chaste solitude. his favourite normans would be banished, he should be surrounded with faces he abhorred. all the representations of stigand fell upon a stern and unyielding spirit, when siward entered the king's closet. "sir, my king," said the great son of beorn, "i yielded to your kingly will in the council, that, before we listened to godwin, he should disband his men, and submit to the judgment of the witan. the earl hath sent to me to say, that he will put honour and life in my keeping, and abide by my counsel. and i have answered as became the man who will never snare a foe, or betray a trust." "how hast thou answered?" asked the king. "that he abide by the laws of england; as dane and saxon agreed to abide in the days of canute; that he and his sons shall make no claim for land or lordship, but submit all to the witan." "good," said the king; "and the witan will condemn him now, as it would have condemned when he shunned to meet it." "and the witan now," returned the earl emphatically, "will be free, and fair, and just." "and meanwhile, the troops----" "will wait on either side; and if reason fail, then the sword," said siward. "this i will not hear," exclaimed edward; when the tramp of many feet thundered along the passage; the door was flung open, and several captains (norman as well as saxon) of the king's troops rushed in, wild, rude, and tumultuous. "the troops desert! half the ranks have thrown down their arms at the very name of harold!" exclaimed the earl of hereford. "curses on the knaves!" "and the lithsmen of london," cried a saxon thegn, "are all on his side, and marching already through the gates." "pause yet," whispered stigand; "and who shall say, this hour to- morrow, if edward or godwin reign on the throne of alfred?" his stern heart moved by the distress of his king, and not the less for the unwonted firmness which edward displayed, siward here approached, knelt, and took the king's hand. "siward can give no niddering counsel to his king; to save the blood of his subjects is never a king's disgrace. yield thou to mercy, godwin to the law!" "oh for the cowl and cell!" exclaimed the prince, wringing his hands. "oh norman home, why did i leave thee?" he took the cross from his breast, contemplated it fixedly, prayed silently but with fervour, and his face again became tranquil. "go," he said, flinging himself on his seat in the exhaustion that follows passion, "go, siward, go, stigand, deal with things mundane as ye will." the bishop, satisfied with this reluctant acquiescence, seized siward by the arm and withdrew him from the closet. the captains remained a few moments behind, the saxons silently gazing on the king, the normans whispering each other, in great doubt and trouble, and darting looks of the bitterest scorn at their feeble benefactor. then, as with one accord, these last rushed along the corridor, gained the hall where their countrymen yet assembled, and exclaimed, "a toute bride! franc etrier!--all is lost but life!--god for the first man,--knife and cord for the last!" then, as the cry of fire, or as the first crash of an earthquake, dissolves all union, and reduces all emotion into one thought of self- saving, the whole conclave, crowding pell-mell on each other, bustled, jostled, clamoured to the door--happy he who could find horse, palfrey,--even monk's mule! this way, that way, fled those lordly normans, those martial abbots, those mitred bishops--some singly, some in pairs; some by tens, and some by scores; but all prudently shunning association with those chiefs whom they had most courted the day before, and who, they now knew, would be the main mark for revenge; save only two, who yet, from that awe of the spiritual power which characterised the norman, who was already half monk, half soldier (crusader and templar before crusades were yet preached, or the templars yet dreamed of),--even in that hour of selfish panic rallied round them the prowest chivalry of their countrymen, viz., the bishop of london and the archbishop of canterbury. both these dignitaries, armed cap-a-pie, and spear in hand, headed the flight; and good service that day, both as guide and champion, did mallet de graville. he led them in a circuit behind both armies, but being intercepted by a new body, coming from the pastures of hertfordshire to the help of godwin, he was compelled to take the bold and desperate resort of entering the city gates. these were wide open; whether to admit the saxon earls, or vomit forth their allies, the londoners. through these, up the narrow streets, riding three abreast, dashed the slaughtering fugitives; worthy in flight of their national renown, they trampled down every obstacle. bodies of men drew up against them at every angle, with the saxon cry of "out--out!" "down with the outland men!" through each, spear pierced, and sword clove, the way. red with gore was the spear of the prelate of london; broken to the hilt was the sword militant in the terrible hand of the archbishop of canterbury. so on thy rode, so on they slaughtered--gained the eastern gate, and passed with but two of their number lost. the fields once gained, for better precaution they separated. some few, not quite ignorant of the saxon tongue, doffed their mail, and crept through forest and fell towards the sea-shore; others retained steed and arms, but shunned equally the high roads. the two prelates were among the last; they gained, in safety, ness, in essex, threw themselves into an open, crazy, fishing-boat, committed themselves to the waves, and, half drowned and half famished, drifted over the channel to the french shores. of the rest of the courtly foreigners, some took refuge in the forts yet held by their countrymen; some lay concealed in creeks and caves till they could find or steal boats for their passage. and thus, in the year of our lord , occurred the notable dispersion and ignominious flight of the counts and vavasours of great william the duke! chapter iii. the witana-gemot was assembled in the great hall of westminster in all its imperial pomp. it was on his throne that the king sate now--and it was the sword that was in his right hand. some seated below, and some standing beside, the throne, were the officers of the basileus [ ] of britain. there were to be seen camararius and pincerna, chamberlain and cupbearer; disc thegn and hors thegn [ ]; the thegn of the dishes, and the thegn of the stud; with many more, whose state offices may not impossibly have been borrowed from the ceremonial pomp of the byzantine court; for edgar, king of england, had in the old time styled himself the heir of constantine. next to these sat the clerks of the chapel, with the king's confessor at their head. officers were they of higher note than their name bespeaks, and wielders, in the trust of the great seal, of a power unknown of old, and now obnoxious to the saxon. for tedious is the suit which lingers for the king's writ and the king's seal; and from those clerks shall arise hereafter a thing of torture and of might, which shall grind out the hearts of men, and be called chancery! [ ] below the scribes, a space was left on the floor, and farther down sat the chiefs of the witan. of these, first in order, both from their spiritual rank and their vast temporal possessions, sat the lords of the church; the chairs of the prelates of london and canterbury were void. but still goodly was the array of saxon mitres, with the harsh, hungry, but intelligent face of stigand,--stigand the stout and the covetous; and the benign but firm features of alred, true priest and true patriot, distinguished amidst all. around each prelate, as stars round a sun, were his own special priestly retainers, selected from his diocese. farther still down the hall are the great civil lords and viceking vassals of the "lord-paramount." vacant the chair of the king of the scots, for siward hath not yet had his wish; macbeth is in his fastnesses, or listening to the weird sisters in the wold; and malcolm is a fugitive in the halls of the northumbrian earl. vacant the chair of the hero gryffyth, son of llewelyn, the dread of the marches, prince of gwyned, whose arms had subjugated all cymry. but there are the lesser sub-kings of wales, true to the immemorial schisms amongst themselves, which destroyed the realm of ambrosius, and rendered vain the arm of arthur. with their torques of gold, and wild eyes, and hair cut round ears and brow [ ], they stare on the scene. on the same bench with these sub-kings, distinguished from them by height of stature, and calm collectedness of mien, no less than by their caps of maintenance and furred robes, are those props of strong thrones and terrors of weak--the earls to whom shires and counties fall, as hyde and carricate to the lesser thegns. but three of these were then present, and all three the foes of godwin,--siward, earl of northumbria; leofric of mercia (that leofric whose wife godiva yet lives in ballad and song); and rolf, earl of hereford and worcestershire, who, strong in his claim of "king's blood," left not the court with his norman friends. and on the same benches, though a little apart, are the lesser earls, and that higher order of thegns, called king's thegns. not far from these sat the chosen citizens from the free burgh of london, already of great weight in the senate [ ],--sufficing often to turn its counsels; all friends were they of the english earl and his house. in the same division of the hall were found the bulk and true popular part of the meeting--popular indeed--as representing not the people, but the things the people most prized-valour and wealth; the thegn landowners, called in the old deeds the "ministers:" they sate with swords by their side, all of varying birth, fortune, and connection, whether with king, earl, or ceorl. for in the different districts of the old heptarchy, the qualification varied; high in east anglia, low in wessex; so that what was wealth in the one shire was poverty in the other. there sate, half a yeoman, the saxon thegn of berkshire or dorset, proud of his five hydes of land; there, half an ealderman, the danish thegn of norfolk or ely, discontented with his forty; some were there in right of smaller offices under the crown; some traders, and sons of traders, for having crossed the high seas three times at their own risk; some could boast the blood of offa and egbert; and some traced but three generations back to neatherd and ploughman; and some were saxons and some were danes: and some from the western shires were by origin britons, though little cognisant of their race. farther down still, at the extreme end of the hall, crowding by the open doors, filling up the space without, were the ceorls themselves, a vast and not powerless body; in these high courts (distinct from the shire gemots, or local senates)--never called upon to vote or to speak or to act, or even to sign names to the doom, but only to shout "yea, yea," when the proceres pronounced their sentence. yet not powerless were they, but rather to the witan what public opinion is to the witan's successor, our modern parliament: they were opinion! and according to their numbers and their sentiments, easily known and boldly murmured, often and often must that august court of basileus and prelate, vassal-king and mighty earl, have shaped the council and adjudged the doom. and the forms of the meeting had been duly said and done; and the king had spoken words no doubt wary and peaceful, gracious and exhortatory; but those words--for his voice that day was weak--travelled not beyond the small circle of his clerks and his officers; and a murmur buzzed through the hall, when earl godwin stood on the floor with his six sons at his back; and you might have heard the hum of the gnat that vexed the smooth cheek of earl rolf, or the click of the spider from the web on the vaulted roof, the moment before earl godwin spoke. "if," said he, with the modest look and downcast eye of practised eloquence, "if i rejoice once more to breathe the air of england, in whose service, often perhaps with faulty deeds, but at all times with honest thoughts, i have, both in war and council, devoted so much of my life that little now remains--but (should you, my king, and you, prelates, proceres, and ministers so vouchsafe) to look round and select that spot of my native soil which shall receive my bones;--if i rejoice to stand once more in that assembly which has often listened to my voice when our common country was in peril, who here will blame that joy? who among my foes, if foes now i have, will not respect the old man's gladness? who amongst you, earls and thegns, would not grieve, if his duty bade him say to the grey-haired exile, 'in this english air you shall not breathe your last sigh--on this english soil you shall not find a grave!' who amongst you would not grieve to say it?" (suddenly he drew up his head and faced his audience.) "who amongst you hath the courage and the heart to say it? yes, i rejoice that i am at last in an assembly fit to judge my cause, and pronounce my innocence. for what offence was i outlawed? for what offence were i, and the six sons i have given to my land, to bear the wolf's penalty, and be chased and slain as the wild beasts? hear me, and answer!" "eustace, count of boulogne, returning to his domains from a visit to our lord the king, entered the town of dover in mail and on his war steed; his train did the same. unknowing our laws and customs (for i desire to press light upon all old grievances, and will impute ill designs to none) these foreigners invade by force the private dwellings of citizens, and there select their quarters. ye all know that this was the strongest violation of saxon right; ye know that the meanest ceorl hath the proverb on his lip, 'every man's house is his castle.' one of the townsmen acting on this belief,--which i have yet to learn was a false one,--expelled from his threshold a retainer of the french earl's. the stranger drew his sword and wounded him; blows followed--the stranger fell by the arm he had provoked. the news arrives to earl eustace; he and his kinsmen spur to the spot; they murder the englishman on his hearth-stone.--" here a groan, half-stifled and wrathful, broke from the ceorls at the end of the hall. godwin held up his hand in rebuke of the interruption, and resumed. "this deed done, the outlanders rode through the streets with their drawn swords; they. butchered those who came in their way; they trampled even children under their horses' feet. the burghers armed. i thank the divine father, who gave me for my countrymen those gallant burghers! they fought, as we english know how to fight; they slew some nineteen or score of these mailed intruders; they chased them from the town. earl eustace fled fast. earl eustace, we know, is a wise man: small rest took he, little bread broke he, till he pulled rein at the gate of gloucester, where my lord the king then held court. he made his complaint. my lord the king, naturally hearing but one side, thought the burghers in the wrong; and, scandalised that such high persons of his own kith should be so aggrieved, he sent for me, in whose government the burgh of dover is, and bade me chastise, by military execution, those who had attacked the foreign count. i appeal to the great earls whom i see before me--to you, illustrious leofric; to you, renowned siward--what value would ye set on your earldoms, if ye had not the heart and the power to see right done to the dwellers therein?" "what was the course i proposed? instead of martial execution, which would involve the whole burgh in one sentence, i submitted that the reeve and gerefas of the burgh should be cited to appear before the king, and account for the broil. my lord, though ever most clement and loving to his good people, either unhappily moved against me, or overswayed by the foreigners, was counselled to reject this mode of doing justice, which our laws, as settled under edgar and canute, enjoin. and because i would not,--and i say in the presence of all, because i, godwin, son of wolnoth, durst not, if i would, have entered the free burgh of dover with mail on my back and the doomsman at my right hand, these outlanders induced my lord the king to summon me to attend in person (as for a sin of my own) the council of the witan, convened at gloucester, then filled with the foreigners, not, as i humbly opined, to do justice to me and my folk of dover, but to secure to this count of boulogne a triumph over english liberties, and sanction his scorn for the value of english lives." "i hesitated, and was menaced with outlawry; i armed in self-defence, and in defence of the laws of england; i armed, that men might not be murdered on their hearth-stones, nor children trampled under the hoofs of a stranger's war-steed. my lord the king gathered his troops round 'the cross and the martlets.' yon noble earls, siward and leofric, came to that standard, as (knowing not then my cause) was their duty to the basileus of britain. but when they knew my cause, and saw with me the dwellers of the land, against me the outland aliens, they righteously interposed. an armistice was concluded; i agreed to refer all matters to a witan held where it is held this day. my troops were disbanded; but the foreigners induced my lord not only to retain his own, but to issue his herr-bann for the gathering of hosts far and near, even allies beyond the seas. when i looked to london for the peaceful witan, what saw i? the largest armament that had been collected in this reign--that armament headed by norman knights. was this the meeting where justice could be done mine and me? nevertheless, what was my offer? that i and my six sons would attend, provided the usual sureties, agreeable to our laws, from which only thieves [ ] are excluded, were given that we should come and go life- free and safe. twice this offer was made, twice refused; and so i and my sons were banished. we went;--we have returned!" "and in arms," murmured earl rolf, son-in-law to that count eustace of boulogne, whose violence had been temperately and truly narrated. [ ] "and in arms," repeated godwin: "true; in arms against the foreigners who had thus poisoned the ear of our gracious king; in arms, earl rolf; and at the first clash of those arms, franks and foreigners have fled. we have no need of arms now. we are amongst our countrymen, and no frenchman interposes between us and the ever gentle; ever generous nature of our born king." "peers and proceres, chiefs of this witan, perhaps the largest ever yet assembled in man's memory, it is for you to decide whether i and mine, or the foreign fugitives, caused the dissensions in these realms; whether our banishment was just or not; whether in our return we have abused the power we possessed. ministers, on those swords by your sides there is not one drop of blood! at all events, in submitting to you our fate, we submit to our own laws and our own race. i am here to clear myself, on my oath, of deed and thought of treason. there are amongst my peers as king's thegns, those who will attest the same on my behalf, and prove the facts i have stated, if they are not sufficiently notorious. as for my sons, no crime can be alleged against them, unless it be a crime to have in their veins that blood which flows in mine--blood which they have learned from me to shed in defence of that beloved land to which they now ask to be recalled." the earl ceased and receded behind his children, having artfully, by his very abstinence from the more heated eloquence imputed to him often as a fault and a wile, produced a powerful effect upon an audience already prepared for his acquittal. but now as, from the sons, sweyn the eldest stepped forth; with a wandering eye and uncertain foot, there was a movement like a shudder amongst the large majority of the audience, and a murmur of hate or of horror. the young earl marked the sensation his presence produced, and stopped short. his breath came thick; he raised his right hand, but spoke not. his voice died on his lips; his eyes roved wildly round with a haggard stare more imploring than defying. then rose, in his episcopal stole, alred the bishop, and his clear sweet voice trembled as he spoke. "comes sweyn, son of godwin, here to prove his innocence of treason against the king?--if so, let him hold his peace; for if the witan acquit godwin, son of wolnoth, of that charge, the acquittal includes his house. but in the name of the holy church here represented by its fathers, will sweyn say, and fasten his word by oath, that he is guiltless of treason to the king of kings--guiltless of sacrilege that my lips shrink to name? alas, that the duty falls on me,--for i loved thee once, and love thy kindred now. but i am god's servant before all things"--the prelate paused, and gathering up new energy, added in unfaltering accents, "i charge thee here, sweyn the outlaw, that, moved by the fiend, thou didst bear off from god's house and violate a daughter of the church--algive, abbess of leominster!" "and i," cried siward, rising to the full height of his stature, "i, in the presence of these proceres, whose proudest title is milites or warriors--i charge sweyn, son of godwin, that, not in open field and hand to hand, but by felony and guile, he wrought the foul and abhorrent murder of his cousin, beorn the earl!" at these two charges from men so eminent, the effect upon the audience was startling. while those not influenced by godwin raised their eyes, sparkling with wrath and scorn, upon the wasted, yet still noble face of the eldest born, even those most zealous on behalf of that popular house evinced no sympathy for its heir. some looked down abashed and mournful--some regarded the accused with a cold, unpitying gaze. only perhaps among the ceorls, at the end of the hall, might be seen some compassion on anxious faces; for before those deeds of crime had been bruited abroad, none among the sons of godwin more blithe of mien and bold of hand, more honoured and beloved, than sweyn the outlaw. but the hush that succeeded the charges was appalling in its depth. godwin himself shaded his face with his mantle, and only those close by could see that his breast heaved and his limbs trembled. the brothers had shrunk from the side of the accused, outlawed even amongst his kin--all save harold, who, strong in his blameless name and beloved repute, advanced three strides, amidst the silence, and, standing by his brother's side, lifted his commanding brow above the seated judges, but he did not speak. then said sweyn the earl, strengthened by such solitary companionship in that hostile assemblage,--"i might answer that for these charges in the past, for deeds alleged as done eight long years ago, i have the king's grace, and the inlaw's right; and that in the witans over which i as earl presided, no man was twice judged for the same offence. that i hold to be the law, in the great councils as the small." "it is! it is!" exclaimed godwin: his paternal feelings conquering his prudence and his decorous dignity. "hold to it, my son!" "i hold to it not," resumed the young earl, casting a haughty glance over the somewhat blank and disappointed faces of his foes, "for my law is here"--and he smote his heart--"and that condemns me not once alone, but evermore! alred, o holy father, at whose knees i once confessed my every sin,--i blame thee not that thou first, in the witan, liftest thy voice against me, though thou knowest that i loved algive from youth upward; she, with her heart yet mine, was given in the last year of hardicanute, when might was right, to the church. i met her again, flushed with my victories over the walloon kings, with power in my hand and passion in my veins. deadly was my sin!--but what asked i? that vows compelled should be annulled; that the love of my youth might yet be the wife of my manhood. pardon, that i knew not then how eternal are the bonds ye of the church have woven round those of whom, if ye fail of saints, ye may at least make martyrs!" he paused, and his lip curled, and his eye shot wild fire; for in that moment his mother's blood was high within him, and he looked and thought, perhaps, as some heathen dane, but the flash of the firmer man was momentary, and humbly smiting his breast, he murmured,-- "avaunt, satan!--yea, deadly was my sin! and the sin was mine alone; algive, if stained, was blameless; she escaped--and--and died!" "the king was wroth; and first to strive against my pardon was harold my brother, who now alone in my penitence stands by my side: he strove manfully and openly; i blamed him not: but beorn, my cousin, desired my earldom; and he strove against me, wilily and in secret,--to my face kind, behind my back despiteful. i detected his falsehood, and meant to detain, but not to slay him. he lay bound in my ship; he reviled and he taunted me in the hour of my gloom; and when the blood of the sea-kings flowed in fire through my veins. and i lifted my axe in ire; and my men lifted theirs, and so,--and so!--again i say-- deadly was my sin! think not that i seek now to make less my guilt, as i sought when i deemed that life was yet long, and power was yet sweet. since then i have known worldly evil, and worldly good,--the storm and the shine of life; i have swept the seas, a sea-king; i have battled with the dane in his native land; i have almost grasped in my right hand, as i grasped in my dreams, the crown of my kinsman, canute;--again, i have been a fugitive and an exile;--again, i have been inlawed, and earl of all the lands from isis to the wye [ ]. and whether in state or in penury,--whether in war or in peace, i have seen the pale face of the nun betrayed, and the gory wounds of the murdered man. wherefore i come not here to plead for a pardon, which would console me not, but formally to dissever my kinsmen's cause from mine, which alone sullies and degrades it;--i come here to say, that, coveting not your acquittal, fearing not your judgment, i pronounce mine own doom. cap of noble, and axe of warrior, i lay aside for ever; barefooted, and alone, i go hence to the holy sepulchre; there to assoil my soul, and implore that grace which cannot come from man! harold, step forth in the place of sweyn the first-born! and ye prelates and peers, milites and ministers, proceed to adjudge the living! to you, and to england, he who now quits you is the dead!" he gathered his robe of state over his breast as a monk his gown, and looking neither to right nor to left, passed slowly down the hall, through the crowd, which made way for him in awe and silence; and it seemed to the assembly as if a cloud had gone from the face of day. and godwin still stood with his face covered by his robe. and harold anxiously watched the faces of the assembly, and saw no relenting. and gurth crept to harold's side. and the gay leofwine looked sad. and the young wolnoth turned pale and trembled. and the fierce tostig played with his golden chain. and one low sob was heard, and it came from the breast of alred the meek accuser,--god's firm but gentle priest. chapter iv. this memorable trial ended, as the reader will have forseen, in the formal renewal of sweyn's outlawry, and the formal restitution of the earl godwin and his other sons to their lands and honours, with declarations imputing all the blame of the late dissensions to the foreign favourites, and sentences of banishment against them, except only, by way of a bitter mockery, some varlets of low degree, such as humphrey cock's-foot, and richard son of scrob. [ ] the return to power of this able and vigorous family was attended with an instantaneous effect upon the long-relaxed strings of the imperial government. macbeth heard, and trembled in his moors; gryffyth of wales lit the fire-beacon on moel and craig. earl rolf was banished, but merely as a nominal concession to public opinion; his kinship to edward sufficed to restore him soon, not only to england, but to the lordship of the marches, and thither was he sent, with adequate force, against the welch, who had half-repossessed themselves of the borders they harried. saxon prelates and abbots replaced the norman fugitives; and all were contented with the revolution, save the king, for the king lost his norman friends, and regained his english wife. in conformity with the usages of the times, hostages of the loyalty and faith of godwin were required and conceded. they were selected from his own family; and the choice fell on wolnoth, his son, and haco, the son of sweyn. as, when nearly all england may be said to have repassed to the hands of godwin, it would have been an idle precaution to consign these hostages to the keeping of edward, it was settled, after some discussion, that they should be placed in the court of the norman duke until such time as the king, satisfied with the good faith of the family, should authorise their recall:--fatal hostage, fatal ward and host! it was some days after this national crisis, and order and peace were again established in city and land, forest and shire, when, at the setting of the sun, hilda stood alone by the altar-stone of thor. the orb was sinking red and lurid, amidst long cloud-wracks of vermeil and purple, and not one human form was seen in the landscape, save that tall and majestic figure by the runic shrine and the druid crommell. she was leaning both hands on her wand, or seid-staff, as it was called in the language of scandinavian superstition, and bending slightly forward as in the attitude of listening or expectation. long before any form appeared on the road below she seemed to be aware of coming footsteps, and probably her habits of life had sharpened her senses; for she smiled, muttered to herself, "ere it sets!" and changing her posture, leant her arm on the altar, and rested her face upon her hand. at length, two figures came up the road; they neared the hill; they saw her, and slowly ascended the knoll. the one was dressed in the serge of a pilgrim, and his cowl thrown back, showed the face where human beauty and human power lay ravaged and ruined by human passions. he upon whom the pilgrim lightly leaned was attired simply, without the brooch or bracelet common to thegns of high degree, yet his port was that of majesty, and his brow that of mild command. a greater contrast could not be conceived than that between these two men, yet united by a family likeness. for the countenance of the last described was, though sorrowful at that moment, and indeed habitually not without a certain melancholy, wonderfully imposing from its calm and sweetness. there, no devouring passions had left the cloud or ploughed the line; but all the smooth loveliness of youth took dignity from the conscious resolve of men. the long hair, of a fair brown, with a slight tinge of gold, as the last sunbeams shot through its luxuriance, was parted from the temples, and fell in large waves half way to the shoulder. the eyebrows, darker in hue, arched and finely traced; the straight features, not less manly than the norman, but less strongly marked: the cheek, hardy with exercise and exposure, yet still retaining somewhat of youthful bloom under the pale bronze of its sunburnt surface: the form tall, not gigantic, and vigorous rather from perfect proportion and athletic habits than from breadth and bulk--were all singularly characteristic of the saxon beauty in its highest and purest type. but what chiefly distinguished this personage, was that peculiar dignity, so simple, so sedate, which no pomp seems to dazzle, no danger to disturb; and which perhaps arises from a strong sense of self-dependence, and is connected with self- respect--a dignity common to the indian and the arab, and rare except in that state of society in which each man is a power in himself. the latin tragic poet touches close upon that sentiment in the fine lines-- "rex est qui metuit nihil; hoc regnum sibi quisque dat." [ ] so stood the brothers, sweyn the outlaw and harold the earl, before the reputed prophetess. she looked on both with a steady eye, which gradually softened almost into tenderness, as it finally rested upon the pilgrim. "and is it thus," she said at last, "that i see the first-born of godwin the fortunate, for whom so often i have tasked the thunder, and watched the setting sun? for whom my runes have been graven on the bark of the elm, and the scin-laeca [ ] been called in pale splendour from the graves of the dead?" "hilda," said sweyn, "not now will i accuse thee of the seeds thou hast sown: the harvest is gathered and the sickle is broken. abjure thy dark galdra [ ], and turn as i to the sole light in the future, which shines from the tomb of the son divine." the prophetess bowed her head and replied: "belief cometh as the wind. can the tree say to the wind, 'rest thou on my boughs,' or man to belief, 'fold thy wings on my heart'? go where thy soul can find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its use on earth. and when i would read thy fate, the runes are as blanks, and the wave sleeps unstirred on the fountain. go where the fylgia [ ], whom alfader gives to each at his birth, leads thee. thou didst desire love that seemed shut from thee, and i predicted that thy love should awake from the charnel in which the creed that succeeds to the faith of our sires inters life in its bloom. and thou didst covet the fame of the jarl and the viking, and i blessed thine axe to thy hand, and wove the sail for thy masts. so long as man knows desire, can hilda have power over his doom. but when the heart lies in ashes, i raise but a corpse, that at the hush of the charm falls again into its grave. yet, come to me nearer, o sweyn, whose cradle i rocked to the chaunt of my rhyme." the outlaw turned aside his face, and obeyed. she sighed as she took his passive hand in her own, and examined the lines on the palm. then, as if by an involuntary impulse of fondness and pity, she put aside his cowl and kissed his brow. "thy skein is spun, and happier than the many who scorn, and the few who lament thee, thou shalt win where they lose. the steel shall not smite thee, the storm shall forbear thee, the goal that thou yearnest for thy steps shall attain. night hallows the ruin,--and peace to the shattered wrecks of the brave!" the outlaw heard as if unmoved. but when he turned to harold, who covered his face with his hand; but could not restrain the tears that flowed through the clasped fingers, a moisture came into his own wild, bright eyes, and he said, "now, my brother, farewell, for no farther step shalt thou wend with me." harold started, opened his arms, and the outlaw fell upon his breast. no sound was heard save a single sob, and so close was breast to breast, that you could not say from whose heart it came. then the outlaw wrenched himself from the embrace, and murmured, "and haco--my son--motherless, fatherless--hostage in the land of the stranger! thou wilt remember--thou wilt shield him; thou be to him mother, father in the days to come! so may the saints bless thee!" with these words he sprang down the hillock. harold bounded after him; but sweyn, halting, said, mournfully, "is this thy promise? am i so lost that faith should be broken even with thy father's son?" at that touching rebuke, harold paused, and the outlaw passed his way alone. as the last glimpse of his figure vanished at the turn of the road, whence, on the second of may, the norman duke and the saxon king had emerged side by side, the short twilight closed abruptly, and up from the far forestland rose the moon. harold stood rooted to the spot, and still gazing on the space, when the vala laid her hand on his arm. "behold, as the moon rises on the troubled gloaming, so rises the fate of harold, as yon brief, human shadow, halting between light and darkness, passes away to night. thou art now the first-born of a house that unites the hopes of the saxon with the fortunes of the dane." "thinkest thou," said harold, with a stern composure, "that i can have joy and triumph in a brother's exile and woe?" "not now, and not yet, will the voice of thy true nature be heard; but the warmth of the sun brings the thunder, and the glory of fortune wakes the storm of the soul." "kinswoman," said harold, with a slight curl of his lip, "by me at least have thy prophecies ever passed as the sough of the air; neither in horror nor with faith do i think of thy incantations and charms; and i smile alike at the exorcism of the shaveling and the spells of the saga. i have asked thee not to bless mine axe, nor weave my sail. no runic rhyme is on the sword-blade of harold. i leave my fortunes to the chance of mine own cool brain and strong arm. vala, between thee and me there is no bond." the prophetess smiled loftily. "and what thinkest thou, o self-dependent! what thinkest thou is the fate which thy brain and thine arm shall will?" "the fate they have won already. i see no beyond. the fate of a man sworn to guard his country, love justice, and do right." the moon shone full on the heroic face of the young earl as he spoke; and on its surface there seemed nought to belie the noble words. yet, the prophetess, gazing earnestly on that fair countenance, said, in a whisper, that, despite a reason singularly sceptical for the age in which it had been cultured, thrilled to the saxon's heart, "under that calm eye sleeps the soul of thy sire, and beneath that brow, so haught and so pure, works the genius that crowned the kings of the north in the lineage of thy mother the dane." "peace!" said harold, almost fiercely; then, as if ashamed of the weakness of his momentary irritation, he added, with a faint smile, "let us not talk of these matters while my heart is still sad and away from the thoughts of the world, with my brother the lonely outlaw. night is on us, and the ways are yet unsafe; for the king's troops, disbanded in haste, were made up of many who turn to robbers in peace. alone, and unarmed, save my ateghar, i would crave a night's rest under thy roof; and"--he hesitated, and as light blush came over his cheek--"and i would fain see if your grandchild is as fair as when i last looked on her blue eyes, that then wept for harold ere he went into exile." "her tears are not at her command, nor her smiles," said the vala, solemnly; "her tears flow from the fount of thy sorrows, and her smiles are the beams from thy joys. for know, o harold! that edith is thine earthly fylgia; thy fate and her fate are as one. and vainly as man would escape from his shadow, would soul wrench itself from the soul that skulda hath linked to his doom." harold made no reply; but his step, habitually slow, grew more quick and light, and this time his reason found no fault with the oracles of the vala. chapter v. as hilda entered the hall, the various idlers accustomed to feed at her cost were about retiring, some to their homes in the vicinity, some, appertaining to the household, to the dormitories in the old roman villa. it was not the habit of the saxon noble, as it was of the norman, to put hospitality to profit, by regarding his guests in the light of armed retainers. liberal as the briton, the cheer of the board and the shelter of the roof were afforded with a hand equally unselfish and indiscriminate; and the doors of the more wealthy and munificent might be almost literally said to stand open from morn to eve. as harold followed the vala across the vast atrium, his face was recognised, and a shout of enthusiastic welcome greeted the popular earl. the only voices that did not swell that cry, were those of three monks from a neighbouring convent, who choose to wink at the supposed practices of the morthwyrtha [ ], from the affection they bore to her ale and mead, and the gratitude they felt for her ample gifts to their convent. "one of the wicked house, brother," whispered the monk. "yea; mockers and scorners are godwin and his lewd sons," answered the monk. and all three sighed and scowled, as the door closed on the hostess and her stately guest. two tall and not ungraceful lamps lighted the same chamber in which hilda was first presented to the reader. the handmaids were still at their spindles, and the white web nimbly shot as the mistress entered. she paused, and her brow knit, as she eyed the work. "but three parts done?" she said, "weave fast, and weave strong." harold, not heeding the maids or their task, gazed inquiringly round, and from a nook near the window, edith sprang forward with a joyous cry, and a face all glowing with delight--sprang forward, as if to the arms of a brother; but, within a step or so of that noble guest, she stopped short, and her eyes fell to the ground. harold held his breath in admiring silence. the child he had loved from her cradle stood before him as a woman. even since we last saw her, in the interval between the spring and the autumn, the year had ripened the youth of the maiden, as it had mellowed the fruits of the earth; and her cheek was rosy with the celestial blush, and her form rounded to the nameless grace, which say that infancy is no more. he advanced and took her hand, but for the first time in his life in their greetings, he neither gave nor received the kiss. "you are no child now, edith," said he, involuntarily; "but still set apart, i pray you, some remains of the old childish love for harold." edith's charming lips smiled softly; she raised her eyes to his, and their innocent fondness spoke through happy tears. but few words passed in the short interval between harold's entrance and his retirement to the chamber prepared for him in haste. hilda herself led him to a rude ladder which admitted to a room above, evidently added, by some saxon lord, to the old roman pile. the ladder showed the precaution of one accustomed to sleep in the midst of peril, for, by a kind of windlass in the room, it could be drawn up at the inmate's will, and, so drawn, left below a dark and deep chasm, delving down to the foundations of the house; nevertheless the room itself had all the luxury of the time; the bedstead was quaintly carved, and of some rare wood; a trophy of arms--though very ancient, sedulously polished--hung on the wall. there were the small round shield and spear of the earlier saxon, with his vizorless helm, and the short curved knife or saex [ ], from which some antiquarians deem that the saxish men take their renowned name. edith, following hilda, proffered to the guest, on a salver of gold, spiced wines and confections; while hilda, silently and unperceived, waved her seid-staff over the bed, and rested her pale hand on the pillow. "nay, sweet cousin," said harold, smiling, "this is not one of the fashions of old, but rather, methinks, borrowed from the frankish manners in the court of king edward." "not so, harold," answered hilda, quickly turning; such was ever the ceremony due to saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere our kinsmen the danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was left for the bed." "thou rebukest, o hilda, too tauntingly, the pride of godwin's house, when thou givest to his homely son the ceremonial of a king. but, so served, i envy not kings, fair edith." he took the cup, raised it to his lips, and when he placed it on the small table by his side the women had left the chamber, and he was alone. he stood for some minutes absorbed in reverie, and his soliloquy ran somewhat thus: "why said the vala that edith's fate was inwoven with mine? and why did i believe and bless the vala, when she so said? can edith ever be my wife? the monk-king designs her for the cloister--woe, and well-a- day! sweyn, sweyn, let thy doom forewarn me! and if i stand up in my place and say, 'give age and grief to the cloister--youth and delight to man's hearth,' what will answer the monks? 'edith cannot be thy wife, son of godwin, for faint and scarce traced though your affinity of blood, ye are within the banned degrees of the church. edith may be wife to another, if thou wilt,--barren spouse of the church or mother of children who lisp not harold's name as their father.' out on these priests with their mummeries, and out on their war upon human hearts!" his fair brow grew stern and fierce as the norman duke's in his ire; and had you seen him at the moment you would have seen the true brother of sweyn. he broke from his thoughts with the strong effort of a man habituated to self-control, and advanced to the narrow window, opened the lattice, and looked out. the moon was in all her splendour. the long deep shadows of the breathless forest chequered the silvery whiteness of open sward and intervening glade. ghostly arose on the knoll before him the grey columns of the mystic druid,--dark and indistinct the bloody altar of the warrior god. but there his eye was arrested; for whatever is least distinct and defined in a landscape has the charm that is the strongest; and, while he gazed, he thought that a pale phosphoric light broke from the mound with the bautastein, that rose by the teuton altar. he thought, for he was not sure that it was not some cheat of the fancy. gazing still, in the centre of that light there appeared to gleam forth, for one moment, a form of superhuman height. it was the form of a man, that seemed clad in arms like those on the wall, leaning on a spear, whose point was lost behind the shafts of the crommell. and the face grew in that moment distinct from the light which shimmered around it, a face large as some early god's, but stamped with unutterable and solemn woe. he drew back a step, passed his hand over his eyes, and looked again. light and figure alike had vanished; nought was seen save the grey columns and dim fane. the earl's lip curved in derision of his weakness. he closed the lattice, undressed, knelt for a moment or so by the bedside, and his prayer was brief and simple, nor accompanied with the crossings and signs customary in his age. he rose, extinguished the lamp, and threw himself on the bed. the moon, thus relieved of the lamp-light, came clear and bright through the room, shone on the trophied arms, and fell upon harold's face, casting its brightness on the pillow on which the vala had breathed her charm. and harold slept--slept long--his face calm, his breathing regular: but ere the moon sunk and the dawn rose the features were dark and troubled, the breath came by gasps, the brow was knit, and the teeth clenched. this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book vii. the welch king. chapter i. the sun had just cast his last beams over the breadth of water into which conway, or rather cyn-wy, "the great river," emerges its winding waves. not at that time existed the matchless castle, which is now the monument of edward plantagenet, and the boast of wales. but besides all the beauty the spot took from nature, it had even some claim from ancient art. a rude fortress rose above the stream of gyffin, out of the wrecks of some greater roman hold [ ], and vast ruins of a former town lay round it; while opposite the fort, on the huge and ragged promontory of gogarth, might still be seen, forlorn and grey, the wrecks of the imperial city, destroyed ages before by lightning. all these remains of a power and a pomp that rome in vain had bequeathed to the briton, were full of pathetic and solemn interest, when blent with the thought, that on yonder steep, the brave prince of a race of heroes, whose line transcended, by ages, all the other royalties of the north, awaited, amidst the ruins of man, and in the stronghold which nature yet gave, the hour of his doom. but these were not the sentiments of the martial and observant norman, with the fresh blood of a new race of conquerors. "in this land," thought he, "far more even than in that of the saxon, there are the ruins of old; and when the present can neither maintain nor repair the past, its future is subjection or despair." agreeably to the peculiar uses of saxon military skill, which seems to have placed all strength in dykes and ditches, as being perhaps the cheapest and readiest outworks, a new trench had been made round the fort, on two sides, connecting it on the third and fourth with the streams of gyffin and the conway. but the boat was rowed up to the very walls, and the norman, springing to land, was soon ushered into the presence of the earl. harold was seated before a rude table, and bending over a rough map of the great mountain of penmaen; a lamp of iron stood beside the map, though the air was yet clear. the earl rose, as de graville, entering with the proud but easy grace habitual to his countrymen, said, in his best saxon: "hail to earl harold! william mallet de graville, the norman, greets him, and brings him news from beyond the seas." there was only one seat in that bare room--the seat from which the earl had risen. he placed it with simple courtesy before his visitor, and leaning, himself, against the table, said, in the norman tongue, which he spoke fluently: "it is no slight thanks that i owe to the sire de graville, that he hath undertaken voyage and journey on my behalf; but before you impart your news, i pray you to take rest and food." "rest will not be unwelcome; and food, if unrestricted to goats' cheese, and kid-flesh,--luxuries new to my palate,--will not be untempting; but neither food nor rest can i take, noble harold, before i excuse myself, as a foreigner, for thus somewhat infringing your laws by which we are banished, and acknowledging gratefully the courteous behavior i have met from thy countrymen notwithstanding." "fair sir," answered harold, "pardon us if, jealous of our laws, we have seemed inhospitable to those who would meddle with them. but the saxon is never more pleased than when the foreigner visits him only as the friend: to the many who settle amongst us for commerce--fleming, lombard, german, and saracen--we proffer shelter and welcome; to the few who, like thee, sir norman, venture over the seas but to serve us, we give frank cheer and free hand." agreeably surprised at this gracious reception from the son of godwin, the norman pressed the hand extended to him, and then drew forth a small case, and related accurately, and with feeling, the meeting of his cousin with sweyn, and sweyn's dying charge. the earl listened, with eyes bent on the ground, and face turned from the lamp; and, when mallet had concluded his recital, harold said, with an emotion he struggled in vain to repress: "i thank you cordially gentle norman, for kindness kindly rendered! i--i--" the voice faltered. "sweyn was very dear to me in his sorrows! we heard that he had died in lycia, and grieved much and long. so, after he had thus spoken to your cousin, he--he----alas! o sweyn, my brother!" "he died," said the norman, soothingly; "but shriven and absolved; and my cousin says, calm and hopeful, as they die ever who have knelt at the saviour's tomb!" harold bowed his head, and turned the case that held the letter again and again in his hand, but would not venture to open it. the knight himself, touched by a grief so simple and manly, rose with the delicate instinct that belongs to sympathy, and retired to the door, without which yet waited the officer who had conducted him. harold did not attempt to detain him, but followed him across the threshold, and briefly commanding the officer to attend to his guest as to himself, said: "with the morning, sire de granville, we shall meet again; i see that you are one to whom i need not excuse man's natural emotions." "a noble presence!" muttered the knight, as he descended the stairs; "but he hath norman, at least norse, blood in his veins on the distaff side.--fair sir!"--(this aloud to the officer)--"any meat save the kid-flesh, i pray thee; and any drink save the mead!" "fear not, guest" said the officer; "for tostig the earl hath two ships in yon bay, and hath sent us supplies that would please bishop william of london; for tostig the earl is a toothsome man." "commend me, then, to tostig the earl," said the knight; "he is an earl after my own heart." chapter ii. on re-entering the room, harold drew the large bolt across the door, opened the case, and took forth the distained and tattered scroll: "when this comes to thee, harold, the brother of thy childish days will sleep in the flesh, and be lost to men's judgment and earth's woe in the spirit. i have knelt at the tomb; but no dove hath come forth from the cloud,--no stream of grace hath re-baptised the child of wrath! they tell me now--monk and priest tell me--that i have atoned all my sins; that the dread weregeld is paid; that i may enter the world of men with a spirit free from the load, and a name redeemed from the stain. think so, o brother!--bid my father (if he still lives, the dear old man!) think so;--tell githa to think it; and oh, teach haco, my son, to hold the belief as a truth! harold, again i commend to thee my son; be to him as a father! my death surely releases him as a hostage. let him not grow up in the court of the stranger, in the land of our foes. let his feet, in his youth, climb the green holts of england;--let his eyes, resin dims them, drink the blue of her skies! when this shall reach thee, thou in thy calm, effortless strength, wilt be more great than godwin our father. power came to him with travail and through toil, the geld of craft and of force. power is born to thee as strength to the strong man; it gathers around thee as thou movest; it is not thine aim, it is thy nature, to be great. shield my child with thy might; lead him forth from the prison-house by thy serene right hand! i ask not for lordships and earldoms, as the appanage of his father; train him not to be rival to thee:--i ask but for freedom, and english air! so counting on thee, o harold, i turn my face to the wall, and hush my wild heart to peace!" the scroll dropped noiseless from harold's hand. "thus," said he, mournfully, "hath passed away less a life than a dream! yet of sweyn, in our childhood, was godwin most proud; who so lovely in peace, and so terrible in wrath? my mother taught him the songs of the baltic, and hilda led his steps through the woodland with tales of hero and scald. alone of our house, he had the gift of the dane in the flow of fierce song, and for him things lifeless had being. stately tree, from which all the birds of heaven sent their carol; where the falcon took roost, whence the mavis flew forth in its glee,--how art thou blasted and seared, bough and core!--smit by the lightning and consumed by the worm!" he paused, and, though none were by, he long shaded his brow with his hand. "now," thought he, as he rose and slowly paced the chamber, "now to what lives yet on earth--his son! often hath my mother urged me in behalf of these hostages; and often have i sent to reclaim them. smooth and false pretexts have met my own demand, and even the remonstrance of edward himself. but, surely, now that william hath permitted this norman to bring over the letter, he will assent to what it hath become a wrong and an insult to refuse; and haco will return to his father's land, and wolnoth to his mother's arms." chapter iii. messire mallet de graville (as becomes a man bred up to arms, and snatching sleep with quick grasp whenever that blessing be his to command) no sooner laid his head on the pallet to which he had been consigned, than his eyes closed, and his senses were deaf even to dreams. but at the dead of the midnight he was wakened by sounds that might have roused the seven sleepers--shouts, cries, and yells, the blast of horns, the tramp of feet, and the more distant roar of hurrying multitudes. he leaped from his bed, and the whole chamber was filled with a lurid bloodred air. his first thought was that the fort was on fire. but springing upon the settle along the wall, and looking through the loophole of the tower, it seemed as if not the fort but the whole land was one flame, and through the glowing atmosphere he beheld all the ground, near and far, swarming with men. hundreds were swimming the rivulet, clambering up dyke mounds, rushing on the levelled spears of the defenders, breaking through line and palisade, pouring into the enclosures; some in half-armour of helm and corselet--others in linen tunics--many almost naked. loud sharp shrieks of "alleluia!" [ ] blended with those of "out! out! holy crosse!" [ ] he divined at once that the welch were storming the saxon hold. short time indeed sufficed for that active knight to case himself in his mail; and, sword in hand, he burst through the door, cleared the stairs, and gained the hall below, which was filled with men arming in haste. "where is harold?" he exclaimed. "on the trenches already," answered sexwolf, buckling his corslet of hide. "this welch hell hath broke loose." "and you are their beacon-fires? then the whole land is upon us!" "prate less," quoth sexwolf; "those are the hills now held by the warders of harold: our spies gave them notice, and the watch-fires prepared us ere the fiends came in sight, otherwise we had been lying here limbless or headless. now, men, draw up, and march forth." "hold! hold!" cried the pious knight, crossing himself, "is there no priest here to bless us? first a prayer and a psalm!" "prayer and psalm!" cried sexwolf, astonished, "an thou hadst said ale and mead, i could have understood thee.--out! out!--holyrood, holyrood!" "the godless paynims!" muttered the norman, borne away with the crowd. once in the open space, the scene was terrific. brief as had been the onslaught the carnage was already unspeakable. by dint of sheer physical numbers, animated by a valour that seemed as the frenzy of madmen or the hunger of wolves, hosts of the britons had crossed trench and stream, seizing with their hands the points of the spears opposed to them, bounding over the corpses of their countrymen, and with yells of wild joy rushing upon the close serried lines drawn up before the fort. the stream seemed literally to run gore; pierced by javelins and arrows, corpses floated and vanished, while numbers, undeterred by the havoc, leaped into the waves from the opposite banks. like bears that surround the ship of a sea-king beneath the polar meteors, or the midnight sun of the north, came the savage warriors through that glaring atmosphere. amidst all, two forms were pre-eminent: the one, tall and towering, stood by the trench, and behind a banner, that now drooped round the stave, now streamed wide and broad, stirred by the rush of men--for the night in itself was breezeless. with a vast danish axe wielded by both hands, stood this man, confronting hundreds, and at each stroke, rapid as the levin, fell a foe. all round him was a wall of his own-- the dead. but in the centre of the space, leading on a fresh troop of shouting welchmen who had forced their way from another part, was a form which seemed charmed against arrow and spear. for the defensive arms of this chief were as slight as if worn but for ornament: a small corselet of gold covered only the centre of his breast, a gold collar of twisted wires circled his throat, and a gold bracelet adorned his bare arm, dropping gore, not his own, from the wrist to the elbow. he was small and slight-shaped--below the common standard of men--but he seemed as one made a giant by the sublime inspiration of war. he wore no helmet, merely a golden circlet; and his hair, of deep red (longer than was usual with the welch), hung like the mane of a lion over his shoulders, tossing loose with each stride. his eyes glared like the tiger's at night, and he leaped on the spears with a bound. lost a moment amidst hostile ranks, save by the swift glitter of his short sword, he made, amidst all, a path for himself and his followers, and emerged from the heart of the steel unscathed and loud-breathing; while, round the line he had broken, wheeled and closed his wild men, striking, rushing, slaying, slain. "pardex, this is war worth the sharing," said the knight. "and now, worthy sexwolf, thou shalt see if the norman is the vaunter thou deemest him. dieu nous aide! notre dame!--take the foe in the rear." but turning round, he perceived that sexwolf had already led his men towards the standard, which showed them where stood the earl, almost alone in his peril. the knight, thus left to himself, did not hesitate:--a minute more, and he was in the midst of the welch force, headed by the chief with the golden panoply. secure in his ring mail against the light weapons of the welch, the sweep of the norman sword was as the scythe of death. right and left he smote through the throng which he took in the flank, and had almost gained the small phalanx of saxons, that lay firm in the midst, when the cymrian chief's flashing eye was drawn to his new and strange foe, by the roar and the groan round the norman's way; and with the half-naked breast against the shirt of mail, and the short roman sword against the long norman falchion, the lion king of wales fronted the knight. unequal as seems the encounter, so quick was the spring of the briton, so pliant his arm, and so rapid his weapon, that that good knight (who rather from skill and valour than brute physical strength, ranked amongst the prowest of william's band of martial brothers) would willingly have preferred to see before him fitzosborne or montgommeri, all clad in steel and armed with mace and lance, than parried those dazzling strokes, and fronted the angry majesty of that helmless brow. already the strong rings of his mail had been twice pierced, and his blood trickled fast, while his great sword had but smitten the air in its sweeps at the foe; when the saxon phalanx, taking advantage of the breach in the ring that girt them, caused by this diversion, and recognising with fierce ire the gold torque and breastplate of the welch king, made their desperate charge. then for some minutes the pele mele was confused and indistinct--blows blind and at random-- death coming no man knew whence or how; till discipline and steadfast order (which the saxons kept, as by mechanism, through the discord) obstinately prevailed. the wedge forced its way; and, though reduced in numbers and sore wounded, the saxon troop cleared the ring, and joined the main force drawn up by the fort, and guarded in the rear by its wall. meanwhile harold, supported by the band under sexwolf, had succeeded at length in repelling farther reinforcements of the welch at the more accessible part of the trenches; and casting now his practised eye over the field, he issued orders for some of the men to regain the fort, and open from the battlements, and from every loophole, the batteries of stone and javelin, which then (with the saxons, unskilled in sieges,) formed the main artillery of forts. these orders given, he planted sexwolf and most of his band to keep watch round the trenches; and shading his eye with his hand, and looking towards the moon, all waning and dimmed in the watchfires, he said, calmly, "now patience fights for us. ere the moon reaches yon hill-top, the troops of aber and caer-hen will be on the slopes of penmaen, and cut off the retreat of the walloons. advance my flag to the thick of yon strife." but as the earl, with his axe swung over his shoulder, and followed but by some half-score or more with his banner, strode on where the wild war was now mainly concentred, just midway between trench and fort, gryffyth caught sight both of the banner and the earl, and left the press at the very moment when he had gained the greatest advantage; and when indeed, but for the norman, who, wounded as he was, and unused to fight on foot, stood resolute in the van, the saxons, wearied out by numbers, and falling fast beneath the javelins, would have fled into their walls, and so sealed their fate,--for the welch would have entered at their heels. but it was the misfortune of the welch heroes never to learn that war is a science; and instead of now centering all force on the point most weakened, the whole field vanished from the fierce eye of the welch king, when he saw the banner and form of harold. the earl beheld the coming foe, wheeling round, as the hawk on the heron;--halted, drew up his few men in a semicircle, with their large shields as a rampart, and their levelled spears as a palisade; and before them all, as a tower, stood harold with his axe. in a minute more he was surrounded; and through the rain of javelins that poured upon him, hissed and glittered the sword of gryffyth. but harold, more practised than the sire de graville in the sword-play of the welch, and unencumbered by other defensive armour (save only the helm, which was shaped like the norman's,) than his light coat of hide, opposed quickness to quickness, and suddenly dropping his axe, sprang upon his foe, and clasping him round with his left arm, with the right hand griped at his throat: "yield and quarter!--yield, for thy life, son of llewellyn!" strong was that embrace, and deathlike that gripe; yet, as the snake from the hand of the dervise--as a ghost from the grasp of the dreamer, the lithe cymrian glided away, and the broken torque was all that remained in the clutch of harold. at this moment a mighty yell of despair broke from the welch near the fort: stones and javelins rained upon them from the walls, and the fierce norman was in the midst, with his sword drinking blood; but not for javelin, stone, and sword, shrank and shouted the welchmen. on the other side of the trenches were marching against them their own countrymen, the rival tribes that helped the stranger to rend the land: and far to the right were seen the spears of the saxon from aber, and to the left was heard the shout of the forces under godrith from caer-hen; and they who had sought the leopard in his lair were now themselves the prey caught in the toils. with new heart, as they beheld these reinforcements, the saxons pressed on; tumult, and flight, and indiscriminate slaughter, wrapped the field. the welch rushed to the stream and the trenches; and in the bustle and hurlabaloo, gryffyth was swept along, as a bull by a torrent; still facing the foe, now chiding, now smiting his own men, now rushing alone on the pursuers, and halting their onslaught, he gained, still unwounded, the stream, paused a moment, laughed loud, and sprang into the wave. a hundred javelins hissed into the sullen and bloody waters. "hold!" cried harold the earl, lifting his hand on high, "no dastard dart at the brave!" chapter iv. the fugitive britons, scarce one-tenth of the number that had first rushed to the attack,--performed their flight with the same parthian rapidity that characterised the assault; and escaping both welch foe and saxon, though the former broke ground to pursue them, they gained the steeps of penmaen. there was no further thought of slumber that night within the walls. while the wounded were tended, and the dead were cleared from the soil, harold, with three of his chiefs, and mallet de graville, whose feats rendered it more than ungracious to refuse his request that he might assist in the council, conferred upon the means of terminating the war with the next day. two of the thegns, their blood hot with strife and revenge, proposed to scale the mountain with the whole force the reinforcements had brought them, and put all they found to the sword. the third, old and prudent, and inured to welch warfare, thought otherwise. "none of us," said he, "know what is the true strength of the place which ye propose to storm. not even one welchman have we found who hath ever himself gained the summit, or examined the castle which is said to exist there." [ ] "said!" echoed de graville, who, relieved of his mail, and with his wounds bandaged, reclined on his furs on the floor. "said, noble sir! cannot our eyes perceive the towers?" the old thegn shook his head. "at a distance, and through mists, stones loom large, and crags themselves take strange shapes. it may be castle, may be rock, may be old roofless temples of heathenesse that we see. but to repeat (and, as i am slow, i pray not again to be put out in my speech)--none of us know what, there, exists of defence, man-made or nature-built. not even thy welch spies, son of godwin, have gained to the heights. in the midst lie the scouts of the welch king, and those on the top can see the bird fly, the goat climb. few of thy spies, indeed, have ever returned with life; their heads have been left at the foot of the hill, with the scroll in their lips,-- 'dic ad inferos--quid in superis novisti.' tell to the shades below what thou hast seen in the heights above." "and the walloons know latin!" muttered the knight; "i respect them!" the slow thegn frowned, stammered, and renewed: "one thing at least is clear; that the rock is well nigh insurmountable to those who know not the passes; that strict watch, baffling even welch spies, is kept night and day; that the men on the summit are desperate and fierce; that our own troops are awed and terrified by the belief of the welch, that the spot is haunted and the towers fiend-founded. one single defeat may lose us two years of victory. gryffyth may break from the eyrie, regain what he hath lost, win back our welch allies, ever faithless and hollow. wherefore, i say, go on as we have begun. beset all the country round; cut off all supplies, and let the foe rot by famine--or waste, as he hath done this night, his strength by vain onslaught and sally." "thy counsel is good," said harold, "but there is yet something to add to it, which may shorten the strife, and gain the end with less sacrifice of life. the defeat of tonight will have humbled the spirits of the welch; take them yet in the hour of despair and disaster. i wish, therefore, to send to their outposts a nuncius, with these terms: 'life and pardon to all who lay down arms and surrender.'" "what, after such havoc and gore?" cried one of the thegns. "they defend their own soil," replied the earl simply: "had not we done the same?" "but the rebel gryffyth?" asked the old thegn, "thou canst not accept him again as crowned sub-king of edward?" "no," said the earl, "i propose to exempt gryffyth alone from the pardon, with promise, natheless, of life if he give himself up as prisoner; and count, without further condition, on the king's mercy." there was a prolonged silence. none spoke against the earl's proposal, though the two younger thegns misliked it much. at last said the elder, "but hast thou thought who will carry this message? fierce and wild are yon blood-dogs; and man must needs shrive soul and make will, if he will go to their kennel." "i feel sure that my bode will be safe," answered harold: for gryffyth has all the pride of a king, and, sparing neither man nor child in the onslaught, will respect what the roman taught his sires to respect-- envoy from chief to chief--as a head scatheless and sacred." "choose whom thou wilt, harold," said one of the young thegns, laughing, "but spare thy friends; and whomsoever thou choosest, pay his widow the weregeld." "fair sirs," then said de graville, "if ye think that i, though a stranger, could serve you as nuncius, it would be a pleasure to me to undertake this mission. first, because, being curious as concerns forts and castles, i would fain see if mine eyes have deceived me in taking yon towers for a hold of great might. secondly, because that same wild-cat of a king must have a court rare to visit. and the only reflection that withholds my pressing the offer as a personal suit is, that though i have some words of the breton jargon at my tongue's need, i cannot pretend to be a tully in welch; howbeit, since it seems that one, at least, among them knows something of latin, i doubt not but what i shall get out my meaning!" "nay, as to that, sire de graville," said harold, who seemed well pleased with the knight's offer, "there shall be no hindrance or let, as i will make clear to you; and in spite of what you have just heard, gryffyth shall harm you not in limb or in life. but, kindly and courteous sir, will your wounds permit the journey, not long, but steep and laborious, and only to be made on foot?" "on foot!" said the knight, a little staggered, "pardex! well and truly, i did not count upon that!" "enough," said harold, turning away in evident disappointment, "think of it no more." "nay, by your leave, what i have once said i stand to," returned the knight; "albeit, you may as well cleave in two one of those respectable centaurs of which we have read in our youth, as part norman and horse. i will forthwith go to my chamber, and apparel myself becomingly--not forgetting, in case of the worst, to wear my mail under my robe. vouchsafe me but an armourer, just to rivet up the rings through which scratched so felinely the paw of that well- appelled griffin." "i accept your offer frankly," said harold, "and all shall be prepared for you, as soon as you yourself will re-seek me here." the knight rose, and though somewhat stiff and smarting with his wounds, left the room lightly, summoned his armourer and squire, and having dressed with all the care and pomp habitual to a norman, his gold chain round his neck, and his vest stiff with broidery, he re- entered the apartment of harold. the earl received him alone, and came up to him with a cordial face. "i thank thee more, brave norman, than i ventured to say before my thegns, for i tell thee frankly, that my intent and aim are to save the life of this brave king; and thou canst well understand that every saxon amongst us must have his blood warmed by contest, and his eyes blind with national hate. you alone, as a stranger, see the valiant warrior and hunted prince, and as such you can feel for him the noble pity of manly foes." "that is true," said de graville, a little surprised, "though we normans are at least as fierce as you saxons, when we have once tasted blood; and i own nothing would please me better than to dress that catamaran in mail, put a spear in its claws, and a horse under its legs, and thus fight out my disgrace at being so clawed and mauled by its griffes. and though i respect a brave knight in distress, i can scarce extend my compassion to a thing that fights against all rule, martial and kingly." the earl smiled gravely. "it is the mode in which his ancestors rushed on the spears of caesar. pardon him." "i pardon him, at your gracious request," quoth the knight, with a grand air, and waving his hands; "say on." "you will proceed with a welch monk--whom, though not of the faction of gryffyth, all welchmen respect--to the mouth of a frightful pass, skirting the river; the monk will bear aloft the holy rood in signal of peace. arrived at that pass, you will doubtless be stopped. the monk here will be spokesman; and ask safe-conduct to gryffyth to deliver my message; he will also bear certain tokens, which will no doubt win the way for you." "arrived before gryffyth, the monk will accost him; mark and heed well his gestures, since thou wilt know not the welch tongue he employs. and when he raises the rood, thou,--in the mean while, having artfully approached close to gryffyth,--wilt whisper in saxon, which he well understands, and pressing the ring i now give thee into his hand, 'obey, by this pledge; thou knowest harold is true, and thy head is sold by thine own people.' if he asks more thou knowest nought." "so far, this is as should be from chief to chief," said the norman, touched, "and thus had fitzosborne done to his foe. i thank thee for this mission, and the more that thou hast not asked me to note the strength of the bulwark, and number the men that may keep it." again harold smiled. "praise me not for this, noble norman--we plain saxons have not your refinements. if ye are led to the summit, which i think ye will not be, the monk at least will have eyes to see, and tongue to relate. but to thee i confide this much;--i know already, that gryffyth's strongholds are not his walls and his towers, but the superstition of our men, and the despair of his own. i could win those heights, as i have won heights as cloudcapt, but with fearful loss of my own troops, and the massacre of every foe. both i would spare, if i may." "yet thou hast not shown such value for life, in the solitudes i passed," said the knight bluntly. harold turned pale, but said firmly, "sire de graville, a stern thing is duty, and resistless is its voice. these welchmen, unless curbed to their mountains, eat into the strength of england, as the tide gnaws into a shore. merciless were they in their ravages on our borders, and ghastly and torturing their fell revenge. but it is one thing to grapple with a foe fierce and strong, and another to smite when his power is gone, fang and talon. and when i see before me the faded king of a great race, and the last band of doomed heroes, too few and too feeble to make head against my arms,--when the land is already my own, and the sword is that of the deathsman, not of the warrior,--verily, sir norman, duty releases its iron tool, and man becomes man again." "i go," said the norman, inclining his head low as to his own great duke, and turning to the door; yet there he paused, and looking at the ring which he had placed on his finger, he said, "but one word more, if not indiscreet--your answer may help argument, if argument be needed. what tale lies hid in this token?" harold coloured and paused a moment, then answered: "simply this. gryffyth's wife, the lady aldyth, a saxon by birth, fell into my hands. we were storming rhadlan, at the farther end of the isle; she was there. we war not against women; i feared the license of my own soldiers, and i sent the lady to gryffyth. aldyth gave me this ring on parting; and i bade her tell gryffyth that whenever, at the hour of his last peril and sorest need, i sent that ring back to him, he might hold it the pledge of his life." "is this lady, think you, in the stronghold with her lord?" "i am not sure, but i fear yes," answered harold. "yet one word: and if gryffyth refuse, despite all warning?" harold's eyes drooped. "if so, he dies; but not by the saxon sword. god and our lady speed you!" chapter v. on the height called pen-y-dinas (or "head of the city") forming one of the summits of penmaen-mawr, and in the heart of that supposed fortress which no eye in the saxon camp had surveyed [ ], reclined gryffyth, the hunted king. nor is it marvellous that at that day there should be disputes as to the nature and strength of the supposed bulwark, since, in times the most recent, and among antiquaries the most learned, the greatest discrepancies exist, not only as to theoretical opinion, but plain matter of observation, and simple measurement. the place, however, i need scarcely say, was not as we see it now, with its foundations of gigantic ruin, affording ample space for conjecture; yet, even then, a wreck as of titans, its date and purpose were lost in remote antiquity. the central area (in which the welch king now reclined) formed an oval barrow of loose stones: whether so left from the origin, or the relics of some vanished building, was unknown even to bard and diviner. round this space were four strong circumvallations of loose stones, with a space about eighty yards between each; the walls themselves generally about eight feet wide, but of various height, as the stones had fallen by time and blast. along these walls rose numerous and almost countless circular buildings, which might pass for towers, though only a few had been recently and rudely roofed in. to the whole of this quadruple enclosure there was but one narrow entrance, now left open as if in scorn of assault; and a winding narrow pass down the mountain, with innumerable curves, alone led to the single threshold. far down the hill, walls again were visible; and the whole surface of the steep soil, more than half way in the descent, was heaped with vast loose stones, as if the bones of a dead city. but beyond the innermost enclosure of the fort (if fort, or sacred enclosure, be the correcter name), rose, thick and frequent, other mementos of the briton; many cromlechs, already shattered and shapeless; the ruins of stone houses; and high over all, those upraised, mighty amber piles, as at stonehenge, once reared, if our dim learning be true, in honour to bel, or bal-huan [ ], the idol of the sun. all, in short, showed that the name of the place, "the head of the city," told its tale; all announced that, there, once the celt had his home, and the gods of the druid their worship. and musing amidst these skeletons of the past, lay the doomed son of pen-dragon. beside him a kind of throne had been raised with stones, and over it was spread a tattered and faded velvet pall. on this throne sat aldyth the queen; and about the royal pair was still that mockery of a court which the jealous pride of the celt king retained amidst all the horrors of carnage and famine. most of the officers indeed (originally in number twenty-four), whose duties attached them to the king and queen of the cymry, were already feeding the crow or the worm. but still, with gaunt hawk on his wrist, the penhebogydd (grand falconer) stood at a distance; still, with beard sweeping his breast, and rod in hand, leant against a projecting shaft of the wall, the noiseless gosdegwr, whose duty it was to command silence in the king's hall; and still the penbard bent over his bruised harp, which once had thrilled, through the fair vaults of caerleon and rhaldan, in high praise of god, and the king, and the hero dead. in the pomp of gold dish and vessel [ ] the board was spread on the stones for the king and queen; and on the dish was the last fragment of black bread, and in the vessel full and clear, the water from the spring that bubbled up everlastingly through the bones of the dead city. beyond this innermost space, round a basin of rock, through which the stream overflowed as from an artificial conduit, lay the wounded and exhausted, crawling, turn by turn, to the lips of the basin, and happy that the thirst of fever saved them from the gnawing desire of food. a wan and spectral figure glided listlessly to and fro amidst those mangled, and parched, and dying groups. this personage, in happier times, filled the office of physician to the court, and was placed twelfth in rank amidst the chiefs of the household. and for cure of the "three deadly wounds," the cloven skull, or the gaping viscera, or the broken limb (all three classed alike), large should have been his fee [ ]. but feeless went he now from man to man, with his red ointment and his muttered charm; and those over whom he shook his lean face and matted locks, smiled ghastly at that sign that release and death were near. within the enclosures, either lay supine, or stalked restless, the withered remains of the wild army. a sheep, and a horse, and a clog, were yet left them all to share for the day's meal. and the fire of flickering and crackling brushwood burned bright from a hollow amidst the loose stones; but the animals were yet unslain, and the dog crept by the fire, winking at it with dim eyes. but over the lower part of the wall nearest to the barrow, leant three men. the wall there was so broken, that they could gaze over it on that grotesque yet dismal court; and the eyes of the three men, with a fierce and wolfish glare, were bent on gryffyth. three princes were they of the great old line; far as gryffyth they traced the fabulous honours of their race, to hu-gadarn and prydain, and each thought it shame that gryffyth should be lord over him! each had had throne and court of his own; each his "white palace" of peeled willow wands--poor substitutes, o kings, for the palaces and towers that the arts of rome had bequeathed your fathers! and each had been subjugated by the son of llewellyn, when, in his day of might, he re- united under his sole sway all the multiform principalities of wales, and regained, for a moment's splendour, the throne of roderic the great. "is it," said owain, in a hollow whisper, "for yon man, whom heaven hath deserted, who could not keep his very torque from the gripe of the saxon, that we are to die on these hills, gnawing the flesh from our bones? think ye not the hour is come?" "the hour will come, when the sheep, and the horse, and the dog are devoured," replied modred, "and when the whole force, as one man, will cry to gryffyth, 'thou a king!--give us bread!'" "it is well," said the third, an old man, leaning on a wand of solid silver, while the mountain wind, sweeping between the walls, played with the rags of his robe,--"it is well that the night's sally, less of war than of hunger, was foiled even of forage and food. had the saints been with gryffyth, who had dared to keep faith with tostig the saxon." owain laughed, a laugh hollow and false. "art thou cymrian, and talkest of faith with a saxon? faith with the spoiler, the ravisher and butcher? but a cymrian keeps faith with revenge; and gryffyth's trunk should be still crownless and headless, though tostig had never proffered the barter of safety and food. hist! gryffyth wakes from the black dream, and his eyes glow from under his hair." and indeed at this moment the king raised himself on his elbow, and looked round with a haggard and fierce despair in his glittering eyes. "play to us, harper; sing some song of the deeds of old!" the bard mournfully strove to sweep the harp, but the chords were broken, and the note came discordant and shrill as the sigh of a wailing fiend. "o king!" said the bard, "the music hath left the harp." "ha!" murmured gryffyth, "and hope the earth! bard, answer the son of llewellyn. oft in my halls hast thou sung the praise of the men that have been. in the halls of the race to come, will bards yet unborn sweep their harps to the deeds of thy king? shall they tell of the day of torques, by llyn-afangc, when the princes of powys fled from his sword as the clouds from the blast of the wind? shall they sing, as the hirlas goes round, of his steeds of the sea, when no flag came in sight of his prows between the dark isle of the druid [ ] and the green pastures of huerdan? [ ] or the towns that he fired, on the lands of the saxon, when rolf and the nortbmen ran fast from his javelin and spear? or say, child of truth, if all that is told of gryffyth thy king shall be his woe and his shame?" the bard swept his hand over his eyes, and answered: "bards unborn shall sing of gryffyth the son of llewellyn. but the song shall not dwell on the pomp of his power, when twenty sub-kings knelt at his throne, and his beacon was lighted in the holds of the norman and saxon. bards shall sing of the hero, who fought every inch of crag and morass in the front of his men,--and on the heights of penmaen-mawr, fame recovers thy crown!" "then i have lived as my fathers in life, and shall live with their glory in death!" said gryffyth; "and so the shadow hath passed from my soul." then turning round, still propped upon his elbow, he fixed his proud eye upon aldyth, and said gravely, "wife, pale is thy face, and gloomy thy brow; mournest thou the throne or the man?" aldyth cast on her wild lord a look of more terror than compassion, a look without the grief that is gentle, or the love that reveres; and answered: "what matter to thee my thoughts or my sufferings? the sword or the famine is the doom thou hast chosen. listening to vain dreams from thy bard, or thine own pride as idle, thou disdainest life for us both: be it so; let us die!" a strange blending of fondness and wrath troubled the pride on gryffyth's features, uncouth and half savage as they were, but still noble and kingly. "and what terror has death, if thou lovest me?" said he. aldyth shivered and turned aside. the unhappy king gazed hard on that face, which, despite sore trial and recent exposure to rough wind and weather, still retained the proverbial beauty of the saxon women--but beauty without the glow of the heart, as a landscape from which sunlight has vanished; and as he gazed, at the colour went and came fitfully over his swarthy cheeks whose hue contrasted the blue of his eye and the red tawny gold of his shaggy hair. "thou wouldst have me," he said at length, "send to harold thy countryman; thou wouldst have me, me--rightful lord of all britain-- beg for mercy, and sue for life. ah, traitress, and child of robber- sires, fair as rowena art thou, but no vortimer am i! thou turnest in loathing from the lord whose marriage-gift was a crown; and the sleek form of thy saxon harold rises up through the clouds of the carnage." all the fierce and dangerous jealousy of man's most human passion-- when man loves and hates in a breath--trembled in the cymrian's voice, and fired his troubled eye; for aldyth's pale cheek blushed like the rose, but she folded her arms haughtily on her breast, and made no reply. "no," said gryffyth, grinding teeth, white [ ] and strong as those of a young hound. "no, harold in vain sent me the casket; the jewel was gone. in vain thy form returned to my side; thy heart was away with thy captor: and not to save my life (were i so base as to seek it), but to see once more the face of him to whom this cold hand, in whose veins no pulse answers my own, had been given, if thy house had consulted its daughter, wouldst thou have me crouch like a lashed dog at the feet of my foe! oh shame! shame! shame! oh worst perfidy of all! oh sharp--sharper than saxon sword or serpent's tooth, is--is--" tears gushed to those fierce eyes, and the proud king dared not trust to his voice. aldyth rose coldly. "slay me if thou wilt--not insult me. i have said, 'let us die!'" with these words, and vouchsafing no look on her lord, she moved away towards the largest tower or cell, in which the single and rude chamber it contained had been set apart for her. gryffyth's eye followed her, softening gradually as her form receded, till lost to his sight. and then that peculiar household love, which in uncultivated breasts often survives trust and esteem, rushed back on his rough heart, and weakened it, as woman only can weaken the strong to whom death is a thought of scorn. he signed to his bard, who, during the conference between wife and lord, had retired to a distance, and said, with a writhing attempt to smile: "was there truth, thinkest thou, in the legend, that guenever was false to king arthur?" "no," answered the bard, divining his lord's thought, for guenever survived not the king, and they were buried side by side in the vale of avallon." "thou art wise in the lore of the heart, and love hath been thy study from youth to grey hairs. is it love, is it hate, that prefers death for the loved one, to the thought of her life as another's?" a look of the tenderest compassion passed over the bard's wan face, but vanished in reverence, as he bowed his head and answered: "o king, who shall say what note the wind calls from the harp, what impulse love wakes in the soul--now soft and now stern? but," he added, raising his form, and, with a dread calm on his brow, "but the love of a king brooks no thought of dishonour; and she who hath laid her head on his breast should sleep in his grave." "thou wilt outlive me," said gryffyth, abruptly. "this carn be my tomb!" "and if so," said the bard, "thou shalt sleep not alone. in this carn what thou lovest best shall be buried by thy side; the bard shall raise his song over thy grave, and the bosses of shields shall be placed at intervals, as rises and falls the sound of song. over the grave of two shall a new mound arise, and we will bid the mound speak to others in the fair days to come. but distant yet be the hour when the mighty shall be laid low! and the tongue of thy bard may yet chant the rush of the lion from the toils and the spears. hope still!" gryffyth, for answer, leant on the harper's shoulder, and pointed silently to the sea, that lay, lake-like at the distance, dark-studded with the saxon fleet. then turning, his hands stretched over the forms that, hollow-eyed and ghost-like, flitted between the walls, or lay dying, but mute, around the waterspring. his hand then dropped, and rested on the hilt of his sword. at this moment there was a sudden commotion at the outer entrance of the wall; the crowd gathered to one spot, and there was a loud hum of voices. in a few moments one of the welch scouts came into the enclosure, and the chiefs of the royal tribes followed him to the carn on which the king stood. "of what tellest thou?" said gryffyth, resuming on the instant all the royalty of his bearing. "at the mouth of the pass," said the scout, kneeling, "there are a monk bearing the holy rood, and a chief, unarmed. and the monk is evan, the cymrian, of gwentland; and the chief, by his voice, seemeth not to be saxon. the monk bade me give thee these tokens" (and the scout displayed the broken torque which the king had left in the grasp of harold, together with a live falcon belled and blinded), "and bade me say thus to the king: harold the earl greets gryffyth, son of llewellyn, and sends him, in proof of good will, the richest prize he hath ever won from a foe; and a hawk, from llandudno;--that bird which chief and equal give to equal and chief. and he prays gryffyth, son of llewellyn, for the sake of his realm and his people, to grant hearing to his nuncius." a murmur broke from the chiefs--a murmur of joy and surprise from all, save the three conspirators, who interchanged anxious and fiery glances. gryffyth's hand had already closed, while he uttered a cry that seemed of rapture, on the collar of gold; for the loss of that collar had stung him, perhaps more than the loss of the crown of all wales. and his heart, so generous and large, amidst all its rude passions, was touched by the speech and the tokens that honoured the fallen outlaw both as foe and as king. yet in his face there was still seen a moody and proud struggle; he paused before he turned to the chiefs. "what counsel ye--ye strong in battle, and wise in debate?" said he. with one voice all, save the fatal three, exclaimed: "hear the monk, o king!" "shall we dissuade?" whispered modred to the old chief, his accomplice. "no; for so doing, we shall offend all:--and we must win all." then the bard stepped into the ring. and the ring was hushed, for wise is ever the counsel of him whose book is the human heart. "hear the saxons," said he, briefly, and with an air of command when addressing others, which contrasted strongly his tender respect to the king; "hear the saxons, but not in these walls. let no man from the foe see our strength or our weakness. we are still mighty and impregnable, while our dwelling is in the realm of the unknown. let the king, and his officers of state, and his chieftains of battle, descend to the pass. and behind, at the distance, let the spearmen range from cliff to cliff, as a ladder of steel; so will their numbers seem the greater." "thou speakest well," said the king. meanwhile the knight and the monk waited below at that terrible pass [ ], which then lay between mountain and river, and over which the precipices frowned, with a sense of horror and weight. looking up, the knight murmured: "with those stones and crags to roll down on a marching army, the place well defies storm and assault; and a hundred on the height would overmatch thousands below." he then turned to address a few words, with all the far-famed courtesy of norman and frank, to the welch guards at the outpost. they were picked men; the strongest and best armed and best fed of the group. but they shook their heads and answered not, gazing at him fiercely, and showing their white teeth, as dogs at a bear before they are loosened from the band. "they understand me not, poor languageless savages!" said mallet de graville, turning to the monk, who stood by with the lifted rood; "speak to them in their own jargon." "nay," said the welch monk, who, though of a rival tribe from south wales, and at the service of harold, was esteemed throughout the land for piety and learning, "they will not open mouth till the king's orders come to receive or dismiss us unheard." "dismiss us unheard!" repeated the punctilious norman; "even this poor barbarous king can scarcely be so strange to all comely and gentle usage, as to put such insult on guillaume mallet de graville. but," added the knight, colouring, "i forgot that he is not advised of my name and land; and, indeed, sith thou art to be spokesman, i marvel why harold should have prayed my service at all, at the risk of subjecting a norman knight to affronts contumelious." "peradventure," replied evan, "peradventure thou hast something to whisper apart to the king, which, as stranger and warrior, none will venture to question; but which from me, as countryman and priest, would excite the jealous suspicions of those around him." "i conceive thee," said de graville. "and see, spears are gleaming down the path; and per pedes domini, yon chief with the mantle, and circlet of gold on his head, is the cat-king that so spitted and scratched in the melee last night." "heed well thy tongue," said evan, alarmed; "no jests with the leader of men." "knowest thou, good monk, that a facete and most gentil roman (if the saintly writer from whom i take the citation reports aright--for, alas! i know not where myself to purchase, or to steal, one copy of horatius flaccus) hath said 'dulce est desipere in loco.' it is sweet to jest, but not within reach of claws, whether of kaisars or cats." therewith the knight drew up his spare but stately figure, and arranging his robe with grace and dignity, awaited the coming chief. down the paths, one by one, came first the chiefs, privileged by birth to attend the king; and each, as he reached the mouth of the pass, drew on the upper side, among the stones of the rough ground. then a banner, tattered and torn, with the lion ensign that the welch princes had substituted for the old national dragon, which the saxon of wessex had appropriated to themselves [ ], preceded the steps of the king. behind him came his falconer and bard, and the rest of his scanty household. the king halted in the pass, a few steps from the norman knight; and mallet de graville, though accustomed to the majestic mien of duke william, and the practised state of the princes of france and flanders, felt an involuntary thrill of admiration at the bearing of the great child of nature with his foot on his father's soil. small and slight as was his stature, worn and ragged his mantle of state, there was that in the erect mien and steady eye of the cymrian hero, which showed one conscious of authority, and potent in will; and the wave of his hand to the knight was the gesture of a prince on his throne. nor, indeed, was that brave and ill-fated chief without some irregular gleams of mental cultivation, which under happier auspices, might have centred into steadfast light. though the learning which had once existed in wales (the last legacy of rome) had long since expired in broil and blood, and youths no longer flocked to the colleges of caerleon, and priests no longer adorned the casuistical theology of the age, gryffyth himself, the son of a wise and famous father [ ], had received an education beyond the average of saxon kings. but, intensely national, his mind had turned from all other literature, to the legends, and songs, and chronicles of his land; and if he is the best scholar who best understands his own tongue and its treasures, gryffyth was the most erudite prince of his age. his natural talents, for war especially, were considerable; and judged fairly--not as mated with an empty treasury, without other army than the capricious will of his subjects afforded, and amidst his bitterest foes in the jealous chiefs of his own country, against the disciplined force and comparative civilisation of the saxon--but as compared with all the other princes of wales, in warfare, to which he was habituated, and in which chances were even, the fallen son of llewellyn had been the most renowned leader that cymry had known since the death of the great roderic. so there he stood; his attendants ghastly with famine, drawn up on the unequal ground; above, on the heights, and rising from the stone crags, long lines of spears artfully placed; and, watching him with deathful eyes, somewhat in his rear, the traitor three. "speak, father, or chief," said the welch king in his native tongue; "what would harold the earl of gryffyth the king?" then the monk took up the word and spoke. "health to gryffyth-ap-llewellyn, his chiefs and his people! thus saith harold, king edward's thegn: by land all the passes are watched; by sea all the waves are our own. our swords rest in our sheaths; but famine marches each hour to gride and to slay. instead of sure death from the hunger, take sure life from the foe. free pardon to all, chiefs and people, and safe return to their homes,-- save gryffyth alone. let him come forth, not as victim and outlaw, not with bent form and clasped hands, but as chief meeting chief, with his household of state. harold will meet him, in honour, at the gates of the fort. let gryffyth submit to king edward, and ride with harold to the court of the basileus. harold promises him life, and will plead for his pardon. and though the peace of this realm, and the fortune of war, forbid harold to say, 'thou shalt yet be a king;' yet thy crown, son of llewellyn, shall at least be assured in the line of thy fathers, and the race of cadwallader shall still reign in cymry." the monk paused, and hope and joy were in the faces of the famished chiefs; while two of the traitor three suddenly left their post, and sped to tell the message to the spearmen and multitudes above. modred, the third conspirator, laid his hand on his hilt, and stole near to see the face of the king;--the face of the king was dark and angry, as a midnight of storm. then, raising the cross on high, evan resumed. "and i, though of the people of gwentland, which the arms of gryffyth have wasted, and whose prince fell beneath gryffyth's sword on the hearth of his hall--i, as god's servant, the brother of all i behold, and, as son of the soil, mourning over the slaughter of its latest defenders--i, by this symbol of love and command, which i raise to the heaven, adjure thee, o king, to give ear to the mission of peace,--to cast down the grim pride of earth. and instead of the crown of a day, fix thy hopes on the crown everlasting. for much shall be pardoned to thee in thine hour of pomp and of conquest, if now thou savest from doom and from death the last lives over which thou art lord." it was during this solemn appeal that the knight, marking the sign announced to him, and drawing close to gryffyth, pressed the ring into the king's hand, and whispered: "obey by this pledge. thou knowest harold is true, and thy head is sold by thine own people." the king cast a haggard eye at the speaker, and then at the ring, over which his hand closed with a convulsive spasm. and at that dread instant the man prevailed over the king; and far away from people and monk, from adjuration and duty, fled his heart on the wings of the storm--fled to the cold wife he distrusted: and the pledge that should assure him of life, seemed as a love-token insulting his fall:--amidst all the roar of roused passions, loudest of all was the hiss of the jealous fiend. as the monk ceased, the thrill of the audience was perceptible, and a deep silence was followed by a general murmur, as if to constrain the king. then the pride of the despot chief rose up to second the wrath of the suspecting man. the red spot flushed the dark cheek, and he tossed the neglected hair from his brow. he made one stride towards the monk, and said, in a voice loud, and deep, and slow, rolling far up the hill: "monk, thou hast said; and now hear the reply of the son of llewellyn, the true heir of roderic the great, who from the heights of eryri saw all the lands of the cymrian sleeping under the dragon of uther. king was i born, and king will i die. i will not ride by the side of the saxon to the feet of edward, the son of the spoiler. i will not, to purchase base life, surrender the claim, vain before men and the hour, but solemn before god and posterity--the claim of my line and my people. all britain is ours--all the island of pines. and the children of hengist are traitors and rebels--not the heirs of ambrosius and uther. say to harold the saxon, ye have left us but the tomb of the druid and the hills of the eagle; but freedom and royalty are ours, in life and in death--not for you to demand them, not for us to betray. nor fear ye, o my chiefs, few, but unmatched in glory and truth; fear not ye to perish by the hunger thus denounced as our doom, on these heights that command the fruits of our own fields! no, die we may, but not mute and revengeless. go back, whispering warrior; go back, false son of cymry--and tell harold to look well to his walls and his trenches. we will vouchsafe him grace for his grace--we will not take him by surprise, nor under cloud of the night. with the gleam of our spears and the clash of our shields, we will come from the hill: and, famine-worn as he deems us, hold a feast in his walls which the eagles of snowdon spread their pinions to share!" "rash man and unhappy!" cried the monk; "what curse drawest thou down on thy head! wilt thou be the murtherer of thy men, in strife unavailing and vain? heaven holds thee guilty of all the blood thou shalt cause to be shed." "be dumb!--hush thy screech, lying raven!" exclaimed gryffyth, his eyes darting fire and, his slight form dilating. "once, priest and monk went before us to inspire, not to daunt; and our cry, alleluia! was taught us by the saints of the church, on the day when saxons, fierce and many as harold's, fell on the field of maes-garmon. no, the curse is on the head of the invader, not on those who defend hearth and altar. yea, as the song to the bard, the curse leaps through my veins, and rushes forth from my lips. by the land they have ravaged; by the gore they have spilt; on these crags, our last refuge; below the carn on yon heights, where the dead stir to hear me,--i launch the curse of the wronged and the doomed on the children of hengist! they in turn shall know the steel of the stranger--their crown shall be shivered as glass, and their nobles be as slaves in the land. and the line of hengist and cerdic shall be rased from the roll of empire. and the ghosts of our fathers shall glide, appeased, over the grave of their nation. but we--we, though weak in the body, in the soul shall be strong to the last! the ploughshare may pass over our cities, but the soil shall be trod by our steps, and our deeds keep our language alive in the songs of our bards. nor in the great judgment day, shall any race but the race of cymry rise from their graves in this corner of earth, to answer for the sins of the brave!" [ ] so impressive the voice, so grand the brow, and sublime the wild gesture of the king, as he thus spoke, that not only the monk himself was awed; not only, though he understood not the words, did the norman knight bow his head, as a child when the lightning he fears as by instinct flashes out from the cloud,--but even the sullen and wide- spreading discontent at work among most of the chiefs was arrested for a moment. but the spearmen and multitude above, excited by the tidings of safety to life, and worn out by repeated defeat, and the dread fear of famine, too remote to hear the king, were listening eagerly to the insidious addresses of the two stealthy conspirators, creeping from rank to rank; and already they began to sway and move, and sweep slowly down towards the king. recovering his surprise, the norman again neared gryffyth, and began to re-urge his mission of peace. but the chief waved him back sternly, and said aloud, though in saxon: "no secrets can pass between harold and me. this much alone, take thou back as answer: i thank the earl, for myself, my queen, and my people. noble have been his courtesies, as foe; as foe i thank him-- as king, defy. the torque he hath returned to my hand, he shall see again ere the sun set. messengers, ye are answered. withdraw, and speed fast, that we may pass not your steps on the road." the monk sighed, and cast a look of holy compassion over the circle; and a pleased man was he to see in the faces of most there, that the king was alone in his fierce defiance. then lifting again the rood, he turned away, and with him went the norman. the retirement of the messengers was the signal for one burst of remonstrance from the chiefs--the signal for the voice and the deeds of the fatal three. down from the heights sprang and rushed the angry and turbulent multitudes; round the king came the bard and the falconer, and some faithful few. the great uproar of many voices caused the monk and the knight to pause abruptly in their descent, and turn to look behind. they could see the crowd rushing down from the higher steeps; but on the spot itself which they had so lately left, the nature of the ground only permitted a confused view of spear points, lifted swords, and heads crowned with shaggy locks, swaying to and fro. "what means all this commotion?" asked the knight, with his hand on his sword. "hist!" said the monk, pale as ashes, and leaning for support upon the cross. suddenly, above the hubbub, was heard the voice of the king, in accents of menace and wrath, singularly distinct and clear; it was followed by a moment's silence--a moment's silence followed by the clatter of arms, a yell, and a howl, and the indescribable shock of men. and suddenly again was heard a voice that seemed that of the king, but no longer distinct and clear!--was it laugh?--was it groan? all was hushed; the monk was on his knees in prayer; the knight's sword was bare in his hand. all was hushed--and the spears stood still in the air; when there was again a cry, as multitudinous, but less savage than before. and the welch came down the pass, and down the crags. the knight placed his back to a rock. "they have orders to murther us," he murmured; "but woe to the first who come within reach of my sword!" down swarmed the welchmen, nearer and nearer; and in the midst of them three chiefs--the fatal three. and the old chief bore in his hand a pole or spear, and on the top of that spear, trickling gore step by step, was the trunkless head of gryffyth the king. "this," said the old chief, as he drew near, "this is our answer to harold the earl. we will go with ye." "food! food!" cried the multitude. and the three chiefs (one on either side the trunkless head that the third bore aloft) whispered, "we are avenged!" this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book x. the sacrifice on the altar. chapter i. the good bishop alred, now raised to the see of york, had been summoned from his cathedral seat by edward, who had indeed undergone a severe illness, during the absence of harold; and that illness had been both preceded and followed by mystical presentiments of the evil days that were to fall on england after his death. he had therefore sent for the best and the holiest prelate in his realm, to advise and counsel with. the bishop had returned to his lodging in london (which was in a benedictine abbey, not far from the aldgate) late one evening, from visiting the king at his rural palace of havering; and he was seated alone in his cell, musing over an interview with edward, which had evidently much disturbed him, when the door was abruptly thrown open, and pushing aside in haste the monk, who was about formally to announce him, a man so travel-stained in garb, and of a mien so disordered, rushed in, that alred gazed at first as on a stranger, and not till the intruder spoke did he recognise harold the earl. even then, so wild was the earl's eye, so dark his brow, and so livid his cheek, that it rather seemed the ghost of the man than the man himself. closing the door on the monk, the earl stood a moment on the threshold, with a breast heaving with emotions which he sought in vain to master; and, as if resigning the effort, he sprang forward, clasped the prelate's knees, bowed his head on his lap, and sobbed aloud. the good bishop, who had known all the sons of godwin from their infancy, and to whom harold was as dear as his own child, folding his hands over the earl's head, soothingly murmured a benediction. "no, no," cried the earl, starting to his feet, and tossing the dishevelled hair from his eyes, "bless me not yet! hear my tale first, and then say what comfort, what refuge, thy church can bestow!" hurriedly then the earl poured forth the dark story, already known to the reader,--the prison at belrem, the detention at william's court, the fears, the snares, the discourse by the riverside, the oath over the relics. this told, he continued, "i found myself in the open air, and knew not, till the light of the sun smote me, what might have passed into my soul. i was, before, as a corpse which a witch raises from the dead, endows with a spirit not its own--passive to her hand-- life-like, not living. then, then it was as if a demon had passed from my body, laughing scorn at the foul things it had made the clay do. o, father, father! is there not absolution from this oath,--an oath i dare not keep? rather perjure myself than betray my land!" the prelate's face was as pale as harold's, and it was some moments before he could reply. "the church can loose and unloose--such is its delegated authority. but speak on; what saidst thou at the last to william?" "i know not, remember not--aught save these words. 'now, then, give me those for whom i placed myself in thy power; let me restore haco to his fatherland, and wolnoth to his mother's kiss, and wend home my way.' and, saints in heaven! what was the answer of this caitiff norman, with his glittering eye and venomed smile? 'haco thou shalt have, for he is an orphan and an uncle's love is not so hot as to burn from a distance; but wolnoth, thy mother's son, must stay with me as a hostage for thine own faith. godwin's hostages are released; harold's hostage i retain: it is but a form, yet these forms are the bonds of princes.' "i looked at him, and his eye quailed. and i said, 'that is not in the compact.' and william answered, 'no, but it is the seal to it.' then i turned from the duke and i called my brother to my side, and i said, 'over the seas have i come for thee. mount thy steed and ride by my side, for i will not leave the land without thee.' and wolnoth answered, 'nay, duke william tells me that he hath made treaties with thee, for which i am still to be the hostage; and normandy has grown my home, and i love william as my lord.' hot words followed, and wolnoth, chafed, refused entreaty and command, and suffered me to see that his heart was not with england! o, mother, mother, how shall i meet thine eye! so i returned with haco. the moment i set foot on my native england, that moment her form seemed to rise from the tall cliffs, her voice to speak in the winds! all the glamour by which i had been bound, forsook me; and i sprang forward in scorn, above the fear of the dead men's bones. miserable overcraft of the snarer! had my simple word alone bound me, or that word been ratified after slow and deliberate thought, by the ordinary oaths that appeal to god, far stronger the bond upon my soul than the mean surprise, the covert tricks, the insult and the mocking fraud. but as i rode on, the oath pursued me--pale spectres mounted behind me on my steed, ghastly fingers pointed from the welkin; and then suddenly, o my father--i who, sincere in my simple faith, had, as thou knowest too well, never bowed submissive conscience to priest and church--then suddenly i felt the might of some power, surer guide than that haughty conscience which had so in the hour of need betrayed me! then i recognised that supreme tribunal, that mediator between heaven and man, to which i might come with the dire secret of my soul, and say, as i say now, on my bended knee, o father--father--bid me die, or absolve me from my oath!" then alred rose erect, and replied, "did i need subterfuge, o son, i would say, that william himself hath released thy bond, in detaining the hostage against the spirit of the guilty compact; that in the very words themselves of the oath, lies the release--'if god aid thee.' god aids no child to parricide--and thou art england's child! but all school casuistry is here a meanness. plain is the law, that oaths extorted by compulsion, through fraud and in fear, the church hath the right to loose: plainer still the law of god and of man, that an oath to commit crime it is a deadlier sin to keep than to forfeit. wherefore, not absolving thee from the misdeed of a vow that, if trusting more to god's providence and less to man's vain strength and dim wit, thou wouldst never have uttered even for england's sake-- leaving her to the angels;--not, i say, absolving thee from that sin, but pausing yet to decide what penance and atonement to fix to its committal, i do in the name of the power whose priest i am, forbid thee to fulfil the oath; i do release and absolve thee from all obligation thereto. and if in this i exceed my authority as romish priest, i do but accomplish my duties as living man. to these grey hairs i take the sponsorship. before this holy cross, kneel, o my son, with me, and pray that a life of truth and virtue may atone the madness of an hour." so by the crucifix knelt the warrior and the priest. chapter ii. all other thought had given way to harold's impetuous yearning to throw himself upon the church, to hear his doom from the purest and wisest of its saxon preachers. had the prelate deemed his vow irrefragable, he would have died the roman's death, rather than live the traitor's life; and strange indeed was the revolution created in this man's character, that he, "so self-dependent," he who had hitherto deemed himself his sole judge below of cause and action, now felt the whole life of his life committed to the word of a cloistered shaveling. all other thought had given way to that fiery impulse-- home, mother, edith, king, power, policy, ambition! till the weight was from his soul, he was as an outlaw in his native land. but when the next sun rose, and that awful burthen was lifted from his heart and his being--when his own calm sense, returning, sanctioned the fiat of the priest,--when, though with deep shame and rankling remorse at the memory of the vow, he yet felt exonerated, not from the guilt of having made, but the deadlier guilt of fulfilling it--all the objects of existence resumed their natural interest, softened and chastened, but still vivid in the heart restored to humanity. but from that time, harold's stern philosophy and stoic ethics were shaken to the dust; re-created, as it were, by the breath of religion, he adopted its tenets even after the fashion of his age. the secret of his shame, the error of his conscience, humbled him. those unlettered monks whom he had so despised, how had he lost the right to stand aloof from their control! how had his wisdom, and his strength, and his courage, met unguarded the hour of temptation! yes, might the time come, when england could spare him from her side! when he, like sweyn the outlaw, could pass a pilgrim to the holy sepulchre, and there, as the creed of the age taught, win full pardon for the single lie of his truthful life, and regain the old peace of his stainless conscience! there are sometimes event and season in the life of man the hardest and most rational, when he is driven perforce to faith the most implicit and submissive; as the storm drives the wings of the petrel over a measureless sea, till it falls tame, and rejoicing at refuge, on the sails of some lonely ship. seasons when difficulties, against which reason seems stricken into palsy, leave him bewildered in dismay --when darkness, which experience cannot pierce, wraps the conscience, as sudden night wraps the traveller in the desert--when error entangles his feet in its inextricable web--when, still desirous of the right, he sees before him but a choice of evil; and the angel of the past, with a flaming sword, closes on him the gates of the future. then, faith flashes on him, with a light from the cloud. then, he clings to prayer as a drowning wretch to the plank. then, that solemn authority which clothes the priest, as the interpreter between the soul and the divinity, seizes on the heart that trembles with terror and joy; then, that mysterious recognition of atonement, of sacrifice, of purifying lustration (mystery which lies hid in the core of all religions), smoothes the frown on the past, removes the flaming sword from the future. the orestes escapes from the hounding furies, and follows the oracle to the spot where the cleansing dews shall descend on the expiated guilt. he who hath never known in himself, nor marked in another, such strange crisis in human fate, cannot judge of the strength and the weakness it bestows. but till he can so judge, the spiritual part of all history is to him a blank scroll, a sealed volume. he cannot comprehend what drove the fierce heathen, cowering and humbled, into the fold of the church; what peopled egypt with eremites; what lined the roads of europe and asia with pilgrim homicides; what, in the elder world, while jove yet reigned on olympus, is couched in the dim traditions of the expiation of apollo, the joy-god, descending into hades; or why the sinner went blithe and light-hearted from the healing lustrations of eleusis. in all these solemn riddles of the jove world and the christ's is involved the imperious necessity that man hath of repentance and atonement: through their clouds, as a rainbow, shines the covenant that reconciles the god and the man. now life with strong arms plucked the reviving harold to itself. already the news of his return had spread through the city, and his chamber soon swarmed with joyous welcomes and anxious friends. but the first congratulations over, each had tidings that claimed his instant attention, to relate. his absence had sufficed to loosen half the links of that ill-woven empire. all the north was in arms. northumbria had revolted as one man, from the tyrannous cruelty of tostig; the insurgents had marched upon york; tostig had fled in dismay, none as yet knew whither. the sons of algar had sallied forth from their mercian fortresses, and were now in the ranks of the northumbrians, who it was rumoured had selected morcar (the elder) in the place of tostig. amidst these disasters, the king's health was fast decaying; his mind seemed bewildered and distraught; dark ravings of evil portent that had escaped from his lip in his mystic reveries and visions, had spread abroad, bandied with all natural exaggerations, from lip to lip. the country was in one state of gloomy and vague apprehension. but all would go well, now harold the great earl--harold the stout, and the wise, and the loved--had come back to his native land! in feeling himself thus necessary to england,--all eyes, all hopes, all hearts turned to him, and to him alone,--harold shook the evil memories from his soul, as a lion shakes the dews from his mane. his intellect, that seemed to have burned dim and through smoke in scenes unfamiliar to its exercise, rose at once equal to the occasion. his words reassured the most despondent. his orders were prompt and decisive. while, to and fro, went forth his bodes and his riders, he himself leaped on his horse, and rode fast to havering. at length that sweet and lovely retreat broke on his sight, as a bower through the bloom of a garden. this was edward's favourite abode: he had built it himself for his private devotions, allured by its woody solitudes and gloom of its copious verdure. here it was said, that once that night, wandering through the silent glades, and musing on heaven, the loud song of the nightingales had disturbed his devotions; with vexed and impatient soul, he had prayed that the music might be stilled: and since then, never more the nightingale was heard in the shades of havering! threading the woodland, melancholy yet glorious with the hues of autumn, harold reached the low and humble gate of the timber edifice, all covered with creepers and young ivy; and in a few moments more he stood in the presence of the king. edward raised himself with pain from the couch on which he was reclined [ ], beneath a canopy supported by columns and surmounted by carved symbols of the bell towers of jerusalem: and his languid face brightened at the sight of harold. behind the king stood a man with a danish battle-axe in his hand, the captain of the royal house- carles, who, on a sign from the king, withdrew. "thou art come back, harold," said edward then, in a feeble voice; and the earl drawing near, was grieved and shocked at the alteration of his face. "thou art come back, to aid this benumbed hand, from which the earthly sceptre is about to fall. hush! for it is so, and i rejoice." then examining harold's features, yet pale with recent emotions, and now saddened by sympathy with the king, he resumed: "well, man of this world, that went forth confiding in thine own strength, and in the faith of men of the world like thee,--well, were my warnings prophetic, or art thou contented with thy mission?" "alas!" said harold, mournfully. "thy wisdom was greater than mine, o king; and dread the snares laid for me and our native land, under pretext of a promise made by thee to count william, that he should reign in england, should he be your survivor." edward's face grew troubled and embarrassed. "such promise," he said, falteringly, "when i knew not the laws of england, nor that a realm could not pass like house and hyde by a man's single testament, might well escape from my thoughts, never too bent upon earthly affairs. but i marvel not that my cousin's mind is more tenacious and mundane. and verily, in those vague words, and from thy visit, i see the future dark with fate and crimson with blood." then edward's eyes grew locked and set, staring into space; and even that reverie, though it awed him, relieved harold of much disquietude, for he rightly conjectured, that on waking from it edward would press him no more as to those details, and dilemmas of conscience, of which he felt that the arch-worshipper of relics was no fitting judge. when the king, with a heavy sigh, evinced return from the world of vision, he stretched forth to harold his wan, transparent hand, and said: "thou seest the ring on this finger; it comes to me from above, a merciful token to prepare my soul for death. perchance thou mayest have heard that once an aged pilgrim stopped me on my way from god's house, and asked for alms--and i, having nought else on my person to bestow, drew from my finger a ring, and gave it to him, and the old man went his way, blessing me." "i mind me well of thy gentle charity," said the earl; "for the pilgrim bruited it abroad as he passed, and much talk was there of it." the king smiled faintly. "now this was years ago. it so chanced this year, that certain englishers, on their way from the holy land, fell in with two pilgrims--and these last questioned them much of me. and one, with face venerable and benign, drew forth a ring and said, 'when thou reachest england, give thou this to the king's own hand, and say, by this token, that on twelfth-day eve he shall be with me. for what he gave to me, will i prepare recompense without bound; and already the saints deck for the new comer the halls where the worm never gnaws and the moth never frets.' 'and who,' asked my subjects amazed, 'who shall we say, speaketh thus to us?' and the pilgrim answered, 'he on whose breast leaned the son of god, and my name is john!' [ ] wherewith the apparition vanished. this is the ring i gave to the pilgrim; on the fourteenth night from thy parting, miraculously returned to me. wherefore, harold, my time here is brief, and i rejoice that thy coming delivers me up from the cares of state to the preparation of my soul for the joyous day." harold, suspecting under this incredible mission some wily device of the norman, who, by thus warning edward (of whose precarious health he was well aware), might induce his timorous conscience to take steps for the completion of the old promise,--harold, we say, thus suspecting, in vain endeavoured to combat the king's presentiments, but edward interrupted him, with displeased firmness of look and tone: "come not thou, with thy human reasonings, between my soul and the messenger divine; but rather nerve and prepare thyself for the dire calamities that lie greeding in the days to come! be thine, things temporal. all the land is in rebellion. anlaf, whom thy coming dismissed, hath just wearied me with sad tales of bloodshed and ravage. go and hear him;--go hear the bodes of thy brother tostig, who wait without in our hall;--go, take axe, and take shield, and the men of earth's war, and do justice and right; and on thy return thou shalt see with what rapture sublime a christian king can soar aloft from his throne! go!" more moved, and more softened, than in the former day he had been with edward's sincere, if fanatical piety, harold, turning aside to conceal his face, said: "would, o royal edward, that my heart, amidst worldly cares, were as pure and serene as thine! but, at least, what erring mortal may do to guard this realm, and face the evils thou foreseest in the far--that will i do; and perchance, then, in my dying hour, god's pardon and peace may descend on me!" he spoke, and went. the accounts he received from anlaf (a veteran anglo-dane), were indeed more alarming than he had yet heard. morcar, the bold son of algar, was already proclaimed, by the rebels, earl of northumbria; the shires of nottingham, derby, and lincoln, had poured forth their hardy dane populations on his behalf. all mercia was in arms under his brother edwin; and many of the cymrian chiefs had already joined the ally of the butchered gryffyth. not a moment did the earl lose in proclaiming the herr-bann; sheaves of arrows were splintered, and the fragments, as announcing the war- fyrd, were sent from thegn to thegn, and town to town. fresh messengers were despatched to gurth to collect the whole force of his own earldom, and haste by quick marches to london; and, these preparations made, harold returned to the metropolis, and with a heavy heart sought his mother, as his next care. githa was already prepared for his news; for haco had of his own accord gone to break the first shock of disappointment. there was in this youth a noiseless sagacity that seemed ever provident for harold. with his sombre, smileless cheek, and gloom of beauty, bowed as if beneath the weight of some invisible doom, he had already become linked indissolubly with the earl's fate, as its angel,--but as its angel of darkness! to harold's intense relief, githa stretched forth her hands as he entered, and said, "thou hast failed me, but against thy will! grieve not; i am content!" "now our lady be blessed, mother--" "i have told her," said haco, who was standing, with arms folded, by the fire, the blaze of which reddened fitfully his hueless countenance with its raven hair; "i have told thy mother that wolnoth loves his captivity, and enjoys the cage. and the lady hath had comfort in my words." "not in thine only, son of sweyn, but in those of fate; for before thy coming i prayed against the long blind yearning of my heart, prayed that wolnoth might not cross the sea with his kinsmen." "how!" exclaimed the earl, astonished. githa took his arm, and led him to the farther end of the ample chamber, as if out of the hearing of haco, who turned his face towards the fire, and gazed into the fierce blaze with musing, unwinking eyes. "couldst thou think, harold, that in thy journey, that on the errand of so great fear and hope, i could sit brooding in my chair, and count the stitches on the tremulous hangings? no; day by day have i sought the lore of hilda, and at night i have watched with her by the fount, and the elm, and the tomb; and i know that thou hast gone through dire peril; the prison, the war, and the snare; and i know also, that his fylgia hath saved the life of my wolnoth; for had he returned to his native land, he had returned but to a bloody grave!" "says hilda this?" said the earl, thoughtfully. "so say the vala, the rune, and the scin-laeca! and such is the doom that now darkens the brow of haco! seest thou not that the hand of death is in the hush of the smileless lip, and the glance of the unjoyous eye?" "nay, it is but the thought born to captive youth, and nurtured in solitary dreams. thou hast seen hilda?--and edith, my mother? edith is--" "well," said githa, kindly, for she sympathised with that love which godwin would have condemned, "though she grieved deeply after thy departure, and would sit for hours gazing into space, and moaning. but even ere hilda divined thy safe return, edith knew it; i was beside her at the time; she started up, and cried, 'harold is in england!'--'how?--why thinkest thou so?' said i. and edith answered, 'i feel it by the touch of the earth, by the breath of the air.' this is more than love, harold. i knew two twins who had the same instinct of each other's comings and goings, and were present each to each even when absent: edith is twin to my soul. thou goest to her now, harold: thou wilt find there thy sister thyra. the child hath drooped of late, and i besought hilda to revive her, with herb and charm. thou wilt come back, ere thou departest to aid tostig, thy brother, and tell me how hilda hath prospered with my ailing child?" "i will, my mother. be cheered!--hilda is a skilful nurse. and now bless thee, that thou hast not reproached me that my mission failed to fulfil my promise. welcome even our kinswoman's sayings, sith they comfort thee for the loss of thy darling!" then harold left the room, mounted his steed, and rode through the town towards the bridge. he was compelled to ride slowly through the streets, for he was recognised; and cheapman and mechanic rushed from house and from stall to hail the man of the land and the time. "all is safe now in england, for harold is come back!" they seemed joyous as the children of the mariner, when, with wet garments, he struggles to shore through the storm. and kind and loving were harold's looks and brief words, as he rode with vailed bonnet through the swarming streets. at length he cleared the town and the bridge; and the yellowing boughs of the orchards drooped over the road towards the roman home, when, as he spurred his steed, he heard behind him hoofs as in pursuit, looked back, and beheld haco. he drew rein,--"what wantest thou, my nephew?" "thee!" answered haco, briefly, as he gained his side. "thy companionship." "thanks, haco; but i pray thee to stay in my mother's house, for i would fain ride alone." "spurn me not from thee, harold! this england is to me the land of the stranger; in thy mother's house i feel but the more the orphan. henceforth i have devoted to thee my life! and my life my dead and dread father hath left to thee, as a doom or a blessing; wherefore cleave i to thy side;--cleave we in life and in death to each other!" an undefined and cheerless thrill shot through the earl's heart as the youth spoke thus; and the remembrance that haco's counsel had first induced him to abandon his natural hardy and gallant manhood, meet wile by wile, and thus suddenly entangle him in his own meshes, had already mingled an inexpressible bitterness with his pity and affection for his brother's son. but, struggling against that uneasy sentiment, as unjust towards one to whose counsel--however sinister, and now repented--he probably owed, at least, his safety and deliverance, he replied gently: "i accept thy trust and thy love, haco! ride with me, then; but pardon a dull comrade, for when the soul communes with itself the lip is silent." "true," said haco, "and i am no babbler. three things are ever silent: thought, destiny, and the grave." each then, pursuing his own fancies, rode on fast, and side by side; the long shadows of declining day struggling with a sky of unusual brightness, and thrown from the dim forest trees and the distant hillocks. alternately through shade and through light rode they on; the bulls gazing on them from holt and glade, and the boom of the bittern sounding in its peculiar mournfulness of toile as it rose from the dank pools that glistened in the western sun. it was always by the rear of the house, where stood the ruined temple, so associated with the romance of his life, that harold approached the home of the vala; and as now the hillock, with its melancholy diadem of stones, came in view, haco for the first time broke the silence. "again--as in a dream!" he said, abruptly. "hill, ruin, grave-mound-- but where the tall image of the mighty one?" "hast thou then seen this spot before?" asked the earl. "yea, as an infant here was i led by my father sweyn; here too, from thy house yonder, dim seen through the fading leaves, on the eve before i left this land for the norman, here did i wander alone; and there, by that altar, did the great vala of the north chaunt her runes for my future." "alas! thou too!" murmured harold; and then he asked aloud, "what said she?" "that thy life and mine crossed each other in the skein; that i should save thee from a great peril, and share with thee a greater." "ah, youth," answered harold, bitterly, "these vain prophecies of human wit guard the soul from no anger. they mislead us by riddles which our hot hearts interpret according to their own desires. keep thou fast to youth's simple wisdom, and trust only to the pure spirit and the watchful god." he suppressed a groan as he spoke, and springing from his steed, which he left loose, advanced up the hill. when he had gained the height, he halted, and made sign to haco, who had also dismounted, to do the same. half way down the side of the slope which faced the ruined peristyle, haco beheld a maiden, still young, and of beauty surpassing all that the court of normandy boasted of female loveliness. she was seated on the sward;--while a girl younger, and scarcely indeed grown into womanhood, reclined at her feet, and leaning her cheek upon her hand, seemed hushed in listening attention. in the face of the younger girl haco recognised thyra, the last-born of githa, though he had but once seen her before--the day ere he left england for the norman court--for the face of the girl was but little changed, save that the eye was more mournful, and the cheek was paler. and harold's betrothed was singing, in the still autumn air, to harold's sister. the song chosen was on that subject the most popular with the saxon poets, the mystic life, death, and resurrection of the fabled phoenix, and this rhymeless song, in its old native flow, may yet find some grace in the modern ear. the lay of the phoenix. [ ] "shineth far hence--so sing the wise elders far to the fire-east the fairest of lands. daintily dight is that dearest of joy fields; breezes all balmy-filled glide through its groves. there to the blest, ope the high doors of heaven, sweetly sweep earthward their wavelets of song. frost robes the sward not, rusheth no hail-steel; wind-cloud ne'er wanders, ne'er falleth the rain. warding the woodholt, girt with gay wonder, sheen with the plumy shine, phoenix abides. lord of the lleod, [ ] whose home is the air, winters a thousand abideth the bird. hapless and heavy then waxeth the hazy wing; year-worn and old in the whirl of the earth. then the high holt-top, mounting, the bird soars; there, where the winds sleep, he buildeth a nest;-- gums the most precious, and balms of the sweetest, spices and odours, he weaves in the nest. there, in that sun-ark, lo, waiteth he wistful; summer comes smiling, lo, rays smite the pile! burden'd with eld-years, and weary with slow time, slow in his odour-nest burneth the bird. up from those ashes, then, springeth a rare fruit; deep in the rare fruit there coileth a worm. weaving bliss-meshes around and around it, silent and blissful, the worm worketh on. lo, from the airy web, blooming and brightsome, young and exulting, the phoenix breaks forth. round him the birds troop, singing and hailing; wings of all glories engarland the king. hymning and hailing, through forest and sun-air, hymning and hailing, and speaking him 'king.' high flies the phoenix, escaped from the worm-web he soars in the sunlight, he bathes in the dew. he visits his old haunts, the holt and the sun-hill; the founts of his youth, and the fields of his love. the stars in the welkin, the blooms on the earth, are glad in his gladness, are young in his youth. while round him the birds troop, the hosts of the himmel, [ ] blisses of music, and glories of wings; hymning and hailing, and filling the sun-air with music, and glory and praise of the king." as the lay ceased, thyra said: "ah, edith, who would not brave the funeral pyre to live again like the phoenix!" "sweet sister mine," answered edith, "the singer doth mean to image out in the phoenix the rising of our lord, in whom we all live again." and thyra said, mournfully: "but the phoenix sees once more the haunts of his youth--the things and places dear to him in his life before. shall we do the same, o edith?" "it is the persons we love that make beautiful the haunts we have known," answered the betrothed. "those persons at least we shall behold again, and whenever they are--there is heaven." harold could restrain himself no longer. with one bound he was at edith's side, and with one wild cry of joy he clasped her to his heart. "i knew that thou wouldst come to-night--i knew it, harold," murmured the betrothed. chapter iii. while, full of themselves, harold and edith wandered, hand in hand, through the neighbouring glades--while into that breast which had forestalled, at least, in this pure and sublime union, the wife's privilege to soothe and console, the troubled man poured out the tale of the sole trial from which he had passed with defeat and shame,-- haco drew near to thyra, and sate down by her side. each was strangely attracted towards the other; there was something congenial in the gloom which they shared in common; though in the girl the sadness was soft and resigned, in the youth it was stern and solemn. they conversed in whispers, and their talk was strange for companions so young; for, whether suggested by edith's song, or the neighbourhood of the saxon grave-stone, which gleamed on their eyes, grey and wan through the crommell, the theme they selected was of death. as if fascinated, as children often are, by the terrors of the dark king, they dwelt on those images with which the northern fancy has associated the eternal rest, on--the shroud and the worm, and the mouldering bones--on the gibbering ghost, and the sorcerer's spell that could call the spectre from the grave. they talked of the pain of the parting soul, parting while earth was yet fair, youth fresh, and joy not yet ripened from the blossom--of the wistful lingering look which glazing eyes would give to the latest sunlight it should behold on earth; and then he pictured the shivering and naked soul, forced from the reluctant clay, wandering through cheerless space to the intermediate tortures, which the church taught that none were so pure as not for a whole to undergo; and hearing, as it wandered, the knell of the muffled bells and the burst of unavailing prayer. at length haco paused abruptly and said: "but thou, cousin, hast before thee love and sweet life, and these discourses are not for thee." thyra shook her head mournfully: "not so, haco; for when hilda consulted the runes, while, last night, she mingled the herbs for my pain, which rests ever hot and sharp here," and the girl laid her hand on her breast, "i saw that her face grew dark and overcast; and i felt, as i looked, that my doom was set. and when thou didst come so noiselessly to my side, with thy sad, cold eyes, o haco, methought i saw the messenger of death. but thou art strong, haco, and life will be long for thee; let us talk of life." haco stooped down and pressed his lips upon the girl's pale forehead. "kiss me too, thyra." the child kissed him, and they sate silent and close by each other, while the sun set. and as the stars rose, harold and edith joined them. harold's face was serene in the starlight, for the pure soul of his betrothed had breathed peace into his own; and, in his willing superstition, he felt as if, now restored to his guardian angel, the dead men's bones had released their unhallowed hold. but suddenly edith's hand trembled in his, and her form shuddered.-- her eyes were fixed upon those of haco. "forgive me, young kinsman, that i forget thee so long," said the earl. "this is my brother's son, edith; thou hast not, that i remember, seen him before?" "yes, yes;" said edith, falteringly. "when, and where?" edith's soul answered the question, "in a dream;" but her lips were silent. and haco, rising, took her by the hand, while the earl turned to his sister--that sister whom he was pledged to send to the norman court; and thyra said, plaintively: "take me in thine arms, harold, and wrap thy mantle round me, for the air is cold." the earl lifted the child to his breast, and gazed on her cheek long and wistfully; then questioning her tenderly, he took her within the house; and edith followed with haco. "is hilda within?" asked the son of sweyn. "nay, she hath been in the forest since noon," answered edith with an effort, for she could not recover her awe of his presence. "then," said haco, halting at the threshold, "i will go across the woodland to your house, harold, and prepare your ceorls for your coming." "i shall tarry here till hilda returns," answered harold, and it may be late in the night ere i reach home; but sexwolf already hath my orders. at sunrise we return to london, and thence we march on the insurgents." "all shall be ready. farewell, noble edith; and thou, thyra my cousin, one kiss more to our meeting again." the child fondly held out her arms to him, and as she kissed his cheek whispered: "in the grave, haco!" the young man drew his mantle around him, and moved away. but he did not mount his steed, which still grazed by the road; while harold's, more familiar with the place, had found its way to the stall; nor did he take his path through the glades to the house of his kinsman. entering the druid temple, he stood musing by the teuton tomb. the night grew deeper and deeper, the stars more luminous and the air more hushed, when a voice close at his side, said, clear and abrupt: "what does youth the restless, by death the still?" it was the peculiarity of haco, that nothing ever seemed to startle or surprise him. in that brooding boyhood, the solemn, quiet, and sad experience all fore-armed, of age, had something in it terrible and preternatural; so without lifting his eyes from the stone, he answered: "how sayest thou, o hilda, that the dead are still?" hilda placed her hand on his shoulder, and stooped to look into his face. "thy rebuke is just, son of sweyn. in time, and in the universe, there is no stillness! through all eternity the state impossible to the soul is repose!--so again thou art in thy native land?" "and for what end, prophetess? i remember, when but an infant, who till then had enjoyed the common air and the daily sun, thou didst rob me evermore of childhood and youth. for thou didst say to my father, that 'dark was the woof of my fate, and that its most glorious hour should be its last!'" "but thou wert surely too childlike, (see thee now as thou wert then, stretched on the grass, and playing with thy father's falcon!)--too childlike to heed my words." "does the new ground reject the germs of the sower, or the young heart the first lessons of wonder and awe? since then, prophetess, night hath been my comrade, and death my familiar. rememberest thou again the hour when, stealing, a boy, from harold's house in his absence-- the night ere i left my land--i stood on this mound by thy side? then did i tell thee that the sole soft thought that relieved the bitterness of my soul, when all the rest of my kinsfolk seemed to behold in me but the heir of sweyn, the outlaw and homicide, was the love that i bore to harold; but that that love itself was mournful and bodeful as the hwata [ ] of distant sorrow. and thou didst take me, o prophetess, to thy bosom, and thy cold kiss touched my lips and my brow; and there, beside this altar and grave-mound, by leaf and by water, by staff and by song, thou didst bid me take comfort; for that as the mouse gnawed the toils of the lion, so the exile obscure should deliver from peril the pride and the prince of my house--that, from that hour with the skein of his fate should mine be entwined; and his fate was that of kings and of kingdoms. and then, when the joy flushed my cheek, and methought youth came back in warmth to the night of my soul--then, hilda, i asked thee if my life would be spared till i had redeemed the name of my father. thy seidstaff passed over the leaves that, burning with fire-sparks, symbolled the life of the man, and from the third leaf the flame leaped up and died; and again a voice from thy breast, hollow, as if borne from a hill-top afar, made answer, 'at thine entrance to manhood life bursts into blaze, and shrivels up into ashes.' so i knew that the doom of the infant still weighed unannealed on the years of the man; and i come here to my native land as to glory and the grave. but," said the young man, with a wild enthusiasm, "still with mine links the fate which is loftiest in england; and the rill and the river shall rush in one to the terrible sea." "i know not that," answered hilda, pale, as if in awe of herself: "for never yet hath the rune, or the fount or the tomb, revealed to me clear and distinct the close of the great course of harold; only know i through his own stars his glory and greatness; and where glory is dim, and greatness is menaced, i know it but from the stars of others, the rays of whose influence blend with his own. so long, at least, as the fair and the pure one keeps watch in the still house of life, the dark and the troubled one cannot wholly prevail. for edith is given to harold as the fylgia, that noiselessly blesses and saves: and thou--" hilda checked herself, and lowered her hood over her face, so that it suddenly became invisible. "and i?" asked haco, moving near to her side. "away, son of sweyn; thy feet trample the grave of the mighty dead!" then hilda lingered no longer, but took her way towards the house. haco's eye followed her in silence. the cattle, grazing in the great space of the crumbling peristyle, looked up as she passed; the watch- dogs, wandering through the star-lit columns, came snorting round their mistress. and when she had vanished within the house, haco turned to his steed: "what matters," he murmured, "the answer which the vala cannot or dare not give? to me is not destined the love of woman, nor the ambition of life. all i know of human affection binds me to harold; all i know of human ambition is to share in his fate. this love is strong as hate, and terrible as doom,--it is jealous, it admits no rival. as the shell and the sea-weed interlaced together, we are dashed on the rushing surge; whither? oh, whither?" chapter iv. "i tell thee, hilda," said the earl, impatiently, "i tell thee that i renounce henceforth all faith save in him whose ways are concealed from our eyes. thy seid and thy galdra have not guarded me against peril, nor armed me against sin. nay, perchance--but peace: i will no more tempt the dark art, i will no more seek to disentangle the awful truth from the juggling lie. all so foretold me i will seek to forget,--hope from no prophecy, fear from no warning. let the soul go to the future under the shadow of god!" "pass on thy way as thou wilt, its goal is the same, whether seen or unmarked. peradventure thou art wise," said the vala, gloomily. "for my country's sake, heaven be my witness, not my own," resumed the earl, "i have blotted my conscience and sullied my truth. my country alone can redeem me, by taking my life as a thing hallowed evermore to her service. selfish ambition do i lay aside, selfish power shall tempt me no more; lost is the charm that i beheld in a throne, and, save for edith--" "no! not even for edith," cried the betrothed, advancing, "not even for edith shalt thou listen to other voice than that of thy country and thy soul." the earl turned round abruptly, and his eyes were moist. "o hilda," he cried, "see henceforth my only vala; let that noble heart alone interpret to us the oracles of the future." the next day harold returned with haco and a numerous train of his house-carles to the city. their ride was as silent as that of the day before; but on reaching southwark, harold turned away from the bridge towards the left, gained the river-side, and dismounted at the house of one of his lithsmen (a franklin, or freed ceorl). leaving there his horse, he summoned a boat, and, with haco, was rowed over towards the fortified palace which then rose towards the west of london, jutting into the thames, and which seems to have formed the outwork of the old roman city. the palace, of remotest antiquity, and blending all work and architecture, roman, saxon, and danish, had been repaired by canute; and from a high window in the upper story, where were the royal apartments, the body of the traitor edric streone (the founder of the house of godwin) had been thrown into the river. "whither go we, harold?" asked the son of sweyn. "we go to visit the young atheling, the natural heir to the saxon throne," replied harold in a firm voice. "he lodges in the old palace of our kings." "they say in normandy that the boy is imbecile." "that is not true," returned harold. "i will present thee to him,-- judge." haco mused a moment and said: "methinks i divine thy purpose; is it not formed on the sudden, harold?" "it was the counsel of edith," answered harold, with evident emotion. "and yet, if that counsel prevail, i may lose the power to soften the church and to call her mine." "so thou wouldest sacrifice even edith for thy country." "since i have sinned, methinks i could," said the proud man humbly. the boat shot into a little creek, or rather canal, which then ran inland, beside the black and rotting walls of the fort. the two earl- born leapt ashore, passed under a roman arch, entered a court the interior of which was rudely filled up by early saxon habitations of rough timber work, already, since the time of canute, falling into decay, (as all things did which came under the care of edward,) and mounting a stair that ran along the outside of the house, gained a low narrow door, which stood open. in the passage within were one or two of the king's house-carles who had been assigned to the young atheling, with liveries of blue and danish axes, and some four or five german servitors, who had attended his father from the emperor's court. one of these last ushered the noble saxons into a low, forlorn ante-hall; and there, to harold's surprise they found alred the archbishop of york, and three thegns of high rank, and of lineage ancient and purely saxon. alred approached harold with a faint smile on his benign face: "methinks, and may i think aright!--thou comest hither with the same purpose as myself, and you noble thegns." "and that purpose?" "is to see and to judge calmly, if, despite his years, we may find in the descendant of the ironsides such a prince as we may commend to our decaying king as his heir, and to the witan as a chief fit to defend the land." "thou speakest the cause of my own coming. with your ears will i hear, with your eyes will i see; as ye judge, will judge i," said harold, drawing the prelate towards the thegns, so that they might hear his answer. the chiefs, who belonged to a party that had often opposed godwin's house, had exchanged looks of fear and trouble when harold entered; but at his words their frank faces showed equal surprise and pleasure. harold presented to them his nephew, with whose grave dignity of bearing beyond his years they were favourably impressed, though the good bishop sighed when he saw in his face the sombre beauty of the guilty sire. the group then conversed anxiously on the declining health of the king, the disturbed state of the realm, and the expediency, if possible, of uniting all suffrages in favour of the fittest successor. and in harold's voice and manner, as in harold's heart, there was nought that seemed conscious of his own mighty stake and just hopes in that election. but as time wore, the faces of the thegns grew overcast; proud men and great satraps [ ] were they, and they liked it ill that the boy-prince kept them so long in the dismal ante-room. at length the german officer, who had gone to announce their coming, returned; and in words, intelligible indeed from the affinity between saxon and german, but still disagreeably foreign to english ears, requested them to follow him into the presence of the atheling. in a room yet retaining the rude splendour with which it had been invested by canute, a handsome boy, about the age of thirteen or fourteen, but seeming much younger, was engaged in the construction of a stuffed bird, a lure for a young hawk that stood blindfold on its perch. the employment made so habitual a part of the serious education of youth, that the thegns smoothed their brows at the sight, and deemed the boy worthily occupied. at another end of the room, a grave norman priest was seated at a table on which were books and writing implements; he was the tutor commissioned by edward to teach norman tongue and saintly lore to the atheling. a profusion of toys strewed the floor, and some children of edgar's own age were playing with them. his little sister margaret [ ] was seated seriously, apart from all the other children, and employed in needlework. when alred approached the atheling, with a blending of reverent obeisance and paternal cordiality, the boy carelessly cried, in a barbarous jargon, half german, half norman-french: "there, come not too near, you scare my hawk. what are you doing? you trample my toys, which the good norman bishop william sent me as a gift from the duke. art thou blind, man?" "my son," said the prelate kindly, "these are the things of childhood --childhood ends sooner with princes than with common men. leave thy lure and thy toys, and welcome these noble thegns, and address them, so please you, in our own saxon tongue." "saxon tongue!--language of villeins! not i. little do i know of it, save to scold a ceorl or a nurse. king edward did not tell me to learn saxon, but norman! and godfroi yonder says, that if i know norman well, duke william will make me his knight. but i don't desire to learn anything more to-day." and the child turned peevishly from thegn and prelate. the three saxon lords interchanged looks of profound displeasure and proud disgust. but harold, with an effort over himself, approached, and said winningly: "edgar the atheling, thou art not so young but thou knowest already that the great live for others. wilt thou not be proud to live for this fair country, and these noble men, and to speak the language of alfred the great?" "alfred the great! they always weary me with alfred the great," said the boy, pouting. "alfred the great, he is the plague of my life! if i am atheling, men are to live for me, not i for them; and if you tease me any more, i will run away to duke william in rouen; godfroi says i shall never be teased there!" so saying, already tired of hawk and lure, the child threw himself on the floor with the other children, and snatched the toys from their hands. the serious margaret then rose quietly, and went to her brother, and said, in good saxon: "fie! if you behave thus, i shall call you niddering!" at the threat of that word, the vilest in the language--that word which the lowest ceorl would forfeit life rather than endure--a threat applied to the atheling of england, the descendant of saxon heroes--the three thegns drew close, and watched the boy, hoping to see that he would start to his feet with wrath and in shame. "call me what you will, silly sister," said the child, indifferently, "i am not so saxon as to care for your ceorlish saxon names." "enow," cried the proudest and greatest of the thegns, his very moustache curling with ire. "he who can be called niddering shall never be crowned king!" "i don't want to be crowned king, rude man, with your laidly moustache: i want to be made knight, and have banderol and baldric.-- go away!" "we go, son," said alred, mournfully. and with slow and tottering step he moved to the door; there he halted, turned back,--and the child was pointing at him in mimicry, while godfroi, the norman tutor, smiled as in pleasure. the prelate shook his head, and the group gained again the ante-hall. "fit leader of bearded men! fit king for the saxon land!" cried a thegn. "no more of your atheling, alred my father!" "no more of him, indeed!" said the prelate, mournfully. "it is but the fault of his nurture and rearing,--a neglected childhood, a norman tutor, german hirelings. we may remould yet the pliant clay," said harold. "nay," returned alred, "no leisure for such hopes, no time to undo what is done by circumstance, and, i fear, by nature. ere the year is out the throne will stand empty in our halls." "who then," said haco, abruptly, "who then,--(pardon the ignorance of youth wasted in captivity abroad!) who then, failing the atheling, will save this realm from the norman duke, who, i know well, counts on it as the reaper on the harvest ripening to his sickle?" "alas, who then?" murmured alred. "who then?" cried the three thegns, with one voice, "why the worthiest, the wisest, the bravest! stand forth, harold the earl, thou art the man!" and without awaiting his answer, they strode from the hall. chapter v. around northampton lay the forces of morcar, the choice of the anglo- dane men of northumbria. suddenly there was a shout as to arms from the encampment; and morcar, the young earl, clad in his link mail, save his helmet, came forth, and cried: "my men are fools to look that way for a foe; yonder lies mercia, behind it the hills of wales. the troops that come hitherward are those which edwin my brother brings to our aid." morcar's words were carried into the host by his captains and warbodes, and the shout changed from alarm into joy. as the cloud of dust through which gleamed the spears of the coming force rolled away, and lay lagging behind the march of the host, there rode forth from the van two riders. fast and far from the rest they rode, and behind them, fast as they could, spurred two others, who bore on high, one the pennon of mercia, one the red lion of north wales. right to the embankment and palisade which begirt mortar's camp rode the riders; and the head of the foremost was bare, and the guards knew the face of edwin the comely, mortar's brother. morcar stepped down from the mound on which he stood, and the brothers embraced amidst the halloos of the forces. "and welcome, i pray thee," said morcar, "our kinsman caradoc, son of gryffyth [ ] the bold." so morcar reached his hand to caradoc, stepson to his sister aldyth, and kissed him on the brow, as was the wont of our fathers. the young and crownless prince was scarce out of boyhood, but already his name was sung by the bards, and circled in the halls of gwynedd with the hirlas horn; for he had harried the saxon borders, and given to fire and sword even the fortress of harold himself. but while these three interchanged salutations, and ere yet the mixed mercians and welch had gained the encampment, from a curve in the opposite road, towards towcester and dunstable, broke the flash of mail like a river of light, trumpets and fifes were heard in the distance; and all in morcar's host stood hushed but stern, gazing anxious and afar, as the coming armament swept on. and from the midst were seen the martlets and cross of england's king, and the tiger heads of harold; banners which, seen together, had planted victory on every tower, on every field, towards which they had rushed on the winds. retiring, then, to the central mound, the chiefs of the insurgent force held their brief council. the two young earls, whatever their ancestral renown, being yet new themselves to fame and to power, were submissive to the anglo-dane chiefs, by whom morcar had been elected. and these, on recognising the standard of harold, were unanimous in advice to send a peaceful deputation, setting forth their wrongs under tostig, and the justice of their cause. "for the earl," said gamel beorn (the head and front of that revolution,) is a just man, and one who would shed his own blood rather than that of any other freeborn dweller in england; and he will do us right." "what, against his own brother?" cried edwin. "against his own brother, if we convince but his reason," returned the anglo-dane. and the other chiefs nodded assent. caradoc's fierce eyes flashed fire; but he played with his torque, and spoke not. meanwhile, the vanguard of the king's force had defiled under the very walls of northampton, between the town and the insurgents; and some of the light-armed scouts who went forth from morcar's camp to gaze on the procession, with that singular fearlessness which characterised, at that period, the rival parties in civil war, returned to say that they had seen harold himself in the foremost line, and that he was not in mail. this circumstance the insurgent thegns received as a good omen; and, having already agreed on the deputation, about a score of the principal thegns of the north went sedately towards the hostile lines. by the side of harold,--armed in mail, with his face concealed by the strange sicilian nose-piece used then by most of the northern nations,--had ridden tostig, who had joined the earl on his march, with a scanty band of some fifty or sixty of his danish house-carles. all the men throughout broad england that he could command or bribe to his cause, were those fifty or sixty hireling danes. and it seemed that already there was dispute between the brothers, for harold's face was flushed, and his voice stern, as he said, "rate me as thou wilt, brother, but i cannot advance at once to the destruction of my fellow englishmen without summons and attempt at treaty,--as has ever been the custom of our ancient heroes and our own house." "by all the fiends of the north?" exclaimed tostig, "it is foul shame to talk of treaty and summons to robbers and rebels. for what art thou here but for chastisement and revenge?" "for justice and right, tostig." "ha! thou comest not, then, to aid thy brother?" "yes, if justice and right are, as i trust, with him." before tostig could reply, a line was suddenly cleared through the armed men, and, with bare heads, and a monk lifting the rood on high, amidst the procession advanced the northumbrian danes. "by the red sword of st. olave!" cried tostig, "yonder come the traitors, gamel beorn and gloneion! you will not hear them? if so, i will not stay to listen. i have but my axe for my answer to such knaves." "brother, brother, those men are the most valiant and famous chiefs in thine earldom. go, tostig, thou art not now in the mood to hear reason. retire into the city; summon its gates to open to the king's flag. i will hear the men." "beware how thou judge, save in thy brother's favour!" growled the fierce warrior; and, tossing his arm on high with a contemptuous gesture, he spurred away towards the gates. then harold, dismounting, stood on the ground, under the standard of his king, and round him came several of the saxon chiefs, who had kept aloof during the conference with tostig. the northumbrians approached, and saluted the earl with grave courtesy. then gamel beorn began. but much as harold had feared and foreboded as to the causes of complaint which tostig had given to the northumbrians, all fear, all foreboding, fell short of the horrors now deliberately unfolded; not only extortion of tribute the most rapacious and illegal, but murder the fiercest and most foul. thegns of high birth, without offence or suspicion, but who had either excited tostig's jealousy, or resisted his exactions, had been snared under peaceful pretexts into his castle [ ], and butchered in cold blood by his house-carles. the cruelties of the old heathen danes seemed revived in the bloody and barbarous tale. "and now," said the thegn, in conclusion, "canst thou condemn us that we rose?--no partial rising;--rose all northumbria! at first but two hundred thegns; strong in our course, we swelled into the might of a people. our wrongs found sympathy beyond our province, for liberty spreads over human hearts as fire over a heath. wherever we march, friends gather round us. thou warrest not on a handful of rebels,-- half england is with us!" "and ye,--thegns," answered harold, "ye have ceased to war against tostig, your earl. ye war now against the king and the law. come with your complaints to your prince and your witan, and, if they are just, ye are stronger than in yonder palisades and streets of steel." "and so," said gamel beorn, with marked emphasis, "now thou art in england, o noble earl,--so are we willing to come. but when thou wert absent from the land, justice seemed to abandon it to force and the battle-axe." "i would thank you for your trust," answered harold, deeply moved. "but justice in england rests not on the presence and life of a single man. and your speech i must not accept as a grace, for it wrongs both my king and his council. these charges ye have made, but ye have not proved them. armed men are not proofs; and granting that hot blood and mortal infirmity of judgment have caused tostig to err against you and the right, think still of his qualities to reign over men whose lands, and whose rivers, lie ever exposed to the dread northern sea- kings. where will ye find a chief with arm as strong, and heart as dauntless? by his mother's side he is allied to your own lineage. and for the rest, if ye receive him back to his earldom, not only do i, harold in whom you profess to trust, pledge full oblivion of the past, but i will undertake, in his name, that he shall rule you well for the future, according to the laws of king canute." "that will we not hear," cried the thegns, with one voice; while the tones of gamel beorn, rough with the rattling danish burr, rose above all, "for we were born free. a proud and bad chief is by us not to be endured; we have learned from our ancestors to live free or die!" a murmur, not of condemnation, at these words, was heard amongst the saxon chiefs round harold: and beloved and revered as he was, he felt that, had he the heart, he had scarce the power, to have coerced those warriors to march at once on their countrymen in such a cause. but foreseeing great evil in the surrender of his brother's interests, whether by lowering the king's dignity to the demands of armed force, or sending abroad in all his fierce passions a man so highly connected with norman and dane, so vindictive and so grasping, as tostig, the earl shunned further parley at that time and place. he appointed a meeting in the town with the chiefs; and requested them, meanwhile, to reconsider their demands, and at least shape them so as that they could be transmitted to the king, who was then on his way to oxford. it is in vain to describe the rage of tostig, when his brother gravely repeated to him the accusations against him, and asked for his justification. justification he could give not. his idea of law was but force, and by force alone he demanded now to be defended. harold, then, wishing not alone to be judge in his brother's cause, referred further discussion to the chiefs of the various towns and shires, whose troops had swelled the war-fyrd; and to them he bade tostig plead his cause. vain as a woman, while fierce as a tiger, tostig assented, and in that assembly he rose, his gonna all blazing with crimson and gold, his hair all curled and perfumed as for a banquet; and such, in a half- barbarous day, the effect of person, especially when backed by warlike renown, that the proceres were half disposed to forget, in admiration of the earl's surpassing beauty of form, the dark tales of his hideous guilt. but his passions hurrying him away ere he had gained the middle of his discourse, so did his own relation condemn himself, so clear became his own tyrannous misdeeds, that the englishmen murmured aloud their disgust, and their impatience would not suffer him to close. "enough," cried vebba, the blunt thegn from saxon kent; "it is plain that neither king nor witan can replace thee in thine earldom. tell us not farther of these atrocities; or by're lady, if the northumbrians had chased thee not, we would." "take treasure and ship, and go to baldwin in flanders," said thorold, a great anglo-dane from lincolnshire, "for even harold's name can scarce save thee from outlawry." tostig glared round on the assembly, and met but one common expression in the face of all. "these are thy henchmen, harold!" he said through his gnashing teeth, without vouchsafing farther word, strode from the council-hall. that evening he left the town and hurried to tell to edward the tale that had so miscarried with the chiefs. the next day, the northumbrian delegates were heard; and they made the customary proposition in those cases of civil differences, to refer all matters to the king and the witan; each party remaining under arms meanwhile. this was finally acceded to. harold repaired to oxford, where the king (persuaded to the journey by alred, foreseeing what would come to pass) had just arrived. chapter vi. the witan was summoned in haste. thither came the young earls morcar and edwin, but caradoc, chafing at the thought of peace, retired into wales with his wild band. now, all the great chiefs, spiritual and temporal, assembled in oxford for the decree of that witan on which depended the peace of england. the imminence of the time made the concourse of members entitled to vote in the assembly even larger than that which had met for the inlawry of godwin. there was but one thought uppermost in the minds of men, to which the adjustment of an earldom, however mighty, was comparatively insignificant--viz., the succession of the kingdom. that thought turned instinctively and irresistibly to harold. the evident and rapid decay of the king; the utter failure of all male heir in the house of cerdic, save only the boy edgar; whose character (which throughout life remained puerile and frivolous) made the minority which excluded him from the throne seem cause rather for rejoicing than grief: and whose rights, even by birth, were not acknowledged by the general tenor of the saxon laws, which did not recognize as heir to the crown the son of a father who had not himself been crowned [ ];--forebodings of coming evil and danger, originating in edward's perturbed visions; revivals of obscure and till then forgotten prophecies, ancient as the days of merlin; rumours, industriously fomented into certainty by haco, whose whole soul seemed devoted to harold's cause, of the intended claim of the norman count to the throne;--all concurred to make the election of a man matured in camp and council, doubly necessary to the safety of the realm. warm favourers, naturally, of harold, were the genuine saxon population, and a large part of the anglo-danish--all the thegns in his vast earldom of wessex, reaching to the southern and western coasts, from sandwich and the mouth of the thames to the land's end in cornwall; and including the free men of kent, whose inhabitants even from the days of caesar had been considered in advance of the rest of the british population, and from the days of hengist had exercised an influence that nothing save the warlike might of the anglo-danes counterbalanced. with harold, too, were many of the thegns from his earlier earldom of east anglia, comprising the county of essex, great part of hertfordshire, and so reaching into cambridge, huntingdon, norfolk, and ely. with him, were all the wealth, intelligence, and power of london, and most of the trading towns; with him all the veterans of the armies he had led; with him too, generally throughout the empire, was the force, less distinctly demarked, of public and national feeling. even the priests, save those immediately about the court, forgot, in the exigency of the time, their ancient and deep-rooted dislike to godwin's house; they remembered, at least, that harold had never, in foray or feud, plundered a single convent; or in peace, and through plot, appropriated to himself a single hide of church land; and that was more than could have been said of any other earl of the age--even of leofric the holy. they caught, as a church must do, when so intimately, even in its illiterate errors, allied with the people as the old saxon church was, the popular enthusiasm. abbot combined with thegn in zeal for earl harold. the only party that stood aloof was the one that espoused the claims of the young sons of algar. but this party was indeed most formidable; it united all. the old friends of the virtuous leofric, of the famous siward; it had a numerous party even in east anglia (in which earldom algar had succeeded harold); it comprised nearly all the thegns in mercia (the heart of the country) and the population of northumbria; and it involved in its wide range the terrible welch on the one hand, and the scottish domain of the sub-king malcolm, himself a cumbrian, on the other, despite malcolm's personal predilections for tostig, to whom he was strongly attached. but then the chiefs of this party, while at present they stood aloof, were all, with the exception perhaps of the young earls themselves, disposed, on the slightest encouragement, to blend their suffrage with the friends of harold; and his praise was as loud on their lips as on those of the saxons from kent, or the burghers from london. all factions, in short, were willing, in this momentous crisis, to lay aside old dissensions; it depended upon the conciliation of the northumbrians, upon a fusion between the friends of harold and the supporters of the young sons of algar, to form such a concurrence of interests as must inevitably bear harold to the throne of the empire. meanwhile, the earl himself wisely and patriotically deemed it right to remain neuter in the approaching decision between tostig and the young earls. he could not be so unjust and so mad as to urge to the utmost (and risk in the urging) his party influence on the side of oppression and injustice, solely for the sake of his brother; nor, on the other, was it decorous or natural to take part himself against tostig; nor could he, as a statesman, contemplate without anxiety and alarm the transfer of so large a portion of the realm to the vice- kingship of the sons of his old foe--rivals to his power, at the very time when, even for the sake of england alone, that power should be the most solid and compact. but the final greatness of a fortunate man is rarely made by any violent effort of his own. he has sown the seeds in the time foregone, and the ripe time brings up the harvest. his fate seems taken out of his own control: greatness seems thrust upon him. he has made himself, as it were, a want to the nation, a thing necessary to it; he has identified himself with his age, and in the wreath or the crown on his brow, the age itself seems to put forth its flower. tostig, lodging apart from harold in a fort near the gate of oxford, took slight pains to conciliate foes or make friends; trusting rather to his representations to edward, (who was wroth with the rebellious house of algar,) of the danger of compromising the royal dignity by concessions to armed insurgents. it was but three days before that for which the witan was summoned; most of its members had already assembled in the city; and harold, from the window of the monastery in which he lodged, was gazing thoughtfully into the streets below, where, with the gay dresses of the thegns and cnehts, blended the grave robes of ecclesiastic and youthful scholar;--for to that illustrious university (pillaged the persecuted by the sons of canute), edward had, to his honour, restored the schools,--when haco entered, and announced to him that a numerous body of thegns and prelates, headed by alred, archbishop of york, craved an audience. "knowest thou the cause, haco?" the youth's cheek was yet more pale than usual, as he answered slowly: "hilda's prophecies are ripening into truths." the earl started, and his old ambition reviving, flushed on his brow, and sparkled from his eye--he checked the joyous emotion, and bade haco briefly admit the visitors. they came in, two by two,--a body so numerous that they filled the ample chamber; and harold, as he greeted each, beheld the most powerful lords of the land--the highest dignitaries of the church-- and, oft and frequent, came old foe by the side or trusty friend. they all paused at the foot of the narrow dais on which harold stood, and alred repelled by a gesture his invitation to the foremost to mount the platform. then alred began an harangue, simple and earnest. he described briefly the condition of the country; touched with grief and with feeling on the health of the king, and the failure of cerdic's line. he stated honestly his own strong wish, if possible, to have concentrated the popular suffrages on the young atheling; and under the emergence of the case, to have waived the objection to his immature years. but as distinctly and emphatically he stated, that that hope and intent he had now formally abandoned, and that there was but one sentiment on the subject with all the chiefs and dignitaries of the realm. "wherefore," continued he, "after anxious consultations with each other, those whom you see around have come to you: yea, to you, earl harold, we offer our hands and hearts to do our best to prepare for you the throne on the demise of edward, and to seat you thereon as firmly as ever sate king of england and son of cerdic;--knowing that in you, and in you alone, we find the man who reigns already in the english heart; to whose strong arm we can trust the defence of our land; to whose just thoughts, our laws.--as i speak, so think we all!" with downcast eyes, harold heard; and but by a slight heaving of his breast under his crimson robe, could his emotion be seen. but as soon as the approving murmur that succeeded the prelate's speech, had closed, he lifted his head, and answered: "holy father, and you, right worthy my fellow-thegns, if ye could read my heart at this moment, believe that you would not find there the vain joy of aspiring man, when the greatest of earthly prizes is placed within his reach. there, you would see, with deep and wordless gratitude for your trust and your love, grave and solemn solicitude, earnest desire to divest my decision of all mean thought of self, and judge only whether indeed, as king or as subject, i can best guard the weal of england. pardon me, then, if i answer you not as ambition alone would answer; neither deem me insensible to the glorious lot of presiding, under heaven, and by the light of our laws, over the destinies of the english realm,--if i pause to weigh well the responsibilities incurred, and the obstacles to be surmounted. there is that on my mind that i would fain unbosom, not of a nature to discuss in an assembly so numerous, but which i would rather submit to a chosen few whom you yourselves may select to hear me, in whose cool wisdom, apart from personal love to me, ye may best confide;--your most veteran thegns, your most honoured prelates: to them will i speak, to them make clean my bosom; and to their answer, their counsels, will i in all things defer: whether with loyal heart to serve another, whom, hearing me, they may decide to choose; or to fit my soul to bear, not unworthily, the weight of a kingly crown." alred lifted his mild eyes to harold, and there were both pity and approval in his gaze, for he divined the earl. "thou hast chosen the right course, my son; and we will retire at once, and elect those with whom thou mayest freely confer, and by whose judgment thou mayest righteously abide." the prelate turned, and with him went the conclave. left alone with haco, the last said, abruptly: "thou wilt not be so indiscreet, o harold, as to confess thy compelled oath to the fraudful norman?" "that is my design," replied harold, coldly. the son of sweyn began to remonstrate, but the earl cut him short. "if the norman say that he has been deceived in harold, never so shall say the men of england. leave me. i know not why, haco, but in thy presence, at times, there is a glamour as strong as in the spells of hilda. go, dear boy; the fault is not in thee, but in the superstitious infirmities of a man who hath once lowered, or, it may be, too highly strained, his reason to the things of a haggard fancy. go! and send to me my brother gurth. i would have him alone of my house present at this solemn crisis of its fate." haco bowed his head, and went. in a few moments more, gurth came in. to this pure and spotless spirit harold had already related the events of his unhappy visit to the norman; and he felt, as the young chief pressed his hand, and looked on him with his clear and loving eyes, as if honour made palpable stood by his side. six of the ecclesiastics, most eminent for church learning,--small as was that which they could boast, compared with the scholars of normandy and the papal states, but at least more intelligent and more free from mere formal monasticism than most of their saxon contemporaries,--and six of the chiefs most renowned for experience in war or council, selected under the sagacious promptings of alred, accompanied that prelate to the presence of the earl. "close, thou! close! close! gurth," whispered harold "for this is a confession against man's pride, and sorely doth it shame;--so that i would have thy bold sinless heart beating near to mine." then, leaning his arm upon his brother's shoulder, and in a voice, the first tones of which, as betraying earnest emotion, irresistibly chained and affected his noble audience, harold began his tale. various were the emotions, though all more akin to terror than repugnance, with which the listeners heard the earl's plain and candid recital. among the lay-chiefs the impression made by the compelled oath was comparatively slight: for it was the worst vice of the saxon laws, to entangle all charges, from the smallest to the greatest, in a reckless multiplicity of oaths [ ], to the grievous loosening of the bonds of truth: and oaths then had become almost as much mere matter of legal form, as certain oaths--bad relic of those times!--still existing in our parliamentary and collegiate proceedings, are deemed by men, not otherwise dishonourable, even now. and to no kind of oath was more latitude given than to such as related to fealty to a chief: for these, in the constant rebellions which happened year after year, were openly violated, and without reproach. not a sub-king in wales who harried the border, not an earl who raised banner against the basileus of britain, but infringed his oath to be good man and true to the lord paramount; and even william the norman himself never found his oath of fealty stand in the way, whenever he deemed it right and expedient to take arms against his suzerain of france. on the churchmen the impression was stronger and more serious: not that made by the oath itself, but by the relics on which the hand had been laid. they looked at each other, doubtful and appalled, when the earl ceased his tale; while only among the laymen circled a murmur of mingled wrath at william's bold design on their native land, and of scorn at the thought that an oath, surprised and compelled, should be made the instrument of treason to a whole people. "thus," said harold, after a pause, "thus have i made clear to you my conscience, and revealed to you the only obstacle between your offers and my choice. from the keeping of an oath so extorted, and so deadly to england, this venerable prelate and mine own soul have freed me. whether as king or as subject, i shall alike revere the living and their long posterity more than the dead men's bones, and, with sword and with battle-axe, hew out against the invader my best atonement for the lip's weakness and the heart's desertion. but whether, knowing what hath passed, ye may not deem it safer for the land to elect another king,--this it is which, free and fore-thoughtful of every chance, ye should now decide." with these words he stepped from the dais, and retired into the oratory that adjoined the chamber, followed by gurth. the eyes of the priests then turned to alred, and to them the prelate spoke as he had done before to harold;--he distinguished between the oath and its fulfilment--between the lesser sin and the greater--the one which the church could absolve--the one which no church had the right to exact, and which, if fulfilled, no penance could expiate. he owned frankly, nevertheless, that it was the difficulties so created, that had made him incline to the atheling;--but, convinced of that prince's incapacity, even in the most ordinary times, to rule england, he shrank yet more from such a choice, when the swords of the norman were already sharpening for contest. finally he said, "if a man as fit to defend us as harold can be found, let us prefer him: if not----" "there is no other man!" cried the thegns with one voice. "and," said a wise old chief, "had harold sought to play a trick to secure the throne, he could not have devised one more sure than the tale he hath now told us. what! just when we are most assured that the doughtiest and deadliest foe that our land can brave, waits but for edward's death to enforce on us a stranger's yoke--what! shall we for that very reason deprive ourselves of the only man able to resist him? harold hath taken an oath! god wot, who among us have not taken some oath at law for which they have deemed it meet afterwards to do a penance, or endow a convent? the wisest means to strengthen harold against that oath, is to show the moral impossibility of fulfilling it, by placing him on the throne. the best proof we can give to this insolent norman that england is not for prince to leave, or subject to barter, is to choose solemnly in our witan the very chief whom his frauds prove to us that he fears the most. why, william would laugh in his own sleeve to summon a king to descend from his throne to do him the homage which that king, in the different capacity of subject, had (we will grant, even willingly) promised to render." this speech spoke all the thoughts of the laymen, and, with alred's previous remarks, reassured all the ecclesiastics. they were easily induced to believe that the usual church penances, and ample church gifts, would suffice for the insult offered to the relics: and,--if they in so grave a case outstripped, in absolution, an authority amply sufficing for all ordinary matters,--harold, as king, might easily gain from the pope himself that full pardon and shrift, which as mere earl, against the prince of the normans, he would fail of obtaining. these or similar reflections soon terminated the suspense of the select council; and alred sought the earl in the oratory, to summon him back to the conclave. the two brothers were kneeling side by side before the little altar; and there was something inexpressibly touching in their humble attitudes, their clasped supplicating hands, in that moment when the crown of england rested above their house. the brothers rose, and at alred's sign followed the prelate into the council-room. alred briefly communicated the result of the conference; and with an aspect, and in a tone, free alike from triumph and indecision, harold replied: "as ye will, so will i. place me only where i can most serve the common cause. remain you now, knowing my secret, a chosen and standing council: too great is my personal stake in this matter to allow my mind to be unbiassed; judge ye, then, and decide for me in all things: your minds should be calmer and wiser than mine; in all things i will abide by your counsel; and thus i accept the trust of a nation's freedom." each thegn then put his hand into harold's, and called himself harold's man. "now, more than ever," said the wise old thegn who had before spoken, "will it be needful to heal all dissension in the kingdom--to reconcile with us mercia and northumbria, and make the kingdom one against the foe. you, as tostig's brother, have done well to abstain from active interference; you do well to leave it to us to negotiate the necessary alliance between all brave and good men." "and to that end, as imperative for the public weal, you consent," said alred, thoughtfully, "to abide by our advice, whatever it be?" "whatever it be, so that it serve england," answered the earl. a smile, somewhat sad, flitted over the prelate's pale lips, and harold was once more alone with gurth. chapter vii. the soul of all council and cabal on behalf of harold, which has led to the determination of the principal chiefs, and which now succeeded it--was haco. his rank as son of sweyn, the first-born of godwin's house--a rank which might have authorised some pretensions on his own part, gave him all field for the exercise of an intellect singularly keen and profound. accustomed to an atmosphere of practical state-craft in the norman court, with faculties sharpened from boyhood by vigilance and meditation, he exercised an extraordinary influence over the simple understandings of the homely clergy and the uncultured thegns. impressed with the conviction of his early doom, he felt no interest in the objects of others; but equally believing that whatever of bright, and brave, and glorious, in his brief, condemned career, was to be reflected on him from the light of harold's destiny, the sole desire of a nature, which, under other auspices, would have been intensely daring and ambitious, was to administer to harold's greatness. no prejudice, no principle, stood in the way of this dreary enthusiasm. as a father, himself on the brink of the grave, schemes for the worldly grandeur of the son, in which he confounds and melts his own life, so this sombre and predestined man, dead to earth and to joy and the emotions of the heart, looked beyond his own tomb, to that existence in which he transferred and carried on his ambition. if the leading agencies of harold's memorable career might be, as it were, symbolised and allegorised, by the living beings with which it was connected--as edith was the representative of stainless truth--as gurth was the type of dauntless duty--as hilda embodied aspiring imagination--so haco seemed the personation of worldly wisdom. and cold in that worldly wisdom haco laboured on, now conferring with alred and the partisans of harold; now closeted with edwin and morcar; now gliding from the chamber of the sick king.--that wisdom foresaw all obstacles, smoothed all difficulties; ever calm, never resting; marshalling and harmonising the things to be, like the ruthless hand of a tranquil fate. but there was one with whom haco was more often than with all others--one whom the presence of harold had allured to that anxious scene of intrigue, and whose heart leapt high at the hopes whispered from the smileless lips of haco. chapter viii. it was the second day after that which assured him the allegiance of the thegns, that a message was brought to harold from the lady aldyth. she was in oxford, at a convent, with her young daughter by the welch king; she prayed him to visit her. the earl, whose active mind, abstaining from the intrigues around him, was delivered up to the thoughts, restless and feverish, which haunt the repose of all active minds, was not unwilling to escape awhile from himself. he went to aldyth. the royal widow had laid by the signs of mourning; she was dressed with the usual stately and loose-robed splendour of saxon matrons, and all the proud beauty of her youth was restored to her cheek. at her feet was that daughter who afterwards married the fleance so familiar to us in shakespeare, and became the ancestral mother of those scottish kings who had passed, in pale shadows, across the eyes of macbeth [ ]; by the side of that child, harold to his surprise saw the ever ominous face of haco. but proud as was aldyth, all pride seemed humbled into woman's sweeter emotions at the sight of the earl, and she was at first unable to command words to answer his greeting. gradually, however, she warmed into cordial confidence. she touched lightly on her past sorrows; she permitted it to be seen that her lot with the fierce gryffyth had been one not more of public calamity than of domestic grief, and that in the natural awe and horror which the murder of her lord had caused, she felt rather for the ill-starred king than the beloved spouse. she then passed to the differences still existing between her house and harold's, and spoke well and wisely of the desire of the young earls to conciliate his grace and favour. while thus speaking, morcar and edwin, as if accidentally, entered, and their salutations of harold were such as became their relative positions; reserved, not distant--respectful, not servile. with the delicacy of high natures, they avoided touching on the cause before the witan (fixed for the morrow), on which depended their earldoms or their exile. harold was pleased by their bearing, and attracted towards them by the memory of the affectionate words that had passed between him and leofric, their illustrious grandsire, over his father's corpse. he thought then of his own prayer: "let there be peace between thine and mine!" and looking at their fair and stately youth, and noble carriage, he could not but feel that the men of northumbria and of mercia had chosen well. the discourse, however, was naturally brief, since thus made general; the visit soon ceased, and the brothers attended harold to the door with the courtesy of the times. then haco said, with that faint movement of the lips which was his only approach to a smile: "will ye not, noble thegns, give your hands to my kinsman?" "surely," said edwin, the handsomer and more gentle of the two, and who, having a poet's nature, felt a poet's enthusiasm for the gallant deeds even of a rival,--"surely, if the earl will accept the hands of those who trust never to be compelled to draw sword against england's hero." harold stretched forth his hand in reply, and that cordial and immemorial pledge of our national friendships was interchanged. gaining the street, harold said to his nephew: "standing as i do towards the young earls, that appeal of thine had been better omitted." "nay," answered haco; "their cause is already prejudged in their favour. and thou must ally thyself with the heirs of leofric, and the successors of siward." harold made no answer. there was something in the positive tone of this beardless youth that displeased him; but he remembered that haco was the son of sweyn, godwin's first-born, and that, but for sweyn's crimes, haco might have held the place in england he held himself, and looked to the same august destinies beyond. in the evening a messenger from the roman house arrived, with two letters for harold; one from hilda, that contained but these words: "again peril menaces thee, but in the shape of good. beware! and, above all, of the evil that wears the form of wisdom." the other letter was from edith; it was long for the letters of that age, and every sentence spoke a heart wrapped in his. reading the last, hilda's warnings were forgotten. the picture of edith--the prospect of a power that might at last effect their union, and reward her long devotion--rose before him, to the exclusion of wilder fancies and loftier hopes; and his sleep that night was full of youthful and happy dreams. the next day the witan met. the meeting was less stormy than had been expected; for the minds of most men were made up, and so far as tostig was interested, the facts were too evident and notorious, the witnesses too numerous, to leave any option to the judges. edward, on whom alone tostig had relied, had already, with his ordinary vacillation, been swayed towards a right decision, partly by the counsels of alred and his other prelates, and especially by the representations of haco, whose grave bearing and profound dissimulation had gained a singular influence over the formal and melancholy king. by some previous compact or understanding between the opposing parties, there was no attempt, however, to push matters against the offending tostig to vindictive extremes. there was no suggestion of outlawry, or punishment, beyond the simple deprivation of the earldom he had abused. and in return for this moderation on the one side, the other agreed to support and ratify the new election of the northumbrians. morcar was thus formally invested with the vice- kingship of that great realm; while edwin was confirmed in the earldom of the principal part of mercia. on the announcement of these decrees, which were received with loud applause by all the crowd assembled to hear them, tostig, rallying round him his house-carles, left the town. he went first to githa, with whom his wife had sought refuge, and, after a long conference with his mother, he, and his haughty countess, journeyed to the sea- coast, and took ship for flanders. chapter ix. gurth and harold were seated in close commune in the earl's chamber, at an hour long after the complin (or second vespers), when alred entered unexpectedly. the old man's face was unusually grave, and harold's penetrating eye saw that he was gloomy with some matters of great moment. "harold," said the prelate, seating himself, "the hour has come to test thy truth, when thou saidst that thou wert ready to make all sacrifice to thy land, and further, that thou wouldst abide by the counsel of those free from thy passions, and looking on thee only as the instrument of england's weal." "speak on, father," said harold, turning somewhat pale at the solemnity of the address; "i am ready, if the council so desire, to remain a subject, and aid in the choice of a worthier king." "thou divinest me ill," answered alred; "i do not call on thee to lay aside the crown, but to crucify the heart. the decree of the witan assigns mercia and northumbria to the sons of algar. the old demarcations of the heptarchy, as thou knowest, are scarce worn out; it is even now less one monarchy, than various states retaining their own laws, and inhabitated by different races, who under the sub-kings, called earls, acknowledge a supreme head in the basileus of britain. mercia hath its march law and its prince; northumbria its dane law and its leader. to elect a king without civil war, these realms, for so they are, must unite with and sanction the witans elsewhere held. only thus can the kingdom be firm against foes without and anarchy within; and the more so, from the alliance between the new earls of those great provinces and the house of gryffyth, which still lives in caradoc his son. what if at edward's death mercia and northumbria refuse to sanction thy accession? what if, when all our force were needed against the norman, the welch broke loose from their hills, and the scots from their moors! malcolm of cumbria, now king of scotland, is tostig's dearest friend, while his people side with morcar. verily these are dangers enow for a new king, even if william's sword slept in its sheath." "thou speakest the words of wisdom," said harold, "but i knew beforehand that he who wears a crown must abjure repose." "not so; there is one way, and but one, to reconcile all england to thy dominion--to win to thee not the cold neutrality but the eager zeal of mercia and northumbria; to make the first guard thee from the welch, the last be thy rampart against the scot. in a word, thou must ally thyself with the blood of these young earls; thou must wed with aldyth their sister." the earl sprang to his feet aghast. "no--no!" he exclaimed; "not that!--any sacrifice but that!--rather forfeit the throne than resign the heart that leans on mine! thou knowest my pledge to edith, my cousin; pledge hallowed by the faith of long years. no--no, have mercy--human mercy; i can wed no other!--any sacrifice but that!" the good prelate, though not unprepared for this burst, was much moved by its genuine anguish; but, steadfast to his purpose, he resumed: "alas, my son, so say we all in the hour of trial--any sacrifice but that which duty and heaven ordain. resign the throne thou canst not, or thou leavest the land without a ruler, distracted by rival claims and ambitions, an easy prey to the norman. resign thy human affections thou canst and must; and the more, o harold, that even if duty compelled not this new alliance, the old tie is one of sin, which, as king, and as high example in high place to all men, thy conscience within, and the church without, summon thee to break. how purify the erring lives of the churchman, if thyself a rebel to the church? and if thou hast thought that thy power as king might prevail on the roman pontiff to grant dispensation for wedlock within the degrees, and that so thou mightest legally confirm thy now illegal troth; bethink thee well, thou hast a more dread and urgent boon now to ask--in absolution from thine oath to william. both prayers, surely, our roman father will not grant. wilt thou choose that which absolves from sin, or that which consults but thy carnal affections?" harold covered his face with his hands, and groaned aloud in his strong agony. "aid me, gurth," cried alred, "thou, sinless and spotless; thou, in whose voice a brother's love can blend with a christian's zeal; aid me, gurth, to melt the stubborn, but to comfort the human, heart." then gurth, with a strong effort over himself, knelt by harold's side, and in strong simple language, backed the representations of the priest. in truth, all argument drawn from reason, whether in the state of the land, or the new duties to which harold was committed, were on the one side, and unanswerable; on the other, was but that mighty resistance which love opposes ever to reason. and harold continued to murmur, while his hands concealed his face. "impossible!--she who trusted, who trusts--who so loves--she whose whole youth hath been consumed in patient faith in me!--resign her! and for another! i cannot--i cannot. take from me the throne!--oh vain heart of man, that so long desired its own curse!--crown the atheling; my manhood shall defend his youth.--but not this offering! no, no--i will not!" it were tedious to relate the rest of that prolonged and agitatated conference. all that night, till the last stars waned, and the bells of prime were heard from church and convent, did the priest and the brother alternately plead and remonstrate, chide and soothe; and still harold's heart clung to edith's, with its bleeding roots. at length they, perhaps not unwisely, left him to himself; and as, whispering low their hopes and their fears of the result of the self-conflict, they went forth from the convent, haco joined them in the courtyard, and while his cold mournful eye scanned the faces of priest and brother, he asked them "how they had sped?" alred shook his head and answered: "man's heart is more strong in the flesh than true to the spirit." "pardon me, father," said haco, "if i suggest that your most eloquent and persuasive ally in this, were edith herself. start not so incredulously; it is because she loves the earl more than her own life, that--once show her that the earl's safety, greatness, honour, duty, lie in release from his troth to her--that nought save his erring love resists your counsels and his country's claims--and edith's voice will have more power than yours." the virtuous prelate, more acquainted with man's selfishness than woman's devotion, only replied by an impatient gesture. but gurth, lately wedded to a woman worthy of him, said gravely: "haco speaks well, my father; and methinks it is due to both that edith should not, unconsulted, be abandoned by him for whom she has abjured all others; to whom she has been as devoted in heart as if sworn wife already. leave we awhile my brother, never the slave of passion, and with whom england must at last prevail over all selfish thought; and ride we at once to tell to edith what we have told to him; or rather--woman can best in such a case speak to woman--let us tell all to our lady--edward's wife, harold's sister, and edith's holy godmother--and abide by her counsel. on the third day we shall return." "go we so charged, noble gurth," said haco, observing the prelate's reluctant countenance, "and leave we our reverend father to watch over the earl's sharp struggle." "thou speakest well, my son," said the prelate, "and thy mission suits the young and the layman, better than the old and the priest." "let us go, haco," said gurth, briefly. "deep, sore, and lasting, is the wound i inflict on the brother of my love; and my own heart bleeds in his; but he himself hath taught me to hold england as a roman held rome." chapter x. it is the nature of that happiness which we derive from our affections to be calm; its immense influence upon our outward life is not known till it is troubled or withdrawn. by placing his heart at peace, man leaves vent to his energies and passions, and permits their current to flow towards the aims and objects which interest labour or arouse ambition. thus absorbed in the occupation without, he is lulled into a certain forgetfulness of the value of that internal repose which gives health and vigour to the faculties he employs abroad. but once mar this scarce felt, almost invisible harmony, and the discord extends to the remotest chords of our active being. say to the busiest man whom thou seest in mart, camp, or senate, who seems to thee all intent upon his worldly schemes, "thy home is reft from thee --thy household gods are shattered--that sweet noiseless content in the regular mechanism of the springs, which set the large wheels of thy soul into movement, is thine nevermore!"--and straightway all exertion seems robbed of its object--all aim of its alluring charm. "othello's occupation is gone!" with a start, that man will awaken from the sunlit visions of noontide ambition, and exclaim in his desolation anguish, "what are all the rewards to my labour now thou hast robbed me of repose? how little are all the gains wrung from strife, in a world of rivals and foes, compared to the smile whose sweetness i knew not till it was lost; and the sense of security from mortal ill which i took from the trust and sympathy of love?" thus was it with harold in that bitter and terrible crisis of his fate. this rare and spiritual love, which had existed on hope which had never known fruition, had become the subtlest, the most exquisite part of his being; this love, to the full and holy possession of which, every step in his career seemed to advance him, was it now to be evermore reft from his heart, his existence, at the very moment when he had deemed himself most secure of its rewards--when he most needed its consolations? hitherto, in that love he had lived in the future--he had silenced the voice of the turbulent human passion by the whisper of the patient angel, "a little while yet, and thy bride sits beside thy throne!" now what was that future! how joyless! how desolate! the splendour vanished from ambition--the glow from the face of fame--the sense of duty remained alone to counteract the pleadings of affection; but duty, no longer dressed in all the gorgeous colourings it took before from glory and power--duty stern, and harsh, and terrible, as the iron frown of a grecian destiny. and thus, front to front with that duty, he sate alone one evening, while his lips murmured, "oh fatal voyage, oh lying truth in the hell- born prophecy! this, then, this was the wife my league with the norman was to win to my arms!" in the streets below were heard the tramp of busy feet hurrying homeward, and the confused uproar of joyous wassail from the various resorts of entertainment crowded by careless revellers. and the tread of steps mounted the stairs without his door, and there paused;--and there was the murmur of two voices without; one the clear voice of gurth,--one softer and more troubled. the earl lifted his head from his bosom, and his heart beat quick at the faint and scarce heard sound of that last voice. the door opened gently, gently: a form entered, and halted on the shadow of the threshold; the door closed again by a hand from without. the earl rose to his feet, tremulously, and the next moment edith was at his knees; her hood thrown back, her face upturned to his, bright with unfaded beauty, serene with the grandeur of self-martyrdom. "o harold!" she exclaimed, "dost thou remember that in the old time i said, 'edith had loved thee less, if thou hadst not loved england more than edith?' recall, recall those words. and deemest thou now that i, who have gazed for years into thy clear soul, and learned there to sun my woman's heart in the light of all glories native to noblest man, deemest thou, o harold, that i am weaker now than then, when i scarce knew what england and glory were?" "edith, edith, what wouldst thou say?--what knowest thou?--who hath told thee?--what led thee hither, to take part against thyself?" "it matters not who told me; i know all. what led me? mine own soul, and mine own love!" springing to her feet and clasping his hand in both hers, while she looked into his face, she resumed: "i do not say to thee, 'grieve not to part;' for i know too well thy faith, thy tenderness--thy heart, so grand and so soft. but i do say, 'soar above thy grief, and be more than man for the sake of men!' yes, harold, for this last time i behold thee. i clasp thy hand, i lean on thy heart, i hear its beating, and i shall go hence without a tear." "it cannot, it shall not be!" exclaimed harold, passionately. "thou deceivest thyself in the divine passion of the hour: thou canst not foresee the utterness of the desolation to which thou wouldst doom thy life. we were betrothed to each other by ties strong as those of the church,--over the grave of the dead, under the vault of heaven, in the form of ancestral faith! the bond cannot be broken. if england demands me, let england take me with the ties it were unholy, even for her sake, to rend!" "alas, alas!" faltered edith, while the flush on her cheek sank into mournful paleness. "it is not as thou sayest. so has thy love sheltered me from the world--so utter was my youth's ignorance or my heart's oblivion of the stern laws of man, that when it pleased thee that we should love each other, i could not believe that that love was sin; and that it was sin hitherto i will not think;--now it hath become one." "no, no!" cried harold; all the eloquence on which thousands had hung, thrilled and spell-bound, deserting him in that hour of need, and leaving to him only broken exclamations,--fragments, in each of which has his heart itself seemed shivered; "no, no,--not sin!--sin only to forsake thee.--hush! hush!--this is a dream--wait till we wake! true heart! noble soul!--i will not part from thee!" "but i from thee! and rather than thou shouldst be lost for my sake-- the sake of woman--to honour and conscience, and all for which thy sublime life sprang from the hands of nature--if not the cloister, may i find the grave!--harold, to the last let me be worthy of thee; and feel, at least, that if not thy wife--that bright, that blessed fate not mine!--still, remembering edith, just men may say, 'she would not have dishonoured the hearth of harold!'" "dost thou know," said the earl, striving to speak calmly, "dost thou know that it is not only to resign thee that they demand--that it is to resign thee, and for another?" "i know it," said edith; and two burning tears, despite her strong and preternatural self-exaltation, swelled from the dark fringe, and rolled slowly down the colourless cheek, as she added, with proud voice, "i know it: but that other is not aldyth, it is england! in her, in aldyth, behold the dear cause of thy native land; with her enweave the love which thy native land should command. so thinking, thou art reconciled, and i consoled. it is not for woman that thou desertest edith." "hear, and take from those lips the strength and the valour that belong to the name of hero!" said a deep and clear voice behind; and gurth,--who, whether distrusting the result of an interview so prolonged, or tenderly desirous to terminate its pain, had entered unobserved,--approached, and wound his arm caressingly round his brother. "oh, harold!" he said, "dear to me as the drops in my heart is my young bride, newly wed; but if for one tithe of the claims that now call thee to the torture and trial--yea, if but for one hour of good service to freedom and law--i would consent without a groan to behold her no more. and if men asked me how i could so conquer man's affections, i would point to thee, and say, 'so harold taught my youth by his lessons, and my manhood by his life.' before thee, visible, stand happiness and love, but with them, shame; before thee, invisible, stands woe, but with woe are england and eternal glory! choose between them." "he hath chosen," said edith, as harold turned to the wall, and leaned against it, hiding his face; then, approaching softly, she knelt, lifted to her lips the hem of his robe, and kissed it with devout passion. harold turned suddenly, and opened his arms. edith resisted not that mute appeal; she rose, and fell on his breast, sobbing. wild and speechless was that last embrace. the moon, which had witnessed their union by the heathen grave, now rose above the tower of the christian church, and looked wan and cold upon their parting. solemn and clear paused the orb--a cloud passed over the disk--and edith was gone. the cloud rolled away, and again the moon shone forth; and where had knelt the fair form and looked the last look of edith, stood the motionless image, and gazed the solemn eye, of the dark son of sweyn. but harold leant on the breast of gurth, and saw not who had supplanted the soft and loving fylgia of his life--saw nought in the universe but the blank of desolation! this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book iv. the heathen altar and the saxon church. chapter i. while harold sleeps, let us here pause to survey for the first time the greatness of that house to which sweyn's exile had left him the heir. the fortunes of godwin had been those which no man not eminently versed in the science of his kind can achieve. though the fable which some modern historians of great name have repeated and detailed, as to his early condition as the son of a cow-herd, is utterly groundless [ ], and he belonged to a house all-powerful at the time of his youth, he was unquestionably the builder of his own greatness. that he should rise so high in the early part of his career was less remarkable than that he should have so long continued the possessor of a power and state in reality more than regal. but, as has been before implied, godwin's civil capacities were more prominent than his warlike. and this it is which invests him with that peculiar interest which attracts us to those who knit our modern intelligence with the past. in that dim world before the norman deluge, we are startled to recognise the gifts that ordinarily distinguish a man of peace in a civilised age. his father, wolnoth, had been "childe" [ ] of the south saxons, or thegn of sussex, a nephew of edric streone, earl of mercia, the unprincipled but able minister of ethelred, who betrayed his master to canute, by whom, according to most authorities, he was righteously, though not very legally, slain as a reward for the treason. "i promised," said the dane king, "to set thy head higher than other men's, and i keep my word." the trunkless head was set on the gates of london. wolnoth had quarrelled with his uncle brightric, edric's brother, and before the arrival of canute, had betaken himself to the piracy of a sea chief, seduced twenty of the king's ships, plundered the southern coasts, burnt the royal navy, and then his history disappears from the chronicles; but immediately afterwards the great danish army, called thurkell's host, invaded the coast, and kept their chief station on the thames. their victorious arms soon placed the country almost at their command. the traitor edric joined them with a power of more than , men; and it is probable enough that the ships of wolnoth had before this time melted amicably into the armament of the danes. if this, which seems the most likely conjecture, be received, godwin, then a mere youth, would naturally have commenced his career in the cause of canute; and as the son of a formidable chief of thegn's rank, and even as kinsman to edric, who, whatever his crimes, must have retained a party it was wise to conciliate, godwin's favour with canute, whose policy would lead him to show marked distinction to any able saxon follower, ceases to be surprising. the son of wolnoth accompanied canute in his military expedition to the scandinavian continent, and here a signal victory, planned by godwin and executed solely by himself and the saxon band under his command, without aid from canute's danes, made the most memorable military exploit of his life, and confirmed his rising fortunes. edric, though he is said to have been low born, had married the sister of king ethelred; and as godwin advanced in fame, canute did not disdain to bestow his own sister in marriage on the eloquent favourite, who probably kept no small portion of the saxon population to their allegiance. on the death of this, his first wife, who bore him but one son [ ] (who died by accident), he found a second spouse in the same royal house; and the mother of his six living sons and two daughters was the niece of his king, and sister of sweyn, who subsequently filled the throne of denmark. after the death of canute, the saxon's predilections in favour of the saxon line became apparent; but it was either his policy or his principles always to defer to the popular will as expressed in the national council; and on the preference given by the witan to harold the son of canute over the heirs of ethelred, he yielded his own inclinations. the great power of the danes, and the amicable fusion of their race with the saxon which had now taken place, are apparent in this decision; for not only did earl leofric, of mercia, though himself a saxon (as well as the earl of northumbria, with the thegns north of the thames), declare for harold the dane, but the citizens of london were of the same party; and godwin represented little more than the feeling of his own principality of wessex. from that time, godwin, however, became identified with the english cause; and even many who believed him guilty of some share in the murder, or at least the betrayal, of alfred [ ], edward's brother, sought excuses in the disgust with which godwin had regarded the foreign retinue that alfred had brought with him, as if to owe his throne to norman swords, rather than to english hearts. hardicanute, who succeeded harold, whose memory he abhorred, whose corpse he disinterred and flung into a fen [ ], had been chosen by the unanimous council both of english and danish thegns; and despite hardicanute's first vehement accusations of godwin, the earl still remained throughout that reign as powerful as in the two preceding it. when hardicanute dropped down dead at a marriage banquet, it was godwin who placed edward upon the throne; and that great earl must either have been conscious of his innocence of the murder of edward's brother, or assured of his own irresponsible power, when he said to the prince who knelt at his feet, and, fearful of the difficulties in his way, implored the earl to aid his abdication of the throne and return to normandy. "you are the son of ethelred, grandson of edgar. reign, it is your duty; better to live in glory than die in exile. you are of mature years, and having known sorrow and need, can better feel for your people. rely on me, and there will be none of the difficulties you dread; whom i favour, england favours." and shortly afterwards, in the national assembly, godwin won edward his throne. "powerful in speech, powerful in bringing over people to what he desired, some yielded to his words, some to bribes." [ ] verily, godwin was a man to have risen as high, had he lived later! so edward reigned, and agreeably, it is said, with previous stipulations, married the daughter of his king-maker. beautiful as edith the queen was in mind and in person, edward apparently loved her not. she dwelt in his palace, his wife only in name. tostig (as we have seen) had married the daughter of baldwin, count of flanders, sister to matilda, wife to the norman duke: and thus the house of godwin was triply allied to princely lineage--the danish, the saxon, the flemish. and tostig might have said, as in his heart william the norman said, "my children shall descend from charlemagne and alfred." godwin's life, though thus outwardly brilliant, was too incessantly passed in public affairs and politic schemes to allow the worldly man much leisure to watch over the nurture and rearing of the bold spirits of his sons. githa his wife, the dane, a woman with a haughty but noble spirit, imperfect education, and some of the wild and lawless blood derived from her race of heathen sea-kings, was more fitted to stir their ambition and inflame their fancies, than curb their tempers and mould their hearts. we have seen the career of sweyn; but sweyn was an angel of light compared to his brother tostig. he who can be penitent has ever something lofty in his original nature; but tostig was remorseless as the tiger, as treacherous and as fierce. with less intellectual capacities than any of his brothers, he had more personal ambition than all put together. a kind of effeminate vanity, not uncommon with daring natures (for the bravest races and the bravest soldiers are usually the vainest; the desire to shine is as visible in the fop as in the hero), made him restless both for command and notoriety. "may i ever be in the mouths of men," was his favourite prayer. like his maternal ancestry, the danes, he curled his long hair, and went as a bridegroom to the feast of the ravens. two only of that house had studied the humane letters, which were no longer disregarded by the princes of the continent; they were the sweet sister, the eldest of the family, fading fast in her loveless home, and harold. but harold's mind,--in which what we call common sense was carried to genius,--a mind singularly practical and sagacious, like his father's, cared little for theological learning and priestly legend--for all that poesy of religion in which the woman was wafted from the sorrows of earth. godwin himself was no favourite of the church, and had seen too much of the abuses of the saxon priesthood, (perhaps, with few exceptions, the most corrupt and illiterate in all europe, which is saying much,) to instil into his children that reverence for the spiritual authority which existed abroad; and the enlightenment, which in him was experience in life, was in harold, betimes, the result of study and reflection. the few books of the classical world then within reach of the student opened to the young saxon views of human duties and human responsibilities utterly distinct from the unmeaning ceremonials and fleshly mortifications in which even the higher theology of that day placed the elements of virtue. he smiled in scorn when some dane, whose life had been passed in the alternate drunkenness of wine and of blood, thought he had opened the gates of heaven by bequeathing lands gained by a robber's sword, to pamper the lazy sloth of some fifty monks. if those monks had presumed to question his own actions, his disdain would have been mixed with simple wonder that men so besotted in ignorance, and who could not construe the latin of the very prayers they pattered, should presume to be the judges of educated men. it is possible--for his nature was earnest--that a pure and enlightened clergy, that even a clergy, though defective in life, zealous in duty and cultivated in mind,--such a clergy as alfred sought to found, and as lanfranc endeavoured (not without some success) to teach--would have bowed his strong sense to that grand and subtle truth which dwells in spiritual authority. but as it was, he stood aloof from the rude superstition of his age, and early in life made himself the arbiter of his own conscience. reducing his religion to the simplest elements of our creed, he found rather in the books of heathen authors than in the lives of the saints, his notions of the larger morality which relates to the citizen and the man. the love of country; the sense of justice; fortitude in adverse and temperance in prosperous fortune, became portions of his very mind. unlike his father, he played no actor's part in those qualities which had won him the popular heart. he was gentle and affable; above all, he was fair- dealing and just, not because it was politic to seem, but his nature to be, so. nevertheless, harold's character, beautiful and sublime in many respects as it was, had its strong leaven of human imperfection in that very self-dependence which was born of his reason and his pride. in resting so solely on man's perceptions of the right, he lost one attribute of the true hero--faith. we do not mean that word in the religious sense alone, but in the more comprehensive. he did not rely on the celestial something pervading all nature, never seen, only felt when duly courted, stronger and lovelier than what eye could behold and mere reason could embrace. believing, it is true, in god, he lost those fine links that unite god to man's secret heart, and which are woven alike from the simplicity of the child and the wisdom of the poet. to use a modern illustration, his large mind was a "cupola lighted from below." his bravery, though inflexible as the fiercest sea-king's, when need arose for its exercise, was not his prominent characteristic. he despised the brute valour of tostig,--his bravery was a necessary part of a firm and balanced manhood--the bravery of hector, not achilles. constitutionally averse to bloodshed, be could seem timid where daring only gratified a wanton vanity, or aimed at a selfish object. on the other hand, if duty demanded daring, no danger could deter, no policy warp him;--he could seem rash; he could even seem merciless. in the what ought to be, he understood a must be. and it was natural to this peculiar, yet thoroughly english temperament, to be, in action, rather steadfast and patient than quick and ready. placed in perils familiar to him, nothing could exceed his vigour and address; but if taken unawares, and before his judgment could come to his aid, he was liable to be surprised into error. large minds are rarely quick, unless they have been corrupted into unnatural vigilance by the necessities of suspicion. but a nature more thoroughly unsuspecting, more frank, trustful, and genuinely loyal than that young earl's, it was impossible to conceive. all these attributes considered, we have the key to much of harold's character and conduct in the later events of his fated and tragic life. but with this temperament, so manly and simple, we are not to suppose that harold, while rejecting the superstitions of one class, was so far beyond his time as to reject those of another. no son of fortune, no man placing himself and the world in antagonism, can ever escape from some belief in the invisible. caesar could ridicule and profane the mystic rites of roman mythology, but he must still believe in his fortune, as in a god. and harold, in his very studies, seeing the freest and boldest minds of antiquity subjected to influences akin to those of his saxon forefathers, felt less shame in yielding to them, vain as they might be, than in monkish impostures so easily detected. though hitherto he had rejected all direct appeal to the magic devices of hilda, the sound of her dark sayings, heard in childhood, still vibrated on his soul as man. belief in omens, in days lucky or unlucky, in the stars, was universal in every class of the saxon. harold had his own fortunate day, the day of his nativity, the th of october. all enterprises undertaken on that day had hitherto been successful. he believed in the virtue of that day, as cromwell believed in his d of september. for the rest, we have described him as he was in that part of his career in which he is now presented. whether altered by fate and circumstances, time will show. as yet, no selfish ambition leagued with the natural desire of youth and intellect for their fair share of fame and power. his patriotism, fed by the example of greek and roman worthies, was genuine, pure, and ardent; he could have stood in the pass with leonidas, or leaped into the gulf with curtius. chapter ii. at dawn, harold woke from uneasy and broken slumbers, and his eyes fell upon the face of hilda, large, and fair, and unutterably calm, as the face of egyptian sphinx. "have thy dreams been prophetic, son of godwin?" said the vala. "our lord forfend," replied the earl, with unusual devoutness. "tell them, and let me read the rede; sense dwells in the voices of the night." harold mused, and after a short pause, he said: "methinks, hilda, i can myself explain how those dreams came to haunt me." then raising himself on his elbow, he continued, while he fixed his clear penetrating eyes upon his hostess: "tell me frankly, hilda, didst thou not cause some light to shine on yonder knoll, by the mound and stone, within the temple of the druids?" but if harold had suspected himself to be the dupe of some imposture, the thought vanished when he saw the look of keen interest, even of awe, which hilda's face instantly assumed. "didst thou see a light, son of godwin, by the altar of thor, and over the bautastein of the mighty dead? a flame, lambent and livid, like moonbeams collected over snow?" "so seemed to me the light." "no human hand ever kindled that flame, which announces the presence of the dead," said hilda, with a tremulous voice; "though seldom, uncompelled by the seid and the rune, does the spectre itself warn the eyes of the living." "what shape, or what shadow of shape, does that spectre assume?" "it rises in the midst of the flame, pale as the mist on the mountain, and vast as the giants of old; with the saex, and the spear, and the shield, of the sons of woden.--thou hast seen the scin-laeca," continued hilda, looking full on the face of the earl. "if thou deceivest me not," began harold, doubting still. "deceive thee! not to save the crown of the saxon dare i mock the might of the dead. knowest thou not--or hath thy vain lore stood in place of the lore of thy fathers--that where a hero of old is buried, his treasures lie in his grave; that over that grave is at times seen at night the flame that thou sawest, and the dead in his image of air? oft seen in the days that are gone, when the dead and the living had one faith--were one race; now never marked, but for portent, and prophecy, and doom:--glory or woe to the eyes that see! on yon knoll, aesc (the first-born of cerdic, that father-king of the saxons,) has his grave where the mound rises green, and the stone gleams wan by the altar of thor. he smote the britons in their temple, and he fell smiting. they buried him in his arms, and with the treasures his right hand had won. fate hangs on the house of cerdic, or the realm of the saxon, when woden calls the laeca of his son from the grave." hilda, much troubled bent her face over her clasped hands, and, rocking to and fro, muttered some runes unintelligible to the ear of her listener. then she turned to him, commandingly, and said: "thy dreams now, indeed, are oracles, more true than living vala could charm with the wand and the rune: unfold them." thus adjured, harold resumed: "methought, then, that i was on a broad, level plain, in the noon of day; all was clear to my eye, and glad to my heart. i was alone and went on my way rejoicing. suddenly the earth opened under my feet, and i fell deep, fathom-deep;--deep, as if to that central pit, which our heathen sires called niffelheim--the home of vapour--the hell of the dead who die without glory. stunned by the fall, i lay long, locked as in a dream in the midst of a dream. when i opened my eyes, behold, i was girt round with dead men's bones; and the bones moved round me, undulating, as the dry leaves that wirble round in the winds of the winter. and from midst of them peered a trunkless skull, and on the skull was a mitre, and from the yawning jaws a voice came hissing, as a serpent's hiss, 'harold, the scorner, thou art ours!' then, as from the buzz of an army, came voices multitudinous, 'thou art ours!' i sought to rise, and behold my limbs were bound, and the gyves were fine and frail, as the web of the gossamer, and they weighed on me like chains of iron. and i felt an anguish of soul that no words can speak--an anguish both of horror and shame; and my manhood seemed to ooze from me, and i was weak as a child new born. then suddenly there rushed forth a freezing wind, as from an air of ice, and the bones from their whirl stood still, and the buzz ceased, and the mitred skull grinned on me still and voiceless; and serpents darted their arrowy tongues from the eyeless sockets. and, lo, before me stood (o hilda, i see it now!) the form of the spectre that had risen from yonder knoll. with his spear, and saex, and his shield, he stood before me; and his face, though pale as that of one long dead, was stern as the face of a warrior in the van of armed men; he stretched his hand, and he smote his saex on his shield, and the clang sounded hollow; the gyves broke at the clash--i sprang to my feet, and i stood side by side with the phantom, dauntless. then, suddenly, the mitre on the skull changed to a helm; and where the skull had grinned, trunkless and harmless, stood a shape like war, made incarnate;--a thing above giants, with its crest to the stars and its form an eclipse between the sun and the day. the earth changed to ocean, and the ocean was blood, and the ocean seemed deep as the seas where the whales sport in the north, but the surge rose not to the knee of that measureless image. and the ravens came round it from all parts of the heaven, and the vultures with the dead eyes and dull scream. and all the bones, before scattered and shapeless, sprung to life and to form, some monks and some warriors; and there was a hoot, and a hiss, and a roar, and the storm of arms. and a broad pennon rose out of the sea of blood, and from the clouds came a pale hand, and it wrote on the pennon, 'harold, the accursed!' then said the stern shape by my side, 'harold, fearest thou the dead men's bones?' and its voice was as a trumpet that gives strength to the craven, and i answering, 'niddering, indeed, were harold, to fear the bones of the dead!'" "as i spoke, as if hell had burst loose, came a gibber of scorn, and all vanished at once, save the ocean of blood. slowly came from the north, over the sea, a bird like a raven, save that it was blood- red, like the ocean; and there came from the south, swimming towards me, a lion. and i looked to the spectre; and the pride of war had gone from its face, which was so sad that methought i forgot raven and lion, and wept to see it. then the spectre took me in its vast arms, and its breath froze my veins, and it kissed my brow and my lips, and said, gently and fondly, as my mother in some childish sickness, 'harold, my best beloved, mourn not. thou hast all which the sons of woden dreamed in their dreams of valhalla!' thus saying, the form receded slowly, slowly, still gazing on me with its sad eyes. i stretched forth my hand to detain it, and in my grasp was a shadowy sceptre. and, lo! round me, as if from the earth, sprang up thegns and chiefs, in their armour; and a board was spread, and a wassail was blithe around me. so my heart felt cheered and light, and in my hand was still the sceptre. and we feasted long and merrily; but over the feast flapped the wings of the blood-red raven, and over the blood-red sea beyond, swam the lion, near and near. and in the heavens there were two stars, one pale and steadfast, the other rushing and luminous; and a shadowy hand pointed from the cloud to the pale star, and a voice said, 'lo, harold! the star that shone on thy birth.' and another hand pointed to the luminous star, and another voice said, 'lo, the star that shone on the birth of the victor.' then, lo! the bright star grew fiercer and larger; and, rolling on with a hissing sound, as when iron is dipped into water, it rushed over the disc of the mournful planet, and the whole heavens seemed on fire. so methought the dream faded away, and in fading, i heard a full swell of music, as the swell of an anthem in an aisle; a music like that which but once in my life i heard; when i stood on the train of edward, in the halls of winchester, the day they crowned him king." harold ceased, and the vala slowly lifted her head from her bosom, and surveyed him in profound silence, and with a gaze that seemed vacant and meaningless. "why dost thou look on me thus, and why art thou so silent?" asked the earl. "the cloud is on my sight, and the burthen is on my soul, and i cannot read thy rede," murmured the vala. "but morn, the ghost-chaser, that waketh life, the action, charms into slumber life, the thought. as the stars pale at the rising of the sun, so fade the lights of the soul when the buds revive in the dews, and the lark sings to the day. in thy dream lies thy future, as the wing of the moth in the web of the changing worm; but, whether for weal or for woe, thou shalt burst through thy mesh, and spread thy plumes in the air. of myself i know nought. await the hour when skulda shall pass into the soul of her servant, and thy fate shall rush from my lips as the rush of the waters from the heart of the cave." "i am content to abide," said harold, with his wonted smile, so calm and so lofty; "but i cannot promise thee that i shall heed thy rede, or obey thy warning, when my reason hath awoke, as while i speak it awakens, from the fumes of the fancy and the mists of the night." chapter iii. githa, earl godwin's wife, sate in her chamber, and her heart was sad. in the room was one of her sons, the one dearer to her than all, wolnoth, her darling. for the rest of her sons were stalwart and strong of frame, and in their infancy she had known not a mother's fears. but wolnoth had come into the world before his time, and sharp had been the travail of the mother, and long between life and death the struggle of the newborn babe. and his cradle had been rocked with a trembling knee, and his pillow been bathed with hot tears. frail had been his childhood--a thing that hung on her care; and now, as the boy grew, blooming and strong, into youth, the mother felt that she had given life twice to her child. therefore was he more dear to her than the rest; and, therefore, as she gazed upon him now, fair and smiling, and hopeful, she mourned for him more than for sweyn, the outcast and criminal, on his pilgrimage of woe, to the waters of jordan, and the tomb of our lord. for wolnoth, selected as the hostage for the faith of his house, was to be sent from her arms to the court of william the norman. and the youth smiled and was gay, choosing vestment and mantle, and ateghars of gold, that he might be flaunting and brave in the halls of knighthood and the beauty,--the school of the proudest chivalry of the christian world. too young, and too thoughtless, to share the wise hate of his elders for the manners and forms of the foreigners, their gaiety and splendour, as his boyhood had seen them, relieving the gloom of the cloister court, and contrasting the spleen and the rudeness of the saxon temperament, had dazzled his fancy and half normanised his mind. a proud and happy boy was he, to go as hostage for the faith, and representative of the rank, of his mighty kinsmen; and step into manhood in the eyes of the dames of rouen. by wolnoth's side stood his young sister, thyra, a mere infant; and her innocent sympathy with her brother's pleasure in gaud and toy saddened githa yet more. "o my son!" said the troubled mother, "why, of all my children, have they chosen thee? harold is wise against danger, and tostig is fierce against foes, and gurth is too loving to awake hate in the sternest, and from the mirth of sunny leofwine sorrow glints aside, as the shaft from the sheen of a shield. but thou, thou, o beloved!--cursed be the king that chose thee, and cruel was the father that forgot the light of the mother's eyes!" "tut, mother the dearest," said wolnoth, pausing from the contemplation of a silk robe, all covered with broidered peacocks, which had been sent him as a gift from his sister the queen, and wrought with her own fair hands; for a notable needle-woman, despite her sage lere, was the wife of the saint king, as sorrowful women mostly are,--"tut! the bird must leave the nest when the wings are fledged. harold the eagle, tostig the kite, gurth the ring-dove, and leofwine the stare. see, my wings are the richest of all, mother, and bright is the sun in which thy peacock shall spread his pranked plumes." then, observing that his liveliness provoked no smile from his mother, he approached and said more seriously: "bethink thee, mother mine. no other choice was left to king or to father. harold, and tostig, and leofwine, have their lordships and offices. their posts are fixed, and they stand as the columns of our house. and gurth is so young, and so saxish and so the shadow of harold, that his hate to the norman is a by-word already among our youths; for hate is the more marked in a temper of love, as the blue of this border seems black against the white of the woof. but i;--the good king knows that i shall be welcome, for the norman knights love wolnoth, and i have spent hours by the knees of montgommeri and grantmesnil, listening to the feats of rolf-ganger, and playing with their gold chains of knighthood. and the stout count himself shall knight me, and i shall come back with the spurs of gold which thy ancestors, the brave kings of norway and daneland, wore ere knighthood was known. come, kiss me, my mother, and come see the brave falcons harold has sent me:--true welch!" githa rested her face on her son's shoulder, and her tears blinded her. the door opened gently, and harold entered; and with the earl, a pale dark-haired boy, haco; the son of sweyn. but githa, absorbed in her darling wolnoth, scarce saw the grandchild reared afar from her knees, and hurried at once to harold. in his presence she felt comfort and safety; for wolnoth leant on her heart, and her heart leant on harold. "o son, son!" she cried, "firmest of hand, surest of faith, and wisest of brain, in the house of godwin, tell me that he yonder, he thy young brother, risks no danger in the halls of the normans!" "not more than in these, mother," answered harold, soothing her, with caressing lip and gentle tone. "fierce and ruthless, men say, is william the duke against foes with their swords in their hands, but debonnair and mild to the gentle [ ], frank host and kind lord. and these normans have a code of their own, more grave than all morals, more binding than even their fanatic religion. thou knowest it well, mother, for it comes from thy race of the north, and this code of honour, they call it, makes wolnoth's head as sacred as the relics of a saint set in zimmes. ask only, my brother, when thou comest in sight of the norman duke, ask only 'the kiss of peace,' and, that kiss on thy brow, thou wilt sleep more safe than if all the banners of england waved over thy couch." [ ] "but how long shall the exile be?" asked githa, comforted. harold's brow fell. "mother, not even to cheer thee will i deceive. the time of the hostageship rests with the king and the duke. as long as the one affects fear from the race of godwin, as long as the other feigns care for such priests or such knights as were not banished from the realm, being not courtiers, but scattered wide and far in convent and homestead, so long will wolnoth and haco be guests in the norman halls." githa wrung her hands. "but comfort, my mother; wolnoth is young, his eye is keen, and his spirit prompt and quick. he will mark these norman captains, he will learn their strength and their weakness, their manner of war, and he will come back, not as edward the king came, a lover of things un- saxon, but able to warn and to guide us against the plots of the camp- court, which threatens more, year by year, the peace of the world. and he will see there arts we may worthily borrow: not the cut of a tunic, and the fold of a gonna, but the arts of men who found states and build nations. william the duke is splendid and wise; merchants tell us how crafts thrive under his iron hand, and war-men say that his forts are constructed with skill and his battle-schemes planned as the mason plans key-stone and arch, with weight portioned out to the prop, and the force of the hand made tenfold by the science of the brain. so that the boy will return to us a man round and complete, a teacher of greybeards, and the sage of his kin; fit for earldom and rule, fit for glory and england. grieve not, daughter of the dane kings, that thy son, the best loved, hath nobler school and wider field than his brothers." this appeal touched the proud heart of the niece of canute the great, and she almost forgot the grief of her love in the hope of her ambition. she dried her tears and smiled upon wolnoth, and already, in the dreams of a mother's vanity, saw him great as godwin in council, and prosperous as harold in the field. nor, half norman as he was, did the young man seem insensible of the manly and elevated patriotism of his brother's hinted lessons, though he felt they implied reproof. he came to the earl, whose arm was round his mother, and said with a frank heartiness not usual to a nature somewhat frivolous and irresolute: "harold, thy tongue could kindle stones into men, and warm those men into saxons. thy wolnoth shall not hang his head with shame when he comes back to our merrie land with shaven locks and spurs of gold. for if thou doubtest his race from his look, thou shalt put thy right hand on his heart, and feel england beat there in every pulse." "brave words, and well spoken," cried the earl, and he placed his hand on the boy's head as in benison. till then, haco had stood apart, conversing with the infant thyra, whom his dark, mournful face awed and yet touched, for she nestled close to him, and put her little hand in his; but now, inspired no less than his cousin by harold's noble speech, he came proudly forward by wolnoth's side, and said: "i, too, am english, and i have the name of englishman to redeem." ere harold could reply, githa exclaimed: "leave there thy right hand on my child's head, and say, simply: 'by my troth and my plight, if the duke detain wolnoth, son of githa, against just plea, and king's assent to his return, i, harold, will, failing letter and nuncius, cross the seas, to restore the child to the mother.'" [ ] harold hesitated. a sharp cry of reproach that went to his heart broke from githa's lips. "ah! cold and self-heeding, wilt thou send him to bear a peril from which thou shrinkest thyself?" "by my troth and my plight, then," said the earl, "if, fair time elapsed, peace in england, without plea of justice, and against my king's fiat, duke william of normandy detain the hostages;--thy son and this dear boy, more sacred and more dear to me for his father's woes,--i will cross the seas, to restore the child to the mother, the fatherless to his fatherland. so help me, all-seeing one, amen and amen!" chapter iv. we have seen, in an earlier part of this record, that harold possessed, amongst his numerous and more stately possessions, a house, not far from the old roman dwelling-place of hilda. and in this residence he now (save when with the king) made his chief abode. he gave as the reasons for his selection, the charm it took, in his eyes, from that signal mark of affection which his ceorls had rendered him, in purchasing the house and tilling the ground in his absence; and more especially the convenience of its vicinity to the new palace at westminster; for, by edward's special desire, while the other brothers repaired to their different domains, harold remained near his royal person. to use the words of the great norwegian chronicler, "harold was always with the court itself, and nearest to the king in all service." "the king loved him very much, and kept him as his own son, for he had no children."' this attendance on edward was naturally most close at the restoration to power of the earl's family. for harold, mild and conciliating, was, like alred, a great peacemaker, and edward had never cause to complain of him, as he believed he had of the rest of that haughty house. but the true spell which made dear to harold the rude building of timber, with its doors open all day to his lithsmen, when with a light heart he escaped from the halls of westminster, was the fair face of edith his neighbour. the impression which this young girl had made upon harold seemed to partake of the strength of a fatality. for harold had loved her before the marvellous beauty of her womanhood began; and, occupied from his earliest youth in grave and earnest affairs, his heart had never been frittered away on the mean and frivolous affections of the idle. now, in that comparative leisure of his stormy life, he was naturally most open to the influence of a charm more potent than all the glamoury of hilda. the autumn sun shone through the golden glades of the forest-land, when edith sate alone on the knoll that faced forestland and road, and watched afar. and the birds sung cheerily; but that was not the sound for which edith listened: and the squirrel darted from tree to tree on the sward beyond; but not to see the games of the squirrel sat edith by the grave of the teuton. by-and-by, came the cry of the dogs, and the tall gre-hound [ ] of wales emerged from the bosky dells. then edith's heart heaved, and her eyes brightened. and now, with his hawk on his wrist, and his spear [ ] in his hand, came, through the yellowing boughs, harold the earl. and well may ye ween, that his heart beat as loud and his eye shone as bright as edith's, when he saw who had watched for his footsteps on the sepulchral knoll; love, forgetful of the presence of death;--so has it ever been, so ever shall it be! he hastened his stride, and bounded up the gentle hillock, and his dogs, with a joyous bark, came round the knees of edith. then harold shook the bird from his wrist, and it fell, with its light wing, on the altar-stone of thor. "thou art late, but thou art welcome, harold my kinsman," said edith, simply, as she bent her face over the hounds, whose gaunt heads she caressed. "call me not kinsman," said harold, shrinking, and with a dark cloud on his broad brow. "and why, harold?" "oh, edith, why?" murmured harold; and his thought added, "she knows not, poor child, that in that mockery of kinship the church sets its ban on our bridals." he turned, and chid his dogs fiercely as they gambolled in rough glee round their fair friend. the hounds crouched at the feet of edith; and edith looked in mild wonder at the troubled face of the earl. "thine eyes rebuke me, edith, more than my words the hounds!" said harold, gently. "but there is quick blood in my veins; and the mind must be calm when it would control the humour. calm was my mind, sweet edith, in the old time, when thou wert an infant on my knee, and wreathing, with these rude hands, flower-chains for thy neck like the swan's down, i said, 'the flowers fade, but the chain lasts when love weaves it.'" edith again bent her face over the crouching hounds. harold gazed on her with mournful fondness; and the bird still sung and the squirrel swung himself again from bough to bough. edith spoke first: "my godmother, thy sister, hath sent for me, harold, and i am to go to the court to-morrow. shalt thou be there?" "surely," said harold, in an anxious voice, "surely, i will be there! so my sister hath sent for thee: wittest thou wherefore?" edith grew very pale, and her tone trembled as she answered: "well-a-day, yes." "it is as i feared, then!" exclaimed harold, in great agitation; "and my sister, whom these monks have demented, leagues herself with the king against the law of the wide welkin and the grand religion of the human heart. oh!" continued the earl, kindling into an enthusiasm, rare to his even moods, but wrung as much from his broad sense as from his strong affection, "when i compare the saxon of our land and day, all enervated and decrepit by priestly superstition, with his forefathers in the first christian era, yielding to the religion they adopted in its simple truths, but not to that rot of social happiness and free manhood which this cold and lifeless monarchism--making virtue the absence of human ties--spreads around--which the great bede [ ], though himself a monk, vainly but bitterly denounced;--yea, verily, when i see the saxon already the theowe of the priest, i shudder to ask how long he will be folk-free of the tyrant." he paused, breathed hard, and seizing, almost sternly, the girl's trembling arm, he resumed between his set teeth: "so they would have thee be a nun?--thou wilt not,--thou durst not,--thy heart would perjure thy vows!" "ah, harold!" answered edith, moved out of all bashfulness by his emotion and her own terror of the convent, and answering, if with the love of a woman, still with all the unconsciousness of a child: "better, oh better the grate of the body than that of the heart!--in the grave i could still live for those i love; behind the grate, love itself must be dead. yes, thou pitiest me, harold; thy sister, the queen, is gentle and kind; i will fling myself at her feet, and say: 'youth is fond, and the world is fair: let me live my youth, and bless god in the world that he saw was good!'" "my own, own dear edith!" exclaimed harold, overjoyed. "say this. be firm: they cannot and they dare not force thee! the law cannot wrench thee against thy will from the ward of thy guardian hilda; and, where the law is, there harold at least is strong,--and there at least our kinship, if my bane, is thy blessing." "why, harold, sayest thou that our kinship is thy bane? it is so sweet to me to whisper to myself, 'harold is of thy kith, though distant; and it is natural to thee to have pride in his fame, and joy in his presence!' why is that sweetness to me, to thee so bitter?" "because," answered harold, dropping the hand he had clasped, and folding his arms in deep dejection, "because but for that i should say: 'edith, i love thee more than a brother: edith, be harold's wife!' and were i to say it, and were we to wed, all the priests of the saxons would lift up their hands in horror, and curse our nuptials, and i should be the bann'd of that spectre the church; and my house would shake to its foundations; and my father, and my brothers, and the thegns and the proceres, and the abbots and prelates, whose aid makes our force, would gather round me with threats and with prayers, that i might put thee aside. and mighty as i am now, so mighty once was sweyn my brother; and outlaw as sweyn is now, might harold be; and outlaw if harold were, what breast so broad as his could fill up the gap left in the defence of england? and the passions that i curb, as a rider his steed, might break their rein; and, strong in justice, and child of nature, i might come, with banner and mail, against church, and house, and fatherland; and the blood of my countrymen might be poured like water: and, therefore, slave to the lying thraldom he despises, harold dares not say to the maid of his love, 'give me thy right hand, and be my bride!'" edith had listened in bewilderment and despair, her eyes fixed on his, and her face locked and rigid, as if turned to stone. but when he had ceased, and, moving some steps away, turned aside his manly countenance, that edith might not perceive its anguish, the noble and sublime spirit of that sex which ever, when lowliest, most comprehends the lofty, rose superior both to love and to grief; and rising, she advanced, and placing her slight hand on his stalwart shoulder, she said, half in pity, half in reverence: "never before, o harold, did i feel so proud of thee: for edith could not love thee as she doth, and will till the grave clasp her, if thou didst not love england more than edith. harold, till this hour i was a child, and i knew not my own heart: i look now into that heart, and i see that i am woman. harold, of the cloister i have now no fear: and all life does not shrink--no, it enlarges, and it soars into one desire--to be worthy to pray for thee!" "maid, maid!" exclaimed harold, abruptly, and pale as the dead, "do not say thou hast no fear of the cloister. i adjure, i command thee, build not up between us that dismal everlasting wall. while thou art free hope yet survives--a phantom, haply but hope still." "as thou wilt i will," said edith, humbly: "order my fate so as pleases thee the best." then, not daring to trust herself longer, for she felt the tears rushing to her eyes, she turned away hastily, and left him alone beside the altar-stone and the tomb. chapter v. the next day, as harold was entering the palace of westminster, with intent to seek the king's lady, his father met him in one of the corridors, and, taking him gravely by the hand said: "my son, i have much on my mind regarding thee and our house; come with me." "nay," said the earl, "by your leave let it be later. for i have it on hand to see my sister, ere confessor, or monk, or schoolman, claim her hours!" "not so, harold," said the earl, briefly. "my daughter is now in her oratory, and we shall have time enow to treat of things mundane ere she is free to receive thee, and to preach to thee of things ghostly, the last miracle at st. alban's, or the last dream of the king, who would be a great man and a stirring, if as restless when awake as he is in his sleep. come." harold, in that filial obedience which belonged, as of course, to his antique cast of character, made no farther effort to escape, but with a sigh followed godwin into one of the contiguous chambers. "harold," then said earl godwin, after closing the door carefully, "thou must not let the king keep thee longer in dalliance and idleness: thine earldom needs thee without delay. thou knowest that these east angles, as we saxons still call them, are in truth mostly danes and norsemen; people jealous and fierce, and free, and more akin to the normans than to the saxons. my whole power in england hath been founded, not less on my common birth with the freefolk of wessex --saxons like myself, and therefore easy for me, a saxon, to conciliate and control--than on the hold i have ever sought to establish, whether by arms or by arts, over the danes in the realm. and i tell and i warn thee, harold, as the natural heir of my greatness, that he who cannot command the stout hearts of the anglo-danes, will never maintain the race of godwin in the post they have won in the vanguard of saxon england." "this i wot well, my father," answered harold; "and i see with joy, that while those descendants of heroes and freemen are blended indissolubly with the meeker saxon, their freer laws and hardier manners are gradually supplanting, or rather regenerating, our own." godwin smiled approvingly on his son, and then his brow becoming serious, and the dark pupil of his blue eye dilating, he resumed: "this is well, my son; and hast thou thought also, that while thou art loitering in these galleries, amidst the ghosts of men in monk cowls, siward is shadowing our house with his glory, and all north the humber rings with his name? hast thou thought that all mercia is in the hands of leofric our rival, and that algar his son, who ruled wessex in my absence, left there a name so beloved, that had i stayed a year longer, the cry had been 'algar', not 'godwin'?--for so is the multitude ever! now aid me, harold, for my soul is troubled, and i cannot work alone; and though i say naught to others, my heart received a death-blow when tears fell from its blood-springs on the brow of sweyn, my first-born." the old man paused, and his lip quivered. "thou, thou alone, harold, noble boy, thou alone didst stand by his side in the hall; alone, alone, and i blessed thee in that hour over all the rest of my sons. well, well! now to earth again. aid me, harold. i open to thee my web: complete the woof when this hand is cold. the new tree that stands alone in the plain is soon nipped by the winter; fenced round with the forest, its youth takes shelter from its fellows [ ]. so is it with a house newly founded; it must win strength from the allies that it sets round its slender stein. what had been godwin, son of wolnoth, had he not married into the kingly house of great canute? it is this that gives my sons now the right to the loyal love of the danes. the throne passed from canute and his race, and the saxons again had their hour; and i gave, as jephtha gave his daughter, my blooming edith, to the cold bed of the saxon king. had sons sprung from that union, the grandson of godwin, royal alike from saxon and dane, would reign on the throne of the isle. fate ordered otherwise, and the spider must weave web anew. thy brother, tostig, has added more splendour than solid strength of our line, in his marriage with the daughter of baldwin the count. the foreigner helps us little in england. thou, o harold, must bring new props to the house. i would rather see thee wed to the child of one of our great rivals than to the daughter of kaisar, or outland king. siward hath no daughter undisposed of. algar, son of leofric, hath a daughter fair as the fairest; make her thy bride that algar may cease to be a foe. this alliance will render mercia, in truth, subject to our principalities, since the stronger must quell the weaker. it doth more. algar himself has married into the royalty of wales [ ]. thou wilt win all those fierce tribes to thy side. their forces will gain thee the marches, now held so feebly under rolf the norman, and in case of brief reverse, or sharp danger, their mountains will give refuge from all foes. this day, greeting algar, he told me he meditated bestowing his daughter on gryffyth, the rebel under-king of north wales. therefore," continued the old earl, with a smile, "thou must speak in time, and win and woo in the same breath. no hard task, methinks, for harold of the golden tongue." "sir, and father," replied the young earl, whom the long speech addressed to him had prepared for its close, and whose habitual self- control saved him from disclosing his emotion, "i thank you duteously, for your care for my future, and hope to profit by your wisdom. i will ask the king's leave to go to my east anglians, and hold there a folkmuth, administer justice, redress grievances, and make thegn and ceorl content with harold, their earl. but vain is peace in the realm, if there is strife in the house. and aldyth, the daughter of algar, cannot be house-wife to me." "why?" asked the old earl, calmly, and surveying his son's face with those eyes so clear yet so unfathomable. "because, though i grant her fair, she pleases not my fancy, nor would give warmth to my hearth. because, as thou knowest well, algar and i have ever been opposed, both in camp and in council; and i am not the man who can sell my love, though i may stifle my anger. earl harold needs no bride to bring spearmen to his back at his need; and his lordships he will guard with the shield of a man, not the spindle of a woman." "said in spite and in error," replied the old earl, coolly. "small pain had it given thee to forgive algar old quarrels, and clasp his hand as a father-in-law--if thou hadst had for his daughter what the great are forbidden to regard save as a folly." "is love a folly, my father?" "surely, yes," said the earl, with some sadness--"surely, yes, for those who know that life is made up of business and care, spun out in long years, nor counted by the joys of an hour. surely, yes; thinkest thou that i loved my first wife, the proud sister of canute, or that edith, thy sister, loved edward, when he placed the crown on her head?" "my father, in edith, my sister, our house has sacrificed enow to selfish power." "i grant it, to selfish power," answered the eloquent old man, "but not enow for england's safety. look to it, harold; thy years, and thy fame, and thy state, place thee free from my control as a father, but not till thou sleepest in thy cerements art thou free from that father--thy land! ponder it in thine own wise mind--wiser already than that which speaks to it under the hood of grey hairs. ponder it, and ask thyself if thy power, when i am dead, is not necessary to the weal of england? and if aught that thy schemes can suggest would so strengthen that power, as to find in the heart of the kingdom a host of friends like the mercians;--or if there could be a trouble and a bar to thy greatness, a wall in thy path, or a thorn in thy side, like the hate or the jealousy of algar, the son of leofric?" thus addressed, harold's face, before serene and calm, grew overcast; and he felt the force of his father's words when appealing to his reason--not to his affections. the old man saw the advantage he had gained, and prudently forbore to press it. rising, he drew round him his sweeping gonna lined with furs, and only when he reached the door, he added: "the old see afar; they stand on the height of experience, as a warder on the crown of a tower; and i tell thee, harold, that if thou let slip this golden occasion, years hence--long and many--thou wilt rue the loss of the hour. and that, unless mercia, as the centre of the kingdom, be reconciled to thy power, thou wilt stand high indeed--but on the shelf of a precipice. and if, as i suspect, thou lovest some other who now clouds thy perception, and will then check thy ambition, thou wilt break her heart with thy desertion, or gnaw thine own with regret. for love dies in possession--ambition has no fruition, and so lives forever." "that ambition is not mine, my father," exclaimed harold, earnestly; "i have not thy love of power, glorious in thee, even in its extremes. i have not thy----" "seventy years!" interrupted the old man, concluding the sentence. "at seventy all men who have been great will speak as i do; yet all will have known love. thou not ambitious, harold? thou knowest not thyself, nor knowest thou yet what ambition is. that which i see far before me as thy natural prize, i dare not, or i will not say. when time sets that prize within reach of thy spear's point, say then, 'i am not ambitious!' ponder and decide." and harold pondered long, and decided not as godwin could have wished. for he had not the seventy years of his father, and the prize lay yet in the womb of the mountains; though the dwarf and the gnome were already fashioning the ore to the shape of a crown. chapter vi. while harold mused over his father's words, edith, seated on a low stool beside the lady of england, listened with earnest but mournful reverence to her royal namesake. the queen's [ ] closet opened like the king's on one hand to an oratory, on the other to a spacious ante-room; the lower part of the walls was covered with arras, leaving space for a niche that contained an image of the virgin. near the doorway to the oratory, was the stoupe or aspersorium for holy-water; and in various cysts and crypts, in either room, were caskets containing the relics of saints. the purple light from the stained glass of a high narrow window, shaped in the saxon arch, streamed rich and full over the queen's bended head like a glory, and tinged her pale cheek, as with a maiden blush; and she might have furnished a sweet model for early artist, in his dreams of st. mary the mother, not when, young and blest, she held the divine infant in her arms, but when sorrow had reached even the immaculate bosom, and the stone had been rolled over the holy sepulchre. for beautiful the face still was, and mild beyond all words; but, beyond all words also, sad in its tender resignation. and thus said the queen to her godchild: "why dost thou hesitate and turn away? thinkest thou, poor child, in thine ignorance of life, that the world ever can give thee a bliss greater than the calm of the cloister? pause, and ask thyself, young as thou art, if all the true happiness thou hast known, is not bounded to hope. as long as thou hopest, thou art happy." edith sighed deeply, and moved her young head in involuntary acquiescence. "and what is life to the nun, but hope. in that hope, she knows not the present, she lives in the future; she hears ever singing the chorus of the angels, as st. dunstan heard them sing at the birth of edgar [ ]. that hope unfolds to her the heiligthum of the future. on earth her body, in heaven her soul!" "and her heart, o lady of england?" cried edith, with a sharp pang. the queen paused a moment, and laid her pale hand kindly on edith's bosom. "not beating, child, as thine does now, with vain thoughts, and worldly desires; but calm, calm as mine. it is in our power," resumed the queen, after a second pause, "it is in our power to make the life within us all soul; so that the heart is not, or is felt not; so that grief and joy have no power over us; so that we look tranquil on the stormy earth, as yon image of the virgin, whom we make our example, looks from the silent niche. listen, my godchild and darling." "i have known human state, and human debasement. in these halls i woke lady of england, and, ere sunset, my lord banished me, without one mark of honour, without one word of comfort, to the convent of wherwell;--my father, my mother, my kin, all in exile; and my tears falling fast for them, but not on a husband's bosom." "ah then, noble edith," said the girl, colouring with anger at the remembered wrong for her queen, "ah then, surely, at least, thy heart made itself heard." "heard, yea verily," said the queen, looking up, and pressing her hands; "heard, but the soul rebuked it. and the soul said, 'blessed are they that mourn;' and i rejoiced at the new trial which brought me nearer to him who chastens those he loves." "but thy banished kin--the valiant, the wise; they who placed thy lord on the throne?" "was it no comfort," answered the queen simply, "to think that in the house of god my prayers for them would be more accepted than in the halls of kings? yes, my child, i have known the world's honour, and the world's disgrace, and i have schooled my heart to be calm in both." "ah, thou art above human strength, queen and saint," exclaimed edith; "and i have heard it said of thee, that as thou art now, thou wert from thine earliest years [ ]; ever the sweet, the calm, the holy-- ever less on earth than in heaven." something there was in the queen's eyes, as she raised them towards edith at this burst of enthusiasm, that gave for a moment, to a face otherwise so dissimilar, the likeness to her father; something, in that large pupil, of the impenetrable unrevealing depth of a nature close and secret in self-control. and a more acute observer than edith might long have been perplexed and haunted with that look, wondering if, indeed, under the divine and spiritual composure, lurked the mystery of human passion. "my child," said the queen, with the faintest smile upon her lips, and drawing edith towards her, "there are moments when all that breathe the breath of life feel, or have felt, alike. in my vain youth i read, i mused, i pondered, but over worldly lore. and what men called the sanctity of virtue, was perhaps but the silence of thought. now i have put aside those early and childish dreams and shadows, remembering them not, save (here the smile grew more pronounced) to puzzle some poor schoolboy with the knots and riddles of the sharp grammarian [ ]. but not to speak of my self have i sent for thee. edith, again and again, solemnly and sincerely, i pray thee to obey the wish of my lord the king. and now, while yet in all the bloom of thought, as of youth, while thou hast no memory save the child's, enter on the realm of peace." "i cannot, i dare not, i cannot--ah, ask me not," said poor edith, covering her face with her hands. those hands the queen gently withdrew; and looking steadfastly in the changeful and half-averted face, she said mournfully, "is it so, my godchild? and is thy heart set on the hopes of earth--thy dreams on the love of man?" "nay," answered edith, equivocating; "but i have promised not to take the veil." "promised to hilda?" "hilda," exclaimed edith readily, "would never consent to it. thou knowest her strong nature, her distaste to--to----" "the laws of our holy church--i do; and for that reason it is, mainly, that i join with the king in seeking to abstract thee from her influence. but it is not hilda that thou hast promised?" edith hung her head. "is it to woman or to man?" before edith could answer the door from the ante-room opened gently, but without the usual ceremony, and harold entered. his quick quiet eye embraced both forms, and curbed edith's young impulse, which made her start from her seat, and advance joyously towards him as a protector. "fair day to thee, my sister," said the earl, advancing; and pardon, if i break thus rudely on thy leisure; for few are the moments when beggar and benedictine leave thee free to receive thy brother." "dost thou reproach me, harold?" "no, heaven forfend!" replied the earl, cordially, and with a look at once of pity and admiration; "for thou art one of the few, in this court of simulators, sincere and true; and it pleases thee to serve the divine power in thy way, as it pleases me to serve him in mine." "thine, harold?" said the queen, shaking her head, but with a look of some human pride and fondness in her fair face. "mine; as i learned it from thee when i was thy pupil, edith; when to those studies in which thou didst precede me, thou first didst lure me from sport and pastime; and from thee i learned to glow over the deeds of greek and roman, and say, 'they lived and died as men; like them may i live and die!'" "oh, true--too true!" said the queen, with a sigh; "and i am to blame grievously that i did so pervert to earth a mind that might otherwise have learned holier examples;--nay, smile not with that haughty lip, my brother; for believe me--yea, believe me--there is more true valour in the life of one patient martyr than in the victories of caesar, or even the defeat of brutus." "it may be so," replied the earl, "but out of the same oak we carve the spear and the cross; and those not worthy to hold the one, may yet not guiltily wield the other. each to his path of life--and mine is chosen." then, changing his voice, with some abruptness, he said, "but what hast thou been saying to thy fair godchild, that her cheek is pale, and her eyelids seem so heavy? edith, edith, my sister, beware how thou shapest the lot of the martyr without the peace of the saint. had algive the nun been wedded to sweyn our brother, sweyn were not wending, barefooted and forlorn, to lay the wrecks of desolated life at the holy tomb." "harold, harold!" faltered the queen, much struck with his words. "but," the earl continued--and something of the pathos which belongs to deep emotion vibrated in the eloquent voice, accustomed to command and persuade--"we strip not the green leaves for our yulehearths--we gather them up when dry and sere. leave youth on the bough--let the bird sing to it--let it play free in the airs of heaven. smoke comes from the branch which, cut in the sap, is cast upon the fire, and regret from the heart which is severed from the world while the world is in its may." the queen paced slowly, but in evident agitation, to and fro the room, and her hands clasped convulsively the rosary round her neck; then, after a pause of thought, she motioned to edith and, pointing to the oratory, said with forced composure, "enter there, and there kneel; commune with thyself, and be still. ask for a sign from above--pray for the grace within. go; i would speak alone with harold." edith crossed her arms on her bosom meekly, and passed into the oratory. the queen watched her for a few moments tenderly, as the slight, child-like form bent before the sacred symbol. then she closed the door gently, and coming with a quick step to harold, said, in a low but clear voice, "dost thou love the maiden?" "sister," answered the earl sadly, "i love her as a man should love woman--more than my life, but less than the ends life lives for." "oh, world, world, world!" cried the queen, passionately, "not even to thine own objects art thou true. o world! o world! thou desirest happiness below, and at every turn, with every vanity, thou tramplest happiness under foot! yes, yes; they said to me, 'for the sake of our greatness, thou shalt wed king edward.' and i live in the eyes that loathe me--and--and----" the queen, as if conscience-stricken, paused aghast, kissed devoutly the relic suspended to her rosary, and continued, with such calmness that it seemed as if two women were blent in one, so startling was the contrast. "and i have had my reward, but not from the world! even so, harold the earl, and earl's son, thou lovest yon fair child, and she thee; and ye might be happy, if happiness were earth's end; but, though high-born, and of fair temporal possessions, she brings thee not lands broad enough for her dowry, nor troops of kindred to swell thy lithsmen, and she is not a markstone in thy march to ambition; and so thou lovest her as man loves woman--'less than the ends life lives for!'" "sister," said harold, "thou speakest as i love to hear thee speak--as my bright-eyed, rose-lipped sister spoke in the days of old; thou speakest as a woman with warm heart, and not as the mummy in the stiff cerements of priestly form; and if thou art with me, and thou wilt give me countenance, i will marry thy godchild, and save her alike from the dire superstitions of hilda, and the grave of the abhorrent convent." "but my father--my father!" cried the queen, "who ever bended that soul of steel?" "it is not my father i fear; it is thee and thy monks. forgettest thou that edith and i are within the six banned degrees of the church?" "true, most true," said the queen, with a look of great terror; "i had forgotten. avaunt, the very thought! pray--fast--banish it--my poor, poor brother!" and she kissed his brow. "so, there fades the woman, and the mummy speaks again!" said harold, bitterly. "be it so: i bow to my doom. well, there may be a time when nature on the throne of england shall prevail over priestcraft; and, in guerdon for all my services, i will then ask a king who hath blood in his veins to win me the pope's pardon and benison. leave me that hope, my sister, and leave thy godchild on the shores of the living world." the queen made no answer, and harold, auguring ill from her silence, moved on and opened the door of the oratory. but the image that there met him, that figure still kneeling, those eyes, so earnest in the tears that streamed from them fast and unheeded, fixed on the holy rood--awed his step and checked his voice. nor till the girl had risen, did he break silence; then he said, gently, "my sister will press thee no more, edith----" "i say not that!" exclaimed the queen. "or if she doth, remember thy plighted promise under the wide cope of blue heaven, the old nor least holy temple of our common father." with these words he left the room. chapter vii. harold passed into the queen's ante-chamber. here the attendance was small and select compared with the crowds which we shall see presently in the ante-room to the king's closet; for here came chiefly the more learned ecclesiastics, attracted instinctively by the queen's own mental culture, and few indeed were they at that day (perhaps the most illiterate known in england since the death of alfred [ ]); and here came not the tribe of impostors, and the relic-venders, whom the infantine simplicity and lavish waste of the confessor attracted. some four or five priests and monks, some lonely widow, some orphan child, humble worth, or protected sorrow, made the noiseless levee of the sweet, sad queen. the groups turned, with patient eyes, towards the earl as he emerged from that chamber, which it was rare indeed to quit unconsoled, and marvelled at the flush in his cheek; and the disquiet on his brow; but harold was dear to the clients of his sister; for, despite his supposed indifference to the mere priestly virtues (if virtues we call them) of the decrepit time, his intellect was respected by yon learned ecclesiastics; and his character, as the foe of all injustice, and the fosterer of all that were desolate, was known to yon pale-eyed widow and yon trembling orphan. in the atmosphere of that quiet assembly, the earl seemed to recover his kindly temperament, and he paused to address a friendly or a soothing word to each; so that when he vanished, the hearts there felt more light; and the silence hushed before his entrance, was broken by many whispers in praise of the good earl. descending a staircase without the walls--as even in royal halls the principal staircases were then--harold gained a wide court, in which loitered several house-carles [ ] and attendants, whether of the king or the visitors; and, reaching the entrance of the palace, took his way towards the king's rooms, which lay near, and round, what is now called "the painted chamber," then used as a bedroom by edward on state occasions. and now he entered the ante-chamber of his royal brother-in-law. crowded it was, but rather seemed it the hall of a convent than the ante-room of a king. monks, pilgrims, priests, met his eye in every nook; and not there did the earl pause to practise the arts of popular favour. passing erect through the midst, he beckoned forth the officer, in attendance at the extreme end, who, after an interchange of whispers, ushered him into the royal presence. the monks and the priests, gazing towards the door which had closed on his stately form, said to each other: "the king's norman favourites at least honoured the church." "that is true," said an abbot; "and an it were not for two things, i should love the norman better than the saxon." "what are they, my father?" asked an aspiring young monk. "inprinis," quoth the abbot, proud of the one latin word he thought he knew, but, that, as we see, was an error; "they cannot speak so as to be understood, and i fear me much they incline to mere carnal learning." here there was a sanctified groan: "count william himself spoke to me in latin!" continued the abbot, raising his eyebrows. "did he?--wonderful!" exclaimed several voices. "and what did you answer, holy father?" "marry," said the abbot solemnly, "i replied, inprinis." "good!" said the young monk, with a look of profound admiration. "whereat the good count looked puzzled--as i meant him to be:--a heinous fault, and one intolerant to the clergy, that love of profane tongues! and the next thing against your norman is (added the abbot, with a sly wink), that he is a close man, who loves not his stoup; now, i say, that a priest never has more hold over a sinner than when he makes the sinner open his heart to him." "that's clear!" said a fat priest, with a lubricate and shining nose. "and how," pursued the abbot triumphantly, "can a sinner open his heavy heart until you have given him something to lighten it? oh, many and many a wretched man have i comforted spiritually over a flagon of stout ale; and many a good legacy to the church hath come out of a friendly wassail between watchful shepherd and strayed sheep! but what hast thou there?" resumed the abbot, turning to a man, clad in the lay garb of a burgess of london, who had just entered the room, followed by a youth, bearing what seemed a coffer, covered with a fine linen cloth. "holy father!" said the burgess, wiping his forehead, "it is a treasure so great, that i trow hugoline, the king's treasurer, will scowl at me for a year to come, for he likes to keep his own grip on the king's gold." at this indiscreet observation, the abbot, the monks, and all the priestly bystanders looked grim and gloomy, for each had his own special design upon the peace of poor hugoline, the treasurer, and liked not to see him the prey of a layman. "inprinis!" quoth the abbot, puffing out the word with great scorn; "thinkest thou, son of mammon, that our good king sets his pious heart on gew-gaw, and gems, and such vanities? thou shouldst take the goods to count baldwin of flanders; or tostig, the proud earl's proud son." "marry!" said the cheapman, with a smile; "my treasure will find small price with baldwin the scoffer, and tostig the vain! nor need ye look at me so sternly, my fathers; but rather vie with each other who shall win this wonder of wonders for his own convent; know, in a word, that it is the right thumb of st. jude, which a worthy man bought at rome for me, for lb. weight of silver; and i ask but lb. over the purchase for my pains and my fee." [ ] "humph!" said the abbot. "humph!" said the aspiring young monk; the rest gathered wistfully round the linen cloth. a fiery exclamation of wrath and disdain was here heard; and all turning, saw a tall, fierce-looking thegn, who had found his way into that group, like a hawk in a rookery. "dost thou tell me, knave," quoth the thegn, in a dialect that bespoke him a dane by origin, with the broad burr still retained in the north; "dost thou tell me that the king will waste his gold on such fooleries, while the fort built by canute at the flood of the humber is all fallen into ruin, without a man in steel jacket to keep watch on the war fleets of swede and norwegian?" "worshipful minister," replied the cheapman, with some slight irony in his tone, "these reverend fathers will tell thee that the thumb of st. jude is far better aid against swede and norwegian than forts of stone and jackets of steel; nathless, if thou wantest jackets of steel, i have some to sell at a fair price, of the last fashion, and helms with long nose-pieces, as are worn by the normans." "the thumb of a withered old saint," cried the dane, not heeding the last words, "more defence at the mouth of the humber than crenellated castles and mailed men!" "surely, naught son," said the abbot, looking shocked, and taking part with the cheapman. "dost thou not remember that, in the pious and famous council of , it was decreed to put aside all weapons of flesh against thy heathen countrymen, and depend alone on st. michael to fight for us? thinkest thou that the saint would ever suffer his holy thumb to fall into the hands of the gentiles?--never! go to, thou art not fit to have conduct of the king's wars. go to, and repent, my son, or the king shall hear of it." "ah, wolf in sheep's clothing!" muttered the dane, turning on his heel; "if thy monastery were but built on the other side the humber!" the cheapman heard him, and smiled. while such the scene in the ante- room, we follow harold into the king's presence. on entering, he found there a man in the prime of life, and though richly clad in embroidered gonna, and with gilt ateghar at his side, still with the loose robe, the long moustache, and the skin of the throat and right hand punctured with characters and devices, which proved his adherence to the fashions of the saxon [ ]. and harold's eye sparkled, for in this guest he recognized the father of aldyth, earl algar, son of leofric. the two nobles exchanged grave salutations, and each eyed the other wistfully. the contrast between the two was striking. the danish race were men generally of larger frame and grander mould than the saxon [ ]; and though in all else, as to exterior, harold was eminently saxon, yet, in common with his brothers, he took from the mother's side the lofty air and iron frame of the old kings of the sea. but algar, below the middle height, though well set, was slight in comparison with harold. his strength was that which men often take rather from the nerve than the muscle; a strength that belongs to quick tempers and restless energies. his light blue eye, singularly vivid and glittering; his quivering lip, the veins swelling at each emotion on the fair white temples; the long yellow hair, bright as gold, and resisting, in its easy curls, all attempts to curb it into the smooth flow most in fashion; the nervous movements of the gesture; the somewhat sharp and hasty tones of the voice; all opposed, as much as if the two men were of different races, the steady, deep eye of harold, his composed mien, sweet and majestic, his decorous locks parted on the king-like front, with their large single curl where they touched the shoulder. intelligence and will were apparent in both the men; but the intelligence of one was acute and rapid, that of the other profound and steadfast; the will of one broke in flashes of lightning, that of the other was calm as the summer sun at noon. "thou art welcome, harold," said the king, with less than his usual listlessness, and with a look of relief as the earl approached him. "our good algar comes to us with a suit well worthy consideration, though pressed somewhat hotly, and evincing too great a desire for goods worldly; contrasting in this his most laudable father our well- beloved leofric, who spends his substance in endowing monasteries and dispensing alms; wherefore he shall receive a hundred-fold in the treasure-house above." "a good interest, doubtless, my lord the king," said algar; quickly, "but one that is not paid to his heirs; and the more need, if my father (whom i blame not for doing as he lists with his own) gives all he hath to the monks--the more need, i say, to take care that his son shall be enabled to follow his example. as it is, most noble king, i fear me that algar, son of leofric, will have nothing to give. in brief, earl harold," continued algar, turning to his fellow-thegn--"in brief, thus stands the matter. when our lord the king was first graciously pleased to consent to rule in england, the two chiefs who most assured his throne were thy father and mine: often foes, they laid aside feud and jealousy for the sake of the saxon line. now, since then, thy father hath strung earldom to earldom, like links in a coat-mail. and, save northumbria and mercia; well-nigh all england falls to him and his sons: whereas my father remains what he was, and my father's son stands landless and penceless. in thine absence the king was graciously pleased to bestow on me thy father's earldom; men say that i ruled it well. thy father returns, and though" (here algar's eyes shot fire, and his hand involuntarily rested on his ateghar) "i could have held it, methinks, by the strong hand, i gave it up at my father's prayer and the king's hest, with a free heart. now, therefore, i come to my lord, and i ask, 'what lands and what lordships canst thou spare in broad england to algar, once earl of wessex, and son to the leofric whose hand smoothed the way to thy throne?' my lord the king is pleased to preach to me contempt of the world; thou dost not despise the world, earl of the east angles,--what sayest thou to the heir of leofric?" "that thy suit is just," answered harold, calmly, "but urged with small reverence." earl algar bounded like a stag that the arrow hath startled. "it becomes thee, who hast backed thy suits with warships and mail, to talk of reverence, and rebuke one whose fathers reigned over earldoms [ ], when thine were, no doubt, ceorls at the plough. but for edric streone, the traitor and low-born, what had been wolnoth, thy grandsire?" so rude and home an assault in the presence of the king, who, though personally he loved harold in his lukewarm way, yet, like all weak men, was not displeased to see the strong split their strength against each other, brought the blood into harold's cheek; but he answered calmly: "we live in a land, son of leofric, in which birth, though not disesteemed, gives of itself no power in council or camp. we belong to a land where men are valued for what they are, not for what their dead ancestors might have been. so has it been for ages in saxon england, where my fathers, through godwin, as thou sayest, might have been ceorls; and so, i have heard, it is in the land of the martial danes, where my fathers, through githa, reigned on the thrones of the north." "thou dost well," said algar, gnawing his lip, "to shelter thyself on the spindle side, but we saxons of pure descent think little of your kings of the north, pirates and idolaters, and eaters of horseflesh; but enjoy what thou hast, and let algar have his clue." "it is for the king, not his servant, to answer the prayer of algar," said harold, withdrawing to the farther end of the room. algar's eye followed him, and observing that the king was fast sinking into one of the fits of religious reverie in which he sought to be inspired with a decision, whenever his mind was perplexed, he moved with a light step to harold, put his band on his shoulder, and whispered: "we do ill to quarrel with each other--i repent me of hot words-- enough. thy father is a wise man, and sees far--thy father would have us friends. be it so. hearken my daughter aldyth is esteemed not the least fair of the maidens in england; i will give her to thee as thy wife, and as thy morgen gift, thou shalt will for me from the king the earldom forfeited by thy brother sweyn, now parcelled out amongst sub- earls and thegns--easy enow to control. by the shrine of st. alban, dost thou hesitate, man?" "no, not an instant," said harold, stung to the quick. "not, couldst thou offer me all mercia as her dower, would i wed the daughter of algar; and bend my knee, as a son to a wife's father, to the man who despises my lineage, while he truckles to my power." algar's face grew convulsed with rage; but without saying a word to the earl he strode back to edward, who now with vacant eyes looked up from the rosary over which he had been bending, and said abruptly: "my lord the king, i have spoken as i think it becomes a man who knows his own claims, and believes in the gratitude of princes. three days will i tarry in london for your gracious answer; on the fourth i depart. may the saints guard your throne, and bring around it its best defence, the thegn-born satraps whose fathers fought with alfred and athelstan. all went well with merrie england till the hoof of the dane king broke the soil, and mushrooms sprung up where the oak-trees fell." when the son of leofric had left the chamber, the king rose wearily and said in norman french, to which language he always yearningly returned when with those who could speak it: "beau frere and bien aime, in what trifles must a king pass his life! and, all this while, matters grave and urgent demand me. know that eadmer, the cheapman, waits without, and hath brought me, dear and good man, the thumb of st. jude! what thought of delight! and this unmannerly son of strife, with his jay's voice and wolf's eyes, screaming at me for earldoms!--oh the folly of man! naught, naught, very naught!" "sir and king," said harold; "it ill becomes me to arraign your pious desires, but these relics are of vast cost; our coasts are ill defended, and the dane yet lays claim to your kingdom. three thousand pounds of silver and more does it need to repair even the old wall of london and southweorc." "three thousand pounds!" cried the king; "thou art mad, harold! i have scarce twice that sum in the treasury; and besides the thumb of st. jude, i daily expect the tooth of st. remigius--the tooth of st. remigius!" harold sighed. "vex not yourself, my lord, i will see to the defences of london. for, thanks to your grace, my revenues are large, while my wants are simple. i seek you now to pray your leave to visit my earldom. my lithsmen murmur at my absence, and grievances, many and sore, have arisen in my exile." the king stared in terror; and his look was that of a child when about to be left in the dark. "nay, nay; i cannot spare thee, beau frere. thou curbest all these stiff thegns--thou leavest me time for the devout; moreover, thy father, thy father, i will not be left to thy father! i love him not!" "my father," said harold, mournfully, "returns to his own earldom; and of all our house you will have but the mild face of your queen by your side!" the king's lip writhed at that hinted rebuke, or implied consolation. "edith the queen," he said, after a slight pause, "is pious and good; and she hath never gainsaid my will, and she hath set before her as a model the chaste susannah, as i, unworthy man, from youth upward, have walked in the pure steps of joseph [ ]. but," added the king, with a touch of human feeling in his voice, "canst thou not conceive, harold, thou who art a warrior, what it would be to see ever before thee the face of thy deadliest foe--the one against whom all thy struggles of life and death had turned into memories of hyssop and gall?" "my sister!" exclaimed harold, in indignant amaze, "my sister thy deadliest foe! she who never once murmured at neglect, disgrace--she whose youth hath been consumed in prayers for thee and thy realm--my sister! o king, i dream?" "thou dreamest not, carnal man," said the king, peevishly. "dreams are the gifts of the saints, and are not granted to such as thou! dost thou think that, in the prune of my manhood, i could have youth and beauty forced on my sight, and hear man's law and man's voice say, 'they are thine, and thine only,' and not feel that war was brought to my hearth, and a snare set on my bed, and that the fiend had set watch on my soul? verily, i tell thee, man of battle, that thou hast known no strife as awful as mine, and achieved no victory as hard and as holy. and now, when my beard is silver, and the adam of old is expelled at the precincts of death; now, thinkest thou, that i can be reminded of the strife and temptation of yore, without bitterness and shame; when days were spent in fasting, and nights in fierce prayer; and in the face of woman i saw the devices of satan?" edward coloured as he spoke, and his voice trembled with the accents of what seemed hate. harold gazed on him mutely, and felt that at last he had won the secret that had ever perplexed him, and that in seeking to be above the humanity of love, the would-be saint had indeed turned love into the hues of hate--a thought of anguish, and a memory of pain. the king recovered himself in a few moments, and said, with some dignity, "but god and his saints alone should know the secrets of the household. what i have said was wrung from me. bury it in thy heart. leave me, then, harold, sith so it must be. put thine earldom in order, attend to the monasteries and the poor, and return soon. as for algar, what sayest thou?" "i fear me," answered the large-souled harold, with a victorious effort of justice over resentment, "that if you reject his suit you will drive him into some perilous extremes. despite his rash and proud spirit, he is brave against foes, and beloved by the ceorls, who oft like best the frank and hasty spirit. wherefore some power and lordship it were wise to give, without dispossessing others, and not more wise than due, for his father served you well." "and hath endowed more houses of god than any earl in the kingdom. but algar is no leofric. we will consider your words and heed them. bless you, beau frere! and send in the cheapman. the thumb of st. jude! what a gift to my new church of st. peter! the thumb of st. jude! non nobis gloria! sancta maria! the thumb of st. jude!" transcriber's note: in germanic languages [=a] signifies "a macron"; [o,] "o with ogonek"; and so forth. [gh] represents yogh. [illustration: drida (thryth) reproached for her evil deeds _from ms cotton nero d. i, fol. b_ "that is no way for a lady to behave." (ne bið swylc cw[=e]nl[=i]c þ[=e]aw | idese t[=o] efnanne: _beowulf_, ll - .) ] beowulf an introduction to the study of the poem with a discussion of the stories of offa and finn by r. w. chambers dey mout er bin two deloojes: en den agin dey moutent. uncle remus, _the story of the deluge_. cambridge at the university press * * * * * to prof. william witherle lawrence dear prof. lawrence, when, more than four years ago, i asked you to allow me to dedicate this volume to you, it was as a purely personal token of gratitude for the help i had received from what you have printed, and from what you have written to me privately. since then much has happened: the debt is greater, and no longer purely personal. we in this country can never forget what we owe to your people. and the self-denial which led them voluntarily to stint themselves of food, that we in europe might be fed, is one of many things about which it is not easy to speak. our heart must indeed have been hardened if we had not considered the miracle of those loaves. but i fear that to refer to that great debt in the dedication to this little book may draw on me the ridicule incurred by the poor man who dedicated his book to the universe. nevertheless, as a fellow of that college which has just received from an american donor the greatest benefaction for medical research which has ever been made in this country of ours, i may rejoice that the co-operation between our nations is being continued in that warfare against ignorance and disease which some day will become the only warfare waged among men. sceal hring-naca ofer heafu bringan l[=a]c ond luf-t[=a]cen. ic þ[=a] l[=e]ode w[=a]t ge wið f[=e]ond ge wið fr[=e]ond fæste geworhte, [=æ]ghwæs unt[=æ]le ealde w[=i]san. r. w. c. * * * * * {vii} preface i have to thank various colleagues who have read proofs of this book, in whole or in part: first and foremost my old teacher, w. p. ker; also robert priebsch, j. h. g. grattan, ernest classen and two old students, miss e. v. hitchcock and mrs blackman. i have also to thank prof. w. w. lawrence of columbia; and though there are details where we do not agree, i think there is no difference upon any important issues. if in these details i am in the right, this is largely due to the helpful criticism of prof. lawrence, which has often led me to reconsider my conclusions, and to re-state them more cautiously, and, i hope, more correctly. if, on the other hand, i am in the wrong, then it is thanks to prof. lawrence that i am not still more in the wrong. from axel olrik, though my debt to him is heavy, i find myself differing on several questions. i had hoped that what i had to urge on some of these might have convinced him, or, better still, might have drawn from him a reply which would have convinced me. but the death of that great scholar has put an end to many hopes, and deprived many of us of a warm personal friend. it would be impossible to modify now these passages expressing dissent, for the early pages of this book were printed off some years ago. i can only repeat that it is just because of my intense respect for the work of dr olrik that, where i cannot agree with his conclusions, i feel bound to go into the matter at length. names like those of olrik, bradley, chadwick and sievers carry rightly such authority as to make it the duty of those who differ, if only on minor details, to justify that difference if they can. from dr bradley especially i have had help in discussing various of these problems: also from mr wharton of the british museum, prof. collin of christiania, mr ritchie girvan of glasgow, and mr teddy. to prof. brøgger, the norwegian state-antiquary, i am indebted for permission to reproduce photographs of the {viii} viking ships: to prof. finnur jónsson for permission to quote from his most useful edition of the _hrólfs saga_ and the _bjarka rímur_, and, above all, to mr sigfús blöndal, of the royal library of copenhagen, for his labour in collating with the manuscript the passages quoted from the _grettis saga_. finally, i have to thank the syndics of the university press for undertaking the publication of the book, and the staff for the efficient way in which they have carried out the work, in spite of the long interruption caused by the war. r. w. c. _april , ._ * * * * * {ix} contents page genealogical tables xii part i chapter i. the historical elements section i. the problem section ii. the geatas--their kings and their wars section iii. heorot and the danish kings section iv. leire and heorot section v. the heathobeardan section vi. hrothulf section vii. king offa chapter ii. the non-historical elements section i. the grendel fight section ii. the scandinavian parallels--grettir and orm section iii. bothvar bjarki section iv. parallels from folklore section v. scef and scyld section vi. beow section vii. the house of scyld and danish parallels--heremod-lotherus and beowulf-frotho chapter iii. theories as to the origin, date and structure of the poem section i. is _beowulf_ translated from a scandinavian original? section ii. the dialect, syntax and metre of _beowulf_ as evidence of its literary history section iii. theories as to the structure of _beowulf_ section iv. are the christian elements incompatible with the rest of the poem? {x} part ii documents illustrating the stories in _beowulf_, and the _offa_-saga a. the early kings of the danes, according to saxo grammaticus: dan, humblus, lotherus and scioldus; frotho's dragon fight; haldanus, roe and helgo; roluo (rolf kraki) and biarco (bjarki); the death of rolf b. extract from _hrólfs saga kraka_, with translation (cap. ) c. extracts from _grettis saga_, with translation: (_a_) glam episode (caps. - ); (_b_) sandhaugar episode (caps. - ) d. extracts from _bjarka rímur_, with translation e. extract from _Þáttr orms stórólfssonar_, with translation f. a danish dragon-slaying of the beowulf-type, with translation g. the old english genealogies. i. the mercian genealogy. ii. the stages above woden: woden to geat and woden to sceaf h. extract from the chronicle roll i. extract from the little chronicle of the kings of leire k. the story of offa in saxo grammaticus l. from skiold to offa in sweyn aageson m. note on the danish chronicles n. the _life of offa i_, with extracts from the _life of offa ii_. edited from two mss in the cottonian collection o. extract from _widsith_, ii. , - part iii the fight at finnsburg section i. the _finnsburg fragment_ section ii. the episode in _beowulf_ section iii. möller's theory section iv. bugge's theory section v. some difficulties in bugge's theory section vi. recent elucidations. prof. ayres' comments section vii. problems still outstanding section viii. the weight of proof: the eotens section ix. ethics of the blood feud {xi} section x. an attempt at reconstruction section xi. gefwulf, prince of the jutes section xii. conclusion _note_. frisia in the heroic age part iv appendix a. a postscript on mythology in _beowulf_. ( ) beowulf the scylding and beowulf son of ecgtheow. ( ) beow b. grendel c. the stages above woden in the west-saxon genealogy d. grammatical and literary evidence for the date of _beowulf_. the relation of _beowulf_ to the classical epic e. the "jute-question" reopened f. _beowulf_ and the archaeologists g. leire before rolf kraki h. bee-wolf and bear's son i. the date of the death of hygelac bibliography of _beowulf_ and _finnsburg_ index plates plate i. drida (thryth) reproached for her evil deeds frontispiece ii. leire in the seventeenth century to face iii. offa, miraculously restored, vindicates his right. at the side, offa is represented in prayer " " iv. drida (thryth) arrives in the land of king offa, "in nauicula armamentis carente" " " v. riganus (or aliel) comes before king warmundus to claim that he should be made king in place of the incompetent offa " " vi. drida (thryth) entraps albertus (Æthelberht) of east anglia, and causes him to be slain " " vii. the gokstad ship. the oseberg ship " " viii. southern scandinavia in the sixth century. english boar-helmet and ring-swords _at end_ * * * * * {xii} genealogical tables the names of the corresponding characters in scandinavian legend are added in italics; first the icelandic forms, then the latinized names as recorded by saxo grammaticus. ( ) the danish royal family scyld sc[=e]fing [_skj[o,]ldr_, _skyoldus_] | b[=e]owulf [not the hero of the poem] | healfdene [_halfdan_, _haldanus_] | .-----------------------------------------------------------. | | | | heorog[=a]r hr[=o]ðg[=a]r [_hróarr_[ ], h[=a]lga a daughter [_no _roe_], _mar._ wealhþ[=e]ow [_helgi_, [_signy_] scandinavian_ | _helgo_] _parallel_] .----------------------. | | | | | | | | hr[=o]ðmund | | heoroweard hr[=e]ðr[=i]c hr[=o]ðulf | [_hj[o,]rvarðr,_ [_hrærekr,_ _mar._ [_hrólfr_ _hiarwarus:_ _røricus:_ ingeld _kraki,_ _but not_ _not_ _roluo_] _recognized as_ _recognized_ _belonging_ _as a son of_ _to this family_] _hroarr_] ( ) the geat royal family hr[=e]ðel w[=æ]gmund | | .----------------------------. .-------------. | | | | | | herebeald hæðcyn | a daughter, _mar._ ecgþ[=e]ow w[=e]ohst[=a]n | | | hygel[=a]c, _mar._ hygd | | | | | .-----------------. b[=e]owulf w[=i]gl[=a]f | | a daughter, heardr[=e]d _mar._ eofor ( ) the swedish royal family ongenþ[=e]ow | .-------------------------------------. | | onela [=o]hthere [_Óttarr_] [_Áli, not recognized_ | _as belonging to this_ .---------------. _family_] | | eanmund [=e]adgils [_aðils_[ ], _athislus_] * * * * * { } part i chapter i the historical elements section i. the problem. the unique ms of _beowulf_ may be, and if possible should be, seen by the student in the british museum. it is a good specimen of the elegant script of anglo-saxon times: "a book got up with some care," as if intended for the library of a nobleman or of a monastery. yet this ms is removed from the date when the poem was composed and from the events which it narrates (so far as these events are historic at all) by periods of time approximately equal to those which separate us from the time when shakespeare's _henry v_ was written, and when the battle of agincourt was fought. to try to penetrate the darkness of the five centuries which lie behind the extant ms by fitting together such fragments of illustrative information as can be obtained, and by using the imagination to bridge the gaps, has been the business of three generations of scholars distributed among the ten nations of germanic speech. a whole library has been written around our poem, and the result is that this book cannot be as simple as either writer or reader might have wished. the story which the ms tells us may be summarized thus: beowulf, a prince of the geatas, voyages to heorot, the hall of hrothgar, king of the danes; there he destroys a monster grendel, who for twelve years has haunted the hall by night and slain all he found therein. when grendel's mother in revenge makes an attack on the hall, beowulf seeks her out and kills her also in her home beneath the waters. he then { } returns to his land with honour and is rewarded by his king hygelac. ultimately he himself becomes king of the geatas, and fifty years later slays a dragon and is slain by it. the poem closes with an account of the funeral rites. fantastic as these stories are, they are depicted against a background of what appears to be fact. incidentally, and in a number of digressions, we receive much information about the geatas, swedes and danes: all which information has an appearance of historic accuracy, and in some cases can be proved, from external evidence, to be historically accurate. * * * * * section ii. the geatas--their kings and their wars. beowulf's people have been identified with many tribes: but there is strong evidence that the geatas are the götar (o.n. _gautar_), the inhabitants of what is now a portion of southern sweden, immediately to the south of the great lakes wener and wetter. the names _geatas_ and _gautar_ correspond exactly[ ], according to the rules of o.e. and o.n. phonetic development, and all we can ascertain of the geatas and of the gautar harmonizes well with the identification[ ]. we know of one occasion only when the geatas came into violent contact with the world outside scandinavia. putting together the accounts which we receive from gregory of tours and from two other (anonymous) writers, we learn that a piratical raid was made upon the country of the atuarii (the o.e. _hetware_) who dwelt between the lower rhine and what is now the zuyder zee, by a king whose name is spelt in a variety of ways, all of which readily admit of identification with that of the hygelac of our poem[ ]. from the land of the atuarii this king carried much spoil to his ships; but, remaining on shore, he was overwhelmed and slain by the army which the { } frankish king theodoric had sent under his son to the rescue of these outlying provinces; the plunderers' fleet was routed and the booty restored to the country. the bones of this gigantic king of the "getae" [presumably = geatas] were long preserved, it was said, on an island near the mouth of the rhine. such is the story of the raid, so far as we can reconstruct it from monkish latin sources. the precise date is not given, but it must have been between a.d. and . now this disastrous raid of hygelac is referred to constantly in _beowulf_: and the mention there of hetware, franks and the merovingian king as the foes confirms an identification which would be satisfactory even without these additional data[ ]. our authorities are: ( ) gregory of tours (d. ): _his ita gestis, dani cum rege suo nomine chlochilaico evectu navale per mare gallias appetunt. egressique ad terras, pagum unum de regno theudorici devastant atque captivant, oneratisque navibus tam de captivis quam de reliquis spoliis, reverti ad patriam cupiunt; sed rex eorum in litus resedebat donec naves alto mare conpraehenderent, ipse deinceps secuturus. quod cum theudorico nuntiatum fuisset, quod scilicet regio ejus fuerit ab extraneis devastata, theudobertum, filium suum, in illis partibus cum valido exercitu et magno armorum apparatu direxit. qui, interfecto rege, hostibus navali proelio superatis opprimit, omnemque rapinam terrae restituit._ the name of the vanquished king is spelt in a variety of ways: _chlochilaichum_, _chrochilaicho_, _chlodilaichum_, _hrodolaicum_. see _gregorii episcopi turonensis historia francorum_, p. , in _monumenta germaniae historica (scriptores rerum merovingicarum, i)_. ( ) the _liber historiae francorum_ (commonly called the _gesta francorum_): _in illo tempore dani cum rege suo nomine chochilaico cum navale hoste per alto mare gallias appetent, theuderico paygo [i.e. pagum] attoarios vel alios devastantes atque captivantes plenas naves de captivis alto mare intrantes rex eorum ad litus maris resedens. quod cum theuderico nuntiatum fuisset, theudobertum filium suum cum magno exercitu in illis partibus dirigens. qui consequens eos, pugnavit cum eis caede magna atque prostravit, regem eorum interficit, preda tullit, et in terra sua restituit._ the _liber historiae francorum_ was written in , but although so much later than gregory, it preserves features which are wanting in the earlier historian, such as the mention of the hetware (_attoarii_). note too that the name of the invading king is given in a form which { } approximates more closely to _hygelac_ than that of any of the mss of gregory: variants are _chrochilaico_, _chohilaico_, _chochilago_, etc. see _monumenta germaniae historica_ (_scriptores rerum merovingicarum, ii_, ). ( ) an anonymous work _on monsters and strange beasts_, appended to two mss of phaedrus. _et sunt [monstra] mirae magnitudinis: ut rex huiglaucus qui imperavit getis et a francis occisus est. quem equus a duodecimo anno portare non potuit. cujus ossa in reni fluminis insula, ubi in oceanum prorumpit, reservata sunt et de longinquo venientibus pro miraculo ostenduntur._ this treatise was first printed (from a ms of the tenth century, in private possession) by j. berger de xivrey (_traditions tératologiques_, paris, , p. ). it was again published from a second ms at wolfenbüttel by haupt (see his _opuscula_ ii, , ). this ms is in some respects less accurate, reading _huncglacus_ for _huiglaucus_, and _gentes_ for _getis_. the treatise is assigned by berger de xivrey to the sixth century, on grounds which are hardly conclusive (p. xxxiv). haupt would date it not later than the eighth century (ii, ). the importance of this reference lies in its describing hygelac as king of the getae, and in its fixing the spot where his bones were preserved as near the mouth of the rhine[ ]. but if _beowulf_ is supported in this matter by what is almost contemporary evidence (for gregory of tours was born only some twenty years after the raid he narrates) we shall probably be right in arguing that the other stories from the history of the geatas, their danish friends, and their swedish foes, told with what seems to be such historic sincerity in the different digressions of our poem, are equally based on fact. true, we have no evidence outside _beowulf_ for hygelac's father, king hrethel, nor for hygelac's elder brothers, herebeald and hæthcyn; and very little for hæthcyn's deadly foe, the swedish king ongentheow[ ]. and in the last case, at any rate, such evidence might { } fairly have been expected. for there are extant a very early norse poem, the _ynglinga tal_, and a much later prose account, the _ynglinga saga_, enumerating the kings of sweden. the _ynglinga tal_ traces back these kings of sweden for some thirty reigns. therefore, though it was not composed till some four centuries after the date to which we must assign ongentheow, it should deal with events even earlier than the reign of that king: for, unless the rate of mortality among early swedish kings was abnormally high, thirty reigns should occupy a period of more than years. nothing is, however, told us in the _ynglinga tal_ concerning the deeds of any king angantyr--which is the name we might expect to correspond to ongentheow[ ]. but on the other hand, the son and grandson of ongentheow, as recorded in _beowulf_, _do_ meet us both in the _ynglinga tal_ and in the _ynglinga saga_. according to _beowulf_, ongentheow had two sons, onela and ohthere: onela became king of sweden and is spoken of in terms of highest praise[ ]. yet to judge from the account given in _beowulf_, the geatas had little reason to love him. he had followed up the defeat of hygelac by dealing their nation a second deadly blow. for onela's nephews, eadgils and eanmund (the sons of ohthere), had rebelled against him, and had taken refuge at the court of the geatas, where heardred, son of hygelac, was now reigning, supported by beowulf. thither onela pursued them, and slew the young king heardred. eanmund also was slain[ ], then or later, but eadgils escaped. it is not clear from the poem what part beowulf is supposed to have taken in this struggle, or why he failed to ward off disaster from his lord and his country. it is not even made clear whether or no he had to make formal submission to the hated swede: but we are told that when onela withdrew he succeeded to the vacant throne. in later days he took his revenge upon onela. "he became a friend to eadgils in his distress; he supported the son of ohthere across the broad water with men, with warriors and arms: he wreaked his { } vengeance in a chill journey fraught with woe: he deprived the king [onela] of his life." this story bears in its general outline every impression of true history: the struggle for the throne between the nephew and the uncle, the support given to the unsuccessful candidate by a rival state, these are events which recur frequently in the wild history of the germanic tribes during the dark ages, following inevitably from the looseness of the law of succession to the throne. now the _ynglinga tal_ contains allusions to these events, and the _ynglinga saga_ a brief account of them, though dim and distorted[ ]. we are told how athils (=eadgils) king of sweden, son of ottar (=ohthere), made war upon ali (=onela). by the time the _ynglinga tal_ was written it had been forgotten that ali was athils' uncle, and that the war was a civil war. but the issue, as reported in the _ynglinga tal_ and _ynglinga saga_, is the same as in _beowulf_: "king athils had great quarrels with the king called ali of uppland; he was from norway. they had a battle on the ice of lake wener; there king ali fell, and athils had the victory. concerning this battle there is much said in the _skjoldunga saga_." from the _ynglinga saga_ we learn more concerning king athils: not always to his credit. he was, as the swedes had been from of old, a great horse-breeder. authorities differed as to whether horses or drink were the death of him[ ]. according to one account he brought on his end by celebrating, with immoderate drinking, the death of his enemy rolf (the _hrothulf_ of _beowulf_). according to another: "king athils was at a sacrifice of the goddesses, and rode his horse through the hall of the goddesses: the horse tripped under him and fell and threw the king; and his head smote a stone so that the skull broke and the brains lay on the stones, and that was his death. he died at uppsala, and there was laid in mound, and the swedes called him a mighty king." { } there can, then, hardly be a doubt that there actually was such a king as eadgils: and some of the charred bones which still lie within the gigantic "king's mounds" at old uppsala may well be his[ ]. and, though they are not quite so well authenticated, there can also be little doubt as to the historic existence of onela, ohthere, and even of ongentheow. _the swedish kings._ the account in the _ynglinga saga_ of the fight between onela and eadgils is as follows: _aðils konungr átti deilur miklar við konung þann, er Áli hét inn upplenzki: hann var ór nóregi. Þeir áttu orrostu á vænis ísi; þar fell Áli konungr en aðils hafði sigr; frá þessarri orrostu er langt sagt í skj[o,]ldunga s[o,]gu._ (_ynglinga saga_ in _heimskringla_, ed. jónsson, kjøbenhavn, , i, .) the _skjoldunga saga_ here mentioned is an account of the kings of denmark. it is preserved only in a latin abstract. _post haec ortis inter adilsum illum sveciae regem et alonem opplandorum regem in norvegia, inimicitiis, praelium utrinque indicitur: loco pugnae statuto in stagno waener, glacie jam obducto. ad illud igitur se viribus inferiorem agnoscens rolphonis privigni sui opem implorat, hoc proposito praemio, ut ipse rolpho tres praeciosissimas res quascunque optaret ex universo regno sveciae praemii loco auferret: duodecim autem pugilum ipsius quilibet libras auri puri, quilibet reliquorum bellatorum tres marcas argenti defecati. rolpho domi ipse reses pugilos suos duodecim adilso in subsidium mittit, quorum etiam opera is alioqui vincendus, victoriam obtinuit. illi sibi et regi propositum praemium exposcunt, negat adilsus, rolphoni absenti ullum deberi praemium, quare et dani pugiles sibi oblatum respuebant, cum regem suum eo frustrari intelligerent, reversique rem, ut gesta est, exponunt._ (see _skjoldungasaga i arngrim jonssons udtog, udgiven af axel olrik_, kjøbenhavn, , p. [ ].) there is also a reference to this battle on the ice in the _kálfsvísa_, a mnemonic list of famous heroes and their horses. it is noteworthy that in this list mention is made of vestein, who is perhaps the wihstan of our poem, and of biar, who has been thought (very doubtfully) to correspond to the o.e. beaw. _dagr reiþ dr[o,]sle en dvalenn móþne..._ _Ále hrafne es til íss riþo,_ _enn annarr austr und aþilse_ _grár hvarfaþe geire undaþr._ _bj[o,]rn reiþ blakke en biarr kerte,_ _atle glaume en aþils slungne..._ _lieder der edda_, ed. symons and gering, i, - . "ale was on hrafn when they rode to the ice: but another horse, a grey one, with athils on his back, fell eastward, wounded by the spear." this, as olrik points out, appears to refer to a version of the story in which athils had his fall from his horse, not at a ceremony at uppsala, but after the battle with ali. (_heltedigtning_, i, - .) { } for various theories as to the early history of the swedish royal house, as recorded in _beowulf_, see weyhe, _könig ongentheows fall_, in _engl. stud._, xxxix, - ; schück, _studier i ynglingatal_ ( - ); stjerna, _vendel och vendelkråka_, in _a.f.n.f._ xxi, , _etc._ _the geatas._ the identification of geatas and götar has been accepted by the great majority of scholars, although kemble wished to locate the geatas in schleswig, grundtvig in gotland, and haigh in england. leo was the first to suggest the jutes: but the "jute-hypothesis" owes its currency to the arguments of fahlbeck (_beovulfsqvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria_ in the _antiqvarisk tidskrift för sverige_, viii, , ). fahlbeck's very inconclusive reasons were contested at the time by sarrazin ( _etc._) and ten brink ( _etc._) and the arguments against them have lately been marshalled by h. schück (_folknamnet geatas i den fornengelska dikten beowulf_, upsala, ). it is indeed difficult to understand how fahlbeck's theory came to receive the support it has had from several scholars (e.g. bugge, _p.b.b._ xii, _etc._; weyhe, _engl. stud._, xxxix, _etc._; gering). for his conclusions do not arise naturally from the o.e. data: his whole argument is a piece of learned pleading, undertaken to support his rather revolutionary speculations as to early swedish history. these speculations would have been rendered less probable had the natural interpretation of geatas as götar been accepted. the jute-hypothesis has recently been revived, with the greatest skill and learning, by gudmund schütte (_journal of english and germanic philology_, xi, _etc._). but here again i cannot help suspecting that the wish is father to the thought, and that the fact that that eminent scholar is a dane living in jutland, has something to do with his attempt to locate the geatas there. no amount of learning will eradicate patriotism. the following considerations need to be weighed: ( ) _geatas_ etymologically corresponds exactly with o.n. _gautar_, the modern götar. the o.e. word corresponding to jutes (the iutae of bede) should be, not _geatas_, but in the anglian dialect _eote_, _iote_, in the west saxon _iete_, _yte_. now it is true that in one passage in the o.e. translation of bede (i, ) the word "iutarum" _is_ rendered _geata_: but in the other (iv, ) "iutorum" is rendered _eota_, _ytena_. and this latter rendering is supported (_a_) by the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ (_iotum_, _iutna_) and (_b_) by the fact that the current o.e. word for jutes was _yte_, _ytan_, which survived till after the norman conquest. for the name _ytena land_ was used for that portion of hampshire which had been settled by the jutes: william rufus was slain, according to florence of worcester, in _ytene_ (which florence explains as _prouincia jutarum_). from the purely etymological point of view the götar-hypothesis, then, is unimpeachable: but the jute-hypothesis is unsatisfactory, since it is based upon one passage in the o.e. bede, where _jutarum_ is incorrectly rendered _geata_, whilst it is invalidated by the other passage in the o.e. bede, by the _chronicle_ and by florence of worcester, where _jutorum_ is correctly translated by _ytena_, or its anglian or kentish equivalent _eota_, _iotna_. ( ) it is obvious that the geatas of _beowulf_ were a strong and independent power--a match for the swedes. now we learn from procopius that in the sixth century the götar were an independent { } and numerous nation. but we have no equal evidence for any similar preponderant jutish power in the sixth century. the _iutae_ are indeed a rather puzzling tribe, and scholars have not even been able to agree where they dwelt. the götar on the other hand are located among the great nations of scandinavia both by ptolemy (_geog._ ii, , ) in the second century and by procopius (_bell. gott._ ii, ) in the sixth. when we next get clear information (through the christian missionaries) both götar and swedes have been united under one king. but the götar retained their separate laws, traditions, and voice in the selection of the king, and they were constantly asserting themselves during the middle ages. the title of the king of sweden, _rex sveorum gothorumque_, commemorates the old distinction. from the historical point of view, then, the götar comply with what we are told in _beowulf_ of the power of the geatas much better than do the jutes. ( ) advocates of the jute-hypothesis have claimed much support from the geographical argument that the swedes and geatas fight _ofer s[=æ]_ (e.g. when beowulf and eadgils attack onela, ). but the term _s[=æ]_ is just as appropriate to the great lakes wener and wetter, which separated the swedes from the götar, as it is to the cattegatt. and we have the evidence of scandinavian sources that the battle between eadgils and onela actually _did_ take place on the ice of lake wener (see above, p. ). moreover the absence of any mention of ships in the fighting narrated in ll. - would be remarkable if the contending nations were jutes and swedes, but suits götar and swedes admirably: since they could attack each other by land as well as by water. ( ) there is reason to think that the old land of the götar included a great deal of what is now the south-west coast of sweden[ ]. hygelac's capital was probably not far from the modern göteborg. the descriptions in _beowulf_ would suit the cliffs of southern sweden well, but they are quite inapplicable to the sandy dunes of jutland. little weight can, however, be attached to this last argument, as the cliffs of the land of the geatas are in any case probably drawn from the poet's imagination. ( ) if we accept the identification beowulf = bjarki (see below, pp. - ) a further argument for the equation of geatas and götar will be found in the fact that bjarki travels to denmark from gautland just as beowulf from the land of the geatas; bjarki is the brother of the king of the gautar, beowulf the nephew of the king of the geatas. ( ) no argument as to the meaning of _geatas_ can be drawn from the fact that gregory calls chlochilaicus (hygelac) a dane. for it is clear from _beowulf_ that, whatever else they may have been, the geatas were not danes. either, then, gregory must be misinformed, or he must be using the word _dane_ vaguely, to cover any kind of scandinavian pirate. ( ) probably what has weighed most heavily (often perhaps not consciously) in gaining converts to the "jute-hypothesis" has been the conviction that "in ancient times each nation celebrated in song its own heroes alone." hence one set of scholars, accepting the identification of the geatas with the scandinavian götar, have argued that _beowulf_ is therefore simply a translation from a scandinavian götish original. others, accepting _beowulf_ as an english poem, have { } argued that the geatas who are celebrated in it must therefore be one of the tribes that settled in england, and have therefore favoured the "jute theory." but the _a priori_ assumption that each germanic tribe celebrated in song its own national heroes only is demonstrably incorrect[ ]. but in none of the accounts of the warfare of these scandinavian kings, whether written in norse or monkish latin, is there mention of any name corresponding to that of beowulf, as king of the geatas. whether he is as historic as the other kings with whom in our poem he is brought into contact, we cannot say. it has been generally held that the beowulf of our poem is compounded out of two elements: that an historic beowulf, king of the geatas, has been combined with a mythological figure beowa[ ], a god of the ancient angles: that the historical achievements against frisians and swedes belong to the king, the mythological adventures with giants and dragons to the god. but there is no conclusive evidence for either of these presumed component parts of our hero. to the god beowa we shall have to return later: here it is enough to note that the current assumption that there _was_ a king beowulf of the geatas lacks confirmation from scandinavian sources. and one piece of evidence there is, which tends to show that beowulf is not an historic king at all, but that his adventures have been violently inserted amid the historic names of the kings of the geatas. members of the families in _beowulf_ which we have reason to think historic bear names which alliterate the one with the other. the inference seems to be that it was customary, when a scandinavian prince was named in the sixth century, to give him a name which had an initial letter similar to that of his father: care was thus taken that metrical difficulties should not prevent the names of father and son being linked together in song[ ]. in the case of beowulf himself, however, this rule breaks down. beowulf seems an intruder { } into the house of hrethel. it may be answered that since he was only the offspring of a daughter of that house, and since that daughter had three brothers, there would have been no prospect of his becoming king, when he was named. but neither does his name fit in with that of the other great house with which he is supposed to be connected. wiglaf, son of wihstan of the wægmundingas, was named according to the familiar rules: but beowulf, son of ecgtheow, seems an intruder in that family as well. this failure to fall in with the alliterative scheme, and the absence of confirmation from external evidence, are, of course, not in themselves enough to prove that the reign of beowulf over the geatas is a poetic figment. and indeed our poem _may_ quite possibly be true to historic fact in representing him as the last of the great kings of the geatas; after whose death his people have nothing but national disaster to expect[ ]. it would be strange that this last and most mighty and magnanimous of the kings of the geatas should have been forgotten in scandinavian lands: that outside _beowulf_ nothing should be known of his reign. but when we consider how little, outside _beowulf_, we know of the geatic kingdom at all, we cannot pronounce such oblivion impossible. what tells much more against beowulf as a historic geatic king is that there is always apt to be something extravagant and unreal about what the poem tells us of his deeds, contrasting with the sober and historic way in which other kings, like hrothgar or hygelac or eadgils, are referred to. true, we must not disqualify beowulf forthwith because he slew a dragon[ ]. several unimpeachably historical persons have done this: so sober an authority as the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ assures us that fiery dragons were flying in northumbria as late as a.d. [ ]. { } but (and this is the serious difficulty) even when beowulf is depicted in quite historic circumstances, there is still something unsubstantial about his actions. when, in the midst of the strictly historical account of hygelac's overthrow, we are told that beowulf swam home bearing thirty suits of armour, this is as fantastic as the account of his swimming home from grendel's lair with grendel's head and the magic swordhilt. we may well doubt whether there is any more kernel of historic fact in the one feat than in the other[ ]. again, we are told how beowulf defended the young prince heardred, hygelac's son. where was he, then, when heardred was defeated and slain? to protect and if necessary avenge his lord upon the battlefield was the essential duty of the germanic retainer. yet beowulf has no part to play in the episode of the death of heardred. he is simply ignored till it is over. true, we are told that in later days he _did_ take vengeance, by supporting the claims of eadgils, the pretender, against onela, the slayer of heardred. but here again difficulties meet us: for the scandinavian authorities, whilst they agree that eadgils overthrew onela by the use of foreign auxiliaries, represent these auxiliaries as danish retainers, dispatched by the danish king hrothulf. the chief of these danish retainers is bothvar bjarki, who, as we shall see later, has been thought to stand in some relation to beowulf. but bothvar is never regarded as king of the geatas: and the fact remains that _beowulf_ is at variance with our other authorities in representing eadgils as having been placed on the throne by a geatic rather than by a danish force. yet this geatic expedition against onela is, with the exception of the dragon episode, the only event which our poem has to narrate concerning beowulf's long reign of fifty years. and in other respects the reign is shadowy. beowulf, we are told, came to the throne at a time of utter national distress; he had a long and prosperous reign, and became so powerful that he was able to dethrone the mighty[ ] swedish king onela, and place in his stead the miserable fugitive[ ] eadgils. yet, after this half century of success, the { } kingdom is depicted upon beowulf's death as being in the same tottering condition in which it stood at the time when he is represented as having come to the throne, after the fall of heardred. the destruction one after the other of the descendants of hrethel sounds historic: at any rate it possesses verisimilitude. but the picture of the childless beowulf, dying, after a glorious reign, in extreme old age, having apparently made no previous arrangements for the succession, so that wiglaf, a youth hitherto quite untried in war, steps at once into the place of command on account of his valour in slaying the dragon--this is a picture which lacks all historic probability. i cannot avoid a suspicion that the fifty years' reign of beowulf over the geatas may quite conceivably be a poetic fiction[ ]; that the downfall of the geatic kingdom and its absorption in sweden were very possibly brought about by the destruction of hygelac and all his warriors at the mouth of the rhine. such an event would have given the swedes their opportunity for vengeance: they may have swooped down, destroyed heardred, and utterly crushed the independent kingdom of the geatas before the younger generation had time to grow up into fighting men. to the fabulous achievements of beowulf, his fight with grendel, grendel's dam, and the dragon, it will be necessary to return later. as to his other feats, all we can say is that the common assumption that they rest upon an historic foundation does not seem to be capable of proof. but that they have an historic background is indisputable. * * * * * section iii. heorot and the danish kings. of the danish kings mentioned in _beowulf_, we have first scyld scefing, the foundling, an ancient and probably a mythical figure, then beowulf, son of scyld, who seems an intruder among the danish kings, since the danish records know nothing { } of him, and since his name does not alliterate with those of either his reputed father or his reputed son. then comes the "high" healfdene, to whom four children were born: heorogar, hrothgar, halga "the good," and a daughter who was wedded to the swedish king. since hrothgar is represented as an elder contemporary of hygelac, we must date[ ] healfdene and his sons, should they be historic characters, between a.d. and . now it is noteworthy that just after a.d. the danes first become widely known, and the name "danes" first meets us in latin and greek authors. and this cannot be explained on the ground that the north has become more familiar to dwellers in the classical lands: on the contrary far less is known concerning the geography of the north sea and the baltic than had been the case four or five centuries before. tacitus and ptolemy knew of many tribes inhabiting what is now denmark, but not of the danes: the writers in ravenna and constantinople in the sixth century, though much less well informed on the geography of the north, know of the danes as amongst the most powerful nations there. _beowulf_ is, then, supported by the latin and greek records when it depicts these rulers of denmark as a house of mighty kings, the fame of whose realm spread far and wide. we cannot tell to what extent this realm was made by the driving forth of alien nations from denmark, to what extent by the coming together (under the common name of danes) of many tribes which had hitherto been known by other distinct names. the pedigree of the house of healfdene can be constructed from the references in _beowulf_. healfdene's three sons, heorogar, hrothgar, halga, are presumably enumerated in order of age, since hrothgar mentions heorogar, but not halga, as his senior[ ]. heorogar left a son heoroweard[ ], but it is in accordance with teutonic custom that hrothgar should have succeeded to the throne if, as we may well suppose, heoroweard was too young to be trusted with the kingship. { } the younger brother halga is never mentioned during beowulf's visit to heorot, and the presumption is that he is already dead. the hrothulf who, both in _beowulf_ and _widsith_, is linked with king hrothgar, almost as his equal, is clearly the son of halga: for he is hrothgar's nephew[ ], and yet he is not the son of heorogar[ ]. the mention of how hrothgar shielded this hrothulf when he was a child confirms us in the belief that his father halga had died early. yet, though he thus belongs to the youngest branch of the family, hrothulf is clearly older than hrethric and hrothmund, the two sons of hrothgar, whose youth, in spite of the age of their father, is striking. the seat of honour occupied by hrothulf[ ] is contrasted with the undistinguished place of his two young cousins, sitting among the _giogoth_[ ]. nevertheless hrothgar and his wife expect their son, not their nephew, to succeed to the throne[ ]. very small acquaintance with the history of royal houses in these lawless teutonic times is enough to show us that trouble is likely to be in store. so much can be made out from the english sources, _beowulf_ and _widsith_. turning now to the scandinavian records, we find much confusion as to details, and as to the characters of the heroes: but the relationships are the same as in the old english poem. heorogar is, it is true, forgotten; and though a name hiarwarus is found in saxo corresponding to that of heoroweard, the son of heorogar, in _beowulf_, this hiarwarus is cut off from the family, now that his father is no longer remembered. accordingly the halfdan of danish tradition (haldanus in saxo's latin: = o.e. healfdene) has only two sons, hroar { } (saxo's roe, corresponding to o.e. hrothgar) and helgi (saxo's helgo: = o.e. halga). helgi is the father of rolf kraki (saxo's roluo: = o.e. hrothulf), the type of the noble king, the arthur of denmark. and, just as arthur holds court at camelot, or charlemagne is at home _ad ais, à sa capele_, so the scandinavian traditions represent rolf kraki as keeping house at leire (_lethra_, _hleiðar garðr_). accounts of all these kings, and above all of rolf kraki, meet us in a number of scandinavian documents, of which three are particularly important: ( ) saxo grammaticus (the lettered), the earlier books of whose _historia danica_ are a storehouse of scandinavian tradition and poetry, clothed in a difficult and bombastic, but always amusing, latin. how much later than the english these scandinavian sources are, we can realize by remembering that when saxo was putting the finishing touches to his history, king john was ruling in england. there are also a number of other danish-latin histories and genealogies. ( ) the icelandic _saga of rolf kraki_, a late document belonging to the end of the middle ages, but nevertheless containing valuable matter. ( ) the icelandic _skjoldunga saga_, extant only in a latin summary of the end of the sixteenth century. * * * * * section iv. leire and heorot. the village of leire remains to the present day. it stands near the north coast of the island of seeland, some five miles from roskilde and three miles from the sea, in a gentle valley, through the midst of which flows a small stream. the village itself consists of a tiny cluster of cottages: the outstanding feature of the place is formed by the huge grave mounds scattered around in all directions. the tourist, walking amid these cottages and mounds, may feel fairly confident that he is standing on the site of heorot. there are two distinct stages in this identification: it must be proved (_a_) that the modern leire occupies the site of the leire (_lethra_) where rolf kraki ruled, and (_b_) that the leire of rolf kraki was built on the site of heorot. [illustration: leire in the seventeenth century from saxo grammaticus, ed. stephanius, .] { } (_a_) that the modern leire occupies the site of the ancient leire has indeed been disputed[ ], but seems hardly open to doubt, in view of the express words of the danish chroniclers[ ]. it is true that the mounds, which these early chroniclers probably imagined as covering the ashes of 'haldanus' or 'roe,' and which later antiquaries dubbed with the names of other kings, are now thought to belong, not to the time of hrothgar, but to the stone or bronze ages. but this evidence that leire was a place of importance thousands of years before hrothgar or hrothulf were born, in no wise invalidates the overwhelming evidence that it was their residence also. the equation of the modern leire with the leire of rolf kraki we may then accept. we cannot be quite so sure of our thesis (_b_): that the ancient leire was identical with the site where hrothgar built heorot. but it is highly probable: for although leire is more particularly connected with the memory of rolf kraki himself, we are assured, in one of the mediæval danish chronicles, that leire was the royal seat of rolf's predecessors as well: of ro (hrothgar) and of ro's father: and that ro "enriched it with great magnificence[ ]." ro also, according to this chronicler, heaped a mound at leire over the grave of his father, and was himself buried at leire under another mound. now since the danish tradition represents hrothgar as enriching his royal town of leire, whilst english tradition commemorates him as a builder king, constructing a royal hall "greater than the sons of men had ever heard speak of"--it becomes very probable that the two traditions are reflections of the same fact, and that the site of that hall was leire. that heorot, the picturesque name of the hall itself, should, in english tradition, have been remembered, whilst that of the town where it was built had been forgotten, is natural[ ]. for { } though the names of heroes survived in such numbers, after the settlement of the angles in england, it was very rarely indeed, so far as we can judge, that the angles and saxons continued to have any clear idea concerning the _places_ which had been familiar to their forefathers, but which they themselves had never seen. further, the names of both hrothgar and hrothulf are linked with heorot in english tradition in the same way as those of roe and rolf are with leire in danish chronicles. yet there is some little doubt, though not such as need seriously trouble us, as to this identification of the site of heorot with leire. two causes especially have led students to doubt the connection of roe (hrothgar) with leire, and to place elsewhere the great hall heorot which he built. in the first place, rolf kraki came to be so intimately associated with leire that his connection overshadowed that of roe, and saxo even goes so far in one place as to represent leire as having been _founded_ by rolf[ ]. in that case leire clearly could not be the place where rolf's predecessor built his royal hall. but that saxo is in error here seems clear, for elsewhere he himself speaks of leire as being a danish stronghold when rolf was a child[ ]. in the second place, roe is credited with having founded the neighbouring town of roskilde (roe's spring)[ ] so that some have wished to locate heorot there, rather than at leire, five miles to the west. but against this identification of heorot with roskilde it must be noted that roe is said to have built roskilde, not as a capital for himself, but as a market-place for the merchants: there is no suggestion that it was his royal town, though in time it became the capital, and its cathedral is still the westminster abbey of denmark. what at first sight looks so much in favour of our equating { } roskilde with heorot--the presence in its name of the element _ro_ (hrothgar)--is in reality the most suspicious thing about the identification. there are other names in denmark with the element _ro_, in places where it is quite impossible to suppose that the king's name is commemorated. some other explanation of the name has therefore to be sought, and it is very probable that roskilde meant originally not "hrothgar's spring," but "the horses' spring," and that the connection with king ro is simply one of those inevitable pieces of popular etymology which take place so soon as the true origin of a name is forgotten[ ]. leire has, then, a much better claim than roskilde to being the site of heorot: and geographical considerations confirm this. for heorot is clearly imagined by the poet of _beowulf_ as being some distance inland; and this, whilst it suits admirably the position of leire, is quite inapplicable to roskilde, which is situated on the sea at the head of the roskilde fjord[ ]. of course we must not expect to find the poet of _beowulf_, or indeed any epic poet, minutely exact in his geography. at the same time it is clear that at the time _beowulf_ was written there were traditions extant, dealing with the attack made upon heorot by the ancestral foes of the danes, a tribe called the heathobeardan. these accounts of the fighting around heorot must have preserved the general impression of its situation, precisely as from the _iliad_ we know that troy is neither on the sea nor yet very remote from it. a poet would draw on his imagination for details, but would hardly alter a feature like this. in these matters absolute certainty cannot be reached: but we may be fairly sure that the spot where hrothgar built his "hart-hall" and where hrothulf held that court to which the north ever after looked for its pattern of chivalry was { } leire, where the grave mounds rise out of the waving cornfields[ ]. * * * * * section v. the heathobeardan. now, as _beowulf_ is the one long old english poem which happens to have been preserved, we, drawing our ideas of old english story almost exclusively from it, naturally think of heorot as the scene of the fight with grendel. but in the short poem of _widsith_, almost certainly older than _beowulf_, we have a catalogue of the characters of the old english heroic poetry. this catalogue is dry in itself, but is of the greatest interest for the light it throws upon old germanic heroic legends and the history behind them. and from _widsith_ it is clear that the rule of hrothgar and hrothulf at heorot and the attack of the heathobeardan upon them, rather than any story of monster-quelling, was what the old poets more particularly associated with the name of heorot. the passage in _widsith_ runs: "for a very long time did hrothgar and hrothwulf, uncle and nephew, hold the peace together, after they had driven away the race of the vikings and humbled the array of ingeld, had hewed down at heorot the host of the heathobeardan." the details of this war can be reconstructed, partly from the allusions in _beowulf_, partly from the scandinavian accounts. the scandinavian versions are less primitive and historic. they have forgotten all about the heathobeardan as an independent tribe, and, whilst remembering the names of the leading chieftains on both sides, they see in them members of two rival branches of the danish royal house. we gather from _beowulf_ that for generations a blood feud has raged between the danes and the heathobeardan. nothing is told us in _beowulf_ about the king healfdene, except that he { } was fierce in war and that he lived to be old. from the scandinavian stories it seems clear that he was concerned in the heathobard feud. according to some later scandinavian accounts he was slain by frothi (=froda, whom we know from _beowulf_ to have been king of the heathobeardan) and this may well have been the historic fact[ ]. how hroar and helgi (hrothgar and halga), the sons of halfdan (healfdene), evaded the pursuit of frothi, we learn from the scandinavian tales; whether the old english story knew anything of their hair-breadth escapes we cannot tell. ultimately, the saga tells us, hroar and helgi, in revenge for their father's death, burnt the hall over the head of his slayer, frothi[ ]. to judge from the hints in _beowulf_, it would rather seem that the old english tradition represented this vengeance upon froda as having been inflicted in a pitched battle. the eldest brother heorogar--known only to the english story--perhaps took his share in this feat. but, after his brothers heorogar and halga were dead, hrothgar, left alone, and fearing vengeance in his turn, strove to compose the feud by wedding his daughter freawaru to ingeld, the son of froda. so much we learn from the report which beowulf gives, on his return home, to hygelac, as to the state of things at the danish court. beowulf is depicted as carrying a very sage head upon his young shoulders, and he gives evidence of his astuteness by predicting[ ] that the peace which hrothgar has purchased will not be lasting. some heathobard survivor of the fight in which froda fell, will, he thinks, see a young dane in the retinue of freawaru proudly pacing the hall, wearing the treasures which his father had won from the heathobeardan. then the old warrior will urge on his younger comrade "canst thou, my lord, tell the sword, the dear iron, which thy father carried to the fight when he bore helm for the last time, when the danes slew him and had the victory? and now the son { } of one of these slayers paces the hall, proud of his arms, boasts of the slaughter and wears the precious sword which thou by right shouldst wield[ ]." such a reminder as this no germanic warrior could long resist. so, beowulf thinks, the young dane will be slain; ingeld will cease to take joy in his bride; and the old feud will break out afresh. that it did so we know from _widsith_, and from the same source we know that this heathobard attack was repulsed by the combined strength of hrothgar and his nephew hrothulf. but the tragic figure of ingeld, hesitating between love for his father and love for his wife, between the duty of vengeance and his plighted word, was one which was sure to attract the interest of the old heroic poets more even than those of the victorious uncle and nephew. in the eighth century alcuin, the northumbrian, quotes ingeld as the typical hero of song. writing to a bishop of lindisfarne, he reproves the monks for their fondness for the old stories about heathen kings, who are now lamenting their sins in hell: "in the refectory," he says, "the bible should be read: the lector heard, not the harper: patristic sermons rather than pagan songs. for what has ingeld to do with christ[ ]?" this protest testifies eloquently to the popularity of the ingeld story, and further evidence is possibly afforded by the fact that few heroes of story seem to have had so many namesakes in eighth century england. what is emphasized in _beowulf_ is not so much the struggle in the mind of ingeld as the stern, unforgiving temper of the grim old warrior who will not let the feud die down; and this is the case also with the danish versions, preserved to us in the latin of saxo grammaticus. in two songs (translated by saxo into "delightful sapphics") the old warrior starcatherus stirs up ingellus to his revenge: "why, ingeld, buried in vice, dost thou delay to avenge thy father? wilt thou endure patiently the slaughter of thy righteous sire?... { } whilst thou takest pleasure in honouring thy bride, laden with gems, and bright with golden vestments, grief torments us, coupled with shame, as we bewail thine infamies. whilst headlong lust urges thee, our troubled mind recalls the fashion of an earlier day, and admonishes us to grieve over many things. for we reckon otherwise than thou the crime of the foes, whom now thou holdest in honour; wherefore the face of this age is a burden to me, who have known the old ways. by nought more would i desire to be blessed, if, froda, i might see those guilty of thy murder paying the due penalty of such a crime[ ]." starkath came to be one of the best-known figures in scandinavian legend, the type of the fierce, unrelenting warrior. even in death his severed head bit the earth: or according to another version "the trunk fought on when the head was gone[ ]." nor did the northern imagination leave him there. it loved to follow him below, and to indulge in conjectures as to his bearing in the pit of hell[ ]. who the heathobeardan were is uncertain. it is frequently argued that they are identical with the longobardi; that the words _heatho-bard_ and _long-bard_ correspond, just as we get sometimes _gar-dene_, sometimes _hring-dene_. (so heyne; bremer in _pauls grdr._ ( ) iii, _etc._) the evidence for this is however unsatisfactory (see chambers, _widsith_, ). since the year a.d. onwards the longobardi were dwelling far inland, and were certainly never in a position from which an attack upon the danes would have been practicable. if, therefore, we accept the identification of heatho-bard and long-bard, we must suppose the heathobeardan of _beowulf_ to have been not the longobardi of history, but a separate portion of the people, which had been left behind on the shores of the baltic, when the main body went south. but as we have no evidence for any such offshoot from the main tribe, it is misleading to speak of the heathobeardan as identical with the longobardi: and although the similarity of one element in the name suggests some primitive relationship, that relationship may well have been exceedingly remote[ ]. { } it has further been proposed to identify the heathobeardan with the heruli[ ]. the heruli came from the scandinavian district, overran europe, and became famous for their valour, savagery, and value as light-armed troops. if the heathobeardan are identical with the heruli, and if what we are told of the customs of the heruli is true, freawaru was certainly to be pitied. the heruli were accustomed to put to death their sick and aged: and to compel widows to commit suicide. the supposed identity of the heruli with the heathobeardan is however very doubtful. it rests solely upon the statement of jordanes that they had been driven from their homes by the danes (_dani ... herulos propriis sedibus expulerunt_). this is inconclusive, since the growth of the danish power is likely enough to have led to collisions with more than one tribe. in fact _beowulf_ tells us that scyld "tore away the mead benches from _many_ a people." on the other hand the dissimilarity of names is not conclusive evidence against the identification, for the word _heruli_ is pretty certainly the same as the old english _eorlas_, and is a complimentary nick-name applied by the tribe to themselves, rather than their original racial designation. nothing, then, is really known of the heathobeardan, except that evidence points to their having dwelt somewhere on the baltic[ ]. the scandinavian sources which have preserved the memory of this feud have transformed it in an extraordinary way. the heathobeardan came to be quite forgotten, although maybe some trace of their name remains in _hothbrodd_, who is represented as the foe of roe (hrothgar) and rolf (hrothulf). when the heathobeardan were forgotten, froda and ingeld were left without any subjects, and naturally came to be regarded, like healfdene and the other kings with whom they were associated in story, as danish kings. accordingly the tale developed in scandinavian lands in two ways. some documents, and especially the icelandic ones[ ], represent the struggle as a feud between two branches of the danish royal house. even here there is no agreement who is the usurper and who the victim, so that sometimes it is froda and sometimes healfdene who is represented as the traitor and murderer. but another version[ ]--the danish--whilst making froda and ingeld into danish kings, separates their story altogether from that of healfdene and his house: in this version the quarrel is still thought of as being between two nations, not as between the rightful heir to the throne and a treacherous and relentless usurper. accordingly the feud is such as may be, at any rate temporarily, laid aside: peace between the contending parties is not out of the question. this version therefore preserves much more of the original character of the story, for it remains the tale of a young prince who, willing to marry into the house of his ancestral foes and to forgive and forget the old feud, is stirred by his more unrelenting henchman into taking vengeance for his father. but, owing to the prince having come to be represented as a dane, patriotic reasons have suggested to the { } danish poets and historians a quite different conclusion to the story. instead of being routed, ingeld, in saxo, is successful in his revenge. see neckel, _studien über froði_ in _z.f.d.a._ xlviii, : heusler, _zur skiöldungendichtung_ in _z.f.d.a._ xlviii, : olrik, _skjoldungasaga_, , [ ]; olrik, _heltedigtning_, ii, _etc._: olrik, _sakses oldhistorie_, - : chambers, _widsith_, pp. - .] * * * * * section vi. hrothulf. yet, although the icelandic sources are wrong in representing froda and ingeld as danes, they are not altogether wrong in representing the danish royal house as divided against itself. only they fail to place the blame where it really lay. for none of the scandinavian sources attribute any act of injustice or usurpation to rolf kraki. he is the ideal king, and his title to the throne is not supposed to be doubtful. yet we saw that, in _beowulf_, the position of hrothulf is represented as an ambiguous one[ ], he is the king's too powerful nephew, whose claims may prejudice those of his less distinguished young cousins, the king's sons, and the speech of queen wealhtheow is heavy with foreboding. "i know," she says, "that my gracious hrothulf will support the young princes in honour, if thou, king of the scyldings, shouldst leave the world sooner than he. i ween that he will requite our children, if he remembers all which we two have done for his pleasure and honour, being yet a child[ ]." whilst hrethric and hrothmund, the sons of king hrothgar, have to sit with the juniors, the _giogoth_[ ], hrothulf is a man of tried valour, who sits side by side with the king: "where the two good ones sat, uncle and nephew: _as yet_ was there peace between them, and each was true to the other[ ]." again we have mention of "hrothgar and hrothulf. heorot was filled full of friends: _at that time_ the mighty scylding folk in no wise worked treachery[ ]." similarly in _widsith_ the mention of hrothgar and hrothulf together seems to stir the poet to dark sayings. "_for a very long time_ did hrothgar and hrothulf, uncle and nephew, hold the peace together[ ]." { } the statement that "as yet" or "for a very long time" or "at that time" there was peace within the family, necessarily implies that, at last, the peace _was_ broken, that hrothulf quarrelled with hrothgar, or strove to set aside his sons[ ]. further evidence is hardly needed; yet further evidence we have: by rather complicated, but quite unforced, fitting together of various scandinavian authorities, we find that hrothulf deposed and slew his cousin hrethric. saxo grammaticus tells us how roluo (rolf = o.n. hrolfr, o.e. hrothulf) slew a certain røricus (or hrærek = o.e. hrethric) and gave to his own followers all the plunder which he found in the city of røricus. saxo is here translating an older authority, the _bjarkamál_ (now lost), and he did not know who røricus was: he certainly did not regard him as a son or successor of roe (hrothgar) or as a cousin of roluo (hrothulf). "roluo, who laid low røricus _the son of the covetous bøkus_" is saxo's phrase (_qui natum bøki røricum stravit avari_). this would be a translation of some such phrase in the _bjarkamál_ as _hræreks bani hnøggvanbauga_, "the slayer of hrærek hnoggvanbaugi[ ]." but, when we turn to the genealogy of the danish kings[ ], we actually find a _hrærekr hnauggvanbaugi_ given as a king of denmark about the time of roluo. this _røricus_ or _hrærekr_ who was slain by roluo was then, himself, a king of the danes, and must, therefore, have preceded roluo on the throne. but in that case røricus _must_ be son of roe, and identical with his namesake hrethric, the son of hrothgar, in _beowulf_. for no one but a son of king roe could have had such a claim to the throne as to rule between that king and his all powerful nephew roluo[ ]. it is difficult, perhaps, to state this argument in a way which will be convincing to those who are not acquainted with saxo's method of working. to those who realize how he treats { } his sources, it will be clear that røricus is the son of roe, and is slain by roluo. translating the words into their old english equivalents, hrethric, son of hrothgar, is slain by hrothulf. the forebodings of wealhtheow were justified. hrethric is then almost certainly an actual historic prince who was thrust from the throne by hrothulf. of hrothmund[ ], his brother, scandinavian authorities seem to know nothing. he is very likely a poetical fiction, a duplicate of hrethric. for it is very natural that in story the princes whose lives are threatened by powerful usurpers should go in pairs. hrethric and hrothmund go together like malcolm and donalbain. their helplessness is thus emphasized over against the one mighty figure, rolf or macbeth, threatening them[ ]. yet this does not prove hrothmund unhistoric. on the contrary it may well happen that the facts of history will coincide with the demands of well-ordered narrative, as was the case when richard of gloucester murdered _two_ young princes in the tower. two other characters, who meet us in _beowulf_, seem to have some part to play in this tragedy. it was a maxim of the old teutonic poetry, as it is of the british constitution, that the king could do no wrong: the real fault lay with the adviser. if ermanaric the goth slew his wife and his son, or if irminfrid the thuringian unwisely challenged theodoric the frank to battle, this was never supposed to be due solely to the recklessness of the monarch himself--it was the work of an evil counsellor--a bikki or an iring. now we have seen that there is mischief brewing in heorot--and we are introduced to a counsellor unferth, the _thyle_ or official spokesman and adviser of king hrothgar. and unferth is evil. his jealous temper is shown by the hostile and inhospitable reception which he gives to beowulf. and beowulf's reply gives us a hint of some darker stain: "though { } thou hast been the slayer of thine own brethren--thy flesh and blood: for that thou shalt suffer damnation in hell, good though thy wit may be[ ]." one might perhaps think that beowulf in these words was only giving the "countercheck quarrelsome," and indulging in mere reckless abuse, just as sinfjotli (the fitela of _beowulf_) in the _first helgi lay_ hurls at his foes all kinds of outrageous charges assuredly not meant to be taken literally. but, as we learn from the _helgi lay_ itself, the uttering of such unfounded taunts was not considered good form; whilst it seems pretty clear that the speech of beowulf to unferth is intended as an example of justifiable and spirited self-defence, not, like the speech of sinfjotli, as a storehouse of things which a well-mannered warrior should _not_ say. besides, the taunt of beowulf is confirmed, although but darkly, by the poet himself, in the same passage in which he has recorded the fears of wealhtheow lest perhaps hrothulf should not be loyal to hrothgar and his issue: "likewise there unferth the counsellor sat at the foot of the lord of the scyldingas: each of them [i.e. both hrothgar and hrothulf] trusted to his spirit: that his courage was great, _though he had not done his duty by his kinsmen at the sword-play_[ ]." but, granting that unferth has really been the cause of the death of his kinsmen, some scholars have doubted whether we are to suppose that he literally slew them himself. for, had that been the case, they urge, he could not be occupying a place of trust with the almost ideal king hrothgar. but the record of the historians makes it quite clear that murder of kin did happen, and that constantly[ ]. amid the tragic complexities of heroic life it often could not be avoided. the _comitatus_-system, by which a man was expected to give unflinching support to any chief whose service he had entered, must often have resulted in slaughter between men united by very close bonds of kin or friendship. turning from history to saga, we find some of the greatest heroes not free from the stain. sigmund, { } gunnar, hogni, atli, hrothulf, heoroweard, hnæf, eadgils, hæthcyn, ermanaric and hildebrand were all marred with this taint, and indeed were, in many cases, rather to be pitied than blamed. i doubt, therefore, whether we need try and save unferth's character by suggesting that the stern words of the poet mean only that he had indirectly caused the death of his brethren by failing them, in battle, at some critical moment[ ]. i suspect that this, involving cowardice or incompetence, would have been held the more unpardonable offence, and _would_ have resulted in unferth's disgrace. but a man might well have slain his kin under circumstances which, while leaving a blot on his record, did not necessitate his banishment from good society. all the same, the poet evidently thinks it a weakness on the part of hrothgar and hrothulf that, after what has happened, they still put their trust in unferth. here then is the situation. the king has a counsellor: that counsellor is evil. both the king and his nephew trust the evil counsellor. a bitter feud springs up between the king and his nephew. that the feud was due to the machinations of the evil adviser can hardly be doubted by those who have studied the ways of the old germanic heroic story. but it is only an inference: positive proof we have none. lastly, there is heoroweard. of him we are told in _beowulf_ very little. he is son of heorogar (or heregar), hrothgar's elder brother, who was apparently king before him, but died young[ ]. it is quite natural, as we have seen, that, if heoroweard was too young for the responsibility when his father died, he should not have succeeded to the throne. what is not so natural is that he does not inherit his father's arms, which one might reasonably have supposed hrothgar would have preserved, to give to him when he came of age. instead, hrothgar gives them to beowulf[ ]. does hrothgar deliberately avoid doing honour to heoroweard, because he fears that any distinction conferred upon him would strengthen a rival { } whose claims to the throne might endanger those of his own sons? however this may be, in any future struggle for the throne heoroweard may reasonably be expected to play some part. turning now to saxo, and to the _saga of rolf kraki_, we find that rolf owed his death to the treachery of one whose name corresponds exactly to that of heoroweard--hiarwarus (saxo), hj[o,]rvarthr (_saga_). neither saxo nor the _saga_ thinks of hiarwarus as the cousin of rolf kraki: they do not make it really clear _what_ the cause of his enmity was. but they tell us that, after a banquet, he and his men treacherously rose upon rolf and his warriors. the defence which rolf and his men put up in their burning hall: the loyalty and defiance of rolf's champions, invincible in death--these were amongst the most famous things of the north; they were told in the _bjarkamál_, now unfortunately extant in saxo's paraphrase only. but the triumph of hiarwarus was brief. rolf's men all fell around him, save the young wiggo, who had previously, in the confidence of youth, boasted that, should rolf fall, he would avenge him. astonished at the loyalty of rolf's champions, hiarwarus expressed regret that none had taken quarter, declaring that he would gladly accept the service of such men. whereupon wiggo came from the hiding-place where he had taken refuge, and offered to do homage to hiarwarus, by placing his hand on the hilt of his new lord's sword: but in doing so he drove the point through hiarwarus, and rejoiced as he received his death from the attendants of the foe he had slain. it shows how entirely the duty of vengeance was felt to outweigh all other considerations, that this treacherous act of wiggo is always spoken of with the highest praise. for the story of the fall of rolf and his men see saxo, book ii (ed. holder, pp. - ): _saga of rolf kraki_, caps. - : _skjoldunga saga_ (ed. olrik, , - [ - ]). how the feud between the different members of the danish family forms the background to _beowulf_ was first explained in full detail by ludvig schrøder (_om bjovulfs-drapen. efter en række foredrag på folke-höjskolen i askov_, kjøbenhavn, ). schrøder showed how the bad character of unferth has its part to play: "it is a _weakness_ in hrothgar that he entrusts important office to such a man--a { } weakness which will carry its punishment." independently the domestic feud was demonstrated again by sarrazin (_rolf krake und sein vetter im beowulfliede_: _engl. stud._ xxiv, - ). the story has been fully worked out by olrik (_heltedigtning_, , i, - _etc._). these views have been disputed by miss clarke (_sidelights_, ), who seems to regard as "hypotheses" of olrik data which have been ascertained facts for more than a generation. miss clarke's contentions, however, appear to me to be based upon a misunderstanding of olrik. * * * * * section vii. king offa. the poem, then, is mainly concerned with the deeds of geatic and danish kings: only once is reference made to a king of anglian stock--offa. the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ tells us of several kings named offa, but two only concern us here. still remembered is the historic tyrant-king who reigned over mercia during the latter half of the eighth century, and who was celebrated through the middle ages chiefly as the founder of the great abbey of st albans. this offa is sometimes referred to as offa _the second_, because he had a remote ancestor, offa i, who, if the mercian pedigree can be trusted, lived twelve generations earlier, and therefore presumably in the latter half of the fourth century. offa i, then, must have ruled over the angles whilst they were still dwelling in angel, their continental home, in or near the modern schleswig. now the offa mentioned in _beowulf_ is spoken of as related to garmund and eomer (ms _geomor_). this, apart from the abundant further evidence, is sufficient to identify him with offa i, who was, according to the pedigree, the son of wærmund and the grandfather of eomer. this offa i, king of angel, is referred to in _widsith_. _widsith_ is a composite poem: the passage concerning offa, though not the most obviously primitive portion of it, is, nevertheless, early: it may well be earlier than _beowulf_. after a list of famous chieftains we are told: offa ruled angel, alewih the danes; he was the boldest of all these men, yet did he not in his deeds of valour surpass offa. but offa gained, first of men, by arms the greatest of kingdoms whilst yet a boy; no one of equal age ever did greater deeds of valour in battle with his single sword: he drew the boundary against the myrgingas at fifeldor. the boundaries were held afterwards by the angles and the swæfe as offa struck it out. { } much is obscure here: more particularly our ignorance as to the myrgingas is to be regretted: but there is reason for thinking that they were a people dwelling to the south of the old continental home of the angles. after the lapse of some five centuries, we get abundant further information concerning offa. the legends about him, though carried to england by the anglian conquerors, must also have survived in the neighbourhood of his old kingdom of angel: for as angel was incorporated into the danish kingdom, so these stories became part of the stock of danish national legend. offa came to be regarded as a danish king, and his story is told at length by the two earliest historians of denmark, sweyn aageson and saxo grammaticus. in saxo the story runs thus: wermund, king of denmark, had a son uffo [offa], tall beyond the measure of his age, but dull and speechless. when wermund grew blind, his southern neighbour, the king of saxony, laid claim to denmark on the ground that he was no longer fit to rule, and, relying upon uffo's incapacity, suggested that the quarrel should be decided by their two sons in single combat. wermund, in despair, offered himself to fight, in spite of his blindness: this offer the envoys of the saxon king refused with insult, and the danes knew not what to say. thereupon uffo, who happened to be present, suddenly asked leave to speak. wermund could not believe that it was really his son who had spoken, but when they all assured him that it _was_, he gave the permission. "in vain," then said uffo, "does the king of saxony covet the land of denmark, which trusts to its true king and its brave nobles: neither is a son wanting to the king nor a successor to the kingdom." and he offered to fight not only the saxon prince, but any chosen champion the prince might bring with him. the saxon envoys accepted the offer and departed. the blind king was at last convinced, by passing his hands over him, that the speaker had been in truth his son. but it was found difficult to arm him; for his broad chest split the rings of every coat of mail: the largest, his father's, had to be cleft down the side and fastened with a clasp. likewise no sword { } was so well tempered that he did not shatter it by merely brandishing it, till the old king directed his men how they might find his ancient sword, _skrep_ (= ? stedfast) which he had buried, in despair, thinking his son unworthy of it. the sword, when found, was so frail from age that uffo did not test it: for wermund told him that, if he broke it, there was no other left strong enough for him. so uffo and his two antagonists were taken to the place of combat, an island in the river eider. crowds lined either bank, and wermund stood prepared to throw himself into the river should his son be slain. uffo held back at first, till he had discovered which of his antagonists was the more dangerous, since he feared the sword would only be good for one blow. then, having by his taunts induced the champion to come to close quarters, he clove him asunder with one stroke. wermund cried out that he had heard the sound of his son's sword, and asked where the blow had fallen: his attendants assured him that it had pierced, not any particular part, but the man's whole structure. so wermund drew back from the edge, desiring life now as keenly as before he had longed for death. finally uffo smote his second antagonist through, thus opening a career which after such a beginning we may well believe to have been glorious. the story is told again by sweyn aageson in a slightly varying form. sweyn's story has some good traits of its own--as when it makes uffo enter the lists girt with _two_ swords, intending to use his father's only in an emergency. the worthless sword breaks, and all the danes quake for fear: whereupon uffo draws the old sword and achieves the victory. but above all sweyn aageson tells us the _reason_ of uffo's dumbness and incapacity, which saxo leaves obscure: it was the result of shame over the deeds of two danes who had combined to avenge their father upon a single foe. what is the incident referred to we can gather from saxo. two danes, keto and wigo, whose father frowinus had been slain by a hostile king athislus, attacked athislus together, two to one, thus breaking the laws of the duel. uffo had wedded the sister of { } keto and wigo, and it was in order to wipe out the stain left upon his family and his nation by their breach of duelling etiquette that he insisted upon fighting single-handed against two opponents. that this incident was also known in england is rendered probable by the fact that freawine and wig, who correspond to saxo's frowinus and wiggo, are found in the genealogy of english kings, and that an eadgils, king of the myrgingas, who is almost certainly the athislus of saxo[ ], also appears in old english heroic poetry. it is probable then that the two tales were connected in old english story: the two brethren shamefully combine to avenge their father: in due time the family of the slain foe take up the feud: offa saves his country and his country's honour by voluntarily undertaking to fight one against two. about the same time that the danish ecclesiastics were at work, a monk of st albans was committing to latin the english stories which were still current concerning offa. the object of the english writer was, however, local rather than national. he wrote the _vitae duorum offarum_ to celebrate the historic offa, king of mercia, the founder of his abbey, and that founder's ancestor, offa i: popular tradition had confused the two, and much is told concerning the mercian offa that seems to belong more rightly to his forefather. the st albans writer drew upon contemporary tradition, and it is evident that in certain cases, as when he gives two sets of names to some of the chief actors in the story, he is trying to harmonize two distinct versions: he makes at least one error which seems to point to a written source[ ]. in one of the mss the story is illustrated by a series of very artistic drawings, which might possibly be from the pen of matthew paris himself[ ]. these drawings depict a version of the story which in some respects differs from the latin text which they accompany. [illustration: offa, miraculously restored, vindicates his right. at the side, offa is represented in prayer _from ms cotton nero d. i, fol. b._ ] { } the story is located in england. warmundus is represented as a king of the western angles, ruling at warwick. offa, his only son, was blind till his seventh, dumb till his thirtieth year. accordingly an ambitious noble, riganus, otherwise called aliel, claims to be recognized heir, in hope of gaining the throne for his son, hildebrand (brutus). offa gains the gift of speech in answer to prayer; to the joy of his father and the councillors he vindicates his right, much as in the danish story. he is knighted with a chosen body of companions, armed, and leads the host to meet the foe. he dashes across the river which separates the two armies, although his followers hang back. this act of cowardice on their part is not explained: it is apparently a reminiscence of an older version in which offa fights his duel single handed by the river, and his host look on. the armies join battle, but after a long struggle draw away from each other with the victory undecided. offa remaining in front of his men is attacked by brutus (or hildebrand) and sueno, the sons of the usurper, and slays them both (a second reminiscence of the duel-scene). he then hurls himself again upon the foe, and wins the victory. _widsith_ shows us that the danish account has kept closer to the primitive story than has later english tradition. _widsith_ confirms the danish view that the quarrel was with a foreign, not with a domestic foe, and the combat a duel, not a pitched battle: above all, _widsith_ confirms saxo in representing the fight as taking place on the eider--_b[=i] f[=i]feldore_[ ], whilst the account recorded by the monk of st albans had localised the story in england. { } in _beowulf_ too we hear of offa as a mighty king, "the best of all mankind betwixt the seas." but, although his wars are referred to, we are given no details of them. the episode in _beowulf_ relates rather to his wife thryth, and his dealings with her. the passage is the most obscure in the whole poem, but this at least is clear: thryth had an evil reputation for cruelty and murder: she wedded offa, and he put a stop to her evil deeds: she became to him a good and loyal wife. now in the _lives of the two offas_ quite a long space is devoted to the matrimonial entanglements of both kings. concerning offa i, a tale is told of how he succoured a daughter of the king of york, who had been turned adrift by her father; how when his years were advancing his subjects pressed him to marry: and how his mind went back to the damsel whom he had saved, and he chose her for his wife. whilst the king was absent on his wars, a messenger whom he had sent with a letter to report his victories passed through york, where the wicked father of offa's queen lived. a false letter was substituted, commanding that the queen and her children should be mutilated and left to die in the woods, because she was a witch and had brought defeat upon the king's arms. the order was carried out, but a hermit rescued and healed the queen and her children, and ultimately united them to the king. this is a popular folk-tale which is scattered all over europe, and which has many times been clothed in literary form: in france in the romance of the _manekine_, in english in the metrical romance of _emaré_, and in chaucer's _man of lawes tale_. from the name of the heroine in the last of these versions, the tale is often known as the _constance_-story. but it is clear that this tale is not identical with the obscure story of the wife of offa, which is indicated in _beowulf_. when, however, we turn to the _life of offa ii_, we do find a very close parallel to the thryth story. [illustration: drida (thryth) arrives in the land of king offa, "in nauicula armamentis carente" _from ms cotton nero d. i, fol. a_ ] { } this tells how in the days of charles the great a certain beautiful but wicked girl, related to that king, was condemned to death on account of her crimes, but, from respect for her birth, was exposed instead in a boat without sails or tackle, and driven ashore on the coast of king offa's land. drida, as she said her name was, deceived the king by a tale of injured innocence, and he committed her to the safe keeping of his mother, the countess marcellina. later, offa fell in love with drida, and married her, after which she became known as _quendrida_. but drida continued her evil courses and compassed the death of st Æthelbert, the vassal king of east anglia. in the end she was murdered by robbers--a just punishment for her crimes--and her widowed husband built the abbey of st albans as a thank-offering for her death. the parallel here is too striking to be denied: for drida is but another way of spelling thryth, and the character of the murderous queen is the same in both stories. there are, however, striking differences: for whereas thryth ceases from her evil deeds and becomes a model wife to offa, drida continues on her course of crime, and is cut off by violence in the midst of her evil career. how are we to account for the parallels and for the discrepancies? as a matter of historical fact, the wife of offa, king of mercia, _was_ named (not indeed cwoenthryth, which is the form which should correspond to quendrida, but) cynethryth. the most obvious and facile way of accounting for the likeness between what we are told in _beowulf_ of the queen of offa i, and what we are elsewhere told of the queen of offa ii, is to suppose that thryth in _beowulf_ is a mere fiction evolved from the historic cynethryth, wife of offa ii, and by poetic licence represented as the wife of his ancestor, offa i. it was in this way she was explained by professor earle: the name [thrytho] was suggested by that of cynethryth, offa's queen.... the vindictive character here given to thrytho is a poetic and veiled admonition addressed to cynethryth[ ]. unfortunately this, like many another facile theory, is open to fatal objections. in the first place the poem of _beowulf_ can, with fair certainty, be attributed to a date _earlier_ than that at which the historic offa and his spouse lived. of course, it may be said that the offa episode in _beowulf_ is an interpolation of a later date. but this needs proof. there are metrical and above all syntactical grounds { } which have led most scholars to place _beowulf_ very early[ ]. if we wish to regard the _offa-thryth_-episode as a later interpolation, we ought first to prove that it is later in its syntax and metre. we have no right to assume that the episode is an interpolation merely because such an assumption may suit our theory of the development of _beowulf_. so until reasons are forthcoming for supposing the episode of thryth to be later than the rest of the poem, we can but note that what we know of the date of _beowulf_ forbids us to accept earle's theory that thryth is a reflection of, or upon, the historic cynethryth. but there are difficulties in the way of earle's theory even more serious than the chronological one. we know nothing very definitely about the wife of offa ii, except her name, but from a reference in a letter of alcuin it seems clear that she was a woman of marked piety: it is not likely that she could have been guilty of deliberate murder of the kind represented in the _life of offa ii_. the st albans _life_ depends, so far as we know, upon the traditions which were current four centuries after her death. there may be, there doubtless are, some historic facts concerning offa preserved in it: but we have no reason to think that the bad character of offa's queen is one of them. indeed, on purely intrinsic grounds we might well suppose the reverse. as a matter of history we know that offa _did_ put to death Æthelberht, the vassal king of east anglia. when in the _life_ we find offa completely exonerated, and the deed represented as an assassination brought about by the malice and cruelty of his queen, it seems intrinsically likely that we are dealing with an attempt of the monks to clear their founder by transferring his cruel deeds to the account of his wife. so far, then, from thryth being a reflection of an historic cruel queen cynethryth, it is more probable that the influence has been in the reverse direction; that the pious cynethryth has been represented as a monster of cruelty because she has not unnaturally been confused with a mythical thryth, the wife of offa i. to this it may be objected that we have no right to assume remarkable coincidences, and that such a coincidence is { } involved by the assumption that there was a story of a mythical thryth, the wife of offa i, and that this existed prior to, and independently of, the actual wedding of offa ii to a cynethryth. but the exceeding frequency of the element _thryth_ in the names of women robs this objection of all its point. such a coincidence, far from being remarkable, would be the most natural in the world. if we look at the mercian pedigree we find that almost half the ladies connected with it have that element _thryth_ in their names. the founder of the house, wihtlæg, according to saxo grammaticus[ ], wedded hermuthruda, the old english form of which would be eormenthryth. it is to this lady hermuthruda that we must now devote our attention. she belongs to a type which is common in folk-tale down to the time of hans andersen--the cruel princess who puts her lovers to death unless they can vanquish her in some way, worsting her in a contest of wits, such as the guessing of riddles, or a contest of strength, such as running, jumping, or wrestling. the stock example of this perilous maiden is, of course, for classical story atalanta, for germanic tradition the brunhilt of the _nibelungen lied_, who demands from her wooer that he shall surpass her in all three feats; if he fails in one, his head is forfeit[ ]. of this type was hermuthruda: "in the cruelty of her arrogance she had always loathed her wooers, and inflicted upon them the supreme punishment, so that out of many there was not one but paid for his boldness with his head[ ]," words which remind us strongly of what our poet says of thryth. hamlet (amlethus) is sent by the king of britain to woo this maiden for him: but she causes hamlet's shield and the commission to be stolen while he sleeps: she learns from the shield that the messenger is the famous and valiant hamlet, and alters the commission so that her hand is requested, not for the king of britain, but for hamlet himself. with this request she complies, and the wedding is celebrated. but when wihtlæg (vigletus) conquers and slays hamlet, she weds the conqueror, thus becoming ancestress of offa. { } it may well be that there is some connection between the thryth of _beowulf_ and the hermuthruda who in saxo weds offa's ancestor--that they are both types of the wild maiden who becomes a submissive though not always happy wife. if so, the continued wickedness of drida in the _life of offa ii_ would be an alteration of the original story, made in order to exonerate offa ii from the deeds of murder which, as a matter of history, did characterize his reign. * * * * * { } chapter ii the non-historical elements section i. the grendel fight. when we come to the story of beowulf's struggle with grendel, with grendel's mother, and with the dragon, we are faced by difficulties much greater than those which meet us when considering that background of danish or geatic history in which these stories are framed. in the first place, it is both surprising and confusing that, in the prologue, before the main story begins, _another_ beowulf is introduced, the son of scyld scefing. much emphasis is laid upon the upbringing and youthful fame of this prince, and the glory of his father. any reader would suppose that the poet is going on to tell of _his_ adventures, when suddenly the story is switched off, and, after brief mention of this beowulf's son, healfdene, we come to hrothgar, the building of heorot, grendel's attack, and the voyage of beowulf the geat to the rescue. now "beowulf" is an exceedingly rare name. the presence of the earlier beowulf, scyld's son, seems then to demand explanation, and many critics, working on quite different lines, have arrived independently at the conclusion that either the story of grendel and his mother, or the story of the dragon, or both stories, were originally told of the son of scyld, and only afterwards transferred to the geatic hero. this has indeed been generally accepted, almost from the beginning of { } beowulf criticism[ ]. yet, though possible enough, it does not admit of any demonstration. now beowulf, son of scyld, clearly corresponds to a beow or beaw in the west saxon genealogy. in this genealogy beow is always connected with scyld and scef, and in some versions the relations are identical with those given in _beowulf_: beow, son of scyld, son of scef, in the genealogies[ ], corresponding to beowulf, son of scyld scefing, in our poem. hence arose the further speculation of many scholars that the hero who slays the monsters was originally called, not beowulf, but beow, and that he was identical with the hero in the west saxon pedigree; in other words, that the original story was of a hero beow (son of scyld) who slew a monster and a dragon: and that this adventure was only subsequently transferred to beowulf, prince of the geatas. this is a theory based upon a theory, and some confirmation may reasonably be asked, before it is entertained. as to the dragon-slaying, the confirmatory evidence is open to extreme doubt. it is dealt with in section vii (beowulf-frotho), below. as to grendel, one such piece of confirmation there is. the conquering angles and saxons seem to have given the names of their heroes to the lands they won in england: some such names--'wade's causeway,' 'weyland's smithy'--have survived to modern times. the evidence of the anglo-saxon charters shows that very many which have now been lost existed in england prior to the conquest. now in a wiltshire charter of the year , we have _b[=e]owan hammes hecgan_ mentioned not far from a _grendles mere_. this has been claimed as evidence that the story of grendel, with beow as his adversary, was localized in wiltshire in the reign of athelstan, and perhaps had been localized there since the settlement four centuries previously. until recently this was accepted as definitely { } proving that the beowulf-grendel story was derived from an ancient beow-myth. yet one such instance of name-association is not conclusive. we cannot leave out of consideration the possibility of its being a mere chance coincidence, especially considering how large is the number of place names recorded in old english charters. of late, people have become more sceptical in drawing inferences from proper names, and quite recently there has been a tendency entirely to overlook the evidence of the charter, by way of making compensation for having hitherto overrated it. all that can be said with certainty is that it _is_ remarkable that a place named after beowa should be found in the immediate proximity of a "grendel's lake," and that this fact supports the possibility, though it assuredly does not prove, that in the oldest versions of the tale the monster queller was named beow, not beowulf. but it is only a possibility: it is not grounded upon any real evidence. these crucial references occur in a charter given by athelstan at luton, concerning a grant of land at ham in wiltshire to his thane wulfgar. [see birch, _cartularium saxonicum_, , vol. ii, p. .] ... ego Æðelstanus, rex anglorum ... quandam telluris particulam meo fideli ministro wulfgaro ... in loco quem solicolae _oet hamme_ vocitant tribuo ... praedicta siquidem tellus his terminis circumcincta clarescit.... ðonne norð ofer d[=u]ne on m[=e]os-hlinc westeweardne; ðonne ad[=u]ne on ð[=a] yfre on b[=e]owan hammes hecgan, on br[=e]meles sceagan [=e]asteweardne; ðonne on ð[=a] bl[=a]can gr[=æ]fan; ðonne norð be ð[=e]m ondh[=e]afdan t[=o] ð[=æ]re scortan d[=i]c b[=u]tan [=a]nan æcre; ðonne t[=o] fugelmere t[=o] ð[=a]n wege; ondlong weges t[=o] ottes forda; ðonon t[=o] wudumere; ðonne t[=o] ð[=æ]re r[=u]wan hecgan; ðæt on langan hangran; ðonne on grendles mere; ðonon on dyrnan geat.... ambiguous as this evidence is, i do not think it can be dismissed as it is by lawrence (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxiv, ) and panzer (_beowulf_, ), who both say "how do we know that it is not the merest chance?" it _may_ of course be chance: but this does not justify us in basing an argument upon the assumption that it _is_ the merest chance. lawrence continues: "suppose one were to set up a theory that there was a saga-relation between scyld and bikki, and offered as proof the passage in the charter for the year in which there are mentioned, as in the same district, _scyldes treow_ and _bican sell_.... how much weight would this carry?" the answer surely is that the occurrence of the two names together in the charter would, by itself, give no basis whatever for starting such a theory: but if, on other grounds, the theory were likely, then the occurrence of the two names together would certainly have some corroborative value. exactly how much, it is impossible to say, because we cannot estimate the element of chance, and we cannot { } be certain that the _grendel_ and the _beowa_ mentioned are identical with our grendel and our beowulf. miller has argued [_academy_, may , p. ] that _grendles_ is not a proper name here, but a common noun signifying "drain," and that _grendles mere_ therefore means "cesspool." now "grindle" is found in modern dialect and even in middle english[ ] in the sense of "a narrow ditch" or "gutter," but i doubt if it can be proved to be an old english word. evidence would rather point to its being an east anglian corruption of the much more widely spread _drindle_, or _dringle_, used both as a verb "to go slowly, to trickle," and as "a small trickling stream." and even if an o.e. _grendel_ as a common noun meaning "gutter" were authenticated, it seems unlikely to me that places were named "the fen," "the mere," "the pit," "the brook"--"of the gutter." there is no ground whatever for supposing the existence of an o.e. _grendel_ = "sewer," or anything which would lead us to suppose _grendles mere_ or _gryndeles sylle_ to mean "cesspool[ ]." surely it is probable, knowing what we do of the way in which the english settlers gave epic names to the localities around their settlements, that these places were named after grendel because they seemed the sort of place where his story might be localized--like "weyland's smithy" or "wade's causeway": and that the meaning is "grendel's fen," "mere," "pit" or "brook." again, both panzer and lawrence suggest that the beowa who gave his name to the _ham_ may have been, not the hero, but "an ordinary mortal called after him" ... "some individual who lived in this locality." but, among the numerous english proper names recorded, can any instance be found of any individual named beowa? { } and was it in accordance with the rules of old english nomenclature to give to mortals the names of these heroes of the genealogies[ ]? recent scepticism as to the "beow-myth" has been largely due to the fact that speculation as to beow had been carried too far. for example, because beow appeared in the west saxon genealogy, it had been assumed that the beow-myth belonged essentially to the angles and saxons. yet beow would seem to have been also known among scandinavians. for in somewhat later days scandinavian genealogists, when they had made the acquaintance of the anglo-saxon pedigrees, noted that beow had a scandinavian counterpart in a hero whom they called bjar[ ]. that something was known in the north of this bjar is proved by the _kálfsvísa_, that same catalogue of famous heroes and their horses which we have already found giving us the counterparts of onela and eadgils. yet this dry reference serves to show that bjar must once have been sufficiently famous to have a horse specially his own[ ]. whether the fourteenth century scandinavian who made bjar the northern equivalent of beow was merely guessing, we unfortunately cannot tell. most probably he was, for there is reason to think that the hero corresponding to beow was named, not _bjár_, but _byggvir_[ ]: a correspondence intelligible to modern philologists as in agreement with phonetic law, but naturally not obvious to an icelandic genealogist. but however this may be, the assumption that beow was peculiarly the hero of angles and saxons seems hardly justified. { } again, since beow is an ancestor of woden, it was further assumed that he was an ancient god, and that in the story of his adventures we had to deal with a nature-myth of a divine deliverer who saved the people from grendel and his mother, the personified powers of the stormy sea. it is with the name of müllenhoff, its most enthusiastic and ablest advocate, that this "mythological theory" is particularly associated. that grendel is fictitious no one, of course, would deny. but müllenhoff and his school, in applying the term "mythical" to those portions of the _beowulf_ story for which no historical explanation could be found, meant that they enshrined _nature-myths_. they thought that those elements in heroic poetry which could not be referred back to actual fact must be traced to ancient stories in which were recorded the nation's belief about the sun and the gods: about storms and seasons. the different mythological explanations of beowulf-beowa and grendel have depended mainly upon hazardous etymological explanations of the hero's name. the most popular is müllenhoff's interpretation. beaw is the divine helper of man in his struggle with the elements. grendel represents the stormy north sea of early spring, flooding and destroying the habitations of men, till the god rescues them: grendel's mother represents the depths of the ocean. but in the autumn the power of the god wanes: the dragon personifies the coming of the wild weather: the god sinks in his final struggle to safeguard the treasures of the earth for his people[ ]. others, remembering that grendel dwells in the fen, see in him rather a demon of the sea-marsh than of the sea itself: he is the pestilential swamp[ ], and the hero a wind which drives him away[ ]. or, whilst grendel still represents the storms, his antagonist is a "blitzheros[ ]." others, whilst hardly ranking beowulf as { } a god, still see an allegory in his adventures, and grendel must be a personification either of an inundation[ ], or of the terror of the long winter nights[ ], or possibly of grinding at the mill, the work of the enslaved foe[ ]. such explanations were till recently universally current: the instances given above might be increased considerably. sufficient allowance was not made for the influence upon heroic poetry of the simple popular folk-tale, a tale of wonder with no mythological or allegorical meaning. now, of late years, there has been a tendency not only to recognize but even to exaggerate this influence: to regard the hero of the folk-tale as the original and essential element in heroic poetry[ ]. though this is assuredly to go too far, it is but reasonable to recognize the fairy tale element in the o.e. epic. we have in _beowulf_ a story of giant-killing and dragon-slaying. why should we construct a legend of the gods or a nature-myth to account for these tales? why must grendel or his mother represent the tempest, or the malaria, or the drear long winter nights? we know that tales of giant-killers and dragon-slayers have been current among the people of europe for thousands of years. is it not far more easy to regard the story of the fight between beowulf and grendel merely as a fairy tale, glorified into an epic[ ]? those students who of late years have tried thus to elucidate the story of beowulf and grendel, by comparison with folk-tales, have one great advantage over müllenhoff and the "mythological" school. the weak point of müllenhoff's view was that the nature-myth of beow, which was called in to explain the origin of the beowulf story as we have it, was itself only an assumption, a conjectural reconstruction. but the various popular tales in which scholars have more recently tried to find parallels to _beowulf_ have this great merit, that { } they do indubitably exist. and as to the first step--the parallel between _beowulf_ and the _grettis saga_--there can, fortunately, be but little hesitation. * * * * * section ii. the scandinavian parallels--grettir and orm. the _grettis saga_ tells the adventures of the most famous of all icelandic outlaws, grettir the strong. as to the historic existence of grettir there is no doubt: we can even date the main events of his life, in spite of chronological inconsistencies, with some precision. but between the year , when he was killed, and the latter half of the thirteenth century, when his saga took form, many fictitious episodes, derived from folk-lore, had woven themselves around his name. of these, one bears a great, if possibly accidental, likeness to the grendel story: the second is emphatically and unmistakably the same story as that of grendel and his mother. in the first, grettir stops at a farm house which is haunted by glam, a ghost of monstrous stature. grettir awaits his attack alone, but, like beowulf, lying down. glam's entry and onset resemble those of grendel: when grettir closes with him he tries to get out. they wrestle the length of the hall, and break all before them. grettir supports himself against anything that will give him foothold, but for all his efforts he is dragged as far as the door. there he suddenly changes his tactics, and throws his whole weight upon his adversary. the monster falls, undermost, so that grettir is able to draw, and strike off his head; though not till glam has laid upon grettir a curse which drags him to his doom. the second story--the adventure of grettir at sandhaugar (sandheaps)--begins in much the same way as that of grettir and glam. grettir is staying in a haunted farm, from which first the farmer himself and then a house-carl have, on two successive yuletides, been spirited away. as before, a light burns in the room all night, and grettir awaits the attack alone, lying down, without having put off his clothes. as before, grettir and his assailant wrestle down the room, breaking all { } in their way. but this time grettir is pulled put of the hall, and dragged to the brink of the neighbouring gorge. here, by a final effort, he wrenches a hand free, draws, and hews off the arm of the ogress, who falls into the torrent below. grettir conjectures that the two missing men must have been pulled by the ogress into the gulf. this, after his experience, is surely a reasonable inference: but stein, the priest, is unconvinced. so they go together to the river, and find the side of the ravine a sheer precipice: it is ten fathom down to the water below the fall. grettir lets down a rope: the priest is to watch it. then grettir dives in: "the priest saw the soles of his feet, and then knew no more what had become of him." grettir swims under the fall and gets into the cave, where he sees a giant sitting by a fire: the giant aims a blow at him with a weapon with a wooden handle ("such a weapon men then called a _hefti-sax_"). grettir hews it asunder. the giant then grasps at another sword hanging on the wall of the cave, but before he can use it grettir wounds him. stein, the priest, seeing the water stained with blood from this wound, concludes that grettir is dead, and departs home, lamenting the loss of such a man. "but grettir let little space come between his blows till the giant lay dead." grettir finds the bones of the two dead men in the cave, and bears them away with him to convince the priest: but when he reaches the rope and shakes it, there is no reply, and he has to climb up, unaided. he leaves the bones in the church porch, for the confusion of the priest, who has to admit that he has failed to do his part faithfully. now if we compare this with _beowulf_, we see that in the icelandic story much is different: for example, in the _grettis saga_ it is the female monster who raids the habitation of men, the male who stays at home in his den. in this the _grettis saga_ probably represents a corrupt tradition: for, that the female should remain at home whilst the male searches for his prey, is a rule which holds good for devils as well as for men[ ]. { } the change was presumably made in order to avoid the difficulty--which the _beowulf_ poet seems also to have realized--that after the male has been slain, the rout of the female is felt to be a deed of less note--something of an anti-climax[ ]. the sword on the wall, also, which in the _beowulf_-story is used by the hero, is, in the _grettir_-story, used by the giant in his attack on the hero. but that the two stories are somehow connected cannot be disputed. apart from the general likeness, we have details such as the escape of the monster after the loss of an arm, the fire burning in the cave, the _hefti-sax_, a word which, like its old english equivalent (_hæft-m[=e]ce_, _beowulf_, ), is found in this story only, and the strange reasoning of the watchers that the blood-stained water must necessarily be due to the hero's death[ ]. now obviously such a series of resemblances cannot be the result of an accident. either the _grettir_-story is derived directly or indirectly from the _beowulf_ epic, more or less as we have it, or both stories are derived from one common earlier source. the scholars who first discovered the resemblance believed that both stories were independently derived from one original[ ]. this view has generally been endorsed by later investigators, but not universally[ ]. and this is one of the questions which the student cannot leave open, because our view of the origin of the _grendel_-story will have to depend largely upon the view we take as to its connection with the episode in the _grettis saga_. if this episode be derived from _beowulf_, then we have an interesting literary curiosity, but nothing further. but if it is { } independently derived from a common source, then the episode in the _saga_, although so much later, may nevertheless contain features which have been obliterated or confused or forgotten in the _beowulf_ version. in that case the story, as given in the _grettis saga_, would be of great weight in any attempt to reconstruct the presumed original form of the _grendel_-story. the evidence seems to me to support strongly the view of the majority of scholars--that the _grettir_-episode is not derived from _beowulf_ in the form in which that poem has come down to us, but that both come from one common source. it is certain that the story of the monster invading a dwelling of men and rendering it uninhabitable, till the adventurous deliverer arrives, did not originate with hrothgar and heorot. it is an ancient and widespread type of story, of which one version is localized at the danish court. when therefore we find it existing, independently of its danish setting, the presumption is in favour of this being a survival of the old independent story. of course it is _conceivable_ that the hrothgar-heorot setting might have been first added, and subsequently stripped off again so clean that no trace of it remains. but it seems going out of our way to assume this, unless we are forced to do so[ ]. again, it is certain that these stories--like all the subject matter of the old english epic--did not originate in england, but were brought across the north sea from the old home. and that old home was in the closest connection, so far as the passage to and fro of story went, with scandinavian lands. nothing could be intrinsically more probable than that a story, current in ancient angel and carried thence to england, should also have been current in scandinavia, and thence have been carried to iceland. other stories which were current in england in the eighth century were also current in scandinavia in the thirteenth. yet this does not mean that the tales of hroar and rolf, or of athils and ali, were borrowed from english epic accounts of hrothgar and hrothulf, or eadgils and onela. they were part of the common inheritance--as much so as the strong verbs { } or the alliterative line. why then, contrary to all analogy, should we assume a literary borrowing in the case of the _beowulf-grettir_-story? the compiler of the _grettis saga_ could not possibly have drawn his material from a ms of _beowulf_[ ]: he could not have made sense of a single passage. he conceivably _might_ have drawn from traditions _derived_ from the old english epic. but it is difficult to see how. long before his time these traditions had for the most part been forgotten in england itself. one of the longest lived of all, that of offa, is heard of for the last time in england at the beginning of the thirteenth century. that a scandinavian sagaman at the end of the century could have been in touch, in any way, with anglo-saxon epic tradition seems on the whole unlikely. the scandinavian tradition of offa, scholars are now agreed[ ], was not borrowed from england, and there is no reason why we should assume such borrowing in the case of grettir. the probability is, then, considerable, that the _beowulf_-story and the _grettir_-story are independently derived from one common original. and this probability would be confirmed to a certainty if we should find that features which have been confused and half obliterated in the o.e. story become clear when we turn to the icelandic. this argument has lately been brought forward by dr lawrence in his essay on "the haunted mere in _beowulf_[ ]." impressive as the account of this mere is, it does not convey any very clear picture. grendel's home seems sometimes to be in the sea: and again it seems to be amid marshes, moors and fens, and again it is "where the mountain torrent goes down under the darkness of the cliffs--the water below the ground (i.e. beneath overhanging rocks)." this last account agrees admirably with the landscape depicted in the _grettis saga_, and the gorge many fathoms deep through which the stream rushes, after it has fallen over the precipice; not so the other accounts. these descriptions are { } best harmonized if we imagine an original version in which the monsters live, as in the _grettis saga_, in a hole under the waterfall. this story, natural enough in a scandinavian country, would be less intelligible as it travelled south. the angles and saxons, both in their old home on the continent and their new one in england, were accustomed to a somewhat flat country, and would be more inclined to place the dwelling of outcast spirits in moor and fen than under waterfalls, of which they probably had only an elementary conception. "the giant must dwell in the fen, alone in the land[ ]." now it is in the highest degree improbable that, after the landscape had been blurred as it is in _beowulf_, it could have been brought out again with the distinctness it has in the _grettis saga_. to preserve the features so clearly the _grettir_-story can hardly be derived from _beowulf_: it must have come down independently. but if so, it becomes at once of prime importance. for by a comparison of _beowulf_ and _grettir_ we must form an idea of what the original story was, from which both were derived. another parallel, though a less striking one, has been found in the story of orm storolfsson, which is extant in a short saga about contemporary with that of grettir, _ormsþáttr stórólfssonar_[ ], in two ballads from the faroe islands[ ] and two from sweden[ ]. it is generally asserted that the _orm_-story affords a close parallel to the episodes of grendel and his mother. i cannot find close resemblance, and i strongly suspect that the repetition of the assertion is due to the fact that the _orm_-story has not been very easily accessible, and has often been taken as read by the critics. but, in any case, it has been proved that the _orm_-tale borrows largely from other sagas, and notably from the _grettis saga_ itself[ ]. before arguing, therefore, from any parallel, it must first be shown that the feature in which orm resembles { } beowulf is not derived at second hand from the _grettis saga_. one such feature there is, namely orm's piety, which he certainly does not derive from grettir. in this he with equal certainty resembles beowulf. according to modern ideas, indeed, there is more of the christian hero in beowulf than in orm. now orm owes his victory to the fact, among other things, that, at the critical moment, he vows to god and the holy apostle st peter to make a pilgrimage to rome should he be successful. in this a parallel is seen to the fact that beowulf is saved, not only by his coat of mail, but also by the divine interposition[ ]. but is this really a parallel? beowulf is too much of a sportsman to buy victory by making a vow when in a tight place. _g[=æ]ð [=a] wyrd sw[=a] h[=i]o scel_[ ] is the exact antithesis of orm's pledge. however, i have given in the second part the text of the _orm_-episode, so that readers may judge for themselves the closeness or remoteness of the parallel. the parallel between grettir and beowulf was noted by the icelander gudbrand vigfússon upon his first reading _beowulf_ (see _prolegomena to sturlunga saga_, , p. xlix: _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii, : _icelandic reader_, , ). it was elaborately worked out by gering in _anglia_, iii, - , and it is of course noticed in almost every discussion of _beowulf_. the parallel with orm was first noted by schück (_svensk literaturhistoria_, stockholm, , _etc._, i, ) and independently by bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, - ). the best edition of the _grettis saga_ is the excellent one of boer (halle, ), but the opinions there expressed as to the relationship of the episodes to each other and to the grendel story have not received the general support of scholars. * * * * * section iii. bothvar bjarki. we have seen that there are in _beowulf_ two distinct elements, which never seem quite harmonized: firstly the historic background of the danish and geatic courts, with their chieftains, hrothgar and hrothulf, or hrethel and hygelac: and secondly the old wives' fables of struggles with ogres and dragons. in the story of grettir, the ogre fable appears--unmistakably connected with the similar story as given in _beowulf_, but with { } no faintest trace of having ever possessed any danish heroic setting. turning back to the _saga of rolf kraki_, we _do_ find against that danish setting a figure, that of the hero bothvar bjarki, bearing a very remarkable resemblance to beowulf. bjarki, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the gautar (götar), where his brother is king, and reaches leire, where rolf, the king of the danes, holds his court; [just as beowulf, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the geatas (götar) where his uncle is king, and reaches heorot, where hrothgar and hrothulf (rolf) hold court]. arrived at leire, bjarki takes under his protection the despised coward hott, whom rolf's retainers have been wont to bully. the champions at the danish court [in _beowulf_ one of them only--unferth] prove quarrelsome, and they assail the hero during the feast, in the _saga_ by throwing bones at him, in _beowulf_ only by bitter words. the hero in each case replies, in kind, with such effect that the enemy is silenced. but despite the fame and splendour of the danish court, it has long been subject to the attacks of a strange monster[ ]--a winged beast whom no iron will bite [just as grendel is immune from swords[ ]]. bjarki [like beowulf[ ]] is scornful at the inability of the danes to defend their own home: "if one beast can lay waste the kingdom and the cattle of the king." he goes out to fight with the monster _by night_, accompanied only by hott. he tries to draw his sword, but the sword is fast in its sheath: he tugs, the sword comes out, and he slays the beast with it. this seems a most pointless incident: taken in connection with the supposed invulnerability of the foe, it looks like the survival of some episode in which the hero was unwilling [as in beowulf's fight with grendel[ ]] or unable [as in beowulf's fight with grendel's mother[ ]] to slay the foe { } with his sword. bjarki then compels the terrified coward hott to drink the monster's blood. hott forthwith becomes a valiant champion, second only to bjarki himself. the beast is then propped up as if still alive: when it is seen next morning the king calls upon his retainers to play the man, and bjarki tells hott that now is the time to clear his reputation. hott demands first the sword, gullinhjalti, from rolf, and with this he slays the dead beast a second time. king rolf is not deceived by this trick; yet he rejoices that bjarki has not only himself slain the monster, but changed the cowardly hott into a champion; he commands that hott shall be called hjalti, after the sword which has been given him. we are hardly justified in demanding logic in a wild tale like this, or one might ask how rolf was convinced of hott's valour by what he knew to be a piece of stage management on the part of bjarki. but, however that may be, it is remarkable that in _beowulf_ also the monster grendel, though proof against all ordinary weapons, is smitten _when dead_ by a magic sword of which the _golden hilt_[ ] is specially mentioned. in addition to the undeniable similarity of the stories of these heroes, a certain similarity of name has been claimed. that _bjarki_ is not etymologically connected with _b[=e]owulf_ or _b[=e]ow_ is clear: but if we are to accept the identification of beowulf and beow, remembering that the scandinavian equivalent of the latter is said to be _bjár_, the resemblance to _bjarki_ is obvious. similarity of sound might have caused one name to be substituted for another[ ]. this argument obviously depends upon the identification _b[=e]ow_ = _bjár_, which is extremely doubtful: it will be argued below that it is more likely that _b[=e]ow_ = _byggvir_[ ]. but force remains in the argument that the name bjarki (little bear) is very appropriate to a hero like the beowulf of { } our epic, who crushes or hugs his foe to death instead of using his sword; even if we do not accept explanations which would interpret the name "beowulf" itself as a synonym for "bear." it is scarcely to be wondered at, then, that most critics have seen in bjarki a scandinavian parallel to beowulf. but serious difficulties remain. there is in the scandinavian story a mass of detail quite unparallelled in _beowulf_, which overshadows the resemblances. bjarki's friendship, for example, with the coward hott or hjalti has no counterpart in _beowulf_. and bjarki becomes a retainer of king rolf and dies in his service, whilst beowulf never comes into direct contact with hrothulf at all; the poet seems to avoid naming them together. still, it is quite intelligible that the story should have developed on different lines in scandinavia from those which it followed in england, till the new growths overshadowed the original resemblance, without obliterating it. after nearly a thousand years of independent development discrepancies must be expected. it would not be a reasonable objection to the identity of _gullinhjalti_ with _gyldenhilt_, that the word _hilt_ had grown to have a rather different meaning in norse and in english; subsequent developments do not invalidate an original resemblance if the points of contact are really there. but, allowing for this independent growth in scandinavia, we should naturally expect that the further back we traced the story the greater the resemblance would become. this brings us to the second, serious difficulty: that, when we turn from the _saga of rolf kraki_--belonging in its present form perhaps to the early fifteenth century--to the pages of saxo grammaticus, who tells the same tale more than two centuries earlier, the resemblance, instead of becoming stronger, almost vanishes. nothing is said of bjarki coming from gautland, or indeed of his being a stranger at the danish court: nothing is said of the monster having paid previous visits, visits repeated till king rolf, like hrothgar, has to give up all attempt at resistance, and submit to its depredations. the monster, instead of being a troll, like grendel, becomes a commonplace bear. all saxo tells us is that "he [biarco, i.e. bjarki] met a great bear in a thicket and slew it with a spear, and bade his { } comrade ialto [i.e. hjalti] place his lips to the beast and drink its blood as it flowed, that he might become stronger." hence the danish scholar, axel olrik, in the best and most elaborate discussion of bjarki and all about him, has roundly denied any connection between his hero and beowulf. he is astonished at the slenderness of the evidence upon which previous students have argued for relationship. "neither beowulf's wrestling match in the hall, nor in the fen, nor his struggle with the firedrake has any real identity, but when we take a little of them all we can get a kind of similarity with the latest and worst form of the bjarki saga[ ]." the development of saxo's bear into a winged monster, "the worst of trolls," olrik regards as simply in accordance with the usual heightening, in later icelandic, of these early stories of struggles with beasts, and of this he gives a parallel instance. some icelandic ballads on bjarki (the _bjarka rímur_), which were first printed in , were claimed by olrik as supporting his contention. these ballads belong to about the year . yet, though they are thus in date and dialect closely allied to the _saga of rolf kraki_ and remote from saxo grammaticus, they are so far from supporting the tradition of the _saga_ with regard to the monster slain, that they represent the foe first as a man-eating she-wolf, which is slain by bjarki, then as a grey bear [as in saxo], which is slain by hjalti after he has been compelled to drink the blood of the she-wolf. we must therefore give up the winged beast as mere later elaboration; for if the bjarki ballads in a point like this support saxo, as against the _saga_ which is so closely connected with them by its date and icelandic tongue, we must admit saxo's version here to represent, beyond dispute, the genuine tradition. accordingly the attempt which has been made to connect bjarki's winged monster with beowulf's winged dragon goes overboard at once. but such an attempt ought never to have been made at all. the parallel is between bjarki and the beowulf-grendel episode, not between bjarki and the beowulf-dragon episode, which ought to be left out of consideration. and the monstrous bear and the wolf of the _rímur_ are not so { } dissimilar from grendel, with his bear-like hug, and grendel's mother, the 'sea-wolf[ ].' the likeness between beowulf and bjarki lies, not in the wingedness or otherwise of the monsters they overthrow, but in the similarity of the position--in the situation which places the most famous court of the north, and its illustrious king, at the mercy of a ravaging foe, till a chance stranger from gautland brings deliverance. and here the _rímur_ support, not saxo, but the _saga_, though in an outworn and faded way. in the _rímur_ bjarki is a stranger come from abroad: the bear has made previous attacks upon the king's folds. thus, whilst we grant the wings of the beast to be a later elaboration, it does not in the least follow that other features in which the _saga_ differs from saxo--the advent of bjarki from gautland, for instance--are also later elaboration. and we must be careful not to attach too much weight to the account of saxo merely because it is earlier in date than that of the _saga_. the presumption is, of course, that the earlier form will be the more original: but just as a late manuscript will often preserve, amidst its corruptions, features which are lost in much earlier manuscripts, so will a tradition. saxo's accounts are often imperfect[ ]. and in this particular instance, there is a want of coherency and intelligibility in saxo's account, which in itself affords a strong presumption that it _is_ imperfect. what saxo tells us is this: at which banquet, when the champions were rioting with every kind of wantonness, and flinging knuckle-bones at a certain ialto [hjalti] from all sides, it happened that his messmate biarco [bjarki] through the bad aim of the thrower received a severe blow on the head. but biarco, equally annoyed by the injury and the insult, sent the bone back to the thrower, so that he twisted the front of his head to the back and the back to the front, punishing the cross-grain of the man's temper by turning his face round about. but who were this "certain hjalti" and bjarki? there seems to be something missing in the story. the explanation [which saxo does not give us, but the _saga_ does] that bjarki has come from afar and taken the despised hott-hjalti under his { } protection, seems to be necessary. why was hjalti chosen as the victim, at whom missiles were to be discharged? obviously [though saxo does not tell us so], because he was the butt of the mess. and if bjarki had been one of the mess for many hours, his messmates would have known him too well to throw knuckle-bones either at him or his friend. this is largely a matter of personal feeling, but saxo's account seems to me pointless, till it is supplemented from the _saga_[ ]. and there is one further piece of evidence which seems to clinch the whole matter finally, though its importance has been curiously overlooked, by panzer and lawrence in their arguments for the identification, and by olrik in his arguments to the contrary. we have seen above how beowulf "became a friend" to eadgils, helping him in his expedition against king onela of sweden, and avenging, in "chill raids fraught with woe," _cealdum cears[=i]ðum_, the wrongs which onela had inflicted upon the geatas. we saw, too, that this expedition was remembered in scandinavian tradition. "they had a battle on the ice of lake wener; there king ali fell, and athils had the victory. concerning this battle there is much said in the _skjoldunga saga_." the _skjoldunga saga_ is lost, but the latin extracts from it give some information about this battle[ ]. further, an account of it _is_ preserved in the _bjarka rímur_, probably derived from the lost _skjoldunga saga_. and the _bjarka rímur_ expressly mention bjarki as helping athils in this battle against ali on the ice of lake wener[ ]. olrik does not seem to allow for this at all, though of course aware of it. the other parallels between bjarki and beowulf he believes to be mere coincidence. but is this likely? to recapitulate: in old english tradition a hero comes from the land of the geatas to the royal court of denmark, where hrothgar and hrothulf hold sway. this hero is received in none too friendly wise by one of the retainers, but { } puts his foe to shame, is warmly welcomed by the king, and slays by night a monster which has been attacking the danish capital and against which the warriors of that court have been helpless. the monster is proof against all swords, yet its dead body is mutilated by a sword with a golden hilt. subsequently this same hero helps king eadgils of sweden to overthrow onela. we find precisely the same situation in icelandic tradition some seven centuries later, except that not hrothgar and hrothulf, but hrothulf (rolf) alone is represented as ruling the danes, and the sword with the golden hilt has become a sword named "golden-hilt." it is _conceivable_ for a situation to have been reconstructed in this way by mere accident, just as it is conceivable that one player may have the eight or nine best trumps dealt him. but it does not seem advisable to base one's calculations, as olrik does, upon such an accident happening. the parallel of bjarki and beowulf seems to have been first noted by gisli brynjulfsson (_antiquarisk tidsskrift_, - , p. ). it has been often discussed by sarrazin (_beowulf studien_, _etc._, : _anglia_, ix, _etc._: _engl. stud._ xvi, _etc._, xxiii, _etc._, xxxv, _etc._). sarrazin's over-elaborated parallels form a broad target for doubters: it must be remembered that a case, though it may be discredited, is not invalidated by exaggeration. the problem is of course noted in the beowulf studies of müllenhoff ( ), bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, ) and boer (_die beowulfsage_, ii, in _arkiv f. nord. filol._ xix, _etc._) and discussed at length and convincingly by panzer ( - ) and lawrence (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxiv, , _etc._). the usual view which accepts some relationship is endorsed by all these scholars, as it is by finnur jónsson in his edition of the _hrólfs saga kraka og bjarkarímur_ (københavn, , p. xxii). ten brink ( _etc._) denied any original connection, on the ground of the dissimilarity between _beowulf_ and the story given by saxo. any resemblances between _beowulf_ and the _hrólfs saga_ he attributed to the influence of the english _beowulf_-story upon the _saga_. for olrik's emphatic denial of any connection at all, see _danmarks heltedigtning_, i, _etc._ (this seems to have influenced brandl, who expresses some doubt in _pauls grdr._ ( ) ii. . .) for arguments to the contrary, see heusler in _a.f.d.a._ xxx, , and especially panzer and lawrence as above. the parallel of _gullinhjalti_ and _gyldenhilt_ was first noted tentatively by kluge (_engl. stud._ xxii, ). * * * * * { } section iv. parallels from folklore. hitherto we have been dealing with parallels to the grendel story in written literature: but a further series of parallels, although much more remote, is to be found in that vast store of old wives' tales which no one till the nineteenth century took the trouble to write down systematically, but which certainly go back to a very ancient period. one particular tale, that of the bear's son[ ] (extant in many forms), has been instanced as showing a resemblance to the _beowulf_-story. in this tale the hero, a young man of extraordinary strength, ( ) sets out on his adventures, associating with himself various companions; ( ) makes resistance in a house against a supernatural being, which his fellows have in vain striven to withstand, and succeeds in mishandling or mutilating him. ( ) by the blood-stained track of this creature, or guided by him in some other manner, the hero finds his way to a spring, or hole in the earth, ( ) is lowered down by a cord and ( ) overcomes in the underworld different supernatural foes, amongst whom is often included his former foe, or very rarely the mother of that foe: victory can often only be gained by the use of a magic sword which the hero finds below. ( ) the hero is left treacherously in the lurch by his companions, whose duty it was to have drawn him up... now it may be objected, with truth, that this is not like the _beowulf_-story, or even particularly like the _grettir_-story. but the question is not merely whether it resembles these stories as we possess them, but whether it resembles the story which must have been the common origin of both. and we have only to try to reconstruct from _beowulf_ and from the _grettis saga_ a tale which can have been the common original of both, to see that it must be something extraordinarily like the folk-tale outlined above. { } for example, it is true that the departure of the danes homeward because they believe that beowulf has met his death in the water below, bears only the remotest resemblance to the deliberate treachery which the companions in the folk-tale mete out to the hero. but when we compare the _grettir_-story, we see there that a real breach of trust is involved, for there the priest stein leaves the hero in the lurch, and abandons the rope by which he should have drawn grettir up. this can hardly be an innovation on the part of the composer of the _grettis saga_, for he is quite well disposed towards stein, and has no motive for wantonly attributing treachery to him. the innovation presumably lies in the _beowulf_-story, where hrothgar and his court are depicted in such a friendly spirit that no disreputable act can be attributed to them, and consequently hrothgar's departure home must not be allowed in any way to imperil or inconvenience the hero. a comparison of the _beowulf_-story with the _grettir_-story leads then to the conclusion that in the oldest version those who remained above when the hero plunged below _were_ guilty of some measure of disloyalty in ceasing to watch for him. in other words we see that the further we track the _beowulf_-story back, the more it comes to resemble the folk-tale. and our belief that there is some connection between the folk-tale and the original of _beowulf_ must be strengthened when we find that, by a comparison of the folk-tale, we are able to explain features in _beowulf_ which strike us as difficult and even absurd: precisely as when we turn to a study of shakespeare's sources we often find the explanation of things that puzzle us: we see that the poet is dealing with an unmanageable source, which he cannot make quite plausible. for instance: when grendel enters heorot he kills and eats the first of beowulf's retinue whom he finds: no one tries to prevent him. the only explanation which the poet has to offer is that the retinue are all asleep[ ]--strange somnolence on the part of men who are awaiting a hostile attack, which they expect will be fatal to them all[ ]. and beowulf at any rate is not asleep. yet he calmly watches whilst his henchman is { } both killed and eaten: and apparently, but for the accident that the monster next tackles beowulf himself, he would have allowed his whole bodyguard to be devoured one after another. but if we suppose the story to be derived from the folk-tale, we have an explanation. for in the folk-tale, the companions and the hero await the foe singly, in succession: the turn of the hero comes last, after all his companions have been put to shame. but beowulf, who is represented as having specially voyaged to heorot in order to purge it, cannot leave the defence of the hall for the first night to one of his comrades. hence the discomfiture of the comrade and the single-handed success of the hero have to be represented as simultaneous. the result is incongruous: beowulf _has_ to look on whilst his comrade is killed. again, both beowulf and grettir plunge in the water with a sword, and with the deliberate object of shedding the monster's blood. why then should the watchers on the cliff above assume that the blood-stained water must necessarily signify the _hero's_ death, and depart home? why did it never occur to them that this deluge of blood might much more suitably proceed from the monster? but we can understand this unreason if we suppose that the story-teller had to start from the deliberate and treacherous departure of the companions, whilst at the same time it was not to his purpose to represent the companions as treacherous. in that case some excuse _must_ be found for them: and the blood-stained water was the nearest at hand[ ]. again, quite independently of the folk-tale, many _beowulf_ scholars have come to the conclusion that in the original version of the story the hero did not wait for a second attack from the mother of the monster he had slain, but rather, from a natural and laudable desire to complete his task, followed the monster's tracks to the mere, and finished him and his mother below. many traits have survived which may conceivably point to an original version of the story in which beowulf (or the figure corresponding to him) at once plunged down { } in order to combat the foe corresponding to grendel. there are unsatisfactory features in the story as it stands. for why, it might be urged, should the wrenching off of an arm have been fatal to so tough a monster? and why, it has often been asked, is the adversary under the water sometimes male, sometimes female? and why is it apparently the blood of grendel, not of his mother, which discolours the water and burns up the sword, and the head of grendel, not of his mother, which is brought home in triumph? these arguments may not carry much weight, but at any rate when we turn to the folk-tale we find that the adventure beneath the earth _is_ the natural following up of the adventure in the house, not the result of any renewed attack. in addition, there are many striking coincidences between individual versions or groups of the folk-tale on the one hand and the _beowulf-grettir_ story on the other: yet it is very difficult to know what value should be attached to these parallels, since there are many features of popular story which float around and attach themselves to this or that tale without any original connection, so that it is easy for the same trait to recur in _beowulf_ and in a group of folk-tales, without this proving that the stories as a whole are connected[ ]. the hero of the bear's son folk-tale is often in his youth unmanageable or lazy. this is also emphasized in the stories both of grettir and of orm: and though such a feature was uncongenial to the courtly tone of _beowulf_, which sought to depict the hero as a model prince, yet it _is_ there[ ], even though only alluded to incidentally, and elsewhere ignored or even denied[ ]. again, the hero of the folk-tale is very frequently (but not necessarily) either descended from a bear, nourished by a bear, or has some ursine characteristic. we see this recurring in certain traits of beowulf such as his bear-like method of hugging { } his adversary to death. here again the courtly poet has not emphasized his hero's wildness[ ]. again, there are some extraordinary coincidences in names, between the _beowulf-grettir_ story and the folk-tale. these are not found in _beowulf_ itself, but only in the stories of grettir and orm. yet, as the _grettir_-episode is presumably derived from the same original as the _beowulf_-episode, any _original_ connection between it and the folk-tale involves such connection for _beowulf_ also. we have seen that in _grettis saga_ the priest stein, as the unfaithful guardian of the rope which is to draw up the hero, seems to represent the faithless companions of the folktale. there is really no other way of accounting for him, for except on this supposition he is quite otiose and unnecessary to the _grettir_-story: the saga-man has no use for him. and his name confirms this explanation, for in the folk-tale one of the three faithless companions of the hero is called the stone-cleaver, _steinhauer_, _stenkløver_, or even, in one scandinavian version, simply _stein_[ ]. again, the struggle in the _grettis saga_ is localized at sandhaugar in barthardal in northern iceland. yet it is difficult to say why the saga-teller located the story there. the scenery, with the neighbouring river and mighty waterfall, is fully described: but students of icelandic topography assert that the neighbourhood does _not_ at all lend itself to this description[ ]. when we turn to the story of orm we find it localized on the island sandey. we are forced to the conclusion that the name belongs to the story, and that in some early version this was localized at a place called sandhaug, perhaps at one of the numerous places in norway of that name. now turning to one of the scandinavian versions of the folk-tale, we find that the descent into the earth and the consequent struggle is localized in _en stor sandhaug_[ ]. { } on the other hand, it must be remembered that if a collection is made of some two hundred folk-tales, it is bound to contain, in addition to the essential kernel of common tradition, a vast amount of that floating material which tends to associate itself with this or that hero of story. individual versions or groups of versions of the tale may contain features which occur also in the _grendel_-story, without that being any evidence for primitive connection. thus we are told how grendel forces open the door of heorot. in a sicilian version of the folk-tale the doors spring open of themselves as the foe appears. this has been claimed as a parallel. but, as a sceptic has observed, the extraordinary thing is that of so slight a similarity (if it is entitled to be called a similarity) we should find only one example out of two hundred, and have to go to sicily for that[ ]. the parallel between the _beowulf_-story and the "bear's son" folk-tale had been noted by laistner (_das rätsel der sphinx_, berlin, , ii, _etc._): but the prevalent belief that the _beowulf_-story was a nature-myth seems to have prevented further investigation on these lines till panzer independently (p. ) undertook his monumental work. yet there are other features in the folk-tale which are entirely unrepresented in the _beowulf-grettir_ story. the hero of the folk-tale rescues captive princesses in the underworld (it is because they wish to rob him of this prize that his companions leave him below); he is saved by some miraculous helper, and finally, after adopting a disguise, puts his treacherous comrades to shame and weds the youngest princess. none of these elements[ ] are to be found in the stories of beowulf, grettir, orm or bjarki, yet they are essential to the fairy tale[ ]. { } so that to speak of _beowulf_ as a version of the fairy tale is undoubtedly going too far. all we can say is that some early story-teller took, from folk-tale, those elements which suited his purpose, and that a tale, containing many leading features found in the "bear's son" story, but omitting many of the leading motives of that story, came to be told of beowulf and of grettir[ ]. * * * * * section v. scef and scyld. our poem begins with an account of the might, and of the funeral, of scyld scefing, the ancestor of that danish royal house which is to play so large a part in the story. after scyld's death his retainers, following the command he had given them, placed their beloved prince in the bosom of a ship, surrounded by many treasures brought from distant lands, by weapons of battle and weeds of war, swords and byrnies. also they placed a golden banner high over his head, and let the sea bear him away, with soul sorrowful and downcast. men could not say for a truth, not the wisest of councillors, who received that burden. now there is much in this that can be paralleled both from the literature and from the archaeological remains of the north. abundant traces have been found, either of the burial or of the burning of a chief within a ship. and we are told by different authorities of two ancient swedish kings who, sorely wounded, and unwilling to die in their beds, had themselves placed upon ships, surrounded by weapons and the bodies of the slain. the funeral pyre was then lighted on the vessel, and the ship sent blazing out to sea. similarly the dead body of baldr was put upon his ship, and burnt. haki konungr fekk svá stór sár, at hann sá, at hans lífdagar mundu eigi langir verða; þá lét hann taka skeið, er hann átti, ok lét hlaða dauðum m[o,]nnum, ok vápnum, lét þá flytja út til hafs ok leggja stýri { } í lag ok draga upp segl, en leggja eld í tyrvið ok gera bál á skipinu; veðr stóð af landi; haki var þá at kominn dauða eða dauðr, er hann var lagiðr á bálit; siglði skipit síðan loganda út í haf, ok var þetta allfrægt lengi síðan. (king haki was so sore wounded that he saw that his days could not be long. then he had a warship of his taken, and loaded with dead men and weapons, had it carried out to sea, the rudder shipped, the sail drawn up, the fir-tree wood set alight, and a bale-fire made on the ship. the wind blew from the land. haki was dead or nearly dead, when he was placed on the pyre. then the ship sailed blazing out to sea; and that was widely famous for a long time after.) _ynglinga saga_, kap. , in _heimskringla_, udg. af finnur jónsson, københavn, , vol. i, p. . the _skjoldunga saga_ gives a story which is obviously connected with this. king sigurd ring in his old age asked in marriage the lady alfsola; but her brothers scorned to give her to an aged man. war followed; and the brothers, knowing that they could not withstand the hosts of sigurd, poisoned their sister before marching against him. in the battle the brothers were slain, and sigurd badly wounded. qui, alfsola funere allato, magnam navim mortuorum cadaveribus oneratam solus vivorum conscendit, seque et mortuam alfsolam in puppi collocans navim pice, bitumine et sulphure incendi jubet: atque sublatis velis in altum, validis a continente impellentibus ventis, proram dirigit, simulque manus sibi violentas intulit; sese ... more majorum suorum regali pompa odinum regem (id est inferos) invisere malle, quam inertis senectutis infirmitatem perpeti.... _skjoldungasaga i arngrim jónssons udtog_, udgiven af axel olrik, kjøbenhavn, , cap. xxvii, p. [ ]. so with the death of baldr. en æsirnir tóku lík baldrs ok fluttu til sævar. hringhorni hét skip baldrs; hann var allra skipa mestr, hann vildu goðin framm setja ok gera þar á bálf[o,]r baldrs ... þá var borit út á skipit lík baldrs,... oðinn lagði á bálit gullhring þann, er draupnir heitir ... hestr baldrs var leiddr á bálit með [o,]llu reiði. (but the gods took the body of baldr and carried it to the sea-shore. baldr's ship was named hringhorni: it was the greatest of all ships and the gods sought to launch it, and to build the pyre of baldr on it.... then was the body of baldr borne out on to the ship.... odin laid on the pyre the gold ring named draupnir ... and baldr's horse with all his trappings was placed on the pyre.) _snorra edda: gylfaginning_, ; udg. af finnur jónsson, københavn, . we are justified in rendering _setja skip fram_ by "launch": olrik (_heltedigtning_, i, ) regards baldr's funeral as a case of the burning of a body in a ship on land. but it seems to me, as to mr chadwick (_origin_, ), that the natural meaning is that the ship was launched in the sea. but the case of scyld is not exactly parallel to these. the ship which conveyed scyld out to sea was _not_ set alight. and the words of the poet, though dark, seem to imply that it was intended to come to land somewhere: "none could say who received that freight." { } further, scyld not merely departed over the waves--he had in the first instance come over them: "not with less treasure did they adorn him," says the poet, speaking of the funeral rites, "than did those who at the beginning sent him forth alone over the waves, being yet a child." scyld scefing then, like tennyson's arthur, comes from the unknown and departs back to it. the story of the mysterious coming over the water was not confined to scyld. it meets us in connection with king scef, who was regarded, at any rate from the time of alfred, and possibly much earlier, as the remotest ancestor of the wessex kings. ethelwerd, a member of the west saxon royal house, who compiled a bombastic latin chronicle towards the end of the tenth century, traces back the pedigree of the kings of wessex to scyld _and his father scef_. "this scef," he says, "came to land on a swift boat, surrounded by arms, in an island of the ocean called scani, when a very young child. he was unknown to the people of that land, but was adopted by them as if of their kin, well cared for, and afterwards elected king[ ]." note here, firstly, that the story is told, not of scyld scefing, but of scef, father of scyld. secondly, that although ethelwerd is speaking of the ancestor of the west saxon royal house, he makes him come to land and rule, not in the ancient homeland of continental angeln, but in the "island of scani," which signifies what is now the south of sweden, and perhaps also the danish islands[ ]--that same land of _scedenig_ which is mentioned in _beowulf_ as the realm of scyld. the tone of the narrative is, so far as we can judge from ethelwerd's dry summary, entirely warlike: scef is surrounded by weapons. in the twelfth century the story is again told by william of malmesbury. "sceldius was the son of sceaf. he, they say, was carried as a small boy in a boat without any oarsman to a certain isle of germany called scandza, concerning which { } jordanes, the historian of the goths, speaks. he was sleeping, and a handful of corn was placed at his head, from which he was called 'sheaf.' he was regarded as a wonder by the folk of that country and carefully nurtured; when grown up he ruled in a town then called slaswic, and now haithebi--that region is called ancient anglia[ ]." william of malmesbury was, of course, aware of ethelwerd's account, and may have been influenced by it. some of his variations may be his own invention. the substitution of the classical form _scandza_ for ethelwerd's _scani_ is simply a change from popular to learned nomenclature, and enables the historian to show that he has read something of jordanes. the alteration by which malmesbury makes sceaf, when grown up, rule at schleswig in ancient angel, may again be his own work--a variant added in order to make sceaf look more at home in an anglo-saxon pedigree. but william of malmesbury was, as we shall see later, prone to incorporate current ballads into his history, and after allowing for what he may have derived from ethelwerd, and what he may have invented, there can be no doubt that many of the additional details which he gives are genuine popular poetry. indeed, whilst the story of scyld's _funeral_ is very impressive in _beowulf_, it is in william's narrative that the story of the child coming over the sea first becomes poetic. now since even the english historians connected this tale with the danish territory of _scani, scandza_, we should expect to find it again on turning to the records of the danish royal house. and we do find there, generally at the head of the pedigree[ ], a hero--skjold--whose name corresponds, and whose relationship to the later danish kings shows him to be the same as the _scyld scefing_ of _beowulf_. but neither saxo grammaticus, nor any other danish historian, knows anything of { } skjold having come in his youth or returned in his death over the ocean. how are we to harmonize these accounts? _beowulf_ and ethelwerd agree in representing the hero as "surrounded by arms"; william of malmesbury mentions only the sheaf; the difference is weighty, for presumably the spoils which the hero brings with him from the unknown, or takes back thither, are in harmony with his career. _beowulf_ and ethelwerd seem to show the warrior king, william of malmesbury seems rather to be telling the story of a semi-divine foundling, who introduces the tillage of the earth[ ]. in _beowulf_ the child is scyld scefing, in ethelwerd and william of malmesbury he is sceaf, father of scyld. _beowulf_, ethelwerd and william of malmesbury agree in connecting the story with _scedenig_, _scani_ or _scandza_, yet the two historians and the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ all make sceaf the ancestor of the west saxon house. yet we have no evidence that the english were regarded as having come from scandinavia. the last problem admits of easy solution. in heathen times the english traced the pedigree of most of their kings to woden, and stopped there. for higher than that they could not go. but a christian poet or genealogist, who had no belief in woden as a god, would regard the all father as a man--a mere man who, by magic powers, had made the heathen believe he was a god. to such a christian pedigree-maker woden would convey no idea of finality; he would feel no difficulty in giving this human woden any number of ancestors. wishing to glorify the pedigree of his king, he would add any other distinguished and authentic genealogies, and the obvious place for these would be at the end of the line, i.e., above woden. hence we have in some quite early (not west saxon) pedigrees, five names given as ancestors of woden. these five names end in geat or geata, who was apparently regarded as a god, and was possibly woden under another name[ ]. somewhat later, in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, under { } the year , we have a long version of the west saxon pedigree with yet nine further names above geat, ending in sceaf. sceaf is described as a son of noah, and so the pedigree is carried back to adam, generations in all beyond woden[ ]. but it is rash to assume with müllenhoff that, because sceaf comes at the head[ ] of this english pedigree, sceaf was therefore essentially an english hero. _all_ these later stages above woden look like the ornate additions of a later compiler. some of the figures, finn, sceldwa, heremod, sceaf himself, we have reason to identify with the primitive heroes of other nations. the genealogist who finally made sceaf into a son born to noah in the ark, and then carried the pedigree nine stages further back through noah to adam, merely made the last of a series of accretions. it does not follow that, because he made them ancestors of the english king, this compiler regarded noah, enoch and adam as englishmen. neither need he have so regarded sceaf or scyld[ ] or beaw. in fact--and this has constantly been overlooked--the authority for sceaf, scyld and beaw as anglo-saxon heroes is but little stronger than the authority for noah and adam in that capacity. no manuscript exists which stops at scyld or sceaf. there is no version which goes beyond geat except that which goes up to adam. scyld, beaw, sceaf, noah and adam as heroes of english mythology are all alike doubtful. we must be careful, however, to define what we mean when we regard these stages of the pedigree as doubtful. they are doubtful in so far as they are represented as standing above woden in the anglo-saxon pedigree, because it is incredible that, in primitive and heathen times, woden was credited with a dozen or more forefathers. the _position_ of these names in the pedigree is therefore doubtful. but it is only their connection with the west saxon house that is unauthentic. it does not follow that the names are, _per se_, unauthentic. on the contrary, it is because the genealogist had such implicit belief in the authenticity of the generations { } from noah to adam that he could not rest satisfied with his west saxon pedigree till he had incorporated these names. they are not west saxon, but they are part of a tradition much more ancient than any pedigree of the west saxon kings. and the argument which applies to the layer of hebrew names between noah and adam applies equally to the layer of germanic names between woden and sceaf. from whatever branch of the germanic race the genealogist may have taken them, the fact that he placed them where he did in the pedigree is a proof of his veneration for them. but we must not without evidence claim them as west saxon or anglo-saxon: we must not be surprised if evidence points to some of them being connected with other nations--as heremod, for example, with the danes[ ]. more difficult are the other problems. william of malmesbury tells the story of sceaf, with the attributes of a culture-hero: _beowulf_, four centuries earlier, tells it of scyld, a warrior hero: ethelwerd tells it of sceaf, but gives him the warrior attributes of scyld[ ] instead of the sheaf of corn. the earlier scholars mostly agreed[ ] in regarding malmesbury's attribution of the story to sceaf as the original and correct version of the story, in spite of its late date. as a representative of these early scholars we may take müllenhoff[ ]. müllenhoff's love of mythological interpretation found ample scope in the story of the child with the sheaf, which he, with considerable reason, regarded as a "culture-myth." müllenhoff believed the carrying over of the attributes of a god to a line of his supposed descendants to be a common feature of myth--the descendants representing the god under another name. in accordance with this view, scyld could be explained as an "hypostasis" of his father or forefather sceaf, as a figure further explaining him and representing him, so that in the end the tale of the boat arrival came to be told, in _beowulf_, of scyld instead of sceaf. { } recent years have seen a revolt against most of müllenhoff's theories. the view that the story originally belonged to sceaf has come to be regarded with a certain amount of impatience as "out of date." even so fine a scholar as dr lawrence has expressed this impatience: "that the graceful story of the boy sailing in an open boat to the land of his future people was told originally of sceaf ... needs no detailed refutation at the present day. "the attachment of the motive to sceaf must be, as an examination of the sources shows, a later development[ ]." accordingly the view of recent scholars has been this: that the story belongs essentially to scyld. that, as the hero of the boat story is obviously of unknown parentage, we must interpret _scefing_ not as "son of sceaf" but as "with the sheaf" (in itself a quite possible explanation). that this stage of the story is preserved in _beowulf_. that subsequently _scyld scefing_, standing at the head of the pedigree, came to be misunderstood as "scyld, son of sceaf". that consequently the story, which must be told of the earlier ancestor, was thus transferred from scyld to his supposed father sceaf--the version which is found in ethelwerd and william of malmesbury. one apparent advantage of this theory is that the oldest version, that of _beowulf_, is accepted as the correct and original one, and the much later versions of the historians ethelwerd and william of malmesbury are regarded as subsequent corruptions. this on the surface seems eminently reasonable. but let us look closer. _scyld scefing_ in _beowulf_ is to be interpreted "scyld with the sheaf." but _beowulf_ nowhere mentions the sheaf as part of scyld's equipment. on the contrary, we gather that the hero is connected rather with prowess in war. it is the same in ethelwerd. it is not till william of malmesbury that the sheaf comes into the story. so that the interpretation of _scefing_ as "with the sheaf" assumes the accuracy of william of malmesbury's story even in a point where it receives no support from the _beowulf_ version. in other words this theory does the very thing to avoid doing which it was called into being[ ]. { } besides this, there are two fundamental objections to the theory that sceaf is a late creation, a figure formed from the misunderstanding of the epithet _scefing_ applied to _scyld_. one portion of the poem of _widsith_ consists of a catalogue of ancient kings, and among these occurs _sceafa_, ruling the langobards. now portions of _widsith_ are very ancient, and this catalogue in which sceafa occurs is almost certainly appreciably older than _beowulf_ itself. secondly, the story of the wonderful foundling who comes over the sea from the unknown and founds a royal line, must _ex hypothesi_ be told of the first in the line, and we have seen that it is sceaf, not scyld, who comes at the head of the teutonic names in the genealogy in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_. now we can date this genealogy fairly exactly. it occurs under the year , and seems to have been drawn up at the court of king Æthelwulf. in any case it cannot be later than the latter part of alfred's reign. this takes us back to a period when the old english epic was still widely popular. a genealogist at alfred's court must have known much about old english story. these facts are simply not consistent with the belief that sceaf is a late creation, a figure formed from a misunderstanding of the epithet _scefing_, applied to scyld[ ]. { } to arrive at any definite conclusion is difficult. but the following may be hazarded. it may be taken as proved that the scyld or sceldwa of the genealogists is identical with the scyld scefing of _beowulf_. for sceldwa according to the genealogy is also ultimately a _sceafing_, and is the father of beow; scyld is _scefing_ and is father of beowulf[ ]. it is equally clear that the scyld scefing of _beowulf_ is identical with the skjold of the danish genealogists and historians. for scyld and skjold are both represented as the founder and head of the danish royal house of scyldingas or skjoldungar, and as reigning in the same district. here, however, the resemblance ceases. _beowulf_ tells us of scyld's marvellous coming and departure. the only danish authority who tells us much of skjold is saxo grammaticus, who records how as a boy skjold wrestled successfully with a bear and overcame champions, and how later he annulled unrighteous laws, and distinguished himself by generosity to his court. but the danish and english accounts have nothing specifically in common, though the type they portray is the same--that of a king from his youth beloved by his retainers and feared by neighbouring peoples, whom he subdues and makes tributary. it looks rather as if the oldest traditions had had little to say about this hero beyond the typical things which might be said of any great king; so that danes and english had each supplied the deficiency in their own way. now this is exactly what we should expect. for scyld-skjold is hardly a personality: he is a figure evolved out of the name _scyldingas_, _skjoldungar_, which is an old epic title for the danes. of this we may be fairly certain: the scyldingas did not get their name because they were really descended from scyld, but scyld was created in order to provide an eponymous father to the scyldingas[ ]. in just the same way { } tradition also evolved a hero dan, from whom the danes were supposed to have their name. saxo grammaticus has combined both pedigrees, making skjold a descendant of dan; but usually it was agreed that nothing came before skjold, that he was the beginning of the skjoldung line[ ]. at first a mere name, we should expect that he would have no characteristic save that, like every respectable germanic king, he took tribute from his foes and gave it to his friends. he differs therefore from those heroic figures like hygelac or guthhere (gunnar) which, being derived from actual historic characters, have, from the beginning of their story, certain definite features attached to them. scyld is, in the beginning, merely a name, the ancestor of the scyldings. tradition collects round him gradually. hence it will be rash to attach much weight to any feature which is found in one account of him only. anything we are told of scyld in english sources alone is not to be construed as evidence as to his original story, but only as to the form that story assumed in england. when, for example, _beowulf_ tells us that scyld is _scefing_, or that he is father of beowulf, it will be very rash of us to assume that these relationships existed in the danish, but have been forgotten. this is, i think, universally admitted[ ]. yet the very scholars who emphasize this, have assumed that the marvellous arrival as a child, in a boat, surrounded by weapons, is an essential feature of scyld's story. yet the evidence for this is no better and no worse than the evidence for his relationship to sceaf or beow--it rests solely on the english documents. accordingly it only shows what was told about scyld in england. of course the boat arrival _might_ be an original part of the story of _scyld-skjold_, which has been forgotten in his native { } country, but remembered in england. but i cannot see that we have any right to assert this, without proof. what we can assert to have been the original feature of scyld is this--that he was the eponymous hero king of the danes. both _beowulf_ and the scandinavian authorities agree upon that. the fact that his name (in the form _sceldwa_) appears in the genealogy of the kings of wessex is not evidence against a danish origin. the name appears in close connection with that of heremod, another danish king, and is merely evidence of a desire on the part of the genealogist of the wessex kings to connect his royal house with the most distinguished family he knew: that of the scyldingas, about whom so much is said in the prologue to _beowulf_. neither do the instances of place-names in england, such as _scyldes treow_, _scildes well_, prove scyld to have been an english hero. they merely prove him to have been a hero who was celebrated in england--which the prologue to _beowulf_ alone is sufficient to show to have been the case. for place-names commemorating heroes of alien tribes are common enough[ ] on english ground. so much at least is gained. whatever müllenhoff[ ] and his followers constructed upon the assumption that scyld was an essentially anglo-saxon hero goes overboard. scyld is the ancestor king of the danish house--more than this we can hardly with safety assert. now let us turn to the figure of sceaf. this was not necessarily connected with scyld from the first. the story of sceaf first meets us in its completeness in the pages of william of malmesbury. and william of malmesbury is a twelfth century authority; by his time the old english courtly epics had died out--for they could not have long survived the norman conquest and the overthrow of old english court life. but the popular tradition[ ] remained, and { } a good many of the old stories, banished from the hall, must have lingered on at the cross-roads--tales of wade and weyland, of offa and sceaf. for songs, sung by minstrels at the cross roads, william of malmesbury is good evidence, and he owns to having drawn information from similar popular sources[ ]. william's story, then, is evidence that in his own day there was a tradition of a mythical king sheaf who came as a child sleeping in a ship with a sheaf of corn at his head how old this tradition may be, we cannot say. ethelwerd knew the story, though he has nothing to say of the sheaf. but we have seen that when we get back to the ninth century, and the formation of the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, at a court where we may be sure the old english heroic stories were still popular, it is sceaf and not sceldwa who is regarded as the beginning of things--the king whose origin is so remote that he is the oldest germanic ancestor one can get back to[ ]: "he was born in noah's ark." whether or no noah's ark was chosen as sceaf's birthplace because legend represented him as coming in a boat over the water, we cannot tell. but the place he occupies, with only the biblical names before him, as compared with sceldwa the son of heremod, clearly marks sceaf rather than sceldwa as the hero who comes from the unknown. turning now to the catalogue of kings in _widsith_, probably the oldest extant piece of anglo-saxon verse, some generations more ancient than _beowulf_, we find a king sceafa, who ruled over the langobards. finally, in _beowulf_ itself, although the story is told of scyld, nevertheless this scyld is characterized as _scefing_. if this means "with the sheaf," then the _beowulf_-story stands convicted of imperfection, of needing explanation outside itself from the { } account which william of malmesbury wrote four centuries later. if it means "son of sceaf," why should a father be given to scyld, when the story demands that he should come from the unknown? was it because, if the boat story was to be attributed to scyld, it was felt that this could only be made plausible by giving him some relation to sceaf? when we find an ancient king bearing the extraordinary name of "sheaf," it is difficult not to connect this with the honour done to the sheaf of corn, survivals of which have been found in different parts of england. in herrick's time, the sheaves of corn were still kissed as they were carried home on the hock-cart, whilst some, with great devotion, stroke the home-borne wheat. professor chadwick argues, on the analogy of prussian and bulgarian harvest customs, that the figure of the "harvest queen" in the english ceremony is derived from a corn figure made from the last sheaf, and that the sheaf was once regarded as a religious symbol[ ]. but the evidence for this is surely even stronger than would be gathered from professor chadwick's very cautious statement. i suppose there is hardly a county in england from kent to cornwall and from kent to northumberland, where there is not evidence for honour paid to the last sheaf--an honour which cannot be accounted for as merely expressing the joy of the reapers at having got to the end of their task. in kent "a figure composed of some of the best corn" was made into a human shape: "this is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, etc., of the finest lace. it is brought home with the last load of corn[ ]." in northumberland and durham a sheaf known as the "kern baby" was made into the likeness of a human figure, decked out and brought home in triumph with dancing and singing[ ]. but the most striking form of the sheaf ceremony is found in the honour done to the "neck" in the west of england. { } ... after the wheat is all cut, on most farms in the north of devon the harvest people have a custom of "crying the neck." i believe that this practice is seldom omitted on any large farm in that part of the country. it is done in this way. an old man, or someone else well acquainted with the ceremonies used on the occasion (when the labourers are reaping the last field of wheat), goes round to the shocks and sheaves, and picks out a little bundle of all the best ears he can find; this bundle he ties up very neat and trim, and plats and arranges the straws very tastefully. this is called "the neck" of wheat, or wheaten-ears. after the field is cut out, and the pitcher once more circulated, the reapers, binders, and the women, stand round in a circle. the person with "the neck" stands in the centre, grasping it with both his hands. he first stoops and holds it near the ground, and all the men forming the ring take off their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands towards the ground. they then all begin at once in a very prolonged and harmonious tone to cry "the neck!" at the same time slowly raising themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads; the person with "the neck" also raising it on high. this is done three times. they then change their cry to "wee yen!"--"way yen!"--which they sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular harmony and effect, three times. this last cry is accompanied by the same movements of the body and arms as in crying "the neck." ... ... after having thus repeated "the neck" three times, and "wee yen" or "way yen" as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing the girls. one of them then gets "the neck," and runs as hard as he can down to the farm-house, where the dairy-maid, or one of the young female domestics, stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. if he who holds "the neck" can manage to get into the house, in any way, unseen or openly, by any other way than the door at which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused with the contents of the bucket. on a fine still autumn evening, the "crying of the neck" has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the turkish muezzin, which lord byron eulogizes so much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells in christendom. i have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of female voices. about three years back, on some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, i heard six or seven "necks" cried in one night, although i know that some of them were four miles off[ ]. the account given by mrs bray of the devonshire custom, in her letters to southey, is practically identical with this[ ]. we have plenty of evidence for this ceremony of "crying the neck" in the south-western counties in somersetshire[ ], in cornwall[ ], and in a mutilated form in dorsetshire[ ]. { } on the welsh border the essence of the ceremony consisted in tying the last ears of corn--perhaps twenty--with ribbon, and severing this "neck" by throwing the sickle at it from some distance. the custom is recorded in cheshire[ ], shropshire[ ], and under a different name in herefordshire[ ]. the term "neck" seems to have been known as far afield as yorkshire and the "little england beyond wales"--the english-speaking colony of pembrokeshire[ ]. whether we are to interpret the expression "the neck," applied to the last sheaf, as descended from a time when "the corn spirit is conceived in human form, and the last standing corn is a part of its body--its neck[ ] ..." or whether it is merely a survival of the scandinavian word for sheaf--_nek_ or _neg_[ ], we have here surely evidence of the worship of the sheaf. "in this way 'sheaf' was greeted, before he passed over into a purely mythical being[ ]." i do not think these "neck" customs can be traced back beyond the seventeenth century[ ]. though analogous usages are recorded in england (near eton) as early as the sixteenth century[ ], it was not usual at that time to trouble to record such things. the earliest document bearing upon the veneration of the sheaf comes from a neighbouring district, and is contained in the chronicle of the monastery of abingdon, which tells how in the time of king edmund ( - ) a controversy arose as to the right of the monks of abingdon to a certain portion of land adjoining the river. the monks appealed to a judgment of god to vindicate their claim, and this took the shape of { } placing a sheaf, with a taper on the top, upon a round shield and letting it float down the river, the shield by its movements hither and thither indicating accurately the boundaries of the monastic domain. at last the shield came to the field in debate, which, thanks to the floods, it was able to circumnavigate[ ]. professor chadwick, who first emphasized the importance of this strange ordeal[ ], points out that although the extant mss of the _chronicle_ date from the thirteenth century, the mention of a _round_ shield carries the superstition back to a period before the norman conquest. therefore this story seems to give us evidence for the use of the sheaf and shield together as a magic symbol in anglo-saxon times. "an ordeal by letting the sheaf sail down the river on a shield was only possible at a time when the sheaf was regarded as a kind of supernatural being which could find the way itself[ ]." but a still closer parallel to the story of the corn-figure coming over the water is found in finnish mythology in the person of sämpsä pellervoinen. finnish mythology seems remote from our subject, but if the figure of sämpsä was borrowed from germanic mythology, as seems to be thought[ ], we are justified in laying great weight upon the parallel. readers of the _kalewala_ will remember, near the beginning, the figure of sämpsä pellervoinen, the god of vegetation. he does not seem to do much. but there are other finnish { } poems in his honour, extant in varying versions[ ]. it is difficult to get a collected idea from these fragmentary records, but it seems to be this: ahti, the god of the sea, sends messengers to summon sämpsä, so that he may bring fertility to the fields. in one version, first the winter and then the summer are sent to arouse sämpsä, that he may make the crops and trees grow. winter-- took a foal swift as the spring wind, let the storm wind bear him forward, blew the trees till they were leafless, blew the grass till it was seedless, bloodless likewise the young maidens. sämpsä refuses to come. then the summer is sent with better results. in another version sämpsä is fetched from an island beyond the sea: it is i who summoned sämpsä from an isle amid the ocean, from a skerry bare and treeless. in yet another variant we are told how the boy sämpsä took six grains from off the corn heap, slept all summer mid the corn heap, in the bosom of the corn boat. now "it's a long, long way to" ilomantsi in the east of finland, where this last variant was discovered. but at least we have evidence that, within the region influenced by germanic mythology, the spirit of vegetation was thought of as a boy coming over the sea, or sleeping in a boat with corn[ ]. to sum up: sceafa, when the catalogue of kings in _widsith_ was drawn up--before _beowulf_ was composed, at any rate in its present form--was regarded as an ancient king. when the west saxon pedigree was drawn up, certainly not much more than a century and a half after the composition of _beowulf_, and perhaps much less, sceaf was regarded as the primitive figure in the pedigree, before whom no one lived save the hebrew patriarchs. that he was originally thought of as a child, { } coming across the water, with the sheaf of corn, is, in view of the finnish parallel, exceedingly probable, and acquires some confirmation from the chronicler's placing him in noah's ark. but the definite evidence for this is late. scyld, on the other hand, is in the first place probably a mere eponym of the power of the scylding kings of denmark. he may, at a very early date, have been provided with a ship funeral, since later two swedish kings, both apparently of danish origin, have this ship funeral accorded to them, and in one case it is expressly said to be "according to the custom of his ancestors." but it seems exceedingly improbable that his original story represented him as coming over the sea in a boat. for, if so, it remains to be explained why this motive has entirely disappeared among his own people in scandinavia, and has been preserved only in england. would the danes have been likely to forget utterly so striking a story, concerning the king from whom their line derived its name? further, in england, _beowulf_ alone attributes this story to scyld, whilst later historians attribute it to sceaf. in view of the way in which the story of william of malmesbury is supported by folklore, to regard that story as merely the result of error or invention seems perilous indeed. on the other hand, all becomes straightforward if we allow that scyld and sceaf were both ancient figures standing at the head of famous dynasties. their names alliterate. what more likely than that their stories should have influenced each other, and that one king should have come to be regarded as the parent or ancestor of the other? contamination with scyld would account for sceaf's boat being stated to have come to land in scani, scanza--that scedeland which is mentioned as the seat of scyld's rule. yet this explanation is not necessary, for if sceaf were an early longobard king, he would be rightly represented as ruling in scandinavia[ ]. * * * * * { } section vi. beow. the anglo-saxon genealogies agree that the son of sceldwa (scyld) is beow (beaw, beo). in _beowulf_, he is named not beow, but beowulf. many etymologies have been suggested for _b[=e]ow_. but considering that beow is in some versions a grandson, in all a descendant of sceaf, it can hardly be an accident that his name is identical with the o.e. word for grain, _b[=e]ow_. the norse word corresponding to this is _bygg_[ ]. recent investigation of the name is best summed up in the words of axel olrik: "new light has been cast upon the question of the derivation of the name beow by kaarle krohn's investigation of the debt of finnish to norse mythology, together with magnus olsen's linguistic interpretation. the finnish has a deity pekko, concerning whom it is said that he promoted the growth of barley: the esths, closely akin to the finns, have a corresponding peko, whose image--the size of a three-year-old child--was carried out into the fields and invoked at the time of sowing, or else was kept in the corn-bin by a custodian chosen for a year. this pekko is plainly a personification of the barley; the form corresponding phonetically in runic norse would be *_beggw-_ (from which comes old norse _bygg_). "so in norse there was a grain *_beggw-_ (becoming _bygg_) and a corn-god *_beggw-_ (becoming _pekko_). in anglo-saxon there was a grain _béow_ and an ancestral _béow_. and all four are phonetically identical (proceeding from a primitive form *_beuwa_, 'barley'). the conclusion which it is difficult to avoid is, that the corn-spirit 'barley' and the ancestor 'barley' are one and the same. the relation is the same as that between king sheaf and the worship of the sheaf: the worshipped corn-being gradually sinks into the background, and comes to be regarded as an epic figure, an early ancestor. "we have no more exact knowledge of the mythical ideas connected either with the ancestor beow or the corn-god pekko. but we know enough of the worship of pekko to show that he dwelt in the corn-heap, and that, in the spring, he was fetched out in the shape of a little child. that reminds us not a little of sämpsä, who lay in the corn-heap on the ship, and came to land and awoke in the spring[ ]." { } but it may be objected that this is "harking back" to the old mythological interpretations. after refusing to accept müllenhoff's assumptions, are we not reverting, through the names of sceaf and beow, and the worship of the sheaf, to very much the same thing? no. it is one thing to believe that the ancestor-king beow may be a weakened form of an ancient divinity, a mere name surviving from the figure of an old corn-god beow; it is quite another to assume, as müllenhoff did, that what we are told about beowulf was originally told about beow _and that therefore we are justified in giving a mythological meaning to it_. all we know, conjecture apart, about beow is his traditional relationship to scyld, sceaf and the other figures of the pedigree. that beowulf's dragon fight belonged originally to him is only a conjecture. in confirmation of this conjecture only one argument has been put forward: an argument turning upon beowulf, son of scyld--that obscure figure, apparently equivalent to beow, who meets us at the beginning of our poem. beowulf's place as a son of scyld and father of healfdene is occupied in the danish genealogies by frothi, son of skjold, and father of halfdan. it has been urged that the two figures are really identical, in spite of the difference of name. now frothi slays a dragon, and it has been argued that this dragon fight shows similarities which enable us to identify it with the dragon fight attributed in our poem to beowulf the geat. the argument is a strong one--if it really is the case that the dragon slain by frothi was the same monster as that slain by beowulf the geat. unfortunately this parallel, which will be examined in the next section, is far from certain. we must be careful not to argue in a circle, identifying beowulf and frothi because they slew the same dragon, and then identifying the dragons because they were slain by the same hero. whilst, therefore, we admit that it is highly probable that beow (grain) the descendant of sceaf (sheaf) was originally a corn divinity or corn fetish, we cannot follow müllenhoff in his bold attribution to this "culture hero" of beowulf's adventures with the dragon or with grendel. * * * * * { } section vii. the house of scyld and danish parallels: heremod-lotherus and beowulf-frotho. scyld, although the source of that scylding dynasty which our poem celebrates, is _not_ apparently regarded in _beowulf_ as the earliest danish king. he came to the throne after an interregnum; the people whom he grew up to rule had long endured cruel need, "being without a prince[ ]." we hear in _beowulf_ of one danish king only whom we can place chronologically before scyld--viz. heremod[ ]. the way in which heremod is referred to would fit in very well with the supposition[ ] that he was the last of a dynasty; the immediate predecessor of scyld; and that it was the death or exile of heremod which ushered in the time when the danes were without a prince. now there is a natural tendency in genealogies for each king to be represented as the descendant of his predecessor, whether he really was so or no; so that in the course of time, and sometimes of a very short time, the first king of a new dynasty may come to be reckoned as son of a king of the preceding line[ ]. consequently, there would be nothing surprising if, in another account, we find scyld represented as a son of heremod. and we _do_ find the matter represented thus in the west saxon genealogy, where sceldwa or scyld is son of heremod. turning to the danish accounts, however, we do not find any _hermóðr_ (which is the form we should expect corresponding to _herem[=o]d_) as father to skjold (scyld). either no father of skjold is known, or else (in saxo grammaticus) he has a father lotherus. but, although the names are different, there is some correspondence between what we are told of lother and what we are told of heremod. a close parallel has indeed been drawn by sievers between the whole dynasty: on the one hand lotherus, his son skioldus, and his descendant frotho, { } as given in saxo: and on the other hand the corresponding figures in _beowulf_, heremod, scyld, and scyld's son, beowulf the dane. the fixed and certain point here is the identity of the central figure, skioldus-scyld. all the rest is very doubtful; not that there are not many parallel features, but because the parallels are of a commonplace type which might so easily recur accidentally. the story of lother, as given by saxo, will be found below: the story of heremod as given in _beowulf_ is hopelessly obscure--a mere succession of allusions intended for an audience who knew the tale quite well. assuming the stories of lother and heremod to be different versions of one original, the following would seem to be the most likely reconstruction[ ], the more doubtful portions being placed within round brackets thus ( ): the old danish prince [dan in saxo] has two sons, one a weakling [_humblus_, saxo] the other a hero [_lotherus_, saxo: _heremod_, _beowulf_] (who was already in his youth the hope of the nation). but after his father's death the elder was (through violence) raised to the throne: and lother-heremod went into banishment. (but under the rule of the weakling the kingdom went to pieces, and thus) many a man longed for the return of the exile, as a help against these evils. so the hero conquers and deposes the weaker brother. but then his faults break forth, his greed and his cruelty: he ceases to be the darling and becomes the scourge of his people, till they rise and either slay him or drive him again into exile. if the stories of lother and heremod _are_ connected, we may be fairly confident that heremod, not lother, was the name of the king in the original story. for scandinavian literature does know a hermoth (_hermóðr_), though no such adventures are attributed to him as those recorded of heremod in _beowulf_. nevertheless it is probable that this hermoth and heremod in _beowulf_ are one and the same, because both heroes are linked in some way or other with sigemund. how these two kings, heremod and sigemund, came to be connected, we do not know, but we find this connection recurring again and again[ ]. this _may_ be { } mere coincidence: but i doubt if we are justified in assuming it to be so[ ]. it has been suggested[ ] that both heremod and sigemund were originally heroes specially connected with the worship of odin, and hence grouped together. the history of the scandinavian sigmund is bound up with that of the magic sword which odin gave him, and with which he was always victorious till the last fight when odin himself shattered it. and we are told in the icelandic that odin, whilst he gave a sword to sigmund, gave a helm and byrnie to hermoth. again, whilst in one scandinavian poem sigmund is represented as welcoming the newcomer at the gates of valhalla, in another the same duty is entrusted to hermoth. it is clear also that the _beowulf_-poet had in mind some kind of connection, though we cannot tell what, between sigemund and heremod. we may take it, then, that the heremod who is linked with sigemund in _beowulf_ was also known in scandinavian literature as a hero in some way connected with sigmund: whether or no the adventures which saxo records of lotherus were really told in scandinavian lands in connection with hermoth, we cannot say. the wicked king whose subjects rebel against him is too common a feature of germanic story for us to feel sure, without a good deal of corroborative evidence, that the figures of lotherus and heremod are identical. the next king in the line, skioldus in saxo, is, as we have seen, clearly identical with scyld in _beowulf_. but beyond the name, the two traditions have, as we have also seen, but little in common. both are youthful heroes[ ], both force neighbouring kings to pay tribute[ ]; but such things are commonplaces[ ]. we must therefore turn to the next figure in the pedigree: the son of skjold in scandinavian tradition is frothi (frotho { } in saxo)[ ], the son of scyld in _beowulf_ is beowulf the dane. and frothi is the father of halfdan (haldanus in saxo) as beowulf the dane is of healfdene. the frothi of scandinavian tradition corresponds then in position to beowulf the dane in old english story[ ]. now of beowulf the dane we are told so little that we have really no means of drawing a comparison between him and frothi. but a _theory_ that has found wide acceptance among scholars assumes that the dragon fight of beowulf the geat was originally narrated of beowulf the dane, and only subsequently transferred to the geatic hero. theoretically, then, beowulf the dane kills a dragon. now certainly frotho kills a dragon: and it has been generally accepted[ ] that the parallels between the dragon slain by frotho and that slain by beowulf the geat are so remarkable as to exclude the possibility of mere accidental coincidence, and to lead us to conclude that the dragon story was originally told of that beowulf who corresponds to frothi, i.e. beowulf the dane, son of scyld and father of healfdene; not beowulf, son of ecgtheow, the geat. but are the parallels really so close? we must not forget that here we are building theory upon theory. that the frotho of saxo is the same figure as beowulf the dane in old english, is a theory, based upon his common relationship to skiold-scyld before him and to haldanus-healfdene coming after him: that beowulf the dane was the original hero of the dragon fight, and that that dragon fight was only subsequently transferred to the credit of beowulf the geat, is again a theory. only if we can find real parallels between the dragon-slaying of frotho and the dragon-slaying of beowulf will these theories have confirmation. { } parallels have been pointed out by sievers which he regards as so close as to justify a belief that both are derived ultimately from an old lay, with so much closeness that verbal resemblances can still be traced. unfortunately the parallels are all commonplaces. that sievers and others have been satisfied with them was perhaps due to the fact that they started by assuming as proved that the dragon fight of beowulf the geat belonged originally to beowulf the dane[ ], and argued that since frotho in saxo occupies a place corresponding exactly to that of beowulf the dane in _beowulf_, a comparatively limited resemblance between two dragons coming, as it were, at the same point in the pedigree, might be held sufficient to identify them. but, as we have seen, the assumption that the dragon fight of beowulf the geat belonged originally to beowulf the dane is only a theory that will have to stand or fall as we can prove that the dragon fight of frotho is really parallel to that of beowulf the geat, and therefore must have belonged to the connecting link supplied by the scylding prince beowulf the dane. in other words, the theory that the dragon in _beowulf_ is to be identified with the dragon which in saxo is slain by frotho the danish prince, father of haldanus-healfdene, is one of the main arguments upon which we must base the theory that the dragon in _beowulf_ was originally slain by the danish beowulf, father of healfdene, not by beowulf the geat. we cannot then turn round, and assert that the fact that they were both slain by a danish prince, the father of healfdene, is an argument for identifying the dragons. turning to the dragon fight itself, the following parallels have been noted by sievers: ( ) a native (_indigena_) comes to frotho, and tells him of the treasure-guarding dragon. an informer (_melda_) plays the same part in _beowulf_[ ]. but a dragon is not game which can be met with every day. he is a shy beast, lurking in desert places. some informant has very frequently to guide the hero to his { } foe[ ]. and the situation is widely different. frotho knows nothing of the dragon till directed to the spot: beowulf's land has been assailed, he knows of the dragon, though he needs to be guided to its _exact_ lair. ( ) frotho's dragon lives on an island. beowulf's lives near the sea, and there is an island (_[=e]alond_, ) in the neighbourhood. but _[=e]alond_ in _beowulf_ probably does not mean "island" at all: and in any case the dragon did not live upon the _[=e]alond_. many dragons have lived near the sea. sigemund's dragon did so[ ]. ( ) the hero in each case attacks the dragon single-handed. but what hero ever did otherwise? on the contrary, beowulf's exploit differs from that of frotho and of most other dragon slayers in that he is unable to _overcome_ his foe single-handed, and needs the support of wiglaf. ( ) special armour is carried by the dragon slayer in each case. but this again is no uncommon feature. the red cross knight also needs special armour. dragon slayers constantly invent some ingenious or even unique method. and again the parallel is far from close. frotho is advised to cover his shield and his limbs with the hides of bulls and kine: a sensible precaution against fiery venom. beowulf constructs a shield of iron[ ]: which naturally gives very inferior protection[ ]. ( ) frotho's informant tells him that he must be of good courage[ ]. wiglaf encourages beowulf[ ]. but the circumstances under which the words are uttered are entirely different, nor have the words more than a general resemblance. that a man needs courage, if he is going to tackle a dragon, is surely a conclusion at which two minds could have arrived independently. ( ) both heroes waste their blows at first on the scaly back of the dragon. { } but if the hero went at once for the soft parts, there would be no fight at all, and all the fun would be lost. sigurd's dragon-fight is, for this reason, a one-sided business from the first. to avoid this, frotho is depicted as beginning by an attack on the dragon's rough hide (although he has been specially warned by the _indigena_ not to do so): ventre sub imo esse locum scito quo ferrum mergere fas est, hunc mucrone petens medium rimaberis anguem[ ]. ( ) the hoard is plundered by both heroes. but it is the nature of a dragon to guard a hoard[ ]. and, having slain the dragon, what hero would neglect the gold? ( ) there are many verbal resemblances: the dragon spits venom[ ], and twists himself into coils[ ]. some of these verbal resemblances may be granted as proved: but they surely do not prove the common origin of the two dragon fights. they only tend to prove the common origin of the school of poetry in which these two dragon fights were told. that dragons dwelt in mounds was a common germanic belief, to which the cottonian gnomic verses testify. naturally, therefore, frotho's dragon is _montis possessor_: beowulf's is _beorges hyrde_. the two phrases undoubtedly point back to a similar gradus, to a similar traditional stock phraseology, and to similar beliefs: that is all. as well argue that two kings must be identical, because each is called _folces hyrde_. these commonplace phrases and commonplace features are surely quite insufficient to prove that the stories are identical--at most they only prove that they bear the impress of one and the same poetical school. if a parallel is to carry weight there must be something individual about it, as there is, for example, about the arguments by which the identity of beowulf and bjarki have been supported. that a hero comes from { } geatland (gautland) to the court where hrothulf (rolf) is abiding; that the same hero subsequently is instrumental in helping eadgils (athils) against onela (ali)--here we have something tangible. but when two heroes, engaged upon slaying a dragon, are each told to be brave, the parallel is too general to be a parallel at all. "there is a river in macedon: and there is also moreover a river at monmouth, and there is salmons in both." and there is a fundamental difference, which would serve to neutralize the parallels, even did they appear much less accidental than they do. dragon fights may be classified into several types: two stand out prominently. there is the story in which the young hero begins his career by slaying a dragon or monster and winning, it may be a hoard of gold, it may be a bride. this is the type of story found, for instance, in the tales of sigurd, or perseus, or st george. on the other hand there is the hero who, at the end of his career, seeks to ward off evil from himself and his people. he slays the monster, but is himself slain by it. the great example of this type is the god thor, who in the last fight of the gods slays the dragon, but dies when he has reeled back nine paces from the "baleful serpent[ ]." now the story of the victorious young frotho is of the one type: that of the aged beowulf is of the other. and this difference is essential, fundamental, dominating the whole situation in each case: giving its cheerful and aggressive tone to the story of frotho, giving the elegiac and pathetic note which runs through the whole of the last portion of _beowulf_[ ]. it is no mere detail which could be added or subtracted by a narrator without altering the essence of the story. in face of this we must pronounce the two stories essentially and originally distinct. if, nevertheless, there were a large number of striking and specific similarities, we should have to allow that, though originally distinct, the one dragon story had influenced the other in detail. for, whilst each poet who retold the tale would make alterations in detail, and might { } import such detail from one dragon story into another, what we know of the method of the ancient story tellers does not allow us to assume that a poet would have altered the whole drift of a story, either by changing the last death-struggle of an aged, childless prince into the victorious feat of a young hero, or by the reverse process. those, therefore, who hold the parallels quoted above to be convincing, may believe that one dragon story has influenced another, originally distinct[ ]. to me, it does not appear that even this necessarily follows from the evidence. it seems very doubtful whether any of the parallels drawn by sievers between the stories of lotherus and heremod[ ], skioldus and scyld, frotho and beowulf, are more than the resemblances inevitable in poetry which, like the old danish and the old english, still retains so many traces of the common germanic frame in which it was moulded. indeed, of the innumerable dragon-stories extant, there is probably not one which we can declare to be really identical with that of beowulf. there is a danish tradition which shows many similarities[ ], and i have given this below, in part ii; but rather as an example of a dragon-slaying of the _beowulf_ type, than because i believe in any direct connection between the two stories. * * * * * { } chapter iii theories as to the origin, date, and structure of the poem section i. is "beowulf" translated from a scandinavian original? our poem, the first original poem of any length in the english tongue, ignores england. in one remarkable passage (ll. - ) it mentions with praise offa i, the great king who ruled the angles whilst they were still upon the continent. but, except for this, it deals mainly with heroes who, so far as we can identify them with historic figures, are scandinavian. hence, not unnaturally, the first editor boldly declared _beowulf_ to be an anglo-saxon version of a danish poem; and this view has had many supporters. the poem _must_ be scandinavian, said one of its earliest translators, because it deals mainly with scandinavian heroes and "everyone knows that in ancient times each nation celebrated in song its own heroes alone[ ]." and this idea, though not so crudely expressed, seems really to underlie the belief which has been held by numerous scholars, that the poem is nothing more than a translation of a poem in which some scandinavian minstrel had glorified the heroes of his own nation. but what do we mean by "nation"? doubtless, from the point of view of politics and war, each germanic tribe, or offshoot of a tribe, formed an independent nation: the longobardi had no hesitation in helping the "romans" to cut the throats of their gothic kinsmen: penda the mercian was willing to ally with the welshmen in order to overthrow his { } fellow angles of northumbria. but all this, as the history of the ancient greeks or of the ancient hebrews might show us, is quite compatible with a consciousness of racial unity among the warring states, with a common poetic tradition and a common literature. for purposes of poetry there was only one nation--the germanic--split into many dialects and groups, but possessed of a common metre, a common style, a common standard of heroic feeling: and any deed of valour performed by any germanic chief might become a fit subject for the poetry of any germanic tribe of the heroic age. so, if by "nation" we mean the whole germanic race, then germanic poetry is essentially "national." the huns were the only non-germanic tribe who were received (for poetical purposes) into germania. hunnish chiefs seem to have adopted gothic manners, and after the huns had disappeared it often came to be forgotten that they were not germans. but with this exception the tribes and heroes of germanic heroic poetry are germanic. if, however, by "nation" we understand the different warring units into which the germanic race was, politically speaking, divided, then germanic poetry is essentially "international." this is no theory, but a fact capable of conclusive proof. the chief actors in the old norse volsung lays are not norsemen, but sigurd the frank, gunnar the burgundian, atli the hun. in continental germany, the ideal knight of the saxons in the north and the bavarians in the south was no native hero, but theodoric the ostrogoth. so too in england, whilst _beowulf_ deals chiefly with scandinavian heroes, the _finnsburg_ fragment deals with the frisian tribes of the north sea coast: _waldere_ with the adventures of germanic chiefs settled in gaul, _deor_ with stories of the goths and of the baltic tribes, whilst _widsith_, which gives us a catalogue of the old heroic tales, shows that amongst the heroes whose names were current in england were men of gothic, burgundian, frankish, lombard, frisian, danish and swedish race. there is nothing peculiar, then, in the fact that _beowulf_ celebrates heroes who were not of anglian birth. { } in their old home in schleswig the angles had been in the exact centre of germania: with an outlook upon both the north sea and the baltic, and in touch with scandinavian tribes on the north and low german peoples on the south. that the angles were interested in the stories of all the nations which surrounded them, and that they brought these stories with them to england, is certain. it is a mere accident that the one heroic poem which happens to have been preserved at length is almost exclusively concerned with scandinavian doings. it could easily have happened that the history of the _beowulf_ ms and the _waldere_ ms might have been reversed: that the _beowulf_ might have been cut up to bind other books, and the _waldere_ preserved intact: in that case our one long poem would have been localized in ancient burgundia, and would have dealt chiefly with the doings of burgundian champions. but we should have had no more reason, without further evidence, to suppose the _waldere_ a translation from the burgundian than we have, without further evidence, to suppose _beowulf_ a translation from the scandinavian. to deny that _beowulf_, as we have it, is a translation from the scandinavian does not, of course, involve any denial of the scandinavian origin of the _story_ of beowulf's deeds. the fact that his achievements are framed in a scandinavian setting, and that the closest parallels to them have to be sought in scandinavian lands, makes it probable on _a priori_ grounds that the story had its origin there. on the face of it, müllenhoff's belief that the story was indigenous among the angles is quite unlikely. it would seem rather to have originated in the geatic country. but stories, whether in prose or verse, would spread quickly from the geatas to the danes and from the danes to the angles. after the angles had crossed the north sea, however, this close intimacy ceased, till the viking raids again reminded englishmen, in a very unpleasant way, of their kinsmen across the sea. now linguistic evidence tends to show that _beowulf_ belongs to a time prior to the viking settlement in england, and it is unlikely that the scandinavian traditions embodied in _beowulf_ found their way to england just at the time when { } communication with scandinavian lands seems to have been suspended. we must conclude then that all this scandinavian tradition probably spread to the angles whilst they were still in their old continental home, was brought across to england by the settlers in the sixth century, was handed on by english bards from generation to generation, till some englishmen formed the poem of _beowulf_ as we know it. of course, if evidence can be produced that _beowulf_ is translated from some scandinavian original, which was brought over in the seventh century or later, that is another matter. but the evidence produced so far is not merely inconclusive, but ludicrously inadequate. it has been urged[ ] by sarrazin, the chief advocate of the translation theory, that the description of the country round heorot, and especially of the journey to the grendel-lake, shows such local knowledge as to point to its having been composed by some scandinavian poet familiar with the locality. heorot can probably, as we have seen, be identified with leire: and the grendel-lake sarrazin identifies with the neighbouring roskilde fjord. but it is hardly possible to conceive a greater contrast than that between the roskilde fjord and the scenery depicted in ll. _etc._, _etc._ seen, as sarrazin saw it, on a may morning, in alternate sun and shadow, the roskilde fjord presents a view of tame and peaceful beauty. in the days of hrothgar, when there were perhaps fewer cultivated fields and more beech forests, the scenery may have been less tame, but can hardly have been less peaceful. the only trace of accurate geography is that heorot is represented as not on the shore, and yet not far remote from it (ll. _etc._). but, as has been pointed out above, we know that traditions of the attack by the heathobeardan upon heorot were current in england: and these would be quite sufficient to keep alive, even among english bards, some remembrance of the strategic situation of heorot with regard to the sea. a man need not have been near troy, to realize that the town was no seaport and yet near the sea. { } again, it has been claimed by sarrazin that the language of _beowulf_ shows traces of the scandinavian origin of the poem. sarrazin's arguments on this head have been contested energetically by sievers[ ]. after some heated controversy sarrazin made a final and (presumably) carefully-weighed statement of his case. in this he gave a list of twenty-nine words upon which he based his belief[ ]. yet of these twenty-nine, twenty-one occur in other o.e. writings, where there can be no possible question of translation from the scandinavian: some of these words, in fact, are amongst the commonest of o.e. poetical expressions. there remain eight which do not happen to be found elsewhere in the extant remains of o.e. poetry. but these are mostly compounds like _heaðo-l[=a]c_, _feorh-s[=e]oc_: and though the actual compound is not elsewhere extant in english, the component elements are thoroughly english. there is no reason whatever to think that these eight rare words are taken from old norse. indeed, three of them do not occur in old norse at all. evidence to prove _beowulf_ a translation from a scandinavian original is, then, wanting. on the other hand, over and above the difficulty that the _beowulf_ belongs just to the period when intimate communication between the angles and scandinavians was suspended, there is much evidence against the translation theory. the earliest scandinavian poetry we possess, or of which we can get information, differs absolutely from _beowulf_ in style, metre and sentiment: the manners of _beowulf_ are incompatible with all we know of the wild heathendom of scandinavia in the seventh or eighth century[ ]. _beowulf_, as we now have it, with its christian references and its latin loan-words, _could_ not be a translation from the scandinavian. and the proper names in _beowulf_ which sarrazin claimed were old norse, not old english, and had been taken { } over from the old norse original, are in all cases so correctly transliterated as to necessitate the assumption that they were brought across early, at the time of the settlement of britain or very shortly after, and underwent phonetic development side by side with the other words in the english language. had they been brought across from scandinavia at a later date, much confusion must have ensued in the forms. somewhat less improbable is the suggestion "that the poet had travelled on the continent and become familiar with the legends of the danes and geats, or else had heard them from a scandinavian resident in england[ ]." but it is clear from the allusive manner in which the scandinavian tales are told, that they must have been familiar to the poet's audience. if, then, the english audience knew them, why must the poet himself have travelled on the continent in order to know them? there is, therefore, no need for this theory, and it is open to many of the objections of the translation theory: for example it fails, equally with that theory, to account for the uniformly correct development of the proper names. the obvious conclusion is that these scandinavian traditions were brought over by the english settlers in the sixth century. against this only one cavil can be raised, and that will not bear examination. it has been objected that, since hygelac's raid took place about , since beowulf's accession was some years subsequent, and since he then reigned fifty years, his death cannot be put much earlier than , and that this brings us to a date when the migration of the angles and saxons had been completed[ ]. but it is forgotten that all the historical events mentioned in the poem, which we can date, occur before, or not very long after, the raid of hygelac, c. . the poem asserts that fifty years after these events beowulf slew a dragon and was slain by it. but this does not make the dragon historic, nor does it make the year the historic date of the death of beowulf. we cannot be sure that there _was_ any actual king of the geatas named beowulf; and if there was, the last known historic act with which that king is associated is the raising of eadgils to the swedish throne, { } c. : the rest of beowulf's long reign, since it contains no event save the slaying of a dragon, has no historic validity. it is noteworthy that, whereas there is full knowledge shown in our poem of those events which took place in scandinavian lands during the whole period from about to --the period during which hordes of angles, saxons and jutes were landing in britain--there is no reference, not even by way of casual allusion, to any continental events which we can date with certainty as subsequent to the arrival of the latest settlers from the continent. surely this is strong evidence that these tales were brought over by some of the last of the invaders, not carried to england by some casual traveller a century or two later. * * * * * section ii. the dialect, syntax, and metre of "beowulf" as evidence of its literary history. a full discussion of the dialect, metre and syntax of _beowulf_ forms no part of the scheme of this study. it is only intended in this section to see how far such investigations throw light upon the literary history of the poem. _dialect._ _beowulf_ is written in the late west saxon dialect. imbedded in the poem, however, are a large number of forms, concerning which this at least can be said--that they are not normal late west saxon. critics have classified these forms, and have drawn conclusions from them as to the history of the poem: arguing from sporadic "mercian" and "kentish" forms that _beowulf_ is of mercian origin and has passed through the hands of a kentish transcriber. but, in fact, the evidence as to old english dialects is more scanty and more conflicting than philologists have always been willing to admit. it is exceedingly difficult to say with any certainty what forms are "mercian" and what "kentish." having run such forms to earth, it is still more difficult to say what arguments are to be drawn from their _occasional_ { } appearance in any text. men from widely different parts of the country would be working together in the scriptorium of one and the same monastery, and this fact alone may have often led to confusion in the dialectal forms of works transcribed. a thorough investigation of the significance of all the abnormal forms in _beowulf_ has still to be made. whether it would repay the labour of the investigator may well be questioned. in the meantime we may accept the view that the poem was in all probability originally written in some non-west-saxon dialect, and most probably in an anglian dialect, since this is confirmed by the way in which the anglian hero offa is dragged into the story. ten brink's attempt to decide the dialect and transmission of _beowulf_ will be found in his _beowulf_, pp. - : he notes the difficulty that the "kentish" forms from which he argues are nearly all such as occur also sporadically in west saxon texts. a classification of the forms by p. g. thomas will be found in the _modern language review_, i, _etc._ how difficult and uncertain all classification must be has been shown by frederick tupper (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxvi, _etc._; _j.e.g.p._ xi, - ). "_lichtenheld's test._" somewhat more definite results can be drawn from certain syntactical usages. there can be no doubt that as time went on, the use of _se_, _s[=e]o_, _þæt_ became more and more common in o.e. verse. this is largely due to the fact that in the older poems the _weak adjective_ + _noun_ appears frequently where we should now use the definite article: _w[=i]sa fengel_--"the wise prince"; _se w[=i]sa fengel_ is used where some demonstrative is needed--"that wise prince." later, however, _se_, _s[=e]o_, _þæt_ comes to be used in the common and vague sense in which the definite article is used in modern english. we consequently get with increasing frequency the use of the _definite article_ + _weak adjective_ + _noun_: whilst the usage _weak adjective_ + _noun_ decreases. some rough criterion of date can thus be obtained by an examination of a poet's usage in this particular. of course it would be absurd--as has been done--to group old english poems in a strict chronological order according to the proportion of forms with and without the article. individual usage must count for a good deal: { } also the scribes in copying and recopying our text must to a considerable extent have obliterated the earlier practice. metre and syntax combine to make it probable that, in line of our poem, the scribe has inserted the unnecessary article _þ[=a]ra_ before _ymbsittendra_: and in the rare cases where we have an o.e. poem preserved in two texts, a comparison proves that the scribe has occasionally interpolated an article. but this later tendency to level out the peculiarity only makes it the more remarkable that we should find such great differences between o.e. poems, all of them extant in copies transcribed about the year . how great is the difference between the usage of _beowulf_ and that of the great body of old english poetry will be clear from the following statistics. the proportion of phrases containing the weak adjective + noun with and without the definite article in the certain works of cynewulf is as follows[ ]: with article without article _juliana_ _christ (ii)_ _elene_ in _guthlac_ (a) (c. ) the proportions are: with article without article _guthlac_ (a) contrast this with the proportion in our poem: with article without article _beowulf_ the nearest approach to the proportions of _beowulf_ is in the (certainly very archaic) with article without article _exodus_ on the other hand, certain late texts show how fallible this criterion is. anyone dating _maldon_ solely by "lichtenheld's test" would assuredly place it much earlier than . { } it is easy to make a false use of grammatical statistics: and this test should only be applied with the greatest caution. but the difference between _beowulf_ and the works of cynewulf is too striking to be overlooked. in _beowulf_, to every five examples without the article (e.g. _heaðo-st[=e]apa helm_) we have _one_ with the article (e.g. _se hearda helm_): in cynewulf to every five examples without the article we have _forty_ with it. a further test of antiquity is in the use of the weak adjective with the instrumental--a use which rapidly diminishes. there are eighteen such instrumental phrases in _beowulf_ ( lines)[ ]. in _exodus_ ( lines) there are six examples[ ]--proportionally more than in _beowulf_. in cynewulf's undoubted works (c. lines) there is one example only, _beorhtan reorde_[ ]. this criterion of the absence of the definite article before the weak adjective is often referred to as lichtenheld's test (see article by him in _z.f.d.a._ xvi, _etc._). it has been applied to the whole body of o.e. poetry by barnouw (_textcritische untersuchungen_, ). the data collected by barnouw are most valuable, but we must be cautious in the conclusions we draw, as is shown by sarrazin (_eng. stud._ xxxviii, _etc._), and tupper (_pub. mod. lang. assoc._ xxvi, ). exact enumeration of instances is difficult. for example, lichtenheld gave instances of definite article + weak adjective + noun in _beowulf_[ ]. but eight of these are not quite certain; _se g[=o]da m[=æ]g hygel[=a]ces_ may be not "the good kinsman of hygelac," but "the good one--the kinsman of hygelac," for there is the half line pause after _g[=o]da_. these eight examples therefore should be deducted[ ]. one instance, though practically certain, is the result of conjectural emendation[ ]. of the remaining thirteen[ ] three are variations of the same phrase. the statistics given above are those of brandl (_sitzungsberichte d. k. preuss. akad. d. wissenschaften_, , p. ) which are based upon those of barnouw. "_morsbach's test._" sievers' theories as to o.e. metre have not been accepted by all scholars in their entirety. but the statistics which he { } collected enable us to say, with absolute certainty, that some given types of verse were not acceptable to the ear of an old english bard. sceptics may emphasize the fact that old english texts are uncertain, that nearly all poems are extant in one ms only, that the ms in each case was written down long after the poems were composed, and that precise verbal accuracy is therefore not to be expected[ ]. all the more remarkable then becomes the fact, for it is a fact, that there are certain types of line which never occur in _beowulf_, and that there are other types which are exceedingly rare. again, there are certain types of line which _do_ occur in _beowulf_ as we have it, though they seem contrary to the principles of o.e. scansion. when we find that such lines consistently contain some word which had a different metrical value when our extant ms of _beowulf_ was transcribed, from that which it had at the earlier date when _beowulf_ was composed, and that the earlier value makes the line metrical, the conclusion is obvious. _beowulf_ must have been composed at a time or in a dialect when the earlier metrical values held good. but we reach a certain date beyond which, if we put the language back into its older form, it will no longer fit into the metrical structure. for example, words like _fl[=o]d_, _feld_, _eard_ were originally "u-nouns": with nom. and acc. sing. _fl[=o]du_, etc. but the half-line _ofer fealone fl[=o]d_ ( ) becomes exceedingly difficult if we put it in the form _ofer fealone fl[=o]du_[ ]: the half-line _f[=i]felcynnes eard_ becomes absolutely impossible in the form _f[=i]felcynnes eardu_[ ]. it can, consequently, with some certainty be argued that these half-lines were composed after the time when _fl[=o]du_, _eardu_ had become _fl[=o]d_, _eard_. therefore, it has been further argued, _beowulf_ was composed after that date. but are we justified in this further step--in assuming that because a certain number of half-lines in _beowulf_ must have been composed after a certain date, therefore _beowulf_ itself must have been composed after that date? { } from what we know of the mechanical way in which the old english _scribe_ worked, we have no reason to suppose that he would have consistently altered what he found in an older copy, so as to make it metrical according to the later speech into which he was transcribing it. but if we go back to a time when poems were committed to memory by a _scop_, skilled in the laws of o.e. metre, the matter is very different. a written poem may be copied word for word, even though the spelling is at the same time modernized, but it is obvious that a poem preserved orally will be altered slightly from time to time, if the language in which it is written is undergoing changes which make the poem no longer metrically correct. imagine the state of things at the period when final _u_ was being lost after a long syllable. this loss of a syllable would make a large number of the half-lines and formulas in the old poetry unmetrical. are we to suppose that the whole of o.e. poetry was at once scrapped, and entirely new poems composed to fit in with the new sound laws? surely not; old formulas would be recast, old lines modified where they needed it, but the old poetry would go on[ ], with these minor verbal changes adapting it to the new order of things. we can see this taking place, to a limited extent, in the transcripts of middle english poems. in the transmission of poems by word of mouth it would surely take place to such an extent as to baffle later investigation[ ]. consequently i am inclined to agree that this test is hardly final except "on the assumption that the poems were written down from the very beginning[ ]." and we are clearly not justified in making any such assumption. a small number of such lines would accordingly give, not so much a means of fixing a period before which _beowulf_ cannot have been composed, as merely { } one before which _beowulf_ cannot have been fixed by writing in its present form. if, however, more elaborate investigation were to show that the _percentage_ of such lines is _just as great_ in _beowulf_ as it is in poems certainly written after the sound changes had taken place, it might be conceded that the test was a valid one, and that it proved _beowulf_ to have been written after these sound changes occurred. this would then bring us to our second difficulty. at what date exactly did these sound changes take place? the chief documents available are the proper names in bede's history, and in certain latin charters, the glosses, and a few early runic inscriptions. most important, although very scanty, are the charters, since they bear a date. with these we proceed to investigate: a. the dropping of the _u_ after a long accented syllable (_fl['=o]du_ becoming _fl['=o]d_), or semi-accented syllable (_st['=a]nfòrdu_ becoming _st['=a]nfòrd_). there is evidence from an essex charter that this was already lost in or (_uuidmundesfelt_)[ ]. from this date on, examples without the _u_ are forthcoming in increasing number[ ]. one certain example only has been claimed for the preservation of _u_. in the runic inscription on the "franks casket" _flodu_ is found for _flod_. but the spelling of the franks casket is erratic: for example _giuþeasu_ is also found for _giuþeas_, "the jews." now _u_ here is impossible[ ], and we must conclude perhaps that the inscriber of the runes intended to write _giuþea su[mæ]_[ ] or _giuþea su[na]_[ ], "some of the jews," "the sons of the jews," and that having reached the end of his line at _u_, he neglected to complete the word: or else perhaps that he wrote _giuþeas_ and having some additional space added a _u_ at the end of his line, just for fun. whichever explanation we { } adopt, it will apply to _flodu_, which equally comes at the end of a line, and the _u_ of which may equally have been part of some following word which was never completed[ ]. other linguistic data of the franks casket would lead us to place it somewhere in the first half of the eighth century, and we should hardly expect to find _u_ preserved as late as this[ ]. for we have seen that by the _u_ was already lost after a subordinate accent in the essex charter. yet it is arguable that the _u_ was retained later after a long accented syllable (_fl[=ó]du_) than after a subordinate accent (_uu[=í]dmùndesfèlt_); and, besides, the casket is northumbrian, and the sound changes need not have been simultaneous all over the country. we cannot but feel that the evidence is pitifully scanty. all we can say is that _perhaps_ the _flodu_ of the franks casket shows that _u_ was still preserved after a fully accented syllable as late as . but the _u_ in _flodu_ may be a deliberate archaism on the part of the writer, may be a local dialectal survival, may be a mere miswriting. b. the preservation of _h_ between consonant and vowel. here there is one clear example which we can date: the archaic spelling of the proper name _welhisc_. _signum manus uelhisci_ occurs in a kentish charter of [ ]. the same charter shows _h_ already lost between vowels: _uuestan ae_ (_ae_ dative of _[=e]a_, "river," cf. gothic _ahwa_). not much can be argued from the proper name _welhisc_, as to the current pronunciation in kent in , for an old man may well have continued to spell his name as it was spelt when he was a child, even though the current pronunciation had changed[ ]. but we have further evidence in the glosses, which show _h_ sometimes preserved and sometimes not. these glosses are mechanical copies of an original which was presumably compiled between and . we are therefore justified in arguing that at that date _h_ was still preserved, at any rate occasionally. { } of "morsbach's test" we can then say that it establishes something of an argument that _beowulf_ was composed after the date when final _u_ after a long syllable, or _h_ between consonant and vowel, were lost, and that this date was probably within a generation or so of the year a.d. but there are too many uncertain contingencies involved to make the test at all a conclusive one. morsbach's _zur datierung des beowulf-epos_ will be found in the göttingen _nachrichten_, , pp. - . these tests have been worked out for the whole body of old english poetry in the _chronologische studien_ of carl richter, halle, . * * * * * section iii. theories as to the structure of "beowulf." certain peculiarities in the structure of _beowulf_ can hardly fail to strike the reader. ( ) the poem is not a biography of beowulf, nor yet an episode in his life: it is two distinct episodes: the grendel business and the dragon business, joined by a narrow bridge. ( ) both these stories are broken in upon by digressions: some of these concern beowulf himself, so that we get a fairly complete idea of the life of our hero: but for the most part these digressions are not strictly apposite. ( ) even apart from these digressions, the narrative is often hampered: the poet begins his story, diverges and returns. ( ) the traces of christian thought and knowledge which meet us from time to time seem to belong to a different world from that of the germanic life in which our poem has its roots. now in the middle of the nineteenth century it was widely believed that the great epics of the world had been formed from collections of original shorter lays fitted together (often unskilfully) by later redactors. for a critic starting from this assumption, better material than the _beowulf_ could hardly be found. and it _was_ with such assumptions that carl müllenhoff, the greatest of the scholars who have dissected the _beowulf_, set to work. he attended the lectures of lachmann, and formed, { } a biographer tells us, the fixed resolve to do for one epic what his admired master had done for another[ ]. müllenhoff claimed for his theories that they were simple[ ] and straightforward: and so they were, if we may be allowed to assume as a basis that the _beowulf_ is made up out of shorter lays, and that the only business of the critic is to define the scope of these lays. in the story of beowulf's fight with grendel (ll. - : müllenhoff's sect. i) and with the dragon (ll. - : müllenhoff's sect. iv) müllenhoff saw the much interpolated remains of two original lays by different authors. but, before it was united to the dragon story, the grendel story, müllenhoff held, had already undergone many interpolations and additions. the story of grendel's mother (ll. - : sect. ii) was added, müllenhoff held, by one continuator as a sequel to the story of grendel, and ll. - were added by another hand as an introduction. then this grendel story was finally rounded off by an interpolator (a) who added the account of beowulf's return home (sect. iii, ll. - ) and at the same time inserted passages into the poem throughout. finally came interpolator b, who was the first to combine the grendel story, thus elaborated, with the dragon story. interpolator b was responsible for the great bulk of the interpolations: episodes from other cycles and "theologizing" matter. ten brink, like müllenhoff, regarded the poem as falling into four sections: the grendel fight, the fight with grendel's mother, the return home, the dragon fight. but müllenhoff had imagined the epic composed out of one set of lays: incoherences, he thought, were due to the bungling of successive interpolators. ten brink assumed that in the case of all three fights, with grendel, with grendel's mother, and with the dragon, there had been two _parallel_ versions, which a later redactor had combined together, and that it was to this combination that the frequent repetitions in the { } narrative were due: he believed that not only were the different episodes of the poem originally distinct, but that each episode was compounded of two originally distinct lays, combined together. now it cannot be denied that the process postulated by müllenhoff _might_ have taken place: a lay on grendel and a lay on the dragon-fight might have been combined by some later compiler. ten brink's theory, too, is inherently not improbable: that there should have been two or more versions current of a popular story is probable enough: that a scribe should have tried to fit these two parallel versions together is not without precedent: very good examples of such attempts at harmonizing different versions can be got from an examination of the mss of _piers plowman_. it is only here and there that we are struck by an inherent improbability in müllenhoff's scheme. thus the form in which müllenhoff assumes the poem to have existed before interpolator a set to work on it, is hardly a credible one. the "original poet" has brought beowulf from his home to the danish court, to slay grendel, and the "continuator" has taken him to the haunted lake: beowulf has plunged down, slain grendel's mother, come back to land. here müllenhoff believed the poem to have ended, until "interpolator a" came along, and told how beowulf returned in triumph to hrothgar, was thanked and rewarded, and then betook himself home, and was welcomed by hygelac. that it would have been left to an interpolator to supply what from the old point of view was so necessary a part of the story as the return to hrothgar is an assumption perilous indeed. "an epic poem only closes when everything is really concluded: not, like a modern novel, at a point where the reader can imagine the rest for himself[ ]." generally speaking, however, the theories of the "dissecting school" are not in themselves faulty, if we admit the assumptions on which they rest. they fail however in two ways. an examination of the short lay and the long epic, so far as these are represented in extant documents, does not bear out { } well the assumptions of the theorizers. secondly, the minute scrutiny to which the poem has been subjected in matters of syntax, metre, dialect and tradition has failed to show any difference between the parts attributed to the different authors, such as we must certainly have expected to find, had the theories of the "dissecting school" been correct. that behind our extant _beowulf_, and connecting it with the events of the sixth century, there must have been a number of older lays, may indeed well be admitted: also that to these lays our poem owes its plot, its traditions of metre and its phraseology, and perhaps (but this is a perilous assumption) continuous passages of its text. but what müllenhoff and ten brink go on to assume is that these original oral lays were simple in outline and treated a single well-defined episode in a straightforward manner; that later redactors and scribes corrupted this primitive simplicity; but that the modern critic, by demanding it, and using its presence or absence as a criterion, can still disentangle from the complex composite poem the simpler elements out of which it was built up. here are rather large assumptions. what right have we to postulate that this primitive "literature without letters[ ]," these short oral ballads and lays, dealt with a single episode without digression or confusion: whilst the later age,--the civilized, christianized age of written literature during which _beowulf_ in the form in which we now have it was produced,--is assumed to have been tolerant of both? no doubt, here and there, in different literatures, groups of short lays can be found which one can imagine might be combined into an orderly narrative poem, without much hacking about. but on the other hand a short lay will often tell, in less than a hundred lines, a story more complex than that of the _iliad_ or the _odyssey_. its shortness may be due, not to any limitation in the scope of the plot, but rather to the passionate haste with which it rushes through a long story. it is one thing to admit that there must have been short lays on the story of beowulf: it is another to assume that these lays were of such a character that nothing was needed but compilers { } with a taste for arrangement and interpolation in order to turn them into the extant epic of _beowulf_. when we find nearly five hundred lines spent in describing the reception of the hero in hrothgar's land, we may well doubt whether this passage can have found its way into our poem through any such process of fitting together as müllenhoff postulated. it would be out of scale in any narrative shorter than the _beowulf_ as we have it. it suggests to us that the epic is developed out of the lay, not by a process of fitting together, but rather by a retelling of the story in a more leisurely way. a comparison of extant short lays or ballads with extant epics has shown that, if these epics were made by stringing lays together, such lays must have been different from the great majority of the short lays now known. "the lays into which this theory dissects the epics, or which it assumes as the sources of the epics, differ in two ways from extant lays: they deal with short, incomplete subjects and they have an epic breadth of style[ ]." it has been shown by w. p. ker[ ] that a comparison of such fragments as have survived of the germanic short lay (_finnsburg_, _hildebrand_) does not bear out the theory that the epic is a conglomeration of such lays. "it is the change and development in style rather than any increase in the complexity of the themes that accounts for the difference in scale between the shorter and the longer poems." a similar conclusion is reached by professor hart: "it might be illuminating to base a _liedertheorie_ in part, at least, upon a study of existing _lieder_, rather than wholly upon an attempt to dismember the epic in question. such study reveals indeed a certain similarity in kind of ballad and epic, but it reveals at the same time an enormous difference in degree, in stage of development. if the _beowulf_, then, was made up of a series of heroic songs, strung together with little or no modification, these songs must have been something very different from the popular ballad[ ]." { } and subsequent investigations into the history and folk-lore of our poem have not confirmed müllenhoff's theory: in some cases indeed they have hit it very hard. when a new light was thrown upon the story by the discovery of the parallels between _beowulf_ and the _grettis saga_, it became clear that passages which müllenhoff had condemned as otiose interpolations were likely to be genuine elements in the tale. dr olrik's minute investigations into the history of the danish kings have shown from yet another point of view how allusions, which were rashly condemned by müllenhoff and ten brink as idle amplifications, are, in fact, essential. how the investigation of the metre, form, and syntax of _beowulf_ has disclosed an archaic strictness of usage has been explained above (sect. ii). this usage is in striking contrast with the practice of later poets like cynewulf. how far we are justified in relying upon such differences of usage as criteria of _exact_ date is open to dispute. but it seems clear that, had müllenhoff's theories been accurate, we might reasonably have expected to have been able to differentiate between the earlier and the later strata in so composite a poem. the composite theory has lately been strongly supported by schücking[ ]. schücking starts from the fact, upon which we are all agreed, that the poem falls into two main divisions: the story of how beowulf at heorot slew grendel and grendel's mother, and the story of the dragon, which fifty years later he slew at his home. these are connected by the section which tells how beowulf returned from heorot to his own home and was honourably received by his king, hygelac. it is now admitted that the ways of old english narrative were not necessarily our ways, and that we must not postulate, because our poem falls into two somewhat clumsily connected sections, that therefore it is compounded out of two originally distinct lays. but, on the other hand, as schücking rightly urges, instances _are_ forthcoming of two o.e. poems having been clumsily connected into one[ ]. therefore, whilst no one would now urge that _beowulf_ is put together out of two older { } lays, _merely_ because it can so easily be divided into two sections, this fact does suggest that a case exists for examination. now if a later poet had connected together two old lays, one on the grendel and grendel's mother business, and one on the dragon business, we might fairly expect that this connecting link would show traces of a different style. it is accordingly on the connecting link, the story of _beowulf's return_ and reception by hygelac, that schücking concentrates his attention, submitting it to the most elaborate tests to see if it betrays metrical, stylistic or syntactical divergencies from the rest of the poem. various tests are applied, which admittedly give no result, such as the frequency of the repetition in the _return_ of half verse formulas which occur elsewhere in _beowulf_[ ], or the way in which compound nouns fit into the metrical scheme[ ]. metrical criteria are very little more helpful[ ]. we have seen that the antiquity of _beowulf_ is proved by the cases where metre demands the substitution of an older uncontracted form for the existing shorter one. schücking argues that no instance occurs in the lines of the _return_. but, even if this were the case, it might well be mere accident, since examples only occur at rare intervals anywhere in _beowulf_. as a matter of fact, however, examples are to be found in the _return_[ ] (quite up to the normal proportion), though two of the clearest come in a portion of it which schücking rather arbitrarily excludes. coming to syntax in its broadest sense, and especially the method of constructing and connecting sentences, schücking enumerates several constructions which are found in the _return_, but not elsewhere in _beowulf_. syntax is a subject to which he has given special study, and his opinion upon it must be of value. but i doubt whether anyone as expert in the subject as schücking could not find in every passage of like length in _beowulf_ some constructions not to be exactly paralleled elsewhere in the poem. { } the fact that we find here, and here only, passages introduced by the clauses _ic sceal forð sprecan_[ ], and _t[=o] lang ys t[=o] reccenne_[ ], is natural when we realize that we have here the longest speech in the whole poem, which obviously calls for such apologies for prolixity. the fact that no parentheses occur in the _return_ does not differentiate it from the rest of _beowulf_: for, as schücking himself points out elsewhere, there are three other passages in the poem, longer than the _return_, which are equally devoid of parentheses[ ]. there remain a few _hapax legomena_[ ], but very inconclusive. there are, in addition, examples which occur only in the _return_, and in certain other episodic passages. these episodic passages also, schücking supposes, may have been added by the same reviser who added the _return_. but this is a perilous change of position. for example, a certain peculiarity is found only in the _return_ and the introductory genealogical section[ ]; or in the _return_ and the _finn episode_[ ]. but when schücking proceeds to the suggestion that the _introduction_ or the _finn episode_ may have been added by the same reviser who added _beowulf's return_, he knocks the bottom out of some of his previous arguments. the argument from the absence of parentheses (whatever it was worth) must go: for according to schücking's own punctuation, such parentheses are found both in the _introduction_ and in the _finn episode_. if these are by the author of the _return_, then doubt is thrown upon one of the alleged peculiarities of that author; we find the author of the _return_ no more averse _on the whole_ to parentheses than the author or authors of the rest of the poem. peculiar usages of the moods and tenses are found twice in the _return_[ ], and once again in the episode where beowulf { } recalls his youth[ ]. supposing this episode to be also the work of the author of the _return_, we get peculiar constructions used three times by this author, which cannot be paralleled elsewhere in _beowulf_[ ]. now a large number of instances like this last might afford basis for argument; but they must be in bulk in order to prove anything. by the laws of chance we might expect, in any passage of three hundred lines, taken at random anywhere in _beowulf_, to find something which occurred only in one other passage elsewhere in the poem. we cannot forthwith declare the two passages to be the work of an interpolator. one swallow does not make a summer. and the arguments as to style are not helped by arguments as to matter. even if it be granted--which i do not grant--that the long repetition narrating beowulf's contest with grendel and grendel's mother is tedious, there is no reason why this tedious repetition should not as well be the work of the original poet as of a later reviser. must we find many different authors for _the ring and the book_? it must be granted that there are details (such as the mention of grendel's glove) found in the grendel struggle as narrated in _beowulf's return_, but not found in the original account of the struggle. obviously the object is to avoid monotony, by introducing a new feature: but this might as well have been aimed at by the old poet retelling the tale as by a new poet retelling it. to me, the fact that so careful and elaborate a study of the story of _beowulf's return_ fails to betray any satisfactory evidence of separate authorship, is a confirmation of the verdict of "not proven" against the "dividers[ ]." but there can be no doubt that schücking's method, his attempt to prove differences in treatment, grammar, and style, is the right one. if any satisfactory results are to be attained, it must be in this way. * * * * * { } section iv. are the christian elements incompatible with the rest of the poem? later students (like the man in dante, placed between two equally enticing dishes) have been unable to decide in favour of either of the rival theories of müllenhoff and ten brink, and consequently the unity of the poem, which always had its champions, has of late years come to be maintained with increasing conviction and certainty. yet many recent critics have followed müllenhoff so far at least as to believe that the christian passages are inconsistent with what they regard as the "essentially heathen" tone of the rest of the poem, and are therefore the work of an interpolator[ ]. certainly no one can escape a feeling of incongruity, as he passes from ideas of which the home lies in the forests of ancient germany, to others which come from the holy land. but that both sets of ideas could not have been cherished, in england, about the year , by one and the same poet, is an assumption which calls for examination. as christianity swept northward, situations were created which to the modern student are incongruous. but the teutonic chief often had a larger mind than the modern student: he needed to have, if he was to get the best at the same time both from his wild fighting men and from his latin clerks. it is this which gives so remarkable a character to the great men of the early centuries of converted teutonism: men, like theodoric the great or charles the great, who could perform simultaneously the duties of a germanic king and of a roman emperor: kings like alfred the great or st olaf, who combined the character of the tough fighting chieftain with that of the saintly churchman. i love to think of these incongruities: to remember that the warrior alfred, surrounded by _thegn_ and _gesith_, listening to the "saxon songs" which he loved, was yet the same alfred who painfully translated gregory's _pastoral { } care_ under the direction of foreign clerics. it is well to remember that charles the great, the catholic and the orthodox, collected ancient lays which his successors thought too heathen to be tolerated; or that st olaf (who was so holy that, having absent mindedly chipped shavings off a stick on sunday, he burnt them, as penance, on his open hand) nevertheless allowed to be sung before him, on the morning of his last fight, one of the most wild and utterly heathen of all the old songs--the _bjarkamál_. it has been claimed that the account of the funeral rites of beowulf is such as "no christian poet could or would have composed[ ]." lately this argument has been stated more at length: "in the long account of beowulf's obsequies--beginning with the dying king's injunction to construct for him a lofty barrow on the edge of the cliff, and ending with the scene of the twelve princes riding round the barrow, proclaiming the dead man's exploits--we have the most detailed description of an early teutonic funeral which has come down to us, and one of which the accuracy is confirmed in every point by archaeological or contemporary literary evidence[ ]. such an account must have been composed within living memory of a time when ceremonies of this kind were still actually in use[ ]." owing to the standing of the scholar who urges it, this argument is coming to rank as a dogma[ ], and needs therefore rather close examination. professor chadwick _may_ be right in urging that the custom of burning the dead had gone out of use in england even before christianity was introduced[ ]: anyhow it is certain that, wherever it survived, the practice was disapproved by ecclesiastics, and was, indeed, formally censured and suppressed by the church abroad. the church equally censured and endeavoured to suppress the ancient "heathen lays"; but without equal success. now, in many of these lays the heathen rites of cremation must certainly have been depicted, and, in this way, the memory of the old funeral customs must have been kept fresh, long { } after the last funeral pyre had died out in england. of course there were then, as there have been ever since, puritanical people who objected that heathen lays and heathen ways were no fit concern for a christian man. but the protests of such purists are just the strongest evidence that the average christian did continue to take an interest in these things. we have seen that the very monks of lindisfarne had to be warned by alcuin. i cannot see that there is any such _a priori_ impossibility that a poet, though a sincere christian enough, would have described a funeral in the old style, modelling his account upon older lays, or upon tradition derived from those lays. the church might disapprove of the practice of cremation, but we have no reason to suppose that mention of it was tabooed. and many of the old burial customs seem to have kept their hold, even upon the converted. indeed, when the funeral of attila is instanced as a type of the old heathen ceremony, it seems to be forgotten that those gothic chieftains who rode their horses round the body of attila were themselves probably arian christians, and that the historian who has preserved the account was an orthodox cleric. saxo grammaticus, ecclesiastic as he was, has left us several accounts[ ] of cremations. he mentions the "pyre built of ships" and differs from the poet of _beowulf_ chiefly because he allows those frankly heathen references to gods and offerings which the poet of _beowulf_ excludes. of course, saxo was merely translating. one can quite believe that a christian poet composing an account of a funeral in the old days, would have omitted the more frankly heathen features, as indeed the _beowulf_ poet does. but saxo shows us how far into christian times the ancient funeral, in all its heathendom, was remembered; and how little compunction an ecclesiastic had in recording it. the assumption that no christian poet would have composed the account of beowulf's funeral or of scyld's funeral ship, seems then to be quite unjustified. the further question remains: granting that he _would_, could he? is the account of beowulf's funeral so true to old custom that it must have been composed by an eye-witness of { } the rite of cremation? is its "accuracy confirmed in every point by archaeological or contemporary literary evidence"? as to the archaeological evidence, the fact seems to be that the account is archaeologically so inexact that it has given great trouble to one eminent antiquary, knut stjerna. that the pyre should be hung with arms, which are _burnt_ with the hero (ll. - ), and that then a second supply of unburnt treasures should be _buried_ with the cremated bones (ll. - ), is regarded by stjerna as extraordinary[ ]. surely, any such inexactitude is what we should expect in a late poet, drawing upon tradition. he would know that in heathen times bodies were burnt, and that weapons were buried; and he might well combine both. it is not necessary to suppose, as stjerna does, that the poet has combined two separate accounts of beowulf's funeral, given in older lays, in one of which the hero was burnt, and in the other buried. but the fact that an archaeological specialist finds the account of beowulf's funeral so inexact that he has to assume a confused and composite source, surely disposes of the argument that it is so exact that it must date back to heathen times. as to confirmation from literary documents, the only one instanced by chadwick is the account of the funeral of attila. the parallel here is by no means so close as has been asserted. the features of attila's funeral are: the lying in state, during which the chosen horsemen of the nation rode round the body singing the dead king's praises; the funeral feast; and the burial (not burning) of the body. now the only feature which recurs in _beowulf_ is the praise of the dead man by the mounted thanes. even here there is an essential difference. attila's men rode round the dead body of their lord _before_ his funeral. beowulf's retainers ride and utter their lament around (not the body but) the grave mound of their lord, ten days after the cremation. and this is perhaps no accidental discrepancy: it may well correspond to a real difference in practice between the gothic custom of the time of the migrations and the anglo-saxon { } practice as it prevailed in christian times[ ]. for many documents, including the _dream of the rood_, tend to show that the _sorhl[=e]oð_, the lament of the retainers for their dead lord, survived into christian times, but as a ceremony which was subsequent not merely to the funeral, but even to the building of the tomb. so that, here again, so far from the archaeological accuracy of the account of beowulf's funeral being confirmed by the account of that of attila, we find a discrepancy such as we might expect if a christian poet, in later times, had tried to describe a funeral of the old heathen type. of course, the evidence is far too scanty to allow of much positive argument. still, _so far as it goes_, and that is not far, it rather tends to show that the account of the funeral customs is not quite accurate, representing what later christian times knew by tradition of the rite of cremation, rather than showing the observation of that rite by an eye-witness. we must turn, then, to some other argument, if we wish to prove that the christian element is inconsistent with other parts of the poem. a second argument that _beowulf_ must belong either to heathen times, or to the very earliest christian period in england, has been found in the character of the christian allusions: they contain no "reference to christ, to the cross, to the virgin or the saints, to any doctrine of the church in regard to the trinity, the atonement, _etc._[ ]" "a pious jew would have no difficulty in assenting to them all[ ]." hence it has been argued[ ] that they are the work of an interpolator who, working upon a poem "essentially heathen," was not able to impose upon it more than this "vague and colourless christianity." i cannot see this. if passages had to be rewritten at all, it was just as easy to rewrite them in a tone emphatically christian as in a tone mildly so. the difficulties which the interpolator would meet in removing a heathen phrase, and composing a christian half-line in substitution, would be metrical, rather than theological. for example, in a second { } half-line the interpolator could have written _ond h[=a]lig crist_ or _ylda nergend_ just as easily as _ond h[=a]lig god_, or _ylda waldend_: he could have put in an allusion to the trinity or to the cross as easily as to the lord of hosts or the king of glory. it would depend upon the alliteration which was the more convenient. and surely, if he was a monk deliberately sitting down to turn a heathen into a christian poem, he would, of two alternatives, have favoured the more dogmatically christian. the vagueness which is so characteristic of the christian references in _beowulf_ can then hardly be due to the poem having originally been a heathen one, worked over by a christian. others have seen in this vagueness a proof "that the minstrels who introduced the christian element had but a vague knowledge of the new faith[ ]": or that the poem was the work of "a man who, without having, or wanting to have, much definite instruction, had become christian because the court had newly become christian[ ]." but, vague as it is, does the christianity of _beowulf_ justify such a judgment as this? do not the characters of hrothgar or of beowulf, of hygd or of wealhtheow, show a christian influence which, however little dogmatic, is anything but superficial? this is a matter where individual feeling rather than argument must weigh: but the _beowulf_ does not seem to me the work of a man whose adherence to christianity is merely nominal[ ]. and, so far as the absence of dogma goes, it seems to have been overlooked that the christian references in the _battle of maldon_, written when england had been christian for over three centuries, are precisely of the same vague character as those in _beowulf_. surely the explanation is that to a devout, but not { } theologically-minded poet, writing battle poetry, references to god as the lord of hosts or the giver of victory came naturally--references to the trinity or the atonement did not. this seems quite a sufficient explanation; though it may be that in _beowulf_ the poet has consciously avoided dogmatic references, because he realized that the characters in his story were not christians[ ]. that, at the same time, he allows those characters with whom he sympathizes to speak in a christian spirit is only what we should expect. just so chaucer allows his pagans--theseus for instance--to use christian expressions about god or the soul, whilst avoiding anything strikingly doctrinal. finally i cannot admit that the christian passages are "poetically of no value[ ]." the description of grendel nearing heorot is good: Ð[=a] c[=o]m of m[=o]re under mist-hleoþum grendel gongan-- but it is heightened when the poet adds: godes yrre bær. yet here again it is impossible to argue: it is a matter of individual feeling. when, however, we come to the further statement of dr bradley, that the christian passages are not only interpolations poetically worthless, but "may be of any date down to that of the extant ms" (i.e. about the year a.d.), we have reached ground where argument _is_ possible, and where definite results can be attained. for dr bradley, at the same time that he makes this statement about the character of the christian passages, also quotes the archaic syntax of _beowulf_ as proving an early date[ ]. _but this archaic syntax is just as prominent a feature of the christian passages as of any other parts of the poem._ if these christian passages are really the work of a "monkish copyist, whose piety exceeded his poetic powers[ ]," how do they come to show an antique syntax and a strict technique surpassing those of cynewulf or the _dream { } of the rood_? why do they not betray their origin by metrical inaccuracies such as we find in poems undoubtedly interpolated, like _widsith_ or the _seafarer_? dr bradley is "our chief english seer in these matters," as dr furnivall said long ago; and it is only with the greatest circumspection that one should differ from any of his conclusions. nevertheless, i feel that, before we can regard any portion of _beowulf_ as later than the rest, discrepancies need to be demonstrated. until such discrepancies between the different parts of _beowulf_ can be demonstrated, we are justified in regarding the poem as homogeneous: as a production of the germanic world enlightened by the new faith. whether through external violence or internal decay, this world was fated to rapid change, and perished with its promise unfulfilled. the great merit of _beowulf_ as a historic document is that it shows us a picture of a period in which the virtues of the heathen "heroic age" were tempered by the gentleness of the new belief; an age warlike, yet christian: devout, yet tolerant. * * * * * { } part ii documents illustrating the stories in _beowulf_, and the _offa_-saga. a. the early kings of the danes according to saxo grammaticus saxo, book i, ed. ascensius, fol. iii b; ed. holder, p. , l. . uerum a dan, ut fert antiquitas, regum nostrorum stemmata, ceu quodam deriuata principio, splendido successionis ordine profluxerunt. huic filii humblus et lotherus fuere, ex grytha, summæ inter teutones dignitatis matrona, suscepti. lecturi regem ueteres affixis humo saxis insistere, suffragiaque promere consueuerant, subiectorum lapidum firmitate facti constantiam ominaturi. quo ritu humblus, decedente patre, nouo patriæ beneficio rex creatus, sequentis fortunæ malignitate, ex rege priuatus euasit. bello siquidem a lothero captus, regni depositione spiritum mercatus est; hæc sola quippe uicto salutis conditio reddebatur. ita fraternis iniuriis imperium abdicare coactus, documentum hominibus præbuit, ut plus splendoris, ita minus securitatis, aulis quam tuguriis inesse. ceterum iniuriæ tam patiens fuit, ut honoris damno tanquam beneficio gratulari crederetur, sagaciter, ut puto, regiæ conditionis habitum contemplatus. sed nec lotherus tolerabiliorem regem quam militem egit, ut prorsus insolentia ac scelere regnum auspicari uideretur; siquidem illustrissimum quemque uita aut opibus spoliare, patriamque bonis ciuibus uacuefacere probitatis loco duxit, regni æmulos ratus, quos nobilitate pares habuerat. nec diu scelerum impunitus, patriæ consternatione perimitur; eadem spiritum eripiente, quæ regnum largita fuerat. { } cuius filius skyoldus naturam ab ipso, non mores sortitus, per summam tenerioris ætatis industriam cuncta paternæ contagionis uestigia ingeniti erroris deuio præteribat. igitur ut a paternis uitiis prudenter desciuit, ita auitis uirtutibus feliciter respondit, remotiorem pariter ac præstantiorem hereditarii moris portionem amplexus. huius adolescentia inter paternos uenatores immanis beluæ subactione insignis extitit, mirandoque rei euentu futuræ eius fortitudinis habitum ominata est. nam cum a tutoribus forte, quorum summo studio educabatur, inspectandæ uenationis licentiam impetrasset, obuium sibi insolitæ granditatis ursum, telo uacuus, cingulo, cuius usum habebat, religandum curauit, necandumque comitibus præbuit. sed et complures spectatæ fortitudinis pugiles per idem tempus uiritim ab eo superati produntur, e quibus attalus et scatus clari illustresque fuere. quindecim annos natus, inusitato corporis incremento perfectissimum humani roboris specimen præferebat, tantaque indolis eius experimenta fuere, ut ab ipso ceteri danorum reges communi quodam uocabulo skioldungi nuncuparentur.... saxo then relates the adventures of gram, hadingus and frotho, whom he represents as respectively son, grandson and great-grandson of skioldus. that gram and hadingus are interpolated in the family is shewn by the fact that the pedigree of sweyn aageson passes direct from skiold to his son frothi. saxo, book ii, ed. ascensius, fol. xi b; ed. holder, p. , l. . hadingo filius frotho succedit, cuius uarii insignesque casus fuere. pubertatis annos emensus, iuuenilium præferebat complementa uirtutum, quas ne desidiæ corrumpendas præberet, abstractum uoluptatibus animum assidua armorum intentione torquebat. qui cum, paterno thesauro bellicis operibus absumpto, stipendiorum facultatem, qua militem aleret, non haberet, attentiusque necessarii usus subsidia circunspiceret, tali subeuntis indigenæ carmine concitatur: insula non longe est præmollibus edita cliuis, collibus æra tegens et opimæ conscia prædæ. hic tenet eximium, montis possessor, aceruum { } implicitus giris serpens crebrisque reflexus orbibus, et caudæ sinuosa uolumina ducens, multiplicesque agitans spiras, uirusque profundens. quem superare uolens clypeo, quo conuenit uti, taurinas intende cutes, corpusque bouinis tergoribus tegito, nec amaro nuda ueneno membra patere sinas; sanies, quod conspuit, urit. lingua trisulca micans patulo licet ore resultet, tristiaque horrifico minitetur uulnera rictu, intrepidum mentis habitum retinere memento. nec te permoueat spinosi dentis acumen, nec rigor, aut rapida iactatum fauce uenenum. tela licet temnat uis squamea, uentre sub imo esse locum scito, quo ferrum mergere fas est; hunc mucrone petens medium rimaberis anguem. hinc montem securus adi, pressoque ligone perfossos scrutare cauos; mox ære crumenas imbue, completamque reduc ad littora puppim. credulus frotho solitarius in insulam traiicit: ne comitatior beluam adoriretur, quam athletas aggredi moris fuerat. quæ cum aquis pota specum repeteret, impactum frothonis ferrum aspero cutis horrore contempsit. sed et spicula, quæ in eam coniecta fuerant, eluso mittentis conatu læsionis irrita resultabant. at ubi nil tergi duritia cessit, uentris curiosius annotati mollities ferro patuit. quæ se morsu ulcisci cupiens, clypeo duntaxat spinosum oris acumen impegit. crebris deinde linguam micatibus ducens, uitam pariter ac uirus efflauit. repertæ pecuniæ regem locupletem fecere.... saxo, book ii, ed. ascensius, fol. xv b; ed. holder, p. , l. . his, uirtute paribus, æqua regnandi incessit auiditas. imperii cuique cura extitit; fraternus nullum respectus astrinxit. quem enim nimia sui caritas ceperit, aliena deserit: nee sibi quisquam ambitiose atque aliis amice consulere potest. horum maximus haldanus, roe et scato fratribus interfectis, naturam scelere polluit: regnum parricidio carpsit. et ne ullum crudelitatis exemplum omitteret, comprehensos eorum fautores prius { } uinculorum poena coercuit, mox suspendio consumpsit. cuius ex eo maxime fortuna ammirabilis fuit, quod, licet omnia temporum momenta ad exercenda atrocitatis officia contulisset, senectute uitam, non ferro, finierit. huius filii roe et helgo fuere. a roe roskildia condita memoratur: quam postmodum sueno, furcatæ barbæ cognomento clarus, ciuibus auxit, amplitudine propagauit. hic breui angustoque corpore fuit: helgonem habitus procerior cepit. qui, diuiso cum fratre regno, maris possessionem sortitus, regem sclauiæ scalcum maritimis copiis lacessitum oppressit. quam cum in prouinciam redegisset, uarios pelagi recessus uago nauigationis genere perlustrabat. saxo, book ii, ed. ascensius, fol. xvi a; ed. holder, p. , l. . huic filius roluo succedit, uir corporis animique dotibus uenustus, qui staturæ magnitudinem pari uirtutis habitu commendaret. _ibid._, ed. ascensius, fol. xvii a; ed. holder, p. , l. . per idem tempus agnerus quidam, ingelli films, sororem roluonis, rutam nomine, matrimonio ducturus, ingenti conuiuio nuptias instruit. in quo cum pugiles, omni petulantiæ genere debacchantes, in ialtonem quendam nodosa passim ossa coniicerent, accidit, ut eius consessor, biarco nomine, iacientis errore uehementem capite ictum exciperet. qui dolore pariter ac ludibrio lacessitus, osse inuicem in iacientem remisso, frontem eius in occuput reflexit, idemque loco frontis intorsit, transuersum hominis animum uultus obliquitate mulctando. ea res contumeliosam ioci insolentiam temperauit, pugilesque regia abire coegit. qua conuiuii iniuria permotus, sponsus ferro cum biarcone decernere statuit, uiolatæ hilaritatis ultionem duelii nomine quæsiturus. in cuius ingressu, utri prior feriendi copia deberetur diutule certatum est. non enim antiquitus in edendis agonibus crebræ ictuum uicissitudines petebantur: sed erat cum interuallo temporis etiam feriendi distincta successio; rarisque sed atrocibus plagis certamina gerebantur, ut gloria potius percussionum magnitudini, quam numero deferretur. prælato ob generis dignitatem agnero, tanta ui ictum ab eo editum { } constat, ut, prima cassidis parte conscissa, supremam capitis cuticulam uulneraret, ferrumque mediis galeæ interclusum foraminibus dimitteret. tunc biarco mutuo percussurus, quo plenius ferrum libraret, pedem trunco annixus, medium agneri corpus præstantis acuminis mucrone transegit. sunt qui asserant, morientem agnerum soluto in risum ore per summam doloris dissimulationem spiritum reddidisse. cuius ultionem pugiles auidius expetentes, simili per biarconem exitio mulctati sunt. utebatur quippe præstantis acuminis inusitatæque longitudinis gladio, quem løui uocabat. talibus operum meritis exultanti nouam de se siluestris fera uictoriam præbuit. ursum quippe eximiæ magnitudinis obuium sibi inter dumeta factum iaculo confecit: comitemque suum ialtonem, quo uiribus maior euaderet, applicato ore egestum belluæ cruorem haurire iussit. creditum namque erat, hoc potionis genere corporei roboris incrementa præstari. his facinorum uirtutibus clarissimas optimatum familiaritates adeptus, etiam regi percarus euasit; sororem eius rutam uxorem asciuit, uictique sponsam uictoriæ præmium habuit. ab atislo lacessiti roluonis ultionem armis exegit, eumque uictum hello prostrauit. tunc roluo magni acuminis iuuenem hiarthwarum nomine, sorore sculda sibi in matrimonium data, annuoque uectigali imposito, suetiæ præfectum constituit, libertatis iacturam affinitatis beneficio leniturus. hoc loci quiddam memoratu iucundum operi inseratur. adolescens quidam wiggo nomine, corpoream roluonis magnitudinem attentiori contemplatione scrutatus, ingentique eiusdem admiratione captus, percontari per ludibrium coepit, quisnam esset iste krage, quem tanto staturæ fastigio prodiga rerum natura ditasset; faceto cauillationis genere inusitatum proceritatis habitum prosecutus. dicitur enim lingua danica 'krage' truncus, cuius semicæsis ramis fastigia conscenduntur, ita ut pes, præcisorum stipitum obsequio perinde ac scalæ beneficio nixus, sensimque ad superiora prouectus, petitæ celsitudinis compendium assequatur. quern uocis iactum roluo perinde ac inclytum sibi cognomen amplexus, urbanitatem dicti ingentis armillæ dono prosequitur. qua wiggo dexteram excultam extollens, læua per pudoris simulationem post tergum { } reflexa, ridiculum corporis incessum præbuit, præfatus, exiguo lætari munere, quem sors diutinæ tenuisset inopiæ. rogatus, cur ita se gereret, inopem ornamenti manum nulloque cultus beneficio gloriantem ad aspectum reliquæ uerecundo paupertatis rubore perfundi dicebat. cuius dicti calliditate consentaneum priori munus obtinuit. siquidem roluo manum, quæ ab ipso occultabatur, exemplo reliquæ in medium accersendam curauit. nec wiggoni rependendi beneficii cura defuit. siquidem arctissima uoti nuncupatione pollicitus est, si roluonem ferro perire contingeret, ultionem se ab eius interfectoribus exacturum. nec prætereundum, quod olim ingressuri curiam proceres famulatus sui principia alicuius magnæ rei uoto principibus obligare solebant, uirtute tirocinium auspicantes. interea sculda, tributariæ solutionis pudore permota, diris animum commentis applicans, maritum, exprobrata condicionis deformitate, propulsandæ seruitutis monitu concitatum atque ad insidias roluoni nectendas perductum atrocissimis nouarum rerum consiliis imbuit, plus unumquenque libertati quam necessitudini debere testata. igitur crebras armorum massas, diuersi generis tegminibus obuolutas, tributi more per hiarthwarum in daniam perferri iubet, occidendi noctu regis materiam præbituras. refertis itaque falsa uectigalium mole nauigiis, lethram pergitur, quod oppidum, a roluone constructum eximiisque regni opibus illustratum, ceteris confinium prouinciarum urbibus regiæ fundationis et sedis auctoritate præstabat. rex aduentum hiarthwari conuiualis impensæ deliciis prosecutus ingenti se potione proluerat, hospitibus præter morem ebrietatis intemperantiam formidantibus. ceteris igitur altiorem carpentibus somnum, sueones, quibus scelesti libido propositi communem quietis usum ademerat, cubiculis furtim delabi coepere. aperitur ilico telorum occlusa congeries, et sua sibi quisque tacitus arma connectit. deinde regiam petunt, irruptisque penetralibus in dormientium corpora ferrum destringunt. experrecti complures, quibus non minus subitæ cladis horror quam somni stupor incesserat, dubio nisu discrimini restitere, socii an hostes occurrerent, noctis errore incertum reddente. eiusdem forte silentio noctis hialto, qui { } inter regios proceres spectatæ probitatis merito præeminebat, rus egressus, scorti se complexibus dederat. hic cum obortum pugnæ fragorem stupida procul aure sensisset, fortitudinem luxuriæ prætulit, maluitque funestum martis discrimen appetere, quam blandis veneris illecebris indulgere. quanta hunc militem regis caritate flagrasse putemus, qui, cum ignorantiæ simulatione excusationem absentiæ præstare posset, salutem suam manifesto periculo obicere, quam uoluptati seruare satius existimauit? discedentem pellex percunctari coepit, si ipso careat, cuius ætatis uiro nubere debeat. quam hialto, perinde ac secretius allocuturus, propius accedere iussam, indignatus amoris sibi successorem requiri, præciso naso deformem reddidit, erubescendoque uulnere libidinosæ percunctationis dictum mulctauit, mentis lasciuiam oris iactura temperandam existimans. quo facto, liberum quæsitæ rei iudicium a se ei relinqui dixit. post hæc, repetito ocius oppido, confertissimis se globis immergit, aduersasque acies mutua uulnerum inflictione prosternit. cumque dormientis adhuc biarconis cubiculum præteriret, expergisci iussum, tali uoce compellat: saxo's translation of the _bjarkamál_ follows. the part which concerns students of _beowulf_ most is the account of how roluo deposed and slew røricus. saxo, book ii, ed. ascensius, fol. xix a; ed. holder, p. , l. . at nos, qui regem uoto meliore ueremur, iungamus cuneos stabiles, tutisque phalangem ordinibus mensi, qua rex præcepit, eamus qui natum bøki røricum strauit auari, implicuitque uirum leto uirtute carentem. ille quidem præstans opibus, habituque fruendi pauper erat, probitate minus quam foenore pollens; aurum militia potius ratus, omnia lucro posthabuit, laudisque carens congessit aceruos Æris, et ingenuis uti contempsit amicis. cumque lacessitus roluonis classe fuisset, egestum cistis aurum deferre ministros iussit, et in primas urbis diffundere portas. { } dona magis quam bella parans, quia militis expers munere, non armis, tentandum credidit hostem; tanquam opibus solis bellum gesturus, et usu rerum, non hominum, martem producere posset. ergo graues loculos et ditia claustra resoluit armillas teretes et onustas protulit arcas, exitii fomenta sui, ditissimus æris, bellatoris inops, hostique adimenda relinquens pignora, quæ patriis præbere pepercit amicis. annellos ultro metuens dare, maxima nolens pondera fudit opum, ueteris populator acerui. rex tamen hunc prudens, oblataque munera spreuit, rem pariter uitamque adimens; nec profuit hosti census iners, quem longo auidus cumulauerat æuo. hunc pius inuasit roluo, summasque perempti cepit opes, inter dignos partitus amicos, quicquid auara manus tantis congesserat annis; irrumpensque opulenta magis quam fortia castra, præbuit eximiam sociis sine sanguine prædam. cui nil tam pulchrum fuit, ut non funderet illud, aut carum, quod non sociis daret, æra fauillis assimulans, famaque annos, non foenore mensus. unde liquet, regem claro iam funere functum præclaros egisse dies, speciosaque fati tempora, præteritos decorasse uiriliter annos. nam uirtute ardens, dum uiueret, omnia uicit, egregio dignas sortitus corpore uires. tam præceps in bella fuit, quam concitus amnis in mare decurrit, pugnamque capessere promptus ut ceruus rapidum bifido pede tendere cursum. saxo, book ii, ed. ascensius, fol. xxi a; ed. holder, p. , l. . hanc maxime exhortationum seriem idcirco metrica ratione compegerim, quod earundem sententiarum intellectus danici cuiusdam carminis compendio digestus a compluribus antiquitatis peritis memoriter usurpatur. contigit autem, potitis uictoria gothis, omne roluonis { } agmen occumbere, neminemque, excepto wiggone, ex tanta iuuentute residuum fore. tantum enim excellentissimis regis meritis ea pugna a militibus tributum est, ut ipsius cædes omnibus oppetendæ mortis cupiditatem ingeneraret, eique morte iungi uita iucundius duceretur. lætus hiartuarus prandendi gratia positis mensis conuiuium pugnæ succedere iubet, uictoriam epulis prosecuturus. quibus oneratus magnæ sibi ammirationi esse dixit, quod ex tanta roluonis militia nemo, qui saluti fuga aut captione consuleret, repertus fuisset. unde liquidum fuisse quanto fidei studio regis sui caritatem coluerint, cui superstites esse passi non fuerint. fortunam quoque, quod sibi ne unius quidem eorum obsequium superesse permiserit, causabatur, quam libentissime se talium uirorum famulatu usurum testatus. oblato wiggone perinde ac munere gratulatus, an sibi militare uellet, perquirit. annuenti destrictum gladium offert. ille cuspidem refutans, capulum petit, hunc morem roluoni in porrigendo militibus ense extitisse præfatus. olim namque se regum clientelæ daturi, tacto gladii capulo obsequium polliceri solebant. quo pacto wiggo capulum complexus, cuspidem per hiartuarum agit, ultionis compos, cuius roluoni ministerium pollicitus fuerat. quo facto, ouans irruentibus in se hiartuari militibus cupidius corpus obtulit, plus uoluptatis se ex tyranni nece quam amaritudinis ex propria sentire uociferans. ita conuiuio in exequias uerso, uictoriæ gaudium funeris luctus insequitur. clarum ac semper memorabilem uirum, qui, uoto fortiter expleto, mortem sponte complexus suo ministerio mensas tyranni sanguine maculauit. neque enim occidentium manus uiuax animi uirtus expauit, cum prius a se loca, quibus roluo assueuerat, interfectoris eius cruore respersa cognosceret. eadem itaque dies hiartuari regnum finiuit ac peperit. fraudulenter enim quæsitæ res eadem sorte defluunt, qua petuntur, nullusque diuturnus est fructus, qui scelere ac perfidia partus fuerit. quo euenit ut sueones, paulo ante daniæ potitores, ne suæ quidem salutis potientes existerent. protinus enim a syalandensibus deleti læsis roluonis manibus iusta exsoluere piacula. adeo plerunque fortunæ sæuitia ulciscitur, quod dolo ac fallacia patratur. * * * * * { } b. hrÓlfs saga kraka, cap. (ed. finnur jónsson, københavn, , p. ff.) síðan fór b[o,]ðvarr leið sína til hleiðargarðs. hann kemr til konungs atsetu. b[o,]ðvarr leiðir síðan hest sinn á stall hjá konungs hestum hinum beztu ok spyrr engan at; gekk síðan inn í h[o,]llina, ok var þar fátt manna. hann sez utarliga, ok sem hann hefir verit þar litla hríð, heyrir hann þrausk n[o,]kkut utar í hornit í einhverjum stað. b[o,]ðvarr lítr þangat ok sér, at mannsh[o,]nd kemr upp úr mikilli beinahrúgu, er þar lá; h[o,]ndin var sv[o,]rt mj[o,]k. b[o,]ðvarr gengr þangat til ok spyrr, hverr þar væri í beinahrúgunni; þá var honum svarat ok heldr óframliga: "h[o,]ttr heiti ek, bokki sæll." "hví ertu hér, segir b[o,]ðvarr, eða hvat gerir þú?" h[o,]ttr segir: "ek geri mér skjaldborg, bokki sæll." b[o,]ðvarr sagði: "vesall ertu þinnar skjaldborgar." b[o,]ðvarr þrífr til hans ok hnykkir honum upp úr beinahrúgunni. h[o,]ttr kvað þá hátt við ok mælti: "nú viltu mér bana, ger eigi þetta, svá sem ek hefi nú vel um búiz áðr, en þú hefir nú rótat í sundr skjaldborg minni, ok hafða ek nú svá gert hana háva utan at mér, at hún hefir hlíft mér við [o,]llum h[o,]ggum ykkar, svá _at_ engi h[o,]gg hafa komit á mik lengi, en ekki var hún enn svá búin, sem ek ætlaði hún skyldi verða." b[o,]ðvarr mælti: "ekki muntu fá skjaldborgina lengr." h[o,]ttr mælti ok grét: "skaltu nú bana mér, bokki sæll?" b[o,]ðvarr bað hann ekki hafa hátt, tók hann upp síðan ok bar hann út úr h[o,]llinni ok til vats n[o,]kkurs, sem þar var í nánd, ok gáfu fáir at þessu gaum, ok þó hann upp allan. síðan gekk b[o,]ðvarr til þess rúms, sem hann hafði áðr tekit, ok leiddi eptir sér h[o,]tt ok þar setr hann h[o,]tt hjá sér, en hann er svá hræddr, at skelfr á honum leggr ok liðr, en þó þykkiz hann skilja, at þessi maðr vill hjálpa sér. eptir þat kveldar ok drífa menn í h[o,]llina ok sjá hrólfs kappar, at h[o,]ttr er settr á bekk upp, ok þykkir þeim sá maðr hafa gert sik ærit djarfan, er þetta hefir til tekit. ilt tillit hefir h[o,]ttr, þá _er_ hann sér kunningja sína, því _at_ hann hefir ilt eitt af þeim reynt; hann vill lifa gjarnan ok fara aptr í beinahrúgu sína, en b[o,]ðvarr heldr honum, svá _at_ hann náir ekki í burtu at fara, því _at_ hann þóttiz ekki jafnberr fyrir h[o,]ggum þeira, ef hann næði þangat { } at komaz sem hann er nú. hirðmenn hafa nú sama vanda, ok kasta fyrst beinum smám um þvert gólfit til b[o,]ðvars ok hattar. b[o,]ðvarr lætr, sem hann sjái eigi þetta. h[o,]ttr er svá hræddr, at hann tekr eigi mat né drukk, ok þykkir honum þá ok þá sem hann muni vera lostinn; ok nú mælti h[o,]ttr til b[o,]ðvars: "bokki sæll, nú ferr at þér stór hnúta, ok mun þetta ætlat okkr til nauða." b[o,]ðvarr bað hann þegja; hann setr við holan lófann ok tekr svá við hnútunni; þar fylgir leggrinn með; b[o,]ðvarr sendi aptr hnútuna ok setr á þann, sem kastaði ok rétt framan í hann með svá harðri svipan, at hann fekk bana; sló þá miklum ótta yfir hirðmennina. kemr nú þessi fregn fyrir hrólf konung ok kappa hans upp í kastalann, at maðr mikilúðligr sé kominn til hallarinnar ok hafi drepit einn hirðmann hans, ok vildu þeir láta drepa manninn. hrólfr konungr spurðiz eptir, hvárt hirðmaðrinn hefði verit saklauss drepinn. "Því var næsta," s[o,]gðu þeir. kómuz þá fyrir hrólf konung [o,]ll sannindi hér um. hrólfr konungr sagði þat skyldu fjarri, at drepa skyldi manninn--"hafi þit hér illan vanda upp tekit, at berja saklausa menn beinum; er mér í því óvirðing, en yðr stór sk[o,]mm, at gera slíkt; hefi ek jafnan rætt um þetta áðr, ok hafi þit at þessu engan gaum gefit, ok hygg ek, at þessi maðr muni ekki alllítill fyrir sér, er þér hafið nú á leitat, ok kallið hann til mín, svá _at_ ek viti, hverr hann er." b[o,]ðvarr gengr fyrir konung ok kveðr hann kurteisliga. konunga spyrr hann at nafni. "hattargriða kalla mik hirðmenn yðar, en b[o,]ðvarr heiti ek." konungr mælti: "hverjar bætr viltu bjóða mér fyrir hirðmann minn?" b[o,]ðvarr segir: "til þess gerði hann, sem hann fekk." konungr mælti: "viltu vera minn maðr ok skipa rúm hans?" b[o,]ðvarr segir: "ekki neita ek, at vera yðarr maðr, ok munu vit ekki skiljaz svá búit, vit h[o,]ttr, ok dveljaz nær þér báðir, heldr en þessi hefir setit, elligar vit f[o,]rum burt báðir." konungr mælti: "eigi sé ek at honum sæmd en ek spara ekki mat við hann." b[o,]ðvarr gengr nú til þess rúms, sem honum líkaði, en ekki vill hann þat skipa, sem hinn hafði áðr; hann kippir upp í einhverjum stað þremr m[o,]nnum, ok síðan settuz þeir h[o,]ttr þar niðr ok innar í h[o,]llinni en þeim var skipat. heldr þótti m[o,]nnum ódælt við b[o,]ðvar, ok er þeim hinn mesti íhugi at honum. ok sem leið at jólum, { } gerðuz menn ókátir. b[o,]ðvarr spyrr h[o,]tt, hverju þetta sætti; hann segir honum, at dýr eitt hafi þar komit tvá vetr í samt, mikit ok ógurligt--"ok hefir vængi á bakinu ok flýgr þat jafnan; tvau haust hefir þat nú hingat vitjat ok gert mikinn skaða; á þat bíta ekki vápn, en kappar konungs koma ekki heim, þeir sem at eru einna mestir." b[o,]ðvarr mælti: "ekki er h[o,]llin svá vel skipuð, sem ek ætlaði, ef eitt dýr skal hér eyða ríki ok fé konungsins." h[o,]ttr sagði: "þat er ekki dýr, heldr er þat hit mesta tr[o,]ll." nú kemr jólaaptann; þá mælti konungr: "nú vil ek, at menn sé kyrrir ok hljóðir í nótt, ok banna ek [o,]llum mínum m[o,]nnum at ganga í n[o,]kkurn háska við dýrit, en fé ferr eptir því sem auðnar; menn mína vil ek ekki missa." allir heita hér góðu um, at gera eptir því, sem konungr bauð. b[o,]ðvarr leyndiz í burt um nóttina; hann lætr h[o,]tt fara með sér, ok gerir hann þat nauðugr ok kallaði hann sér stýrt til bana. b[o,]ðvarr segir, at betr mundi til takaz. Þeir ganga í burt frá h[o,]llinni, ok verðr b[o,]ðvarr at bera hann; svá er hann hræddr. nú sjá þeir dýrit; ok því næst æpir h[o,]ttr slíkt, sem hann má, ok kvað dyrit mundu gleypa hann. b[o,]ðvarr bað bikkjuna hans þegja ok kastar honum niðr í mosann, ok þar liggr hann ok eigi með [o,]llu óhræddr; eigi þorir hann heim at fara heldr. nú gengr b[o,]ðvarr móti dýrinu; þat hæfir honum, at sverðit er fast í umgj[o,]rðinni, er hann vildi bregða því. b[o,]ðvarr eggjar nú fast sverðit ok þá bragðar í umgj[o,]rðinni, ok nú fær hann brugðit umgj[o,]rðinni, svá _at_ sverðit gengr úr slíðrunum, ok leggr þegar undir bægi dýrsins ok svá fast, at stóð í hjartanu, ok datt þá dýrit til jarðar dautt niðr. eptir þat ferr hann þangat sem h[o,]ttr liggr. b[o,]ðvarr tekr hann upp ok berr þangat, sem dýrit liggr dautt. h[o,]ttr skelfr ákaft. b[o,]ðvarr mælti: "nú skaltu drekka blóð dýrsins." hann er lengi tregr, en þó þorir hann víst eigi annat. b[o,]ðvarr lætr hann drekka tvá, sopa stóra; hann lét hann ok eta n[o,]kkut af dýrshjartanu; eptir þetta tekr b[o,]ðvarr til hans, ok áttuz þeir við lengi. b[o,]ðvarr mælti: "helzt ertu nú sterkr orðinn, ok ekki vænti ek, et þú hræðiz nú hirðmenn hrólfs konungs." h[o,]ttr sagði: "eigi mun ek þá hræðaz ok eigi þik upp frá þessu." "vel er þá orðit, h[o,]ttr félagi; f[o,]ru vit nú til ok reisum upp dýrit ok búum svá um, at aðrir ætli at kvikt muni vera." { } Þeir gera nú svá. eptir þat fara þeir heim ok hafa kyrt um sik, ok veit engi maðr, hvat þeir hafa iðjat. konungr spyrr um morguninn, hvat þeir viti til dýrsins, hvárt þat hafi n[o,]kkut þangat vitjat um nóttina; honum var sagt, at fé alt væri heilt í grindum ok ósakat. konungr bað menn forvitnaz, hvárt engi sæi líkindi til, at þat hefði heim komit. varðmenn gerðu svá ok kómu skjótt aptr ok s[o,]gðu konungi, at dýrit færi þar ok heldr geyst at borginni. konungr bað hirðmenn vera hrausta ok duga nú hvern eptir því, sem hann hefði hug til, ok ráða af óvætt þenna; ok svá var gert, sem konungr bauð, at þeir bjuggu sik til þess. konungr horfði á dýrit ok mælti síðan: "enga sé ek f[o,]r á dýrinu, en hverr vill nú taka kaup einn ok ganga í móti því?" b[o,]ðvarr mælti: "þat væri næsta hrausts manns forvitnisbót. h[o,]ttr félagi, rektu nú af þér illmælit þat, at menn láta, sem engi krellr né dugr muni í þer vera; far nú ok drep þú dýrit; máttu sjá, at engi er allfúss til annarra." "já," sagði h[o,]ttr, "ek mun til þessa ráðaz." konungr mælti: "ekki veit ek, hvaðan þessi hreysti er at þér komin, h[o,]ttr, ok mikit hefir um þik skipaz á skammri stundu." h[o,]ttr mælti: "gef mér til sverðit gullinhjalta, er þú heldr á, ok skal ek þá fella dýrit eða fá bana." hrólf konungr mælti: "þetta sverð er ekki beranda nema þeim manni, sem bæði er góðr drengr ok hraustr." h[o,]ttr sagði: "svá skaltu til ætla, at mér sé svá háttat." konungr mælti: "hvat má vita, nema fleira hafi skipz um hagi þína, en sjá þykkir, en fæstir menn þykkjaz þik kenna, at þú sér enn sami maðr; nú tak við sverðinu ok njót manna bezt, ef þetta er til unnit." síðan gengr h[o,]ttr at dýrinu alldjarfliga ok høggr til þess, þá _er_ hann kemr í h[o,]ggfæri, ok dýrit fellr niðr dautt. b[o,]ðvarr mælti: "sjáið nú, herra, hvat hann hefir til unnit." konungr segir: "víst hefir hann mikit skipaz, en ekki hefir h[o,]ttr einn dýrit drepit, heldr hefir þú þat gert." b[o,]ðvarr segir: "vera má, at svá sé." konungr segir: "vissa ek, þá _er_ þú komt hér, at fáir mundu þínir jafningjar vera, en þat þykki mér þó þitt verk frægiligast, at þú hefir gert hér annan kappa, þar _er_ h[o,]ttr er, ok óvænligr þótti til mikillar giptu; ok nú vil ek _at_ hann heiti eigi h[o,]ttr lengr ok skal hann heita hjalti upp frá þessu; skaltu heita eptir sverðinu gullinhjalta." { } then bothvar went on his way to leire, and came to the king's dwelling. bothvar stabled his horse by the king's best horses, without asking leave; and then he went into the hall, and there were few men there. he took a seat near the door, and when he had been there a little time he heard a rummaging in a corner. bothvar looked that way and saw that a man's hand came up out of a great heap of bones which lay there, and the hand was very black. bothvar went thither and asked who was there in the heap of bones. then an answer came, in a very weak voice, "hott is my name, good fellow." "why art thou here?" said bothvar, "and what art thou doing?" hott said, "i am making a shield-wall for myself, good fellow." bothvar said, "out on thee and thy shield-wall!" and gripped him and jerked him up out of the heap of bones. then hott cried out and said, "now thou wilt be the death of me: do not do so. i had made it all so snug, and now thou hast scattered in pieces my shield-wall; and i had built it so high all round myself that it has protected me against all your blows, so that for long no blows have come upon me, and yet it was not so arranged as i meant it should be." then bothvar said, "thou wilt not build thy shield-wall any longer." hott said, weeping, "wilt thou be the death of me, good fellow?" bothvar told him not to make a noise, and then took him up and bore him out of the hall to some water which was close by, and washed him from head to foot. few paid any heed to this. then bothvar went to the place which he had taken before, and led hott with him, and set hott by his side. but hott was so afraid that he was trembling in every limb, and yet he seemed to know that this man would help him. after that it grew to evening, and men crowded into the hall: and rolf's warriors saw that hott was seated upon the bench. and it seemed to them that the man must be bold { } enough, who had taken upon himself to put him there. hott had an ill countenance when he saw his acquaintances, for he had received naught but evil from them. he wished to save his life and go back to his bone-heap, but bothvar held him tightly so that he could not go away. for hott thought that, if he could get back into his bone-heap, he would not be as much exposed to their blows as he was. now the retainers did as before; and first of all they tossed small bones across the floor towards bothvar and hott. bothvar pretended not to see this. hott was so afraid that he neither ate nor drank; and every moment he thought he would be smitten. and now hott said to bothvar, "good fellow, now a great knuckle bone is coming towards thee, aimed so as to do us sore injury." bothvar told him to hold his tongue, and put up the hollow of his palm against the knuckle bone and caught it, and the leg bone was joined on to the knuckle bone. then bothvar sent the knuckle bone back, and hurled it straight at the man who had thrown it, with such a swift blow that it was the death of him. then great fear came over the retainers. now news came to king rolf and his men up in the castle that a stately man had come to the hall and killed a retainer, and that the retainers wished to kill the man. king rolf asked whether the retainer who had been killed had given any offence. "next to none," they said: then all the truth of the matter came up before king rolf. king rolf said that it should be far from them to kill the man: "you have taken up an evil custom here in pelting men with bones without quarrel. it is a dishonour to me and a great shame to you to do so. i have spoken about it before, and you have paid no attention. i think that this man whom you have assailed must be a man of no small valour. call him to me, so that i may know who he is." bothvar went before the king and greeted him courteously. the king asked him his name. "your retainers call me hott's protector, but my name is bothvar." the king said, "what compensation wilt thou offer me for my retainer?" { } bothvar said, "he only got what he asked for." the king said, "wilt thou become my man and fill his place?" bothvar said, "i do not refuse to be your man, but hott and i must not part so. and we must sit nearer to thee than this man whom i have slain has sat; otherwise we will both depart together." the king said, "i do not see much credit in hott, but i will not grudge him meat." then bothvar went to the seat that seemed good to him, and would not fill that which the other had before. he pulled up three men in one place, and then he and hott sat down there higher in the hall than the place which had been given to them. the men thought bothvar overbearing, and there was the greatest ill will among them concerning him. and when it drew near to christmas, men became gloomy. bothvar asked hott the reason of this. hott said to him that for two winters together a wild beast had come, great and awful, "and it has wings on its back, and flies. for two autumns it has attacked us here and done much damage. no weapon will wound it: and the champions of the king, those who are the greatest, come not back." bothvar said, "this hall is not so well arrayed as i thought, if one beast can lay waste the kingdom and the cattle of the king." hott said, "it is no beast: it is the greatest troll." now christmas-eve came; then said the king, "now my will is that men to-night be still and quiet, and i forbid all my men to run into any peril with this beast. it must be with the cattle as fate will have it: but i do not wish to lose my men." all men promised to do as the king commanded. but bothvar went out in secret that night; he caused hott to go with him, but hott did that only under compulsion, and said that it would be the death of him. bothvar said that he hoped that it would be better than that. they went away from the hall, and bothvar had to carry hott, so frightened was he. now they saw the beast; and thereupon hott cried out as loud as he could, and said that the beast would swallow him. bothvar said, "be silent, thou dog," and threw him down in the mire. and there he lay in no small fear; but he did not dare to go home, any the more. { } now bothvar went against the beast, and it happened that his sword was fast in his sheath when he wished to draw it. bothvar now tugged at his sword, it moved, he wrenched the scabbard so that the sword came out. and at once he plunged it into the beast's shoulder so mightily that it pierced him to the heart, and the beast fell down dead to the earth. after that bothvar went where hott lay. bothvar took him up and bore him to where the beast lay dead. hott was trembling all over. bothvar said, "now must thou drink the blood of the beast." for long hott was unwilling, and yet he did not dare to do anything else. bothvar made him drink two great sups; also he made him eat somewhat of the heart of the beast. after that bothvar turned to hott, and they fought a long time. bothvar said, "thou hast now become very strong, and i do not believe that thou wilt now fear the retainers of king rolf." hott said, "i shall not fear them, nor thee either, from now on." "that is good, fellow hott. let us now go and raise up the beast, and so array him that others may think that he is still alive." and they did so. after that they went home, and were quiet, and no man knew what they had achieved. in the morning the king asked what news there was of the beast, and whether it had made any attack upon them in the night. and answer was made to the king, that all the cattle were safe and uninjured in their folds. the king bade his men examine whether any trace could be seen of the beast having visited them. the watchers did so, and came quickly back to the king with the news that the beast was making for the castle, and in great fury. the king bade his retainers be brave, and each play the man according as he had spirit, and do away with this monster. and they did as the king bade, and made them ready. then the king faced towards the beast and said, "i see no sign of movement in the beast. who now will undertake to go against it?" bothvar said, "that would be an enterprise for a man of true valour. fellow hott, now clear thyself of that ill-repute, { } in that men hold that there is no spirit or valour in thee. go now and do thou kill the beast; thou canst see that there is no one else who is forward to do it." "yea," said hott, "i will undertake this." the king said, "i do not know whence this valour has come upon thee, hott; and much has changed in thee in a short time." hott said, "give me the sword goldenboss, gullinhjalti, which thou dost wield, and i will fell the beast or take my death." rolf the king said, "that sword cannot be borne except by a man who is both a good warrior and valiant." hott said, "so shalt thou ween that i am a man of that kind." the king said, "how can one know that more has not changed in thy temper than can be seen? few men would know thee for the same man. now take the sword and have joy of it, if this deed is accomplished." then hott went boldly to the beast and smote at it when he came within reach, and the beast fell down dead. bothvar said, "see now, my lord, what he has achieved." the king said, "verily, he has altered much, but hott has not killed the beast alone, rather hast thou done it." bothvar said, "it may be that it is so." the king said, "i knew when thou didst come here that few would be thine equals. but this seems to me nevertheless thy most honourable work, that thou hast made here another warrior of hott, who did not seem shaped for much luck. and now i will that he shall be called no longer hott, but hjalti from this time; thou shalt be called after the sword gullinhjalti (goldenboss)." * * * * * c. extracts from grettis saga (ed. g. magnússon, ; r. c. boer, ) (_a_) _glam episode_ (caps. - ) Þórhallr hét maðr, er bjó á Þórhallsst[o,]ðum í forsæludal. forsæludalr er upp af vatnsdal. Þórhallr var grímsson, Þórhallssonar, friðmundarsonar, er nam forsæludal. Þórhallr átti þá konu, er guðrún hét. grímr hét sonr þeira, en Þuríðr dóttir; þau váru vel á legg komin. Þórhallr var vel auðigr { } maðr, ok mest at kvikfé, svá at engi maðr átti jafnmart ganganda fé, sem hann. ekki var hann h[o,]fðingi, en þó skilríkr bóndí. Þar var reimt mj[o,]k, ok fekk hann varla sauðamann, svá at honum þoetti duga. hann leitaði ráðs við marga vitra menn, hvat hann skyldi til bragðs taka; en engi gat þat ráð til gefit, er dygði. Þórhallr reið til þings hvert sumar. hann átti hesta góða. Þat var eitt sumar á alþingi, at Þórhallr gekk til búðar skapta l[o,]gmanns, Þóroddssonar. skapti var manna vitrastr, ok heilráðr, ef hann var beiddr. Þat skildi með þeim feðgum: Þóroddr var forspár ok kallaðr undirhyggjumaðr af sumum m[o,]nnum, en skapti lagði þat til með hverjum manni, sem hann ætlaði at duga skyldi, ef eigi væri af því brugðit; því var hann kallaðr betrfeðrungr. Þórhallr gekk í búð skapta; hann fagnaði vel Þórhalli, því hann vissi, at hann var ríkr maðr at fé, ok spurði hvat at tíðendum væri. Þórhallr mælti: "heilræði vilda ek af yðr þiggja." "Í litlum foerum em ek til þess," sagði skapti; "eða hvat stendr þik?" Þórhallr mælti: "Þat er svá háttat, at mér helz lítt á sauðam[o,]nnum. verðr þeim heldr klakksárt, en sumir gera engar lyktir á. vill nú engi til taka, sá er kunnigt er til, hvat fyrir býr." skapti svarar: "Þar mun liggja meinvættr n[o,]kkur, er menn eru tregari til at geyma síðr þíns fjár en annarra manna. nú fyrir því, at þú hefir at mér ráð sótt, þá skal ek fá þér sauðamann, þann er glámr heitir, ættaðr ór svíþjóð, ór sylgsd[o,]lum, er út kom í fyrra sumar, mikill ok sterkr, ok ekki mj[o,]k við alþýðu skap." Þórhallr kvaz ekki um þat gefa, ef hann geymdi vel fjárins; skapti sagði [o,]ðrum eigi vænt horfa, ef hann geymdi eigi fyrir afls sakir ok áræðis; Þórhallr gekk þá út. Þetta var at þinglausnum. Þórhalli var vant hesta tveggja ljósbleikra, ok fór sjálfr at leita; af því þykkjaz menn vita, at hann var ekki mikilmenni. hann gekk upp undir sleðás ok suðr með fjalli því, er Ármannsfell heitir. Þá sá hann, hvar maðr fór ofan ór goðaskógi ok bar hrís á hesti. brátt bar saman fund þeira; Þórhallr spurði hann at nafni, en hann kvez glámr heita. Þessi maðr { } var mikill vexti ok undarligr í yfirbragði, bláeygðr ok opineygðr, úlfgrár á hárslit. Þórhalli brá n[o,]kkut í brún, er hann sá þenna mann; en þó skildi hann, at honum mundi til þessa vísat. "hvat er þér bezt hent at vinna?" segir Þórhallr. glámr kvað sér vel hent at geyma sauðfjár á vetrum. "viltu geyma sauðfjár míns?" segir Þórhallr; "gaf skapti þik á mitt vald." "svá mun þér hentust mín vist, at ek fari sjálfráðr; því ek em skapstyggr, ef mér líkar eigi vel," sagði glámr. "ekki mun mér mein at því," segir Þórhallr, "ok vil ek, at þú farir til mín." "gera má ek þat," segir glámr; "eða eru þar n[o,]kkur vandhoefi á?" "reimt þykkir þar vera," sagði Þórhallr. "ekki hræðumz ek flykur þær," sagði glámr, "ok þykkir mér at ódauflig[r]a." "Þess muntu við þurfa," segir Þórhallr, "ok hentar þar betr, at vera eigi alllítill fyrir sér." eptir þat kaupa þeir saman, ok skal glámr koma at vetrnóttum. siðan skildu þeir, ok fann Þórhallr hesta sína, þar sem hann hafði nýleitat. reið Þórhallr heim, ok þakkaði skapta sinn velgerning. sumar leið af, ok frétti Þórhallr ekki til sauðamanns, ok engi kunni skyn á honum. en at ánefndum tíma kom hann á Þórhallsstaði. tekr bóndi við honum vel, en [o,]llum [o,]ðrum gaz ekki at honum, en húsfreyju þó minst. hann tók við fjárvarðveizlu, ok varð honum lítit fyrir því; hann var hljóðmikill ok dimmraddaðr, ok féit st[o,]kk allt saman, þegar hann hóaði. kirkja var á Þórhallsst[o,]ðum; ekki vildi glámr til hennar koma; hann var ós[o,]ngvinn ok trúlauss, stirfinn ok viðskotaillr; [o,]llum var hann hvimleiðr. nú leið svá þar til er kemr atfangadagr jóla. Þá stóð glámr snemma upp ok kallaði til matar síns. húsfreyja svarar: "ekki er þat háttr kristinna manna, at mataz þenna dag, þvíat á morgin er jóladagr hinn fyrsti," segir hon, "ok er því fyrst skylt at fasta í dag." hann svarar: "marga hindrvitni hafi þér, þá er ek sé til enskis koma. veit ek eigi, at m[o,]nnum fari nú betr at, heldr { } en þá, er menn fóru ekki með slíkt. Þótti mér þá betri siðr, er menn váru heiðnir kallaðir; ok vil ek mat minn en engar refjur." húsfreyja mælti: "víst veit ek, at þér mun illa faraz í dag, ef þú tekr þetta illbrigði til." glámr bað hana taka mat í stað; kvað henni annat skyldu vera verra. hon þorði eigi annat, en at gera, sem hann vildi. ok er hann var mettr, gekk hann út, ok var heldr gustillr. veðri var svá farit, at myrkt var um at litaz, ok fl[o,]graði ór drífa, ok gnýmikit, ok versnaði mj[o,]k sem á leið daginn. heyrðu menn til sauðamanns [o,]ndverðan daginn, en miðr er á leið daginn. tók þá at fjúka, ok gerði á hríð um kveldit; kómu menn til tíða, ok leið svá fram at dagsetri; eigi kom glámr heim. var þá um talat, hvárt hans skyldi eigi leita; en fyrir því, at hríð var á ok niðamyrkr, þá varð ekki af leitinni. kom hann eigi heim jólanóttina; biðu menn svá fram um tíðir. at oernum degi fóru menn í leitina, ok fundu féit víða í f[o,]nnum, lamit af ofviðri eða hlaupit á fj[o,]ll upp. Þvínæst kómu þeir á traðk mikinn ofarliga í dalnum. Þótti þeim því líkt, sem þar hefði glímt verit heldr sterkliga, þvíat grjótit var víða upp leyst, ok svá j[o,]rðin. Þeir hugðu at vandliga ok sá, hvar glámr lá, skamt á brott frá þeim. hann var dauðr, ok blár sem hel, en digr sem naut. Þeim bauð af honum óþekt mikla, ok hraus þeim mj[o,]k hugr við honum. en þó leituðu þeir við at foera hann til kirkju, ok gátu ekki komit honum, nema á einn gilsþr[o,]m þar skamt ofan frá sér; ok fóru heim við svá búit, ok s[o,]gðu bónda þenna atburð. hann spurði, hvat glámi mundi hafa at bana orðit. Þeir kváðuz rakit hafa spor svá stór, sem keraldsbotni væri niðr skelt þaðan frá, sem traðkrinn var, ok upp undir bj[o,]rg þau, er þar váru ofarliga í dalnum, ok fylgðu þar með blóðdrefjar miklar. Þat drógu menn saman, at sú meinvættr, er áðr hafði [þar] verit, mundi hafa deytt glám; en hann mundi fengit hafa henni n[o,]kkurn áverka, þann er tekit hafi til fulls, þvíat við þá meinvætti hefir aldri vart orðit síðan. annan jóladag var enn til farit at foera glám til kirkju. váru eykir fyrir beittir, ok gátu þeir hvergi foert hann, þegar sléttlendit var ok eigi var forbrekkis at fara. gengu nú frá við svá búit. hinn þriðja dag fór prestr með þeim, ok leituðu allan daginn, { } ok glámr fannz eigi. eigi vildi prestr optar til fara; en sauðamaðr fannz, þegar prestr var eigi í ferð. létu þeir þá fyrir vinnaz, at foera hann til kirkju; ok dysjuðu hann þar, sem þá var hann kominn. lítlu síðar urðu menn varir við þat, at glámr lá eigi kyrr. varð m[o,]nnum at því mikit mein, svá at margir fellu í óvit, ef sá hann, en sumir heldu eigi vitinu. Þegar eptir jólin þóttuz menn sjá hann heima þar á boenum. urðu menn ákafliga hræddir; stukku þá margir menn í brott. Þvinæst tók glámr at ríða húsum á nætr, svá at lá við brotum. gekk hann þá náliga nætr ok daga. varla þorðu menn at fara upp í dalinn, þóat ætti nóg ørendi. Þótti m[o,]nnum þar í heraðinu mikit mein at þessu. um várit fekk Þórhallr sér hjón ok gerði bú á j[o,]rðu sinni. tók þá at minka aptrgangr, meðan sólargangr var mestr. leið svá fram á miðsumar. Þetta sumar kom út skip í húnavatni; þar var á sá maðr, er Þorgautr hét. hann var útlendr at kyni, mikill ok sterkr; hann hafði tveggja manna afl; hann var lauss ok einn fyrir sér; hann vildi fá starfa n[o,]kkurn, því(at) hann var félauss. Þórhallr reið til skips ok fann Þorgaut; spurði ef hann vildi vinna fyrir honum; Þorgautr kvað þat vel mega vera, ok kvez eigi vanda þat. "svá skaltu við búaz," segir Þórhallr, "sem þar sé ekki veslingsm[o,]nnum hent at vera, fyrir aptrg[o,]ngum þeim, er þar hafa verit um hríð, en ek vil ekki þik á tálar draga." Þorgautr svarar: "eigi þykkjumz ek upp gefinn, þóat ek sjá smáváfur; mun þá eigi [o,]ðrum dælt, ef ek hræðumz; ok ekki bregð ek vist minni fyrir þat." nú semr þeim vel kaupstefnan, ok skal Þorgautr gæta sauðfjár at vetri. leið nú af sumarit. tók Þorgautr við fénu at vetrnáttum. vel líkaði [o,]llum við hann. jafnan kom glámr heim ok reið húsum. Þat þótti Þorgauti allkátligt, ok kvað, "þrælinn þurfa mundu nær at ganga, ef ek hræðumz." Þórhallr bað hann hafa fátt um; "er bezt, at þit reynið ekki með ykkr." Þorgautr mælti: "sannliga er skekinn þróttr ór yðr; ok dett ek eigi niðr milli doegra við skraf þetta." nú fór svá fram um vetrinn allt til jóla. atfangakveld jóla fór sauðamaðr til fjár. { } Þá mælti húsfreyja: "Þurfa þoetti mér, at nú foeri eigi at fornum br[o,]gðum." hann svarar: "ver eigi hrædd um þat, húsfreyja," sagði hann; "verða mun eitthvert s[o,]guligt, ef ek kem ekki aptr." síðan gekk hann aptr til fjár síns. veðr var heldr kalt, ok fjúk mikit. Því var Þorgautr vanr, at koma heim, þá er hálfrøkkvat var; en nú kom hann ekki heim í þat mund. kómu tíðamenn, sem vant var. Þat þótti m[o,]nnum eigi ólíkt á horfaz sem fyrr. bóndi vildi leita láta eptir sauðamanni, en tíðamenn t[o,]lduz undan, ok s[o,]gðuz eigi mundu hætta sér út í tr[o,]llahendr um nætr; ok treystiz bóndi eigi at fara, ok varð ekki af leitinni. jóladag, er menn váru mettir, fóru menn til ok leituðu sauðamanns. gengu þeir fyrst til dysjar gláms, þvíat menn ætluðu af hans v[o,]ldum mundi orðit um hvarf sauðamanns. en er þeir kómu nær dysinni, sáu þeir þar mikil tíðendi, ok þar fundu þeir sauðamann, ok var hann brotinn á háls, ok lamit sundr hvert bein í honum. síðan foerðu þeir hann til kirkju, ok varð engum manni mein at Þorgauti síðan. en glámr tók at magnaz af nýju. gerði hann nú svá mikit af sér, at menn allir stukku brott af Þórhallsst[o,]ðum, útan bóndi einn ok húsfreyja. nautamaðr hafði þar verit lengi hinn sami. vildi Þórhallr hann ekki lausan láta fyrir góðvilja sakir ok geymslu. hann var mj[o,]k við aldr, ok þótti honum mikit fyrir, at fara á brott; sá hann ok, at allt fór at ónytju, þat er bóndi átti, ef engi geymdi. ok einn tíma eptir miðjan vetr var þat einn morgin, at húsfreyja fór til fjóss, at mjólka kýr eptir tíma. Þá var alljóst, þvíat engi treystiz fyrr úti at vera annarr en nautamaðr; hann fór út, þegar lýsti. hon heyrði brak mikit í fjósit, ok beljan [o,]skurliga; hon hljóp inn oepandi ok kvaz eigi vita, hver ódoemi um væri í fjósinu. bóndi gekk út ok kom til nautanna, ok stangaði hvert annat. Þótti honum þar eigi gott, ok gekk innar at hl[o,]ðunni. hann sá, hvar lá, nautamaðr, ok hafði h[o,]fuðit í [o,]ðrum bási en foetr í [o,]ðrum; hann lá á bak aptr. bóndi gekk at honum ok þreifaði um hann; finnr brátt, at hann er dauðr ok sundr hryggrinn í honum. var hann brotinn um báshelluna. nú þótti bónda eigi vært, ok fór í brott af boenum með allt þat, sem hann mátti í brott flytja. en allt kvikfé þat, sem eptir var, deyddi glámr. ok þvinæst fór { } hann um allan dalinn ok eyddi alla boei upp frá tungu. var Þórhallr þá með vinum sínum þat [sem] eptir var vetrarins. engi maðr mátti fara upp í dalinn með hest eðr hund, þvíat þat var þegar drepit. en er váraði, ok sólargangr var sem mestr, létti heldr aptrg[o,]ngunum. vildi Þórhallr nú fara aptr til lands síns. urðu honum ekki auðfengin hjón, en þó gerði hann bú á Þórhallsst[o,]ðum. fór allt á sama veg sem fyrr; þegar at haustaði, tóku at vaxa reimleikar. var þá mest sótt at bóndadóttur; ok svá fór, at hon léz af því. margra ráða var í leitat, ok varð ekki at g[o,]rt. Þótti m[o,]nnum til þess horfaz, at eyðaz mundi allr vatnsdalr, ef eigi yrði boetr á ráðnar. nú er þar til at taka, at grettir Ásmundarson sat heima at bjargi um haustit, síðan þeir vígabarði skildu á Þóreyjargnúpi. ok er mj[o,]k var komit at vetrnóttum, reið grettir heiman norðr yfir hálsa til víðidals, ok gisti á auðunarst[o,]ðum. sættuz þeir auðunn til fulls, ok gaf grettir honum øxi góða, ok mæltu til vináttu með sér. auðunn bjó lengi á auðunarst[o,]ðum ok var kynsæll maðr. hans sonr var egill, er átti Úlfheiði, dóttur eyjólfs guðmundarsonar, ok var þeira sonr eyjólfr, er veginn var á alþingi. hann var faðir orms, kapiláns Þorláks biskups. grettir reið norðr til vatnsdals ok kom á kynnisleit í tungu. Þar bjó þá j[o,]kull bárðarson, móðurbróðir grettis; j[o,]kull var mikill maðr ok sterkr ok hinn mesti ofsamaðr. hann var siglingamaðr, ok mj[o,]k ódæll, en þó mikilhoefr maðr. hann tók vel við gretti, ok var hann þar þrjár nætr. Þá var svá mikit orð á aptrg[o,]ngum gláms, at m[o,]nnum var ekki jafntíðroett sem þat. grettir spurði inniliga at þeim atburðum, er h[o,]fðu orðit; j[o,]kull kvað þar ekki meira af sagt en til væri hoeft; "eða er þér forvitni á, frændi! at koma þar?" grettir sagði, at þat var satt. j[o,]kull bað hann þat eigi gera, "því þat er gæfuraun mikil; en frændr þínir eiga mikit í hættu, þar sem þú ert," sagði hann; "þykkir oss nú engi slíkr af ungum m[o,]nnum sem þú; en illt mun af illum hljóta, þar sem glámr er. er ok miklu betra, at fáz við mennska menn en við óvættir slíkar." grettir kvað sér hug á, at koma á Þórhallsstaði, ok sjá, hversu þar væri um gengit. { } j[o,]kull mælti: "sé ek nú, at eigi tjáir at letja þik; en satt er þat sem mælt er, at sitt er hvárt, gæfa eða gervigleikr." "Þá er [o,]ðrum vá fyrir dyrum, er [o,]ðrum er inn um komit; ok hygg at, hversu þér mun fara sjálfum, áðr lýkr," kvað grettir. j[o,]kull svarar: "vera kann, at vit sjáim báðir n[o,]kkut fram, en hvárrgi fái við g[o,]rt." eptir þat skildu þeir, ok líkaði hvárigum annars spár. grettir reið á Þórhallsstaði, ok fagnaði bóndi honum vel. hann spurði, hvert grettir ætlaði at fara; en hann segiz þar vilja vera um nóttina, ef bónda líkaði, at svá væri. Þórhallr kvaz þ[o,]kk fyrir kunna, at hann væri þar, "en fám þykkir sloegr til at gista hér um tíma; muntu hafa heyrt getit um, hvat hér er at væla. en ek vilda gjarna, at þú hlytir engi vandræði af mér. en þóat þú komiz heill á brott, þá veit ek fyrir víst, at þú missir hests þíns; því engi heldr hér heilum sínum fararskjóta, sá er kemr." grettir kvað gott til hesta, hvat sem af þessum yrði. Þórhallr varð glaðr við, er grettir vildi þar vera, ok tók við honum báðum h[o,]ndum. var hestr grettis læstr í húsi sterkliga. Þeir fóru til svefns, ok leið svá af nóttin, at ekki kom glámr heim. Þá mælti Þórhallr: "vel hefir brugðit við þína kvámu, þvíat hverja nótt er glámr vanr at ríða húsum eða brjóta upp hurðir, sem þú mátt merki sjá." grettir mælti: "Þá mun vera annathvárt, at hann mun ekki lengi á sér sitja, eða mun af venjaz meirr en eina nótt. skal ek vera hér nótt aðra ok sjá, hversu ferr." siðan gengu þeir til hests grettis, ok var ekki við hann glez. allt þótti bónda at einu fara. nú er grettir þar aðra nótt, ok kom ekki þrællinn heim. Þá þótti bónda mj[o,]k vænkaz. fór hann þá, at sjá hest grettis. Þá var upp brotit húsit, er bóndi kom til, en hestrinn dreginn til dyra útar, ok lamit í sundr í honum hvert bein. Þórhallr sagði gretti, hvar þá var komit, ok bað hann forða sér: "þvíat víss er dauðinn, ef þú bíðr gláms." grettir svarar: "eigi má ek minna hafa fyrir hest minn, en at sjá þrælinn." { } bóndi sagði, at þat var eigi bati, at sjá hann, "þvíat hann er ólíkr n[o,]kkurri mannligri mynd; en góð þykki mér hver sú stund, er þú vilt hér vera." nú líðr dagrinn; ok er menn skyldu fara til svefns, vildi grettir eigi fara af klæðum, ok lagðiz niðr í setit gegnt lokrekkju bónda. hann hafði r[o,]ggvarfeld yfir sér, ok knepti annat skautit niðr undir foetr sér, en annat snaraði hann undir h[o,]fuð sér, ok sá út um h[o,]fuðsmáttina. setstokkr var fyrir framan setit, mj[o,]k sterkr, ok spyrndi hann þar í. dyraumbúningrinn allr var frá brotinn útidyrunum, en nú var þar fyrir bundinn hurðarflaki, ok óvendiliga um búit. Þverþilit var allt brotit frá skálanum, þat sem þar fyrir framan hafði verit, bæði fyrir ofan þvertréit ok neðan. sængr allar váru ór stað foerðar. heldr var þar óvistuligt. ljós brann í skálanum um nóttina. ok er af mundi þriðjungr af nótt, heyrði grettir út dynur miklar. var þá farit upp á húsin, ok riðit skálanum ok barit hælunum, svá at brakaði í hverju tré. Þvi gekk lengi; þá var farit ofan af húsunum ok til dyra gengit. ok er upp var lokit hurðunni, sá grettir, at þrællinn rétti inn h[o,]fuðit, ok sýndiz honum afskræmiliga mikit ok undarliga stórskorit. glámr fór seint ok réttiz upp, er hann kom inn í dyrnar; hann gnæfaði ofarliga við ræfrinu; snýr at skálanum ok lagði handleggina upp á þvertréit, ok gægðiz inn yfir skálann. ekki lét bóndi heyra til sín, þvíat honum þótti oerit um, er hann heyrði, hvat um var úti. grettir lá kyrr ok hroerði sik hvergi. glámr sá, at hrúga n[o,]kkur lá í setinu, ok réz nú innar eptir skálanum ok þreif í feldinn stundarfast. grettir spyrndi í stokkinn, ok gekk því hvergi. glámr hnykti í annat sinn miklu fastara, ok bifaðiz hvergi feldrinn. Í þriðja sinn þreif hann í með báðum h[o,]ndum svá fast, at hann rétti gretti upp ór setinu; kiptu nú í sundr feldinum í millum sín. glámr leit á slitrit, er hann helt á, ok undraðiz mj[o,]k, hverr svá, fast mundi togaz við hann. ok í því hljóp grettir undir hendr honum, ok þreif um hann miðjan, ok spenti á honum hrygginn sem fastast gat hann, ok ætlaði hann, at glámr skyldi kikna við. en þrællinn lagði at handleggjum grettis svá fast, at hann h[o,]rfaði allr fyrir orku sakir. fór grettir þá undan í ýms setin. gengu þá frá stokkarnir, ok allt brotnaði, þat sem fyrir varð. vildi { } glámr leita út, en grettir foerði við foetr, hvar sem hann mátti. en þó gat glámr dregit hann fram ór skálanum. Áttu þeir þá allharða sókn þvíat þrællinn ætlaði at koma honum út ór boenum; en svá illt sem var at eiga við glám inni, þá sá grettir, at þó var verra, at fáz við hann úti; ok því brauz hann í móti af [o,]llu afli at fara út. glámr foerðiz í aukana, ok knepti hann at sér, er þeir kómu í anddyrit. ok er grettir sér, at hann fekk eigi við spornat, hefir hann allt eitt atriðit, at hann hleypr sem harðast í fang þrælnum ok spyrnir báðum fótum í jarðfastan stein, er stoð í dyrunum. við þessu bjóz þrællinn eigi; hann hafði þá togaz við at draga gretti at sér; ok því kiknaði glámr á bak aptr, ok rauk [o,]fugr út á dyrnar, svá at herðarnar námu uppdyrit, ok ræfrit gekk í sundr, bæði viðirnir ok þekjan frerin; fell hann svá opinn ok [o,]fugr út ór húsunum, en grettir á hann ofan. tunglskin var mikit úti ok gluggaþykkn; hratt stundum fyrir, en stundum dró frá. nú í því, er glámr fell, rak skýit frá tunglinu, en glámr hvesti augun upp í móti. ok svá, hefir grettir sagt sjálfr, at þá eina sýn hafi hann sét svá, at honum brygði við. Þá sigaði svá at honum af [o,]llu saman, moeði ok því, er hann sá at glámr gaut sínum sjónum harðliga, at hann gat eigi brugðit saxinu, ok lá náliga í milli heims ok heljar. en því var meiri ófagnaðarkraptr með glámi en flestum [o,]ðrum aptrg[o,]ngum[o,]nnum, at hann mælti þá á þessa leið: "mikit kapp hefir þú á lagit, grettir," sagði hann, "at finna mik. en þat mun eigi undarligt þykkja, þóat þú hljótir ekki mikit happ af mér. en þat má ek segja þér, at þú hefir nú fengit helming afls þess ok þroska, er þér var ætlaðr, ef þú hefðir mik ekki fundit. nú fæ ek þat afl eigi af þér tekit, er þú hefir áðr hrept; en því má ek ráða, at þú verðr aldri sterkari en nú ertu, ok ertu þó nógu sterkr, ok at því mun m[o,]rgum verða. Þú hefir frægr orðit hér til af verkum þínum; en heðan af munu falla til þín sektir ok vígaferli, en flest [o,]ll verk þín snúaz þér til ógæfu ok hamingjuleysis. Þú munt verða útlægr g[o,]rr, ok hljóta jafnan úti at búa einn samt. Þá legg ek þat á við þik, at þessi augu sé þér jafnan fyrir sjónum, sem ek ber eptir; ok mun þér erfitt þykkja, einum at vera; ok þat mun þér til dauða draga." ok sem þrællinn hafði þetta mælt, þá rann af gretti ómegin, { } þat sem á honum hafði verit. brá hann þá saxinu ok hjó h[o,]fuð af glámi ok setti þat við þjó honum. bóndi kom þá út, ok hafði klæz, á meðan glámr lét ganga t[o,]luna; en hvergi þorði hann nær at koma, fyrr en glámr var fallinn. Þórhallr lofaði guð fyrir, ok þakkaði vel gretti, er hann hafði unnit þenna óhreina anda. fóru þeir þá til, ok brendu glám at k[o,]ldum kolum. eptir þat [báru þeir [o,]sku hans í eina hít ok] grófu þar niðr, sem sízt váru fjárhagar eða mannavegir. gengu heim eptir þat, ok var þá mj[o,]k komit at degi. lagðiz grettir niðr, þvíat hann var stirðr mj[o,]k. Þórhallr sendi menn á næstu boei eptir m[o,]nnum; sýndi ok sagði, hversu farit hafði. [o,]llum þótti mikils um vert um þetta verk, þeim er heyrðu. var þat þá almælt, at engi væri þvílíkr maðr á [o,]llu landinu fyrir afls sakir ok hreysti ok allrar atgervi, sem grettir Ásmundarson. Þórhallr leysti gretti vel af garði ok gaf honum góðan hest ok klæði soemilig, því[at] þau váru [o,]ll sundr leyst, er hann hafði áðr borit. skildu þeir með vináttu. reið grettir þaðan í Ás í vatnsdal, ok tók Þorvaldr við honum vel ok spurði inniliga at sameign þeira gláms; en grettir segir honum viðskipti þeira, ok kvaz aldri í þvílíka aflraun komit hafa, svá langa viðreign sem þeir h[o,]fðu saman átt. Þorvaldr bað hann hafa sik spakan, "ok mun þá vel duga, en ella mun þér slysgjarnt verða." grettir kvað ekki batnat hafa um lyndisbragðit, ok sagðiz nú miklu verr stiltr en áðr, ok allar mótgerðir verri þykkja. Á því fann hann mikla muni, at hann var orðinn maðr svá myrkfælinn, at hann þorði hvergi at fara einn saman, þegar myrkva tók. sýndiz honum þá hvers kyns skrípi; ok þat er haft síðan fyrir orðtoeki, at þeim ljái glámr augna eðr gefi glámsýni, er mj[o,]k sýniz annan veg, en er. grettir reið heim til bjargs, er hann hafði g[o,]rt ørendi sín, ok sat heima um vetrinn. (_b_) _sandhaugar episode_ (caps. - ) steinn hét prestr, er bjó at eyjardalsá í bárðardal. hann var búþegn góðr ok ríkr at fé. kjartan hét son hans, r[o,]skr maðr ok vel á legg kominn. Þorsteinn hvíti hét maðr, er { } bjó at sandhaugum, suðr frá eyjardalsá. steinv[o,]r hét kona hans, ung ok glaðlát. Þau áttu b[o,]rn, ok váru þau ung í þenna tíma. Þar þótti m[o,]nnum reimt mj[o,]k sakir tr[o,]llagangs. Þat bar til, tveim vetrum fyrr en grettir kom norðr í sveitir, at steinv[o,]r húsfreyja at sandhaugum fór til jólatíða til eyjardalsár eptir vana, en bóndi var heima. l[o,]gðuz menn niðr til svefns um kveldit; ok um nóttina heyrðu menn brak mikit í skálann, ok til sængr bónda. engi þorði upp at standa at forvitnaz um, þvíat þar var fáment mj[o,]k. húsfreyja kom heim um morguninn, ok var bóndi horfinn, ok vissi engi, hvat af honum var orðit. liðu svá hin næstu misseri. en annan vetr eptir, vildi húsfreyja fara til tíða; bað hon húskarl sinn heima vera. hann var tregr til; en bað hana ráða. fór þar allt á s[o,]mu leið, sem fyrr, at húskarl var horfinn. Þetta þótti m[o,]nnum undarligt. sáu menn þá blóðdrefjar n[o,]kkurar í útidyrum. Þóttuz menn þat vita, at óvættir mundu hafa tekit þá báða. Þetta fréttiz víða um sveitir. grettir hafði spurn af þessu. ok með því at honum var mj[o,]k lagit at koma af reimleikum eða aptrg[o,]ngum, þá gerði hann ferð sína til bárðardals, ok kom atfangadag jóla til sandha[u]ga. hann duldiz ok nefndiz gestr. húsfreyja sá, at hann var furðu mikill vexti, en heimafólk var furðu hrætt við hann. hann beiddiz þar gistingar. húsfreyja kvað honum mat til reiðu, "en ábyrgz þik sjálfr." hann kvað svá vera skyldu. "mun ek vera heima," segir hann, "en þú far til tíða, ef þú vilt." hon svarar: "mér þykkir þú hraustr, ef þú þorir heima at vera." "eigi læt ek mér at einu getit," sagði hann. "illt þykkir mér heima at vera," segir hon, "en ekki komumz ek yfir ána." "ek skal fylgja þér yfir," segir gestr. síðan bjóz hon til tiða, ok dóttir hennar með henni, lítil vexti. hláka mikil var úti, ok áin í leysingum; var á henni jakaf[o,]r. Þá mælti húsfreyja: "Ófoert er yfir ána, bæði m[o,]nnum ok hestum." "v[o,]ð munu á vera," kvað gestr; "ok verið eigi hræddar." { } "ber þú fyrst meyna," kvað húsfreyja, "hon er léttari." "ekki nenni ek at gera tvær ferðir at þessu," segir gestr, "ok mun ek bera þik á handlegg mér." hon signdi sik ok mælti: "Þetta er ófoera; eða hvat gerir þú þá af meyjunni?" "sjá mun ek ráð til þess," segir hann; ok greip þær upp báðar ok setti hina yngri í kné móður sinnar, ok bar þær svá á vinstra armlegg sér; en hafði lausa hina hoegri h[o,]nd ok óð svá, út á vaðit. eigi þorðu þær at oepa, svá váru þær hræddar. en áin skall þegar upp á brjósti honum. Þá rak at honum jaka mikinn; en hann skaut við hendi þeiri, er laus var, ok hratt frá sér. gerði þá svá djúpt, at strauminn braut á [o,]xlinni. Óð hann sterkliga, þar til er hann kom at bakkanum [o,]ðrum megin, ok fleygir þeim á land. síðan sneri hann aptr, ok var þá hálfrøkkvit, er hann kom heim til sandhauga; ok kallaði til matar. ok er hann var mettr, bað hann heimafólk fara innar í stofu. hann tók þá borð ok lausa viðu, ok rak um þvera stofuna, ok gerði bálk mikinn, svá at engi heimamaðr komz fram yfir. engi þorði í móti honum at mæla, ok í engum skyldi kretta. gengit var í hliðvegginn stofunnar inn við gaflhlaðit; ok þar þverpallr hjá. Þar lagðiz gestr niðr ok fór ekki af klæðunum. ljós brann í stofunni gegnt dyrum. liggr gestr svá fram á nóttina. húsfreyja kom til eyjardalsár til tíða, ok undruðu menn um ferðir hennar yfir ána. hon sagðiz eigi vita, hvárt hana hefði yfir flutt maðr eða tr[o,]ll. prestr kvað mann víst vera mundu, þóat fárra maki sé; "ok látum hljótt yfir," sagði hann; "má vera, at hann sé ætlaðr til at vinna bót á vandræðum þínum." var húsfreyja þar um nóttina. nú er frá gretti þat at segja, at þá er dró at miðri nótt, heyrði hann út dynur miklar. Þvínæst kom inn í stofuna tr[o,]llkona mikil. hon hafði í hendi trog, en annarri skálm, heldr mikla. hon litaz um, er hon kom inn, ok sá, hvar gestr lá, ok hljóp at honum, en hann upp í móti, ok réðuz á grimmliga ok sóttuz lengi í stofunni. hon var sterkari, en hann fór undan koenliga. en allt þat, sem fyrir þeim varð, brutu þau, jafnvel þverþilit undan stofunni. hon dró hann fram yfir dyrnar, ok svá í anddyrit; þar tók hann fast í móti. hon { } vildi draga hann út ór boenum, en þat varð eigi fyrr en þau leystu frá allan útidyraumbúninginn ok báru hann út á herðum sér. Þoefði hon þá ofan til árinnar ok allt fram at gljúfrum. Þá var gestr ákafliga móðr, en þó varð annathvárt at gera: at herða sik, ella mundi hon steypa honum í gljúfrin. alla nóttina sóttuz þau. eigi þóttiz hann hafa fengiz við þvílíkan ófagnað fyrir afls sakir. hon hafði haldit honum svá fast at sér, at hann mátti hvárigri hendi taka til n[o,]kkurs, útan hann helt um hana miðja k[ett]una. ok er þau kómu á árgljufrit, bregðr hann flagðkonunni til sveiflu. Í því varð honum laus hin hoegri h[o,]ndin. hann þreif þá skjótt til saxins, er hann var gyrðr með, ok bregðr því; høggr þá á [o,]xl tr[o,]llinu, svá at af tók h[o,]ndina hoegri, ok svá, varð hann lauss. en hon steyptiz í gljúfrin ok svá í fossinn. gestr var þá bæði stirðr ok móðr, ok lá þar lengi á hamrinum. gekk hann þá heim, er lýsa tók, ok lagðiz í rekkju. hann var allr þrútinn ok blár. ok er húsfreyja kom frá tíðum, þótti henni heldr raskat um hýbýli sín. gekk hon þá til gests ok spurði, hvat til hefði borit, er allt var brotit ok boelt. hann sagði allt, sem farit hafði. henni þótti mikils um vert, ok spurði, hverr hann var. hann sagði þá til hit sanna, ok bað soekja prest ok kvaz vildu finna hann. var ok svá g[o,]rt. en er steinn prestr kom til sandhauga, varð hann brátt þess víss, at þar var kominn grettir Ásmundarson, er gestr nefndiz. prestr spurði, hvat hann ætlaði af þeim m[o,]nnum mundi vera orðit, er þar h[o,]fðu horfit. grettir kvaz ætla, at í gljúfrin mundu þeir hafa horfit. prestr kvaz eigi kunna at leggja trúnað á sagnir hans, ef engi merki mætti til sjá. grettir segir, at sífðar vissi þeir þat gørr. fór prestr heim. grettir lá í rekkju margar nætr. húsfreyja gerði við hann harðla vel; ok leið svá af jólin. Þetta er s[o,]gn grettis, at tr[o,]llkonan steypðiz í gljúfrin við, er hon fekk sárit; en bárðardalsmenn segja, at hana dagaði uppi, þá er þau glímdu, ok spryngi, þá er hann hjó af henni h[o,]ndina, ok standi þar enn í konu líking á bjarginu. Þeir dalbúarnir leyndu þar gretti. um vetrinn eptir jól var þat einn dag, at grettir fór til eyjardalsár. ok er þeir grettir funduz ok prestr, mælti grettir: "sé ek þat, prestr," segir hann, "at þú leggr lítinn { } trúnað á sagnir mínar. nú vil ek at þú farir með mér til árinnar, ok sjáir, hver líkendi þér þykkir á vera." prestr gerði svá. en er þeir kómu til fossins, sáu þeir skúta upp undir bergit; þat var meitilberg svá mikit, at hvergi mátti upp komaz, ok nær tíu faðma ofan at vatninu. Þeir h[o,]fðu festi með sér. Þá mælti prestr: "langt um ófoert sýniz mér þér niðr at fara." grettir svarar: "foert er víst; en þeim mun bezt þar, sem ágætismenn eru. mun ek forvitnaz, hvat í fossinum er, en þú skalt geyma festar." prestr bað hann ráða, ok keyrði niðr hæl á berginu, ok bar at grjót, [ok sat þar hjá]. nú er frá gretti at segja, at hann lét stein í festaraugat ok lét svá síga ofan at vatninu. "hvern veg ætlar þú nú," segir prestr, "at fara?" "ekki vil ek vera bundinn," segir grettir, "þá er ek kem í fossinn; svá boðar mér hugr um." eptir þat bjó hann sik til ferðar, ok var fáklæddr, ok gyrði sik með saxinu, en hafði ekki fleiri vápn. síðan hljóp hann af bjarginu ok niðr í fossinn. sá prestr í iljar honum, ok vissi síðan aldri, hvat af honum varð. grettir kafaði undir fossinn, ok var þat torvelt, þvíat iða var mikil, ok varð hann allt til grunns at kafa, áðr en hann koemiz upp undir fossinn. Þar var forberg n[o,]kkut, ok komz hann inn þar upp á. Þar var hellir mikill undir fossinum, ok fell áin fram af berginu. gekk hann þá inn í hellinn, ok var þar eldr mikill á br[o,]ndum. grettir sá, at þar sat j[o,]tunn [o,]gurliga mikill; hann var hræðiligr at sjá. en er grettir kom at honum, hljóp j[o,]tunninn upp ok greip flein einn ok hjó til þess, er kominn var, þvíat bæði mátti h[o,]ggva ok leggja með [honum]. tréskapt var í; þat k[o,]lluðu menn þá heptisax, er þannveg var g[o,]rt. grettir hjó á móti með saxinu, ok kom á skaptit, svá at í sundr tók. j[o,]tunninn vildi þá seilaz á bak sér aptr til sverðs, er þar hekk í hellinum. Í því hjó grettir framan á brjóstit, svá at náliga tók af alla bringspelina ok kviðinn, svá at iðrin steyptuz ór honum ofan í ána, ok keyrði þau ofan eptir ánni. ok er prestr sat við festina, sá hann, at slyðrur n[o,]kkurar rak ofan eptir strengnum blóðugar { } allar. hann varð þá lauss á velli, ok þóttiz nú vita, at grettir mundi dauðr vera. hljóp hann þá frá festarhaldinu ok fór heim. var þá komit at kveldi, ok sagði prestr vísliga, at grettir væri dauðr; ok sagði, at mikill skaði væri eptir þvílíkan mann. nú er frá gretti at segja; hann lét skamt h[o,]ggva í milli, þar til er j[o,]tunninn dó. gekk grettir þá innar eptir hellinum. hann kveikti ljós ok kannaði hellinn. ekki er frá því sagt, hversu mikit fé hann fekk í hellinum; en þat ætla menn, at verit hafi n[o,]kkut. dvaldiz honum þar fram á nóttina. hann fann þar tveggja manna bein, ok bar þau í belg einn. leitaði hann þá ór hellinum ok lagðiz til festarinnar, ok hristi hana, ok ætlaði, at prestr mundi þar vera. en er hann vissi, at prestr var heim farinn, varð hann þá at handstyrkja upp festina, ok komz hann svá upp á bjargit. fór hann þá heim til eyjardalsár ok kom í forkirkju belginum þeim, sem beinin váru í, ok þar með rúnakefli því, er vísur þessar váru forkunnliga vel á ristnar: "gekk ek í gljúfr et d[o,]kkva gein veltiflug steina, viþ hj[o,]rgæþi hríþar hlunns úrsv[o,]lum munni, fast lá framm á brjósti flugstraumr í sal naumu heldr kom á herþar skáldi h[o,]rþ fjón braga kvónar." ok en þessi: "ljótr kom mér í móti mellu vinr ór helli; hann fekz, heldr at s[o,]nnu harþfengr, viþ mik lengi; harþeggjat lét ek h[o,]ggvit heptisax af skepti; gangs klauf brjóst ok bringu bjartr gunnlogi svarta[ ]." { } Þar sagði svá, at grettir hafi bein þessi ór hellinum haft. en er prestr kom til kirkju um morgininn, fann hann keflit ok þat sem fylgdi, ok las rúnarnar. en grettir hafði farit heim til sandhauga. en þá er prestr fann gretti, spurði hann inniliga eptir atburðum; en hann sagði alla s[o,]gu um ferð sína, ok kvað prest ótrúliga hafa haldit festinni. prestr lét þat á sannaz. Þóttuz menn þat vita, at þessar óvættir mundu valdit hafa mannahv[o,]rfum þar í dalnum. varð ok aldri mein af aptrg[o,]ngum eða reimleikum þar í dalnum síðan. Þótti grettir þar g[o,]rt hafa mikla landhreinsan. prestr jarðaði bein þessi í kirkjugarði. translation of extracts from grettis saga the _grettis saga_ was first printed in the middle of the eighteenth century, in iceland (marcússon, _nockrer marg-frooder sogu-þatter_, , pp. - ). it was edited by magnússon and thordarson, copenhagen, , with a danish translation, and again by boer (_altnordische saga-bibliothek_, halle, ). an edition was also printed at reykjavik in , edited by v. Ásmundarson. there are over forty mss of the saga: _cod. arn. mag. a_ (quoted in the notes below as a) forms the basis of all three modern editions. boer has investigated the relationship of the mss (_die handschriftliche überlieferung der grettissaga, z.f.d.ph._ xxxi, - ), and has published, in an appendix to his edition, the readings of five of the more important, in so far as he considers that they can be utilized to amend the text supplied by a. the reader who consults the editions of both magnússon and boer will be struck by the differences in the text, although both are following the same ms. many of these differences are, of course, due to the fact that the editors are normalizing the spelling, but on different principles: many others, however, are due to the extraordinary difficulty of the ms itself. mr sigfús blöndal, of the royal library of copenhagen, has examined _cod. arn. mag. a_ for me, and he writes: "it is the very worst ms i have ever met with. the writing is small, almost every word is abbreviated, and, worst of all, the writing is in many places effaced, partly by smoke (i suppose the ms needs must have been lying for years in some smoky and damp _baðstofa_) rendering the parchment almost as black as shoe-leather, but still more owing to the use of chemicals, which modern editors have been obliged to use, to make sure of what there really was in the text. by the use of much patience and a lens, one can read it, though, in most places. unfortunately, this does not apply to the _glámur_ episode, a big portion of which belongs to the very worst part of the ms, and the readings of that portion are therefore rather uncertain." the icelandic text given above agrees in the main with that in the excellent edition of boer, to whom, in common with all students of the { } _grettis saga_, i am much indebted: but i have frequently adopted in preference a spelling or wording nearer to that of magnússon. in several of these instances (notably the spelling of the verses attributed to grettir) i think prof. boer would probably himself agree. the words or letters placed between square brackets are those which are not to be found in _cod. arn. mag. a_. to mr blöndal, who has been at the labour of collating with the ms, for my benefit, both the passages given above, my grateful thanks are due. there are english translations of the _grettis saga_ by morris and e. magnússon ( , and in morris' _works_, , vol. vii) and by g. a. hight (_everyman's library_, ). for a discussion of the relationship of the _grettis saga_ to other stories, see also boer, _zur grettissaga_, in _z.f.d.ph._ xxx, - . (_a_) _glam episode_ (p. above) there was a man called thorhall, who lived at thorhall's farm in shadow-dale. shadow-dale runs up from water-dale. thorhall was son of grim, son of thorhall, son of frithmund, who settled shadow-dale. thorhall's wife was called guthrun: their son was grim, and thurith their daughter--they were grown up. [sidenote: p. ] thorhall was a wealthy man, and especially in cattle, so that no man had as much live stock as he. he was not a chief, yet a substantial yeoman. the place was much haunted, and he found it hard to get a shepherd to suit him. he sought counsel of many wise men, what device he should follow, but he got no counsel which was of use to him. thorhall rode each summer to the all-thing; he had good horses. that was one summer at the all-thing, that thorhall went to the booth of skapti thoroddsson, the law-man. skapti was the wisest of men, and gave good advice if he was asked. there was this difference between skapti and his father thorodd: thorodd had second sight, and some men called him underhanded; but skapti gave to every man that advice which he believed would avail, if it were kept to: so he was called 'better than his father.' thorhall went to the booth of skapti. skapti greeted thorhall well, for he knew that he was a prosperous man, and asked what news he had. thorhall said, "i should like good counsel from thee." "i am little use at that," said skapti. "but what is thy need?" { } thorhall said, "it happens so, that it is difficult for me to keep my shepherds: they easily get hurt, and some will not serve their time. and now no one will take on the task, who knows what is before him." skapti answered, "there must be some evil being about, if men are more unwilling to look after thy sheep than those of other folk. now because thou hast sought counsel of me, i will find thee a shepherd, who is named glam, a swede, from sylgsdale, who came out to iceland last summer. he is great and strong, but not much to everybody's taste." thorhall said that he would not mind that, if he guarded the sheep well. skapti said that if glam had not the strength and courage to do that, there was no hope of anyone else. then thorhall went out; this was when the all-thing was nearly ending. thorhall missed two light bay horses, and he went himself to look for them--so it seems that he was not a great man. he went up under sledge-hill and south along the mountain called armannsfell. then he saw where a man came down from gothashaw, bearing faggots on a horse. they soon met, and thorhall asked him his name, and he said he was called glam. glam [sidenote: p. ] was tall and strange in bearing, with blue[ ] and glaring eyes, and wolf-grey hair. thorhall opened his eyes when he saw him, but yet he discerned that this was he to whom he had been sent. "what work art thou best fitted for?" said thorhall. glam said he was well fitted to watch sheep in the winter. "wilt thou watch my sheep?" said thorhall. "skapti gave thee into my hand." "you will have least trouble with me in your house if i go my own way, for i am hard of temper if i am not pleased," said glam. "that will not matter to me," said thorhall, "and i wish that thou shouldst go to my house." "that may i well do," said glam, "but are there any difficulties?" { } "it is thought to be haunted," said thorhall. "i am not afraid of such phantoms," said glam, "and it seems to me all the less dull." "thou wilt need such a spirit," said thorhall, "and it is better that the man there should not be a coward." after that they struck their bargain, and glam was to come at the winter-nights [ th- th of october]. then they parted, and thorhall found his horses where he had just been searching. thorhall rode home and thanked skapti for his good deed. summer passed, and thorhall heard nothing of his shepherd, and no one knew anything of him; but at the time appointed he came to thorhall's farm. the yeoman greeted him well, but all the others could not abide him, and thorhall's wife least of all. glam undertook the watching of the sheep, and it gave him little trouble. he had a great deep voice, and the sheep came together as soon as he called them. there was a church at thorhall's farm, but glam would not go to it. he would have nothing to do with the service, and was godless; he was obstinate and surly and abhorred by all. now time went on till it came to yule eve. then glam rose early and called for meat. the yeoman's wife answered, "that is not the custom of christian men to eat meat today, because tomorrow is the first day of yule," said she, "and therefore it is right that we should first fast today." he answered, "ye have many superstitions which i see are good for nothing. i do not know that men fare better now [sidenote: p. ] than before, when they had nought to do with such things. it seemed to me a better way when men were called heathen; and i want my meat and no tricks." the yeoman's wife said, "i know for a certainty that it will fare ill with thee today, if thou dost this evil thing." glam bade her bring the meat at once, else he said it should be worse for her. she dared not do otherwise than he willed, and when he had eaten he went out, foul-mouthed. now it had gone so with the weather that it was heavy all round, and snow-flakes were falling, and it was blowing loud, and grew much worse as the day went on. the shepherd { } was heard early in the day, but less later. then wind began to drive the snow, and towards evening it became a tempest. then men came to the service, and so it went on to nightfall. glam did not come home. then there was talk whether search ought not to be made for him, but because there was a tempest and it was pitch dark, no search was attempted. that yule night he did not come home, and so men waited till after the service [next, i.e. christmas, morning]. but when it was full day, men went to search, and found the sheep scattered in the snow-drifts[ ], battered by the tempest, or strayed up into the mountains. then they came on a great space beaten down, high up in the valley. it looked to them as if there had been somewhat violent wrestling there, because the stones had been torn up for a distance around, and the earth likewise. they looked closely and saw where glam lay a little distance away. he was dead, and blue like hel and swollen like an ox. they had great loathing of him, and their souls shuddered at him. nevertheless they strove to bring him to the church, but they could get him no further than the edge of a ravine a little below, and they went home leaving matters so, and told the yeoman what had happened. he asked what appeared to have been the death of glam. they said that, from the trodden spot, up to a place beneath the rocks high in the valley, they had tracked marks as big as if a cask-bottom had been stamped down, and great drops of blood with them. so men concluded from this, that the evil thing which had been there before must have killed glam, but glam must have done it damage which had been enough, in that nought has ever happened since from that evil thing. the second day of yule it was again essayed to bring glam to the church. beasts of draught were harnessed, but they could not move him where it was level ground and not down hill, so they departed, leaving matters so. the third day the priest went with them, and they searched [sidenote: p. ] all day, but glam could not be found. the priest would go no { } more, but glam was found when the priest was not in the company. then they gave up trying to carry him to the church, and buried him where he was, under a cairn. a little later men became aware that glam was not lying quiet. great harm came to men from this, so that many fell into a swoon when they saw him, and some could not keep their wits. just after yule, men thought they saw him at home at the farm. they were exceedingly afraid, and many fled away. thereupon glam took to riding the house-roofs at nights, so that he nearly broke them in. he walked almost night and day. men hardly dared to go up into the dale, even though they had business enough. men in that country-side thought great harm of this. in the spring thorhall got farm-hands together and set up house on his land. then the apparition began to grow less frequent whilst the sun's course was at its height; and so it went on till midsummer. that summer a ship came out to hunawater. on it was a man called thorgaut. he was an outlander by race, big and powerful; he had the strength of two men. he was in no man's service, and alone, and he wished to take up some work, since he had no money. thorhall rode to the ship, and met thorgaut. he asked him if he would work for him. thorgaut said that might well be, and that he would make no difficulties. "but thou must be prepared," said thorhall, "that it is no place for weaklings, by reason of the hauntings which have been going on for a while, for i will not let thee into a trap." thorgaut answered, "it does not seem to me that i am undone, even though i were to see some little ghosts. it must be no easy matter for others if i am frightened, and i will not give up my place for that." so now they agreed well, and thorgaut was to watch the sheep when winter came. now the summer passed on. thorgaut took charge of the sheep at the winter-nights. he was well-pleasing to all. glam ever came home and rode on the roofs. thorgaut thought it sporting, and said that the thrall would have to come nearer { } in order to scare him. but thorhall bade him keep quiet: "it is best that ye should not try your strength together." thorgaut said, "verily, your courage is shaken out of you: i shall not drop down with fear between day and night over such talk." now things went on through the winter up to yule-tide. on yule evening the shepherd went out to his sheep. then [sidenote: p. ] the yeoman's wife said, "it is to be hoped that now things will not go in the old way." he answered, "be not afraid of that, mistress; something worth telling will have happened if i do not come back." then he went to his sheep. the weather was cold, and it snowed much. thorgaut was wont to come home when it was twilight, but now he did not come at that time. men came to the service, as was the custom. it seemed to people that things were going as they had before. the yeoman wished to have search made for the shepherd, but the church-goers excused themselves, and said they would not risk themselves out in the hands of the trolls by night. and the yeoman did not dare to go, so the search came to nothing. on yule-day, when men had eaten, they went and searched for the shepherd. they went first to glam's cairn, because men thought that the shepherd's disappearance must have been through his bringing-about. but when they came near the cairn they saw great things, for there they found the shepherd with his neck broken and not a bone in him whole. then they carried him to the church, and no harm happened to any man from thorgaut afterwards; but glam began to increase in strength anew. he did so much that all men fled away from thorhall's farm, except only the yeoman and his wife. now the same cattle-herd had been there a long time. thorhall would not let him go, because of his good-will and good service. he was far gone in age and was very unwilling to leave: he saw that everything went to waste which the yeoman had, if no one looked after it. and once after mid-winter it happened one morning that the yeoman's wife went to the byre to milk the cows as usual. it was quite light, because no one dared to go out before, except the cattle-herd: he went { } out as soon as it dawned. she heard great cracking in the byre and a hideous bellowing. she ran back, crying out, and said she did not know what devilry was going on in the byre. the yeoman went out, and came to the cattle, and they were goring each other. it seemed to him no good to stay there, and he went further into the hay-barn. he saw where the cattle-herd lay, and he had his head in one stall and his feet in the next. he lay on his back. the yeoman went to him and felt him. he soon found that he was dead, and his back-bone broken in two; it had been broken over the partition slab. now it seemed no longer bearable to thorhall, and he left his farm with all that he could carry away; but all the live-stock [sidenote: p. ] left behind glam killed. after that he went through all the dale and laid waste all the farms up from tongue. thorhall spent what was left of the winter with his friends. no man could go up into the dale with horse or hound, because it was slain forthwith. but when spring came, and the course of the sun was highest, the apparitions abated somewhat. now thorhall wished to go back to his land. it was not easy for him to get servants, but still he set up house at thorhall's farm. all went the same way as before. when autumn came on the hauntings began to increase. the yeoman's daughter was most attacked, and it fared so that she died. many counsels were taken, but nothing was done. things seemed to men to be looking as if all water-dale must be laid waste, unless some remedies could be found. now the story must be taken up about grettir, how he sat at home at bjarg that autumn, after he had parted from barthi-of-the-slayings at thorey's peak. and when it had almost come to the winter-nights, grettir rode from home, north over the neck to willow-dale, and was a guest at authun's farm. he was fully reconciled to authun, and gave him a good axe, and they spake of their wish for friendship one with the other. (authun dwelt long at authun's farm, and much goodly offspring had he. egil was his son, who wedded ulfheith, daughter of eyjolf guthmundson; and their son was eyjolf, who was slain at the all-thing. he was father of orm, chaplain to { } bishop thorlak.) grettir rode north to water-dale and came on a visit to tongue. at that time jokul barthson lived there, grettir's uncle. jokul was a man great and strong and very proud. he was a seafaring man, and very over-bearing, yet of great account. he received grettir well, and grettir was there three nights. there was so much said about the apparitions of glam that nothing was spoken of by men equally with that. grettir inquired exactly about the events which had happened. jokul said that nothing more had been spoken than had verily occurred. "but art thou anxious, kinsman, to go there?" grettir said that that was the truth. jokul begged him not to do so, "for that is a great risk of thy luck, and thy kinsmen have much at stake where thou art," said he, "for none of the young men seems to us to be equal to thee; but ill will come of ill where glam is, and it is much better to have to do with mortal men than with evil creatures like that." grettir said he was minded to go to thorhall's farm and [sidenote: p. ] see how things had fared there. jokul said, "i see now that it is of no avail to stop thee, but true it is what men say, that good-luck is one thing, and goodliness another." "woe is before one man's door when it is come into another's house. think how it may fare with thee thyself before the end," said grettir. jokul answered, "it may be that both of us can see somewhat into the future, but neither can do aught in the matter." after that they parted, and neither was pleased with the other's foreboding. grettir rode to thorhall's farm, and the yeoman greeted him well. he asked whither grettir meant to go, but grettir said he would stay there over the night if the yeoman would have it so. thorhall said he owed him thanks for being there, "but few men find it a profit to stay here for any time. thou must have heard what the dealings are here, and i would fain that thou shouldst have no troubles on my account; but though thou shouldst come whole away, i know for certain that thou { } wilt lose thy steed, for no one who comes here keeps his horse whole." grettir said there were plenty of horses, whatever should become of this one. thorhall was glad that grettir would stay there, and welcomed him exceedingly. grettir's horse was strongly locked in an out-house. they went to sleep, and so the night passed without glam coming home. then thorhall said, "things have taken a good turn against thy coming, for every night glam has been wont to ride the roofs or break up the doors, even as thou canst see." grettir said, "then must one of two things happen. either he will not long hold himself in, or the wonted haunting will cease for more than one night. i will stay here another night and see how it goes." then they went to grettir's horse, and he had not been attacked. then everything seemed to the yeoman to be going one way. now grettir stayed for another night, and the thrall did not come home. then things seemed to the yeoman to be taking a very hopeful turn. he went to look after grettir's horse. when he came there, the stable was broken into, and the horse dragged out to the door, and every bone in him broken asunder. thorhall told grettir what had happened, and bade him save his own life--"for thy death is sure if thou waitest for glam." grettir answered, "the least i must have in exchange for my horse is to see the thrall." the yeoman said that there was no good in seeing him: [sidenote: p. ] "for he is unlike any shape of man; but every hour that thou wilt stay here seems good to me." now the day went on, and when bed-time came grettir would not put off his clothes, but lay down in the seat over against the yeoman's sleeping-chamber. he had a shaggy cloak over him, and wrapped one corner of it down under his feet, and twisted the other under his head and looked out through the head-opening. there was a great and strong partition beam in front of the seat, and he put his feet against it. the { } doorframe was all broken away from the outer door, but now boards, fastened together carelessly anyhow, had been tied in front. the panelling which had been in front was all broken away from the hall, both above and below the cross-beam; the beds were all torn out of their places, and everything was very wretched[ ]. a light burned in the hall during the night: and when a third part of the night was past, grettir heard a great noise outside. some creature had mounted upon the buildings and was riding upon the hall and beating it with its heels, so that it cracked in every rafter. this went on a long time. then the creature came down from the buildings and went to the door. when the door was opened grettir saw that the thrall had stretched in his head, and it seemed to him monstrously great and wonderfully huge. glam went slowly and stretched himself up when he came inside the door. he towered up to the roof. he turned and laid his arm upon the cross-beam and glared in upon the hall. the yeoman did not let himself be heard, because the noise he heard outside seemed to him enough. grettir lay quiet and did not move. glam saw that a heap lay upon the seat, and he stalked in up the hall and gripped the cloak wondrous fast. grettir pressed his feet against the post and gave not at all. glam pulled a second time much more violently, and the cloak did not move. a third time he gripped with both hands so mightily that he pulled grettir up from the seat, and now the cloak was torn asunder between them. glam gazed at the portion which he held, and wondered much who could have pulled so hard against him; and at that moment grettir leapt under his arms and grasped him round { } the middle, and bent his back as mightily as he could, reckoning that glam would sink to his knees at his attack. but the thrall laid such a grip on grettir's arm that he recoiled at the might of it. then grettir gave way from one seat to another. the beams[ ] started, and all that came in their way was broken. [sidenote: p. ] glam wished to get out, but grettir set his feet against any support he could find; nevertheless glam dragged him forward out of the hall. and there they had a sore wrestling, in that the thrall meant to drag him right out of the building; but ill as it was to have to do with glam inside, grettir saw that it would be yet worse without, and so he struggled with all his might against going out. glam put forth all his strength, and dragged grettir towards himself when they came to the porch. and when grettir saw that he could not resist, then all at once he flung himself against the breast of the thrall, as powerfully as he could, and pressed forward with both his feet against a stone which stood fast in the earth at the entrance. the thrall was not ready for this, he had been pulling to drag grettir towards himself; and thereupon he stumbled on his back out of doors, so that his shoulders smote against the cross-piece of the door, and the roof clave asunder, both wood and frozen thatch. so glam fell backwards out of the house and grettir on top of him. there was bright moonshine and broken clouds without. at times they drifted in front of the moon and at times away. now at the moment when glam fell, the clouds cleared from before the moon, and glam rolled up his eyes; and grettir himself has said that that was the one sight he had seen which struck fear into him. then such a sinking came over grettir, from his weariness and from that sight of glam rolling his eyes, that he had no strength to draw his knife and lay almost between life and death. { } but in this was there more power for evil in glam than in most other apparitions, in that he spake thus: "much eagerness hast thou shown, grettir," said he, "to meet with me. but no wonder will it seem if thou hast no good luck from me. and this can i tell thee, that thou hast now achieved one half of the power and might which was fated for thee if thou hadst not met with me. now no power have i to take that might from thee to which thou hast attained. but in this may i have my way, that thou shalt never become stronger than now thou art, and yet art thou strong enough, as many a one shall find to his cost. famous hast thou been till now for thy deeds, but from now on shall exiles and manslaughters fall to thy lot, and almost all of thy labours shall turn to ill-luck and unhappiness. thou shalt be outlawed and doomed ever to dwell alone, away from men; and then lay i this fate on thee, that these eyes of mine be ever before thy sight, and it shall seem grievous unto thee to be alone, and that shall drag thee to thy death." and when the thrall had said this, the swoon which had [sidenote: p. ] fallen upon grettir passed from him. then he drew his sword and smote off glam's head, and placed it by his thigh. then the yeoman came out: he had clad himself whilst glam was uttering his curse, but he dare in no wise come near before glam had fallen. thorhall praised god for it, and thanked grettir well for having vanquished the unclean spirit. then they set to work and burned glam to cold cinders. after, they put the ashes in a skin-bag and buried them as far as possible from the ways of man or beast. after that they went home, and by that time it was well on to day. grettir lay down, for he was very stiff. thorhall sent people to the next farm for men, and showed to them what had happened. to all those who heard of it, it seemed a work of great account; and that was then spoken by all, that no man in all the land was equal to grettir asmundarson for might and valour and all prowess. thorhall sent grettir from his house with honour, and gave him a good horse and fit clothing; for all the clothes which he had worn before were torn asunder. they parted great friends. grettir rode thence to ridge in water-dale, and thorvald greeted him well, and asked closely as to his meeting { } with glam. grettir told him of their dealings, and said that never had he had such a trial of strength, so long a struggle had theirs been together. thorvald bade him keep quiet, "and then all will be well, otherwise there are bound to be troubles for thee." grettir said that his temper had not bettered, and that he was now more unruly than before, and all offences seemed worse to him. and in that he found a great difference, that he had become so afraid of the dark that he did not dare to go anywhere alone after night had fallen. all kinds of horrors appeared to him then. and that has since passed into a proverb, that glam gives eyes, or gives "glam-sight" to those to whom things seem quite other than they are. grettir rode home to bjarg when he had done his errand, and remained at home during the winter. (_b_) _sandhaugar episode_ (p. above) there was a priest called stein who lived at eyjardalsá (isledale river) in barthardal. he was a good husbandman and rich in cattle. his son was kjartan, a doughty man and well grown. there was a man called thorstein the white who [sidenote: p. ] lived at sandhaugar (sandheaps), south of isledale river; his wife was called steinvor, and she was young and merry. they had children, who were young then. people thought the place was much haunted by reason of the visitation of trolls. it happened, two winters before grettir came north into those districts, that the good-wife steinvor at sandhaugar went to a christmas service, according to her custom, at isledale river, but her husband remained at home. in the evening men went to bed, and during the night they heard a great rummage in the hall, and by the good-man's bed. no one dared to get up to look to it, because there were very few men about. the good-wife came home in the morning, but her husband had vanished, and no one knew what had become of him. the next year passed away. but the winter after, the good-wife wished again to go to the church-service, and she bade her { } manservant remain at home. he was unwilling, but said she must have her own way. all went in the same manner as before, and the servant vanished. people thought that strange. they saw some splashes of blood on the outer door, and men thought that evil beings must have taken away both the good-man and the servant. the news of this spread wide throughout the country. grettir heard of it; and because it was his fortune to get rid of hauntings and spirit-walkings, he took his way to barthardal, and came to sandhaugar on yule eve. he disguised himself[ ], and said his name was guest. the good-wife saw that he was great of stature; and the farm-folk were much afraid of him. he asked for quarters for the night. the good-wife said that he could have meat forthwith, but "you must look after your own safety." he said it should be so. "i will be at home," said he, "and you can go to the service if you will." she answered, "you are a brave man, it seems to me, if you dare to remain at home." "i do not care to have things all one way[ ]," said he. "it seems ill to me to be at home," said she, "but i cannot get over the river." "i will see you over," said guest. then she got ready to go to the service, and her small daughter with her. it was thawing, the river was in flood, and there were ice-floes in it. then the good-wife said, "it is impossible for man or horse to get across the river." "there must be fords in it," said guest, "do not be afraid." [sidenote: p. ] "do you carry the child first," said the good-wife, "she is the lighter." "i do not care to make two journeys of it," said guest, "and i will carry thee on my arm." she crossed herself and said, "that is an impossible way; what will you do with the child?" { } "i will see a way for that," said he; and then he took them both up, and set the child on her mother's knee and so bore them both on his left arm. but he had his right hand free, and thus he waded out into the ford. they did not dare to cry out, so much afraid were they. the river washed at once up against his breast; then it tossed a great icefloe against him, but he put out the hand that was free and pushed it from him. then it grew so deep that the river dashed over his shoulder; but he waded stoutly on, until he came to the bank on the other side, and threw steinvor and her daughter on the land. then he turned back, and it was half dark when he came to sandhaugar and called for meat; and when he had eaten, he bade the farm folk go to the far side of the room. then he took boards and loose timber which he dragged across the room, and made a great barrier so that none of the farm folk could come over it. no one dared to say anything against him or to murmur in any wise. the entrance was in the side wall of the chamber by the gable-end, and there was a dais there. guest lay down there, but did not take off his clothes: a light was burning in the room over against the door: guest lay there far into the night. the good-wife came to isledale river to the service, and men wondered how she had crossed the river. she said she did not know whether it was a man or a troll who had carried her over. the priest said, "it must surely be a man, although there are few like him. and let us say nothing about it," said he, "it may be that he is destined to work a remedy for your evils." the good-wife remained there through the night. now it is to be told concerning grettir that when it drew towards midnight he heard great noises outside. thereupon there came into the room a great giantess. she had in one hand a trough and in the other a short-sword, rather a big one. she looked round when she came in, and saw where guest lay, and sprang at him; but he sprang up against her, and they struggled fiercely and wrestled for a long time in the room. she was the { } stronger, but he gave way warily; and they broke all that was before them, as well as the panelling of the room. she dragged him forward through the door and so[ ] into the porch, and he [sidenote: p. ] struggled hard against her. she wished to drag him out of the house, but that did not happen until they had broken all the fittings of the outer doorway and forced them out on their shoulders. then she dragged him slowly down towards the river and right along to the gorge. by that time guest was exceedingly weary, but yet, one or other it had to be, either he had to gather his strength together, or else she would have hurled him down into the gorge. all night they struggled. he thought that he had never grappled with such a devil in the matter of strength. she had got such a grip upon him that he could do nothing with either hand, except to hold the witch by the middle; but when they came to the gorge of the river he swung the giantess round, and thereupon got his right hand free. then quickly he gripped his knife that he wore in his girdle and drew it, and smote the shoulder of the giantess so that he cut off her right arm. so he got free: but she fell into the gorge, and so into the rapids below. guest was then both stiff and tired, and lay long on the rocks; then he went home when it began to grow light, and lay down in bed. he was all swollen black and blue. and when the good-wife came from the service, it seemed to her that things had been somewhat disarranged in her house. then she went to guest and asked him what had happened, that all was broken and destroyed[ ]. he told her all that had taken place. she thought it very wonderful, and asked who he was. he told her the truth, and asked her to send for the priest, and said he wished to meet him; and so it was done. then when stein the priest came to sandhaugar, he knew soon that it was grettir asmundarson who had come there, and who had called himself guest. the priest asked grettir what he thought must have become of those men who had vanished. grettir said he thought they { } must have vanished into the gorge. the priest said that he could not believe grettir's saying, if no signs of it were to be seen. grettir said that they would know more accurately about it later. then the priest went home. grettir lay many days in bed. the good-wife looked after him well, and so the christmas-time passed. grettir's account was that the giantess fell into the gulf when she got her wound; but the men of barthardal say that day came upon her whilst they wrestled, and that she burst when he smote her hand off, and that she stands there on the cliff yet, a rock in the likeness of a woman[ ]. the dwellers in the dale kept grettir in hiding there. but after christmas time, one day that winter, grettir went to isledale river. and when grettir and the priest met, grettir [sidenote: p. ] said "i see, priest, that you place little belief in my words. now will i that you go with me to the river and see what the likelihood seems to you to be." the priest did so. but when they came to the waterfall they saw that the sides of the gorge hung over[ ]: it was a sheer cliff so great that one could in nowise come up, and it was nearly ten fathoms[ ] from the top to the water below. they had a rope with them. then the priest said, "it seems to me quite impossible for thee to get down." grettir said, "assuredly it is possible, but best for those who are men of valour. i will examine what is in the waterfall, and thou shalt watch the rope." { } the priest said it should be as he wished, drove a peg into the cliff, piled stones against it, and sat by it[ ]. now it must be told concerning grettir that he knotted a stone into the rope, and so let it down to the water. "what way," said the priest, "do you mean to go?" "i will not be bound," said grettir, "when i go into the water, so much my mind forebodes me." after that he got ready for his exploit, and had little on; he girded himself with his short sword, and had no other weapon. then he plunged from the cliff down into the waterfall. the priest saw the soles of his feet, and knew no more what had become of him. grettir dived under the waterfall, and that was difficult because there was a great eddy, and he had to dive right to the bottom before he could come up behind the waterfall. there was a jutting rock and he climbed upon it. there was a great cave behind the waterfall, and the river fell in front of it from the precipice. he went into the cave, and there was a big fire burning. grettir saw that there sat a giant of frightful size. he was terrible to look upon: but when grettir came to him, the giant leapt up and seized a pike, and hewed at the new-comer: for with the pike he could both cut and stab. it had a handle of wood: men at that time called a weapon made in such a way a _heptisax_. grettir smote against it with his short sword, and struck the handle so that he cut it asunder. then the giant tried to reach back for a sword which hung behind him in the cave. thereupon grettir smote him in the breast, and struck off almost all the lower part of his chest and his belly, so that the entrails gushed out of him down into the river, and were swept along the current. and as the priest sat by the rope he saw some lumps, clotted [sidenote: p. ] with blood, carried down stream. then he became unsteady, and thought that now he knew that grettir must be dead: and he ran from keeping the rope and went home. it was then evening, and the priest said for certain that grettir was dead, and added that it was a great loss of such a man. now the tale must be told concerning grettir. he let little space go between his blows till the giant was dead. then he { } went further into the cave; he kindled a light and examined it. it is not said how much wealth he took in the cave, but men think that there was something. he stayed there far into the night. he found there the bones of two men, and put them into a bag. then he left the cave and swam to the rope and shook it, for he thought that the priest must be there. but when he knew that the priest had gone home, then he had to draw himself up, hand over hand, and so he came up on to the cliff. then he went home to isledale river, and came to the church porch, with the bag that the bones were in, and with a rune-staff, on which these verses were exceedingly well cut: there into gloomy gulf i passed, o'er which from the rock's throat is cast the swirling rush of waters wan, to meet the sword-player feared of man. by giant's hall the strong stream pressed cold hands against the singer's breast; huge weight upon him there did hurl the swallower of the changing whirl[ ]. and this rhyme too: the dreadful dweller of the cave great strokes and many 'gainst me drave; full hard he had to strive for it, but toiling long he wan no whit; for from its mighty shaft of tree the heft-sax smote i speedily; and dulled the flashing war-flame fair in the black breast that met me there. [sidenote: p. ] these verses told also that grettir had taken these bones out of the cave. but when the priest came to the church in the morning he found the staff, and what was with it, and read the runes; but grettir had gone home to sandhaugar. but when the priest met grettir he asked him closely as to what had happened: and grettir told him all the story of his journey. and he added that the priest had not watched the rope faithfully. the priest said that that was true enough. men thought for certain that these monsters must have caused the loss of men there in the dale; and there was never any loss from hauntings or spirit-walkings there afterwards. { } grettir was thought to have caused a great purging of the land. the priest buried these bones in the churchyard. * * * * * d. extracts from bjarka rÍmur (_hrólfs saga kraka og bjarkarímur_ udgivne ved f. jónsson, københavn, ) . flestir [o,]muðu hetti heldr, hann var ekki í máli sneldr, einn dag fóru þeir út af h[o,]ll, svó ekki vissi hirðin [o,]ll. . hjalti talar er felmtinn fær, "f[o,]rum við ekki skógi nær, hér er sú ylgr sem etr upp menn, okkr drepr hún báða senn." . ylgrin hljóp úr einum runn, ógurlig með gapanda munn, h[o,]rmuligt varð hjalta viðr, á honum skalf bæði leggr og liðr. . Ótæpt bjarki að henni gengr, ekki dvelr hann við það lengr, h[o,]ggur svó að í hamri stóð, hljóp úr henni ferligt blóð. . "kjóstu hjalti um kosti tvó," kappinn b[o,]ðvar talaði svó, "drekk nú blóð eða drep eg þig hér, dugrinn líz mér engi í þér." . ansar hjalti af ærnum móð, "ekki þori eg að drekka blóð, nýtir flest ef nauðigr skal, nú er ekki á betra val." . hjalti gj[o,]rir sem b[o,]ðvar biðr, að blóði frá eg hann lagðist niðr, drekkur síðan drykki þrjá, duga mun honum við einn að rjá. iv, - . { } . hann hefr fengið hjartað snjalt af h[o,]rðum móði, fekk hann huginn og aflið alt af ylgjar blóði. . Í grindur vandist grábj[o,]rn einn í garðinn hleiðar, var sá margur vargrinn beinn og víða sveiðar. . bjarka er kent, að hjarðarhunda hafi hann drepna, ekki er hónum allvel hent við ýta kepna. . hrólfur býst og hirð hans [o,]ll að húna stýri, "sá skal mestr í minni h[o,]ll er mætir dýri." . beljandi hljóp bj[o,]rninn framm úr bóli krukku, veifar sínum vónda hramm, svó virðar hrukku. . hjalti sér og horfir þá á, er hafin er róma, hafði hann ekki í h[o,]ndum þá nema hnefana tóma. . hrólfur fleygði að hjalta þá þeim hildar vendi, kappinn móti krummu brá og klótið hendi. . lagði hann síðan bj[o,]rninn brátt við bóginn hægra, bessi fell í brúðar átt og bar sig lægra. . vann hann það til frægða fyst og fleira síðar, hans var lundin l[o,]ngum byst í leiki gríðar. { } . hér með fekk hann hjalta nafn hins hjartaprúða, bjarki var eigi betri en jafn við býti skrúða. v, - . . aðals var glaðr afreksmaðr, austur þangað kómu, fyrðar þeir með fránan geir flengja þegar til rómu. . Ýtar býta engum frið, unnu vel til mála, þar fell Áli og alt hans lið ungr í leiki stála. . hestrinn beztur hrafn er kendr, hafa þeir tekið af Ála, hildisvín er hjálmrinn vendr, hann kaus bjarki í mála. . [o,]ðling bað þá eigi drafl eiga um n[o,]kkur skipti, það mun kosta kóngligt afl, hann kappann gripunum svipti. . ekki þótti b[o,]ðvar betr, í burtu fóru þeir hjalti, létust áðr en liðinn er vetr leita að fróða malti. . síðan ríða seggir heim og s[o,]gðu kóngi þetta, hann kveðst mundu handa þeim heimta slíkt af létta. viii, - . translation of extracts from bjarka rÍmur . most [of rolf's retainers] much tormented hott [hjalti]; he was not cunning in speech. one day hjalti and bothvar went out of the hall, in such wise that none of the retainers knew thereof. { } . hjalti spake in great terror, "let us not go near the wood; here is the she-wolf who eats up men; she will kill us both together." . the she-wolf leapt from a thicket, dread, with gaping jaws. a great terror was it to hjalti, and he trembled in every limb. . without delay or hesitation went bjarki towards her, and hewed at her so that the axe went deep; a monstrous stream of blood gushed from her. . "choose now, hjalti, of two things"--so spake bothvar the champion--"drink now the blood, or i slay thee here; it seems unto me that there is no valour in thee." . hjalti replied stoutly enough, "i cannot bring myself to drink blood; but if i needs must, it avails most [to submit], and now is there no better choice." . hjalti did as bothvar bade: he stooped down to the blood; then drank he three sups: that will suffice him to wrestle with one man. iv, - . . he [hjalti] has gained good courage and keen spirit; he got strength and all valour from the she-wolf's blood. . a grey bear visited the folds at hleithargarth; many such a ravager was there far and wide throughout the country. . the blame was laid upon bjarki, because he had slain the herdsmen's dogs; it was not so suited for him to have to strive with men[ ]. . rolf and all his household prepared to hunt the bear; "he who faces the beast shall be greatest in my hall." . roaring did the bear leap forth from out its den, swinging its evil claws, so that men shrank back. . hjalti saw, he turned and gazed where the battle began; nought had he then in his hands--his empty fists alone. { } . rolf tossed then to hjalti his wand of war [his sword]; the warrior put forth his hand towards it, and grasped the pommel. . quickly then he smote the bear in the right shoulder; bruin fell to the earth, and bore himself in more lowly wise. . that was the beginning of his exploits: many followed later; his spirit was ever excellent amid the play of battle. . herefrom he got the name of hjalti the stout-hearted: bjarki was no more than his equal. v, - . . joyful was the valiant athils when they [bjarki and rolf's champions] came east to that place [lake wener]; troops with flashing spears rode quickly forthwith to the battle. . no truce gave they to their foes: well they earned their pay; there fell ali and all his host, young in the game of swords. . the best of horses, hrafn by name, they took from ali; bjarki chose for his reward the helm hildisvin. . the prince [athils] bade them have no talk about the business; he deprived the champions[ ] of their treasures--that will be a test of his power. . ill-pleased was bothvar: he and hjalti departed; they declared that before the winter was gone they would seek for the treasure [the malt of frothi]. . then they rode home and told it to the king [rolf]; he said it was their business to claim their due outright. viii, - . * * * * * e. extract from ÞÁttr orms stÓrÓlfssonar (_fornmanna s[o,]gur_, copenhagen, , iii. _etc._; _flateyarbók_, christiania, - , i. _etc._) . litlu síðarr enn þeir ormr ok Ásbj[o,]rn h[o,]fðu skilit, fýstist Ásbj[o,]rn norðr í sauðeyjar, fór hann við menn ok á skipi, heldr norðr fyrir mæri, ok leggr seint dags at sauðey { } hinni ytri, gánga á land ok reisa tjald, eru þar um nóttina, ok verða við ekki varir; um morgininn árla rís Ásbj[o,]rn upp, klæðir sik, ok tekr vópn sín, ok gengr uppá land, en biðr menn sína bíða sín; en er nokkut svá var liðit frá því, er Ásbj[o,]rn hafði í brott gengit, verða þeir við þat varir, at ketta ógrlig var komin í tjaldsdyrnar, hon var kolsv[o,]rt at lit ok heldr grimmlig, þvíat eldr þótti brenna or n[o,]sum hennar ok munni, eigi var hon ok vel eyg; þeim brá mj[o,]k við þessa sýn, ok urðu óttafullir. ketta hleypr þá innar at þeim, ok grípr hvern at [o,]ðrum, ok svá er sagt at suma gleypti hon, en suma rifi hon til dauðs með klóm ok t[o,]nnum, menn drap hon þar á lítilli stundu, en kvómust út ok undan ok á skip, ok héldu þegar undan landi; en Ásbj[o,]rn gengr þar til, er hann kemr at hellinum brúsa, ok snarar þegar inn í; honum varð nokkut dimt fyrir augum, en skuggamikit var í hellinum; hann verðr eigi fyrr var við, enn hann er þrifinn álopt, ok færðr niðr svá hart, at Ásbirni þótti furða í, verðr hann þess þá varr, at þar er kominn brúsi j[o,]tun, ok sýndist heldr mikiligr. brúsi mælti þá: þó lagðir þú mikit kapp á at sækja híngat; skaltu nú ok eyrindi hafa, þvíat þú skalt hér lífit láta með svá miklum harmkvælum, at þat skal aðra letja at sækja mik heim með ófriði; fletti hann þá Ásbj[o,]rn klæðum, þvíat svá, var þeirra mikill afla munr, at j[o,]tuninn varð einn at ráða þeirra í milli; bálk mikinn sá Ásbj[o,]rn standa um þveran hellinn ok stórt gat á miðjum bálkinum; járnsúla stór stóð nokkut svá fyrir framan bálkinn. nú skal prófa þat, segir brúsi, hvárt þú ert nokkut harðari enn aðrir menn. lítit mun þat at reyna, segir Ásbj[o,]rn.... síðan lét Ásbj[o,]rn líf sitt með mikilli hreysti ok dreingskap. . Þat er at segja at þeir þrír menn, er undan kómust, sóttu knáliga róðr, ok léttu eigi fyrr enn þeir kómu at landi, s[o,]gðu þau tíðindi er gerzt h[o,]fðu í þeirra f[o,]rum, kvóðust ætla Ásbj[o,]rn dauðan, en kunnu ekki frá at segja, hversu at hefði borizt um hans líflát; kvómu þeir sér i skip með kaupm[o,]nnum, ok fluttust svá suðr til danmerkr; spurðust nú þessi tíðindi víða, ok þóttu mikil. Þa var orðit h[o,]fðíngja skipti í noregi, hakon jarl dauðr, en Ólafr tryggvason í land kominn, ok bauð [o,]llum rétta trú. ormr stórólfsson spurði út til Íslands um { } farar ok líflát Ásbjarnar, er m[o,]nnum þótti sem vera mundi; þótti honum þat allmikill skaði, ok undi eigi lengr á Íslandi, ok tók sér far í reyðarfirði, ok fór þar utan; þeir kvómu norðarliga við noreg, ok sat hann um vetrinn í Þrándheimi; þá hafði Ólafr ráðit vetr noregi. um vórit bjóst ormr at fara til sauðeya, þeir vóru því nærr margir á skipi, sem þeir Ásbj[o,]rn h[,]fðu verit; þeir l[o,]gðu at minni sauðey síð um kveldit, ok tj[o,]lduðu á landi, ok lágu þar um náttina.... . nú gengr ormr þar til er hann kemr at hellinum, sér hann nú bjargit þat stóra, ok leizt úmátuligt nokkurum manni þat í brott at færa; þó dregr hann á sik glófana menglaðarnauta, tekr síðan á bjarginu ok færir þat burt or dyrunum, ok þikist ormr þá aflraun mesta sýnt hafa; hann gekk þá inní hellinn, ok lagði málajárn í dyrnar, en er hann var inn kominn, sá hann hvar kettan hljóp með gapanda ginit. ormr hafði boga ok [o,]rvamæli, lagði hann þá [o,]r á streing, ok skaut at kettunni þremr [o,]rum, en hon hendi allar með hvoptunum, ok beit í sundr, hefir hon sik þá at ormi, ok rekr klærnar framan í fángit, svá at ormr kiknar við, en klærnar gengu í gegnum klæðin svá at í beini stóð; hon ætlar þá at bíta í andlit ormi, finnr hann þá at honum mun eigi veita, heitir þá á sjálfan guð ok hinn heilaga petrum postula, at gánga til róms, ef hann ynni kettuna ok brúsa, son hennar; síðan fann ormr at mínkaðist afl kettunnar, tekr hann þá annarri hendi um kverkr henni, en annarri um hrygg, ok gengr hana á bak, ok brýtr ísundr í henni hrygginn, ok gengr svá af henni dauðri. ormr sá þá, hvar bálkr stórr var um þveran hellinn; hann gengr þá innar at, en er hann kemr þar, sér hann at fleinn mikill kemr utar í gegnum bálkinn, hann var bæði digr ok lángr; ormr grípr þá í móti fleininum, ok leggr af út; brúsi kippir þá at sér fleininum ok var hann fastr svá at hvergi gekk; þat undraðist brúsi, ok gægdist upp yfir bálkinn, en er ormr sér þat, þrífr hann í skeggit á brúsa báðum h[o,]ndum, en brúsi bregzt við í [o,]ðrum stað, sviptast þeir þá fast um bálkinn. ormr hafði vafit skegginu um h[o,]nd sér, ok rykkir til svá fast, at hann rífr af brúsa allan skeggstaðinn, h[o,]kuna, kjaptana báða, vángafyllurnar upp alt at eyrum, gekk hér með holdit niðr at beini. brúsi lét þá { } síga brýnnar, ok grettist heldr greppiliga. ormr st[o,]kkr þá innar yfir bálkinn, grípast þeir þá til ok glíma lengi, mæddi brúsa þá fast blóðrás, tekr hann þá heldr at gángast fyrir, gefr ormr þá á, ok rekr brúsa at bálkinum ok brýtr hann þar um á bak aptr. snemma sagði mér þat hugr, sagði brúsi, at ek munda af þér nokkut erfitt fá, þegar ek heyrða þín getit, enda er þat nú fram komit, muntu nú vinna skjótt um, ok h[o,]ggva h[o,]fuð af mér, en þat var satt, at mj[o,]k pínda ek Ásbj[o,]rn prúða, þá er ek rakta or honum alla þarmana, ok gaf hann sik ekki við, fyrrenn hann dó. illa gerðir þú þat, segir ormr, at pína hann svá mj[o,]k jafnr[o,]skvan mann, skaltu ok hafa þess nokkurar menjar. hann brá þá saxi ok reist blóð[o,]rn á baki honum, ok skar [o,]ll rifin frá hryggnum, ok dró þar út lúngun; lét brúsi svá líf sitt með litlum dreingskap; síðan bar ormr eld at, ok brendi upp til [o,]sku bæði brúsa ok kettuna, ok er hann hafði þetta starfat, fór hann burt or hellinum með kistur tvær fullar af gulli ok silfri, en þat sem meira var fémætt, gaf hann í vald menglaðar, ok svá eyna; skildu þau með mikilli vináttu, kom ormr til manna sinna í nefndan tíma, héldu síðan til meginlands. sat ormr í Þrándheimi vetr annan. translation of extract from ÞÁttr orms stÓrÓlfssonar . a little after orm and asbiorn had parted, asbiorn wished to go north to sandeyar[ ]; he went aboard with twenty-four men, went north past mæri, and landed late in the day at the outermost of the sandeyar[ ]. they landed and pitched a tent, and spent the night there, and met with nothing. early in the morning asbiorn arose, clothed himself, took his arms, went inland, and bade his men wait for him. but when some time had passed from asbiorn's having gone away, they were aware that a monstrous[ ] cat had come to the { } door of the tent: she was coal-black in colour and very fierce, for it seemed as if fire was burning from her nostrils and mouth, and her eyes were nothing fair: they were much startled at this sight, and full of fear. then the cat leapt within the tent upon them, and gripped one after the other, and so it is said that some she swallowed and some she tore to death with claws and teeth. twenty men she killed in a short time, and three escaped aboard ship, and stood away from the shore. but asbiorn went till he came to the cave of brusi, and hastened in forthwith. it was dim before his eyes, and very shadowy in the cave, and before he was aware of it, he was caught off his feet, and thrown down so violently that it seemed strange to him. then was he aware that there was come the giant brusi, and he seemed to him a great one. then said brusi, "thou didst seek with great eagerness to come hither--now shalt thou have business, in that thou shalt here leave thy life with so great torments that that shall stay others from attacking me in my lair." then he stripped asbiorn of his clothes, forasmuch as so great was their difference in strength that the giant could do as he wished. asbiorn saw a great barrier standing across the cave, and a mighty opening in the midst of it; a great iron column stood somewhat in front of the barrier. "now it must be tried," said brusi, "whether thou art somewhat hardier than other men." "little will that be to test," said asbiorn.... [asbiorn then recites ten stanzas, brusi tormenting him the while. the first stanza is almost identical with no. in the _grettis saga_.] then asbiorn left his life with great valour and hardihood. . now it must be told concerning the three men who escaped; they rowed strongly, and stopped not until they came to land. they told the tidings of what had happened in their journey, and said that they thought that asbiorn was dead, but that they could not tell how matters had happened concerning his death. they took ship with merchants, and so went south to { } denmark: now these tidings were spread far and wide, and seemed weighty. there had been a change of rulers in norway: jarl hakon was dead, and olaf tryggvason come to land: and he proclaimed the true faith to all. orm storolfson heard, out in iceland, about the expedition of asbiorn, and the death which it seemed to men must have come upon him. it seemed to him a great loss, and he cared no longer to be in iceland, and took passage at reytharfirth and went abroad. they reached norway far to the north, and he stayed the winter at thrandheim: olaf at that time had reigned three years in norway. in the spring orm made ready for his journey to sandeyar, and there were nearly as many in the ship as the company of asbiorn had been. they landed at little sandey late in the evening, and pitched a tent on the land, and lay there the night.... . now orm went till he came to the cave. he saw the great rock, and thought it was impossible for any man to move it. then he drew on the gloves that menglath had given him, and grasped the rock and moved it away from the door; this is reckoned orm's great feat of strength. then he went into the cave, and thrust his weapon against the door. when he came in, he saw a giantess (she-cat) springing towards him with gaping jaws. orm had a bow and quiver; he put the arrow on the string, and shot thrice at the giantess. but she seized all the arrows in her mouth, and bit them asunder. then she flung herself upon orm, and thrust her claws into his breast, so that orm stumbled, and her claws went through his clothes and pierced him to the bone. she tried then to bite his face, and orm found himself in straits: he promised then to god, and the holy apostle peter, to go to rome, if he conquered the giantess and brusi her son. then orm felt the power of the giantess diminishing: he placed one hand round her throat, and the other round her back, and bent it till he broke it in two, and so left her dead. then orm saw where a great barrier ran across the cave: he went further in, and when he came to it he saw a great shaft { } coming out through the barrier, both long and thick. orm gripped the shaft and drew it away; brusi pulled it towards himself, but it did not yield. then brusi wondered, and peeped up over the barrier. but when orm saw that, he gripped brusi by the beard with both hands, but brusi pulled away, and so they tugged across the barrier. orm twisted the beard round his hand, and tugged so violently that he pulled the flesh of brusi away from the bone--from chin, jaws, cheeks, right up to the ears. brusi knitted his brows and made a hideous face. then orm leapt in over the barrier, and they grappled and wrestled for a long time. but loss of blood wearied brusi, and he began to fail in strength. orm pressed on, pushed brusi to the barrier, and broke his back across it. "right early did my mind misgive me," said brusi, "even so soon as i heard of thee, that i should have trouble from thee: and now has that come to pass. but now make quick work, and hew off my head. and true it is that much did i torture the gallant asbiorn, in that i tore out all his entrails--yet did he not give in, before he died." "ill didst thou do," said orm, "to torture him, so fine a man as he was, and thou shalt have something in memory thereof." then he drew his knife, and cut the "blood eagle" in the back of brusi, shore off his ribs and drew out his lungs. so brusi died in cowardly wise. then orm took fire, and burned to ashes both brusi and the giantess. and when he had done that, he left the cave, with two chests full of gold and silver. and all that was most of value he gave to menglath, and the island likewise. so they parted with great friendship, and orm came to his men at the time appointed, and then they sailed to the mainland. orm remained a second winter at thrandheim. * * * * * f. a danish dragon-slaying of the beowulf-type paa den tid, da kong gram guldkølve regierede i leire, vare der ved hoffet to ministre, bessus og henrik. og da der paa samme tid indkom idelige klager fra indbyggerne i vendsyssel, at et grueligt udyr, som bønderne kaldte lindorm, ødelagde baade mennesker og kreaturer, gav bessus det raad, at kongen skulde sende henrik did hen, efterdi ingen i det ganske rige kunde maale sig med ham in tapperhed og mod. da svarede { } henrik, at han vel vilde paatage sig dette, dog tilføiede han, at han ansaae det for umuligt at slippe fra saadan kamp med livet. og belavede han sig da strax til reisen, tog rørende afsked med sin herre og konge og sagde iblandt andet: "herre! om jeg ikke kommer tilbage, da sørg for min kone og for mine børn!" da han derefter var kommen over til vendsyssel, lod han sig af bønderne vise det sted, hvor uhyret havde sit leie, og fik da at vide, at ormen endnu den samme dag havde været ude af hulen og borttaget en hyrde og en oxe, og at den efter sædvane nu ikke vilde komme ud, førend om tre timer, naar den skulde ned til vandet for at drikke efter maaltidet. henrik iførte sig da sin fulde rustning, og eftersom ingen vovede at staae ham bi i dette arbeide, lagde han sig ganske alene ved vandet, dog saaledes, at vinden ikke bar fra ham henimod dyret. da udsendte han først en vældig piil fra sin bue, men uagtet den rammede nøie det sted, hvortil han havde sigtet, tørnede den dog tilbage fra ormens haarde skæl. herover blev uhyret saa optændt af vrede, at det strax gik henimod ham, agtende ham kun et ringe maaltid; men henrik havde iforveien hos en smed ladet sig giøre en stor krog med gjenhold, hvilken han jog ind i beestets aabne gab, saa at det ikke kunde blive den qvit, ihvormeget det end arbeidede, og ihvorvel jernstangen brast i henriks hænder. da slog det ham med sin vældige hale til jorden, og skiøndt han havde fuldkommen jernrustning paa, kradsede det dog med sine forfærdelige kløer saa at han, næsten dødeligt saaret, faldt i besvimelse. men da han, efterat ormen i nogen tid havde haft ham liggende under sin bug, endelig kom lidt til sin samling igien, greb han af yderste evne en daggert, af hvilke han førte flere med sig i sit bælte, og stak dyret dermed i underlivet, hvor sksællene vare blødest, saa at det tilsidst maate udpuste sin giftige aande, medens han selv laae halv knust under dens byrde. da bønderne i vendsyssel som stode i nogen afstand, under megen frygt og lidet haab omsider mærkede, at striden sagtnede, og at begge parter holdte sig rolige, nærmede de sig og fandt hr. henrik næsten livløs under det dræbte udyr. og efterat de i nogen tid havde givet ham god pleie, vendte han tilbage for at dø hos sin konge, til hvem han gientagende anbefalede sin { } slægt. fra ham nedstammer familien lindenroth, som til minde om denne vældige strid fører en lindorm i sit vaaben. _ms_ . ^o. stamme och slectebog over den høiadelige familie af lindenroth, in _danmarks folkesagn_, samlede af j. m. thiele, , i, - . a danish dragon-slaying of the beowulf-type. _translation._ in the days when king gram guldkølve ruled in leire, there were two ministers at court, bessus and henry. and at that time constant complaints came to the court from the inhabitants of vendsyssel, that a dread monster, which the peasants called a drake, was destroying both man and beast. so bessus gave counsel, that the king should send henry against the dragon, seeing that no one in the whole kingdom was his equal in valour and courage. henry answered that assuredly he would undertake it; but he added that he thought it impossible to escape from such a struggle with his life. and he made himself ready forthwith for the expedition, took a touching farewell of his lord and king, and said among other things: "my lord, if i come not back, care thou for my wife and my children." afterwards, when he crossed over to vendsyssel, he caused the peasants to show him the place where the monster had its lair, and learnt how that very day the drake had been out of its den, and had carried off a herdsman and an ox; how, according to its wont, it would now not come out for three hours, when it would want to go down to the water to drink after its meal. henry clothed himself in full armour, and inasmuch as no one dared to stand by him in that task, he lay down all alone by the water, but in such wise that the wind did not blow from him toward the monster. first of all he sent a mighty arrow from his bow: but, although it exactly hit the spot at which he had aimed, it darted back from the dragon's hard scales. at this the monster was so maddened, that it attacked him forthwith, reckoning him but a little meal. but henry had had a mighty barbed crook prepared by a smith beforehand, which he thrust into the beast's open mouth, so that it could { } not get rid of it, however much it strove, although the iron rod broke in henry's hands. then it smote him to the ground with its mighty tail, and although he was in complete armour, clutched at him with its dread claws, so that he fell in a swoon, wounded almost to death. but when he came somewhat to his senses again, after the drake for some time had had him lying under its belly, he rallied his last strength and grasped a dagger, of which he carried several with him in his belt, and smote it therewith in the belly, where the scales were weakest. so the monster at last breathed out its poisoned breath, whilst he himself lay half crushed under its weight. when the vendsyssel peasants, who stood some distance away, in great fear and little hope, at last noticed that the battle had slackened, and that both combatants were still, they drew near and found henry almost lifeless under the slain monster. and after they for some time had tended him well, he returned to die by his king, to whom he again commended his offspring. from him descends the family lindenroth, which in memory of this mighty contest carries a drake on its coat of arms. this story resembles the dragon fight in _beowulf_, in that the hero faces the dragon as protector of the land, with forebodings, and after taking farewell; he attacks the dragon in its lair, single-handed; his first attack is frustrated by the dragon's scales; in spite of apparatus specially prepared, he is wounded and stunned by the dragon, but nevertheless smites the dragon in the soft parts and slays him; the watchers draw near when the fight is over. yet these things merely prove that the two stories are of the same type; there is no evidence that this story is descended from _beowulf_. * * * * * g. the old english genealogies. i. _the mercian genealogy_. of the old english genealogies, the only one which, in its stages _below_ woden, immediately concerns the student of _beowulf_ is the mercian. this contains three names which also occur in _beowulf_, though two of them in a corrupt form--offa, wermund (garmund, _beowulf_), and eomær (geomor, _beowulf_). this mercian pedigree is found in its best form in _ms cotton vesp. b. vi_, fol. _b_,[ ] and in the sister ms at corpus christi college, cambridge (_c.c.c.c._ )[ ]. both these mss are of { } the th century. they contain lists of popes and bishops, and pedigrees of kings. by noting where these lists stop, we get a limit for the final compilation of the document. it must have been drawn up in its present form between and [ ]. but it was obviously compiled from lists already existing, and some of them were even at that date old. for the genealogy of the mercian kings, from woden, is not traced directly down to this period - , but in the first place only as far as Æthelred (reigning - ), son of penda: that is to say, it stops considerably more than a century before the date of the document in which it appears. additional pedigrees are then appended which show the subsequent stages down to and including cenwulf, king of mercia (reigning - ). it is difficult to account for such an arrangement except on the hypothesis that the genealogy was committed to writing in the reign of Æthelred, the monarch with whose name it terminates in its first form, and was then brought up to date by the addition of the supplementary names ending with cenwulf. this is confirmed when we find that precisely the same arrangement holds good for the accompanying northumbrian pedigree, which terminates with ecgfrith ( - ), the contemporary of Æthelred of mercia, and is then brought up to date by additional names. genealogies which draw from the same source as the _vespasian_ genealogies, and show the same peculiarities, are found in the _historia brittonum_ (§§ - ). they show, even more emphatically than do the _vespasian_ lists, traces of having been originally drawn up in the time of Æthelred of mercia ( - ) or possibly of his father penda, and of having then been brought up to date in subsequent revisions[ ]. one such revision must have been made about [ ]: it is a { } modification of this revision which is found in the _historia brittonum_. another was that which, as we have seen, must have been made between - , and in this form is found in _ms cotton vespasian b. vi_, _ms c.c.c.c._ , both of the th century, and in the (much later) _ms cotton tiberius b. v_. the genealogy up to penda is also found in the _a.-s. chronicle_ under the year (accession of penda). this mercian list, together with the northumbrian and other pedigrees which accompany it, can claim to be the earliest extant english historical document, having been written down in the th century, and recording historic names which (allowing thirty years for a generation) cannot be later than the th century a.d. in most similar pedigrees the earliest names are meaningless to us. but the mercian pedigree differs from the rest, in that we are able from _beowulf_, _widsith_, saxo grammaticus, sweyn aageson and the _vitae offarum_, to attach stories to the names of wermund and offa. how much of these stories is history, and how much fiction, it is difficult to say--but, with them, extant english history and english poetry and english fiction alike have their beginning. ms cotton vesp. b. vi. ms c.c.c.c. . aeðilred peding Æðelred pending penda pypbing penda pybbing pypba crioding pybba creoding crioda cynewalding creoda cynewalding cynewald cnebbing cynewald cnebbing cnebba icling cnebba icling icil eamering icel eomæring eamer angengeoting eomær angengeoting angengeot offing angengiot offing offa uærmunding offa wærmunding uermund uihtlaeging wærmund wihtlæging uihtlaeg wioðulgeoting wihtlæg wioþolgeoting weoðulgeot wodning weoþolgiot wodning woden frealafing woden frealafing { } ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _historia brittonum_[ ]. _anglo-saxon chronicle._ ms harl . mss cotton tib. a. vi. and b.i.[ ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- penda penda pybbing pubba pybba creoding creoda cynewalding cynewald cnebbing cnebba iceling icel eomæring eamer eomær angelþeowing ongen angelþeow offing offa offa wærmunding guerdmund wærmund wihtlæging guithleg wihtlæg wodening gueagon guedolgeat [u]uoden ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ii. _the stages above woden._ ( ) _woden to geat._ the stages above woden are found in two forms: a short list which traces the line from woden up to geat: and a longer list which carries the line from geat to sceaf and through noah to adam. the line from woden to geat is found in the _historia brittonum_, not with the other genealogies, but in § , where the pedigree of the kentish royal family is given, when the arrival of hengest in britain is recounted. notwithstanding the dispute regarding the origin and date of the _historia brittonum_, there is a pretty general agreement that this _woden to geat_ pedigree is one of the more primitive elements, and is not likely to be much later than the end of the th century[ ]. the original nucleus of the _historia brittonum_ was revised by { } nennius in the th century, or possibly at the end of the th[ ]. the earliest ms of the _historia_, that of chartres, belongs to the th or th century--this is fragmentary and already interpolated; the received text is based upon _ms harleian_ , dating from the end of the th century[ ], or possibly somewhat later. i give the pedigree in four forms: a. the critical text of the _historia brittonum_ as edited by th. mommsen (_monumenta germaniae historica, auct. antiq., chronica minora_, iii, berolini, , p. ). b. _ms harl._ , upon which mommsen's text is based, fol. . c. the _chartres ms._ d. mommsen's critical text of the later revision, _nennius interpretatus_, which he gives parallel to the _historia brittonum_. a b c d hors et hengist hors & hengist cors et haecgens hors et hengist filii guictgils filii guictgils filii guictils filii guictgils guigta guitta guicta guigta guectha guectha gueta guectha vvoden vvoden vvoden voden frealaf frealaf frelab frealaf fredulf fredulf freudulf fredolf finn finn fran finn frenn fodepald fodepald folcpald folcvald geta geta g[e]uta gaeta qui fuit, qui fuit, qui sunt [_sic_], vanli ut aiunt, ut aiunt, ut aiunt, saxi filius dei filius dei filius dei negua _ms cotton vespasian b. vi_ ( th century) contains a number of anglo-saxon genealogies and other lists revised up to the period - [ ]. the genealogy of the kings of lindsey in this list has the stages from woden to geat. this genealogy is also found in the sister list in the th century ms at corpus christi college, cambridge (_ms c.c.c.c._ ). { } a similar list is to be found in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ (entered under the year ). but there it is appended to the genealogy of the northumbrian kings. this genealogy has been erased in the oldest ms (parker, end of the th century) to make room for later additions, but is found in _mss cotton tiberius a. vi_ and _b. i._ _cotton (vespasian) _corpus ms._ _a.-s. chronicle_ ms._ uuoden frealafing woden frealafing woden freoþolafing frealaf frioðulfing frealaf frioþowulsing (sic) freoþelaf freoþulfing frioðulf finning freoþowulf godwulfing friþulf finning finn goduulfing finn godulfing godulf geoting godwulf geating godulf geating the _fodepald_ or _folcpald_ who, in the _historia brittonum_, appears as the father of finn, is clearly the _folcwalda_ who appears as finn's father in _beowulf_ and _widsith_. the old english _w_ ([wynn]) has been mistaken for _p_, just as in _pinefred_ for _winefred_ in the _life of offa ii_. in the _vespasian ms_ and in other genealogies godwulf is finn's father. it has been very generally held that finn and his father godwulf are mythical heroes, quite distinct from the presumably historic finn, son of folcwalda, mentioned in _beowulf_ and _widsith_: and that by confusion _folcwald_ came to be written instead of _godwulf_ in the genealogy, as given in the _historia brittonum_. i doubt whether there is sufficient justification for this distinction between a presumed historic finn folcwalding and a mythical finn godwulfing. is it not possible that godwulf was a traditional, probably historic, king of the frisians, father of finn, and that _folcwalda_[ ] was a _title_ which, since it alliterated conveniently, in the end supplanted the proper name in epic poetry? iii. _the stages above woden._ ( ) _woden to sceaf._ the stages above geat are found in the genealogy of the west-saxon kings only[ ]. this is recorded in the _chronicle_ { } under the year (notice concerning Æthelwulf) and it was probably drawn up at the court of that king. though it doubtless contains ancient names, it is apparently not so ancient as the _woden-geat_ list. it became very well known, and is also found in asser and the _textus roffensis_. it was copied by later historians such as william of malmesbury, and by the icelandic genealogists[ ]. the principal versions of this pedigree are given in tabular form below (pp. - ); omitting the merely second-hand reproductions, such as those of florence of worcester. * * * * * h. extract from the chronicle roll. this roll was drawn up in the reign of henry vi, and its compiler must have had access to a document now lost. there are many copies of the roll extant--the "moseley" roll at university college, london (formerly in the phillipps collection); at corpus christi college, cambridge (no. a); at trinity college, cambridge; and in the bibliothèque nationale, paris[ ]; and one which recently came into the market in london. steph | steldius | boerinus | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | cinrinicius gothus iutus wandalus gethius fresus suethedus dacus geate { } west-saxon genealogy--stages above woden /------------------------------------------------\ chronicle parker ms asser textus roffensis i woden fribowalding uuoden woden friþuwald freawining frithowald friþewold frealaf friþuwulfing frealaf frealaf friþuwulf finning frithuwulf friþewulf fin godwulfing fingodwulf finn godwulf geating godwulf geat tætwaing geata* ... geata* ... tætwa beawing caetuua teþwa beaw sceldwaing beauu beaw sceldwea heremoding sceldwea scaldwa heremod itermoning heremod heremod itermon hraþraing itermod iterman hathra haþra huala hwala beduuig bedwig se wæs geboren in þære seth scyf, se wæs in earce noe etc. noe, etc. ðam arken geboran [but son of sem, not noe] * quem getam *ðene ða hæþena iamdudum pagani wuþedon for god pro deo venerabantur chronicle ethelwerd mss cott. tib. a. vi [& b. i] uuothen woden frealafing frithouuald frealaf frithouulf frealaf fin[n]ing fin finn godwulfing [godulfing] goduulfe godulf geat[t]ing geat geata [geatt] tætwaing tetuua tætwa beawing beo beaw sceldweaing [scealdwaing] scyld scyldwa [scealdwa] heremoding heremod itermoning itermon haðraing haðra hwalaing hwala bedwiging bedwig sceafing, [i]d est filius nóe, se scef. ipse scef cum uno wæs geboren on þære earce nóes dromone advectus est in insula oceani quae dicitur scani, armis circundatus, eratque valde recens puer, et ab incolis illius terrae ignotus; attamen ab eis suscipitur et ut familiarem diligenti animo eum custodierunt et post in regem eligunt; de cuius prosapia ordinem trahit athulf [i.e. Æthelwulf] rex. { } /-------------------------------------- chronicle ms cott. tib. b. iv textus roffensis ii ms cott. tib. b. v woden frealafing woden frealafing woden frealafing frealaf finning frealaf finning frealaf finning fin godulfing finn godulfing finn godulfing godulf gating godulf eating godulf eating geat tætwaing eata teþwafing eat beawing tætwa beawing teþwa beawing beaw scealdwaing beaw scealdwaging beaw scealdwaging scealdhwa heremoding scealwa heremoding scealwa heremoding heremod itermoning heremod hermanning heremod itermanning itermon haðrahing herman haþraing iterman haðraing haþra haðra hwalaing haðra bedwiging hwala beowung hwala bedwining beowi sceafing, id est beadwig sceafing bedwig sceafing filius noe, se wæs se scef wæs noes sunu se scef wæs nóes sunu geboren on þære arce and he wæs innan ðære and he wæs innan nones ... earce geboren þære earce geboren ----------------------------------\ langfeðgatal flateyarbók langebek, , christiania, , , voden voden, _er ver_ þan kollvm ver _kollum_ odinn oden frealaf frilafr, _e.v.k._ bors finn burri, _e.v.k._ finn godvlfi godolfr eat beaf beaf, _e.v.k._ biar scealdna skialldin, _e.v.k._ skiolld heremotr heremoth, _e.v.k._ hermod itermann trinaan athra atra bedvig beduigg seskef vel seseph sescef william of malmesbury. wodenius fuit filius fridewaldi, fridewaldus frelafii, frelafius finni, finnus godulfi, godulfus getii, getius tetii, tetius beowii, beowius sceldii, sceldius sceaf. iste, ut ferunt, in quandam insulam germaniae scandzam ... appulsus, navi sine remige, puerulus, posito ad caput frumenti manipulo, dormiens, ideoque sceaf nuncupatus, ab hominibus regionis illius pro miraculo exceptus et sedulo nutritus, adulta aetate regnavit in oppido quod tunc slaswic, nunc vero haithebi appellatur ... sceaf fuit filius heremodii, heremodius stermonii, stermonius hadrae, hadra gwalae, gwala bedwigii, bedwegius strephii; hic, ut dicitur, fuit filius noae in arca natus. { } the following marginal note occurs: iste steldius p_r_im_us_ inhabitator germanie fuit. que germania sic dicta erat, quia instar ramor_um_ germina_n_ciu_m_ ab arbore, sic nome_n_ regnaq_ue_ germania nuncupa_n_tur. in nouem filiis diuisa a radice boerini geminaueru_n_t. ab istis nouem filiis boerini descenderu_n_t nouem gentes septentrionalem p_ar_tem inhabitantes, qui quondam regnu_m_ brita_n_nie inuaseru_n_t et optinueru_n_t, videlicet saxones, angli, iuthi, daci, norwagences, gothi, wandali, geathi et fresi[ ]. * * * * * i. extract from the little chronicle of the kings of leire from the _annales lundenses_. these annals are comparatively late, going up to the year ; but the short _chronicle of the kings of leire_, which is incorporated in them, is supposed to date from the latter half of the th century. the text is given in langebek, _scriptores rerum danicarum_, _i_, - (under the name of _annales esromenses_) from _cod. arn. mag._ . there is a critical edition by gertz, _scriptores minores historiæ danicæ_, copenhagen, , based upon _cod. arn. mag._ . the text given below is mainly that of langebek, with corrections from gertz's fine edition. see below, p. . erat ergo dan rex in dacia[ ] per triennium. anno tandem tertio cognouit uxorem suam daniam, genuitque ex ea filium nomine ro. qui post patris obitum hereditarie possidebat regnum. patrem uero suum dan colle apud lethram tumulauit sialandiæ, ubi sedem regni pro eo pater constituit, quam ipse post eum diuitiis multiplicibus ditauit. tempore illo ciuitas magna erat in medio sialandiæ, ubi adhuc mons desertus est, nomine hekebiarch, ubi sita erat ciuitas quæ høkekoping nuncupata est; ad quam ut mox ro rex uidit, quod mercatores a nauibus in uia currus conducentes multum expenderent, a loco illo ciuitatem amoueri jussit ad portum, ubi tenditur isæfiorth, et circa fontem pulcherrimum domos disponere. Ædificauit ibi ro ciuitatem honestam, cui nomen partitiuum imposuit post se et fontem, partem capiens fontis partemque sui, roskildam danice uocans, quæ hoc nomine uoca[bi]tur[ ] in æternum. uixit autem rex ro ita pacifice, ut nullus ei aciem opponeret, nec ipse usquam expeditionem direxit[ ]. erat autem uxor eius { } fecunda sobole, ex qua genuit duos filios, nomen primi helhgi et secundi haldan[ ]. cumque cepissent pueri robore confortari et crescere, obiit pater eorum ro, et sepultus est tumulo quodam læthræ, post cuius obitum partiti sunt regnum filii, quod in duas partes diuidentes, alter terras, alter mare possidebat. rexit itaque terras haldanus, et genuit filium nomine siwardum, cognomine album, qui patrem suum haldanum læthræ tumulauit mortuum. helgi autem rex erat marinus, et multos ad se traxit malificos, nauali bello bene adeptus diuersas partes, quasdam pace, quasdam cum piratica classe[ ] petisse perhibetur.... the chronicle then tells how rolf was born, the son of helgi and yrse or ursula: also of the death and burial of helgi. filius autem eius et ursulæ puer crescebat rolf et fortitudine uigebat. mater uero eius ursula, uelo uiduitatis deposito, data est regi suethiæ athislo, qui ex ea filiam sibi genuit, rolf uero ex matre eius sororem nomine skuld. interea dum hæc de rege marino helgi agerentur, frater eius, rex daciæ, mortuus est haldanus. post quem[ ] rex sweciæ athisl a danis suscepit tributum. interea ... confortabatur filius helgi, rolff, cognomine krake. quem post mortem snyo[ ] dani [in][ ] regem assumpserunt. qui sialandiæ apud lethram, sicut antecessores sui, sæpissime moratus est. sororem suam nomine sculd secum habuit, athisli regis filiam, et suæ matris ursulæ, de qua superius dictum est; quam fraterno amore dilexit. cui provinciam hornshæræth sialandiæ ad pascendas puellas suas in expensam dedit, in qua uillam ædificauit, nomine sculdelef, unde nomen suscepit. hoc tempore erat quidam comes scaniæ, nomine hiarwarth, teotonicus genere, rolf tributarius, qui ad eum procos misit, ut { } sororem suam sculd hiarwardo daret uxorem. quo nolente, propria ipsius uoluntate puellæ clanculo eam raptam sociauit sibi. unde conspirauerunt inter se deliberantes hiarwart et sculd, quomodo rolf interficeretur, et hiarwardus superstes regni heres efficeretur. non post multum vero temporis animosus ad uxoris exhortationem hiarwart sialandiam classe petiit. genero suo rolff tributum attulisse simulauit. die quadam dilucescente ad læthram misit, ut uideret tributum, rolff nunciauit. qui cum uidisset non tributum sed exercitum armatum, uallatus est rolff militibus, et a hyarwardo interfectus est. hyarwardum autem syalandenses et scanienses, qui cum eo erant, in regem assumpserunt. qui breui tempore, a mane usque ad primam, regali nomine potitus est. tunc uenit haky, frater haghbardi, filius hamundi; hyarwardum interfecit et danorum rex effectus est. quo regnante, uenit quidam nomine fritleff a partibus septentrionalibus et filiam sibi desponsauit rolff crake, ex qua filium nomine frothe genuit, cognomine largus. * * * * * k. the story of offa in saxo grammaticus book iv, ed. ascensius, fol. xxxii b; ed. holder, pp. - . cui filius wermundus succedit. hic prolixis tranquillitatis otiis felicissima temporum quiete decursis, diutinam domesticæ pacis constantiam inconcussa rerum securitate tractabat. idem prolis expers iuuentam exegit; senior uero filium uffonem sero fortunæ munere suscitauit, cum nullam ei sobolem elapsa tot annorum curricula peperissent. hic uffo coæuos quosque corporis habitu supergressus, adeo hebetis ineptique animi principio iuuentæ existimatus est, ut priuatis ac publicis rebus inutilis uideretur. siquidem ab ineunte ætate nunquam iusus aut ioci consuetudinem præbuit; adeoque humanæ delectationis uacuus fuit, ut labiorum continentiam iugi silentio premeret, et seueritatem oris a ridendi prorsus officio temperaret. uerum ut incunabula stoliditatis opinione referta habuit, ita post modum conditionis contemptum claritate mutauit; et quantum inertiæ spectaculum fuit, tantum prudentiæ et fortitudinis exemplum euasit. { } book iv, ed. ascensius, fol. xxxiv b; ed. holder, pp. - . cumque wermundus ætatis uitio oculis orbaretur, saxoniæ rex, daniam duce uacuam ratus, ei per legatos mandat, regnum, quod præter ætatis debitum teneat, sibi procurandum committat, ne nimis longa imperii auiditate patriam legibus armisque destituat. qualiter enim regem censeri posse, cui senectus animum, cæcitas oculum pari caliginis horrore fuscauerit? quod si abnuat, filiumque habeat, qui cum suo ex prouocatione confligere audeat, uictorem regno potiri permittat. si neutrum probet, armis secum, non monitis agendum cognoscat, ut tandem inuitus præbeat, quod ultroneus exhibere contemnat. ad hæc wermundus, altioribus suspiriis fractus, impudentius se ætatis exprobratione lacerari respondit, quem non ideo huc infelicitatis senectus prouexerit, quod pugnæ parcus timidius iuuentam exegerit. nec aptius sibi cæcitatis uitium obiectari, quod plerunque talem ætatis habitum talis iactura consequi soleat, potiusque condolendum calamitati quam insultandum uideatur. iustius autem saxoniæ regi impatientiæ notam afferri posse, quem potius senis fatum operiri, quam imperium poscere decuisset, quod aliquanto præstet defuncto succedere, quam uiuum spoliare. se tamen, ne tanquam delirus priscæ libertatis titulos externo uideatur mancipare dominio, propria manu prouocationi pariturum. ad hæc legati, scire se inquiunt, regem suum conserendæ cum cæco manus ludibrium perhorrere, quod tam ridiculum decernendi genus rubori quam honestati propinquius habeatur. aptius uero per utriusque pignus et sanguinem amborum negotio consuli. ad hæc obstupefactis animo danis, subitaque responsi ignorantia perculsis, uffo, qui forte cum ceteris aderat, responsionis a patre licentiam flagitabat, subitoque uelut ex muto uocalis euasit. cumque wermundus, quisnam talem a se loquendi copiam postularet, inquireret, ministrique eum ab uffone rogari dixissent, satis esse perhibuit, ut infelicitatis suæ uulneribus alienorum fastus illuderet, ne etiam a domesticis simili insultationis petulantia uexaretur. sed satellitibus uffonem hunc esse pertinaci affirmatione testantibus, "liberum ei sit," inquit, "quisquis est, cogitata profari." tum uffo, frustra ab eorum rege regnum appeti, inquit, quod tam proprii rectoris officio quam { } fortissimorum procerum armis industriaque niteretur: præterea, nec regi filium nec regno successorem deesse. sciantque, se non solum regis eorum filium, sed etiam quemcunque ex gentis suæ fortissimis secum adsciuerit, simul pugna aggredi constituisse. quo audito legati risere, uanam dicti animositatem existimantes. nec mora, condicitur pugnæ locus, eidemque stata temporis meta præfigitur. tantum autem stuporis uffo loquendi ac prouocandi nouitate præsentibus iniecit, ut, utrum uoci eius an fiduciæ plus admirationis tributum sit, incertum extiterit. abeuntibus autem legatis, wermundus, responsionis auctore laudato, quod uirtutis fiduciam non in unius, sed duorum prouocatione statuerit, potius se ei, quicunque sit, quam superbo hosti regno cessurum perhibuit. uniuersis autem filium eius esse testantibus, qui legatorum fastum fiduciæ sublimitate contempserit, propius eum accedere iubet: quod oculis nequeat, manibus experturus. corpore deinde eius curiosius contrectato, cum ex artuum granditate lineamentisque filium esse cognosset, fidem assertoribus habere coepit, percontarique eum, cur suauissimum uocis habitum summo dissimulationis studio tegendum curauerit, tantoque ætatis spatio sine uoce et cunctis loquendi commerciis degere sustinuerit, ut se linguæ prorsus officio defectum natiuæque taciturnitatis uitio obsitum credi permitteret? qui respondit, se paterna hactenus defensione contentum, non prius uocis officio opus habuisse, quam domesticam prudentiam externa loquacitate pressam animaduerteret. rogatus item ab eo, cur duos quam unum prouocare maluit, hunc iccirco dimicationis modum a se exoptatum respondit, ut athisli regis oppressio, quæ, quod a duobus gesta fuerat, danis opprobrio extabat, unius facinore pensaretur, nouumque uirtutis specimen prisca ruboris monumenta conuelleret. ita antiquæ crimen infamiæ recentis famæ litura respergendum dicebat. quem wermundus iustam omnium æstimationem fecisse testatus, armorum usum, quod eis parum assueuisset, prædiscere iubet. quibus uffo oblatis, magnitudine pectoris angustos loricarum nexus explicuit; nec erat ullam reperire, quæ eum iusto capacitatis spatio contineret. maiore siquidem corpore erat, quam ut alienis armis uti posset. ad ultimum, cum paternam quoque { } loricam uiolenta corporis astrictione dissolueret, wermundus eam a læuo latere dissecari, fibulaque sarciri præcepit, partem, quæ clypei præsidio muniatur, ferro patere parui existimans. sed et gladium, quo tuto uti possit, summa ab eo cura conscisci iussit. oblatis compluribus, uffo manu capulum stringens, frustatim singulos agitando comminuit; nec erat quisquam ex eis tanti rigoris gladius, quem non ad primæ concussionis motum crebra partium fractione dissolueret. erat autem regi inusitati acuminis gladius, skrep dictus, qui quodlibet obstaculi genus uno ferientis ictu medium penetrando diffinderet, nec adeo quicquam prædurum foret, ut adactam eius aciem remorari potuisset. quem ne posteris fruendum relinqueret, per summam alienæ commoditatis inuidiam in profunda defoderat, utilitatem ferri, quod filii incrementis diffideret, ceteris negaturus. interrogatus autem, an dignum uffonis robore ferrum haberet, habere se dixit, quod, si pridem a se terræ traditum recognito locorum habitu reperire potuisset, aptum corporis eius uiribus exhiberet. in campum deinde perduci se iubens, cum, interrogatis per omnia comitibus, defossionis locum acceptis signorum indiciis comperisset, extractum cauo gladium filio porrigit. quem uffo nimia uetustate fragilem exesumque conspiciens, feriendi diffidentia percontatur, an hunc quoque priorum exemplo probare debeat, prius habitum eius, quam rem ferro geri oporteat, explorandum testatus. refert wermundus, si præsens ferrum ab ipso uentilando collideretur, non superesse, quod uirium eius habitui responderet. abstinendum itaque facto, cuius in dubio exitus maneat. igitur ex pacto pugnæ locus expetitur. hunc fluuius eidorus ita aquarum ambitu uallat, ut earum interstitio repugnante, nauigii duntaxat aditus pateat. quem uffone sine comite petente, saxoniæ regis filium insignis uiribus athleta consequitur, crebris utrinque turbis alternos riparum anfractus spectandi auiditate complentibus. cunctis igitur huic spectaculo oculos inferentibus, wermundus in extrema pontis parte se collocat, si filium uinci contigisset, flumine periturus. maluit enim sanguinis sui ruinam comitari, quam patriæ interitum plenis doloris sensibus intueri. uerum uffo, geminis iuuenum congressibus lacessitus, gladii diffidentia amborum ictus umbone { } uitabat, patientius experiri constituens, quem e duobus attentius cauere debuisset, ut hunc saltem uno ferri impulsu contingeret. quem wermundus imbecillitatis uitio tantam recipiendorum ictuum patientiam præstare existimans, paulatim in occiduam pontis oram mortis cupiditate se protrahit, si de filio actum foret, fatum precipitio petiturus. tanta sanguinis caritate flagrantem senem fortuna protexit. uffo siquidem filium regis ad secum auidius decernendum hortatus, claritatem generis ab ipso conspicuo fortitudinis opere æquari iubet, ne rege ortum plebeius comes uirtute præstare uideatur. athletam deinde, explorandæ eius fortitudinis gratia, ne domini sui terga timidius subsequeretur, admonitum fiduciam a regis filio in se repositam egregiis dimicationis operibus pensare præcepit, cuius delectu unicus pugnæ comes adscitus fuerit. obtemperantem illum propiusque congredi rubore compulsum, primo ferri ictu medium dissecat. quo sono recreatus wermundus, filii ferrum audire se dixit, rogatque, cui potissimum parti ictum inflixerit. referentibus deinde ministris, eum non unam corporis partem, sed totam hominis transegisse compagem, abstractum præcipitio corpus ponti restituit, eodem studio lucem expetens, quo fatum optauerat. tum uffo, reliquum hostem prioris exemplo consumere cupiens, regis filium ad ultionem interfecti pro se satellitis manibus parentationis loco erogandam impensioribus uerbis sollicitat. quem propius accedere sua adhortatione coactum, infligendi ictus loco curiosius denotato, gladioque, quod tenuem eius laminam suis imparem uiribus formidaret, in aciem alteram uerso, penetrabili corporis sectione transuerberat. quo audito wermundus screp gladii sonum secundo suis auribus incessisse perhibuit. affirmantibus deinde arbitris, utrunque hostem ab eius filio consumptum, nimietate gaudii uultum fletu soluit. ita genas, quas dolor madidare non poterat, lætitia rigauit. saxonibus igitur pudore moestis, pugilumque funus summa cum ruboris acerbitate ducentibus, uffonem dani iocundis excepere tripudiis. quieuit tum athislanæ cædis infamia, saxonumque obprobriis expirauit. ita saxoniæ regnum ad danos translatum, post patrem uffo regendum suscepit, utriusque imperii procurator effectus, { } qui ne unum quidem rite moderaturus credebatur. hic a compluribus olauus est dictus, atque ob animi moderationem mansueti cognomine donatus. cuius sequentes actus uetustatis uitio solennem fefellere notitiam. sed credi potest, gloriosos eorum processus extitisse, quorum tam plena laudis principia fuerint. * * * * * l. from skiold to offa in sweyn aageson in langebek, _scriptores_, i, - ; gertz, i, . cap. i. de primo rege danorum. skiold danis primum didici præfuisse. et ut eius alludamus uocabulo, idcirco tali functus est nomine, quia uniuersos regni terminos regiæ defensionis patrocinio affatim egregie tuebatur. a quo primum, modis islandensibus, "skioldunger" sunt reges nuncupati. qui regni post se reliquit hæredes, frothi uidelicet et haldanum. successu temporum fratribus super regni ambitione inter se decertantibus, haldan, fratre suo interempto, regni monarchiam obtinuit. hic filium, scilicet helghi, regni procreauit hæredem, qui ob eximiam uirtutum strenuitatem, pyraticam semper exercuit. qui cum uniuersorum circumiacentium regnorum fines maritimos classe pyratica depopulatus, suo subiugasset imperio, "rex maris" est cognominatus. huic in regno successit filius rolf kraki, patria virtute pollens, occisus in lethra, quæ tunc famosissima regis extitit curia, nunc autem roskildensi uicina ciuitati, inter abiectissima ferme uix colitur oppida. post quem regnauit filius eius rökil cognomento dictus "slaghenback." cui successit in regno hæres, agilitatis strenuitate cognominatus, quem nostro uulgari "frothi hin frökni" nominabant. huius filius et hæres regni extitit wermundus, qui adeo prudentiæ pollebat uirtute, ut inde nomen consequeretur. unde et "prudens" dictus est. hic filium genuit uffi nomine, qui usque ad tricesimum ætatis suæ annum fandi possibilitatem cohibuit, propter enormitatem opprobrii, quod tunc temporis danis ingruerat, eo quod in { } ultionem patris duo dani in sueciam profecti, patricidam suum una interemerunt. nam et tunc temporis ignominiosum extitit improperium, si solum duo iugularent; præsertim cum soli strenuitati tunc superstitiosa gentilitas operam satagebat impendere. præfatus itaque wermundus usque ad senium regni sui gubernabat imperium; adeo tandem ætate consumptus, ut oculi eius præ senio caligarent. cuius debilitatis fama cum apud transalpinas[ ] partes percrebuisset, elationis turgiditate teotonica intumuit superbia, utpote suis nunquam contenta terminis. hinc furoris sui rabiem in danos exacuit imperator, se iam danorum regno conquisito sceptrum nancisci augustius conspicatus. delegantur itaque spiculatores, qui turgidi principis jussa reportent præfato danorum regi, scilicet wermundo, duarum rerum præfigentes electionem, quarum pars tamen neutra extitit eligenda. aut enim regnum jussit romano resignare imperio, et tributum soluere, aut athletam inuestigare, qui cum imperatoris campione monomachiam committere auderet. quo audito, regis extitit mens consternata; totiusque regni procerum legione corrogata, quid facto opus sit, diligenti inquisitione percontabatur. perplexam se namque regis autumabat autoritas, utpote cui et ius incumbebat decertandi, et qui regno patrocinari tenebatur. uultum coecitas obnubilauerat, et regni heres elinguis factus, desidia torpuerat, ita ut in eo, communi assertione, nulla prorsus species salutis existeret. nam ab infantia præfatus uffo uentris indulgebat ingluuiei, et epicuræorum more, coquinæ et cellario alternum officiose impendebat obsequium. corrogato itaque coetu procerum, totiusque regni placito[ ] celebrato, alamannorum regis ambitionem explicuit, quid in hac optione haud eligenda facturus sit, indagatione cumulata senior sciscitatur. et dum uniuersorum mens consternaretur angustia, cunctique indulgerent silentio, præfatus uffo in media concione surrexit. quem cum cohors uniuersa conspexisset, satis nequibat admirari, ut quid elinguis uelut orationi gestus informaret. et quia omne rarum dignum nouimus admiratione, omnium in se duxit intuitum. tandem sic orsus coepit: "non nos minæ moueant lacessentium, cum { } ea teotonicæ turgiditati innata sit conditio, ut uerborum ampullositate glorientur, minarumque uentositate pusillanimes et imbecilles calleant comminatione consternare. me etenim unicum et uerum regni natura produxit heredem, cui profecto nouistis incumbere, ut monomachiæ me discrimini audacter obiiciam, quatenus uel pro regno solus occumbam, uel pro patria solus uictoriam obtineam. ut ergo minarum cassetur ampullositas, hæc imperatori referant mandata, ut imperatoris filius et heres imperii, cum athleta præstantissimo, mihi soli non formidet occurrere." dixit, et hæc verba dictauit voce superba. qui dum orationem complesset, a collateralibus senior sciscitabatur, cuiusnam hæc fuisset oratio? cum autem a circumstantibus intellexisset, quod filius suus, prius veluti mutus, hunc effudisset sermonem, palpandum eum jussit accersiri. et cum humeros lacertosque, et clunes, suras atque tibias, cæteraque membra organica crebro palpasset: "talem," ait, "me memini in flore extitisse iuuentutis." quid multa? terminus pugnæ constituitur et locus. talique responso percepto, ad propria legati repedabant. cap. ii. de duello uffonis. superest ergo, ut arma nouo militi congrua corrogentur. allatisque ensibus, quos in regno præstantiores rex poterat inuestigare, uffo singulos dextra uibrans, in partes confregit minutissimas. "hæccine arma sunt," inquit, "quibus et uitam et regni tuebor honorem?" cuius cum pater uiuidam experiretur uirtutem, "unicum adhuc," ait, "et regni et uitæ nostræ superest asylum." ad tumulum itaque ducatum postulauit, in quo prius mucronem experientissimum occultauerat. et mox intersigniis per petrarum notas edoctus, gladium jussit effodi præstantissimum. quem illico dextra corripiens, "hic est," ait, "fili, quo numerose triumphaui, et qui mihi infallibile semper tutamen extitit." et hæc dicens, eundem filio contradidit. nec mora; terminus ecce congressioni præfixus arctius { } instabat. tandem, confluentibus undique phalangis innumerabilibus, in egdoræ fluminis mediamne[ ] locus pugnæ constituitur: ut ita pugnatores ab utriusque coetus adminiculo segregati nullius opitulatione fungerentur. teotonicis ergo ultra fluminis ripam in holsatia considentibus, danis uero citra amnem dispositis, rex pontis in medio sedem elegit, quatenus, si unigenitus occumberet, in fluminis se gurgitem præcipitaret, ne pariter nato orbatus et regno cum dolore superstes canos deduceret ad inferos. deinde emissis utrinque pugilibus, in medio amne conuenerunt. ast ubi miles noster egregius uffo, duos sibi conspexit occurrere, tanquam leo pectore robusto infremuit, animoque constanti duobus electis audacter se opponere non detrectauit, illo cinctus mucrone, quem patrem supra meminimus occuluisse, et alterum dextra strictum gestans. quos cum primum obuios habuisset, sic singillatim utrumque alloquitur, et quod raro legitur accidisse, athleta noster elegantissimus, cuius memoria in æternum non delebitur, ita aduersarios animabat ad pugnam: "si te," inquit, "regni nostri stimulat ambitio, ut nostræ opis, potentiæque, opumque capessere uelis opulentias, comminus te clientem decet præcedere, ut et regni tui terminos amplifices, et militibus tuis conspicientibus, strenuitatis nomen nanciscaris." campionem uero hunc in modum alloquitur: "uirtutis tuæ experientiam jam locus est propagare, si comminus accesseris, et eam, quam pridem alamannis gloriam ostendisti, danis quoque propalare non cuncteris. nunc ergo famam tuæ strenuitatis poteris ampliare, et egregiæ munificentiæ dono ditari, si et dominum præcedas, et clypeo defensionis eum tuearis. studeat, quæso, teotonicis experta strenuitas variis artis pugillatoriæ modis danos instruere, ut tandem optata potitus uictoria, cum triumphi ualeas exultatione ad propria remeare." quam quum complesset exhortationem, pugilis cassidem toto percussit conamine, ita ut, quo feriebat, gladius in duo dissiliret. cuius fragor per uniuersum intonuit exercitum. unde cohors teotonicorum exultatione perstrepebat: sed contra dani desperationis consternati tristitia, gemebundi murmurabant. rex uero, ut audiuit, quod filii ensis dissiliuisset, in margine se pontis jussit { } locari. uerum uffo, subito exempto, quo cinctus erat, gladio, pugilis illico coxam cruentauit, nec mora, et caput pariter amputauit. sic ergo ludus fortunæ ad instar lunæ uarius, nunc his, nunc illis successibus illudebat, et quibus iamiam exultatione fauebat ingenti, eos nouercali mox uultu, toruoque conspexit intuitu. hoc cognito, senior jam confidentius priori se jussit sede locari. nec jam anceps diu extitit uictoria. siquidem uffo ualide instans, ad ripam amnis pepulit hæredem imperii, ibique eum haud difficulter gladio iugulauit. sicque duorum solus uictor existens, danis irrogatam multis retro temporibus infamiam gloriosa uirtute magnifice satis aboleuit. atque ita alamannis cum improperii uerecundia, cassatisque minarum ampullositatibus, cum probris ad propria remeantibus, postmodum in pacis tranquillitate præcluis uffo regni sui regebat imperium. * * * * * m. note on the danish chronicles the text of saxo grammaticus, given above, is based upon the magnificent first edition printed by badius ascensius (paris, ). even at the time when this edition was printed, manuscripts of saxo had become exceedingly scarce, and we have now only odd leaves of ms remaining. one fragment, however, discovered at angers, and now in the royal library at copenhagen, comes from a ms which had apparently received additions from saxo himself, and therefore affords evidence as to his spelling. holder's edition (strassburg, ) whilst following in the main the text of badius ascensius, is accordingly revised to comply with the spelling of the copenhagen fragments, and with any other traces of ms authority extant. i doubt the necessity for such revision. if the text were extant in ms, one might feel bound to follow the spelling of the ms, as in the case of the old english mss of the _vitae offarum_ below: but seeing that saxo, with the exception of a few pages, is extant only in a th century printed copy, the spelling of which is almost identical with that now current in latin text books, it seems a pity to restore conjecturally mediæval spellings likely { } to worry a student. accordingly i have followed the printed text of , modernizing a very few odd spellings, and correcting some obvious printers errors[ ]. a translation of the first nine books of saxo by prof. o. elton has been published by the folk-lore society (no. xxxiii, ). saxo completed his history in the early years of the th century. his elder contemporary, sweyn aageson, had already written a _brief history of the kings of denmark_. sweyn's _history_ must have been completed not long after , to which date belongs the last event he records. the extracts given from it (pp. - ) are taken from langebek's collection, with modifications of spelling. langebek follows the first edition (stephanius, ); the ms used in this edition had been destroyed in . _cod. arn. mag. _, recently printed by gertz, although very corrupt, is supposed to give the text of sweyn's _history_ in a form less sophisticated than that of the received text (see gertz, _scriptores minores historiæ danicæ_, , p. ). the _little chronicle of the kings of leire_ is probably earlier than sweyn's _history_. gertz dates it c. , and thinks it was written by someone connected with the church at roskilde. it covers only the early traditional history. see above, pp. , . for comparison, the following lists, as given in the roll of kings known as _langfeðgatal_, in the _little chronicle_, in sweyn, and in saxo may be useful: | _little_ | | |names as given _langfeðgatal_ |_chronicle_ |_sweyn_ | _saxo_ | in _beowulf_ | dan | | dan | | | | {humblus | | | | {lotherus | ? = heremod skioldr ... | | skiold | skioldus | scyld { } | | | gram | | | | hadingus | | | {frothi | frotho i | ?= beowulf i halfdan | | {haldanus | {haldanus i | healfdene | ro | | {roe i | | | | {scato | {hroar | {haldan | | {roe ii | hrothgar {helgi | {helgi | helghi | {helgo | halga rolf kraki | rolf krake | rolf kraki | roluo krage | hrothulf | hiarwarth | | hiarthuarus | heoroweard | | | . . . . | hrærekr | | rökil | røricus | hrethric * * * * * n. the life of offa i, with extracts from the life of offa ii. edited from two mss in the cottonian collection the text is given from _ms cotton nero d. i_ (quoted in the footnotes as a), collated with _ms claudius e. iv_ (quoted as b). minor variations of b are not usually noted. the two mss agree closely. the _nero_ ms is the more elaborate of the two, and is adorned with very fine drawings. _claudius_, however, offers occasionally a better text; it has been read by a corrector whose alterations--contrary to what is so often the ease in mediæval mss--seem to be authoritative. the _lives of the offas_ were printed by wats in his edition of matthew paris ( - ) from ms a. miss rickert has printed extracts from the two lives, in _mod. phil._ ii, _etc._, following ms a, "as wats sometimes takes liberties with the text." incipit historia de offa primo q_u_i strenuitate sua s_ib_i anglie maxima_m_ p_ar_te_m_ s_u_beg_i_t. cui simillim_us_ fuit s_e_c_un_d_u_s offa[ ]. [sidenote: fol. _a_] inter occidentalium anglorum reges illustrissimos, precipua co_m_mendac_i_onis laude celebratur rex warmundus, ab hiis qui historias angloru_m_ no_n_ solum relatu proferre, set eciam scriptis inserere consueuerant. is fundator erat cui_us_dam urbis a seip_s_o denominate, que lingua anglicana warwic, id est curia warmundi, nuncupatur. qui usq_ue_ ad annos seniles absq_ue_ liberis extitit, pret_er_ unicum filiu_m_; q_ue_m, ut estimabat, regni sui heredem _et_ successorem puerilis debilitatis incomodo labora_n_tem, constituere non ualebat. licet enim idem unic_us_ filius eius, offa uel offanus no_m_i_n_e, statura fuisset procer_us_, { } corpore integer, _et_ elegantissime forme iuuenis existeret, perma_n_sit t_ame_n a natiuitate uisu priuatus usq_ue_ ad annu_m_ septimu_m_, mutus autem _et_ u_er_ba humana n_on_ proferens usq_ue_ ad annu_m_ etatis sue tricesimum. huius debilitatis incomodum no_n_ solum rex, s_ed_ eciam regni proceres, supra q_u_am dici potest moleste sustinuerunt. cum eni_m_ imineret p_at_ri etas senilis, _et_ ignoraret diem mortis sue, nesciebat q_ue_m alium sibi[ ] _con_stitueret heredem _et_ regni successore_m_. quidam au_tem_ p_r_imari_us_ regni, cui nomen riganus[ ], cu_m_ quoda_m_ suo co_m_plice mitunno no_m_i_n_e, ambic_i_osus cu_m_ ambic_i_oso, seductor cu_m_ proditore uidens regem decrepitu_m_, _et_ sine spe prolis procreande senio fatiscente_m_, de se p_re_sumens, cepit ad regie dignitatis culmen aspirare, conte_m_ptis aliis regni primatib_us_, se solum p_re_ cet_er_is ad h_oc_ dignu_m_ reputando. iccirco diebus singulis regi molestus nimis, proterue eum aggreditur, ut se h_er_edis loco adoptaret. aliq_u_ando cor regis blande alliciens, interi_m_ aspere minis _et_ terroribus prouocans, persuadere no_n_ cessat regi q_uo_d optabat[ ]. suggerebat eciam regi per uiros potentes, _com_plices cupiditatis _et_ malicie sue, se regni sui su_m_mu_m_ apice_m_, uiolentia _et_ terrorib_us_ et ui extorquere, nisi arbitrio uoluntatis sue rex ip_s_e pareret, faciendo uirtute_m_ de necessitate. super h_oc_ itaq_ue et_ aliis regni negociis, euocato semel concilio, proteruus ille a rege reprobatus discessit a curie p_re_sentia, iracundie calore freme_n_s in semetip_s_o, pro repulsa q_u_am sustinuit. [illustration: riganus (or aliel) comes before king warmundus to claim that he should be made king in place of the incompetent offa _from ms cotton nero d. i, fol. a._ ] { } [sidenote: fol. _b_] nec mora, accitis m_u_ltis qui cont_r_a regis i_m_p_er_ium parte_m_ sua_m_ _con_fouebant, infra paucos dies, copiosum i_m_mo infinitu_m_ exc_er_citu_m_ _con_gregauit: _et_ sub spe uictorie uirilit_e_r optinende, regem _et_ suos ad hostile p_re_lium prouocauit. rex au_tem_ confectus senio, time_n_s rebellare, declinauit aliquocie_n_s impet_us_ adu_er_sarior_um_. tandem uero, co_n_uocatis i_n_ unum p_r_incipib_us_ _et_ magnatib_us_ suis, delib_er_are cep_i_t q_u_o f_a_c_t_o opus h_abe_ret. dum igit_ur_ t_r_actarent i_n_ co_m_mune per aliq_u_ot dies, secu_m_ deliberantes instantissime nec_es_citatis articulu_m_, affuit int_er_ _ser_moci|nantes natus _et_ unigenitus regis, eo usq_ue_ elinguis _et_ absq_ue_ sermone, s_ed_ aure purgata, singulorum uerba discernens. cum aute_m_ p_at_ris seniu_m_, _et_ se ip_su_m ad regni negocia q_u_asi inutilem _et_ min_us_ efficacem despici _et_ reprobari ab om_n_ib_us_ perpenderet, contritus est _et_ humiliatus in semetip_s_o, usq_ue_ in lac_r_imarum aduberem profusionem. _et_ exitus aq_u_arum dedux_er_unt oculi eius; _et_ estuabat dolore cordis intrinsecus amarissimo. et q_u_a_m_ u_er_bis no_n_ pot_er_at, deo aff_e_c_t_u int_r_inseco p_re_cordial_it_er suggerebat, ingemiscens, repone_n_sq_ue_ lac_r_imabilem q_ue_relam coram ip_s_o, orabat ut a spiritu s_an_c_t_o reciperet consolac_i_on_em_, a p_at_re luminu_m_ fortitudinem, _et_ a filio p_at_ris unigenito sapi_enci_e salutaris donatiuum. in breui igitur, _con_t_r_iti cordis uota prospiciens, is, cui nuda _et_ aperta sunt omnia, resoluit os adolescentis in u_er_ba discreta _et_ manifeste articulata. sicq_ue_ de regni principatu tumide _et_ minaciter contra se _et_ p_at_rem suu_m_ perstrepentes, subito _et_ ex insp_er_ato alloquitur: "quid adhuc me _et_ p_at_re meo sup_er_stite contra leges _et_ iura uobis uendicatis regni iudicium enormiter cont_re_ctare: _et_ me excluso, herede geneali, alium degen_er_em facinorosu_m_ _ec_iam in minas _et_ diffiduciac_i_onem sup_er_be nimis prorumpente_m_, subrogare ut uos no_n_ immerito iniquitatis _et_ prodic_i_onis arguere valeam_us_. quid, inq_u_am, ext_er_i, q_u_id ex_tr_anei cont_ra_ nos agere debeant, cu_m_ nos affines _et_ domestici n_ost_ri a p_at_ria q_u_am hactenus gen_er_is n_ost_ri successio iure possedit hereditario, uelitis expellere?" et dum hec offanus uel offa (hoc eni_m_ nomen adolescentulo erat) qui ia_m_ n_un_c primo et_er_no nomine cu_m_ b_e_n_e_d[_i_]c[_i_]onis memoria meruit intitulari, ore facundo, s_er_mone rethorico, uultu sereno prosequeret_ur_, omniu_m_ audientium plus q_u_am dici potest attonitoru_m_ oculos facies _et_ corda in se conu_er_tit. et prosequens inceptum s_er_mone_m_, _con_tinuando r_ati_onem, ait (intuens ad superna): "deum testor, om_ne_sq_ue_ celestis curie primates, quod tanti sceleris _et_ discidii incentores, (n_is_i qui cep_er_int titubare, uiriliter eriganter in uirtute_m_ p_r_istinam roborati) inde_m_pnes (pro ut desides _et_ formidolosi promerueru_n_t) ac impunitos, no_n_ paciar. fideles autem, ac strenuos, omni honore proseq_u_ar [et] co_n_fouebo." audito _i_gi_tur_ adolescentis sermone, q_ue_m mutum estimabant vanu_m_ _et_ inutilem, _con_st_er_nati admodum _et_ conterriti, ab ei_us_ { } p_re_sencia discesseru_n_t, q_u_i cont_r_a p_at_rem suu_m_ _et_ ip_su_m, mota sedic_i_one, ausu temerario co_n_spirau_er_ant. rigan_us_ t_ame_n, co_n_tumax _et_ superbus, comitante mittunno cu_m_ aliis complicibus suis, qui iam iram in odium _con_u_er_t_er_ant, minas minis recessit cumulando, rege_m_q_ue_ delirum cu_m_ filio suo inutili ac vano murione, frontose diffiduciauit. econt_r_a, naturales ac fideles regis, ipsius minas paruipende_n_tes, i_m_mo [sidenote: fol. _a_] | uilipendentes, inestimabili gaudio perfusi, regis _et_ filii sui pedibus incuruati, sua suor_um_q_ue_ corpora ad uindicandam regis iniuriam exponunt gratanter uniu_er_si. nec mora, rex in sua _et_ filii sui presentia generali edicto eos qui parti sue fauebant iubet assistere, uolens co_m_muni eor_um_ consilio edoceri, q_u_aliter in agendis suis procedere _et_ negocia sua exequi habeat conuenienter. qui super hiis diebus aliquot deliberantes, inprimis consulu_n_t regi ut filium suu_m_ morib_us_ _et_ etate ad h_oc_ maturu_m_, militari cingulo faciat insigniri: vt ad bellum procedens, hostibus suis horrori fieret _et_ formidini. rex aute_m_ sano et salubri co_n_silio suoru_m_ obtemperans, celebri[ ] ad hoc co_n_dicto die, cu_m_ solle_m_pni _et_ regia pompa, gladio filium suum accinxit; adiunctis tirocinio suo strenuis adolescentib_us_ gen_er_osis, quos rex ad dec_us_ _et_ gloriam filii sui militarib_us_ indui fecit, _et_ honorari. cum aute_m_ post h_ec_[ ], aliq_u_andiu cu_m_ sociis suis decertans, instrumenta tiro offanus experiretur, omnes eum strenuissimu_m_ _et_ singulos sup_er_ante_m_ uehement_er_[ ] admirabant_ur_. rex igit_ur_ in_de_ maiore_m_ assumens audaciam, _et_ in spem erectus alacriorem, co_m_municato cu_m_ suis consilio, co_n_t_r_a hostes regni sui insidiatores, i_m_mo iam manifeste _contr_a regnu_m_ suu_m_ insurgentes, _et_ inito c_er_tami_n_e adu_er_santes, resu_m_pto sp_irit_u bellum instaurari p_re_cep_i_t. potentissim_us_ aut_em_ ille, q_u_i regnu_m_ sibi usurpare moliebatur, cu_m_ filiis suis iuuenib_us_ duob_us_, uidelicet tironib_us_ strenuissimis otta _et_ milione nominatis, ascita quoq_ue_ no_n_ minima multitudine, n_ich_ilomin_us_ audact_er_ ad rebellandum, se suosq_ue_ p_re_munire cepit, alacer _et_ imp_er_t_er_rit_us_. et preliandi diem _et_ locum, hinc in_de_ rex _et_ eius emulus det_er_minarunt. congregato itaq_ue_ ut_r_obiq_ue_ copiosissimo _et_ formidabili nimis exc_er_citu, parati ad congressum, fixerunt tentoria e regione, nichilq_ue_ int_er_erat nisi fluui_us_ torrens in medio, qui { } utrumq_ue_ exc_er_citu_m_ sequestrabat. et aliq_u_andiu hinc in_de_ meticulosi _et_ co_n_sternati, rapidi fluminis alueum int_er_positu_m_ (qui uix erat homini uel equo t_r_ansmeabil_is_) transire distulerunt. tela tamen sola, cu_m_ crebris co_m_minac_i_onibus _et_ conuiciis, transuolarunt. tande_m_ indignatus offa _et_ egre ferens probrose more dispendia, electis de exc_er_citu suo robustiorib_us_ _et_ bello magis strenuis, q_u_os _eciam_ credebat fideliores, subitus _et_ improuisus flumen raptim p_er_transiens, f_a_c_t_o impetu uehementi[ ] _et_ repentino, hostes ei obuiam occurre_n_tes, preocupatos t_ame_n circa ripam flum_in_is, plurimos de adu_er_sarior_um_ exc_er_citu cont_r_iuit, _et_ i_n_ ore gladii trucidauit. primosq_ue_ om_ne_s t_r_ibunos _et_ p_r_imicerios potenter dissipauit. cu_m_ t_ame_n sui co_m_militones, forte uolentes p_re_scire in offa p_re_uio martis fortuna_m_, segnit_er_ amne_m_ t_r_ansmearent, q_u_i latus suu_m_ tenebantur suffulcire, _et_[ ] pocius [sidenote: fol. _b_] | circumuallando roborare, et resu_m_pto sp_irit_u uiuidiore, reliquos om_ne_s, hinc in_de_ ad modu_m_ nauis uelificantis _et_ equora uelocit_er_ sulcantis, impetuosissime diuisit, ense t_er_ribilit_er_ fulminante, _et_ hostiu_m_ cruore sepius inebriato, don_e_c sue om_ne_s acies ad ip_su_m illese _et_ inde_m_pnes t_r_ansmear_en_t. quo cu_m_ p_er_uenirent sui co_m_militones, congregati ci_r_ca ip_su_m do_mi_n_u_m suu_m_, exc_er_citu_m_ magnu_m_ et fortem co_n_flau_er_unt. duces aute_m_ _con_t_r_arii exc_er_citus, sese densis agminib_us_ _et_ consertis aciebus, uiolent_er_ opponu_n_t aduentantib_us_. et congressu inito cruentissimo, acclamatu_m_ _est_ utrobiq_ue_ et exhortatu_m_, ut res agatur pro capite, _et_ c_er_tamen pro sua _et_ uxoru_m_ suar_um_, _et_ lib_er_or_um_ suor_um_, _et_ possessionu_m_ lib_er_ac_i_one, i_n_ea_n_t iustissimu_m_, auxilio diuino p_ro_tegente. p_er_strepunt igitur tube cu_m_ lituis, clamor exhortantiu_m_, equor_um_ hinnit_us_, morientiu_m_ _et_ uulnerator_um_ gemitus, fragor lancearum, gladioru_m_ tinnit_us_, ictuu_m_ tumultus, aera p_er_t_ur_bare uidebant_ur_. adu_er_sarii tandem offe legiones deiciunt, _et_ i_n_ fugam dissipatas _con_u_er_tunt. quod cum videret offa strenuissim_us_, _et_ ex hostiu_m_ cede cruent_us_, hausto sp_irit_u alac_r_iori, in hostes, more leonis _et_ leene sublatis catulis, irruit truculent_er_, gladiu_m_ suu_m_ cruore hostili inebriando. quod cu_m_ uiderent t_r_ucida_n_di, fugitiui _et_ meticulosi pudore confusi, reuersi su_n_t sup_er_ hostes, et ut famam redim_er_ent, ferociores in obstantes fulminant _et_ debacant_ur_. { } multoq_ue_ temp_or_e t_r_uculent_er_ nimis dec_er_tatu_m_ est, _et_ utrobiq_ue_ suspensa est uictoria; tandem p_ost_ multor_um_ ruinam, hostes fatigati pedem retulerunt, ut respirarent _et_ pausare_n_t p_ost_ co_n_flictu_m_. similit_er eciam et_ exc_er_citus offani. quod t_ame_n moleste nimis tulit offan_us_, cui_us_ sanguis in ulc_i_one_m_ estuabat, _et_ i_n_defessus propugnator cessare erubescebat. hic casu offe obuiant duo filii diuitis illi_us_, qui regnu_m_ p_at_ris ei_us_ sibi atte_m_ptauit usurpare. nomen p_r_imogenito brutus [sive hildebrandus][ ] _et_ iuniori sueno. hii probra _et_ u_er_ba turpia in offam irreu_er_enter ingesserunt, _et_ iuueni pudorato i_n_ _con_sp_ec_tu exc_er_cituum, no_n_ min_us_ s_er_monib_us_ q_u_am armis, molesti extit_er_unt. offa igit_ur_, mag_is_ lacessitus, _et_ calore audacie scintillans, _et_ iracundia us_que_ ad fremitu_m_ succensus, in impetu sp_iritu_s sui i_n_ eosde_m_ audact_er_ irruit. et eor_um_ alteru_m_, videlic_et_ brutu_m_, unico gladii ictu percussit, amputatoq_ue_ galee cono, craneu_m_ usq_ue_ ad cerebri medulla_m_ p_er_forauit, _et_ i_n_ morte singultante_m_ sub eq_u_inis pedib_us_ pot_e_nt_er_ p_re_cipitauit. alteru_m_ u_er_o, qui h_oc_ uiso fugam iniit, repentin_us_ inseq_ue_ns, uuln_er_e letali sauciatu_m_, _con_te_m_psit _et_ prostratu_m_. post h_ec_[ ] deseuie_n_s in cet_er_os _con_t_r_arii exc_er_citus duces, gladi_us_ offe q_u_icq_u_id obuiam h_ab_uit prost_er_nendo deuorauit, exc_er_citu ip_s_i_us_ tali exemplo recenci_us_ i_n_ hostes insurgente, _et_ iam gloriosius t_r_iu_m_phante. [sidenote: fol. _a_] pat_er_, uero, p_re_d_i_c_t_or_um_ iuuenu_m_, pert_er_rit_us_ _et_ dolore i_n_t_r_inseco sauciatus, subt_er_fugiens amne_m_ oppositu_m_, nitebat_ur_| pert_r_ansire: s_ed_ interf_e_c_t_oru_m_ sanguine torre_n_s fluuius, eum loricatu_m_ _et_ armor_um_ pond_er_e grauatu_m_ _et_ multipl_icite_r fatigatum, cum multis de suo excercitu simili incomodo p_re_peditis, ad ima subm_er_sit, _et_ sine uuln_er_ib_us_, miseras animas exalarunt proditores, toti posteritati sue probra relinq_ue_ntes. amnis aute_m_ a rigano ibi subm_er_so sorciebatur uocabulum, _et_ riganburne, vt f_act_i uiuat perpetuo memoria, nuncupat_ur_. [hiic alio no_m_i_n_e auene dicit_ur_.][ ] reliqui aute_m_ om_ne_s de exc_er_citu rigani [qui _et_ aliel dicebatur][ ] qui sub ducatu mitunni regebantur, in abissu_m_ desperac_i_onis dem_er_si, _et_ timore effeminati, cum eorum duce i_n_ q_u_o { } magis rigan_us_ confidebat, in noctis crepusculo trucidati, cu_m_ uictoria gloriosa campu_m_ offe strenuissimo (i_n_ nulla parte corporis sui deformit_er_ mutilato, nec _eciam_ uel letaliter uel periculose uuln_er_ato, licet ea die multis se letiferis opposuiss_et_ p_er_iculis) reliquerunt[ ]. sicq_ue_ offe circa iuuentutis sue primicias, a domino data est uictoria in bello nimis ancipiti, ac cruentissimo, _et_ int_er_ alienigenas uirtutis _et_ indust_r_ie sue nomen celebre ipsius uentilatum, _et_ odor longe lateq_ue_ bonitatis ac ciuilitatis, n_e_c no_n_ _et_ st_r_enuitatis ei_us_ circumfusus, nomen ei_us_ ad sidera subleuauit. porro in crastinu_m_ post uictoria_m_, hostiu_m_ spolia int_er_fector_um_ _et_ fugitiuor_um_ magnifice co_n_te_m_pnens, n_e_c sibi uolens aliq_u_atenus usurpare, ne q_u_omodolib_et_ auaricie turpit_er_ redargueretur, militibus suis stipendiariis, _et_ naturalib_us_ suis hominib_us_ (p_re_cipue[ ] hiis quos nou_er_at indigere) liberalit_er_ dereliq_u_it. solos t_ame_n magnates, quos ip_s_emet i_n_ prelio cep_er_at, sibi retinuit incarc_er_andos, redime_n_dos, u_e_l iudicialiter puniendos. iussitq_ue_ ut int_er_fector_um_ duces _et_ p_r_incipes, quor_um_ fama titulos magnificauit, _et_ p_re_cipue eor_um_ qui in p_re_lio magnifice ac fidelit_er_ se habuerant (licet ei[ ] adu_er_sarentur) seorsum honorifice i_n_tumulare_n_t_u_r, f_a_c_t_is eis obsequiis, cu_m_ lamentac_i_onib_us_. exc_er_citus au_tem_ popularis cadau_er_a, in arduo _et_ eminenti loco, ad post_er_itatis memoriam, t_r_adi iussit sepulture ignobiliori. vnde locus ille hoc no_m_i_n_e anglico q_u_almhul[ ], a strage uidelicet _et_ sepultura interfectorum m_er_ito meruit intitulari. multor_um_ eciam et magnor_um_ lapidum super eos struem excercitus offe, uoce p_re_conia iussus, congessit eminentem. totaq_ue_ circumiacens planicies[ ] ab ip_s_o cruentissimo c_er_tamine _et_ notabili sepultura nomen _et_ titulum indelebilem est sortita, et blodiweld[ ] a sa_n_guine int_er_fector_um_ deno_m_i_n_abat_ur_. deletis igitur _et_ confusis hostib_us_, offa cum ingenti t_r_iumpho ac tripudio _et_ gloria reu_er_tit_ur_ ad propria. pater uero warmu_n_d_us_, q_u_i sese recep_er_at in locis tucioribus rei euentu_m_ exp_e_ctans, s_ed_ iam fausto nuncio c_er_tificatus, comperiensq_ue_ _et_ securus de carissimi filii sui uictoria, cu_m_ ingenti leticia ei { } procedit obuius[ ]: et in a_m_plexus eius diutissime _com_moratus, _con_ceptu_m_ [sidenote: fol. _b_] | interius de filii sui palma gaudium teg_er_e non uolens set n_e_c ualens, hui_us_ cum lac_ri_mis exultac_i_onis prorupit in vocem: "euge fili dulcissime, quo affectu, quaue mentis leticia, laudes tuas prout dignu_m_ est prosequar? tu eni_m_ es spes mea _et_ subditor_um_ iubilus ex i_n_sp_er_ato _et_ exultac_i_o. in te spes inopinata meis reuixit temporibus; in sinu tuo leticia mea, i_m_mo spes pocius toci_us_ regni est reposita. tu pop_u_li toci_us_ firmamentum, tu pacis _et_ lib_er_tatis mee basis _et_ stabile, deo aspirante, fundamentum. tibi debetur ruina prot_e_rui proditoris illi_us_, q_u_ondam publici hostis n_ost_ri, qui regni fastigium quod m_ih_i _et_ de genere meo propagatis iure debetur h_er_editario, tam impudent_er_ q_u_am imprudenter, cont_r_a leges _et_ ius gentium usurpare moliebatur. s_ed_ uultus d_omi_ni super eu_m_ _et_ co_m_plices suos facientes mala, ut perderet de terra memoriam eoru_m_, deus ulcionu_m_ domin_us_ dissipau_i_t consilium ipsius. ip_su_m q_u_o_que_ riganu_m_ in sup_er_bia rigente_m_, _et_ i_m_mite_m_ mitunnu_m_ _com_militone_m_ ipsius, cum exc_er_citu eor_um_ proiecit in flumen rapacissimu_m_. descendunt q_u_asi plu_m_bum i_n_ aq_u_is uehem_en_tib_us_; deuorauit gladi_us_ tuus hostes n_ost_ros fulmina_n_s _et_ cruentat_us_, hostili sanguine magnifice i_n_ebriatus; non degen_er_ es fili mi genealis, s_ed_ pat_r_issans, patrum tuor_um_ uestigia seq_ue_ris magnificorum. sepult_us_ i_n_ inf_er_no n_oste_r hostis _et_ adu_er_sarius, fructus viarum suaru_m_ condignos iam colligit, quos uiu_us_ promerebatur. luctum _et_ miseriam q_u_am senectuti mee malignus ille inf_er_re disposuerat, u_er_sa uice, clementia diuina conuertit in tripudium[ ]. quamobre_m_ in p_re_senti accipe, quod tuis m_er_itis exigentib_us_ debetur, eciam si filius meus non esses, _et_ si m_ih_i iure h_er_editario non succederes; ecce iam, cedo, _et_ regnu_m_ anglor_um_ uoluntatis tue arbitrio deinceps committo; etas enim mea fragilis _et_ iam decrepita, regni ceptrum ulterius sustinere no_n_ sufficit. iccirco te fili desid_er_atissime, uicem meam supplere te co_n_uenit, _et_ corpus meu_m_ senio _con_fectum, donec morientis oculos clauseris, quieti t_r_ad_er_e liberiori, vt a curis _et_ secularib_us_ sollicitudinibus, quib_us_ discerpor lib_er_atus, p_re_cibus uacem _et_ _con_te_m_plac_i_oni. armis hucusq_ue_ mat_er_ialib_us_ dimicaui: restat { } ut de cet_er_o uita mea q_ue_ sup_er_est, militia sit sup_er_ t_er_ram _con_t_r_a hostes sp_irit_uales. "ego u_er_o pro incolumitate tua _et_ regni statu, q_uo_d strenuitati tue, o anime mee dimidiu_m_, ia_m_ _com_misi, preces quales mea, sci[t][ ] simplicitas _et_ potest i_m_becillitas, deo fundam indefessas. s_ed_ q_uia_ temp_us_ perbreue amodo m_ih_i restat, _et_ corpori meo solum s_upe_rest sepulchru_m_, aure_m_ benigna_m_ meis accomoda salutaribus consiliis, _et_ cor credulu_m_ meis monitis i_n_clina magnificis. uerum ip_s_os qui nobiscum c_ontr_a hostes publicos, riganu_m_ videlicet _et_ mitunnu_m_ [sidenote: fol. _a_] | _et_ eor_um_ complices emulos n_ost_ros fidelit_er_ steter_un_t, _et_ periculoso discrimini pro nobis se opposuer_un_t, p_ate_rno amore t_ib_i co_m_mendo, diligendos, honorandos, promouendos. eos aute_m_ qui dec_r_epite sen_e_ctutis mee membra[ ] debilia _con_te_m_ptui h_abe_re ausi s_un_t, asserentes u_er_ba mea _et_ regalia p_re_cepta e_ss_e sinilia delirame_n_ta, p_re_sumentes tem_er_e apice regali me priuato te exheredare, susp_e_ctos habe _et_ co_n_te_m_ptibiles, si qui sint elapsi ab hoc bello, _et_ a tuo gladio deuorante, eciam cu_m_ eor_um_ post_er_itate: ne cu_m_ in ramusculos uir_us_ pullulet, a radice aliquid _con_simile t_ib_i gen_er_etur in posteru_m_. no_n_ eni_m_ recolo me talem eor_um_ promeruisse, q_u_i me _et_ te filiu_m_ meu_m_ gratis oderunt, persecuc_i_one_m_. similit_er_ eos, quos d_i_c_t_i proditores pro eo q_uo_d nobis fideliter adhes_er_ant, exulare coeg_er_unt, u_e_l qui impote_n_tes rabiem eor_um_ fugiendo resist_er_e, ad horam declinau_er_unt, cu_m_ omni mansuetudi_n_e studeas reuocare, _et_ honores eor_um_ cu_m_ possessionib_us_ ex innata t_ib_i regali munific_e_ntia, graci_us_ ampliare. laus industrie tue _et_ fame p_re_conia, _et_ strenuitatis tue titulus, q_ue_ adolesc_e_nciam tuam diuinit_us_ illustraru_n_t, in posterum de te maiora p_ro_m_i_ttu_n_t. desid_er_anti animo sicient_er_ affecto, ip_su_mq_ue_ deu_m_, qui te t_ib_i, sua mera gr_aci_a reddidit _et_ restaurauit, dep_re_cor affectuose, vt has iuuentutis tue primicias, h_oc_ i_n_opinato t_r_iumpho subarratas, melior semp_er_ ac splendidior op_er_um gl_ori_a subseq_u_atur. et procul dubio post morte_m_ meam (que non longe abest, iubente d_omi_no) fame tue magnitudo per orbem uniu_er_su_m_ dilatabitur, _et_ felix suscipiet inc_r_ementu_m_. et q_ue_ d_e_o placita sunt, opere felici consumabis, q_ue_ diuinitus p_ro_sp_er_abunt_ur_." { } hec aute_m_ filius deuotus _et_ mansuet_us_, licet magnific_us_ t_r_iumphator exaudiss_et_ _et_ intenta aure intellexiss_et_, flexis genib_us_ _et_ iunctis manib_us_, _et_ exundantib_us_ oculis, p_at_ri suo grates[ ] rettulit accumulatas. rex itaq_ue_ per fines anglie missis nunciis expeditissimis, q_u_i ma_n_data regia detuler_un_t, tocius dicionis sue conuocat nobilitatem. que conuocata ex reg_is_ precepto, _et_ persuasione, offano filio suo unigenito ligiam fecerunt fidelitatem _et_ homagiu_m_ in p_at_ris presencia. quod _et_ om_ne_s, animo uolenti, i_m_mo gaudenti, co_m_munit_er_ perfec_er_unt. rex igitur q_ue_m pocius prona voluntas, q_u_a_m_ uigor prouexit corporalis, per climata regni sui proficiscitur secur_us_ _et_ letabundus, nullo _contr_adicente, u_e_l impediente, ut regni munic_i_o_ne_s _et_ varias possessiones, diu per inimicos suos alienatas _et_ iniuste ac uiolent_er_ possessas, ad sue dic_i_onis reacciperet iure potestate_m_. que o_mn_ia sibi sunt s_i_n_e_ difficultate u_e_l more dispendio restituta. statimq_ue_ p_ate_r filium eoru_m_ possessionib_us_ corporaliter inuestiuit; _et_ p_ate_rno contulit aff_e_c_t_u ac gratuito, proc_er_ib_us_ [sidenote: fol. _b_] co_n_gaude_n_|tib_us_ super hoc uniuersis. post hec autem, rex filio suo offano erarium suum adaperiens, auru_m_ suu_m_ _et_ argentu_m_, uasa co_n_cupiscibilia, gemmas, oloserica omnia, sue subdidit potestati. sicq_ue_ subactis _et_ subt_r_actis hostibus[ ] cunctis, aliquandiu per uniu_er_sum regnu_m_ uiguit pax _et_ securitas diu desiderabilis. rex igitur filii sui prosperitate gauisus, qui _eciam_ diatim de bono i_n_ melius gradatim ascendit, aliquo tempore uite sue metas distulit naturales: iubilus quoq_ue_ in corde senis conceptus languores seniles plurimu_m_ mitigauit. tandem rex plenus dierum, cu_m_ b_e_n_e_dicc_i_one omniu_m_, qui ip_su_m _eciam_ a remotis[ ] partib_us_ p_er_ fama_m_ cognou_er_unt[ ], nature debita persoluens decessit. et decedens, filio suo apice_m_ regni sui pacatum _et_ quietu_m_ reliquit: offan_us_ aute_m_ oculos p_at_ris sui pie claudens, lamentaciones mensurnas cum magnis eiulatibus, lac_r_imis _et_ specialib_us_ planctib_us_ (prout moris t_un_c erat principibus magnificis) lugubriter pro tanto funere continuauit. obsequiisq_ue_ cu_m_ exequiis, magnifice tam in ecc_lesi_a q_u_am in locis forinsecis conpletis, apparatu regio _et_ loco celeberrimo _et_ nominatissimo. { } regibus _con_digno, videlicet i_n_ eminenc_i_ori ecc_lesi_a penes glou_er_nia_m_ urbem egregiam, eidem exhiberi iubet sepulturam. offanus aute_m_ cu_m_ morib_us_ o_mn_ibus foret redimitus, elegans corp_or_e, armis strenuus, munificus _et_ benignus, post obitum p_at_ris sui magnifici warmundi[ ], cui_us_ mores tractatus exigit speciales, plenarie o_mn_iu_m_ p_r_incipum regni d_omi_nium suscipit, _et_ debitu_m_ cum omni deuoc_i_one, _et_ mera uoluntate, famulatu_m_. cum igitur cui_us_dam sole_m_pnitatis arrid_er_et serenitas, offanus cu_m_ solle_m_pni t_r_ipudio o_mn_ib_us_ applaudentibus _et_ faustum omen acclama_n_tibus, anglie diademate feliciter est i_n_signit_us_. adquiescens _i_gi_tur_ senior_um_ co_n_siliis _et_ sapientum persuasionib_us_, cepit tocius regni irrep_re_h_e_nsibil_ite_r, immo laudabiliter, habenas[ ] modernanter _et_ sapient_er_ gubernare. sic igitur, subactis hostib_us_ regni uniu_er_sis, uiguit pax secura _et_ firmata i_n_ finib_us_ anglor_um_, p_er_ te_m_pora longa; precipue t_ame_n p_er_ spaciu_m_ temp_or_is qui_n_q_ue_nnale. erat au_tem_ iam t_r_iginta q_u_atuor annos etatis attingens, annis prospere pubescentib_us_. et cum rex, more iuuenili, venatus gr_aci_a per nemora frequent_er_, cu_m_ suis ad h_oc_ conuocatis uenatorib_us_ _et_ canibus sagacib_us_, expeditus peragrasset, contigit die quada_m_ quod aere turbato, longe a suor_um_ cat_er_ua semotus, solus p_er_ nemoris opaca penitus ipsoru_m_ locor_um_, n_e_cnon _et_ fortune ignar_us_, casu deambulabat. du_m_ aute_m_ sic per ignota diu_er_ticula i_n_caucius oberraret, _et_ per inuia, uocem lac_r_imabilem _et_ miserabiliter q_ue_rulam haut longe a se audiuit. cui_us_ sonitu_m_ secutus, int_er_ densos frutices [sidenote: fol. _a_] | virginem singularis forme _et_ regii apparat_us_, s_ed_ decore uenustissimam, ex insperato repperit. rex uero rei euentu_m_ admirans, que ibi ageret et querele causas, eam blande alloq_ue_ns, cepit sciscitari. que ex imo pectoris flebilia t_r_ahens suspiria, regi respondit (neq_u_aq_u_am in auctorem s_ed_ in seip_s_am reatum retorquens): "peccatis meis" inquit "exigentib_us_ infortunii hui_us_ calamitas m_ih_i accidit." erat aute_m_ reguli cui_us_dam filia q_u_i eboracensibus preerat. hui_us_ inco_m_parabilis pulchritudinis singulare_m_ eminentiam p_ate_r admirans, amatorio demone seductus, cep_i_t ea_m_ incestu libidinoso concupisc_er_e, _et_ ad amorem illicitu_m_ sepe sollicitare ipsam puellam, { } minis, pollicitis, blanditiis, atq_ue_ mun_er_ibus adolescentule temptans emollire _con_stantiam. illa autem op_er_i nephario nullatenus adquiescens, cum p_ate_r t_ame_n minas minis exaggeraret[ ], _et_ promissa promissis accumularet, mun_er_a mun_er_ib_us_ adaugeret, iuxta illud poeticu_m_: imperium, promissa, preces, confudit in unu_m_: elegit magis incidere i_n_ manus ho_m_i_n_u_m_, _et_ eciam ferarum qualiumcunq_ue_, vel gladii subire sent_e_ntiam, q_u_am d_e_i offensam incurrere, p_ro_ tam g_r_aui culpa manifestam. pater itaq_ue_ ipsam sibi parere _con_stanter renuentem, euocatis quibusdam maligne me_n_tis hominib_us_ quos ad hoc elegerat, p_re_cepit eam i_n_ desertum solitudinis remote duci, u_e_l pocius t_r_ahi, _et_ crudelissima morte conde_m_pnata_m_, bestiis i_b_id_em_ d_e_relinq_u_i. qui cum in locu_m_ horroris _et_ vaste solitudinis p_er_uenissent, trahentes eam seductores illi, deo ut creditur inspirante, miserti pulch_r_itudinis[ ] illius eam ibidem sine t_r_ucidac_i_one _et_ me_m_b_r_or_um_ mutilac_i_one, uiuam, s_ed_ t_ame_n sine aliquoru_m_ uictualiu_m_ alimento (exceptis talib_us_ qui de radicibus _et_ frondib_us_ uel h_er_bis colligi, urgente ultima fame, possunt) dimiserunt. cum hac rex aliq_u_andiu habens sermonem, comitem itineris sui illam habuit, don_e_c solitarii cui_us_da_m_ habitac_i_one_m_ reperissent, ubi nocte s_upe_rueniente quiescentes pernoctau_er_unt. in c_r_astinu_m_ autem solitarius ille uiarum _et_ semitaru_m_ peritus, regem cu_m_ comite sua usq_ue_ ad fines domesticos, _et_ loca regi no_n_ ignota[ ] conduxit. ad suos itaq_ue_ rex rediens, desolate illius q_u_am nup_er_ inuenerat curam gerens, familiarib_us_ _et_ domesticis generis sui sub diligenti custodia co_m_misit. post hec aliq_u_ot annis elapsis, cu_m_ rex celibem age_n_s uitam, mente castus _et_ corpore perseueraret, proceres dic_i_onis sue, no_n_ solum de tunc p_re_senti, s_ed_ de fut_ur_o sibi periculo precauentes, _et_ nimiru_m_ multum solliciti, d_omi_n_u_m suum de uxore ducenda unanimiter _con_uenerunt: ne sibi _et_ regno successorem _et_ heredem no_n_ habens, post obitum ipsi_us_ iminens p_er_iculum generaret. etatis eni_m_ iuuenilis pubertas, moru_m_ maturitas, _et_ urgens regni necessitas, n_e_cno_n_ _et_ honoris dignitas, itide_m_ postularu_n_t. [sidenote: fol. _b_] | et cum super hoc negocio, sepius regem { } sollicitarentur, _et_ alloquerentur, ipse multociens ioculando, _et_ talia u_er_ba asserendo int_er_ludia fuisse uanitatis, procerum suoru_m_ constantiam dissimulando differendoq_ue_ delusit. quod quidam adu_er_tentes, co_m_municato cu_m_ aliis consilio, regem ad nubendu_m_ incuntabiliter urgere ceperunt. rex uero more optimi principis, cui_us_ primordia iam bene subarrauerat, nolens uoluntati magnatu_m_ suor_um_ resistere, diu secum de thori socia, libra profunde r_ati_onis, studiose cepit deliberare. cu_m_q_ue_ hoc in mente sua sollicicius tractaret, uen_i_t forte i_n_ mente_m_ suam illius iuuencule memoria, q_u_am dudum inter uenandum i_n_uenit uagabundam, solam, feris _et_ predonibus miserabiliter expositam: quam ad tuciora ducens, familiaribus gen_er_is sui co_m_mis_er_at alendam, ac carius custodiendam. que, ut rex audiuit, morib_us_ laudabiliter redimita, decoris existens exp_ec_tabilis, omnibus sibi cognitis amabilem exhibuit _et_ laudabilem; hec igit_ur_ sola, relictis multis, _eciam_ regalis stematis sibi oblatis, complacuit; illamq_ue_ solam i_n_ matrimoniu_m_ sibi adoptauit. cum aute_m_ eam duxisset in uxorem, non int_er_ueniente m_u_lta mora, elegantissime forme utriusq_ue_ sexus liberos ex eadem procreauit. itaq_ue_ cum p_r_ius e_ss_et rex propria seueritate subditis suis formidabilis, magnates eius, n_e_cnon _et_ populus eius uniu_er_sus, heredum _et_ successor_um_ apparentia animati, regni robur _et_ leticiam geminar_un_t. rex q_u_o_que_ ab uniu_er_sis suis, _et_ no_n_ solum prope positis, i_m_mo alienigenis _et_ remotis, extit_i_t honori, uen_er_ac_i_oni, ac dilecc_i_oni. et cu_m_ inter se in britannia, (q_ue_ tunc temporis in plurima regna multiphariam diuisa fuisset) reg_u_li sibi finitimi hostilit_er_ se impet_er_ent, solus rex offa pace regni sui potitus felicit_er_, se sibiq_ue_ s_u_bditos in pace regebat _et_ lib_er_tate. unde _et_ adiacencium prouinciarum reges ei_us_ mendicabant auxilium, _et_ i_n_ necc_ess_itatis articulo, consiliu_m_. rex itaq_ue_ northamhi_m_bror_um_, a barbara scotor_um_ gente, _et eciam_ aliquib_us_ suor_um_, _gr_auit_er_ _et_ usq_ue_ f_er_me ad int_er_nec_i_onem percussus, _et_ proprie defensionis auxilio destitutus, ad offam regem potentem legatos destinat; _et_ pacificum supplicans, ut p_re_sidii eius solacio cont_r_a hostes suos roboretur. tali mediante _con_dic_i_one, ut offe filiam sibi matrimonio copularet, _et_ non se proprii regni, _sed_ offam, primarium ac { } principem preferr_et_, _et_ se cu_m_ suis om_n_ib_us_ ip_s_i subiugaret. nichil itaq_ue_ dotis cum offe filia rogitauit, hoc sane contentus premio, ut a regni sui finibus barbaros illos potenter _et_ frequenter experta fugaret strenuitate. cum autem legatorum uerba rex offa succepisset, consilio suorum fretus [sidenote: fol. _a_] sup|plicantis uoluntati ac precibus adquieuit si t_ame_n rex ille pactum huiusmodi, tactis sac_ro_s_an_c_t_is euuangeliis[ ], _et_ obsidum tradic_i_one, fideliter tenendum confirmaret. sic igitur rex offa, super hiis condic_i_onib_us_ sub c_er_ta forma co_n_firmatus, _et_ ad plenum certificatus, in partes illas cu_m_ equitum numerosa multitudine proficiscitur. cum autem illuc perueniss_et_, timore eius consternata pars aduersa cessit, fuge presidio se saluando. quam t_ame_n rex offa audacter prosecutus, non prius destitit fugare fugientem, donec eam ex integro contriuisset; s_ed_ nec eo contentus, ulteri_us_ progreditur, barbaros expugnaturus. int_er_ea ad patriam suam nunciu_m_ i_m_p_er_itu_m_ destinau_i_t, ad primates et precipuos regni sui, quib_us_ tocius dic_i_onis sue regimen commendau_er_at, et lit_er_as regii sigilli sui munimine co_n_signatas[ ], eidem nunc_i_o commisit, deferendas. q_u_i autem destinatus fuit, iter arripiens u_er_sus offe regnum, ut casu accidit int_er_ eundu_m_, hospitandi gr_aci_a aulam regiam introiuit illi_us_ regis, cuius filiam offa sibi m_at_rimo_n_io copulau_er_at. rex au_tem_ ille, cum de statu _et_ causa itineris sui subdole requirendo cognouisset, uultus sui serenitate animi u_er_suciam mentitus, specie ten_us_ illum amantissime suscepit: _et_ uelamen sceleris sui querens, a conspectu publico sub quodam dilecc_i_onis pretexu, ad regii thalami secreta penetralia ip_su_m nuncium nichil sinist_r_i suspicantem introduxit: magnoq_ue_ studio elaborauit, ut ip_su_m, uino estuanti madentem, redderet temulentum, et ip_s_o nuncio uel dormiente uel aliquo alio modo ignorante, mandata d_omi_ni sui regis offe tacit_us_ ac subdolus apertis _et_ explicatis lit_er_is persc_r_utabatur; cepitq_ue_ perniciose immutare et p_er_uertere sub offe nomine sigillu_m_ adultera_n_s, fallacesq_ue_ _et_ perniciosas literas loco inuentarum occultauit. forma autem adulterinar_um_ [l_ite_rar_um_][ ] hec est q_ue_ subscribitur[ ]: { } [ ]"rex offa, maioribus et p_re_cipuis regni sui, salutis et prosperitatis augmentu_m_. uniu_er_sitati u_est_re notum facio, i_n_ itin_er_e quod arripui infortunia _et_ adu_er_sa plurima tam michi q_u_am subditis meis accidisse, _et_ maiores excercitus mei, non ignauia propria, u_e_l hostium oppugnantium uirtute, set pocius peccatis n_ost_ris iusto dei iudicio interisse. ego autem instantis periculi causam p_er_tracta_n_s, _et_ consciencie mee intima perscrutatus, i_n_ memetip_s_o nichil aliud conicio altissimo displicere, nisi quod perditam _et_ maleficam illa_m_ absq_ue_ meorum consensu uxorem imperito _et_ infelici duxi matrimonio. ut ergo de malefica memorata, uoluntati u_est_re ad plenum q_u_a_m_ temere offendi satisfiat, asportetur cum lib_er_is ex ea genitis ad loca deserta, ho_m_i_ni_b_us_ i_n_cognita[ ], [sidenote: fol. _b_] | feris _et_ auib_us_ aut siluestribus predonibus frequentata: ubi cum pueris suis puerpera, truncata manus et pedes, exemplo pereat inaudito." nuncius autem mane facto, uino quo maduerat digesto, co_m_pos iam sui effectus, discessit: et post aliquot dies perueniens ad propria, magnatib_us_ qui regno regis offe p_re_erant literas do_mi_ni sui sigillo signatas exposuit. in quar_um_ auditu perlecta mandati serie, in stuporem _et_ uehementissimam admirac_i_one_m_ uniu_er_si, plus q_u_am dici possit, rapiuntur. et super hiis, aliquot diebus co_m_municato cum magnatibus consilio deliberantes, periculosum ducebant[ ] mandatis ac iussionib_us_ regiis non obtemperare. misera _i_gi_tur_ seducta, deducta est in remotissimu_m_ _et_ i_n_habitabilem locum horroris et uaste solitudinis: cu_m_ qua eciam liberi ei_us_ miseri _et_ miserabiles queruli _et_ uagientes, absq_ue_ mi_sericordi_a, ut cu_m_ ea t_r_ahere_n_t_ur_ occidendi, iudiciu_m_ acceperu_n_t. nec mora, memorati apparitores matre_m_ cu_m_ pignorib_us_ suis in des_er_tu_m_ uastissimu_m_ t_r_aheba_n_t. mat_r_i uero p_ro_pt_er_ ei_us_ forma_m_ admirabile_m_ p_ar_ce_n_tes, lib_er_os ei_us_, n_e_c forme, n_e_c sexui, etati u_e_l _con_dic_i_oni p_ar_c_e_ntes, d_e_truncarunt menbratim, i_m_mo poci_us_ frustatim[ ] crudeliter in bestialem feritate_m_ seuientes. completaq_ue_ tam crudeli sente_n_cia, cruenti apparitores ocius reuertunt_ur_. nec mora, solitarius quidam uitam in omni s_an_c_t_itate, uigiliis assiduis, ieiuniis crebris, _et_ continuis { } or_ati_onib_us_, ducens heremiticam, circa noctis crepusculum eo p_er_t_r_ansie_n_s, mulieris cuiusdam luctus lac_r_imabiles _et_ querelas usq_ue_ ad intima cordis _et_ ossuum[ ] medullas penetratiuas, quas d_omi_n_u_s ex mortuorum corporib_us_ licet lac_er_atis elicuit, audiuit. infantulorumq_ue_ uagitus lugubres nimis cu_m_ doloris ululatibus quasi in materno sinu audiendo similiter annotauit. mis_er_icordia autem s_an_c_tus_ dei motus, usq_ue_ ad lacrimaru_m_ aduberem effusionem, quo ipsa uox ip_su_m uocabat, domino ducente peruenit. et cu_m_ illuc peruenisset, nec aliud q_u_am corp_or_a humana in frusta detruncata reperisset, cognouit[ ] in sp_irit_u ip_s_a alicuius innocentis corp_us_, uel aliquorum i_n_nocentiu_m_ corpuscula extitisse, que tam inhumanam sentenciam subierunt. nec sine martirii palma, ipsos quorum hee fuerunt exuuie, ab h_oc_[ ] sec_u_lo t_r_ansmigrasse suspicabatur. auxiliu_m_ t_ame_n pro d_e_i amore _et_ caritatis intuitu postulatu_m_ non denegans, se pro illorum reparac_i_one prostrauit in deuotissima_m_ cum lacrimis or_aci_onem, maxime propter uocem celitus emissam, quam profecto cognou_i_t[ ] p_er_ d_eu_m li_n_g_u_as cadau_er_u_m_ p_ro_tulisse. piis _i_gi_tur_ s_an_c_tu_s _com_mot_us_ uisc_er_ib_us_, igneq_ue_ succe_n_s_us_ caritatis, ex cognic_i_one[ ] ei_us_, q_u_am, ut ia_m_ d_i_c_tu_m, dudu_m_ uiderat, h_ab_uit, f_a_c_tus_ hilarior, pro ipsis [sidenote: fol. _a_] | flexis genib_us_, inundantibus oculis, iunctisq_ue_ palmis orauit, dicens: "d_omi_ne jesu ch_rist_e, q_u_i lazarum quatriduanu_m_ ac fetidum resuscitasti, immo qui omniu_m_ n_ostro_r_u_m corpora i_n_ ext_r_emo examine suscitabis, u_est_ram oro mis_er_icordiam, ut non habens ad me peccatorem, s_ed_ ad horum innocentum pressuras respectu_m_ piissimu_m_, corpuscula h_ec_ iubeas resuscitari, ad laudem _et_ gloriam tuam i_n_ se_m_pit_er_nu_m_, vt om_ne_s qui mortis horum causam _et_ forma_m_ audierint, te glorificent deum _et_ dominum mundi saluatorem." sic igitur s_an_c_tu_s iste, d_omi_ni de fidei sue[ ] uirtute i_n_ domino presumens _et_ co_n_fidens, int_er_ orandum, membra p_re_cisa recollige_n_s, _et_ sibi particulas adaptans _et_ coniungens, _et_ i_n_ q_u_antum potuit redintegrans, in parciu_m_ q_u_amplurimu_m_, set in integritate_m_ pocius delectat_us_, domino rei consummac_i_onem q_u_i mortificat _et_ uiuificat co_m_mendauit. coniuncta igitur corpora, signo crucis triumphali consignauit. mira fidei uirtus et { } efficacia, signo c_r_ucis uiuifice et or_ati_onis ac fidei serui d_e_i uirtute, no_n_ solu_m_ m_at_ris orbate anim_us_ reparat_ur_, s_ed_ _et_ filior_um_ corp_us_cula in pristinu_m_ _et_ integrum nature sunt reformata decorem, necnon _et_ anime mortuor_um_ ad sua pristina domicilia sunt reuerse. ad mansiuncule igitur sue septa (a qua elongatus fuerat, gr_aci_a lignor_um_ ad pulmentaria deq_u_oquenda colligendor_um_) ip_s_e senex: qui prius detruncati fuerant, domino iubente integ_r_i uiui _et_ alacres sunt reuersi, ducem s_an_c_tu_m suum sequentes pedetentim. ubi more patris, ip_s_am desolatam cum liberis sibi ip_s_is restitutis, alimentis quibus potuit, _et_ q_ue_ ad manum habuit, pie ac misericordit_er_ _con_fouebat. nesciens _er_go quo migraret regina, cu_m_ suis infantulis intra uastissimam heremum cum memorato solitario, diu moram ibidem or_ati_onib_us_, uigiliis, ac aliis s_an_c_ti_s operibus eius intenta _et_ iamiam conuenienter informata, _et_ edulio siluestri sustentata, co_n_tinuabat. post duoru_m_ uero mensium curricula, rex offa uictoriosissimus domu_m_ let_us_ remeauit, spolia deuictorum suis magnatib_us_ regali munificentia gloriose distribuendo; uerunt_ame_n, ne lacrime gaudia regis, _et_ eoru_m_ q_u_i cum eo aduen_er_ant, miserabilit_er_ int_er_rump_er_ent, consiliarii regii q_u_e de regina _et_ lib_er_is ei_us_ accid_er_a_n_t, diu sub silenc_i_o caute dissimulando, _et_ causas absencie eius fictas annectendo, _con_celabant. tandem cu_m_ rex uehement_er_ admiraretur ubinam regina delituisset, q_ue_ ip_s_i regi ab ancipiti bello reu_er_tenti occurrisse gaudenter teneretur, _et_ in oscul_is_ _et_ amplexib_us_ ceteris gaudentius t_r_iumphatore_m_ aduentante_m_ suscepisse, sciscitabatur instanti_us_, _et_ toruius _et_ p_ro_t_er_uius, quid de ip_s_a fieret uel euenisset. suspicabatur eni_m_ eam morbo detenta_m_, ipsa_m_q_ue_ cu_m_ lib_er_is [sidenote: fol. _b_] | suis, regis _et_ aliorum hominu_m_, ut quieti uacaret, frequentiam declinasse. tande_m_ cum iratus nullatenus se uelle ampli_us_ ignorare, cu_m_ iuramento, q_u_id de uxore sua _et_ lib_er_is euenisset, uultu toruo asseruisset, unus ex edituis omnia q_ue_ accid_er_ant, de tirannico ei_us_ mandato, _et_ mandati plenaria execuc_i_one, seriatim enarrauit. hiis auditis, risus in luctu_m_, gaudium i_n_ lamenta, iubilus in singultus flebilit_er_ conu_er_tuntur, totaq_ue_ regia ululatibus personuit _et_ merorib_us_. lugensq_ue_ rex diu ta_m_ i_m_mane infortuniu_m_, induit se sacco cilicino, aspersum cin_er_e, ac multiplicit_er_ { } deformatum. tandem monitu suorum, qui dicebant n_on_ uiror_um_ magnificor_um_ s_ed_ pocius effeminator_um_, dolorem int_er_iecto solacio nolle temperare[ ], e_ss_e propriu_m_ _et_ _con_suetudine_m_, rex cepit respirare, _et_ dolori modu_m_ imponere. consilio igitur p_er_itorum, qui nouerant regem libent_er_ i_n_ te_m_pore p_ro_sp_er_o in studio uenatico plurimu_m_ delectari, conuocantur uenatores, ut rex spaciaturus uenando, dolorem suu_m_ diminueret _et_ luctu_m_ solacio demulceret. qui int_er_ uenandum dum p_er_ siluaru_m_ abdita, deo misericordiaru_m_ _et_ toci_us_ co_n_solac[_i_]onis ducente, felicit_er_ solus per inuia oberrauit, _et_ tandem ad heremitoriu_m_ memorati h_er_emite directe peruenit, eiusq_ue_ exiguu_m_ domicilium subintrans, humaniss[_im_]e _et_ cu_m_ su_m_mo gaudio receptus _est_. et cu_m_ humili residens sedili, membra[ ] fatigata quieti daret ad horam, recolens qual_ite_r uxore_m_ sua_m_ ibidem quonda_m_ diuinitus reperisset, _et_ feliciter educasset, _et_ educatam duxisset i_n_ uxorem, _et_ q_u_am elegantem ex ea prolem p_ro_tulisset, eruperunt lacrime cu_m_ gemitibus, _et_ in querelas lugubres ora resoluens, hospiti suo sinistru_m_ de uxore sua q_u_i[ ] infausto sidere nup_er_ euen_er_at qua_m_ _et_ ip_s_e q_u_onda_m_ viderat, enarrauit. at senex sereno uultu, factus ex intrinsecus concepto gaudio alacrior, consolatus est regem, et in uocem exultac_i_o_n_is eminus prorumpens: "eia d_omi_ne mi rex, eia, ait; uere deus misericordiar_um_, d_omi_n_u_s, famulos suos quasi p_ate_r filios in omni t_r_ibulacione p_ost_ pressuras consolatur, percutit _et_ medetur, deicit ut gloriosius eleuet pregrauatum. uiuit uxor tua, cum lib_er_is tuis in o_mn_i sospitate restauratis: non meis m_er_itis, s_ed_ poci_us_ tuis, integritati, sanitati _et_ leticie pleni_us_ qui trucidabantur restituunt_ur_. recognosce[ ] q_u_anta fecit t_ib_i d_omi_n_u_s, _et_ in laudes et gr_aci_ar_um_ acciones tot_us_ exurge." tunc prosiliens s_an_c_tu_s pre gaudio, euocauit reginam, que in int_er_iori diu_er_ticulo, pueros suos balneo micius m_ate_rno studio _con_fouebat. que cu_m_ ad regem int_r_oisset, uix se [sidenote: fol. _a_] | gaudio capiens, pedibus mariti sui p_ro_uoluta, in lacrimis exultac_i_onis inundauit. in cuius amplexus desid_er_atissimos rue_n_s rex, ipsam in maius q_u_am dici possit gaudiu_m_ suscepit. interi_m_ senex, pueros elegantissimos _et_ ex abluc_i_one elegantiores, uestit, comit, _et_ p_ate_rno more _et_ aff_e_c_t_u componit, _et_ ad p_re_sentiam p_at_ris _et_ matris int_r_oducit. quos p_ate_r int_r_a { } b_r_achia suscipiens, _et_ ad pectus arctiorib_us_ amplexib_us_ applicans, roseis uultib_us_ infantu_m_ oscula i_m_p_r_imit m_u_ltiplicata; quos t_ame_n rore lac_r_imarum, p_re_ nimia mentis exultac_i_one, madefecit. et cu_m_ diucius eor_um_ colloquiis pasceret_ur_, co_n_u_er_sus rex ad senem, ait: "o p_ate_r s_anct_e, p_ate_r dulcissime[ ], me_n_tis mee reparator, _et_ gaudii cordis mei restaurator, qua merita u_est_ra, caritatis officia, pietatisq_ue_ beneficia, p_ro_seq_u_ar remun_er_ac[_i_]one? accipe _er_go, licet m_u_lto maiora exigant m_er_ita tua, q_u_icq_u_id erarium meu_m_ ualet effund_er_e; me, meos, et mea, tue expono uoluntati." at s_anctu_s, "d_omi_ne mi rex, non decet me peccatore_m_ conu_er_su_m_ ad do_mi_n_u_m, ad insanias quas reliqui falsas respicere. tu uero pocius pro a_n_i_m_ab_us_ p_at_ris tui _et_ matris tue, quib_us_ q_u_andoq_ue_ car_us_ fuera_m_ ac familiaris, _et_ tua, _et_ uxoris tue, _et_ lib_er_or_um_ tuor_um_ corporali sanitate, _et_ salute sp_irit_uali, regni tui soliditate, _et_ successor_um_ tuor_um_ p_ro_sp_er_itate, deo gratus, qui tot in te congessit beneficia, cenobium quodda_m_ fundare, u_e_l aliquod dirutu_m_ studeas restaurare: in quo digne _et_ laudabiliter deo in perpetuum s_er_uiatur; _et_ tui memoria cu_m_ p_re_cib_us_ ad d_omi_n_u_m fusis, cu_m_ b_e_n_e_diccionib_us_ semp_er_ recenter recolatur." et _con_u_er_sus ad reginam, ait, "et tu, filia, q_u_amuis mulier, no_n_ t_ame_n muliebrit_er_, ad hoc regem accendas _et_ admoneas diligenter, filiosq_ue_ tuos instrui facias, ut[ ] _et_ d_omi_n_u_m d_eu_m, qui eos uite reparauit, studeant g_r_atant_er_ honorare, _et_ eidem fidelit_er_ famulando fundandi cenobii possessiones ampliare, _et_ tueri libertates." desc_e_nsus ad sec_un_d_u_m offa_m_. sanctus autem ad cellam reu_er_sus, post paucu_m_ temporis ab i_n_colatu h_uiu_s mundi migrauit ad d_omi_n_u_m, m_er_cedem et_er_nam pro labore temporali recepturus. rex au_tem_, cito monita ipsius salubria da_n_s obliuioni _et_ incurie, ex tunc ocio ac paci uacauit: prolemq_ue_ copiosam utriusq_ue_ sexus expectabilis pulch_r_itudinis procreauit. unde semen regium a latere _et_ descensu felix suscepit incrementu_m_. qui co_m_pleto vite sue tempore, post etatem bonam q_u_ieuit in pace, _et_ regaliter sepultus, appositus _est_ ad patres suos; in eo multu_m_ redarguend_us_, quod cenobium[ ] uotiuo aff_ect_u repromissu_m_, thesauris parcendo no_n_ construxit. post { } uictorias eni_m_ a d_omin_o[ ] sibi collatas, amplexib_us_ _et_ ignauie n_e_cno_n_ auaricie plus equo indulsit. p_ro_speritas eni_m_ secularis, animos, licet [sidenote: fol. _b_] uir|iles, solet frequenter effeminare. ueru_n_tamen hoc onus humeris filii sui moritu_r_us apposuit: qui cum deuota assercione, illud sibi suscepit. s_ed_ nec ipse deo auerso pollicita, prout p_at_ri suo promiserat, compleuit; set filio suo huius uoti obligac_i_onem i_n_ fine uite sue dereliquit. et sic memorati uoti uinculum, sine efficacia complementi de p_at_re in filium descendens, usq_ue_ ad temp_or_a pineredi filii tuinfreth suspendebatur. quibus pro pena negligentie, tale euenit i_n_fortuniu_m_, ut om_ne_s principes, quos offa magnificus edomuerat, a subiecc_i_one ipsius offe _et_ posteritatis sue procaciter recesseru_n_t, _et_ ip_su_m moriente_m_ despexerunt. quia ut p_re_d_i_c_tu_m est, ad morte_m_ u_er_gens, deliciis _et_ senii ualitudine marcuit eneruatus. de ortu secundi offe. natus est igitur memorato tuinfred[o][ ] (_et_ qui de stemate regum fuit) filius, videlicet pineredus, usq_ue_ ad annos adolescentie i_n_utilis, poplitib_us_ cont_r_actis, qui n_e_c oculor_um_ uel aurium plene officio naturali fung_er_et_ur_. unde p_at_ri suo tuin_fredo_ _et_ m_at_ri sue marcelline, oneri fuit no_n_ honori, _con_fusioni _et_ n_on_ exultac_i_oni. et licet unic_us_ eis fuisset, mallent prole caruisse, q_u_a_m_ talem habuisse. uer_un_t_ame_n memorie reducentes euentu_m_ offe magni, qui in ten_er_a etate penitus erat inutilis, _et_ postea, deo propicio, penit_us_ sibi restitutus, mirabili strenuitate om_ne_s suos edomuit adu_er_sarios, _et_ bello p_re_pote_n_s, gloriose multociens de magnis hostib_us_ t_r_iu_m_phauit: spem conceperunt, quod eodem medico medente (chr_ist_o uidelicet, qui _eciam_ mortuos suscitat, p_ro_piciatus) posset similiter uisitari _et_ sibi restitui. pater igitur ei_us_ _et_ m_ate_r ip_s_um pueru_m_ inito salubri consilio, i_n_ templo presentaru_n_t domino, votiua deuoc_i_one firmit_er_ promitte_n_tes: "ut si ip_su_m deus restauraret, q_uo_d parentes eius negligenter omiserunt, ip_s_e puer cu_m_ se facultas offerret fidelit_er_ adimpleret": videl_icet_ de cenobio[ ], cui_us_ mencio p_re_libata est, honorifice construendo: uel de diruto restaurando. et cum h_ec_ tam puer q_u_am p_ate_r _et_ m_ate_r deuotissime postularent, exaudita est or_ati_o eorum a deo, qui se nu_n_q_u_am difficilem exhibet precib_us_ iustis supplicantium, hoc modo. { } q_u_om_od_o p_ro_sp_er_abat_ur_. erat in eadem regione (mercior_um_ uidelic_et_) quidam tirannus, pocius dest_r_uens _et_ dissipans regni nobilitatem, q_u_a_m_ rege_n_s, no_m_i_n_e beormredus[ ]. hic gen_er_osos, quos regius sanguis preclaros [fecerat][ ], usq_ue_ ad int_er_necionem subdole perseq_ue_batur, relegauit, _et_ occulta nece p_er_didit iugulandos. sciebat eni_m_, q_uo_d uniu_er_sis de regno m_er_ito extitit odiosus; et ne aliq_u_is loco ipsius subrogaret_ur_ (_et_ p_re_s_er_tim de sang_u_ine regio propagatus) uehementer formidabat. tetendit insuper laq_ue_os tuinfredo _et_ uxori eius, ut ip_s_os de t_er_ra expelleret, u_e_l poci_us_ p_er_d_er_et t_r_ucidatos. [sidenote: fol. _a_] | puerum autem pinefredum[ ] spreuit, n_e_c ip_su_m querere ad perdendum dignabatur; reputa_n_s eu_m_ inutilem _et_ ualitudinariu_m_. fugientes igitur memorat_us_ t_uinfredus_ _et_ uxor ei_us_ _et_ familia a facie p_er_seq_ue_ntis, sese in locis tucioribus receperunt, ne gen_er_ali calu_m_pnie inuolu_er_entur. quod comp_er_iens pinefredus adolescens, q_u_asi a g_r_aui so_m_pno expergefactus, erexit se: _et_ co_m_pagib_us_ neruor_um_ laxatis, _et_ miraculose prot_e_nsis, sese de longa desidia redarguens, fecit alices, b_r_achia, crura, pedes, extendendo. et aliquocie_n_s oscitans, cum loqui conaretur, solutum _est_ uinculum lingue eius, _et_ loquebatur recte, u_er_ba proferens ore facundo pro_m_pci_us_ articulata. quid plura? de cont_r_acto, muto, _et_ ceco, fit elegans corpore, eloquens s_er_mone, acie p_er_spicax oculor_um_. qui temp_or_e modico in tantam floruit ac uiguit strenuitatem, ut null_us_ in regno m_er_cior_um_, ip_s_i in morib_us_ _et_ probitate m_u_ltiplici ualuit co_m_parari, unde ip_s_i mercii, s_e_c_un_d_u_m offam, _et_ n_on_ pinefredu_m_, iam no_m_i_n_antes (q_uia_ a deo respectus _et_ electus fuisset, eode_m_ m_od_o quo _et_ rex offa filius regis warmundi) cep_er_unt ip_s_i quasi d_omi_no uniu_er_salit_er_ adherere; ip_su_mq_ue_ ia_m_ f_a_c_tu_m milite_m_, _contra_ regem beormredu_m_ _et_ eius insidias, potenter ac prudent_er_ protegere, dantes ei dextras, _et_ fed_us_ cu_m_ ip_s_o, prestitis iuramentis, ineuntes. quod audiens beormredus, doluit, _et_ dolens timuit sibi vehement_er_. penituitq_ue_ eu_m_ amarissime, ip_su_m pinefredum[ ] (qui iam offa nominabat_ur_) cum cet_er_is fraudulenter no_n_ int_er_emisse.... { } [sidenote: fol. _a_] qualiter offa rex uxore_m_ dux_er_it. diebus itaq_ue_ sub eisde_m_, regnante in francia karolo rege magno ac uictoriosissimo, queda_m_ puella, facie uenusta, s_ed_ mente nimis i_n_honesta, ip_s_i regi co_n_sanguinea, pro quoda_m_ q_u_od pat_r_au_er_at c_r_imine flagiciosissimo, addicta est iudicialiter morti ignominiose; ueru_m_, ob regie dignitatis reuerentiam, igni uel ferro tradenda n_on_ iudicatur, s_ed_ in nauicula armamentis carente, apposito uictu tenui, uentis _et_ mari, eor_um_q_ue_ ambiguis casib_us_ exponitur _con_de_m_pnata. que diu uariis[ ] p_ro_cellis exagitata, tande_m_ fortuna trahente, litori britonu_m_ est appulsa, et cu_m_ in t_er_ra subiecta potestati regis offe memorata ci_m_ba applicuiss_et_, co_n_sp_e_ctui regis p_ro_tin__us__ p_re_sentat_ur_. int_er_ogata au_tem_ q_ue_nam e_ss_et, respondens, p_at_ria lingua affi_r_mauit, se karolo regi f_r_ancor_um_ fuisse _con_sa_n_guinitate p_ro_pi_n_q_u_am, dridamq_ue_ no_m_i_n_ata_m_, s_ed_ p_er_ tirannide_m_ [sidenote: fol. _b_] | quor_un_dam ignobiliu_m_ (quor_um_ nuptias ne degeneraret, spreuit) tali fuisse disc_r_imini adiudicatam, abortisq_ue_ lac_r_imis addidit dice_n_s, "deus aute_m_ qui innocentes a laq_ue_is insidia_n_tiu_m_ lib_er_at, me captiuam ad alas tue p_ro_tec_i_onis, o regum serenissime, felicit_er_ transmisit, vt meu_m_ infortuniu_m_, i_n_ auspicium fortunatu_m_ t_r_ansmutet_ur_, _et_ beatior i_n_ exilio q_u_a_m_ in natali p_at_ria, ab o_mn_i p_re_dicer post_er_itate." rex au_tem_ u_er_bor_um_ suor_um_ ornatu_m_ _et_ eloq_ue_ntiam, _et_ corporis puellaris cultu_m_ _et_ elegantia_m_ considerans[ ], motus pietate, precepit ut ad comitissa_m_ marcellin[am][ ] matre_m_ sua_m_ tucius duceretur alenda, ac mitius sub tam honeste matrone custodia, don_e_c regiu_m_ mandatu_m_ audiret, co_n_fouenda. puelle igitur infra paucos dies, macie _et_ pallore per alimenta depulsis, rediit decor pristinus, ita ut mulieru_m_ pulch_er_ima censeretur. s_ed_ cito in u_er_ba iactantie _et_ elac_i_onis (s_e_c_un_d_u_m p_at_rie sue co_n_suetudine_m_) proru_m_pens, d_omi_ne sue comitisse, q_ue_ m_ate_rno aff_e_c_t_u eam dulcit_er_ educau_er_at, molesta nimis fuit, ip_s_am procaciter conte_m_pnendo. s_ed_ comitissa, pro amore filii sui regis, o_mn_ia pacienter tolerauit: licet _et_ ip_s_a d_i_c_t_a puella, int_er_ comite_m_ _et_ comitissam u_er_ba discordie seminasset. una igitur dieru_m_, cu_m_ rex ip_s_am causa uisitac_i_onis adiens, u_er_b_is_ _con_solatoriis { } alloq_ue_retur, incidit i_n_ retia amoris illius; erat eni_m_ iam sp_eci_es illius co_n_cupiscibilis. clandestino _i_gi_tur_ ac repentino m_at_rimonio ip_s_am sibi, i_ncon_sultis p_at_re _et_ m_at_re, n_e_cno_n_ _et_ magnatib_us_ suis uniu_er_sis, copulauit. unde ut_er_q_ue_ parentu_m_, dolore ac tedio i_n_ etate senili _con_tabescens, dies uite abreuiando, sue mortis horam lugubrit_er_ anticiparu_n_t; sciebant eni_m_ ipsam mulierculam fuisse _et_ regalibus amplexibus prorsus indignam; perpendebantq_ue_ iamiam ueracissime, n_on_ sine causa exilio lacrimabili, ipsam, ut pr_e_d_i_c_tu_m _est_, fuisse conde[_m_]pnatam. cu_m_ aut_em_ annos longeue senectutis vixisset[ ] comes t_uinfredus_, _et_ p_re_ senectute caligasse_n_t oculi ei_us_, data filio suo regi b_e_n_e_d_i_c_i_one, nature debita persoluit; cui_us_ corpus magnifice, p_ro_ut decuit, tradidit sepulture. anno q_u_o_que_ sub eode_m_ uxor ei_us_ comitissa m_arcellina_, m_ate_r uidelic_et_ regis, valedicens filio, ab huius incolatu seculi feliciter tra_n_smigrauit.... [sidenote: fol. _a_] de s_anct_o Ælb_er_to[ ] cui t_er_cia filia regis offe t_r_ad_e_nda fuit nuptui. erat quoq_ue_ quida_m_ iuuenis, cui rex offa regnu_m_ orientalium anglor_um_, q_uo_d eu_m_ iure sanguinis _con_ti_n_gebat, co_n_cesserat, no_m_i_n_e Ælbertus. de cui_us_ virtutibus[ ] q_u_ida_m_ u_er_sificator, solitus regu_m_ laudes _et_ gesta describ_er_e, elegant_er_ ait; Ælb_er_tus iuuenis fuerat rex, fortis ad arma, pace pius, pulch_er_ corpore, me_n_te sagax. cu_m_q_ue_ hu_m_b_er_t_us_ archiep_is_c_opus_ lichefeld_e_nsis, _et_ vnwona ep_is_c_opus_ legrecestr_en_sis, uiri s_anct_i _et_ discreti, et de nobili stirpe m_er_cior_um_ oriundi, speciales essent regis _con_siliarii, _et_ semp_er_ q_ue_ honesta era_n_t _et_ iusta atq_ue_ utilia, regi offe suggessissent, i_n_uidebat eis regina uxor offe, q_ue_ p_r_ius drida, postea u_er_o quendrida, id est regina drida, q_uia_ regi ex insp_er_ato nupsit, est app_e_llata: sicut i_n_ p_re_cedentib_us_ pleni_us_ enarrat_ur_. mulier auara et subdola, sup_er_biens, eo q_uo_d ex stirpe karoli origine_m_ duxerat, et i_n_exorabili odio uiros memoratos p_er_seq_ue_batur, tende_n_s eis muscipulas muliebres. porro cu_m_ ip_s_i reges sup_r_ad_i_c_t_os regi offe in sp_irit_u consilii salubrit_er_ re_con_ciliassent, _et_ ut eide_m_ regi fed_er_e m_at_rimoniali speciali_us_ _con_iungerent_ur_, dilig_e_nt_er_ _et_ efficacit_er_ p_ro_curassent, ip_s_a mulier f_a_c_t_a eor_um_ { } nitebat_ur_ i_n_ irritu_m_ reuocare, n_e_c pot_er_at, quib_us_ acriter inuidebat. ip_s_as eni_m_ puellas filias suas, ultramarinis, alienigenis, in regis supplantac_i_one_m_ et regni m_er_c_i_or_um_ p_er_niciem, credidit t_r_adidisse marita_n_das. cui_us_ rei p_re_scii d_i_c_t_i ep_iscop_i, muliebre co_n_siliu_m_ prudencie repagulis impediebant. uerum et adhuc tercia filia regis offe i_n_ thalamo regine remansit maritanda, Ælfleda no_m_i_n_e. procurantib_us_ _i_gi_tur_ sup_r_ad_i_c_t_is ep_iscop_is, inclinatu_m_ est[ ] cor regis ad co_n_sensum, lic_et_ _contr_adic_er_et regina, ut _et_[ ] h_ec_ regi Ælb_er_to nuptui trad_er_et_ur_: ut _et_ sic speciali_us_ regi o_ffe_ teneretur i_n_ fidelitate dilec_i_onis obligatus. uocat_us i_gi_tur_ rex Ælb_er_t_us_, a rege o_ffa_, ut filiam sua_m_ desponsaret, affuit festiu_us_ [sidenote: fol. _b_] | et gaudens, ob honorem sibi a tanto rege oblatum. cui amicabiliter rex occurrens aduentanti, recepit ip_su_m in osculo _et_ p_ate_rno amplexu, dicens: "prospere ueneris fili _et_ gen_er_, ex h_oc_, iuuenis amantissime, te in filiu_m_ adopto specialem." s_ed_ h_ec_ postq_u_am eff_er_ate regine plenius i_n_notuer_i_t[ ], plus accensa est liuore ac furore, dole_n_s eu_m_ pietatis i_n_ manu[ ] regis _et_ suor_um_ fidelium prosperari. vide_n_sq_ue_ sue neq_u_icie argumenta minime p_re_ualere, n_e_c hanc salte_m_ t_er_ciam filiam sua_m_, ad uolu_n_tatem suam alic_u_i t_r_ansmarino amico suo, i_n_ regni subu_er_sione_m_ (q_uo_d c_er_tissime sperauerat) dare nuptui, cu_m_ n_on_ p_re_ualuisset i_n_ d_i_c_t_os ep_iscop_os h_uius_ rei auctores emin_us_ malignari, i_n_ Ælb_er_tu_m_ regem uir_us_ sue malicie truculent_er_ euomuit, hoc m_od_o. fraus mulieb_ri_s c_r_udelissima. rex hui_us_ rei ignarus tanta_m_ latitasse fraude_m_ n_on_ credebat, i_m_mo poci_us_ credebat h_ec_ ip_s_i o_mn_ia placit_ur_a. cu_m_ igit_ur_ rex piissim_us_ ipsa_m_ sup_er_ p_re_missis[ ] secreci_us_ co_n_ueniret, _con_siliu_m_ q_ue_rens q_u_al_ite_r _et_ q_u_ando forent _com_plenda, h_ec_ respondit: "ecce t_r_adidit d_eu_s hodie inimicu_m_ tuu_m_, t_ib_i caute, si sapis, t_r_ucidandu_m_, qui sub specie sup_er_ficiali, uenenu_m_ prodic_i_o_n_is i_n_ te _et_ regnu_m_ tuu_m_ ex_er_cende, neq_u_it_er_, ut fertur, occultauit. et te cupit iam senesc_e_nte_m_, cu_m_ sit iuuenis _et_ elegans, de regno supplanta_n_do precipitare; _et_ posteru_m_ suor_um_, i_m_mo _et_ multoru_m_, ut iactitat, quos regnis _et_ possessionibus uiolent_er_ { } _et_ iniuste spoliasti, iniurias ui_n_dicare. in cui_us_ rei fidem, michi a meis amicis significatu_m_ est, quod regis karoli multis mun_er_ibus _et_ nu_n_ciis ocultis int_er_meantib_us_, implorat ad h_oc_ patrociniu_m_: se sponde_n_s ei fore tributariu_m_. illo igitur, dum se t_ib_i fortuna p_re_bet fauorabile_m_, extincto latent_er_, regnu_m_ ei_us_ in ius tuu_m_ _et_ successor_um_ tuor_um_ t_r_anseat in et_er_nu_m_." cui rex mente nimiu_m_ p_er_turbatus, _et_ de u_er_bis quib_us_ credidit i_n_e_ss_e ueraciter falsitate_m_ _et_ fraude_m_, cu_m_ indignacione ipsam i_n_crepando, respondit: "quasi una d_e_ stultis mulierib_us_ locuta es! absit a me, absit, tam detestabile f_a_c_tu_m! quo perpetrato, m_ih_i meisq_ue_ successorib_us_ foret obprobriu_m_ sempit_er_nu_m_, et p_e_cc_atu_m i_n_ gen_us_ meu_m_ c_um_ g_r_aui uind_i_c_t_a diuci_us_ propagabile." et hiis d_i_c_t_is, rex iratus ab ea recessit; detestans ta_n_tos ac tales occultos laq_ue_os in muliere latitasse. interea mentis p_er_turbac_i_one paulati_m_ deposita, _et_ hiis ciuilit_er_ dissimulatis, reges co_n_sederunt ad me_n_sam pransuri: ubi regalib_us_ esculentis _et_ poculentis refecti, in ti_m_panis, citharis, _et_ choris, diem totu_m_ in i_n_genti gaudio expleu_er_unt. s_ed_ regina malefica, int_er_im a ferali p_ro_posito n_on_ recedens, iussit i_n_ dolo thalamu_m_ more regio pallis sericis _et_ auleis solle_m_pnit_er_ adornari, i_n_ q_u_o rex Ælb_er_tus nocturnu_m_ caperet so_m_pnu_m_; iuxta stratu_m_ quoq_ue_ regium sedile p_re_parari fecit, cultu nobilissimo ext_r_uctu_m_, _et_ cortinis undiq_ue_ redimitu_m_. sub q_u_o _eciam_ fossam p_re_parari fecit profunda_m_, [sidenote: fol. _a_] | ut nephandu_m_ propositu_m_ perduc_er_et ad eff_e_c_tu_m. de martirio s_an_c_t_i Ælb_er_ti, regis innocentissimi. regina uero uultu sereno _con_ceptu_m_ scelus pallians, intrauit i_n_ palatiu_m_, ut tam regem offanu_m_ q_u_am rege_m_ Ælb_er_tu_m_ exhilararet. et int_er_ iocandu_m_, co_n_u_er_sa ad Ælb_er_tum, n_ih_il sinistri[ ] suspicantem, ait, "fili, ueni uisendi causa puellam t_ib_i nuptu copulanda_m_, te i_n_ thalamo meo sicient_er_ exp_e_ctante_m_, ut s_er_monib_us_ g_r_atissimis amores subarres profut_ur_os." surge_n_s _i_gi_tur_ rex Ælb_er_tus, secut_us_ est regina_m_ i_n_ thalamu_m_ i_n_grediente_m_: rege offano remanente, q_u_i nil mali formidabat. ingresso _i_gi_tur_ rege Æ_lberto_ cu_m_ regina, exclusi su_n_t om_ne_s qui eundem e uestigio seq_ue_bant_ur_ sui co_m_militones. et cu_m_ puellam exp_e_ctasset, ait regina: "sede fili du_m_ ueniat aduocata." { } et cu_m_ in memorato sedili residisset, cu_m_ ip_s_a sella in fosse corruit profunditate_m_. in q_u_a, subito a lictorib_us_ quos regina no_n_ procul abscond_er_at, rex innocens suffocatus expirauit. na_m_ ilico cu_m_ corruisset, proiec_er_unt sup_er_ eu_m_ regina _et_ sui _com_plices nepha_n_dissimi puluinaria cu_m_ uestib_us_ _et_ cortinis, ne clamans ab aliq_u_ib_us_ audiret_ur_. et sic elegantissimus iuuenis rex _et_ martir Æ_lbertus_, innoce_n_t_er_ _et_ sine noxa extinctus, accepit corona_m_ uite, [q_ua_m][ ] ad i_n_star joh_ann_is bapt_iste_ mulieris laq_ue_is irretitus, meruit optinere. puella u_er_o regis filia Ælfleda ui_r_guncula uen_us_tissima, cu_m_ h_ec_ audisset, no_n_ t_antu_m mat_r_is detestata facinora, s_ed_ toci_us_ seculi pomp_am_ relinq_ue_ns, h_ab_itu_m_ suscep_i_t religio_n_is, u_t_ ui_r_go martiris uestigia seq_ue_ret_ur_. [_p_]orro[ ] ad augmentu_m_[ ] muliebris tirannidis[ ], decollatu_m_ _est_ corp_us_culu_m_ exanime q_uia_ adhuc palpitans uidebatur. clam _i_gi_tur_ delatum est corpus cu_m_ capite, usq_ue_ ad partes remociores ad occultandum sub profundo t_er_re, et dum spiculator c_r_uentus ista ferret, caput obiter amissu_m_ est feliciter: nox eni_m_ erat, _et_ festinabat lictor, _et_ ap_er_to ore sacci, caput cecidit euolutu_m_, ignorante h_oc_ portitore. corpus au_tem_ ab ip_s_o carnifice sine aliquo teste conscio ignobilit_er_ est humatu_m_. contigit au_tem_, d_e_o sic disponente, u_t_ quida_m_ cecus eadem via g_r_aderetur, baculo semitam p_re_te_m_ptante. habens au_tem_ caput memoratu_m_ pro pedu_m_ offendiculo, mirabatur q_u_idna_m_ esset: erat eni_m_ pes ei_us_ irretitus i_n_ cincinnis capitis flauis _et_ prolixis. et palpans c_er_cius cognouit[ ] e_ss_e caput hominis decollati. et datu_m est_ ei i_n_ sp_irit_u intelligere, q_uo_d alicui_us_ s_an_c_t_i caput e_ss_et, ac iuuenis. et cu_m_ maduissent man_us_ ei_us_ sanguine, apposuit _et_ sang_u_inem faciei sue: _et_ loco ubi q_ua_n_do_q_ue_ oculi ei_us_ extit_er_ant, et ilico restitutus est ei uisus; et quod habuerat p_ro_ pedum offendiculo, factum est ei felix luminis restitucio. s_ed_ et in eodem loco q_u_o caput s_an_c_tu_m iacuerat, fons erupit lucidissimus. quod cum celebriter[ ] fuerat diuulgatum, comp_er_tu_m_ _est_ hoc fuisse caput s_an_c_t_i adolescentis Æ_lberti_, q_ue_m regina i_n_ thalamo neq_u_iter fec_i_t sugillari ac decollari. corp_us_ au_tem_ ubinam locorum occultatu_m_ fuerat, penit_us_ ignorat_ur_. h_oc_ cu_m_ _con_staret hu_m_b_er_to archiep_iscop_o, f_act_a capside ex auro _et_ argento, illud iussit in tesauro recondi p_re_c_i_oso in ecc_lesi_a herefordensi. [illustration: drida (thryth) entraps albertus (Æthelberht) of east anglia, and causes him to be slain _from ms cotton nero d. i, fol. b._ hraþe seoþðan wæs æfter mund-[gh]ripe m[=e]ce [gh]epin[gh]ed. (_beowulf_, ll. - .) ] { } de p_re_d_ict_i facinoris ul_ci_one. cuius tande_m_ detestabilis sceleris a regina perpetrati, ad co_m_militonu_m_ b_eat_i re_gis_ _et_ ma_rti_ris aures cum[ ] p_er_ueniss_et_, fama celeri_us_ ante luce_m_ aurore diei seq_ue_ntis clanculo recesserunt, ne de ipsis simile fieret iudiciu_m_ metuentes. unde dolens regina, in thalamo ficta i_n_firmitate decubans, q_u_asi uulpecula latitabat. rex u_er_o offa cu_m_ de co_m_misso facinore c_er_titudine_m_ co_m_perisset, sese lugens, in cenac_u_lo int_er_iori recludens, pe[_r_][ ] tres dies cibum penit_us_ no_n_ gustauit, anima_m_ sua_m_ lac_r_imis, lamentac_i_o_n_ib_us_, _et_ ieiunio uehement_er_ affligens. et execrans mulieris impietate_m_, eam iussit om_n_ib_us_ uite sue dieb_us_ inclusam i_n_ loco remota_m_ secrec_i_ori pecc_at_a sua deplorare, si forte s_i_bi celitus collata gr_aci_a, penite_n_do tanti co_m_missi facinoris maculam posset abolere. rex au_tem_ ip_s_am postea ut sociam lat_er_is in lecto suo dormire quasi susp_e_cta_m_ n_on_ p_er_misit[ ]. de morte illi_us_ facinorose regine. in loco igitur sibi d_e_putato, co_m_morante regina annis aliq_u_ot, insidiis latronu_m_ preuenta, auro _et_ argento quo multu_m_ habundabat spoliata[ ], in puteo suo prop_r_io p_re_cipitata, spiritu_m_ exalauit; iusto d_e_i iudic_i_o sic _con_de_m_pnata, ut sicut regem Ælb_er_tu_m_ innocente_m_ in foueam fecit p_re_cipitari, _et_ p_re_cipitatum suffocari, sic i_n_ putei profunditate s_u_bm_er_sa, uita_m_ mis_er_a_m_ t_er_minaret. * * * * * o. _widsith_, ll. , - . Ætla, w[=e]old h[=u]num, eormanr[=i]c [gh]otum, * * * * * * Þ[=e]odr[=i]c w[=e]old froncum, þyle rondin[gh]u_m_, . breoca brondin[gh]u_m_, billin[gh] wernum. [=o]swine w[=e]old [=e]owum _ond_ [=y]tum [gh]efwulf, { } fin folcwaldin[gh] fr[=e]sna cynne. si[gh]ehere len[gh]est s[=æ]-denum w[=e]old, hnæf h[=o]cin[gh]um, helm wulfin[gh]u_m_, . wald w[=o]in[gh]um, w[=o]d Þyrin[gh]u_m_, s[=æ]ferð syc[gh]um, sw[=e]om on[gh]endþ[=e]ow, sceafthere ymbrum, sc[=e]afa lon[gh]-beardu_m_, h[=u]n hætwerum, _ond_ holen wrosnum. hrin[gh]weald wæs h[=a]ten herefarena cyning. . offa w[=e]old ongle, alew[=i]h denu_m_: s[=e] wæs þ[=a]ra manna m[=o]d[gh]ast ealra; n[=o]hwæþre h[=e] ofer offan eorlscype fremede, ac offa [gh]esl[=o][gh] [=æ]rest monna cniht wesende cyner[=i]ca m[=æ]st; . n[=æ]ni[gh] efen-eald him eorlscipe m[=a]ran on [=o]rette [=a]ne sweorde: merce [gh]em[=æ]rde wið myr[gh]in[gh]u_m_ b[=i] f[=i]feldore; h[=e]oldon forð siþþan en[gh]le _ond_ sw[=æ]fe, sw[=a] hit offa [gh]esl[=o][gh]. . hr[=o]þwulf _ond_ hr[=o]ð[gh][=a]r h[=e]oldon len[gh]est sibbe ætsomne suhtorfædran, siþþan h[=y] forwr[=æ]con w[=i]cin[gh]a cynn _ond_ in[gh]eldes ord forb[=i][gh]dan, forh[=e]owan æt heorote heaðo-beardna þrym. * * * * * { } part iii the fight at finnsburg section i. the finnsburg fragment the _finnsburg fragment_ was discovered two centuries ago in the library of lambeth palace by george hickes. it was written on a single leaf, which was transcribed and published by hickes: but the leaf is not now to be found. this is to be regretted for reasons other than sentimental, since hickes' transcript is far from accurate[ ]. the _fragment_ begins and breaks off in the middle of a line: but possibly not much has been lost at the beginning. for the { } first lines of the fragment, as preserved, reveal a well-loved opening motive--the call to arms within the hall, as the watcher sees the foes approach. it was with such a call that the _bjarkamál_, the poem on the death of rolf kraki, began: "a good call to work" as a fighting king-saint thought it[ ]. it is with a similar summons to business that the _finnsburg fragment_ begins. the watchman has warned the king within the hall that he sees lights approaching--so much we can gather from the two and a half words which are preserved from the watchman's speech, and from the reply made by the "war-young" king: "this is not the dawn which is rising, but dire deeds of woe; to arms, my men." and the defending warriors take their posts: at the one door sigeferth and eaha: at the other ordlaf and guthlaf, and hengest himself[ ]. then the poet turns to the foes, as they approach for the attack. the text as reported by hickes is difficult: but it seems that garulf[ ] is the name of the warrior about to lead the assault on the hall. another warrior, guthere, whether a friend, kinsman, or retainer[ ] we do not know, is dissuading him, urging him not to risk so precious a life in the first brunt. but garulf pays no heed; he challenges the champion on guard: "who is it who holds the door?" "sigeferth is my name," comes the reply, "prince i am of the secgan: a wandering champion known far and wide: many a woe, many a hard fight have i endured: from me canst thou have what thou seekest." so the clash of arms begins: and the first to fall is garulf, son of guthlaf: and many a good man round him. "the swords flashed as if all finnsburg were afire." { } never, we are told, was there a better defence than that of the sixty champions within the hall. "never did retainers repay the sweet mead better than his bachelors did unto hnæf. for five days they fought, so that none of the men at arms fell: but they held the doors." after a few more lines the piece breaks off. there are many textual difficulties here. but these, for the most part, do not affect the actual narrative, which is a story of clear and straightforward fighting. it is when we try to fit this narrative into relationship with the _episode_ in _beowulf_ that our troubles begin. within the _fragment_ itself one difficulty only need at present be mentioned. guthlaf is one of the champions defending the hall. yet the leader of the assault, garulf, is spoken of as guthlaf's son. of course it is possible that we have here a tragic incident parallel to the story of hildebrand and hadubrand: father and son may have been separated through earlier misadventures, and now find themselves engaged on opposite sides. this would harmonize with the atmosphere of the _finnsburg_ story, which is one of slaughter breaking out among men near of kin, so that afterwards an uncle and a nephew are burnt on the same pyre. and it has been noted[ ] that garulf rushes to the attack only after he has asked "who holds the door?" and has learnt that it is sigeferth: guthlaf had gone to the opposite door. can garulf's question mean that he knows his father guthlaf to be inside the hall, and wishes to avoid conflict with him? possibly; but i do not think we can argue much from this double appearance of the name guthlaf. it is possible that the occurrence of guthlaf as garulf's father is simply a scribal error. for, puzzling as the tradition of _finnsburg_ everywhere is, it is peculiarly puzzling in its proper names, which are mostly given in forms that seem to have undergone some alteration. and even if _g[=u]ðl[=a]fes sunu_ be correctly written, it is possible that the guthlaf who is father of garulf is not to be identified with the guthlaf whom garulf is besieging within the hall[ ]. { } one or other of these rather unsatisfactory solutions must unfortunately be accepted. for no theory is possible which will save us from admitting that, according to the received text, guthlaf is fighting on the one side, and a "son of guthlaf" on the other. * * * * * section ii. the episode in beowulf further details of the story we get in the _episode_ of _finnsburg_, as recorded in _beowulf_ (ll. - ). beowulf is being entertained in the court of the king of the danes, and the king's harper tells the tale of hengest and finn. only the main events are enumerated. there are none of the dramatic speeches which we find in the _fragment_. it is evident that the tale has been reduced in scope, in order that it may be fitted into its place as an episode in the longer epic. the tone, too, is quite different. whereas the _fragment_ is inspired by the lust and joy of battle, the theme of the _episode_, as told in _beowulf_, is rather the pity of it all; the legacy of mourning and vengeance which is left to the survivors: for never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have struck so deep. it is on this note that the _episode_ in _beowulf_ begins: with the tragic figure of hildeburh. hildeburh is closely related to both contending parties. she is sister to hnæf, prince of the "half-danes," and she is wedded to finn, king of the frisians. whatever may be obscure in the story, it is clear that a fight has taken place between the men of hnæf and those of finn, and that hnæf has been slain: probably by finn directly, though perhaps by his followers[ ]. a son of finn has also fallen. with regard to the peoples concerned there are difficulties. finn's frisians are presumably the main frisian race, dwelling in and around the district still known as friesland; for in the catalogue of kings in _widsith_ it is said that "finn folcwalding { } ruled the kin of the frisians[ ]." hnæf and his people are called half-danes, danes and scyldings; hnæf is therefore presumably related to the danish royal house. but, in no account which has come down to us of that house, are hnæf or his father hoc ever mentioned as kings or princes of denmark, and their connection with the family of hrothgar, the great house of scyldings who ruled denmark from the capital of leire, remains obscure. in _widsith_, the people ruled over by hnæf are called "children of hoc" (_h[=o]cingum_), and are mentioned immediately after the "sea-danes[ ]." then there is a mysterious people called the _eotens_, upon whom is placed the blame of the struggle: "verily hildeburh had little reason to praise the good faith of the eotens." this is the typical understatement of old english rhetoric: it can only point to deliberate treachery on the part of the eotens. our interpretation of the poem will therefore hinge largely upon our interpretation of this name. there have been two views as to the eotens. the one view holds them to be hnæf's danes, and consequently places on hnæf the responsibility for the aggression. this theory is, i think, quite wrong, and has been the cause of much confusion: but it has been held by scholars of great weight[ ]. the other view regards the eotens as subjects { } of finn and foes of hnæf. this view has been more generally held, and it is, as i shall try to show, only along these lines that a satisfactory solution can be found. the poet continues of the woes of hildeburh. "guiltless, she lost at the war those whom she loved, child and brother. they fell as was fated, wounded by the spear, and a sad lady was she. not for naught did the daughter of hoc [i.e. hildeburh] bewail her fate when morning came, when under the sky she could behold the murderous bale of her kinsfolk...." then the poet turns to the figure of finn, king of the frisians. his cause for grief is as deep as that of hildeburh. for he has lost that body of retainers which to a germanic chief, even as to king arthur, was dearer than a wife[ ]. "war swept away all the retainers of finn, except some few." what follows is obscure, but as to the general drift there is no doubt. after the death of their king hnæf, the besieged danes are led by hengest. hengest must be hnæf's retainer, for he is expressly so called (_þ[=e]odnes þegn_) "the king's thegn." so able is the defence of hengest, and so heavy the loss among finn's men, that finn has to come to terms. peace is made between finn and hengest, and the terms are given fully in the _episode_. unfortunately, owing to the confusion of pronouns, we soon lose our way amidst the clauses of this treaty, and it becomes exceedingly difficult to say who are the people who are alluded to as "they." this is peculiarly unlucky because here again the critical word _eotena_ occurs, but amid such a tangle of "thems" and "theys" that it is not easy to tell from this passage to which side the eotens belong[ ]. but one thing in the treaty is indisputable. in the midst of these complicated clauses, it is said of the danes, the retainers { } of hnæf, that they are not to be taunted with a certain fact: or perhaps it may be that they are not, when speaking amongst themselves, to remind each other of a certain fact. however that may be, what _is_ clear is the _fact_, the mention of which is barred. nothing is to be said of it, even though "_they were following the slayer (bana) of their lord, being without a prince, since they were compelled so to do_." here, at least, are two lines about the interpretation of which we can be certain: and i shall therefore return to them. we must be careful, however, to remember that the word _bana_, "slayer," conveys no idea of fault or criminality. it is a quite neutral word, although it has frequently been mistranslated "murderer," and has thus helped to encourage the belief that finn slew hnæf by treachery. of course it conveys no such implication: _bana_ can be applied to one who slays another in self-defence: it implies neither the one thing nor the other. then the poet turns to the funeral of the dead champions, who are burned on one pyre by the now reconciled foes. the bodies of hnæf and of the son (or sons)[ ] of hildeburh are placed together, uncle and nephew side by side, whilst hildeburh stands by lamenting. then, we are told, the warriors, deprived of their friends, departed to friesland, to their homes and to their high-city. hengest still continued to dwell for the whole of that winter with finn, and could not return home because of the winter storms. but when spring came and the bosom of the earth became fair, there came also the question of hengest's departure: but he thought more of vengeance than of his sea-journey: "if he might bring about that hostile meeting which he kept in his mind concerning the child (or children) of the eotens." here again the word _eotena_ is used ambiguously, but, i think, this time not without some indication of its meaning. it has indeed been urged that the child or children of the eotens are hnæf, and any other danes who may have fallen with him, and that when it is said that hengest keeps them in mind, it is meant that he is remembering his fallen comrades with a view to taking { } vengeance for them. but this would be a queer way of speaking, as hengest and his living comrades would on this theory be also themselves children of the eotens[ ]. we should therefore need the term to be further defined: "children of the eotens _who fell at finnsburg_." it seems far more likely, from the way in which the expression is used here, that the children of the eotens are the people _upon_ whom hengest intends to take vengeance. then, we are further told, hunlafing places in the bosom of hengest a sword of which the edges were well known amongst the eotens. here again there has been ambiguity, dispute and doubt. hunlafing has been even bisected into a chief "hun," and a sword "lafing" which "hun" is supposed to have placed in the bosom of hengest (or of someone else). upon this act of "hun" many an interpretation has been placed, and many a theory built. fortunately it has become possible, by a series of rather extraordinary discoveries, such as we had little reason to hope for at this time of day, to put hunlafing together again. we now know (and this i think should be regarded as outside the region of controversy) that the warrior who put the sword into hengest's bosom _was_ hunlafing. and about hunlafing we gather, though very little, yet enough to help us. he is apparently a dane, the son of hunlaf, and hunlaf is the brother of the two champions guthlaf and ordlaf[ ]. now guthlaf and ordlaf, as we know from the _fragment_, were in the hall together { } with hengest: it was "guthlaf, ordlaf and hengest himself" who undertook the defence of one of the doors against the assailants. guthlaf and ordlaf were apparently sons of the king of denmark. as scyldings they would be hnæf's kinsmen, and accompanied him to his meeting with finn. hunlafing, then, is a nephew of two champions who were attacked in the hall, and it is possible, though we cannot prove this, that his father hunlaf was himself also in the hall, and was slain in the struggle[ ]. at any rate, when hunlaf's son places a sword in the bosom of hengest, this can only mean one thing. it means mischief. the placing of the sword, by a prince, in the bosom of another, is a symbol of war-service. it means that hengest has accepted obligations to a danish lord, a scylding, a kinsman of the dead hnæf, and consequently that he means to break the troth which he has sworn to finn. further, we are told concerning the sword, that its edges were well known amongst the eotens. at first sight this might seem, and to many has seemed, an ambiguous phrase, for a sword may be well known amongst either friends or foes. the old poets loved nothing better than to dwell upon the adornments of a sword, to say how a man, by reason of a fine sword which had been given to him, was honoured amongst his associates at table[ ]. but if this had been the poet's meaning here, he would surely have dwelt, not upon the edges of the sword, but upon its gold-adorned hilt, or its jewelled pommel. when he says the _edges_ of the sword were well known amongst the eotens, this seems to convey a hostile meaning. we know that the ill-faith of the eotens was the cause of the trouble. the phrase about the sword seems therefore to mean that hengest used this sword in order to take vengeance on the eotens, presumably for their treachery. the _eotenas_, therefore, far from being the men of hnæf and hengest, must have been their foes. then the poet goes on to tell how "dire sword-bale came upon the valiant finn likewise." the danes fell upon finn at { } his own home, reddened the floor of his hall with the life-blood of his men, slew him, plundered his town, and led his wife back to her own people. here the _episode_ ends. * * * * * section iii. mÖller's theory now our first task is to find what is the relation between the events told in the _fragment_ and the events told in the _episode_ in _beowulf_. it can, i think, be shown that the events of the _fragment_ precede the events of the _episode_ in _beowulf_; that is to say that the fight in the hall, of which we are told in the _fragment_, is the same fight which has taken place before the _episode_ in _beowulf_ begins, the fight which has resulted in the slaughter over which hildeburh laments, and which necessitates the great funeral described in the first part of the _episode_ (ll. - ). how necessary it is to place the _fragment_ here, before the beginning of the _episode_, will be best seen, i think, if we examine the theory which has tried to place it elsewhere. this is the theory, worked out elaborately and ingeniously by möller[ ], a theory which has had considerable vogue, and many of the assumptions of which have been widely accepted. according to möller and his followers, the story ran something like this: "finn, king of the frisians, had carried off hildeburh, daughter of hoc ( ), probably with her consent. her father hoc seems to have pursued the fugitives, and to have been slain in the fight which ensued on his overtaking them. after the lapse of some twenty years, the brothers hnæf and hengest, hoc's sons, were old enough to undertake the duty of avenging their father's death. they make an inroad into finn's country." up to this, all is möller's hypothesis, unsupported by any evidence, either in the _fragment_ or the _episode_. it is based, so far as it has any real foundation, upon a mythical interpretation of finn, and upon parallels with the hild-story, the gudrun-story, and a north frisian folk-tale[ ]. some of the { } parallels are striking, but they are not sufficient to justify möller's reconstruction. the authenticity of large portions of the folk-tale is open to doubt[ ]: and these portions are vital to any parallel with the story of _finnsburg_; whilst we have no right to read into the finn story details from the hild or gudrun stories, unless we can show that they are really versions of the same tale: and this cannot be shown. möller's suppositions as to the events before the _episode_ in _beowulf_ opens, must therefore be dismissed. möller's reconstruction then gets into relation with the real story, as narrated in _beowulf_: "a battle takes place in which many warriors, among them hnæf and a son of finn ( , , ), are killed. peace is therefore solemnly concluded, and the slain warriors are burnt ( - ). as the year is too far advanced for hengest to return home (ll. ff.), he and those of his men who survive remain for the winter in the frisian country with finn. but hengest's thoughts dwell constantly on the death of his brother hnæf, and he would gladly welcome any excuse to break the peace which has been sworn by both parties. his ill-concealed desire for revenge is noticed by the frisians, who anticipate it by themselves taking the initiative and attacking hengest and his men whilst they are sleeping in the hall. _this is the night attack described in the fragment._ it would seem that after a brave and desperate resistance hengest himself falls in this fight[ ], but two of his retainers, guthlaf and oslaf[ ], succeed in cutting their way through their enemies and in escaping to their own land. they return with fresh troops, attack and slay finn, and carry his queen hildeburh off with them ( - )[ ]." now the difficulties of this theory will, i think, be found to be insuperable. let us look at some of them. möller's view rests upon his interpretation of the eotens as the men of hnæf[ ]. since the eotens are the aggressors, he _has_ consequently to invent the opening, which makes hnæf and hengest the invaders of finn's country: and he _has_ therefore to relegate the _fragment_ (in which hnæf's men are clearly not the attacking party but the attacked) to a later stage in the story. but we have already seen that this interpretation of the eotens as the men of hnæf is not the natural one. further, the assumption that hnæf and hengest are brothers, though still frequently met with[ ], is surely not justifiable. { } there is nothing which demands any such relationship, and there is much which definitely excludes it. _after hnæf's death_, hengest is described as the thegn of hnæf: an expression without parallel or explanation, if he was really his brother and successor. again, we are expressly told in the _episode_ that the danish retainers make terms with finn, _the slayer of their lord, being without a prince_. how could this be said, if hengest was now their lord and prince? these lines are, as we have seen, one of the few clear and indisputable things in the poem. an interpretation which contradicts them flatly, by making hengest the lord of the danish retainers, seems self-condemned. again, in _beowulf_, the poet dwells upon the blameless sorrows of hildeburh. we gather that she wakes up in the morning to find that the kinsfolk whom she loves have, during the night, come to blows. "innocent, she lost son and brother[ ]--a sad lady she." are such expressions natural, if hildeburh had eloped with finn, and her father had in consequence been slain by him some twenty years before? if she has taken that calmly, and continued to live happily with finn, would her equanimity be so seriously disturbed by the slaughter of a brother in addition? but these difficulties are nothing compared to the further difficulties which möller's adherents have to face when they proceed to find a place for the night attack as told in the _fragment_, in the middle of the _episode_ in _beowulf_, i.e. between lines and . in the first place we have no right to postulate that such important events could have been passed over in silence in the summary of the story as given in _beowulf_. for möller has to assume that after the reconciliation between hengest and finn, finn broke his pledges, attacked hengest by night, slew most of the men who were with him, including perhaps hengest himself; and that the _beowulf_-poet nevertheless omitted all reference to these events, though they occur in the midst of the story, and are essential to an understanding of it. but even apart from this initial difficulty, we find that by no process of explaining _can_ we make the night attack narrated { } in the _fragment_ fit in at the point where möller places it. in the night attack the men are called to arms by a "war-young king." this "war-young king" cannot be, as möller supposes, hengest, for the simple reason that hengest, as i have tried to show above, far from being the brother of hnæf, and his successor as king, is his servant and thegn. the king can only be hnæf. but hnæf has already been slain before the _episode_ begins: and this makes it impossible to place the _fragment_ (in which hnæf appears) in the middle of the _episode_. further, it is said in the _fragment_ that never did retainers repay a lord better than did his men repay hnæf. now these words would only be possible if the retainers were fighting for their lord; that is, either defending him alive or avenging him dead. but möller's theory assumes that we are dealing with a period when the retainers have definitely left the service of their lord hnæf, after his death, and have entered the service of his slayer, finn. they have thus dissolved all bonds with their former lord: they have taken finn's money and become _his_ men. if finn then turns upon his new retainers and treacherously tries to slay them, it might be said that the retainers defended their own lives stoutly: but it would be far-fetched to say that in doing so they repaid their lord hnæf. their lord, according to möller's view, is no longer hnæf, but finn, who is seeking their lives. against such difficulties as these it is impossible to make headway, and we must therefore turn to some more possible view of the situation[ ]. * * * * * section iv. bugge's theory let us therefore examine the second theory, which is more particularly associated with the name of bugge, though it was the current theory before his time, and has been generally accepted since. according to this view, the _eotenas_ are the men of finn, and since upon them is placed the blame for the trouble, it { } must be finn that makes a treacherous attack upon his wife's brother hnæf, who is his guest in finnsburg[ ]. this is the fight of which the _fragment_ gives us the beginning. hnæf is slain, and then follow the events as narrated in the _episode_: the treaty which finn makes with hengest, the leader of the survivors: and the ultimate vengeance taken upon finn by these survivors. here i think we are getting nearer to facts, nearer to a view which can command general acceptance: at any rate, in so far as the fight narrated in the _fragment_ is placed before the beginning of the _episode_ in _beowulf_. positive evidence that this is the right place for the _fragment_ is scanty, yet not altogether lacking. after all, the fight in the _fragment_ is a night attack, and the fight which precedes the _episode_ in _beowulf_, as i have tried to show, is a night attack[ ]. but our reason for putting the _fragment_ before the commencement of the _episode_ is mainly negative: it lies in the insuperable difficulties which meet us when we try to place it anywhere else. but, it will be objected, there are difficulties also in placing the _fragment_ before the _episode_. perhaps: but i do not think these difficulties will be found to survive examination. the first objection to supposing that the _fragment_ narrates the same fight as precedes the _episode_ is, that the fight in the _fragment_ takes place at finnsburg[ ], whilst the fight which precedes the _episode_ apparently takes place away from finn's capital: for after the fighting is over, the dead burned, and the treaty made, the warriors depart "to see friesland, their homes, and their high-town (_h[=e]a-burh_)[ ]." { } but i do not see that this involves us in any difficulty. it is surely quite reasonable that finnsburg--finn's castle--where the first fight takes place, is not, and was never meant to be, the same as finn's capital, his _h[=e]aburh_, his "own home." after all, when a king's name is given to a town, the presumption is rather that the town is _not_ his capital, but some new settlement built in a newly acquired territory. _[=e]adwinesburh_ was not the capital of king eadwine: it was the stronghold which he held against the picts on the outskirts of his realm. aosta was not the capital of augustus, nor fort william of william iii, nor harounabad of haroun al raschid. so here: we know that the chief town of the frisians was not finnsburg, but dorestad: "dorostates of the frisians[ ]." the fight may have taken place at some outlying castle built by finn, and named after him _finnsburg_: then he returned, we are told, to his _h[=e]aburh_: and it is here, _æt his sylfes h[=a]m_, "in his own home" (the poet himself seems to emphasize a distinction) that destruction in the end comes upon him. there is surely no difficulty here. a second discrepancy has often been indicated. in the _fragment_ the fight lasts five days before any one of the defenders fall: in the _episode_ (it is argued) hildeburh in the morning finds her brother slain[ ]. even were this so, i do not know that it need trouble us much. in a detail like this, which { } does not go to the heart of the story, there might easily be a discrepancy between two versions[ ]. but the whole difficulty merely arises from reading more into the words of the _episode_ than the text will warrant. it is not asserted in the _episode_ that hildeburh found her kinsfolk dead in the morning, but that in the morning she found "murderous bale amid her kinsfolk." hildeburh woke up to find a fight in progress: how long it went on, the _episode_ does not say: but that it was prolonged we gather from ll. - : and there is no reason why the deadly strife which hildeburh found in the morning might not have lasted five days or more, before it culminated in the death of hnæf. thirdly, the commander in the _fragment_ is called a "war-young king." this, it has been said, is inapplicable to hnæf, since he is brother of hildeburh, who is old enough to have a son slain in the combat. but an uncle may be very young. beowulf speaks of his uncle hygelac as young, even though he seems to imply that his own youth is partly past[ ]. and no advantage, but the reverse, is gained, even in this point, if, following möller's hypothesis, and assuming that the fight narrated in the _fragment_ takes place after the treaty with finn, we make the "war-young king" hengest. for those who, with möller, suppose hengest to be brother of hnæf, will have to admit the avuncular difficulty in him also. * * * * * section v. some difficulties in bugge's theory we may then, i think, accept as certain, that first come the events narrated in the _fragment_, then those told in the _episode_ in _beowulf_. but we are not out of our troubles yet. there are difficulties in bugge's view which have still to be faced. the cause of the struggle, according to bugge and his adherents, is a treacherous attack made by finn upon his { } brother-in-law hnæf. according to the _episode_, it is the eotens who are treacherous; so eotens must be another name for the frisians. the word occurs three times in the genitive, _eotena_; once in the dative, _eotenum_: as a common noun it means "giant," "monster": earlier in _beowulf_ it is applied to grendel and to the other misbegotten creatures descended from cain. but how "giant" can be applied to the frisians, or to either of the contending parties in the finnsburg fight, remains inexplicable[ ]. _eotena_ must rather be the name of some tribe. but what tribe? the only people of whom we know, possessing a name at all like this, are the people who colonized kent, whom bede calls jutes, but whose name would in anglian be in the genitive _[=e]otna_, but in the dative _[=e]otum_, or perhaps occasionally _[=e]otnum_, _[=e]otenum_[ ]. now a scribe transliterating a poem from an anglian dialect into west-saxon should, of course, have altered these forms into the corresponding west-saxon forms _[=y]tena_ and _[=y]tum_. but nothing would have been more likely than that he would have misunderstood the tribal name as a common noun, and retained the anglian forms (altering _eotum_ or _eotnum_ into _eotenum_) supposing the word to mean "giants." after all, the common noun _eotenum_, "giants," was quite as like the tribal name _[=e]otum_, which the scribe presumably had before him, as was the correct west-saxon form of that name, _[=y]tum_. it is difficult therefore to avoid the conclusion that the "eotens" are jutes: and this is confirmed by three other pieces of evidence, not convincing in themselves, but helpful as subsidiary arguments[ ]. { } ( ) we should gather from _widsith_ that the jutes were concerned in the _finnsburg_ business. for in that poem generally (though not always) tribes connected in story are grouped together; and the jutes and frisians are so coupled: [=y]tum [weold] gefwulf fin folcwalding fr[=e]sna cynne. ( ) there is another passage in _beowulf_ in which _eotenas_ is possibly used in the sense of "jutes." we have seen above[ ] that according to a scandinavian tradition lotherus was exiled _in jutiam_: and heremod, who has been held to be the counterpart of lotherus _mid eotenum_ wearð on f[=e]onda geweald forð forl[=a]cen. but the identification of lotherus and heremod is too hypothetical to carry the weight of much argument. ( ) finn comes into many old english pedigrees, which have doubtless borrowed from one another. but the earliest in which we find him, and the only one in which we find his father folcwald, is that of the jutish kings of kent[ ]. here, too, the name hengest meets us. the view that the name "eoten" in the _finnsburg_ story is a form of the word "jute" is, then, one which is very difficult to reject. it is one which has in the past been held by many scholars and is, i think, held by all who have recently expressed any opinion on the subject[ ]. but this renders very difficult the assumption of bugge and his followers that the word "eoten" is synonymous with "frisian[ ]." for frisians were not jutes. { } the tribes were closely related; but the two words were not synonymous. the very lines in _widsith_, which couple jutes and frisians together, as if they were related in story, show that the names were regarded as those of distinct tribes. and this evidence from _widsith_ is very important, because the compiler of that list of names clearly knew the story of finn and hnæf. but this is not the only difficulty in bugge's interpretation of the eotens as frisians. the outbreak of war, we are told, is due to the treachery of the eotens. this bugge and his followers interpret as meaning that finn must have treacherously attacked hnæf. yet the poet speaks of "the warriors of finn when the sudden danger fell upon them": _þ[=a] h[=i][=e] se f[=æ]r begeat_. it is essential to _f[=æ]r_ that it signifies a sudden and unexpected attack[ ]: and the unexpected attack must have come, not upon the assailants but upon the assailed. yet this difficulty, though it has been emphasized by möller[ ] and other opponents of bugge's view, is not insuperable[ ], and i hope to show below that there is no real difficulty. but it leads us to a problem not so easily surmounted. if finn made a treacherous attack upon hnæf, and slew him, how did it come that hengest, and hnæf's other men, made terms with their murderous host? in the primitive heathen days it had been a rule that the retainer must not survive his vanquished lord[ ]. the ferocity of this rule was subsequently softened, and, in point of fact, we _do_ often hear, after some great leader has been slain, of his followers accepting quarter from a chivalrous foe, without being { } therefore regarded as having acted disgracefully[ ]. but, if finn had invited hnæf and hnæf's retainers to be his guests, and had fallen upon them by treachery, the action of the retainers in coming to terms with finn, in entering his service, and stipulating how much of his pay they shall receive, would be contrary to all standards of conduct as understood in the heroic age, and would deprive hnæf's men of any sympathy the audience might feel for them. but hnæf's men are not censured: they are in fact treated most sympathetically in the _episode_, and in the _fragment_, at an earlier point in the story, they are enthusiastically applauded[ ]. it is strange enough in any case that hnæf's retainers should make terms with the slayer of their lord. but it is not merely strange, it is absolutely unintelligible, if we are to suppose that finn has not merely slain hnæf, but has lured him into his power, and then slain him while a guest. it is to the credit of bugge that he felt this difficulty: but his attempt to explain it is hardly satisfactory. he fell back upon a parallel between the story of the death of rolf kraki and the story of _finnsburg_. we have already seen that the resemblance is very close between the _bjarkamál_, which narrates the death of rolf, and the opening of the _finnsburg fragment_. the parallel which bugge invoked comes from the sequel to the rolf story[ ] which tells how hiarwarus, the murderer of rolf kraki, astonished by the devotion of rolf's retainers, lamented their death, and said how gladly he would have given quarter to such men, and taken them into his service. thereupon wiggo, the one survivor, who had previously vowed to avenge his lord, and had concealed himself with that object, came forward and offered to accept these terms. accordingly he placed his hand upon the hilt of his new master's drawn sword, as if about to swear fealty to him: but instead of swearing, he ran him through. "glorious and ever memorable hero, who valiantly kept his vow," says saxo[ ]. whether or no we share the exultation of { } that excellent if somewhat bloodthirsty ecclesiastic, we must admit that wiggo's methods were sensible and practical. if, singlehanded, he was to keep his vow, and avenge his lord, he could only hope to do it by some such stratagem. bugge tries to explain hengest's action on similar lines: "he does not hesitate to enter the service of finn in order thereby to carry out his revenge[ ]." but the circumstances are entirely different. wiggo was left alone, the only survivor of rolf's household, to face a whole army. but hengest is no single survivor: he and his fellows have made so good a defence that finn cannot overcome them by conflict on the _meðel-stede_. not only so, but, if we accept the interpretation that almost every critic and editor has put upon the passage (ll. - ), hengest's position is even stronger. finn has lost almost all his thegns; the usual interpretation puts him at the mercy of hengest: at best it is a draw[ ]. if, then, hengest wants vengeance upon finn, why does he not pursue it? instead of which, according to bugge, he enters finn's service in order that he may get an opportunity for revenge. and note, that wiggo did not swear the oath of fealty to the murderer of his master rolf: he merely put himself in the posture to do so, and then, instead, ran the tyrant through forthwith. but hengest _does_ swear the oath, and _does not_ forthwith slay the tyrant. he spends the winter with him, receives a sword from hunlafing, after which his name does not occur again. finn is ultimately slain, but the names which are found in that connection are those of guthlaf and oslaf [ordlaf]. so bugge's explanation comes to this: hengest is fighting with success against finn, but he refrains from vengeance: instead, he treacherously enters his service in order that he may take an opportunity of vengeance, which opportunity, however, it is never made clear to us that he takes. had hengest been a man of that kind, he would not have been a hero of old english heroic song. * * * * * { } section vi. recent elucidations. prof. ayres' comments it is one of the merits of bugge's view--one of the proofs of its general soundness--that it admits of successive improvements at the hands of succeeding commentators. no one has done more in this way than has prof. ayres to clear up the story, particularly the latter part of the _episode_. ayres evolves unity out of what had been before "a rapid-fire of events that hit all around a central tragic situation and do not once touch it." hengest does not, ayres thinks, enter the service of finn with any such well-formed plan of revenge as bugge had attributed to him. hengest was in a difficult situation. it is his mental conflict, "torn between his oath to finn and his duty to the dead hnæf," which gives unity to all that follows. it is a tragedy of hengest, hesitating, like shakespeare's hamlet, over the duty of revenge. prof. ayres' statement here is too good to summarize; it must be quoted at length: "how did he feel during that long, blood-stained winter? he naturally thought about home (_eard gemunde_, ), but there was no question of sailing then, no need yet of decision while the storm roared outside. by and by spring came round, as it has a way of doing. how did he feel then? then, like any other northerner, he wanted to put to sea: fundode wrecca, gist of geardum. that is what he would naturally do. he would speak to finn and be off; in the spring his business was on the sea. that is all right as to finn, but as to the dead hnæf it is very like running away; it is postponing vengeance sadly. will he prove so unpregnant of his cause as that? no; though he would like to go to sea, he thought _rather_ of vengeance, and staid in the hope of managing a successful surprise against finn and his people: h[=e] t[=o] gyrn-wræce sw[=i]ðor þ[=o]hte þonne t[=o] s[=æ]-l[=a]de, gif h[=e] torn-gem[=o]t þurht[=e]on mihte, þæt h[=e] eotena b[=e]arn inne gemunde. all this says clearly that hengest was thinking things over, whether he should or should not take vengeance upon finn; it tells us also very clearly, with characteristic anticipation of the outcome of the story, that in the end desire for vengeance carried the day: sw[=a] h[=e] ne-forwyrnde worold-r[=æ]denne, he did not _thus_ prove recreant to his duty. but we have not been told the steps by which hengest arrived at his decision. that seems { } to be what we should naturally want to know at this point, and that is precisely what we are about to be told. occasions gross as earth informed against him[ ]." then ayres goes on to explain the "egging," through the presentation of a sword by hunlafing. this feature of the story is now pretty generally so understood; but ayres has an interpretation of the part played by guthlaf and oslaf, which is new and enlightening. "hengest's almost blunted purpose was not whetted by hunlafing alone. the latter's uncles, guðlaf and oslaf [ordlaf] took occasion to mention to hengest the fierce attack (the one, presumably, in which hnæf had fallen); cast up to him all the troubles that had befallen them ever since their disastrous sea-journey to finnsburg; they had plenty of woes to twit him with: siððan grimne gripe g[=u]ðl[=a]f and [=o]sl[=a]f æfter s[=æ]-s[=i]ðe sorge m[=æ]ndon, ætwiton w[=e]ana d[=æ]l. the effect of all this on hengest is cumulative. where he was before in perfect balance, he is now wrought to action by the words of his followers; he can control himself no longer; the balance is destroyed. the restless spirit (hengest's in the first instance, but it may be thought of as referring to the entire attacking party, now of one mind) could no longer restrain itself within the breast: ne meahte w[=æ]fre m[=o]d forhabban in hreðre. vengeance wins the day[ ]." by this interpretation ayres has, as he claims, "sharpened some of the features" of the current interpretation of the finn story. for, as he says, "in some respects the current version was very unsatisfactory; there seemed to be little relation between the presentation of the sword to hengest and the spectacle of guðlaf and oslaf howling their complaints in the face of finn." that ayres' interpretation enhances the coherency of the story is beyond dispute: that it does so at the cost of putting some strain upon the text in one or two places may perhaps be urged[ ]. but that in its main lines it is correct seems to me certain: the story of finnsburg is the tragedy of hengest--his hesitation and his revenge. keeping this well in view, many of the difficulties disappear. * * * * * { } section vii. problems still outstanding many of the difficulties disappear: but the two big ones remain. firstly, if "eoten" means "jute," as it is usually agreed that it does, why should the frisians be called jutes, seeing that a frisian is not a jute? secondly, when hengest and the other thegns of hnæf enter the service of the slayer of their lord, they are not blamed for so doing, but rather excused, _þ[=a] him sw[=a] geþearfod wæs_. such a situation is unusual; but it becomes incredible if that slayer, whose service they enter, had fallen upon and slain their lord by treachery, when his guest. it seems to me that neither of these difficulties is really inherent in the situation, but rather accidental, and owing to the way bugge's theory, right enough in its main lines, has been presented both by bugge and his followers. for it is not necessary to assume that frisians _are_ called _eotenas_ or jutes. all that we are justified in deducing from the text is that frisians and _eotenas_ are both under the command of finn. if we suppose what the text demands, _and no more_, we are at one stroke relieved of both our difficulties. though "jute" can hardly have been synonymous with "frisian," nothing is more probable, as i shall try to show[ ], than that a great frisian king should have had a tribe of jutes subject to him, or should have had in his pay a band of jutish mercenaries. now if the trouble was due to these "eotens"--and we are told that it was[ ]--our second difficulty is also solved. it would be much more natural for hengest to come to terms with finn, albeit the _bana_ of his lord, if finn's conduct had not been stained by treachery, and if the blame for the original attack did not rest with him. and, as i have said, there is nothing in the text which justifies us in assuming that _eotenas_ means "frisians" and that therefore _eotena tr[=e]owe_ refers to finn's breach of faith. it has indeed been argued that _eotenas_ and frisians are synonymous, { } because in the terms of peace, whilst it is stipulated that hengest and his comrades are to have equal control with the _eotena bearn_, it is further stipulated that finn is to give hengest's men gifts equal to those which he gives to the _fr[=e]sena cynn_[ ]. here then _eotena bearn_ and _fr[=e]sena cynn_ are certainly parallel, and are both contrasted with hengest and his troops. but surely this in no wise proves _eotena bearn_ and _fr[=e]sena cynn_ synonymous: they may equally well be different sections of finn's host, just as in _brunanburh_ the soldiers of athelstan are spoken of first as _westseaxe_, and then as _myrce_. are we to argue that west-saxons are mercians? so in the account of hygelac's fatal expedition[ ] the opponents are called franks, frisians, _h[=u]gas_, _hetware_. a reader ignorant of the story might suppose these all synonymous terms for one tribe. but we know that they are not: the _hetware_ were the people immediately attacked--the frankish overlord hastened to the rescue, and was apparently helped by the neighbouring frisians, who although frequently at this date opposed to the franks, would naturally make common cause against the pirate from overseas[ ]. it was quite natural that the earlier students of the _finnsburg episode_, thinking of the two opposing forces as two homogeneous tribes, and finding mention of three tribal names, danes, eotens and frisians, should have assumed that the eotens must be exactly synonymous with _either_ danes _or_ frisians. but it is now recognized that the conditions of the time postulate not so much tribes as groups of tribes[ ]. in the _fragment_ we have, on the side of the danes, _sigeferth_, prince of the _secgan_. the _secgan_ are not necessarily danes, because their lord is fighting on the danish side. neither need the _eotenas_ be frisians, because they are fighting on the frisian side. we cannot, then, argue that two tribes are identical, because engaged in fighting a common foe: still less, because they are { } mentioned with a certain parallelism[ ]. and anyway, it is impossible to find in the use of the expression _eotena bearn_ in l. any support for the interpretation which makes _eotena tr[=e]owe_ signify the treachery of finn himself. for, assuredly, the proviso that hengest and his fellows are to have half control as against the _eotena bearn_ does not mean that they are to have half control as against finn himself. for the very next lines make it clear that they are to enter finn's service and become his retainers. that hengest and his men are to have equal rights with finn's jutish followers (_eotena bearn_) is reasonable enough: but they obviously have not equal rights with finn, their lord whom they are now to follow. _eotena bearn_ in l. , then, does _not_ include finn: how _can_ it then be used as an argument that _eotena tr[=e]owe_ must refer to _finn's_ faith and his breach of it? finn, then, is the _bana_ of hnæf, but there is nothing in the text which compels us to assume that he is the slayer of his guest. the reader may regard my zeal to clear the character of finn as excessive. but it is always worth while to understand a good old tale. and it is only when we withdraw our unjust aspersions upon finn's good faith that the tale becomes intelligible. this, i know, has been disputed, and by the scholars whose opinion i most respect. the poet tells us that finn was the _bana_ of hnæf, so, says ayres, "it is hard to see how it helps matters[ ]" to argue that finn was not guilty of treachery. and lawrence argues in the same way: "how is it possible to shift the blame for the attack from finn to the eotenas when finn is called the _bana_ of hnæf? it does not matter whether he killed him with his own hands or not; he is clearly held responsible; the lines tell us it was regarded as disgraceful for the { } danes to have to follow him, and the revenge at the end falls heavily upon him. the insult and hurt to danish pride would be very little lessened by the assumption that someone else started the quarrel; and for this assumption, too, the lines give no warrant[ ]." let us take these objections in turn. i do not see how the fact that finn is called the _bana_ of hnæf can prove _anything_ as to "the blame for the attack." of course the older editors may have thought so. kemble translates _bana_ "slaughterer," which implies brutality, and perhaps culpability. bosworth-toller renders _bana_ "murderer," which certainly implies blame for attack. but we know that these are mere mistranslations. nothing as to "blame for attack" is implied in the term _bana_: "_bana_ 'slayer' is a perfectly neutral word, and must not be translated by 'murderer,' or any word connoting criminality. a man who slays another in self-defence, or in righteous execution of the law, is still his 'bane'[ ]." everyone admits this to be true: and yet at the same time _bana_ is quoted to prove that finn is to blame; because, for want of a better word, we half-consciously render _bana_ "murderer": and "murderer" _does_ imply blame. "words," says bacon, "as a tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest." lawrence continues: "the lines tell us that it was regarded as disgraceful for the danes to have to follow him." but surely this is saying too much. that the frisians are not to taunt the danes with following the slayer of their lord is only one of two possible interpretations of the ll. - . and even if we accept this interpretation, it does not follow that the danes are regarded as having done anything with which they can be _justly_ taunted. it is part of the settlement between gunnar and njal, that njal's sons are not to be taunted: if a man repeats the taunts he shall fall unavenged[ ]. surely a man may be touchy about being taunted, without being regarded as having done anything disgraceful. indeed, in our case, the poet implies that taunts would _not_ be just, _þ[=a] him sw[=a] geþearfod wæs_. but, as i try to show below, no _þearf_ could have excused the submission of retainers to a foe who had just slain their lord by deliberate treachery. { } "the revenge at the end falls heavily upon finn." it does; as so often happens where the feud is temporarily patched up, it breaks out again, as in the stories of alboin, ingeld or bolli. but this does not prove that the person upon whom the revenge ultimately falls heavily had been a guest-slayer. the possibility of even temporary reconciliation rather implies the reverse. "the insult and hurt to danish pride would be very little lessened by the assumption that someone else [than finn] started the quarrel; and for this assumption, too, the lines give no warrant." but they _do_: for they tell us that it was due to the bad faith of the eotens. commentators may argue, if they will, that "eotens" means finn. but the weight of proof lies on them, and they have not met it, or seriously attempted to meet it. * * * * * section viii. the weight of proof: the eotens finn is surely entitled to be held innocent till he can be proved guilty. and the argument for his guilt comes to this: the trouble was due to the bad faith of the eotens: "eotens" means "jutes": "jutes" means "frisians": "frisians" means "finn": therefore the trouble was due to the treachery of finn. now i agree that it is probable that _eotenas_ means jutes; and, as i have said, there is nothing improbable in a frisian king having had a clan of jutes, or a body of jutish mercenaries, subject to him. but that the frisians as a whole should be called jutes is, _per se_, exceedingly improbable, and we have no shadow of evidence for it. lawrence tries to justify it by the authority of siebs: "siebs, perhaps the foremost authority on frisian conditions, conjectures that ... the occupation by the frisians of jutish territory after the conquest of britain assisted the confusion between the two names." but _did_ the frisians occupy jutish territory? when we ask what is siebs' authority for the hypothesis that frisians occupied jutish territory, we find it to be this: that because in _beowulf_ "jute" means "frisian," some such event must have taken place to account for this nomenclature[ ]. so it comes to this: the frisians must have been called jutes, because they occupied { } jutish territory: the frisians must have occupied jutish territory because they are called jutes. i do not think we could have a better example of what prof. tupper calls "philological legend." siebs rejects bede's statement, which places the jutes in what is now jutland: he believes them to have been immediately adjacent to the frisians. for this belief that the jutes were immediate neighbours of the frisians there is, of course, some support, though not of a very convincing kind: but the belief that the frisians occupied the territory of these adjacent jutes rests, so far as i know, solely upon this identification of the _eotenas_-jutes with the frisians, which it is then in turn used to prove. but if by jutes we understand (following bede) a people dwelling north of the angles, in or near the peninsula of jutland, then it is of course true that (at a much later date) a colony of frisians _did_ occupy territory which is near jutland, and which is sometimes included in the name "jutland." but, as i have tried to show above, this "north frisian" colony belongs to a period much later than that of the finn-story: we have no reason whatever to suppose that the frisians of the finn story are the north frisians of sylt and the adjoining islands and mainland--the _frisiones qui habitabant juthlandie_[ ]. and when we have assumed, without evidence, that, at the period with which we are dealing, frisians had occupied jutish territory, we are then further asked to assume that, from this settlement in jutish territory, such frisians came to be called jutes. now this is an hypothesis _per se_ conceivable, but very improbable. throughout the whole heroic age, for a thousand years after the time of tacitus, germanic tribes were moving, and occupying the territory of other people. during this period, how many instances can we find in which a tribe took the name of the people whose territory it occupied? even where the name of the new home is adopted, the old tribal name is _not_ adopted. for instance, the bavarians occupied the territory of the celtic boii, but they did not call themselves boii, but bai(haim)varii, "the dwellers in the land of the boii"--a very { } different thing. in the same way the jutes who settled in the land of the cantii did not call themselves _kente_, but _cantware_, "dwellers in cantium." of course, where the old name of a country survives, it does often _in the long run_ come to be applied to its new inhabitants; but this takes many ages. it was not till a good thousand years after the english had conquered the land of the britons, that englishmen began to speak and think of themselves as "britons." in feudal or th century days all the subjects of the ruler of britain, prussia, austria, may come to be called british, prussians, austrians. but this is no argument for the period with which we are dealing. the assumption, then, that a body of frisians, simply because they inhabited land which had once been inhabited by jutes, should have called themselves jutes, is so contrary to all we know of tribal nomenclature at this date, that one could only accept it if compelled by very definite evidence to do so. and of such evidence there is no scrap[ ]. neither is there a scrap of evidence for the underlying hypothesis that any frisians _were_ settled at this date in jutish territory. and as if this were not hypothetical enough, a further hypothesis has then to be built upon it: viz., that this name "jutes," belonging to such of the frisians as had settled in jutish territory, somehow became applicable to frisians as a whole. now this might conceivably have happened, but only as a result of certain political events. if the jutish frisians had become the governing element in frisia, it would be conceivable. but after all, we know something about frisian history, and i do not { } think we are at liberty to assume any such changes as would have enabled the frisian people, as a whole, to be called jutes. how is it that we never get any hint anywhere of this jutish preponderance and jutish ascendancy? the argument that the "treachery of the jutes" means the treachery of finn, king of the frisians, has, then, no support at all. one further argument there is, for attributing treason to finn. it has been urged that in other stories a husband entraps and betrays the brother of his wife. but we are not justified in reading pieces of one story into another, unless we believe the two stories to be really connected. the signy of the _v[o,]lsunga saga_ has been quoted as a parallel to hildeburh[ ]. signy leaves the home of her father volsung and her brother sigmund to wed king siggeir. siggeir invites the kin of his wife to visit him, and then slays volsung and all his sons, save sigmund. but it is the difference of the story, rather than its likeness, which is striking. no hint is ever made of any possibility of reconciliation between siggeir and the kin of the men he has slain. the feud admits of no atonement, and is continued to the utterance. siggeir's very wife helps her brother sigmund to his revenge. how different from the attitude of sigmund and signy is the willingness of hengest to come to terms, and the merely passive and elegiac bearing of hildeburh! these things do not suggest that we ought to read a king siggeir treachery into the story of finn. again, the fact that atli entices the brother of his wife into his power, has been urged as a parallel. but surely it is rather unfair to erect this into a kind of standard of conduct for the early germanic brother-in-law, and to assume as a matter of course that, because finn is hnæf's brother-in-law, therefore he must have sought to betray him. the whole atmosphere of the finn-hnæf story, with its attempted reconciliation, is as opposed to that of the story of atli as it is to the story of siggeir. { } the only epithet applied to finn is _ferhð-freca_, "valiant in soul." though _freca_ is not necessarily a good word, and is applied to the dragon as well as to beowulf, yet it denotes grim, fierce, almost reckless courage. it does not suggest a traitor who invites his foes to his house, and murders them by night. i interpret the lines, then, as meaning that the trouble arose from the jutes, and, since the context shows that these jutes were on finn's side, and against the danes, we must hold them to be a body of jutes in the service of finn[ ]. * * * * * section ix. ethics of the blood feud but, as we have seen, it is objected that this interpretation of the situation, absolving finn from any charge of treachery or aggression, does not "help matters[ ]." or, as prof. lawrence puts it, "the hurt to danish pride [in entering the service of finn] would be very little lessened by the assumption that someone else [than finn] started the quarrel." these objections seem to me to be contrary to the whole spirit of the old heroic literature. i quite admit that there is a stage in primitive society when the act of slaying is everything, and the circumstances, or motives, do not count. in the levitical law, it is taken for granted that, if a man innocently causes the death of another, as for instance if his axe break, and the axe-head accidentally kill his comrade, then the avenger of blood will seek to slay the homicide, just as much as if he had been guilty of treacherous murder. to meet such cases the cities of refuge are established, where the homicide may flee till his case can be investigated; but even though found innocent, the homicide may be at once slain by the avenger, should he step outside the city of refuge. and this "eye for eye" vengeance yields slowly: it took long to establish legally in our own country the distinction between murder and homicide. { } for "the thought of man" it was held "shall not be tried: as the devil himself knoweth not the thought of man." nevertheless, even the germanic _wer-gild_ system permits consideration of circumstances: it often happens that no _wer-gild_ is to be paid because the slain man has been unjust, or the aggressor[ ], or no _wer-gild_ will be accepted because the slaying was under circumstances making settlement impossible. doubtless in germanic barbarism there was once a stage similar to that which must have preceded the establishment of the cities of refuge in israel[ ]; but that stage had passed before the period with which we are dealing; in the heroic age the motive _did_ count for a very great deal. not but what there were still the literal people who insisted upon "an eye for an eye," without looking at circumstances; and these people often had their way; but their view is seldom the one taken by the characters with whom the poet or the saga-man sympathises. these generally hold a more moderate creed. one may almost say that the leading motive in heroic literature is precisely this difference of opinion between the people who hold that under any circumstances it is shameful to come to an agreement with the _bana_ of one's lord or friend or kinsman, and the people who are willing _under certain circumstances_ to come to such an agreement. it happens not infrequently that after some battle in which a great chief has been killed, his retainers are offered quarter, and accept it; but i do not remember any instance of their doing this if, instead of an open battle, it is a case of a treacherous attack. the two most famous downfalls of northern princes afford typical examples: after the battle of svold, kolbjorn stallari accepts quarter from eric, the chivalrous _bani_ of his lord olaf[ ]; but rolf's men refuse quarter after the treacherous murder of their lord by hiarwarus[ ]. { } that men, after a fair fight, could take quarter from, or give it to, those who had slain their lord or closest kinsman, is shown by abundant references in the sagas and histories. for instance, when eric, after the fight with the jomsvikings, offers quarter to his prisoners, that quarter is accepted, even though their leaders, their nearest kin, and their friends have been slain. the first to receive quarter is young sigurd, whose father bui has just been killed: yet the writer obviously does not the less sympathize with sigurd, or with the other jomsviking survivors, and feels the action to be generous on the part of eric, and in no wise base on the part of the jomsvikings[ ]. but this is natural, because the jomsvikings have just been defeated by eric in fair fight. it would be impossible, if eric were represented as a traitor, slaying the jomsvikings by a treacherous attack, whilst they were his guests. is it to be supposed that sigurd, under such circumstances, would have taken quarter from the slayer of bui his father? in the _laxdæla saga_, olaf the peacock, in exacting vengeance for the slaying of his son kjartan, shows no leniency towards the sons of osvif, on whom the moral responsibility rests. but he accepts compensation in money from bolli, who had been drawn into the feud against his will. yet bolli was the actual slayer of kjartan, and he had taken the responsibility as such[ ]. and olaf is not held to have lowered himself by accepting a money payment as atonement from the slayer of his son--on the contrary "he was considered to have grown in reputation" from having thus spared bolli. but after olaf's death, the feud bursts out again, and revenge in the end falls heavily upon bolli[ ], as it does upon finn. on this question a fairly uniform standard of feeling will be found from the sixth century to the thirteenth. that it _does_ make all the difference in composing a feud, whether the slaying from which the feud arises was treacherous or not, can be abundantly proved from many documents, from paul the deacon, and possibly earlier, to the icelandic sagas. such composition of feuds may or may not be lasting; it may or may { } not expose to taunt those who make it; but the questions which arise are precisely these: who started the quarrel? was the slaying fair or treacherous? upon the answer depends the possibility of atonement. there may be some insult and hurt to a man's pride in accepting atonement, even in cases where the other side has much to say for itself. but if the slaying has been fair, composition is felt to be possible, though not without danger of the feud breaking out afresh. prof. lawrence has suggested that perhaps, in the original version of the _finnsburg_ story, the danes were reduced to greater straits than is represented to be the case in the extant _beowulf episode_. he thinks that it is "almost incomprehensible" that hengest should make terms with finn, if he had really reduced finn and his thegns to such a degree of helplessness as the words of the _episode_ state. it seems to me that the matter depends much more upon the treachery or the honesty of finn. if finn was guilty of treachery and slaughter of his guests, then it _is_ "unintelligible" that hengest should spare him: but if finn was really a respectable character, then the fact that hengest was making headway against him is rather a reason why hengest should be moderate, than otherwise. to quote the _laxdæla saga_ again: though olaf the peacock lets off bolli, the _bani_ of his son kjartan, with a money payment, he makes it clear that he is master of the situation, before he shows this mercy. paradoxical as it sounds, it was often easier for a man to show moderation in pursuing a blood feud, just _because_ he was in a strong position. it is so again in the _saga of thorstein the white_. but the adversary must be one who deserves to be treated with moderation. of course it is quite possible that prof. lawrence is right, and that in some earlier and more correct version the danes may have been represented as so outnumbered by the frisians that they had no choice except to surrender to finn, and enter his service, or else to be destroyed. but, whether this be so or no, all parallel incidents in the old literature show that their choice between these evil alternatives will depend upon whether finn, the _bana_ of their lord, slew that lord by deliberate and premeditated treachery whilst he was his guest, or whether he { } was embroiled with him through the fault of others, under circumstances which were perfectly honourable. if the latter is the case, then hnæf's men _might_ accept quarter. their position is comparable with that of illugi at the end of the _grettis saga_[ ]. illugi is a prisoner in the hands of the slayers of grettir and he charges them with having overcome grettir, when already on the point of death from a mortifying wound, which they had inflicted on him by sorcery and enchantment. the slayers propose to illugi terms parallel to those made to the retainers of hnæf. "i will give thee thy life," says their leader, "if thou wilt swear to us an oath not to take vengeance on any of those who have been in this business." now, note the answer of illugi: "that might have seemed to me a matter to be discussed, if grettir had been able to defend himself, and if ye had overcome him with valour and courage; but now it is not to be looked for that i will save my life by being such a coward as art thou. in a word, no man shall be more harmful to thee than i, if i live, _for never can i forget how it was that ye have vanquished grettir_. much rather, then, do i choose to die." now of course it would have been an "insult and hurt" to the pride of illugi, or of any other decent eleventh century icelander, to have been compelled to swear an oath not to avenge his brother, even though that brother had been slain in the most chivalrous way possible; and it would doubtless have been a hard matter, even in such a case, for illugi to have kept his oath, had he sworn it. but the treachery of the opponents puts an oath out of the question, just as it must have done in the case of the followers of king cynewulf[ ] or of rolf kraki, and as it must have done in the case of the followers of hnæf, had the slaying of hnæf been a premeditated act of treachery on the part of finn. in the _njáls saga_, flosi has to take up the feud for the slain hauskuld. flosi is a moderate and reasonable man, so the first thing he does is to enquire into the _circumstances_ under which hauskuld was slain. flosi finds that the circumstances, and the outrageous conduct of the slayers, give him no choice { } but to prosecute the feud. so in the end he burns njal's hall, and in it the child of kari. now to have burned a man's child to death might well seem a deed impossible of atonement. yet in the end flosi and kari are reconciled by a full atonement, _the father of the slain child actually taking the first step_[ ]. and all this is possible because flosi and kari recognise that each has been trying to play his part with justice and fairness, and that each is dragged into the feud through the fault of others. when flosi has said of his enemy, "i would that i were altogether such a man as kari is," we feel that reconciliation is in sight. very similar is the reconciliation between alboin and thurisind in longobard story, but with this difference, that here it is alboin who seeks reconciliation by going to the hall of the man whose son he has slain, thus reversing the parts of flosi and kari; and reconciliation is possible--just barely possible. again, when bothvar comes to the hall of rolf, and slays one of rolf's retainers, the other retainers naturally claim full vengeance. rolf insists upon investigating the _circumstances_. when he learns that it was his own man who gave the provocation, he comes to terms with the slayer. of course it was a difficult matter, and one involving a sacrifice of their pride, for the retainers of hnæf to come to any composition with the _bana_ of their lord; but it is not unthinkable, if the quarrel was started by finn's subordinates without his consent, and if finn himself fought fair. but had the slaying been an act of premeditated treachery on the part of finn, the atonement would, i submit, have been not only difficult but impossible. if the retainers of hnæf had had such success as our poem implies, then their action under such circumstances is, as lawrence says, "almost incomprehensible." if they did it under compulsion, and fear of death, then their action would be contrary to all the ties of germanic honour, and would entirely deprive them of any sympathy the audience might otherwise have felt for them. yet it is quite obvious that the retainers of hnæf are precisely the people with whom the audience is expected to sympathise[ ]. { } in any case, the feud was likely enough to break out again as it did in the case of alboin and thurisind, and equally in that of hrothgar and ingeld. indeed, the different versions of the story of the feud between the house of hrothgar and the house of froda are very much to the point. much the oldest version--probably in its main lines quite historical--is the story as given in _beowulf_. froda has been slain by the danes in pitched battle. subsequently hrothgar, upon whom, as king of the danes, the responsibility for meeting the feud has devolved, tries to stave it off by wedding his daughter freawaru to ingeld, son of froda. the sympathy of the poet is obviously with the luckless pair, ingeld and freawaru, involved as they are in ancient hatreds which are not of their making. for it is foreseen how some old warrior, who cannot forget his loyalty to his former king, will stir up the feud afresh. but saxo grammaticus tells the story differently. froda (frotho) is treacherously invited to a banquet, and then slain. by this treachery the whole atmosphere of the story is changed. ingeld (ingellus) marries the daughter of his father's slayer, and, for this, the old version reproduced by saxo showers upon him literally scores of phrases of scorn and contempt. the whole interest of the story now centres not in the recreant ingeld or his wife of treacherous race, but in the old warrior starkad, whose spirit and eloquence is such that he can bring ingeld to a sense of his "vast sin[ ]," can burst the bonds of his iniquity, and at last compel him to take vengeance for his father. in the _saga of rolf kraki_ the story of froda is still further changed. it is a tale not only of treachery but also of slaying of kin. consequently the idea of any kind of atonement, however temporary, has become impossible; there is no hint of it. now the whole atmosphere of the hengest-story in _beowulf_ is parallel to that of the _beowulf_ version of the ingeld-story: agreement is possible, though it does not prove to be permanent. there is room for much hesitation in the minds of hengest and of ingeld: they remain the heroes of the story. but if finn had, as is usually supposed, invited hnæf to his fort and then { } deliberately slain him by treachery, the whole atmosphere would have been different. hengest could not then be the hero, but the foil: the example of a man whose spirit fails at the crisis, who does the utterly disgraceful thing, and enters the service of his lord's treacherous foe. the hero of the story would be some other character--possibly the young hunlafing, who, loyal in spite of the treachery and cowardice of his leader hengest, yet, remaining steadfast of soul, is able in the end to infuse his own courage into the heart of the recreant hengest, and to inspire all the perjured danish thegns to their final and triumphant revenge on finn. but that is not how the story is presented. * * * * * section x. an attempt at reconstruction the theory, then, which seems to fit in best with what we know of the historic conditions at the time when the story arose, and which fits in best with such details of the story as we have, is this: finn, king of frisia, has a stronghold, finnsburg, outside the limits of frisia proper. there several clans and chieftains are assembled[ ]: hnæf, finn's brother-in-law, prince of the hocings, the eotens, and sigeferth, prince of the secgan; whether sigeferth has his retinue with him or no is not clear. but the treachery of the eotens causes trouble: they have some old feud with hnæf and his danes, and attack them by surprise in their hall. there is no proof that finn has any share in this treason. it is therefore quite natural that in the _episode_--although the treachery of the eotens is censured--finn is never blamed; and that in the _fragment_, finn has apparently no share in the attack on the hall, at any rate during those first five days to which the account in the _fragment_ is limited. the attack is led by garulf (_fragment_, l. ), presumably the prince of the eotens: and some friend or kinsman is urging garulf not to hazard so precious a life in the first attack. and { } here, too, the situation now becomes clearer: if garulf is the chief of the attacking people, we can understand one of his kinsmen or friends expostulating thus: but if he is merely one of a number of subordinates despatched by finn to attack the hall, the position would not be so easily understood. garulf, however, does not heed the warning, and falls, "first of all the dwellers in that land." the _fragment_ breaks off, but the fight goes on: we can imagine that matters must have proceeded much as in the great attack upon the hall in the _nibelungen lied_[ ]. one man after another would be drawn in, by the duty of revenge, and finn's own men would wake to find a battle in progress. "the sudden bale (_f[=æ]r_) came upon them." finn's son joins in the attack, perhaps in order to avenge some young comrade in arms; and is slain, possibly by hnæf. then finn _has_ to intervene, and hnæf in turn is slain, possibly, though not certainly, by finn himself. but hengest, the thegn of hnæf, puts up so stout a defence, that finn is unable to take a full vengeance upon all the danes. he offers them terms. what are hengest and the thegns to do? finn has slain their lord. but they are finn's guests, and they have slain finn's son in his own house. finn himself is, i take it, blameless. _it is here that the tragic tension comes in._ we can understand how, even if hengest had finn in his power, he might well have stayed his hand. so peace is made, and all is to be forgotten: solemn oaths are sworn. and finn keeps his promise honestly. he resumes his position of host, making no distinction between eotens, frisians and danes, who are all, for the time at least, his followers. i think we have here a rational explanation of the action of hengest and the other thegns of hnæf, in following the slayer of their lord. the situation resembles that which takes place when alboin seeks hospitality in the hall of the man whose son he has slain, or when ingeld is reconciled to hrothgar. very similar, too, { } is the temporary reconciliation often brought about in an icelandic feud by the feeling that the other side has something to say for itself, and that both have suffered grievously. the death of finn's son is a set off against the death of hnæf[ ]. but, as in the case of alboin and of ingeld, or of many an icelandic saga, the passion for revenge is too deep to be laid to rest permanently. this is what makes the figure of hengest tragic, like the figure of ingeld: both have plighted their word, but neither can keep it. the assembly breaks up. finn and his men go back to friesland, and hengest accompanies them: of the other danish survivors nothing is said for the moment: whatever longings they may have had for revenge, the poet concentrates all for the moment in the figure of hengest. hengest spends the winter with finn, but he cannot quiet his conscience: and in the end, he accepts the gift of a sword from a young danish prince hunlafing, who is planning revenge. the uncles of hunlafing, guthlaf and oslaf [ordlaf], had been in the hall when it was attacked, and had survived. it is possible that the young prince's father, hunlaf, was slain then, and that his son is therefore recognised as having the nominal leadership in the operations of vengeance[ ]. hengest, by accepting the sword, promises his services in the work of revenge, and makes a great slaughter of the treacherous eotens. perhaps he so far respects his oath that he leaves the simultaneous attack upon finn to guthlaf and oslaf [ordlaf]. here we should have an explanation of _swylce_: "in like wise[ ]"; and also an explanation of the omission of hengest's name from the final act, the slaying of finn himself. hengest made the eotens { } feel the sharpness of his sword: and in like wise guthlaf and oslaf conducted their part of the campaign. of course this is only a guess: but it is very much in the manner of the heroic age to get out of a difficulty by respecting the letter of an oath whilst breaking its spirit--just as hogni and gunnar arrange that the actual slaying of sigurd shall be done by guttorm, who had not personally sworn the oath, as they had. * * * * * section xi. gefwulf, prince of the jutes conclusive external evidence in favour of the view just put forward we can hardly hope for: for this reason, amongst others, that the names of the actors in the finn tragedy are corrupted and obscured in the different versions. hnæf and hengest are too well known to be altered: but most of the other names mentioned in the _fragment_ do not agree with the forms given in other documents. sigeferth is the sæferth of _widsith_: the ordlaf (correct) of the _fragment_ is the oslaf of the _episode_. the first guthlaf is confirmed by the guthlaf of the _episode_: the other names, the second guthlaf, eaha and guthere, we cannot control from other sources: but they have all, on various grounds, been suspected. tribal names are equally varied. sigeferth's people, the secgan, are called sycgan in _widsith_. and he would be a bold man who would deny (what almost all students of the subject hold) that _eotena, eotenum_ in the _episode_ is yet another scribal error: the copyist had before him the anglian form, _eotna, eotnum_, and miswrote _eotena, eotenum_, when he should have written the west-saxon equivalent of the tribal name, _[=y]tena, [=y]tum_--the name we get in _widsith_: [=y]tum [weold] gefwulf fin folcwalding fr[=e]sna cynne. but in _widsith_ names of heroes and tribes are grouped together (often, but not invariably) according as they are related in story. consequently gefwulf is probably (not certainly) a hero of the finn story. what part does he play? if, as i have been trying to show, the jutes are the aggressors, then, as their chief, gefwulf would probably be the leader of the attack upon the hall. { } this part, in the _fragment_, is played by garulf. now _g[=a]rulf_ is not _gefwulf_, and i am not going to pretend that it is. but _g[=a]rulf_ is very near _gefwulf_: and (what is important) more so in old english script than in modern script[ ]. it stands to _gefwulf_ in exactly the same relation as _hereg[=a]r_ to _heorog[=a]r_ or _sigeferð_ to _s[=æ]ferð_ or _ordl[=a]f_ to _[=o]sl[=a]f_: that is to say the initial letter and the second element are identical. and no serious student, i think, doubts that _hereg[=a]r_ and _heorog[=a]r_, or _sigeferð_ and _s[=æ]ferð_, or _ordl[=a]f_ and _[=o]sl[=a]f_ are merely corruptions of one name. and if it be admitted to be probable that _gefwulf_ is miswritten for _g[=a]rulf_, then the theory that garulf was prince of the jutes, and the original assailant of hnæf, in addition to being the only theory which satisfactorily explains the internal evidence of the _fragment_ and the _episode_, has also powerful external support. * * * * * section xii. conclusion but, apart from any such confirmation, i think that the theory offers an explanation of the known facts of the case, and that it is the only theory yet put forward which does. it enables us to solve many minor difficulties that hardly otherwise admit of solution. but, above all, it gives a tragic interest to the story by making the actions of the two main characters, finn and hengest, intelligible and human: they are both great chiefs, placed by circumstances in a cruel position. finn is no longer a treacherous host, plotting the murder of his guests, without even having the courage personally to superintend the dirty work: and hengest is not guilty of the shameful act of entering the service of a king who had slain his lord by treachery when a guest. the tale of _finnsburg_ becomes one of tragic misfortune besetting great heroes--a tale of the same type as the stories of thurisind or ingeld, of sigurd or theodric. * * * * * { } frisia in the heroic age it is now generally recognised that loose confederacies of tribes were, at the period with which we are dealing, very common. lawrence says this expressly: "the actors in this drama are members of two north sea tribes, or _rather groups of tribes_[ ]"; and again[ ]: "at the time when the present poem was put into shape, we surely have to assume for the danes and frisians, not compact and unified political units, but groups of tribes held somewhat loosely together, and sometimes known by tribal names." this seems to me a quite accurate view of the political situation in the later heroic age. the independent tribes, as they existed at the time of tacitus, tended to coalesce, and from such coalition the nations of modern europe are gradually evolved. in the seventh and eighth centuries a great king of northumbria or frisia is likely to be king, not of one only, but of many allied tribes. i cannot therefore quite understand why some scholars reject so immediately the idea that the eotens are not necessarily frisians, but rather a tribe in alliance with the frisians. for if, as they admit, we are dealing not with two compact units, but with two groups of tribes, why must we assume, as earlier scholars have done, that _eotenas_ must be synonymous either with frisians or danes? that assumption is based upon the belief that we _are_ dealing with two compact units. it has no other foundation. i can quite understand kemble and ettmüller jumping at the conclusion that the eotens _must_ be identical with the one side or the other. but once we have recognised that confederacies of tribes, rather than individual tribes, are to be expected in the period with which we are dealing, then surely no such assumption should be made. i think we shall be helped if we try to get some clear idea of the nationalities concerned in the struggle. for to judge by the analogy of other contemporary germanic stories, there probably is some historic basis for the _finnsburg_ story: and even if the fight is purely fictitious, and if finn folcwalding never existed, still the old english poets would represent the fictitious frisian king in the light of what they knew of contemporary kings. now the frisians were no insignificant tribe. they were a power, controlling the coasts of what was then called the "frisian sea[ ]." commerce was in frisian hands. archaeological evidence points to a lively trade between the frisian districts and the coast of norway[ ]. from about the sixth century, when "dorostates of the frisians" is mentioned by the geographer of ravenna (or the source from which he drew) in a manner which shows it to have been known even in italy as a place of peculiar { } importance[ ], to the ninth century, when it was destroyed by repeated attacks of the vikings, the frisian port of dorestad[ ] was one of the greatest trade centres of northern europe[ ]. by the year the frisian power had suffered severely from the constant blows dealt to it by the frankish mayors of the palace. yet evidence seems to show that even at that date the frisian king ruled all the coast which intervened between the borders of the franks on the one side and of the danes on the other[ ]. when a zealous missionary demonstrated the powerlessness of the heathen gods by baptizing three converts in the sacred spring of fosetisland, he was carried before the king of frisia for judgement[ ]. at a later date the "danes" became the controlling power in the north sea; but in the centuries before the viking raids began, the frisians appear to have had it all their own way. finn, son of folcwald, found his way into some english genealogies[ ] just as the roman emperor did into others. this also seems to point to the frisian power having made an impression on the nations around. we should expect all this to be reflected in the story of the great frisian king. how then would a seventh or eighth century englishman regard finn and his father folcwalda? probably as paramount chiefs, holding authority over the tribes of the south and east coast of the north sea, similar to that which, for example, a northumbrian king held over the tribes settled along the british coast. indeed, the whole story of the northumbrian kings, as given in bede, deserves comparison: the relation with the subordinate tribes, the alliances, the feuds, the attempted assassinations, the loyalty of the thegns--this is the atmosphere amid which the finn story grew up in england, and if we want to understand the story we must begin by getting this point of view. but, if this be a correct estimate of tribal conditions at the time the _finnsburg_ story took form, we no longer need far-fetched explanations to account for finnsburg not being in friesland. it is natural that it should not be, just as natural as that the contemporary eadwinesburg should be outside the ancient limits of deira. nor do we need any far-fetched explanations why the frisians should be called _eotenas_. that the king of frisia should have had jutes under his rule is likely enough. and this is all that the words of the _episode_ demand. * * * * * { } { } part iv appendix a. a postscript on mythology in _beowulf_ ( ) _beowulf the scylding and beowulf son of ecgtheow_ it is now ten years since prof. lawrence attacked the mythological theories which, from the time when they were first enunciated by kemble and elaborated by müllenhoff, had wielded an authority over _beowulf_ scholars which was only very rarely disputed[ ]. whilst in the main i agree with prof. lawrence, i believe that there _is_ an element of truth in the theories of kemble. it would, indeed, be both astonishing and humiliating if we found that a view, accepted for three-quarters of a century by almost every student, had no foundation. what is really remarkable is, not that kemble should have carried his mythological theory too far, but that, with the limited information at his disposal, he at once saw certain aspects of the truth so clearly. the mythological theories involve three propositions: (_a_) that some, or all, of the supernatural stories told of beowulf the geat, son of ecgtheow (especially the grendel-struggle and the dragon-struggle), were originally told of beowulf the dane, son of scyld, who can be identified with the beow or beaw[ ] of the genealogies. { } (_b_) that this beow was an ancient "god of agriculture and fertility." (_c_) that therefore we can allegorize grendel and the dragon into culture-myths connected with the "god beow." now (_c_) would not necessarily follow, even granting (_a_) and (_b_); for though a hero of story be an ancient god, many of his most popular adventures may be later accretion. however, these two propositions (_a_) and (_b_) would, together, establish a very strong probability that the grendel-story and the dragon-story were ancient culture-myths, and would entitle to a sympathetic hearing those who had such an interpretation of them to offer. that beow is an ancient "god of agriculture and fertility," i believe to be substantially true. we shall see that a great deal of evidence, unknown to kemble and müllenhoff, is now forthcoming to show that there _was_ an ancient belief in a corn-spirit beow: and this beow, whom we find in the genealogies as son of scyld or sceldwa and descendant of sceaf, is pretty obviously identical with beowulf, son of scyld scefing, in the _prologue_ of _beowulf_. so far as the _prologue_ is concerned, there is, then, almost certainly a remote mythological background. but before we can claim that this background extends to the supernatural adventures attributed to beowulf, son of ecgtheow, we must prove our proposition (_a_): that these adventures were once told, not of beowulf, son of ecgtheow, but of beowulf or beow, son of scyld. when it was first suggested, at the very beginning of _beowulf_-criticism, that beowulf was identical with the beow of the genealogies, it had not been realized that there were in the poem _two_ persons named beowulf: and thus an anonymous scholar in the _monthly review_ of [ ], not knowing that beowulf the slayer of grendel is (at any rate in the poem as it stands) distinct from beowulf, son of scyld, connected both with beow, son of scyld, so initiating a theory which, for almost a century, was accepted as ascertained fact. { } kemble's identification was probably made independently of the work of this early scholar. unlike him, kemble, of course, realized that in our poem beowulf the dane, son of scyld, is a person distinct from, is in fact not related to, beowulf son of ecgtheow. but he deliberately identified the two: he thought that two distinct traditions concerning the same hero had been amalgamated: in one of these traditions beowulf may have been represented as son of scyld, in the other as son of ecgtheow, precisely as the hero gunnar or gunter is in one tradition son of gifica (giuki), in another son of dankrat. of course such duplication as kemble assumed is conceivable. kemble might have instanced the way in which one and the same hero reappears in the pages of saxo grammaticus, with somewhat different parentage or surroundings, as if he were a quite different person. the _lives of the two offas_ present another parallel: the adventures of the elder offa have been transferred to the younger, so that, along with much that is historical or semi-historical, we have much in the _life of offa ii_ that is simply borrowed from the story of offa i. in the same way it is conceivable that reminiscences of the mythical adventures of the elder beowulf (beow) might have been mingled with the history of the acts of the younger beowulf, king of the geatas. a guarantee of the intrinsic reasonableness of this theory lies in the fact that recently it has been put forward again by dr henry bradley. but it is not enough that a theory should be conceivable, and be supported by great names. i cannot see that there is any positive evidence for it at all. the arguments produced by kemble are not such as to carry conviction at the present day. the fact that beowulf the geat, son of ecgtheow, "is represented throughout as a protecting and redeeming being" does not necessarily mean that we must look for some god or demigod of the old mythology--frey or sceaf or beow--with whom we can identify him. this characteristic is strongly present in many old english monarchs and magnates of historic, christian, times: oswald or alfred or byrhtnoth. indeed, it might with much plausibility be argued that we are to see in this "protecting" character { } of the hero evidence of christian rather than of heathen influence[ ]. nor can we argue anything from the absence of any historic record of a king beowulf of the geatas; our records are too scanty to admit of argument from silence: and were such argument valid, it would only prove beowulf fictitious, not mythological--no more necessarily an ancient god than tom jones or mr pickwick. there remains the argument of dr bradley. he points out that "the poem is divided into numbered sections, the length of which was probably determined by the size of the pieces of parchment of which an earlier exemplar consisted. now the first fifty-two lines, which are concerned with scyld and his son beowulf, stand outside this numbering. it may reasonably be inferred that there once existed a written text of the poem that did not include these lines. their substance, however, is clearly ancient. many difficulties will be obviated if we may suppose that this passage is the beginning of a different poem, the hero of which was not beowulf the son of ecgtheow, but his danish namesake[ ]." in this bradley sees support for the view that "there were circulated in england two rival poetic versions of the story of the encounters with supernatural beings: the one referring them to beowulf the dane" [of this the _prologue_ to our extant poem would be the only surviving portion, whilst] "the other (represented by the existing poem) attached them to the legend of the son of ecgtheow." but surely many objections have to be met. firstly, as dr bradley admits, the mention of beowulf the dane is not confined to the _prologue_; this earlier beowulf "is mentioned at the beginning of the first numbered section" and consequently dr bradley has to suppose that "the opening lines of this section have undergone alteration in order to bring them into connection with the prefixed matter." and why should we assume that the "passus" of _beowulf_ correspond to pieces of { } parchment of various sizes of which an earlier exemplar consisted? these "passus" vary in length from lines to , a disproportion by no means extraordinary for the sections of one and the same poem, but very awkward for the pages of one and the same book, however roughly constructed. one of the "passus" is just twice the average length, and lines longer than the one which comes next to it in size. ought we to assume that an artificer would have made his book clumsy by putting in this one disproportionate page, when, by cutting it in two, he could have got two pages of just about the size he wanted? besides, the different "passus" do not seem to me to show signs of having been caused by such mechanical reasons as the dimensions of the parchment upon which they were written. on the contrary, the places where sections begin and end almost all come where a reader might reasonably be expected to pause: at the beginning or end of a speech: others at a point where the narrative is resumed after some digression or general remark. only eight remain, and even with these, there is generally some pause in the narrative at the point indicated. in only two instances does a "passus" end at a flagrantly inappropriate spot; in one of these there is strong reason to suppose that the scribe may have caused the trouble by beginning with a capital where he had no business to have done so[ ]. generally, there seems to be some principle governing the division of chapter from chapter, even though this be not made as a modern would have made it. but, if so, is there anything extraordinary in the first chapter, which deals with events three generations earlier than those of the body of the poem, being allowed to stand outside the numbering, as a kind of prologue? the idea of a preface or prologue was quite familiar in old english times. the oldest mss[ ] of bede's _history_ have, at the end of the preface, _explicit praefatio incipiunt capitula_. so we have in one of the two oldest mss[ ] of the _pastoral care_ "Ðis is seo forespræc." on the other hand, the prologue or preface might be left without any heading or colophon, and the next { } chapter begin as no. i. this is the case in the other ms of the _pastoral care_[ ]. is there, then, such difficulty in the dissertation on the glory of the ancient danish kings being treated as what, in fact, it is: a prologue or preface; and being, as such, simply left outside the numbering? still less can we argue for the identification of our hero, the son of ecgtheow, with frotho, and through him with beow, from the supposed resemblances between the dragon fights of beowulf and frotho. such resemblances have been divined by sievers, but we have seen that it is the dissimilarity, not the resemblance, of the two dragon fights which is really noteworthy[ ]. to prove that beow was the original antagonist of grendel there remains, then, only the mention in the charter of a _grendles mere_ near a _b[=e]owan hamm_[ ]. now this was not known to kemble at the time when he formed his theory that the original slayer of grendel was not beowulf, but beow. and if the arguments upon which kemble based his theory had been at all substantial, this charter would have afforded really valuable support. but the fact that two names occur near each other in a charter cannot confirm any theory, unless that theory has already a real basis of its own. ( ) _beow_ therefore, until some further evidence be discovered, we must regard the belief that the grendel and the dragon stories were originally myths of beow, as a theory for which sufficient evidence is not forthcoming. but note where the theory breaks down. it seems indisputable that beowulf the dane, son of scyld scefing, is identical with beo(w) of the genealogies: for beo(w) is son of scyld[ ] or sce(a)ldwa[ ], who is a scefing. but here we must stop. there is, as we have seen, no evidence that the grendel or dragon adventures were transferred from him to their present hero, { } beowulf the geat, son of ecgtheow. it would, of course, be quite possible to accept such transference, and _still_ to reject the mythological interpretation of these adventures, just as it would be possible to believe that gawain was originally a sun-hero, whilst rejecting the interpretation as a sun-myth of any particular adventure which could be proved to have been once told concerning gawain. but i do not think we need even concede, as boer[ ] and chadwick[ ] do, that adventures have been transferred from beowulf the dane to beowulf the geat. we have seen that there is no evidence for such transference, however intrinsically likely it may be. till evidence _is_ forthcoming, it is useless to build upon kemble's conjecture that beowulf the scylding sank into beowulf the wægmunding[ ]. but it is due to kemble to remember that, while he only put this forward as a tentative conjecture, what he _was_ certain about was the identity of beowulf the scylding with beow, and the divinity of these figures. and here all the evidence seems to justify him. "the divinity of the earlier beówulf," kemble wrote, "i hold for indisputable.... beo or beow is ... in all probability a god of agriculture and fertility.... it strengthens this view of the case that he is the grandson of sceáf, _manipulus frumenti_, with whom he is perhaps in fact identical[ ]." whether or no beow and sceaf were ever identical, it is certain that beow (grain) the descendant of sceaf (sheaf) suggests a corn-myth, some survival from the ancient worship of a corn-spirit. now _b[=e]ow_, 'grain, barley,' corresponds to old norse _bygg_, just as, corresponding to o.e. _tr[=i]ewe_, we have o.n. _tryggr_, or corresponding to o.e. _gl[=e]aw_, o.n. _gl[o,]ggr_. corresponding to the o.e. proper name _b[=e]ow_, we might expect an o.n. name, the first letters in which would be _bygg(v)-_. and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy. when loki strode into the hall of Ægir, and assailed with clamour and scandal the assembled gods and goddesses, there were present, among the major gods, also byggvir and his wife { } beyla, the servants of frey, the god of agriculture and fertility. loki reviles the gods, one after the other: at last he exchanges reproaches with frey. to see his lord so taunted is more than byggvir can endure, and he turns to loki with the words: know thou, that were my race such as is that of ingunar-frey, and if i had so goodly a seat, finer than marrow would i grind thee, thou crow of ill-omen, and pound thee all to pieces[ ]. byggvir is evidently no great hero: he draws his ideas from the grinding of the homely hand-mill, with which john barleycorn has reason to be familiar: a miller used him worst of all, for he crushed him between two stones[ ]. loki, who has addressed by name all the other gods, his acquaintances of old, professes not to know who is this insignificant being: but his reference to the hand-mill shows that in reality he knows quite well: what is that little creature that i see, fawning and sneaking and snuffling: ever wilt thou be at the ears of frey, and chattering at the quern[ ]. byggvir replies with a dignity which reminds us of the traditional characteristics of sir john barleycorn, or allan o'maut. for: uskie-bae ne'er bure the bell sae bald as allan bure himsel[ ]. { } byggvir adopts the same comic-heroic pose: byggvir am i named, and all gods and men call me hasty; proud am i, by reason that all the children of odin are drinking ale together[ ]. but any claims byggvir may make to be a hero are promptly dismissed by loki: hold thou silence, byggvir, for never canst thou share food justly among men: thou didst hide among the straw of the hall: they could not find thee, when men were fighting[ ]. now the taunts of loki, though we must hope for the credit of asgard that they are false, are never pointless. and such jibes as loki addresses to byggvir _would_ be pointless, if applied to one whom we could think of as in any way like our beowulf. later, beyla, wife of byggvir, speaks, and is silenced with the words "hold thy peace--wife thou art of byggvir." byggvir must have been a recognized figure of the old mythology[ ], but one differing from the monster-slaying beow of müllenhoff's imagination. byggvir is a little creature (_et lítla_), and we have seen above[ ] that scandinavian scholars have thought that they have discovered this old god in the pekko who "promoted the growth of barley" among the finns in the sixteenth century, and who is still worshipped among the esthonians on the opposite side of the gulf as a three year old child; the form _pekko_ being derived, it is supposed, from the primitive norse form *_beggwuz_. this is a corner of a very big subject: the discovery, among the lapps and finns, of traces of the heathendom of the most { } ancient teutonic world, just as thomsen has taught us to find in the finnish language traces of teutonic words in their most antique form. the lappish field has proved the most successful hunting ground[ ]: among the finns, apart from the thunder-god, connection with norse beliefs is arguable mainly for a group of gods of fruitfulness[ ]. the cult of these, it is suggested, comes from scattered scandinavian settlers in finland, among whom the finns dwelt, and from whom they learnt the worship of the spirits of the seed and of the spring, just as they learnt more practical lessons. first and foremost among these stands pekko, whom we know to have been especially the god of barley, and whose connection with beow or byggvir (*_beggwuz_) is therefore a likely hypothesis enough[ ]. much less certain is the connection of sämpsä, the spirit of vegetation, with any germanic prototype; he may have been a god of the rush-grass[ ] (germ. _simse_). runkoteivas or rukotivo was certainly the god of rye, and the temptation to derive his name from old norse (_rugr-tivorr_, "rye-god") is great[ ]. but we have not evidence for { } the worship among germanic peoples of such a rye-god, as we have in the case of the barley-god byggvir-beow. these shadowy heathen gods, however, do give each other a certain measure of mutual support. and, whether or no pekko be the same as byggvir, his worship is interesting as showing how the spirit of vegetation may be honoured among primitive folk. his worshippers, the setukese, although nominally members of the greek orthodox church, speak their own dialect and often hardly understand that of their russian priests, but keep their old epic and lyric traditions more than almost any other section of the finnish-esthonian race. pekko, who was honoured among the finns in the sixteenth century for "promoting the growth of barley," survives among the present-day peasantry around pskoff, not only as a spirit to be worshipped, but as an actual idol, fashioned out of wax in the form of a child, sometimes of a three year old child. he lives in the corn-bin, but on certain occasions is carried out into the fields. not everyone can afford the amount of wax necessary for a pekko--in fact there is usually only one in a village: he lodges in turn with different members of his circle of worshippers. he holds two moveable feasts, on moonlight nights--one in spring, the other in autumn. the wax figure is brought into a lighted room draped in a sheet, there is feasting, with dancing hand in hand, and singing round pekko. then they go out to decide who shall keep pekko for the next year--his host is entitled to special blessing and protection. pekko is carried out into the field, especially to preside over the sowing[ ]. i doubt whether, in spite of the high authorities which support it, we can as yet feel at all certain about the identification of beow and pekko. but i think we can accept with fair certainty the identification of beow and byggvir. and we can at any rate use pekko as a collateral example of the way in which a grain-spirit is regarded. now in either case we find no support whatever for the supposition that the activities of { } beow, the spirit of the barley, could, or would, have been typified under the guise of battles such as those which beowulf the geat wages against grendel, grendel's mother, and the dragon. in beowulf the geat we find much that suggests the hero of folk-tale, overlaid with much that belongs to him as the hero of an heroic poem, but nothing suggestive of a corn-myth. on the other hand, so long as we confine ourselves to beow and his ancestor sceaf, we _are_ in touch with this type of myth, however remotely. the way that sceaf comes over the sea, as recorded by william of malmesbury, is characteristic. that "sheaf" should be, in the language of müllenhoff, "placed in a boat and committed to the winds and waves in the hope that he will return new-born in the spring" is exactly what we might expect, from the analogy of harvest customs and myths of the coming of spring. in sætersdale, in norway, when the ice broke up in the spring, and was driven ashore, the inhabitants used to welcome it by throwing their hats into the air, and shouting "welcome, corn-boat." it was a good omen if the "corn-boats" were driven high and dry up on the land[ ]. the floating of the sheaf on a shield down the thames at abingdon[ ] reminds us of the bulgarian custom, in accordance with which the venerated last sheaf of the harvest was floated down the river[ ]. but every neighbourhood is not provided with convenient rivers, and in many places the last sheaf is merely drenched with water. this is an essential part of the custom of "crying the neck." the precise ritual of "crying the neck" or "crying the mare" was confined to the west and south-west of england[ ]. but there is no such local limitation about the custom of drenching the { } last sheaf, or its bearers and escort, with water. this has been recorded, among other places, at hitchin in hertfordshire[ ], in cambridgeshire[ ], nottinghamshire[ ], pembrokeshire[ ], wigtownshire[ ] as well as in holstein[ ], westphalia[ ], prussia[ ], galicia[ ], saxon transsylvania[ ], roumania[ ] and perhaps in ancient phrygia[ ]. now it is true that drenching the last sheaf with water, as a rain charm, is by no means the same thing as floating it down the river, in the expectation that it will come again in the spring. but it shows the same sense of the continued existence of the corn-spirit. that the _seed_, when sown, should be sprinkled with water as a rain charm (as is done in places) seems obvious and natural enough. but when the _last sheaf_ of the preceding harvest is thus sprinkled, to ensure plenteous rain upon the crops of next year, we detect the same idea of continuity which we find expressed when sceaf comes to land from over the sea: the spirit embodied in the sheaf of last year's harvest returning, and bringing the renewed power of vegetation. the voyage of the abingdonian sheaf on the thames was conducted upon a shield, and it may be that the "vessel without a rower" in which "sheaf" came to land was, in the original version, a shield. there would be precedent for this. the shield was known by the puzzling name of "ull's ship" in scaldic poetry, presumably because the god ull used his shield as a boat. anyway, scyld came to be closely connected with sceaf and beow. in ethelwerd he is son of the former and father of the latter: but in the _chronicle_ genealogies five names intervene between scyld and sceaf, and the son of sceaf is bedwig, or as he is called in one version, beowi. _bedwig_ and _beowi_ are probably derived from _beowius_, the latinized { } form of _beow_. a badly formed _o_ might easily be mistaken for a _d_, and indeed _beowius_ appears in forms much more corrupt. in that case it would appear that while some genealogies made beow the son of scyld, others made him son of sceaf, and that the compiler of the pedigree got over the difficulty in the usual way, by adding the one version to the other[ ]. but all this is very hypothetical; and how and when scyld came to be connected with sceaf and with beow we cannot with any certainty say. at any rate we find no trace of such connection in danish traditions of the primitive king skjold of the danes. but we can say, with some certainty, that in beowulf the dane, the son of scyld scefing, in our poem, we have a figure which is identical with beow, son of scyld or of sceldwa and descendant of sceaf, in the genealogies, and that this beow is likely to have been an ancient corn-spirit, parallel to the scandinavian byggvir. that amount of mythology probably _does_ underlie the _prologue_ to _beowulf_, though the author would no doubt have been highly scandalized had he suspected that his pattern of a young prince was only a disguised heathen god. but i think that any further attempt to proceed, from this, to mythologize the deeds of beowulf the great, is pure conjecture, and probably quite fruitless conjecture. i ought not to conclude this note without reference to the admirable discussion of this subject by prof. björkman in _englische studien_[ ]. this, with the elucidation of other proper names in _beowulf_, was destined to be the last big contribution to knowledge made by that ripe and good scholar, whose premature loss we all deplore; and it shows to the full those qualities of wide knowledge and balanced judgment which we have all learnt to admire in him. * * * * * b. grendel it may be helpful to examine the places where the name of grendel occurs in english charters. { } a.d. . grant of land at abbots morton, near alcester, co. worcester, by kenred, king of the mercians, to evesham (extant in a late copy). _[=Æ]rest of grindeles pytt on w[=i]ðimære; of w[=i]ðimære on þæt r[=e]ade sl[=o]h ... of ð[=e]re d[=i]ce on þene blace p[=o]l; of þ[=a]m p[=o]le æfter long pidele in t[=o] þ[=a]m mersce; of þ[=a]m mersce þ[=a] æft on grindeles pytt[ ]._ the valley of the piddle brook is about a mile wide, with hills rising on each side till they reach a height of a couple of hundred feet above the brook. the directions begin in the valley and run "from grindel's 'pytt' to the willow-mere; from the willow-mere to the red morass"; then from the morass the directions take us up the hill and along the lea, where they continue among the downs till we again make our descent into the valley, "from the ditch to the black pool, from the pool along the piddle brook to the marsh, and from the marsh back to grindel's 'pytt.'" in modern english a "pit" is an artificial hole which is generally dry: but the word is simply latin _puteus_, "a well," and is used in this sense in the gospel translations. here it is a hole, and we may be sure that, with the willow-mere and the red slough on the one side, and the black pool and the marsh on the other, the hole was full of water. a.d. . grant of land at creedy, co. devon, by Æthelheard, king of wessex, to bishop forthhere. _of doddan hrycge on grendeles pyt; of grendeles pytte on ifigbearo_ (ivy-grove)...[ ]. the spot is near the junction of the rivers exe and creedy, with dartmoor in the distance. the neighbourhood bears uncanny names, _c[=a]ines æcer, egesan tr[=e]ow_. if, as has been suggested by napier and stevenson, a trace of this pit still survives in the name pitt farm, the mere must have been in the uplands, about feet above sea level. { } a.d. . grant of land at ham in wiltshire by athelstan to his thane wulfgar. quoted above, p. . it is in this charter that _on b[=e]owan hammes hecgan, on grendles mere_[ ] occur. "grendel pits or meres" are in most other cases in low-lying marshy country: but this, like (perhaps) the preceding one, is in the uplands--it must have been a lonely mere among the hills, under inkpen beacon. _circa_ a.d. . a list of boundaries near battersea[ ]. _Ðis synd ð[=a] landgem[=æ]re t[=o] batriceseie. [=Æ]rst at h[=e]gefre; fram h[=e]gefre to gætenesheale; fram gæteneshæle to gryndeles syllen; fram gryndeles sylle to russemere; fram ryssemere to bælgenham...._ all this is low-lying land, just south of the thames. _h[=e]gefre_ is on the river; _bælgenham_ is balham, co. surrey. "from grendel's mire to the rushy mere" harmonizes excellently with what we know of the swampy nature of this district in early times. a.d. . grant of land at swinford, on the stour, co. stafford, by king eadred to his thane burhelm[ ]. _ondlong bæces wið neoþan eostacote; ondlong d[=i]ces in grendels-mere; of grendels-mere in st[=a]nc[=o]fan; of st[=a]nc[=o]fan ondlong d[=u]ne on stiran mere...._ a.d. . confirmation of lands to pershore abbey (worcester) by king edgar[ ]. _of grindles bece sw[=a] þæt gem[=æ]re ligð...._ a.d. . extract from an account of the descent of lands belonging to westminster, quoting a grant of king edgar[ ]. _andlang hagan to grendeles gatan æfter kincges mearce innan brægentan...._ the property described is near watling street, between edgware, hendon, and the river brent. it is a low-lying { } district almost surrounded by the hills of hampstead, highgate, barnet, mill hill, elstree, bushey heath and harrow. the bottom of the basin thus formed must have been a swamp[ ]. what the "gate" may have been it is difficult to say. a foreign scholar has suggested that it may have been a narrow mountain defile or possibly a cave[ ]: but this suggestion could never have been made by anyone who knew the country. the "gate" is likely to have been a channel connecting two meres--or it might have been a narrow piece of land between them--one of those _enge [=a]npaðas_ which grendel and his mother had to tread. anyway, there is nothing exceptional in this use of "gate" in connection with a water-spirit. necker, on the continent, also had his "gates." thus there is a "neckersgate mill" near brussels, and the name "neckersgate" used also to be applied to a group of houses near by, surrounded by water[ ]. all the other places clearly point to a water-spirit: two meres, two pits, a mire and a beck: for the most part situated in low-lying country which must in anglo-saxon times have been swampy. all this harmonizes excellently with the _fenfreoðo_ of _beowulf_ (l. ). of course it does not in the least follow that these places were named after the grendel of our poem. it may well be that there was in england a current belief in a creature grendel, dwelling among the swamps. von sydow has compared the yorkshire belief in peg powler, or the lancashire jenny greenteeth. but these aquatic monsters are not exactly parallel; for they abide in the water, and are dangerous only to those who attempt to cross it, or at any rate venture too near the bank[ ], whilst grendel and even his mother are capable of excursions of some distance from their fastness amid the fens. { } of course the mere-haunting grendel _may_ have been identified only at a comparatively late date with the spirit who struggles with the hero in the house, and flees below the earth in the folk-tale. at any rate belief in a grendel, haunting mere and fen, is clearly demonstrable for england--at any rate for the south and west of england: for of these place-names two belong to the london district, one to wiltshire, one to devonshire, two to worcester and one to stafford. the place-name _grendele_ in yorkshire is too doubtful to be of much help. (_domesday book_, i, .) it is the modern village grindale, four miles n.w. of bridlington. from it, probably, is derived the surname _grindle, grindall_ (bardsley). abroad, the nearest parallel is to be found in transsylvania, where there is a _grändels môr_ among the saxons of the senndorf district, near bistritz. the saxons of transsylvania are supposed to have emigrated from the neighbourhood of the lower rhine and the moselle, and there is a _grindelbach_ in luxemburg which may possibly be connected with the marsh demon[ ]. most of the german names in _grindel-_ or _grendel-_ are connected with _grendel_, "a bar," and therefore do not come into consideration here[ ]: but the transsylvanian "grendel's marsh[ ]," anyway, reminds us of the english "grendel's marsh" or "mere" or "pit." nevertheless, the local story with which the transsylvanian swamp is connected--that of a peasant who was ploughing with six oxen and was swallowed up in the earth--is such that it requires considerable ingenuity to see any connection between it and the _beowulf-grendel_-tale[ ]. { } the anglo-saxon place-names may throw some light upon the meaning and etymology of "grendel[ ]." the name has generally been derived from _grindan_, "to grind"; either directly[ ], because grendel grinds the bones of those he devours, or indirectly, in the sense of "tormentor[ ]." others would connect with o.n. _grindill_, "storm," and perhaps with m.e. _gryndel_, "angry[ ]." it has recently been proposed to connect the word with _grund_, "bottom": for grendel lives in the _mere-grund_ or _grund-wong_ and his mother is the _grund-wyrgin_. erik rooth, who proposes this etymology, compares the icelandic _grandi_, "a sandbank," and the common low german dialect word _grand_, "coarse sand[ ]." this brings us back to the root "to grind," for _grand_, "sand" is simply the product of the grinding of the waves[ ]. indeed the same explanation has been given of the word "ground[ ]." however this may be, the new etymology differs from the old in giving grendel a name derived, not from his grinding or tormenting others, but from his dwelling at the bottom of the lake or marsh[ ]. the name would have a parallel in the modern english _grindle_, _grundel_, german _grundel_[ ], a fish haunting the bottom of the water. the old english place-names, associating grendel as they do with meres and swamps, seem rather to support this. as to the devonshire stream _grendel_ (now the grindle or greendale brook), it has been suggested that this name is also { } connected with the root _grand_, "gravel," "sand." but, so far as i have been able to observe, there is no particular suggestion of sand or gravel about this modest little brook. if we follow the river clyst from the point where the grindle flows into it, through two miles of marshy land, to the estuary of the exe, we shall there find plenty. but it is clear from the charter of that the name was then, as now, restricted to the small brook. i cannot tell why the stream should bear the name, or what, if any, is the connection with the monster grendel. we can only note that the name is again found attached to water, and, near the junction with the clyst, to marshy ground. anyone who will hunt grendel through the shires, first on the -in. ordnance map, and later on foot, will probably have to agree with the three jovial huntsmen this huntin' doesn't pay, but we'n powler't up an' down a bit, an' had a rattlin' day. but, if some conclusions, although scanty, can be drawn from place-names in which the word _grendel_ occurs, nothing can be got from the numerous place-names which have been thought to contain the name _b[=e]ow_. the clearest of these is the _on b[=e]owan hammes hecgan_, which occurs in the wiltshire charter of . but we can learn nothing definite from it: and although there are other instances of strong and weak forms alternating, we cannot even be quite certain that the beowa here is identical with the beow of the genealogies[ ]. the other cases, many of which occur in _domesday book_ are worthless. those which point to a weak form may often be derived from the weak noun _b[=e]o_, "bee": "the anglo-saxons set great store by their bees, honey and wax being indispensables to them[ ]." _b[=e]as br[=o]c_, _b[=e]as feld_ (_bewes feld_) occur in charters: but here a connection with _b[=e]aw_, "horsefly," is possible: for parallels, one has only to consider the long list of places enumerated by björkman, the names of which are derived from those of beasts, { } birds, or insects[ ]. and in such a word as _b[=e]ol[=e]ah_, even if the first element be _b[=e]ow_, why may it not be the common noun "barley," and not the name of the hero at all? no argument can therefore be drawn from such a conjecture as that of olrik, that _b[=e]as br[=o]c_ refers to the water into which the last sheaf (representing beow) was thrown, in accordance with the harvest custom, and in the expectation of the return of the spirit in the coming spring[ ]. * * * * * c. the stages above woden in the west-saxon genealogy the problems to which this pedigree gives rise are very numerous, and some have been discussed above. there are four which seem to need further discussion. (i) a "sceafa" occurs in _widsith_ as ruling over the longobards. of course we cannot be certain that this hero is identical with the sceaf of the genealogy. now there is no one in the long list of historic or semi-historic longobard kings, ruling after the tribe had left scandinavia, who bears a name at all similar. it seems therefore reasonable to suppose that sceafa, if he is a genuine longobard king at all, belongs to the primitive times when the longobardi or winnili dwelt in "scadan," before the historic or semi-historic times with which our extant list deals. and old english accounts, although making sceaf an ancestor of the saxon kings, are unanimous in connecting him with scani or scandza. some scholars[ ] have seen a serious difficulty in the weak form "sceafa," as compared with "sceaf." but we have the exactly parallel cases of _horsa_[ ] compared with _hors_[ ], and _hr[=æ]dla_[ ] compared with _hr[=æ]del_[ ], _hr[=e]ðel_. parallel, but not quite so certain, are _sceldwa_[ ] and _scyld_[ ], _g[=e]ata_[ ] and _g[=e]at_[ ], _b[=e]owa_[ ] and _b[=e]aw, b[=e]o(w)_[ ]. { } i do not think it has ever been doubted that the forms _hors_ and _horsa_, or _hr[=e]ðel_ and _hr[=æ]dla_, relate to one and the same person. prof. chadwick seems to have little or no doubt as to the identity of _scyld_ and _sceldwa_[ ], or _b[=e]o_ and _b[=e]owa_[ ]. why then should the identity of _sc[=e]af_ and _sc[=e]afa_ be denied because one form is strong and the other weak[ ]? we cannot demonstrate the identity of the figure in the genealogies with the figure in _widsith_; but little difficulty is occasioned by the weak form. (ii) secondly, the absence of the name _sc[=e]af_ from the oldest ms of the _chronicle_ (the _parker ms_, _c.c.c.c._ ) has been made the ground for suggesting that when that ms was written (_c._ ) sceaf had not yet been invented (möller, _volksepos_, ; symons in _pauls grdr_. ( ), iii, ; napier, as quoted by clarke, _sidelights_, ). but sceaf, and the other names which are omitted from the _parker ms_, are found in the other mss of the _chronicle_ and the allied pedigrees, which are known to be derived independently from one and the same original. now, unless the names were older than the _parker ms_, they could not appear in so many independent transcripts. for, even though these transcripts are individually later, their _agreement_ takes us back to a period earlier than that of the _parker ms_ itself[ ]. an examination of the different versions of the genealogy, given on pp. - , above, and of the tree showing the connection between them, on p. , will, i think, make this clear. the versions of the pedigree given in the _parker ms_ of the _chronicle_, in asser and in _textus roffensis i_, all contain the stages _friþuwald_ and _friþuwulf_. asser and _roff. i_ are connected by the note about _g[=e]ata_: but _roff. i_ is not derived from that text of asser which has come down to us, as that { } text has corrupted _fin_ and _godwulf_ into one name and has substituted _seth_ for _sc[=e]af_ ["seth, _saxonice_ sceaf": florence of worcester]. _roff. i_ is free from both these corruptions. ethelwerd is obviously connected with a type of genealogy giving the stages _friþuwald_ and _friþuwulf_, but differs from all the others in giving no stages between _scyld_ and _sc[=e]f_. none of the other versions contain the names _friþuwald_ and _friþuwulf_. they are closely parallel, but fall into groups showing special peculiarities. _mss tib. a. vi_ and _tib. b. i_ of the _chronicle_ show only trifling differences of spelling. the mss belong respectively to about the years and , and are both derived from an abingdon original of about [ ]. _ms cott. tib. b. iv_ is derived from a copy of the _chronicle_ sent north about [ ]. _ms cott. tib. b. v_ and _textus roffensis ii_ are closely connected, but neither is derived from the other. for _roff. ii_ preserves _teþwa_ and _hw[=a]la_, who are lost in _tib. b. v; tib. b. v_ preserves _iterman_, who is corrupted in _roff. ii._ both _tib. b. v_ and _roff. ii_ carry the pedigree down to edgar, mentioning his three sons _[=e]adweard and [=e]admund and Æþelred æðelingas syndon [=e]adg[=a]res suna cyninges_. the original therefore apparently belongs to some date before , when edmund died (cf. stevenson's asser, , note). common features of _ms cott. tib. b. v_ and _roff. ii_ are ( ) _eat(a)_ for _geat(a)_, ( ) the omission of _d_ from _scealdwa_, and ( ) the expression _se sc[=e]f_, "this scef." features ( ) and ( ) are copied in the icelandic pedigrees. _scealdwa_ is given correctly there, but the icelandic transcriber could easily have got it from _scealdwaging_ above. the icelandic was, then, ultimately derived either from _tib. b. v_ or from a version so closely connected as not to be worth distinguishing. accordingly _cott. tib. b. v_, _textus roffensis ii_, _langfeðgatal_ and _flateyarbók_ form one group, pointing to an archetype _c._ . { } the pedigrees can accordingly be grouped on the system shown on the opposite page[ ]. (iii) prof. chadwick, in his _origin of the english nation_, draws wide deductions from the fact that the danes traced the pedigree of their kings back to skjold, whilst the west-saxons included sceldwa (scyld) in their royal pedigree: "since the angli and the danes claimed descent from the same ancestor, there can be no doubt that the bond was believed to be one of blood[ ]." this belief, prof. chadwick thinks, went back to exceedingly early times[ ], and he regards it as well-founded: "it is true that the angli of britain seem never to have included themselves among the danes, but the reason for this may be that the term _dene_ (_danir_) had not come into use as a collective term before the invasion of britain[ ]." doubtless the fact that the name of a danish king _scyld_ or _sceldwa_ is found in a pedigree of west-saxon kings, as drawn up at a period certainly not later than , points to a belief, at that date, in some kind of a connection. but we have still to ask: how close was the connection supposed to be? and how old is the belief? firstly as to the closeness of the connection. finn also occurs in the pedigree--possibly the frisian king: sceaf occurs, possibly, though not certainly, a longobard king. noah and adam occur; are we therefore to suppose that the compiler of the _genealogy_ believed his kings to be of one blood with the hebrews? certainly he did: but only remotely, as common descendants of noah. and the occurrence of sceldwa and sceaf and finn in the genealogies--granting the identity of these heroes with skjold of the danes, sceafa of the longobards and finn of the frisians, might only prove that the genealogist believed in their common (germanic) race. { } | | | | a. chron | _| parker ms ______________________________| / | c. - | / | asser / | ms cott. /______________________________________| otho a.xii, / \ | c. / \__________________________ / | b. chron. transcript of \ ................ | ms cott. chronicle from copy sent to abingdon, : presumed : | tib. a. vi, which all kept there till c. __: abingdon :/| c. extant \ : copy, c. :\ mss are \ :..............: \____________ derived \____________ copy sent to ripon\ \ \_______________________________ \ \ | common original \_| compiled about _ | \ \ \______ \ \ | genealogy \_| ms cott. | tib. b. v,_ | c. ......................................................................... | | | | w. chron. | ms cott, otho b. xi, . | c. ___________________________________| textus roffensis i, | c. | c. chron. _______| ms cott. tib. b. i, | c. | d. chron. _______| ms cott. tib. b. iv, | c. ___________________________________| textus roffensis ii, | c. ___________________________________| icelandic | genealogies ==> { } secondly, how old is the belief? the anglian genealogies (northumbrian, mercian and east anglian), as reproduced in the _historia brittonum_ and in the _vespasian ms_, form part of what is doubtless, as is said above, the oldest extant english historical document. but in this document _there is no mention of scyld_. indeed, it contains no pedigree of the west-saxon kings at all. from whatever cause, the west-saxon genealogy is not extant from so early a date as are the pedigrees of the northumbrian, mercian, east anglian and kentish kings[ ]. still, this may well be a mere accident, and i am not prepared to dispute that the pedigree which traces the west-saxon kings to woden dates back, like the other genealogies connecting old english kings with woden, to primitive and heathen times. now the west-saxon pedigree is found in many forms: some which trace the royal house only to woden, and some which go beyond woden and contain a list of names by which woden is connected with sceaf, and then with noah and adam. ( ) the nucleus of the whole pedigree is to be found in the names between cynric or cerdic and woden. these occur in every version. the pedigree in this, its simplest form, is found twice among the entries in the _chronicle_ which deal with the events of heathen times, under and . these names fall into verse: [cynr[=i]c cerdicing], cerdic elesing, elesa esling, esla giwising, giwis w[=i]ging, w[=i]g fr[=e]awining, fr[=e]awine friðug[=a]ring, friðug[=a]r bronding, brond b[=æ]ldæging, b[=æ]ldæg w[=o]dening. like the mnemonic lists in _widsith_, these lines are probably very old. their object is clearly to connect the founder of the west-saxon royal house with woden. note, that not only do the names alliterate, but the alliteration is perfect. every line attains double alliteration in the first half, with one alliterating word only in the second half. the lines must go back to times when lists of royal ancestors, both real and imaginary, had to { } be arranged in correct verse; times when such things were recorded by memory rather than by writing. they are pre-literary, and were doubtless chanted by retainers of the west-saxon kings in heathen days. ( ) an expanded form of this genealogy occurs in _mss c.c.c.c._ and _cotton tib. b. v_. woden is here furnished with a father frealaf. we know nothing of any frealaf as father of the all-father in heathen days, though frealaf is found in this capacity in other genealogies written down in the ages after the conversion. frealaf breaks the correct alliterative system. in both mss the pedigree is brought down to king ine ( - ): both mss are ultimately, no doubt, derived from a list current in the time of that king, that is to say less than a century after the conversion of wessex. ( ) a further expansion, which prof. napier has held on linguistic grounds[ ] to have been written down as early as , is incorporated in a genealogical and chronological note regarding the west-saxon kings, which is extant in many mss[ ]. _in its present form_ this genealogical note is a recension, under alfred, of a document coming down to the death of his father Æthelwulf. it traces the pedigree of Æthelwulf to cerdic, but it keeps this district from the rhythmical nucleus, in which it traces cerdic to woden, and no further. ( ) then, in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, under the year , the pedigree is given in its most elaborate form. there the genealogy of Æthelwulf is traced in one unbroken series, not merely through cerdic to woden, but from woden through a long line of woden's ancestors, including frealaf, geat, sceldwa and sceaf, to noah and adam. it has been noted above[ ] that none of the _chronicle_ pedigrees { } stop at sceaf. the _chronicle_, in the stages above woden, recognizes as stopping places only geat (northumbrian pedigree, anno ) or adam (west-saxon pedigree, anno ). ( ) the chronicle of ethelwerd (_c._ ) does, however, stop at scef[ ]. now it has been argued that ethelwerd's pedigree is merely abbreviated from the pedigree in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ under , and that, in making scef the final stage, and in what he tells us about that hero, ethelwerd is merely adapting what he had read in _beowulf_ about scyld[ ]. but this seems hardly possible. ethelwerd, it is true, borrows most of his facts from the _chronicle_, from bede, and other known sources: but there are some passages which show that he had access to a source now lost. ethelwerd was a member of the west-saxon royal house, and he wrote his chronicle for a kinswoman, matilda, in order, as he says, to explain their common stock and race. they were both descended from Æthelwulf, the chronicler being great-great-grandson of Æthelred, and the lady to whom he dedicates his work being great-great-granddaughter of alfred. so he writes to tell "who and whence were their kin, so far as memory adduces, and our parents have taught us." accordingly, though he begins his chronicle with the creation, the bulk of it is devoted to the deeds of his or matilda's ancestors. is it credible that he would have cut out all the stages in their common pedigree between scyld and scef, that he would have sacrificed all the ancestors of scef, thus severing relations with noah and adam, and that he would have attributed to scef the story which in _beowulf_ is attributed to scyld, all this simply in order to bring his english pedigree into some harmony with what is told about the danish pedigree in _beowulf_--a poem of which we have no evidence that he had ever heard? to suppose him to have done this, is to make him sacrifice, _without any reason_, just that part of the pedigree in the _chronicle_ under which, from all we know of ethelwerd, was most likely to have interested him: that which connected his race with noah and adam. further, it is to suppose him to have reproduced just those stages in the pedigree which on critical { } grounds modern scholars can show to be the oldest, and to have modified or rejected just those which on critical grounds modern scholars can show to be later accretion. when brandl supposes ethelwerd to have produced his pedigree by comparing together merely the materials which have come down to us to-day, namely _beowulf_ and the _chronicle_, he is, in reality, attributing to him the mind and acumen of a modern critic. an anglo-saxon alderman could only have detected and rejected the additions by using some material which has _not_ come down to us. what more natural than that ethelwerd, who writes as the historian of the west-saxon royal family, should have known of a family pedigree which traced the line up to sceaf and his arrival in the boat, and that he should have (rightly) thought this to be more authoritative than the pedigree in the _chronicle_ under the year , which had been expanded from it? prof. chadwick, it seems to me, is here quite justified in holding that ethelwerd had "acquired the genealogy from some unknown source, in a more primitive form than that contained in the _chronicle_[ ]." but, because the source of ethelwerd's pedigree is more primitive than that contained in the _chronicle_ under the year , it does not follow that it goes back to heathen times. wessex had been converted more than two centuries earlier. we are now in a position to make some estimate of the antiquity of scyld and sceaf in the west-saxon pedigree. the nucleus of this pedigree is to be found in the verses connecting cynric and cerdic with woden. (even as late as Æthelwulf and alfred this nucleus is often kept distinct from the later, more historic stages connecting cerdic with living men.) pedigrees of other royal houses go to woden, and many stop there; however, in times comparatively early, but yet christian, we find woden provided with five ancestors: later, ethelwerd gives him ten: the _chronicle_ gives him twenty-five. it is evidently a process of accumulation. now, if the name of scyld had occurred in the portion of the pedigree which traces the west-saxon kings up to woden, { } it would possess sufficient authority to form the basis of an argument. but scyld, like heremod, beaw and sceaf, occurs in the fantastic development of the pedigree, by which woden is connected up with adam and noah. the fact that these heroes occur _above_ woden makes it almost incredible that their position in the pedigree can go back to heathen times. those who believed in woden as a god can hardly have believed at the same time that he was a descendant of the danish king scyld. this difficulty prof. chadwick admits: "it is difficult to believe that in heathen times woden was credited with five generations of ancestors, as in the _frealaf-geat_ list." still less is it credible that he was credited with generations of ancestors, as in the _frealaf-geat-sceldwa-sceaf-noe-adam_ list. the obvious conclusion seems to me to be that the names above woden were added in christian times to the original list, which in heathen times only went back to woden, and _which is still extant in this form_. a christian, rationalizing woden as a human magician, would have no difficulty in placing him far down the ages, just as saxo grammaticus does[ ]. obviously _noe-adam_ must be an addition of christian times, and the same seems to me to apply to all the other names above woden, which, though ancient and germanic, are not therefore ancient and germanic in the capacity of ancestors of woden. and even if these extraordinary ancestors of woden were really believed in in heathen times, they cannot have been regarded as the special property of any one nation. for it was never claimed that the west-saxon kings had any unique distinction in tracing their ancestry to woden, such as would give them a special claim upon woden's forefathers. how then can the ancient belief (if indeed it _were_ an ancient belief) that woden was descended from scyld, king of denmark, prove that the anglo-saxons regarded _themselves_ as specially related to the danes? for any such relationship derived through woden must have been shared by all descendants of the all-father. prof. chadwick avoids this difficulty by supposing that woden did not originally occur in the pedigree, but is a later { } insertion[ ]. but how can this be so when, of the two forms in which the west-saxon pedigree appears, one (and, so far as our evidence goes, much the older one) traces the kings to woden _and stops there_. the _object_ of this pedigree is to connect the west-saxon kings with woden. the expanded pedigrees, which carry on the line still further, from woden to sceldwa, sceaf and adam, though very numerous, are all traceable to one, or at most two, sources. it is surely not the right method to regard woden as an interpolation (though he occurs in that portion of the pedigree which is common to all versions, some of which we can probably trace back to primitive times), and to regard as the original element scyld and sceaf (though they form part of the continuation of the pedigree found only in, at most, two families of mss which we cannot trace back beyond the ninth century). besides, there is the strongest external support for woden in the very place which he occupies in the west-saxon pedigree. that pedigree is traced in all its texts up to one baldæg and his father woden. those texts which further give woden's ancestry make him a descendant of frealaf--they generally make woden son of frealaf, though some texts insert an intermediate frithuwald. now the very ancient northumbrian pedigree also goes up, by a different route, to "beldæg," and gives him woden for a father. in some versions (e.g. the _historia brittonum_) the northumbrian pedigree stops there: in others (e.g. the _vespasian ms_) woden has a father frealaf. how then _can_ it be argued, contrary to the unanimous evidence of all the dozen or more mss of the west-saxon pedigree, that _woden_, standing as he does between his proper father and his proper son, is an interpolation? there is no evidence whatsoever to support such an argument, and everything to disprove it. the fact that sceaf, sceldwa and beaw occur above woden, that some versions of the pedigree stop at woden, and that in heathen times presumably all must have stopped when they reached the all-father, seems to me a fatal argument--not against the antiquity of the legends of sceaf, sceldwa, and { } beaw, but against the antiquity of these characters in the capacity (given to them in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_) of ancestors of the west-saxon kings, and against the vast deduction concerning the origin of the english nation which prof. chadwick draws from this supposed antiquity. (iv) precisely the same argument--that sceaf, sceldwa and beaw are found _above woden_ in the pedigree of the english kings, and are not likely to have occupied that place in primitive heathen times, is fatal to the attempt to draw from this pedigree any argument that the myths of these heroes were specially and exclusively anglo-saxon. the argument of müllenhoff and other scholars for an ancient, _purely anglo-saxon_ beowa-myth[ ] falls, therefore, to the ground. * * * * * d. evidence for the date of _beowulf_. the relation of _beowulf_ to the classical epic a few years ago there was a tendency to exaggerate the value of grammatical forms in fixing the date of old english poetry, and attempts were made to arrange old english poems in a chronological series, according to the exact percentage of "early" to "late" forms in each. there has now been a natural reaction against the assumption that, granting certain forms to be archaic, these would necessarily be found in a percentage diminishing exactly according to the dates of composition of the various poems in which they occur. the reaction has now gone to the other extreme, and grammatical facts are in danger of being regarded as not being "in any way valid or helpful indications of dates[ ]." schücking[ ], in an elaborate recent monograph on the date of _beowulf_, rejects the grammatical evidence as valueless, and proceeds to date the poem about two centuries later than has usually been held, placing its composition at the court of some christianized scandinavian monarch in england, about a.d. { } but it surely does not follow that, because grammatical data have been misused, therefore no use can be made of them. and, if _beowulf_ was composed about the year , from stories current among the viking settlers, how are we to account for the fact that the proper names in _beowulf_ are given, not in the scandinavian forms of the viking age, nor in corruptions of such forms, but in the correct english forms which we should expect, according to english sound laws, if the names had been brought over in the sixth century, and handed down traditionally[ ]? for example, king hygelac no doubt called himself _hugilaikaz_. the _chochilaicus_ of gregory of tours is a good--if uncouth--shot at reproducing this name. the name became, in norse, _hugleikr_ and in danish _huglek_ (_hugletus_ in saxo): traditional kings so named are recorded, though it is difficult to find that they have anything in common with the king hygelac in _beowulf_[ ]. had the name been introduced into england in viking times, we should expect the scandinavian form, not _hygel[=a]c_[ ]. even in the rare cases where the character in _beowulf_ and his scandinavian equivalent bear names which are not phonologically identical, the difference does not point to any corruption such as might have arisen from borrowing in viking days[ ]. we have only to contrast the way in which the names of viking chiefs are recorded in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, to be convinced that the scandinavian stories recorded in _beowulf_ are due to contact during the age when britain was being conquered, not during the viking period three or four centuries later[ ]. and the arguments from literary and political history, which schücking adduces to prove his late date, seem to me to point in exactly the opposite direction, and to confirm the orthodox view which would place _beowulf_ nearer than . { } schücking urges that, however highly we estimate the civilizing effect of christianity, it was only in the second half of the seventh century that england was thoroughly permeated by the new faith. can we expect already, at the beginning of the eighth century, a courtly work, showing, as does _beowulf_, such wonderful examples of tact, modesty, unselfishness and magnanimity? and this at the time when king ceolwulf was forced by his rebellious subjects to take the cowl. for schücking[ ], following hodgkin[ ], reminds us how, in the eighth century, out of northumbrian kings, five were dethroned, five murdered; two abdicated, and only three held the crown to their death; and how at the end of the century charlemagne called the northumbrian angles "a perfidious and perverse nation, murderers of their lords." but surely, at the base of all this argument, lies the same assumption which, as schücking rightly holds, vitiates so many of the grammatical arguments; the assumption that development must necessarily be in steady and progressive proportion. we may take penda as a type of the unreclaimed heathen, and edward the confessor of the chaste and saintly churchman; but anglo-saxon history was by no means a development in steady progression, of diminishing percentages of ruffianism and increasing percentages of saintship. the knowledge of, and interest in, heathen custom shown in _beowulf_, such as the vivid accounts of cremation, would lead us to place it as near heathen times as other data will allow. so much must be granted to the argument of prof. chadwick[ ]. but the christian tone, so far from leading us to place _beowulf_ late, would _also_ lead us to place it near the time of the conversion. for it is precisely in these times just after the conversion, that we get the most striking instances in all old english history of that "tact, modesty, generosity, and magnanimity" which schücking rightly regards as characteristic of _beowulf_. king oswin (who was slain in ) was, bede tells us, handsome, courteous of speech and bearing, bountiful both to great { } and lowly, beloved of all men for his qualities of mind and body, so that noblemen came from all over england to enter his service--yet of all his endowments gentleness and humility were the chief. we cannot read the description without being reminded of the words of the thegns in praise of the dead beowulf. indeed, i doubt if beowulf would have carried gentleness to those around him quite so far as did oswin. for oswin had given to bishop aidan an exceptionally fine horse--and aidan gave it to a beggar who asked alms. the king's mild suggestion that a horse of less value would have been good enough for the beggar, and that the bishop needed a good horse for his own use, drew from the saint the stern question "is that son of a mare dearer to thee than the son of god?" the king, who had come from hunting, stood warming himself at the fire, thinking over what had passed; then he suddenly ungirt his sword, gave it to his squire, and throwing himself at the feet of the bishop, promised never again to grudge anything he might give in his charities. of course such conduct was exceptional in seventh century northumbria--it convinced aidan that the king was too good to live long, as indeed proved to be the case. but it shows that the ideals of courtesy and gentleness shown in _beowulf_ were by no means beyond the possibility of attainment--were indeed surpassed by a seventh century king. i do not know if they could be so easily paralleled in later old english times. and what is true from the point of view of morals is true equally from that of art and learning. in spite of the misfortunes of northumbrian kings in the eighth century, the _first third_ of that century was "the golden age of anglo-saxon england[ ]." and not unnaturally, for it had been preceded by half a century during which northumbria had been free both from internal strife and from invasion. the empire won by oswiu over picts and scots in the north had been lost at the battle of nectansmere: but that battle had been followed by the twenty years reign of the learned aldfrid, whose scholarship did not prevent him from nobly retrieving the state of the kingdom[ ], though he could not recover the lost dominions. { } now, whatever we may think of _beowulf_ as poetry, it is remarkable for its conscious and deliberate art, and for the tone of civilization which pervades it. and this half century was distinguished, above any other period of old english history, precisely for its art and its civilization. four and a half centuries later, when the works of great norman master builders were rising everywhere in the land, the buildings which bishop wilfrid had put up during this first period of conversion were still objects of admiration, even for those who had seen the glories of the great roman basilicas[ ]. nor is there anything surprising in the fact that this "golden age" was not maintained. on the contrary, it is "in accordance with the phenomena of saxon history in general, in which seasons of brilliant promise are succeeded by long eras of national eclipse. it is from this point of view quite in accordance with natural likelihood that the age of conversion was one of such stimulus to the artistic powers of the people that a level of effort and achievement was reached which subsequent generations were not able to maintain. the carved crosses and the coins certainly degenerate in artistic value as the centuries pass away, and the fine barbaric gold and encrusted work is early in date[ ]." already in the early part of the eighth century signs of decay are to be observed. at the end of his _ecclesiastical history_, bede complains that the times are so full of disturbance that one knows not what to say, or what the end will be. and these fears were justified. a hundred and forty years of turmoil and decay follow, till the civilization of the north and the midlands was overthrown by the danes, and york became the uneasy seat of a heathen jarl. how it should be possible to see in these facts, as contrasted with the christian and civilized tone of _beowulf_, any argument for late date, i cannot see. on the contrary, because of its christian civilization combined with its still vivid, if perhaps not always quite exact, recollection of heathen customs, we should be inclined to put _beowulf_ in the early christian ages. { } a further argument put forward for this late date is the old one that the scandinavian sympathies of _beowulf_ show it to have been composed for a scandinavian court, the court, schücking thinks, of one of the princes who ruled over those portions of england which the danes had settled[ ]. of course schücking is too sound a scholar to revive at this time of day the old fallacy that the anglo-saxons ought to have taken no interest in the deeds of any but anglo-saxon heroes. but how, he asks, are we to account for such _enthusiasm_ for, such a burning interest in, a people of alien dialect and foreign dynasty, such as the scyldings of denmark? the answer seems to me to be that the enthusiasm of _beowulf_ is not for the danish nation as such: on the contrary, _beowulf_ depicts a situation which is most humiliating to the danes. for twelve years they have suffered the depredations of grendel; hrothgar and his kin have proved helpless: all the danes have been unequal to the need. twice at least this is emphasized in the most uncompromising, and indeed insulting, way[ ]. the poet's enthusiasm is not, then, for the danish race as such, but for the ideal of a great court with its body of retainers. such retainers are not necessarily native born--rather is it the mark of the great court that it draws men from far and wide to enter the service, whether permanently or temporarily, even as beowulf came from afar to help the aged hrothgar in his need. it is this ideal of personal valour and personal loyalty, rather than of tribal patriotism, which pervades _beowulf_, and which certainly suits the known facts of the seventh and early eighth centuries. the bitterest strife in england in the seventh century had been between the two quite new states of northumbria and mercia, both equally of anglian race. both these states had been built up by a combination of smaller units, and not without violating the old local patriotisms of the diverse elements from which they had been formed. at first, at any rate, no such thing as northumbrian or mercian patriotism can have existed. loyalty was personal, to the king. neither the kingdom nor the _comitatus_ was homogeneous. we have seen { } that bede mentions it as a peculiar honour to a northumbrian prince that _from all parts of england_ nobles came to enter his service. we must not demand from the seventh or eighth century our ideals of exclusive enthusiasm for the land of one's birth, ideals which make it disreputable for a "mercenary" to sell his sword. the ideal is, on the contrary, loyalty to a prince whose service a warrior _voluntarily_ enters. and the danish court is depicted as a pattern of such loyalty--before the scyldings began to work evil[ ], by the treason of hrothulf. further, the fact that the danish court at leire had been a heathen one might be matter for regret, but it would not prevent its being praised by an englishman about . for england was then entirely christian. in the process of conversion no single christian had, so far as we know, been martyred. there had been no war of religion. if penda had fought against oswald, it had been as the king of mercia against the king of northumbria. penda's allies were christian, and he showed no antipathy to the new faith[ ]. so that at this date there was no reason for men to feel any deep hostility towards a heathendom which had been the faith of their grandfathers, and with which there had never been any embittered conflict. but in the position was quite different. for more than a generation the country had been engaged in a life-and-death struggle between two warring camps, the "christian men" and the "heathen men." the "heathen men" were in process of conversion, but were liable to be ever recruited afresh from beyond the sea. it seems highly unlikely that _beowulf_ could have been written at this date, by some english poet, for the court of a converted scandinavian prince, with a view perhaps, as schücking suggests, to educating his children in the english speech. in such a case the one thing likely to be avoided by the english poet, with more than two centuries of christianity behind him, would surely have been the praise of that scandinavian heathendom, from which his patron had freed himself, and from which his children were to be weaned. the martyrdom of s. edmund might have seemed a more appropriate theme[ ]. { } the tolerant attitude towards heathen customs, and the almost antiquarian interest in them, very justly, as it seems to me, emphasized by schücking[ ], is surely far more possible in a.d. than in a.d. . for between those dates heathendom had ceased to be an antiquarian curiosity, and had become an imminent peril. if those are right who hold that _beowulf_ is no purely native growth, but shows influence of the classical epic, then again it is easier to credit such influence about the year than . at the earlier date we have scholars like aldhelm and bede, both well acquainted with virgil, yet both interested in vernacular verse. it has been urged, as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the view which would connect _beowulf_ with virgil, that the relation to the _odyssey_ is more obvious than that to the _Æneid_. perhaps, however, some remote and indirect connection even between _beowulf_ and the _odyssey_ is not altogether unthinkable, about the year . at the end of the seventh century there was a flourishing school of greek learning in england, under hadrian and the greek archbishop theodore, both "well read in sacred _and in secular_ literature." in their scholars were still alive, and, bede tells us, could speak greek and latin as correctly as their native tongue. bede himself knew something about the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_. not till eight centuries have passed, and we reach grocyn and linacre, was it again to be as easy for an englishman to have a first-hand knowledge of a greek classic as it was about the year . what scholarship had sunk to by the days of alfred, we know: and we know that all alfred's patronage did not produce any scholar whom we can think of as in the least degree comparable to bede. so that from the point of view of its close touch with heathendom, its tolerance for heathen customs, its christian magnanimity and gentleness, its conscious art, and its learned tone, all historic and artistic analogy would lead us to place _beowulf_ in the great age--the age of bede. this has brought us to another question--more interesting to many than the mere question of date. are we to suppose { } any direct connection between the classical and the old english epic? as nations pass through their "heroic age," similar social conditions will necessarily be reflected by many similarities in their poetry. in heroic lays like _finnsburg_ or _hildebrand_ or the norse poems, phrases and situations may occur which remind us of phrases and situations in the _iliad_, without affording any ground for supposing classical influence direct or indirect. but there is much more in _beowulf_ than mere accidental coincidence of phrase or situation. a simple-minded romancer would have made the _Æneid_ a biography of Æneas from the cradle to the grave. not so virgil. the story begins with mention of carthage. Æneas then comes on the scene. at a banquet he tells to dido his earlier adventures. just so _beowulf_ begins, not with the birth of beowulf and his boyhood, but with heorot. beowulf arrives. at the banquet, in reply to unferth, he narrates his earlier adventures. the _beowulf_-poet is not content merely to tell us that there was minstrelsy at the feast, but like virgil or homer, he must give an account of what was sung. the epic style leads often to almost verbal similarities. jupiter consoling hercules for the loss of the son of his host says: stat sua cuique dies, breve et inreparabile tempus omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis hoc virtutis opus[ ]. in the same spirit and almost in the same words does beowulf console hrothgar for the loss of his friend: [=u]re [=æ]ghwylc sceal ende geb[=i]dan worolde l[=i]fes; wyrce s[=e] þe m[=o]te d[=o]mes [=æ]r d[=e]aþe; þæt biþ drihtguman unlifgendum æfter s[=e]lest. on the other hand, though we are often struck by the likeness in spirit and in plan, it must be allowed that there is no tangible or conclusive proof of borrowing[ ]. but the influence may have been none the less effective for being indirect: nor is { } it quite certain that the author, had he known his virgil, would necessarily have left traces of direct borrowing. for the deep christian feeling, which has given to _beowulf_ its almost prudish propriety and its edifying tone, is manifested by no direct and dogmatic reference to christian personages or doctrines. i sympathize with prof. chadwick's feeling that a man who knew virgil would not have disguised his knowledge, and would probably have lacked both inclination and ability to compose such a poem as _beowulf_[ ]. but does not this feeling rest largely upon the analogy of other races and ages? is it borne out by such known facts as we can gather about this period? the reticence of _beowulf_ with reference to christianity does not harmonize with one's preconceived ideas; and bishop aldhelm gives us an even greater surprise. let anyone read, or try to read, aldhelm's _epistola ad acircium, sive liber de septenario et de metris_. let him then ask himself "is it possible that this learned pedant can also have been the author of english poems which king alfred--surely no mean judge--thought best of all he knew?" these poems may of course have been educated and learned in tone. but we have the authority of king alfred for the fact that aldhelm used to perform at the cross roads as a common minstrel, and that he could hold his audiences with such success that they resorted to him again and again[ ]. only after he had made himself popular by several performances did he attempt to weave edifying matter into his verse. and the popular, secular poetry of aldhelm, his _carmen triviale_, remained current among the common people for centuries. nor was aldhelm's classical knowledge of late growth, something superimposed upon an earlier love of popular poetry, for he had { } studied under hadrian as a boy[ ]. later we are told that king ine imported two greek teachers from athens for the help of aldhelm and his school[ ]; this may be exaggeration. everything seems to show that about an atmosphere existed in england which might easily have led a scholarly englishman, acquainted with the old lays, to have set to work to compose an epic. even so venerable a person as bede, during his last illness, uttered his last teaching not, as we should expect on _a priori_ grounds, in latin hexameters, but in english metre. the evidence for this is conclusive[ ]. but, at a later date, alcuin would surely have condemned the minstrelsy of aldhelm[ ]. even king alfred seems to have felt that it needed some apology. it would have rendered aldhelm liable to severe censure under the laws of king edgar[ ]; and dunstan's biographer indignantly denies the charge brought against his hero of having learnt the heathen songs of his forefathers[ ]. the evidence is not as plentiful as we might wish, but it rather suggests that the chasm between secular poetry and ecclesiastical learning was more easily bridged in the first generations after the conversion than was the case later. but, however that may be, it assuredly does not give any grounds for abandoning the old view, based largely upon grammatical and metrical considerations, which would make _beowulf_ a product of the early eighth century, and substituting for it a theory which would make our poem a product of mixed saxon and danish society in the early tenth century. * * * * * { } e. the "jute-question" reopened the view that the geatas of _beowulf_ are the jutes (iuti, iutae) of bede (i.e. the tribe which colonized kent, the isle of wight and hampshire) has been held by many eminent scholars. it was dealt with only briefly above (pp. - ) because i thought the theory was now recognized as being no longer tenable. lately, however, it has been maintained with conviction and ability by two danish scholars, schütte and kier. it therefore becomes necessary once more to reopen the question, now that the only elaborate discussion of it in the english language favours the "jute-theory," especially as axel olrik gave the support of his great name to the view that "the question is still open[ ]" and that "the last word has not been said concerning the nationality of the geatas[ ]." as in most controversies, a number of rather irrelevant side issues have been introduced[ ], so that from mere weariness students are sometimes inclined to leave the problem undecided. yet the interpretation of the opening chapters of scandinavian history turns upon it. supporters of the "jute-theory" have seldom approached the subject from the point of view of old english. bugge[ ] perhaps did so: but the "jute-theory" has been held chiefly by students of scandinavian history, literature or geography, like fahlbeck[ ], steenstrup[ ], gering[ ], olrik[ ], schütte[ ] and kier[ ]. but, now that the laws of old english sound-change have been { } clearly defined, it seldom happens that anyone who approaches the subject primarily as a student of the anglo-saxon language holds the view that the geatas are jutes. and this is naturally so: for, from the point of view of language, the question is not disputable. the _g[=e]atas_ phonologically are the _gautar_ (the modern götar of southern sweden). it is admitted that the words are identical[ ]. and, equally, it is admitted that the word _g[=e]atas_ cannot be identical with the word _iuti_, _iutae_, used by bede as the name of the jutes who colonized kent[ ]. bede's _iuti_, _iutae_, on the contrary, would correspond to a presumed old english _*[=i]uti_ or _*[=i]utan_[ ], current in his time in northumbria. this in later northumbrian would become _[=i]ote_, _[=i]otan_ (though the form _[=i]ute_, _[=i]utan_ might also survive). the dialect forms which we should expect (and which we find in the genitive and dative) corresponding to this would be: mercian, _[=e]ote_, _[=e]otan_; late west-saxon, _[=y]te_, _[=y]tan_ (through an intermediate early west-saxon _*[=i]ete_, _*[=i]etan_, which is not recorded). if, then, the word _g[=e]atas_ came to supplant the correct form _[=i]ote_, _[=i]otan_ (or its mercian and west-saxon equivalents _[=e]ote_, _[=e]otan_, _[=y]te_, _[=y]tan_), this can only have been the result of confusion. such confusion is, on abstract grounds, conceivable: it is always possible that the name of one tribe may come to be attached to another. "scot" has ceased to mean "irishman," and has come to mean "north briton"; and there is no intrinsic impossibility in the word _g[=e]atas_ having been transferred by englishmen, from the half-forgotten gautar, to the jutes, and having driven out the correct name of the latter, _[=i]ote_, _[=i]otan_. for example, there might have been an exiled geatic family among the jutish invaders, which might have become so prominent as to cause { } the name _g[=e]atas_ to supplant the correct _[=i]ote_, _[=e]ote_, etc. but, whoever the geatas may have been, _beowulf_ is their chief early record: indeed, almost all we know of their earliest history is derived from _beowulf_. in _beowulf_, therefore, if anywhere, the old names and traditions should be remembered. the word _g[=e]at_ occurs some times in the poem. the poet obviously wishes to use other synonyms, for the sake of variety and alliteration: hence we get _weder-g[=e]atas_, _wederas_, _s[=æ]-g[=e]atas_, _g[=u]ð-g[=e]atas_. now, if these geatas are the jutes, how comes it that the poet _never_ calls them such, never speaks of them under the correct tribal name of _[=e]ote_, etc., although this was the current name at the time _beowulf_ was written, and indeed for centuries later? for, demonstrably, the form _[=e]ote_, etc., _was_ recognized as the name of the jutes till at least the twelfth century. then it died out of current speech, and only bede's latin _iuti_ (and the modern "jute" derived therefrom) remained as terms used by the historians. the evidence is conclusive: (_a_) bede, writing about the time when _beowulf_, in its present form, is supposed to have been composed, uses _iuti_, _iutae_, corresponding to a presumed contemporary northumbrian _*[=i]uti_, _*[=i]utan_. (_b_) in the o.e. translation of bede, made in mercia perhaps two centuries after bede's time, we do indeed in one place find "geata," "geatum" used to translate "iutarum," "iutis," instead of the correctly corresponding mercian form "eota," "eotum." only two mss are extant at this point. but since both agree, and since they belong to different types, it is probable that "geata" here is no mere copyist's error, but is due to the translator himself[ ]. but, later, when the translator { } has to render bede's "iutorum," he gives, not "geata," but the correct mercian "eota." there can be no possible doubt here, for five mss are extant at this point, and all give the correct form--four in the mercian, "eota," whilst one gives the west-saxon equivalent, "ytena." now the _g[=e]ata_-passage in the bede translation is the chief piece of evidence which those who would explain the geatas of _beowulf_ as "jutes" can call: and it does not, in fact, much help them. what they have to prove is that the _beowulf_-poet could _consistently and invariably_ have used _g[=e]atas_ in the place of _[=e]ote_. to produce an instance in which the two terms are both used by the same translator is very little use, when what has to be proved is that the one term had already, at a much earlier period, entirely ousted the other. all our other evidence is for the invariable use of the correct form _[=i]ote_, _[=i]otan_, etc. in old english. (_c_) the passage from bede was again translated, and inserted into a copy of the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, which was sent quite early to one of the great abbeys of northumbria[ ]. in this, "iutis, iutarum" is represented by the correct northumbrian equivalent, "iutum," "iotum"; "iutna." (_d_) this northumbrian chronicle, or a transcript of it, subsequently came south, to canterbury. there, roughly about the year , it was used to interpolate an early west-saxon copy of the chronicle. surely at canterbury, the capital of the old jutish kingdom, people must have known the correct form of the jutish name, whether _g[=e]atas_ or _[=i]ote_. we find the forms "iotum," "iutum"; "iutna." (_e_) corresponding to this northumbrian (and kentish) form _[=i]ote_, mercian _[=e]ote_, the late west-saxon form should be _[=y]te_. now _ms corpus christi college, cambridge_, , gives us "the wessex version of the english bede" and is written by a scribe who knew the hampshire district[ ]. in this ms the "eota" of the mercian original has been transcribed as "ytena," "eotum" as "ytum," showing that the scribe understood the tribal name and its equivalent correctly. this was about the { } time of the norman conquest, but the name continued to be understood till the early twelfth century at least. for florence of worcester records that william rufus was slain _in noua foresta quae lingua anglorum ytene nuncupatur_; and in another place he speaks of the same event as happening _in prouincia jutarum in noua foresta_[ ], which shows that florence understood that "ytene" was _[=y]tena land_, "the province of the jutes." it comes, then, to this. the "jute-hypothesis" postulates not only that, at the time _beowulf_ was composed, _g[=e]atas_ had come to mean "jutes," but also that it had so completely ousted the correct old name _[=i]uti, [=i]ote, [=e]ote, [=y]te_, that none of the latter terms are ever used in the poem as synonyms for beowulf's people[ ]. yet all the evidence shows that _[=i]uti_ etc. was the recognized name when bede wrote, and we have evidence at intervals showing that it was so understood till four centuries later. but not only was _[=i]uti_, _[=i]ote_ never superseded in o.e. times; there is no real evidence that _g[=e]atas_ was ever _generally_ used to signify "jutes." the fact that one translator in one passage (writing probably some two centuries after _beowulf_ was composed) uses "geata," "geatum," where he should have used "eota," "eotum," does not prove the misnomer to have been general--especially when the same translator subsequently uses the correct form "eota." i do not think sufficient importance has been attached to what seems (to me) the vital argument against the "jute-theory." it is not merely that _g[=e]atas_ is the exact phonological equivalent of _gautar_ (götar) and cannot be equivalent to bede's _iuti_. this difficulty may be got over by the assumption that somehow the _iuti_, or some of them, had adopted the name _g[=e]atas_: and we are not in a position to disprove such assumption. but the advocates of the "jute-theory" have further to assume that, at the date when _beowulf_ was written, the correct name _iuti_ (northumbrian _[=i]ote_, mercian _[=e]ote_, west-saxon _[=y]te_) must have so passed into disuse that it could not be once used as a { } synonym for beowulf's people, by our synonym-hunting poet. and this assumption we _are_ in a position to disprove. the jute-theory would therefore still be untenable on the ground of the name, even though it were laboriously proved that, from the historical and geographical standpoint, there was more to be said for it than had hitherto been recognized. but even this has not been proved: quite the reverse. as i have tried to show above, historical and geographical considerations, though in themselves not absolutely conclusive, point emphatically to an identification with the götar, rather than with the jutes[ ]. the relations of beowulf and the geatas with the kings of denmark and of sweden are the constant topic of the poem. now the land of the götar _was_ situated between denmark and sweden. but if the geatas be jutes, their neighbours were the danes on the east and the angles on the south; farther away, across the cattegat lay the götar, and beyond these the swedes. if the geatas be jutes, why should their immediate neighbours, the angles, never appear in _beowulf_ as having any dealings with them? and why, above all, should the götar never be mentioned, whilst the swedes, far to the north, play so large a part? even if swedes and götar had at this time been under one king, the götar could not have been thus ignored, seeing that, owing to their position, the brunt of the fighting must have fallen on them[ ]. but we know that the götar were independent. the strictly contemporary evidence of procopius shows quite conclusively that they were one of the strongest of the scandinavian kingdoms[ ]. how then could warfare be carried on for three generations between jutes and swedes without concerning the götar, whose territory lay in between? again, in the "catalogue of kings" in _widsith_, the swedes are named with their famous king ongentheow. the jutes (_[=y]te_) are also mentioned, with _their_ king. and their king is { } not hrethel, hæthcyn, hygelac or heardred, but a certain gefwulf, whose name does not even alliterate with that of any known king of the geatas[ ]. again, in the (certainly very early) _book on monsters_, hygelac is described as _huiglaucus qui imperavit getis_. now getis can mean götar[ ], but can hardly mean jutes. the geographical case against the identification of geatas and götar depends upon the assumption that the western sea-coast of the götar in ancient times must have coincided with that of west gothland (vestra-götland) in mediæval and modern times. now as this coast consists merely of a small strip south of the river götaelv, it is argued that the götar could not be the maritime geatas of _beowulf_, capable of undertaking a viking raid to the mouth of the rhine. but the assumption that the frontiers of the götar about a.d. were the same as they were a thousand years later, is not only improbable on _a priori_ grounds, but, as schück has shown[ ], can be definitely disproved. adam of bremen, writing in the eleventh century, speaks of the river gothelba (götaelv) as running through the midst of the peoples of the götar. and the obvious connection between the name of the river and the name of the people seems to make it certain that adam is right, and that the original götar must have dwelt around the river götaelv. but, if so, then they were a maritime folk: for the river götaelv is merely the outlet which connects lake wener with the sea, running a course almost parallel with the shore and nowhere very distant from it[ ]. but even when adam wrote, the { } götar to the north of the river had long been politically subject to norway[ ]: and the _heimskringla_ tells us how this happened. harold fairhair, king of norway (a contemporary of king alfred), attacked them: they had staked the river götaelv against him, but he moored his ships to the stakes[ ] and harried _on either shore_: he fought far and wide in the country, had many battles _on either side of the river_, and finally slew the leader of the götar, hrani gauzki (the götlander). then he annexed to norway all the land north of the river and west of lake wener. thenceforward the götaelv was the boundary between norway and west gothland, though the country ultimately became swedish, as it now is. but it is abundantly clear from the _heimskringla_ that harold regarded as hostile all the territory north of the götaelv, and between lake wener and the sea[ ] (the old ránriki and the modern bohuslän). but, if so, then the objection that the götar are not a sufficiently maritime people becomes untenable. for precisely to this region belong the earliest records of maritime warfare to be found in the north of europe, possibly the earliest in europe. the smooth rocks of bohuslän are covered with incised pictures of the bronze age: and the favourite subject of these is ships and naval encounters. about different pictures of ships and sea fights are reproduced by one scholar alone[ ]. and at the present day this province of göteborg and bohus is the most important centre in sweden both of fishery and shipping. indeed, more than one quarter of the total tonnage of the modern swedish mercantile marine comes from this comparatively tiny strip of coast[ ]. { } it is surely quite absurd to urge that the men of this coast could not have harried the frisians in the manner in which hygelac is represented as doing. and surely it is equally absurd to urge that the people of this coast would not have had to fear a return attack from the frisians, after the downfall of their own kings. the frisians seem to have been "the chief channel of communication between the north and west of europe[ ]" before the rise of the scandinavian vikings, and to have been supreme in the north sea. the franks were of course a land power, but the franks, _when in alliance with the frisians_, were by no means helpless at sea. gregory of tours tells us that they overthrew hygelac on land, and _then in a sea fight annihilated his fleet_. now the poet says that the geatas may expect war when the franks _and frisians_ hear of beowulf's fall. the objection that, because they feared the franks, the geatas must have been reachable by land, depends upon leaving the "and frisians" out of consideration. "now we may look for a time of war" says the messenger "when the fall of our king is known among the franks and frisians": then he gives a brief account of the raid upon the land of the frisians and concludes: "ever since then has the favour of the merovingian king been denied us[ ]." what is there in this to indicate whether the raiders came from jutland, or from the coast of the götar across the cattegat, miles further off? the messenger goes on to anticipate hostility from the swedes[ ]. to this, at any rate, the götar were more exposed than the jutes. further, he concludes by anticipating the utter overthrow of the geatas[ ]: and the poet expressly tells us that these forebodings were justified[ ]. there must therefore be a reference to some famous national catastrophe. now the götar _did_ lose their independence, and _were_ incorporated into the swedish kingdom. when did the jutes suffer any similar downfall at the hands of either frisians, franks, or swedes? the other geographical and historical arguments urged in favour of the jutes, when carefully scrutinized, are found either { } equally indecisive, or else actually to tell against the "jute-theory." schütte[ ] thinks that the name "wederas" (applied in _beowulf_ to the geatas) is identical with the name _eudoses_ (that of a tribe mentioned by tacitus, who _may_[ ] have dwelt in jutland). but this is impossible phonologically: _wederas_ is surely a shortened form of _weder-g[=e]atas_, "the storm-geatas." indeed, we have, in favour of the götar-theory, the fact that the very name of the wederas survives on the bohuslän coast to this day, in the wäder Öar and the wäder fiord. advocates of the "jute-theory" lay great stress upon the fact that gregory of tours and the _liber historiae francorum_ call hygelac a dane[ ]: _dani cum rege suo chochilaico_. now, when gregory wrote in the sixth century, either the jutes were entirely distinct from, and independent of, the danes, or they were not. if they were distinct, how do gregory's words help the "jute-theory"? he must be simply using "dane," like the anglo-saxon historians, for "scandinavian." but if the jutes were not distinct from the danes, then we have an argument against the "jute-theory." for we know from _beowulf_ that the geatas _were_ quite distinct from the danes[ ], and quite independent of them[ ]. it is repeatedly urged that the geatas and swedes fight _ofer s[=æ]_[ ]. but _s[=æ]_ can mean a great fresh-water lake, like lake wener, just as well as the ocean[ ]: and as a matter of fact we know that the decisive battle did take place on lake wener, _in stagno waener, á vænis ísi_[ ]. lake wener is an obvious battle place for götar and swedes. they were separated by the great and almost impassable forests of "tived" and "kolmård," and the lake was their simplest way of meeting[ ]. but it does not equally fit jutes and swedes. it is repeatedly objected that the götar are remote from the anglo-saxons[ ]. possibly: but remoteness did not prevent { } the anglo-saxons from being interested in heroes of the huns or goths or burgundians or longobards, who were much more[ ] distant. and the absence of any direct connection between the history of the geatas and the historic anglo-saxon records, affords a strong presumption that the geatas _were_ a somewhat alien people. if the people of beowulf, hygelac, and hrethel, were the same people as the jutes who colonized kent and hampshire, why do we never, in the kentish royal genealogies or elsewhere, find any claim to such connection? the mercians did not so forget their connection with the old offa of angel, although a much greater space of time had intervened. the fact that we have no mention among the ancestors of beowulf and hygelac of any names which we can connect with the jutish genealogy affords, therefore, a strong presumption that they belonged to some other tribe. the strongest historical argument for the "jute-theory" was that produced by bugge. the _ynglinga tal_ represents ottar (who is certainly the ohthere of _beowulf_) as having fallen in vendel, and this vendel was clearly understood as being the district of that name in north jutland. the body of this swedish king was torn asunder by carrion birds, and he was remembered as "the vendel-crow," a mocking nickname which pretty clearly goes back to primitive times. other ancient authors attributed this name, not to ottar, but to his father, who can be identified with the ongentheow of _beowulf_. this would seem to indicate that the hereditary foes of ongentheow and the swedish kings of his house were, after all, the jutes of vendel. but knut stjerna has shown that the vendel from which "ottar vendel-crow" took his name was probably not the vendel of jutland at all, but the place of that name north of uppsala, famous for the splendid grave-finds which show it to have been of peculiar importance during our period[ ]. and subsequent research has shown that a huge grave-mound, near this vendel, is mentioned in a record of the seventeenth century as king { } ottar's mound, and is still popularly known as the mound of ottar vendel-crow[ ]. but, if so, this story of the vendel-crow, so far from supporting the "jute-hypothesis," tells against it: nothing could be more suitable than vendel, north of uppsala, as the "last ditch" to which ongentheow retreated, if we assume his adversaries to have been the götar: but it would not suit the jutes so well. an exploration of the mound has proved beyond reasonable doubt that it _was_ raised to cover the ashes of ottar vendel-crow, the ohthere of _beowulf_[ ]. that ohthere fell in battle against the geatas there is nothing, in _beowulf_ or elsewhere, to prove. but the fact that his ashes were laid in mound at vendel in sweden makes it unlikely that he fell in battle against the jutes, and is quite incompatible with what we are told in the _ynglinga saga_ of his body having been torn to pieces by carrion fowl on a mound in vendel in jutland. it now becomes clear that this story, and the tale of the crow of wood made by the jutlanders in mockery of ottar, is a mere invention to account for the name vendel-crow: the name, as so often, has survived, and a new story has grown up to give a reason for the name. what "vendel-crow" originally implied we cannot be quite sure. apparently "crow" or "vendel-crow" is used to this day as a nickname for the inhabitants of swedish vendel. ottar may have been so called because he was buried (possibly because he lived) in vendel, not, like other members of his race, his son and his father, at old uppsala. but however that may be, what is clear is that, as the name passed from the swedes to those norwegian and icelandic writers who have handed it down { } to us, vendel of sweden was naturally misunderstood as the more familiar vendel of jutland. stjerna's conjecture is confirmed. the swedish king's nickname, far from pointing to ancient feuds between jute and swede, is shown to have nothing whatsoever to do with jutland. it appears, then, that _g[=e]atas_ is phonologically the equivalent of "götar," but not the equivalent of "jutes"; that what we know of the use of the word "jutes" (_[=i]ote_, etc.) in old english makes it incredible that a poem of the length of _beowulf_ could be written, concerning their heroes and their wars, without even mentioning them by their correct name; that in many respects the geographical and historical evidence fits the götar, but does _not_ fit the jutes; that the instances to the contrary, in which it is claimed that the geographical and historical evidence fits the jutes but does not fit the götar, are all found on examination to be either inconclusive or actually to favour the götar. * * * * * f. _beowulf_ and the archÆologists the peat-bogs of schleswig and denmark have yielded finds of the first importance for english archæology. these "moss-finds" are great collections, chiefly of arms and accoutrements, obviously deposited with intention. the first of these great discoveries, that of thorsbjerg, was made in the heart of ancient angel: the site of the next, nydam, also comes within the area probably occupied by either angles or jutes; and most of the rest of the "moss-finds" were in the closest neighbourhood of the old anglian home. the period of the oldest deposits, as is shown by the roman coins found among them, is hardly before the third century a.d., and some authorities would make it considerably later. an account of these discoveries will be found in engelhardt's _denmark in the early iron age_[ ], : a volume which { } summarizes the results of engelhardt's investigations during the preceding seven years. he had published in copenhagen _thorsbjerg mosefund_, ; _nydam mosefund_, . engelhardt's work at nydam was interrupted by the war of : the finds had to be ceded to germany, and the exploration was continued by german scholars. engelhardt consoled himself that these "subsequent investigations ... do not seem to have been carried on with the necessary care and intelligence," and continued his own researches within the narrowed frontiers of denmark, publishing two monographs on the mosses of fünen: _kragehul mosefund_, ; _vimose fundet_, . these deposits, however, obviously belong to a period much earlier than that in which _beowulf_ was written: indeed most of them certainly belong to a period earlier than that in which the historic events described in _beowulf_ occurred; so that, close as is their relation with anglian civilization, it is with the civilization of the angles while still on the continent. the archæology of _beowulf_ has been made the subject of special study by knut stjerna, in a series of articles which appeared between and his premature death in . a good service has been done to students of _beowulf_ by dr clark hall in collecting and translating stjerna's essays[ ]. they are a mine of useful information, and the reproductions of articles from scandinavian grave-finds, with which they are so copiously illustrated, are invaluable. the magnificent antiquities from vendel, now in the stockholm museum, are more particularly laid under contribution[ ]. dr clark hall added a most useful "index of things mentioned in _beowulf_[ ]," well illustrated. here again the illustrations, with few exceptions, are from scandinavian finds. { } two weighty arguments as to the origin of _beowulf_ have been based upon archæology. in the first place it has been urged by dr clark hall that: "if the poem is read in the light of the evidence which stjerna has marshalled in the essays as to the profusion of gold, the prevalence of ring-swords, of boar-helmets, of ring-corslets, and ring-money, it becomes clear how strong the distinctively scandinavian colouring is, and how comparatively little of the _mise-en-scène_ must be due to the english author[ ]." equally, prof. klaeber finds in stjerna's investigations a strong argument for the scandinavian character of _beowulf_[ ]. now stjerna, very rightly and naturally, drew his illustrations of _beowulf_ from those scandinavian, and especially swedish, grave-finds which he knew so well: and very valuable those illustrations are. but it does not follow, because the one archæologist who has chosen to devote his knowledge so wholeheartedly to the elucidation of _beowulf_ was a scandinavian, using scandinavian material, that therefore _beowulf_ is scandinavian. this, however, is the inference which stjerna himself was apt to draw, and which is still being drawn from his work. stjerna speaks of our poem as a monument raised by the geatas to the memory of their saga-renowned king[ ], though he allows that certain features of the poem, such as the dragon-fight[ ], are of anglo-saxon origin. of course, it must be allowed that accounts such as those of the fighting between swedes and geatas, if they are historical (and they obviously are), must have originated from eyewitnesses of the scandinavian battles: but i doubt if there is anything in _beowulf_ so purely scandinavian as to compel us to assume that any line of the story, in the poetical form in which we now have it, was _necessarily_ composed in scandinavia. even if it could be shown that the conditions depicted in _beowulf_ can be better illustrated from the grave-finds of vendel in sweden than from english diggings, this would not prove _beowulf_ scandinavian. modern scientific archæology is surely based on chronology as well as geography. the english finds date from { } the period before a.d., and the vendel finds from the period after. _beowulf_ might well show similarity rather with contemporary art abroad than with the art of earlier generations at home. for intercourse was more general than is always realized. it was not merely trade and plunder which spread fashions from nation to nation. there were the presents of arms which tacitus mentions as sent, not only privately, but with public ceremony, from one tribe to another[ ]. similar presentations are indicated in _beowulf_[ ]; we find them equally at the court of the ostrogothic theodoric[ ]; charles the great sent to offa of mercia _unum balteum et unum gladium huniscum_[ ]; according to the famous story in the _heimskringla_, athelstan sent to harold fairhair of norway a sword and belt arrayed with gold and silver; athelstan gave harold's son hakon a sword which was the best that ever came to norway[ ]. it is not surprising, then, if we find parallels between english poetry and scandinavian grave-finds, both apparently dating from about the year a.d. but i do not think that there is any _special_ resemblance, though, both in _beowulf_ and in the vendel graves, there is a profusion lacking in the case of the simpler anglo-saxon tomb-furniture. let us examine the five points of special resemblance, alleged by dr clark hall, on the basis of stjerna's studies. "the profusion of gold." gold is indeed lavishly used in _beowulf_: the golden treasure found in the dragon's lair was so bulky that it had to be transported by waggon. and, certainly, gold is found in greater profusion in swedish than in english graves: the most casual visitor to the stockholm museum must be impressed by the magnificence of the exhibits there. but, granting gold to have been rarer in england than in sweden, i cannot grant stjerna's contention that therefore an english poet could not have conceived the idea of a vast gold hoard[ ]; or that, even if the poet does deck his warriors with gold somewhat more sumptuously than was actually the case in england, { } we can draw any argument from it. for, if the dragon in _beowulf_ guards a treasure, so equally does the typical dragon of old english proverbial lore[ ]. beowulf is spoken of as _gold-wlanc_, but the typical thegn in _finnsburg_ is called _gold-hladen_[ ]. the sword found by beowulf in the hall of grendel's mother has a golden hilt, but the english proverb had it that "gold is in its place on a man's sword[ ]." heorot is hung with golden tapestry, but gold-inwoven fabric has been unearthed from saxon graves at taplow, and elsewhere in england[ ]. gold glitters in other poems quite as lavishly as in _beowulf_, sometimes more so. widsith made a hobby of collecting golden _b[=e]agas_. the subject of _waldere_ is a fight for treasure. the byrnie of waldere[ ] is adorned with gold: so is that of holofernes in _judith_[ ], so is that of the typical warrior in the _elene_[ ]. are all these poems scandinavian? "the prevalence of ring-swords." we know that swords were sometimes fitted with a ring in the hilt[ ]. it is not clear whether the object of this ring was to fasten the hilt by a strap to the wrist, for convenience in fighting (as has been the custom with the cavalry sword in modern times) or whether it was used to attach the "peace bands," by which the hilt of the sword was sometimes fixed to the scabbard, when only being worn ceremonially[ ]. the word _hring-m[=æ]l_, applied three times to the sword in _beowulf_, has been interpretated as a reference to these "ring-swords," though it is quite conceivable that it may refer only to the damascening of the sword with a ringed pattern[ ]. assuming that the reference in _beowulf_ _is_ to a "ring-sword," stjerna illustrates the allusion from seven ring-swords, or fragments of ring-swords, found in sweden. but, as dr clark hall himself points out (whilst oddly enough accepting this argument { } as proof of the scandinavian colouring of _beowulf_) four ring-swords at least have been found in england[ ]. and these english swords are _real_ ring-swords; that is to say, the pommel is furnished with a ring, within which another ring moves (in the oldest type of sword) quite freely. this freedom of movement seems, however, to be gradually restricted, and in one of these english swords the two rings are made in one and the same piece. in the swedish swords, however, this restriction is carried further, and the two rings are represented by a knob growing out of a circular base. another sword of this "knob"-type has recently been found in a frankish tomb[ ], and yet another in the rhineland[ ]. it seems to be agreed among archæologists that the english type, as found in kent, is the original, and that the swedish and continental "ring-swords" are merely imitations, in which the ring has become conventionalized into a knob[ ]. but, if so, how can the mention of a ring-sword in _beowulf_ (if indeed that be the meaning of _hring-m[=æ]l_) prove scandinavian colouring? if it proved anything (which it does not) it would tend to prove the reverse, and to locate _beowulf_ in kent, where the true ring-swords have been found. "the prevalence of boar-helmets." it is true that several representations of warriors wearing boar-helmets have been found in scandinavia. but the only certainly anglo-saxon { } helmet yet found in england has a boar-crest[ ]; and this is, i believe, the only actual boar-helmet yet found. how then can the boar-helmets of _beowulf_ show scandinavian rather than anglo-saxon origin? "the prevalence of ring-corslets." it is true that only one trace of a byrnie, and that apparently not of ring-mail, has so far been found in an anglo-saxon grave. (we have somewhat more abundant remains from the period prior to the migration to england: a peculiarly fine corslet of ring-mail, with remains of some nine others, was found in the moss at thorsbjerg[ ] in the midst of the ancient anglian continental home; and other ring-corslets have been found in the neighbourhood of angel, at vimose[ ] in fünen.) but, for the period when _beowulf_ must have been composed, the ring-corslet is almost as rare in scandinavia as in england[ ]; the artist, however, seems to be indicating a byrnie upon many of the warriors depicted on the vendel helm (grave : seventh century). equally, in england, warriors are represented on the franks casket as wearing the byrnie: also the laws of ine ( - ) make it clear that the byrnie was by no means unknown[ ]. other old english poems, certainly not scandinavian, mention the ring-byrnie. how then can the mention of it in _beowulf_ be a proof of scandinavian origin? "the prevalence of ring-money." before minted money became current, rings were used everywhere among the teutonic peoples. gold rings, _intertwined_ so as to form a chain, have been found throughout scandinavia, presumably for use as a medium of exchange. the term _locenra b[=e]aga_ (gen. plu.) occurs in _beowulf_, and this is interpreted by stjerna as "rings _intertwined or locked_ together[ ]." but _locen_ in _beowulf_ need not have the meaning of "intertwined"; it occurs elsewhere in old english of a single jewel, _sincgim locen_[ ]. further, even if _locen_ does mean { } "intertwined," such intertwined rings are not limited to scandinavia proper. they have been found in schleswig[ ]. and almost the very phrase in _beowulf_, _londes ne locenra b[=e]aga_[ ], recurs in the _andreas_. the phrase there may be imitated from _beowulf_, but, equally, the phrase in _beowulf_ may be imitated from some earlier poem. in fact, it is part of the traditional poetic diction: but its occurrence in the _andreas_ shows that it cannot be used as an argument of scandinavian origin. whilst, therefore, accepting with gratitude the numerous illustrations which stjerna has drawn from scandinavian grave-finds, we must be careful not to read a scandinavian colouring into features of _beowulf_ which are at least as much english as scandinavian, such as the ring-sword or the boar-helmet or the ring-corslet. there is, as is noted above, a certain atmosphere of profusion and wealth about some scandinavian grave-finds, which corresponds much more nearly with the wealthy life depicted in _beowulf_ than does the comparatively meagre tomb-furniture of england. but we must remember that, after the spread of christianity in the first half of the seventh century, the custom of burying articles with the bodies of the dead naturally ceased, or almost ceased, in england. scandinavia continued heathen for another four hundred years, and it was during these years that the most magnificent deposits were made. as stjerna himself points out, "a steadily increasing luxury in the appointment of graves" is to be found in scandinavia in these centuries before the introduction of christianity there. when we find in scandinavia things (complete ships, for example) which we do not find in england, we owe this, partly to the nature of the soil in which they were embedded, but also to the continuance of such burial customs after they had died out in england. helm and byrnie were not necessarily unknown, or even very rare in england, simply because it was not the custom to bury them with the dead. on the other hand, the frequent mention of them in _beowulf_ does not imply that they were common: for { } _beowulf_ deals only with the aristocratic adherents of a court, and even in _beowulf_ fine specimens of the helm and byrnie are spoken of as things which a king seeks far and wide to procure for his retainers[ ]. we cannot, therefore, argue that there is any discrepancy. however, if we do so argue, it would merely prove, not that _beowulf_ is scandinavian as opposed to english, but that it is comparatively late in date. tacitus emphasizes the fact that spear and shield were the teutonic weapons, that helmet and corslet were hardly known[ ]. pagan graves show that at any rate they were hardly known _as tomb-furniture_ in england in the fifth, sixth, and early seventh centuries. the introduction of christianity, and the intercourse with the south which it involved, certainly led to the growth of pomp and wealth in england, till the early eighth century became "the golden age of anglo-saxon england." it might therefore conceivably be argued that _beowulf_ reflects the comparative abundance of early christian england, as opposed to the more primitive heathen simplicity; but to argue a scandinavian origin from the profusion of _beowulf_ admits of an easy _reductio ad absurdum_. for the same arguments would prove a heathen, scandinavian origin for the _andreas_, the _elene_, the _exodus_, or even for the franks casket, despite its anglo-saxon inscription and christian carvings. however, though the absence of helm and byrnie from anglo-saxon graves does not prove that these arms were not used by the living in heathen times, one thing it assuredly _does_ prove: that the anglo-saxons in heathen times did not sacrifice helm and byrnie recklessly in funeral pomp. and this brings us to the second argument as to the origin of _beowulf_ which has been based on archæology. something has been said above of this second contention[ ]--that the accuracy of the account of beowulf's funeral is confirmed in every point by archæological evidence: that it must { } therefore have been composed within living memory of a time when ceremonies of this kind were still actually in use in england: and that therefore we cannot date _beowulf_ later than the third or fourth decade of the seventh century. to begin with; the pyre in _beowulf_ is represented as hung with helmets, bright byrnies, and shields. now it is impossible to say exactly how the funeral pyres were equipped in england. but we _do_ know how the buried bodies were equipped. and (although inhumation cemeteries are much more common than cremation cemeteries) all the graves that have been opened have so far yielded only one case of a helmet and byrnie being buried with the warrior, and one other very doubtful case of a helmet without the byrnie. abroad, instances are somewhat more common, but still of great rarity. for such things could ill be spared. charles the great forbade the export of byrnies from his dominions. worn by picked champions fighting in the forefront, they might well decide the issue of a battle. in the mounds where we have reason to think that the great chiefs mentioned in _beowulf_, eadgils or ohthere, lie buried, any trace of weapons was conspicuously absent among the burnt remains. nevertheless, the belief that his armour would be useful to the champion in the next life, joined perhaps with a feeling that it was unlucky, or unfair on the part of the survivor to deprive the dead of his personal weapons, led in heathen times to the occasional burial of these treasures with the warrior who owned them. the fifth century tomb of childeric i, when discovered twelve centuries later, was found magnificently furnished--the prince had been buried with treasure and much equipment[ ], sword, scramasax[ ], axe, spear. but these were his own. similarly, piety might have demanded that beowulf should be burnt with his full equipment. but would the pyre have been hung with helmets and byrnies? whose? were the thegns asked to sacrifice theirs, and go naked into the next fight in honour of their lord? if so, what archæological authority have we for such a custom in england? { } then the barrow is built, and the vast treasure of the dragon (which included "many a helmet[ ]") placed in it. now there are instances of articles which have not passed through the fire being placed in or upon or around an urn with the cremated bones[ ]. but is there any instance of the thing being done on this scale--of a wholesale burning of helmets and byrnies followed by a burial of huge treasure? if so, one would like to know when, and where. if not, how can it be argued that the account in _beowulf_ is one of which "the accuracy is confirmed in every point by archæological or contemporary literary evidence?" rather we must say, with knut stjerna, that it is "too much of a good thing[ ]." for the antiquities of anglo-saxon england, the student should consult the _victoria county history_. the two splendid volumes of professor g. baldwin brown on _saxon art and industry in the pagan period_[ ] at length enable the general reader to get a survey of the essential facts, for which up to now he has had to have recourse to innumerable scattered treatises. _the archæology of the anglo-saxon settlements_ by mr e. thurlow leeds will also be found helpful. side-lights from the field of teutonic antiquities in general can be got from prof. baldwin brown's _arts and crafts of our teutonic forefathers_, , and from lindenschmit's _handbuch der deutschen alterthumskunde, i. theil: die alterthümer der merovingischen zeit_ (braunschweig, - ), a book which is still indispensable. hoops' _reallexikon der germanischen altertumskunde_, strassburg, - , vols., includes a large number of contributions of the greatest importance to the student of _beowulf_, both upon archæological and other subjects. by the completion[ ] of this most valuable work, amid heart-breaking difficulties, prof. hoops has placed all students under a great obligation. much help can be got from an examination of the antiquities of teutonic countries other than england. the following books are useful--for norway: { } gustafson (g.), _norges oldtid_, ; for denmark: müller (s.), _vor oldtid_, ; for sweden: montelius (o.), _civilization of sweden in heathen times_, , _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, ; for schleswig: mestorf (j.), _vorgeschichtliche alterthümer aus schleswig_; for the germanic nations in their wanderings on the outskirts of the roman empire: hampel (j.), _alterthümer des frühen mittelalters in ungarn_, bde, ; for germanic remains in gaul: barrière-flavy (m. c.), _les arts industriels des peuples barbares de la gaule du v^me au viii^me siècle_, tom. . somewhat popular accounts, and now rather out of date, are the two south kensington handbooks: worsaae (j. j. a.), _industrial arts of denmark_, , and hildebrand (h.), _industrial arts of scandinavia_, . _scandinavian burial mounds_ the three great "kings' mounds" at old uppsala were explored between and : cremated remains from them can be seen in the stockholm museum. an account of the tunnelling, and of the complicated structure of the mounds, was given in by the swedish state-antiquary[ ]. from these finds knut stjerna dated the oldest of the "kings' mounds" about a.d.[ ], and the others somewhat later. now, as we are definitely told that athils (eadgils) and the two kings who figure in the list of swedish monarchs as his grandfather and great-grandfather (aun and egil) were "laid in mound" at uppsala[ ], and as the chronology agrees, it seems only reasonable to conclude that the three kings' mounds were raised over these three kings[ ]. that athils' father ottar (ohthere) was not regarded as having been buried at uppsala is abundantly clear from the account given of his death, and of his nickname vendel-crow[ ]. a mound near vendel north of uppsala is known by his name. such names are often the result of quite modern antiquarian conjecture: but that such is not the case here was proved by the recent discovery that an antiquarian survey (preserved in ms in the royal library at stockholm) dating from , mentions in vendel "widh hussby, [en] stor jorde högh, som heeter otters högen[ ]." an exploration of ottar's mound showed a striking similarity with the uppsala mounds. the structure was the same, a cairn of stones covered over with earth; the { } cremated remains were similar, there were abundant traces of burnt animals, a comb, half-spherical draughts with two round holes bored in the flat side, above all, there was in neither case any trace of weapons. in ottar's mound a gold byzantine coin was found, pierced, having evidently been used as an ornament. it can be dated - ; it is much worn, but such coins seldom remained in the north in use for a century after their minting[ ]. ottar's mound obviously, then, belongs to the same period as the uppsala mounds, and confirms the date attributed by stjerna to the oldest of those mounds, about a.d. _weapons_ for weapons in general see lehmann (h.), _Über die waffen im angelsächsischen beowulfliede_, in _germania_, xxxi, - ; keller (may l.), _the anglo-saxon weapon names treated archæologically and etymologically_, heidelberg, (_anglistische forschungen_, xv: cf. holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, xviii, - , binz, _litteraturblatt_, xxxi, - ); ++wagner (r.), _die angriffswaffen der angelsächsischen_, diss., königsberg; and especially falk (h.), _altnordische waffenkunde_, in _videnskapsselskapets skrifter, hist.-filos. klasse_, , kristiania. the sword. the sword of the anglo-saxon pagan period (from the fifth to the seventh century) "is deficient in quality as a blade, and also ... in the character of its hilt[ ]." in this it contrasts with the sword found in the peat-bogs of schleswig from an earlier period: "these swords of the schleswig moss-finds are much better weapons[ ]," as well as with the later viking sword of the ninth or tenth century, which "is a remarkably effective and well-considered implement[ ]." it has been suggested that both the earlier schleswig swords and the later viking swords (which bear a considerable likeness to each other, as against the inferior anglo-saxon sword) are the product of intercourse with romanized peoples[ ], whilst the typical anglo-saxon sword "may represent an independent germanic effort at sword making[ ]." however this may be, it is noteworthy that nowhere in _beowulf_ do we have any hint of the skill of any sword-smith who is regarded as contemporary. a good sword is always "an old heirloom," "an ancient treasure[ ]." the sword of wiglaf, which had belonged to eanmund, or the sword with which eofor slays ongentheow, are { } described by the phrase _ealdsweord eotenisc_, as if they were weapons of which the secret and origin had been lost--indeed the same phrase is applied to the magic sword which beowulf finds in the hall of grendel's mother. the blade of these ancestral swords was sometimes damascened or adorned with wave-like patterns[ ]. the swords of the schleswig moss-finds are almost all thus adorned with a variegated surface, as often are the later viking swords; but those of the anglo-saxon graves are _not_. is it fanciful to suggest that the reference to damascening is a tradition coming down from the time of the earlier sword as found in the nydam moss? a few early swords might have been preserved among the invaders as family heirlooms, too precious to be buried with the owner, as the product of the local weapon-smith was. see, for a full discussion of the sword in _beowulf_, stjerna, _hjälmar och svärd i beovulf_ (_studier tillägnade o. montelius_, stockholm, pp. - = _essays_, transl. clark hall, pp. - ). the standard treatise on the sword, _den yngre jernalders sværd_, bergen, , by a. l. lorange, deals mainly with a rather later period. the helmet. the helmet found at benty grange in derbyshire in is now in the sheffield museum[ ]: little remains except the boar-crest, the nose-piece, and the framework of iron ribs radiating from the crown, and fixed to a circle of iron surrounding the brow (perhaps the _fr[=e]awr[=a]sn_ of _beowulf_, ). mr bateman, the discoverer, described the helmet as "coated with narrow plates of horn, running in a diagonal direction from the ribs, so as to form a herring-bone pattern; the ends were secured by strips of horn, radiating in like manner as the iron ribs, to which they were riveted at intervals of about an inch and a half: all the rivets had ornamented heads of silver on the outside, and on the front rib is a small cross of the same metal. upon the top or crown of the helmet, is an elongated oval brass plate, upon which stands the figure of an animal, carved in iron, now much rusted, but still a very good representation of a pig: it has bronze eyes[ ]." helmets of very similar construction, but without the boar, have been found on the continent and in scandinavia (vendel, grave , late seventh century). the continental helmets often { } stand higher[ ] than the benty grange or vendel specimens, being sometimes quite conical (cf. the epithet "war-steep," _heaðo-st[=e]ap_, _beowulf_). many of the continental helmets are provided with cheek-protections, and these also appear in the scandinavian representations of warriors on the torslunda plates and elsewhere. these side pieces have become detached from the magnificent vendel helmet, which is often shown in engravings without them[ ], but they can be seen in the stockholm museum[ ]. if it ever possessed them, the benty grange helmet has lost these side pieces. such cheek-protections are, however, represented, together with the nose-protection, on the head of one of the warriors depicted on the franks casket. in the vendel helms, the nose-pieces were connected under the eyes with the rim of the helmet, so as to form a mask[ ]; the helmet in _beowulf_ is frequently spoken of as the battle-mask[ ]. both helmet and boar-crest were sometimes gold-adorned[ ]: the golden boar was a symbol of the god freyr: some magic protective power is still, in _beowulf_[ ], felt to adhere to these swine-likenesses, as it was in the days of tacitus[ ]. in scandinavia, the torslunda plates show the helmet with a boar-crest: the vendel helmet has representations of warriors whose crests have an animal's head tailing off to a mere rim or roll: this may be the _walu_ or _wala_ which keeps watch over the head in _beowulf_[ ]. the helmet was bound fast to the head[ ]; exactly how, we do not know. see lehmann (h.), _brünne und helm im ags. beowulfliede_ (göttingen diss., leipzig; cf. wülker, _anglia_, viii, _anzeiger_, - ; schulz, _engl. stud._, ix, ); hoops' _reallexikon_, s.v. _helm_; baldwin brown, iii, - ; falk, _altnord. waffenkunde_, - ; stjerna, _hjälmar och svärd_, , as above: but the attempt of stjerna to arrange the helmets he depicts in a { } chronological series is perilous, and depends on a dating of the benty grange helmet which is by no means generally accepted. the corslet. this in _beowulf_ is made of rings[ ], twisted and interlaced by hand[ ]. as stated above, the fragments of the only known anglo-saxon byrnie were not of this type, but rather intended to have been sewn "upon a doublet of strong cloth[ ]." byrnies were of various lengths, the longer ones reaching to the middle of the thigh (_byrnan s[=i]de_, _beow._ , cf. _loricæ longæ, síðar brynjur_). see falk, ; baldwin brown, iii. . the spear. spear and shield were the essential germanic weapons in the days of tacitus, and they are the weapons most commonly found in old english tombs. the spear-shaft has generally decayed, analysis of fragments surviving show that it was frequently of ash[ ]. the butt-end of the spear was frequently furnished with an iron tip, and the distance of this from the spear-head, and the size of the socket, show the spear-shaft to have been six or seven feet long, and three-quarters of an inch to one inch in diameter. see falk, - ; baldwin brown, iii, - . the shield. several round shields were preserved on the gokstad ship, and in the deposits of an earlier period at thorsbjerg and nydam. these are formed of boards fastened together, often only a quarter of an inch thick, and not strengthened or braced in any way, bearing out the contemptuous description of the painted german shield which tacitus puts into the mouth of germanicus[ ]. it was, however, intended that the shield should be light. it was easily pierced, but, by a rapid twist, the foe's sword could be broken or wrenched from his hand. thus we are told how gunnar gave his shield a twist, as his adversary thrust his sword through it, and so snapped off his sword at the hilt[ ]. the shield was held by a bar, crossing a hole some four inches wide cut in the middle. the hand was protected by a hollow conical boss or umbo, fixed to the wood by its brim, but projecting considerably. in england the wood of the shield has always perished, but a large number of bosses have been preserved. the boss seems to have been called _rond_, a word which is also used for the shield as a whole. in _beowulf_, , _gifts of men_, , the meaning "boss" suits _rond_ best, also in _rand sceal on scylde, fæst fingra gebeorh_ (_cotton. gnomic verses_, - ). but the original meaning of _rand_ must have been the circular rim round the edge, and this { } meaning it retains in icelandic (falk, ). the linden wood was sometimes bound with bast, whence _scyld (sceal) gebunden, l[=e]oht linden bord_ (_exeter gnomic verses_, - ). see falk ( - ); baldwin brown, iii, - ; pfannkuche (k.), _der schild bei den angelsachsen_, halle dissertation, . the bow is a weapon of much less importance in _beowulf_ than the spear. few traces of the bow have survived from anglo-saxon england, though many wooden long-bows have been preserved in the moss-finds in a remarkably fine state. they are of yew, some over six feet long, and in at least one instance tipped with horn. the bow entirely of horn was, of course, well known in the east, and in classical antiquity, but i do not think traces of any horn-bow have been discovered in the north. it was a difficult weapon to manage, as the suitors of penelope found to their cost. possibly that is why hæthcyn is represented as killing his brother herebeald accidentally with a horn-bow: he could not manage the exotic weapon. see falk, - ; baldwin brown, iii, . _the hall_ it may perhaps be the fact that in the church of sta. maria de naranco, in the north of spain, we have the hall of a visigothic king driven north by the mohammedan invasion. but, even if this surmise[ ] be correct, the structure of a stone hall of about a.d. gives us little information as to the wooden halls of early anglo-saxon times. heorot is clearly built of timber, held together by iron clamps[ ]. these halls were oblong, and a famous passage in bede[ ] makes it clear that, at any rate at the time of the conversion, the hall had a door at both ends, and the fire burnt in the middle. (the smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, through which probably most of the light came, for windows were few or none.) the _finnsburg fragment_ also implies two doors. further indications can be drawn from references to the halls of norse chiefs. the scandinavian hall was divided by rows of wooden pillars into a central nave and side aisles. the pillars in the centre were known as the "high-seat pillars." rows of seats ran down the length of the hall on each side. the central position, facing the high-seat pillars and the fire, was the most honourable. the place of honour for the chief guest was opposite: and it is quite clear that in _beowulf_ also the guest did not sit next his host[ ]. other points we may note about heorot, are the tapestry with which its walls are draped[ ], and the paved and variegated floor[ ]. unlike so { } many later halls, heorot has a floor little, if anything, raised above the ground: horses can be brought in[ ]. in later times, in iceland, the arrangement of the hall was changed, and the house consisted of many rooms; but these were formed, not by partitioning the hall, but by building several such halls side by side: the _stufa_ or hall proper, the _skáli_ or sleeping hall, _etc._ see m. heyne, _ueber die lage und construction der halle heorot_, paderborn, , where the scanty information about heorot is collected, and supplemented with some information about anglo-saxon building. for the icelandic hall see valtyr guðmundsson, _privatboligen på island i sagatiden_, københavn, . this has been summarized, in a more popular form, in a chapter on _den islandske bolig i fristatstiden_, contributed by guðmundsson to rosenberg's _træk af livet paa island i fristatstiden_, (pp. - ). here occurs the picture of an icelandic hall which has been so often reproduced--by olrik, holthausen, and in _beowulf_-translations. but it is a conjectural picture, and we can by no means assume all its details for heorot. rhamm's colossal work is only for the initiated, but is useful for consultation on special points (_ethnographische beiträge zur germanischslawischen altertumskunde_, von k. rhamm, - . i. _die grosshufen der nordgermanen_; ii. _urzeitliche bauernhöfe_). for various details see hoops' _reallexikon_, s.v. _flett_; neckel in _p.b.b._ xli, , - (_under edoras_); meiringer in _i.f._, especially xviii, (_under eoderas_); kaufmann in _z.f.d.ph._ xxxix, - . _ships_ in a tumulus near snape in suffolk, opened in , there were discovered, with burnt bones and remains thought to be of anglo-saxon date, a large number of rivets which, from the positions in which they were found, seemed to give evidence of a boat feet long by over nine feet wide[ ]. a boat, similar in dimensions, but better preserved, was unearthed near bruges in , and the ribs, mast and rudder removed to the gruuthuuse museum[ ]. three boats were discovered in the peat-moss at nydam in schleswig in , by engelhardt. the most important is the "nydam boat," clinker-built (i.e. with overlapping planks), of oak, feet [ . m.] long, by some [ . m.] broad, with rowlocks for fourteen oars down each side. there was no trace of any mast. planks and framework had been held together, partly by iron bolts, and partly by ropes of bast. the boat had fallen to pieces, and had to be laboriously put together in the museum at flensborg. another boat was quite fragmentary, but a third boat, of fir, was found tolerably complete. then the war of ended engelhardt's labours at nydam. [illustration: the gokstad ship] [illustration: the oseberg ship] { } the oak-boat was removed to kiel, where it now is. the fir-boat was allowed to decay: many of the pieces of the oak-boat had been rotten and had of necessity been restored in facsimile, and it is much less complete than might be supposed from the numerous reproductions, based upon the fine engraving by magnus petersen. the rustic with a spade, there depicted as gazing at the boat, is apt to give a wrong impression that it was dug out intact[ ]. such was, however, actually the case with regard to the ship excavated from the big mound at gokstad, near christiania, by nicolaysen, in . this was fitted both as a rowing and sailing ship; it was feet [ . m.] long on the keel, feet [ . m.] from fore to aft and nearly feet [ . m.] broad, and was clinker-built, out of a much larger number of oaken planks than the nydam ship. it had rowlocks for sixteen oars down each side, the gunwale was lined with shields, some of them well preserved, which had been originally painted alternately black and yellow. the find owed its extraordinary preservation to the blue clay in which it was embedded. its discoverer wrote, with pardonable pride: "certain it is that we shall not disinter any craft which, in respect of model and workmanship, will outrival that of gokstad[ ]." yet the prophecy was destined to prove false: for on aug. , , a farmer came into the national museum at christiania to tell the curator, prof. gustafson, that he had discovered traces of a boat on his farm at oseberg. gustafson found that the task was too great to be begun so late in the year: the digging out of the ship, and its removal to christiania, occupied from just before midsummer to just before christmas of . the potter's clay in which the ship was buried had preserved it, if possible, better than the gokstad ship: but the movement of the soft subsoil had squeezed and broken both ship and contents. the ship was taken out of the earth in nearly two thousand fragments. these were carefully numbered and marked: each piece was treated, bent back into its right shape, and the ship was put together again plank by plank, as when it was first built. with the exception of a piece about half a yard long, five or six little bits let in, and one of the beams, the ship as it stands now consists of the original woodwork. two-thirds of the rivets are the old ones. till his death in gustafson was occupied in treating and preparing for exhibition first the ship, and then its extraordinarily rich contents: a waggon and sledges beautifully carved, beds, chests, kitchen utensils which had been buried with the princess who had owned them. a full account of the find is only now being published[ ]. { } the oseberg ship is the pleasure boat of a royal lady: clinker-built, of oak, exquisitely carved, intended not for long voyages but for the land-locked waters of the fiord, ½ feet [ . m.] long by some ½ feet [ m.] broad. there are holes for fifteen oars down each side, and the ship carried mast and sail. the upper part of the prow had been destroyed, but sufficient fragments have been found to show that it ended in the head of a snake-like creature, bent round in a coil. this explains the words _hringed-stefna_[ ], _hring-naca_[ ], _wunden-stefna_[ ], used of the ship in _beowulf_. a similar ringed prow is depicted on an engraved stone from tjängvide, now in the national historical museum at stockholm. this is supposed to date from about the year [ ]. the gokstad and oseberg ships, together with the ship of tune, a much less complete specimen (unearthed in , and found like the others on the shore of the christiania fiord) owe their preservation to the clay, and the skill of scandinavian antiquaries. yet they are but three out of thousands of ship- or boat-burials. schetelig enumerates known instances from norway alone. often traces of the iron rivets are all that remain. ships preserved from the baltic coast of germany can be seen at königsberg, danzig and stettin; they are smaller and apparently later; the best, that of brösen, was destroyed. the seamanship of _beowulf_ is removed by centuries from that of the (? fourth or fifth century) nydam boat, which not only has no mast or proper keel, but is so built as to be little suited for sailing. in _beowulf_ the sea is a "sail-road," the word "to row" occurs only in the sense of "swim," sailing is assumed as the means by which beowulf travels between the land of the geatas and that of the danes. though he voyages with but fourteen companions, the ship is big enough to carry back four horses. how the sail may have been arranged is shown in many inscribed stones of the eighth to the tenth centuries: notably those of stenkyrka[ ], högbro[ ], and tjängvide[ ]. the oseberg and gokstad ships are no doubt later than the composition of _beowulf_. but it is when looking at the oseberg ship, especially if we picture the great prow like the neck of a swan ending in a serpent's coil, that we can best understand the words of _beowulf_ flota f[=a]m[=i]-heals fugle gel[=i]cost, wunden-stefna, well rendered by earle "the foamy-necked floater, most like to a bird--the coily-stemmed." { } see boehmer (g. h.), _prehistoric naval architecture of the north of europe, report of the u.s. national museum for _ (now rather out of date); guðmundsson (v.), _nordboernes skibe i vikinge- og sagatiden_, københavn, ; [*]schnepper, _die namen der schiffe u. schiffsteile im altenglischen_ (kiel diss.), ; falk (h.), _altnordisches seewesen_ (_wörter u. sachen_, iv, heidelberg, ); hoops' _reallexikon_, s.v. _schiff_. * * * * * g. leire before rolf kraki that leire was the royal town, not merely of rolf kraki, but of rolf's predecessors as well, is stated in the _skjoldunga saga_, extant in the latin abstract of arngrim jonsson: _scioldus in arce selandiae hledro sedes posuit, quae et sequentium plurimorum regum regia fuit_ (ed. olrik, københavn, , p. [ ]). similarly we are told in the _ynglinga saga_, concerning gefion, _hennar fekk skj[o,]ldr, sonr Óðins; þau bjoggu at hleiðru_ (_heimskringla_, udgivne ved f. jónsson, københavn, i, [cap. v]). above all, it is clear from the _annales lundenses_ that, in the twelfth century, dan, ro (hrothgar) and haldan (healfdene) were traditionally connected with leire, and three of the grave mounds there were associated with these three kings. see the extract given above, pp. - , and cf. p. . * * * * * h. bee-wolf and bear's son the obvious interpretation of the name _b[=e]owulf_ is that suggested by grimm[ ], that it means "wolf, or foe, of the bee." grimm's suggestion was repeated independently by skeat[ ], and further reasons for the interpretation "bee-foe" have been found by sweet[ ] (who had been anticipated by simrock[ ] in some of his points), by cosijn[ ], sievers[ ], von grienberger[ ], panzer[ ] and björkman[ ]. from the phonological point of view the etymology is a { } perfect one, but many of those who were convinced that "beowulf" meant "bee-foe" had no satisfactory explanation of "bee-foe" to offer[ ]. others, like bugge, whilst admitting that, so far as the form of the words goes, the etymology is satisfactory, rejected "bee-foe" because it seemed to them meaningless[ ]. yet it is very far from meaningless. "bee-foe" means "bear." the bear has got a name, or nickname, in many northern languages from his habit of raiding the hives for honey. the finnish name for bear is said to be "honey-hand": he is certainly called "sweet-foot," _sötfot_, in sweden, and the old slavonic name, "honey-eater," has come to be accepted in russian, not merely as a nickname, but as the regular term for "bear." and "bear" is an excellent name for a hero of story. the o.e. _beorn_, "warrior, hero, prince" seems originally to have meant simply "bear." the bear, says grimm, "is regarded, in the belief of the old norse, slavonic, finnish and lapp peoples, as an exalted and holy being, endowed with human understanding and the strength of twelve men. he is called 'forest-king,' 'gold-foot,' 'sweet-foot,' 'honey-hand,' 'honey-paw,' 'honey-eater,' but also 'the great,' 'the old,' 'the old grandsire[ ].'" "bee-hunter" is then a satisfactory explanation of _b[=e]owulf_: while the alternative explanations are none of them satisfactory. many scholars have been led off the track by the assumption that beow and beowulf are to be identified, and that we must therefore assume that the first element in beowulf's name is _b[=e]ow_--that we must divide not _b[=e]o-wulf_ but _b[=e]ow-ulf_, "a warrior after the manner of beow[ ]." but there is no ground { } for any such assumption. it is true that in ll. , , "beowulf" is written where we should have expected "beowa." but, even if two words of similar sound have been confused, this fact affords no reason for supposing that they must necessarily have been in the first instance connected etymologically. and against the "warrior of beow" interpretation is the fact that the name is recorded in the early northumbrian _liber vitae_ under the form "biuuulf[ ]." this name, which is that of an early monk of durham, is presumably the same as that of the hero of our poem, though it does not, of course, follow that the bearer of it was named with any special reference to the slayer of grendel. now _biuuulf_ is correct northumbrian for "bee-wolf," but the first element in the word cannot stand for _b[=e]ow_[ ], unless the { } affinities and forms of that word are quite different from all that the evidence has hitherto led us to believe. so much at least seems certain. besides, we have seen that byggvir is taunted by loki precisely with the fact that he _is_ no warrior. if we can estimate the characteristics of the o.e. beow from those of the scandinavian byggvir, the name "warrior after the manner of beow" would be meaningless, if not absurd. bugge[ ], relying upon the parallel o.n. form _bjólfr_[ ], which is recorded as the name of one of the early settlers in iceland[ ], tried to interpret the word as _boejólfr_ "the wolf of the farmstead," quoting as parallels _heimulf_, _gardulf_. but _bjólfr_ itself is best interpreted as "bee-wolf[ ]." and admittedly bugge's explanation does not suit the o.e. _b[=e]owulf_, and necessitates the assumption that the word in english is a mere meaningless borrowing from the scandinavian: for _b[=e]owulf_ assuredly does not mean "wolf of the farmstead[ ]." neither can we take very seriously the explanation of sarrazin and ferguson[ ] that _b[=e]owulf_ is an abbreviation of _beadu-wulf_, "wolf of war." our business is to interpret the name _b[=e]owulf_, or, if we cannot, to admit that we cannot; not to substitute some quite distinct name for it, and interpret that. such theories merely show to what straits we may be reduced, if we reject the obvious etymology of the word. and there are two further considerations, which confirm, almost to a certainty, this obvious interpretation of "beowulf" as "bee-wolf" or "bear." the first is that it agrees excellently with beowulf's bear-like habit of hugging his adversaries to death--a feature which surely belongs to the original kernel of our story, since it is incompatible with the chivalrous, { } weapon-loving trappings in which that story has been dressed[ ]. the second is that, as i have tried to show, the evidence is strongly in favour of bjarki and beowulf being originally the same figure[ ]: and bjarki is certainly a bear-hero[ ]. his name signifies as much, and in the _saga of rolf kraki_ we are told at length how the father of bjarki was a prince who had been turned by enchantment into a bear[ ]. if, then, beowulf is a bear-hero[ ], the next step is to enquire whether there is any real likeness between his adventures at heorot and under the mere, and the adventures of the hero of the widely-spread "bear's son" folk-tale. this investigation has, as we have seen above[ ], been carried out by panzer in his monumental work, which marks an epoch in the study of _beowulf_. panzer's arguments in favour of such connection would, i think, have been strengthened if he had either quoted textually a number of the more important and less generally accessible folk-tales, or, since this would have proved cumbersome, if he had at least given abstracts of them. the method which panzer follows, is to enumerate over two hundred tales, and from them to construct a story which is a compound of them all. this is obviously a method which is liable to abuse, though i do not say that panzer has abused it. but we must not let a story so constructed usurp in our minds the place of the actual recorded folk-tales. folk-tales, as andrew lang wrote long ago, "consist of but few incidents, grouped together in a kaleidoscopic variety of arrangements." a collection of over two hundred cognate tales offers a wide field for the selection therefrom of a composite story. further, some geographical discrimination is necessary: these tales are scattered over europe and asia, and it is important to keep constantly in mind whether a given type of tale belongs, for example, to greece or to scandinavia. { } a typical example of the bear's son tale is _der starke hans_ in grimm[ ]. hans is brought up in a robber's den: but quite apart from any of the theories we are now considering, it has long been recognized that this is a mere toning down of the original incredible story, which makes a bear's den the nursery of the strong youth[ ]. hans overcomes in an empty castle the foe (a mannikin of magic powers) who has already worsted his comrades fir-twister and stone-splitter. he pursues this foe to his hole, is let down by his companions in a basket by a rope, slays the foe with his club and rescues a princess. he sends up the princess in the basket; but when his own turn comes to be pulled up his associates intentionally drop the basket when halfway up. but hans, suspecting treason, has only sent up his club. he escapes by magic help, takes vengeance on the traitors, and weds the princess. in another story in grimm[ ], the antagonist whom the hero overcomes, but does not in this case slay, is called the earthman, _dat erdmänneken_. this type begins with the disappearance of the princesses, who are to the orthodox number of three; otherwise it does not differ materially from the abstract given above. grimm records four distinct versions, all from western germany. the versions of this widespread story which are most easily accessible to english readers are likely to prejudice such readers against panzer's view. the two versions in campbell's _popular tales of the west highlands_[ ], or the version in kennedy's _legendary fictions of the irish celts_[ ] are not of a kind to remind any unprejudiced reader strongly of _beowulf_, or of the _grettir_-story either. indeed, i believe that from countries so remote as north italy or russia parallels can be found which are closer than any so far quoted from the celtic portions of the british isles. possibly more celtic parallels may be forthcoming in the future: some striking ones at any rate are promised[ ]. { } so, too, the story of the "great bird dan" (_fugl dam_[ ]), which is accessible to english readers in dasent's translation[ ], is one in which the typical features have been overlaid by a mass of detail. a much more normal specimen of the "bear's son" story is found, for example, in a folk-tale from lombardy--the story of _giovanni dell' orso_[ ]. giovanni is brought up in a bear's den, whither his mother has been carried off. at five, he has the growth of a man and the strength of a giant. at sixteen, he is able to remove the stone from the door of the den and escape, with his mother. going on his adventures with two comrades, he comes to an empty palace. the comrades are defeated: it becomes the turn of giovanni to be alone. an old man comes in and "grows, grows till his head touched the roof[ ]." giovanni mortally wounds the giant, who however escapes. they all go in search of him, and find a hole in the ground. his comrades let giovanni down by a rope. he finds a great hall, full of rich clothes and provision of every kind: in a second hall he finds three girls, each one more beautiful than the other: in a third hall he finds the giant himself, drawing up his will[ ]. giovanni kills the giant, rescues the damsels, and, in spite of his comrades deserting the rope, he escapes, pardons them, himself weds the youngest princess and marries his comrades to the elder ones. i cannot find in this version any mention of the hero smiting the giant below with a magic sword which he finds there, as suggested by panzer[ ]. but even without this, the first part of the story has resemblances to _beowulf_, and still more to the _grettir_-story. there are many slavonic variants. the south russian story of the norka[ ] begins with the attack of the norka upon the king's park. the king offers half his kingdom to whomsoever will destroy the beast. the youngest prince of three watches, { } after the failure of his two elder brothers, chases and wounds the monster, who in the end pulls up a stone and disappears into the earth. the prince is let down by his brothers, and, with the help of a sword specially given him in the underworld, and a draught of the water of strength, he slays the foe, and wins the princesses. in order to have these for themselves, the elder brothers drop what they suppose to be their youngest brother, as they are drawing him up: but it is only a stone he has cautiously tied to the rope in place of himself. the prince's miraculous return in disguise, his feats, recognition by the youngest princess, the exposure of the traitors, and marriage of the hero, all follow in due course[ ]. a closer russian parallel is that of _ivashko medvedko_[ ]. "john honey-eater" or "bear." john grows up, not by years, but by hours: nearly every hour he gains an inch in height. at fifteen, there are complaints of his rough play with other village boys, and john bear has to go out into the world, after his grandfather has provided him with a weapon, an iron staff of immense weight. he meets a champion who is drinking up a river: "good morning, john bear, whither art going?" "i know not whither; i just go, not knowing where to go." "if so, take me with you." the same happens with a second champion whose hobby is to carry mountains on his shoulder, and with a third, who plucks up oaks or pushes them into the ground. they come to a revolving house in a dark forest, which at john's word stands with its back door to the forest and its front door to them: all its doors and windows open of their own accord. though the yard is full of poultry, the house is empty. whilst the three companions go hunting, the river-swallower stays in the house to cook dinner: this done, he washes his head, and sits at the window to comb his locks. suddenly the earth shakes, then stands still: a stone is lifted, and from under it appears baba yaga driving in her mortar with a pestle: behind her comes barking a little dog. a short dialogue ensues, and the champion, at her request, gives her food; but the second helping she throws to her dog, and thereupon beats the champion with { } her pestle till he becomes unconscious; then she cuts a strip of skin from his back, and after eating all the food, vanishes. the victim recovers his senses, ties up his head with a handkerchief, and, when his companions return, apologizes for the ill-success of his cooking: "he had been nearly suffocated by the fumes of the charcoal, and had had his work cut out to get the room clear." exactly the same happens to the other champions. on the fourth day it is the turn of john bear, and here again the same formulas are repeated. john does the cooking, washes his head, sits down at the window and begins to comb his curly locks. baba yaga appears with the usual phenomena, and the usual dialogue follows, till she begins to belabour the hero with her pestle. but he wrests it from her, beats her almost to death, cuts three strips from her skin, and imprisons her in a closet. when his companions return, they are astonished to find dinner ready. after dinner they have a bath, and the companions try not to show their mutilated backs, but at last have to confess. "now i see why you all suffered from suffocation," says john bear. he goes to the closet, takes the three strips cut from his friends, and reinserts them: they heal at once. then he ties up baba yaga by a cord fastened to one foot, and they all shoot at the cord in turn. john bear hits it, and cuts the string in two; baba yaga falls to the earth, but rises, runs to the stone from under which she had appeared, lifts it, and vanishes. each of the companions tries in turn to lift the stone, but only john can accomplish it, and only he is willing to go down. his comrades let him down by a rope, which however is too short, and john has to eke it out by the three strips previously cut from the back of baba yaga. at the bottom he sees a path, follows it, and reaches a palace where are three beautiful maidens, who welcome him, but warn him against their mother, who is baba yaga herself: "she is asleep now, but she keeps at her head a sword. do not touch it, but take two golden apples lying on a silver tray, wake her gently, and offer them to her. as soon as she begins to eat, seize the sword, and cut her head off at one blow." john bear carries out these instructions, and sends up the maidens, two to be wives to his companions, and the youngest to be his own wife. this leaves the third companion wifeless { } and, in indignation, he cuts the rope when the turn comes to pull john up. the hero falls and is badly hurt. [john has forgotten, in this version, to put his iron club into the basket instead of himself--indeed he has up to now made no use of his staff.] in time the hero sees an underground passage, and makes his way out into the white world. here he finds the youngest maiden, who is tending cattle, after refusing to marry the false companion. john bear follows her home, slays his former comrades with his staff, and throws their bodies on the field for the wild beasts to devour. he then takes his sweetheart home to his people, and weds her. the abstract given above is from a translation made by one of my students, miss m. steine, who tells me that she had heard the tale in this form many times from her old nurse "when we were being sent to sleep, or sitting round her in the evening." i have given it at this length because i do not know of any accessible translation into any western language. panzer enumerates two hundred and two variants of the story: and there are others[ ]. but there is reason in the criticism that what is important for us is the form the folk-tale may have taken in those countries where we must look for the original home of the _beowulf_-story[ ]. the mantuan folk-tale may have been carried down to north italy from scandinavia by the longobards: who can say? but panzer's theory must stand or fall by the parallels which can be drawn between the _beowulf-grettir_-story on the one hand, and the folk-tales as they have been collected in the countries where this story is native: the lands, that is to say, adjoining the north sea. now it is precisely here that we do find the most remarkable resemblances: in iceland, the faroes, norway, denmark, jutland, schleswig, and the low german lands as far as the scheldt. an icelandic version exists in an unprinted ms at reykjavik[ ] which can be consulted in a german translation[ ]. in this { } version a bear, who is really an enchanted prince, carries off a princess. he resumes his human form and weds the princess, but must still at times take the bear's form. his child, the bear-boy (bjarndreingur), is to be kept in the house during the long periods when the enchanted husband is away. but at twelve years old the bear-boy is too strong and unmanageable, bursts out, and slays a bear who turns out to be his father. his mother's heart is broken, but bear-boy goes on his adventures, and associates with himself three companions, one of whom is stein. they build a house in the wood, which is attacked by a giant, and, as usual, the companions are unable to withstand the attacks. bear-boy does so, ties the giant's hands behind his back, and fastens him by his beard. but the giant tears himself free. as in _beowulf_, bear-boy and his companions follow the track by the drops of blood, and come to a hole. stein is let some way down, the other companions further, but only bear-boy dares to go to the bottom. there he finds a weeping princess, and learns that she, and her two sisters, have been carried off by three giants, one of whom is his former assailant. he slays all three, and sends their heads up, together with the maidens and other treasures. but his companions desert the rope, and he has to climb up unaided. in the end he weds the youngest princess. the story from the faroe islands runs thus: three brothers lived together and took turns, two to go out fishing, and one to be at home. for two days, when the two elder brothers were at home, came a giant with a long beard (skeggjatussi) and ate and drank all the food. then comes the turn of the despised youngest brother, who is called in one version Øskudólgur--"the one who sits and rakes in the ashes"--a kind of male cinderella. this brother routs the giant, either by catching his long beard in a cleft tree-trunk, or by branding him in the nose with a hot iron. in either case the mutilated giant escapes down a hole: in one version, after the other brothers come home, they follow him to this hole by the track of his blood. the two elder brothers leave the task of plunging down to the youngest one, who finds below a girl (in the second version, two kidnapped princesses). he finds also a magic sword hanging { } on the wall, which he is only able to lift when he has drunk a magic potion. he then slays the giant, rescues the maiden or maidens, is betrayed in the usual way by his brothers: in the one version they deliberately refuse to draw him up: in the other they cut the rope as they are doing so: but he is discreetly sending up only a big stone. the hero is helped out, however, by a giant, "skræddi kjálki" or "snerkti risi," and in the end marries the princess[ ]. in the norwegian folk-tale the three adventurers are called respectively the captain, the lieutenant and the soldier. they search for the three princesses, and watch in a castle, where the captain and lieutenant are in turn worsted by a strange visitor--who in this version is not identical with the troll below ground who guards the princesses[ ]. when the turn of the soldier comes, he seizes the intruder (the man, as he is called). "ah no, ah no, spare my life," said the man, "and you shall know all. east of the castle is a great sandheap, and down in it a winch, with which you can lower yourself. but if you are afraid, and do not dare to go right down, you only need to pull the bell rope which you will find there, and up you will come again. but if you dare venture so far as to come to the bottom, there stands a flask on a shelf over the door: you must drink what is in it: so will you become so strong that you can strike the head off the troll of the mountain. and by the door there hangs a troll-sword, which also you must take, for no other steel will bite on his body." when he had learnt this, he let the man go. when the captain and the lieutenant came home, they were not a little surprised to find the soldier alive. "how have you escaped a drubbing," said they, "has not the man been { } here?" "oh yes, he is quite a good fellow, he is," said the soldier, "i have learnt from him where the princesses are," and he told them all. they were glad when they heard that, and when they had eaten, they went all three to the sandheap. as usual, the captain and the lieutenant do not dare to go to the bottom: the hero accomplishes the adventure, is (as usual) betrayed by his comrades, but is saved because he has put a stone in the basket instead of himself, and in the end is rescued by the interposition of "kløverhans." what is the explanation of the "sandheap" (_sandhaug_) i do not know. but one cannot forget that grettir's adventure in the house, followed by his adventure with the troll under the earth, is localized at sandhaugar. this may be a mere accident; but it is worth noting that in following up the track indicated by panzer we come across startling coincidences of this kind. as stated above, it can hardly be due to any influence of the _grettis saga_ upon the folk-tale[ ]. the likeness between the two is too remote to have suggested a transference of such details from the one story to the other. we find the story in its normal form in jutland[ ]. the hero, a foundling, is named bjørnøre (bear-ears). there is no explanation offered of this name, but we know that in other versions of the story, where the hero is half bear and half man, his bear nature is shown by his bear's ears. "bear-ears" comes with his companions to an empty house, worsts the foe (the old man, _den gamle_) who has put his companions to shame, and fixes him by his beard in a cloven tree. the foe escapes nevertheless; they follow him to his hole: the companions are afraid, but "bear-ears" is let down, finds the enemy on his bed, and slays him. the rest of the story follows the usual pattern. "bear-ears" rescues and sends up the princesses, his comrades detach the rope, which however is hauling up only the hero's iron club. he escapes miraculously from his confinement below, and returns to marry the youngest princess. in another danish version, from the south of zealand[ ], the hero, "strong hans" (nothing is said { } about his bear-origin), comes with his companions to a magnificent but empty castle. the old witch worsts his comrades and imprisons them under the trap-door: but hans beats her and rescues them, though the witch herself escapes. hans is let down, rescues the princesses, is betrayed by his comrades (who, thinking to drop him in drawing him up, only drop his iron club), and finally weds the third princess. a little further south we have three versions of the same tale recorded for schleswig-holstein[ ]. the hero wins his victory below by means of "a great iron sword" (_en grotes ysernes schwäert_) which he can only wield after drinking of the magic potion. from hanover comes the story of peter bär[ ], which shows all the familiar features: from the same district came some of grimm's variants. others were from the rhine provinces: but the fullest version of all comes from the scheldt, just over the flemish border. the hero, jean l'ourson, is recovered as a child from a bear's den, is despised in his youth[ ], but gives early proof of his strength. he defends an empty castle _un superbe château_, when his companion has failed, strikes off an arm[ ] of his assailant _petit-père-bidoux_, chases him to his hole, _un puits vaste et profond_. he is let down by his companion, but finding the rope too short, plunges, and arrives battered at the bottom. there he perceives _une lumière qui brillait au bout d'une longue galerie_[ ]. at the end of the gallery he sees his former assailant, attended by _une vieille femme à cheveux blancs, qui semblait âgée de plus de cent ans_, who is salving his wounded arm. the hero quenches the light (which is a magic one) smites his foe on the head and kills him, and then rekindles the lamp[ ]. his companion above seeks to rob him of the two princesses he has won, by detaching the rope. nevertheless, he escapes, weds the good princess, and punishes his faithless companion by making him wed the bad one. the white-haired old woman is not spoken of as the mother { } of the foe she is nursing, and it may be doubted whether she is in any way parallel to grendel's mother. the hero does not fight her: indeed it is she who, in the end, enables him to escape. still the parallels between jean l'ourson and beowulf are striking enough. nine distinct features recur, in the same order, in the _beowulf_-story and in this folk-tale. it needs a more robust faith than i possess to attribute this solely to chance. unfortunately, this french-flemish tale is found in a somewhat sophisticated collection. its recorder, as sainte-beuve points out in his letter introductory to the series[ ], uses literary touches which diminish the value of his folk-tales to the student of origins. any contamination from the _beowulf_-story or the _grettir_-story is surely improbable enough in this case: nevertheless, one would have liked the tale taken down verbatim from the lips of some simple-minded narrator as it used to be told at condé on the scheldt. but if we take together the different versions enumerated above, the result is, i think, convincing. here are eight versions of one folk-tale taken as representatives from a much larger number current in the countries in touch with the north sea: from iceland, the faroes, norway, jutland, zealand, schleswig, hanover, and the scheldt. the champion is a bear-hero (as beowulf almost certainly is, and as bjarki quite certainly is); he is called, in iceland, _bjarndreingur_, in jutland, _bjørnøre_, in hanover, _peter bär_, on the scheldt _jean l'ourson_. like beowulf, he is despised in his youth (faroe, scheldt). in all versions he resists his adversary in an empty house or castle, after his comrades have failed. in most versions of the folk-tale this is the third attack, as it is in the case of grettir at sandhaugar and of bjarki: in _beowulf_, on the contrary, we gather that heorot has been raided many times. the adversary, though vanquished, escapes; in one version after the loss of an arm (scheldt): they follow his track to the hole into which he has vanished, sometimes, as in _beowulf_, marking traces of his blood (iceland, faroe, schleswig). the hero always ventures down alone, and gets into { } an underworld of magic, which has left traces of its mysteriousness in _beowulf_. in one tale (scheldt) the hero sees a magic lamp burning below, just as he sees the fire in _beowulf_ or the _grettis saga_. he overcomes either his original foe, or new ones, often by the use of a magic sword (faroe, norway, schleswig); this sword hangs by the door (norway) or on the wall (faroe) as in _beowulf_. after slaying his foe, the hero rekindles the magic lamp, in the scheldt fairy tale, just as he kindles a light in the _grettis saga_, and as the light flashes up in _beowulf_ after the hero has smitten grendel's mother. the hero is in each case deserted by his companions: a feature which, while it is marked in the _grettis saga_, can obviously be allowed to survive in _beowulf_ only in a much softened form. the chosen retainers whom beowulf has taken with him on his journey could not be represented as unfaithful, because the poet is reserving the episode of the faithless retainers for the death of beowulf. to have twice represented the escort as cowardly would have made the poem a satire upon the _comitatus_, and would have assured it a hostile reception in every hall from canterbury to edinburgh. but there is no doubt as to the faithlessness of the comrade stein in the _grettis saga_. and in zealand, one of the faithless companions is called _stenhuggeren_ (the stone-hewer), in schleswig _steenklöwer_, in hanover _steinspieler_, whilst in iceland he has the same name, _stein_, which he has in the _grettis saga_. the fact that the departure home of the danes in _beowulf_ is due to the same cause as that which accounts for the betrayal of his trust by stein, shows that in the original _beowulf_-story also this feature must have occurred, however much it may have become worn down in the existing epic. i think enough has been said to show that there is a real likeness between a large number of recorded folk-tales and the _beowulf-grettir_ story. the parallel is not merely with an artificial, theoretical composite put together by panzer. but it becomes equally clear that _beowulf_ cannot be spoken of as a version of these folk-tales. at most it is a version of a portion of them. the omission of the princesses in _beowulf_ and the _grettis saga_ is fundamental. with the princesses much else falls away. there is no longer any motive for the betrayal of trust { } by the watchers. the disguise of the hero and his vengeance are now no longer necessary to the tale. it might be argued that there was something about the three princesses which made them unsatisfactory as subjects of story. it has been thought that in the oldest version the hero married all three: an awkward episode where a _scop_ had to compose a poem for an audience certainly monogamous and most probably christian. the rather tragic and sombre atmosphere of the stories of beowulf and grettir fits in better with a version from which the princesses, and the living happily ever afterwards, have been dropped. on the other hand, it might be argued that the folk-tale is composite, and that the source from which the _beowulf-grettir_-story drew was a simpler tale to which the princesses had not yet been added. and there are additions as well as subtractions. alike in _beowulf_ and in the _grettis saga_, the fight in the house and the fight below are associated with struggles with monsters of different sex. the association of "the devil and his dam" has only few and remote parallels in the "bear's-son" folk-tale. but panzer has, i think, proved that the struggle of beowulf in the hall, and his plunging down into the deep, is simply an epic glorification of a folk-tale motive. * * * * * i. the date of the death of hygelac. gregory of tours mentions the defeat of chochilaicus (hygelac) as an event of the reign of theudoric. now theudoric succeeded his father chlodoweg, who died nov. . theudoric died in . this, then, gives the extreme limits of time; but as gregory mentions the event among the first occurrences of the reign, the period - has generally been suggested, or in round numbers about or . nevertheless, we cannot attach much importance to the mere order followed by gregory[ ]. he may well have had no means of dating the event exactly. of much more importance than the order, is the fact he records, that theudoric did not { } defeat chochilaicus in person, but sent his son theudobert to repel the invaders. now theudobert was born before the death of his grandfather chlodoweg. for gregory tells us that chlodoweg left not only four sons, but a grandson theudobert, _elegantem atque utilem_[ ]: _utilem_ cannot mean that, at the time of the death of chlodoweg, theudobert was of age to conduct affairs of state, for chlodoweg was only at death[ ]. the merovingians were a precocious race; but if we are to allow theudobert to have been at least fifteen before being placed in charge of a very important expedition, and chlodoweg to have been at least forty before becoming a grandfather, the defeat of hygelac cannot be put before ; and probability would favour a date five or ten years later. there is confirmation for this. when theudobert died, in , he left one son only, quite a child and still under tutelage[ ]; probably therefore not more than twelve or thirteen at most. we know the circumstances of the child's birth. theudobert had been betrothed by his father theudoric to a longobardic princess, wisigardis[ ]. in the meantime he fell in love with the lady deoteria[ ], and married her[ ]. the franks were shocked at this fickleness (_valde scandalizabantur_), and theudobert had ultimately to put away deoteria[ ], although they had this young son (_parvulum filium_), who, as we have seen, could hardly have been born before , and possibly was born years later. theudobert then married the longobardic princess, in the seventh year after their betrothal. so it cannot have been much before that theudobert's father was first arranging the longobardic match. a king is not likely to have waited to find a wife for a son, upon whom his dynasty was to depend, till fifteen years after that son was of age to win a memorable victory[ ]. * * * * * { } bibliography of _beowulf_ and _finnsburg_ i remember it was with extreme difficulty that i could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word _opinion_, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. so that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and positiveness in false or dubious propositions are evils unknown among the _houyhnhnms_.... he would laugh that a creature pretending to reason should value itself upon the knowledge of other people's conjectures, and in things, where that knowledge, if it were certain, could be of no use.... i have often since reflected what destruction such a doctrine would make in the libraries of europe. _gulliver's travels._ the following items are (except in special cases) not included in this bibliography: (_a_) articles dealing with single passages in _beowulf_, or two passages only, in cases where they have already been recorded under the appropriate passage in the footnotes to the text, or in the glossary, of my revision of wyatt's edition. (_b_) articles dealing with the emendation or interpretation of single passages, in cases where such emendations have been withdrawn by their author himself. (_c_) purely popular paraphrases or summaries. (_d_) purely personal protests (e.g., _p.b.b._ xxi, ), however well founded, in which no point of scholarship is any longer involved. books dealing with other subjects, but illustrating _beowulf_, present a difficulty. such books may have a value for _beowulf_ students, even though the author may never refer to our poem, and have occasionally been included in previous bibliographies. but, unless _beowulf_ is closely concerned, these books are not usually mentioned below: such enumeration, if carried out consistently, would clog a bibliography already all too bulky. thus, siecke's _drachenkämpfe_ does not seem to come within the scope of this bibliography, because the author is not concerned with beowulf's dragon. obviously every general discussion of old english metre must concern itself largely with _beowulf_: for such treatises the student is referred to the section _metrik_ of brandl's bibliography (_pauls grdr._); and, for old english heroic legend in general, to the bibliography of my edition of _widsith_. many scholars, e.g. heinzel, have put into their reviews of the books of others, much original work which might well have formed the material for independent articles. such reviews are noted as "weighty," but it must not be supposed that the reviews not so marked are negligible; unless of some value to scholarship, reviews are not usually mentioned below. the title of any book, article or review which i have not seen and verified is denoted by the sign ++. { } summary § . periodicals. § . bibliographies. § . the ms and its transcripts. § . editions. § . concordances, _etc._ § . translations (including early summaries). § . textual criticism and interpretation. § . questions of literary history, date and authorship. _beowulf_ in the light of history, archæology[ ], heroic legend, mythology and folk-lore. § . style and grammar. § . metre. § . periodicals the periodicals most frequently quoted are: _a.f.d.a._ = anzeiger für deutsches alterthum. berlin, _etc._ _a.f.n.f._ = arkiv för nordisk filologi. christiania, lund, _etc._ _quoted according to the original numbering._ _anglia._ halle, _etc._ _archiv_ = herrigs archiv für das studium der neueren sprachen und litteraturen. elberfeld, braunschweig, _etc._ _quoted according to the original numbering._ _d.l.z._ = deutsche literatur-zeitung. berlin, _etc._ _engl. stud._ = englische studien. heilbronn, leipzig, _etc._ _germania._ wien, - . _i.f._ = indogermanische forschungen. strassburg, _etc._ _j.(e.)g.ph._ = journal of (english and) germanic philology. bloomington, urbana, _etc._ _lit. cbl._ = literarisches centralblatt. leipzig, _etc._ _literaturblatt_ für germanische und romanische philologie. heilbronn, leipzig, _etc._ _m.l.n._ = modern language notes. baltimore, _etc._ _quoted by the page, not the column._ _m.l.r._ = the modern language review. cambridge, _etc._ _mod. phil._ = modern philology. chicago, _etc._ _morsbachs studien_ zur englischen philologie. halle, _etc._ _p.b.b._ = beiträge zur geschichte der deutschen sprache u. litteratur. halle, _etc._ _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ = publications of the modern language association of america. baltimore, _etc._ _z.f.d.a._ = zeitschrift für deutsches alterthum. leipzig, berlin, _etc._ _z.f.d.ph._ = zachers zeitschrift für deutsche philologie. halle, _etc._ _z.f.ö.g._ = zeitschrift für die österreichischen gymnasien. wien, _etc._ the titles of other periodicals are given with sufficient fulness for easy identification. { } § . bibliographies bibliographies have been published from time to time as a supplement to _anglia_; also in the _jahresbericht über...german. philologie_; by garnett in his _translation_, _etc._; and will be found in wülker's _grundriss_ (with very useful abstracts), , pp. _etc._ clark hall's _translation_, , . holthausen's _beowulf_, , , , . brandl's _englische literatur_, in _pauls grdr._( ), ii, - (full, but not so reliable as holthausen's). sedgefield's _beowulf_, , (carefully selected). an excellent critical bibliography of _beowulf_-translations up to is that of tinker: see under § , _translations_. § . the ms and its transcripts _beowulf_ fills ff. ( )_a_ to ( )_b_ of the british museum ms _cotton vitellius a. xv._ _beowulf_ is written in two hands, the first of which goes to l. . this hand was identified by prof. sedgefield (_beowulf_, _introduction_, p. xiv, footnote) with that of the piece immediately preceding _beowulf_ in the ms, and by mr kenneth sisam, in , with that of all three immediately preceding pieces: the _christopher_ fragment, the _wonders of the east_, and the _letter of alexander on the wonders of india_. the pieces preceding these, however (the _soliloquies of s. augustine_, the _gospel of nicodemus_, _salomon and saturn_), are certainly not in the same hand, and their connection with the _beowulf_-ms is simply due to the bookbinder. from l. to the end, _beowulf_ is written in a second hand, thicker and less elegant than the first. this second hand seems to be clearly identical with that in which the poem of _judith_, immediately following _beowulf_, is written. this was pointed out by sievers in (_z.f.d.a._ xv, ), and has never, i think, been disputed (cf. sisam, p. ; förster, p. ). nevertheless the two poems have probably not always formed one book. for the last page of _beowulf_ was apparently once the last page of the volume, to judge from its battered condition, whilst _judith_ is imperfect at the beginning. and there are trifling differences, e.g. in the frequency of the use of contractions, and the form of the capital h. this identity of the scribe of the second portion of _beowulf_ and the _judith_ scribe, together with the identity (pointed out by mr sisam) of the scribe of the first portion of _beowulf_ and the scribe of the three preceding works, is important. a detailed comparison of these texts will throw light upon the characteristics of the scribes. that the three preceding works are in the same hand as that of the first _beowulf_ scribe was again announced, independently of mr sisam, by prof. max förster, in . sievers had already in arrived at the same result (see förster, p. , note) but had not published it. it seems to me in the highest degree improbable that the _beowulf_-ms has lost its ending, as prof. förster thinks (pp. , ). surely nothing could be better than the conclusion of the poem as it stands in the ms: that the { } casual loss of a number of leaves could have resulted in so satisfactory a conclusion is, i think, not conceivable. moreover, the scribe has crammed as much material as possible into the last leaf of _beowulf_, making his lines abnormally long, and using contractions in a way he does not use them elsewhere. the only reason for this must be to avoid running over into a new leaf or quire: there could be no motive for this crowded page if the poem had ever run on beyond it. there is pretty general agreement that the date of the _beowulf_-ms is about the year , and that it is somewhat more likely to be before that date than after. the _beowulf_-ms was injured in the great cottonian fire of , and the edges of the parchment have since chipped away owing to the damage then sustained. valuable assistance can therefore be derived from the two transcripts now preserved in the royal library of copenhagen, made in , when the ms was much less damaged. a. poema anglosaxonicum de rebus gestis danorum ... fecit exscribi londini a.d. mdcclxxxvii grimus johannis thorkelin. b. poema anglosaxonicum de danorum rebus gestis ... exscripsit grimus johannis thorkelin. londini mdcclxxxvii. the first description of the _beowulf_-ms is in by h. wanley (_librorum septentrionalium ... catalogus_, pp. -- , oxoniæ, forming vol. ii of hickes' _thesaurus_). two short extracts from the ms are given by wanley. he describes the poem as telling of the wars _quæ beowulfus quidam danus, ex regio scyldingorum stirpe ortus, gessit contra sueciæ regulos_. the text was printed by thorkelin in , and the ms was collated by conybeare, who in his _illustrations_ ( ) issued pages of corrections of thorkelin. these corrections were further corrected by j. m. kemble in (letter to m. francisque michel, in michel's _bibliothèque anglo-saxonne_, pp. , - ). meantime kemble's text had been issued in , based upon his examination of the ms. the ms was also seen by thorpe (in : thorpe's text was not published till ) and by grundtvig (pub. ). a further collation was that of e. kÖlbing in (zur beóvulf-handschrift, _archiv_, lvi, - ). kölbing's collation proves the superiority of kemble's text to grundtvig's. line for line transcripts of the ms were those of holder, wülker and zupitza: holder, a. beowulf. bd. i. abdruck der handschrift. freiburg u. tübingen. (++ , from collation made in .) reviews: kölbing, _engl. stud._ vii, ; kluge, _literaturblatt_, , ; wülker, _lit. cbl._ , - . . aufl. . aufl. reviews: dieter, _anglia, beiblatt_, vi, - ; brandl, _z.f.d.a._ xl, . wÜlker, r. p. beowulf: text nach der handschrift, in grein's _bibliothek_, i, - . zupitza, j. beowulf. autotypes of the unique cotton ms. vitellius a xv; with a transliteration and notes. _early english text society_, london. reviews: trautmann, _anglia_, vii, _anzeiger_, ; kölbing, _engl. stud._ vii, _etc._; varnhagen, _a.f.d.a._ x, ; sievers, _lit. cbl._ , . { } further discussion of the ms by davidson, c. differences between the scribes of beowulf. _m.l.n._ v, - ; mcclumpha, c., criticizes the above, _m.l.n._ v, ; reply by davidson, _m.l.n._ v, - . lamb, evelyn h. "beowulf": hemming of worcester. _notes and queries_, ser. xi, vol. i, p. . (worthless. an assertion, unsupported by any evidence, that _both_ the hands of the beowulf ms are those of hemming of worcester, who flourished c. .) sisam, k. the beowulf manuscript. _m.l.r._ xi, - . (very important. gives results of a scrutiny of the other treatises in _ms vitellius a. xv_ (see above) and shows, among other things, that the beowulf ms, before reaching the hands of sir robert cotton, was (in ) in those of lawrence nowell, the elizabethan anglo-saxon scholar.) fÖrster, max. die beowulf-handschrift, leipzig, _berichte der sächs_. _akad. der wissenschaften_, bd. . (an excellent and detailed discussion of the problems of the ms, quite independent of that of mr sisam, whose results it confirms.) review: schröder, _z.f.d.a._ lviii, - . rypins, s. i. the beowulf codex. _mod. phil._ xvii, - (promising further treatment of the problems of the ms). the ms of finnsburg has been lost. see above, p. . § . editions of beowulf and finnsburg hickes, g. linguarum vett. septentrionalium thesaurus. oxoniæ. (vol. i, - , text of finnsburg fragment.) conybeare, j. j. the battle of finsborough, in brydges' _british bibliographer_, vol. iv, pp. - ; no. xv (text, latin translation, and free verse paraphrase in english: some brief notes). thorkelin, g. j. de danorum rebus gestis secul. iii et iv. poëma danicum dialecto anglo-saxonica. (copenhagen, with lat. transl.) reviews: see § , _textual criticism_, , grundtvig; also _dansk litteratur-tidende_, , - , - , - (defending thorkelin against grundtvig); _iduna_, vii, , - ; _monthly review_, lxxxi, , - ; ++_jenaische literatur-zeitung_, , _ergänzungsblätter_, - (summary in wülker's _grundriss_, p. ); outzen in _kieler blätter_, , see § , below. rask, r. k. angelsaksisk sproglære. stockholm (pp. - contain beowulf, ll. - , with commentary). text of finnsburg, given by grundtvig in _bjowulfs drape,_ pp. xl-xlv. text of finnsburg, and of large portions of beowulf, given in conybeare's _illustrations_. see § , _translations_. kemble, j. m. beowulf, the travellers song, and the battle of finnesburh, edited with a glossary ... and an historical preface. london. . second edit. schaldemose, f. beo-wulf og scopes widsið ... med oversættelse. kjøbenhavn. (follows kemble's text of : text and transl. of finnsburg also given, pp. - .) , reprinted. klipstein, l. f. analecta anglo-saxonica. new york. (selections from beowulf, ii, - : text of finnsburg, - .) ettmÜller, l. engla and seaxna scopas and b[=o]ceras. quedlinburg u. leipzig. (text of large portions of beowulf, with finnsburg, pp. - .) thorpe, b. the a.s. poems of beowulf, the scop or gleeman's tale, and finnesburg, with a literal translation ... oxford. ++ , reprinted. { } grein, c. w. m. bibliothek der angelsächsischen poesie, i. göttingen (pp. -- , beóvulf, ueberfall in finnsburg). - . bd. iii, iv. sprachschatz. rieger, m. alt- u. angelsächsisches lesebuch. giessen. (der kampf zu finnsburg, pp. - : aus dem beovulf, - .) grundtvig, n. f. s. beowulfes beorh eller bjovulfs-drapen. kiöbenhavn, london. (the finnsburg fragment is inserted in the text of beowulf, after l. .) heyne, m. beovulf, mit ausführlichem glossar. paderborn. (anhang: der ueberfall in finnsburg.) reviews: grein, _lit. cbl._ , -- ; holtzmann, _germania_, viii, - . . ++ aufl. review: rieger, _z.f.d.ph._ ii, - . . aufl. review: sievers, _lit. cbl._ , - , brief but severe. . aufl. [in this, kölbing's collation of was utilized; see p. ]. reviews: brenner, _engl. stud._ iv, - ; gering, _z.f.d.ph._ xii, - . grein, c. w. m. beovulf, nebst den fragmenten finnsburg u. valdere. cassel u. göttingen. ettmÜller, l. carmen de beóvulfi, gautarum regis, rebus praeclare gestis atque interitu, quale fuerit antequam in manus interpolatoris, monachi vestsaxonici, inciderat. (zürich. university programme. the additions of the "interpolator" being omitted, the edition contains lines only.) reviews: schönbach, _a.f.d.a._ iii, - ; ++suchier, _jenaer literatur-zeitung_, xlvii, , . arnold, t. beowulf, with a translation, notes and appendix. london. reviews (unfavourable): sweet, _academy_, x, , ; wülker, _lit. cbl._ , - , and _anglia_, i, - . wÜlker, r. p. kleinere angelsächsische dichtungen. halle, leipzig. (finnsburg, pp. - .) mÖller, h. das altenglische volksepos in der ursprünglichen strophischen form. i. abhandlungen. ii. texte. kiel. (containing only those parts of the finn-story and of beowulf which möller regarded as "genuine," in strophic form.) reviews: heinzel, _a.f.d.a._ x, - (important); schönbach, _z.f.ö.g._ xxxv, - . wÜlker, r. p. das beowulfslied, nebst den kleineren epischen ... stücken. kassel. (in the second edit. of grein's _bibliothek der ags. poesie._) review: kölbing, _engl. stud._ vii, _etc._ harrison, j. a. and sharp, r. beowulf. boston, u.s.a. (++ , on the basis of heyne's edition; with finnsburg.) reviews: york powell, _academy_, xxvi, , - ; reply by harrison, - ; by york powell, ; kölbing, _engl. stud._ vii, ; bright, _literaturblatt_, , -- . . third edit. . fourth edit. reviews: wülker, _anglia, beiblatt_, v, - ; glöde, _engl. stud._ xx, - . holder, a. beowulf, ii. berichtigter text u. wörterbuch. freiburg u. tübingen. reviews: york powell, _academy_, xxvi, , - ; wülker, _lit. cbl._ , - ; krüger, _literaturblatt_, , - . . aufl. [with suggestions of kluge and cosijn]. reviews: trautmann, _anglia, beiblatt,_ x, ; wülfing, _engl. stud._ xxix, - ; holthausen, _literaturblatt_, , - (important corrections). heyne, m. and socin, a. [fifth edit. of heyne's text.] paderborn u. münster. reviews: koeppel, _engl. stud._ xiii, - ; heinzel, _a.f.d.a._ xv, - ; sievers, _z.f.d.ph._ xxi, - (very important corrections); schröer, _literaturblatt_, , - . { } . aufl. reviews: trautmann, _anglia, beiblatt_, x, ; holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, x, ; sarrazin, _engl. stud._ xxviii, - ; jantzen, _archiv_, ciii, - . . aufl. reviews: holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, xviii, - ; klaeber, the same, - ; kruisinga, _engl. stud._ xxxv, - ; v. grienberger, _z.f.ö.g._ lvi, - (very full); e. kock, _a.f.n.f._ xxii, (brief). wyatt, a. j. beowulf, edited with textual footnotes, index of proper names, and glossary. (text of finnsburg.) cambridge. reviews: bradley, _academy_, xlvi, , - ; wülker, _anglia, beiblatt_, v, - ; brenner, _engl. stud._ xx, ; zupitza, _archiv_, xciv, - . . second edit. reviews: trautmann, _anglia, beiblatt_, x, ; sarrazin, _engl. stud._ xxviii, - . kluge, f. angelsächsisches lesebuch. aufl. halle. (xxx. der Überfall von finnsburuh, pp. - .) trautmann, m. finn u. hildebrand. _bonner beiträge_, vii. (text, translation and comment on the episode and fragment.) reviews: binz, _z.f.d.ph._ xxxvii, - ; jantzen, _die neueren sprachen_, xi, - ; _neue philol. rundschau_, , - (signed -tz- ? jantzen). some additional notes by trautmann, "nachträgliches zu finn u. hildebrand" appeared in _bonner beiträge_, xvii, . trautmann, m. das beowulflied ... das finn-bruchstück u. die waldhere-bruchstücke. bearbeiteter text u. deutsche Übersetzung. _bonner beiträge_, xvi. reviews: klaeber, _m.l.n._ xx, - (weighty); eckhardt, _engl. stud._ xxxvii, - ; schücking, _archiv_, cxv, - ; barnouw, _museum_, xiv, - ; _neue philologische rundschau_ (? by jantzen), , - . - holthausen, f. beowulf nebst dem finnsburg-bruchstück. i. texte. ii. einleitung, glossar u. anmerkungen. heidelberg. reviews: lawrence, _j.e.g.ph._ vii, - ; klaeber, _m.l.n._ xxiv, - ; schücking, _engl. stud._ xxxix, - (weighty); deutschbein, _archiv_, cxxi, - ; v. grienberger, _z.f.ö.g._ , lix, - (giving an elaborate list of etymological parallels); barnouw, _museum_, xiv, - ; wülker, _d.l.z._ , - ; ++jantzen, _neue philologische rundschau_, , . - . aufl., nebst den kleineren denkmälern der heldensage, finnsburg, waldere, deor, widsith, hildebrand. reviews: eichler, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxi, - ; xxii, - ; schücking, _engl. stud._ xlii, - ; brandl, _archiv_, cxxi, , cxxiv, ; binz, _literaturblatt_, xxxii, , - : see also koeppel, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxiii, . - . aufl. - . aufl. reviews: binz, _literaturblatt_, xli, , - ; fischer, _engl. stud._ liv, - . schÜcking, l. l. beowulf [ th edit. of heyne's text]. paderborn. reviews: lawrence, _m.l.n._ xxv, - ; klaeber, _engl. stud._ xxxix, - (weighty); imelmann, _d.l.z._ , (contains important original contributions); v. grienberger, _z.f.ö.g._ lx, ; boer, _museum_, xvi, (brief). . aufl. reviews: sedgefield, _engl. stud._ xliii, - ; f. wild, _z.f.ö.g._ lxiv, - . . aufl. reviews: klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxiv, - ; _engl. stud._ xlix, ; ++degenhart, _blätter f. gymnasialschulwesen_, li, ; e. a. kock, _a.f.n.f._ xxxii, - ; holthausen, _z.f.d.ph._ xlviii, - (weighty). . , aufl. reviews: björkman, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxx, - , ; fischer, _engl. stud._ liii, - . { } sedgefield, w. j. beowulf, edited with introduction, bibliography, notes, glossary and appendices. manchester. reviews: thomas, _m.l.r._ vi, - ; lawrence, _j.e.g.ph._ x, - ; wild, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxiii, - ; klaeber, _engl. stud._ xliv, - ; brandl, _archiv_, cxxvi, . . second edit. reviews: _m.l.r._ ix, ; lawrence, _j.e.g.ph._ xiv, - ; klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxv, - . text of the finn episode given in meyer, w., beiträge zur geschichte der eroberung englands durch die angelsachsen. chambers, r. w. beowulf with the finnsburg fragment, ed. by a. j. wyatt. new edition, revised. cambridge. reviews: jones, _m.l.r._ xi, - : lawrence, _j.e.g.ph._ xiv, - ; bright, _m.l.n._ xxxi, - ; schücking, _engl. stud._ lv, - . dickins, b. runic and heroic poems (text of finnsburg with notes). cambridge. review: mawer, _m.l.r._ xii, - . mackie, w. l. the fight at finnsburg (introduction, text and notes). _j.e.g.ph._ xvi, - . schÜcking, l. l. kleines angelsächsisches dichterbuch. [includes finnsburg fragment, finnsburg episode and "beowulf's return" (ll. - ).] reviews: binz, _literaturblatt_, xli, , pp. - ; imelmann, _d.l.z._ xl, , - ; fischer, _engl. stud._ liv, , - . text of finnsburg fragment and episode, with commentary, in imelmann's "forschungen zur altenglischen poesie." an edition of beowulf by prof. f. klaeber is in the press. § . concordances, etc. holder, a. beowulf, vol. ii_b_, wortschatz. freiburg. review: brandl, _a.f.d.a._ xxiii, . cook, a. s. concordance to beowulf. halle. reviews: klaeber, _j.e.g.ph._ xi, - ; garnett, _amer. jnl. philol._ xxxiii, - . § . translations (including early summaries) wÜlker, r. p. besprechung der beowulfübersetzungen, _anglia_, iv, _anzeiger_, - . gummere, f. b. the translation of beowulf, and the relations of ancient and modern english verse, _amer. jour. of phil._ vii, - . (a weighty argument for translation into "the original metre.") garnett, j. m. the translation of a.s. poetry, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ vi, - . (agreeing in the main with gummere.) frye, p. h. the translation of beowulf, _m.l.n._ xii, - . (advocating blank verse.) fulton, e. on translating a.s. poetry, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xiii, - . (recommending an irregular four-accent line.) garnett, j. m. recent translations of o.e. poetry, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xviii, - . tinker, c. b. the translations of beowulf. a critical bibliography. _yale studies in english_. new york. reviews: klaeber, _j.e.g.ph._ v, - ; binz, _anglia, beiblatt,_ xvi, - . child, g. c. "gummere's oldest english epic," _m.l.n._ xxiv, - . (a criticism advocating prose translation.) gummere, f. b. translation of old english verse, _m.l.n._ xxv, - . (advocating alliterative verse.) reply by child, _m.l.n._ xxv, - . see also reviews of gummere, under year , below. { } leonard, w. e. beowulf and the niebelungen couplet, _univ. of wisconsin studies in language and literature_, ii, - . turner, sharon. history of the manners ... poetry ... and language of the anglo-saxons. london. (from p. to p. is a summary, with translations, of beowulf, prol.-viii. turner was misled as to the subject of the poem, because a leaf had been misplaced in the ms, so that the account of the fighting between grendel and beowulf (ll. - ) occurred immediately after l. . the struggle between beowulf and an (unnamed) adversary being thus made to follow the account of hrothgar's court at heorot, turner was led to suppose that the poem narrated the attempt of beowulf to avenge _on hrothgar_ the feud for a homicide he had committed. "the transition," turner not unreasonably complains, "is rather violent." the correct placing of the shifted leaf is due to thorkelin.) thorkelin, g. j. [latin version in his edition, q.v.] the reviewers gave summaries of the poem, with translations of portions of it: english in the _monthly review_, lxxxi, , - (less inaccurate than turner's summary); danish in the _dansk litteratur-tidende_, , - , - , and by grundtvig in the _nyeste skilderie_ (see below, § ); swedish in _iduna_, vii, , - . grundtvig, n. f. s. stykker af skjoldung-kvadet eller bjovulfs minde, _dannevirke_, iv, - . grundtvig, n. f. s. bjowulfs drape, kjøbenhavn. (free rhymed translation of beowulf: finnsburg rendered into short lines, unrhymed: introduction and most important critical notes.) review: j. grimm in _gött. anzeigen_, = _kleinere schriften_, iv, - . for second edit., see . turner, sharon. history of the anglo-saxons ... third edit. london. (vol. iii, pp. - , contains a summary, with translations, of the earlier part of the poem, much less inaccurate than that of .) conybeare, j. j. illustrations of anglo-saxon poetry. london. (pp. - contain a summary of beowulf, with blank verse transl. and the corresponding text in a.s. and latin; pp. - , finnsburg, text with transl. into latin and into english verse.) grundtvig, n. f. s. nordens mythologi. anden udgave. kiöbenhavn. (pp. - give a summary of the beowulf-stories. this was, of course, wanting in the first edit. of .) kemble, j. m. translation ... with ... glossary, preface and notes. london. (the "postscript to the preface" in which kemble supplemented and corrected the "historical preface" to his edition of , is the basis of the mythological explanations of beowulf as an anglian god, beowa.) leo, h. [summary with translation of extracts.] see § , below. ettmÜller, l. beowulf, stabreimend übersetzt, mit einleitung und anmerkungen (finnsburg, pp. - ). zürich. longfellow, h. w. the poets and poetry of europe. philadelphia. (pp. - contain transl. of extracts from beowulf.) schaldemose, f. [danish transl. of beowulf and finnsburg, in his edit., q.v.] wackerbarth, a. d. beowulf, translated into english verse. london. (imitation of scott's metre.) thorpe, b. [in his edit., q.v.] uhland, l. [prose transl. of finnsburg.] _germania_, ii, - . { } grein, c. w. m. dichtungen der angelsachsen, stabreimend übersetzt. göttingen. (vol. i, pp. -- , beowulf, trans. into alliterative verse.) . aufl. [incorporating grein's manuscript corrections, seen through the press by wülker.] cassel. review: krüger, _engl. stud._ viii, -- . simrock, k. beowulf übersetzt u. erläutert. stuttgart u. augsburg. (alliterative verse: finnsburg fragment inserted after l. .) sandras, g. s. de carminibus anglo-saxonicis caedmoni adjudicatis. paris. (pp. -- contain extract from beowulf and latin transl.) haigh, d. h. (prose transl. of finnsburg.) in _anglo-saxon sagas,_ pp. -- , q.v. heyne, m. beowulf übersetzt. paderborn. (blank verse.) review: holtzmann, _germania_, viii, -- . -- . aufl. paderborn. reviews: holthausen, _archiv_, ciii, -- ; wülker, _anglia, beiblatt_, ix, ; jantzen,_ engl. stud._ xxv, -- ; löhner, _z.f.ö.g._ xlix, . . aufl. paderborn. grundtvig, n. f. s. bjovulfs-drapen. anden udgave. von wolzogen, h. beovulf aus dem ags. leipzig. (verse.) arnold, t. [in his edit., q.v.] botkine, l. beowulf traduite en français. havre. (prose: some omissions.) review: körner, _engl. stud._ ii, -- . zinsser, g. der kampf beowulfs mit grendel [vv. -- ] als probe einer metrischen uebersetzung. saarbrücken. reviews: _archiv_, lxviii, ; krüger, _engl. stud_. vii, -- . lumsden, h. w. beowulf ... transl. into modern rhymes. london. (some omissions.) reviews: _athenæum_, april , p. ; garnett, _amer. jour. of phil._ ii, -- ; wülker, _anglia_, iv, _anzeiger_, -- . . ++second edit. review: york powell, _academy_, xxvi, , pp. -- . schuhmann, g. beovulf, antichissimo poema epico de' popoli germanici. _giornale napoletano di filosofia e lettere_. anno iv, vol. , -- , -- . (a summary only.) garnett, j. m. beowulf and the fight at finnsburg, translated. boston, u.s.a. reviews: _nation_ (new york), no. , ; harrison, _amer. jour. of phil._ iv, -- , reply by garnett, -- ; schipper, _anglia_, vi, _anzeiger_, -- ; krüger, _engl. stud_. viii, -- , and (second edit.) ix, ; bright, _literaturblatt_, , -- . . second edit., revised. . fourth edit. grion, giusto. beovulf, poema epico anglòsassone del vii secolo, tradotto e illustrato. in the _atti della reale accademia lucchese_, xxii. (first italian translation.) review: krüger, _engl. stud._ ix, -- . ++wickberg, r. beowulf, en fornengelsk hjältedikt översatt. westervik. . ++second edit. upsala. review: kock, _a.f.n.f._ xxxii, -- . hall, john lesslie. beowulf translated. (verse, with notes.) boston, u.s.a. reviews: _m.l.n._ vii, , (brief mention); miller, _viking club year book_, i, -- ; holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, iv, -- ; glöde, _engl. stud._ xix, -- . . ++student's edit. ( ) earle, john. the deeds of beowulf. oxford. (prose translation, somewhat spoilt by its artificial and sometimes grotesque vocabulary; very valuable introduction, with summary of the controversy to date, { } and notes.) reviews: _athenæum_, oct. ; koeppel, _engl. stud._ xviii, - (fair, though rather severe). hoffmann, p. beówulf ... aus dem angelsächsischen übertragen. züllichau. (in the measure of the nibelungenlied; ind. finnsburg.) reviews (mostly unfavourable): shipley, _m.l.n._ ix, - , ; wülker, _anglia, beiblatt_, v, ; wülker, _lit. cbl._ , p. ; glöde, _engl. stud._ xix, - ; ++detter, _Öster. literaturblatt_, v, ; ++marold, _deut. literaturblatt_, xxiii, . . ++second edit. hannover. morris, w. and wyatt, a. j. the tale of beowulf. kelmscott press, hammersmith. (verse: archaic vocabulary.) . new edit. review: hulme, _m.l.n._ xv, - , . simons, l. beówulf ... vertaald in stafrijm en met inleiding en aanteekeningen. gent (_koninklijke vlaamsche academie_). reviews: glöde, _engl. stud._ xxv, - ; uhlenbeck, _museum_ (groningen), v, - . steineck, h. altenglische dichtungen (beowulf, elene, u.a.) in wortgetreuer Übersetzung. leipzig. (prose, line for line.) reviews: binz, _anglia, beiblatt_, ix, - ; holthausen, _archiv_, ciii, - (both very unfavourable). hall, j. r. clark. beowulf and the fight at finnsburg. a translation into modern english prose. london. reviews: _athenæum_, , july, p. ; _academy_, lx, , ; stedman, _viking club year book_, iii, - ; tinker, _j.e.g.ph._ iv, - ; holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, xiii, - ; dibelius, _archiv_, cix, - ; vietor, _die neueren sprachen_, xi, ; wülker, _lit. cbl._ , - ("sehr zu empfehlen"). (q.v.). new edit., with considerable additions. tinker, c. b. beowulf translated out of the old english. new york. (prose.) reviews: klaeber, _j.e.g.ph._ v, - ; holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, xiv, . ++bjÖrkman, e. swedish transl. (prose) of beowulf, part ii (in schück's _världslitteraturen_, with introd. by schück). - trautmann, m., in his editions, q.v. child, c. g. beowulf and the finnesburh fragment translated. london and boston. reviews: grattan, _m.l.r._ iii, - ("a good prose translation which steers an even course between pseudo-archaisms and modern colloquialisms"); miller, _viking club year book_, i, - ; klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xvi, - ; brandl, _archiv_, cxxi, . ++hansen, a. transl. into danish of beowulf, ll. - , _danske tidsskrift_. vogt, p. beowulf ... übersetzt. halle. (text rearranged according to theories of interpolation: finnsburg fragment translated, following möller's text.) reviews: binz, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxi, - ; eichler, _z.f.ö.g._ lvii, - ; klaeber, _archiv_, cxvii, - : jantzen, _lit. cbl._ , - . gering, h. beowulf nebst dem finnsburg-bruchstück übersetzt. heidelberg. (verse.) reviews: lawrence, _j.e.g.ph._ vii, - ("thoroughly scholarly"); jantzen, _lit. cbl._ , - ; ries, _a.f.d.a._ xxxiii, - ; binz, _literaturblatt_, xxxi, - ("fliessend und ungezwungen, sinngetreu ..."); ++zehme, _monatsschrift_, xiv, - ; v. grienberger, _z.f.ö.g._ , lix, - . . aufl. huyshe, w. beowulf ... translated into ... prose ("appendix: the fight at finn's burgh"). london. ("translation," to quote clark hall, "apparently such as might have been compiled from previous translations by a person ignorant of ags. some original mistakes.") reviews: _athenæum_, , ii, ("mr huyshe displays sad ignorance of old { } english ... but an assiduous study of the work of his predecessors has preserved him from misrepresenting seriously the general sense of the text"); _notes and queries_, ser. x, vol. viii, ; garnett, _amer. jnl. philol._ xxix, - ; klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xix, . gummere, f. b. the oldest english epic. beowulf, finnsburg, waldere, deor and the german hildebrand, translated in the original metres. new york. reviews: _athenæum_, , ii, ; trautmann, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxxiii, - (metrical debate); sedgefield, _engl. stud._ xli, - (discussing possibility of reproducing in mod. eng. the old eng. alliterative verse-rhythm); derocquigny, _revue germanique_, vi, - ; see also above, p. . hansen, adolf. bjovulf, oversat af a. hansen, og efter hans død gået efter og fuldført samt forsynet med en inledning og en oversættelse af brudstykket om kampen i finsborg, af viggo julius von holstein rathlou; udgivet ved oskar hansen. københavn og kristiania. an account of this translation, by v. holstein rathlou, in _tilskueren_, june, , pp. - ; review: olrik, _danske studier_, , - . clark hall, j. r. beowulf and the finnsburg fragment. a translation into modern english prose. london. reviews: mawer, _m.l.r._ vi, ("probably the best working translation that we have, enriched by a valuable introduction and excellent appendices"); _academy_, , i, - ; björkman, _engl. stud._ xliv, - ; _archiv_, cxxvi, - ; binz, _literaturblatt_, xxxii, . pierquin, h. le poème anglo-saxon de beowulf. (an extraordinary piece of work; the version mainly follows kemble's text, which is reproduced, but with many misprints: kemble's _saxons in england_ is translated by way of introduction. the finnsburg fragment is included.) reviews: _academy_, , ii, - (seems to regard pierquin as author of _les saxons en angleterre_); sedgefield, _m.l.r._ viii, - ; klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxiv, - ; imelmann, _d.l.z._ xxxiv ( ), - (very unfavourable); ++luick, _mitt. d. inst. f. österr. gesch.-forsch._ xxxvi, ; ++barat, _moyen Âge_, xxvi (see. ser. xvii), - . kirtlan, e. j. the story of beowulf. london. (a fair specimen of the less scholarly translations; nicely got up and not exceedingly incorrect.) reviews: _athenæum_, , ii, ; klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxvii, - . clark hall, j. r. beowulf: a metrical translation. cambridge. (not so successful as the same writer's prose translation.) reviews: sedgefield, _m.l.r._ x, - (discussing the principles of metrical translation); klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxvi, - . olivero, f. traduzioni dalla poesia anglo-sassone. bari. (pp. - , extracts from beowulf.) review: _m.l.r._ xi, . ++benedetti, a. la canzone di beowulf, poema epico anglo-sassone del vi secolo. versione italiana, con introduzione e note. palermo. leonard, w. e. [specimen, passus ix, of forthcoming transl., in the measure of the nibelungenlied.] in _univ. of wisconsin studies_, ii, - ; see above. a translation of beowulf into the norwegian "landsmaal," by h. rytter, will appear shortly. popular paraphrases of beowulf are not included in the above list. an account will be found in tinker's _translations_ of those of e. h. jones (in cox's _popular romances_, ); j. gibb, - ; wägner-macdowall, _etc._; miss z. a. ragozin, , ; a. j. church, ; miss c. l. thomson, , . mention may also be made of those of ++f. a. turner, ; h. e. marshall, ; t. cartwright, ; prof. j. h. cox, . an illustrated summary of { } the _beowulf_ story was issued by mr w. t. stead in his penny "books for the bairns." the versions of miss thomson and prof. cox are both good. the paraphrase in the _canadian monthly_, ii, ( ), attributed in several bibliographies to earle, is assuredly not the work of that scholar: it is an inaccurate version based upon jones. an account will be found in tinker of the german paraphrase of therese dahn, _etc._; mention may also be made of those of j. arnheim, ; ++ f. bässler, sec. edit. (praised highly by klaeber in _j.e.g.ph._ v, ). § . textual criticism and interpretation grundtvig, n. f. s. et par ord om det nys udkomne angelsaxiske digt. _nyeste skilderie af kjøbenhavn_, no. _etc._, cols. , , , , ; nok et par ord om bjovulfs drape, , , (comment upon thorkelin's text and translation). thorkelin, g. j. reply to grundtvig in _nyeste skilderie_, cols. , . (there were further articles in the same magazine, but they were purely personal.) grundtvig, n. f. s. emendations to thorkelin's text, added to _bjowulfs drape_, - . conybeare, j. j. illustrations of anglo-saxon poetry. london. (beowulf and "finnsborough," pp. - .) bouterwek, k. w. zur kritik des beowulfliedes, _z.f.d.a._ xi, - . dietrich, f. rettungen, _z.f.d.a._ xi, - . holtzmann, a. zu beowulf, _germania_, viii, - . (incl. finnsburg.) grein, c. w. m. zur textkritik der angelsächsischen dichter: finnsburg, _germania_, x, . - bugge, sophus. spredte iagttagelser vedkommende de oldengelske digte om beówulf og waldere; _tidskrift for philologi og pædagogik_, viii, - and - (incl. finnsburg, - ). important. rieger, m. zum beowulf, _z.f.d.ph._ iii, - . bugge, s. zum beowulf, _z.f.d.ph._ iv, - . kÖlbing, e. kleine beiträge (beowulf, , ), _engl. stud._ iii, _etc._ kluge, f. sprachhistorische miscellen (beowulf, , , , ), _p.b.b._ viii, - . cosijn, p. j. zum beowulf, _p.b.b._ viii, - . sievers, e. zum beowulf, _p.b.b._ ix, - , . kluge, f. zum beowulf, _p.b.b._ ix, - . krÜger, th. zum beowulf, _p.b.b._ ix, - . miller, t. the position of grendel's arm in heorot, _anglia_, xii, - . joseph, e. zwei versversetzungen im beowulf, _z.f.d.ph._ xxii, - . schrÖer, a. zur texterklärung des beowulf, _anglia_, xiii, - . - cosijn, p. j. aanteekeningen op den beowulf. leiden. (important.) reviews: lübke, _a.f.d.a._ xix, - ; holthausen, _literaturblatt_, , p. . sievers, e. zur texterklärung des beowulf, _anglia_, xiv, - . bright, j. w. notes on the beowulf (ll. , , - , , ), _m.l.n._ x, - . trautmann, m. berichtigungen, vermutungen und erklärungen zum beowulf (ll. - ). _bonner beiträge zur anglistik_, ii, - . reviews: binz, _anglia, beiblatt_, xiv, - ; holthausen, _literaturblatt_, , - (important). see sievers, _p.b.b._ xxvii, ; xxviii, . klaeber, f. a few beowulf notes (ll. , _etc._, , _etc._, ); _m.l.n._ xvi, - . { } klaeber, f. zum beowulf ( - ; - ), _archiv_, cviii, - . klaeber, f. beowulf's character, _m.l.n._ xvii, . krackow, o. zu beowulf, , , _archiv_, cxi, - . bryant, f. e. beowulf, , _m.l.n._ xix, - . abbott, w. c. hrothulf, _m.l.n._ xix, - . (abbott suggests that hrothulf is the name--missing in whole or part from l. --of the husband of the daughter of healfdene. this suggestion is quite untenable, for many reasons: hrothulf (rolf kraki) is a dane, and the missing husband is a swede: but the article led to a long controversy between bryant and klaeber; see _m.l.n._ xx, - ; xxi, , ; xxii, , . klaeber is undoubtedly right.) krapp, g. b. miscellaneous notes: _sc[=u]rheard_; _m.l.n._ xix, . sievers, e. zum beowulf, _p.b.b._ xxix, - . (criticism of trautmann's emendations.) kock, e. a. interpretations and emendations of early english texts: iii (beowulf), _anglia_, xxvii, - . sievers, e. zum beowulf (l. , criticism of kock), _p.b.b._ xxix, - . reply by kock, _anglia_, xxviii ( ), - . trautmann, m. auch zum beowulf: ein gruss an herren eduard sievers, _bonner beiträge zur anglistik_, xvii, - . (reply to sievers' criticism of trautmann's conjectural emendations.) review: klaeber, _m.l.n._ xxii, . swiggett, g. l. notes on the finnsburg fragment, _m.l.n._ xx, - . klaeber, f. notizen zur texterklärung des beowulf, _anglia_, xxviii, - (incl. finnsburg); zum beowulf, the same, - . klaeber, f. bemerkungen zum beowulf, _archiv_, cxv, - . (incl. finnsburg.) holthausen, f. beiträge zur erklärung des altengl. epos. i, zum beowulf; ii, zum finnsburg-fragment; _z.f.d.ph._ xxxvii, - . - klaeber, f. studies in the textual interpretation of "beowulf," _mod. phil._ iii, - , - (most important). child, c. g. beowulf, , , (i.e. ), , _m.l.n._ xxi, - , - . horn, w. textkritische bemerkungen (beowulf, _etc._), _anglia_, xxix, - . klaeber, f. notizen zum beowulf, _anglia_, xxix, - . klaeber, f. minor notes on the beowulf, _j.e.g.ph._ vi, - . tinker, c. b. notes on beowulf, _m.l.n._ xxiii, - . klaeber, f. zum beowulf, _engl. stud._ xxxix, - . klaeber, f. textual notes on beowulf, _j.e.g.ph._ viii, - . von grienberger, t. bemerkungen zum beowulf, _p.b.b._ xxxvi, - . (incl. finnsburg.) sievers, e. gegenbemerkungen zum beowulf, _p.b.b._ xxxvi, - . (incl. finnsburg.) sedgefield, w. j. notes on "beowulf," _m.l.r._ v, - . trautmann, m. beiträge zu einem künftigen "sprachschatz der altenglischen dichter," _anglia_, xxxiii, - (_gedræg_). blackburn, f. a. note on beowulf, - , _mod. phil._ ix, - . (argues that a loose leaf has been misplaced and the order of events thus disturbed.) klaeber, f. zur texterklärung des beowulf, vv. , , _anglia, beiblatt_, xxii, - . hart, j. m. beowulf, - , _m.l.n._ xxvii, . { } - grein, c. w. m. sprachschatz der angelsächsischen dichter. unter mitwirkung von f. holthausen neu herausgegeben von j. j. köhler. heidelberg. reviews: trautmann, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxiv, - ; schücking, _engl. stud._ xlix, - . chambers, r. w. the "shifted leaf" in beowulf, _m.l.r._ x, - . (points out that the alleged "confused order of events" is that also followed in the grettis saga.) green, a. the opening of the episode of finn in beowulf, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxxi, - . bright, j. w. anglo-saxon _umbor_ and _seld-guma_, _m.l.n._ xxxi, - ; beowulf, - , _m.l.n._ xxxi, - . green, a. an episode in ongenþeow's fall, _m.l.r._ xii, - . hollander, l. m. beowulf, , _m.l.n._ xxxii, - . (suggests the reading _[=i]tig_.) holthausen, f. zu altenglischen denkmälern--beowulf, , _engl. stud._ li, . hubbard, f. g. beowulf, , , : uses of the impersonal verb _geweorþan_, _j.e.g.ph._ xvii, . kock, e. a. interpretations and emendations of early english texts: iv, beowulf, _anglia_, xlii, - . (important.) ++kock, e. a. jubilee jaunts and jottings, in the _lunds univ. årsskrift_, n. f. avd. i, bd. , nr. (_festskrift vid ... -årsjubileum_). reviews: holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxx, - ; klaeber, _j.e.g.ph._ xix, - . moore, samuel. beowulf notes (textual), _j.e.g.ph._ xviii, - . klaeber, f. concerning the functions of o.e. _geweorðan_, _j.e.g.ph._ xviii, - . (cf. paper of prof. hubbard above, by which this was suggested.) klaeber, f. textual notes on "beowulf," _m.l.n._ xxxiv, - . brown, carleton. beowulf, - , _m.l.n._ xxxiv, - . brett, cyril. notes on passages of old and middle english, _m.l.r._ xiv, - . - kock, e. a. interpretations and emendations of early english texts: v (incl. beowulf, , - ); vi (incl. beowulf , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , ); vii (incl. beowulf, , , - ); _anglia_, xliii, - ; xliv, _etc._, _etc._ bryan w. f. beowulf notes ( - , - , - ), _j.e.g.ph._ xix, - . § . questions of literary history, date and authorship: beowulf in the light of history, archÆology, heroic legend, mythology and folklore see also preceding section. no attempt is made here to deal with old english heroic legend in general: nor to enumerate the references to _beowulf_ in histories of literature. probably the earliest allusion to our poem by a great writer is in scott's _essay on romance_ ( ): "the saxons had, no doubt, romances, ... and mr turner ... has given us the abridgement of one entitled caedmon, in which the hero, whose adventures are told much after the manner of the ancient norse sagas, encounters, defeats and finally slays an evil being called grendel...." outzen, n. das ags. gedicht beowulf, _kieler blätter_, iii, - . (see above, p. , note.) { } (review of thorkelin in) _monthly review_, lxxxi, - . (beowulf identified with beaw sceldwaing of the west saxon genealogy; see above, p. .) grundtvig, n. f. s. _danne-virke_, ii, - . (identifies chochilaicus; see above, p. , note.) grimm, w. einleitung über die elfen, _kleinere schriften_, i, , esp. p. (extract relating to grendel's hatred of song). from ++_irische elfenmärchen_. grimm, w. die deutsche heldensage. göttingen. (pp. - . extracts from beowulf, with translation, relating to weland, sigemund, hama and eormenric.) kemble, j. m. Über die stammtafel der westsachsen. münchen. review: j. grimm, _göttingische gelehrte anziegen_, , - , = _kleinere schriften_, v, . mone, f. j. zur kritik des gedichts von beowulf (in untersuchungen zur geschichte der teutschen heldensage). quedlinburg u. leipzig. (pp. - .) leo, h. bëówulf ... nach seinem inhalte, und nach seinen historischen und mythologischen beziehungen betrachtet. halle. disraeli, i. amenities of literature. london. (beowulf; the hero-life. vol. i, pp. - .) grundtvig, n. f. s. bjovulfs drape, _brage og idun_, iv, - . (discusses the story, with criticism of previous scholars, and especially of kemble.) - grimm, w. einleitung zur vorlesung über gudrun [with an abstract of beowulf]; see _kleinere schriften_, iv, - . mÜllenhoff, k. die deutschen völker an nord- und ostsee in ältester zeit, _nordalbingische studien_, i, _etc._ a brief discussion of beowulf in _edinburgh review_, lxxxii, - . haupt, m. zum beowulf, _z.f.d.a._ v, . (drawing attention to the reference to hygelac in the _liber de monstris_; see above, p. .) mÜllenhoff, k. die austrasische dietrichssage, _z.f.d.a._ vi, _etc._ mÜllenhoff, k. sceáf u. seine nachkommen, _z.f.d.a._ vii, - ; der mythus von beóvulf, _z.f.d.a._ vii, - . grimm, j. ueber das verbrennen der leichen, _abhandl. d. berl. akad._, , _etc._ = _kleinere schriften_, ii, - (esp. - ). bachlechner, j. die merovinge im beowulf, _z.f.d.a._ vii, - . zappert, g. virgil's fortleben im mittelalter, _denkschriften der k. akad. wien, phil.-hist. classe_, bd. ii, abth. , pp. - . (gives numerous parallels between virgil and "beowulf," somewhat indiscriminately.) brynjulfsson, g. oldengelsk og oldnordisk, _antikuarisk tidsskrift_, kjøbenhavn, - , pp. - . (an important paper which has been unduly overlooked. brynjulfsson notes the parallel between beowulf and bjarki (see above, p. ) and in other respects anticipates later scholars, e.g., in noting the close relationship between angles and danes (p. ) and less fortunately (pp. - ) in identifying the geatas with the jutes.) bachlechner, j. eomaer und heming (hamlac), _germania_, i, - and - . bouterwek, k. w. das beowulflied: eine vorlesung; _germania_, i, - . uhland, l. sigemund und sigeferd, _germania_, ii, - = _schriften_, viii, _etc._ (incl. finnsburg.) { } weinhold, k. die riesen des germanischen mythus, _sitzungberichte der k. akad., wien, phil-hist. classe_, xxvi, - . (grendel and his mother, p. .) rieger, m. ingaevonen, istaevonen, herminonen, _z.f.d.a._ xi, - . mÜllenhoff, k. zur kritik des angelsächsischen volksepos, , widsith, _z.f.d.a._ xi, - . mÜllenhoff, k. zeugnisse u. excurse zur deutschen heldensage, _z.f.d.a._ xii, - . (_this portion_ of vol. xii was published in .) haigh, d. h. the anglo-saxon sagas. london. (an uncritical attempt to identify the proper names in beowulf and finnsburg with sites in england.) grein, c. w. m. die historischen verhältnisse des beowulfliedes, _eberts jahrbuch für roman. u. engl. litt._ iv, - . (incl. finnsburg.) ++schultze, m. ueber das beowulfslied. _programm der städtischen realschule zu elbing._ (not seen, but contents, including the mythical interpretations current at the period, noted in _archiv_, xxxvii, .) heyne, m. ueber die lage und construction der halle heorot. paderborn. kÖhler, a. germanische alterthümer im beóvulf, _germania_, xiii, - . mÜllenhoff, k. die innere geschichte des beovulfs, _z.f.d.a._ xiv, - . (reprinted in _beovulf_, . see above, p. _etc._) kÖhler, a. die einleitung des beovulfliedes. die beiden episoden von heremod, _z.f.d.ph._ ii, - . schrØder, l. om bjovulfs drapen. københavn. (see above, p. .) botkine, l. beowulf. analyse historique et géographique. havre. (material subsequently incorporated in translation, q.v. § .) review: körner, _engl. stud._ i, - . skeat, w. w. the name "beowulf," _academy_, xi (jan.-june), p. . (suggests beowulf = "woodpecker"; see above, pp. - , _note_.) ten brink, b. geschichte der englischen litteratur. (beowulf, finnsburg, pp. - .) dederich, h. historische u. geographische studien zum ags. beóvulfliede. köln. (incl. finnsburg.) reviews: körner, _engl. stud._ i, - ; müllenhoff, _a.f.d.a._ iii, - ; ++suchier, _jenaer literatur-zeitung_, xlvii, , . hornburg, j. die composition des beowulf. _programm des k. lyceums in metz._ full summary by f. hummel in _archiv_, lxii, - . see also under . schultze, m. alt-heidnisches in der angelsächsischen poesie, speciell im beowulfsliede. berlin. suchier, h. ueber die sage von offa u. Þryðo, _p.b.b._ iv, - . mÜller, n. die mythen im beówulf, in ihrem verhältniss zur germanischen mythologie betrachtet. dissertation, heidelberg. leipzig. laistner, l. nebelsagen. stuttgart. (see above, p. , note.) sweet, h. old english etymologies: i, _beóhata_, _engl. stud._ ii, - . (see above, p. .) gering, h. der beówulf u. die isländische grettissaga, _anglia_, iii, - . (important. gering announced vigfússon's discovery to a wider circle of readers, with translation of the sandhaugar episode, and useful comment. the discovery was further announced to american readers by garnett in the _american journal of philology_, i, ( ), though its importance was there rather understated. see above, p. .) { } smith, c. sprague. beówulf gretti, _new englander_, xl (n. s. iv), - . (translation of corresponding passages in grettis saga and beowulf.) march, f. a. the world of beowulf, _proceedings of amer. phil. assoc._ pp. xxi-xxiii. rÖnning, f. beovulfs-kvadet; en literær-historisk undersøgelse. københavn. review: heinzel, _a.f.d.a._ x, - . (rönning criticises müllenhoff's theories of separate lays. his book and heinzel's review are both important.) merbot, r. aesthetische studien zur ags. poesie. breslau. reviews: koch, _anglia_, vi, _anzeiger_, - ; kluge, _engl. stud._, viii, - . earle, j. anglo-saxon literature (the dawn of european literature). london. (pp. - deal with beowulf. earle holds beowulf to be "a genuine growth of that junction in time ... when the heathen tales still kept their traditional interest, and yet the spirit of christianity had taken full possession of the saxon mind.") fahlbeck, p. beowulfs-kvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria, _antikvar. tidskr. för sverige_, viii, - . review: _academy_, xxix, , p. . (see above, pp. , .) harrison, j. a. old teutonic life in beowulf, _overland monthly_, sec. ser. vol. iv, - ; - . hertz, w. beowulf, das älteste germanische epos, _nord und süd_, xxix, - . hornburg, j. die komposition des beovulf, _archiv_, lxxii, - . (rejects müllenhoff's "liedertheorie.") krÜger, th. zum beowulfliede. bromberg. reviewed favourably by kölbing, _engl. stud._ ix, ; severely by kluge, _literaturblatt_, , - . (a useful summary, which had the misfortune to be superseded next year by the publication of wülker's _grundriss_.) krÜger, th. Über ursprung u. entwickelung des beowulfliedes, _archiv_, lxxi, - . - earle, j. beowulf, in _the times_, london (aug. , , p. (not signed); oct. , , p. ; sept. , , p. . "the beowulf itself is a tale of old folk-lore which, in spite of repeated editing, has never quite lost the old crust of its outline.... this discovery, if established, must have the effect of quite excluding the application of the wolffian hypothesis to our poem.") wÜlker, r. grundriss zur geschichte der angelsächsischen litteratur. leipzig. . die angelsächsische heldendichtung, beowulf, finnsburg, - . (an important and useful summary.) lehmann, h. brünne und helm im angelsächsischen beowulfliede. dissertation, göttingen. leipzig. reviews: wülker, _anglia_, viii, _anzeiger_, - ; schulz, _engl. stud._ ix, . skeat, w. w. on the signification of the monster grendel ... with a discussion of ll. - . read before the cambridge philological society. _journal of philology_, xv, - . (not _american jour. of phil._, as frequently quoted.) sarrazin, g. die beowulfsage in dänemark, _anglia_, ix, - ; beowa und böthvar, _anglia_, ix, - ; beowulf und kynewulf, _anglia_, ix, - ; der schauplatz des ersten beowulfliedes und die heimat des dichters, _p.b.b._ xi, - (see above, p. ). sievers, e. die heimat des beowulfdichters, _p.b.b._ xi, - . sarrazin, g. altnordisches im beowulfliede, _p.b.b._ xi, - . (see above, p. .) sievers, e. altnordisches im beowulf? _p.b.b._ xii, - . { } schilling, h. notes on the finnsaga, _m.l.n._ i, - ; - . lehmann, h. Über die waffen im angelsächsischen beowulfliede, _germania_, xxxi, - . schilling, h. the finnsburg-fragment and the finn-episode, _m.l.n._ ii, - . morley, h. beowulf and the fight at finnsburg, in _english writers_, vol. i, - . london. bugge, s. studien über das beowulfepos, _p.b.b._ xii, - , - . important. (das finnsburgfragment, pp. - .) ++schneider, f. der kampf mit grendels mutter. _program des friedrichs real-gymnasiums._ berlin. ten brink, b. beowulf. untersuchungen. (_quellen u. forschungen_, lxii.) (important. see above, p. .) strassburg. reviews: wülker, _anglia_, xi, - and _lit. cbl._ , ; möller, _engl. stud._ xiii, - (weighty, containing some good remarks on the jutes-geatas); koeppel, _z.f.d.ph._ xxiii, - ; heinzel, _a.f.d.a._ xv, - (weighty); liebermann, _deut. zeitschr. f. geschichtswissenschaft_, ii, , - ; kraus, _d.l.z._ xii, , - , : reply by ten brink ("beowulfkritik und _abab_"), _d.l.z._ , - . sarrazin, g. beowulf-studien. berlin. reviews: koeppel, _engl. stud._ xiii, - ; sarrazin, entgegnung, _engl. stud._ xiv, _etc._, reply by koeppel, xiv, ; sievers, _z.f.d.ph._ xxi, ; dieter, _archiv_, lxxxiii, - ; heinzel, _a.f.d.a._ xv, - ; wülker, _lit. cbl._ , - ; wülker, _anglia_, xi, - . holthausen, _literaturblatt_, , - ; liebermann, _deut. zeitschr. f. geschichtswissenschaft_, vi, , ; kraus, _d.l.z._ xii, , pp. - . (all these reviews express dissent from sarrazin's main conclusions, though many of them show appreciation of details in his work. see above, p. .) kittredge, g. l. zu beowulf, _etc._, _p.b.b._ xiii, (cain's kin). mÜllenhoff, k. beovulf (pp. - =_z.f.d.a._ xiv, - ). berlin. see above, pp. - , - . reviews: schirmer, _anglia_, xii, - ; sarrazin, _engl. stud._ xvi, - (important); wülker, _lit. cbl._ , - ; heinzel, _a.f.d.a._ xvi, - (important); koeppel, _z.f.d.ph._ xxiii, - ; holthausen, _literaturblatt_, , - ; liebermann, _deut. zeitschr. f. geschichtswissenschaft_, vi, , - ; kraus, _d.l.z._ xii, , pp. - ; logeman, _le moyen Âge_, iii, - ("personne ne conteste plus ... que le poème se composait originairement de plusieurs parties"). müllenhoff's book, like that of ten brink, is based on assumptions generally held at the time, but now not so widely accepted; yet it remains important. laistner, l. das rätsel der sphinx. berlin. (see above, p. .) lÜning, o. die natur ... in der altgermanischen und mittelhochdeutschen epik. zürich. reviews: weinhold, _z.f.d.ph._ xxii, - ; golther, _d.l.z._ , - ; ballerstedt, _a.f.d.a._ xvi, - ; fränkel, _literaturblatt_, , - . ++deskau, h. zum studium des beowulf. berichte des freien deutschen hochstiftes, . frankfurt. ++klÖpper, c. heorot-hall in the anglo-saxon poem of beowulf. festschrift für k. e. krause. rostock. jellinek, m. h. and kraus, c. die widersprüche im beowulf, _z.f.d.a_, xxxv, - . bugge, s. and olrik, a. røveren ved gråsten og beowulf, _dania_, i, - . jellinek, m. h. zum finnsburgfragment, _p.b.b._ xv, - . earle, j. the introduction to his translation (q.v.) gave a summary of the controversy, with "a constructive essay." { } brooke, stopford a. history of early english literature (beowulf, pp. - ). london. reviews: mcclumpha, _m.l.n._ viii, - , (attacks in a letter of unnecessary violence); wülker, _anglia, beiblatt_ iv, - , - ; glöde, _engl. stud._ xxii, - . gummere, f. b. germanic origins. a study in primitive culture. new york. ferguson, r. the anglo-saxon name beowulf, _athenæum_, june, p. . see above, p. . haack, o. zeugnisse zur altenglischen heldensage. kiel. ++kraus, k. hrodulf. (p. moneta, zum jähr. dienstjub.) wien. (p. _etc._) olrik, a. er uffesagnet indvandret fra england? _a.f.n.f._ viii (n.f. iv), - . sarrazin, g. die abfassungszeit des beowulfliedes, _anglia_, xiv, - . sievers, e. sceaf in den nordischen genealogien, _p.b.b._ xvi, - . kÖgel, r. beowulf, _z.f.d.a._ xxxvii, - . (etymology of the name.) discussed by sievers, _p.b.b._ xviii, . see above, p. , footnote. ward, h. l. d. catalogue of romances in the british museum; beowulf: vol. ii, pp. - , - . ten brink, b. altenglische literatur, _pauls grdr._( ), ii, i, - . (finnsburg, - .) mcnary, s. j. beowulf and arthur as english ideals, _poet-lore_, vi, - . ++detter, f. Über die heaðobarden im beowulf, _verhandl. d. wiener philologenversammlung_, mai, . leipzig, p. _etc._ (argues that the story is not historical, but mythical--_ragnarok_.) sievers, e. beowulf und saxo, _berichte der kgl. sächs. gesellschaft der wissenschaften_, xlvii, - . (important, see above, pp. - .) binz, g. zeugnisse zur germanischen sage in england, _p.b.b._ xx, - . (a most useful collection, though the significance of many of the names collected is open to dispute.) kluge, f. zeugnisse zur germanischen sage in england, _engl. stud._ xxi, - . - kluge, f. der beowulf u. die hrolfs saga kraka, _engl. stud._ xxii, - . sarrazin, g. neue beowulf-studien, _engl. stud._ xxiii, - . ker, w. p. epic and romance. london. (beowulf, pp. - . important. see above, p. .) reviews: fischer, _anglia, beiblatt_, x, - ; brandl, _archiv_, c, - . new edit. . blackburn, f. a. the christian coloring in the beowulf, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xii, - . (see above, p. .) sarrazin, g. die hirschhalle, _anglia_, xix, - ; der balder-kultus in lethra, _ibid._ - ; rolf krake und sein vetter im beowulfliede, _engl. stud._ xxiv, - . (important. see above, p. .) henning, r. sceaf und die westsächsische stammtafel, _z.f.d.a._ xli, - . arnold, t. notes on beowulf. london. reviews: hulme, _m.l.n._ xv, - , ; sarrazin, _engl. stud._ xxviii, - ; garnett, _amer. jour. of phil._ xx, . niedner, f. die dioskuren im beowulf, _z.f.d.a._ xlii, - . cook, a. s. an irish parallel to the beowulf story, _archiv_, ciii, - . axon, w. e. a. a reference to the evil eye in beowulf, _trans. of the royal soc. of literature_, london. (very slight.) { } ++furst, clyde. "beowulf" in "a group of old authors." philadelphia. (popular.) review: child, _m.l.n._ xv, - . fÖrster, max. bêowulf-materialien, zum gebrauch bei vorlesungen. braunschweig. reviews: holthausen, _anglia, beiblatt_, xi, ; behagel, _literaturblatt_, , (very brief). . aufl. . aufl. review: wild, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxiv, - . powell, f. york. beowulf and watanabe-no-tsema, _furnivall miscellany_, pp. - . oxford. (a parallel from japanese legend.) lehmann, e. fandens oldemor, _dania_, viii, - . repeated ("teuffels grossmutter"), _archiv f. religionswiss._ viii, - . (see above, p. , note, and p. .) ++otto, e. typische motive in dem weltlichen epos der angelsachsen. berlin. reviews: binz, _engl. stud._ xxxii, - ; spies, _archiv_, cxv, . ohlenbeck, c. c. het béowulf-epos als geschiedbron, _tijdschrift voor nederlandsche taal- en letterkunde_, xx (n. r. xii), - . _gerould, g. h._ offa and labhraidh maen, _m.l.n._ xvii, - . (an irish parallel of the story of the dumb young prince.) gough, a. b. the constance-saga. berlin. (the "thrytho saga," pp. - .) reviews: eckhardt, _engl. stud._ xxxii, - ; weyrauch, _archiv_, cxi, . boer, r. c. die béowulfsage. i. mythische reconstructionen; ii. historische untersuchung der überlieferung; _a.f.n.f._ xix (n. f. xv), - . brandl, a. ueber den gegenwärtigen stand der beowulf-forschung, _archiv_, cviii, - . anderson, l. f. the anglo-saxon scop. (_univ. of toronto studies, phil. ser. ._) review: heusler, _a.f.d.a._ xxxi, - . olrik, a. danmarks heltedigtning: i, rolf krake og den ældre skjoldungrække. kobenhavn. (most important.) reviews: heusler, _a.f.d.a._ xxx, - ; golther, _literaturblatt_, xxviii, , pp. - ; ranisch, _a.f.d.a._ xxi, - . revised translation (q.v.). ++boer, r. c. eene episode uit den beowulf, _handelingen van het nederl. phil. congres._, p. _etc._ a summary of the _lives of the offas_, with reproductions of a number of the drawings in _ms cotton nero d. i_, in _the ancestor_, v, - . hart, j. m. allotria [on the forms _b[=e]anst[=a]n_, l. and _Þr[=y]ðo_, l. ], _m.l.n._ xviii, . stjerna, k. hjälmar och svärd i beovulf, _studier tillägnade o. montelius_, - . stockholm. see above, pp. _etc._ - boer, r. c. finnsage und nibelungen-sage, _z.f.d.a._ xlvii, - . rickert, e. the o.e. offa-saga, _mod. phil._ ii, - and - . (important. see above, pp. _etc._) hagen, s. n. classical names and stories in beowulf, _m.l.n._ xix, - and - . (very fantastic). stjerna, k. vendel och vendelkråka, _a.f.n.f._ xxi (n. f. xvii), - . (most important: see above, pp. - .) ++vetter, f. beowulf und das altdeutsche heldenzeitalter in england, _deutschland_, iii, - . moorman, f. w. the interpretation of nature in english poetry from beowulf to shakespeare. strassburg. _quellen u. forschungen_, . { } routh, j. e. two studies on the ballad theory of the beowulf: i. the origin of the grendel legend; ii. irrelevant episodes and parentheses as features of anglo-saxon poetic style. baltimore. reviews: eckhardt, _engl. stud._ xxxvii, - ; heusler, _a.f.d.a._ xxxi, - ; schücking, _d.l.z._ , pp. - . heusler, a. lied und epos in germanischer sagendichtung. dortmund. (see above, p. .) reviews: kauffmann, _z.f.d.ph._ xxxviii, - ; seemüller, _a.f.d.a._ xxxiv, - ; meyer, _archiv_, cxv, - ; helm, _literaturblatt_, xxviii, - . schÜcking, l. l. beowulfs rückkehr. (_morsbachs studien_, xxi.) halle. (important: see above, pp. - .) review: brandl, _archiv_, cxv, - (dissenting). schÜck, h. studier i ynglingatal, i-iii. uppsala. hanscom, e. d. the feeling for nature in old english poetry, _j.e.g.ph._ v, - . sarrazin, g. neue beowulf studien, _engl. stud._ xxxv, - . stjerna, k. skölds hädanfärd, _studier tillägnade h. schück_, - . stockholm. ++stjerna, k. svear och götar under folkvandringstiden, _svenska förnminnesforeningens tidskr._ xii, - . (transl. by clark hall in _essays_. see under .) - rieger, m. zum kampf in finnsburg, _z.f.d.a._ xlviii, - . - heusler, a. zur skiöldungendichtung, _z.f.d.a._ xlviii, - . - neckel, j. studien über fróði, _z.f.d.a._ xlviii, - . - stjerna, k. arkeologiska anteckningar till beovulf, _kungl. vitterhets akademiens månadsblad_ for - ( ), pp. - . emerson, o. f. legends of cain, especially in old and middle english (see particularly § vi, "cain's descendants"), _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxi, - . (important.) skemp, a. r. transformation of scriptural story, motive, and conception in anglo-saxon poetry, _mod. phil._ iv, - . duff, j. w. homer and beowulf: a literary parallel, _saga-book of the viking club_. london. morsbach, l. zur datierung des beowulf-epos, _nachrichten der kgl. ges. d. wiss. zu göttingen, phil.-hist. klasse_, pp. - . (important. see above, pp. - .) pfÄndler, w. die vergnügungen der angelsachsen, _anglia_, xxix, - . garlanda, f. béowulf. origini, bibliografia, metrica ... significato storico, etico, sociologico. roma. (slight.) stjerna, k. drakskatten i beovulf, _fornvännen_, i, - . chadwick, h. m. origin of the english nation. cambridge. (important.) reviews: andrews, _m.l.n._ xxiii, - ; chambers, _m.l.r._ iv, - ; schütte, _a.f.n.f._ xxv (n. f. xxi), - (an elaborate discussion of early germanic ethnology and geography); huchon, _revue germanique_, iii, - . chadwick, h. m. "early national poetry," in _cambridge history of english literature_, vol. i, - , - . important. see above, pp. - . hart, walter morris. ballad and epic. boston: harvard _studies and notes in philology and literature_. (important: see above, p. .) review: _archiv_, cxix, . olrik, a. nordisk aandsliv i vikingetid og tidlig middelalder. københavn og kristiania. (translated into german by w. ranisch, , as "nordisches geistesleben.") { } schÜck, h. folknamnet geatas i den fornengelska dikten beowulf. uppsala. (important. see above, pp. - , _etc._) reviews: mawer, _m.l.r._ iv, ; freeburg, _j.e.g.ph._ xi, - . cook, a. s. various notes, _m.l.n._ xxi, - . (further classical parallels to beowulf, ff., in succession to a parallel from seneca quoted in _m.l.n._ xvii, - .) sarrazin, g. zur chronologie u. verfasserfrage ags. dichtungen, _engl. stud._ xxxviii, _etc._, esp. - (das beowulflied und die ältere genesis). brandl, a. entstehungsgeschichte des beowulfepos. a five-line summary of this lecture is given in the _sitzungsberichte d. k. preuss. akad. phil.-hist. classe_, p. . holthausen, f. zur altenglischen literatur--zur datierung des beowulf, _anglia, beiblatt_, xviii, . ++grÜner, h. mathei parisiensis vitae duorum offarum, in ihrer manuskript- und textgeschichte. dissertation, munich. kaiserslautern. brandl, a. geschichte der alteng. literatur. (offprint from _pauls grdr._( ): beowulf, pp. - ; finnsburg, pp. - ; an exceedingly useful and discriminating summary.) schÜcking, l. l. das angelsächsische totenklagelied, _engl. stud._ xxxix, - . weyhe, h. könig ongentheow's fall, _engl. stud._ xxxix, - . neckel, g. beiträge zur eddaforschung; anhang: die altgermanische heldenklage (pp. - : cf. p. ). dortmund. klaeber, f. zum finnsburg kampfe, _engl. stud._ xxxix, - . bjÖrkman, e. Über den namen der jüten, _engl. stud._ xxxix, - . levander, l. sagotraditioner om sveakonungen adils, _antikvarisk tidskrift för sverige_, xviii, . stjerna, k. fasta fornlämningar i beovulf, _antikvarisk tidskrift för sverige_, xviii, . grau, g. quellen u. verwandtschaften der älteren germanischen darstellungen des jüngsten gerichtes. halle. (see esp. pp. - .) review: guntermann, _z.f.d.ph._ xli, - . schÜck, h. studier i beowulfsagan. uppsala. review: freeburg, _j.e.g.ph._ xi, - (a very useful summary). lawrence, w. w. some disputed questions in beowulf-criticism, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxiv, - . (very important.) review: brandl, _archiv_, cxxiii, . ehrismann, g. religionsgeschichtliche beiträge zum germanischen frühchristentum, _p.b.b._ xxxv, - . bugge, s. die heimat der altnordischen lieder von den welsungen u. den nibelungen, ii, _p.b.b._ xxxv, - . deutschbein, m. die sagenhistorischen u. literarischen grundlagen des beowulfepos, _germanisch-romanische monatsschrift_, i, - . olrik, a. danmarks heltedigtning: ii, starkad den gamle og den yngre skjoldungrække. københavn. (most important.) reviews: heusler, _a.f.d.a._ xxxv, - (important); ussing, _danske studier_, , - ; boer, _museum_, xix, , - . panzer, f. studien zur germanischen sagengeschichte. i. beowulf. münchen. (most important: see above, pp. - ; - . valuable criticisms and modifications are supplied by the reviews, more particularly perhaps that of von sydow (_a.f.d.a._ xxxv, - ), but also in the elaborate discussions of heusler (_engl. stud._ xlii, - ), binz (_anglia, beiblatt_, xxiv, - ), brandl (_archiv_, cxxvi, - ), kahle { } (_z.f.d.ph._ xliii, - ) and the briefer ones of lawrence (_m.l.n._ xxvii, - ) sedgefield _(m.l.r._ vi, - ) and golther (_neue jahrbücher f. das klassische altertum_, xxv, - ).) bradley, h. beowulf, in _encyclopædia britannica_, iii, pp. - . (important. see above, pp. , - .) schÜck, h. sveriges förkristna konungalängd. uppsala. clark hall, j. r. a note on beowulf, - , _m.l.n._ xxv, - . _(h[=u]nl[=a]fing._) sarrazin, g. neue beowulf-studien, _engl. stud._ xlii, - . klaeber, f. die ältere genesis und der beowulf, _engl. stud._ xlii, - . heusler, a. zeitrechnung im beowulf-epos, _archiv_, cxxiv, - . neckel, g. etwas von germanischer sagenforschung, _germ.-rom. monatsschrift_, ii, - . smithson, g. a. the old english christian epic ... in comparison with the beowulf. berkeley. _univ. of california pub. in mod. phil._ (see particularly pp. - , - .) clarke, m. g. sidelights on teutonic history. cambridge. reviews: mawer, _m.l.n._ vii, - ; chambers, _engl. stud._ xlviii, - ; fehr, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxvi, - ; imelmann, _d.l.z._ xxxiv, , _etc._ - heusler, a. a series of articles in hoops' _reallexikon_: beowulf, dichtung, ermenrich, gautensagen, heldensage, hengest, heremod, offa, skj[o,]ldungar, ynglingar, _etc._ strassburg. (important.) neckel, g. ragnacharius von cambrai, _festschrift zur jahrhundertfeier der universität zu breslau = mitt. d. schlesischen gesellschaft für volkskunde_, xiii-xiv, - . (a historical parallel between the treatment of ragnachar by chlodowech and that of hrethric by hrothulf.) schÖnfeld, m. worterbuch der altgermanischen personen- und völkernamen. heidelberg. see also schütte, noter til schönfelds navnesamling, in _a.f.n.f._ xxxiii, - . klaeber, f. aeneis und beowulf, _archiv_, cxxvi, - , - . (important: see above, p. .) liebermann, f. grendel als personenname, _archiv_, cxxvi, . - klaeber, f. die christlichen elemente im beowulf, _anglia_, xxxv, - , - , - ; xxxvi, - . (most important: demonstrates the fundamentally christian character of the poem.) chadwick, h. munro. the heroic age. cambridge. (important: see above, p. .) reviews: mawer, _m.l.r._ viii, - ; chambers, _engl. stud._ xlviii, - . stjerna, k. essays on questions connected with the o.e. poem of beowulf, transl. and ed. by john r. clark hall, (viking club), coventry. (important: see above, pp. _etc._) reviews: klaeber, _j.e.g.ph._ xiii, - , weighty; mawer, _m.l.n._ viii, - ; _athenæum_, , i, - ; brandl, _archiv_, cxxxii, - ; schütte, _a.f.n.f._ xxxiii, - , elaborate; olrik, _nord. tidskr. f. filol._ iv, . ; mogk, _historische vierteljahrsschrift_, xviii, - . chambers, r. w. widsith: a study in old english heroic legend. cambridge. reviews: mawer, _m.l.r._ viii, - ; lawrence, _m.l.n._ xxviii, - ; fehr, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxvi, - ; jordan, _engl. stud._ xlv, - ; berendsohn, _literaturblatt_, xxxv ( ), - . boer, r. c. die altenglische heldendichtung. i. béowulf. halle. (important.) reviews: ++jantzen, _z. f. französischen u. englischen unterricht_, xiii, - ; berendsohn, _literaturblatt_, xxxv, - ; dyboski, _allgemeines literaturblatt_, xxii, , - ; imelmann, _d.l.z._ xxxiv, , - (weighty criticisms); barnouw, _museum_, xxi, - . { } von der leyen, f. die deutschen heldensagen (beowulf, pp. - , - ). münchen. meyer, w. beiträge zur geschichte der eroberung englands. dissertation, halle. (finn story.) lawrence, w. w. the haunted mere in beowulf. _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxvii, - . (important. see above, pp. - .) schÜtte, g. the geats of beowulf, _j.e.g.ph._ xi, - . (see above, pp. , _etc._) stefanovi[vc], s. ein beitrag zur angelsächsischen offa-sage, _anglia_, xxxv, - . much, r. grendel, _w[=o]rter u. sachen_, iv, - . (deriving _vendsyssel_, vandal, and the _wendle_ of beowulf from _wandil_--"a bough, wand.") chambers, r. w. six thirteenth century drawings illustrating the story of offa and of thryth (drida) from _ms cotton nero d. i._ london, _privately printed_. ++fahlbeck, p. beowulfskvädet som källa för nordisk fornhistoria. (stockholm, _n. f. k. vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademiens handlingar_, , .) review: klaeber, _engl. stud._ xlviii, - . nerman, b. studier över svärges hedna litteratur. uppsala. nerman, b. vilka konungar ligga i uppsala högar? uppsala. lawrence, w. w. the breca episode in beowulf (anniversary papers to g. l. kittredge). boston. sarrazin, g. von kädmon bis kynewulf. berlin. reviews: dudley, _j.e.g.ph._ xv, - ; berendsohn, _literaturblatt_, xxxv ( ), - ; funke, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxxi, - . thomas, p. g. beowulf and daniel a, _m.l.r._ viii, - . (parallels between the two poems.) belden, h. m. onela the scylfing and ali the bold, _m.l.n._ xxviii, - . stedman, d. some points of resemblance between beowulf and the grettla (or grettis saga). from the _saga book of the viking club_, london. (it should have been held unnecessary to prove the relationship yet once again.) von sydow, c. w. irisches in beowulf[ ]. (_verhandlungen der versammlung deutscher philologen in marburg_, pp. - .) berendsohn, w. a. drei schichten dichterischer gestaltung im beowulfepos, _münchener museum_, ii, i, pp. - . deutschbein, m. beowulf der gautenkönig, _festschrift für lorenz morsbach_, halle, pp. - , _morsbachs studien_, l. (very important. expresses very well, and with full working out of details, the doubts which some of us had already felt as to the historic character of the reign of beowulf over the geatas.) { } benary, w. zum beowulf-grendelsage, _archiv_, cxxx, - . (grändelsmôr in siebenbürgen: see above, p. .) klaeber, f. das grändelsmôr--eine frage, _archiv_, cxxxi, . brate, e. betydelsen av ortnamnet skälv [cf. scilfingas], _namn och bygd_, i, - . mÜller, j. das kulturbild des beowulfepos. halle. _morsbachs studien_, liii. reviews: klaeber, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxvii, - ; brunner, _archiv_, cxxxviii, - . moorman, f. w. english place-names and teutonic sagas, in _essays and studies by members of the english association_, vol. v, pp. - . (argues that "gilling" and other place-names in yorkshire, point to an early colony of scandinavian "gautar," who may have been instrumental in introducing scandinavian traditions into england.) olson, o. l. beowulf and the feast of bricriu, _mod. phil._ xi, - . (emphasises the slight character of the parallels noted by deutschbein.) von sydow, c. w. grendel i anglosaxiska ortnamn, in _nordiska ortnamn, hyllningsskrift tillägnad adolf noreen_, uppsala, pp. - =_namn och bygd_, ii. (important). kier, chr. beowulf, et bidrag til nordens oldhistorie. københavn. (an elaborate and painstaking study of the historic problems of beowulf, vitiated throughout by quite unjustifiable assumptions. see above, p. _etc._) review: björkmann, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxvii, - . bradley, h. the numbered sections in old english poetical mss, _proc. brit. acad._ vol. vii. lawrence, w. w. beowulf and the tragedy of finnsburg, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxx, - . (important. an excellent survey of the finnsburg problems.) van sweringen, g. f. the main ... types of men in the germanic hero-sagas, _j.e.g.ph._ xiv, - . - lindroth, h. Är skåne de gamles scadinavia? _namn och bygd_, iii, , - . lindroth denied that the two words are the same, and was answered by a. kock (_a.f.n.f._ xxxiv, , _etc._), a. noreen (in ++_studier tillegn. e. tegnér_, ) and e. björkman ("scedeland, scedenig," _namn och bygd_, vi, , - ). lindroth replied ("Äro scadinavia och skåne samma ord," _a.f.n.f._ xxxv, , _etc._, and "skandinavien och skåne," _namn och bygd_, vi, , - ) and was answered by kock ("vidare om skåne och scadinavia," _a.f.n.f._ xxxvi, - ). björkman's discussion is the one of chief importance to students of beowulf. klaeber, f. observations on the finn episode, _j.e.g.ph._ xiv, - . anscombe, a. beowulf in high-dutch saga, _notes and queries_, aug. , , pp. - . berendsohn, walter a. die gelage am dänenhof zu ehren beowulfs, _münchener museum_, iii, i, - . - pizzo, e. zur frage der ästhetischen einheit des beowulf, _anglia_, xxxix, - . (sees in beowulf the uniform expression of the early anglo-saxon christian ideal.) olson, o. l. the relation of the hrólfs saga kraka and the bjarkarímur to beowulf. chicago. (olson emphasises that the monster slain by bjarki in the _saga_ does not attack the hall, but the cattle outside, and is therefore a different kind of monster from grendel (p. ). but he does not disprove the general equation of beowulf and bjarki: many of the most striking points of resemblance, such as the support given to eadgils (athils) against onela (ali), lie outside the scope of his study.) review: hollander, _j.e.g.ph._ xvi, - . { } neckel, g. adel und gefolgschaft, _p.b.b._ xli, - (esp. pp. ff. for social conditions in beowulf). flom, g. t. alliteration and variation in old germanic name giving, _m.l.n._ xxxii, - . mead, g. w. wiðer[gh]yld of beowulf, , _m.l.n._ xxxii, - . (suggests, very reasonably, that wiðer[gh]yld is the father of the young heathobard warrior who is stirred to revenge.) ayres, h. m. the tragedy of hengest in beowulf, _j.e.g.ph._ xvi, - . (see above, pp. - .) aurner, n. s. an analysis of the interpretations of the finnsburg documents. (_univ. of iowa monographs: humanistic studies_, i, .) bjÖrkman, e. zu ae. _eote_, _yte_, usw., dän. _jyder_, "jüten," _anglia, beiblatt_, xxviii, - . (see above, p. .) rooth, e. g. t. der name grendel in der beowulfsage, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxviii, - . (etymologies. grendel is the "sandman," a man-eating monster of the sea-bottom. with this, compare panzer's interpretation of grendel as the "earthman." see above, p. .) schÜcking, l. l. wann entstand der beowulf? glossen, zweifel und fragen, _p.b.b._ xlii, - . (important. see above, pp. - .) fog, reginald. trolden "grendel" i bjovulf: en hypothese, _danske studier_, , - . (grendel is here interpreted as an infectious disease, prevalent among those who sleep in an ill-ventilated hall in a state of intoxication, but to which beowulf, whose health has been confirmed by a recent sea-voyage, is not liable. this view is not as new as its author believes it to be, and a letter from von holstein rathlau is added, pointing this out. it might further have been pointed out that as early as grendel was explained as the malaria. cf. the theories of laistner, kögel and golther, and see above, p. .) neuhaus, j. sillende = vetus patria = angel, _nordisk tidsskrift för filologi_, iv. række, bd. v, - ; helges prinsesse svåvå = eider = den svebiske flod hos ptolemæos, vi, - ; halfdan = frode = hadbardernes konge, hvis rige forenes med det danske, vi, - ; vestgermanske navne i dansk historie og sprog, - . the inherent difficulty of the subject is enhanced by the obscurity of the writer's style: but much of the argument (e.g. that halfdan and frode are identical) is obviously based upon quite reckless conjectures. the question is complicated by political feeling: many of neuhaus' arguments are repeated in his pamphlet, _die frage von nordschleswig im lichte der neuesten vorgeschichtlichen untersuchungen_, jena, . his theories were vigorously refuted by g. schÜtte, "urjyske 'vestgermaner,'" _nordisk tidsskrift för filologi_, iv. række, bd. vii, _etc._ ++fredborg. det första årtalet i sveriges historia. umeå. nerman, b. ynglingasagan i arkeologisk belysning, _fornvännen_, , - . nerman, b. ottar vendelkråka och ottarshögen i vendel, _upplands fornminnesförenings tidskrift_, vii, - . bjÖrkman, e. b[=e]owulf och sveriges historia, _nordisk tidskrift_, , - . - ++von sydow, c. w. draken som skattevaktare, _danmarks folkeminder_, xvii, _etc._ hackenberg, e. die stammtafeln der angelsächsischen königreiche, dissertation, berlin. (a useful collection.) reviews: fischer, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxxi, - ; ekwall, _engl. stud._ liv, - ; liebemann, _d.l.z._ march, . lawrence, w. w. the dragon and his lair in beowulf, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxxiii, - . { } belden, h. m. beowulf , once more, _m.l.n._ xxxiii, . belden, h. m. scyld scefing and huck finn, _m.l.n._ xxxiii, . klaeber, f. concerning the relation between exodus and beowulf, _m.l.n._ xxxiii, - . bjÖrkman, e. b[=e]ow, b[=e]aw, und b[=e]owulf, _engl. stud._ lii, - . (very important. see above, p. .) brandl, a. die urstammtafel der westsachsen und das beowulf-epos, _archiv_, cxxxvii, - . (see above, p. , note.) brandl, a. die urstammtafel der englischen könige, _sitzungsberichte d. k. preuss. akad., phil.-hist. classe_, p. . (five line summary only published). ++bjÖrkman, e. b[=e]owulf-forskning och mytologi, _finsk tidskrift_, _etc._ (cf. _anglia, beiblatt_, xxx, .) bjÖrkman, e. sköldungaättens mytiska stamfäder, _nordisk tidskrift_, _etc._ v. unwerth, w. eine schwed. heldensage als deutsches volksepos, _a.f.n.f._ xxxv, - . (an attempt to connect the story of hygelac and hæthcyn with the m.h.g. _herbort ûz tenelant_.) neuhaus, j. om skjold, _a.f.n.f._ xxxv, - . (a dogmatic assertion of errors in olrik's arguments in the _heltedigtning_.) clausen, h. v. kong hugleik, _danske studier_, - . (conjectures based upon the assumption geatas = jutes.) ++lund university "festskrift" contains norlind, skattsägner; von sydow, sigurds strid med favne. olrik, a. the heroic legends of denmark translated ... and revised in collaboration with the author by lee m. hollander. new york. (very important.) review: flom, _j.e.g.ph._ xix, - . bjÖrkman, e. bedwig in den westsächsischen genealogien, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxx, . bjÖrkman, e. zu einigen namen im b[=e]owulf: _breca_, _brondingas_, _wealhþ[=e]o(w)_; _anglia, beiblatt_, xxx, - . mogk, e. altgermanische spukgeschichten: zugleich ein beitrag zur erklärung der grendelepisode im beowulf, _neue jahrbücher für das klass. altertum ... und deutsche literatur_, xxxiv, - . (mogk here abandons his older allegorical interpretation of grendel as the destroying power of the sea, and sees in the grendel-story a germanic ghost-tale, poetically adorned.) bjÖrkman, e. skialf och skilfing [edited by e. ekwall, with a note on björkman's work], _namn och bygd_, vii, - . linderholm, e. vendelshögens konunganamn i socknens -tals-tradition, _namn och bygd_, vii, - . fog, r. bjarkemaals "hjalte," _danske studier_, , - . (with a letter from a. olrik.) severinsen, p. kong hugleiks dødsaar, _danske studier_, , . imelmann, r. forschungen zur altenglischen poesie. (ix. hengest u. finn; x. _enge [=a]npaðas, unc[=u]ð gel[=a]d_; xii. _Þr[=y]ðo_; xiii. _h[=æ]þenra hyht._) berlin. (a weighty statement of some original views). bjÖrkman, e. studien über die eigennamen im beowulf. halle. _morsbachs studien_, lviii. (an extremely valuable and discriminating digest. see above, p. .) barto, p. s. the _schwanritter-sceaf_ myth in _perceval le gallois_, _j.e.g.ph._ xix, - . hubbard, f. g. the plundering of the hoard. _univ. wisconsin stud._ . { } schÜcking, l. l. wiðergyld (beowulf, ), _engl. stud._ liii, - . (schücking, like mead, but independently, interprets withergyld as the name of the warrior whose son is being stirred to revenge.) bjÖrkman, e. hæðcyn und hákon, _engl. stud._ liv, - . hoops, j. das verhüllen des haupts bei toten, ein angelsächsisch-nordischer brauch (zu beowulf, , _hafalan h[=y]dan_), _engl. stud._ liv, - . noreen, a. yngve, inge, inglinge [ingwine], _namn och bygd_, viii, - . la cour, v. lejrestudier, _danske studier_, , - . (weighty. emphasizing the importance of the site of leire in the sixth century.) a discussion on the date and origin of beowulf, by liebermann, is about to appear (_gott. gelehrt. gesellschaft_). § . style and grammar titles already given in previous sections are not repeated here. general treatises on o.e. style and grammar are recorded here only if they have a special and exceptional bearing upon _beowulf_. lichtenheld, a. das schwache adjectiv im ags., _z.f.d.a._ xvi, - . (important. see above, pp. - .) heinzel, r. Über den stil der altgermanischen poesie. strassburg. (_quellen u. forschungen_, x.) (important and suggestive: led to further studies on the style of beowulf, such as those of hoffmann and bode.) review: zimmer, _a.f.d.a._ ii, - . ++arndt, o. Über die altgerm. epische sprache. paderborn. schÖnbach, a. [a discussion of words peculiar to sections of beowulf, added to a review of ettmüller's beowulf], _a.f.d.a._ iii, - . see also möller, _volksepos_, _etc._ nader, e. zur syntax des béowulf. _progr. der staats-ober-realschule_, in brünn. review: bernhardt, _literaturblatt_, , - (unfavourable: reply by nader and answer by bernhardt, , - ). ++gummere, f. b. the anglo-saxon metaphor. dissertation, freiburg. schemann, k. die synonyma im beówulfsliede, mit rücksicht auf composition u. poetik des gedichtes. hagen. dissertation, münster. (examines the use of noun-synonyms in the different sections of the poem as divided by müllenhoff, and finds no support for müllenhoff's theories.) review: kluge, _literaturblatt_, , - . ++nader, e. der genitiv im beówulf. brünn. review: klinghardt, _engl. stud._ vi, . schulz, f. die sprachformen des hildebrand-liedes im beovolf. königsberg. nader, e. dativ u. instrumental im beówulf. wien. review: klinghardt, _engl. stud._ vii, - . harrison, j. a. list of irregular (strong) verbs in béowulf, _amer. jour. of phil._ iv, - . hoffmann, a. der bildliche ausdruck im beówulf u. in der edda, _engl. stud._ vi, - . bode, w. die kenningar in der angelsächsischen dichtung. darmstadt and leipzig. reviews: gummere, _m.l.n._ ii, - (important--praises bode highly); kluge, _engl. stud._ x, ; brandl, _d.l.z._ , - ; bischoff, _archiv_, lxxix, - ; meyer, _a.f.d.a._ xiii, . ++kÖhler, k. der syntaktische gebrauch des infinitivs und particips im beowulf. dissertation, münster. banning, a. die epischen formeln im bêowulf. i. die verbalen synonyma. dissertation, marburg. { } tolman, a. h. the style of anglo-saxon poetry, _trans. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ iii, - . - nader, e. tempus und modus im beowulf, _anglia_, x, - ; xi, - . kail, j. Über die parallelstellen in der ags. poesie, _anglia_, xii, - . (a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the theories of sarrazin. important.) davidson, c. the phonology of the stressed vowels in béowulf, _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ vi, - . review: karsten, _engl. stud._ xvii, - . sonnefeld, g. stilistisches und wortschatz im beówulf. dissertation, strassburg. würzburg. todt, a. die wortstellung im beowulf, _anglia_, xvi, - . kistenmacher, r. die wörtlichen wiederholungen im bêowulf. dissertation, greifswald. reviews: mead, _j.(e.)g.ph._ ii, - ; kaluza, _engl. stud._ xxvii, - (short but valuable). barnouw, a. j. textkritische untersuchungen nach dem gebrauch des bestimmten artikels und des schwachen adjektivs in der altenglischen poesie. leiden. (important, see above, p. .) reviews: kock, _engl. stud._ xxxii, - ; binz, _z.f.d.ph._ xxxvi, - ; schücking, _göttingische gelehrte anzeigen_, , - . heusler, a. der dialog in der altgermanischen erzählenden dichtung. _z.f.d.a._ xlvi, - . shipley, g. the genitive case in anglo-saxon poetry. baltimore. reviews: kock, _engl. stud._ xxv, - ; mourek, _a.f.d.a._ xxx, - . krackow, o. die nominalcomposita als kunstmittel im altenglischen epos. dissertation, berlin. review: björkman, _archiv_, cxvii, - . schÜcking, l. l. die grundzüge der satzverknüpfung im beowulf. pt. i. (_morsbachs studien_, xv.) halle. (important.) reviews: eckhardt, _engl. stud._ xxxvii, - ; pogatscher, _d.l.z._ , - ; behagel, _literaturblatt_, xxviii, - ; grossmann, _archiv_, cxviii, - . hÄuschkel, b. die technik der erzählung im beowulfliede. dissertation, breslau. krapp, g. p. the parenthetic exclamation in old english poetry, _m.l.n._ xx, - . scheinert, m. die adjektiva im beowulfepos als darstellungsmittel, _p.b.b._ xxx, - . thomas, p. g. notes on the language of beowulf, _m.l.r._ i, - . (a short summary of the dialectal forms.) barnouw, a. j. nochmals zum ags. gebrauch des artikels, _archiv_, cxvii, - . ries, j. die wortstellung im beowulf. halle. (an important and exhaustive study by an acknowledged specialist.) reviews: binz, _anglia_, _beiblatt_, xxii, - (important); borst, _engl. stud._ xlii, - ; delbrück, _a.f.d.a._ xxxi, - (important); reis, _literaturblatt_, xxviii, - ; _lit. cbl._ , p. ; huchon, _revue germanique_, iii, - . krauel, h. der haken- und langzeilenstil im beowulf. dissertation, göttingen. lors, a. aktionsarten des verbums im beowulf. dissertation, würzburg. ++mourek, e. zur syntax des konjunktivs im beowulf, _prager deutsche stud._ viii. - rankin, j. w. a study of the kennings in ags. poetry, _j.e.g.ph._ viii, - ; ix, - . (latin parallels; very important.) { } shearin, h. g. the expression of purpose in old english poetry, _anglia_, xxxii, - . ++riggert, g. der syntaktische gebrauch des infinitivs in der altenglischen poesie. dissertation, kiel. richter, c. chronologische studien zur angelsächsischen literatur auf grund sprachl.-metrischer kriterien. halle. (_morsbachs studien_, xxxiii.) reviews: binz, _anglia, beiblatt_, xxii, - ; imelmann, _d.l.z._ , - ; hecht, _archiv_, cxxx, - . wagner, r. die syntax des superlativs ... im beowulf. berlin. (_palaestra_, xci.) reviews: schatz, _d.l.z._ , - ; kock, _a.f.n.f._ xxviii, - . schuchardt, r. die negation im beowulf. berlin. (_berliner beiträge zur germ. u. roman. philol._ xxxviii.) bright, j. w. an idiom of the comparative in anglo-saxon, _m.l.n._ xxvii, - . (bearing particularly upon beowulf, , .) exner, p. typische adverbialbestimmungen in frühenglischer poesie. dissertation, berlin. grimm, p. beiträge zum pluralgebrauch in der altenglischen poesie. dissertation, halle. paetzel, w. die variationen in der altgermanischen alliterationspoesie. berlin. see pp. - for beowulf and finnsburg. (_palaestra_, xlviii.) pt. i. had appeared in as a berlin dissertation. § . metre for bibliography of o.e. metre in general, see _pauls grdr._ ( ), ii, - . schubert, h. de anglosaxonum arte metrica. dissertatio inauguralis, berolini. sievers, e. zur rhythmik des germanischen alliterationsverses: i. vorbemerkungen. die metrik des beowulf: ii. sprachliche ergebnisse, _p.b.b._ x, - and - . (most important.) kaluza, m. studien zum altgermanischen alliterationsvers. i. kritik der bisherigen theorien. ii. die metrik des beowulfliedes. (important.) reviews: martin, _engl. stud._ xx, - ; heusler, _a.f.d.a._ xxi, - ; saran, _z.f.d.ph._ xxvii, - . trautmann, m. die neuste beowulfausgabe und die altenglische verslehre, _bonner beiträge zur anglistik_, xvii, - . (a discussion of o.e. metre in view of holthausen's edition.) review: klaeber, _m.l.n._ xxii, . morgan, b. q. zur lehre von der alliteration in der westgermanischen dichtung: i. die tonverhältnisse der hebungen im beowulf: ii. die gekreuzte alliteration; _p.b.b._ xxxiii, - . bohlen, a. zusammengehörige wortgruppen, getrennt durch cäsur oder versschluss, in der angelsächsischen epik. dissertation, berlin. reviews: dittes, _anglia, beiblatt_, xx, - ; kroder, _engl. stud._ xl, . trautmann, m. zum altenglischen versbau, _engl. stud._ xliv, - . seiffert, f. die behandlung der wörter mit auslautenden ursprünglich silbischen liquiden oder nasalen und mit kontraktionsvokalen in der genesis a und im beowulf. dissertation, halle. (concludes the dialect of the two poems to be distinct, but finds no evidence on these grounds which is the earlier.) fijn van draat, p. the cursus in o.e. poetry, _anglia_, xxxviii, - . leonard, w. e. beowulf and the niebelungen couplet, in _univ. of wisconsin studies in language and literature_, ii, - . (important. pp. - advocating the "four-accent theory.") ++neuner, e. ueber ein- und dreihebige halbverse in der altenglischen alliterierenden poesie. berlin. review: bright, _m.l.n._ xxxvi, - . * * * * * { } index abingdon, sheaf ordeal at, - , adam of bremen, on the götar, Æthelbert of east anglia, - agnerus, - alboin and thurisind, , , alcester, _grindeles pytt_ near, alcuin, , aldfrid, aldhelm, alfsola, ali, _see_ onela aliel, _see_ riganus _anglo-saxon chronicle_, pedigrees in, _etc._, _etc._ archæology in relation to _beowulf_, _etc._, - asbiorn, - athils, athislus, _see_ eadgils attila, funeral of, compared with that of beowulf, atuarii, _see_ hetware ayres, prof. h. m., on the _finnsburg_ story, _etc._ baldæg, baldr, _bana_, - battersea, _gryndeles sylle_ near, "bear's-son" folk-tale, _etc._, - _b[=e]as broc_, _b[=e]as feld_, bede, the venerable, _etc._ bedwig, - beow(a), beaw, , _etc._, - , - , _etc._, _etc._ beowi, beowulf the dane (beowulf scyldinga), _etc._, , _etc._, _etc._ beowulf son of ecgtheow, king of the geatas, - ; his struggle with grendel and grendel's mother, _etc._; with the dragon, _etc._; his funeral rites, _etc._; etymology and meaning of the name, - _beowulf_, suggested translation from a scandinavian original, - ; dialect, syntax and metre of, - ; theories as to the structure of, - ; the christian elements in, - ; date of, , _etc._, _etc._; possible classical influence upon, _etc._; archæology of, - ; division into fittes or passus, _etc._ biar, , _biuuulf_, _bjarkamál_, , ; saxo's latin translation quoted, - _bjarka rímur_, , - bjarki, , , - , - , - , - bjarndreingur, - bjørnøre, blackburn, prof., on the christian element in _beowulf_, blood-feud, in primitive society, _etc._ boar-helmets, - , - bocus, , boerinus, bothvar bjarki, _see_ bjarki bow, the, in _beowulf_, bradley, dr henry, on the christian elements in _beowulf_, ; on beow and beowulf the dane, _etc._; on the passus in _beowulf_, - brusi, - brutus (hildebrandus), bugge, sophus, on the _finnsburg_ story, - burial mounds, scandinavian, burials, _etc._, - byggvir, , _etc._ cerdic, his ancestry, _etc._ chadwick, prof. h. m., on the date of _beowulf_, , _etc._ chatuarii, _see_ hetware chochilaicus, , christianity of _beowulf_, _etc._, _etc._ cities of refuge, - clyst, river, , creedy, the, _grendeles pyt_ near, crying the neck, - , cynethryth, _etc._ dan, king of the danes, , danes, first mentioned soon after a.d. , ; their early kings, - ; their early history as recorded in saxo, - ; in the _little chronicle of the kings of leire_, - ; in sweyn aageson, ; their relation to the english, _etc._ date of _beowulf_, , _etc._, _etc._ dialect of _beowulf_, dorestad, , - dragons, not extinct in , (note); frotho's dragon, _etc._, - ; the vendsyssel dragon, - dunstan, drida, _etc._; - ; _see also_ thryth eadgils (athils, athislus), - ; , , { } eaha, eanmund, _edda_ of snorri, engelhardt, on the moss-finds, _etc._ eomaer (eamer), , - eotan, eote, _see_ jutes eotenas, part played by them in the _finnsburg episode_, _etc._; _etc._; _etc._ eric, jarl, , esthonian cult of pekko, _etc._ ethelwerd, _etc._, , _etc._ fahlbeck, pontus, his jute-theory, , _etc._ faroe "bear's-son" tale, - _ferhð-freca_, fifeldor, , _note_ finn, son of folcwald, , , _etc._, - , _etc._, finnsburg, the story of, - ; site of, florence of worcester, folcwald(a), frealaf, freawaru, daughter of hrothgar, _etc._, frisia in the heroic age, - froda (frothi, frotho), , - , , frotho and the dragon, - , - frowinus, - funeral rites, _see_ burials garulf, his part in the _finnsburg_ story, - ; _etc._, gautar, _see_ geatas geatas (o.n. gautar), , - , - ; their kings, - ; boundaries of their territory, gefwulf, - genealogies, _etc._ giovanni dell' orso, glam, , _etc._, _etc._ godulf, götar, _see_ geatas gokstad ship, - gold in the heroic age, _etc._ gram guldkølve, , grändels môr in transsylvania, _grandi_, greek scholarship in anglo-saxon times, gregory of tours, his account of the death of hygelac, - , , grendel, _etc._; occurrence of the name in english charters, - ; etymology, - _grendles mere_, - , grettir asmundarson, _etc._, - , - _grettis saga_, ; extracts from, - ; translation, - ; death of illugi, grimm's story of _der starke hans_, grindale village, grindle or greendale brook, near exeter, , _grundel_, grundtvig, his identification of chochilaicus, guest (gestr), _see_ grettir gullinhjalti, , guthlaf, - , , , haki, - halga (helgi, helgo), _etc._, , , hall, dr clark, on the archæology of _beowulf_, _etc._ hall, the, in _beowulf_, ham, _grendles mere_ near, - , hamlet (amlethus), ; hengest's hesitation compared to that of shakespeare's hamlet, hans, der starke, harold fairhair and the gautar, harvest customs, _etc._ _h[=e]aburh_, _note_ healfdene (halfdan, haldanus), _etc._, , , heardred, slain by onela, , heathobeardan, _etc._, hendon, "grendels gate" near, - hengest, , _etc._, _etc._ henry (henrik) slays a dragon, - heorogar, , heorot, - ; _see also_ leire heoroweard (hj[o,]rvarðr, hiarwarus), , , - , - , - , heremod, _etc._ hermuthruda, heruli, identified by some with the heathobeardan, hetware (atuarii), - hiarthwarus, hiarwarus, _see_ heoroweard hickes, his text of the _finnsburg fragment_, - hildebrandus, another name for brutus, _q.v._ hildeburh, _etc._ hjalti (hott), _etc._, _etc._, - , - hnæf, _etc._, _etc._ hocingas, hott, _see_ hjalti hrethric, - , (röricus), (rökil) hrothgar (hroarr, roe), _etc._, , , { } hrothulf (rolf kraki, roluo), , - , - , - , - , hugleikr, huglek, humblus, hunlafing, , , hygelac, death of, - ialto, _see_ hjalti icelandic "bear's-son" tale, - illugi, _see grettis saga_ ingeld, son of froda, _etc._, , , - intercourse between tribes in heroic age, _etc._ ivashko medvedko, - jean l'ourson, - jenny greenteeth, jomsvikings, jovial huntsmen, the three, their views, jutes, attempt to identify them with the geatas, - , - ; jutes and _eotenas_, _etc._, _etc._ jutland, "bear's-son" tale in, _kálfsvísa_, , kemble, his mythological theories, _etc._ keto, - klaeber, on the christian element in _beowulf_, lawrence, prof. w. w., on mythology in _beowulf_, _etc._, _etc._; on _finnsburg_, _etc._ _laxdæla saga_, parallels from, - leifus, , _note_ leire, _etc._, , , , , ; _see also_ heorot _leire, little chronicle of the kings of_, extracts from, - lethra, _see_ leire _liber historiae francorum_, account of the death of chochilaicus (hygelac) in, "lichtenheld's test," _etc._ _lokasenna_ quoted, - loki, - lombard story of the "bear's-son," longobardi, relation to the heathobeardan, ; ; _see also_ alboin lother(us), _etc._, malmesbury, william of, _see_ william of malmesbury mercian genealogy, - milio, minstrelsy forbidden to priests, mitunnus, _etc._ möller, on _finnsburg_, - _monsters and strange beasts_, account of hygelac in the _book of (liber monstrorum)_, , "morsbachs test," - moss-finds, _etc._ müllenhoff's theories on _beowulf_, _etc._, _etc._ myrgingas, - , mythology in _beowulf_, _etc._, _etc._ neck, _see_ crying the neck neckersgate, _njáls saga_, parallels from, , , - norka, the, - north frisians, , _note_, northumbrian anarchy in the eighth century, norwegian folk-tale ("bear's-son" type), - nydam, _etc._ nydam boat, - _odyssey_, parallels with _beowulf_, offa i, king of angel, - , - , - , - , offa ii, _etc._, - ohthere, , _etc._; _see also_ ottar vendel-crow onela, - , - ongentheow, - , ordlaf (oslaf), , , , , origin of the english, _etc._ orm storolfsson, , - oseberg ship, - oslaf, _see_ ordlaf oswin, king, _etc._ oswiu, king, otta, ottar vendelcrow, his mound, - , ; _see also_ ohthere panzer, his derivation of the story of _beowulf_ from the "bear's-son" folk-tale, - , - passus of _beowulf_, _etc._ peg o' nell, peg powler, pekko, , _etc._ pellon-pecko, _see_ pekko peter bär, pinefredus, _see_ offa ii procopius, mentions the goutai (geatas), - , riganus (or aliel), _etc._ ring-corslets, , ring-money, - ring-swords, _etc._ roe, _see_ hrothgar { } rökil, _see_ hrethric röricus, _see_ hrethric _rolf kraki, saga of_, , _etc._; extract from, - ; quoted in illustration of the _finnsburg_ story, , rolf kraki, _see_ hrothulf roluo, _see_ hrothulf roskilde, , , runkoteivas, russian variants of the "bear's-son" story, - ruta, sämpsä, - , _saga of rolf kraki_, see _rolf kraki, saga of_ sandhaugar, , , - , - saxo grammaticus, ; his story of starcatherus, - ; of röricus, ; of hiarwarus, ; of uffo (offa), - ; of biarco (bjarki), _etc._; of skyoldus, ; of lotherus, _etc._; of frotho, _etc._; on cremation, ; extracts from, - , - ; on text of, - ; sceaf, - , - , _etc._, _etc._ sceafa, scenery of _beowulf_, schücking, prof., on the structure of _beowulf_, - ; on the date of _beowulf_, _etc._ schütte, on the geatas, , _etc._ sculda, - , - scyld, - , - , , _etc._ secgan, , setukese, sheaf, _see_ sceaf shield, _see_ scyld shield, the, in anglo-saxon times, - ships, - sigeferth, - , , , sigmund, sigurd ring, sinfjotli, his foul language, skeggjatussi, skjold (skyoldus), _etc._, , _skjoldunga saga_, account of adilsus (eadgils) in, ; of rolf kraki (hrothulf), _etc._; quoted, , _note_ spear, the, in anglo-saxon times, starkad (starcatherus), - steenklöwer, stenhuggeren, stein, , , - , - , steinspieler, steinv[o,]r, - , - stjerna, knut, on the funeral customs of _beowulf_, ; on ottar vendelcrow, - ; on the archæology of _beowulf_, _etc._ sueno, svold, battle of, sweden, kings of, - ; _see_ eadgils, ohthere, onela, ongentheow sweyn aageson, his account of uffo (offa), ; extract from, - ; swinford, _grendels mere_ near, swords in _beowulf_ and in anglo-saxon grave-finds, ten brink's theories on _beowulf_, _etc._ theodoric, king of the franks, thorgaut, _etc._, _etc._ thorhall grimsson, - , - thorsbjerg, _etc._ thryth, _etc._, - tours, gregory of, _see_ gregory of tours uffo, _see_ offa ull, unferth, - ursula, vendel finds, _etc._ vendsyssel, dragon of, - virgil, possible influence of, upon _beowulf_, _etc._ _vitae duorum offarum_, _etc._, - _v[o,]lsunga saga_, parallels from, , wäder Öar and wäder fiord, warmundus, _see_ wermundus weak and strong forms of heroic names used alternatively, wealhtheow, her forebodings, weapons in _beowulf_, - wederas, name applied to the geatas, wener, lake, , _wer-gild_, wermund, _etc._, - , - , - west-saxon genealogy, _etc._, - , _etc._ _widsith_, account of the heathobeardan in, _etc._; of hrothulf, ; of offa, ; of sceafa, ; extract from, - ; ; wiggo, - , - wigo, - wijk bij duurstede, _see_ dorestad william of malmesbury, _etc._, , woden's ancestors, _etc._ _ynglinga tal_ and _ynglinga saga_, - , - , yte, _see_ jutes ytene, , * * * * * notes [ ] the exact equivalent to _hr[=o]ðgar_ is found in o.n., in the form _hróðgeirr_. the by-form _hróarr_, which is used of the famous danish king, is due to a number of rather irregular changes, which can however be paralleled. the primitive germanic form of the name would have been *_hr[=o]þugaisaz_: for the loss of the _g_ at the beginning of the second element we may compare _aðils_ with _[=e]adgils_ (noreen, _altisländische grammatik_, , § ); for the loss of _ð_ before _w_ compare _hrólfr_ with _hr[=o]ðwulf_ (noreen, § ); for the absence of _r-_ umlaut in the second syllable, combined with loss of the _g_, compare o.n. _nafarr_ with o.e. _nafug[=a]r_ (noreen, § ). [ ] corresponding to o.n. _aðils_ we should expect o.e. _Æðgils_, _Æðgisl_. the form _[=e]adgils_ may be due to confusion with the famous eadgils, king of the myrgingas, who is mentioned in _widsith_. the name comes only once in _beowulf_ (l. ) and may owe its form there to a corruption of the scribe. that the o.e. form is corrupt seems more likely than that the o.n. _aðils_, so well known and so frequently recorded, is a corruption of _auðgisl_. [ ] it must be remembered that the sound changes of the germanic dialects have been worked out so minutely that it is nearly always possible to decide quite definitely whether two names do or do not exactly correspond. only occasionally is dispute possible [e.g. whether _hrothgar_ is or is not phonetically the exact equivalent of _hroarr_]. [ ] see below, pp. - . [ ] _chochilaicus_, which appears to be the correct form, corresponds to _hygelac_ (in the primitive form _hugilaikaz_) as _chlodovechus_ to _hludovicus_. [ ] the passages in _beowulf_ referring to this expedition are: _etc._. frisians (adjoining the hetware) and franks mentioned as the foes. _etc._ hetware mentioned. _etc._ hugas (= franks) and the frisian king mentioned. _etc._ franks, frisians, hugas, hetware and "the merovingian" mentioned. [ ] the identification of chochilaicus with hygelac is the most important discovery ever made in the study of _beowulf_, and the foundation of our belief in the historic character of its episodes. it is sometimes attributed to grundtvig, sometimes to outzen. it was first vaguely suggested by grundtvig (_nyeste skilderie af kjøbenhavn_, , col. ): the importance of the identification was worked out by him fully, two years later (_danne-virke_, ii, ). in the meantime the passage from gregory had been quoted by outzen in his review of thorkelin's _beowulf_ (_kieler blätter_, iii, ). outzen's reference was obviously made independently, but he failed to detect the real bearing of the passage upon _beowulf_. credit for the find accordingly belongs solely to grundtvig. [ ] ongentheow is mentioned in _widsith_ (l. ) as a famous king of the swedes. many of the kings mentioned in the same list can be proved to be historical, and the reference in _widsith_ therefore supports ongentheow's historic character, but is far, in itself, from proving it. [ ] strictly _anganþér_. see heusler, _heldennamen in mehrfacher lautgestalt, z.f.d.a._ lii, . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] whether it be accuracy or accident, these names ottar and athils come just at that place in the list of the _ynglinga tal_ which, when we reckon back the generations, we find to correspond to the beginning of the sixth century. and this is the date when we know from _beowulf_ that they should have been reigning. [ ] but the accounts are quite inconsistent. saxo (ed. holder, pp. - ) implies a version in which athils was deposed, if not slain, by bothvar bjarki, which is quite at variance with other information given by saxo. [ ] unless they are among the fragments carried off to the stockholm museum. little of interest was found in these mounds when they were opened: everything had been too thoroughly burnt. [ ] see schück, _folknamnet geatas_, _etc._ [ ] see below, p. and appendix (e); the "jute-question." [ ] see below, pp. _etc._ [ ] olrik (_heltedigtning_, i, _etc._). the danish house--healfdene, heorogar, hrothgar, halga, heoroweard, hrethric, hrothmund, hrothulf: the swedish--ongentheow, onela, ohthere, eanmund, eadgils: the geatic--hrethel, herebeald, hætheyn, hygelac, heardred. the same principle is strongly marked in the old english pedigrees. [ ] ll. _etc._ [ ] as is done, e.g., by schück (_studier i beowulf-sagan_, ). [ ] "dragon fights are more frequent, not less frequent, the nearer we come to historic times": olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, . the dragon survived much later in europe than has been generally recognized. he was flying from mount pilatus in . (see j. j. scheuchzer, _itinera per helvetiae alpinas regiones_, , iii, p. .) the same authority quotes accounts of dragons authenticated by priests, his own contemporaries, and supplies many bloodcurdling engravings of the same. [ ] cf. on this point klaeber in _anglia_, xxxvi ( ) p. . [ ] l. . [ ] l. . [ ] of course, even if beowulf's reign over the geatas is not historic, this does not exclude the possibility of his having _some_ historic foundation. [ ] attempts at working out the chronology of _beowulf_ have been made by gering (in his translation) and by heusler (_archiv_, cxxiv, - ). on the whole the chronology of _beowulf_ is self-consistent, but there are one or two discrepancies which do not admit of solution. [ ] l. . [ ] l. . [ ] _widsith_, l. . [ ] _beowulf_, l. . had hrothulf been a son of heorogar he could not have been passed over in silence here. neither can hrothulf be hrothgar's sister's son: for since the sister married the swedish king, hrothulf would in that case be a swedish prince, and presumably would be living at the swedish court, and bearing a name connected by alliteration with those of the swedish, not the danish house. besides, had he been a swedish prince, he must have been heard of in connection with the dynastic quarrels of the swedish house. [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. _etc._ [ ] doubts are expressed, for example, in trap's monumental topographical work (_kongeriket danmark_, ii, , ). [ ] for example sweyn aageson (c. ) had no doubt that the little village of leire near roskilde was identical with the leire of story: _rolf kraki, occisus in lethra, qvae tunc famosissima regis extitit curia, nunc autem roskildensi vicina civitati, inter abjectissima ferme vix colitur oppida._ svenonis aggonis _historia regum daniae_, in langebek, i, . [ ] _ro ... patrem vero suum dan colle apud lethram tumulavit sialandie ubi sedem regni pro eo pater constituit, qvam ipse post eum divitiis multiplicibus ditavit._ in the so-called _annales esromenses_, in langebek, i, . cf. olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, , . for further evidence, see appendix (g) below. [ ] we must not think of heorot as an isolated country seat. the royal hall would stand in the middle of the royal village, as in the case of the halls of attila (priscus in möller's _fragmenta_, iv, ) or cynewulf (_a.s. chronicle_, anno ). [ ] _lethram pergitur, quod oppidum, a roluone constructum eximiisque regni opibus illustratum, ceteris confinium prouinciarum urbibus regie fundacionis et sedis auctoritate prestabat._ saxo, book ii (ed. holder, p. ). [ ] _his cognitis helgo filium roluonem lethrica arce conclusit, heredis saluti consulturus_ (p. ). [ ] _a roe roskildia condita memoratur._ saxo, book ii (ed. holder, p. ). roe's spring, after being a feature of the town throughout the ages, is now (owing perhaps to its sources having been tapped by a neighbouring mineral-water factory) represented only by a pump in a market-garden. [ ] i owe this paragraph to information kindly supplied me by dr sofus larsen, librarian of the university library, copenhagen. [ ] it was once believed that, in prehistoric times, the sea came up to leire also (forchhammer, steenstrup and worsaae: _undersøgelser i geologisk-antiqvarisk retning_, kjøbenhavn, ). a most exact scrutiny of the geology of the coast-line has proved this to be erroneous. (danmarks geologiske undersøgelse i.r. . _beskrivelse til kaartbladene kjøbenhavn og roskilde_, af k. rørdam, kjøbenhavn, .) [ ] the presence at leire of early remains makes it tempting to suppose that it may have been from very primitive times a stronghold or sacred place. it is impossible here to examine these conjectures, which would connect heorot ultimately with the "sacred place on the isle of the ocean" mentioned by tacitus. the curious may be referred to much in _p.b.b._ xvii, - ; mogk in _pauls grdr._ ( ) iii, ; kock in the swedish _historisk tidskrift_, , _etc._; and particularly to the articles by sarrazin: _die hirsch halle_ in _anglia_, xix, - , _neue beowulfstudien_ (_der grendelsee_) in _engl. stud._ xlii, - . [ ] this seems to me much more probable than, as olrik supposes, that froda fell in battle against healfdene (_skjoldungasaga_, [ ]). [ ] _saga of rolf kraki_, cap. iv. [ ] olrik wishes to read the whole of this account, not as a prediction in the present future tense, but as a narrative of past events in the historic present. (_heltedigtning_, i, ; ii, .) considering the rarity of the historic present idiom in old english poetry, this seems exceedingly unlikely. [ ] ll. - . [ ] _verba dei legantur in sacerdotali convivio; ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam, sermones patrum, non carmina gentilium. quid hinieldus cum christo?_ see jaffé's _monumenta alcuiniana_ (_bibliotheca rer. germ._ vi), berlin, , p. ; _epistolae_, . [ ] saxo, book _vi_ (ed. holder, , - ). the contrast between this lyrical outburst, and the matter-of-fact speech in which the old warrior in _beowulf_ eggs on the younger man, is thoroughly characteristic of the difference between old english and old scandinavian heroic poetry. this difference is very noticeable whenever we have occasion to compare a passage in _beowulf_ with any parallel passage in a scandinavian poem, and should be carefully pondered by those who still believe that _beowulf_ is, in its present form, a translation from the scandinavian. [ ] saxo, book viii (ed. holder, p. ); _helga kviþa hundingsbana_, ii, . see also bugge, _helge-digtene_, . [ ] _Þáttr Þorsteins skelks_ in _flateyarbók_ (ed. vigfússon and unger), i, . [ ] similarly, there is certainly a primitive connection between the names of the geatas (gautar) and of the goths: but they are quite distinct peoples: we should not be justified in speaking of the geatas as identical with the goths. [ ] müllenhoff (_beovulf_, - ) followed by much (_p.b.b._ xvii, ) and heinzel (_a.f.d.a._ xvi, ). the best account of the heruli is in procopius (_bell. gott._ ii, , ). [ ] see also olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, , : sarrazin in _engl. stud._ xlii, : bugge, _helgi-digtene_, - ; : chambers, _widsith_, p. (note), pp. - . [ ] _saga of rolf kraki: skjoldungasaga._ [ ] best represented in saxo. [ ] see above, p. . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] for a contrary view see clarke, _sidelights_, . [ ] saxo has mistaken a title _hnøggvanbaugi_ for a father's name, (_hins_) _hnøggva baugs_ "(son of the) covetous baug." [ ] _langfeðgatal_ in langebek, i, . the succession given in _langfeðgatal_ is halfdan, helgi and hroar, rolf, hrærek: it should, of course, run halfdan, helgi and hroar, hrærek, rolf. hrærek has been moved from his proper place in order to clear rolf of any suspicion of usurpation. [ ] l. . [ ] see olrik, _episke love_ in _danske studier_, , p. . compare the remark of goethe in _wilhelm meister_, as to the necessity of there being _both_ a rosencrantz _and_ a guildenstern (_apprenticeship_, book v, chap. v). [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] perhaps such murder of kin was more common among the aristocratic houses than among the bulk of the population (chadwick, _h.a._ ). in some great families it almost becomes the rule, producing a state of things similar to that in present day afghanistan, where it has become a proverb that a man is "as great an enemy as a cousin" (pennell, _afghan frontier_, ). [ ] this is proposed by cosijn (_aanteekeningen_, ) and again independently by lawrence in _m.l.n._ xxv, . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] see _widsith_, ed. chambers, pp. - . [ ] see rickert, "the old english offa saga" in _mod. phil._ ii, esp. p. . [ ] the common ascription of the _lives of the offas_ to matthew paris is erroneous: they are somewhat earlier. [ ] the identification of _fifeldor_ with the eider has been doubted, notably by holthausen, though he seems less doubtful in his latest edition (third edit. ii, ). the reasons for the identification appear to me the following. place names ending in _dor_ are exceedingly rare. when, therefore, two independent authorities tell us that offa fought at a place named _fifel-dor_ or _egi-dor_, it appears unlikely that this can be a mere coincidence: it seems more natural to assume that the names are corruptions of one original. but further, the connection is not limited to the second element in the name. for the eider (_egidora_, _Ægisdyr_) would in o.e. be _egor-dor_: and _egor-dor_ stands to _fifel-dor_ precisely as _egor-stream_ (boethius, _metra_, xx, ) does to _fifel-stream_ (_metra_, xxvi, ), _"egor" and "fifel" being interchangeable synonyms_. see note to _widsith_, l. (p. ). it is objected that the interchange of _fifel_ and _egor_, though frequent in common nouns, would be unusual in the name of a place. the reply is that the old english scop may not have regarded it as a place-name. he may have substituted _fifel-dor_ for the synonymous _egor-dor_, "the monster gate," without realizing that it was the name of a definite place, just as he would have substituted _fifel-stream_ for _egor-stream_, "the monster stream, the sea," if alliteration demanded the change. [ ] _the deeds of beowulf_, lxxxv. [ ] see below, pp. - , and appendix (d) below. [ ] wihtlæg appears in saxo as _vigletus_ (book iv, ed. holder, p. ). [ ] _nibelungen lied_, ed. piper, . [ ] book iv (ed. holder, p. ). [ ] kemble, _beowulf_, _postscript_ ix; followed by müllenhoff, _etc._ so, lately, chadwick (_h.a._ ): cf. also sievers ('beowulf und saxo' in the _berichte d. k. sächs. gesell. d. wissenschaften_, , pp. - ); bradley in _encyc. brit._ iii, ; boer, _beowulf_, . see also olrik, _danmarks heltedigtning_, i, . for further discussion see below, appendix (a). [ ] _beo_--_scyld_--_scef_ in ethelwerd: _beowius_--_sceldius_--_sceaf_ in william of malmesbury. but in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ five generations intervene between sceaf and his descendant scyldwa, father of beaw. [ ] "item there is vii acres lond lying by the high weye toward the grendyll": _bury wills_, ed. s. tymms (camden soc. xlix, , p. ). [ ] i should hardly have thought it worth while to revive this old "cesspool" theory, were it not for the statement of dr lawrence that "miller's argument that the word _grendel_ here is not a proper name at all, that it means 'drain,' has never, to my knowledge, been refuted." (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxiv, .) miller was a scholar whose memory should be reverenced, but the letter to the _academy_ was evidently written in haste. the only evidence which miller produced for _grendel_ standing alone as a common noun in old english was a charter of (birch, : vol. iii, p. ): _þanon forð eft on grendel: þanon on clyst_: _grendel_ here, he asserted, meant "drain": and consequently _gryndeles sylle_ and _grendles mere_ in the other charters must mean "cesspool." but the locality of this charter of is known (clyst st mary, a few miles east of exeter), and the two words exist there as names of streams to this day--"thence again along the greendale brook, thence along the river clyst." the grindle or greendale brook is no sewer, but a stream some half dozen miles in length which "winds tranquilly through a rich tract of alluvial soil" (_journal of the archaeol. assoc._ xxxix, ), past three villages which bear the same name, greendale, greendale barton and higher greendale, under greendale bridge and over the ford by greendale lane, to its junction with the clyst. why the existence of this charming stream should be held to justify the interpretation of _grendel_ or _gryndel_ as "drain" and _grendles mere_ as "cesspool" has always puzzled me. were a new drayton to arise he might, in a new _polyolbion_, introduce the nymph complaining of her hard lot at the hands of scholars in the hesperides. i hope, when he next visits england, to conduct dr lawrence to make his apologies to the lady. meantime a glance at the "six inch" ordnance map of devon suffices to refute miller's curious hypothesis. [ ] it is often asserted that the same beowa appears as a witness to a charter (müllenhoff, _beovulf_, p. : haak, _zeugnisse zur altenglischen heldensage_, ). but this rests upon a misprint of kemble (_c.d.s._ v, ). the name is really _beoba_ (birch, _cart. sax._ i, ). [ ] _beaf er ver kollum biar_, in the descent of harold fairhair from adam, in _flateyarbók_, ed. vigfússon and unger, christiania, , i, . [the genealogy contains many names obviously taken from a ms of the o.e. royal pedigrees, not from oral tradition, as is shown by the miswritings, e.g., _beaf_ for _beaw_, owing to mistaking the o.e. _w_ for _f_.] "this is no proof," dr lawrence urges, "of popular acquaintance with bjár as a scandinavian figure." (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxiv, .) but how are we to account for the presence of his name among a mnemonic list of some of the most famous warriors and their horses--mention along with heroes like sigurd, gunnar, atli, athils and ali, unless bjar was a well-known figure? [ ] _en bjárr [reið] kerti_. _kortr_, "short" (germ. _kurz_), if indeed we are so to interpret it, is hardly an icelandic word, and seems strange as the name of a horse. egilsson (_lex. poet._ ) suggests _kertr_, "erect," "with head high" (cf. kahle in _i.f._ xiv, ). [ ] see appendix (a) below. [ ] müllenhoff derived beaw from the root _bh[=u]_, "to be, dwell, grow": beaw therefore represented settled dwelling and culture. müllenhoff's mythological explanation (_z.f.d.a._ vii, , _etc._, _beovulf_, , _etc._) has been largely followed by subsequent scholars, e.g., ten brink (_pauls grdr._ ii, : _beowulf_, ), symons (_pauls grdr._ ( ), iii, - ) and, in general outline, e. h. meyer (_mythol. der germanen_, , ). [ ] uhland in _germania_, ii, . [ ] laistner (_nebelsagen_, , _etc._, , _etc._), kögel (_z.f.d.a._ xxxvii, : _geschichte d. deut. litt._ i, , ), and golther (_handbuch der germ. mythologie_, , ) see in grendel the demon of combined storm and pestilence. [ ] e. h. meyer (_germ. mythol._ , ). [ ] mogk (_pauls grdr._ ( ), iii, ) regards grendel as a "water-spirit." [ ] boer (_ark. f. nord. filol._ xix, ). [ ] this suggestion is made (very tentatively) by brandl, in _pauls grdr._ ( ), ii, i, . [ ] this view has been enunciated by wundt in his _völkerpsychologie_, ii, i, , _etc._, . for a discussion see a. heusler in _berliner sitzungsberichte_, xxxvii, , pp. - . [ ] cf. lawrence in _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxiv, , _etc._, and panzer's "beowulf" throughout. [ ] the tradition of "the devil and his dam" resembles that of grendel and his mother in its coupling together the home-keeping female and the roving male. see e. lehmann, "fandens oldemor" in _dania_, viii, - ; a paper which has been undeservedly neglected in the _beowulf_ bibliographies. but the devil beats his dam (cf. _piers plowman_, c-text, xxi, ): conduct of which one cannot imagine grendel guilty. see too lehmann in _arch. f. religionswiss._ viii, - : panzer, _beowulf_, , , _etc._: klaeber in _anglia_, xxxvi, . [ ] cf. _beowulf_, ll. - . [ ] there are other coincidences which _may_ be the result of mere chance. in each case, before the adventure with the giants, the hero proves his strength by a feat of endurance in the ice-cold water. and, at the end of the story, the hero in each case produces, as evidence of his victory, a trophy with a runic inscription: in _beowulf_ an engraved sword-hilt; in the _grettis saga_ bones and a "rune-staff." [ ] vigfússon, _corp. poet. boreale_, ii, : bugge, _p.b.b._ xii, . [ ] boer, for example, believes that _beowulf_ influenced the _grettis saga_ (_grettis saga_, introduction, xliii); so, tentatively, olrik (_heltedigtning_, i, ). [ ] for this argument and the following, cf. schück, _studier i beowulfssagan_, . [ ] even assuming that a ms of _beowulf_ had found its way to iceland, it would have been unintelligible. this is shown by the absurd blunders made when icelanders borrowed names from the o.e. genealogies. [ ] cf. olrik, _a. f. n. f._, viii (n.f. iv), - ; and chadwick, _origin_, - . [ ] _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxvii, _etc._ [ ] _cotton. gnomic verses_, ll. - . [ ] _fornmannas[o,]gur_, iii, - . [ ] hammershaimb, _fær[=o]iske kvoeder_, ii, , nos. and . [ ] a. i. arwidsson, _svenska fornsånger_, - , nos. and . [ ] boer, _beowulf_, - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] l. . [ ] the attacks have taken place at yule for two successive years, exactly as in the _grettis saga_. [in _beowulf_ it is, of course, "twelve winters" (l. ).] is this mere accident, or does the _grettis saga_ here preserve the original time limit, which has been exaggerated in _beowulf_? if so, we have another point of resemblance between the _saga of rolf kraki_ and the earliest version of the _beowulf_ story. [ ] _beowulf_, ll. - . [ ] cf. _beowulf_, ll. - . [ ] _beowulf_, l. . [ ] _beowulf_, ll. - , . [ ] it is only in this adventure that rolf carries the sword _gullinhjalti_. his usual sword, as well known as arthur's excalibur, was _skofnungr_. for _gyldenhilt_, whether descriptive, or proper noun, see _beowulf_, . [ ] cf. symons in _pauls grdr._ ( ), iii, : züge aus dem anglischen mythus von béaw-biar (biarr oder bjár?; s. symons lieder der edda, i, ) wurden auf den dänischen sagenhelden (boðvarr) bjarki durch Ähnlichkeit der namen veranlasst, übertragen. cf. too, heusler in _a.f.d.a._ xxx, . [ ] see p. and appendix (a) below. [ ] _heltedigtning_, i, , - . [ ] _beowulf_, . [ ] see heusler in _z.f.d.a._ xlviii, . [ ] cf. on this heusler, _z.f.d.a._ xlviii, - . [ ] cf. _skjoldunga saga_, cap. xii; and see olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, - ; _bjarka rímur_, viii. [ ] similarly _skáldskaparmál_, ( ). [ ] bärensohn. jean l'ours. the name is given to the group because the hero is frequently (though by no means always) represented as having been brought up in a bear's den. the story summarized above is a portion of panzer's "type a." see appendix (h), below. [ ] ll. , . [ ] ll. - . [ ] in the _beowulf_ it was even desirable, as explained above, to go further, and completely to exculpate the danish watchers. [ ] from the controversial point of view panzer has no doubt weakened his case by drawing attention to so many of these, probably accidental, coincidences. it gives the critic material for attack (cf. boer, _beowulf_, ) [ ] ll. _etc._ [ ] ll. - . [ ] it comes out strongly in the _bjarki_-story. [ ] it can hardly be argued that stein is mentioned because he was an historic character who in some way came into contact with the historic grettir: for in this case his descent would have been given, according to the usual custom in the sagas. (cf. note to boer's edition of _grettis saga_, p. .) [ ] p. e. k. kaalund, _bidrag til en historisk-topografisk beskrivelse af island_, kjøbenhavn, , ii, . [ ] the localization in _en stor sandhaug_ is found in a version of the story to which panzer was unable to get access (see p. of his _beowulf_, note ). a copy is to be found in the university library of christiania, in a small book entitled _nor, en billedbog for den norske ungdom_. christiania, . (_norske folke-eventyr ... fortalte af p. c. asbjørnsen_, pp. - .) the _sandhaug_ is an extraordinary coincidence, if it _is_ a mere coincidence. it cannot have been imported into the modern folk-tale from the _grettis saga_, for there is no superficial resemblance between the two tales. [ ] cf. boer, _beowulf_, . [ ] yet both beowulf and orm are saved by divine help. [ ] panzer exaggerates the case against his own theory when he quotes only six versions as omitting the princesses (p. ). such unanimity as this is hardly to be looked for in a collection of kindred folk-tales. in addition to these six, the princesses are altogether missing, for example, in the versions panzer numbers , , : they are only faintly represented in other versions (e.g. ). nevertheless the rescue of the princesses may be regarded as the most essential element in the tale. [ ] i cannot agree with panzer when (p. ) he suggests the possibility of the _beowulf_ and the _grettir_-story having been derived independently from the folk-tale. for the two stories have many features in common which do not belong to the folk-tale: apart from the absence of the princesses we have the _hæft-m[=e]ce_ and the strange conclusion drawn by the watchers from the blood-stained water. [ ] ipse scef cum uno dromone advectus est in insula oceani, quae dicitur scani, armis circundatus, eratque valde recens puer, & ab incolis illius terrae ignotus; attamen ab eis suscipitur, & ut familiarem diligenti animo eum custodierunt, & post in regem eligunt. ethelwerdus, iii, , in savile's _rerum anglicarum scriptores post bedam_, francofurti, , p. . [ ] see chadwick, _origin_, - . [ ] sceldius [fuit filius] sceaf. iste, ut ferunt, in quandam insulam germaniae scandzam, de qua jordanes, historiographus gothorum, loquitur, appulsus navi sine remige, puerulus, posito ad caput frumenti manipulo, dormiens, ideoque sceaf nuncupatus, ab hominibus regionis illius pro miraculo exceptus et sedulo nutritus: adulta aetate regnavit in oppido quod tunc slaswic, nunc vero haithebi appellatur. est autem regio illa anglia vetus dicta.... william of malmesbury, _de gestis regum anglorum_. lib. ii, § , vol. i, p. , ed. stubbs, . [ ] although saxo grammaticus has provided some even earlier kings. [ ] cf. müllenhoff in _z.f.d.a._ vii, . [ ] in _grímnismál_, , odin gives _gautr_ as one of his names. [ ] see below. [ ] excluding, of course, the hebrew names. [ ] _scyld_ appears as _scyldwa_, _sce(a)ldwa_ in the _chronicle_. the forms correspond. [ ] see part ii. [ ] _armis circundatus_. [ ] for a list of the scholars who have dealt with the subject, see _widsith_, p. . [ ] _beovulf_, p. _etc._ [ ] _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxiv, _etc._ [ ] this objection to the scyld-theory has been excellently expressed by olrik--at a time, too, when olrik himself accepted the story as belonging to scyld rather than sceaf. "binz," says olrik, "rejects william of malmesbury as a source for the scyld story. but he has not noticed that in doing so he saws across the branch upon which he himself and the other investigators are sitting. for if william is not a reliable authority, and even a more reliable authority than the others, then 'scyld with the sheaf' is left in the air." _heltedigtning_, i, - , note. [ ] the discussion of skjold by olrik (_danmarks heltedigtning_, i, - ) is perhaps the most helpful of any yet made, especially in emphasizing the necessity of differentiating the stages in the story. but it must be taken in connection with the very essential modifications made by dr olrik in his second volume (pp. - , especially pp. - ). dr olrik's earlier interpretation made scyld the original hero of the story: _scefing_ olrik interpreted, not as "with the sheaf," but as "son of scef." to the objection that any knowledge of scyld's parentage would be inconsistent with his unknown origin, olrik replied by supposing that scyld was a foundling whose origin, though unknown to the people of the land to which he came, was well known to the poet. the poet, dr olrik thought, regarded him as a son of the langobardic king, sceafa, a connection which we are to attribute to the anglo-saxon love of framing genealogies. but this explanation of scyld scefing as a human foundling does not seem to me to be borne out by the text of _beowulf_. "the child is a poor foundling," says dr olrik, "_he suffered distress from the time when he was first found as a helpless child_. only as a grown man did he get compensation for his childhood's adversity" (p. ). but this is certainly not the meaning of _egsode eorl[as]_. it is "_he inspired the earl[s] with awe_." [ ] see below (app. c) for instances of ancestral names extant both in weak and strong forms, like _scyld_, _sceldwa_ (the identity of which no one doubts) or _sceaf_, _sceafa_ (the identity of which has been doubted). [ ] "as for the name _scyldungas-skjöldungar_, we need not hesitate to believe that this originally meant 'the people' or 'kinsmen of the shield.' similar appellations are not uncommon, e.g., _rondingas_, _helmingas_, _brondingas_ ... probably these names meant either 'the people of _the_ shield, _the_ helmet,' _etc._, or else the people who used shields, helmets, _etc._, in some special way. in the former case we may compare the ancile of the romans and the palladion of the greeks; in either case we may note that occasionally shields have been found in the north which can never have been used except for ceremonial purposes." chadwick, _origin_, p. : cf. olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, . [ ] sweyn aageson, _skiold danis primum didici praefuisse_, in langebek, _s.r.d._ i, . [ ] olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, ; lawrence, _pub. mod. lang. assoc._ xxiv, . [ ] it is odd that binz, who has recorded so many of these, should have argued on the strength of these place-names that the scyld story is not danish, but an ancient possession of the tribes of the north sea coast (p. ). for binz also records an immense number of names of heroes of alien stock--danish, gothic or burgundian--as occurring in england (_p.b.b._ xx, _etc._). [ ] _beovulf_, p. . [ ] chadwick, _origin_, p. . [ ] the scandals about king edgar (_infamias quas post dicam magis resperserunt cantilenae_: see _gesta regum anglorum_, ii, § , ed. stubbs, vol. i, p. ); the story of gunhilda, the daughter of knut, who, married to a foreign king with great pomp and rejoicing, _nostro seculo etiam in triviis cantitata_, was unjustly suspected of unchastity till her english page, in vindication of her honour, slew the giant whom her accusers had brought forward as their champion (_gesta_, ii, § , ed. stubbs, i, pp. , ); the story of king edward and the shepherdess, learnt from _cantilenis per successiones temporum detritis_ (_gesta_, ii, § , ed. stubbs, i, ). macaulay in the _lays of ancient rome_ has selected william as a typical example of the historian who draws upon popular song. cf. freeman's _historical essays_. [ ] olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, . [ ] _origin_, pp. - . [ ] brand, _popular antiquities_, , i, . [ ] henderson, _folklore of the northern counties_, - . [ ] hone's _every day book_, , p. . [ ] _the tamar and the tavy_, i. ( ). [ ] raymond, _two men o' mendip_, , . [ ] miss m. a. courtney, _glossary of west cornwall_; t. q. couch, _glossary of east cornwall_, s. v. neck (_eng. dial. soc._ ); jago, _ancient language of cornwall_, , s. v. anek. [ ] _notes and queries_, th ser. xii, ( ). [ ] holland's _glossary of chester_ (_eng. dial. soc._), s.v. _cutting the neck._ [ ] burne, _shropshire folk lore_, , . [ ] "to cry the mare." blount, _glossographia_, th edit. , s.v. _mare_. cf. _notes and queries_, th ser. vi, ( ). [ ] wright, _eng. dial. dict._, s.v. _neck_. [ ] frazer, _spirits of the corn_, , i, . the word was understood as = "neck" by the peasants, because "they'm taied up under the chin laike" (_notes and queries_, th ser. x, ). but this may be false etymology. [ ] wright, _eng. dial. dict._ cf. _notes and queries_, th ser. x, . [ ] _heltedigtning_, ii, . [ ] the earliest record of the term "cutting the neck" seems to be found in randle holme's _store house of armory_, (ii, ). it may be noted that holme was a cheshire man. [ ] mannhardt, _mythologische forschungen_, strassburg, , _etc._ [ ] quod dum servi dei propensius actitarent, inspiratum est eis salubre consilium et (ut pium est credere) divinitus provisum. die etenim statuto mane surgentes monachi sumpserunt scutum rotundum, cui imponebant manipulum frumenti, et super manipulum cereum circumspectae quantitatis et grossitudinis. quo accenso scutum cum manipulo et cereo, fluvio ecclesiam praetercurrenti committunt, paucis in navicula fratribus subsequentibus. praecedebat itaque eos scutum et quasi digito demonstrans possessiones domui abbendoniae de jure adjacentes nunc huc, nunc illuc divertens; nunc in dextra nunc in sinistra parte fiducialiter eos praeibat, usquedum veniret ad rivum prope pratum quod beri vocatur, in quo cereus medium cursum tamisiae miraculose deserens se declinavit et circumdedit pratum inter tamisiam et gifteleia, quod hieme et multociens aestate ex redundatione tamisiae in modum insulae aqua circumdatur. _chronicon monasterii de abingdon_, ed. stevenson, , vol. i, p. . [ ] chadwick, _origin_, . [ ] olrik, _heltedigtning_, ii, . [ ] but is this so? "the word sämpsä (now sämpsykka) 'small rush, _scirpus silvaticus_, forest rush,' is borrowed from the germanic family (engl. semse; germ. simse)." olrik, . but the engl. "semse" is difficult to track. see also note by a. mieler in _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, x, , . [ ] kaarle krohn, "sampsa pellervoinen" in _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_ iv, _etc._, . [ ] cf. olrik, _heltedigtning_, ii, _etc._. [ ] i do not understand why olrik (_heltedigtning_, i, ) declares the coming to land in scani (ethelwerd) to be inconsistent with sceaf as a longobardic king (_widsith_). for, according to their national historian, the longobardi came from "scadinavia" [paul the deacon, i, - ]. it is a more serious difficulty that paul knows of no longobardic king with a name which we can equate with sceaf. [ ] so, corresponding to o.e. _tr[=i]ewe_ we have icel. _tryggr_; to o.e. _gl[=e]aw_, icel. _gl[o,]ggr_; o.e. _sc[=u]wa_, icel. _skugg-_. [ ] olrik, _heltedigtning_, ii, , pp. - . an account of the worship of pekko will be found in _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, vi, , pp. - : _Über den pekokultus bei den setukesen_, by m. j. eisen. see also appendix (a) below. pellon-pecko is mentioned by michael agricola, bishop of Åbo, in his translation of the psalter into finnish, . it is here that we are told that he "promoted the growth of barley." [ ] l. . [ ] that heremod is a danish king is clear from ll. _etc._ and as we have all the stages in the scylding genealogy from scyld to hrothgar, heremod must be placed earlier. [ ] of grein in _eberts jahrbuch_, iv, . [ ] a good example of this is supplied by the assyrian records, which make jehu a son of omri--whose family he had destroyed. [ ] this reconstruction is made by sievers in the _berichte d. k. sächs. gesellschaft der wissenschaften_, , pp. - . [ ] the god _hermóðr_ who rides to hell to carry a message to the dead baldr is here left out of consideration. his connection with the king _hermóðr_ is obscure. [ ] on this see dederich, _historische u. geographische studien_, ; heinzel in _a.f.d.a._ xv, ; chadwick, _origin_, ; chadwick, _cult of othin_, . [ ] chadwick, _cult of othin_, pp. , _etc._ [ ] _puerulus ... pro miraculo exceptus_ (william of malmesbury). cf. _beowulf_, l. . in saxo, skjold distinguishes himself at the age of fifteen. [ ] _omnem alemannorum gentem tributaria ditione perdomuit._ cf. _beowulf_, l. . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] this relationship of frothi and skjold is preserved by sweyn aageson: skiold danis primum didici praefuisse.... a quo primum.... skioldunger sunt reges nuncupati. qui regni post se reliquit haeredes frothi videlicet & haldanum. svenonis aggonis _hist. regum dan._ in langebek, _s.r.d._ i, . in saxo frotho is not the son, but the great grandson of skioldus--but this is a discrepancy which may be neglected, because it seems clear that the difference is due to saxo having inserted two names into the line at this point--those of gram and hadding. there seems no reason to doubt that danish tradition really represented frothi as son of skjold. [ ] those who accept the identification would regard _fróði_ (o.e. _fr[=o]da_, 'the wise') as a title which has ousted the proper name. [ ] boer, _ark. f. nord. filol._, xix, , calls this theory of sievers "indisputable." [ ] sievers, p. . [ ] _beowulf_, . cf. , . [ ] so regin guides sigurd: una the red cross knight. the list might be indefinitely extended. similarly with giants: "then came to him a husbandman of the country, and told him how there was in the country of constantine, beside brittany, a great giant".... _morte d'arthur_, book v, cap. v. [ ] _beowulf_, . [ ] l. . [ ] ll. _etc._ [ ] intrepidum mentis habitum retinere memento. [ ] ll. _etc._ [ ] cf. _beowulf_, : _forwr[=a]t wedra helm wyrm on middan_. [ ] cf. _cotton. gnomic verses_, ll. - : _draca sceal on hl[=æ]we: fr[=o]d, frætwum wlanc._ [ ] virusque profundens: _wearp wæl-f[=y]re_, . [ ] implicitus gyris serpens crebrisque reflexus orbibus et caudae sinuosa volumina ducens multiplicesque agitans spiras. cf. _beowulf_, - , , (_hring-boga_), (_w[=o]hbogen_). [ ] _volospá_, - in _corpus poeticum boreale_. i, . [ ] cf. on this olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, - . [ ] panzer, _beowulf_, . [ ] a further and more specific parallel between lotherus and heremod has been pointed out by sarrazin (_anglia_, xix, ). it seems from _beowulf_ that heremod went into exile (ll. - ), and apparently _mid eotenum_ (l. ) which (in view of the use of the word _eotena_, _eotenum_, in the _finnsburg_ episode) very probably means "among the jutes." a late scandinavian document tells us that _lotherus ... superatus in jutiam profugit_ (messenius, _scondia illustrata_, printed , but written about ). [ ] pointed out by panzer. a possible parallel to the old man who hides his treasure is discussed by bugge and olrik in _dania_, i, - ( - ). [ ] cf. ettmüller, _scopas and boceras_, , p. ix; _carmen de beovvulfi rebus gestis_, , p. iii. [ ] _p.b.b._ xi, - . [ ] sarrazin, _der schauplatz des ersten beowulfliedes_ (_p.b.b._ xi, _etc._); sievers, _die heimat des beowulfdichters_ (_p.b.b._ xi, _etc._); sarrazin, _altnordisches im beowulfliede_ (_p.b.b._ xi, _etc._); sievers, _altnordisches im beowulf?_ (_p.b.b._ xii, _etc._) [ ] _beovulf-studien_, . [ ] sarrazin has countered this argument by urging that since the present day swedes and danes have better manners than the english, they therefore presumably had better manners already in the eighth century. i admit the premises, but deny the deduction. [ ] sedgefield, _beowulf_ ( st ed.), p. . [ ] schück, _studier i beovulfsagan_, . [ ] the brief _fata apostolorum_ is doubted by sievers (_anglia_, xiii, ). [ ] two of these occur twice: _h[=a]tan heolfre_, , ; _n[=i]owan stefne_, , ; the rest once only, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . see barnouw, . [ ] , , , , , . [ ] _christ_, . [ ] lichtenheld omits , _se m[=æ]ra mago healfdenes_, inserting instead , where the same phrase occurs, but with a vocative force. [ ] , , , , , , , . [ ] . [ ] , , , , , , , , , , , , . [ ] saintsbury in _short history of english literature_, i. . [ ] morsbach, . [ ] morsbach, . [ ] chadwick, _heroic age_, . [ ] "thus in place of the expression _to widan feore_ we find occasionally _widan feore_ in the same sense, and even in _beowulf_ we meet with _widan feorh_, which is not improbably the oldest form of the phrase. before the loss of the final _-u_ it [_widan feorhu_] would be a perfectly regular half verse, but the operation of this change would render it impossible and necessitate the substitution of a synonymous expression. in principle, it should be observed, the assumption of such substitutions seems to be absolutely necessary, unless we are prepared to deny that any old poems or even verses survived the period of apocope." chadwick, _heroic age_, pp. - . [ ] _heroic age_, . [ ] birch, _cart. sax._ no. . see morsbach, . [ ] the most important examples being _breguntford_ (birch, _cart. sax._ no. , dating between and ; perhaps ): _heffled_ in the life of st gregory written by a whitby monk apparently before : _-gar_ on the bewcastle column, earlier than the end of the first quarter of the eighth century and perhaps much earlier: and many names in _ford_ and _feld_ in the moore ms of bede's _ecclesiastical history_ (a ms written about ). [ ] an english miscellany presented to dr furnivall, . [ ] grienberger, _anglia_, xxvii, . [ ] i.e. _flodu ahof_ might stand for _fl[=o]d u[p] [)a]h[=o]f_, as is suggested by chadwick, _heroic age_, . [ ] in the franks casket _b_ already appears as _f_, and the _n_ of _sefu_, "seven," has been lost. [ ] birch, _cart. sax._ no. . [ ] chadwick, _heroic age_, : "in personal names we must clearly allow for traditional orthography." morsbach admits this in another connection (p. ). [ ] lübke's preface to müllenhoff's _beovulf_. both the tendencies specially associated with müllenhoff's name--the "mythologizing" and the "dissecting"--are due to the influence of lachmann. it must be frankly admitted that on these subjects müllenhoff did not begin his studies with an open mind. [ ] "es ist einfach genug"--_beovulf_, . [ ] möller, _v.e._ : cf. schücking, _b.r._ . [ ] earle, _deeds of beowulf_, xlix (an excellent criticism of müllenhoff). [ ] heusler, _lied u. epos_, . [ ] _epic and romance_, chap. ii, § . [ ] _ballad and epic_, - . [ ] _beowulfs rückkehr_, . [ ] e.g. _genesis_. [ ] chap. iv, pp. - . [ ] chap. v, pp. - . [ ] chap. vi, cf. esp. p. . [ ] in the portion which schücking excludes, we twice have _g[=æ]ð_ = _g[=a]ið_ ( , ). elsewhere in the _return_ we have _d[=o]n_ = _d[=o]an_ ( ) whilst _fr[=e]a_ ( ), _hondsci[=o]_ ( ) need to be considered. [ ] . [ ] . [ ] _satzverknüpfung im beowulf_, . [ ] _Þ[=y]l[=æ]s_ = "lest" ( ); _ac_ in direct question ( ); _þ[=a]_ occurring unsupported late in the sentence ( ); _forþ[=a]m_ ( ) [see sievers in _p.b.b._ xxix, ]; _sw[=a]_ = "since," "because" ( ). but schücking admits in his edition two other instances of _forþ[=a]m_ ( and ), so this can hardly count. [ ] _h[=y]rde ic_ as introducing a statement, , , ; _sið ðan [=æ]rest_, , . [ ] a similar use of _þ[=a]_, , ; cf. , , . [ ] _hæbbe_, ; _g[=e]ong_, . [ ] _þurfe_, . [ ] schücking, chap. viii. [ ] cf. brandl in herrigs _archiv_, cxv, ( ). [ ] e.g. blackburn in _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xii, - ; bradley in the _encyc. brit._ iii, ; chadwick, _h.a._ ; clarke, _sidelights_, . [ ] chadwick, in _cambridge history_, i, . [ ] we may refer especially to the account of attila's funeral given by jordanes. [mr chadwick's note.] [ ] chadwick in _the heroic age_, . [ ] it is adopted, e.g., by clarke, _sidelights_, . [ ] yet this is very doubtful: see leeds, _archæology_, , . [ ] notably in book viii (ed. holder, ) and book iii (ed. holder, ). [ ] 'fasta fornlämningar i beowulf,' in _ant. tidskrift för sverige_, xviii, , . [ ] see schücking, _das angelsächsische totenklaglied_, in _engl. stud._ xxxix, - . [ ] blackburn, in _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ cf. hart, _ballad and epic_, . [ ] clark hall, xlvii. [ ] blackburn, as above, p. . [ ] chadwick, in _cambridge history_, i, . [ ] clark hall, xlvii. see, to the contrary, klaeber in _anglia_, xxxvi, . [ ] this point is fully developed by brandl, - . as brandl points out, if we want to find a parallel to the hero beowulf, saving his people from their temporal and ghostly foes, we must look, not to the other heroes of old english heroic poetry, such as waldhere or hengest, but to moses in the old english _exodus_. [since this was written the essentially christian character of _beowulf_ has been further, and i think finally, demonstrated by klaeber, in the last section of his article on _die christlichen elemente im beowulf_, in _anglia_, xxxvi; see especially - .] [ ] cf. _beowulf_, ll. _etc._ [ ] bradley, in _encyc. brit._ [ ] bradley, in _encyc. brit._ iii, - . [ ] blackburn, . [ ] see finnur jónsson, _den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning_, b. ii. - . [ ] ms a, followed by magnússon, makes glam _bláeygðr_, "blue-eyed": boer reads _gráeygðr_, considering grey a more uncanny colour. [ ] ms a has _fon^m_ or _fen^m_, it is difficult to tell which. magnússon reads _fenum_, "morasses." [ ] immediately inside the door of the icelandic dwelling was the _anddyri_ or vestibule. for want of a better word, i translate _anddyri_ by "porch": but it is a porch inside the building. opening out of this 'porch' were a number of rooms. chief among which were the _skáli_ or "hall," and the _stufa_ or "sitting room," the latter reached by a passage (_g[o,]ng_). these were separated from the "porch" by panelling. in the struggle with glam, grettir is lying in the hall (_skáli_), but the panelling has all been broken away from the great cross-beam to which it was fixed. grettir consequently sees glam enter the outer door; glam turns to the _skáli_, and glares down it, leaning over the cross-beam; then enters the hall, and the struggle begins. see guðmundssen (v.), _privatbolegen på island i sagatiden_, . [ ] the partition beams (_set-stokkar_) stood between the middle of the _skáli_ or hall and the planked daïs which ran down each side. the strength of the combatants is such that the _stokkar_ give way. grettir gets no footing to withstand glam till they reach the outer-door. here there is a stone set in the ground, which apparently gives a better footing for a push than for a pull. so grettir changes his tactics, gets a purchase on the stone, and at the same time pushes against glam's breast, and so dashes glam's head and shoulders against the lintel of the outer-door. [ ] so ms a. magnússon reads _dvaldist þar_ "he stayed there." [ ] meaning that an attack by the evil beings would at least break the monotony. [ ] a passage (_g[o,]ng_) had to be traversed between the door of the room (_stufa_) and the porch (_anddyri_). [ ] mss _bælt_. boer reads _bolat_ "hewn down." [ ] a night troll, if caught by the sunrise, was supposed to turn into stone. [ ] _skúta_ may be acc. of the noun _skúti_, "overhanging precipice, cave"; or it may be the verb, "hang over." grettir and his companion see that the sides of the ravine are precipitous (_skúta upp_) and so clean-cut (_meitil-berg: meitill_, "a chisel") that they give no hold to the climber. hence the need for the rope. the translators all take _skúta_ as acc. of _skúti_, which is quite possible: but they are surely wrong when they proceed to identify the _skúti_ with the _hellir_ behind the waterfall. for this cave behind the waterfall is introduced in the _saga_ as something which grettir discovers _after_ he has dived beneath the fall, the fall in front naturally hiding it till then. the verb _skúta_ occurs elsewhere in _grettis saga_, of the glaciers overhanging a valley. boer's attempt to reconstruct the scene appears to me wrong: cf. ranisch in _a.f.d.a._ xxviii, . [ ] the old editions read _fimm tigir faðma_ "fifty fathoms": but according to boer's collation the best ms (a) read x, whilst four of the five others collated give xv (_fimtán_). the editors seem dissatisfied with this: yet sixty to ninety feet seems a good enough height for a dive. [ ] _ok sat þar hjá_, not in ms a, nor in boer's edition. [ ] the two poems are given according to the version of william morris. [ ] on his first arrival at leire, bjarki had been attacked by, and had slain, the watch-dogs (_rímur_, iv, ): this naturally brings him now into disfavour, and he has to dispute with men. [ ] reading _kappana_. [ ] the mss have either _sandeyar_ or _saudeyar_ (_sauðeyar_). but that _sandeyar_ is the correct form is shown by the name sandø, which is given still to the island of dollsey, where orm's fight is localized (panzer, ). [ ] literally "she-cat," _ketta_; but the word may mean "giantess." it is used in some mss of the _grettis saga_ of the giantess who attacks grettir at sandhaugar. [ ] see sweet, _oldest english texts_, , p. . [ ] see _catalogue of mss. in the library of corpus christi college, cambridge_ by montague rhodes james, camb., , p. . [ ] see _publications of the palæographical society_, , where a facsimile of part of the _vespasian ms_ is given. (pt. , plate : subsequently ser. i, vol. ii.) [ ] so zimmer, _nennius vindicatus_, berlin, , pp. etc., and duchesne (_revue celtique_, xv, ). duchesne sums up these genealogies as "un recueil constitué, vers la fin du vii^e siècle, dans le royaume de strathcluyd, mais complété par diverses retouches, dont la dernière est de ." [ ] this is shown by one of the supplementary mercian pedigrees being made to end, both in the _vespasian_ genealogy and the _historia brittonum_, in ecgfrith, who reigned for a few months in . see thurneysen (_z.f.d.ph._ xxviii, ). [ ] ed. mommsen, p. . [ ] anno : a similar genealogy will be found in these mss and in the parker ms, anno (accession of offa ii). [ ] zimmer (_nennius vindicatus_, p. ) argues that this _geta-woden_ pedigree belongs to a portion of the _historia brittonum_ written down a.d. . thurneysen (_z.f.d.ph._ xxviii, - ) dates the section in which it occurs ; duchesne (_revue celtique_, xv, ) places it more vaguely between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the eighth century; van hamel (_hoops reallexikon_ s.v. _nennius_) between much the same limits, and clearly before . [ ] zimmer (p. ) says a.d. ; duchesne (p. ) a.d. ; thurneysen (_zeitschr. f. celtische philologie_, i, ) a.d. ; skene (_four ancient books of wales_, , i, ) a.d. ; van hamel (p. ) a.d. - . see also chadwick, _origin_, . [ ] bradshaw, _investigations among early welsh, breton and cornish mss._ in _collected papers_, . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] cf. _bretwalda_. [ ] the genealogies have recently been dealt with by e. hackenberg, _die stammtafeln der angelsächsischen königreiche_, berlin, ; and by brandl, (herrig's _archiv_, cxxxvii, - ). most of brandl's derivations seem to me to depend upon very perilous conjectures. thus he derives _sc[=e]fing_ from the gr.-lat. _scapha_, "a skiff": a word which was not adopted into old english. this seems to be sacrificing all probability to the desire to find a new interpretation: and, even so, it is not quite successful. for riley in the _gentleman's magazine_, august, , p. , suggested the derivation of the name of scef from the _schiff_ or _skiff_ in which he came. [ ] for a list of the icelandic versions, see heusler, _die gelehrte urgeschichte im altisländischen schrifttum_, pp. - , in the _abhandlungen d. preuss. akad._, _phil. hist. klasse_, , berlin. [ ] the names are given as in the trinity roll (t), collated with corpus (c) and moseley (m). for paris (p) i follow kemble's report (_postscript to preface_, , pp. vii, viii: _stammtafel der westsachsen_, pp. , ). all seem to agree in writing _t_ for _c_ in steph and steldius, and in boerinus, _obviously, as kemble pointed out, r is written by error for [wynn] = beowinus_ [or _beowius_]; cinrinicius t, cinrinicus c, cininicus p, siuruncius m; suethedus tcp, suechedius m; gethius t, thecius m, ehecius cp; geate t, geathe cm, geathus p. [ ] i follow the spelling of the moseley roll in this note. [ ] _dacia_ = "denmark": _dacia_ and _dania_ were identified. [ ] _uocabitur_, gertz; _uocatur_, all mss. [ ] this account of the peaceful reign of ro is simply false etymology from danish _ro_, "rest." [ ] note that ro (hrothgar), the son of haldanus (healfdene), is here represented as his father. saxo grammaticus, combining divergent accounts, as he often does, accordingly mentions two roes--one the brother of haldanus, the other his son. see above, pp. - . [ ] _cum piratica classe_, langebek; the mss have _cum pietate_ (!) with or without _classe_. [ ] _post quem_, holder-egger, gertz; _postquam_, all mss. [ ] snyo: the viceroy whom athisl had placed over the danes. [ ] _in_ added by gertz; omitted in all mss. [ ] a scribal error for _transalbinas_, "beyond the elbe." [ ] assembly. [ ] island. [ ] i have substituted _u_ for _v_, and have abandoned spellings like _theutones_, _thezauro_, _orrifico_, _charitas_, _phas_ (for _fas_), _atlethas_, _choercuit_, _iocundum_, _charum_, _foelicissima_, _nanque_, _hæreditarii_, _exoluere_. the actual reading of the text is abandoned by substituting: p. , l. _ingeniti_ for _ingenitis_ ( ); p. , l. , _iacientis_ for _iacentis_; p. , l. , _diutinæ_ for _diutiuæ_; p. , l. , _fudit_ for _fugit_; p. , l. , _ut_ for _aut_; p. , l. , _ammirationi_ for _ammirationis_; p. , l. , _offert_ for _affert_; p. , l. , _roluoni_ for _rouolni_; p. , l. , _ministerio_ for _ministros_; p. , l. _diuturnus_ for _diuturnius_; p. , l. , _diutinam_ for _diutina_; p. , l. , _ei_ for _eique_; p. , l. , _destituat_ for _deficiat_; p. , l. , _latere_ for _latera_; p. , l. , _conscisci_ for _concissi_; p. , l. , _defoderat_ for _defodera_. [ ] _above this heading_ b _has_ gesta offe regis mercior_um_. [ ] a _repeats_ sibi _after_ constitueret. [ ] hic riganus binomin[i]s fuit. vocabat_ur_ eni_m_ alio nomine aliel. rigan_us_ u_er_o a rigore. huic erat fili_us_ hildebrand_us_, miles strenuus, ab ense sic d_i_c_tu_s. hu_n_c uoluit p_ate_r p_ro_mouere: _contemporary rubric in_ a, _inserted in the middle of the sketch representing riganus demanding the kingdom from warmundus._ [ ] optat, b. [ ] celebri, b; celibri, a. [ ] hoc, b. [ ] ueheement_er_, a. [ ] ueheementi, a. [ ] eciam, b. [ ] _added in margin in_ a; _not in_ b. [ ] hec _omitted_, b. [ ] _added in margin in_ a; _not in_ b. [ ] dereliqueru_n_t, b. [ ] precipue _omitted_, b. [ ] ei _omitted_, b. [ ] qualmhul _vel_ q_u_almweld _in margin_, a. [ ] planies, a: planicies, _perhaps corrected from_ planies, b. [ ] blodifeld, b. [ ] gloria t_r_iumphi, _in margin_, a. [ ] tripudium, b; tripuduum, a. [ ] scis, a, b. [ ] menbra, a. [ ] gracias, b. [ ] hosstibus, a. [ ] romotis, a. [ ] co_n_gnou_er_unt, a. [ ] warmandi, a. [ ] habenas _repeated after_ regni _above in_ a, _but cancelled in_ b. [ ] exaggeret, b. [ ] pulcritudi_ni_s, b; pulch_r_itudini, a. [ ] i_n_gnota, a. [ ] euuangelii, b. [ ] co_n_si_n_gnatas, a. [ ] _from_ b, _written over erasure_. [ ] scrib_itu_r, b. [ ] ep_isto_la, _in margin_, a. [ ] i_n_co_n_gnita, a. [ ] dicebant, b. [ ] frustratim, a, b. [ ] ossium, b. [ ] co_n_gnouit, a. [ ] hoc _omitted_, b. [ ] co_n_gnic_i_one, a. [ ] sui, a. [ ] obtemp_er_are, b. [ ] menbra, a. [ ] qui, ab; quae, wats. [ ] reco_n_gnosce, a. [ ] sancte _et_ dulcissime, b. [ ] ut _added above line_, a, b. [ ] scenobium, a; _the _s_i s erased in_ b. [ ] deo, b [ ] tuinfreth, b. [ ] scenobio, a; s _erased_ b. [ ] de tiran_n_ide beormredi reg_is_ mercie, b. [ ] fecerat, _wanting in_ a; _added in margin_, b. [ ] pinefredum, b; penefredum, a, _but with_ i _above in first case._ [ ] uariis _repeated_, a; _second_ variis _cancelled_, b. [ ] considerans, b, _inserted in margin; omitted_, a. [ ] marcelline, a; marcell, b. [ ] vixisset, b, _inserted in margin_; _omitted_, a. [ ] alberto, _etc. passim_, b. [ ] virtutibus, _in margin, later hand,_ a; _in_ b, _over erasure._ [ ] est _in margin_, a. [ ] et _omitted_, b. [ ] innotuerunt, b. [ ] in pietatis manu, b. [ ] p_re_missimis, a. [ ] sinistrum, b. [ ] quam _in margin_, a; _over erasure_, b. [ ] _space for cap. left vacant_, a. [ ] aucmentu_m_, a. [ ] facinoris, b. [ ] co_n_gnouit, a. [ ] celeriter, b. [ ] cum _in_ a _is inserted after_ p_er_ueniss_et_, _instead of before: and this was probably the original reading in_ b, _although subsequently corrected._ [ ] _per_, b. [ ] _corrected to_ nullaten_us_ dormire quasi suspecta_m_ p_er_misit, b. [ ] justa vindicta, a, _in margin_. [ ] mr mackie, in an excellent article on the _fragment_ (_j.e.g.ph._ xvi, ) objects that my criticism of hickes' accuracy "is not altogether judicial." mackie urges that, since the ms is no longer extant, we cannot tell how far the errors are due to hickes, and how far they already existed in the ms from which hickes copied. but we must not forget that there are other transcripts by hickes, of mss which _are_ still extant, and from these we can estimate his accuracy. it is no disrespect to the memory of hickes, a scholar to whom we are all indebted, to recognize frankly that his transcripts are not sufficiently accurate to make them at all a satisfactory substitute for the original ms. hickes' transcript of the _cottonian gnomic verses_ (_thesaurus_, i, ) shows an average of one error in every four lines: about half these errors are mere matters of spelling, the others are serious. hickes' transcript of the _calendar_ (_thesaurus_, i, ) shows an average of one error in every six lines. when, therefore, we find in the _finnsburg fragment_ inaccuracies of exactly the type which hickes often commits, it would be "hardly judicial" to attribute these to the ms which he copied, and to attribute to hickes in this particular instance an accuracy to which he has really no claim. mr mackie doubts the legitimacy of emending _garulf_ to _garulf[e]_: but we must remember that hickes (or his printer) was systematically careless as to the final _e_: cf. _calendar_, , , , , , , ; _gnomic verses_, . other forms in the _finnsburg fragment_ which can be easily paralleled by hickes' miswritings in the _calendar_ and _gnomic verses_ are confusion of _u_ and _a_ (_finn._ , , perhaps ) cf. _gn._ . " " _c_ " _e_ (_finn._ ) cf. _cal._ , _gn._ . " " _e_ " _æ_ (_finn._ ) cf. _cal._ , , _gn._ . " " _e_ " _a_ (_finn._ ) cf. _cal._ . " " _eo_ " _ea_ (_finn._ ) cf. _cal._ . " " letters involving long down stroke, e.g., _f_, _s_, _r_, _þ_, _w_, _p_ (_finn._ , ) cf. _cal._ , , , , _gn._ . addition of _n_ (_finn._ ) cf. _cal._ . [ ] _heimskringla_, chap. . [ ] it has been suggested that the phrase "hengest himself" indicates that hengest is the "war-young king." but surely the expression merely marks hengest out as a person of special interest. if we _must_ assume that he is one of the people who have been speaking, then it would be just as natural to identify him with the watcher who has warned the king, as with the king himself. the difficulties which prevent us from identifying hengest with the king are explained below. [ ] garulf must be an assailant, since he falls at the beginning of the struggle, whilst we are told that for five days none of the defenders fell. [ ] very possibly guthere is uncle of garulf. for garulf is said to be son of guthlaf (l. ) and a _guth_ere would be likely to be a brother of a _guth_laf. further, as klaeber points out (_engl. stud._ xxxix, ) it is the part of the uncle to protect and advise the nephew. [ ] koegel, _geschichte d. deut. litt._ i, i, . [ ] klaeber (_engl. stud._ xxxix, ) reminds us that, as there are two warriors named godric in the _battle of maldon_ (l. ), so there may be two warriors named guthlaf here. but to this it might possibly be replied that "godric" was, in england, an exceedingly common name, "guthlaf" an exceedingly rare one. [ ] finn is called the _bana_, "slayer" of hnæf. but this does not necessarily mean that he slew him with his own hand; it would be enough if he were in command of the assailants at the time when hnæf was slain. cf. _beowulf_, l. . [ ] the idea that finn's frisians are the "north frisians" of schleswig has been supported by grein (_eberts jahrbuch_, iv, ) and, following him, by many scholars, including recently sedgefield (_beowulf_, p. ). the difficulties of this view are very many: one only need be emphasized. we first hear of these north frisians of schleswig in the th century, and saxo grammaticus tells us expressly that they were a colony from the greater frisia (book xiv, ed. holder, p. ). at what date this colony was founded we do not know. the latter part of the th century has been suggested by langhans: so has the end of the th century by lauridsen. however this may be, all the evidence precludes our supposing this north friesland, or, as saxo calls it, fresia minor, to have existed at the date to which we must attribute the origin of the finn story. on this point the following should be consulted: langhans (v.), _ueber den ursprung der nordfriesen_, wien, (most valuable on account of its citation of documents: the latter part of the book, which consists of an attempt to rewrite the finn story by dismissing as corrupt or spurious many of the data, must not blind us to the value of the earlier portions): lauridsen, _om nordfrisernes indvandring i sønderjylland, historisk tidsskrift_, r, b. ii, - , kjøbenhavn, : siebs, _zur geschichte der englisch-friesischen sprache_, , - : chadwick, _origin_, : much in _hoops reallexikon_, s.v. _friesen_; and bremer in _pauls grdr._ ( ), iii, , where references will be found to earlier essays on the subject. [ ] the theory that hnæf is a captain of healfdene is based upon a rendering of l. which is in all probability wrong. [ ] the view that the _eotenas_ are the men of hnæf and hengest has been held by thorpe (_beowulf_, pp. - ), ettmüller (_beowulf_, , p. ), bouterwek (_germania_, i, ), holtzmann (_germania_, viii, ), möller (_volksepos_, - ), chadwick (_origin_, ), clarke (_sidelights_, ). [ ] "and therefore, said the king ... much more i am sorrier for my good knights' loss, than for the loss of my fair queen. for queens i might have enow: but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company." malory, _morte darthur_, bk. xx, chap. ix. [ ] the argument of bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, ) that the eotens here (l. ) must be the frisians, is inconclusive: but so is miss clarke's argument that they must be danes (_sidelights_, ), as is shown by lawrence (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxx, ). [ ] i say "son" in what follows, without prejudice to the possibility of more than one son having fallen. it in no wise affects the argument. [ ] for example, it might well be said of achilles, whilst thirsting for vengeance upon the trojans for the death of patroclus, that "he could not get the children of the trojans out of his mind." but surely it would be unintelligible to say that "he could not get the child of the achaeans out of his mind," meaning patroclus, for "child of the achaeans" is not sufficiently distinctive to denote patroclus. cf. boer in _z.f.d.a._ xlvii, . [ ] in the _skjoldunga saga_ [extant in a latin abstract by arngrim jonsson, ed. olrik, ], cap. iv, mention is made of a king of denmark named leifus who had six sons, three of whom are named hunleifus, oddleifus and gunnleifus--corresponding exactly to o.e. _h[=u]nl[=a]f_, _ordl[=a]f_ and _g[=u]ðl[=a]f_. that hunlaf was well known in english story is proved by a remarkable passage unearthed by dr imelmann from _ms cotton vesp. d. iv_ (fol. _b_) where hunlaf is mentioned together with a number of other heroes of old english story--wugda, hama, hrothulf, hengest, horsa (_hoc testantur gesta rudolphi et hunlapi, unwini et widie, horsi et hengisti, waltef et hame_). see chadwick, _origin_, : r. huchon, _revue germanique_, iii, : imelmann, in _d.l.z._ xxx, : april, . this disposes of the translation "hun thrust or placed in his bosom lafing, best of swords," which was adopted by bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, ), holder, ten brink and gering. hun is mentioned in _widsith_ (l. ) and in the icelandic _thulor_. that guthlaf, ordlaf and hunlaf must be connected together had been noted by boer (_z.f.d.a._ xlvii, ) before this discovery of chadwick's confirmed him. [ ] the fragment which tells of the fighting in the hall is so imperfect that there is nothing impossible in the assumption, though it is too hazardous to make it. [ ] cf. _beowulf_, ll. _etc._ [ ] _das altenglische volksepos_, - . [ ] c. p. hansen, _uald' söld'ring tialen_, møgeltønder, . see möller, _volksepos_, _etc._ [ ] see müllenhoff in _a.f.d.a._ vi, . [ ] so möller, _volksepos_, . [ ] see _beowulf_, ed. wyatt, , p. . [ ] _volksepos_, _etc._ [ ] e.g., sedgefield, _beowulf_, nd ed., p. . so st ed., p. (_hoc_ being an obvious misprint). [ ] on the poet's use of plural for singular here, see osthoff, _i.f._ xx, - . [ ] i have thought it necessary to give fully the reasons why möller's view cannot be accepted, because in whole or in part it is still widely followed in england. chadwick (_origin_, ) still interprets "eotens" as "danes"; and sedgefield (_beowulf_ ( ), p. ) gives möller's view the place of honour. [ ] the treachery of finn is emphasized, for example, by bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, ), koegel (_geschichte d. deut. litt._ ), ten brink (_pauls grdr._ ( ), ii, ), trautmann (_finn und hildebrand,_ ), lawrence (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxx, , ), ayres (_j.e.g.ph._ xvi, ). [ ] syþðan morgen c[=o]m ð[=a] h[=e]o under swegle ges[=e]on meahte, _etc._ [ ] l. . the swords flash _swylce eal finnsburuh f[=y]renu w[=æ]re_, "as if all finnsburg were afire." i think we may safely argue from this that the swords are flashing near finnsburg. it would be just conceivable that the poet's mind travels back from the scene of the battle to finn's distant home: "the swords made as great a flash as would have been made had finn's distant capital been aflame": but this is a weak and forced interpretation, which we have no right to assume, though it may be conceivable. [ ] _beowulf_, ll. - . i doubt whether it is possible to explain the difficulty away by supposing that "the warriors departing to see friesland, their homes and their head-town" simply means that finn's men, "summoned by finn in preparation for the encounter with the danes, return to their respective homes in the country," and that "_h[=e]aburh_ is a high sounding epic term that should not be pressed." this is the explanation offered by klaeber (_j.e.g.ph._ vi, ) and endorsed by lawrence (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxx, ). but it seems to me taking a liberty with the text to interpret _h[=e]aburh_ (singular) as the "respective homes in the country" to which finn's warriors resort on demobilisation. and the statement of ll. - , that the warriors departed from the place of combat to see friesland, seems to necessitate that such place of combat was not in friesland. klaeber objects to this (surely obvious) inference: "if we are to infer [from ll. - ] that finnsburg lies outside friesland proper, we might as well conclude that _dyflen_ (dublin) is not situated in ireland according to the _battle of brunanburh (gewitan him þ[=a] norðmenn ... dyflen s[=e]can and eft [=i]raland_)." but how could anyone infer this from the _brunanburh_ lines? what we _are_ justified in inferring, is, surely, that the _site of the battle of brunanburh_ (from which the northmen departed to visit ireland and dublin) was not identical with dublin, and did not lie in ireland. and by exact parity of reason, we are justified in arguing that finnsburg, the site of the first battle in which hnæf fell (from which site the warriors depart to visit friesland and the _h[=e]aburh_) was not identical with the _h[=e]aburh_, and did not lie in friesland. accordingly the usual view, that finnsburg is situated outside friesland, seems incontestable. see bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, - ), trautmann (_finn und hildebrand_, ) and boer (_z.f.d.a._ xlvii, ). cf. ayres (_j.e.g.ph._ xvi, ). [ ] see below, p. . [ ] so brandl, , and heinzel. [ ] or just as the attack on the danes began at night, we might suppose (as does trautmann) that it equally culminated in a night assault five days later. there would be obvious advantage in night fighting when the object was to storm a hall: flugumýrr was burnt by night, and so was the hall of njal. so, too, was the hall of rolf kraki. it would be, then, on the morning after this second night assault, that hildeburh found her kinsfolk dead. [ ] _beowulf_, l. : cf. l. . [ ] leo (_beowulf_, , ), müllenhoff (_nordalbingische studien_, i, ), rieger (_lesebuch; z.f.d.ph._ iii, - ), dederich (_studien_, , - ), heyne (in his fourth edition) and in recent times holthausen have interpreted _eoten_ as a common noun "giant," "monster," and consequently "foe" in general. but they have failed to produce any adequate justification for interpreting _eoten_ as "foe," and holthausen, the modern advocate of this interpretation, has now abandoned it. grundtvig (_beowulfes beorh_, , pp. _etc._) and möller (_volksepos_, _etc._) also interpret "giant," möller giving an impossible mythological explanation, which was, at the time, widely followed. [ ] like _oxnum_, _nefenum_ (cf. sievers, § , anm. ). [ ] i do not attach much importance to the argument which might be drawn from the statement of binz (_p.b.b._ xx, ) that the evidence of proper names shows that in the hampshire district (which was colonized by jutes) the legend of _finnsburg_ was particularly remembered. for on the other hand, as binz points out, similar evidence is markedly lacking for kent. and why, indeed, should the jutes have specially commemorated a legend in which their part appears not to have been a very creditable one? [ ] p. , note . [ ] see above, p. . zimmer, _nennius vindicatus_, , assumes that the kentish pedigree borrowed these names from the bernician: but there is no evidence for this. [ ] among those who have so held are kemble, thorpe (_beowulf_, pp. - ), ettmüller (_beowulf_, , p. ), bouterwek (_germania_, i, ), grein (_eberts jahrbuch_, iv, ), köhler (_germania_, xiii, ), heyne (in first three editions), holder (_beowulf_, p. ), ten brink (_pauls grdr_. ( ), ii, ), heinzel (_a.f.d.a._ x. ), stevenson (_asser_, , p. ), schücking (_beowulf_, , p. ), klaeber (_j.e.g.ph._ xiv, ), lawrence (_pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxx, ), moorman (_essays and studies_, v, ), björkman (_eigennamen im beowulf_, ). so too, with some hesitation, chadwick (_orgin_, - ): with much more hesitation, bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, ). whilst this is passing through the press holthausen has withdrawn his former interpretation _eotena_, "enemies," in favour of _eotena_=_[=e]otna_, "jutes" (_engl. stud._ li, ). [ ] _p.b.b._ xii, . [ ] the cognate of o.e. _f[=æ]r_ (mod. eng. "fear") in other germanic languages, such as old saxon and old high german, has the meaning of "ambush." in the nine places where it occurs in o.e. verse it has always the meaning of a peril which comes upon one suddenly, and is applied, e.g. to the day of judgement (twice) or some unexpected flood (three times). in compounds _f[=æ]r_ conveys an idea of suddenness: "_f[=æ]r-d[=e]að_, repentina mors." [ ] _volksepos_, . [ ] it has been surmounted in two ways. ( ) by altering _eaferum_ to _eaferan_ (a very slight change) and then making _f[=æ]r_ refer to the _final_ attack upon finn, in which he certainly _was_ on the defensive (lawrence, _etc._, ayres, , trautmann, _bb._ ii, klaeber, _anglia_, xxviii, , holthausen). ( ) by making _h[=i][=e]_ refer to _hæleð healf-dena_ which follows (green in _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxxi, - ); but this is forced. see also below, p. . [ ] cf. tacitus, _germania_, xiv. [ ] for examples of this see pp. - below. [ ] _fragment_, - . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] book ii (ed. holder, p. ). [ ] _p.b.b._ xii, . [ ] for a discussion of the interpretation of the difficult _forþringan_, see carlton brown in _m.l.n._ xxxiv, - . [ ] _j.e.g.ph._ xvi, - . [ ] _ib._ - . [ ] i wish i could feel convinced, with ayres, that the person whom guthlaf and oslaf blame for their woes is hengest rather than finn. such an interpretation renders the story so much more coherent; but if the poet really meant this, he assuredly did not make his meaning quite clear. [ ] see below, pp. , - . [ ] ne h[=u]ru hildeburh herian þorfte eotena tr[=e]owe. [ ] ayres, in _j.e.g.ph._ xvi, . so lawrence in a private communication. [ ] ll. , _etc._ [ ] we can construct the situation from such historical information as we can get from gregory of tours and other sources. the author of _beowulf_ may not have been clear as to the exact relation of the different tribes. we cannot tell, from the vague way he speaks, how much he knew. [ ] i have argued this at some length below, but i do not think anyone would deny it. bugge recognized it to be true (_p.b.b._ xii, - ) as does lawrence ( ). see below, pp. - . [ ] we can never argue that words are synonymous because they are parallel. compare psalm cxiv; in the first verse the parallel words are synonymous, but in the second and third not: "when israel came out of egypt and the house of jacob from among the strange people" [israel = house of jacob: egypt = strange people]. "judah was his sanctuary and israel his dominion." [judah is only one of the tribes of israel.] "the sea saw that and fled: jordan was driven back." [the red sea and jordan are distinct, though parallel, examples.] [ ] _j.e.g.ph._ xvi, . [ ] _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxx, . [ ] plummer, _two saxon chronicles parallel_, ii, . [ ] _njáls saga_, cap. . [ ] _pauls grdr._ ( ), ii, . [ ] helmhold. [ ] i know of only one parallel for such assumed adoption of a name: that also concerns the jutes. the angles, says bede, dwelt between the saxons and jutes: the jutes must, then, according to bede, have dwelt north of the angles, since the saxons dwelt south. but the people north of the angles are now, and have been from early times, scandinavian in speech, whilst the jutes who settled kent obviously were not. the best way of harmonizing known linguistic facts with bede's statement is, then, to assume that scandinavians settled in the old continental home of these jutes and took over their name, whilst introducing the scandinavian speech. now many scholars have regarded this as so forced and unlikely an explanation that they reject it, and refuse to believe that the jutes who settled kent can have dwelt north of the angles, in spite of bede's statement. if we are asked to reject the "scandinavian-jute" theory, as too unlikely on _a priori_ grounds, although it is demanded by the express evidence of bede, it is surely absurd to put forward a precisely similar theory in favour of "frisian-jutes" upon no evidence at all. [ ] koegel ( ), lawrence ( ). [ ] björkman (_eigennamen im beowulf_, ) interprets the _eotenas_ as jutist subjects of finn. this suggestion was made quite independently of anything i had written, and confirms me in my belief that it is a reasonable interpretation. [ ] ayres in _j.e.g.ph._ xvi, . [ ] e.g. _njáls saga_, cap. : _laxdæla saga_, cap. . [ ] of course a primitive stage can be conceived at which homicide is regarded as worse than murder. your brother shoots _a_ intentionally: he must therefore have had good reasons, and you fraternally support him. but you may feel legitimate annoyance if he aims at a stag, and shooting _a_ by mere misadventure, involves you in a blood-feud. [ ] _heimskringla, Ól. tryggv._ k. ; _saga olafs tryggvasonar_, k. (_fornmanna s[o,]gur_, , x.) [ ] saxo grammaticus (ed. holder, p. ). [ ] _heimskringla, Ól. tryggv._ k. . [ ] _lýsti vígi á hendr sér._ _laxdæla saga_, cap. . [ ] cap. . [ ] cap. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, anno . [ ] _njáls saga_, cap. . [ ] _fragment_, ll. - . [ ] p. (ed. holder). [ ] finn may perhaps be holding a meeting of chieftains. for similar meetings of chieftains, compare _s[o,]rla þáttr_, cap. ; _laxdæla saga_, cap. ; _skáldskaparmál_, cap. ( ). [ ] there is assuredly a considerable likeness between the finn story and the nibelungen story: this has been noted often enough. it is more open to dispute whether the likeness is so great as to justify us in believing that the nibelungen story is _copied_ from the finn story, and may therefore safely be used as an indication how gaps in our existing versions of that story may be filled. see boer in _z.f.d.a._ xlvii, _etc._ [ ] the fact that both sides have suffered about equally facilitates a settlement in the teutonic feud, just as it does among the afridis or the albanians at the present day. [ ] the situation would then be parallel to that in _laxdæla saga_, cap. - , where the boy thorleik, aged fifteen, is nominally in command of the expedition which avenges his father bolli, but is only able to accomplish his revenge by enlisting the great warrior thorgils, who is the real leader of the raid. [ ] bugge (_p.b.b._ xii, ) interpreted this _swylce_ as meaning that sword-bale came upon finn in like manner as it had previously come upon hnæf. but this is to make _swylce_ in l. refer back to the death of hnæf mentioned ( lines previously) in l. . möller (_volksepos_, ) tries to explain _swylce_ by supposing the passage it introduces to be a fragment detached from its context. [ ] f, r, s, þ, w, p ([old english letters]), all letters involving a long down stroke, are constantly confused. for examples, see above, p. , and cf. e.g. _beowulf_, l. (_fergendra_ for _wergendra_); _crist_, (_cræstga_ for _cræftga_); _phoenix_, (_fnæft_ for _fnæst_); riddles iii (iv), (_þyran_ for _þywan_); xl (xli), (_þyrre_ for _þyrse_); xlii (xliii), (_speop_ for _sp[=e]ow_), (_wæs_ for _þæs_); lvii (lviii), (_rope_ for _r[=o]fe_ or _r[=o]we_), _etc._ [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] _nennius interpretatus_, ed. mommsen (_chronica minora_, iii, , in _mon. germ. hist._) [ ] "de norske oldsager synes at vidne om, at temmelig livlige handelsforbindelser i den ældre jernalder har fundet sted mellem norge og de sydlige nordsøkyster." undset, _fra norges ældre jernalder_ in the _aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie_, , - , esp. p. . see also chadwick, _origin_, . i am indebted to chadwick's note for this reference to undset. [ ] _ravennatis anonymi cosmographia_, ed. pinder et parthey, berolini, , pp. , (§ i, ). [ ] the modern wijk bij duurstede, not far from utrecht, on the lower rhine. [ ] an account of the numerous coins found among the ruins of the old town will be found in the _forschungen zur deutschen geschichte_, iv ( ), pp. - . they testify to its commercial importance. [ ] so adam of bremen, following alcuin. concerning "heiligland" adam says: "hanc in vita sancti willebrordi fosetisland appellari discimus, quae sita est in confinio danorum et fresonum." adam of bremen in pertz, _scriptores_, vii, , p. . [ ] alcuin's _life of willibrord_ in migne ( )--alcuini _opera_, vol. ii, - . [ ] see above, pp. - . [ ] it had been disputed by skeat, earle, boer, and others, but never with such strong reasons. [ ] i use below the form "beow," which i believe to be the correct one. "beaw" is the form in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_. but as the name of sceldwa, beaw's father, is there given in a form which is not west-saxon (_sceld_, not _scield_ or _scyld_), it may well be that "beaw" is also the anglian dialect form, if it be not indeed a mere error: and this is confirmed by _beo_ (ethelwerd), _beowius_ (william of malmesbury), _boerinus_ (for _beowinus_: chronicle roll), perhaps too by _beowa_ (charter of ) and _beowi_, (_ms cott. tib. b. iv_). for the significance of this last, see pp. - , below, and björkman in _engl. stud._ lii, , _anglia, beiblatt_, xxx, . [ ] vol. lxxxi, p. . [ ] it has indeed been so argued by brandl: "beowulf ... ist nur der erlöser seines volkes ... und dankt es schliesslich dem himmel, in einer an den heiland gemahnenden weise, dass er die seinen um den preis des eigenen lebens mit schätzen beglücken konnte." _pauls grdr._ ( ), ii, l. . [ ] _encyclopædia britannica_, th edit., iii, - . [ ] l. , where a capital o occurs, but without a section number. [ ] _moore, namur, cotton._ [ ] _cotton tiberius b. xi._ [ ] _hatton_, . [ ] see above, pp. - . [ ] see above, pp. - . [ ] ethelwerd. [ ] _chronicle._ [ ] boer, _beowulf_, , : _arkiv f. nord. filologi_, xix, . [ ] _heroic age_, . [ ] _postscript to preface_, p. ix. [ ] _postscript_, pp. xi, xiv. [ ] see _lokasenna_ in _die lieder der edda_, herausg. von sijmons u. gering, i, . byggvir kvaþ: "[veiztu] ef [ek] øþle ættak sem ingunar-freyr, ok svá sællekt setr, merge smæra mølþak [þá] meinkr[ó,]ko ok lemþa alla í liþo." [ ] lines corresponding to these of burns are found both in the scotch ballad recorded by jamieson, and in the english ballad (pepys collection). see jamieson, _popular ballads and songs_, , ii, , . [ ] loki kvaþ: "hvat's þat et lítla, es [ek] þat l[o,]ggra sék, ok snapvíst snaper? at eyrom freys mont[u] æ vesa ok und kvernom klaka." [ ] jamieson, ii, . so burns: "john barleycorn was a hero bold," and the ballad john barleycorn is the wightest man that ever throve in land. [ ] byggvir kvaþ: "byggver ek heite, en mik bráþan kveþa goþ [o,]ll ok gumar; því emk hér hróþogr, at drekka hrópts meger aller [o,]l saman." [ ] loki kvaþ: "þege þú, byggver! þú kunner aldrege deila meþ m[o,]nnom mat; [ok] þik í flets strae finna né m[ó,]tto, þás v[ó,]go verar." [ ] this follows from the allusive way in which he and his wife are introduced--there must be a background to allusions. if the poet were inventing this figure, and had no background of knowledge in his audience to appeal to, he must have been more explicit. cf. olsen in christiania _videnskapsselskapets skrifter_, , ii, , . [ ] p. . [ ] see olrik, "nordisk og lappisk gudsdyrkelse," _danske studier_, , pp. - ; "tordenguden og hans dreng," , pp. - ; "tordenguden og hans dreng i lappernes myteverden," , pp. - ; krohn, "lappische beiträge zur germ. mythologie," _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, vi, , pp. - . [ ] see axel olrik in _festgabe f. vilh. thomsen_, (= _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, xii, , p. ). olrik refers therein to his earlier paper on the subject in _danske studier_, , p. , and to a forthcoming article in the _germanisch-romanische monatsschrift_, which has, i think, never appeared. see also k. krohn in _göttingische gelehrte anzeigen_, , p. . reviewing meyer's _altgermanische religionsgeschichte_, krohn, after referring to the teutonic gods of agriculture, continues "ausser diesen agrikulturellen gottheiten sind aus der finnischen mythologie mit hülfe der linguistik mehrere germanische naturgötter welche verschiedene nutzpflanzen vertreten, entdeckt worden: der roggengott runkoteivas oder rukotivo, der gerstengott pekko (nach magnus olsen aus urnord. beggw-, vgl. byggwir) und ein gott des futtergrases sämpsä (vgl. semse od. simse, 'die binse')." see also krohn, "germanische elemente in der finnischen volksdichtung," _z.f.d.a._ li, , pp. - ; and karsten, "einige zeugnisse zur altnordischen götterverehrung in finland," _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, xii, - . [ ] as proposed by k. krohn in a publication of the finnish academy at helsingfors which i have not been able to consult, but as to which see setälä in _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, xiii, , . setälä accepts the derivation from _beggwu-_, rejecting an alternative derivation of pekko from a finnish root. [ ] this is proposed by j. j. mikkola in a note appended to the article by k. krohn, "sampsa pellervoinen < njordr, freyr?" in _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, iv, - . see also olrik, "forårsmyten hos finnerne," in _danske studier_, , pp. - . [ ] see note by k. krohn, _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, vi, . [ ] see above, p. , and m. j. eisen, "ueber den pekokultus bei den setukesen," _finnisch-ugrische forschungen_, vi, - . [ ] see m. olsen, _hedenske kultminder i norske stedsnavne_, christiania _videnskapsselskapets skrifter_, ii, , , pp. - . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] mannhardt, _mythologische forschungen_, . [ ] in view of the weight laid upon this custom by olrik as illustrating the story of sceaf, it is necessary to note that it seems to be confined to parts of england bordering on the "celtic fringe." see above, pp. , _etc._ olrik and olsen quote it as kentish (see _heltedigtning_, ii, ) but this is certainly wrong. frazer attributes the custom of "crying the mare" to hertfordshire and shropshire (_spirits of the corn_, i, = _golden bough_, rd edit., vii, ). in this he is following brand's _popular antiquities_ ( , i, ; , ii, ; also carew hazlitt, , i, ). but brand's authority is blount's _glossographia_, , and blount says _herefordshire_. [ ] brand, _popular antiquities_, , ii, . [ ] frazer in the _folk-lore journal_, vii, , pp. , ; _adonis, attis and osiris_, i, . [ ] frazer, _adonis, attis and osiris_, i, (_golden bough_, rd edit.). [ ] frazer, _spirits of the corn and of the wild_, i, - . [ ] frazer in the _folk-lore journal_, vii, , pp. , . [ ] mannhardt, _forschungen_, . [ ] frazer, _spirits of the corn_, i, . [ ] mannhardt, ; fraser, _adonis_, i, . [ ] mannhardt, . [ ] mannhardt, ; frazer, _adonis_, i, . [ ] frazer, _adonis_, i, . [ ] frazer, _spirits of the corn_, i, . [ ] see björkman in _anglia, beiblatt_, xxx, , p. . in a similar way sceaf appears twice in william of malmesbury, once as sceaf and once as strephius. [ ] vol. lii, p. . [ ] _ms cott. vesp. b. xxiv_, fol. (evesham cartulary). see birch, _cart. sax._ i, (no. ); kemble, _cod. dipl._ iii, . kemble prints _þæt æft_ for _þ[=a] æft_ (ms "[=þ] æft"). for examples of "[=þ]" for _þ[=a]_, see _Ælfrics grammatik_, herausg. zupitza, ; , ; , ; , . [ ] there are two copies, one of the tenth and one of the eleventh century, among the crawford collection in the bodleian. see birch, _cart. sax._ iii, .. (no. ); napier and stevenson, _the crawford collection_ (_anecdota oxoniensia_), , pp. , , . [ ] _ms cotton ch. viii_, . see birch, _cart. sax._ ii, (no. ); kemble, _cod. dipl._ ii, . [ ] a nearly contemporary copy: _westminster abbey charters_, iii. see birch, _cart. sax._ iii, (no. ), and w. b. sanders, _ord. surv. facs._ ii, plate iii. [ ] a fourteenth to fifteenth century copy preserved at wells cathedral (_registr. album_, f. _b_). see birch, _cart. sax._ iii, (no. ). [ ] _ms cotton aug. ii_, . see birch, _cart. sax._ iii, (no. ). [ ] _brit. mus. stowe chart._ no. . see birch, _cart. sax._ iii, (no. ). [ ] cf. the _victoria history_, middlesex, ii, p. . [ ] "_grendeles gate_ har väl snarast varit någon naturbildning t. ex. ett trångt bergpass eller kanske en grotta": c. w. von sydow, in an excellent article on _grendel i anglosaxiska ortnamn_, in _nordiska ortnamn: hyllningsskrift tillägnad a. noreen_, upsala, , pp. - . [ ] près du _neckersgat molen_, il y avait jadis, antérieurement aux guerres de religion, des maisons entourées d'eau et appelées _de hoffstede te neckersgate_: wauters (a.), _histoire des environs de bruxelles_, , iii, . [ ] peg powler lived in the tees, and devoured children who played on the banks, especially on sundays: peg o' nell, in the ribble, demanded a life every seven years. see henderson (w.), _notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of england_, (_folk-lore society_), p. . [ ] see kisch (g.), _vergleichendes wörterbuch der siebenbürgischen und moselfränkischluxemburgischen mundart, nebst siebenbürgischniederrheinischem ortsund familiennamen-verzeichnis_ (vol. xxxiii, of the _archiv des vereins f. siebenbürg_. _landeskunde_, ). [ ] see _grindel_ in förstemann (e.), _altdeutsches namenbuch_, dritte aufl., herausg. jellinghaus, ii, , and in fischer (h.), _schwäbisches wörterbuch_, iii, (nevertheless rooth legitimately calls attention to the names recorded by fischer in which _grindel_ is connected with _bach_, _teich_ and _moos_). [ ] there is an account of this by g. kisch in the _festgabe zur feier der einweihung des neuen evang. gymnasial bürger- und elementar-schulgebäudes in besztercze (bistritz) am oct. _; a document which i have not been able to procure. [ ] such a connection is attempted by w. benary in herrig's _archiv_, cxxx, . alternative suggestions, which would exclude any connection with the grendel of _beowulf_, are made by klaeber, in _archiv_, cxxxi, . [ ] a very useful summary of the different etymologies proposed is made by rooth in _anglia, beiblatt_, xxviii ( ), - . [ ] so skeat, "on the significance of the monster grendel," _journal of philology_, cambridge, xv ( ), p. ; laistner, _rätsel der sphinx_, , p. ; holthausen, in his edition. [ ] so weinhold in the _sb. der k. akad. wien, phil.-hist. classe_, xxvi, . [ ] cf. gollancz, _patience_, , glossary. for _grindill_ as one of the synonyms for "storm," see _edda snorra sturlusonar_, hafniae, , ii, , . [ ] this will be found in several of the vocabularies of low german dialects published by the _verein für niederdeutsche sprachforschung_. [ ] see _grand_ in falk and torp, _etymologisk ordbog_, kristiania, - . [ ] see feist, _etymol. wörterbuch der gotischen sprache_, halle, ; _grunduwaddjus._ [ ] with grendel, thus explained, rooth would connect the "earth man" of the fairy-tale "dat erdmänneken" (see below, p. ) and the name _sandhaug_, _sandey_, which clings to the scandinavian _grettir-_ and _orm-_stories. we have seen that a _sandhaug_ figures also in one of the scandinavian cognates of the folk-tale (see above, p. ). these resemblances may be noted, though it would be perilous to draw deductions from them. [ ] _schweizerisches idiotikon_, ii, , p. . [ ] see above, pp. , _etc._; below, p. . [ ] duignan, _warwickshire place names_, p. . duignan suggests the same etymology for _beoshelle_, _beos_ being "the norman scribe's idea of the gen. plu." this, however, is very doubtful. [ ] _engl. stud._ lii, . [ ] _heltedigtning_, ii, . see above, pp. - . [ ] binz in _p.b.b._ xx, ; chadwick, _origin_, . so clarke, _sidelights_, . cf. heusler in _a.f.d. a._ xxx, . [ ] _a.-s. chronicle._ [ ] _historia brittonum._ [ ] "hrædlan" (gen.), _beowulf_, . [ ] "hrædles," _beowulf_, . [ ] _a.-s. chronicle._ [ ] _beowulf_, ethelwerd. [ ] geata, geta, _historia brittonum_; asser; _ms cott. tib. a. vi; textus roffensis_. [ ] _a.-s. chronicle._ [ ] charter of . [ ] _a.-s. chronicle_, ethelwerd. [ ] _origin_, . [ ] _origin_, . [ ] some o.h.g. parallels will be found in _z.f.d.a._ xii, . the weak form _g[=e]ata_, mr stevenson argues, is due to asser's attempt to reconcile the form _g[=e]at_ with the latin _geta_ with which he identifies it (asser, pp. - ). see also chadwick, _heroic age_, footnote. yet we get _g[=e]ata_ in one text of the _chronicle_, and in other documents. [ ] this is the view taken by plummer, who does not seem to regard any solution as possible other than that the names are missing from the _parker ms_ by a transcriber's slip (see _two saxon chronicles parallel_, ii, p. xciv). [ ] plummer, ii, pp. xxix, xxxi, lxxxix. [ ] plummer, ii, p. lxxi. note _beowi_ for _bedwig_. [ ] this table shows the relationship of the genealogies only, not of the whole mss, of which the genealogies form but a small part. ms-relationships are always liable to fluctuation, as we pass from one part of a ms to another, and for obvious reasons this is peculiarly the case with the _chronicle_ mss. [ ] _origin_, . [ ] _origin_, . [ ] _origin_, . [ ] the absence of the west-saxon pedigree may be due to the document from which the _historia brittonum_ and the _vespasian ms_ derive these pedigrees having been drawn up in the north: wessex may have been outside the purview of its compiler; though against this is the fact that it contains the kentish pedigree. but another quite possible explanation is, that cerdic, with his odd name, was not of the right royal race, but an adventurer, and that it was only later that a pedigree was made up for his descendants, on the analogy of those possessed by the more blue-blooded monarchs of mercia and northumbria. [ ] see _m.l.n._ , xii, - . [ ] it is prefixed to the _parker ms_ of the _chronicle_, and is found also in the cambridge ms of the anglo-saxon bede (_univ. lib. kk._ . ) printed in miller's edition; in _ms cott. tib. a. iii_, (printed in thorpe's _chronicle_): and in _ms add._ , printed by napier in _m.l.n._ , xii, _etc._ there are uncollated copies in _ms c.c.c.c._ , fol. , and according to liebermann (herrig's _archiv_, civ, ) in the _textus roffensis_, fol. b. there is also a fragment, which does not however include the portion under consideration, in _ms add._ (_brit. mus._) printed in sweet's _oldest english texts_, p. . the statement, sometimes made, that there is a copy in _ms c.c.c.c._ , rests on an error of whelock, who was really referring to the _parker ms_ of the _chronicle_ (_c.c.c.c._ ). [ ] p. . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] brandl in herrig's _archiv_, cxxxvii, - . [ ] _origin_, p. . [ ] so ethelwerd (_lib._ i) sees in woden a _rex multitudinis barbarorum_, in error deified. it is the usual point of view, and persists down to carlyle (_heroes_). [ ] _origin_, p. . [ ] _beowulf_, p. . for a further examination of this "beowa-myth" see appendix a, above. [ ] cf. tupper in _pub. mod. lang. assoc. amer._ xxvi, . [ ] _p.b.b._ xlii, - . a theory as to the date of _beowulf_, in some respects similar, was put forward by mone in : _untersuchungen zur geschichte der teutschen heldensage_, p. . [ ] see above, p. ; and brandl in _pauls grdr._ ( ) ii, , where the argument is excellently stated. [ ] see olrik, _sakses oldhistorie_, , - . [ ] see björkman, _eigennamen im beowulf_, . [ ] sarrazin's attempt to prove such corruption is an entire failure. cf. brandl in herrig's _archiv_, cxxvi, ; björkman, _eigennamen im beowulf_, (_heaðo-beardan_). [ ] a few geatic adventurers may have taken part in the anglo-saxon invasion, as has been argued by moorman (_essays and studies_, v). this is likely enough on _a priori_ grounds, though many of the etymologies of place-names quoted by moorman in support of his thesis are open to doubt. [ ] _p.b.b._ xlii, - . [ ] _history of england to the norman conquest_, i, . [ ] _heroic age_, - . i have tried to show (appendix f) that these accounts of cremation are not so archaeologically correct as has sometimes been claimed. [ ] oman, _england before the norman conquest_, . [ ] bede, _hist. eccles._ iv, . [ ] "nunc qui roma veniunt idem allegant, ut qui haugustaldensem fabricam vident ambitionem romanam se imaginari jurent." william of malmesbury, _gesta pontificum_, rolls series, p. . [ ] baldwin brown, _the arts in early england_, ii, , p. . [ ] p. . [ ] _beowulf_, ll. , - . [ ] cf. _beowulf_, l. . [ ] bede, _eccles. hist._ iii, . [ ] see oman, pp. , , for the honour done to this saint by converted danes. [ ] p. . [ ] _Æneid_, x, - . [ ] in the two admirable articles by klaeber (_archiv_, ccxvi, _etc._, _etc._) every possible parallel is drawn: the result, to my mind, is not complete conviction. [ ] chadwick, _heroic age_, . [ ] "litteris itaque ad plenum instructus, nativae quoque linguae non negligebat carmina; adeo ut, teste libro elfredi, de quo superius dixi, nulla umquam aetate par ei fuerit quisquam. poesim anglicam posse facere, cantum componere, _eadem apposite vel canere vel dicere_. denique commemorat elfredus carmen triviale, quod adhuc vulgo cantitatur, aldelmum fecisse, aditiens causam qua probet rationabiliter tantum virum his quae videantur frivola institisse. populum eo tempore semibarbarum, parum divinis sermonibus intentum, statim, cantatis missis, domos cursitare solitum. ideo sanctum virum, super pontem qui rura et urbem continuat, abeuntibus se opposuisse obicem, quasi artem cantitandi professum. eo plusquam semel facto, plebis favorem et concursum emeritum. hoc commento sensim inter ludicra verbis scripturarum insertis, cives ad sanitatem reduxisse." william of malmesbury, _de gestis pontificum anglorum_, ed. hamilton, _rolls series_, , . [ ] "reverentissimo patri meaeque rudis infantiae venerando praeceptori adriano." _epist._ (aldhelmi _opera_, ed. giles, , p. ). [ ] faricius, life, in giles' edition of aldhelm, , p. . [ ] letter of cuthbert to cuthwine, describing bede's last illness. "et in nostra lingua, hoc est anglica, ut erat doctus in nostris carminibus, nonnulla dixit. nam et tunc anglico carmine componens, multum compunctus aiebat, _etc._" the letter is quoted by simeon of durham, ed. arnold, _rolls series_, , i, pp. - , and is extant elsewhere, notably in a ninth century ms at st gall. [ ] "quid hinieldus cum christo." [ ] "Þæt [=æ]nig pr[=e]ost ne b[=e]o ealuscop, ne on [=æ]nige w[=i]san gl[=i]wige, mid him sylfum oþþe mid [=o]þrum mannum"--thorpe, _ancient laws and institutes of england_, , p. (laws of edgar, cap. ). [ ] "avitae gentilitatis vanissima didicisse carmina." this charge is dismissed as "scabiem mendacii." _vita sancti dunstani_, by "b," in _memorials of dunstan_, ed. stubbs, _rolls series_, , p. . were these songs heroic or magic? [ ] _the heroic legends of denmark_, new york, , p. (footnote). [ ] _ibid._ p. . [ ] thus, much space has been devoted to discussing whether "gotland," in the eleventh century cotton ms of alfred's orosius, signifies jutland. i believe that it does; but fail to see how it can be argued from this that alfred believed the jutes to be "geatas." old english had no special symbol for the semi-vowel _j_; so, to signify _j[=o]tland_, alfred would have written "geotland" (sievers, _gram._ §§ , ). had he meant "land of the geatas" he would have written "geataland" or "geatland." surely "gotland" is nearer to "geotland" than to "geatland." [ ] _p.b.b._ xii, - . [ ] see above, p. . fahlbeck has recently revised and re-stated his arguments. [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i, _etc._ [ ] _beowulf_, übersetzt von h. gering, , p. vii. [ ] see above, also _nordisk aandsliv_, , where olrik speaks of the geatas as "jyderne." his arguments as presented to the copenhagen _philologisk-historisk samfund_ are summarized by schütte, _j.e.g. ph._ xi, - . clausen also supports the jute-theory, _danske studier_, , - . [ ] _j.e.g. ph._ xi, - . [ ] _beowulf, et bidrag til nordens oldhistorie_ af chr. kier, københavn, . [ ] this is admitted by bugge, _p.b.b._ xii, . "_geátas_ ... ist sprachlich ein ganz anderer name als altn. _jótar_, _jútar_, bei beda _jutae_, und nach beda im _chron. sax._ _jotum_, _jutna_ ... die _geátas_ ... tragen einen namen der sprachlich mit altn. _gautar_ identisch ist." [ ] from a presumed prim. germ. _*eutiz_, _*eutjaniz_. the word in o.e. seems to have been declined both as an _i_-stem and an _n_-stem, the _n_-stem forms being used more particularly in the gen. plu., just as in the case of the tribal names, _seaxe_, _mierce_ (sievers, § ). the latinized forms show the same duplication, the dat. _euciis_ pointing to an _i_-stem, the nom. _euthio_ to an _n_-stem, plu. _*eutiones_. for a discussion of the relation of the o.e. name to the danish _jyder_, see björkman in _anglia, beiblatt,_ xxviii, - : "zu ae. _eote_, _yte_, dän. _jyder_ 'jüten'." [ ] i regard it as simply an _error_ of the translator, possibly because he had before him a text in which bede's _iutis_ had been corrupted in this place into _giotis_, as it is in ethelwerd: _cantuarii de giotis traxerunt originem, vuhtii quoque_. (bk. i: other names which ethelwerd draws from bede in this section are equally corrupt.) bede's text runs: (i, ) _aduenerant autem de tribus germaniae populis fortioribus, id est saxonibus, anglis, iutis. de iutarum origine sunt cantuarii et victuarii_; in the translation: "comon hi of þrim folcum ðam strangestan germanie, þæt [is] of seaxum and of angle and of geatum. of geata fruman syndon cantware and wihtsætan": (iv, ) _in proximam iutorum prouinciam translati ... in locum, qui uocatur ad lapidem_; "in þa neahmægðe, seo is gecegd eota lond, in sume stowe seo is nemned Æt stane" (stoneham, near southampton). _ms c.c.c.c._ reads "ytena land": see below. [ ] _two saxon chronicles_, ed. plummer, . _introduction_, pp. lxx, lxxi. [ ] _the o.e. version of bede's ecclesiastical history_, ed. miller, ii, xv, xvi, . [ ] florentii wigorn. _chron._, ed. thorpe, ii, ; i, . [ ] it cannot be said that this is due to textual corruption in our late copy, for the alliteration constantly demands a g-form, not a vowel-form. [ ] see pp. , above, §§ - . [ ] just as, for example, in _heimskringla: haraldz saga ins hárfagra_, - , the götar are constantly mentioned, because the kingdom of sweden is being attacked from their side. [ ] procopius tells us that there were in thule (i.e. the scandinavian peninsula) thirteen nations, each under its own king: [greek: basileis te eisi kata ethnos hekaston ... hôn ethnos hen poluanthrôpon hoi gautoi eisi] (_bell. gott._ ii, ). [ ] on this alliteration-test, which is very important, see above, pp. - . [ ] _geta_ was the recognized latin synonym for _gothus_, and is used in this sense in the sixth century, e.g. by venantius fortunatus and jordanes. and the götar are constantly called _gothi_, e.g. in the formula _rex sueorum et gothorum_ (for the date of this formula see söderqvist in the _historisk tidskrift_, : _Ägde uppsvearne rätt att taga och vräka konung_); or saxo, bk. xiii (ed. holder, p. , describing how the _gothi_ invited a candidate to be king, and slew the rival claimant, who was supported by the legally more constitutional suffrages of the swedes); or adam of bremen (as quoted below). [ ] _folknamnet geatas_, p. _etc._ [ ] speaking of the götaelv, adam says "ille oritur in praedictis alpibus, perque _medios gothorum populos_ currit in oceanum, unde et gothelba dicitur." adami canonici bremensis, _gesta hamm. eccl. pontificum_, lib. iv, in migne, cxlvi, . modern scholars are of the opinion that the borrowing has been rather the other way. according to noreen the river götaelv (gautelfr) gets its name as the outflow from lake væner. (cf. o.e. _g[=e]otan_, _g[=e]at_, "pour.") götland (gautland) is the country around the river, and the götar (gautar) get their name from the country. see noreen, _våra ortnamn och deras ursprungliga betydelse_, in _spridda studier_, ii, , . [ ] the scholiast, in his commentary on adam, records the later state of things, when the götar were confined to the south of the river: "gothelba fluvius a nordmannis gothiam separat." [ ] _heimskringla_, cap. . [ ] "hann [haraldr] er úti á herskipum allan vetrinn ok herjar á ránríki" (cap. ). "haraldr konungr fór víða um gautland herskildi, ok átti þar margar orrostur tveim megin elfarinnar.... síðan lagði haraldr konungr land alt undir sik fyrir norðan elfina ok fyrir vestan væni" (cap. ). _heimskringla: haraldz saga ins hárfagra_, udgiv. f. jónsson, københavn, - . [ ] baltzer (l.), _glyphes des rochers du bohuslän, avec une préface de v. rydberg_, gothembourg, . see also baltzer, _några af de viktigaste hällristningarna_, göteborg, . [ ] guinchard, _sweden: historical and statistical handbook_, , ii, . [ ] see chadwick, _origin_, ; _heroic age_, . [ ] ll. - . see schütte, , . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] ll. - . [ ] pp. , . [ ] the reason for locating the _eudoses_ in jutland is that the name has, very hazardously, been identified with that of the jutes, _eutiones_. obviously this argument could no longer be used, if the _eudoses_ were the "wederas." [ ] see e.g. schütte, - . [ ] _beowulf_, . [ ] _beowulf_, _etc._ [ ] _beowulf_, . see schütte, - . [ ] _s[=e]o [=e]a þ[=æ]r wyrcþ micelne s[=æ]._ orosius, ed. sweet, , . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] as miss paues, herself a _geat_, points out to me. [ ] kier, ; schütte, , _etc._ [ ] see above, pp. , . [ ] _vendel och vendelkråka_ in _a.f.n.f._ xxi, - : see _essays_, trans. clark hall, - . [ ] this grave mound is mentioned as "kong ottars hög" in _Ättartal för swea och götha kununga hus_, by j. peringskiöld, stockholm, , p. , and earlier, in , it is mentioned by the same name in some notes of an antiquarian survey. that the name "vendel-crow" is now attached to it is stated by dr almgren. these early references seem conclusive: little weight could, of course, be carried by the modern name alone, since it might easily be of learned origin. the mound was opened in - , and the contents showed it to belong to about to a.d., which agrees excellently with the date of ohthere. see two articles in _fornvännen_ for : an account of the opening of the mound by s. lindqvist entitled "ottarshögen i vendel" (pp. - ) and a discussion of early swedish history in the light of archaeology, by b. nerman, "ynglingasagan i arkeologisk belysning" (esp. pp. - ). see also björkman in _nordisk tidskrift_, stockholm, , p. , and _eigennamen im beowulf_, , pp. - . [ ] see appendix f: _beowulf_ and the archæologists, esp. p. , below. [ ] by the early iron age, engelhardt meant from to a.d.: but more recent danish scholars have placed these deposits in the fifth century, with some overlapping into the preceding and succeeding centuries (müller, _vor oldtid_, ; wimmer, _die runenschrift_, , _etc._). the swedish archæologists, knut stjerna and o. almgren, agree with engelhardt, dating the finds between about and a.d. (stjerna's _essays_, trans. clark hall, p. , and _introduction_, xxxii-iii). [ ] _essays on questions connected with the o.e. poem of beowulf_, trans. and ed. by john r. clark hall, (viking club), coventry. (reviews by klaeber, _j.e.g.ph._ xiii, - , weighty; mawer, _m.l.n._ viii, - ; _athenæum_, , i, - ; _archiv_, cxxxii, - ; schütte, _a.f.n.f._ xxxiii, - , elaborate.) [ ] an account of these was given at the time by h. stolpe, who undertook the excavation. see his _vendelfyndet_, in the _antiqvarisk tidskrift för sverige_, viii, , - , and hildebrand (h.) in the same, - ( ). stolpe did not live to issue the definitive account of his work, _graffältet vid vendel, beskrifvet af_ h. stolpe och t. j. arne, stockholm, . [ ] also added as an appendix to his _beowulf_ translation, . [ ] clark hall's _preface_ to stjerna's _essays_, p. xx. [ ] _j.e.g.ph._ xiii, , p. . [ ] _essays_, p. : cf. p. . [ ] p. . [ ] _germania_, cap. xv. [ ] ll. , . [ ] cassiodorus, _variae_, v, . [ ] walter, _corpus juris germanici antiqui_, , ii, . [ ] _heimskringla, haraldz saga_, cap. - . [ ] "the idea of a gold hoard undoubtedly points to the earlier version of the _beowulf_ poem having originated in scandinavia. no such 'gold period' ever existed in britain." _essays_, p. . [ ] _cottonian gnomic verses_, ll. - . [ ] l. . [ ] _exeter gnomic verses_, l. . [ ] baldwin brown, iii, , iv, . [ ] _b._ l. . [ ] l. . [ ] l. . [ ] cf. falk, _altnordische waffenkunde_, . [ ] i would suggest this as the more likely because, if the ring were inserted for a practical purpose, it is not easy to see why it later survived in the form of a mere knob, which is neither useful nor ornamental. but if it were used to attach the symbolical "peace bands," it may have been retained, in a "fossilized form," with a symbolical meaning. [ ] most editors indeed do take it in this sense, though recently schücking has adopted stjerna's explanation of "ring-sword." in l. , falk ( ) takes _hring-[=i]ren_ to refer to a "ring-adorned sword," though it may well mean a ring-byrnie. [ ] actually, i believe, more: for two ring-swords were found at faversham, and are now in the british museum. for an account of one of them see roach smith, _collectanea antiqua_, , vol. vi, . in this specimen both the fixed ring and the ring which moves within it are complete circles. but in the gilton sword (_archæologia_, xxx, ) and in the sword discovered at bifrons (_archæologia cantiana_, x, ) one of the rings no longer forms a complete circle, and in the sword discovered at sarre (_archæol. cant._ vi, ) the rings are fixed together, and one of them has little resemblance to a ring at all. [ ] at concevreux. it is described by m. jules pilloy in _mémoires de la société académique de st quentin_, ^e sér. tom. xvi, ; see esp. pp. - . [ ] see lindenschmit, "germanisches schwert mit ungewöhnlicher bildung des knaufes," in _die altertümer unserer heidnischen vorzeit_, v bd., v heft, taf. , p. , mainz, . [ ] salin has no doubt that the swedish type from uppland (his figure ) is later than even the latest type of english ring-sword (the sarre pommel, ) which is itself later than the faversham ( ) or bifrons ( ) pommel. see salin (b.), _die altgermanische thierornamentik_, stockholm, , p. . the same conclusion is arrived at by lindenschmit: "die ursprüngliche form ist wohl in dem, unter nr. von salin abgebildeten schwertknopf aus kent zu sehen"; and even more emphatically by pilloy, who pronounces the swedish vendel sword both on account of its "ring" and other characteristics, as "inspirée par un modèle venu de cette contrée [angleterre]." [ ] the benty grange helmet; see below, p. . [ ] depicted by clark hall, stjerna's _essays_, p. . [ ] clark hall's _beowulf_, p. . [ ] "von skandinavien gibt es aus der völkerwanderungszeit und wikingerepoche keine archäologischen anhaltspunkte für das tragen des panzers, weder aus funden noch aus darstellungen," max ebert in hoops' _reallexikon_, iii, ( - ). but surely this is too sweeping. fragments of an iron byrnie, made of small rings fastened together, were found in the vendel grave (seventh century). see _graffältet vid vendel, beskrifvet af_ h. stolpe och t. j. arne, pp. , , plates xl, xli, xlii. [ ] -i. liebermann, p. . [ ] _essays_, - . [ ] _elene_, . [ ] engelhardt, _denmark in the early iron age_, p. . [ ] _andreas_, . [ ] l. . [ ] "few have corslets and only one here and there a helmet" (_germania_, ). in the _annals_ (ii, ) tacitus makes germanicus roundly deny the use of either by the germans: _non loricam germano, non galeam_. [ ] see above, p. . [ ] see chifflet, j. j., _anastasis childerici i ... sive thesaurus sepulchralis_, antverpiæ, _plantin_, . [ ] that _both_ sword and scramasax were buried with childeric is shown by lindenschmit, _handbuch_, i, - : see also pp. _etc._ [ ] l. - . [ ] worsaae, _nordiske oldsager_, kjøbenhavn, ; see no. ; roach smith, _collectanea antiqua_, , ii, ; montelius, _antiq. suéd._ , no. (p. ). [ ] _essays_, p. . see also above, p. . mr reginald smith writes to me: "unburnt objects with cremated burials in prehistoric times (bronze, early and late iron ages) are the exception, and are probably accidental survivals from the funeral pyre. in such an interpretation of _beowulf_ i agree with the late knut stjerna, who was an archæologist of much experience." [ ] forming vols. and of _the arts in early england_, - . [ ] it was, however, necessary to leave over for a supplementary volume some of the contributions most interesting from the point of view of the archæology of _beowulf_: e.g. spatha, speer, schild. [ ] b. e. hildebrand, _grafhögarne vid gamla upsala, kongl. vitterhets historie och antiqvitets akademiens månadsblad_, - , pp. - . [ ] _fasta fornlämningar i beovulf_, in _antiqvarisk tidskrift för sverige_, xviii, - . [ ] _heimskringla: ynglingasaga_, cap. , , . [ ] see b. nerman, _vilka konungar ligga i uppsala högar?_ uppsala, , and the same scholar's _ynglingasagan i arkeologisk belysning_, in _fornvännen_, , - . [ ] _heimskringla: ynglingasaga_, cap. . [ ] a discovery made by otto v. friesen in : see s. lindqvist in _fornvännen_, , . two years earlier ( ) "utters högen i wändell" is mentioned in connection with an investigation into witchcraft. see linderholm, _vendelshögens konunganamn_, in _namn och bygd_, vii, , , . [ ] for a preliminary account of the discovery, see _ottarshögen i vendel_, by s. lindqvist in _fornvännen_, , - , and for discussion of the whole subject, b. nerman, _ottar vendelkråka och ottarshögen i vendel_, in _upplands fornminnesförenings tidskrift_, vii, - . [ ] baldwin brown, iii, . [ ] . [ ] . [ ] so baldwin brown, iii, ; lorange, _den yngre jernalders sværd_, bergen, , passim. [ ] baldwin brown, iii, . [ ] it is somewhat similar in norse literature, where swords are constantly indicated as either inherited from of old, or coming from abroad: cf. falk, - . [ ] _beowulf_, , _w[=æ]gsweord_; cf. _vægir_ as a sword-name in the _thulur_. in ll. , , , _hringm[=æ]l_ may refer to the ring in the hilt, and terms like _wunden_- are more likely to refer to the serpentine ornament of the hilt. this must be the case with _wyrm-f[=a]h_ ( ) as it is a question of the hilt alone. stjerna (p. = _essays_, ) and others take _[=a]ter-t[=a]num f[=a]h_ ( ) as referring to the damascened pattern (cf. _eggjar ... eitrdropom innan fáþar; brot af sigurðarkviðu_). it is suggested however by falk (p. ) that _t[=a]n_ here refers to an edge welded-on: the icelandic _egg-teinn_. [ ] the only certainly anglo-saxon helmet as yet discovered: traces of what may have been a similar head-piece were found near cheltenham: roach smith, _collectanea antiqua_, ii, , . [ ] _coll. ant._ ii, , ; bateman, _ten years' diggings_, ; _catalogue of the antiquities preserved in the museum of thomas bateman_, bakewell, . [ ] a very good description of these continental "spangenhelme" is given in the magnificent work of i. w. gröbbels, _der reihengräberfund von gammertingen_, münchen, . these helms had long been known from a specimen (place of origin uncertain) in the hermitage at petrograd, and another example, that of vézeronce, supposed to have been lost in the battle between franks and burgundians in . seven other examples have been discovered in the last quarter of a century, including those of baldenheim (for which see henning (r.), _der helm von baldenheim und die verwandten helme des frühen mittelalters_, strassburg, , cf. kauffmann, _z.f.d.ph._ xl, - ) and gammertingen. they are not purely germanic, and may have been made in gaul, or among the ostrogoths in ravenna, or further east. [ ] stjerna, _essays_, p. = _studier tillägnade oscar montelius af lärjungar_, , p. : clark hall, _beowulf_, , p. . [ ] see also _graffältet vid vendel, beskrifvet af_ h. stolpe och t. j. arne, stockholm, , pp. , ; pl. v, xli. [ ] ll. , , , ; cf. _gr[=i]mhelm_, . [ ] , , (cf. falk, ). [ ] - (cf. falk, - ). [ ] _securum etiam inter hostes praestat._ _germ._ cap. . [ ] (cf. falk, ). [ ] , . cf. _exodus_, , _gr[=i]mhelm gesp[=e]on cyning cinberge_, and _genesis_, . (see falk, .) [ ] cf. ll. , , , . [ ] cf. ll. , , . [ ] bateman, _ten years' diggings_, , p. . [ ] cf. _beowulf_, , , . [ ] "ne scuta quidem ferro neruoue firmata, sed ... tenuis et fucatas colore tabulas," _annals_, ii, ; cf. _germania_, , "scuta tantum lectissimis coloribus distinguunt." [ ] _njáls saga_, cap. xxx. [ ] it is the guess of a. haupt, _die Älteste kunst der germanen_, p. . [ ] ll. - , . [ ] _hist. eccl._ ii, . the life of man is compared to the transit of a sparrow flying from door to door of the hall where the king sits feasting with his thanes and warriors, with a fire in the midst. [ ] ll. - , - . [ ] . [ ] . [ ] _etc._ [ ] _proc. soc. ant., sec. ser._ ii, - . [ ] jonckheere (É.), _l'origine de la côte de flandre et le bateau de bruges_, bruges, . [ ] engelhardt (h. c. c.), _nydam mosefund_, kjöbenhavn, . [ ] nicolaysen (n.), _langskibet fra gokstad_, kristiania, . [ ] _osebergfundet. udgit av den norske stat, under redaktion av_ a. w. brøgger, hj. falk, h. schetelig. bd. i, kristiania, . [ ] _beowulf_, ll. , , . [ ] . [ ] . [ ] noreen, _altschwedische grammatik_, , p. . [ ] all these places are in gotland. the stenkyrka stone is reproduced in stjerna's _essays_, transl. clark hall, fig. . [ ] the same, fig. . [ ] reproduced in montelius, _sveriges historia_, p. . [ ] _deutsche mythologie_, te ausgabe, , pp. , . [ ] _academy_, xi, , p. . [ ] _engl. stud._ ii, . [ ] _beowulf_, p. . [ ] _aanteekeningen op den beowulf_, , p. . [ ] _p.b.b._ xviii, . [ ] _z.f.ö.g._ lvi, . [ ] _beowulf_, p. . [ ] _engl. stud._ lii, . among the many who have accepted the explanation "bee-wolf," without giving additional reasons, may be mentioned r. müller, _untersuchungen über die namen des liber vitae_, , p. . [ ] both grimm and skeat suggested the woodpecker, which feeds upon bees and their larvae: grimm appealing to classical mythology, skeat instancing the bird's courage. but nothing seems forthcoming from teutonic mythology to favour this interpretation. cosijn, following sijmons, _z.f.d.ph._ xxiv, , thought bees might have been an omen of victory. but there is no satisfactory evidence for this. the term _sigew[=i]f_ applied to the swarming bees in the _charms_ (cockayne's _leechdoms_, i, ) is insufficient. [ ] _tidskr. f. philol. og pædag._ viii, . [ ] _deutsches wörterbuch_, , i, . [ ] "das compositum beóvulf, wie gôzolf, irminolf, reginolf, und andre gebildet, zeigt nur einen helden und krieger im geist und sinn oder von der art des beówa an. ihm entspricht altn. biôlfr." (müllenhoff, in _z.f.d.a._ xii, .) but certainly this interpretation is impossible for o.n. _biólfr_: "warrior of beowa" would be _*byggulfr_, which we nowhere find. see björkman in _engl. stud._ lii, . müllenhoff at this date, whilst not connecting _b[=e]owulf_ directly with _b[=e]o_, "bee," did so connect _b[=e]owa_, whom he interpreted as a bee-god or bee-father. but there is no evidence for this, and the _w_ of _b[=e]owa_ tells emphatically against it. müllenhoff subsequently abandoned this explanation. [ ] it is actually written _biu^uulf_. [ ] _biu_ in _biuuulf_ cannot stand for _b[=e]o_ [older _beu_] because in old northumbrian _iu_ and _eo_ are rigidly differentiated, as an examination of all the other names in the _liber vitae_ shows. as sievers points out, if _biuuulf_ is to be derived from _*beuw (w)ulf_, then it would afford an isolated and inexplicable case of _iu_ for _eo[eu]_, unique in the _liber vitae_, as in the whole mass of the oldest english texts: "soll ein zusammenhang mit st. _beuwa-_ stattfinden, so muss man auch diesen stamm für einen urspr. s-stamm erklären, und unser _biu-_ auf die stammform _biuwi(z)-_ nicht auf _beuwa(z)-_ zurückführen." (sievers, _p.b.b._ xviii, .) the word however is a neut. _wa_-stem, whether in o.e. (_b[=e]ow_), old saxon (_b[=e]o_) or icelandic (_bygg_): see sievers, _ags. grammatik_, te aufl. § ; gallée, _altsächsische grammatik_, te aufl. § ; noreen, _altisländische grammatik_, te aufl. § . the word is extant in old english only in the glossaries, in the gen. sing., "handful beouaes," _etc._, and in old saxon only in the gen. plu. _beuuo_. it is thought to have been originally a _wu_-stem, which subsequently, as e.g. in o.e., passed into a _wa_-stem. (see noreen, _a.f.n.f._ i, , arguing from the form _begg_ in the dalecarlian dialect.) the presumed primitive norse form is _beggwu_, whence the various scandinavian forms, icel. _bygg_, old swedish and old danish _biug(g)_. see hellquist in _a.f.n.f._ vii, ; von unwerth, _a.f.n.f._ xxxiii, ; binz, _p.b.b._ xx, ; von helten, _p.b.b._ xxx, ; kock, _umlaut u. brechung im aschw._ p. , in _lunds universitets årsskrift_, bd. xii. the proper name _byggvir_ is a _ja_-stem, but _b[=e]ow_ cannot have been so formed, as a _ja_-stem would give the form _b[=e]owe_. cosijn (_aanteekeningen_, ) was accordingly justified in pointing to the form _biuuulf_ as refuting kögel's attempt to connect _b[=e]owulf_ with _b[=e]ow_ through a form _*bawiwulf_ (_a.f.d.a._ xviii, ). kögel replied with a laboured defence (_z.f.d.a._ xxxvii, ): he starts by assuming that _b[=e]ow_ and _b[=e]owulf_ are etymologically connected, which is the very point which has to be proved: he has to admit that, if his etymology be correct, the _biuuulf_ of the _liber vitae_ is not the same form as _b[=e]owulf_, which is the very point cosijn urged as telling against his etymology: and even so his etymological explanations depend upon stages which cannot be accepted in the present state of our knowledge (see especially sievers in _p.b.b._ xviii, ; björkman in _engl. stud._ lii, ). [ ] _tidskr. f. philol og pædag._ viii, . [ ] first pointed out by grundtvig in barfod's _brage og idun_, iv, , p. , footnote. [ ] "lodmundr hinn gamli het madr enn annarr. biólfr fostbrodir hans. Þeir foru til islands af vors af Þvlvnesi" (voss in norway). see _landnámabók_, københavn, , p. . [ ] noreen, _altisländische grammatik_, te aufl. p. . see also noreen in _festskrift til h. f. feilberg_, , p. . noreen seems to have no doubt as to the explanation of _bjólfr_ as _bý-olfr_, "bee-wolf." [ ] bugge, has, however, been followed by gering, _beowulf_, , p. . [ ] ferguson in the _athenæum_, june , p. : "beadowulf by a common form of elision (!) would become beowulf." sarrazin admits "freilich ist das eine ungewöhnliche verkürzung" (_engl. stud._ xlii, ). see also sarrazin in _anglia_, v, ; _beowulf-studien_, , ; _engl. stud._ xvi, . [ ] this incompatibility comes out very strongly in ll. - , where beowulf praises his sword particularly for the services it has _not_ been able to render him. [ ] see above, pp. - . [ ] olrik, _heltedigtning_, i, : f. jónsson, _hrólfs saga kraka_, , _inledning_, xx. [ ] _hrólfs saga kraka_, cap. - . [ ] the trait is wanting in the _grettis saga_: grettir son of asmund was too historical a character for such features to be attributed to him. [ ] see pp. - . [ ] no. . translated as "strong hans." (_grimm's household tales, trans. by m. hunt, with introduction by a. lang_, .) [ ] as, for example, by cosquin, _contes populaires de lorraine_, i, . a comparison of the different versions in which the "strange theme" is toned down, in a greater or less degree, seems to make this certain. [ ] no. . [ ] edinburgh, , vol. i, no. xvi, "the king of lochlin's three daughters": vol. iii, no. lviii, "the rider of grianaig." [ ] london, : p. , "the three crowns." [ ] notably by von sydow. [ ] asbjørnsen og moe, _norske folkeeventyr_, christiania, , no. . [ ] _popular tales from the norse_ (third edit., edinburgh, , p. ). [ ] visentini, _fiabe mantovane_, , no. , - . [ ] "fino a che col capo tocca le travi." cf. glam in the _grettis saga_. [ ] "e qui vede il gigante seduto, che detteva il suo testamento." [ ] p. . this is panzer's version . [ ] "a fabulous creature, but zoologically the name norka (from _nora_, a hole) belongs to the otter," ralston, _russian folk tales_, p. . [ ] afanasief (a. n.), _narodnuiya russkiya skazki_, moscow, - , i, . see ralston, p. . [ ] afanasief, viii, no. . [ ] for example, "shepherd paul," in _the folk-tales of the magyars_, by w. h. jones and l. l. knopf, _folk-lore society_, , p. . the latest collection contains its version, 'the story of t[=a]ling, the half-boy' in _persian tales, written down for the first time and translated_ by d. l. r. and e. o. lorimer, london, . [ ] cf. von sydow in _a.f.d.a._ xxxv, . [ ] ión arnason's mss, no. , ^o. [ ] rittershaus (a.), _die neuisländischen volksmärchen_, halle, , no. . [ ] _færøske folkesagn og Æventyr_, ed. by jakob jakobsen, - , pp. - (_samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur._) [ ] this folk-tale is given in a small book, to be found in the christiania university library, and no doubt elsewhere in norway: _nor, en billedbog for den norske ungdom_ (tredie oplag, christiania, ). _norske folke-eventyr og sagn_, fortalte af p. chr. asbjørnsen. a copy of the story, slightly altered, occurs in the _udvalgte eventyr og sagn for børn_, of knutsen, bentsen and johnsson, christiania, , p. _etc._ [ ] pp. - . [ ] berntsen (k.), _folke-Æventyr_, , no. , pp. - . [ ] grundtvig (sv.), _gamle danske minder_, , no. , p. : from næstved. [ ] _hans mit de ysern stang'_, müllenhoff, _sagen, märchen u. lieder_ ... , no. xvi, p. . [ ] colshorn (c. and th.), _märchen u. sagen_, hannover, , no. v, pp. - . [ ] cf. _beowulf_, ll. - . [ ] cf. _beowulf_, ll. _etc._ [ ] cf. _beowulf_, ll. - ; cf. _grettis saga_, lxvi. [ ] cf. _grettis saga_, lxvi, _hann kveikti ljós_; cf. _beowulf_, . [ ] _contes du roi cambrinus_, par c. deulin, paris, (i. _l'intrépide gayant_). the story is associated with gayant, the traditional hero of douai. [ ] cf. schmidt, _geschichte der deutschen stämme_, ii, , , _note_ . [ ] iii, . [ ] ii, . [ ] [greek: pais ... neos ên komidêi, kai eti hupo paidokomôi tithênoumenos], agathias, i, : _parvulus_, gregory, iv, . [ ] gregory, iii, . [ ] iii, . [ ] iii, . [ ] iii, . [ ] many recent historians have expressed doubts as to the conventional date, , for hygelac's death. j. p. jacobsen, in the danish translation of gregory ( ) suggested - : following him severinsen (_danske studier_, , ) suggested c. , as did fredborg, _det första årtalet i sveriges historia_. l. schmidt (_geschichte der deutschen stämme_, ii, , _note_, ) suggested c. . [ ] archæological works bearing less directly upon _beowulf_ are enumerated in _appendix f_; that enumeration is not repeated here. [ ] most students nowadays will probably agree with v. sydow's contention that the struggle of beowulf, first above ground and then below, is a folk-story, one and indivisible, and that therefore there is no reason for attributing the two sections to different authors, as do boer, müllenhoff and ten brink. but that the folk-tale is exclusively celtic remains to be proved; v. sydow's contention that celtic influence is shown in _beowulf_ by the inhospitable shamelessness of unferth (compare that of kai) is surely fanciful. also the statement that the likeness of bjarki and beowulf is confined to the freeing of the danish palace from a dangerous monster by a stranger from abroad, and that "das sonstige beiwerk völlig verschieden ist" surely cannot be maintained. as argued above (pp. - ) there are other distinct points of resemblance. v. sydow's statement no doubt suffers from the brevity with which it is reported, and his forthcoming volume of _beowulf studien_ will be awaited with interest. * * * * * [illustration: southern scandinavia in the sixth century] [illustration: english boar-helmet and ring-swords i. benty grange helmet (roach smith, _collectanea antiqua_, ii, ). ii. pommel of ring-sword from faversham, kent (_ibid._, vi, ). iii. pommel of ring-sword from gilton, kent (_archæologia_, xxx, ). ] this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book viii. fate. chapter i. some days after the tragical event with which the last chapter closed, the ships of the saxons were assembled in the wide waters of conway; and on the small fore-deck of the stateliest vessel, stood harold, bareheaded, before aldyth, the widowed queen. for the faithful bard had fallen by the side of his lord; . . . the dark promise was unfulfilled, and the mangled clay of the jealous gryffyth slept alone in the narrow bed. a chair of state, with dossel and canopy, was set for the daughter of algar, and behind stood maidens of wales, selected in haste for her attendants. but aldyth had not seated herself; and, side by side with her dead lord's great victor, thus she spoke: "woe worth the day and the hour when aldyth left the hall of her fathers and the land of her birth! her robe of a queen has been rent and torn over an aching heart, and the air she has breathed has reeked as with blood. i go forth, widowed, and homeless, and lonely; but my feet shall press the soil of my sires, and my lips draw the breath which came sweet and pure to my childhood. and thou, o harold, standest beside me, like the shape of my own youth, and the dreams of old come back at the sound of thy voice. fare thee well, noble heart and true saxon. thou hast twice saved the child of thy foe--first from shame, then from famine. thou wouldst have saved my dread lord from open force, and dark murder; but the saints were wroth, the blood of my kinsfolk, shed by his hand, called for vengeance, and the shrines he had pillaged and burned murmured doom from their desolate altars. peace be with the dead, and peace with the living! i shall go back to my father and brethren; and if the fame and life of child and sister be dear to them, their swords will never more leave their sheaths against harold. so thy hand, and god guard thee!" harold raised to his lips the hand which the queen extended to him; and to aldyth now seemed restored the rare beauty of her youth; as pride and sorrow gave her the charm of emotion, which love and duty had failed to bestow. "life and health to thee, noble lady," said the earl. "tell thy kindred from me, that for thy sake, and thy grandsire's, i would fain be their brother and friend; were they but united with me, all england were now safe against every foe, and each peril. thy daughter already awaits thee in the halls of morcar; and when time has scarred the wounds of the past, may thy joys re-bloom in the face of thy child. farewell, noble aldyth!" he dropped the hand he had held till then, turned slowly to the side of the vessel, and re-entered his boat. as he was rowed back to shore, the horn gave the signal for raising anchor, and the ship, righting itself, moved majestically through the midst of the fleet. but aldyth still stood erect, and her eyes followed the boat that bore away the secret love of her youth. as harold reached the shore, tostig and the norman, who had been conversing amicably together on the beach, advanced towards the earl. "brother," said tostig, smiling, "it were easy for thee to console the fair widow, and bring to our house all the force of east anglia and mercia." harold's face slightly changed, but he made no answer. "a marvellous fair dame," said the norman, "notwithstanding her cheek be somewhat pinched, and the hue sun-burnt. and i wonder not that the poor cat-king kept her so close to his side." "sir norman," said the earl, hastening to change the subject, "the war is now over, and, for long years, wales will leave our marches in peace.--this eve i propose to ride hence towards london, and we will converse by the way." "go you so soon?" cried the knight, surprised. "shall you not take means utterly to subjugate this troublesome race, parcel out the lands among your thegns, to hold as martial fiefs at need, build towers and forts on the heights, and at the river mouths?--where a site, like this, for some fair castle and vawmure? in a word, do you saxons merely overrun, and neglect to hold what you win?" "we fight in self-defence, not for conquest, sir norman. we have no skill in building castles; and i pray you not to hint to my thegns the conceit of dividing a land, as thieves would their plunder. king gryffyth is dead, and his brothers will reign in his stead. england has guarded her realm, and chastised the aggressors. what need england do more? we are not like our first barbarous fathers, carving out homes with the scythe of their saexes. the wave settles after the flood, and the races of men after lawless convulsions." tostig smiled, in disdain, at the knight, who mused a little over the strange words he had heard, and then silently followed the earl to the fort. but when harold gained his chamber, he found there an express, arrived in haste from chester, with the news that algar, the sole enemy and single rival of his power, was no more. fever, occasioned by neglected wounds, had stretched him impotent on a bed of sickness, and his fierce passions had aided the march of disease; the restless and profitless race was run. the first emotion which these tidings called forth was that of pain. the bold sympathise with the bold; and in great hearts, there is always a certain friendship for a gallant foe. but recovering the shock of that first impression, harold could not but feel that england was free from its most dangerous subject--himself from the only obstacle apparent to the fulfilment of his luminous career. "now, then, to london," whispered the voice of his ambition. "not a foe rests to trouble the peace of that empire which thy conquests, o harold, have made more secure and compact than ever yet has been the realm of the saxon kings. thy way through the country that thou hast henceforth delivered from the fire and sword of the mountain ravager, will be one march of triumph, like a roman's of old; and the voice of the people will echo the hearts of the army; those hearts are thine own. verily hilda is a prophetess; and when edward rests with the saints, from what english heart will not burst the cry, 'long live harold the king?'" chapter ii. the norman rode by the side of harold, in the rear of the victorious armament. the ships sailed to their havens, and tostig departed to his northern earldom. "and now," said harold, "i am at leisure to thank thee, brave norman, for more than thine aid in council and war;--at leisure now to turn to the last prayer of sweyn, and the often-shed tears of githa my mother, for wolnoth the exile. thou seest with thine own eyes that there is no longer pretext or plea for thy count to detain these hostages. thou shalt hear from edward himself that he no longer asks sureties for the faith of the house of godwin; and i cannot think that duke william would have suffered thee to bring me over this news from the dead if he were not prepared to do justice to the living." "your speech, earl of wessex, goes near to the truth. but, to speak plainly and frankly, i think william, my lord, hath a keen desire to welcome in person a chief so illustrious as harold, and i guess that he keeps the hostages to make thee come to claim them." the knight, as he spoke, smiled gaily; but the cunning of the norman gleamed in the quick glance of his clear hazel eye. "fain must i feel pride at such wish, if you flatter me not," said harold; "and i would gladly myself, now the land is in peace, and my presence not needful, visit a court of such fame. i hear high praise from cheapman and pilgrim of count william's wise care for barter and trade, and might learn much from the ports of the seine that would profit the marts of the thames. much, too, i hear of count william's zeal to revive the learning of the church, aided by lanfranc the lombard; much i hear of the pomp of his buildings, and the grace of his court. all this would i cheerfully cross the ocean to see; but all this would but sadden my heart if i returned without haco and wolnoth." "i dare not speak so as to plight faith for the duke," said the norman, who, though sharp to deceive, had that rein on his conscience that it did not let him openly lie; "but this i do know, that there are few things in his countdom which my lord would not give to clasp the right hand of harold and feel assured of his friendship." though wise and farseeing, harold was not suspicious;--no englishman, unless it were edward himself, knew the secret pretensions of william to the english throne; and he answered simply: "it were well, indeed, both for normandy and england, both against foes and for trade, to be allied and well-liking. i will think over your words, sire de graville, and it shall not be my fault if old feuds be not forgotten, and those now in thy court be the last hostages ever kept by the norman for the faith of the saxon." with that he turned the discourse; and the aspiring and able envoy, exhilarated by the hope of a successful mission, animated the way by remarks--alternately lively and shrewd--which drew the brooding earl from those musings, which had now grown habitual to a mind once clear and open as the day. harold had not miscalculated the enthusiasm his victories had excited. where he passed, all the towns poured forth their populations to see and to hail him; and on arriving at the metropolis, the rejoicings in his honour seemed to equal those which had greeted, at the accession of edward, the restoration of the line of cerdic. according to the barbarous custom of the age, the head of the unfortunate sub-king, and the prow of his special war-ship, had been sent to edward as the trophies of conquest: but harold's uniform moderation respected the living. the race of gryffyth [ ] were re- established on the tributary throne of that hero, in the persons of his brothers, blethgent and rigwatle, "and they swore oaths," says the graphic old chronicler, "and delivered hostages to the king and the earl that they would be faithful to him in all things, and be everywhere ready for him, by water, and by land, and make such renders from the land as had been done before to any other king." not long after this, mallet de graville returned to normandy, with gifts for william from king edward, and special requests from that prince, as well as from the earl, to restore the hostages. but mallet's acuteness readily perceived, that in much edward's mind had been alienated from william. it was clear, that the duke's marriage and the pledges that had crowned the union were distasteful to the asceticism of the saint king: and with godwin's death, and tostig's absence from the court, seemed to have expired all edward's bitterness towards that powerful family of which harold was now the head. still, as no subject out of the house of cerdic had ever yet been elected to the saxon throne, there was no apprehension on mallet's mind that in harold was the true rival to william's cherished aspirations. though edward the atheling was dead, his son edgar lived, the natural heir to the throne; and the norman, (whose liege had succeeded to the duchy at the age of eight,) was not sufficiently cognisant of the invariable custom of the anglo-saxons, to set aside, whether for kingdoms or for earldoms, all claimants unfitted for rule by their tender years. he could indeed perceive that the young atheling's minority was in favour of his norman liege, and would render him but a weak defender of the realm, and that there seemed no popular attachment to the infant orphan of the germanised exile: his name was never mentioned at the court, nor had edward acknowledged him as heir,--a circumstance which he interpreted auspiciously for william. nevertheless, it was clear that, both at court and amongst the people, the norman influence in england was at the lowest ebb; and that the only man who could restore it, and realise the cherished dreams of his grasping lord, was harold the all-powerful. chapter iii. trusting, for the time, to the success of edward's urgent demand for the release of his kinsmen, as well as his own, harold was now detained at the court by all those arrears of business which had accumulated fast under the inert hands of the monk-king during the prolonged campaigns against the welch; but he had leisure at least for frequent visits to the old roman house; and those visits were not more grateful to his love than to the harder and more engrossing passion which divided his heart. the nearer he grew to the dazzling object, to the possession of which fate seemed to have shaped all circumstances, the more he felt the charm of those mystic influences which his colder reason had disdained. he who is ambitious of things afar, and uncertain, passes at once into the poet-land of imagination; to aspire and to imagine are yearnings twin-born. when in his fresh youth and his calm lofty manhood, harold saw action, how adventurous soever, limited to the barriers of noble duty; when he lived but for his country, all spread clear before his vision in the sunlight of day; but as the barriers receded, while the horizon extended, his eye left the certain to rest on the vague. as self, though still half concealed from his conscience, gradually assumed the wide space love of country had filled, the maze of delusion commenced: he was to shape fate out of circumstance,--no longer defy fate through virtue; and thus hilda became to him as a voice that answered the questions of his own restless heart. he needed encouragement from the unknown to sanction his desires and confirm his ends. but edith, rejoicing in the fair fame of her betrothed, and content in the pure rapture of beholding him again, reposed in the divine credulity of the happy hour; she marked not, in harold's visits, that, on entrance, the earl's eye sought first the stern face of the vala--she wondered not why those two conversed in whispers together, or stood so often at moonlight by the runic grave. alone, of all womankind, she felt that harold loved her, that that love had braved time, absence, change, and hope deferred; and she knew not that what love has most to dread in the wild heart of aspiring man, is not persons, but things,--is not things, but their symbols. so weeks and months rolled on, and duke william returned no answer to the demands for his hostages. and harold's heart smote him, that he neglected his brother's prayer and his mother's accusing tears. now githa, since the death of her husband, had lived in seclusion and apart from town; and one day harold was surprised by her unexpected arrival at the large timbered house in london, which had passed to his possession. as she abruptly entered the room in which he sate, he sprang forward to welcome and embrace her; but she waved him back with a grave and mournful gesture, and sinking on one knee, she said thus: "see, the mother is a suppliant to the son for the son. no, harold, no--i will not rise till thou hast heard me. for years, long and lonely, have i lingered and pined,--long years! will my boy know his mother again? thou hast said to me, 'wait till the messenger returns.' i have waited. thou hast said, 'this time the count cannot resist the demand of the king.' i bowed my head and submitted to thee as i had done to godwin my lord. and i have not till now claimed thy promise; for i allowed thy country, thy king, and thy fame to have claims more strong than a mother. now i tarry no more; now no more will i be amused and deceived. thine hours are thine own--free thy coming and thy going. harold, i claim thine oath. harold, i touch thy right hand. harold, i remind thee of thy troth and thy plight, to cross the seas thyself, and restore the child to the mother." "oh, rise, rise!" exclaimed harold, deeply moved. "patient hast thou been, o my mother, and now i will linger no more, nor hearken to other voice than your own. i will see the king this day, and ask his leave to cross the sea to duke william." then githa rose, and fell on the earl's breast weeping. chapter iv. it so chanced, while this interview took place between githa and the earl, that gurth, hawking in the woodlands round hilda's house, turned aside to visit his danish kinswoman. the prophetess was absent, but he was told that edith was within; and gurth, about to be united to a maiden who had long won his noble affections, cherished a brother's love for his brother's fair betrothed. he entered the gynoecium, and there still, as when we were first made present in that chamber, sate the maids, employed on a work more brilliant to the eye, and more pleasing to the labour, than that which had then tasked their active hands. they were broidering into a tissue of the purest gold the effigy of a fighting warrior, designed by hilda for the banner of earl harold: and, removed from the awe of their mistress, as they worked their tongues sang gaily, and it was in the midst of song and laughter that the fair young saxon lord entered the chamber. the babble and the mirth ceased at his entrance; each voice was stilled, each eye cast down demurely. edith was not amongst them, and in answer to his inquiry the eldest of the maidens pointed towards the peristyle without the house. the winning and kindly thegn paused a few moments, to admire the tissue and commend the work, and then sought the peristyle. near the water-spring that gushed free and bright through the roman fountain, he found edith, seated in an attitude of deep thought and gloomy dejection. she started as he approached, and, springing forward to meet him, exclaimed: "o gurth, heaven hath sent thee to me, i know well, though i cannot explain to thee why, for i cannot explain it to myself; but know i do, by the mysterious bodements of my own soul, that some great danger is at this moment encircling thy brother harold. go to him, i pray, i implore thee, forthwith; and let thy clear sense and warm heart be by his side." "i will go instantly," said gurth, startled. "but do not suffer, i adjure thee, sweet kinswoman, the superstition that wraps this place, as a mist wraps a marsh, to infect thy pure spirit. in my early youth i submitted to the influence of hilda; i became man, and outgrew it. much, secretly, has it grieved me of late, to see that our kinswoman's danish lore has brought even the strong heart of harold under his spell; and where once he only spoke of duty, i now hear him speak of fate." "alas! alas!" answered edith, wringing her hands; "when the bird hides its head in the brake, doth it shut out the track of the hound? can we baffle fate by refusing to heed its approaches? but we waste precious moments. go, gurth, dear gurth! heavier and darker, while we speak, gathers the cloud on my heart." gurth said no more, but hastened to remount his steed; and edith remained alone by the roman fountain, motionless and sad, as if the nymph of the old religion stood there to see the lessening stream well away from the shattered stone, and know that the life of the nymph was measured by the ebb of the stream. gurth arrived in london just as harold was taking a boat for the palace of westminster, to seek the king; and, after interchanging a hurried embrace with his mother, he accompanied harold to the palace, and learned his errand by the way. while harold spoke, he did not foresee any danger to be incurred by a friendly visit to the norman court; and the interval that elapsed between harold's communication and their entrance into the king's chamber, allowed no time for mature and careful reflection. edward, on whom years and infirmity had increased of late with rapid ravage, heard harold's request with a grave and deep attention, which he seldom vouchsafed to earthly affairs. and he remained long silent after his brother-in-law had finished;--so long silent, that the earl, at first, deemed that he was absorbed in one of those mystic and abstracted reveries, in which, more and more as he grew nearer to the borders of the world unseen, edward so strangely indulged. but, looking more close, both he and gurth were struck by the evident dismay on the king's face, while the collected light of edward's cold eye showed that his mind was awake to the human world. in truth, it is probable that edward, at that moment, was recalling rash hints, if not promises, to his rapacious cousin of normandy, made during his exile. and, sensible of his own declining health, and the tender years of the young edgar, he might be musing over the terrible pretender to the english throne, whose claims his earlier indiscretion might seem to sanction. whatever his thoughts, they were dark and sinister, as at length he said, slowly: "is thine oath indeed given to thy mother, and doth she keep thee to it?" "both, o king," answered harold, briefly. "then i can gainsay thee not. and thou, harold, art a man of this living world; thou playest here the part of a centurion; thou sayst 'come,' and men come--'go,' and men move at thy will. therefore thou mayest well judge for thyself. i gainsay thee not, nor interfere between man and his vow. but think not," continued the king in a more solemn voice, and with increasing emotion, "think not that i will charge my soul that i counselled or encouraged this errand. yea, i foresee that thy journey will lead but to great evil to england, and sore grief or dire loss to thee." [ ] "how so, dear lord and king?" said harold, startled by edward's unwonted earnestness, though deeming it but one of the visionary chimeras habitual to the saint. "how so? william thy cousin hath ever borne the name of one fair to friend, though fierce to foe. and foul indeed his dishonour, if he could meditate harm to a man trusting his faith, and sheltered by his own roof-tree." "harold, harold," said edward, impatiently, "i know william of old. nor is he so simple of mind, that he will cede aught for thy pleasure, or even to my will, unless it bring some gain to himself [ ]. i say no more.--thou art cautioned, and i leave the rest to heaven." it is the misfortune of men little famous for worldly lore, that in those few occasions when, in that sagacity caused by their very freedom from the strife and passion of those around, they seem almost prophetically inspired,--it is their misfortune to lack the power of conveying to others their own convictions; they may divine, but they cannot reason: and harold could detect nothing to deter his purpose, in a vague fear, based on no other argument than as vague a perception of the duke's general character. but gurth, listening less to his reason than his devoted love for his brother, took alarm, and said, after a pause: "thinkest thou, good my king, that the same danger were incurred if gurth, instead of harold, crossed the seas to demand the hostages?" "no," said edward, eagerly, "and so would i counsel. william would not have the same objects to gain in practising his worldly guile upon thee. no; methinks that were the prudent course." "and the ignoble one for harold," said the elder brother, almost indignantly. "howbeit, i thank thee, gratefully, dear king, for thy affectionate heed and care. and so the saints guard thee!" on leaving the king, a warm discussion between the brothers took place. but gurth's arguments were stronger than those of harold, and the earl was driven to rest his persistence on his own special pledge to githa. as soon, however, as they had gained their home, that plea was taken from him; for the moment gurth related to his mother edward's fears and cautions, she, ever mindful of godwin's preference for the earl, and his last commands to her, hastened to release harold from his pledge; and to implore him at least to suffer gurth to be his substitute to the norman court. "listen dispassionately," said gurth; "rely upon it that edward has reasons for his fears, more rational than those he has given to us. he knows william from his youth upward, and hath loved him too well to hint doubts of his good faith without just foundation. are there no reasons why danger from william should be special against thyself? while the normans abounded in the court, there were rumours that the duke had some designs on england, which edward's preference seemed to sanction: such designs now, in the altered state of england, were absurd--too frantic, for a prince of william's reputed wisdom to entertain. yet he may not unnaturally seek to regain the former norman influence in these realms. he knows that in you he receives the most powerful man in england; that your detention alone would convulse the country from one end of it to the other; and enable him, perhaps, to extort from edward some measures dishonourable to us all. but against me he can harbour no ill design --my detention would avail him nothing. and, in truth, if harold be safe in england, gurth must be safe in rouen? thy presence here at the head of our armies guarantees me from wrong. but reverse the case, and with gurth in england, is harold safe in rouen? i, but a simple soldier, and homely lord, with slight influence over edward, no command in the country, and little practised of speech in the stormy witan,--i am just so great that william dare not harm me, but not so great that he should even wish to harm me." "he detains our kinsmen, why not thee!" said harold. "because with our kinsmen he has at least the pretext that they were pledged as hostages: because i go simply as guest and envoy. no, to me danger cannot come. be ruled, dear harold." "be ruled, o my son," cried githa, clasping the earl's knees, "and do not let me dread in the depth of the night to see the shade of godwin, and hear his voice say, 'woman, where is harold?'" it was impossible for the earl's strong understanding to resist the arguments addressed to it; and, to say truth, he had been more disturbed that he liked to confess by edward's sinister forewarnings. yet, on the other hand, there were reasons against his acquiescence in gurth's proposal. the primary, and, to do him justice, the strongest, was in his native courage and his generous pride. should he for the first time in his life shrink from a peril in the discharge of his duty; a peril, too, so uncertain and vague? should he suffer gurth to fulfil the pledge he himself had taken? and granting even that gurth were safe from whatever danger he individually might incur, did it become him to accept the proxy? would gurth's voice, too, be as potent as his own in effecting the return of the hostages? the next reasons that swayed him were those he could not avow. in clearing his way to the english throne, it would be of no mean importance to secure the friendship of the norman duke, and the norman acquiescence in his pretensions; it would be of infinite service to remove those prepossessions against his house, which were still rife with the normans, who retained a bitter remembrance of their countrymen decimated [ ], it was said, with the concurrence if not at the order of godwin, when they accompanied the ill-fated alfred to the english shore, and who were yet sore with their old expulsion from the english court at the return of his father and himself. though it could not enter into his head that william, possessing no party whatever in england, could himself aspire to the english crown, yet at edward's death, there might be pretenders whom the norman arms could find ready excuse to sanction. there was the boy atheling, on the one side, there was the valiant norwegian king hardrada on the other, who might revive the claims of his predecessor magnus as heir to the rights of canute. so near and so formidable a neighbour as the court of the normans, every object of policy led him to propitiate; and gurth, with his unbending hate of all that was norman, was not, at least, the most politic envoy he could select for that end. add to this, that despite their present reconciliation, harold could never long count upon amity with tostig: and tostig's connection with william, through their marriages into the house of baldwin, was full of danger to a new throne, to which tostig would probably be the most turbulent subject: the influence of this connection how desirable to counteract! [ ] nor could harold, who, as patriot and statesman, felt deeply the necessity of reform and regeneration in the decayed edifice of the english monarchy, willingly lose an occasion to witness all that william had done to raise so high in renown and civilisation, in martial fame and commercial prosperity, that petty duchy, which he had placed on a level with the kingdoms of the teuton and the frank. lastly, the normans were the special darlings of the roman church. william had obtained the dispensation to his own marriage with matilda; and might not the norman influence, duly conciliated, back the prayer which harold trusted one day to address to the pontiff, and secure to him the hallowed blessing, without which ambition lost its charm, and even a throne its splendour? all these considerations, therefore, urged the earl to persist in his original purpose: but a warning voice in his heart, more powerful than all, sided with the prayer of githa, and the arguments of gurth. in this state of irresolution, gurth said seasonably: "bethink thee, harold, if menaced but with peril to thyself, thou wouldst have a brave man's right to resist us; but it was of 'great evil to england' that edward spoke, and thy reflection must tell thee, that in this crisis of our country, danger to thee is evil to england --evil to england thou hast no right to incur." "dear mother, and generous gurth," said harold, then joining the two in one embrace, "ye have well nigh conquered. give me but two days to ponder well, and be assured that i will not decide from the rash promptings of an ill-considered judgment." farther than this they could not then move the earl; but gurth was pleased shortly afterwards to see him depart to edith, whose fears, from whatever source they sprang, would, he was certain, come in aid of his own pleadings. but as the earl rode alone towards the once stately home of the perished roman, and entered at twilight the darkening forest-land, his thoughts were less on edith than on the vala, with whom his ambition had more and more connected his soul. perplexed by his doubts, and left dim in the waning lights of human reason, never more involuntarily did he fly to some guide to interpret the future, and decide his path. as if fate itself responded to the cry of his heart, he suddenly came in sight of hilda herself, gathering leaves from elm and ash amidst the woodland. he sprang from his horse and approached her. "hilda," said he, in a low but firm voice, "thou hast often told me that the dead can advise the living. raise thou the scin-laeca of the hero of old--raise the ghost, which mine eye, or my fancy, beheld before, vast and dim by the silent bautastein, and i will stand by thy side. fain would i know if thou hast deceived me and thyself; or if, in truth, to man's guidance heaven doth vouchsafe saga and rede from those who have passed into the secret shores of eternity." "the dead," answered hilda, "will not reveal themselves to eyes uninitiate save at their own will, uncompelled by charm and rune. to me their forms can appear distinct through the airy flame; to me, duly prepared by spells that purge the eye of the spirit, and loosen the walls of the flesh. i cannot say that what i see in the trance and the travail of my soul, thou also wilt behold; or even when the vision hath passed from my sight, and the voice from my ear, only memories, confused and dim, of what i saw and heard, remain to guide the waking and common life. but thou shalt stand by my side while i invoke the phantom, and hear and interpret the words which rush from my lips, and the runes that take meaning from the sparks of the charmed fire. i knew ere thou camest, by the darkness and trouble of edith's soul, that some shade from the ash-tree of life had fallen upon thine." then harold related what had passed, and placed before hilda the doubts that beset him. the prophetess listened with earnest attention; but her mind, when not under its more mystic influences, being strongly biassed by its natural courage and ambition, she saw at a glance all the advantages towards securing the throne predestined to harold, which might be effected by his visit to the norman court, and she held in too great disdain both the worldly sense and the mystic reveries of the monkish king (for the believer in odin was naturally incredulous of the visitation of the christian saints) to attach much weight to his dreary predictions. the short reply she made was therefore not calculated to deter harold from the expedition in dispute. but she deferred till the following night, and to wisdom more dread than her own, the counsels that should sway his decision. with a strange satisfaction at the thought that he should, at least, test personally the reality of those assumptions of preternatural power which had of late coloured his resolves and oppressed his heart, harold then took leave of the vala, who returned mechanically to her employment; and, leading his horse by the reins, lowly continued his musing way towards the green knoll and its heathen ruins. but ere he gained the hillock, and while his thoughtful eyes were bent on the ground, he felt his arm seized tenderly--turned--and beheld edith's face full of unutterable and anxious love. with that love, indeed, there was blended so much wistfulness, so much fear, that harold exclaimed: "soul of my soul, what hath chanced? what affects thee thus?" "hath no danger befallen thee?" asked edith falteringly, and gazing on his face with wistful, searching eyes. "danger! none, sweet trembler," answered the earl, evasively. edith dropped her eager looks, and clinging to his arm, drew him on silently into the forest land. she paused at last where the old fantastic trees shut out the view of the ancient ruins; and when, looking round, she saw not those grey gigantic shafts which mortal hand seemed never to have piled together, she breathed more freely. "speak to me," then said harold, bending his face to hers; "why this silence?" "ah, harold!" answered his betrothed, "thou knowest that ever since we have loved one another, my existence hath been but a shadow of thine; by some weird and strange mystery, which hilda would explain by the stars or the fates, that have made me a part of thee, i know by the lightness or gloom of my own spirit when good or ill shall befall thee. how often, in thine absence, hath a joy suddenly broke upon me; and i felt by that joy, as by the smile of a good angel, that thou hast passed safe through some peril, or triumphed over some foe! and now thou askest me why i am so sad;--i can only answer thee by saying, that the sadness is cast upon me by some thunder gloom on thine own destiny." harold had sought edith to speak of his meditated journey, but seeing her dejection he did not dare; so he drew her to his breast, and chid her soothingly for her vain apprehensions. but edith would not be comforted; there seemed something weighing on her mind and struggling to her lips, not accounted for merely by sympathetic forebodings; and at length, as he pressed her to tell all, she gathered courage and spoke: "do not mock me," she said, "but what secret, whether of vain folly or of meaning fate, should i hold from thee? all this day i struggled in vain against the heaviness of my forebodings. how i hailed the sight of gurth thy brother! i besought him to seek thee--thou hast seen him." "i have!" said harold. "but thou wert about to tell me of something more than this dejection." "well," resumed edith, "after gurth left me, my feet sought involuntarily the hill on which we have met so often. i sate down near the old tomb, a strange weariness crept on my eyes, and a sleep that seemed not wholly sleep fell over me. i struggled against it, as if conscious of some coming terror; and as i struggled, and ere i slept, harold,--yes, ere i slept,--i saw distinctly a pale and glimmering figure rise from the saxon's grave. i saw--i see it still! oh, that livid front, those glassy eyes!" "the figure of a warrior?" said harold, startled. "of a warrior, armed as in the ancient days, armed like the warrior that hilda's maids are working for thy banner. i saw it; and in one hand it held a spear, and in the other a crown." "a crown!--say on, say on." "i saw no more; sleep, in spite of myself, fell on me, a sleep full of confused and painful--rapid and shapeless images, still at last this dream rose clear. i beheld a bright and starry shape, that seemed as a spirit, yet wore thine aspect, standing on a rock; and an angry torrent rolled between the rock and the dry safe land. the waves began to invade the rock, and the spirit unfurled its wings as to flee. and then foul things climbed up from the slime of the rock, and descended from the mists of the troubled skies, and they coiled round the wings and clogged them." "then a voice cried in my ear,--'seest thou not on the perilous rock the soul of harold the brave?--seest thou not that the waters engulf it, if the wings fail to flee? up, truth, whose strength is in purity, whose image is woman, and aid the soul of the brave!' i sought to spring to thy side; but i was powerless, and behold, close beside me, through my sleep as through a veil, appeared the shafts of the ruined temple in which i lay reclined. and, methought, i saw hilda sitting alone by the saxon's grave, and pouring from a crystal vessel black drops into a human heart which she held in her hands: and out of that heart grew a child, and out of that child a youth, with dark mournful brow. and the youth stood by thy side and whispered to thee: and from his lips there came a reeking smoke, and in that smoke as in a blight the wings withered up. and i heard the voice say, 'hilda, it is thou that hast destroyed the good angel, and reared from the poisoned heart the loathsome tempter!' and i cried aloud, but it was too late; the waves swept over thee, and above the waves there floated an iron helmet, and on the helmet was a golden crown--the crown i had seen in the hand of the spectre!" "but this is no evil dream, my edith," said harold, gaily. edith, unheeding him, continued: "i started from my sleep. the sun was still high--the air lulled and windless. then through the shafts and down the hill there glided in that clear waking daylight, a grisly shape like that which i have heard our maidens say the witch-hags, sometimes seen in the forest, assume; yet in truth, it seemed neither of man nor woman. it turned its face once towards me, and on that hideous face were the glee and hate of a triumphant fiend. oh, harold, what should all this portend?" "hast thou not asked thy kinswoman, the diviner of dreams?" "i asked hilda, and she, like thee, only murmured, 'the saxon crown!' but if there be faith in those airy children of the night, surely, o adored one, the vision forebodes danger, not to life, but to soul; and the words i heard seemed to say that thy wings were thy valour, and the fylgia thou hadst lost was,--no, that were impossible--" "that my fylgia was truth, which losing, i were indeed lost to thee. thou dost well," said harold, loftily, "to hold that among the lies of the fancy. all else may, perchance, desert me, but never mine own free soul. self-reliant hath hilda called me in mine earlier days, and wherever fate casts me,--in my truth, and my love, and my dauntless heart, i dare both man and the fiend." edith gazed a moment in devout admiration on the mien of her hero- lover, then she drew closer and closer to his breast, consoled and believing. chapter v. with all her persuasion of her own powers in penetrating the future, we have seen that hilda had never consulted her oracles on the fate of harold, without a dark and awful sense of the ambiguity of their responses. that fate, involving the mightiest interests of a great race, and connected with events operating on the farthest times and the remotest lands, lost itself to her prophetic ken amidst omens the most contradictory, shadows and lights the most conflicting, meshes the most entangled. her human heart, devotedly attached to the earl, through her love for edith,--her pride obstinately bent on securing to the last daughter of her princely race that throne, which all her vaticinations, even when most gloomy, assured her was destined to the man with whom edith's doom was interwoven, combined to induce her to the most favourable interpretation of all that seemed sinister and doubtful. but according to the tenets of that peculiar form of magic cultivated by hilda, the comprehension became obscured by whatever partook of human sympathy. it was a magic wholly distinct from the malignant witchcraft more popularly known to us, and which was equally common to the germanic and scandinavian heathens. the magic of hilda was rather akin to the old cimbrian alirones, or sacred prophetesses; and, as with them, it demanded the priestess-- that is, the person without human ties or emotions, a spirit clear as a mirror, upon which the great images of destiny might be cast untroubled. however the natural gifts and native character of hilda might be perverted by the visionary and delusive studies habitual to her, there was in her very infirmities a grandeur, not without its pathos. in this position which she had assumed between the earth and the heaven, she stood so solitary and in such chilling air,--all the doubts that beset her lonely and daring soul came in such gigantic forms of terror and menace!--on the verge of the mighty heathenesse sinking fast into the night of ages, she towered amidst the shades, a shade herself; and round her gathered the last demons of the dire belief, defying the march of their luminous foe, and concentering round their mortal priestess, the wrecks of their horrent empire over a world redeemed. all the night that succeeded her last brief conference with harold, the vala wandered through the wild forest land, seeking haunts or employed in collecting herbs, hallowed to her dubious yet solemn lore; and the last stars were receding into the cold grey skies, when, returning homeward, she beheld within the circle of the druid temple a motionless object, stretched on the ground near the teuton's grave; she approached, and perceived what seemed a corpse, it was so still and stiff in its repose, and the face upturned to the stars was so haggard and death-like;--a face horrible to behold; the evidence of extreme age was written on the shrivelled livid skin and the deep furrows, but the expression retained that intense malignity which belongs to a power of life that extreme age rarely knows. the garb, which was that of a remote fashion, was foul and ragged, and neither by the garb, nor by the face, was it easy to guess what was the sex of this seeming corpse. but by a strange and peculiar odour that rose from the form [ ], and a certain glistening on the face, and the lean folded hands, hilda knew that the creature was one of those witches, esteemed of all the most deadly and abhorred, who, by the application of certain ointments, were supposed to possess the art of separating soul from body, and, leaving the last as dead, to dismiss the first to the dismal orgies of the sabbat. it was a frequent custom to select for the place of such trances, heathen temples and ancient graves. and hilda seated herself beside the witch to await the waking. the cock crowed thrice, heavy mists began to arise from the glades, covering the gnarled roots of the forest trees, when the dread face on which hilda calmly gazed, showed symptoms of returning life! a strong convulsion shook the vague indefinite form under its huddled garments, the eyes opened, closed,--opened again; and what had a few moments before seemed a dead thing sate up and looked round. "wicca," said the danish prophetess, with an accent between contempt and curiosity, "for what mischief to beast or man hast thou followed the noiseless path of the dreams through the airs of night?" the creature gazed hard upon the questioner, from its bleared but fiery eyes, and replied slowly, "hail, hilda, the morthwyrtha! why art thou not of us, why comest thou not to our revels? gay sport have we had to-night with faul and zabulus [ ]; but gayer far shall our sport be in the wassail hall of senlac, when thy grandchild shall come in the torchlight to the bridal bed of her lord. a buxom bride is edith the fair, and fair looked her face in her sleep on yester noon, when i sate by her side, and breathed on her brow, and murmured the verse that blackens the dream; but fairer still shall she look in her sleep by her lord. ha! ha! ho! we shall be there, with zabulus and faul; we shall be there!" "how!" said hilda, thrilled to learn that the secret ambition she cherished was known to this loathed sister in the art. "how dost thou pretend to that mystery of the future, which is dim and clouded even to me? canst thou tell when and where the daughter of the norse kings shall sleep on the breast of her lord?" a sound that partook of laughter, but was so unearthly in its malignant glee that it seemed not to come from a human lip, answered the vala; and as the laugh died the witch rose, and said: "go and question thy dead, o morthwyrtha! thou deemest thyself wiser than we are; we wretched hags, whom the ceorl seeks when his herd has the murrain, or the girl when her false love forsakes her; we, who have no dwelling known to man; but are found at need in the wold or the cave, or the side of dull slimy streams where the murderess-mother hath drowned her babe. askest thou, o hilda, the rich and the learned, askest thou counsel and lore from the daughter of faul?" "no," answered the vala, haughtily, "not to such as thou do the great nornas unfold the future. what knowest thou of the runes of old, whispered by the trunkless skull to the mighty odin? runes that control the elements, and conjure up the shining shadows of the grave. not with thee will the stars confer; and thy dreams are foul with revelries obscene, not solemn and haunted with the bodements of things to come! only i marvelled, while i beheld thee on the saxon's grave, what joy such as thou can find in that life above life, which draws upward the soul of the true vala." "the joy," replied the witch, "the joy which comes from wisdom and power, higher than you ever won with your spells from the rune or the star. wrath gives the venom to the slaver of the clog, and death to the curse of the witch. when wilt thou be as wise as the hag thou despisest? when will all the clouds that beset thee roll away from thy ken? when thy hopes are all crushed, when thy passions lie dead, when thy pride is abased, when thou art but a wreck, like the shafts of this temple, through which the starlight can shine. then only, thy soul will see clearly the sense of the runes, and then, thou and i will meet on the verge of the black shoreless sea!" so, despite all her haughtiness and disdain, did these words startle the lofty prophetess, that she remained gazing into space long after that fearful apparition had vanished, and up from the grass, which those obscene steps had profaned, sprang the lark carolling. but ere the sun had dispelled the dews on the forest sward, hilda had recovered her wonted calm, and, locked within her own secret chamber, prepared the seid and the runes for the invocation of the dead. chapter vi. resolving, should the auguries consulted permit him to depart, to entrust gurth with the charge of informing edith, harold parted from his betrothed, without hint of his suspended designs; and he passed the day in making all preparations for his absence and his journey, promising gurth to give his final answer on the morrow,--when either himself or his brother should depart for rouen. but more and more impressed with the arguments of gurth, and his own sober reason, and somewhat perhaps influenced by the forebodings of edith (for that mind, once so constitutionally firm, had become tremulously alive to such airy influences), he had almost predetermined to assent to his brother's prayer, when he departed to keep his dismal appointment with the morthwyrtha. the night was dim, but not dark; no moon shone, but the stars, wan though frequent, gleamed pale, as from the farthest deeps of the heaven; clouds grey and fleecy rolled slowly across the welkin, veiling and disclosing, by turns, the melancholy orbs. the morthwyrtha, in her dark dress, stood within the circle of stones. she had already kindled a fire at the foot of the bautastein, and its glare shone redly on the grey shafts; playing through their forlorn gaps upon the sward. by her side was a vessel, seemingly of pure water, filled from the old roman fountain, and its clear surface flashed blood-red in the beams. behind them, in a circle round both fire and water, were fragments of bark, cut in a peculiar form, like the head of an arrow, and inscribed with the mystic letters; nine were the fragments, and on each fragment were graved the runes. in her right hand the morthwyrtha held her seid-staff, her feet were bare, and her loins girt by the hunnish belt inscribed with mystic letters; from the belt hung a pouch or gipsire of bearskin, with plates of silver. her face, as harold entered the circle, had lost its usual calm--it was wild and troubled. she seemed unconscious of harold's presence, and her eye fixed and rigid, was as that of one in a trance. slowly, as if constrained by some power not her own, she began to move round the ring with a measured pace, and at last her voice broke low, hollow, and internal, into a rugged chaunt, which may be thus imperfectly translated-- "by the urdar-fount dwelling, day by day from the rill, the nornas besprinkle the ash ygg-drassill, [ ] the hart bites the buds, and the snake gnaws the root, but the eagle all-seeing keeps watch on the fruit. these drops on thy tomb from the fountain i pour; with the rune i invoke thee, with flame i restore. dread father of men, in the land of thy grave, give voice to the vala, and light to the brave." as she thus chaunted, the morthwyrtha now sprinkled the drops from the vessel over the bautastein,--now, one by one, cast the fragments of bark scrawled with runes on the fire. then, whether or not some glutinous or other chemical material had been mingled in the water, a pale gleam broke from the gravestone thus sprinkled, and the whole tomb glistened in the light of the leaping fire. from this light a mist or thin smoke gradually rose, and took, though vaguely, the outline of a vast human form. but so indefinite was the outline to harold's eye, that gazing on it steadily, and stilling with strong effort his loud heart, he knew not whether it was a phantom or a vapour that he beheld. the vala paused, leaning on her staff, and gazing in awe on the glowing stone, while the earl, with his arms folded on his broad breast, stood hushed and motionless. the sorceress recommenced: "mighty dead, i revere thee, dim-shaped from the cloud, with the light of thy deeds for the web of thy shroud. as odin consulted mimir's skull hollow-eyed, [ ] odin's heir comes to seek in the phantom a guide." as the morthwyrtha ceased, the fire crackled loud, and from its flame flew one of the fragments of bark to the feet of the sorceress:--the runic letters all indented with sparks. the sorceress uttered a loud cry, which, despite his courage and his natural strong sense, thrilled through the earl's heart to his marrow and bones, so appalling was it with wrath and terror; and while she gazed aghast on the blazing letters, she burst forth: "no warrior art thou, and no child of the tomb; i know thee, and shudder, great asa of doom. thou constrainest my lips and thou crushest my spell; bright son of the giant dark father of hell!" [ ] the whole form of the morthwyrtha then became convulsed and agitated, as if with the tempest of frenzy; the foam gathered to her lips, and her voice rang forth like a shriek: "in the iron wood rages the weaver of harm, the giant blood-drinker hag-born managarm. [ ] a keel nears the shoal; from the slime and the mud crawl the newt and the adder, the spawn the of flood. thou stand'st on the rock where the dreamer beheld thee. o soul, spread thy wings, ere the glamour hath spell'd thee. o, dread is the tempter, and strong the control; but conquer'd the tempter, if firm be the soul" the vala paused; and though it was evident that in her frenzy she was still unconscious of harold's presence, and seemed but to be the compelled and passive voice to some power, real or imaginary, beyond her own existence, the proud man approached, and said: "firm shall be my soul, nor of the dangers which beset it would i ask the dead or the living. if plain answers to mortal sense can come from these airy shadows or these mystic charms, reply, o interpreter of fate; reply but to the questions i demand. if i go to the court of the norman, shall i return unscathed?" the vala stood rigid as a shape of stone while harold thus spoke; and her voice came so low and strange as if forced from her scarce-moving lips: "thou shalt return unscathed." "shall the hostages of godwin, my father, be released" "the hostages of godwin shall be released," answered the same voice; "the hostages of harold be retained." "wherefore hostage from me?" "in pledge of alliance with the norman." "ha! then the norman and harold shall plight friendship and troth?" "yes!" answered the vala; but this time a visible shudder passed over her rigid form. "two questions more, and i have done. the norman priests have the ear of the roman pontiff. shall my league with william the norman avail to win me my bride?" "it will win thee the bride thou wouldst never have wedded but for thy league with william the norman. peace with thy questions, peace!" continued the voice, trembling as with some fearful struggle; "for it is the demon that forces my words, and they wither my soul to speak them." "but one question more remains; shall i live to wear the crown of england; and if so, when shall i be a king?" at these words the face of the prophetess kindled, the fire suddenly leapt up higher and brighter; again, vivid sparks lighted the runes on the fragments of bark that were shot from the flame; over these last the morthwyrtha bowed her head, and then, lifting it, triumphantly burst once more into song. "when the wolf month [ ], grim and still, heaps the snow-mass on the hill; when, through white air, sharp and bitter, mocking sunbeams freeze and glitter; when the ice-gems, bright and barbed, deck the boughs the leaves had garbed then the measure shall be meted, and the circle be completed. cerdic's race, the thor-descended, in the monk-king's tomb be ended; and no saxon brow but thine wear the crown of woden's line. where thou wendest, wend unfearing, every step thy throne is nearing. fraud may plot, and force assail thee,-- shall the soul thou trusteth fail thee? if it fail thee, scornful hearer, still the throne shines near and nearer. guile with guile oppose, and never crown and brow shall force dissever: till the dead men unforgiving loose the war steeds on the living; till a sun whose race is ending sees the rival stars contending; where the dead men, unforgiving, wheel the war steeds round the living. where thou wendest, wend unfearing; every step thy throne is nearing. never shall thy house decay, nor thy sceptre pass away, while the saxon name endureth in the land thy throne secureth; saxon name and throne together, leaf and root, shall wax and wither; so the measure shall be meted, and the circle close completed. art thou answer'd, dauntless seeker? go, thy bark shall ride the breaker, every billow high and higher, waft thee up to thy desire; and a force beyond thine own, drift and strand thee on the throne. when the wolf month, grim and still, piles the snow-mass on the hill, in the white air sharp and bitter shall thy kingly sceptre glitter: when the ice-gems barb the bough shall the jewels clasp thy brow; winter-wind, the oak uprending, with the altar-anthem blending; wind shall howl, and mone shall sing, 'hail to harold--hail the king!'" an exultation that seemed more than human, so intense it was and so solemn,--thrilled in the voice which thus closed predictions that seemed signally to belie the more vague and menacing warnings with which the dreary incantation had commenced. the morthwyrtha stood erect and stately, still gazing on the pale blue flame that rose from the burial stone, still slowly the flame waned and paled, and at last died with a sudden flicker, leaving the grey tomb standing forth all weatherworn and desolate, while a wind rose from the north and sighed through the roofless columns. then as the light over the grave expired, hilda gave a deep sigh, and fell to the ground senseless. harold lifted his eyes towards the stars and murmured: "if it be a sin, as the priests say, to pierce the dark walls which surround us here, and read the future in the dim world beyond, why gavest thou, o heaven, the reason, ever resting, save when it explores? why hast thou set in the heart the mystic law of desire, ever toiling to the high, ever grasping at the far?" heaven answered not the unquiet soul. the clouds passed to and fro in their wanderings, the wind still sighed through the hollow stones, the fire shot with vain sparks towards the distant stars. in the cloud and the wind and the fire couldst thou read no answer from heaven, unquiet soul? the next day, with a gallant company, the falcon on his wrist [ ], the sprightly hound gamboling before his steed, blithe of heart and high in hope, earl harold took his way to the norman court. this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book xi. the norman schemer, and the norwegian sea-king. chapter i. it was the eve of the th of january--the eve of the day announced to king edward as that of his deliverance from earth; and whether or not the prediction had wrought its own fulfilment on the fragile frame and susceptible nerves of the king, the last of the line of cerdic was fast passing into the solemn shades of eternity. without the walls of the palace, through the whole city of london, the excitement was indescribable. all the river before the palace was crowded with boats; all the broad space on the isle of thorney itself, thronged with anxious groups. but a few days before the new-built abbey had been solemnly consecrated; with the completion of that holy edifice, edward's life itself seemed done. like the kings of egypt, he had built his tomb. within the palace, if possible, still greater was the agitation; more dread the suspense. lobbies, halls, corridors, stairs, ante-rooms, were filled with churchmen and thegns. nor was it alone for news of the king's state that their brows were so knit, that their breath came and went so short. it is not when a great chief is dying, that men compose their minds to deplore a loss. that comes long after, when the worm is at its work, and comparison between the dead and the living often rights the one to wrong the other. but while the breath is struggling, and the eye glazing, life, busy in the bystanders, murmurs, "who shall be the heir?" and, in this instance, never had suspense been so keenly wrought up into hope and terror. for the news of duke william's designs had now spread far and near; and awful was the doubt, whether the abhorred norman should receive his sole sanction to so arrogant a claim from the parting assent of edward. although, as we have seen, the crown was not absolutely within the bequests of a dying king, but at the will of the witan, still, in circumstances so unparalleled, the utter failure of all natural heirs, save a boy feeble in mind as body, and half foreign by birth and rearing; the love borne by edward to the church; and the sentiments, half of pity half of reverence, with which he was regarded throughout the land;--his dying word would go far to influence the council and select the successor. some whispering to each other, with pale lips, all the dire predictions then current in men's mouths and breasts; some in moody silence; all lifted eager eyes, as, from time to time, a gloomy benedictine passed in the direction to or fro the king's chamber. in that chamber, traversing the past of eight centuries, enter we with hushed and noiseless feet--a room known to us in many a later scene and legend of england's troubled history, as "the painted chamber," long called "the confessor's." at the farthest end of that long and lofty space, raised upon a regal platform, and roofed with regal canopy, was the bed of death. at the foot stood harold; on one side knelt edith, the king's lady; at the other alred; while stigand stood near--the holy rood in his hand-- and the abbot of the new monastery of westminster by stigand's side; and all the greatest thegns, including morcar and edwin, gurth and leofwine, all the more illustrious prelates and abbots, stood also on the dais. in the lower end of the hall, the king's physician was warming a cordial over the brazier, and some of the subordinate officers of the household were standing in the niches of the deep-set windows; and they--not great eno' for other emotions than those of human love for their kindly lord--they wept. the king, who had already undergone the last holy offices of the church, was lying quite quiet, his eyes half closed, breathing low but regularly. he had been speechless the two preceding days; on this he had uttered a few words, which showed returning consciousness. his hand, reclined on the coverlid, was clasped in his wife's who was praying fervently. something in the touch of her hand, or the sound of her murmur, stirred the king from the growing lethargy, and his eyes opening, fixed on the kneeling lady. "ah?" said he faintly, "ever good, ever meek! think not i did not love thee; hearts will be read yonder; we shall have our guerdon." the lady looked up through her streaming tears. edward released his hand, and laid it on her head as in benediction. then motioning to the abbot of westminster, he drew from his finger the ring which the palmer had brought to him [ ], and murmured scarce audibly: "be this kept in the house of st. peter in memory of me!" "he is alive now to us--speak--" whispered more than one thegn, one abbot, to alred and to stigand. and stigand, as the harder and more worldly man of the two, moved up, and bending over the pillow, between alred and the king, said: "o royal son, about to win the crown to which that of earth is but an idiot's wreath of withered leaves, not yet may thy soul forsake us. whom commendest thou to us as shepherd to thy bereaven flock? whom shall we admonish to tread in those traces thy footsteps leave below?" the king made a slight gesture of impatience; and the queen, forgetful of all but her womanly sorrow, raised her eye and finger in reproof that the dying was thus disturbed. but the stake was too weighty, the suspense too keen, for that reverent delicacy in those around; and the thegns pressed on each other, and a murmur rose, which murmured the name of harold. "bethink thee, my son," said alred, in a tender voice tremulous with emotion; "the young atheling is too much an infant yet for these anxious times." edward signed his head in assent. "then," said the norman bishop of london, who till that moment had stood in the rear, almost forgotten amongst the crowd of saxon prelates, but who himself had been all eyes and ears. "then," said bishop william, advancing, "if thine own royal line so fail, who so near to thy love, who so worthy to succeed, as william thy cousin, the count of the normans?" dark was the scowl on the brow of every thegn, and a muttered "no, no: never the norman!" was heard distinctly. harold's face flushed, and his hand was on the hilt of his ateghar. but no other sign gave he of his interest in the question. the king lay for some moments silent, but evidently striving to re- collect his thoughts. meanwhile the two archprelates bent over him-- stigand eagerly, alred fondly. then raising himself on one arm, while with the other he pointed to harold at the foot of the bed, the king said: "your hearts, i see, are with harold the earl: so be it." at those words he fell back on his pillow; a loud shriek burst from his wife's lips; all crowded around; he lay as the dead. at the cry, and the indescribable movement of the throng, the physician came quick from the lower part of the hall. he made his way abruptly to the bedside, and said chidingly, "air, give him air." the throng parted, the leach moistened the king's pale lips with the cordial, but no breath seemed to come forth, no pulse seemed to beat; and while the two prelates knelt before the human body and by the blessed rood, the rest descended the dais, and hastened to depart. harold only remained; but he had passed from the foot to the head of the bed. the crowd had gained the centre of the hall, when a sound that startled them as if it had come from the grave, chained every footstep--the sound of the king's voice, loud, terribly distinct, and full, as with the vigour of youth restored. all turned their eyes, appalled; all stood spell-bound. there sate the king upright on the bed, his face seen above the kneeling prelates, and his eyes bright and shining down the hall. "yea," he said, deliberately, "yea, as this shall be a real vision or a false illusion, grant me, almighty one, the power of speech to tell it." he paused a moment, and thus resumed: "it was on the banks of the frozen seine, this day thirty-and-one winters ago, that two holy monks, to whom the gift of prophecy was vouchsafed, told me of direful woes that should fall on england; 'for god,' said they, 'after thy death, has delivered england into the hand of the enemy, and fiends shall wander over the land.' then i asked in my sorrow, 'can nought avert the doom? and may not my people free themselves by repentance, like the ninevites of old?' and the prophets answered, 'nay, nor shall the calamity cease, and the curse be completed, till a green tree be sundered in twain, and the part cut off be carried away; yet move, of itself, to the ancient trunk, unite to the stem, bud out with the blossom, and stretch forth its fruit.' so said the monks, and even now, ere i spoke, i saw them again, there, standing mute, and with the paleness of dead men, by the side of my bed!" these words were said so calmly, and as it were so rationally, that their import became doubly awful from the cold precision of the tone. a shudder passed through the assembly, and each man shrunk from the king's eye, which seemed to each man to dwell on himself. suddenly that eye altered in its cold beam; suddenly the voice changed its deliberate accent; the grey hairs seemed to bristle erect, the whole face to work with horror; the arms stretched forth, the form writhed on the couch, distorted fragments from the lips: "sanguelac! sanguelac!--the lake of blood," shrieked forth the dying king, "the lord hath bent his bow--the lord hath bared his sword. he comes down as a warrior to war, and his wrath is in the steel and the flame. he boweth the mountains, and comes down, and darkness is under his feet!" as if revived but for these tremendous denunciations, while the last word left his lips the frame collapsed, the eyes set, and the king fell a corpse in the arms of harold. but one smile of the sceptic or the world-man was seen on the paling lips of those present: that smile was not on the lips of warriors and men of mail. it distorted the sharpened features of stigand, the world-man and the miser, as, passing down, and amidst the group, he said, "tremble ye at the dreams of a sick old man?" [ ] chapter ii. the time of year customary for the national assembly; the recent consecration of westminster, for which edward had convened all his chief spiritual lords, the anxiety felt for the infirm state of the king, and the interest as to the impending succession--all concurred to permit the instantaneous meeting of a witan worthy, from rank and numbers, to meet the emergency of the time, and proceed to the most momentous election ever yet known in england. the thegns and prelates met in haste. harold's marriage with aldyth, which had taken place but a few weeks before, had united all parties with his own; not a claim counter to the great earl's was advanced; the choice was unanimous. the necessity of terminating at such a crisis all suspense throughout the kingdom, and extinguishing the danger of all counter intrigues, forbade to men thus united any delay in solemnising their decision; and the august obsequies of edward were followed on the same day by the coronation of harold. it was in the body of the mighty abbey church, not indeed as we see it now, after successive restorations and remodellings, but simple in its long rows of saxon arch and massive column, blending the first teuton with the last roman masonries, that the crowd of the saxon freemen assembled to honour the monarch of their choice. first saxon king, since england had been one monarchy, selected not from the single house of cerdic--first saxon king, not led to the throne by the pale shades of fabled ancestors tracing their descent from the father-god of the teuton, but by the spirits that never know a grave--the arch- eternal givers of crowns, and founders of dynasties-valour and fame. alred and stigand, the two great prelates of the realm, had conducted harold to the church [ ], and up the aisle to the altar, followed by the chiefs of the witan in their long robes; and the clergy with their abbots and bishops sung the anthems--"fermetur manus tua," and "gloria patri." and now the music ceased; harold prostrated himself before the altar, and the sacred melody burst forth with the great hymn, "te deum." as it ceased, prelate and thegn raised their chief from the floor, and in imitation of the old custom of teuton and northman--when the lord of their armaments was borne on shoulder and shield--harold mounted a platform, and rose in full view of the crowd. "thus," said the arch-prelate, "we choose harold son of godwin for lord and for king." and the thegns drew round, and placed hand on harold's knee, and cried aloud, "we choose thee, o harold, for lord and for king." and row by row, line by line, all the multitude shouted forth, "we choose thee, o harold, for lord and king." so there he stood with his calm brow, facing all, monarch of england, and basileus of britain. now unheeded amidst the throng, and leaning against a column in the arches of the aisle, was a woman with her veil round her face; and she lifted the veil for a moment to gaze on that lofty brow, and the tears were streaming fast down her cheek, but her face was not sad. "let the vulgar not see, to pity or scorn thee, daughter of kings as great as he who abandons and forsakes thee!" murmured a voice in her ear; and the form of hilda, needing no support from column or wall, rose erect by the side of edith. edith bowed her head and lowered the veil, as the king descended the platform and stood again by the altar, while clear through the hushed assembly rang the words of his triple promise to his people: "peace to his church and the christian flock." "interdict of rapacity and injustice." "equity and mercy in his judgments, as god the gracious and just might show mercy to him." and deep from the hearts of thousands came the low "amen." then after a short prayer, which each prelate repeated, the crowd saw afar the glitter of the crown held over the head of the king. the voice of the consecrator was heard, low till it came to the words "so potently and royally may he rule, against all visible and invisible foes, that the royal throne of the angles and saxons may not desert his sceptre." as the prayer ceased, came the symbolical rite of anointment. then pealed the sonorous organ [ ], and solemn along the aisles rose the anthem that closed with the chorus which the voice of the multitude swelled, "may the king live for ever!" then the crown that had gleamed in the trembling hand of the prelate, rested firm in its splendour on the front of the king. and the sceptre of rule, and the rod of justice, "to sooth the pious and terrify the bad," were placed in the royal hands. and the prayer and the blessings were renewed,-- till the close; "bless, lord, the courage of this prince, and prosper the works of his hand. with his horn, as the horn of the rhinoceros, may he blow the waters to the extremities of the earth; and may he who has ascended to the skies be his aid for ever!" then hilda stretched forth her hand to lead edith from the place. but edith shook her head and murmured "but once again, but once!" and with involuntary step moved on. suddenly, close where she paused, the crowd parted, and down the narrow lane so formed amidst the wedged and breathless crowd came the august procession;--prelate and thegn swept on from the church to the palace; and alone, with firm and measured step, the diadem on his brow, the sceptre in his hand, came the king. edith checked the rushing impulse at her heart, but she bent forward, with veil half drawn aside, and so gazed on that face and form of more than royal majesty, fondly, proudly. the king swept on and saw her not; love lived no more for him. chapter iii. the boat shot over the royal thames. borne along the waters, the shouts and the hymns of swarming thousands from the land shook, like a blast, the gelid air of the wolf month. all space seemed filled and noisy with the name of harold the king. fast rowed the rowers,--on shot the boat; and hilda's face, stern and ominous, turned to the still towers of the palace, gleaming wide and white in the wintry sun. suddenly edith lifted her hand from her bosom, and said passionately: "o mother of my mother, i cannot live again in the house where the very walls speak to me of him; all things chain my soul to the earth; and my soul should be in heaven, that its prayers may be heard by the heedful angels. the day that the holy lady of england predicted hath come to pass, and the silver cord is loosed at last. ah why, why did i not believe her then? why did i then reject the cloister? yet no, i will not repent; at least i have been loved! but now i will go to the nunnery of waltham, and kneel at the altars he hath hallowed to the mone and the monechyn." "edith," said the vala, "thou wilt not bury thy life yet young in the living grave! and, despite all that now severs you--yea, despite harold's new and loveless ties--still clearer than ever it is written in the heavens, that a day shall come, in which you are to be evermore united. many of the shapes i have seen, many of the sounds i have heard, in the trance and the dream, fade in the troubled memory of waking life. but never yet hath grown doubtful or dim the prophecy, that the truth pledged by the grave shall be fulfilled." "oh, tempt not! oh, delude not!" cried edith, while the blood rushed over her brow. "thou knowest this can not be. another's! he is another's! and in the words thou hast uttered there is deadly sin." "there is no sin in the resolves of a fate that rules us in spite of ourselves. tarry only till the year bring round the birth-day of harold; for my sayings shall be ripe with the grape, and when the feet of the vineherd are red in the month of the vine [ ], the nornas shall knit ye together again!" edith clasped her hands mutely, and looked hard into the face of hilda,--looked and shuddered she knew not why. the boat landed on the eastern shore of the river, beyond the walls of the city, and then edith bent her way to the holy walls of waltham. the frost was sharp in the glitter of the unwarming sun; upon leafless boughs hung the barbed ice-gems; and the crown was on the brows of harold! and at night, within the walls of the convent, edith heard the hymns of the kneeling monks; and the blasts howled, and the storm arose, and the voices of destroying hurricanes were blent with the swell of the choral hymns. chapter iv. tostig sate in the halls of bruges, and with him sate judith, his haughty wife. the earl and his countess were playing at chess, (or the game resembling it, which amused the idlesse of that age,) and the countess had put her lord's game into mortal disorder, when tostig swept his hand over the board, and the pieces rolled on the floor. "that is one way to prevent defeat," said judith, with a half smile and half frown. "it is the way of the bold and the wise, wife mine," answered tostig, rising, "let all be destruction where thou thyself canst win not! peace to these trifles! i cannot keep my mind to the mock fight; it flies to the real. our last news sours the taste of the wine, and steals the sleep from my couch. it says that edward cannot live through the winter, and that all men bruit abroad, there can be no king save harold my brother." "and will thy brother as king give to thee again thy domain as earl?" "he must!" answered tostig, "and, despite all our breaches, with soft message he will. for harold has the heart of the saxon, to which the sons of one father are dear; and githa, my mother, when we first fled, controlled the voice of my revenge, and bade me wait patient and hope yet." scarce had these words fallen from tostig's lips, when the chief of his danish house-carles came in, and announced the arrival of a bode from england. "his news? his news?" cried the earl, "with his own lips let him speak his news." the house-carle withdrew but to usher in the messenger, an anglo-dane. "the weight on thy brow shows the load on thy heart," cried tostig. "speak, and be brief." "edward is dead." "ha? and who reigns?" "thy brother is chosen and crowned." the face of the earl grew red and pale in a breath, and successive emotions of envy and old rivalship, humbled pride and fierce discontent, passed across his turbulent heart. but these died away as the predominant thought of self-interest, and somewhat of that admiration for success which often seems like magnanimity in grasping minds, and something too of haughty exultation, that he stood a king's brother in the halls of his exile, came to chase away the more hostile and menacing feelings. then judith approached with joy on her brow, and said: "we shall no more eat the bread of dependence even at the hand of a father; and since harold hath no dame to proclaim to the church, and to place on the dais, thy wife, o my tostig, will have state in far england little less than her sister in rouen." "methinks so will it be," said tostig. "how now, nuncius? why lookest thou so grim, and why shakest thou thy head?" "small chance for thy dame to keep state in the halls of the king; small hope for thyself to win back thy broad earldom. but a few weeks ere thy brother won the crown, he won also a bride in the house of thy spoiler and foe. aldyth, the sister of edwin and morcar, is lady of england; and that union shuts thee out from northumbria for ever." at these words, as if stricken by some deadly and inexpressible insult, the earl recoiled, and stood a moment mute with rage and amaze. his singular beauty became distorted into the lineaments of a fiend. he stamped with his foot, as he thundered a terrible curse. then haughtily waving his hand to the bode, in sign of dismissal, he strode to and fro the room in gloomy perturbation. judith, like her sister matilda, a woman fierce and vindictive, continued, by that sharp venom that lies in the tongue of the sex, to incite still more the intense resentment of her lord. perhaps some female jealousies of aldyth might contribute to increase her own indignation. but without such frivolous addition to anger, there was cause eno' in this marriage thoroughly to complete the alienation between the king and his brother. it was impossible that one so revengeful as tostig should not cherish the deepest animosity, not only against the people that had rejected, but the new earl that had succeeded him. in wedding the sister of this fortunate rival and despoiler, harold could not, therefore, but gall him in his most sensitive sores of soul. the king, thus, formally approved and sanctioned his ejection, solemnly took part with his foe, robbed him of all legal chance of recovering his dominions, and, in the words of the bode, "shut him out from northumbria for ever." nor was this even all. grant his return to england; grant a reconciliation with harold; still those abhorred and more fortunate enemies, necessarily made now the most intimate part of the king's family, must be most in his confidence, would curb and chafe and encounter tostig in every scheme for his personal aggrandisement. his foes, in a word, were in the camp of his brother. while gnashing his teeth with a wrath the more deadly because he saw not yet his way to retribution,--judith, pursuing the separate thread of her own cogitations, said: "and if my sister's lord, the count of the normans, had, as rightly he ought to have, succeeded his cousin the monk-king, then i should have a sister on the throne, and thou in her husband a brother more tender than harold. one who supports his barons with sword and mail, and gives the villeins rebelling against them but the brand and the cord." "ho!" cried tostig, stopping suddenly in his disordered strides, "kiss me, wife, for those words! they have helped thee to power, and lit me to revenge. if thou wouldst send love to thy sister, take graphium and parchment, and write fast as a scribe. ere the sun is an hour older, i am on my road to count william." chapter v. the duke of the normans was in the forest, or park land, of rouvray, and his quens and his knights stood around him, expecting some new proof of his strength and his skill with the bow. for the duke was trying some arrows, a weapon he was ever employed in seeking to improve; sometimes shortening, sometimes lengthening, the shaft; and suiting the wing of the feather, and the weight of the point, to the nicest refinement in the law of mechanics. gay and debonnair, in the brisk fresh air of the frosty winter, the great count jested and laughed as the squires fastened a live bird by the string to a stake in the distant sward; and "pardex," said duke william, "conan of bretagne, and philip of france, leave us now so unkindly in peace, that i trow we shall never again have larger butt for our arrows than the breast of yon poor plumed trembler." as the duke spoke and laughed, all the sere boughs behind him rattled and cranched, and a horse at full speed came rushing over the hard rime of the sward. the duke's smile vanished in the frown of his pride. "bold rider and graceless," quoth he, "who thus comes in the presence of counts and princes?" right up to duke william spurred the rider, and then leaped from his steed; vest and mantle, yet more rich than the duke's, all tattered and soiled. no knee bent the rider, no cap did he doff; but seizing the startled norman with the gripe of a hand as strong as his own, he led him aside from the courtiers, and said: "thou knowest me, william? though not thus alone should i come to thy court, if i did not bring thee a crown." "welcome, brave tostig!" said the duke, marvelling. "what meanest thou? nought but good, by thy words and thy smile." "edward sleeps with the dead!--and harold is king of all england!" "king!--england!--king!" faltered william, stammering in his agitation. "edward dead!--saints rest him! england then is mine! king!--i am the king! harold hath sworn it; my quens and prelates heard him; the bones of the saints attest the oath!" "somewhat of this have i vaguely learned from our beau-pere count baldwin; more will i learn at thy leisure; but take meanwhile, my word as miles and saxon,--never, while there is breath on his lips, or one beat in his heart, will my brother, lord harold, give an inch of english land to the norman." william turned pale and faint with emotion, and leant for support against a leafless oak. busy were the rumours, and anxious the watch, of the quens and knights, as their prince stood long in the distant glade, conferring with the rider, whom one or two of them had recognised as tostig, the spouse of matilda's sister. at length, side by side, still talking earnestly, they regained the group; and william, summoning the lord of tancarville, bade him conduct tostig to rouen, the towers of which rose through the forest trees. "rest and refresh thee, noble kinsman," said the duke; "see and talk with matilda. i will join thee anon." the earl remounted his steed, and saluting the company with a wild and hasty grace, soon vanished amidst the groves. then william, seating himself on the sward, mechanically unstrung his bow, sighing oft, and oft frowning; and--without vouchsafing other word to his lords than "no further sport to-day!" rose slowly, and went alone through the thickest parts of the forest. but his faithful fitzosborne marked his gloom, and fondly followed him. the duke arrived at the borders of the seine, where his galley waited him. he entered, sat down on the bench, and took no notice of fitzosborne, who quietly stepped in after his lord, and placed himself on another bench. the little voyage to rouen was performed in silence, and as soon as he had gained his palace, without seeking either tostig or matilda, the duke turned into the vast hall, in which he was wont to hold council with his barons; and walked to and fro "often," say the chronicles, "changing posture and attitude, and oft loosening and tightening, and drawing into knots, the strings of his mantle." fitzosborne, meanwhile, had sought the ex-earl, who was closeted with matilda; and now returning, he went boldly up to the duke, whom no one else dared approach, and said: "why, my liege, seek to conceal what is already known--what ere the eve will be in the mouths of all? you are troubled that edward is dead, and that harold, violating his oath, has seized the english realm." "truly," said the duke mildly, and with the tone of a meek man much injured; "my dear cousin's death, and the wrongs i have received from harold, touch me nearly." then said fitzosborne, with that philosophy, half grave as became the scandinavian, half gay as became the frank: "no man should grieve for what he can help--still less for what he cannot help. for edward's death, i trow, remedy there is none; but for harold's treason, yea! have you not a noble host of knights and warriors? what want you to destroy the saxon and seize his realm? what but a bold heart? a great deed once well begun, is half done. begin, count of the normans, and we will complete the rest." starting from his sorely tasked dissimulation; for all william needed, and all of which he doubted, was the aid of his haughty barons; the duke raised his head, and his eyes shone out. "ha, sayest thou so! then, by the splendour of god, we will do this deed. haste thou--rouse hearts, nerve hands--promise, menace, win! broad are the lands of england, and generous a conqueror's hand. go and prepare all my faithful lords for a council, nobler than ever yet stirred the hearts and strung the hands of the sons of rou." chapter vi. brief was the sojourn of tostig at the court of rouen; speedily made the contract between the grasping duke and the revengeful traitor. all that had been promised to harold, was now pledged to tostig--if the last would assist the norman to the english throne. at heart, however, tostig was ill satisfied. his chance conversations with the principal barons, who seemed to look upon the conquest of england as the dream of a madman, showed him how doubtful it was that william could induce his quens to a service, to which the tenure of their fiefs did not appear to compel them; and at all events, tostig prognosticated delays, that little suited his fiery impatience. he accepted the offer of some two or three ships, which william put at his disposal, under pretence to reconnoitre the northumbrian coasts, and there attempt a rising in his own favour. but his discontent was increased by the smallness of the aid afforded him; for william, ever suspicious, distrusted both his faith and his power. tostig, with all his vices, was a poor dissimulator, and his sullen spirit betrayed itself when he took leave of his host. "chance what may," said the fierce saxon, "no stranger shall seize the english crown without my aid. i offer it first to thee. but thou must come to take it in time, or----" "or what?" asked the duke, gnawing his lip. "or the father race of rou will be before thee! my horse paws without. farewell to thee, norman; sharpen thy swords, hew out thy vessels, and goad thy slow barons." scarce had tostig departed, ere william began to repent that he had so let him depart: but seeking counsel of lanfranc, that wise minister reassured him. "fear no rival, son and lord," said he. "the bones of the dead are on thy side, and little thou knowest, as yet, how mighty their fleshless arms! all tostig can do is to distract the forces of harold. leave him to work out his worst; nor then be in haste. much hath yet to be done--cloud must gather and fire must form, ere the bolt can be launched. send to harold mildly, and gently remind him of oath and of relics--of treaty and pledge. put right on thy side, and then----" "ah, what then?" "rome shall curse the forsworn--rome shall hallow thy banner; this be no strife of force against force, but a war of religion; and thou shalt have on thy side the conscience of man, and the arm of the church." meanwhile, tostig embarked at harfleur; but instead of sailing to the northern coasts of england, he made for one of the flemish ports: and there, under various pretences, new manned the norman vessels with flemings, fins, and northmen. his meditations during his voyage had decided him not to trust to william; and he now bent his course, with fair wind and favouring weather, to the shores of his maternal uncle, king sweyn of denmark. in truth, to all probable calculation, his change of purpose was politic. the fleets of england were numerous, and her seamen renowned. the normans had neither experience nor fame in naval fights; their navy itself was scarcely formed. thus, even william's landing in england was an enterprise arduous and dubious. moreover, even granting the amplest success, would not this norman prince, so profound and ambitious, be a more troublesome lord to earl tostig than his own uncle sweyn? so, forgetful of the compact at rouen, no sooner had the saxon lord come in presence of the king of the danes, than he urged on his kinsman the glory of winning again the sceptre of canute. a brave, but a cautious and wily veteran, was king sweyn; and a few days before tostig arrived, he had received letters from his sister githa, who, true to godwin's command, had held all that harold did and counselled, as between himself and his brother, wise and just. these letters had placed the dane on his guard, and shown him the true state of affairs in england. so king sweyn, smiling, thus answered his nephew tostig: "a great man was canute, a small man am i: scarce can i keep my danish dominion from the gripe of the norwegian, while canute took norway without slash and blow [ ]; but great as he was, england cost him hard fighting to win, and sore peril to keep. wherefore, best for the small man to rule by the light of his own little sense, nor venture to count on the luck of great canute;--for luck but goes with the great." "thine answer," said tostig, with a bitter sneer, "is not what i expected from an uncle and warrior. but other chiefs may be found less afraid of the luck of high deeds." "so," saith the norwegian chronicler, "not just the best friends, the earl left the king," and went on in haste to harold hardrada of norway. true hero of the north, true darling of war and of song, was harold hardrada! at the terrible battle of stiklestad, at which his brother, st. olave, had fallen, he was but fifteen years of age, but his body was covered with the wounds of a veteran. escaping from the field, he lay concealed in the house of a bonder peasant, remote in deep forests, till his wounds were healed. thence, chaunting by the way, (for a poet's soul burned bright in hardrada,) "that a day would come when his name would be great in the land he now left," he went on into sweden, thence into russia, and after wild adventures in the east, joined, with the bold troop he had collected around him, that famous body-guard of the greek emperors [ ], called the vaeringers, and of these he became the chief. jealousies between himself and the greek general of the imperial forces, (whom the norwegian chronicler calls gyrger,) ended in harold's retirement with his vaeringers into the saracen land of africa. eighty castles stormed and taken, vast plunder in gold and in jewels, and nobler meed in the song of the scald and the praise of the brave, attested the prowess of the great scandinavian. new laurels, blood-stained, new treasures, sword-won, awaited him in sicily; and thence, rough foretype of the coming crusader, he passed on to jerusalem. his sword swept before him moslem and robber. he bathed in jordan, and knelt at the holy cross. returned to constantinople, the desire for his northern home seized hardrada. there he heard that his nephew magnus, the illegitimate son of st. olave, had become king of norway,--and he himself aspired to a throne. so he gave up his command under zoe the empress; but, if scald be believed, zoe the empress loved the bold chief, whose heart was set on maria her niece. to detain hardrada, a charge of mal- appropriation, whether of pay or of booty, was brought against him. he was cast into prison. but when the brave are in danger, the saints send the fair to their help! moved by a holy dream, a greek lady lowered ropes from the roof of the tower to the dungeon wherein hardrada was cast. he escaped from the prison, he aroused his vaeringers, they flocked round their chief; he went to the house of his lady maria, bore her off to the galley, put out into the black sea, reached novgorod, (at the friendly court of whose king he had safely lodged his vast spoils,) sailed home to the north: and, after such feats as became sea-king of old, received half of norway from magnus, and on the death of his nephew the whole of that kingdom passed to his sway. a king so wise and so wealthy, so bold and so dread, had never yet been known in the north. and this was the king to whom came tostig the earl, with the offer of england's crown. it was one of the glorious nights of the north, and winter had already begun to melt into early spring, when two men sate under a kind of rustic porch of rough pine-logs, not very unlike those seen now in switzerland and the tyrol. this porch was constructed before a private door, to the rear of a long, low, irregular building of wood which enclosed two or more courtyards, and covering an immense space of ground. this private door seemed placed for the purpose of immediate descent to the sea; for the ledge of the rock over which the log-porch spread its rude roof, jutted over the ocean; and from it a rugged stair, cut through the crag, descended to the beach. the shore, with bold, strange, grotesque slab, and peak, and splinter, curved into a large creek; and close under the cliff were moored seven warships, high and tall, with prows and sterns all gorgeous with gilding in the light of the splendid moon. and that rude timber house, which seemed but a chain of barbarian huts linked into one, was a land palace of hardrada of norway; but the true halls of his royalty, the true seats of his empire, were the decks of those lofty war-ships. through the small lattice-work of the windows of the loghouse, lights blazed; from the roof-top smoke curled; from the hall on the other side of the dwelling, came the din of tumultuous wassail, but the intense stillness of the outer air, hushed in frost, and luminous with stars, contrasted and seemed to rebuke the gross sounds of human revel. and that northern night seemed almost as bright as (but how much more augustly calm, than) the noon of the golden south! on a table within the ample porch was an immense bowl of birchwood, mounted in silver, and filled with potent drink, and two huge horns, of size suiting the mighty wassailers of the age. the two men seemed to care nought for the stern air of the cold night--true that they were wrapped in furs reft from the polar bear. but each had hot thoughts within, that gave greater warmth to the veins than the bowl or the bearskin. they were host and guest; and as if with the restlessness of his thoughts, the host arose from his seat, and passed through the porch and stood on the bleak rock under the light of the moon; and so seen, he seemed scarcely human, but some war-chief of the farthest time,-- yea, of a time ere the deluge had shivered those rocks, and left beds on the land for the realm of that icy sea. for harold hardrada was in height above all the children of modern men. five ells of norway made the height of harold hardrada [ ]. nor was this stature accompanied by any of those imperfections in symmetry, nor by that heaviness of aspect, which generally render any remarkable excess above human stature and strength rather monstrous than commanding. on the contrary, his proportions were just; his appearance noble; and the sole defect that the chronicler remarks in his shape, was "that his hands and feet were large, but these were well made." [ ] his face had all the fair beauty of the norseman; his hair, parted in locks of gold over a brow that bespoke the daring of the warrior and the genius of the bard, fell in glittering profusion to his shoulders; a short beard and long moustache of the same colour as the hair, carefully trimmed, added to the grand and masculine beauty of the countenance, in which the only blemish was the peculiarity of one eyebrow being somewhat higher than the other [ ], which gave something more sinister to his frown, something more arch to his smile. for, quick of impulse, the poet-titan smiled and frowned often. harold hardrada stood in the light of the moon, and gazing thoughtfully on the luminous sea. tostig marked him for some moments where he sate in the porch, and then rose and joined him. "why should my words so disturb thee, o king of the norseman?" "is glory, then, a drug that soothes to sleep?" returned the norwegian. "i like thine answer," said tostig, smiling, "and i like still more to watch thine eye gazing on the prows of thy war-ships. strange indeed it were if thou, who hast been fighting fifteen years for the petty kingdom of denmark, shouldst hesitate now, when all england lies before thee to seize." "i hesitate," replied the king, "because he whom fortune has befriended so long, should beware how he strain her favour too far. eighteen pitched battles fought i in the saracen land, and in every one was a victor--never, at home or abroad, have i known shame and defeat. doth the wind always blow from one point?--and is fate less unstable than the wind?" "now, out on thee, harold hardrada," said tostig the fierce; "the good pilot wins his way through all winds, and the brave heart fastens fate to its flag. all men allow that the north never had warrior like thee; and now, in the mid-day of manhood, wilt thou consent to repose on the mere triumph of youth?" "nay," said the king, who, like all true poets, had something of the deep sense of a sage, and was, indeed, regarded as the most prudent as well as the most adventurous chief in the northland,--"nay, it is not by such words, which my soul seconds too well, that thou canst entrap a ruler of men. thou must show me the chances of success, as thou wouldst to a grey-beard. for we should be as old men before we engage, and as youths when we wish to perform." then the traitor succinctly detailed all the weak points in the rule of his brother. a treasury exhausted by the lavish and profitless waste of edward; a land without castle or bulwark, even at the mouths of the rivers; a people grown inert by long peace, and so accustomed to own lord and king in the northern invaders, that a single successful battle might induce half the population to insist on the saxon coming to terms with the foe, and yielding, as ironsides did to canute, one half of the realm. he enlarged on the terror of the norsemen that still existed throughout england, and the affinity between the northumbrians and east anglians with the race of hardrada. that affinity would not prevent them from resisting at the first; but grant success, and it would reconcile them to the after sway. and, finally, he aroused hardrada's emulation by the spur of the news, that the count of the normans would seize the prize if he himself delayed to forestall him. these various representations, and the remembrance of canute's victory, decided hardrada; and, when tostig ceased, he stretched his hand towards his slumbering warships, and exclaimed: "eno'; you have whetted the beaks of the ravens, and harnessed the steeds of the sea!" chapter vii. meanwhile, king harold of england had made himself dear to his people, and been true to the fame he had won as harold the earl. from the moment of his accession, "he showed himself pious, humble, and affable [ ], and omitted no occasions to show any token of bounteous liberality, gentleness, and courteous behaviour."--"the grievous customs, also, and taxes which his predecessors had raised, he either abolished or diminished; the ordinary wages of his servants and men- of-war he increased, and further showed himself very well bent to all virtue and goodness." [ ] extracting the pith from these eulogies, it is clear that, as wise statesman no less than as good king, harold sought to strengthen himself in the three great elements of regal power;--conciliation of the church, which had been opposed to his father; the popular affection, on which his sole claim to the crown reposed; and the military force of the land, which had been neglected in the reign of his peaceful predecessor. to the young atheling he accorded a respect not before paid to him; and, while investing the descendant of the ancient line with princely state, and endowing him with large domains, his soul, too great for jealousy, sought to give more substantial power to his own most legitimate rival, by tender care and noble counsels,--by efforts to raise a character feeble by nature, and denationalised by foreign rearing. in the same broad and generous policy, harold encouraged all the merchants from other countries who had settled in england, nor were even such normans as had escaped the general sentence of banishment on godwin's return, disturbed in their possessions. "in brief," saith the anglo-norman chronicler [ ], "no man was more prudent in the land, more valiant in arms, in the law more sagacious, in all probity more accomplished:" and "ever active," says more mournfully the saxon writer, "for the good of his country, he spared himself no fatigue by land or by sea." [ ] from this time, harold's private life ceased. love and its charms were no more. the glow of romance had vanished. he was not one man; he was the state, the representative, the incarnation of saxon england: his sway and the saxon freedom, to live or fall together! the soul really grand is only tested in its errors. as we know the true might of the intellect by the rich resources and patient strength with which it redeems a failure, so do we prove the elevation of the soul by its courageous return into light, its instinctive rebound into higher air, after some error that has darkened its vision and soiled its plumes. a spirit less noble and pure than harold's, once entering on the dismal world of enchanted superstition, had habituated itself to that nether atmosphere; once misled from hardy truth and healthful reason, it had plunged deeper and deeper into the maze. but, unlike his contemporary, macbeth, the man escaped from the lures of the fiend. not as hecate in hell, but as dian in heaven, did he confront the pale goddess of night. before that hour in which he had deserted the human judgment for the ghostly delusion; before that day in which the brave heart, in its sudden desertion, had humbled his pride--the man, in his nature, was more strong than the god. now, purified by the flame that had scorched, and more nerved from the fall that had stunned,--that great soul rose sublime through the wrecks of the past, serene through the clouds of the future, concentering in its solitude the destinies of mankind, and strong with instinctive eternity amidst all the terrors of time. king harold came from york, whither he had gone to cement the new power of morcar, in northumbria, and personally to confirm the allegiance of the anglo-danes:--king harold came from york, and in the halls of westminster he found a monk who awaited him with the messages of william the norman. bare-footed, and serge-garbed, the norman envoy strode to the saxon's chair of state. his form was worn with mortification and fast, and his face was hueless and livid, with the perpetual struggle between zeal and flesh. "thus saith william, count of the normans," began hugues maigrot, the monk. "with grief and amaze hath he heard that you, o harold, his sworn liege-man, have, contrary to oath and to fealty, assumed the crown that belongs to himself. but, confiding in thy conscience, and forgiving a moment's weakness, he summons thee, mildly and brother- like, to fulfil thy vow. send thy sister, that he may gave her in marriage to one of his quens. give him up the stronghold of dover; march to thy coast with thine armies to aid him,--thy liege lord,--and secure him the heritage of edward his cousin. and thou shalt reign at his right-hand, his daughter thy bride, northumbria thy fief, and the saints thy protectors." the king's lip was firm, though pale, as he answered: "my young sister, alas! is no more: seven nights after i ascended the throne, she died: her dust in the grave is all i could send to the arms of the bridegroom. i cannot wed the child of thy count: the wife of harold sits beside him." and he pointed to the proud beauty of aldyth, enthroned under the drapery of gold. "for the vow that i took, i deny it not. but from a vow of compulsion, menaced with unworthy captivity, extorted from my lips by the very need of the land whose freedom had been bound in my chains--from a vow so compelled, church and conscience absolve me. if the vow of a maiden on whom to bestow but her hand, when unknown to her parents, is judged invalid by the church, how much more invalid the oath that would bestow on a stranger the fates of a nation [ ], against its knowledge, and unconsulting its laws! this royalty of england hath ever rested on the will of the people, declared through its chiefs in their solemn assembly. they alone who could bestow it, have bestowed it on me:--i have no power to resign it to another--and were i in my grave, the trust of the crown would not pass to the norman, but return to the saxon people." "is this, then, thy answer, unhappy son?" said the monk, with a sullen and gloomy aspect. "such is my answer." "then, sorrowing for thee, i utter the words of william. 'with sword and with mail will he come to punish the perjurer: and by the aid of st. michael, archangel of war, he will conquer his own.' amen." "by sea and by land, with sword and with mail, will we meet the invader," answered the king, with a flashing eye. "thou hast said:-- so depart." the monk turned and withdrew. "let the priest's insolence chafe thee not, sweet lord," said aldyth. "for the vow which thou mightest take as subject, what matters it now thou art king?" harold made no answer to aldyth, but turned to his chamberlain, who stood behind his throne chair. "are my brothers without?" "they are: and my lord the king's chosen council." "admit them: pardon, aldyth; affairs fit only for men claim me now." the lady of england took the hint, and rose. "but the even-mete will summon thee soon," said she. harold, who had already descended from his chair of state, and was bending over a casket of papers on the table, replied: "there is food here till the morrow; wait me not." aldyth sighed, and withdrew at the one door, while the thegns most in harold's confidence entered at the other. but, once surrounded by her maidens, aldyth forgot all, save that she was again a queen,--forgot all, even to the earlier and less gorgeous diadem which her lord's hand had shattered on the brows of the son of pendragon. leofwine, still gay and blithe-hearted, entered first: gurth followed, then haco, then some half-score of the greater thegns. they seated themselves at the table, and gurth spoke first: "tostig has been with count william." "i know it," said harold. "it is rumoured that he has passed to our uncle sweyn." "i foresaw it," said the king. "and that sweyn will aid him to reconquer england for the dane." "my bode reached sweyn, with letters from githa, before tostig; my bode has returned this day. sweyn has dismissed tostig; sweyn will send fifty ships, armed with picked men, to the aid of england." "brother," cried leofwine, admiringly, "thou providest against danger ere we but surmise it." "tostig," continued the king, unheeding the compliment, "will be the first assailant: him we must meet. his fast friend is malcolm of scotland: him we must secure. go thou, leofwine, with these letters to malcolm.--the next fear is from the welch. go thou, edwin of mercia, to the princes of wales. on thy way, strengthen the forts and deepen the dykes of the marches. these tablets hold thy instructions. the norman, as doubtless ye know, my thegns, hath sent to demand our crown, and hath announced the coming of his war. with the dawn i depart to our port at sandwich [ ], to muster our fleets. thou with me, gurth." "these preparations need much treasure," said an old thegn, "and thou hast lessened the taxes at the hour of need." "not yet is it the hour of need. when it comes, our people will the more readily meet it with their gold as with their iron. there was great wealth in the house of godwin; that wealth mans the ships of england. what hast thou there, haco?" "thy new-issued coin: it hath on its reverse the word peace." [ ] who ever saw one of those coins of the last saxon king, the bold simple head on the one side, that single word "peace" on the other, and did not feel awed and touched! what pathos in that word compared with the fate which it failed to propitiate! "peace," said harold: "to all that doth not render peace, slavery. yea, may i live to leave peace to our children! now, peace only rests on our preparation for war. you, morcar, will return with all speed to york, and look well to the mouth of the humber." then, turning to each of the thegns successively he gave to each his post and his duty; and that done, converse grew more general. the many things needful that had been long rotting in neglect under the monk-king, and now sprung up, craving instant reform, occupied them long and anxiously. but cheered and inspirited by the vigour and foresight of harold, whose earlier slowness of character seemed winged by the occasion into rapid decision (as is not uncommon with the englishman), all difficulties seemed light, and hope and courage were in every breast. chapter viii. back went hugues maigrot, the monk, to william, and told the reply of harold to the duke, in the presence of lanfranc. william himself heard it in gloomy silence, for fitzosborne as yet had been wholly unsuccessful in stirring up the norman barons to an expedition so hazardous, in a cause so doubtful; and though prepared for the defiance of harold, the duke was not prepared with the means to enforce his threats and make good his claim. so great was his abstraction, that he suffered the lombard to dismiss the monk without a word spoken by him; and he was first startled from his reverie by lanfranc's pale hand on his vast shoulder, and lanfranc's low voice in his dreamy ear: "up! hero of europe: for thy cause is won! up! and write with thy bold characters, bold as if graved with the point of the sword, my credentials to rome. let me depart ere the sun sets: and as i go, look on the sinking orb, and behold the sun of the saxon that sets evermore on england!" then briefly, that ablest statesman of the age, (and forgive him, despite our modern lights, we must; for, sincere son of the church, he regarded the violated oath of harold as entailing the legitimate forfeiture of his realm, and, ignorant of true political freedom, looked upon church and learning as the only civilisers of men,) then, briefly, lanfranc detailed to the listening norman the outline of the arguments by which he intended to move the pontifical court to the norman side; and enlarged upon the vast accession throughout all europe which the solemn sanction of the church would bring to his strength. william's reawaking and ready intellect soon seized upon the importance of the object pressed upon him. he interrupted the lombard, drew pen and parchment towards him, and wrote rapidly. horses were harnessed, horsemen equipped in haste, and with no unfitting retinue lanfranc departed on the mission, the most important in its consequences that ever passed from potentate to pontiff. [ ] rebraced to its purpose by lanfranc's cheering assurances, the resolute, indomitable soul of william now applied itself, night and day, to the difficult task of rousing his haughty vavasours. yet weeks passed before he could even meet a select council composed of his own kinsmen and most trusted lords. these, however, privately won over, promised to serve him "with body and goods." but one and all they told him, he must gain the consent of the whole principality in a general council. that council was convened: thither came not only lords and knights, but merchants and traders,--all the rising middle class of a thriving state. the duke bared his wrongs, his claims, and his schemes. the assembly would not or did not discuss the matter in his presence, they would not be awed by its influence; and william retired from the hall. various were the opinions, stormy the debate; and so great the disorder grew, that fitzosborne, rising in the midst, exclaimed: "why this dispute?--why this unduteous discord? is not william your lord? hath he not need of you? fail him now--and, you know him well --by g--- he will remember it! aid him--and you know him well--large are his rewards to service and love!" up rose at once baron and merchant; and when at last their spokesman was chosen, that spokesman said: "william is our lord; is it not enough to pay to our lord his dues? no aid do we owe beyond the seas! sore harassed and taxed are we already by his wars! let him fail in this strange and unparalleled hazard, and our land is undone!" loud applause followed this speech; the majority of the council were against the duke. "then," said fitzosborne, craftily, "i, who know the means of each man present, will, with your leave, represent your necessities to your count, and make such modest offer of assistance as may please ye, yet not chafe your liege." into the trap of this proposal the opponents fell; and fitzosborne, at the head of the body, returned to william. the lord of breteuil approached the dais, on which william sate alone, his great sword in his hand, and thus spoke: "my liege, i may well say that never prince has people more leal than yours, nor that have more proved their faith and love by the burdens they have borne and the monies they have granted." an universal murmur of applause followed these words. "good! good!" almost shouted the merchants especially. william's brows met, and he looked very terrible. the lord of breteuil gracefully waved his hand, and resumed: "yea, my liege, much have they borne for your glory and need; much more will they bear." the faces of the audience fell. "their service does not compel them to aid you beyond the seas." the faces of the audience brightened. "but now they will aid you, in the land of the saxon as in that of the frank." "how?" cried a stray voice or two. "hush, o gentilz amys. forward, then, o my liege, and spare them in nought. he who has hitherto supplied you with two good mounted soldiers, will now grant you four; and he who--" "no, no, no!" roared two-thirds of the assembly; "we charged you with no such answer; we said not that, nor that shall it be!" out stepped a baron. "within this country, to defend it, we will serve our count; but to aid him to conquer another man's country, no!" out stepped a knight. "if once we rendered this double service, beyond seas as at home, it would be held a right and a custom hereafter; and we should be as mercenary soldiers, not free-born normans." out stepped a merchant. "and we and our children would be burdened for ever to feed one man's ambition, whenever he saw a king to dethrone, or a realm to seize." and then cried a general chorus: "'t shall not be--it shall not!" the assembly broke at once into knots of tens, twenties, thirties, gesticulating and speaking aloud, like freemen in anger. and ere william, with all his prompt dissimulation, could do more than smother his rage, and sit griping his sword hilt, and setting his teeth, the assembly dispersed. such were the free souls of the normans under the greatest of their chiefs; and had those souls been less free, england had not been enslaved in one age, to become free again, god grant, to the end of time! chapter ix. through the blue skies over england there rushed the bright stranger-- a meteor, a comet, a fiery star! "such as no man before ever saw;" it appeared on the th, before the kalends of may; seven nights did it shine [ ], and the faces of sleepless men were pale under the angry glare. the river of thames rushed blood-red in the beam, the winds at play on the broad waves of the humber, broke the surge of the billows into sparkles of fire. with three streamers, sharp and long as the sting of a dragon, the foreboder of wrath rushed through the hosts of the stars. on every ruinous fort, by sea-coast and march, the warder crossed his breast to behold it; on hill and in thoroughfare, crowds nightly assembled to gaze on the terrible star. muttering hymns, monks hudded together round the altars, as if to exorcise the land of a demon. the gravestone of the saxon father-chief was lit up, as with the coil of the lightning; and the morthwyrtha looked from the mound, and saw in her visions of awe the valkyrs in the train of the fiery star. on the roof of his palace stood harold the king, and with folded arms he looked on the rider of night. and up the stairs of the turret came the soft steps of haco, and stealing near to the king, he said: "arm in haste, for the bodes have come breathless to tell thee that tostig, thy brother, with pirate and war-ship, is wasting thy shores and slaughtering thy people!" chapter x. tostig, with the ships he had gained both from norman and norwegian, recruited by flemish adventurers, fled fast from the banners of harold. after plundering the isle of wight, and the hampshire coasts, he sailed up the humber, where his vain heart had counted on friends yet left him in his ancient earldom; but harold's soul of vigour was everywhere. morcar, prepared by the king's bodes, encountered and chased the traitor, and, deserted by most of his ships, with but twelve small craft tostig gained the shores of scotland. there, again forestalled by the saxon king, he failed in succour from malcolm, and retreating to the orkneys, waited the fleets of hardrada. and now harold, thus at freedom for defence against a foe more formidable and less unnatural, hastened to make secure both the sea and the coast against william the norman. "so great a ship force, so great a land force, no king in the land had before." all the summer, his fleets swept the channel; his forces "lay everywhere by the sea." but alas! now came the time when the improvident waste of edward began to be felt. provisions and pay for the armaments failed [ ]. on the defective resources at harold's disposal, no modern historian hath sufficiently dwelt. the last saxon king, the chosen of the people, had not those levies, and could impose not those burdens which made his successors mighty in war; and men began now to think that, after all, there was no fear of this norman invasion. the summer was gone; the autumn was come; was it likely that william would dare to trust himself in an enemy's country as the winter drew near? the saxons-- unlike their fiercer kindred of scandinavia, had no pleasure in war;-- they fought well in front of a foe, but they loathed the tedious preparations and costly sacrifices which prudence demanded for self- defence. they now revolted from a strain upon their energies, of the necessity of which they were not convinced! joyous at the temporary defeat of tostig, men said, "marry, a joke indeed, that the norman will put his shaven head into the hornets' nest! let him come, if he dare!" still, with desperate effort, and at much risk of popularity, harold held together a force sufficient to repel any single invader. from the time of his accession his sleepless vigilance had kept watch on the norman, and his spies brought him news of all that passed. and now what had passed in the councils of william? the abrupt disappointment which the grand assembly had occasioned him did not last very long. made aware that he could not trust to the spirit of an assembly, william now artfully summoned merchant, and knight, and baron, one by one. submitted to the eloquence, the promises, the craft, of that master intellect, and to the awe of that imposing presence; unassisted by the courage which inferiors take from numbers, one by one yielded to the will of the count, and subscribed his quota for monies, for ships, and for men. and while this went on, lanfranc was at work in the vatican. at that time the archdeacon of the roman church was the famous hildebrand. this extraordinary man, fit fellow- spirit to lanfranc, nursed one darling project, the success of which indeed founded the true temporal power of the roman pontiffs. it was no less than that of converting the mere religious ascendancy of the holy see into the actual sovereignty over the states of christendom. the most immediate agents of this gigantic scheme were the normans, who had conquered naples by the arm of the adventurer robert guiscard, and under the gonfanon of st. peter. most of the new norman countships and dukedoms thus created in italy had declared themselves fiefs of the church; and the successor of the apostle might well hope, by aid of the norman priest-knights, to extend his sovereignty over italy, and then dictate to the kings beyond the alps. the aid of hildebrand in behalf of william's claims was obtained at once by lanfranc. the profound archdeacon of rome saw at a glance the immense power that would accrue to the church by the mere act of arrogating to itself the disposition of crowns, subjecting rival princes to abide by its decision, and fixing the men of its choice on the thrones of the north. despite all its slavish superstition, the saxon church was obnoxious to rome. even the pious edward had offended, by withholding the old levy of peter pence; and simony, a crime peculiarly reprobated by the pontiff, was notorious in england. therefore there was much to aid hildebrand in the assembly of the cardinals, when he brought before them the oath of harold, the violation of the sacred relics, and demanded that the pious normans, true friends to the roman church, should be permitted to christianise the barbarous saxons [ ], and william he nominated as heir to a throne promised to him by edward, and forfeited by the perjury of harold. nevertheless, to the honour of that assembly, and of man, there was a holy opposition to this wholesale barter of human rights-- this sanction of an armed onslaught on a christian people. "it is infamous," said the good, "to authorise homicide." but hildebrand was all-powerful, and prevailed. william was at high feast with his barons when lanfranc dismounted at his gates and entered his hall. "hail to thee, king of england!" he said. "i bring the bull that excommunicates harold and his adherents; i bring to thee the gift of the roman church, the land and royalty of england. i bring to thee the gonfanon hallowed by the heir of the apostle, and the very ring that contains the precious relic of the apostle himself! now who will shrink from thy side? publish thy ban, not in normandy alone, but in every region and realm where the church is honoured. this is the first war of the cross." then indeed was it seen--that might of the church! soon as were made known the sanction and gifts of the pope, all the continent stirred as to the blast of the trump in the crusade, of which that war was the herald. from maine and from anjou, from poitou and bretagne, from france and from flanders, from aquitaine and burgundy, flashed the spear, galloped the steed. the robber-chiefs from the castles now grey on the rhine; the hunters and bandits from the roots of the alps; baron and knight, varlet and vagrant,--all came to the flag of the church,--to the pillage of england. for side by side with the pope's holy bull was the martial ban:--"good pay and broad lands to every one who will serve count william with spear, and with sword, and with cross-bow." and the duke said to fitzosborne, as he parcelled out the fair fields of england into norman fiefs: "harold hath not the strength of mind to promise the least of those things that belong to me. but i have the right to promise that which is mine, and also that which belongs to him. he must be the victor who can give away both his own and what belongs to his foe." [ ] all on the continent of europe regarded england's king as accursed-- william's enterprise as holy; and mothers who had turned pale when their sons went forth to the boar-chase, sent their darlings to enter their names, for the weal of their souls, in the swollen muster-roll of william the norman. every port now in neustria was busy with terrible life; in every wood was heard the axe felling logs for the ships; from every anvil flew the sparks from the hammer, as iron took shape into helmet and sword. all things seemed to favour the church's chosen one. conan, count of bretagne, sent to claim the duchy of normandy, as legitimate heir. a few days afterwards, conan died, poisoned (as had died his father before him) by the mouth of his horn and the web of his gloves. and the new count of bretagne sent his sons to take part against harold. all the armament mustered at the roadstead of st. valery, at the mouth of the somme. but the winds were long hostile, and the rains fell in torrents. chapter xi. and now, while war thus hungered for england at the mouth of the somme, the last and most renowned of the sea-kings, harold hardrada, entered his galley, the tallest and strongest of a fleet of three hundred sail, that peopled the seas round solundir. and a man named gyrdir, on board the king's ship, dreamed a dream [ ]. he saw a great witch-wife standing on an isle of the sulen, with a fork in one hand and a trough in the other [ ]. he saw her pass over the whole fleet;--by each of the three hundred ships he saw her; and a fowl sat on the stern of each ship, and that fowl was a raven; and he heard the witch-wife sing this song: "from the east i allure him, at the west i secure him; in the feast i foresee rare the relics for me; red the drink, white the bones. the ravens sit greeding, and watching, and heeding; thoro' wind, over water, comes scent of the slaughter, and ravens sit greeding their share of the bones. thoro' wind, thoro' weather, we're sailing together; i sail with the ravens; i watch with the ravens; i snatch from the ravens my share of the bones." there was also a man called thord [ ], in a ship that lay near the king's; and he too dreamed a dream. he saw the fleet nearing land, and that land was england. and on the land was a battle-array two- fold, and many banners were flapping on both sides. and before the army of the landfolk was riding a huge witch-wife upon a wolf; the wolf had a man's carcase in his mouth, and the blood was dripping and dropping from his jaws; and when the wolf had eaten up that carcase, the witch-wife threw another into his jaws; and so, one after another; and the wolf cranched and swallowed them all. and the witch-wife sang this song: "the green waving fields are hidden behind the flash of the shields, and the rush of the banners that toss in the wind. but skade's eagle eyes pierce the wall of the steel, and behold from the skies what the earth would conceal; o'er the rush of the banners she poises her wing, and marks with a shadow the brow of the king. and, in bode of his doom, jaw of wolf, be the tomb of the bones and the flesh, gore-bedabbled and fresh, that cranch and that drip under fang and from lip. as i ride in the van of the feasters on man, with the king! grim wolf, sate my maw, full enow shall there be. hairy jaw, hungry maw, both for ye and for me! meaner food be the feast of the fowl and the beast; but the witch, for her share, takes the best of the fare and the witch shall be fed with the king of the dead, when she rides in the van of the slayers of man, with the king." and king harold dreamed a dream. and he saw before him his brother, st. olave. and the dead, to the scald-king sang this song: "bold as thou in the fight, blithe as thou in the hall, shone the noon of my might, ere the night of my fall! how humble is death, and how haughty is life; and how fleeting the breath between slumber and strife! all the earth is too narrow, o life, for thy tread! two strides o'er the barrow can measure the dead. yet mighty that space is which seemeth so small; the realm of all races, with room for them all!" but harold hardrada scorned witch-wife and dream; and his fleets sailed on. tostig joined him off the orkney isles, and this great armament soon came in sight of the shores of england. they landed at cleveland [ ], and at the dread of the terrible norsemen, the coastmen fled or submitted. with booty and plunder they sailed on to scarborough, but there the townsfolk were brave, and the walls were strong. the norsemen ascended a hill above the town, lit a huge pile of wood, and tossed the burning piles down on the roofs. house after house caught the flame, and through the glare and the crash rushed the men of hardrada. great was the slaughter, and ample the plunder; and the town, awed and depeopled, submitted to flame and to sword. then the fleet sailed up the humber and ouse, and landed at richall, not far from york; but morcar, the earl of northumbria, came out with all his forces,--all the stout men and tall of the great race of the anglo-dane. then hardrada advanced his flag, called land-eyda, the "ravager of the world," [ ] and, chaunting a war-stave,--led his men to the onslaught. the battle was fierce, but short. the english troops were defeated, they fled into york; and the ravager of the world was borne in triumph to the gates of the town. an exiled chief, however tyrannous and hateful, hath ever some friends among the desperate and lawless; and success ever finds allies among the weak and the craven,--so many northumbrians now came to the side of tostig. dissension and mutiny broke out amidst the garrison within; morcar, unable to control the townsfolk, was driven forth with those still true to their country and king, and york agreed to open its gates to the conquering invader. at the news of this foe on the north side of the land, king harold was compelled to withdraw all the forces at watch in the south against the tardy invasion of william. it was the middle of september; eight months had elapsed since the norman had launched forth his vaunting threat. would he now dare to come?--come or not, that foe was afar, and this was in the heart of the country! now, york having thus capitulated, all the land round was humbled and awed; and hardrada and tostig were blithe and gay; and many days, thought they, must pass ere harold the king can come from the south to the north. the camp of the norsemen was at standford bridge, and that day it was settled that they should formally enter york. their ships lay in the river beyond; a large portion of the armament was with the ships. the day was warm, and the men with hardrada had laid aside their heavy mail and were "making merry," talking of the plunder of york, jeering at saxon valour, and gloating over thoughts of the saxon maids, whom saxon men had failed to protect,--when suddenly between them and the town rose and rolled a great cloud of dust. high it rose, and fast it rolled, and from the heart of the cloud shone the spear and the shield. "what army comes yonder?" said harold hardrada. "surely," answered tostig, "it comes from the town that we are to enter as conquerors, and can be but the friendly northumbrians who have deserted morcar for me." nearer and nearer came the force, and the shine of the arms was like the glancing of ice. "advance the world-ravager!" cried harold hardrada, "draw up, and to arms!" then, picking out three of his briskest youths, he despatched them to the force on the river with orders to come up quick to the aid. for already, through the cloud and amidst the spears, was seen the flag of the english king. on the previous night king harold had entered york, unknown to the invaders--appeased the mutiny--cheered the townsfolks; and now came like a thunderbolt borne by the winds, to clear the air of england from the clouds of the north. both armaments drew up in haste, and hardrada formed his array in the form of a circle,--the line long but not deep, the wings curving round till they met [ ], shield to shield. those who stood in the first rank set their spear shafts on the ground, the points level with the breast of a horseman; those in the second, with spears yet lower, level with the breast of a horse; thus forming a double palisade against the charge of cavalry. in the centre of this circle was placed the ravager of the world, and round it a rampart of shields. behind that rampart was the accustomed post at the onset of battle for the king and his body-guard. but tostig was in front, with his own northumbrian lion banner, and his chosen men. while this army was thus being formed, the english king was marshalling his force in the far more formidable tactics, which his military science had perfected from the warfare of the danes. that form of battalion, invincible hitherto under his leadership, was in the manner of a wedge or triangle. so that, in attack, the men marched on the foe presenting the smallest possible surface to the missives, and in defence, all three lines faced the assailants. king harold cast his eye over the closing lines, and then, turning to gurth, who rode by his side, said: "take one man from yon hostile army, and with what joy should we charge on the northmen!" "i conceive thee," answered gurth, mournfully, "and the same thought of that one man makes my arm feel palsied." the king mused, and drew down the nasal bar of his helmet. "thegns," said he suddenly, to the score of riders who grouped round him, "follow." and shaking the rein of his horse, king harold rode straight to that part of the hostile front from which rose, above the spears, the northumbrian banner of tostig. wondering, but mute, the twenty thegns followed him. before the grim array, and hard by tostig's banner, the king checked his steed and cried: "is tostig, the son of godwin and githa, by the flag of the northumbrian earldom?" with his helmet raised, and his norwegian mantle flowing over his mail, earl tostig rode forth at that voice, and came up to the speaker. [ ] "what wouldst thou with me, daring foe?" the saxon horseman paused, and his deep voice trembled tenderly, as he answered slowly: "thy brother, king harold, sends to salute thee. let not the sons from the same womb wage unnatural war in the soil of their fathers." "what will harold the king give to his brother?" answered tostig, "northumbria already he hath bestowed on the son of his house's foe." the saxon hesitated, and a rider by his side took up the word. "if the northumbrians will receive thee again, northumbria shalt thou have, and the king will bestow his late earldom of wessex on morcar; if the northumbrians reject thee, thou shalt have all the lordships which king harold hath promised to gurth." "this is well," answered tostig; and he seemed to pause as in doubt;-- when, made aware of this parley, king harold hardrada, on his coal- black steed, with his helm all shining with gold, rode from the lines, and came into hearing. "ha!" said tostig, then turning round, as the giant form of the norse king threw its vast shadow over the ground. "and if i take the offer, what will harold son of godwin give to my friend and ally hardrada of norway?" the saxon rider reared his head at these words, and gazed on the large front of hardrada, as he answered, loud and distinct: "seven feet of land for a grave, or, seeing that he is taller than other men, as much more as his corse may demand!" "then go back, and tell harold my brother to get ready for battle; for never shall the scalds and the warriors of norway say that tostig lured their king in his cause, to betray him to his foe. here did he come, and here came i, to win as the brave win, or die as the brave die!" a rider of younger and slighter form than the rest, here whispered the saxon king: "delay no more, or thy men's hearts will fear treason." "the tie is rent from my heart, o haco," answered the king, "and the heart flies back to our england." he waved his hand, turned his steed, and rode off. the eye of hardrada followed the horseman. "and who," he asked calmly, "is that man who spoke so well?" [ ] "king harold!" answered tostig, briefly. "how!" cried the norseman, reddening, "how was not that made known to me before? never should he have gone back,--never told hereafter the doom of this day!" with all his ferocity, his envy, his grudge to harold, and his treason to england, some rude notions of honour still lay confused in the breast of the saxon; and he answered stoutly: "imprudent was harold's coming, and great his danger; but he came to offer me peace and dominion. had i betrayed him, i had not been his foe, but his murderer!" the norse king smiled approvingly, and, turning to his chiefs, said drily: "that man was shorter than some of us, but he rode firm in his stirrups." and then this extraordinary person, who united in himself all the types of an age that vanished for ever in his grave, and who is the more interesting, as in him we see the race from which the norman sprang, began, in the rich full voice that pealed deep as an organ, to chaunt his impromptu war-song. he halted in the midst, and with great composure said: "that verse is but ill-tuned: i must try a better." [ ] he passed his hand over his brow, mused an instant, and then, with his fair face all illumined, he burst forth as inspired. this time, air, rhythm, words, all so chimed in with his own enthusiasm and that of his men, that the effect was inexpressible. it was, indeed, like the charm of those runes which are said to have maddened the berserker with the frenzy of war. meanwhile the saxon phalanx came on, slow and firm, and in a few minutes the battle began. it commenced first with the charge of the english cavalry (never numerous), led by leofwine and haco, but the double palisade of the norman spears formed an impassable barrier; and the horsemen, recoiling from the frieze, rode round the iron circle without other damage than the spear and javelin could effect. meanwhile, king harold, who had dismounted, marched, as was his wont, with the body of footmen. he kept his post in the hollow of the triangular wedge; whence he could best issue his orders. avoiding the side over which tostig presided, he halted his array in full centre of the enemy, where the ravager of the world, streaming high above the inner rampart of shields, showed the presence of the giant hardrada. the air was now literally darkened with the flights of arrows and spears; and in a war of missives, the saxons were less skilled than the norsemen. still king harold restrained the ardour of his men, who, sore harassed by the darts, yearned to close on the foe. he himself, standing on a little eminence, more exposed than his meanest soldier, deliberately eyed the sallies of the horse, and watched the moment he foresaw, when, encouraged by his own suspense and the feeble attacks of the cavalry, the norsemen would lift their spears from the ground, and advance themselves to the assault. that moment came; unable to withhold their own fiery zeal, stimulated by the tromp and the clash, and the war hymns of their king, and his choral scalds, the norsemen broke ground and came on. "to your axes, and charge!" cried harold; and passing at once from the centre to the front, he led on the array. the impetus of that artful phalanx was tremendous; it pierced through the ring of the norwegians; it clove into the rampart of shields; and king harold's battle-axe was the first that shivered that wall of steel; his step the first that strode into the innermost circle that guarded the ravager of the world. then forth, from under the shade of that great flag, came, himself also on foot, harold hardrada: shouting and chaunting, he leapt with long strides into the thick of the onslaught. he had flung away his shield, and swaying with both hands his enormous sword, he hewed down man after man till space grew clear before him; and the english, recoiling in awe before an image of height and strength that seemed superhuman, left but one form standing firm, and in front, to oppose his way. at that moment the whole strife seemed not to belong to an age comparatively modern, it took a character of remotest eld; and thor and odin seemed to have returned to the earth. behind this towering and titan warrior, their wild hair streaming long under their helms, came his scalds, all singing their hymns, drunk with the madness of battle. and the ravager of the world tossed and flapped as it followed, so that the vast raven depicted on its folds seemed horrid with life. and calm and alone, his eye watchful, his axe lifted, his foot ready for rush or for spring--but firm as an oak against flight-- stood the last of the saxon kings. down bounded hardrada, and down shore his sword; king harold's shield was cloven in two, and the force of the blow brought himself to his knee. but, as swift as the flash of that sword, he sprang to his feet; and while hardrada still bowed his head, not recovered from the force of his blow, the axe of the saxon came so full on his helmet, that the giant reeled, dropped his sword, and staggered back; his scalds and his chiefs rushed around him. that gallant stand of king harold saved his english from flight; and now, as they saw him almost lost in the throng, yet still cleaving his way--on, on--to the raven standard, they rallied with one heart, and shouting forth, "out, out! holy crosse!" forced their way to his side, and the fight now waged hot and equal, hand to hand. meanwhile hardrada, borne a little apart, and relieved from his dinted helmet, recovered the shock of the weightiest blow that had ever dimmed his eye and numbed his hand. tossing the helmet on the ground, his bright locks glittering like sun-beams, he rushed back to the melee. again helm and mail went down before him; again through the crowd he saw the arm that had smitten him; again he sprang forwards to finish the war with a blow,--when a shaft from some distant bow pierced the throat which the casque now left bare; a sound like the wail of a death-song murmured brokenly from his lips, which then gushed out with blood, and tossing up his arms wildly, he fell to the ground, a corpse. at that sight, a yell of such terror, and woe, and wrath all commingled, broke from the norsemen, that it hushed the very war for the moment! "on!" cried the saxon king; "let our earth take its spoiler! on to the standard, and the day is our own!" "on to the standard!" cried haco, who, his horse slain under him, all bloody with wounds not his own, now came to the king's side. grim and tall rose the standard, and the streamer shrieked and flapped in the wind as if the raven had voice, when, right before harold, right between him and the banner, stood tostig his brother, known by the splendour of his mail, the gold work on his mantle--known by the fierce laugh, and the defying voice. "what matters!" cried haco; "strike, o king, for thy crown!" harold's hand griped haco's arm convulsively; he lowered his axe, turned round, and passed shudderingly away. both armies now paused from the attack; for both were thrown into great disorder, and each gladly gave respite to the other, to re-form its own shattered array. the norsemen were not the soldiers to yield because their leader was slain--rather the more resolute to fight, since revenge was now added to valour; yet, but for the daring and promptness with which tostig had cut his way to the standard, the day had been already decided. during the pause, harold summoning gurth, said to him in great emotion, "for the sake of nature, for the love of god, go, o gurth,-- go to tostig; urge him, now hardrada is dead, urge him to peace. all that we can proffer with honour, proffer--quarter and free retreat to every norseman [ ]. oh, save me, save us, from a brother's blood!" gurth lifted his helmet, and kissed the mailed hand that grasped his own. "i go," said he. and so, bareheaded, and with a single trumpeter, he went to the hostile lines. harold awaited him in great agitation; nor could any man have guessed what bitter and awful thoughts lay in that heart, from which, in the way to power, tie after tie had been wrenched away. he did not wait long; and even before gurth rejoined him, he knew by an unanimous shout of fury, to which the clash of countless shields chimed in, that the mission had been in vain. tostig had refused to hear gurth, save in presence of the norwegian chiefs; and when the message had been delivered, they all cried, "we would rather fall one across the corpse of the other [ ], than leave a field in which our king was slain." "ye hear them," said tostig; "as they speak, speak i" "not mine this guilt, too, o god!" said harold, solemnly lifting his hand on high. "now, then, to duty." by this time the norwegian reinforcements had arrived from the ships, and this for a short time rendered the conflict, that immediately ensued, uncertain and critical. but harold's generalship was now as consummate as his valour had been daring. he kept his men true to their irrefragable line. even if fragments splintered off, each fragment threw itself into the form of the resistless wedge. one norwegian, standing on the bridge of stanford, long guarded that pass; and no less than forty saxons are said to have perished by his arm. to him the english king sent a generous pledge, not only of safety for the life, but honour for the valour. the viking refused to surrender, and fell at last by a javelin from the hand of haco. as if in him had been embodied the unyielding war-god of the norsemen, in that death died the last hope of the vikings. they fell literally where they stood; many, from sheer exhaustion and the weight of their mail, died without a blow [ ]. and in the shades of nightfall, harold stood amidst the shattered rampart of shields, his foot on the corpse of the standard-bearer, his hand on the ravager of the world. "thy brother's corpse is borne yonder," said haco in the ear of the king, as wiping the blood from his sword, he plunged it back into the sheath. chapter xii. young olave, the son of hardrada, had happily escaped the slaughter. a strong detachment of the norwegians had still remained with the vessels, and amongst them some prudent old chiefs, who foreseeing the probable results of the day, and knowing that hardrada would never quit, save as a conqueror or a corpse, the field on which he had planted the ravager of the world, had detained the prince almost by force from sharing the fate of his father. but ere those vessels could put out to sea, the vigorous measures of the saxon king had already intercepted the retreat of the vessels. and then, ranging their shields as a wall round their masts, the bold vikings at least determined to die as men. but with the morning came king harold himself to the banks of the river, and behind him, with trailed lances, a solemn procession that bore the body of the scald king. they halted on the margin, and a boat was launched towards the norwegian fleet, bearing a monk, who demanded the chief, to send a deputation, headed by the young prince himself, to receive the corpse of their king, and hear the proposals of the saxon. the vikings, who had anticipated no preliminaries to the massacre they awaited, did not hesitate to accept these overtures. twelve of the most famous chiefs still surviving, and olave himself, entered the boat; and, standing between his brothers, leofwine and gurth, harold thus accosted them: "your king invaded a people that had given him no offence; he has paid the forfeit--we war not with the dead! give to his remains the honours due to the brave. without ransom or condition, we yield to you what can no longer harm us. and for thee, young prince," continued the king, with a tone of pity in his voice, as he contemplated the stately boyhood, and proud, but deep grief in the face of olave; "for thee, wilt thou not live to learn that the wars of odin are treason to the faith of the cross? we have conquered--we dare not butcher. take such ships as ye need for those that survive. three-and-twenty i offer for your transport. return to your native shores, and guard them as we have guarded ours. are ye contented?" amongst those chiefs was a stern priest--the bishop of the orcades--he advanced and bent his knee to the king. "o lord of england," said he, "yesterday thou didst conquer the form-- to-day, the soul. and never more may generous norsemen invade the coast of him who honours the dead and spares the living." "amen!" cried the chiefs, and they all knelt to harold. the young prince stood a moment irresolute, for his dead father was on the bier before him, and revenge was yet a virtue in the heart of a sea-king. but lifting his eyes to harold's, the mild and gentle majesty of the saxon's brow was irresistible in its benign command; and stretching his right hand to the king, he raised on high the other, and said aloud, "faith and friendship with thee and england evermore." then all the chiefs rising, they gathered round the bier, but no hand, in the sight of the conquering foe, lifted the cloth of gold that covered the corpse of the famous king. the bearers of the bier moved on slowly towards the boat; the norwegians followed with measured funereal steps. and not till the bier was placed on board the royal galley was there heard the wail of woe; but then it came, loud, and deep, and dismal, and was followed by a burst of wild song from a surviving scald. the norwegian preparations for departure were soon made, and the ships vouchsafed to their convoy raised anchor, and sailed down the stream. harold's eye watched the ships from the river banks. "and there," said he, at last, "there glide the last sails that shall ever bear the devastating raven to the shores of england." truly, in that field had been the most signal defeat those warriors, hitherto almost invincible, had known. on that bier lay the last son of berserker and sea-king: and be it, o harold, remembered in thine honour, that not by the norman, but by thee, true-hearted saxon, was trampled on the english soil the ravager of the world! [ ] "so be it," said haco, "and so, methinks, will it be. but forget not the descendant of the norsemen, the count of rouen!" harold started, and turned to his chiefs. "sound trumpet, and fall in. to york we march. there re-settle the earldom, collect the spoil, and then back, my men, to the southern shores. yet first kneel thou, haco, son of my brother sweyn: thy deeds were done in the light of heaven, in the sight of warriors in the open field; so should thine honours find thee! not with the vain fripperies of norman knighthood do i deck thee, but make thee one of the elder brotherhood of minister and miles. i gird round thy loins mine own baldric of pure silver; i place in thy hand mine own sword of plain steel; and bid thee rise to take place in council and camps amongst the proceres of england,--earl of hertford and essex. boy," whispered the king, as he bent over the pale cheek of his nephew, "thank not me. from me the thanks should come. on the day that saw tostig's crime and his death, thou didst purify the name of my brother sweyn! on to our city of york!" high banquet was held in york; and, according to the customs of the saxon monarchs, the king could not absent himself from the victory feast of his thegns. he sate at the head of the board, between his brothers. morcar, whose departure from the city had deprived him of a share in the battle, had arrived that day with his brother edwin, whom he had gone to summon to his aid. and though the young earls envied the fame they had not shared, the envy was noble. gay and boisterous was the wassail; and lively song, long neglected in england, woke, as it wakes ever, at the breath of joy and fame. as if in the days of alfred, the harp passed from hand to hand; martial and rough the strain beneath the touch of the anglo-dane, more refined and thoughtful the lay when it chimed to the voice of the anglo-saxon. but the memory of tostig--all guilty though he was--a brother slain in war with a brother, lay heavy on harold's soul. still, so had he schooled and trained himself to live but for england--know no joy and no woe not hers--that by degrees and strong efforts he shook off his gloom. and music, and song, and wine, and blazing lights, and the proud sight of those long lines of valiant men, whose hearts had beat and whose hands had triumphed in the same cause, all aided to link his senses with the gladness of the hour. and now, as night advanced, leofwine, who was ever a favourite in the banquet, as gurth in the council, rose to propose the drink-hael, which carries the most characteristic of our modern social customs to an antiquity so remote, and the roar was hushed at the sight of the young earl's winsome face. with due decorum, he uncovered his head [ ], composed his countenance, and began: "craving forgiveness of my lord the king, and this noble assembly," said leofwine, "in which are so many from whom what i intend to propose would come with better grace, i would remind you that william, count of the normans, meditates a pleasure excursion, of the same nature as our late visitor, harold hardrada's." a scornful laugh ran through the hall. "and as we english are hospitable folk, and give any man, who asks, meat and board for one night, so one day's welcome, methinks, will be all that the count of the normans will need at our english hands." flushed with the joyous insolence of wine, the wassailers roared applause. "wherefore, this drink-hael to william of rouen! and, to borrow a saying now in every man's lips, and which, i think, our good scops will take care that our children's children shall learn by heart,-- since he covets our saxon soil, 'seven feet of land' in frank pledge to him for ever!" "drink-hael to william the norman!" shouted the revellers; and each man, with mocking formality, took off his cap, kissed his hand, and bowed [ ]. "drink-hael to william the norman!" and the shout rolled from floor to roof--when, in the midst of the uproar, a man all bedabbled with dust and mire, rushed into the hall, rushed through the rows of the banqueters, rushed to the throne-chair of harold, and cried aloud, "william the norman is encamped on the shores of sussex; and with the mightiest armament ever yet seen in england, is ravaging the land far and near!" this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger harold by edward bulwer lytton dedicatory epistle to the right hon. c. t. d'eyncourt, m.p. i dedicate to you, my dear friend, a work, principally composed under your hospitable roof; and to the materials of which your library, rich in the authorities i most needed, largely contributed. the idea of founding an historical romance on an event so important and so national as the norman invasion, i had long entertained, and the chronicles of that time had long been familiar to me. but it is an old habit of mine, to linger over the plan and subject of a work, for years, perhaps, before the work has, in truth, advanced a sentence; "busying myself," as old burton saith, "with this playing labour--otiosaque diligentia ut vitarem torporen feriendi." the main consideration which long withheld me from the task, was in my sense of the unfamiliarity of the ordinary reader with the characters, events, and, so to speak, with the very physiognomy of a period ante agamemnona; before the brilliant age of matured chivalry, which has given to song and romance the deeds of the later knighthood, and the glorious frenzy of the crusades. the norman conquest was our trojan war; an epoch beyond which our learning seldom induces our imagination to ascend. in venturing on ground so new to fiction, i saw before me the option of apparent pedantry, in the obtrusion of such research as might carry the reader along with the author, fairly and truly into the real records of the time; or of throwing aside pretensions to accuracy altogether;--and so rest contented to turn history into flagrant romance, rather than pursue my own conception of extracting its natural romance from the actual history. finally, not without some encouragement from you, (whereof take your due share of blame!) i decided to hazard the attempt, and to adopt that mode of treatment which, if making larger demand on the attention of the reader, seemed the more complimentary to his judgment. the age itself, once duly examined, is full of those elements which should awaken interest, and appeal to the imagination. not untruly has sismondi said, that the "eleventh century has a right to be considered a great age. it was a period of life and of creation; all that there was of noble, heroic, and vigorous in the middle ages commenced at that epoch." [ ] but to us englishmen in especial, besides the more animated interest in that spirit of adventure, enterprise, and improvement, of which the norman chivalry was the noblest type, there is an interest more touching and deep in those last glimpses of the old saxon monarchy, which open upon us in the mournful pages of our chroniclers. i have sought in this work, less to portray mere manners, which modern researches have rendered familiar to ordinary students in our history, than to bring forward the great characters, so carelessly dismissed in the long and loose record of centuries; to show more clearly the motives and policy of the agents in an event the most memorable in europe; and to convey a definite, if general, notion of the human beings, whose brains schemed, and whose hearts beat, in that realm of shadows which lies behind the norman conquest; "spes hominum caecos, morbos, votumque, labores, et passim toto volitantes aethere curas." [ ] i have thus been faithful to the leading historical incidents in the grand tragedy of harold, and as careful as contradictory evidences will permit, both as to accuracy in the delineation of character, and correctness in that chronological chain of dates without which there can be no historical philosophy; that is, no tangible link between the cause and the effect. the fictitious part of my narrative is, as in "rienzi," and the "last of the barons," confined chiefly to the private life, with its domain of incident and passion, which is the legitimate appanage of novelist or poet. the love story of harold and edith is told differently from the well-known legend, which implies a less pure connection. but the whole legend respecting the edeva faira (edith the fair) whose name meets us in the "domesday" roll, rests upon very slight authority considering its popular acceptance [ ]; and the reasons for my alterations will be sufficiently obvious in a work intended not only for general perusal, but which on many accounts, i hope, may be entrusted fearlessly to the young; while those alterations are in strict accordance with the spirit of the time, and tend to illustrate one of its most marked peculiarities. more apology is perhaps due for the liberal use to which i have applied the superstitions of the age. but with the age itself those superstitions are so interwoven--they meet us so constantly, whether in the pages of our own chroniclers, or the records of the kindred scandinavians--they are so intruded into the very laws, so blended with the very life, of our saxon forefathers, that without employing them, in somewhat of the same credulous spirit with which they were originally conceived, no vivid impression of the people they influenced can be conveyed. not without truth has an italian writer remarked, "that he who would depict philosophically an unphilosophical age, should remember that, to be familiar with children, one must sometimes think and feel as a child." yet it has not been my main endeavour to make these ghostly agencies conducive to the ordinary poetical purposes of terror, and if that effect be at all created by them, it will be, i apprehend, rather subsidiary to the more historical sources of interest than, in itself, a leading or popular characteristic of the work. my object, indeed, in the introduction of the danish vala especially, has been perhaps as much addressed to the reason as to the fancy, in showing what large, if dim, remains of the ancient "heathenesse" still kept their ground on the saxon soil, contending with and contrasting the monkish superstitions, by which they were ultimately replaced. hilda is not in history; but without the romantic impersonation of that which hilda represents, the history of the time would be imperfectly understood. in the character of harold--while i have carefully examined and weighed the scanty evidences of its distinguishing attributes which are yet preserved to us--and, in spite of no unnatural partiality, have not concealed what appear to me its deficiencies, and still less the great error of the life it illustrates,--i have attempted, somewhat and slightly, to shadow out the ideal of the pure saxon character, such as it was then, with its large qualities undeveloped, but marked already by patient endurance, love of justice, and freedom --the manly sense of duty rather than the chivalric sentiment of honour--and that indestructible element of practical purpose and courageous will, which, defying all conquest, and steadfast in all peril, was ordained to achieve so vast an influence over the destinies of the world. to the norman duke, i believe, i have been as lenient as justice will permit, though it is as impossible to deny his craft as to dispute his genius; and so far as the scope of my work would allow, i trust that i have indicated fairly the grand characteristics of his countrymen, more truly chivalric than their lord. it has happened, unfortunately for that illustrious race of men, that they have seemed to us, in england, represented by the anglo-norman kings. the fierce and plotting william, the vain and worthless rufus, the cold-blooded and relentless henry, are no adequate representatives of the far nobler norman vavasours, whom even the english chronicler admits to have been "kind masters," and to whom, in spite of their kings, the after liberties of england were so largely indebted. but this work closes on the field of hastings; and in that noble struggle for national independence, the sympathies of every true son of the land, even if tracing his lineage back to the norman victor, must be on the side of the patriot harold. in the notes, which i have thought necessary aids to the better comprehension of these volumes, my only wish has been to convey to the general reader such illustrative information as may familiarise him. more easily with the subject-matter of the book, or refresh his memory on incidental details not without a national interest. in the mere references to authorities i do not pretend to arrogate to a fiction the proper character of a history; the references are chiefly used either where wishing pointedly to distinguish from invention what was borrowed from a chronicle, or when differing from some popular historian to whom the reader might be likely to refer, it seemed well to state the authority upon which the difference was founded. [ ] in fact, my main object has been one that compelled me to admit graver matter than is common in romance, but which i would fain hope may be saved from the charge of dulness by some national sympathy between author and reader; my object is attained, and attained only, if, in closing the last page of this work, the reader shall find that, in spite of the fictitious materials admitted, he has formed a clearer and more intimate acquaintance with a time, heroic though remote, and characters which ought to have a household interest to englishmen, than the succinct accounts of the mere historian could possibly afford him. thus, my dear d'eyncourt, under cover of an address to yourself, have i made to the public those explanations which authors in general (and i not the least so) are often overanxious to render. this task done, my thoughts naturally fly back to the associations i connected with your name when i placed it at the head of this epistle. again i seem to find myself under your friendly roof; again to greet my provident host entering that gothic chamber in which i had been permitted to establish my unsocial study, heralding the advent of majestic folios, and heaping libraries round the unworthy work. again, pausing from my labour, i look through that castle casement, and beyond that feudal moat, over the broad landscapes which, if i err not, took their name from the proud brother of the conqueror himself; or when, in those winter nights, the grim old tapestry waved in the dim recesses, i hear again the saxon thegn winding his horn at the turret door, and demanding admittance to the halls from which the prelate of bayeux had so unrighteously expelled him [ ]--what marvel, that i lived in the times of which i wrote, saxon with the saxon, norman with the norman--that i entered into no gossip less venerable than that current at the court of the confessor, or startled my fellow-guests (when i deigned to meet them) with the last news which harold's spies had brought over from the camp at st. valery? with all those folios, giants of the gone world, rising around me daily, more and more, higher and higher--ossa upon pelion--on chair and table, hearth and floor; invasive as normans, indomitable as saxons, and tall as the tallest danes (ruthless host, i behold them still!)--with all those disburied spectres rampant in the chamber, all the armour rusting in thy galleries, all those mutilated statues of early english kings (including st. edward himself)--niched into thy grey, ivied walls--say in thy conscience, o host, (if indeed that conscience be not wholly callous!) shall i ever return to the nineteenth century again? but far beyond these recent associations of a single winter (for which heaven assoil thee!) goes the memory of a friendship of many winters, and proof to the storms of all. often have i come for advice to your wisdom, and sympathy to your heart, bearing back with me, in all such seasons, new increase to that pleasurable gratitude which is, perhaps, the rarest, nor the least happy sentiment, that experience leaves to man. some differences, it may be,--whether on those public questions which we see, every day, alienating friendships that should have been beyond the reach of laws and kings;--or on the more scholastic controversies which as keenly interest the minds of educated men,--may at times deny to us the idem velle, atque idem nolle; but the firma amicitia needs not those common links; the sunshine does not leave the wave for the slight ripple which the casual stone brings a moment to the surface. accept, in this dedication of a work which has lain so long on my mind, and been endeared to me from many causes, the token of an affection for you and yours, strong as the ties of kindred, and lasting as the belief in truth. e. b. l. preface to the third edition. the author of an able and learned article on mabillon [ ] in the "edinburgh review," has accurately described my aim in this work; although, with that generous courtesy which characterises the true scholar, in referring to the labours of a contemporary, he has overrated my success. it was indeed my aim "to solve the problem how to produce the greatest amount of dramatic effect at the least expense of historical truth"--i borrow the words of the reviewer, since none other could so tersely express my design, or so clearly account for the leading characteristics in its conduct and completion. there are two ways of employing the materials of history in the service of romance: the one consists in lending to ideal personages, and to an imaginary fable, the additional interest to be derived from historical groupings: the other, in extracting the main interest of romantic narrative from history itself. those who adopt the former mode are at liberty to exclude all that does not contribute to theatrical effect or picturesque composition; their fidelity to the period they select is towards the manners and costume, not towards the precise order of events, the moral causes from which the events proceeded, and the physical agencies by which they were influenced and controlled. the plan thus adopted is unquestionably the more popular and attractive, and, being favoured by the most illustrious writers of historical romance, there is presumptive reason for supposing it to be also that which is the more agreeable to the art of fiction. but he who wishes to avoid the ground pre-occupied by others, and claim in the world of literature some spot, however humble, which he may "plough with his own heifer," will seek to establish himself not where the land is the most fertile, but where it is the least enclosed. so, when i first turned my attention to historical romance, my main aim was to avoid as much as possible those fairer portions of the soil that had been appropriated by the first discoverers. the great author of ivanhoe, and those amongst whom, abroad and at home, his mantle was divided, had employed history to aid romance; i contented myself with the humbler task to employ romance in the aid of history,--to extract from authentic but neglected chronicles, and the unfrequented storehouse of archaeology, the incidents and details that enliven the dry narrative of facts to which the general historian is confined,--construct my plot from the actual events themselves, and place the staple of such interest as i could create in reciting the struggles, and delineating the characters, of those who had been the living actors in the real drama. for the main materials of the three historical romances i have composed, i consulted the original authorities of the time with a care as scrupulous, as if intending to write, not a fiction but a history. and having formed the best judgment i could of the events and characters of the age, i adhered faithfully to what, as an historian, i should have held to be the true course and true causes of the great political events, and the essential attributes of the principal agents. solely in that inward life which, not only as apart from the more public and historical, but which, as almost wholly unknown, becomes the fair domain of the poet, did i claim the legitimate privileges of fiction, and even here i employed the agency of the passions only so far as they served to illustrate what i believed to be the genuine natures of the beings who had actually lived, and to restore the warmth of the human heart to the images recalled from the grave. thus, even had i the gifts of my most illustrious predecessors, i should be precluded the use of many of the more brilliant. i shut myself out from the wider scope permitted to their fancy, and denied myself the license to choose or select materials, alter dates, vary causes and effects according to the convenience of that more imperial fiction which invents the probable where it discards the real. the mode i have adopted has perhaps only this merit, that it is my own-- mine by discovery and mine by labour. and if i can raise not the spirits that obeyed the great master of romance, nor gain the key to the fairyland that opened to his spell,--at least i have not rifled the tomb of the wizard to steal my art from the book that lies clasped on his breast. in treating of an age with which the general reader is so unfamiliar as that preceding the norman conquest, it is impossible to avoid (especially in the earlier portions of my tale) those explanations of the very character of the time which would have been unnecessary if i had only sought in history the picturesque accompaniments to romance. i have to do more than present an amusing picture of national manners --detail the dress, and describe the banquet. according to the plan i adopt, i have to make the reader acquainted with the imperfect fusion of races in saxon england, familiarise him with the contests of parties and the ambition of chiefs, show him the strength and the weakness of a kindly but ignorant church; of a brave but turbulent aristocracy; of a people partially free, and naturally energetic, but disunited by successive immigrations, and having lost much of the proud jealousies of national liberty by submission to the preceding conquests of the dane; acquiescent in the sway of foreign kings, and with that bulwark against invasion which an hereditary order of aristocracy usually erects, loosened to its very foundations by the copious admixture of foreign nobles. i have to present to the reader, here, the imbecile priestcraft of the illiterate monk, there, the dark superstition that still consulted the deities of the north by runes on the elm bark and adjurations of the dead. and in contrast to those pictures of a decrepit monarchy and a fated race, i have to bring forcibly before the reader the vigorous attributes of the coming conquerors,--the stern will and deep guile of the norman chief--the comparative knowledge of the rising norman church--the nascent spirit of chivalry in the norman vavasours; a spirit destined to emancipate the very people it contributed to enslave, associated, as it imperfectly was, with the sense of freedom: disdainful, it is true, of the villein, but proudly curbing, though into feudal limits, the domination of the liege. in a word, i must place fully before the reader, if i would be faithful to the plan of my work, the political and moral features of the age, as well as its lighter and livelier attributes, and so lead him to perceive, when he has closed the book, why england was conquered, and how england survived the conquest. in accomplishing this task, i inevitably incur the objections which the task itself raises up,--objections to the labour it has cost; to the information which the labour was undertaken in order to bestow; objections to passages which seem to interrupt the narrative, but which in reality prepare for the incidents it embraces, or explain the position of the persons whose characters it illustrates,--whose fate it involves; objections to the reference to authorities, where a fact might be disputed, or mistaken for fiction; objections to the use of saxon words, for which no accurate synonyms could be exchanged; objections, in short, to the colouring, conduct, and composition of the whole work; objections to all that separate it from the common crowd of romances, and stamp on it, for good or for bad, a character peculiarly its own. objections of this kind i cannot remove, though i have carefully weighed them all. and with regard to the objection most important to story-teller and novel reader--viz., the dryness of some of the earlier portions, though i have thrice gone over those passages, with the stern determination to inflict summary justice upon every unnecessary line, i must own to my regret that i have found but little which it was possible to omit without rendering the after narrative obscure, and without injuring whatever of more stirring interest the story, as it opens, may afford to the general reader of romance. as to the saxon words used, an explanation of all those that can be presumed unintelligible to a person of ordinary education, is given either in the text or a foot-note. such archaisms are much less numerous than certain critics would fain represent them to be: and they have rarely indeed been admitted where other words could have been employed without a glaring anachronism, or a tedious periphrase. would it indeed be possible, for instance, to convey a notion of the customs and manners of our saxon forefathers without employing words so mixed up with their daily usages and modes of thinking as "weregeld" and "niddering"? would any words from the modern vocabulary suggest the same idea, or embody the same meaning? one critic good-humouredly exclaims, "we have a full attendance of thegns and cnehts, but we should have liked much better our old friends and approved good masters thanes and knights." nothing could be more apposite for my justification than the instances here quoted in censure; nothing could more plainly vindicate the necessity of employing the saxon words. for i should sadly indeed have misled the reader if i had used the word knight in an age when knights were wholly unknown to the anglo-saxon and cneht no more means what we understand by knight, than a templar in modern phrase means a man in chain mail vowed to celibacy, and the redemption of the holy sepulchre from the hands of the mussulman. while, since thegn and thane are both archaisms, i prefer the former; not only for the same reason that induces sir francis palgrave to prefer it, viz., because it is the more etymologically correct; but because we take from our neighbours the scotch, not only the word thane, but the sense in which we apply it; and that sense is not the same that we ought to attach to the various and complicated notions of nobility which the anglo-saxon comprehended in the title of thegn. it has been peremptorily said by more than one writer in periodicals, that i have overrated the erudition of william, in permitting him to know latin; nay, to have read the comments of caesar at the age of eight.--where these gentlemen find the authorities to confute my statement i know not; all i know is, that in the statement i have followed the original authorities usually deemed the best. and i content myself with referring the disputants to a work not so difficult to procure as (and certainly more pleasant to read than) the old chronicles. in miss strickland's "lives of the queens of england," (matilda of flanders,) the same statement is made, and no doubt upon the same authorities. more surprised should i be (if modern criticism had not taught me in all matter's of assumption the nil admirari), to find it alleged that i have overstated not only the learning of the norman duke, but that which flourished in normandy under his reign; for i should have thought that the fact of the learning which sprung up in the most thriving period of that principality; the rapidity of its growth; the benefits it derived from lanfranc; the encouragement it received from william, had been phenomena too remarkable in the annals of the age, and in the history of literature, to have met with an incredulity which the most moderate amount of information would have sufficed to dispel. not to refer such sceptics to graver authorities, historical and ecclesiastical, in order to justify my representations of that learning which, under william the bastard, made the schools of normandy the popular academies of europe, a page or two in a book so accessible as villemain's "tableau du moyen age," will perhaps suffice to convince them of the hastiness of their censure, and the error of their impressions. it is stated in the athenaeum, and, i believe, by a writer whose authority on the merits of opera singers i am far from contesting but of whose competence to instruct the world in any other department of human industry or knowledge i am less persuaded, "that i am much mistaken when i represent not merely the clergy but the young soldiers and courtiers of the reign of the confessor, as well acquainted with the literature of greece and rome." the remark, to say the least of it, is disingenuous. i have done no such thing. this general animadversion is only justified by a reference to the pedantry of the norman mallet de graville--and it is expressly stated in the text that mallet de graville was originally intended for the church, and that it was the peculiarity of his literary information, rare in a soldier (but for which his earlier studies for the ecclesiastical calling readily account, at a time when the norman convent of bec was already so famous for the erudition of its teachers, and the number of its scholars,) that attracted towards him the notice of lanfranc, and founded his fortunes. pedantry is made one of his characteristics (as it generally was the characteristic of any man with some pretensions to scholarship, in the earlier ages;) and if he indulges in a classical allusion, whether in taunting a courtier or conversing with a "saxon from the wealds of kent," it is no more out of keeping with the pedantry ascribed to him, than it is unnatural in dominie sampson to rail at meg merrilies in latin, or james the first to examine a young courtier in the same unfamiliar language. nor should the critic in question, when inviting his readers to condemn me for making mallet de graville quote horace, have omitted to state that de graville expressly laments that he had never read, nor could even procure, a copy of the roman poet--judging only of the merits of horace by an extract in some monkish author, who was equally likely to have picked up his quotation second-hand. so, when a reference is made either by graville, or by any one else in the romance, to homeric fables and personages, a critic who had gone through the ordinary education of an english gentleman would never thereby have assumed that the person so referring had read the poems of homer themselves--he would have known that homeric fables, or personages, though not the homeric poems, were made familiar, by quaint travesties [ ], even to the most illiterate audience of the gothic age. it was scarcely more necessary to know homer then than now, in order to have heard of ulysses. the writer in the athenaeum is acquainted with homeric personages, but who on earth would ever presume to assert that he is acquainted with homer? some doubt has been thrown upon my accuracy in ascribing to the anglo- saxon the enjoyments of certain luxuries (gold and silver plate--the use of glass, etc.), which were extremely rare in an age much more recent. there is no ground for that doubt; nor is there a single article of such luxury named in the text, for the mention of which i have not ample authority. i have indeed devoted to this work a degree of research which, if unusual to romance, i cannot consider superfluous when illustrating an age so remote, and events unparalleled in their influence over the destinies of england. nor am i without the hope, that what the romance-reader at first regards as a defect, he may ultimately acknowledge as a merit;--forgiving me that strain on his attention by which alone i could leave distinct in his memory the action and the actors in that solemn tragedy which closed on the field of hastings, over the corpse of the last saxon king. contents book first the norman visitor, the saxon king, and the danish prophetess book second lanfranc the scholar book third the house of godwin book fourth the heathen altar and the saxon church book fifth death and love book sixth ambition book seventh the welch king book eighth fate book ninth the bones of the dead book tenth the sacrifice on the altar book eleventh the norman schemer, and the norwegian sea-king book twelfth the battle of hastings harold, the last of the saxon kings by edward bulwer lytton book i. the norman visitor, the saxon king, and the danish prophetess. chapter i. merry was the month of may in the year of our lord . few were the boys, and few the lasses, who overslept themselves on the first of that buxom month. long ere the dawn, the crowds had sought mead and woodland, to cut poles and wreathe flowers. many a mead then lay fair and green beyond the village of charing, and behind the isle of thorney, (amidst the brakes and briars of which were then rising fast and fair the hall and abbey of westminster;) many a wood lay dark in the starlight, along the higher ground that sloped from the dank strand, with its numerous canals or dykes;--and on either side of the great road into kent:--flutes and horns sounded far and near through the green places, and laughter and song, and the crash of breaking boughs. as the dawn came grey up the east, arch and blooming faces bowed down to bathe in the may dew. patient oxen stood dozing by the hedge-rows, all fragrant with blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the may came forth from the woods with lusty poles, followed by girls with laps full of flowers, which they had caught asleep. the poles were pranked with nosegays, and a chaplet was hung round the horns of every ox. then towards daybreak, the processions streamed back into the city, through all its gates; boys with their may-gads (peeled willow wands twined with cowslips) going before; and clear through the lively din of the horns and flutes, and amidst the moving grove of branches, choral voices, singing some early saxon stave, precursor of the later song-- "we have brought the summer home." often in the good old days before the monk-king reigned, kings and ealdermen had thus gone forth a-maying; but these merriments, savouring of heathenesse, that good prince misliked: nevertheless the song was as blithe, and the boughs were as green, as if king and ealderman had walked in the train. on the great kent road, the fairest meads for the cowslip, and the greenest woods for the bough, surrounded a large building that once had belonged to some voluptuous roman, now all defaced and despoiled; but the boys and the lasses shunned those demesnes; and even in their mirth, as they passed homeward along the road, and saw near the ruined walls, and timbered outbuildings, grey druid stones (that spoke of an age before either saxon or roman invader) gleaming through the dawn-- the song was hushed--the very youngest crossed themselves; and the elder, in solemn whispers, suggested the precaution of changing the song into a psalm. for in that old building dwelt hilda, of famous and dark repute; hilda, who, despite all law and canon, was still believed to practise the dismal arts of the wicca and morthwyrtha (the witch and worshipper of the dead). but once out of sight of those fearful precincts, the psalm was forgotten, and again broke, loud, clear, and silvery, the joyous chorus. so, entering london about sunrise, doors and windows were duly wreathed with garlands; and every village in the suburbs had its may- pole, which stood in its place all the year. on that happy day labour rested; ceorl and theowe had alike a holiday to dance, and tumble round the may-pole; and thus, on the first of may--youth, and mirth, and music, "brought the summer home." the next day you might still see where the buxom bands had been; you might track their way by fallen flowers, and green leaves, and the deep ruts made by oxen (yoked often in teams from twenty to forty, in the wains that carried home the poles); and fair and frequent throughout the land, from any eminence, you might behold the hamlet swards still crowned with the may trees, and air still seemed fragrant with their garlands. it is on that second day of may, , that my story opens, at the house of hilda, the reputed morthwyrtha. it stood upon a gentle and verdant height; and, even through all the barbarous mutilation it had undergone from barbarian hands, enough was left strikingly to contrast the ordinary abodes of the saxon. the remains of roman art were indeed still numerous throughout england, but it happened rarely that the saxon had chosen his home amidst the villas of those noble and primal conquerors. our first forefathers were more inclined to destroy than to adapt. by what chance this building became an exception to the ordinary rule, it is now impossible to conjecture, but from a very remote period it had sheltered successive races of teuton lords. the changes wrought in the edifice were mournful and grotesque. what was now the hall, had evidently been the atrium; the round shield, with its pointed boss, the spear, sword, and small curved saex of the early teuton, were suspended from the columns on which once had been wreathed the flowers; in the centre of the floor, where fragments of the old mosaic still glistened from the hard-pressed paving of clay and lime, what now was the fire-place had been the impluvium, and the smoke went sullenly through the aperture in the roof, made of old to receive the rains of heaven. around the hall were still left the old cubicula or dormitories, (small, high, and lighted but from the doors,) which now served for the sleeping-rooms of the humbler guest or the household servant; while at the farther end of the hall, the wide space between the columns, which had once given ample vista from graceful awnings into tablinum and viridarium, was filled up with rude rubble and roman bricks, leaving but a low, round, arched door, that still led into the tablinum. but that tablinum, formerly the gayest state-room of the roman lord, was now filled with various lumber, piles of faggots, and farming utensils. on either side of this desecrated apartment, stretched, to the right, the old lararium, stripped of its ancient images of ancestor and god; to the left, what had been the gynoecium (women's apartment). one side of the ancient peristyle, which was of vast extent, was now converted into stabling, sties for swine, and stalls for oxen. on the other side was constructed a christian chapel, made of rough oak planks, fastened by plates at the top, and with a roof of thatched reeds. the columns and wall at the extreme end of the peristyle were a mass of ruins, through the gigantic rents of which loomed a grassy hillock, its sides partially covered with clumps of furze. on this hillock were the mutilated remains of an ancient druidical crommel, in the centre of which (near a funeral mound, or barrow, with the bautastean, or gravestone, of some early saxon chief at one end) had been sacrilegiously placed an altar to thor, as was apparent both from the shape, from a rude, half-obliterated, sculptured relief of the god, with his lifted hammer, and a few runic letters. amidst the temple of the briton the saxon had reared the shrine of his triumphant war-god. now still, amidst the ruins of that extreme side of the peristyle which opened to this hillock were left, first, an ancient roman fountain, that now served to water the swine, and next, a small sacellum, or fane to bacchus (as relief and frieze, yet spared, betokened): thus the eye, at one survey, beheld the shrines of four creeds: the druid, mystical and symbolical; the roman, sensual, but humane; the teutonic, ruthless and destroying; and, latest riser and surviving all, though as yet with but little of its gentler influence over the deeds of men, the edifice of the faith of peace. across the peristyle, theowes and swineherds passed to and fro:--in the atrium, men of a higher class, half-armed, were, some drinking, some at dice, some playing with huge hounds, or caressing the hawks that stood grave and solemn on their perches. the lararium was deserted; the gynoecium was still, as in the roman time, the favoured apartment of the female portion of the household, and indeed bore the same name [ ], and with the group there assembled we have now to do. the appliances of the chamber showed the rank and wealth of the owner. at that period the domestic luxury of the rich was infinitely greater than has been generally supposed. the industry of the women decorated wall and furniture with needlework and hangings: and as a thegn forfeited his rank if he lost his lands, so the higher orders of an aristocracy rather of wealth than birth had, usually, a certain portion of superfluous riches, which served to flow towards the bazaars of the east and the nearer markets of flanders and saracenic spain. in this room the walls were draped with silken hangings richly embroidered. the single window was glazed with a dull grey glass [ ]. on a beaufet were ranged horns tipped with silver, and a few vessels of pure gold. a small circular table in the centre was supported by symbolical monsters quaintly carved. at one side of the wall, on a long settle, some half-a-dozen handmaids were employed in spinning; remote from them, and near the window, sat a woman advanced in years, and of a mien and aspect singularly majestic. upon a small tripod before her was a runic manuscript, and an inkstand of elegant form, with a silver graphium, or pen. at her feet reclined a girl somewhat about the age of sixteen, her long hair parted across her forehead and falling far down her shoulders. her dress was a linen under-tunic, with long sleeves, rising high to the throat, and without one of the modern artificial restraints of the shape, the simple belt sufficed to show the slender proportions and delicate outline of the wearer. the colour of the dress was of the purest white, but its hems, or borders, were richly embroidered. this girl's beauty was something marvellous. in a land proverbial for fair women, it had already obtained her the name of "the fair." in that beauty were blended, not as yet without a struggle for mastery, the two expressions seldom united in one countenance, the soft and the noble; indeed in the whole aspect there was the evidence of some internal struggle; the intelligence was not yet complete; the soul and heart were not yet united: and edith the christian maid dwelt in the home of hilda the heathen prophetess. the girl's blue eyes, rendered dark by the shade of their long lashes, were fixed intently upon the stern and troubled countenance which was bent upon her own, but bent with that abstract gaze which shows that the soul is absent from the sight. so sate hilda, and so reclined her grandchild edith. "grandam," said the girl in a low voice and after a long pause; and the sound of her voice so startled the handmaids, that every spindle stopped for a moment and then plied with renewed activity; "grandam, what troubles you--are you not thinking of the great earl and his fair sons, now outlawed far over the wide seas?" as the girl spoke, hilda started slightly, like one awakened from a dream; and when edith had concluded her question, she rose slowly to the height of a statue, unbowed by her years, and far towering above even the ordinary standard of men; and turning from the child, her eye fell upon the row of silent maids, each at her rapid, noiseless, stealthy work. "ho!" said she; her cold and haughty eye gleaming as she spoke; "yesterday they brought home the summer--to-day, ye aid to bring home the winter. weave well--heed well warf and woof; skulda [ ] is amongst ye, and her pale fingers guide the web!" the maidens lifted not their eyes, though in every cheek the colour paled at the words of the mistress. the spindles revolved, the thread shot, and again there was silence more freezing than before. "askest thou," said hilda at length, passing to the child, as if the question so long addressed to her ear had only just reached her mind; "askest thou if i thought of the earl and his fair sons?--yea, i heard the smith welding arms on the anvil, and the hammer of the shipwright shaping strong ribs for the horses of the sea. ere the reaper has bound his sheaves, earl godwin will scare the normans in the halls of the monk-king, as the hawk scares the brood in the dovecot. weave well, heed well warf and woof, nimble maidens--strong be the texture, for biting is the worm." "what weave they, then, good grandmother?" asked the girl, with wonder and awe in her soft mild eyes. "the winding-sheet of the great!" hilda's lips closed, but her eyes, yet brighter than before, gazed upon space, and her pale hand seemed tracing letters, like runes, in the air. then slowly she turned, and looked forth through the dull window. "give me my coverchief and my staff," said she quickly. every one of the handmaids, blithe for excuse to quit a task which seemed recently commenced, and was certainly not endeared to them by the knowledge of its purpose communicated to them by the lady, rose to obey. unheeding the hands that vied with each other, hilda took the hood, and drew it partially over her brow. leaning lightly on a long staff, the head of which formed a raven, carved from some wood stained black, she passed into the hall, and thence through the desecrated tablinum, into the mighty court formed by the shattered peristyle; there she stopped, mused a moment, and called on edith. the girl was soon by her side. "come with me.--there is a face you shall see but twice in life;--this day,"--and hilda paused, and the rigid and almost colossal beauty of her countenance softened. "and when again, my grandmother?" "child, put thy warm hand in mine. so! the vision darkens from me.-- when again, saidst thou, edith?--alas, i know not." while thus speaking, hilda passed slowly by the roman fountain and the heathen fane, and ascended the little hillock. there on the opposite side of the summit, backed by the druid crommel and the teuton altar, she seated herself deliberately on the sward. a few daisies, primroses, and cowslips, grew around; these edith began to pluck. singing, as she wove, a simple song, that, not more by the dialect than the sentiment, betrayed its origin in the ballad of the norse [ ], which had, in its more careless composition, a character quite distinct from the artificial poetry of the saxons. the song may be thus imperfectly rendered: "merrily the throstle sings amid the merry may; the throstle signs but to my ear; my heart is far away! blithely bloometh mead and bank; and blithely buds the tree; and hark!--they bring the summer home; it has no home with me! they have outlawed him--my summer! an outlaw far away! the birds may sing, the flowers may bloom, o, give me back my may!" as she came to the last line, her soft low voice seemed to awaken a chorus of sprightly horns and trumpets, and certain other wind instruments peculiar to the music of that day. the hillock bordered the high road to london--which then wound through wastes of forest land--and now emerging from the trees to the left appeared a goodly company. first came two riders abreast, each holding a banner. on the one was depicted the cross and five martlets, the device of edward, afterwards surnamed the confessor: on the other, a plain broad cross with a deep border round it, and the streamer shaped into sharp points. the first was familiar to edith, who dropped her garland to gaze on the approaching pageant; the last was strange to her. she had been accustomed to see the banner of the great earl godwin by the side of the saxon king; and she said, almost indignantly,-- "who dares, sweet grandam, to place banner or pennon where earl godwin's ought to float?" "peace," said hilda, "peace and look." immediately behind the standard-bearers came two figures--strangely dissimilar indeed in mien, in years, in bearing: each bore on his left wrist a hawk. the one was mounted on a milk-white palfrey, with housings inlaid with gold and uncut jewels. though not really old-- for he was much on this side of sixty--both his countenance and carriage evinced age. his complexion, indeed, was extremely fair, and his cheeks ruddy; but the visage was long and deeply furrowed, and from beneath a bonnet not dissimilar to those in use among the scotch, streamed hair long and white as snow, mingling with a large and forked beard. white seemed his chosen colour. white was the upper tunic clasped on his shoulder with a broad ouche or brooch; white the woollen leggings fitted to somewhat emaciated limbs; and white the mantle, though broidered with a broad hem of gold and purple. the fashion of his dress was that which well became a noble person, but it suited ill the somewhat frail and graceless figure of the rider. nevertheless, as edith saw him, she rose, with an expression of deep reverence on her countenance, and saying, "it is our lord the king," advanced some steps down the hillock, and there stood, her arms folded on her breast, and quite forgetful, in her innocence and youth, that she had left the house without the cloak and coverchief which were deemed indispensable to the fitting appearance of maid and matron when they were seen abroad. "fair sir, and brother mine," said the deep voice of the younger rider, in the romance or norman tongue, "i have heard that the small people of whom my neighbours, the breton tell us much, abound greatly in this fair land of yours; and if i were not by the side of one whom no creature unassoilzed and unbaptised dare approach, by sweet st. valery i should say--yonder stands one of those same gentilles fees!" king edward's eye followed the direction of his companion's outstretched hand, and his quiet brow slightly contracted as he beheld the young form of edith standing motionless a few yards before him, with the warm may wind lifting and playing with her long golden locks. he checked his palfrey, and murmured some latin words which the knight beside him recognised as a prayer, and to which, doffing his cap, he added an amen, in a tone of such unctuous gravity, that the royal saint rewarded him with a faint approving smile, and an affectionate "bene vene, piosissime." then inclining his palfrey's head towards the knoll, he motioned to the girl to approach him. edith, with a heightened colour, obeyed, and came to the roadside. the standard-bearers halted, as did the king and his comrade--the procession behind halted--thirty knights, two bishops, eight abbots, all on fiery steeds and in norman garb-- squires and attendants on foot--a long and pompous retinue--they halted all. only a stray hound or two broke from the rest, and wandered into the forest land with heads trailing. "edith, my child," said edward, still in norman-french, for he spoke his own language with hesitation, and the romance tongue, which had long been familiar to the higher classes in england, had, since his accession, become the only language in use at court, and as such every one of 'eorl-kind' was supposed to speak it;--"edith, my child, thou hast not forgotten my lessons, i trow; thou singest the hymns i gave thee, and neglectest not to wear the relic round thy neck." the girl hung her head, and spoke not. "how comes it, then," continued the king, with a voice to which he in vain endeavoured to impart an accent of severity, "how comes it, o little one, that thou, whose thoughts should be lifted already above this carnal world, and eager for the service of mary the chaste and blessed, standest thus hoodless and alone on the waysides, a mark for the eyes of men? go to, it is naught." thus reproved, and in presence of so large and brilliant a company, the girl's colour went and came, her breast heaved high, but with an effort beyond her age she checked her tears, and said meekly, "my grandmother, hilda, bade me come with her, and i came." "hilda!" said the king, backing his palfrey with apparent perturbation, "but hilda is not with thee; i see her not." as he spoke, hilda rose, and so suddenly did her tall form appear on the brow of the hill, that it seemed as if she had emerged from the earth. with a light and rapid stride she gained the side of her grandchild; and after a slight and haughty reverence, said, "hilda is here; what wants edward the king with his servant hilda?" "nought, nought," said the king, hastily; and something like fear passed over his placid countenance; "save, indeed," he added, with a reluctant tone, as that of a man who obeys his conscience against his inclination, "that i would pray thee to keep this child pure to threshold and altar, as is meet for one whom our lady, the virgin, in due time, will elect to her service." "not so, son of etheldred, son of woden, the last descendant of penda should live, not to glide a ghost amidst cloisters, but to rock children for war in their father's shield. few men are there yet like the men of old; and while the foot of the foreigner is on the saxon soil no branch of the stem of woden should be nipped in the leaf." "per la resplendar de [ ], bold dame," cried the knight by the side of edward, while a lurid flush passed over his cheek of bronze; "but thou art too glib of tongue for a subject, and pratest overmuch of woden, the paynim, for the lips of a christian matron." hilda met the flashing eye of the knight with a brow of lofty scorn, on which still a certain terror was visible. "child," she said, putting her hand upon edith's fair locks; "this is the man thou shalt see but twice in thy life;--look up, and mark well!" edith instinctively raised her eyes, and, once fixed upon the knight, they seemed chained as by a spell. his vest, of a cramoisay so dark, that it seemed black beside the snowy garb of the confessor, was edged by a deep band of embroidered gold; leaving perfectly bare his firm, full throat--firm and full as a column of granite,--a short jacket or manteline of fur, pendant from the shoulders, left developed in all its breadth a breast, that seemed meet to stay the march of an army; and on the left arm, curved to support the falcon, the vast muscles rose, round and gnarled, through the close sleeve. in height, he was really but little above the stature of many of those present; nevertheless, so did his port [ ], his air, the nobility of his large proportions, fill the eye, that he seemed to tower immeasurably above the rest. his countenance was yet more remarkable than his form; still in the prime of youth, he seemed at the first glance younger, at the second older, than he was. at the first glance younger; for his face was perfectly shaven, without even the moustache which the saxon courtier, in imitating the norman, still declined to surrender; and the smooth visage and bare throat sufficed in themselves to give the air of youth to that dominant and imperious presence. his small skull-cap left unconcealed his forehead, shaded with short thick hair, uncurled, but black and glossy as the wings of a raven. it was on that forehead that time had set its trace; it was knit into a frown over the eyebrows; lines deep as furrows crossed its broad, but not elevated expanse. that frown spoke of hasty ire and the habit of stern command; those furrows spoke of deep thought and plotting scheme; the one betrayed but temper and circumstance; the other, more noble, spoke of the character and the intellect. the face was square, and the regard lion-like; the mouth--small, and even beautiful in outline--had a sinister expression in its exceeding firmness; and the jaw--vast, solid, as if bound in iron--showed obstinate, ruthless, determined will; such a jaw as belongs to the tiger amongst beasts, and the conqueror amongst men; such as it is seen in the effigies of caesar, of cortes, of napoleon. that presence was well calculated to command the admiration of women, not less than the awe of men. but no admiration mingled with the terror that seized the girl as she gazed long and wistful upon the knight. the fascination of the serpent on the bird held her mute and frozen. never was that face forgotten; often in after-life it haunted her in the noon-day, it frowned upon her dreams. "fair child," said the knight, fatigued at length by the obstinacy of the gaze, while that smile peculiar to those who have commanded men relaxed his brow, and restored the native beauty to his lip, "fair child, learn not from thy peevish grandam so uncourteous a lesson as hate of the foreigner. as thou growest into womanhood, know that norman knight is sworn slave to lady fair;" and, doffing his cap, he took from it an uncut jewel, set in byzantine filigree work. "hold out thy lap, my child; and when thou nearest the foreigner scoffed, set this bauble in thy locks, and think kindly of william, count of the normans." [ ] he dropped the jewel on the ground as he spoke; for edith, shrinking and unsoftened towards him, held no lap to receive it; and hilda, to whom edward had been speaking in a low voice, advanced to the spot and struck the jewel with her staff under the hoofs of the king's palfrey. "son of emma, the norman woman, who sent thy youth into exile, trample on the gifts of thy norman kinsman. and if, as men say, thou art of such gifted holiness that heaven grants thy hand the power to heal, and thy voice the power to curse, heal thy country, and curse the stranger!" she extended her right arm to william as she spoke, and such was the dignity of her passion, and such its force, that an awe fell upon all. then dropping her hood over her face, she slowly turned away, regained the summit of the knoll, and stood erect beside the altar of the northern god, her face invisible through the hood drawn completely over it, and her form motionless as a statue. "ride on," said edward, crossing himself. "now by the bones of st. valery," said william, after a pause, in which his dark keen eye noted the gloom upon the king's gentle face, "it moves much my simple wonder how even presence so saintly can hear without wrath words so unleal and foul. gramercy, an the proudest dame in normandy (and i take her to be wife to my stoutest baron, william fitzosborne) had spoken thus to me--" "thou wouldst have done as i, my brother," interrupted edward; "prayed to our lord to pardon her, and rode on pitying." william's lip quivered with ire, yet he curbed the reply that sprang to it, and he looked with affection genuinely more akin to admiration than scorn, upon his fellow-prince. for, fierce and relentless as the duke's deeds were, his faith was notably sincere; and while this made, indeed, the prince's chief attraction to the pious edward, so, on the other hand, this bowed the duke in a kind of involuntary and superstitious homage to the man who sought to square deeds to faith. it is ever the case with stern and stormy spirits, that the meek ones which contrast them steal strangely into their affections. this principle of human nature can alone account for the enthusiastic devotion which the mild sufferings of the saviour awoke in the fiercest exterminators of the north. in proportion, often, to the warrior's ferocity, was his love to that divine model, at whose sufferings he wept, to whose tomb he wandered barefoot, and whose example of compassionate forgiveness he would have thought himself the basest of men to follow! "now, by my halidame, i honour and love thee, edward," cried the duke, with a heartiness more frank than was usual to him: "and were i thy subject, woe to man or woman that wagged tongue to wound thee by a breath. but who and what is this same hilda? one of thy kith and kin?--surely not less than kingly blood runs so bold?" "william, bien aime," [ ] said the king, "it is true that hilda, whom the saints assoil, is of kingly blood, though not of our kingly line. it is feared," added edward, in a timid whisper, as he cast a hurried glance around him, "that this unhappy woman has ever been more addicted to the rites of her pagan ancestors than to those of holy church; and men do say that she hath thus acquired from fiend or charm secrets devoutly to be eschewed by the righteous. nathless, let us rather hope that her mind is somewhat distraught with her misfortunes." the king sighed, and the duke sighed too, but the duke's sigh spoke impatience. he swept behind him a stern and withering look towards the proud figure of hilda, still seen through the glades, and said in a sinister voice: "of kingly blood; but this witch of woden hath no sons or kinsmen, i trust, who pretend to the throne of the saxon:" "she is sibbe to githa, wife of godwin," answered the king, "and that is her most perilous connection; for the banished earl, as thou knowest, did not pretend to fill the throne, but he was content with nought less than governing our people." the king then proceeded to sketch an outline of the history of hilda, but his narrative was so deformed both by his superstitions and prejudices, and his imperfect information in all the leading events and characters in his own kingdom, that we will venture to take upon ourselves his task; and while the train ride on through glade and mead, we will briefly narrate, from our own special sources of knowledge, the chronicle of hilda, the scandinavian vala. chapter ii. a magnificent race of men were those war sons of the old north, whom our popular histories, so superficial in their accounts of this age, include in the common name of the "danes." they replunged into barbarism the nations over which they swept; but from that barbarism they reproduced the noblest elements of civilisation. swede, norwegian, and dane, differing in some minor points, when closely examined, had yet one common character viewed at a distance. they had the same prodigious energy, the same passion for freedom, individual and civil, the same splendid errors in the thirst for fame and the "point of honour;" and above all, as a main cause of civilisation, they were wonderfully pliant and malleable in their admixtures with the peoples they overran. this is their true distinction from the stubborn celt, who refuses to mingle, and disdains to improve. frankes, the archbishop, baptised rolf-ganger [ ]: and within a little more than a century afterwards, the descendants of those terrible heathens who had spared neither priest nor altar, were the most redoubtable defenders of the christian church; their old language forgotten (save by a few in the town of bayeux), their ancestral names [ ] (save among a few of the noblest) changed into french titles, and little else but the indomitable valour of the scandinavian remained unaltered amongst the arts and manners of the frankish-norman. in like manner their kindred tribes, who had poured into saxon england to ravage and lay desolate, had no sooner obtained from alfred the great permanent homes, than they became perhaps the most powerful, and in a short time not the least patriotic, part of the anglo-saxon population [ ]. at the time our story opens, these northmen, under the common name of danes, were peaceably settled in no less than fifteen [ ] counties in england; their nobles abounded in towns and cities beyond the boundaries of those counties which bore the distinct appellation of danelagh. they were numerous in london: in the precincts of which they had their own burial-place, to the chief municipal court of which they gave their own appellation--the hustings [ ]. their power in the national assembly of the witan had decided the choice of kings. thus, with some differences of law and dialect, these once turbulent invaders had amalgamated amicably with the native race [ ]. and to this day, the gentry, traders, and farmers of more than one-third of england, and in those counties most confessed to be in the van of improvement, descend from saxon mothers indeed, but from viking fathers. there was in reality little difference in race between the norman knight of the time of henry i. and the saxon franklin of norfolk and york. both on the mother's side would most probably have been saxon, both on the father's would have traced to the scandinavian. but though this character of adaptability was general, exceptions in some points were necessarily found, and these were obstinate in proportion to the adherence to the old pagan faith, or the sincere conversion to christianity. the norwegian chronicles, and passages in our own history, show how false and hollow was the assumed christianity of many of these fierce odin-worshippers. they willingly enough accepted the outward sign of baptism, but the holy water changed little of the inner man. even harold, the son of canute, scarce seventeen years before the date we have now entered, being unable to obtain from the archbishop of canterbury--who had espoused the cause of his brother hardicanute--the consecrating benediction, lived and reigned as one who had abjured christianity. [ ] the priests, especially on the scandinavian continent, were often forced to compound with their grim converts, by indulgence to certain habits, such as indiscriminate polygamy. to eat horse-flesh in honour of odin, and to marry wives ad libitum, were the main stipulations of the neophytes. and the puzzled monks, often driven to a choice, yielded the point of the wives, but stood firm on the graver article of the horse-flesh. with their new religion, very imperfectly understood, even when genuinely received, they retained all that host of heathen superstition which knits itself with the most obstinate instincts in the human breast. not many years before the reign of the confessor, the laws of the great canute against witchcraft and charms, the worship of stones, fountains, runes by ash and elm, and the incantations that do homage to the dead, were obviously rather intended to apply to the recent danish converts, than to the anglo- saxons, already subjugated for centuries, body and soul, to the domination of the christian monks. hilda, a daughter of the royalty of denmark, and cousin to githa (niece to canute, whom that king had bestowed in second spousals upon godwin), had come over to england with a fierce jarl, her husband, a year after canute's accession to the throne--both converted nominally, both secret believers in thor and odin. hilda's husband had fallen in one of the actions in the northern seas, between canute and st. olave, king of norway (that saint himself, by the bye, a most ruthless persecutor of his forefathers' faith, and a most unqualified assertor of his heathen privilege to extend his domestic affections beyond the severe pale which should have confined them to a single wife. his natural son magnus then sat on the danish throne). the jarl died as he had wished to die, the last man on board his ship, with the soothing conviction that the valkyrs would bear him to valhalla. hilda was left with an only daughter, whom canute bestowed on ethelwolf, a saxon earl of large domains, and tracing his descent from penda, that old king of mercia who refused to be converted, but said so discreetly, that he had no objection to his neighbours being christians, if they would practise that peace and forgiveness which the monks told him were the elements of the faith. ethelwolf fell under the displeasure of hardicanute, perhaps because he was more saxon than danish; and though that savage king did not dare openly to arraign him before the witan, he gave secret orders by which he was butchered on his own hearthstone, in the arms of his wife, who died shortly afterwards of grief and terror. the only orphan of this unhappy pair, edith, was thus consigned to the charge of hilda. it was a necessary and invaluable characteristic of that "adaptability" which distinguished the danes, that they transferred to the land in which they settled all the love they had borne to that of their ancestors; and so far as attachment to soil was concerned, hilda had grown no less in heart an englishwoman than if she had been born and reared amidst the glades and knolls from which the smoke of her hearth rose through the old roman compluvium. but in all else she was a dane. dane in her creed and her habits-- dane in her intense and brooding imagination--in the poetry that filled her soul, peopled the air with spectres, and covered the leaves of the trees with charms. living in austere seclusion after the death of her lord, to whom she had borne a scandinavian woman's devoted but heroic love,--sorrowing, indeed, for his death, but rejoicing that he fell amidst the feast of ravens,--her mind settled more and more year by year, and day by day, upon those visions of the unknown world, which in every faith conjure up the companions of solitude and grief. witchcraft in the scandinavian north assumed many forms, and was connected by many degrees. there was the old and withered hag, on whom, in our later mediaeval ages the character was mainly bestowed; there was the terrific witch-wife, or wolf-witch, who seems wholly apart from human birth and attributes, like the weird sisters of macbeth--creatures who entered the house at night and seized warriors to devour them, who might be seen gliding over the sea, with the carcase of the wolf dripping blood from their giant jaws; and there was the more serene, classical, and awful vala, or sibyl, who, honoured by chiefs and revered by nations, foretold the future, and advised the deeds of heroes. of these last, the norse chronicles tell us much. they were often of rank and wealth, they were accompanied by trains of handmaids and servants--kings led them (when their counsel was sought) to the place of honour in the hall, and their heads were sacred, as those of ministers to the gods. this last state in the grisly realm of the wig-laer (wizard-lore) was the one naturally appertaining to the high rank, and the soul, lofty though blind and perverted, of the daughter of warrior-kings. all practice of the art to which now for long years she had devoted herself, that touched upon the humble destinies of the vulgar, the child of odin [ ] haughtily disdained. her reveries were upon the fate of kings and kingdoms; she aspired to save or to rear the dynasties which should rule the races yet unborn. in youth proud and ambitious,--common faults with her countrywomen,--on her entrance into the darker world, she carried with her the prejudices and passions that she had known in that coloured by the external sun. all her human affections were centred in her grandchild edith, the last of a race royal on either side. her researches into the future had assured her, that the life and death of this fair child were entwined with the fates of a king, and the same oracles had intimated a mysterious and inseparable connection between her own shattered house and the flourishing one of earl godwin, the spouse of her kinswoman githa: so that with this great family she was as intimately bound by the links of superstition as by the ties of blood. the eldest born of godwin, sweyn, had been at first especially her care and her favourite; and he, of more poetic temperament than his brothers, had willingly submitted to her influence. but of all the brethren, as will be seen hereafter, the career of sweyn had been most noxious and ill-omened; and at that moment, while the rest of the house carried with it into exile the deep and indignant sympathy of england, no man said of sweyn, "god bless him!" but as the second son, harold, had grown from childhood into youth, hilda had singled him out with a preference even more marked than that she had bestowed upon sweyn. the stars and the runes assured her of his future greatness, and the qualities and talents of the young earl had, at the very onset of his career, confirmed the accuracy of their predictions. her interest in harold became the more intense, partly because whenever she consulted the future for the lot of her grandchild edith, she invariably found it associated with the fate of harold--partly because all her arts had failed to penetrate beyond a certain point in their joint destinies, and left her mind agitated and perplexed between hope and terror. as yet, however, she had wholly failed in gaining any ascendancy over the young earl's vigorous and healthful mind: and though, before his exile, he came more often than any of godwin's sons to the old roman house, he had smiled with proud incredulity at her vague prophecies, and rejected all her offers of aid from invisible agencies with the calm reply--"the brave man wants no charms to encourage him to his duty, and the good man scorns all warnings that would deter him from fulfilling it." indeed, though hilda's magic was not of the malevolent kind, and sought the source of its oracles not in fiends but gods, (at least the gods in whom she believed,) it was noticeable that all over whom her influence had prevailed had come to miserable and untimely ends;--not alone her husband and her son-in-law, (both of whom had been as wax to her counsel,) but such other chiefs as rank or ambition permitted to appeal to her lore. nevertheless, such was the ascendancy she had gained over the popular mind, that it would have been dangerous in the highest degree to put into execution against her the laws condemnatory of witch craft. in her, all the more powerful danish families reverenced, and would have protected, the blood of their ancient kings, and the widow of one of their most renowned heroes. hospitable, liberal, and beneficent to the poor; and an easy mistress over numerous ceorls, while the vulgar dreaded, they would yet have defended her. proofs of her art it would have been hard to establish; hosts of compurgators to attest her innocence would have sprung up. even if subjected to the ordeal, her gold could easily have bribed the priests with whom the power of evading its dangers rested. and with that worldly wisdom which persons of genius in their wildest chimeras rarely lack, she had already freed herself from the chance of active persecution from the church, by ample donations to all the neighbouring monasteries. hilda, in fine, was a woman of sublime desires and extraordinary gifts; terrible, indeed, but as the passive agent of the fates she invoked, and rather commanding for herself a certain troubled admiration and mysterious pity; no fiend-hag, beyond humanity in malice and in power, but essentially human, even when aspiring most to the secrets of a god. assuming, for the moment, that by the aid of intense imagination, persons of a peculiar idiosyncrasy of nerves and temperament might attain to such dim affinities with a world beyond our ordinary senses, as forbid entire rejection of the magnetism and magic of old times--it was on no foul and mephitic pool, overhung with the poisonous nightshade, and excluded from the beams of heaven, but on the living stream on which the star trembled, and beside whose banks the green herbage waved, that the demon shadows fell dark and dread. thus safe and thus awful, lived hilda; and under her care, a rose beneath the funeral cedar, bloomed her grandchild edith, goddaughter of the lady of england. it was the anxious wish, both of edward and his virgin wife, pious as himself, to save this orphan from the contamination of a house more than suspected of heathen faith, and give to her youth the refuge of the convent. but this, without her guardian's consent or her own expressed will, could not be legally done; and edith as yet had expressed no desire to disobey her grandmother, who treated the idea of the convent with lofty scorn. this beautiful child grew up under the influence, as it were, of two contending creeds; all her notions on both were necessarily confused and vague. but her heart was so genuinely mild, simple, tender, and devoted,--there was in her so much of the inborn excellence of the sex, that in every impulse of that heart struggled for clearer light and for purer air the unquiet soul. in manner, in thought, and in person as yet almost an infant, deep in her heart lay yet one woman's secret, known scarcely to herself, but which taught her, more powerfully than hilda's proud and scoffing tongue, to shudder at the thought of the barren cloister and the eternal vow. chapter iii. while king edward was narrating to the norman duke all that he knew, and all that he knew not, of hilda's history and secret arts, the road wound through lands as wild and wold-like as if the metropolis of england lay a hundred miles distant. even to this day patches of such land, in the neighbourhood of norwood, may betray what the country was in the old time:--when a mighty forest, "abounding with wild beasts"-- "the bull and the boar"--skirted the suburbs of london, and afforded pastime to king and thegn. for the norman kings have been maligned by the popular notion that assigns to them all the odium of the forest laws. harsh and severe were those laws in the reign of the anglo- saxon; as harsh and severe, perhaps, against the ceorl and the poor man, as in the days of rufus, though more mild unquestionably to the nobles. to all beneath the rank of abbot and thegn, the king's woods were made, even by the mild confessor, as sacred as the groves of the druids: and no less penalty than that of life was incurred by the lowborn huntsman who violated their recesses. [ ] edward's only mundane passion was the chase; and a day rarely passed, but what after mass he went forth with hawk or hound. so that, though the regular season for hawking did not commence till october, he had ever on his wrist some young falcon to essay, or some old favourite to exercise. and now, just as william was beginning to grow weary of his good cousin's prolix recitals, the hounds suddenly gave tongue, and from a sedge-grown pool by the way-side, with solemn wing and harsh boom, rose a bittern. "holy st. peter!" exclaimed the saint-king, spurring his palfrey, and loosing his famous peregrine falcon [ ]. william was not slow in following that animated example, and the whole company rode at half speed across the rough forest-land, straining their eyes upon the soaring quarry, and the large wheels of the falcons. riding thus, with his eyes in the air, edward was nearly pitched over his palfrey's head, as the animal stopped suddenly, checked by a high gate, set deep in a half embattled wall of brick and rubble. upon this gate sate, quite unmoved and apathetic, a tall ceorl, or labourer, while behind it was a gazing curious group of men of the same rank, clad in those blue tunics of which our peasant's smock is the successor, and leaning on scythes and flails. sour and ominous were the looks they bent upon that norman cavalcade. the men were at least as well clad as those of the same condition are now; and their robust limbs and ruddy cheeks showed no lack of the fare that supports labour. indeed, the working man of that day, if not one of the absolute theowes or slaves, was, physically speaking, better off, perhaps, than he has ever since been in england, more especially if he appertained to some wealthy thegn of pure saxon lineage, whose very title of lord came to him in his quality of dispenser of bread [ ]; and these men had been ceorls under harold, son of godwin, now banished from the land. "open the gate, open quick, my merry men," said the gentle edward (speaking in saxon, though with a strong foreign accent), after he had recovered his seat, murmured a benediction, and crossed himself three times. the men stirred not. "no horse tramps the seeds we have sown for harold the earl to reap;" said the ceorl, doggedly, still seated on the gate. and the group behind him gave a shout of applause. moved more than ever he had been known to be before, edward spurred his steed up to the boor, and lifted his hand. at that signal twenty swords flashed in the air behind, as the norman nobles spurred to the place. putting back with one hand his fierce attendants, edward shook the other at the saxon. "knave, knave," he cried, "i would hurt you, if i could!" there was something in these words, fated to drift down into history, at once ludicrous and touching. the normans saw them only in the former light, and turned aside to conceal their laughter; the saxon felt them in the latter and truer sense, and stood rebuked. that great king, whom he now recognised, with all those drawn swords at his back, could not do him hurt; that king had not the heart to hurt him. the ceorl sprang from the gate, and opened it, bending low. "ride first, count william, my cousin," said the king, calmly. the saxon ceorl's eyes glared as he heard the norman's name uttered in the norman tongue, but he kept open the gate, and the train passed through, edward lingering last. then said the king, in a low voice,-- "bold man, thou spokest of harold the earl and his harvests; knowest thou not that his lands have passed from him, and that he is outlawed, and that his harvests are not for the scythes of his ceorls to reap?" "may it please you, dread lord and king," replied the saxon simply, "these lands that were harold the earl's, are now clapa's, the sixhaendman's." "how is that?" quoth edward, hastily; "we gave them neither to sixhaendman nor to saxon. all the lands of harold hereabout were divided amongst sacred abbots and noble chevaliers--normans all." "fulke the norman had these fair fields, yon orchards and tynen; fulke sold them to clapa, the earl's sixhaendman, and what in mancusses and pence clapa lacked of the price, we, the ceorls of the earl, made up from our own earnings in the earl's noble service. and this very day, in token thereof, have we quaffed the bedden-ale [ ]. wherefore, please god and our lady, we hold these lands part and parcel with clapa; and when earl harold comes again, as come he will, here at least he will have his own." edward, who, despite a singular simplicity of character, which at times seemed to border on imbecility, was by no means wanting in penetration when his attention was fairly roused, changed countenance at this proof of rough and homely affection on the part of these men to his banished earl and brother-in-law. he mused a little while in grave thought, and then said, kindly-- "well, man, i think not the worse of you for loyal love to your thegn, but there are those who would do so, and i advise you, brotherlike, that ears and nose are in peril if thou talkest thus indiscreetly." "steel to steel, and hand to hand," said the saxon, bluntly, touching the long knife in his leathern belt, "and he who sets gripe on sexwolf son of elfhelm, shall pay his weregeld twice over." "forewarned, foolish man, thou are forewarned. peace," said the king; and, shaking his head, he rode on to join the normans, who now, in a broad field, where the corn sprang green, and which they seemed to delight in wantonly trampling, as they curvetted their steeds to and fro, watched the movements of the bittern and the pursuit of the two falcons. "a wager, lord king!" said a prelate, whose strong family likeness to william proclaimed him to be the duke's bold and haughty brother, odo [ ], bishop of bayeux;--"a wager. my steed to your palfrey that the duke's falcon first fixes the bittern." "holy father," answered edward, in that slight change of voice which alone showed his displeasure, "these wagers all savour of heathenesse, and our canons forbid them to mone [ ] and priest. go to, it is naught." the bishop, who brooked no rebuke, even from his terrible brother, knit his brows, and was about to make no gentle rejoinder, when william, whose profound craft or sagacity was always at watch, lest his followers should displease the king, interposed, and taking the word out of the prelate's mouth, said: "thou reprovest us well, sir and king; we normans are too inclined to such levities. and see, your falcon is first in pride of place. by the bones of st. valery, how nobly he towers! see him cover the bittern!--see him rest on the wing!--down he swoops! gallant bird!" "with his heart split in two on the bittern's bill," said the bishop; and down, rolling one over the other, fell bittern and hawk, while william's norway falcon, smaller of size than the king's, descended rapidly, and hovered over the two. both were dead. "i accept the omen," muttered the gazing duke; "let the natives destroy each other!" he placed his whistle to his lips, and his falcon flew back to his wrist. "now home," said king edward. chapter iv. the royal party entered london by the great bridge which divided southwark from the capital; and we must pause to gaze a moment on the animated scene which the immemorial thoroughfare presented. the whole suburb before entering southwark was rich in orchards and gardens, lying round the detached houses of the wealthier merchants and citizens. approaching the river-side, to the left, the eye might see the two circular spaces set apart, the one for bear, the other for bull-baiting. to the right, upon a green mound of waste, within sight of the populous bridge, the gleemen were exercising their art. here one dexterous juggler threw three balls and three knives alternately in the air, catching them one by one as they fell [ ]. there, another was gravely leading a great bear to dance on its hind legs, while his coadjutor kept time with a sort of flute or flageolet. the lazy bystanders, in great concourse, stared and laughed; but the laugh was hushed at the tramp of the norman steeds; and the famous count by the king's side, as, with a smiling lip, but observant eye, he rode along, drew all attention from the bear. on now approaching that bridge which, not many years before, had been the scene of terrible contest between the invading danes and ethelred's ally, olave of norway [ ], you might still see, though neglected and already in decay, the double fortifications that had wisely guarded that vista into the city. on both sides of the bridge, which was of wood, were forts, partly of timber, partly of stone, and breastworks, and by the forts a little chapel. the bridge, broad enough to admit two vehicles abreast [ ], was crowded with passengers, and lively with stalls and booths. here was the favourite spot of the popular ballad-singer [ ]. here, too, might be seen the swarthy saracen, with wares from spain and afric [ ]. here, the german merchant from the steel-yard swept along on his way to his suburban home. here, on some holy office, went quick the muffled monk. here, the city gallant paused to laugh with the country girl, her basket full of may-boughs and cowslips. in short, all bespoke that activity, whether in business or pastime, which was destined to render that city the mart of the world, and which had already knit the trade of the anglo-saxon to the remoter corners of commercial europe. the deep dark eye of william dwelt admiringly on the bustling groups, on the broad river, and the forest of masts which rose by the indented marge near belin's gate [ ]. and he to whom, whatever his faults, or rather crimes, to the unfortunate people he not only oppressed but deceived--london at least may yet be grateful, not only for chartered franchise [ ], but for advancing, in one short vigorous reign, her commerce and wealth, beyond what centuries of anglo-saxon domination, with its inherent feebleness, had effected, exclaimed aloud: "by rood and mass, o dear king, thy lot hath fallen on a goodly heritage." "hem!" said edward, lazily; "thou knowest not how troublesome these saxons are. and while thou speakest, lo, in yon shattered walls, built first, they say, by alfred of holy memory, are the evidences of the danes. bethink thee how often they have sailed up this river. how know i but what the next year the raven flag may stream over these waters? magnus of denmark hath already claimed my crown as heir to the royalties of canute, and" (here edward hesitated), "godwin and harold, whom alone of my thegns dane and northman fear, are far away." "miss not them, edward, my cousin," cried the duke, in haste. "send for me if danger threat thee. ships enow await thy best in my new port of cherbourg. and i tell thee this for thy comfort, that were i king of the english, and lord of this river, the citizens of london might sleep from vespers to prime, without fear of the dane. never again should the raven flag be seen by this bridge! never, i swear, by the splendour divine." not without purpose spoke william thus stoutly; and he turned on the king those glittering eyes (micantes oculos), which the chroniclers have praised and noted. for it was his hope and his aim in this visit, that his cousin edward should formally promise him that goodly heritage of england. but the king made no rejoinder, and they now neared the end of the bridge. "what old ruin looms yonder?" [ ] asked william, hiding his disappointment at edward's silence; "it seemeth the remains of some stately keape, which, by its fashion, i should pronounce roman." "ay!" said edward, "and it is said to have been built by the romans; and one of the old lombard freemasons employed on my new palace of westminster, giveth that, and some others in my domain, the name of the juillet tower." "those romans were our masters in all things gallant and wise," said william; "and i predict that, some day or other, on that site, a king of england will re-erect palace and tower. and yon castle towards the west?" "is the tower palatine, where our predecessors have lodged, and ourself sometimes; but the sweet loneliness of thorney isle pleaseth me more now." thus talking, they entered london, a rude, dark city, built mainly of timbered houses; streets narrow and winding; windows rarely glazed, but protected chiefly by linen blinds; vistas opening, however, at times into broad spaces, round the various convents, where green trees grew up behind low palisades. tall roods, and holy images, to which we owe the names of existing thoroughfares (rood-lane and lady-lane [ ]), where the ways crossed, attracted the curious and detained the pious. spires there were not then, but blunt, cone-headed turrets, pyramidal, denoting the houses of god, rose often from the low, thatched, and reeded roofs. but every now and then, a scholar's, if not an ordinary, eye could behold the relics of roman splendour, traces of that elder city which now lies buried under our thoroughfares, and of which, year by year, are dug up the stately skeletons. along the thames still rose, though much mutilated, the wall of constantine [ ]. round the humble and barbarous church of st. paul's (wherein lay the dust of sebba, that king of the east saxons who quitted his throne for the sake of christ, and of edward's feeble and luckless father, ethelred) might be seen, still gigantic in decay, the ruins of the vast temple of diana [ ]. many a church, and many a convent, pierced their mingled brick and timber work with roman capital and shaft. still by the tower, to which was afterwards given the saracen name of barbican, were the wrecks of the roman station, where cohorts watched night and day, in case of fire within or foe without. [ ] in a niche, near the aldersgate, stood the headless statue of fortitude, which monks and pilgrims deemed some unknown saint in the old time, and halted to honour. and in the midst of bishopsgate- street, sate on his desecrated throne a mangled jupiter, his eagle at his feet. many a half-converted dane there lingered, and mistook the thunderer and the bird for odin and his hawk. by leod-gate (the people's gate [ ]) still too were seen the arches of one of those mighty aqueducts which the roman learned from the etrurian. and close by the still-yard, occupied by "the emperor's cheap men" (the german merchants), stood, almost entire, the roman temple, extant in the time of geoffrey of monmouth. without the walls, the old roman vineyards [ ] still put forth their green leaves and crude clusters, in the plains of east smithfield, in the fields of st. giles's, and on the site where now stands hatton garden. still massere [ ] and cheapmen chaffered and bargained, at booth and stall, in mart-lane, where the romans had bartered before them. with every encroachment on new soil, within the walls and without, urn, vase, weapon, human bones, were shovelled out, and lay disregarded amidst heaps of rubbish. not on such evidences of the past civilisation looked the practical eye of the norman count; not on things, but on men, looked he; and as silently he rode on from street to street, out of those men, stalwart and tall, busy, active, toiling, the man-ruler saw the civilisation that was to come. so, gravely through the small city, and over the bridge that spanned the little river of the fleet, rode the train along the strand; to the left, smooth sands; to the right, fair pastures below green holts, thinly studded with houses; over numerous cuts and inlets running into the river, rode they on. the hour and the season were those in which youth enjoyed its holiday, and gay groups resorted to the then [ ] fashionable haunts of the fountain of holywell, "streaming forth among glistening pebbles." so they gained at length the village of charing, which edward had lately bestowed on his abbey of westminster, and which was now filled with workmen, native and foreign, employed on that edifice and the contiguous palace. here they loitered awhile at the mews [ ] (where the hawks were kept), passed by the rude palace of stone and rubble, appropriated to the tributary kings of scotland [ ]--a gift from edgar to kenneth--and finally, reaching the inlet of the river, which, winding round the isle of thorney (now westminster), separated the rising church, abbey, and palace of the saint-king from the main-land, dismounted--and were ferried across [ ] the narrow stream to the broad space round the royal residence. chapter v. the new palace of edward the confessor, the palace of westminster, opened its gates, to receive the saxon king and the norman duke, remounting on the margin of the isle, and now riding side by side. and as the duke glanced, from brows habitually knit, first over the pile, stately, though not yet completed, with its long rows of round arched windows, cased by indented fringes and fraet (or tooth) work, its sweep of solid columns with circling cloisters, and its ponderous towers of simple grandeur; then over the groups of courtiers, with close vests, and short mantles, and beardless cheeks, that filled up the wide space, to gaze in homage on the renowned guest, his heart swelled within him, and, checking his rein, he drew near to his brother of bayeux, and whispered,-- "is not this already the court of the norman? behold yon nobles and earls, how they mimic our garb! behold the very stones in yon gate, how they range themselves, as if carved by the hand of the norman mason! verily and indeed, brother, the shadow of the rising sun rests already on these halls." "had england no people," said the bishop, "england were yours already. but saw you not, as we rode along, the lowering brows? and heard you not the angry murmurs? the villeins are many, and their hate is strong." "strong is the roan i bestride," said the duke; "but a bold rider curbs it with the steel of the bit, and guides it with the goad of the heel." and now, as they neared the gate, a band of minstrels in the pay of the norman touched their instruments, and woke their song--the household song of the norman--the battle hymn of roland, the paladin of charles the great. at the first word of the song, the norman knights and youths profusely scattered amongst the normanised saxons caught up the lay, and with sparkling eyes, and choral voices, they welcomed the mighty duke into the palace of the last meek successor of woden. by the porch of the inner court the duke flung himself from his saddle, and held the stirrup for edward to dismount. the king placed his hand gently on his guest's broad shoulder, and, having somewhat slowly reached the ground, embraced and kissed him in the sight of the gorgeous assemblage; then led him by the hand towards the fair chamber which was set apart for the duke, and so left him to his attendants. william, lost in thought, suffered himself to be disrobed in silence; but when fitzosborne, his favourite confidant and haughtiest baron, who yet deemed himself but honoured by personal attendance on his chief, conducted him towards the bath, which adjoined the chamber, he drew back, and wrapping round him more closely the gown of fur that had been thrown over his shoulders, he muttered low,--"nay, if there be on me yet one speck of english dust, let it rest there!--seizin, fitzosborne, seizin, of the english land." then, waving his hand, he dismissed all his attendants except fitzosborne, and rolf, earl of hereford [ ], nephew to edward, but french on the father's side, and thoroughly in the duke's councils. twice the duke paced the chamber without vouchsafing a word to either, then paused by the round window that overlooked the thames. the scene was fair; the sun, towards its decline, glittered on numerous small pleasure-boats, which shot to and fro between westminster and london or towards the opposite shores of lambeth. his eye sought eagerly, along the curves of the river, the grey remains of the fabled tower of julius, and the walls, gates, and turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the dense mass of silent roofs; then it strained hard to descry the tops of the more distant masts of the infant navy, fostered under alfred, the far-seeing, for the future civilisation of wastes unknown, and the empire of seas untracked. the duke breathed hard, and opened and closed the hand which he stretched forth into space as if to grasp the city he beheld. "rolf," said he, abruptly, "thou knowest, no doubt, the wealth of the london traders, one and all; for, foi de gaillaume, my gentil chevalier, thou art a true norman, and scentest the smell of gold as a hound the boar!" rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which simpler men might have deemed, at the best, equivocal, and replied: "it is true, my liege; and gramercy, the air of england sharpens the scent; for in this villein and motley country, made up of all races,-- saxon and fin, dane and fleming, pict and walloon,--it is not as with us, where the brave man and the pure descent are held chief in honour: here, gold and land are, in truth, name and lordship; even their popular name for their national assembly of the witan is, 'the wealthy.' [ ] he who is but a ceorl to-day, let him be rich, and he may be earl to-morrow, marry in king's blood, and rule armies under a gonfanon statelier than a king's; while he whose fathers were ealdermen and princes, if, by force or by fraud, by waste or by largess, he become poor, falls at once into contempt, and out of his state,--sinks into a class they call 'six-hundred men,' in their barbarous tongue, and his children will probably sink still lower, into ceorls. wherefore gold is the thing here most coveted; and by st. michael, the sin is infectious." william listened to the speech with close attention. "good," said he, rubbing slowly the palm of his right hand over the back of the left; "a land all compact with the power of one race, a race of conquering men, as our fathers were, whom nought but cowardice or treason can degrade,--such a land, o rolf of hereford, it were hard indeed to subjugate, or decoy, or tame--" "so has my lord the duke found the bretons; and so also do i find the welch upon my marches of hereford." "but," continued william, not heeding the interruption, "where wealth is more than blood and race, chiefs may be bribed or menaced; and the multitude--by'r lady, the multitude are the same in all lands, mighty under valiant and faithful leaders, powerless as sheep without them. but to my question, my gentle rolf; this london must be rich?" [ ] "rich enow," answered rolf, "to coin into armed men, that should stretch from rouen to flanders on the one hand, and paris on the other." "in the veins of matilda, whom thou wooest for wife," said fitzosborne, abruptly, "flows the blood of charlemagne. god grant his empire to the children she shall bear thee!" the duke bowed his head, and kissed a relic suspended from his throat. farther sign of approval of his counsellor's words he gave not, but after a pause, he said: "when i depart, rolf, thou wendest back to thy marches. these welch are brave and fierce, and shape work enow for thy hands." "ay, by my halidame! poor sleep by the side of the beehive you have stricken down." "marry, then," said william, "let the welch prey on saxon, saxon on welch; let neither win too easily. remember our omens to-day, welch hawk and saxon bittern, and over their corpses, duke william's norway falcon! now dress we for the complin [ ] and the banquet." from page images generously made available by internet archive (https://archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see https://archive.org/details/historyofanglos mill transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). there are several "parts" in this book. only the last one is listed in the table of contents. the titles of the parts are enclosed by equal signs (example: =the saxon invasion.=). the page numbers in the table of contents usually refer to the end of the chapter, rather than to the beginning. the list of illustrations follows the last chapter of the book. the footnotes were moved to the end of this ebook. other transcriber's notes will be found after the footnotes. [illustration: _conversion of ethelbert._] history of the anglo-saxons: from the earliest period to the norman conquest. by thomas miller, author of "royston gower," "lady jane grey," "pictures of country life," etc. second edition. london: david bogue, fleet street. mdcccl. contents. chapter i. the dawn of history. obscurity of early history--our ancient monuments a mystery-- the welsh triads--language of the first inhabitants of britain unknown--wonders of the ancient world p. chapter ii. the ancient britons. the celtic tribes--britain known to the phoenicians and greeks-- the ancient cymry--different classes of the early britons-- their personal appearance--description of their forest-towns-- a british hunter--interior of an ancient hut--costume of the old cymry--ancient armour and weapons--british war-chariots --the fearful havoc they made in battle p. chapter iii. the druids. interior of an old british forest--druidical sacrifice--their treasures--their mysterious rites and ceremonies--the power they possessed--their belief in a future state--their wild superstitions--an arch-druid described--their veneration for the mistletoe--description of the druids offering up sacrifice --the gloomy grandeur of their ancient groves--contrast between the idols of the druids and the heathen gods of the romans p. chapter iv. landing of julius cÆsar. cæsar's reasons for invading britain--despatches volusenus from gaul to reconnoitre the island--is intimidated by the force he finds arranged along the cliffs of dover--lands near sandwich --courage of the roman standard-bearer--combat between the britons and romans--defeat and submission of the britons-- wreck of the roman galleys--perilous position of the invaders --roman soldiers attacked in a corn-field, rescued by the arrival of their general--britons attack the roman encampment, are again defeated, and pursued by the roman cavalry--cæsar's hasty departure from britain--return of the romans at spring --description of their armed galleys--determination of cæsar to conquer britain--picturesque description of the night march of the roman legions into kent--battle beside a river --difficulties the romans encounter in their marches through the ancient british forests--cæsar's hasty retreat to his encampment--the roman galleys again wrecked--cessation of hostilities--cassivellaunus assumes the command of the britons --his skill as a general--obtains an advantage over the romans with his war-chariots--attacks the roman encampment by night and slays the outer guard--defeats the two cohorts that advance to their rescue, and slays a roman tribune--renewal of the battle on the following day--cæsar compelled to call in the foragers to strengthen his army--splendid charge of the roman cavalry--overthrow and retreat of the britons--cæsar marches through kent and surrey in pursuit of the british army --crosses the thames near chertsey--retreat of the british general--cuts off the supplies of the romans, and harasses the army with his war-chariots--stratagems adopted by the britons --cassivellaunus betrayed by his countrymen--his fortress attacked in the forest--contemplates the destruction of the roman fleet--attack of the kentish men on the encampment of the invaders--the romans again victorious--cassivellaunus sues for peace--final departure of cæsar from britain p. chapter v. caractacus, boadicea, and agricola. state of britain after the departure of cæsar--landing of plautius--his skirmishes with the britons in the marshes beside the thames--arrival of the roman emperor claudius--ostorius conquers and disarms the britons--rise of caractacus--british encampment in wales--caractacus defeated, betrayed by his step-mother, and carried captive to rome--death of the roman general ostorius--retreat of the druids to the isle of anglesey --suetonius attacks the island--consternation of the roman soldiers on landing--massacre of the druids, and destruction of their groves and altars--boadicea, queen of the iceni, assumes the command of the britons--her sufferings--she prepares for battle, attacks the roman colony of camaladonum--her terrible vengeance--her march into london, and destruction of the romans--picturesque description of boadicea and her daughters in her ancient british war-chariot--harangues her soldiers --is defeated by suetonius, and destroys herself--agricola lands in britain--his mild measures--instructs the islanders in agriculture and architecture--leads the roman legions into caledonia, and attacks the men of the woods--bravery of galgacus, the caledonian chief--agricola sails round the coast of scotland--erects a roman rampart to prevent the caledonians from invading britain p. chapter vi. departure of the romans. adrian strengthens and extends the roman fortifications-- description of these ancient barriers, and the combats that took place before them--wall erected by the emperor severus--he marches into caledonia, reaches the frith of moray--great mortality amongst the roman legions--severus dies at york-- picturesque description of the roman sentinels guarding the ancient fortresses--attack of the northern barbarians--peace of britain under the government of caracalla--arrival of the saxon and scandinavian pirates--the british channel protected by the naval commander, carausius--his assassination at york --constantine the great--theodosius conquers the saxons-- rebellion of the roman soldiers; they elect their own general --alaric, the goth, overruns the roman territories--british soldiers sent abroad to strengthen the roman ranks--decline of the roman power in britain--ravages of the picts, scots, and saxons--the britons apply in vain for assistance from rome --miserable condition in which they are left on the departure of the romans--war between the britons and the remnant of the invaders--vortigern, king of the britons--a league with the saxons p. chapter vii. britain after the roman period. great change produced in britain by the romans--its ancient features contrasted with its appearance after their departure-- picturesque description of britain--first dawn of christianity --progress of the britons in civilization--old british fortifications--change in the costume of the britons--decline in their martial deportment--their ancient mode of burial-- description of early british barrows--ascendancy of rank p. chapter viii. the ancient saxons. origin of the early saxons--description of their habits and arms --their religion--the halls of valhalla--their belief in rewards and punishments after death--their ancient mythology described--superstitions of the early saxons--their ancient temples and forms of worship--their picturesque processions --dreadful punishments inflicted upon those who robbed their temples--different orders of society--their divisions of the seasons--their bravery as pirates, and skill in navigation p. chapter ix. hengist, horsa, rowena, and vortigern. landing of hengist and horsa, the saxon chiefs--their treaty with vortigern and the british chiefs--the british king allots them the isle of thanet as a residence, on condition that they drive out the picts and scots--success of the saxons--arrival of more ships--landing of the princess rowena--marriage of vortigern and rowena--quarrel between the britons and saxons --description of their first battle by the old welsh bards-- the britons led on by the sons of vortigern--death of horsa, the saxon chief--rowena's revenge--pretended reconciliation of the saxons, and description of the feast where the british chiefs were massacred--terrible death of vortigern and the fair rowena p. chapter x. ella, cerdric, and king arthur. arrival of ella and his three sons--combat between the saxons and britons beside the ancient forest of andredswold--defeat of the britons, and desolate appearance of the old forest town of andred-ceaster after the battle--revengeful feelings of the britons--establishment of the saxon kingdom of sussex-- landing of cerdric and his followers--battle of churdfrid, and death of the british king natanleod--arrival of cerdric's kinsmen--the britons again defeated--arthur, the british king, arms in defence of his country--his adventures described --numbers of battles in which he fought--death of king arthur in the field of camlan--discovery of his remains in the abbey of glastonbury p. chapter xi. establishment of the saxon octarchy. landing of erkenwin--the establishment of the kingdom of wessex --description of london--arrival of ida and his twelve sons --the british chiefs make a bold stand against ida--bravery of urien--description of the battle of the pleasant valley, by taliesin, the british bard--llywarch's elegy on the death of urien--beautiful description of the battle of cattraeth by anenrin, the welsh bard--establishment of the kingdom of mercia --description of the divisions of england which formed the saxon octarchy--amalgamation of the british and saxon population-- retirement of the unconquered remnant of the ancient cymry into wales p. chapter xii. conversion of ethelbert. commencement of the civil war amongst the saxons--struggle between ethelbert, king of kent, and ceawlin, king of wessex, for the title of bretwalda--description of the slave-market of rome --monk gregory's admiration of the british captives--gregory becomes pontiff, and despatches augustin with fifty monks to convert the inhabitants of britain--picturesque description of the landing of the christian missionaries in the isle of thanet --intercession of bertha--ethelbert's interview with augustin and his followers--the missionaries take up their residence in canterbury--conversion of ethelbert--augustin is made archbishop, by pope gregory--the rich presents sent to britain by the pope--character of the roman pontiff--his wise policy in not abolishing at once all outward forms of heathen worship --eadbald ascends the throne of kent--marries his stepmother, and is denounced by the priests--he renounces the christian faith--the monks are driven out of essex--eadbald again acknowledges the true faith, and the persecuted priests find shelter in the kingdom of kent p. chapter xiii. edwin, king of the deiri and bernicia. adventures of edwin, king of the deiri--his residence in wales with cadvan, one of the ancient british kings--ethelfrith having deprived him of his kingdom, seeks his life--edwin flies from wales, and seeks the protection of redwald, king of east anglia--edwin's dream--the queen of east anglia intercedes in behalf of edwin--redwald prepares to wage war with ethelfrith --religion of the king of east anglia--description of the battle fought between redwald and ethelfrith on the banks of the river idel--death of ethelfrith, and accession of edwin to the throne of northumbria--edwin's marriage with edilburga, daughter of ethelbert--journey of the saxon princess from kent to northumbria--attempted assassination of edwin--paulinus endeavours in vain to convert edwin to the christian faith-- the king assembles his pagan priests and nobles to discuss the new religion--speech of coifi, the heathen priest--beautiful and poetical address of a saxon chief to the assembly--coifi desecrates the temple of woden--peaceful state of northumbria under the reign of edwin--death of edwin at the battle of hatfield-chase in yorkshire--victories of cadwallon, the british king--triumph of the saxons under oswald, and death of cadwallon at the battle called heaven-field p. chapter xiv. penda, the pagan monarch of mercia. description of the kingdom of mercia--character of penda, the pagan king--charity of oswald--barbarous cruelty of penda-- his desolating march through northumbria--attacks the castle of bamborough--his march into wessex--his invasion of east anglia--sigebert, the monk-king, leads on the east anglians --is defeated by penda, who ravages east anglia--the pagan king again enters northumbria--oswy offers all his treasures to purchase peace--is treated with contempt by penda--oswy prepares for battle--penda's forces driven into the river-- death of the pagan king--great changes effected by his death --courage of saxburga, the widowed queen of wessex--perilous state of the saxon octarchy p. chapter xv. decline of the saxon octarchy. alfred, the learned king of northumbria--his patronage of the celebrated scholar aldhelm--ceowulf, the patron of bede-- mollo, brother of the king of wessex, burnt alive in kent--king ina and his celebrated laws--strange device of ina's queen to induce him to resign his crown, and make a pilgrimage to rome --mysterious death of ostrida, queen of the mercians--her husband, ethelred, abandons his crown and becomes a monk after her violent death--ethelbald ascends the throne of mercia-- adventures of his early life--his residence with guthlac, the hermit, in the island of croyland--first founder of the monastery of croyland--ethelbald joins cuthred, king of wessex, and obtains a victory over the welsh--proclaims war against cuthred--description of the battle, and defeat of ethelbald-- independence of the kingdom of wessex--abdication of sigebyhrt, king of wessex--his death in the forest of andredswold--rapid accession and dethronement of the kings of northumbria--summary of their brief reigns p. chapter xvi. offa, surnamed the terrible. offa ascends the throne of mercia--drida's introduction and marriage with the mercian king--character of queen drida and her daughter edburga--offa's invasion of northumbria--he marches into kent--is victorious--defeats the king of wessex --his victory over the welsh--description of offa's dyke-- offa's friendly correspondence with charlemagne--adventures of egbert--murder of cynewulf, at merton, in surrey--brihtric obtains the crown of wessex, and marries the daughter of offa-- ethelbert, king of east anglia, visits the mercian court--queen drida plots his destruction--description of a saxon feast-- dreadful death of ethelbert--offa's daughter, alfleda, seeks shelter in the monastery of croyland--murder of queen drida --edburga poisons her husband, brihtric, king of wessex--she flies to france--her reception at the court of charlemagne-- she dies a beggar in the streets of pavia p. chapter xvii. egbert, king of all the saxons. character of egbert--his watchful policy--death of kenwulf, and decline of the kingdom of mercia--egbert annexes the kingdom of kent to wessex--compels wiglaf, king of mercia, to pay him tribute--he conquers the kingdom of northumbria, and subjects the whole of the saxon kingdoms to his sway--northumbria invaded by the danes--they sack the abbey of lindisfarne, and slay the monks--the danes again land in dorsetshire--egbert presides over a council in london, to devise measures to prevent the ravages of the danes--the remnant of the ancient britons who have been driven into wales, form a league with the danes, and are defeated--death of egbert p. chapter xviii. the ancient sea-kings. origin of the danish invaders--habits of the early vikings-- their warlike education--picturesque description of their wild life--their hatred of the saxons--description of their ships and warlike weapons--arrangement of their plans to plunder-- their vows on the golden bracelet--power of their leader only acknowledged in battle--their rude festivities p. chapter xix. first settlement of the danes in northumbria. ethelwulph, king of kent--his unfitness to govern--the brave bishop of sherbourne--the two characters contrasted--boldness of the danes--they occupy the isle of thanet--battle of the field of oaks--character of osberga, mother of alfred the great --ethelwulph visits rome in company with his son alfred--the king of kent marries judith, daughter of charles of france-- his presents to the pope--returns to england with his youthful wife--rebellion of his son ethelbald--death of ethelwulph --ethelbald marries his stepmother judith--she elopes from a monastery with baldwin, the grand forester--death of ethelbald --brief reign of ethelbert--alfred begins to distinguish himself--the celebrated sea-king, ragnar lodbrog--his bravery --builds a large ship--is wrecked on the coast of northumbria --made prisoner by ella, and dies in a dungeon--his celebrated death-song--the sons of ragnar lodbrog prepare to revenge their father's death--england invaded by their mighty fleet-- their march towards northumbria--ravage york--horrible death of ella, king of northumbria--the danes occupy the kingdoms of the deiri and bernicia--nottingham taken by the danes-- alfred accompanies his brother ethelred, and the king of mercia, in their attack upon the danes--they enter into a treaty with the invaders--alfred's marriage and attainments at this period p. chapter xx. ravages of the danes, and death of ethelred. ravages of the danes in lincolnshire--destruction of the monastery of bardney--gallant resistance of the mercians-- battle near croyland abbey--destruction of croyland abbey, and murder of the monks--sidroc, one of the sea-kings, saves a boy from the massacre--the abbey of peterborough destroyed by the danes--description of the country through which the invaders passed--their march into east anglia--the danes enter wessex --battle of ash-tree hill, and victory of the saxons--death of ethelred p. chapter xxi. accession and abdication of alfred the great. miserable state of england when alfred ascended the throne of wessex--he is disheartened by the rapid arrival of the danes --enters into a treaty with them, and they abandon essex--the danes occupy london--burrhed, king of mercia, retires to rome --the danes now masters of all england, excepting wessex-- alfred destroys their ships--again enters into treaty with them --he encounters them at sea--treaty at exeter--his strange conduct at chippenham--vindication of the character of alfred --his conduct during retirement--alfred the great in the cowherd's hut--discovery of his retreat--his skirmishes with the danes--odin, the earl of devonshire, captures the magical banner of hubba, the sea-king--alfred and his followers fortify their island retreat--poverty of the great saxon king p. chapter xxii. alfred the great. alfred in disguise visits the danish camp near westbury in wiltshire--his interview with godrun, the sea-king--alfred musters the saxon forces at selwood forest--the arrival of his followers described--his preparation for battle--description of the combat--defeat of the danes--alfred besieges the danish encampment--surrender of godrun--policy and generosity of alfred the great--peaceful appearance of england--landing of hastings, the famous sea-king--alfred increases his navy-- character of hastings, the sea-king, the most skilful of all the danish invaders--alfred marches his army between the danish forces--his masterly generalship--hastings offers to quit the kingdom--his treachery--is again conquered by alfred--the danes of east anglia and northumbria rise up against alfred-- the wife and children of hastings are taken prisoners by alfred, and discharged with presents--after many struggles the danes are at last defeated--hastings quits england--death of alfred the great p. chapter xxiii. character of alfred the great. his boyhood--early love of poetry--self-cultivation--wisdom displayed in his conduct with the danes--difficulties under which he pursued his labour--his patronage of literary men --method of study--summary of his works--he reforms the saxon nobles--divides his time--various purposes to which he appropriates his revenue--his invention for marking the hours --cultivates an acquaintance with foreign countries--his severity in the administration of justice--establishment of a rigid system of police--his laws--intellectual character of alfred the great p. chapter xxiv. edward the elder. ethelwold lays claim to the throne of wessex--is backed by the danes, and crowned at york--battle of axeholme and defeat of ethelwold--edward ravages northumbria--the danes attack mercia--they enter the severn--battle of wodensfield, and defeat of the danes--edward strengthens his frontier with fortresses--their situation described--bravery of his sister ethelfleda--the danes enter north wales--edward again victorious--submission of the welsh princes and the danes of northumbria--death of edward the elder p. chapter xxv. the reign of athelstan. athelstan, the favourite grandchild of alfred the great--while but a boy his grandfather invests him with the honours of knighthood--he is educated by alfred's daughter, ethelfleda-- athelstan's sister married sigtryg, a descendant of the famous sea-kings--the dane repudiates his wife, and renounces his new religion--athelstan invades his dominions--death of sigtryg, and flight of his sons--preparation for the invasion of england --the force arrayed against athelstan--measures adopted by the saxon king--preparations for battle--picturesque description of the battle of brunanburg--anglo-saxon song on athelstan's victory--high position attained by athelstan--otho the great marries athelstan's sister--the saxon monarch forms an alliance with the emperor of germany and the king of norway--harold of norway suppresses piracy--sends his son haco to be educated at the saxon court--presents a beautiful ship to athelstan-- death of harold, king of norway--list of the kings who were established on their thrones by athelstan--his presents to the monasteries--his charity and laws for the relief of the poor-- cruelty to his brother edwin--death of athelstan p. chapter xxvi. the reigns of edmund and edred. accession of edmund the elder--anlaf, the dane, invades mercia, and defeats the saxons--edmund treats with anlaf, and divides england with the danes--perilous state of the saxon succession prevented by the death of anlaf--change in edmund's character --his brilliant victories--cruelty to the british princes-- edmund assassinated while celebrating the feast of st. augustin, by leof, the robber--mystery that surrounds the murder of edmund the elder--edred ascends the saxon throne--eric, the sea-king--his daring deeds on the ocean--description of his wild life--edred invades northumbria--eric attacks his own subjects--edred's victory over the danes--scandinavian war-song on the death of eric--death of edred p. chapter xxvii. edwin and elgiva. edwin's marriage with elgiva--odo, the danish archbishop-- st. dunstan--his early life--he becomes delirious--his intellectual attainments--his persecution--he falls in love --is dissuaded from marriage by the bishop, Ælfheag--he is again attacked with sickness--recovers, and becomes a monk-- lives in a narrow cell--absurdity of his rumoured interviews with the evil one--his high connexions--analysis of his character--dunstan's rude attack upon king edwin, after the banquet--dunstan again driven from court--remarks on his conduct--elgiva is cruelly tortured, and savagely murdered by the command of odo, the archbishop of canterbury--dunstan recalled from his banishment--supposed murder of edwin p. chapter xxviii. the reign of edgar. power of dunstan--he is made archbishop of canterbury--he appoints his own friends counsellors to the young king--his encouragement of the fine arts--enforces the benedictine rules upon the monks--speech of edgar in favour of dunstan's reformation in the monasteries--romantic adventure of elfrida, daughter of the earl of devonshire--death of athelwold-- personal courage of edgar--his love of pomp, and generosity-- his encouragement of foreign artificers--his tribute of wolves' heads--england infested with wolves long after the commencement of the saxon period--many of the saxon names derived from the wolf--death of edgar--elfric's sketch of his character-- changes wrought by edgar p. chapter xxix. edward the martyr. dunstan still triumphant--is opposed by the dowager-queen elfrida --her attempts to place her son, ethelred, upon the throne, frustrated by dunstan--contest between the monks and the secular clergy--the benedictine monks driven out of mercia-- the synod of winchester--dunstan's pretended miracle doubted-- the council of calne--william of malmesbury's description of the assembly--dunstan's threat--falling in of that portion of the floor on which dunstan's opponents stood--reasons for supposing that the floor was undermined by the command of dunstan--death of his enemies, and triumph of the archbishop --edward's visit to corfe castle--he is stabbed in the back while pledging his stepmother, elfrida, at the gate--his dreadful death--character of elfrida p. chapter xxx. ethelred the unready. elfrida still opposed by dunstan--ethelred crowned by the archbishop of canterbury--his malediction at the coronation --dislike of the saxons to ethelred--dunstan's power on the wane--insurrection of the danes--the danish pirates again ravage england--courageous reply of the saxon governor of essex --single combat between the saxon governor, and one of the sea-kings--cowardly conduct of ethelred--he pays tribute, and makes peace with the danes--alfric the mercian governor, turns traitor, and joins the danes with his saxon ships--the saxon army again commanded by the danes, and defeated--olaf, the norwegian, and swein, king of denmark, invade and take formal possession of england--ethelred again exhausts his exchequer, to purchase peace--swein's second invasion of england--cruel massacre of the danes by the saxons--murder of gunhilda, the sister of swein, king of denmark--swein prepares to revenge the death of his countrymen--description of his soldiers --splendour of his ships--his magical banner described-- his landing in england--alfric again betrays the saxons-- destruction of norwich--ethelred once more purchases peace of the danes---Ælfeg, archbishop of canterbury, made prisoner by the sea-kings--he refuses to pay a ransom--is summoned to appear before the sea-kings while they are feasting, and beaten to death by the bones of the oxen the pirates had feasted upon--ethelred lays an oppressive tax upon the land--he raises a large fleet --is again betrayed by his commanders--sixteen counties are given up to the danes--ethelred deserted by his subjects-- escapes to the isle of wight, and from thence to normandy-- swein, king of denmark, becomes the monarch of england--death of swein--his son canute claims the crown--is opposed by edmund ironside--canute's cruelty to the saxon hostages-- miserable state of england at this period, as described by a saxon bishop p. chapter xxxi. edmund, surnamed ironside. courageous character of edmund ironside--his gallant defence of london--his prowess at the battle of scearston--obstinacy of the combat which is only terminated by the approach of night-- renewal of the battle in the morning--narrow escape of canute, the dane, from the two-handed sword of edmund ironside-- conduct of the traitor edric--retreat of the danes--battles fought by edmund the saxon--ulfr, a danish chief, lost in a wood--meets with godwin the cowherd, and is conducted to the danish camp--treaty between canute the dane and edmund ironside --the kingdom divided between the danes and saxons--suspicious circumstances attending the death of edmund--despondency of the saxons p. chapter xxxii. canute the dane. coronation of canute the dane--his treaty with the saxon nobles --he banishes the relations of ethelred, and the children of edmund--fate of edmund's children--canute's marriage with emma, the dowager-queen of the saxons--death of the traitor, edric--canute visits denmark--death of ulfr, the patron of godwin the cowherd--canute invades norway--habits of the norwegian pirates--canute erects a monument to Ælfeg, the murdered archbishop of canterbury--carries off the dead body of the bishop from london--night scene on the thames--kills one of his soldiers--his penance--establishes the tax of peter's-pence--picturesque description of canute rebuking his courtiers--his theatrical display, and vanity--his pilgrimage to rome--canute's letter--his death p. chapter xxxiii. reigns of harold harefoot and hardicanute. sketch of canute's reputed sons--the succession disputed-- rise of earl godwin--refusal of the archbishop to crown harold harefoot--harold crowns himself, and bids defiance to the church--conduct of emma of normandy--her letter to her son alfred--he lands in england, with a train of norman followers--his reception by earl godwin--massacre of the normans at guildford--death of alfred, the son of ethelred --emma banished from england--her residence at bruges-- hardicanute prepares to invade england--death of harold harefoot--accession of hardicanute--disinters the body of harold--summons earl godwin to answer for the death of alfred --godwin's defence--penalty paid by earl godwin--character of hardicanute--his huscarls--the inhabitants of worcester refuse to pay the tax, called dane-geld--they abandon the city--reckless conduct of hardicanute--he invites edward, the son of ethelred, to england--hardicanute, the last of the sea-kings, dies drunk at a marriage-feast in lambeth p. chapter xxxiv. accession of edward the confessor. edward established on the throne of england by the power of earl godwin--edward marries editha, the earl's daughter-- description of the lady editha, by ingulphus--godwin's jealousy of the norman favourites, who surrounded edward--friendless state of edward the confessor, when he arrived in england-- changes produced by the arrival of the normans in the saxon court--independence of godwin and his sons--emma banished by her son edward--threatened invasion of magnus, king of norway--the saxons and danes alike jealous of the norman favourites--eustace, count of boulogne, visits king edward-- his conduct at dover--several of the count's followers are slain--earl godwin refuses to punish the inhabitants of dover for their attack on count eustace--the normans endeavour to overthrow earl godwin--he refuses to attend the council at gloucester--earl godwin and his sons have recourse to arms-- the danes refuse to attack the saxons in king edwin's quarrel-- banishment of the saxon earl and his sons--sufferings of queen editha p. chapter xxxv. edward the confessor. description of the english court, after the banishment of earl godwin--william, the norman, surnamed the bastard, and the conqueror, arrives in england--william's parentage--sketch of his father, surnamed robert the devil--his pilgrimage to rome, and death--bold and daring character of william the norman-- his cruel conduct to the prisoners of alençon--his delight on visiting england--circumstances in his favour for obtaining the crown of england--return, and triumph of earl godwin-- england again on the verge of a civil war--departure of the norman favourites--sketch of the english court after the return of the saxon earl--death of godwin--siward the strong-- rise of harold, the son of earl godwin--imbecility of edward the confessor--harold's victory over the welsh--conduct of tostig, the brother of harold--coldness of the church of rome towards england--struggle of benedict and stigand for the pallium--mediation of lanfranc--william the norman becomes a favourite with the roman pontiff--suspicious death of edward, the son of edmund ironside--edward the confessor suspects the designs of william the conqueror--harold, the son of godwin, obtains permission to visit normandy p. chapter xxxvi. earl harold's visit to normandy. harold shipwrecked upon the coast of france--is made captive, and carried to the fortress of beaurain--is released by the intervention of william of normandy--harold's interview with duke william at rouen--affected kindness of the norman duke-- william cautiously unfolds his designs on the crown of england-- his proposition to harold--offers harold his daughter, adeliza, in marriage--duke william's stratagem--harold's oath on the relics of the saints--description of william the norman's courtship--character of matilda of flanders--harold's return to england--the english people alarmed by signs and omens-- appearance of a comet in england--description of the death of edward the confessor p. chapter xxxvii. accession of harold, the son of godwin. harold elected king of england by the saxon witenagemot-- becomes a great favourite with his subjects--restores the saxon customs--conduct of william the norman on hearing that harold had ascended the throne of england--tostig, harold's brother, forms a league with harold hardrada, the last of the sea-kings--character of harold hardrada--his adventures in the east--he prepares to land in england--tostig awaits his arrival in northumbria--the duke of normandy's message to harold king of the saxons--harold's answer--he marries the sister of morkar of northumbria--duke william makes preparations for the invasion of england--arrival of harold hardrada with his norwegian fleet--superstitious feeling of the norwegian soldiers--he joins tostig, the son of godwin-- they burn scarborough, and enter the humber--harold, by a rapid march, reaches the north--he prevents the surrender of york --preparation for the battle--harold surprises the enemy-- description of the combat--harold offers peace to his brother --the offer rejected--description of the battle--deaths of harold hardrada and tostig--harold's victory p. chapter xxxviii. england invaded by the normans. preparations in normandy for the invasion of england--description of duke william's soldiers--he obtains the sanction of the pope to seize the crown of england, and receives a consecrated banner from rome--meeting of the barons and citizens of normandy-- policy of william fitz-osbern--measures adopted by the norman duke--his promises to all who embarked in the expedition-- vows of the norman knights--protest of conan, king of brittany --death of conan--the norman fleet arrives at dive--conduct of duke william while wind-bound in the roadsteads of st. valery --consternation amongst his troops--method pursued by the norman duke to appease the murmurs of his soldiers--the norman fleet crosses the channel, and arrives at pevensey-bay--fall of the astrologer--landing of the norman soldiers--william's stumbling considered an ill omen--he marches towards hastings --alarm of the inhabitants along the coast--tidings carried to harold of the landing of the normans p. chapter xxxix. battle of hastings. harold, king of the saxons, marches from york--despatches a fleet to intercept the flight of the normans--disaffection amongst his troops--he arrives in london--his hasty departure from the metropolis--cause of harold's disasters--description of the norman and saxon encampments--william's message to harold --occupation of the rival armies the night before the battle-- gurth advises harold to quit the field--morning of the battle --the saxon and norman leaders--william the norman's address to his soldiers--inferiority of the saxons in numbers--strong position taken up by harold--commencement of the combat-- courage of the saxons--the normans driven back from the english intrenchments--skill of the norman archers--cavalry of the invaders driven into a deep ravine--the battle hitherto in favour of the saxons--rumour that william the norman was slain --the effect of his sudden appearance amongst his retreating forces--unflinching valour of the saxons--stratagem adopted by the norman duke--its consequence--william again attempts a feigned flight, and the saxons quit their intrenchments-- dreadful slaughter of the english--death of harold, the last saxon king--capture of the saxon banner--victory of the normans--retreat and pursuit of the remnant of the saxon army --the field of hastings the morning after the battle--the dead body of harold discovered by edith the swan-necked p. the anglo-saxons. their religion--government and laws--literature of anglo-saxons --architecture, arts, &c.--costume, manners, customs, and everyday life p. the history of england under the anglo-saxons. chapter i. the dawn of history. "this fortress, built by nature for herself against infection and the hand of war,-- this earth of majesty--this little world-- this precious stone set in the silver sea-- england, bound in with the triumphant sea, whose rocky shore beats back the envious surge of watery neptune." shakspere. almost every historian has set out by regretting how little is known of the early inhabitants of great britain--a fact which only the lovers of hoar antiquity deplore, since from all we can with certainty glean from the pages of contemporary history, we should find but little more to interest us than if we possessed written records of the remotest origin of the red indians; for both would alike but be the history of an unlettered and uncivilized race. the same dim obscurity, with scarcely an exception, hangs over the primeval inhabitants of every other country; and if we lift up the mysterious curtain which has so long fallen over and concealed the past, we only obtain glimpses of obscure hieroglyphics; and from the unmeaning fables of monsters and giants, to which the rudest nations trace their origin, we but glance backward and backward, to find that civilized rome and classic greece can produce no better authorities than old undated traditions, teeming with fabulous accounts of heathen gods and goddesses. what we can see of the remote past through the half-darkened twilight of time, is as of a great and unknown sea, on which some solitary ship is afloat, whose course we cannot trace through the shadows which everywhere deepen around her, nor tell what strange land lies beyond the dim horizon to which she seems bound. the dark night of mystery has for ever settled down upon the early history of our island, and the first dawning which throws the shadow of man upon the scene, reveals a rude hunter, clad in the skins of beasts of the chase, whose path is disputed by the maned and shaggy bison, whose rude hut in the forest fastnesses is pitched beside the lair of the hungry wolf, and whose first conquest is the extirpation of these formidable animals. and so, in as few words, might the early history of many another country be written. the shores of time are thickly strown with the remains of extinct animals, which, when living, the eye of man never looked upon, as if from the deep sea of eternity had heaved up one wave, which washed over and blotted out for ever all that was coëval with her silent and ancient reign, leaving a monument upon the confines of this old and obliterated world, for man in a far and future day to read, on which stands ever engraven the solemn sentence, "_hitherto shalt thou come, but no further!_"--beyond this boundary all is mine! neither does this mystery end here, for around the monuments which were reared by the earliest inhabitants of great britain, there still reigns a deep darkness; we know not what hand piled together the rude remains of stonehenge; we have but few records of the manners, the customs, or the religion of the early britons; here and there a colossal barrow heaves up above the dead; we look within, and find a few bones, a few rude weapons, either used in the war or the chase, and these are all; and we linger in wonderment around such remains. who those ancient voyagers were that first called england the country of sea cliffs we know not; and while we sit and brood over the rude fragments of the welsh triads, we become so entangled in doubt and mystery as to look upon the son of aedd the great, and the island of honey to which he sailed, and wherein he found no man alive, as the pleasing dream of some old and forgotten poet; and we set out again, with no more success, to discover who were the earliest inhabitants of england, leaving the ancient cymri and the country of summer behind, and the tall, silent cliffs, to stand as they had done for ages, looking over a wide and mastless sea. we then look among the ancient names of the headlands, and harbours, and mountains, and hills, and valleys, and endeavour to trace a resemblance to the language spoken by some neighbouring nation, and we only glean up a few scattered words, which leave us still in doubt, like a confusion of echoes, one breaking in upon the other, a minglement of celtic, pictish, gaulish, and saxon sounds, where if for a moment but one is audible and distinct, it is drowned by other successive clamours which come panting up with a still louder claim, and in very despair we are compelled to step back again into the old primeval silence. there we find geology looking daringly into the formation of the early world, and boldly proclaiming, that there was a period of time when our island heaved up bare and desolate amid the silence of the surrounding ocean,--when on its ancient promontories and grey granite peaks not a green branch waved, nor a blade of grass grew, and no living thing, saving the tiny corals, as they piled dome upon dome above the naked foundations of this early world, stirred in the "deep profound" which reigned over those sleeping seas. onward they go, boldly discoursing of undated centuries that have passed away, during which they tell us the ocean swarmed with huge, monstrous forms; and that all those countless ages have left to record their flight are but the remains of a few extinct reptiles and fishes, whose living likenesses never again appeared in the world. to another measureless period are we fearlessly carried--so long as to be only numbered in the account of time which eternity keeps--and other forms, we are told, moved over the floors of dried-up oceans--vast animals which no human eye ever looked upon alive; these, they say, also were swept away, and their ponderous remains had long mingled with and enriched the earth; but man had not as yet appeared; nor in any corner of the whole wide world do they discover in the deep-buried layers of the earth a single vestige of the remains of the human race. what historian, then, while such proofs as these are before his eyes, will not hesitate ere he ventures to assert who were the first inhabitants of any country, whence they came, or at what period that country was first peopled? as well might he attempt a description of the scenery over which the mornings of the early world first broke,--of summit and peak which, they say, ages ago, have been hurled down, and ground and powdered into atoms. what matters it about the date when such things once were, or at what time or place they first appeared? we can gaze upon the gigantic remains of the mastodon or mammoth, or on the grey, silent ruins of stonehenge, but at what period of time the one roamed over our island, or in what year the other was first reared, will for ever remain a mystery. the earth beneath our feet is lettered over with proofs that there was an age in which these extinct monsters existed, and that period is unmarked by any proof of the existence of man in our island. and during those not improbable periods when oceans were emptied and dried up, amid the heaving up and burying of rocks and mountains,--when volcanoes reddened the dark midnights of the world, when "the earth was without form, and void,"--what mind can picture aught but his spirit "moving upon the face of the waters,"--what mortal eye could have looked upon the rocking and reeling of those chaotic ruins when their rude forms first heaved up into the light? is not such a world stamped with the imprint of the omnipotent,--from when he first paved its foundation with enduring granite, and roofed it over with the soft blue of heaven, and lighted it by day with the glorious sun, and hung out the moon and stars to gladden the night; until at last he fashioned a world beautiful enough for the abode of his "own image" to dwell in, before he created man? and what matters it whether or not we believe in all these mighty epochs? surely it is enough for us to discover throughout every change of time the loving-kindness of god for mankind; we see how fitting this globe was at last for his dwelling-place; that before the great architect had put this last finish to his mighty work, instead of leaving us to starve amid the silurian sterility, he prepared the world for man, and in place of the naked granite, spread out a rich carpet of verdure for him to tread upon, then flung upon it a profusion of the sweetest flowers. let us not, then, daringly stand by, and say thus it was fashioned, and so it was formed, but by our silence acknowledge that it never yet entered into the heart of man to conceive how the almighty creator laid the foundation of the world. to his great works must we ever come with reverential knee, and before them lowly bow; for the grey rocks, and the high mountain summits, and the wide-spreading plains, and the ever-sounding seas, are stamped with the image of eternity,--a mighty shadow ever hangs over them. the grey and weather-beaten headlands still look over the sea, and the solemn mountains still slumber under their old midnight shadows; but what human ear first heard the murmur of the waves upon the beaten beach, or what human foot first climbed up those high-piled summits, we can never know. what would it benefit us could we discover the date when our island was buried beneath the ocean; when what was dry land in one age became the sea in another; when volcanoes glowed angrily under the dark skies of the early world, and huge extinct monsters bellowed, and roamed, and swam, through the old forests and the ancient rivers which have perhaps ages ago been swept away? what could we find more to interest us were we in possession of the names, the ages, and the numbers, of the first adventurers who were perchance driven by some storm upon our sea-beaten coast, than what is said in the ancient triad before alluded to? "there were no more men alive, nor anything but bears, wolves, beavers, and the oxen with the high prominence," when aedd landed upon the shores of england. what few traces we have of the religious rites of the early inhabitants of great britain vary but little from such as have been brought to light by modern travellers who have landed in newly-discovered countries in our own age. they worshipped idols, and had no knowledge of the true god, and saving in those lands where the early patriarchs dwelt, the same egyptian darkness settled over the whole world. the ancient greeks and romans considered all nations, excepting themselves, barbarians; nor do the chinese of the present day look upon us in a more favourable light; while we, acknowledging their antiquity as a nation, scarcely number them amongst such as are civilized. we have yet to learn by what hands the round towers of ireland were reared, and by what race the few ancient british monuments that still remain were piled together, ere we can enter those mysterious gates which open upon the history of the past. we find the footprint of man there, but who he was, or whence he came, we know not; he lived and died, and whether or not posterity would ever think of the rude monuments he left behind concerned him not; whether the stones would mark the temple in which he worshipped, or tumble down and cover his grave, concerned not his creed; with his hatchet of stone, and spear-head of flint, he hewed his way from the cradle to the tomb, and under the steep barrow he knew that he should sleep his last sleep, and, with his arms folded upon his breast, he left "the dead past to bury its dead." he lived not for us. chapter ii. the ancient britons. "where the maned bison and the wolf did roam, the ancient briton reared his wattled home, paddled his coracle across the mere, in the dim forest chased the antlered deer; pastured his herds within the open glade, played with his 'young barbarians' in the shade; and when the new moon o'er the high hills broke, worshipped his heathen gods beneath the sacred oak." the old forest. although the origin of the early inhabitants of great britain is still open to many doubts, we have good evidence that at a very remote period the descendants of the ancient cimmerii, or cymry, dwelt within our island, and that from the same great family sprang the celtic tribe; a portion of which at that early period inhabited the opposite coast of france. at what time the cymry and celts first peopled england we have not any written record, though there is no lack of proof that they were known to the early phoenician voyagers many centuries before the roman invasion, and that the ancient greeks were acquainted with the british islands by the name of the cassiterides, or the islands of tin. thus both the greeks and romans indirectly traded with the very race, whose ancestors had shaken the imperial city with their arms, and rolled the tide of battle to those classic shores where "bald, blind homer" sung. they were the undoubted offspring of the dark cimmerii of antiquity, those dreaded indwellers of caves and forests, those brave barbarians whose formidable helmets were surmounted by the figures of gaping and hideous monsters; who wore high nodding crests to make them look taller and more terrible in battle, considering death on the hard-fought field as the crowning triumph of all earthly glory. from this race sprang those ancient british tribes who presented so bold a front to julius cæsar, when his roman galleys first ploughed the waves that washed their storm-beaten shores. beyond this contemporary history carries us not; and the welch traditions go no further back than to state that when the son of aedd first sailed over the hazy ocean, the island was uninhabited, which we may suppose to mean that portion on which he and his followers landed, and where they saw no man alive, for we cannot think that it would long remain unpeopled, visible as it is on a clear day from the opposite coast of gaul, and beyond which great nations had then for centuries flourished. what few records we possess of the ancient britons, reveal a wild and hardy race; yet not so much dissimilar to the social position of england in the present day, as may at a first glance appear. they had their chiefs and rulers who wore armour, and ornaments of gold and silver; and these held in subjection the poorer races who lived upon the produce of the chase, the wild fruits and roots which the forest and the field produced, and wore skins, and dwelt in caverns, which they hewed out of the old grey rocks. they were priest-ridden by the ancient druids, who cursed and excommunicated without the aid of either bell, book, or candle; burned and slaughtered all unbelievers just as well as mahomet himself, or the bigoted fanatics, who in a later day did the same deeds under the mask of the romish religion. for centuries after, mankind had not undergone so great a change as they at the first appear to have done; there was the same love of power, the same shedding of blood, and those who had not courage to take the field openly, and seize upon what they could boldly, burnt, and slew, and sacrificed their fellow-men under the plea that such offerings were acceptable to the gods. by the aid of the few hints which are scattered over the works of the greek and roman writers, the existence of a few remaining monuments, and the discoveries which have many a time been made through numberless excavations, we can just make out, in the hazy evening of the past, enough of the dim forms of the ancient britons to see their mode of life, their habits in peace and war, as they move about in the twilight shadows which have settled down over two thousand years. that they were a tall, large-limbed, and muscular race, we have the authority of the roman writers to prove; who, however, add but little in praise of the symmetry of their figures, though they were near half a foot higher than their distant kindred the gauls. they wore their hair long and thrown back from the forehead, which must have given them a wild look in the excitement of battle, when their long curling locks would heave and fall with every blow they struck; the upper lip was unshaven, and the long tufts drooped over the mouth, thus adding greatly to their grim and warlike appearance. added to this, they cast aside their upper garments when they fought, as the brave highlanders were wont to do a century or two ago, and on their naked bodies were punctured all kinds of monsters, such as no human eye had ever beheld. claudian mentions the "fading figures on the dying pict;" the dim deathly blue that they would fade into, as the life-blood of the rude warrior ebbed out, upon the field of battle. how different must have been the landscape which the fading rays of the evening sunset gilded in that rude and primitive age. instead of the tall towers and walled cities, whose glittering windows now flash back the golden light, the sinking rays gilded a barrier of felled trees in the centre of the forest which surrounded the wattled and thatched huts of those ancient herdsmen, throwing its crimson rays upon the clear space behind, in which his herds and flocks were pastured for the night; while all around heaved up the grand and gloomy old forest, with its shadowy thickets, and dark dingles, and woody vallies untrodden by the foot of man. there was then the dreaded wolf to guard against, the unexpected rush of the wild boar, the growl of the grizzly bear, and the bellowing of the maned bison to startle him from his slumber. nor less to be feared the midnight marauder from some neighbouring tribe, whom neither the dreaded fires of the heathen druids, nor the awful sentence which held accursed all who communicated with him after the doom was uttered, could keep from plunder, whenever an opportunity presented itself. the subterraneous chambers in which their corn was stored might be emptied before morning; the wicker basket which contained their salt (brought far over the distant sea by the phoenicians or some adventurous voyager) might be carried away; and no trace of the robber could be found through the pathless forest, and the reedy morass by which he would escape, while he startled the badger with his tread, and drove the beaver into his ancient home; for beside the druids there were those who sowed no grain, who drank up the beverage their neighbours brewed from their own barley, and ate up the curds which they had made from the milk of their own herds. these were such as dug up the "pig-nuts," still eaten by the children in the northern counties at the present day; who struck down the deer, the boar, and the bison in the wild unenclosed forest--kindled a fire with the dried leaves and dead branches, then threw themselves down at the foot of the nearest oak, when their rude repast was over, and with their war-hatchet, or hunting-spear, firmly grasped, even in sleep, awaited the first beam of morning, unless awoke before by the howl of the wolf, or the thundering of the boar through the thicket. they left the fish in their vast rivers untouched, as if they preferred only that food which could be won by danger; from the timid hare they turned away, to give chase to the antlered monarch of the forest; they let the wild goose float upon the lonely mere, and the plumed duck swim about the broad lake undisturbed. there was a wild independence in their forest life--they had but few wants, and where nature no longer supplied these from her own uncultivated stores, they looked abroad and harassed the more civilized and industrious tribes. although there is but little doubt that the british chiefs, and those who dwelt on the sea-coast, and opened a trade with the gaulish merchants, lived in a state of comparative luxury, when contrasted with the wilder tribes who inhabited the interior of the island, still there is something simple and primitive in all that we can collect of their domestic habits. their seats consisted of three-legged stools, no doubt sawn crossways from the stem of the tree, and three holes made to hold the legs, like the seats which are called "crickets," that may be seen in the huts of the english peasantry in the present day. their beds consisted of dried grass, leaves, or rushes spread upon the floor--their covering, the dark blue cloak or sagum which they wore out of doors; or the dried skins of the cattle they slew, either from their own herds or in the chase. they ate and drank from off wooden trenchers, and out of bowls rudely hollowed: they were not without a rough kind of red earthenware, badly baked, and roughly formed. they kept their provisions in baskets of wicker-work, and made their boats of the same material, over which they stretched skins to keep out the water. they kindled fires on the floors of their thatched huts, and appear to have been acquainted with the use of coal as fuel, though there is little doubt that they only dug up such as lay near the surface of the earth; but it was from the great forests which half covered their island that they principally procured their fuel. they had also boats, not unlike the canoes still in use amongst the indians, which were formed out of the hollow trunk of a tree; and some of which have been found upwards of thirty feet in length; and in these, no doubt, they ventured over to the opposite coast of france, and even ireland, when the weather was calm. diodorus says, that amongst the celtic tribes there was a simplicity of manners very different to that craft and wickedness which mankind then exhibited--that they were satisfied with frugal sustenance, and avoided the luxuries of wealth. the boundaries of their pastures consisted of such primitive marks as upright stones, reminding us of the patriarchal age and the scriptural anathema of "cursed is he who removeth his neighbour's land-mark." their costume was similar to that worn by their kindred the gauls, consisting of loose lower garments, a kind of waistcoat with wide sleeves, and over this a cloak, or sagum, made of cloth or skin; and when of the former, dyed blue or black, for they were acquainted with the art of dyeing; and some of them wore a cloth, chequered with various colours. the chiefs wore rings of gold, silver, or bronze, on their forefingers; they had also ornaments, such as bracelets and armlets of the same metal, and a decoration called the torque, which was either a collar or a belt formed of gold, silver, or bronze, and which fastened behind by a strong hook. several of these ornaments have been discovered, and amongst them, one of gold, which weighed twenty-five ounces. it seems to have been something like the mailed gorget of a later day, worn above the cuirass or coat of mail, to protect the neck and throat in battle; their shoes appear to have been only a sole of wood or leather, fastened to the foot by thongs cut from off the raw hides of oxen they had slaughtered. the war weapons of the wilder tribes in the earlier times, were hatchets of stone, and arrows headed with flint, and long spears pointed with sharpened bone; but long before the roman invasion, the more civilized were in possession of battle-axes, swords, spears, javelins, and other formidable instruments of war, made of a mixture of copper and tin. many of these instruments have been discovered in the ancient barrows where they buried their dead; and were, no doubt, at first procured from the merchants with whom they traded--ignorant, perhaps, for a long period, that they were produced from the very material they were giving for them in exchange. in battle they also bore a circular shield, coated with the same metal; this they held in the hand by the centre bar that went across the hollow inner space from which the boss projected. but the war-chariots which they brought into battle were of all things the most dreaded by the romans. from the axles projected those sharp-hooked formidable scythes, which appalled even the bravest legions, and made such gaps in their well-trained ranks, as struck their boldest generals aghast. these were drawn by such horses as, by their fire and speed, won the admiration of the invaders; for fleet on foot as deer, and with their dark manes streaming out like banners, they rushed headlong, with thundering tramp, into the armed ranks of the enemy; the sharp scythes cutting down every obstacle they came in contact with. with fixed eyes the fearless warrior hurled his pointed javelins in every direction as he rushed thundering on--sometimes making a thrust with his spear or sword, as he swept by with lightning-speed, or dragged with him for a few yards the affrighted foeman he had grasped while passing, and whose limbs those formidable weapons mangled at every turn until the dreaded briton released his hold. now stepping upon the pole, he aimed a blow at the opponent who attempted to check his speed--then he stopped his quick-footed coursers in a moment, as if a bolt from heaven had alighted, and struck them dead, while some warrior who was watching their onward course fell dead beneath so unexpected a blow; and ere the sword of his companion was uplifted to revenge his death, the briton and his chariot were far away, hewing a new path through the centre of veteran ranks, which the stormy tide of battle had never before broken. the form of the tall warrior, leaning over his chariot with glaring eye and clenched teeth, would, by his valour and martial deportment, have done honour to the plains of troy, and won an immortal line from homer himself, had he but witnessed those deeds achieved by the british heroes in a later day. what fear of death had they before their eyes who believed that their souls passed at once into the body of some brave warrior, or that they but quitted the battle-field to be admitted into the abodes of the gods? they sprang from a race whose mothers and wives had many a time hemmed in the back of battle, and with their own hands struck down the first of their tribe who fled,--sparing neither father, husband, brother, nor son, if he once turned his back upon the enemy: a race whose huge war-drums had, centuries before, sounded in greek and roman combats. and from this hardy stock, which drooped awhile beneath the pruning arms of civilized rome, was the gothic grandeur of the saxon stem grafted, and when its antique roots had been manured by the bones of thousands of misbelieving danes, and its exuberant shoots lopped by the swords of the norman chivalry, there sprang up that mighty tree, the shadows of whose branches stretch far away over the pathless ocean, reaching to the uttermost ends of the earth. chapter iii. the druids. "----you druids now maintain your barbarous rites, and sacrifice again; you what heaven is, and gods alone can tell, or else alone are ignorant: you dwell in vast and desert woods; you teach no spirit, pluto's pale kingdom can by death inherit: they in another world inform again, the space betwixt two lives is all the death." lucan's pharsalia, _t. may's translation_, . to julius cæsar we are indebted for the clearest description of the religious rites and ceremonies of the druids; and as he beheld them administered by these priests to the ancient britons, so they had no doubt existed for several centuries before the roman invasion, and are therefore matters of history, prior to that period. there was a wild poetry about their heathenish creed, something gloomy, and grand, and supernatural in the dim, dreamy old forests where their altars were raised: in the deep shadows which hung over their rude grey cromlechs, on which the sacred fire burned. we catch glimpses between the gnarled and twisted stems of those magnificent and aged oaks of the solemn-looking druid, in his white robe of office, his flowing beard blown for a moment aside, and breaking the dark green of the underwood with the lower portion of his sweeping drapery, while he stands like a grave enchanter, his deep sunk and terrible eyes fixed upon the blue smoke as it curls upward amid the foliage--fixed, yet only to appearance; for let but a light and wandering expression pass over one single countenance in that assembled group, and those deep grey piercing eyes would be seen glaring in anger upon the culprit, and whether it were youth or maiden they would be banished from the sacrifice, and all held accursed who dared to commune with them--a curse more terrible than that which knelled the doom of the excommunicated in a later day. there were none bold enough to extinguish the baleful fire which was kindled around the wicker idol, when its angry flames went crackling above the heads of the human victims who were offered up to appease their brutal gods. in the centre of their darksome forests were their rich treasures piled together, the plunder of war; the wealth wrested from some neighbouring tribe; rich ornaments brought by unknown voyagers from distant countries in exchange for the tin which the island produced; or trophies won by the british warriors who had fought in the ranks of the gauls on the opposite shore--all piled without order together, and guarded only by the superstitious dread which they threw around everything they possessed; for there ever hung the fear of a dreadful death over the head of the plunderer who dared to touch the treasures which were allotted to the awful druids. they kept no written record of their innermost mysteries, but amid the drowsy rustling of the leaves and the melancholy murmuring of the waters which ever flowed around their wooded abodes, they taught the secrets of their cruel creed to those who for long years had aided in the administration of their horrible ceremonies, who without a blanched cheek or a quailing heart had grown grey beneath the blaze of human sacrifices, and fired the wicker pile with an unshaken hand--these alone were the truly initiated. they left the younger disciples to mumble over matters of less import--written doctrines which taught how the soul passed into other bodies in never-ending succession; but they permitted them not to meddle in matters of life and death; and many came from afar to study a religion which armed the druids with more than sovereign power. all law was administered by the same dreaded priests; no one dared to appeal from their awful decree; he who was once sentenced had but to bow his head and obey--rebellion was death, and a curse was thundered against all who ventured to approach him; from that moment he became an outcast amongst mankind. to impress the living with a dread of their power even after death, they hesitated not in their doctrines to proclaim, that they held control over departed and rebellious souls; and in the midnight winds that went wailing through the shadowy forests, they bade their believers listen to the cry of the disembodied spirits who were moaning for forgiveness, and were driven by every blast that blew against the opening arms of the giant oaks; for they gave substance to shadows, and pointed out forms in the dark-moving clouds to add to the terrors of their creed. they worshipped the sun and moon, and ever kept the sacred fire burning upon some awful altar which had been reddened by the blood of sacrifice. they headed the solemn processions to springs and fountains, and muttered their incantations over the moving water, for, next to fire, it was the element they held in the highest veneration. but their grand temples--like stonehenge--stood in the centre of light, in the midst of broad, open, and spacious plains, and there the great beltian fire was kindled; there the distant tribes congregated together, and unknown gods were evoked, whose very names have perished, and whose existence could only be found in the wooded hill, the giant tree, or the murmuring spring or fountain, over which they were supposed to preside. there sat the arch-druid, in his white surplice, the shadow of the mighty pillars of rough-hewn stone chequering the stony rim of that vast circle--from his neck suspended the wonderful egg which his credulous believers said fell from twined serpents, that vanished hissing high in the air, after having in vain pursued the mounted horseman who caught it, then galloped off at full speed--that egg, cased in gold, which could by its magical virtues swim against the stream. he held the mysterious symbol of office, in his hands more potent than the sceptre swayed by the most powerful of monarchs that ever sat upon our island throne, as he sat with his brow furrowed by long thought, and ploughed deep by many a meditated plot, while his soul spurned the ignorant herd who were assembled around him, and he bit his haughty lip at the thought that he could devise no further humiliation than to make them kneel and lick the sand on which he stood. they held the mistletoe which grew on the oak sacred, and on the sixth day of the moon came in solemn procession to the tree on which it grew, and offered up sacrifice, and prepared a feast beneath its hallowed branches, adorning themselves with its leaves, as if they could never sufficiently reverence the tree on which the mistletoe grew, although they named themselves druids after the oak. white bulls were dragged into the ceremony; their stiff necks bowed, and their broad foreheads bound to the stem of the tree, while their loud bellowings came in like a wild chorus to the rude anthem which was chaunted on the occasion: these were slaughtered, and the morning sacrifice went streaming up among the green branches. the chief druid ascended the oak, treading haughtily upon the bended backs and broad shoulders of the blinded slaves, who struggled to become stepping-stones beneath his feet, and eagerly bowed their necks that he might trample upon them, while he gathered his white garment in his hand, and drew it aside, lest it should become sullied by touching their homely apparel. below him stood his brother idolators, their spotless garments outspread ready to catch the falling sprigs of the mistletoe as they dropped beneath the stroke of the golden pruning-knife. doubtless the solemn mockery ended by the assembled multitude carrying home with them a leaf or a berry each, of the all-healing plant, as it was called, while the druids lingered behind to consume the fatted sacrifice, and forge new fetters to bind down their ignorant followers to their heathenish creed. still it is on record that they taught their disciples many things concerning the stars and their motion; that they pretended to some knowledge of distant countries, and the nature of the gods they worshipped. gildas, one of the earliest of our british historians, seeming to write from what he saw, tells us that their idols almost surpassed in number those of egypt, and that monuments were then to be seen (in his day) of "hideous images, whose frigid, ever-lowering, and depraved countenances still frown upon us both within and outside the walls of deserted cities. we shall not," he says, "recite the names that once were heard on our mountains, that were repeated at our fountains, that were echoed on our hills, and were pronounced over our rivers, because the honours due to the divinity alone were paid to them by a blinded people." that their religion was but a system of long-practised imposture admits not of a doubt; and as we have proof that they possessed considerable knowledge for that period, it is evident that they had recourse to these devices to delude and keep in subjection their fellow-men, thereby obtaining a power which enabled them to live in comparative idleness and luxury. such were the ancient egyptian priests; and such, with but few exceptions, were all who, for many centuries, held mighty nations in thrall by the mystic powers with which they cunningly clothed idolatry. true, there might be amongst their number a few blinded fanatics, who were victims to the very deceit which they practised upon others, whose faculties fell prostrate before the imaginary idols of their own creation, and who bowed down and worshipped the workmanship of their own hands. all the facts we are in possession of show that they contributed nothing to the support of the community; they took no share in war, though they claimed their portion of the plunder obtained from it; they were amenable to no tribunal but their own, but only sat apart in their gloomy groves, weaving their dangerous webs in darker folds over the eyes of their blinded worshippers. we see dimly through the shadows of those ancient forests where the druids dwelt; but amongst the forms that move there we catch glimpses of women sharing in their heathen rites; it may be of young and beautiful forms, who had the choice offered them, whether they would become sacrifices in the fires which so often blazed before their grim idols, or share in the solemn mockeries which those darksome groves enshrouded--those secrets which but to whisper abroad would have been death. the day of reckoning at last came--as it is ever sure to come--and heavy was the vengeance which alighted upon those bearded druids; instead of such living and moving evils, the mute marble of the less offensive gods which the romans worshipped usurped the places where their blood-stained sacrifices were held. jupiter frowned coldly down in stone, but he injured not. mars held his pointed spear aloft, but the dreaded blow never descended. they saw the form of man worshipped, and though far off, it was still a nearer approach to the true divinity than the wicker idol surrounded with flames, and filled with the writhing and shrieking victims who expired in the midst of indescribable agonies. hope sat there mute and sorrowful, with her head bowed, and her finger upon her lip, listening for the sound of those wings which she knew would bring love and mercy to her aid. she turned not her head to gaze upon those heathenish priests as they were dragged forward to deepen the inhuman stain which sunk deep into the dyed granite of the altar, for she knew that the atmosphere their breath had so long poisoned must be purified before the divinity could approach; for that bright star which was to illume the world had not yet arisen in the east. the civilized heathen was already preparing the way in the wilderness, and sweeping down the ruder barbarism before him. there were roman galleys before, and the sound of the gospel-trumpet behind; and those old oaks jarred again to their very roots, and the huge circus of stonehenge shook to its broad centre; for the white cliffs that looked out over the sea were soon to echo back a strange language, for roman cohorts, guided by julius cæsar, were riding upon the waves. chapter iv. landing of julius cÆsar. "the cliffs themselves are bulwarks strong: the shelves and flats refuse great ships: the coast so open that every stormy blast may rend their cables, put them from anchor: suffering double war-- their men pitched battle--their ships stormy fight; for charges 'tis no season to dispute, spend something, or lose all." the true trojans, . few generals could put in a better plea for invading a country than that advanced by julius cæsar, for long before he landed in this island, he had had to contend with a covert enemy in the britons, who frequently threw bodies of armed men upon the opposite coasts, and by thus strengthening the enemy's ranks, protracted the war he had so long waged with the gauls. to chastise the hardy islanders, overawe and take possession of their country, were but common events to the roman generals, and cæsar no doubt calculated that to conquer he had but to show his well-disciplined troops. he was also well aware that the language and religion of the britons and gauls were almost the same, and that the island on which his eye was fixed was the great centre and stronghold of the druids; and, not ignorant of the power of these heathen priests, whose mysterious rites banded nation with nation, he doubtless thought, that if he could but once overthrow their altars, he could the more easily march over the ruins to more extended conquests. he had almost the plea of self-defence for setting out to invade england as he did, and such, in reality, is the reason he assigns; and not to possess the old leaven of ambition to strengthen his purpose, was to lack that which, in a roman general, swelled into the glory of fame. renown was the pearl julius cæsar came in quest of; he was not a general to lead his legions back to the imperial city, when, after having humbled the pride of the gauls, he still saw from the opposite coast the island of the presumptuous britons--barbarians, who had dared to hurl their pointed javelins in the very face of the roman eagle;--not a man to return home, when, by stretching his arm over that narrow sea, he could gather such laurels as had never yet decked a roman brow. the rumour of his intended invasion had already reached the britons, who, well aware of the victories he had won in the opposite continent, and probably somewhat shaken by the terror which was attached to the name of the roman conqueror, lost no time in sending over ambassadors with an offer of submission, and hostages. but although cæsar received the messengers kindly, and sent back with them comius, a gaul, in whose talent and integrity he had the greatest confidence, still his attention was not to be diverted from the object he had in view; and much as he commended their pacific promises, he but waited the return of the galley he had sent out to reconnoitre, before he embarked. nor had he to wait long, for on the fifth day after his departure, volusenus returned from his expedition, with the meagre information he had been able to glean about the coast without landing; though, such as it was, it induced cæsar to set sail at once, and, with twelve thousand men and eighty transports, he started from the sea coast which stretches between calais and boulogne, and steered for the pale-faced cliffs of albion. it was in a morning early in autumn, and before the britons had gathered in their corn-harvest, when the roman general first reached the british shore; nor can we, from the force which accompanied him, suppose that he was at all surprised to see the white cliffs of dover covered with armed men ready to oppose his landing. but he was too wary a commander to attempt this in so unfavourable a spot, and in the face of such a force, and therefore resolved to lie by, until past the hour of noon, and await the arrival of the remainder of his fleet; for beside the force which we have already enumerated, there were eighteen transports in which his cavalry were embarked, but these were not destined to take a share in his first victory; so finding both wind and tide in his favour, he, without their aid, sailed six or seven miles further down the coast, until he reached the low and open shore which stretches between walmer castle and sandwich. this manoeuvre, however, was not lost upon the britons, for as he measured his way over the sea, so did they keep pace with him upon the land, and when he reached the spot which was so soon to be the scene of slaughter, he found the island-army drawn up ready to receive him, with their cavalry and war-chariots placed in the order of battle, while many a half-naked and hardy soldier stood knee-deep amongst the breakers, which beat upon the beach, with pointed javelin, and massy club, and rough-hewn war-hatchet, eager to oppose his landing;--the proud roman himself confesses that they presented a bold front, and made a brave defence. superior military skill, and long-practised discipline, together with the formidable war-engines which he brought over in his galleys, and from which showers of missiles were projected that spread death and consternation around, were too much for the britons, few of whom, except such as had fought in the ranks of the gauls on the opposite shore, had ever before looked upon such terrible instruments of destruction; and under cover of these, after a short contest, the roman general managed to disembark two of his legions. but for this mode of warfare, and those dreadful engines opening so suddenly upon them, cæsar would probably never have been able to land his forces; for we may readily imagine that, unaccustomed as they were to such a mode of attack, the consternation that it spread could scarcely be exceeded by a first-class line-of-battle ship pouring in a broadside amongst the startled savages of the south sea islands, whose shores had never before echoed back the thunder of a cannon. although cæsar himself states that for a time the roman soldiers were reluctant to leave their ships, owing to the extent of water which flowed between them and the shore, still there is but little doubt that the fearless front presented by the britons, as they stood knee-deep among the waves, in spite of the missiles which were sent forth in showers from the roman galleys, somewhat appalled their highly disciplined invaders. cæsar has left it on record that his soldiers hesitated to land, until one of his standard-bearers, belonging to the tenth legion, sprang from the side of the galley into the sea, and waving the ensign over his head, exclaimed, "follow me, my fellow-soldiers! unless you will give up your eagle to the enemy. i, at least, will do my duty to the republic and to our general." it was then, roused by the example of the courageous standard-bearer, that the roman soldiers quitted their ships, and the combatants met hand to hand. although upon that ancient battle-ground have the winds and waves for nearly two thousand years beaten, and scarcely a name is left of those who fought, and fell, and dyed the stormy sea-beach with their blood; still, as we gaze down the dim vista of years, the mind's eye again catches glimpses of the unknown combatants--of the warm autumn sunshine falling upon those white and distant cliffs--of the high-decked roman galleys rising above the ever-moving waves, and we seem to hear the deep voice of the roman general rising beyond the murmur of the ocean; we see the gilded eagle rocking and swaying over the contending ranks, as they are driven forward or repulsed, just as the tide of battle ebbs and flows; and ever upon the beaten beach where the waves come and go, they wash over some mangled and prostrate form, throwing up here a helmet and there a shield, while figures of the mailed roman, and the half-naked briton, lie dead and bleeding side by side, their deep sleep unbroken by the shout, and tramp, and tumult of war. the javelin with its leathern thong lies useless beside the bare brawny arm that could hurl it to within an inch of its mark, then recover it again without stepping from out the ranged rank; the dreaded spear lies broken, and the sharp head trodden deep into the sand by a roman footstep. higher up the beach, we hear the thunder of the scythe-wheeled war-chariots of the britons, and catch glimpses of the glittering and outstretched blades, as they sparkle along in their swift career like a silvery meteor, and all we can trace of their course is the zig-zag pathway streaked with blood. faint, and afar off, we hear the voices of the bearded druids hymning their war-chaunt, somewhere beyond the tall summits of the bald-faced cliffs. anon, the roar of battle becomes more indistinct--slowly and reluctantly the britons retreat,--the roman soldiers pursue them not, but fall back again upon their galleys, and we hear only a few groans, and the lapping of the waves upon the sea-shore. and such might have been a brief summary of that combat, interspersed here and there with the daring deeds of warriors whose names will never be known; and then the eye of the imagination closes upon the scene, and all again is enveloped in the deep darkness of nearly two thousand years. as the roman cavalry had not yet arrived, cæsar was prevented from following up the advantage he had gained over the britons, and marching to where they were encamped, a little way within the island. the natives, however, doubtless to gain time, and better prepare themselves for a second attack, sent messengers to the roman general, who were deputed to offer hostages as a guarantee of their submission to the roman arms. they also liberated comius, whom he had sent over with offers of alliance; and after a sharp rebuke, in which the roman invader no doubt attempted to show how wrong it was on their part to attempt to oppose his landing and seizing upon their island, he forgave them, on condition that they would send him a given number of hostages, and allow him, without interference, to act as he chose for the future. such, in spirit, were the terms on which the haughty conqueror dismissed the british chiefs, who probably returned with the determination of breaking them whenever an opportunity presented itself. a few hostages were, however, delivered, and several of the british leaders presented themselves before cæsar, perhaps as covert spies, although they came with avowed offers of allegiance, smarting as they were under their recent defeat. the roman general was not destined to accomplish his conquest without meeting with some disasters. the vessels which contained his cavalry, and were unable to accompany the first portion of his fleet, were again doomed to be driven back by a tempest upon the coast of gaul, even after they had approached so near the british shore as to be within view of cæsar's encampment. the fatal night that saw his cavalry dashed back upon the opposite coast, also witnessed the destruction of several of his galleys, which were drawn up on the beach behind his encampment; while those that were lying at anchor in the distant roadstead were either wrecked or cast upon the shore, and so battered by the winds and waves as to be wholly unfit for sea-service; for a high tide seemed to have rushed over his galleys; and this, together with the storm, scarcely left him in the possession of a vessel in which he could put out to sea with his troops. without either provisions to feed his soldiers, or materials to repair his shattered ships, and his whole camp deeply dispirited by these unforeseen calamities, the roman general found himself, at the close of autumn, on a stormy and unfriendly coast, and in possession of but little more of the island than the barren beach on which he had won his hitherto useless victory. the britons were not long before they discovered the full extent of these disasters; frequent visits to the roman encampment had also made them better acquainted with the number of the troops; and as they had already measured their strength against the roman arms, and the roman weapons had doubtless lost much of their former terror in their eyes, they began to make preparations for sweeping off the whole force of the invading army, for they clearly saw that it was without either provisions, cavalry, or ships; and though they commenced their work cautiously, they made sure of obtaining an easy victory, and such as they thought would intimidate the hearts of all future invaders. cæsar was too wary a general not to see through their designs, for he perceived that the visits of the chiefs to his encampment were less frequent than formerly; that they were also slow in sending in the hostages they had promised to give up; so, roman-like he determined to arm himself against the worst. he ordered some of his troops to repair such ships as were sea-worthy, out of the wreck of those which were useless; these, when ready, he sent over to gaul for stores; others of his soldiers he sent out to scour the country in search of provisions, and to gather in whatever corn they could find, which must have been very trifling, as he states that, except in one field, all beside in the neighbourhood had been harvested. in this field, which stood at a short distance from one of those old primeval forests which everywhere abounded in the island, one of his legions were busily engaged gathering in corn, when they were suddenly attacked by the armed islanders, who rushed out of their hiding-places from the neighbouring thicket. fortunately for the roman soldiers, this chanced to be no great distance from their encampment; and as the ever-watchful eye of cæsar was open while he stood looking out from his strong fortifications, he saw a huge cloud of dust rising in the air in the direction of the distant corn-field, and sallying out of the encampment, at the head of two of his cohorts, he bade the remainder of the legion follow him with the utmost speed, and rushed off to the rescue of his soldiers. a few more minutes and he would have arrived too late to save any of them, for he found his legion, which had already suffered considerable loss, hemmed in on every side by the cavalry and war-chariots of the britons; and he had no sooner succeeded in withdrawing his engaged forces from the corn-field, than he hurried back to his strong entrenchments, the brave islanders having compelled him to make a hasty retreat. several days of heavy rain followed, during which the roman general confined his soldiers to the camp. but the hardy britons were not to be deterred by the elements from following up the slight advantage which they had gained; so mustering a strong force of both horse and foot, they drew up and surrounded the roman entrenchments. cæsar was too brave to sit quietly down and be bearded in his own stronghold by an army of barbarians; so watching a favourable moment, he marshalled forth his mailed legions, which were by this time strengthened by a small body of cavalry that had returned with comius from gaul; and with these he fell upon the britons and dispersed them with great slaughter, also pursuing them into the country, and setting fire to many of their huts, before he again returned to his encampment. the britons, as before, sued for peace, which cæsar readily granted, as he was anxious to return to gaul with his leaky ships and wearied troops; nor did he wait to receive the offered hostages, but with the first fair wind set sail, having gained but little more than hard blows by this his first invasion. [illustration: _combat between the romans and britons._] the warm spring days which brought back the swallow from over the sea, saw the roman galleys again riding on the sunny waves that broke upon our rock-girt coast. from the surrounding heights and smooth slopes which dipped gently down into the sea, the assembled britons beheld eight hundred vessels of various sizes hastening shoreward from the opening ocean. amid waving crests and glittering coats of mail, and roman eagles blazing like gold in the distance, and long javelins whose points shone like silver in the sunlight, as they rose high above the decks of the galleys, they came rolling along like a moving forest of spears, swayed aside for a moment as some restive war-steed, impatient to plant his sharp hoof upon the earth, jerked his haughty neck, and shook out his long dark mane upon the refreshing breeze, while his shrill neigh came ringing upon the beach above the hoarse murmur of the breakers, which rolled at the feet of the terrified britons. on those decks were above thirty thousand roman soldiers assembled, headed again by julius cæsar, and now strengthened by two thousand cavalry. it is said that the excuse offered by the roman general for this his second invasion, was, that hostages had not been sent in according to treaty, though the truth beyond doubt is, that his ambition was dissatisfied with the hasty retreat he was compelled to make; his pride mortified at the bold front the islanders had presented, for he must have felt, in his hurried departure to gaul, that he bore back but little to entitle him to the much-coveted name of conqueror, a name which his wars with the britons never won him, for even tacitus deigned to honour him with little more than the title of discoverer, after all his exploits in our island had terminated. unlike his former reception, he this time landed without having to strike a blow, for the sight of such an armed host struck terror into the hearts of the natives, and they fled in the direction of the stour, or near to that neighbourhood where canterbury now stands. a proof how earnestly cæsar commenced his second campaign in the island, and how resolved he was to bring the war to a speedy end, is found, in his setting out at midnight to pursue the britons, scarcely leaving a sixth part of his army behind, to protect his shipping and encampment. perchance, the haughty roman had boasted how soon he would bring over a few of the barbaric chiefs for his friends, and add to their stock of foreign curiosities a few dozens of war-chariots, and had laughed amongst his officers at the joke of their being picked up by some island warrior, and carried off in his scythe-armed car by a couple of swift-footed steeds. he frequently wrote to rome, and perhaps occasionally boasted in his epistles, what speedy work he would make of the conquest of britain. be this as it may, there is proof in the strength of the force which he this time landed, that he already began to appreciate aright the brave blood that flowed through those ancient british veins. in the still depth of midnight did the measured tramp of roman infantry ring upon the silence, as they strode inland towards the heart of kent, and beside those old forests and reedy morasses was the heavy tread of cæsar's cavalry heard; the rattle of their mail, and the jingling of their harness, broken by the short answers of the scouts as they rode hastily in and out, announcing a clear course, or with low obeisance receiving the commands of the general. we may picture some poor peasant startled from his sleep by that armed throng, dragged out of his wattled hut by the side of the wild forest, and rudely handled by the roman soldiers, because he either refused to tell, or was ignorant of the position his countrymen had taken up. we may picture the herdsman hurrying his flocks into the forest fastnesses as he heard that solemn and distant tramp coming like subdued thunder upon the night-breeze, so unlike the wild shoutings and mingled rolling of his own war-chariots, amid which the voices of women and children were ever mingled; so solemn, deep, and orderly would march along those well-disciplined roman troops, contrasted with the irregular movements of the britons. cæsar reached the reedy margin of a river in the cold grey dawn of a spring morning; and as the misty vapour cleared up from the face of the water, he beheld the hardy islanders drawn up on the rising ground beyond the opposite bank, ready to dispute the passage if he ventured across. the charge was sounded, and at the first blast of the roman trumpets the cavalry dashed into the river, and the well-tempered steel blades of the invaders soon began to hew a path through the opposing ranks, for almost at the first stroke the swords of the britons, which were made of tin and copper, bent, and became useless, while those wielded by their assailants were double-edged, and left a gash every time they descended. the horses broke through the british infantry, as if they had been but a reed fence; and as their cavalry was the heaviest, they met in full career the rush of the island war-chariots, plunged their long javelins into the chests of the horses, and received the shock of the british cavalry on the points of their highly-tempered and strong-shafted spears. the whole affray seemed more like a skirmish than a regular engagement, as if the war-chariots and cavalry of the britons were only employed to check the advance of the roman columns, while the remainder of their force retreated to a strong fortification, which stood at some distance in the woods, and which was barricaded by felled trees, fastened together and piled one above another; thither the remainder of the army also fled, leaving the romans to follow after they had regained the order of march, and sent back to their camp those who were wounded in the skirmish on the river bank. these marches through wild, uncultivated forests were very harassing to the heavy-armed roman legions, who made but slow progress compared to the light-footed troops of the britons, for they were inured to this woodland warfare, and as familiar with the forest passes as the antlered deer. pursuit was again the order of the day; the stronghold in the forest was carried by the romans, and amongst the legions which distinguished themselves in the contest, was the one who, but for the timely arrival of cæsar, would probably have left their bones to whiten in the harvest-field, from which they had had so narrow an escape in the preceding autumn. another evening darkened over the forest, under cover of which the britons again retreated further inland, without being pursued; for the roman general seemed to have a dread of those gloomy old woods, through which the paths, even in the open noon-day, were rugged, uncertain, and difficult, and were as likely to lead towards some bog, lake, or dangerous morass, as to any of the british fortifications; the roman soldiers were therefore employed in throwing up intrenchments, and strengthening their position in case of a surprise. it came, but not until morning, and instead of the britons, was brought by a party of roman horsemen from the camp; the galleys were again driven upon the shore by the waves, and many of them wrecked; the angry ocean had once more risen up against the fortunes of cæsar. these unwelcome tidings arrived just as he had given the order to advance; a few minutes more, and he would have been off in full pursuit after the britons; the unexplored forest stretched before him; his eagles glittered in the morning sunshine; the trumpets had sounded the march, when the order was given to halt, and above twenty thousand armed romans were compelled to return at the bidding of the waves. the mound they had thrown up was deserted; the river, which had but a few hours before been reddened by the blood of many a brave warrior, was repassed without opposition; and both cavalry and infantry now commenced a rapid retreat in the direction of the roman encampment. when cæsar reached the sea-shore, he beheld a sight discouraging enough to blanch even a roman cheek; many of his finest galleys had become total wrecks; others it seemed almost impossible to repair; the few that were saved he despatched at once to gaul for assistance, set every hand that could use a saw, axe, or mallet, immediately to work, and instead of sitting down and bemoaning his ill-fortune, he, like a brave-hearted roman as he was, began to make up for his loss, and gave orders for building several new ships. added to this, he had the remainder drawn on shore, and ran up a barrier to protect them from the ravages of the ocean, thus including a dry-dock within his fortified encampment. all these preparations necessarily consumed some time, during which the islanders remained undisturbed. returning to the britons, who had not been idle during this brief interval, we find their army greatly increased, and a renowned prince, named cassivellaunus, placed as commander at the head of the states, they wisely judging that one who had so signalized himself in his wars with the neighbouring tribes, was best fitted to lead them on, now that they were banded together for mutual protection against the romans. nobly did the barbaric chief acquit himself; he waited not to be attacked; but having selected his own battle-ground, charged upon the roman cavalry at once, with his horsemen and war-chariots. although cæsar did at last gain a slight victory, and, as he himself says, drove the britons into the woods, and lost several of his soldiers through venturing too far, still it does not appear that he obtained the day, for the britons already began to find the advantages they obtained through occasional retreats, which enabled them to draw the enemy either nearer to, or into the woods--a stratagem which in this skirmish they availed themselves of; for while the romans were busy, as was their custom, in protecting their camp for the night, by throwing up ramparts and digging trenches around it, the britons sallied out from another opening in the wood, and slaughtered the outer guard. the roman general ordered two cohorts to advance to the rescue; they were also repulsed, and a tribune was slain; fresh troops were summoned into action, and the britons betook themselves to their old leafy coverts with but very little loss. on this occasion, the roman general was compelled to acknowledge, that his heavy-armed soldiers were no match for an enemy who only retreated one moment to advance with greater force the next, and would, whenever an opportunity presented itself, dismount from their horses, or leap out of their chariots, and renew the battle on foot, and that, too, on the very edge of some dangerous bog, where an armed horseman was sure to founder if he but made a leap beyond the boundary line with which they were so familiar. another day, a disastrous one for the britons, and the battle was renewed, and they, as before, commenced the attack, waiting, however, until the roman general had sent out a great portion of his cavalry and infantry to forage--a body amounting to more than half his army, no mean acknowledgment of the estimation in which the island force was held, while it required from ten to fifteen thousand men to collect the supplies he needed for one day; a tolerable proof that he had not forgotten the all but fatal skirmish in the corn-field when he first landed. emboldened by their success on the previous day, the britons this time charged up to the solid body of the roman legions, rushing fearlessly against the wall which their well-disciplined ranks presented, a firm phalanx, that had withstood the shock of the bravest armies in europe without being broken--an array strengthened every moment by the return of the foragers. one solid, impenetrable mass now bore down, like a mighty avalanche, upon the congregated britons; a vast sea of spears, and shields, and swords, all heaving onward without resistance, cæsar heralding the way, like the god of the storm, the armed cavalry thundering onward like the foremost wave, until the whole mass struck upon the iron stems of the gnarled oaks, which stood at the edge of the forest, then rolled back again into the plain, leaving a ridgy line of wounded and dead to mark their destructive course. it was the first open shore on which the full tide of the roman arms had flowed on the islanders. the waves had many a time before gathered together and broken, but here the full surge of battle swept uninterrupted upon the beach. although the sun still sets over that great grave-yard of the dead, not a monument remains to tell of its "whereabout," or point out the spot where many a brave soldier looked round and took his rest. through kent, and along the valley which stretches at the foot of the surrey hills, did cæsar pursue the shattered army of the british prince, his march probably extending over that level line of beautiful meadow-land on which the old palace of eltham still stands, along the wooded neighbourhood of penge and sydenham, and out at the foot of the norwood hills, to where, far beyond, the thames still glitters like a belt of silver as it goes winding round near chertsey. here the british leader had rallied; on the opposite bank stood his forces, and in the bed of the river he had caused pointed stakes to be planted, to prevent his pursuers from crossing the ford. these were but slight obstacles in the path of cæsar; he ordered his cavalry to advance, commanded the infantry to follow at their heels, or at their sides, as they best could; and so they passed, some grasping the manes of the war-horses with one hand to steady their steps in the current, while with the other they held the double-edged sword, ready to hew or thrust, the moment they came within arm's length of the enemy. cassivellaunus was once more compelled to retreat, though never so far but that he was always in readiness to fall upon any detached cohorts, and with his five thousand war-chariots to hang upon and harass any party of foragers: cæsar was at last compelled to send out his legions to protect the horsemen while they gathered in provisions. even then the island prince drove and carried off all the cattle and corn which was pastured or garnered in the neighbourhood of the roman encampment. the invaders were never safe except when within their own entrenchments; for they had now to deal with an enemy who had grown too wary to trust himself again in the open field, but contented himself by harassing and hanging upon the detached masses which he could waylay. he was well acquainted with all the secret passes and intricate roads, and kept the roman guards in a continual state of alarm; and when it was not safe to attack them, the britons would at times suddenly assemble at the outskirts of the woods, and shaking their javelins, to the foot of which a hollow ball of copper, containing lumps of metal or pebbles, was affixed, commence such a sudden thundering and shouting as startled the horses, and caused them to run affrighted in every direction; they then seized upon the forage, and ere the heavy legions could overtake them, they were off at full speed far away in the forest passes, along paths known only to themselves. such a system of warfare was new even to cæsar, and as yet he had only gained the ground he encamped upon--that which contained his army, for the time, was all he could call his own. but the britons could not long remain true to themselves; petty jealousies and long-stifled murmurs began at last to find vent; one tribe after another came to the roman camp; to all he made fair promises, took their corn and their hostages, sowing no doubt the seeds of dissension deeper amongst them at the same time, and getting them also to inform him where the capital of their warlike chief was situated, which secret they were base enough to betray; for many of the petty princes envied the renown which cassivellaunus had won by his valour. even cæsar's narrative at this turn of events enlists our sympathies on the side of the british general, and the handful of brave followers who still remained true to their country's cause. his capital, which is supposed to have stood on the site of st. albans, and which in those days was surrounded by deep woods and broad marshes, was attacked; many were slain, some prisoners taken, and numbers of cattle driven away; for the forest town of this courageous chief appears to have been nothing more than a cluster of woodland huts surrounded by a ditch, and strengthened by a rampart of mud and trees, a work which the roman legions would level to the earth in a brief space of time. though beaten and forced from his capital, the british prince retreated upon another fortress further into the wood; from this he was also driven. still his great heart buoyed him up; and although defeated, he determined to have another struggle for the liberty of his unworthy country, and despatched messengers into kent, bidding the britons to fall at once upon the roman camp and fleet. had the prince himself been present, it is not improbable that this daring deed would have been executed, for he was unequalled in falling upon the enemy, and carrying his point by surprise: but he was not; and although the attack did honour to the valour of the brave men of kent, it failed. many were slain, and the romans returned victorious to their camp. it wanted but the genius who meditated so bold a stroke to have carried it into effect; had he been there, cæsar's eagles would never more have spread out their golden wings beneath the triumphal arches of haughty rome. fain would we here drop the curtain over the name of this ancient british warrior, and leave him to sleep in the heart of his high-piled barrow undisturbed. alas! he was compelled to sue to the roman general for peace, who no doubt offered it him willingly, conscious that, had he succeeded in his bold attempt upon the camp and fleet, the roman would have had to kneel for the same grant at the foot of the briton. cæsar demanded hostages, got them, and hurried off to his ships, and without leaving a roman troop behind, hastened with all his force to the coast of gaul, and never again did he set foot upon our island shore. over the future career of cassivellaunus the deep midnight of oblivion has settled down; the waves of time have washed no further record upon that vast shore which is strewn over with the wrecks of so many mighty deeds; the assembled druids who chaunted his requiem, and the cymric or celtic bard who in rude rhymes broke the forest echoes as he recounted his exploits in battle, have all passed away; and but for the pen of his roman opponent we should never have known the bravery of that british heart, which, nearly two thousand years ago, beat with hopes and fears like our own. chapter v. caractacus, boadicea, and agricola. "and many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's, and many an orphan's water-standing eye,-- men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate, and orphans for their parents' timeless death,-- did rue the hour that ever thou wert born." shakspere. for nearly a century after the departure of cæsar, we have no records of the events which transpired in england; that the inhabitants made some progress in civilization during that period is all we know; for there can be but little doubt that a few of the roman soldiers remained behind, and settled in the island after the first invasion, and introduced some degree of refinement amongst the tribes with whom they peaceably dwelt. no attempt, however, was made, during this long interval, to fortify the island against any future invasion; and when the roman commander, plautius, landed, about ninety-seven years after the retirement of cæsar, he met with no resistance until he had led his army some distance into the inland country. after a time a few skirmishes took place--some of the tribes submitted--but nothing like a determined resistance seems to have been offered to the roman arms, until plautius had extended his victories beyond the severn, and compelled the britons to retreat into the marshes beside the thames. here it was that the roman commander first learned to estimate aright the valour of the force he had to contend against; for the bogs and swamps which had so often checked the meditated movements of cæsar, proved nearly fatal to the force headed by plautius, who, after suffering a severe loss, retreated to a secure position beside the thames. in this strong encampment he calmly awaited the arrival of the emperor claudius, who, after a time, joined him with a considerable reinforcement--just stayed long enough to look round him--received the submission of a few petty states--and then returned most triumphantly to rome; for it is questionable whether he ever fought a single battle. it is at this period that the figure of caractacus heaves up slowly above the scene; we see him but dimly and indistinctly at first, but, after a time, he towers above all his compeers, as cassivellaunus did in the days of cæsar. we see him moving now and then between the divided legions commanded by vespasian and plautius, but nothing of importance is done on either side. the isle of wight is for a short time subdued; a small portion of the island south of the thames is occupied by the invaders; then plautius is recalled to rome, and before he well arrives at the imperial city, the whole camp is in disorder; the roman legions can no longer protect the states that have submitted to them. caractacus is up, armed, and in earnest. ostorius scapula next appears, and places himself at the head of the roman ranks, strikes an unexpected blow in the midst of winter, and gains some advantage over the britons. about this time it appears that the romans first commenced the erection of forts in the island, thus keeping the conquered states within well-guarded lines, and protecting them from the attacks of the unsubdued tribes, taking good care, at the same time, that they did not escape and join their independent countrymen. his next step was to disarm all the states within these limits; and as some of them had become willing allies, rebellion soon broke out within these circumscribed bounds. once disarmed, it will readily be imagined how easily they were beaten. ostorius had now work enough on his hands; the tribes that occupied the present counties of york and lancashire next arose, attacked the roman legions, and were defeated. it was then that the ancient silures sprang up, the bravest of all the british tribes, the true cimbrii of early renown. the battle-ground now shifts into wales, and caractacus is the commander. almost every mountain-pass and ford were familiar to him; his renown already rang through the island; wherever the roman eagle had bowed its haughty neck, he had been present; the roman general knew with whom he had to deal, and moved forward with all his available force. around the standard of caractacus had rallied every tribe from the surrounding country, who refused to bow their necks to the invaders. tacitus says that he chose his ground with great skill, in the centre of steep and difficult hills, raising ramparts of massive stones, where the ascent was possible; while between his army and the road by which the romans must approach, there flowed a river which it was difficult to ford. as the enemy drew near, he exhorted his soldiers to remember how their forefathers had driven cæsar from britain, spake to them of freedom, their homes, their wives and children, in a style which the roman historians would have pronounced eloquent, had the address flowed from the mouth of one of their own generals. the britons again were conquered, though they fought bravely--their naked bosoms and helmetless heads were sure marks for every well-tempered roman blade, while their own copper swords bent back at the first thrust they made at their mail-clad enemies. caractacus was not slain, though he only escaped to be given up in chains to the romans by his treacherous stepmother, cartismanda, after having for nine years waged war against the invaders of britain. the british leader was dragged (with his wife and children) a prisoner to rome; his fame had flown before him, and the romans, who ever respected valour, crowded round to look at the renowned island chief. he alone, of all the british captives, shrunk not when brought before the roman emperor, claudius. there was a noble bearing about the man: that eye which had never quailed before the keen edge of the uplifted blade in battle--that heart which had never sunk, though it was the last to retreat from the hard fought field, buoyed him up in the presence of his enemy, and the noble roman ordered his chains to be struck off, an act which did honour to the successor of cæsar. caractacus would have done the same, had claudius obtained the same renown, and so stood a captive before him. whether the brave barbarian died in some contest with a gladiator in the arena of rome, "butchered to make a holiday" in a later day, before nero, or returned to his country, or joined the legions of his conquerors, and fell fighting in some foreign land, we know not--we see his chains struck off before the emperor claudius, then he vanishes for ever from the page of history. [illustration: _caractacus carried captive to rome._] even this undoubted victory was of but little advantage to the roman arms. the silures proved themselves worthy descendants of the ancient cymry, the terror of whose name, as we have before shown, had in former times carried consternation even to the very gates of rome. they broke up the enemy's camp, fell upon their lines and forts, drove the roman legions back to their old intrenchments, and, but for the timely arrival of a party of foragers, would have cut up every soldier within the roman encampment in wales. nor could ostorius, when he brought up all his legions to battle, conquer them again. one skirmish was but the forerunner of another; the britons but retreated to-day, to advance with stronger force on the morrow; until at last, harassed and vexed, ever fighting but obtaining no advantage, the commander, who had conquered caractacus, fortified himself within his camp, and died. he was the bravest general that the britons had ever looked upon since the days of cæsar. pass we by frontinus, didius, and veranius; there are other shadows to pass over this dimly-lighted stage of our history, who "will do strange deeds and then depart." wearied and harassed by such a succession of invasions, the chiefs of the druids, with many of the britons who refused to submit to the roman yoke, retired to the island of anglesey, that they might, amid its shadowy groves and deep passes, follow their religious rites without molestation, and sleep securely without being aroused by the din of arms which was ever awakening the echoes that dwelt amongst gloomy albion's white cliffs. to this island, guarded more by the terrors of superstition than the substantial array of arms, the roman commander, paulinus suetonius, determined to cross; and to accomplish his purpose, he built a number of flat-bottomed boats in which he placed his troops. as the invading force neared the opposite shore, they were struck with terror by the strange scene which rose before them, and many a roman heart that had never before quailed in the stormy front of battle, stood appalled before the dreaded array which had there congregated. it seemed as if they had reached the shores of the fabulous hades of their ancient poets; for there women were seen rushing in every direction in dresses on which were woven the forms of dismal objects; and while their long dishevelled hair streamed out in the sea-breeze, they brandished their flaming torches aloft as they rushed to and fro, their eyes glaring wildly out of the dense smoke, as it blew back again in their angry faces, while they looked out "fierce as the furies, terrible as hell." behind them were the grim druids collected, with hands and eyes uplifted, as they invoked the curses of the gods upon the heads of the roman legions; before them the huge fires which were already kindled, blazed and crackled, and shot out their consuming tongues of flame, as if they were hungry for their prey, while the druids pointed to the invading force, and bade their warriors hasten and bring their victims to the sacrifice. the roman soldiers seemed paralysed; they stood almost motionless, as if they had not power to strike a blow. they fell back affrighted before the lighted torches of the women, and the curses of the druids, which struck more terror into their souls than if the thunder of a thousand war-chariots had borne down upon them, in all their headlong array. aroused at last by the voice of their leader, who bade them to despise a force of frantic women and praying priests, they rushed boldly on, even to the very foot of the dreaded fires; and many a bearded druid was that day driven before the points of the roman spears into the devouring flames which they had kindled for the destruction of their invaders. dreadful was the carnage that ensued; even the sacred groves were fired or cut down; if the britons escaped the flames, it was but to rush back again upon the points of the roman swords--the sun sunk upon a scene of desolation and death--a landscape blackened with ashes--fires that had been extinguished by blood, whose grey embers faded and died out, as the last sobs of the expiring victims subsided into the eternal silence of death. the spirit of british vengeance, though asleep, was not yet dead, and at the rumour of these dreadful deeds it sprang up, awake and armed, on the opposite shore; as if the blow which struck down their sacred groves, and overthrew their ancient altars, had sent a shock across the straits of menai, which had been felt throughout the whole length and breadth of the land; as if at the fall of the sacred groves of mona the spirits of the departed dead had rushed across, while the voices of the murdered druids filled all the air with their wailing cries of lamentation, until even women sprang up demanding vengeance, and boadicea leaped into her war-chariot, as if to rebuke the british warriors by her presence, and to show them that the soul of a woman, loathing their abject slavery, was ready to lead them on to either liberty or death, and to place her fair form in the dangerous front of battle--for her white shoulders had not escaped the mark of the roman scourge. her daughters had been violated before her eyes, her subjects driven from their homes, the whole territory of the iceni over which she reigned as queen groaned again beneath the weight of cruelty, and oppression, and wrong; her subjects were made slaves; her relations were dragged into captivity by the haughty conquerors; her priests slaughtered; her altars overthrown, and another creed thrust into the throats of those over whom she ruled, at the points of the roman swords. her sufferings, her birth, the death of her husband king prasutagus, her towering spirit, her bold demeanour, and the energy of her address, struck like an electric shock throughout all the surrounding tribes, and many a state which had bowed in abject submission beneath the haughty feet of the conquerors, now sprang up, and as if endowed with a new life, rushed onward to the great mustering ground of battle, like clouds hastening up to join the dark mass which gathers about the dreaded thunder-storm, before the deafening explosion bursts forth. on the roman colony of camaladonum did this terrible tempest first break, scattering before it a whole roman legion, and scarcely leaving one alive behind to tell the tale. the voices of pity and mercy were unheard amid that dire and revengeful din; no quarter was given, no prisoners were made; blinded with revenge, stung to madness by the remembrance of their grievous wrongs, the assailants rushed forward, sparing neither age nor sex; destruction seemed to have set all her dreadful instruments at once to work, and in a few days upwards of seventy thousand romans perished by the gibbet, the fire, and the sword. such of the roman officers as could escape, fled to their galleys, and hurried off to gaul. even suetonius, who had hastened back at the first rumour of this dreadful carnage, was compelled to abandon london, already a place of some distinction, in despair, and hurry off with his legions into the open provinces. as he retreated, the britons entered; and out of the vast multitude which a few hours before those walls had inclosed, scarcely a soul remained alive. the roman soldiers rushed into their temples to avoid the assailants; the figure of the goddess of victory which they worshipped fell to the ground; the females ran wailing and shrieking into the streets, into the council chambers, into the theatres, with their children in their arms. in the red sunsets of the evening sky their heated imagination traced moving and blood-coloured phantoms, colonies in ruins, and overthrown temples, whose pillars were stained with human gore, and in the ridges which the receding tide left upon the shore, their fancies conjured up the carcases of the dead. before the desolating forces of the stern boadicea ran fear and terror, with trembling steps and pale looks; by her side grim destruction, and blood-dyed carnage stalked, while behind marched death, taking no note of sorrow, and grief, and silence, whom he left together to mourn amid the solitude of those unpeopled ruins. meantime, suetonius, having strengthened his army to a force which now amounted to upwards of ten thousand men, chose the most favourable position for his troops, where he awaited the arrival of the britons to commence the battle. nor had he to wait long; for, flushed with victory, and reeking fresh from the carnage, the assailants came up, with boadicea, thundering in her war-chariot, at their head, and soon drew together in the order of battle. the romans were now actuated by feelings of revenge. with her long yellow hair unbound, and falling in clusters far below the golden chain which encircled her waist, her dark eyes flashing vengeance as she glanced angrily aside to where the roman legions were drawn up in the distance, (an impenetrable mass, looking in their coats of mail like a wall of steel, bristling with swords and spears,) and with the curved crimson of her cruel lip haughtily upturned, boadicea rose tall and queen-like from the war-chariot in which her weeping daughters were seated, and turning to the assembled tribes who hemmed her round with a forest of tall spears, she raised her hand to command silence; and when the busy murmur of subdued applause which acknowledged her bravery had died away, she bade them remember the wrongs they had to revenge, the weight of oppression which had so long bowed their necks to the dust; the sword, and fire, and famine, which had desolated their fair land; their sons and daughters carried off and doomed to all the miseries of slavery; their priests ruthlessly butchered at the foot of the altar; their ancient groves hewn to the ground by sacrilegious hands, and consumed by fire; she pointed to her daughters whom the invaders had violated, and raising her white and rounded arm, showed the marks which the scourge of the ruffianly catus had left behind; then brandishing her spear aloft, she shook the loosened reins over her restive steeds, and was soon lost in the thickest of the battle. but the lapse of a century, and the many battles in which they had fought, had not yet enabled the britons to stand firm before the shock of the roman legions. they were defeated with tremendous slaughter; and the queen, who had so nobly revenged her country's wrongs, only escaped the carnage to perish by her own hand. even down the dim vista of time we can yet perceive her; the flower of her army lying around dead; the remnant routed and pursued by the merciless romans, while she, heartbroken, hopeless, and alone, sacrifices her own life; and though but a heathen, does a deed which in that barbarous age would have ennobled her had she been born in the country of her civilized invaders, who would proudly have erected a statue to her memory in that city whose haughty emperors proclaimed themselves the conquerors of the world. little did the vanquishers dream a woman would spring up and emulate the deeds of their most renowned warriors, and that the fair barbarian would in after ages leave behind her a more than roman name. but neither the destruction of the druids, the death of boadicea, nor the destruction of her immense army, enabled the romans to extend their possessions with safety in the island. they were ever, as in the days of cæsar, upon the defensive; no colony, unless a legion of soldiers were encamped in the immediate neighbourhood, was safe; and even after defeating the queen of the iceni, and receiving a great force of both infantry and cavalry, suetonius left the island unconquered, and the war unfinished, and returned to rome. it is a pleasure to turn from these scenes of slaughter, to find that the next roman general of note who came over to govern britain, subdued more tribes by the arts of peace, and by kindness, than all his predecessors had done by the force of arms. such is the power of genius, that we seem again to be in the company of one we have long known; for agricola was the father-in-law of tacitus, the eloquent historian, and there is but little doubt that the record of the few facts we are in possession of connected with this period were dictated by the general himself to his highly gifted son-in-law; we can almost in fancy see the grey-headed veteran and the author seated together in some roman villa discoursing about these "deeds of other days." he had served under suetonius, was present at that dreadful massacre in the island of anglesey, where men, women, and children were so mercilessly butchered--had with his own eyes looked upon boadicea. what would we not now give to know all that he had seen? to write this portion of our history with his eyes--to go on from page to page recording what he witnessed from day to day--to have him seated by our hearth now as he no doubt many a time sat beside tacitus. what word-pictures would we then paint--what wild scenes would we portray! it was agricola who first taught the ancient britons to erect better houses, to build walled cities instead of huts; who bestowed praise upon their improvements, instructed them in the roman language, and persuaded them to adopt a more civilized costume; to erect baths and temples; to improve their agriculture; and thus by degrees he so led them on from step to step, that instead of a race of rude barbarians, they began to assume the aspect of a more civilized nation. still he had to contend with old and stubborn tribes, who held it a disgrace to adopt any other manners than those of their rude forefathers--the same difficulties beset the path of the norman on a later day--the same obstacles are met with in ireland at the present hour--pride, indolence, ignorance, and a host of other evils have first to be uprooted before the better seed can be sown. it would but be wearisome to follow the footsteps of the roman general through all his campaigns; before him the imperial eagles were borne to the very foot of the grampian hills; he erected forts for the better protection of the country he had conquered, and the huge rampart which ran from the frith of clyde to the forth was begun under agricola. he appears to have been the first of the roman commanders who brought his legions in contact with the caledonians, or men of the woods, and even there he met with a formidable opponent in the caledonian chief named galgacus; the same struggle for liberty was made there as in england--battles, bloodshed, death, and desolation are about all that history records of these campaigns, if we except what may be called a voyage of discovery; for it appears that the roman general sailed round the coast of scotland to the land's end in cornwall, and thence to the point from which he had first started--supposed to be sandwich--being the first of the roman generals who, from personal observation, discovered that britain was an island. shortly after completing this voyage agricola was recalled to rome. the next period of our history carries us to other conflicts, which took place before those mighty bulwarks that the roman conquerors built up to keep back the northern invaders, who in their turn overran england with more success than the romans had done before them. it was then a war between the romans and the picts and scots, instead of, as before, between the romans and the britons. although they doubtless originally descended from the same celtic race, yet through the lapse of years, and their having lingered for some time in ireland and in gaul, we are entangled in so many doubts, that all we can clearly comprehend is, that three different languages were spoken in the island of britain at this period, namely, welsh, irish, and another; but whether the latter was gothic or pictish, learned men who have dedicated long years of study to the subject have not yet determined by what name it is to be distinguished. chapter vi. departure of the romans. "he looked and saw wide territory spread before him; towns and rural works between, cities of men, with lofty gates and towers, concourse in arms, fierce forces threatening war-- assaulting: others, from the wall defend with dart and javelin, stones and sulphurous fire: on each hand slaughter and gigantic deeds." milton's paradise lost, book xi. the fortified line erected by agricola was soon broken through by the northern tribes, and the emperor adrian erected a much stronger barrier, though considerably within the former; and this extended from the tyne to the solway, crossing the whole breadth of that portion of the island. urbicus, as if determined that the romans should not lose an inch of territory which they had once possessed, restored the more northern boundary which adrian had abandoned, and once more stretched the roman frontier between the friths of clyde and forth; they thus possessed two walls, the more northern one, first begun by agricola, and the southern one, erected by adrian. forts were built at little more than a mile distant from each other along this line, and a broad rampart ran within the wall, by which troops could readily march from one part to another. this outer barrier was the scene where many a hard contest took place, and in the reign of commodus it was again broken down, and the country ravaged up to the very foundations of the wall of adrian. this skirmishing and besieging, building up and breaking down of barriers, lasted for nearly a century, during which period scarcely a single event transpired in britain of sufficient importance to be recorded, though there is every proof that the britons were, in the meantime, making rapid strides in civilization; for england rested securely under the guardianship of the roman arms. the battles fought at the northern barriers disturbed not the tranquillity of the southern parts of the island. it was not until the commencement of the third century, when old and gouty, and compelled to be borne at the head of his army in a litter, that the emperor severus determined to conquer the caledonians, and boldly sallied out for that purpose beyond the northern frontier. his loss was enormous, and between war with the natives, and the wearisome labour in making roads, felling forests, and draining marshes, which had hitherto been impassable to the roman troops, fifty thousand soldiers were sacrificed. nothing daunted, however, the gouty old emperor still pressed onward, until he reached the frith of moray, and was struck with the difference in the length of the days, and shortness of the nights, compared with those in southern latitudes. saving making a few new roads, and receiving the submission of the few tribes who chanced to lie in his way, he appears to have done nothing towards conquering this hardy race; so he returned to newcastle, and began to build a stronger barrier than any of his predecessors had hitherto erected. on the northern side of this immense wall, he caused a deep ditch to be dug, about thirty-six feet wide, while the wall itself was twelve feet in height; thus, from the bottom of the ditch on the northern side there rose a barrier about twenty-five feet high, which was also further strengthened by a large number of fortifications, and above three hundred turrets. but before severus had well completed his gigantic labours, the caledonians had again over-leaped the more northern barrier, and fought their way up to the new trenches. the grey-headed old hero vowed vengeance, and swore by "mars the red," that he would spare neither age nor sex. death, who is sometimes merciful, kindly stepped in, and instead of allowing him to swing in his litter towards new scenes of slaughter, cut short his contemplated campaign at york, about the year two hundred and eleven; and after his death, the northern barrier was again given up to the caledonians. a wearisome time must it have been to those old roman legions, who had to keep guard on that long, monotonous wall, which went stretching for nearly seventy miles over hill and valley; nothing but a desolate country to look over, or that wide, yawning, melancholy ditch to peep into from the battlements, or a beacon-fire to light on the top of the turret, as a signal that the barbarians were approaching. an occasional skirmish must have been a relief to that weary round of every-day life, made up in marches from fort to fort, where there was no variety, saving in a change of sentries--no relief excepting now and then sallying out for forage; for between the outer and inner wall, the whole country seems at this period to have been a wilderness--a silent field of death, in which the bones of many a brave man were left to bleach in the bleak wind, and from which only the croak of the raven and the howl of the wolf came upon the long dark midnights that settled down over those ancient battlements. sometimes the bold barbarians sailed round the end of the wall in their wicker boats, covered with "black bull's hide," and landed within the roman intrenchments, or spread consternation amongst the british villages; but with the exception of an occasional inroad like this, the whole of the northern part of the island appears to have been quiet for nearly another century, during which the roman arms seem to have become weakened, and the british tribes to have given themselves up more to the arts of peace than of war. such privileges as were granted to the roman citizens, were also now extended to the britons; and under the dominion of caracalla, the successor of severus, there is but little doubt that the southern islanders settled peaceably down in their homesteads (now comfortable abodes), and began to be somewhat more romanized in their manners, that marriages took place between the romans and the britons, and that love and peace had now settled down side by side, in those very spots which the stormy spirits of cassivellaunus, caractacus, and boadicea had formerly passed over. the wheels of the dreaded war-chariots seem to have rested on their axles; we scarcely meet with the record of a single revolt amongst the native tribes, excepting those beyond the wall of adrian. through the pages of gildas we catch glimpses of strange miracles, and see the shadow of the cross falling over the old druidical altars, but nothing appears distinct; and although we may doubt many passages in the writings of this our earliest historian, it would be uncharitable to the memory of the dead even to entertain a thought that he wilfully falsified a single fact. the only marvel is, that, living in an age when so few could write--when only common rumours were floating about him--when he was surrounded with the faint outlines of old traditions, he should have piled together so many facts which are borne out by contemporary history. to place no faith in the narrative of gildas, is to throw overboard the writings of the venerable bede, and float over the sea of time for many a long year, without a single record to guide us. although we have confidence in many of these ancient chronicles of the undefended dead, we shall pass on to undisputed facts, founded upon their faint records; for we have scarcely any other light to guide us through these dark caverns, which the ever-working hand of slow-consuming time hath hollowed out. about the commencement of the fourth century, a new enemy made its appearance upon the british coast, and though it only at first flitted about from place to place like a shadow, it at last fixed itself firmly upon the soil, never again to be wholly obliterated. this was the saxon--not at that period the only enemy which beside the caledonians invaded britain, for there were others--scandinavian pirates, ever ready with their long ships to dart across the british channel upon our coast. these invaders were kept at bay for a time by a bold naval commander called carausius, supposed himself originally to have been a pirate, and occasionally to have countenanced the inroads of the enemy; and on this account, or from the dreaded strength of his powerful fleet, a command was issued from rome to put him to death. he, however, continued for some time to keep the mastery of the british channel, defied rome and all its powers, assumed the chief command over britain, and was at last stabbed by the hand of his own confidential minister at york. allectus, constantine, chlorus, and constantine the great, follow each other in succession, each doing their allotted work, then fading away into egyptian darkness, scarcely leaving a record behind beyond their names; for the eyes of the roman eagle were now beginning to wax dim, and a fading light was fast settling down upon the eternal city, and gloomy and ominous shadows were ever seen flitting athwart the golden disc whose rounded glory had so long fallen unclouded upon the imperial city. even in britain the wall of severus had been broken through, a roman general slain, and london itself pillaged by these hordes of barbarians. the plunderers were, however, attacked by theodosius, the spoils retaken, and the inhabitants, whom they were driving before them in chains, liberated. these assailants are supposed to have been mingled bodies of the picts, scots, and saxons, and the addition of saxonicus was added to the name of theodosius, in honour of this victory. the roman soldiers in britain now began to elect their own generals, and to shake off their allegiance to the emperor: one undoubted cause for so few legions being found in england at this period, and a proof that that once mighty arm had already grown too weak to strike any effective blow in the distant territories. chief amongst those elected to this high rank in britain stood maximus, who might doubtless have obtained undisputed possession of the british island, had not his ambition led him to grasp at that portion of the roman empire which was in the possession of gratian. to accomplish this, he crossed over to gaul with nearly all his island force, thus leaving britain almost defenceless, and at the mercy of the picts, and scots, and saxons, who were ever on the look-out for plunder. he attained his object, and lost his life, having been betrayed and put to death by theodosius the great, under whose sway the eastern and western empire of rome was again united. alaric the goth was now pouring his armed legions into italy, and to meet this overwhelming force, germany, and gaul, and britain were drained of their troops, and our island again left a prey to the old invaders, who no doubt reaped another rich harvest; for the britons, no longer able to defend themselves against these numerous hordes of barbarians, were compelled to apply for assistance to rome. probably some time elapsed before the required aid was sent, for we cannot conceive that stilicho would part with a single legion until after he had won the battle of pollentia, and seen the routed army of alaric in full retreat. such was the penalty britain paid for her progress in civilization,--the flower of her youth were carried off to fight and fall in foreign wars,--and when she most needed the powerful arms of her native sons to protect her, they were attacking the enemies of rome in a distant land, and leaving their own island-home a prey to new invaders. nor was this all: when the arms of rome had grown too feeble to protect britain,--when beside their own legions, the country had been drained of almost every available soldier--when in every way it was weakened, and scarcely possessed the power to make any defence, it was deserted by the romans, left almost prostrate at the feet of pictish, scottish, and saxon hordes, either to sue for mercy on the best terms that could be obtained, or to perish, from its very helplessness. alas! rome could no longer defend herself, her glory had all but departed; and the britons, who for about two centuries had never been allowed to defend themselves, and were now almost strangers to arms, were left to combat a force which many a time had driven back the roman legions. the few roman troops that yet remained in britain began to elect and depose their own commanders at pleasure. they first chose marcus, allowed him to rule for a short period, then put him to death. gratian was next elevated to power, bowed down to and obeyed for three or four months, then murdered. their next choice fell upon constantine, influenced, it is said, by his high-sounding name; and it almost appears, by his carrying over his forces to gaul, as maximus had done before him, and aiming at a wider stretch of territory, that he scarcely thought britain worth reigning over. numbers of the brave british youth were sacrificed to his ambition; and england seems at this time to have only been a great nursery for foreign wars. gerontius, who appears to have been a british chief, now rose to some influence, and basely betrayed his countrymen by entering into a league with the picts, and scots, and saxons, and no doubt sharing the plunder they took from the wretched britons; he also appears to have carried an armed force out of the island, probably raised by means of the bargain he made with the barbarians; he was pursued into spain by the troops of the roman emperor, honorius; fled into a house for shelter after the battle; it was set fire to, and he perished in the flames--a dreadful death, yet almost merited by such a traitorous act as, first selling his country to these northern robbers and pirates, carrying off those who were able to protect her, and then leaving his kindred a prey to the barbarians. the britons, in their misery, again applied for help to rome: honorius could render none, so he sent them such a letter as a cold friend, wearied out by repeated applications, sometimes pens to a poor, broken-down bankrupt; he could do nothing for them, they must now assist themselves; he forgave them the allegiance they owed, but had not a soldier to spare. so were the britons blessed with a liberty which was of no use to them; they were left to shift for themselves, like an old slave, who, instead of being a help, becomes an encumbrance to his task-master, who, to get rid of him, "god blesses him," and turns him out a free man, with the privilege to beg, or starve, or perish, unless in his old helpless age he can provide for himself. not that the roman emperor was so unkind in himself; he would perhaps have assisted the britons if he could; he was but one in a long chain of evils, and that the last, and least powerful, which, by disarming the britons, and draining off all their strength to feed other channels, had reduced them to their present helpless state. true, they had now temples, and baths, and pillared porticoes, and splendid galleries, and mosaic pavements, and beautifully shaped earthen-vessels; had some knowledge of roman literature, and, above all, roman freedom. alas! alas! their old forest fortresses, and neglected war-chariots, and rude huts, guarded by the dangerous morass, and quaking bog, would now have stood them in better stead; their splendid mansions were but temptations to the barbarians, their broad, firm roads so many open doors to the robbers. they may not inaptly be compared to some poor family, left in a large and splendid mansion in some dangerous neighbourhood, which the owner has deserted, with all his retinue and wealth, for fear of the thieves and murderers who were ever assailing him, leaving only behind a book or two for their amusement, a few useless statues to gaze upon, and but little beside great gaping galleries, whose very echoes were alarming to the new possessors. sir walter scott has beautifully said, when speaking of the romans leaving the britons in this defenceless state, that "their parting exhortation to them to stand in their own defence, and their affectation of having, by abandoning the island, restored them to freedom, were as cruel as it would be to dismiss a domesticated bird or animal to shift for itself, after having been from its birth fed and supplied by the hand of man."[ ] strange retribution, that whilst the sun of rome should from this period sink never to rise again in its former glory, that of britain should slowly emerge from the storm and clouds which threatened nothing but future darkness, and burst at last into a golden blaze, whose brightness now gilds the remotest regions of the earth. but britain had still a few sons left, worthy of the names which their brave forefathers bore; the blood of boadicea still flowed in their veins; it might have been thinned by the luxury of the roman bath, and deadened by long inactivity, but though it only ran sluggishly, it was still the same as had roused the strong hearts of cassivellaunus and caractacus when the roman trumpets brayed defiance at the gates of their forest cities. there was still liberty or death left to struggle for; the roman freedom they threw down in disdain, and trampled upon the solemn mockery; and when they once cast off this poisoned garment, they arose like men inspired with a new life; they seemed to look about as if suddenly aroused from some despairing dream--as if astonished to hear their old island waves rolling upon a beach unploughed by the keel of a roman galley--as if wondering that they had not before broken through those circumscribed lines, and forts, and ramparts, while they were yet guarded with the few roman sentinels; they saw the sunshine streaming upon their broad meadows, and old forests, and green hills, and tall pale-faced cliffs, turning to gold every ripple that came from afar to embrace the sparkling sands of the white beach, and they felt that such a beautiful country was never intended to become the home of slaves. they shed a few natural tears when they remembered how many of their sons and daughters had been borne over those billows in the gilded galleys of the invaders; they recalled the faces they had seen depart for ever over the lessening waves; the mother weeping over her son; the manacled father, whose "eyes burnt and throbbed, but had no tears;" the pale-cheeked british maidens, who sat with their faces buried in their hands, as, amid the distant sound of roman music, their lovers were hurried away to leave their bones bleaching upon some foreign shore; and they would have fallen down and prostrated themselves upon the ground for very sorrow, had not the thunder of their northern invaders rung with a startling sound upon their ears, and they felt thankful that much work yet remained to be done, and that they were now left to fight their own battles, even as their forefathers had fought, in the dearly remembered days of their ancient glory. with a population so thinned as it must have been by the heavy drainage made from time to time from the flower of its youth, we can readily conceive how difficult it was to defend the wall which severus had erected, after the departure of the romans. but we cannot imagine that the britons would hesitate to abandon a position which they could no longer maintain, or waste their strength at an outer barrier when the enemy had already marched far into the country. on this point the venerable gildas must have been misinformed, and the narrative of zosimus is, beyond doubt, the correct one. from his history it is evident that the britons rose up and boldly defended themselves from the northern invaders; they also deposed the roman rulers that still lingered in the british cities, and who, no longer overawed by the dictates of the emperor, doubtless hoped to establish themselves as kings, or chiefs, amongst the different tribes they had so long held in thrall. but the britons threw off this foreign yoke, and at last rooted out all that remained of the power of rome. thus, beside the picts and scots, who were ever pouring in their ravaging hordes from the north, and the saxons, who came with almost every favourable breeze which blew, to the british shore, there was an old and stubborn foe to uproot, and one which had for above four centuries retained a tenacious hold of our island soil. many of the romans who remained were in possession of splendid mansions, and large estates, and as the imperial city was now over-run with bands of barbarians, they were loath to leave a land abounding with plenty, for a country then shaken to its very centre by the thunder of war. though not clearly stated, there is strong reason for believing that these very romans, who were so reluctant to quit britain, connived at the ravages of the picts and scots, as if hoping, by their aid, once more to establish themselves in the island. this was a terrible time for the struggling britons--it was no longer a war in which offers of peace were made, and hostages received, but a contest between two powers, for the very soil on which they trod. this the islanders knew, and though often sorely depressed and hardly driven, they still continued to look the storm in the face. every man had now his own household to fight for--the roman party was led on by aurelius ambrosius, the british headed by vortigern; a name which they long remembered and detested, for the misery it brought into the land. as for rome, she had no longer leisure to turn her eye upon the distant struggle, for attila and his goths were now baying at her heels; there was a cry of wailing and lamentation in her towered streets, and the wide landscape which stretched at her imperial feet, was blackened by the fire of the destroyer. she had no time, either to look on or send assistance to either party; and when Ætius had read the petition sent by the britons, who complained that "the barbarians chase us into the sea; the sea throws us back upon the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword or by the waves," he doubtless cast it aside, and exclaimed, "i also am beset by a host of enemies, and cannot help you:" a grim smile, perhaps, for a moment lighting up his features, as he recalled the romans who, false to their country, had basely lingered in the british island, and thus deserted him in the hour of need; and as the stern shadow again settled down upon his features, he consoled himself for a moment by thinking that they also had met with their reward--then again prepared to defend himself against the overwhelming force of attila. harassed on all sides, the britons now began to look to other quarters for aid, for they appear to have assembled at last under one head, and to have been guided in their course by vortigern. the character of this ancient british king is placed in so many various lights by the historians who have recorded the events of this obscure period, that it is impossible to get at the truth. what he did, is tolerably clear; nor are we altogether justified in ascribing his motives only to self advancement; pressed within and without by powerful enemies, he, no doubt, sought assistance from the strongest side, though it is not evident that he ever made any formal offer. he must have had some acquaintance with the saxons, whom he enlisted in his cause--it is improbable that he would hail an enemy, standing out at sea with his ships--invite him to land and attack a foe, with whom this very stranger had been leagued. one man might have done so, but what vortigern did had, doubtless, the sanction of the british chiefs who were assembled around him at the time. they must have had strong faith in the saxons, and it is not improbable that some of them had been allowed to settle in the isle of thanet--had already aided the britons in their wars against the romans, who were located in the island, as well as against their northern invaders, before they were intrusted with the defence of britain. but we must first glance at the england of that day before we introduce our saxon ancestors--the "grey forefathers" of our native land, whose very language outlived that of their norman conquerors, and who blotted out almost every trace of the ancient britons by their power--"a tribe which, in the days of ptolemy," says sharon turner, in his admirable history of the anglo-saxons, "just darkened the neck of the peninsula of jutland, and three inconsiderable islands in its neighbourhood. one of the obscure tribes whom providence selected, and trained to form the nobler nations of france, germany, and england, and who have accomplished their distinguished destiny." these stand dimly arrayed upon the distant shore of time, and calmly await our coming. chapter vii. britain after the roman period. "what, though those golden eagles of the sun have gone for ever, and we are alone, shall we sit here and mourn? no! look around, there still are in the sky trails of their glory, and in the clouds traces where they have been.-- their wings no longer shadow us with fear. let us then soar, and from this grovelling state rise up, and be what they have never been." ode to hope. britain, after the departure of the romans, was no longer a country covered every way with wild waving woods, dangerous bogs, and vast wastes of reedy and unprofitable marshes. smooth green pastures, where flocks and herds lowed and bleated, and long slips of corn waved in the summer sunshine, and fruit-trees which in spring were hung with white and crimson blossoms, and whose branches in autumn bowed beneath the weight of heavy fruitage, now swelled above the swampy waste, and gave a cheerful look to the grassy glade which had made room for the bright sunshine to enter into the very heart of those gloomy old forests. walled towns, also, heaved up above the landscape, and great broad brown roads went stretching for miles through a country over which, a few centuries before, a mounted horseman would have foundered. the dreamy silence which once reigned for weary miles over the lonesome woodland, was now broken by the hum of human voices; and the ancient oaks, which for many a silent year had only over-shadowed the lairs of beasts of the chase, now overhung pleasant footpaths, or stretched along the sides of well-frequented roads, sure guides to the lonely wayfarer that he could no longer mistake his course from town to town. though many a broad bog, and long league of wood and wilderness still lay on either hand, yet, every here and there, the home of man rose up amid the waste, showing that the stir of life had begun to break the sleep of those solitudes. instead of the shadowy avenue of trees which marked the entrance to their forest fortresses, lofty arches now spanned the roads which opened into their walled streets, and above the roofs of their houses tall temples towered in all the richness of roman architecture, dedicated to the classical gods and goddesses whose sculptured forms graced the lofty domes of the imperial city. few and far between, in the dim groves, whose silent shadows remained undisturbed, the tall grass climbed and drooped about the neglected altar of the druids, and on the huge stone where the holy fire once burned, the grey lichen and the green moss now grew. even the roman sentinel, as he paced to and fro behind the lofty battlement, sometimes halted in the midst of his measured march, and leaned on his spear to listen to the low "hallelujah" which came floating with faint sound upon the air, as if fearful of awakening the spirit of some angry idolator. in the stars which pave the blue floor of heaven, men began to trace the form of the cross, and to see the spirit of the dove in the white moonlight that threw its silver upon the face of the waters, for britain already numbered amongst her slaughtered sons those who had suffered martrydom for the love they bore to their crucified redeemer. under the shadow of the roman eagles had marched soldiers, proud that they bore on their hearts the image of the cross of christ. in spite of the decree of diocletian, the gospel sound still spread, and around the bleeding head of the british martyr st. alban, there shone a glory which eclipsed all the ancient splendour of rome. the mountains, the rivers, and the ancient oaks, were soon to echo back the worship of the true god, and no longer to remain the objects of idolatry. the unholy doctrine of the druids was ere long to be unmasked, and instead of the gloomy gods which frowned down in stone amid the darksome groves, and whose dead eyes ever looked upon the melancholy water that murmured around the altars on which they stood, the light of a benign countenance was about to break in beauty over the british isle, and a voice to be heard, proclaiming peace and good-will to all mankind. for the picts and scots had already fallen back affrighted before the holy hymns of zion, and been more startled by the loud hallelujah chaunted by the soldiers of christ, who were led on by germanus, than ever they were by the loud braying of the brazen trumpets of rome. british ladies, ever foremost to tread the paths of religion and virtue, had boldly heralded the way, and in spite of the lowering and forbidding looks of the druids, græcina and claudia had already knelt before the throne of the true god. though the vanguard came heavily up amid cloud and storm, hope, and love, and mercy, rode fearlessly upon the wings of the tempest. it is but just to the memory of those ancient roman invaders, that we should confess they never reduced to slavery and total subjection the tribes which they conquered; that, generally, in return for the taxes they imposed, and the expense to which they put the invaded country, they instructed the inhabitants in the roman arts--and although they humbled their martial spirit, and left the conquered tribes less able to defend themselves, still the signs of civilization everywhere marked their course. beside being brave generals, the roman commanders were also able statesmen; nor had the britons for centuries before, nor did they for centuries after, sleep in that peaceful security which they enjoyed under the sway of the wise agricola. though the conquerors taxed their corn, they taught the britons a better method of cultivating it; though they made heavy levies upon their cattle, they were the first to set them the example of reclaiming many an acre of pasturage from the hitherto useless marsh and forest. they instructed them in planting the fruit-trees, from which the tithe was taken; and, in addition to orchards, pointed out to them the art of dressing vineyards. fifteen hundred years or more may have chilled our climate, but in those days the purple and bunchy grape drooped around many a british homestead. the chief towns were governed by roman laws; london and verulamium were already celebrated cities, and the latter reared high its lofty towers, and temples, and theatres, in all the architectural grandeur of roman art. for centuries after did many of these majestic monuments remain, even when the skeleton of the once mighty rome had all but crumbled into dust, as if to proclaim that the last work of those all-dreaded conquerors was the civilization of britain. they divided our island into five provinces, appointed governors and officers to administer justice, and collect taxes in each division. over all these a chief ruler was placed, who was accountable for his actions to the roman emperor, and whose written orders were given to him in a green-covered book, emblazoned with golden castles, when he was installed in the dignity of his office--as, in almost all colonies, there were doubtless many who, "clothed in authority," ruled with an iron hand over their fellow-men; not that such always escaped--for, as we have before stated, the revolt of boadicea was caused by the oppression of roman rulers, and dreadful was the reckoning of her vengeance. we have already had occasion to remark how easily the romans broke through the ancient british fortresses, and how frequently the picts and scots made inroads through the ramparts erected by the romans. saving, however, in such works as appear to have been hastily thrown up by the britons, when they retreated into their native forests, they displayed considerable skill in the erection of their strongholds. they occasionally constructed high walls, with blocks of granite five or six feet long, and these they piled together without the aid of cement, digging a deep ditch outside, to make access more difficult; and as this fortress was built in the form of a circle, and the wall was of sufficient thickness to permit half a dozen men to walk on it abreast, it must, although not of such extent, have been as difficult to storm as the barriers thrown up by the romans. the huge stone, supposed to weigh upwards of seven hundred tons, which is placed on the points of two rocks in cornwall, and the massy blocks raised and piled on each other at stonehenge, show that, ages before the roman invasion, britain was inhabited by a tribe whose knowledge of the power of leverage, and skill in removing such gigantic blocks from the distant quarries, were only surpassed by the builders of the egyptian pyramids. no wonder that a race possessed of such natural genius was, under tuition of the roman architects, enabled to produce such a class of workmen, that a demand was made for them even in gaul, and that the skill of the british mechanic was in that early age acknowledged on the continent. industry led to wealth, and the latter to luxuries to which the simple britons had, before the roman period, been entire strangers; instead of the cloak of skin, and the dyed sagum, those who dwelt in towns now wore the roman toga, and the british ladies began to decorate themselves with jewels of gold, silver, and precious stones, instead of their own island pearls, once so celebrated as to cause even a grave historian to attribute the invasion of julius cæsar to no other motive than a wish to fill his galley with them. they now wore bracelets and collars of gold, and amongst the imports to britain, we find mention of ivory bridles, chains of gold, cups of amber, and drinking-vessels of glass, made in the most elegant forms. a great change had taken place in the habits of these ancient in-dwellers of the forest, whose eyes in former days had seldom been gladdened by a sight of such treasures, unless when brought, now and then, by some warrior from the gaulish wars, to be looked on and wondered at, or caught sight of for a moment amongst the coveted hoards of the druids. we have it on record, that the waist of queen boadicea was encircled by a chain, or girdle of gold; and shortly after we have proof that nearly the whole of the british tribes were in subjection under the roman power--clear evidence that wealth, refinement, and civilization had softened down the rugged and hardy sinews of war--that the old warriors of the wild woods were better adapted for the struggles of battle than their sons who had put on the roman toga, and reared their homes within the limits of walled cities. as it was with the britons, so it was with the saxons--they also became less courageous, as they grew more civilized. and here a grave question naturally intrudes itself into our narrative, which to answer aright must either yield in favour of a state of barbarism, or pull down that great idol called a hero--though there are many exceptions on record to uphold the latter, some of which we have already instanced, as in cassivellaunus and caractacus. it is apparent that the more southern inhabitants of the british island had by this time adopted the roman custom of interring their dead. formerly the northern tribes did but little more than place the body in the naked earth, cover it up, and mark the spot by a pile of stones; and that rude monument was left to point out the last resting-place of the departed. the more southern tribes erected huge barrows above their dead, burying with them all that was considered most valuable, articles of gold and silver, weapons used in the war and in the chase, and even the body of the favourite dog, when he died, was not considered unworthy of sharing his master's grave. many of these mounds of earth were immense, and in several cases it is clear that the soil which formed them had been brought from a considerable distance, perhaps from the very spot which had been marked by the valorous though now forgotten deeds of the dead. these ancient sepulchres varied greatly in size and shape. those which appear to have contained the remains of the earlier inhabitants of our island, were frequently above a hundred yards in length; and if, as it has been supposed, each follower brought his wicker basket of earth to empty upon the chieftain's grave, or the high-piled hillock was the work of the friends of the departed, though so many long centuries have elapsed, they yet speak of the respect in which those early warriors were held. sometimes the body was placed in a cist, with the legs drawn back towards the head, and this position of burying seems to have been adopted at a very remote period by the britons. sometimes the trunk of a large tree was cut up into a proportionate length, hewn hollow, and the body placed within it. this again appears to have been a custom of very ancient date. they were also in the habit of burning the bodies of the dead--of collecting the burnt bones and placing them in the lowest bed of the barrow, then piling the stupendous mound above the ashes. those tribes that became more romanised appear to have followed the custom of their conquerors of burning the bodies, and collecting the ashes in urns; many of these have been discovered in what are called the roman-british barrows, which display but indifferent workmanship. others which have been dug out of old roman burying-places show much elegance both in their forms and ornaments. with these have also been found mingled incense and drinking cups of the most beautiful patterns. the britons appear to have had no common grave-yard; one barrow seems to have covered the remains of a chief, another that of his wife and children; perchance those who fell in the same battle were sometimes interred together, or it may be that the lesser hillocks covered the remains of the vassals, hemming around the huge barrow under which the chieftain slept, as if to protect him even in death--a silent guard surrounding his remains, as when living they had rallied about him. what were the forms of their solemn processions--what ceremonies they used while burying their dead--what heathen prayers they offered up to their rude gods, or what war-hymns they chaunted over the remains of their chiefs, we know not. the snows of nearly two thousand winters have fallen, whitened, and melted upon, their graves, but whether the latter were interred amid the deep war-cry of the tribe, or consigned to the earth amid tears and sorrowful sounds, we can never know. the glass beads, the amulets, and breastplates of gold--the spear-heads of bronze and flint, the rude necklaces of shells, and the pins and ornaments which we have discovered, throw no light upon the name, rank, or history of the dead. the barbarous custom of painting or tatooing their skins soon grew into disfavour as the britons became civilized. they began to find other uses for the dye which they extracted from the herb called woad, and instead of distinguishing themselves by the hideous forms of beasts or reptiles which they were wont to puncture and imprint upon their bodies, they now bore the marks of their rank in the form of their costume, and sought for their renown in the plaudits of other men. they began to look for their leaders amongst the ancient families, and to trace back their genealogies to their earliest heroes. this ended all roman claims, for they refused to grant any land to such as had not descended from the primitive tribes; it led also to much dissension, to many heart-burnings and bitter jealousies; family was divided against family, and tribe against tribe; petty kings sprang up in every province; there was much blood shed--more to be spilt; and as vortigern alone had maintained his claim, he was determined to support his position at any sacrifice. whether hengist and horsa came on a mission of peace, or as traders or pirates, or were driven by a storm upon the coast, or were exiled from their country, are matters of no moment. they were hired--their business was to fight--they were paid for doing so--they accepted the terms offered by the british king, acquitted themselves manfully, and finally were the means of establishing the saxons in britain. to the commencement of this period we have now arrived, and the next who pass through the gate of history are our old english forefathers, the saxons. =the saxon invasion.= chapter viii. the ancient saxons. "the stupendously holy gods considered these things: they gave names to the night and to the twilight; they called the morning and mid-day so. there sat an old man towards the east in a wood of iron, where he nourished the sons of fenris. every one of these grew up prodigious--a giant form,-- the sons of the two brothers inhabit the vast mansions of the winds. a hall stands brighter than the sun, covered with gold in gimle."--the volupsa. the saxons were a german or gothic race, possessing an entirely different language to that of the celts or ancient britons; and although they do not appear to have attracted the same attention as the other tribes, they were, doubtless, settled at a very early period in europe. at the time when they begin to stand forth so prominently in the pages of history, they occupied the peninsula of jutland, now a portion of denmark, with two or three neighbouring islands, known by the names of north strande, busen, and heligoland, all situate near the mouth of the elbe. as they, however, consisted of three tribes--namely, the jutes, the angles, and the saxons--they probably, at a former period, stretched over a much larger surface of country, the boundaries of which it is now difficult to define. as early as the time of ptolemy, a branch of this ancient scythian race was denominated the saxons. they claimed their descent from odin, probably some old and celebrated warrior, whose deeds grew up under magnified traditions, until at last he was dignified with the title of their god. like the britons, they were a brave and fearless race, delighting in plunder and slaughter, ever choosing the most dangerous and perilous paths, loving the roll of the wave, and the roar of the storm, and generally landing under a gloomy and tempestuous sky, to surprise and attack the enemy. their arms were a sharp sword, a keen-pointed dagger, a tall spear, and a ponderous battle-axe, all made of good iron. but the most dreaded weapon they wielded seems to have been a large heavy hammer, from which projected a number of sharp-pointed spikes. this fearful instrument was the terror of their enemies, and no helmet was proof against its blows. their chiefs wore a kind of scaly armour, which appears to have been formed of iron rings, locked together upon a tight-fitting coat, or leathern doublet. the rims and bosses of their shields were of iron, while the body was sometimes formed of wood, and covered with leather. many of these shields were large enough to protect the whole form, and as they were convex, no doubt the point of the enemy's weapon would glide off, unless it was struck firmly into the centre; thus they formed a kind of moveable bulwark, behind which the warrior sheltered himself in battle. they believed that the souls of those who bravely perished on the hard-fought field were at once wafted into the halls of valhalla, and the terrible heaven which they pictured in a future state consisted in those dreadful delights so congenial to their brutal natures while on earth--being made up of a succession of conflicts and struggles, cleaving of helmets and hacking of limbs; and that when the twilight deepened over those awful halls, every warrior was again healed of his wounds; that they then sat down to their grim and hideous banquet, where they fed upon a great boar, whose flesh never diminished, however much they ate, and when they had satiated themselves with these savoury morsels, which they cut off with their daggers, they washed them down with deep draughts of mead, which they drank out of the skulls of their cowardly enemies. into those halls the brave alone were admitted--the craven, and the coward, and those who fell not in the red and reeking ranks of battle, were doomed to dwell in the dark regions of niflheim, where hela, the terrible, reigned; where gaunt famine stalked like a shadow beneath the vaulted dome; where anguish ever writhed upon her hard bed, and dark delay kept watch against the sombre doors which she never opened. such were the eternal abodes those barbarians believed they should enter after death--the realms which their stormy spirits would soar into, when they could no longer guide their barks over the shadows of the overhanging rocks--when the tempestuous sea no longer bore them upon the thunder of its billows, and cast them upon some distant coast, to revel in carnage and slaughter;--it was then that they turned their dying eyes to the coveted halls of valhalla, and that huge banquet-table on which the grisly boar lay stretched, surrounded by drinking-cups formed of human skulls. those who had not courage enough to win an entrance into these envied realms by their own bravery, put one of their slaves to death, considering that such a sacrifice was acceptable to odin, and a sure passport into this ideal world. they, however, believed that valhalla would at last pass away; odin himself perish; that the good and the brave would inhabit another heaven, called gimle; and the evil and the cowardly be consigned to a more awful place of punishment than that over which hela reigned; that the gods would sit in judgment; that surtur, the black one, would appear; and an evil spirit be liberated from the dark cave in which he had been for ages bound with chains of iron. that for three years increasing snow would fall from all quarters of the world, and during this long winter there would be no interim of summer, neither would any green thing grow, but all mankind would perish by each other's hands. that two huge monsters would appear; one of which would devour the sun, the other, the moon; that mountains and trees would be torn up, and the earth shaken to its deepest foundations. that the stars would be blotted out of heaven, and one wide shoreless sea cover the whole world, over which a solitary ship would float, built of the nails of dead men, and steered by the tall giant hrymer. then would the huge wolf fenris open his enormous mouth, the lower jaw of which would touch the earth, the upper the heaven, over which a serpent would breathe poison, while the sons of muspell rode forward, led by the black surtur. a blazing fire, spreading out its myriad tongues of flame, would burn before and behind him; his sword would glitter like the sun, and the bridge which spanned across heaven, be broken. towards a large plain would these terrible forces move, followed by fenris, the wolf. the brazen trumpet of heimdal would ring out such a startling peal, as would awaken the gods, and cause the mighty ash of ygdrasil to tremble. odin would put on his golden helmet, and all the gods rise up in arms, and after the wolf had devoured him, and its jaws had been rent asunder by vidar, the whole universe would be destroyed. such a creed as this was calculated to nourish and keep alive the most benighted superstitions amongst its believers. thus we find them drawing omens from the flight and singing of birds, placing their trust in good and evil days, and considering the full or new moon as the most favourable seasons in which to put into operation any important plan. they were influenced by the moving of the clouds, and directed by the course of the winds; and from the entrails of the victims sacrificed, they drew their auguries. the breastplates they wore were imperfect, unless the smith who forged them muttered a charm while he wielded his ponderous hammer. even the graves of dead men were frequented, and those who slept their last sleep were intreated to answer them. they judged of the fate of a battle by seizing an enemy, and compelling him to fight with one of their own race. from the branches of the oak they cut short twigs, marked them, then scattered them at random upon a white garment, and while the priest looked upward, he took those on which his hand chanced to alight, and if they proved to be those on which the favourite mark was impressed, it was considered a good omen. they rode out the perilous tempest on the deep with better heart if, on the departure of their bark from the stormy beach, some priestess, with her hair blown back, stood upon the giddy headland, and chaunted the mystic rhyme which they believed would waft them, more safely than the most favourable breeze, to the distant shore. even through the long night of time we can picture her standing upon the dizzy edge of the rock, while the white-winged sea-gull wheeled and screamed above her head; with the subdued thunder of the hoarse waves ever rolling at her feet--her drapery blown aside, and her wan thin lips moving; while they, tugging at the long oar with their brawny arms and bowed heads, sent up a silent prayer to the god of the storm. such were our forefathers--men who would startle at the stirring of a leaf, or the shooting of a star, yet brave enough to rush upon the point of a spear with a flushed cheek and a bright eye, and who could look death full in the face without a feeling of fear. nor would it be difficult to point out, even in our own day, numbers of superstitious signs and omens, which are as implicitly believed in by the peasantry of the present age, as they were by the ancient saxons during this dark period of our history. the chattering of a magpie, the croaking of a raven, the howling of a dog in the night, a winding-sheet in the candle, or a hollow cinder leaping out of the fire upon the hearth, are even now held amongst our superstitious countrymen as ominous of ill-luck, sickness, or death. scarcely an obscure english province is without its wise-man, or cunning fortune-teller, those lingering remains of the wicca of the saxons, which have descended to us through the long lapse of nearly two thousand years, in spite of the burnings and other executions which were so common in our country only two or three centuries ago, when not to believe in witchcraft would have been held a crime equal to atheism, by our more enlightened and comparatively modern forefathers. the temple erected to their war-god, in their own country, appears to have been spacious and magnificent. on the top of a marble column stood this idol, in the figure of a tall, armed warrior, bearing a banner in his right hand, on which a red rose was emblazoned, while in his left he held a balance. his helmet was surmounted with a cock; on his breastplate a bear was engraven, while on the shield which was suspended from his shoulder was the image of a lion, upon a ground of flowers. here, women divined, and men sacrificed, and into the battle was this warlike image borne by the priest; for as they could not trust themselves upon the sea without a charm being first muttered, so in the field did they require the image of their idol to countenance the contest. to this grim deity did they offer up their captives, and even those of their own tribe who had fled, and turned their backs upon the fight, for they looked upon cowardice as the greatest of crimes amongst their men, and wantonness in their women they punished with death. some of their idols are surrounded by a wild poetry, and an air of almost classic beauty, recalling to the mind the divinities worshipped by the ancient greeks and romans. of such was their goddess, called the mother of earth, who was held so sacred, that only the priest was permitted to touch her. her temple stood amid the solemn shadows of a silent grove; her figure was always covered by a white garment, which was washed in a secret lake; in those waters the slaves who administered at her shrine were drowned--no one, saving the priest, was allowed to go abroad, who were once entrusted with her mysteries. on holy days her image was borne in procession, on the backs of beautifully marked cows. nothing but joy and peace then reigned throughout the whole length and breadth of the land: the bark was moored upon the beach; the spear and battle-axe hung upon the beam above the hearth, and odin himself seemed to sleep. but this lasted no longer than the days allotted to these processions: when they had passed, the keel was again launched, the weapons taken from their resting-place, while "grim-visaged war resumed his wrinkled front." even the cattle that fed upon the island where this temple stood were held so sacred, that it was a crime to touch them, and he who drew water from the fountain that flowed beside the grove, dared not, even by a whisper, disturb the surrounding silence. we might almost fancy, while reading the description of the idol they named crodus, that we saw before us the embodiment of one of spenser's beautiful stanzas, or that he himself had but turned into verse some old record, in which he found pictured this image of one of the ancient saxon gods. it was of the figure of an old man, stooping through very age: he was clothed in a white garment; a girdle of linen, the ends of which hung loose, encircled his waist; his head was grey, and bare. he held in his right hand a vessel, in which flowers floated in water; his left hand rested upon a wheel, while he stood with his naked feet upon the back of a prickly perch. how like spenser's description is the above, of his "old january wrapped well in many weeds, to keep the cold away--of february, with the old waggon-wheels and fish--of the hand cold through holding all the day the hatchet keen." such a resemblance would the eye of a poet trace, and so would he transform old crodus, the saxon idol, into the personification of one of his months. whoever broke into one of their temples, and stole the sacred vessels, was punished with a slow, lingering, and terrible death. to the very edge of the sands of the sea-shore was he dragged, when the tide was low, and there made fast--his ears were cut off, and other parts of his body mutilated--then he was left alone. wave after wave came and went, and washed around him, as the tide came in; he felt the sea rising every minute, inch by inch--higher still, higher it came--every ripple that made a murmur on the shore rang his death-knell, until the last wave came that washed over him--then vengeance was satisfied. a more awful death can scarcely be imagined. they were a tall, big-boned, blue-eyed race of men, and it appears from an old law made to punish a man who seized another by the hair, that they at one period wore it so long as to fall upon the shoulders. the females wore ornaments on their arms and necks. the government was generally vested in the hands of the aged, and they appear to have elected their ruler in war by the chiefs assembling and drawing lots. he on whom it fell, they followed and obeyed; but when the war was over, they were again all equal. they were divided into four orders--the etheling, or noble, who never married below his own rank; the free-man, who shared in the offices of government; the freed-man, or he who, either by purchase or merit, had obtained his liberty; and the serf, or slave. they reckoned their time by the number of nights, and counted their years by the winters. april they named easter-month, after their goddess, eostre. thus we still retain a name which, though commemorating the worship of an ancient idol, has now become endeared to us by the resurrection of christ--a holy time which we can never forget, for at every return it seems to bring back a spirit of beauty into the world, whose pathway is strown with the sweetest and earliest flowers of spring. bright spots of light every way break through this age of barbarism, and may, which again hangs the snow-white blossoms upon the hawthorn, they called milk-month; nor can we now repeat the name without images of lowing cattle and pleasant pastures springing up before us, and we marvel how so warlike a race ever came to make use of such poetical and pastoral names. the sun they worshipped as a goddess; the moon as a god. a saxon poet would have called the former, "the golden lady of the day." although they appear to have been ignorant of the use of letters, yet there is but little doubt that they used certain signs, or characters, which they were able to interpret. some of these runic hieroglyphics seem to have been engraven upon their swords. their war-songs were committed to memory, and it is probable that many a one ranked high amongst their minstrels, who possessed no other talent than that of remembering and repeating these ancient lays. it might be that they were just enabled to form characters clear enough in their resemblance to some natural object, which, when inscribed upon the rugged monumental stone, bore some allusion to the name or bravery of the chief whose memory it perpetuated. their only books seem to have been the bark of trees; the rind of the beech their favourite register; a tablet on which the rustic chronicler of the present day still makes the mark of his fair one's name, in characters only legible to himself. in point of civilization, they were at this time centuries behind the britons, and an old author, describing them about the fifth century, says, "you see amongst them as many piratical leaders as you behold rowers, for they all command, obey, teach, and learn the art of pillage. hence, after your greatest caution, still greater care is requisite. this enemy is fiercer than any other; if you be unguarded, they attack; if prepared, they elude you. they despise the opposing, and destroy the unwary; if they pursue, they overtake; if they fly, they escape. shipwrecks discipline them, not deter; they do not merely know, they are familiar with, all the dangers of the sea; a tempest gives them security and success, for it divests the meditated land of the apprehension of a descent. in the midst of waves and threatening rocks they rejoice at their peril, because they hope to surprise." "dispersed into many bodies," adds zosimus, "they plundered by night, and when day appeared, they concealed themselves in the woods, feasting on the booty they had gained."[ ] when the saxons first approached the british coast, they issued out from the mouth of the elbe, in wicker boats covered with leather, which seem to have been but little better than the coracles used by the ancient britons. these were so light, that they found but little difficulty in carrying them overland, from one river or creek to another, then paddling their way under cover of the banks, wherever sufficient water was to be found, until at last they came unaware upon the natives. the chiules or keels which they possessed at the time they were called upon to aid vortigern, were capable of containing above a hundred men each, a wonderful improvement on the frail barks with which they first ventured into the british seas. such as we have here described them, were the tribe destined to overthrow an ancient race, whom the romans never wholly subjugated. chapter ix. hengist--horsa--rowena and vortigern. "they bargained for thanet with hengist and horsa, their aggrandizement was to us disgraceful, after the destroying secret with the slaves at the confluent stream, conceive the intoxication at the great banquet of mead, conceive the deaths in the great hour of necessity; conceive the fierce wounds--the tears of the women-- the grief that was excited by the weak chief (vortigern); conceive the sadness that will be revolving to us, when the brawlers of thanet shall be our princes." ancient welsh poem--seventh century. we have no account of the preliminary arrangements between the british king, and the saxon chiefs, when the latter arrived with three ships, and landed at ebbs-fleet, a spot which now lies far inland, though at that period the wanstum was navigable for large vessels, and formed a broad barrier between the island of thanet and the mainland of kent. vortigern and his chieftains were assembled in council when the saxons appeared, and hengist and horsa were summoned before them. the saxon ships, which contained about three hundred soldiers, were drawn up beside the shore, where the adventurers anxiously awaited the issue of the interview between their leaders and the british king. such a meeting as this could scarcely result from chance; the time of landing--the assembled council--the attendance of hengist and horsa, all bear evidence of some previous understanding between the parties, similar to what we have before alluded to. vortigern first interrogated the saxons as to the nature of their creed; hengist enumerated the names of the gods they worshipped, and further added, that they also dedicated the fourth and sixth days in the week to woden and frea. inference might be drawn from the reply of vortigern, that the britons were already christians, though such a conclusion ought, doubtless, to be limited in its application to the inhabitants of our island, for we have evidence that all were not. it was agreed that the saxons were to assist the britons, to drive the scots and picts out of the island--that for such service they were to receive food and clothing, and when not engaged in war they were to be stationed in ruithina, for by that name was the isle of thanet called by the ancient britons. there is no evidence that vortigern intended to give up this island, at that period, to the saxons; the arrangement he made had nothing new in it. centuries before, the britons had crossed the sea, and fought in the wars of the gauls; they had also aided the romans: it was a common custom for one nation to hire the assistance of another; when the time of service was over, the soldiers either returned to their own country, or settled down amongst the native tribes, whom they had defended, as in britain, many of the romans and gauls had done before-time. in this case, however, the result proved very different, though it would have been difficult for any one endowed with the keenest penetration to have foreseen that three small ships, probably containing in all not more than three hundred men, and these willing to render assistance on very humble terms, should point out a way over the waves, by which their companions in arms should come, and conquer, and take possession of a country which it had cost the romans so many years of hard warfare to subjugate. the saxons appear to have done their duty; fighting was their every-day trade: their robust natures had received no touch of roman refinement, they earned their bread with the points of their swords, and the blows of their heavy battle-axes; they drove back the northern hordes beyond the roman walls, and they soon grew into great favour with the britons. all this was very natural to a nation now making rapid progress in civilization, and one wealthy enough to pay others for fighting its battles--it was a much easier life to sit comfortably in their walled cities, to follow the chase, and enjoy the luxury of the bath, than to be chasing the picts and scots from one county to another, through forests and morasses, and over hills and dales, day after day; but to do this securely more aid was required. hengist and horsa had left numbers of their countrymen behind, who would willingly fight on the same terms which they had accepted. vortigern agreed to the proposition they made, and more saxons were speedily sent for. seventeen ships soon arrived, and on the deck of one of these vessels, from the stern of which the banner of the white horse waved, stood a conqueror whose long silken locks blew out in the breeze, unencumbered by either helmet or crest, who bore neither sword, spear, shield nor battle-axe, but was armed only with a pair of beautiful blue eyes, and a face of such strange and surpassing beauty as had never before been mirrored in our island waves: such was the saxon princess rowena, destined to win more broad acres from the britons without striking a single blow, than all the northern barbarians had ever gained by their numberless invasions. on the landing of his daughter, accompanied by so many of her countrymen, a great feast would, of course, be held to celebrate the event, and there vortigern and the british chiefs would, beyond doubt, be assembled to welcome their new allies; there is nothing remarkable in such an occurrence, nor in rowena drinking to her father's royal guest, nor in the island king falling at once in love with the beautiful barbarian. her drinking his health in a tongue to which he was a stranger, her natural bashfulness, on first standing in the presence of the british king--her confusion when she found her language was not understood by him--all, doubtless, contributed to make her look more interesting. then above all to know that the blood of woden flowed in her veins, that she had descended from a hero, whose renown in battle had raised him to the grandeur of a god, in the idolatrous estimation of his own countrymen; all these things coupled together had surely romance and poetry enough about them, aided by such a beautiful countenance, to turn a calmer brain than vortigern's, heated as his was by love and wine. he had no peace until he married her; her image seems to have haunted his memory, and caused him more uneasiness until she became his wife, than all the inroads of the northern hordes had hitherto done. even before this period, all had gone on smoothly and evenly between the britons and the saxons; but now love himself had landed amongst the last-comers, and received the warmest welcome of them all. who could dream that he but heralded the way for slaughter, conquest, and death to follow in, or that the beauty he accompanied should be the cause of bloodshed between the saxons and the britons?--yet so it was. [illustration: _vortigern and rowena._] the saxons were, shortly after, the sole possessors of the isle of thanet, and the influence of vortigern's pretty pagan wife was soon visible to the jealous eyes of the britons. hengist and horsa began to demand more liberal supplies, and to cast a longing glance upon kent; but the britons had spirit enough to resist such a concession, and here we for a time lose sight of vortigern and rowena, though it is highly probable that they retreated into the isle of thanet, then held by the saxons, from the coming storm. vortimer and catigern, the two sons of vortigern by a former marriage, now took the command of the britons, with whom the roman settlers in the island appear to have joined; all resolved to make head in one common cause, and to drive the saxons out of britain. hengist and horsa, to strengthen their force, formed a league with their old brothers in plunder, the scots and picts, and war once more broke out in the land, more terrible in its results than it had ever been in the struggles between the britons and the romans. what few fragments we find in the old welsh bards, alluding to these ancient battles, are filled with dreadful descriptions, and awful images of slaughter. we are borne onward, from the shout of the onset, to the mighty shock when the opposing ranks close in battle, when blade clashes against blade, when dark frowning men sink with gory seams on their foreheads, and tall chieftains rock and struggle together in the combat, and as each knee is brought to the ground, it rests upon a bed of gore, while battle-axes, as they are uplifted, and glitter a moment in the air, shed down crimson drops. then gloomy biers pass by, on which "red-men" are borne; and ravens come sweeping through the dim twilight which settles over that ancient battle-field, to prey upon the fallen warriors. such wailings as these must have caused the heart of vortigern to have beat painfully, even when the fair head of rowena was pillowed upon it, and to have made him sigh, and regret that such beauty had been purchased at so great a sacrifice. at the battle of the ford-of-eagles, long after called eaglesford, but now aylesford, in kent, did horsa, the brother of hengist, fall; he whose banner of the white-horse had waved over many a victorious field, and been the terror of the northern tribes, now fell to rise no more. on the side of the britons, also perished catigern, and a sore reproach must his death have been to his father, vortigern, when he heard the tidings! for, alas, he was wasting the hours in soft dalliance with his blue-eyed idolater, while his sons were fighting and falling in defence of their country. vortimer had now the sole command of the britons, and, if the ancient bards are to be believed, it was by his hand that horsa was slain. a sad pang must such a rumour as this have sent through the aching heart of poor rowena, as she gazed upon her husband, and in him beheld the father of her uncle's murderer, the destroyer of her father's companion in arms--he who had shared the fortunes of hengist, from the hour when first the prow of their ship ploughed together the sands on the british shore. one of our old chroniclers (roger de wendover) states that, on a future day, rowena bitterly revenged the death of horsa, by bribing one of vortimer's servants to poison her son-in-law, and that thus fell, in the bloom of life, one of the noblest of the british warriors--a victim to the vengeance of his step-mother. whether this is true or not, it is now impossible to decide, so much are the statements of our early historians at variance; one thing, however, is clear, the saxons were defeated, and compelled to escape in their long chiules, or ships; nor do they appear to have returned until after the death of vortimer, when, at the suggestion of rowena, her father was again invited to britain, and this time hengist returned with a larger force than had hitherto landed in our island. when the saxon landed, he made an offer of peace to the britons, and invited the chiefs to a feast, which he gave on the occasion. both parties were to come without their arms, such was the command issued by hengist, and enforced on the part of the british leaders by vortigern, who was also present. the treacherous saxon had, however, given orders to his followers to conceal short swords or daggers under their garments, and when he gave the signal, to fall upon and slaughter every briton present, with the exception of vortigern. the feast commenced, the wine-cup circulated, the saxon and british chiefs sat side by side; those who had fought together, face to face and hand to hand, were drinking from the same cup, for it appears to have been so contrived that a false-friend should be placed between every foe. vortigern seems to have sat secure, and never once dreamed of the treachery that surrounded him; and, perhaps, even before the smile had well faded from hengist's face, as he talked of the pleasant days that were yet in store for his unsuspecting son-in-law, he turned round and exclaimed: "_nimed eure saxes_," "unsheath your swords," and in a few moments after three hundred british chiefs and nobles lay lifeless upon the ground. the motto prefixed to our present chapter is from one of the poems of golyddan, a welsh bard, who lived within a century or two after this cold-blooded massacre, a deed which must for many a long year afterwards have rankled in the minds of the britons, and which their bards would never allow to slumber, whenever they sang the deeds of their departed chieftains. doubtless rowena was present at that bloody banquet, and with a cruel look confronted "the weak chief," as he stood pale and horror-stricken, glancing from father to daughter, and cursing the hour, as he looked into the face of the beautiful heathen, whose blue eyes could perchance gaze, without shrinking for a moment, upon those wan and clay-cold countenances that were now upturned in death. though long years have passed away, and the hawthorns have put out their blossoms above a thousand times since the fatal may in which this terrible tragedy took place, still the eye of the imagination can scarcely conjure up the scene without a shiver. it is supposed to have been near stonehenge where this cruel butchery took place, probably within the very circle of those druidical monuments, some of which still stand, though at that period the whole temple was, doubtless, perfect. if, as we are led to believe, many of the british chieftains were christians, there was something in keeping with the stern character of the saxon pagans, in thus slaughtering their enemies in the presence of the very altars on which the islanders had formerly sacrificed to the gods they themselves worshipped, and such an act might, in their eyes, hallow even this savage revenge. to slaughter all who did not believe in their heathen creed, was with the pagan saxons a religious duty; they believed such acts were acceptable to their gods. we shudder at the very thought of such a deed--nearly fourteen centuries have elapsed since the sands of salisbury plain drank in the blood of these victims. yet we startle to see the dead thus piled together around the grey old stones which the footsteps of time have all but worn away, as if we still looked calmly on while they were brought bleeding to our very thresholds. still the historian of the past might mingle his sympathy, and carry back many a deed which has since then been done, to be rolled up and mourned over in the same great catalogue of cruelty. the shadows that move through the old twilight of time, bend under the weight of the "red-men" that are borne upon the bier. the form of hengist seems to stand leaning upon the red pillars that mark the entrance to the hall of murder in valhalla, as if wondering "why the chariot wheels so long delayed," and the guests that still tarried behind, hastened to the banquet of sculls, which stood awaiting their coming, in the halls of odin. for such a deed stamps him as a fitting servitor in that horrible hall of slaughter. at crayford in kent, another great battle was fought between the saxons and the britons, in which the latter were defeated with great slaughter, and so complete was the victory, that the remnant of the british army were compelled to retreat into london. but with all his success, hengist was unable to keep possession of little more than the county of kent, and the island of thanet, and even this, it appears, he would have found it difficult to retain, but for the dissensions which were ever breaking out amongst the british chiefs. the britons were able at this very time to send out twelve thousand armed men into gaul, to war against the visigoths, so that there can be but little doubt that, had unity reigned amongst them, they would have found no difficulty in driving out the saxons, as they had done before-time. the island seems to have been so divided at this period, and under the command of so many different chiefs or kings, that they cared not to bring their united forces to bear upon one corner of the kingdom, especially that where the presence of vortigern still appears to have been acknowledged; for it is probable that the british king, after the death of his son, settled down in his old age, amongst the saxons, "a sadder and a wiser man." we even hope, in spite of his misdeeds, and the miseries into which his love for a fair face plunged the whole island of britain, that there is no truth in the statements of our early saxon historians, who have left it on record that he fled into wales, where, hated alike "by slave and free-man, monk and layman, strong and weak, small and great," he at last perished with the fair rowena, and all his family, in those flames which destroyed the fortress where he had sought shelter from his enemies. yet many venerable names might be brought forward in support of this story of the terrible end of an ancient british king. a dreadful fate for fair rowena, if true, and all the evidence is sadly in its favour, and from our hearts, we cannot help pitying the poor girl, who with downcast eyes, as she held the golden goblet in her hand, listened to the promises which the island monarch poured into her ears; who stepped from the deck of her father's galley, to share a throne, yet appears never to have forsaken her husband in all the varied vicissitudes of his chequered life; but through battle, flood, and fire, to have trod the same perilous path with him, hand in hand, sometimes, it may be, when alone, shedding tears at the remembrance of her father's cruelties, weeping one hour, for the death of her own friends, and the next, comforting vortigern for the loss of those he mourned. we picture her, as in the joyousness of her heart she left her native home to meet her father--no mother appears to have accompanied her--and, pagan as she was, we know not how pure and holy the feelings of that heart might be; for, red with blood as the hands of hengist were, they had, doubtless, many a time parted her silken ringlets, as he stooped down and imprinted a father's kiss upon her lips. perhaps a tear stole down the deep furrows which time and care had ploughed in the weather-beaten countenance of hengist, as he embraced her when she first landed on our island shore, as in her pure countenance he traced the image of her mother, whom he had once so fondly loved. poor rowena! she might have moved like a ministering angel, through all the terrors of those stormy times, her mild blue eyes beaming comfort on every woe-begone countenance on which they glanced--now soothing the restless slumber of her father, as he started up, dreaming of some new revenge, and by her falling tears, and low-breathed whispers, chasing away the dark demon from his couch; for even through the past, those gentle eyes seem to beam upon us, and the tears by which they are dimmed quench the cruel light, that when in anger, flashed from beneath her fringed eye-lids. oh, mercy! thou wouldst not leave that beautiful saxon mother to perish shrieking amidst the surrounding flames! what crimes she had, sprang from her faith; she was nursed in a cruel creed; when the grim shadow of odin fell not over and darkened her gentle heart, she was a fond woman, even as our mothers have ever been. but she is dead and gone. hengist is now no more, and eric, his son, reigns sole king over the white-cliffs, and green hills, and pastoral valleys of kent, and the keels of other chiules are grating upon our chalky headlands. the grey curtain of time again drops down over the dead which in fancy stood before us, and after the night of death is past, a new morning breaks, that "laughs aside the clouds with playful scorn." chapter x. ella, cerdric, and king arthur. "he was a shield to his country: the courteous leader of the army; his course was a wheel in battle, he was a city to old age; the head, the noblest pillar of britain; an eagle to his foe in his thrust, brave as generous; in the angry warfare, certain of victory." llywarch hen., sixth century. the next saxon chieftain of any note, who effected a landing in britain, and established himself in the country, was ella; he came, accompanied by his three sons and the same number of ships, the latter being anchored beside the isle of thanet, where hengist and horsa, twenty-eight years before, became auxiliaries under vortigern. from the south of kent, a vast forest extended into sussex and hampshire, a huge uncultivated wilderness, called andreade, or andredswold, measuring above a hundred miles in length, and a long day's march in breadth, for it was full thirty miles wide, and abounded with wolves, deer, and wild boars. near the sussex entrance of this primeval english forest, ella fought his first battle, and drove the britons into the wide wooded waste. after a time, the saxon chief received fresh reinforcements, and not until then did he venture to attack the ancient british town which was named andredes ceaster, and stood, strongly fortified, on the edge of the forest. while the saxons were attempting to scale the walls, a body of the britons rushed upon them from the wood, and, thus attacked in the rear, the invaders were compelled to turn their backs upon the town and carry the fight into the forest. three times was the assault renewed, for no sooner were the saxons at the foot of the wall than the britons were upon their heels; each time ella's loss was severe; night came, and both parties rested until the morrow, encamped within sight of each other. with sunrise, the battle was renewed, and the saxon chief this time drove the britons still further into the forest, but all was useless--they knew every turning and every thicket that afforded a shelter, and by the time the besiegers had again reached the town, the brave islanders were there, ready to pin the first saxon to the wall who attempted to scale it, with the unerring javelins which they could hurl to an inch. the forces under ella became furious; they stood between two enemies; they were attacked both from the town and the forest; whichever way they turned, the pointed spears of the britons were presented. at length, the saxon chief divided his army into two bodies: one he commanded to drive the britons into the forest, and to prevent them from returning; the other, at the same time, began to break down the walls. revenge was now the order of the day: maddened by their losses, and irritated by the long delay, the merciless saxons put every soul within the walls to death--neither man, woman, nor child, did they leave alive; such a massacre had never before taken place. even the walls were levelled to the earth, and, for ages after, that town stood by the gloomy forest, silent, ruined, and desolate; until even the time of edward the first it was pointed out to the stranger; and though the long grass, and the moss, and the lichen, had grown grey upon its ruins, there were still traces of its fallen grandeur "which," in the words of the old chronicler, "showed how noble a city it had once been." it is painful, even only in fancy, to picture the return of those british warriors from the forest; how startling must have been the very silence which reigned over those ruins, the vast dreary woodland wilderness behind, the levelled walls and the bodies of the dead before--here the remains of a beloved home which the destroying fire had blackened--on the hearth a beautiful form, with her long hair steeped in her own heart's blood, her child stretched across her arm, over which the heavy rafter had in mercy fallen, the wolf already prowling about the threshold. even through the night of time, we can almost hear their moans--each warrior reproaching himself for having fled, and envying the unbroken sleep of the slain. how looked those british fathers and husbands when they again met the saxon slayers in battle? who marvels, after reading of such deeds as these, that they hung the heads of their enemies at their sides--that they found music in the gurgling of their blood--that as the foe expired they stood calmly looking on, mocking him with a solemn death-chaunt, and telling the dying man of the wife and home he would never see again--of the savage laugh, "bitter and sullen as the bursting of the sea, of the dead which in their fury they mangled--of the joy with which they hailed the flapping of the raven's wings, as they heard them descending upon the battle-field?" such images would maddened revenge select to express its triumph in, and the only marvel is, that so many beautiful passages, expressive of grief, and sorrow, and heart-broken despair, are scattered over the wild wailings of the early british bards. yet such scenes as we have here depicted it was theirs to deplore--such revenge as they took, when the current of battle bore them on to victory, it was theirs to exult in, and their bards, gifted with the power of song, retired to mourn like the dove, or sallied forth to destruction with the scream of the eagle. they were familiar with the images of death, were called upon every day to defend their lives, and were never certain that she, whose beautiful smile beamed love on their departure in the morning, would in the evening stand waiting upon the threshold to welcome their return. neither the weeping mother, nor the smiling child, had, in those days, power to turn aside the edge of the saxon sword. thus was the second saxon kingdom called sussex, established, by ella, and his three sons. eighteen years after, another of woden's descendants, named cerdric, came with his followers in five ships. where they landed is uncertain, though it does not appear that we should be much in error if we fixed upon yarmouth, which for centuries after was called cerdricksand, and known by that name even in camden's day. at the time of his landing, the britons were in possession of the whole island, with the exception of kent and sussex, and the saxons who inhabited these kingdoms appear to have aided the new-comers. battle followed upon battle as usual, and we are thankful that only so few scanty records exist, for it would be wearisome to go over such successive bead-rolls of slaughter. nor was cerdric allowed to land peaceably, for, like julius cæsar above five centuries before, he had to fight his way from the first moment of leaving the deck of his vessel. one great battle, however, was fought, in which the british king natanleod was slain; the two armies met at churdfrid, and in the onset the islanders appear to have had the advantage. natanleod commenced the attack on the right wing of the saxons, broke through the line, bore down the standards, and compelled cerdric to retreat. years had passed away since the britons had before mustered such a force; they pursued the routed foe across the field with terrible slaughter. the victory, however, was far from being complete, for while the britons plunged forward, hot and eager in the pursuit, the forces under the command of the son of cerdric closed upon the flank of the pursuing army and compelled them to wheel round and defend themselves. the saxon chief also recovered from the panic, and attacked them in front; thus the britons were hemmed in on both sides, and their centre was soon broken. all was now hurry, retreat, confusion, and slaughter; quarter was neither craved nor given, those who could not escape fought and fell, and when the battle was ended, the body of the british king lay surrounded by five thousand of his lifeless warriors. it will be readily imagined that cerdric must have received great assistance from kent and sussex to have won such a victory, and it is evident that the leagued forces did not separate without extending their ravages--many a fair province was desolated, the inhabitants slaughtered, their houses burnt to the ground, and their priests mercilessly butchered; for wherever the christian religion abounded, there the sword of the saxon was found unsheathed. stuf and wihtgar next came, both of them cerdric's kinsmen, and it seems as if scarcely a favourable wind now blew, without wafting a fresh fleet of saxon chiefs to the british coast. they evidently began to look upon britain as their own; so many relations came one after the other and settled down, and never returned, that we can imagine the only topic of conversation now in jutland was about britain--that houses and lands were at a discount--that everybody was either purchasing or building ships--that the old crones reaped quite a harvest in standing upon the headlands and sending prayers after the vessels, for jutes, angles, and saxons were now all astir; rumours had flown over the ocean that there were kingdoms for those who dare venture for them, and that, no matter how distant the descent might be, so long as the voyager had a drop of woden's blood in his veins, there was a crown for him if he could but find followers to fight for it. nor had the poor britons any hope left, for as one died off there was always another ready to succeed. cynric followed cerdric; he passed away, and cealwin came--killed two or three british kings, of whom we know nothing, excepting that one was called conmail, another condidan, and the third farinmail--added the cities of gloucester, cirencester, and bristol to his dominions--and finally established the kingdom of wessex, which included several counties, beside the isle of wight. but we must not thus hurry over this stirring period, for a new champion had sprung up amongst the britons, the king arthur of old romance, the hero of poetry and fable, the warrior whose very existence has, to many, become a matter of doubt. what little we know of any of the british kings who existed at this period, is almost limited to the bare mention of their names. a new language had sprung up, and, excepting among the conquered, there was no one left to record the deeds of the british heroes, but the welsh bards; for what sympathy could the worshippers of woden have with the warriors who spoke another language, and followed a creed so different to their own? what should we have known of the earlier britons but for julius cæsar? who can doubt but that the saxons cared only to chronicle the deeds of their own countrymen, or who can tell how many records were destroyed by the misbelieving danes on a later day? we have more than tradition to prove the existence of arthur: he is alluded to by the ancient bards, and mentioned by them in succession, for as one caught up and carried forward the cymric lay of another, so did he allude to warriors of other days. the saxons had enough to do to record their own conquests, and left the britons to mourn over their own disasters, for what they remembered with feelings of pride would to the new-comers be a source of regret; a british victory would but afford them a theme for a dirge, and the very memory of a hero who had occasionally triumphed over them would be a source of pain. those who furnished gildas and nennius with the subjects for their histories would not be such as kept a record of the bravery of the britons, yet arthur is mentioned by them both. these venerable chroniclers could but tell what they heard; many of the welsh bards fought in the battles of which they sang, and even defeat, as well as victory, was alike woven into their lays. no such remains are found amongst the saxon historians, yet they both mention the battles in which arthur fought: he was a british king; and, though gildas was living within twenty years after the death of arthur, he had but little sympathy for him--nevertheless he praises his valour. arthur is the last british king in whose fortunes we strongly sympathize. we see his native land about to be wrested from him. in every corner of the island are strangers landing, and taking possession of the soil. in almost every battle the britons are defeated; they who, from the first dawning of history, had been the possessors of the island, are about to be driven from it, and that, too, at a period when they were just becoming familiar to us. as we feel for and with them at this time, so do the saxons at last interest us, and there our sympathy ends; the normans never become so endeared to us as they have been. from their first landing we seem to dislike them, even more than we do the saxons, whom we begin to see darkening every point of the land, for as yet they are pagans, and just as they gather upon our favour, the danes approach; and then we feel as much interested on the side of the saxons as we do now on that of the britons. for there are currents in history which bear us forward against our will--we struggle against them in vain--we are swept onward through new scenes, and whirled so rapidly amongst past events, that we no longer cling to passing objects to retard our courses; but as the wide ocean opens out before us, we gaze upon its vastness in wonderment, and are lost in the contemplation of the shifting scenes which are ever chasing each other over its surface. the forms that fall upon the pages of history, are like the sunshine and shadow pursuing each other over the face of the ocean, where the golden fades into the grey; and as each wave washes nearer to the shore, it is ever changing its hue, from gloom to brightness, until it breaks upon the beach, and is no more. arthur leading on the britons, with the image of the virgin upon his shield, seems, in our eyes, only like some armed phantom, standing upon the rim of the horizon at sunset, and pointing with his sword towards the coming darkness; then he sinks behind the rounded hill, never to appear again. his twelve battles have a glorious indistinctness,--they sink one behind the other in the sunset, just as we can trace the bright armour, and the drooping banners, and the moving host, in the fading gold of the clouds,--they then melt around the dying glories of heaven. something great and grand seems ever shaping itself before the eye; but ere we are able to seize upon any distinct feature, all is gone, never to appear again. arthur first appears to us checking the flight of a british prince; we see his hand on the rein, he is about to bear off the beautiful lady, but is dissuaded from it by his companions. the cavalcade passes on, and he rides moodily at the head of his followers,--then one of the dark turnings of time shuts him out from the sight. sword in hand, we next behold him, in hot pursuit after a british chief, who has slain some of his soldiers; the image of the virgin is borne rapidly through the air, his teeth are clenched, and there is a frown upon his brow. a priest approaches--others come up--they tell him that there are enemies enough to slay amongst the saxons. the angry spot fades from his forehead, and he sits calmly in his saddle--again he vanishes. his wife is then borne away, and we meet him breathing vengeance against the king of somersetshire, vowing that he will, ere night, leave melva to sleep shorter by the head--he slackens his rein for a few moments beside the gate of a monastery: good and holy men are there, the hand of a venerable man is placed upon his bridle, the image of the virgin he bears upon his shield is appealed to; he muses for a time with his eyes bent upon the ground, he allows his war-horse to be led under the grey gateway of the monastery--his wife is restored, and melva forgiven, and the curtain again falls. huel, another king of the britons, has been tampering with the enemies of his country; he is upbraided by arthur for his treachery, then slain by his own hand. we see him ever in the van, at the battles of glen, douglas, bassas, the wood of caledon, castle gunnion, on the banks of the rebroit, on the mountain of cathregonian, and the battle in which the saxons were routed on the badon hills, and we no longer wonder at the slow progress made by cerdric, or that he died before the kingdom of wessex was established. the armed troops, headed by king arthur, stood between his advance into wales; they remembered the hills of bath, and the number of slain they had left upon those summits. saving the feud with medrawd, in which the british king received the blow by which he died, these few facts are about all that we can gather of the renowned deeds of the mighty king arthur. excepting the slight mention made of him in the works of gildas and nennius, the former of whom, as we have before stated, was living about the period ascribed to arthur, we find, no other record of his deeds, beyond those tradition has preserved in the lays of the welsh bards. after the battle of camlan, where arthur received his death-blow, he was carried from the field, and conveyed to glastonbury abbey, and consigned to the care of a noble lady, named morgan, who appears to have been a kinswoman of king arthur's; in her charge he was left to be cured of his wounds. he, however, died, though his death was long kept a secret, and rumours were sent abroad that he had been removed into another world, but would one day again appear, and reign sole king of britain. ages after, this was believed in; it was a thought that often cheered the fading eyes of the dying celt; he believed that he but left his children behind him for a time; and that arthur, with the virgin upon his shield, and his sword, "caliburne," in his hand, would assuredly one day come and lead the remnant of the ancient cymry on to victory. no historian, who has looked carefully into the few facts which we possess relating to this british king, has ever doubted the existence of such a belief; it was a coming devoutly looked for--the dreamy solace of a fallen nation, their only comfort when all beside had perished. no marvel that round his memory so many fables are woven--that miracle upon miracle was ascribed to him, and deed upon deed piled together, until even the lofty summit of high romance at last toppled down with all its giants, and monsters, and improbable accumulation of enemies slain, which in the days of gildas amounted to hundreds, and that down with it tumbled nearly all the few facts which had swelled into such an inordinate bulk from his fair fame. how it would have astonished the true arthur, could he but have been restored to life, and by the light of the few embers which glimmered in the british huts in the evening twilight, have heard some bard, the descendant of llywarch the aged, who knew him well, and had looked on him, face to face, recounting his deeds at the battle of llongberth! yet, through the traditions of these very bards, by whom his deeds were so magnified, is his memory preserved, though above thirteen centuries have glided away. all belief in his return must, ages before this, have perished; yet his memory was not forgotten, and it is on record, that a secret had been entrusted to one who had probably descended from a long line of ancient minstrels; for the druids, who numbered bards amongst their order, had mysteries which they only confided to each other, and these were seldom revealed until the approach of death. nor can we tell how much they were interested in keeping the death of arthur a secret, for we must not forget that the fires upon their altars were not wholly extinguished when the british king fell beneath the fatal blow, which he received from the hand of his nephew in the field of camlan, for that his death was kept a secret has never been disputed. though the discovery of the remains of king arthur has long been a matter of doubt, yet while it is supported by such high authority as giraldus cambrensis and william of malmsbury, who were living at the period it is said to have taken place, and while even sharon turner has admitted it into his "history of the anglo-saxons," we should scarcely be justified in rejecting it from our pages. the discovery is said to have originated as follows:-- henry the second, during his visits into wales, freely admitted the welsh bards into his presence; and as he numbered amongst his own household a minstrel of some celebrity, named pierre de vidal, there is every reason to conclude that he was a willing listener to the ancient lays which were chanted in those days in the halls of the nobles. by one of the old british bards he was told that king arthur was interred in glastonbury abbey; that the spot was marked by two pyramids, or pillars; that the body was buried very deep, to prevent the saxons from discovering it; and that, instead of a stone coffin, the remains would be found in the trunk of a hollowed oak--a form of interment, as we have before shown, very common amongst the ancient britons. the king transmitted this information to the abbot of glastonbury, commanding him to dig between the pillars, and endeavour to discover the body of the british king. in the cemetery of the abbey, and between the monuments which the welsh bard had pointed out, they commenced the search, and dug, it is said, until they came to a stone, under which they found a leaden cross, and the following inscription: "hic jacet sepultus inclytus rex arthurus in insula avollonia." though we must confess that there is something very doubtful about the inscription of a british king not being in welsh, when the cymry were said, at this period, to have been acquainted with letters, we will pass it by, and go on with the narrative. sixteen feet lower, it is said, they found the outer coffin, which, as before described, was formed out of the solid stem of an oak, hollowed in the centre to contain the body. the leg-bones, we are told, were of an unusual size, being the breadth of three fingers longer than those of the tallest man present. these bones giraldus, it is said, took in his hand, and also read the inscription, for he was present at the disinterment. the skull was large, and marked with ten wounds--nine of these had healed in the bone, the tenth was open, and probably showed where the mortal blow was struck that terminated his life. near at hand, were found the remains of his wife; the long yellow hair which the ancient bards loved to dwell upon, in their descriptions of the fair queen, appeared perfect, until touched. the remains were removed into the abbey, and placed in a magnificent shrine, which, by the order of edward the first, was placed before the high altar. in the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-six, nearly a hundred years after the bodies were discovered, the same king, accompanied by his queen, visited glastonbury, and had the shrine opened to look upon the remains of the renowned warrior and his once fair consort. king edward folded the bones of the reputed arthur in a rich shroud, while his wife did the same with those of the yellow-haired queen; then placed them again reverentially within the shrine. the pillars which marked the spot where the bodies were discovered, long remained; and william of malmsbury, who was living at the period when they were disinterred, has left an account of the inscription and figures upon the pillars, which were five-sided, and twenty-six feet high.[ ] neither the meanings of the inscriptions, or the figures, were at the period of the discovery rightly understood. what befel them afterwards we know not, though the fate of the abbey is well known. whether the discovery of these remains be true or not, there cannot be a doubt about the existence of king arthur; for, were there even no allusion made to him by gildas and nennius, who lived near upon the period when he was waging war with cerdric and cealwin; or by the british bards, who knew him personally, and even fought under his command,--were there no such undeniable evidence as the above, the traditions which so long preserved his remembrance would go far to prove his existence. but these throw no light upon the achievements by which he became so renowned; it is like discovering the casket without the gem--there is evidence of the treasure, and the care with which it was preserved, but what the treasure itself was, we know not. what few facts we have thrown together, are all that can really be depended upon as the true history of king arthur: his knights, his round table, and the deeds which are attributed to him, must ever stand amongst the thousand-and-one tales which a wonder-loving people have treasured in all ages, and some of which are found even amongst the most barbarous nations. they appear to have been such as raised woden into a god in the darkest era of saxon paganism; and as roman civilization seems never to have spread far amongst the ancient cymry in wales, we are justified in concluding that they also loved to shed around the memory of their bravest chieftain the same mysterious reverence, and that what was wanting to make up the unnatural stature of the image of their idolatry, they piled up from old legends and time-out-of-mind fables, that "give delight, but hurt not." the discovery of king arthur's remains is at best but doubtful history. chapter xi. establishment of the saxon octarchy. "over the hawk's station, over the hawk's banquet of heads, over the quivering of the spears, reddening was the wing; over the howling of the storm the course of the sea-gull was seen; over the blood, whirling and flowing, the exulting ravens were screaming, they hovered above the treasure of the fierce-winged race, and their clamour went spreading through the sky." cynddelu's death of owen. during the period in which the events occurred that are narrated in the opening pages of our last chapter, another body of saxons had arrived in britain, and settled down in essex, where under erkenwin they laid the foundation of that kingdom or state, which eventually extended into middlesex, and included london--then a town of considerable note, though bearing no marks of its high destiny, as its few houses heaved up and overlooked the thames. little did the fisherman dream, as he turned back to gaze upon his humble home, where the morning sunbeams fell, that the hut in which he had left his children asleep, stood where a city would one day rise, that should become the metropolis of england, and the envy of surrounding nations. still less did those ancient saxons, as they landed in the marshes of essex, ever imagine that they were marching onward towards a town, whose renown would one day spread to the uttermost ends of the earth, a city which would at last arrest the gaze of the whole wide world, whose grandeur would only be eclipsed by its greatness, and stand the sun of the earth, defying all eyes to point out, amid the blaze of its splendour, where its brightness began or where it ended. but while the tide which bore on a new population was thus setting in, and the kingdom of east anglia was formed by a portion of the saxon tribe, who have left no other names behind than those given to the counties of suffolk and norfolk, the most formidable force that had hitherto arrived in britain, since the time of the romans, landed between the tweed and the firth of forth. forty ships were at once anchored near the mouths of these rivers, and from them stepped on shore, ida and his twelve sons, with a number of nameless chiefs, who belonged to the tribe of angles, and a long train of saxon followers, all of whom had sworn to acknowledge ida as their king, for he also claimed descent from the inexhaustible stock of woden. between the clyde and the humber, the country was divided amongst many of the british tribes, all of whom had their separate king, or chief, and were ever doing their utmost, unconsciously, to aid the conquest of the saxons, by waging war with each other. bernicia and deira, as they were afterwards called, were at the time of ida's landing governed by the following kings or chiefs, for it is difficult to distinguish their proper titles, named gall, dyvedel, ysgwnell, urien, the patron of taliesin the bard, rhydderc the generous, gwallog, aneurin, himself a poet, together with other sovereigns whose very names have perished, and who all appear to have, for once, united, and made a bold stand against the advance of ida. we have now the light of these ancient bards to guide us through this remote period, and some of them fought in the battles of which they have left us descriptions. chief amongst these british warriors appears to have been urien; taliesin calls him the "shield of heroes, the thunderbolt of the cymry," and compares his onset to "the rushing of mighty waves, and fiery meteors blazing athwart the heavens." ida, they designated the flame-man, or flame-bearer, so terrible was the devastation which he made. many battles were fought between these renowned chieftains. it was on the night which ushers in the sabbath, when the "flame-bearer" approached, with his forces divided into four companies, to surround goddeu and reged, provinces over which urien governed. ida spread out his forces from argoedd to arfynnydd, and having assumed this threatening position, he daringly demanded submission and hostages from the britons. urien indignantly spurned the proposition, and turning to his brother chieftains, exclaimed: "let us raise our banners where the mountain winds blow--let us dash onward with our forces over the border--let each warrior lift his spear above his head, and rush upon the destroyer, in the midst of his army, and slay him, together with his followers." taliesin, who was present, and fought under the banner of urien, thus describes the "battle of the pleasant valley:" "when the shouts of the britons ascended, louder than the roaring of the waves upon the storm-tossed shore, neither field nor forest afforded safety to the foe: i saw the warriors in their brave array, i saw them after the morning's strife--oh, how altered! i saw the conflict between the perishing hosts, the blood that gushed forward and soaked into the red ground:--the valley which was defended by a rampart was no longer green. wan, weary men, pale with affright, and stained with blood, dropped their arms and staggered across the ford; i saw urien, with his red brow--his sword fell on the bucklers of his enemies with deadly force--he rushed upon them like an eagle enraged." in this battle, the britons appear to have been victorious--others followed in which they were defeated, for the "flame-bearing man" spread terror wherever he trod. he, however, at last fell by owen the son of urien, one of the poets, who also perished by the hand of one of his own countrymen, and his death was bemoaned by the british bard llywarch, in such a plaintive strain that there are few compositions which excel this ancient elegy, for its beautiful pathos and wild, mournful images; some of these are as follows: "i bear a head from the mountains; the body will ere night be buried under the cairn of stones and earth! where is he that supported and feasted me? euryddiel will be joyless to-night. whom shall i praise, now urien is no more? the hall is stricken into ruins,--the floor desolate, where many a hound and hawk were trained for the chase. nettles and weeds will grow over that hearth, which, when urien lived, was ever open to the tread of the needy; the shout of the warriors as they uplifted the mead cups, no more will be heard rioting. the decaying green will cover it, the mouldering lichen will conceal it, the thorn will above it grow; the cauldron will become rusted that seethed the deer, the sword of the warrior will no longer clank over it, no sound of harmony will again be heard there; where once the blazing torches flashed, and the deep drinking horn went round, the swine will root, and the black ants swarm, for urien is no more!" such were the immortal echoes that floated around our island, nearly a thousand years before shakspere "struck the golden lyre." after the death of urien, another severe battle was fought in the north between the britons and angles, who accompanied ida. aneurin, who was in the fight, has composed the longest poem which has descended to us descriptive of those ancient conflicts; it is called the "gododin," and was held in such reverence by the welsh bards, that they entitled him their king. it is frequently alluded to by the minstrels of the period. the poem descriptive of the battle of cattraeth, from which aneurin escaped, when three hundred and three score british nobles, all wearing the "golden torque," fell, contains nearly a thousand lines. only three renowned warriors survived this awful combat; the bard was amongst the number. the british chieftains had been drinking the pale mead by "the light of rushes" all night long; with the first streak of dawn, they set out to attack the saxons; when they came in sight of the enemy, they "hastened swift, all running together--short were their lives." like the melancholy chorus in a dirge is this "pale mead" banquet ever repeated throughout the poem; its effects are sadly deplored, it is ever turning up and coming in upon the end of some sorrowful reflection; "pleasant was its taste, long its woe--it had been their feast, and was their poison--it was a banquet for which they paid the price of their lives." hear aneurin's own words: "the warriors that went to cattraeth were furious--pale golden wine and mead had they drank; they were three hundred and three score and three, all wearing golden torques, who hastened to battle after the banquet. from the edges of the keen-slaying swords, only three escaped the war-dogs, aeron and dayarawd, and i, from the flowing blood were saved. the reward of my protecting muse." the battle appears to have been fought in the morning of one of their festive days; and in the grey dawn, the intoxicated chiefs ran upon the enemy all together, probably having boasted over their cups that one would outstrip the other, and be the first to dye his sword in saxon blood. the scene of the battle cannot now be ascertained; that it was in the north we have proof, from the men of bernicia and deiri being present. after these events, the kingdom called mercia was established; it appears to have extended over our present midland counties, occupying the most important space which stretches from the severn to the humber, and even pushing its frontier upon the borders of wales. this formed the eighth kingdom, state, or colony, established by the saxons since the day when hengist and horsa first entered the service of vortigern--a period occupying but little more than one hundred years, and during that time there was scarcely an interval in which the saxons had not either to defend their hard-won possessions, or aid their countrymen when they were close pressed. the britons had still their own kingdoms in wales, cornwall, a portion of devonshire, and the district of strathclyde; and some of these they maintained even after the death of alfred. we will now take a rapid glance at the eight kingdoms established by the saxons, for although bernicia and deiri are frequently classed together as one state, and called northumbria, and were occasionally under the sway of one sovereign, they were, nevertheless, distinct kingdoms for a time. thus an octarchy was established, formed of the following eight distinct states. first, the jutes, who had gained kent, where hengist first established himself, and to which his followers added the isle of wight, and a portion of the opposite coast of hampshire. this formed the kingdom of kent. second, the south saxons, who landed under ella, and, after many a severe combat with the britons, founded the kingdom of sussex. third, the east saxons, who, under the command of erkenwin, gradually spread over the counties of essex, middlesex, and the southern portion of hertfordshire, which afterwards became known as the kingdom of essex. fourth, the west saxons, who, headed by cerdric, conquered the inhabitants of surrey, part of hampshire, berkshire, wiltshire, dorsetshire, somerset, a portion of devonshire and cornwall, (though long after this period) and finally, founded the kingdom of wessex. fifth, east anglia, containing norfolk, suffolk, cambridge, the isle of ely, and some portion of bedfordshire, all included in the state or kingdom of east anglia. sixth, deiri, which included the counties of lancaster, york, westmoreland, cumberland, and durham. seventh, bernicia, where ida first landed, and which extended from northumberland into scotland, somewhere between the rivers forth and tweed. eighth, and last, mercia, which swallowed up the chief portion of the midland counties, and was divided into the north and south by the river trent, though all were within the limits of the dominion of mercia. such were the kingdoms that formed the saxon octarchy, and which were no sooner established, than one state began to wage war against the other, in which they were occasionally aided by the britons. hitherto we have had to feel our way cautiously along the shores which skirt the dark sea of history, and have been compelled to put into many a creek and harbour at a venture, as abler mariners have done before us; but, in no instance have we stirred, without consulting the compass and carefully examining the chart which gildas, nennius, and bede, those ancient voyagers, have drawn up as a guide, and which turner and mac cabe[ ] have carefully examined, and marked anew every point that is dark and doubtful. many events transpired before the final establishment of the saxon octarchy, which we have hurriedly passed over as being of little importance, and which to have narrated would have carried us again over the ground already traversed. of such are the deaths of the saxon kings or chiefs; the contests that arose in selecting a successor, and the bickerings and breakings out, which were necessarily consequent upon the formation of so many separate states, for few of them could be called kingdoms. nor must we suppose, that in all cases where the conquerors settled down, the ancient inhabitants fled before them--many, doubtless, remained behind, and gradually intermixed with the saxons; of such, probably, would be those who had grown civilized under the roman government, and were skilled in the arts and manufactures, and had still continued to improve in agriculture, ever since the time of agricola. men possessing this knowledge, and acquainted with these secrets, would, beyond doubt, be tempted to reside amongst the invaders; and we shall soon arrive at a period, which will show that civilization had tamed down the martial spirit of the saxon, as it had before-time done that of the britons, and that they were for a long season as apparently helpless under the attacks of the danes, as the ancient inhabitants of the island were under their own repeated assaults. it would be a work of great labour, and one that would require an acute analysis, to trace, step by step, this degenerative process. many of the britons emigrated. we have shown that twelve thousand, under a free king, riothamus, went out to war against the visigoths, but it would only be carrying us into the history of other countries were we to follow their footsteps. even the britons that remained behind, though dispossessed of nearly the whole of their country for a long time, "bated not a jot of heart nor hope;" they clung to their old prophecies, and, through the dark night of oppression, saw the ruddy streak which they believed would ere long break into the bright morning of vengeance, when they should drive the saxons before them triumphantly out of britain. strengthened by this belief, they fought many a battle which we have not recorded, and even when defeated, it was only to retire to their "stony paradise," as their bards called wales, and there await the breaking of that bright morning which had so long been foretold. there is something wild and beautiful in the very idea of this never-to-be-realized hope; it forms a prominent feature in the character of the welsh population to this very day, though now turned into a feeling, which arms them, better than any other, against the lesser evils of life. they are ever in the hope of seeing "better days." we can readily fancy that every rumour of the outbreak amongst the saxon tribes, must have been received with as much acclaim in their mountain fortresses, as would the first note awakened by aneurin or llywarch when they struck their harps. we can picture the eagerness with which they hurried down, to aid one saxon chief to make war upon another, scarcely caring which chief conquered, so long as they themselves escaped, and believing that the body of every enemy which they left in the field was a unit nearer to the fulfilment of their fancied millennium. they never lacked a leader, if an attack was contemplated, and we probably err not in surmising that many an onset was made after the night had been consumed "by the light of the rushes," and while they were brimful of valour and "pale mead," and heated by the lay which some bard less renowned than aneurin chanted. cattraeth may not be the only instance in which the wearers of the "golden torques," the ensign of nobility, fell. still there seems to have been a hearty faith in the ancient cymry, which endears them to us, and in nothing was this evinced more, than in their belief of the predictions of their bards. a pale ray of light, like the lingering of a subdued smile, falls upon our page whilst we write, as we contrast the "then" with the "now." the bards of other days were kings, chiefs, and renowned warriors; their harps raised them to these dignities: the bards of the present age are bards only, and however great their fame, can only receive due honour by first passing through the gate of death. the extracts with which we have enriched this chapter show the appreciation of the beautiful, in a barbarous age, and oh! let not this sentence be forgotten. all that we know of the lives of many of those ancient british kings, who were great and renowned in their day, is what has been preserved in the lays of our early bards; but for these, their very names would have perished, and urien himself would never again have awakened the throb of a human heart. the cold contempt of the proud and the haughty, chilled not the heart of the true minstrel; with his harp in his heart, he ever goes, making music his companion, when there is none beside to hear it; and the notes he often carelessly scatters behind him, if of the true tone, are never lost. a thousand years pass away, and they still ring as freshly about the heart as those which we have here gathered, and which llywarch, above thirteen hundred years ago, poured forth between his sighs, when he mourned for the loss of his chieftain, for there is a sadness about the dirges which we yet feel. the monuments of brass, of iron, and marble, have ages ago decayed or mouldered away, yet the echoes which arose from that ancient harp have not yet died. time destroyeth all things excepting the immortality of the mind. chapter xii. conversion of ethelbert. "the oracles are dumb, no voice or hideous hum runs through the archëd roof, in words deceiving. apollo from his shrine can no more divine, with hollow shriek the steep of delphos leaving. no nightly trance or breathéd spell inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell." milton. it will be readily supposed that many of the early saxon chieftains, or kings, for it matters not by which title we call them, had by this time died, and been succeeded by their sons and kinsmen. that many had also perished in the wars with the britons we have already shown, and now when the octarchy was established, and the ancient inhabitants of the country were either conquered or driven into one corner of the island, when it might be expected that peace had at last alighted and taken up her abode in the land, the saxon sovereigns began to war with each other. we have before shown that when the saxons went out to battle, they with one consent selected a king--no matter how high might be the rank of those who had sworn to serve under him, they obeyed his commands; when the war was over, each again stepped into his former dignity, and the power thus given for a time to the war-king was at an end. some such king was acknowledged by the saxon sovereigns, and he was called the bretwalda, or king of britain, though it is not clear that the other sovereigns ever paid him any homage, and the only inference we can draw from the claim set up by ethelbert, the young king of kent, is, that it was conferred upon that prince who was the nearest akin to woden. something of the kind is shadowed forth in the claim, which is grounded alone on his descent from hengist. ella, king of sussex, appears to have been the first who bore the title of bretwalda in britain; he died, and it seems as if some time elapsed before any other of the saxon kings assumed the title; the next that did was ceawlin, king of wessex. ethelbert of kent rose up, and disputed the claim. ceawlin was not a man to be moved from his high estate by the descendant of hengist, and from this dispute sprang the first civil war between the saxon kings. ethelbert was but little more than sixteen, when he so daringly threw defiance in the face of the king of wessex, and ceawlin was at that time one of the most powerful of all the saxon kings, and, after having defeated ethelbert, he, on the death of cissa, king of sussex, annexed that kingdom to his own; nor was there a sovereign throughout the whole saxon states bold enough to wrest the plunder from his hand. for a youth like ethelbert to have thus bearded so powerful a king, and to have been the first to commence hostilities, and finally to have succeeded in gaining the envied title, evinces a courage and a perseverance which draw the eye anxiously forward to watch the result of his future career, nor shall we be disappointed in the issue. but, before passing to the most important event in his life, we must detail the circumstances by which it was brought on. one day, as a monk named gregory was passing through the market of rome, looking, like others, on the great variety of treasures which were piled there, and for which nearly every corner of europe had been ransacked, he was struck by a group of beautiful boys. there was something in their white naked limbs, fair complexions, and light long flowing hair, which at once arrested the eye of the kind-hearted monk. he turned to a keen-eyed merchant who was awaiting a purchaser (and who had probably many other things beside these beautiful boys to sell), and inquired from what country they had been brought? he was answered, britain. the next question he asked was whether the inhabitants were christians or pagans? he was told that they were pagans. gregory sighed heavily when he heard this, and, as he fixed his eye with a tender and pitiful look upon these fair and beautiful slaves, he exclaimed: "oh, grief of griefs! that the author of darkness should lay claim to beings of such fair forms--that there should be so much grace in the countenance, yet none in the soul." when told that they were of the race of the angles, he said they were worthily named, for their faces were angelic; and when informed that the province from which they came was called the deiri, he paused--divided the word, dwelt upon it, then exclaimed, "de-ira dei (from the wrath of god) they must be torn." but when he further heard that the king of the country from whence they came was named ella, the beautiful picture which had opened before his imagination, merely conjured up from the ideas created by suggestive sound, was complete, and, in his happy enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "hallelujah! the praise of god must yet be sung in that land." imagine the quivering lip and tearful eye which would first show the impression of a kind-hearted man and a scholar, when told that these fair children had been dragged from their homes, and brought from a distant island, far away over the sea, and stood there huddled together, seeking to avoid the merciless eye of the unfeeling merchant, who found them the most troublesome part of the cargo he had brought, for the bales he probably sat upon required no feeding, and as a point of business he had been compelled to keep those young slaves plump and in good order, and doubtless, while showing them to the monk, he made them display themselves to the best advantage. they, struck by the kindness which must have beamed, like a glory, around the countenance of the good monk gregory, perhaps wished that they might be purchased by so friendly-looking a master, for they would be unable to comprehend a single word he said beyond the names of their country and kings. the quivering lip and tearful eye would soon change into the lighted look of enthusiasm, as, bit by bit, the pagan island rose before the fancy of the tender-hearted monk, as he saw their beautiful heathen mothers and fairer sisters kneeling before senseless stocks and stones; and oh! what a chill must have come over his kind heart when the pope, whom he entreated to send missionaries into that heathen land, rejected his petition. still it prevented not good gregory from purchasing the slaves, who had so deeply interested him. he further clothed and educated them, and would, had he not been prevented, have accompanied them on their return to britain. monk gregory, at last, became the roman pontiff; but the splendour by which he was now surrounded altered not his gentle nature; he remembered those beautiful barbarians,--had many a time thought of their island home over the waves, and the fair mothers who looked in vain for their return; and he solicited a monk, to whom he had doubtless before-time confided this wish, which ever seems to have been nearest his heart, to undertake the journey; and augustin was chosen to fulfil this mission. the monks who were appointed to attend augustin in his mission had heard such rumours of the ferocity of the saxons, that they expressed a desire to return to rome, although they had proceeded some distance on their journey; and they so far gave way to their fears as to prevail upon augustin to go back and solicit the pope to recall them. the pontiff, however, told them that to abandon an undertaking which they had commenced was more disgraceful than if they had not accepted it; bade them proceed in god's name, appointed augustin abbot over them, and commanded them to obey him. further, he gave them letters to the prelates and kings through whose countries they would have to pass. to the daughter of charibert, king of the franks, ethelbert was married; and although she was a christian, and he a pagan, it had been no bar to their union; bertha was to follow her own creed, ethelbert his: he bowed before woden, she acknowledged the existence of the true god. vortigern and rowena had lived together on the same terms before-time. augustin arrived in britain, with his train of fifty monks and interpreters, which the king of the franks had provided, and landed in the isle of thanet. how different the intent of his mission to that of the saxon chiefs who had landed there a century and a half before him! they came to kill, to earn their wages by bloodshed; these came to save, and were neither armed with spear, sword, nor battle-axe; their only shield was the cross of christ, and on their banner the figure of the redeemer was borne. they came with no other war-cry than the litany which they chanted as they moved gravely along. what glorious scenes illustrative of the progress of our religion yet remain to be painted! how easy to picture that ancient procession as it passed: their landing from the ship: their prayer offered up on the beach: the misbelieving saxons looking on in wonder: some priest of woden pouring into the ear of a listening chief a disparaging story: the countenances of children looking on with a mixture of fear and wonder: heathen mothers pitying the figure upon the banner, and wondering what he had done to be nailed upon the cross; or perhaps thinking that they had come to solicit aid against those who had been guilty of such inhuman cruelty, and their motherly hearts at once enlisted in favour of the strangers, who came to seek the means of vengeance for such an outrage. or perhaps they pitied the poor monks who had no arms to defend themselves, and entreated their husbands to assist them. such fancies would naturally float over their benighted minds, for at what other conclusions could they arrive from what they now saw? doubtless the ship, when first seen out at sea, would awaken other thoughts, and many an armed figure paced the shore impatiently, and awaited the arrival of the vessel, drawing circles upon the sand with their pointed weapons, to while away the time, as they stood ready to offer up fresh victims on the altar of odin. ethelbert received the tidings of their coming rather coldly, but still not unkindly; he bade them to remain where they were, supplied them with such things as their immediate wants required, and promised, in the meantime, to consider what he would do for them. the bright eyes of bertha had had their influence; her sweet voice had made an inroad into the stony heart of ethelbert; but for her beautiful face, he would probably have consigned the whole race of trembling monks to neiflheim and hela the terrible, or offered them up as a rich sacrifice to odin. but even bertha, great as her power appears to have been over him, could only influence him in their favour by slow degrees; he deliberated for several days before he consented to meet them, and when he did at last agree to a conference, he chose the open air,--still true to his ancient faith, for there he had been taught to believe that all magical influence was powerless. how looked he when he first beheld them?--perhaps he clung to the fair christian that stood by his side, and as she pressed his arm, and he felt that she also was of the same faith, the colour mounted his cheek for a moment, and, as it would appear, his heart half reproached him for having treated them so coldly, for he at once kindly commanded the missionaries to sit down. doubtless the spot chosen for this interview was a circle surrounded with seats of turf, such as the saxons assembled in, in the early ages, when their witena-gemots were held in the open air. surrounded with his nobles, the king listened attentively until augustin had made known the object of his mission. ethelbert, who was endowed with clear judgment, waited patiently till the abbot had finished, and then answered: "your promises are fair, but new and uncertain. i cannot abandon the rites which my people have hitherto observed; but as you have come a long way to tell us what you believe to be true, we will not only hold you harmless, but treat you hospitably. nor will we forbid any one you can convince to join in your faith." such was the substance of ethelbert's answer; a more candid or a kinder one never issued from a pagan's lips; but those lips had been breathed on by the prayers of bertha, and her own rounded roses had kissed their way into his heart; he had found the honey that hung upon them, far sweeter than the richest sacrifice that ever steamed up from the altars of woden. ethelbert gave them a church in canterbury, which was built in the time of the romans. the british christians had there bowed to their maker; it had been bertha's place of worship, and was probably the only one in the wide county of kent where prayers to the true god were offered up,--where she herself had many a time, amid hopes and fears, prayed for the day to come which had at last arrived. she, a stranger in a foreign land, far away from the home of her fathers, surrounded by pagan altars and the hideous images of rude idols, had never once despaired, as she leant, like hope, upon her anchor, with no one near to comfort her, but even while the hymns of odin rang upon her ear, in the midst of her devotions, had kept her eye fixed upon the star which was mirrored in the troubled waters that washed around the cold anchor, and chilled her naked feet. in this ancient british church, augustin and his monks administered the rites and ceremonies of the christian religion unmolested,--numerous converts were soon made, and baptised, and chief amongst these was king ethelbert. as a proof of his earnestness and sincerity, the newly converted saxon sovereign granted the monks permission to repair all the british churches in his kingdom, which had before-time been devoted to christian worship. the pope also conferred on augustin the title of archbishop, and sent him over a pall, woven from the purest and whitest lamb's-wool, and chequered with purple crosses, that, when worn over his shoulders, it might remind him of christ the good shepherd, and of the crosses and perils he endured in bringing home the lost sheep on his shoulders, and gathering them together in the fold. but vestments for the altar, sacerdotal garments, sacred vessels, and relics of martyrs, were not all that gregory sent over to britain; for manuscript bibles, copies of the gospels, psalters, and legends of the saints and martyrs, were among the more substantial treasures which the learned pope poured into our island, and some of which our own immortal alfred translated with his own hand in a later day. the bindings of many of these manuscripts were emblazoned with silver images of our saviour, and glittering glories of yellow gold, from the centre of which blazed precious stones, so that when uplifted by the priest, who stood high above their heads as he expounded the holy mysteries, their eyes were dazzled by the splendour of those richly bound volumes, and their senses impressed with a solemn reverence, as they looked upon the image of their redeemer. he also sent over other fellow-labourers, and amongst these were men distinguished for their piety and learning. gregory was a man endowed with great discernment, possessing also those peculiar qualities which have ever marked the profoundest statesmen; in these essentials he stood high above his archbishop augustin. the far-seeing pope knew that he had to deal with a race of idolaters, many of whom would change their creed to please their sovereign, or from other interested motives; and, conscious of the purity of his own design and the holiness of his cause, he resolved that there should be nothing startling or forbidding, or much at variance with their ancient customs, in the outward signs and ceremonies of the christian religion. with a liberality of opinion far outstriding that of the age, he rightly concluded, that whatever was not really evil in itself, it was useless to abolish. let them retain their sacrifices, argued gregory; when the idols are removed, and the remembrance of them destroyed, let them slaughter their cattle, sacrifice, and feast upon the offering, and thank god for his great abundance. what mattered it if on saint-days they erected arbours of green branches around the church, feasted, and made merry within them, so long as it was done in remembrance of the saint to whom the building was dedicated? surely this was better than holding such celebration in honour of senseless idols. even their pagan temples he would not allow to be hurled down, conscious that if such places had been held sacred while set apart for the worship of graven images of wood or stone, they would be doubly revered when the light of the true gospel broke in glory within those ancient walls. pope gregory had, doubtless, become acquainted with the principal points of their heathen faith, and had concluded that if only rapine and slaughter, and brave but brutal deeds, had been extolled within those walls, and were the sure passports that opened the envied halls of valhalla, he might safely venture to wrestle with this pagan idol, and overthrow him upon his own ground: that the doctrines which breathed only of peace and goodwill, and love and charity, and holy faith in a dying redeemer, would still be the same if offered up from the very altars on which odin himself had stood. it was the substance and the spirit which dawned upon the great intellectual eye of pope gregory, and made him tread boldly amongst the broken idols which lay scattered at his feet, where others would have hesitated to have moved. he daringly grafted the true faith upon a heathen stock, well knowing that neither the stem nor the soil would militate against the growth of the goodly fruit with which the branches would on a future day be hung. gregory would never have entered into that fatal controversy beneath the oak, as augustin had done, about the celebration of easter sunday, and which, if it did not lead to the slaughter of the monks of bangor, as some have believed, lessened the archbishop in the eyes of the english priests, and caused much dissension and bitter feeling amongst the saxons. but ethelbert, bertha, and augustin died; and eadbald became king of kent. eadbald took possession of his father's throne and widow at the same time; for, after the death of bertha, ethelbert had married another princess of the same nation as his former wife. the priests raised their voices, and denounced the marriage of eadbald with his step-mother; he heeded them not, but turned pagan again, and a great portion of his subjects changed their religion with him. sigebert, the king of essex, his father's friend, who had become a christian, also died about this time, and his sons again embraced their old heathen creed, though they still occasionally visited the christian church. they were one day present while the bishop was administering the eucharist: "why dost thou not offer us that white bread which thou art giving to others," said they, "and which thou wert wont to give to our father's sib?" the bishop made answer, that if they would wash in the same font in which their father the king was baptized when he became a christian, they might partake of the white bread. they replied, that they would not be washed in the fountain, yet they demanded the bread. the bishop refused to give it them, and the heathen chiefs drove the monks out of essex. some of them went into kent, others left britain for a time; and as the remnant were on the eve of departing, eadbald, by a strange interposition, again renounced his pagan faith, and intreated the priests to remain behind, promising also to assist them, as his father ethelbert had before done, in the work of conversion. whether it was a dream, or the reproaches of his own conscience, or the penance which laurence had inflicted upon himself, before he again appeared in the presence of eadbald, or the working of his mighty hand "who moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform," can never be known. suffice it that the saxon king saw the "error of his ways" and repented. chapter xiii. edwin, king of the deiri and bernicia. "how oft do they their silver bowers leave to come to succour us that succour want; how oft do they with golden pinions cleave the flitting skies, like flying pursuivant, against foul fiends to aid us militant; they for us fight, they watch, and duly ward, and their bright squadrons round about us plant, and all for love, and nothing for reward; oh! why should heavenly god to men have such regard." spenser's faery queen. bernicia and the deiri formed, at this period, two saxon kingdoms, which lay bordering on each other. ethelfrith governed the portion that stretched from northumberland to between the tweed and the frith of forth; and ella, dying, left his son edwin, then an infant, to succeed him as king of the deiri--a part of england now divided into the counties of lancaster, york, westmoreland, cumberland, and durham. the northumbrian king, ethelfrith, appears at this time to have been the most powerful of all the saxon monarchs; and no sooner was ella dead, than he took possession of the deiri; nor was a sovereign to be found throughout the whole of the saxon kingdoms bold enough to draw his sword in the defence of edwin. the child was, however, carried into wales, and entrusted to the care of cadvan, who was himself a british king, though now driven into the very corner of those territories over which his forefathers had for ages reigned. there is something romantic in this incident of the child of a saxon king having to fly to his father's enemies for shelter, and in being indebted to those whom his own countrymen had rendered all but homeless, for his life. ethelfrith, however, had at one period desolated more british districts than any of his predecessors, and in proportion as he was hated by the cymry, so would they endeavour to cherish an object armed with such claims as edwin's, in the hope of one day seeing him a leader, and at their head, when again they measured swords with their old enemies. but this they were not destined to witness, nor were they able to protect the young king when he grew up, for ethelfrith was ever in pursuit of him--the figure of the stripling edwin seemed to stand up between him and the kingdom of deiri, as if he felt that, whilst the son of ella was alive, he but sat insecurely in the midst of his new territory. for several years edwin was compelled to wander about from province to province, keeping both his name and rank a secret, and trusting to strangers to protect him, as if he feared that the emissaries of ethelfrith were ever at his heels--until even his existence seems to have been a burthen to him, and he doubtless many a time cursed the hour that ever he was born the son of a king. from infancy had his life been sought, by one who ought to have defended him when he was left a helpless child, and heir to the possessions his father had won by conquest--by murder; for sorry we are, as true historians, to state, that not a saxon king throughout the whole british dominions could trace his origin to any other source: nor had william the norman, on a later day, any better claim to the british crown. the title of royalty was ever in ancient times written with a red hand. thank heaven! it is no longer so, nor has the brow which a golden crown encircles, any need now to be first bathed in human blood. edwin is somehow endeared to us, through having descended from that king whose name attracted the attention of monk gregory in the slave-market of rome, when he was first struck by the beauty of those british children; for they came from the deiri, the kingdom which he governed, whose name called forth the allelujah to which the good monk, in the joyousness of his heart, as he saw the figure of hope glimmering brightly in the far distance, gave utterance. from very childhood edwin's life was a romance, and many a painful feeling must he have endured whilst sheltering amongst the britons in wales, who were then writhing beneath the oppression of their saxon conquerors: allusions to his own father, or his kindred, or curses heaped upon his countrymen, must ever have been issuing from the lips of the humbled cymry; and who can tell but that to avoid these painful feelings, he set out alone--a stranger amid strangers. weary of this wandering life, he at last threw himself upon the generosity of redwald, king of east anglia, and who was at that time honoured with the proud title of the bretwalda of britain, as ethelbert of kent had been before. edwin acquainted him with his secret, and redwald promised to protect him. but his hiding-place was soon known to ethelfrith, who lost no time in sending messengers to redwald, first with the offer of rich presents, then with threats: and when he found that neither persuasion nor bribes were effective, he determined to wage war against the king of east anglia, unless he at once gave up edwin. redwald at last wavered, for in almost every battle the northumbrian king had been victorious; nor would he probably have seized upon the deiri, in the face of six powerful saxon sovereigns, but for the consciousness of the strength he possessed, and the terror attached to his name. the east anglian king at last reluctantly promised to surrender his guest. edwin had a friend in redwald's court who made him acquainted with the danger that awaited him, and urged him at once to escape. but the poor exile, weary of the miserable existence he had so long led, and the many privations he had endured, refused to fly for his life. "if i am to perish," said the young king, "he that destroys me will be disgraced, and not myself. i have made a compact with redwald that i will not break. and whither should i fly, after having wandered through so many provinces in britain without finding a shelter? how can i escape my persecutor?" his friend was silent, and left edwin to sit alone and brood over his own thoughts. night came and found the sorrowful king still sitting upon the same cold stone beside the palace, where he appears to have fallen asleep, and to have dreamt that a strange figure approached him, placed his hand upon his head, and bade him to remember that sign; after having caused him to make several promises as to what he would do in future, if restored to his kingdom, the stranger seemed to depart, having first held out hopes that he should conquer his enemies, and recover the territory of deiri. there was nothing very wonderful in such a dream, beyond the fact that it should afterwards become true; and, although we cannot go so far as the venerable chronicler bede, in the belief that some spirit had appeared to the young king--still dreams and visions are so interwoven with the sleep that resembles death, and seem, somehow, more allied with the shadows which we believe to people another state of existence, that we can easily imagine, at that dark period, how firm must have been the reliance of our forefathers upon the phantoms which were thus conjured up, by the continuation of such a train of waking thoughts. such miracles as the early monkish historians devoutly believed in, the boldest writer would scarcely venture to work out in a book professedly treating of only the wildest subjects of fiction. yet there are amongst the writers of history those, who think it an act of dishonesty to pass over the dreams, visions, and miracles of the early ages, and a want of faith not to believe in them now, as our forefathers did in the olden time. they might as well insist upon our copying out the recipes from such old works as were to be found in the closets of our grave grandmothers many generations ago; and adopting all the spells and charms therein recorded, as invaluable cures for almost every disease under the sun. what we look upon as firm faith in one age, and believe to be such, we treat as the weakest folly in another, without in either case outraging reason, or bringing to the investigation an uncharitable spirit. for past credulity, a sigh or a smile are enough to mark our pity or censure, but to be partakers of the same belief are thoughts against which the common understanding rebels, even much as we may love the marvellous. a dream is not a miracle, nor the fulfilment of it a proof of the interference of the almighty. the young king had found favour in the eyes of the queen of east anglia, and she reasoned with redwald, and boldly showed him how base an act it would be, to give up their guest to the man who, having robbed him of his kingdom, now sought to take away his life. "a king should not violate his faith," said she, "for gold, for good faith is his noblest ornament." redwald's heart seems ever to have guided him aright when he admitted not fear into the counsel, so he nobly resolved, instead of giving up his guest, to fight for him, and in place of basely selling his life, to win him back the province he had been driven from. and, after such a resolve, he doubtless felt himself more worthy of the title of the bretwalda of britain. we regret that time has not even spared us the name of this noble saxon queen, that we might add one more woman to the list of these angelic immortalities, who stand like stars upon the brow of the deep midnight, that then hung so darkly above the clouded cliffs of albion. when redwald had once decided, he began to act; he waited not to be attacked, but, with such forces as he could muster, rushed at once to the boundary of the deiri. he met ethelfrith, ere he was wholly provided for his coming, on the banks of the river idel, near retford, in nottinghamshire, at that time probably a portion of the kingdom he had wrested from edwin. redwald had his guest, his honour, and his kingdom to fight for: edwin his life, and the possessions he inherited from his father--ethelfrith, a long-cherished vengeance to appease--a kingdom he had seized upon without any one having before dared to dispute his claim--and east anglia, now a fair prize, if he could but win it: he had a bad cause, yet not a doubt about obtaining the victory, for he had many a time driven the picts and scots, with whole hosts of the cymry, banded together, before him, further to the north than any, excepting the romans, had ever before done. his dreams had never been broken by the thought of a defeat, even when the monks of bangor were praying against him; he conquered, and drove the british kings before him like withered leaves before a storm when the yellow autumn is waning into winter. no christian fire had ever burnt upon his pagan altars--to woden, the god of battles, had his sacrifices ever been offered up. redwald, more vacillating, kept two altars in the temple in which he worshipped,--one dedicated to the grim idol which his warriors still believed in--the other where he at times knelt beside his fair queen, and sent up his wavering prayers, between the shrine of woden, and the true god. no truer picture was probably ever drawn of the state of these truly pagan and half-christian saxons in the early times, than is here presented; that mingled fear of offending woden, while the heart yearned for the love of him whom they believed to be the giver of all good, for god and good were in their language the same. before commencing the battle, redwald divided his forces into three divisions; one of these he placed under the command of his son, rainer, and the wing which the young prince headed, commenced the attack. ethelfrith commanded his veteran forces to dash at once into the centre of the enemy's line; and so suddenly and unexpectedly was this manoeuvre accomplished, that it was like the instantaneous bursting of a thunder-storm down some steep hill side, covered over with the tall and yellow-waving corn of summer, through which the torrent and the tempest cut a path, for so was the division under prince rainer dispersed, driven aside and cut asunder, that before the two bodies led on by redwald and edwin had time to wheel round, and check the force of that mighty avalanche, the prince was slain, and scarcely a warrior, who but a few moments before had charged so cheerfully under his war-cry, remained alive. for a few moments the terrible tide of battle rolled backward, seeming to recoil from beneath the very force with which it had broken, as if the vanward waves but rushed again upon those that followed, to be driven on with greater might upon the desolated and wreck-strewn beach. back again was the overwhelming tide borne with mightier force, and thrown off in a spray of blood from the points of ten thousand unflinching weapons, while redwald himself, with lowering brow, and lip compressed, strode sullenly onward, and hewed his way into the very heart of the contest. ethelfrith, outstripping his followers, rushed headlong into the very centre of the battle; the gap he had hewn with his own powerful arm closed behind him, and there stood between him and the remains of his army, an impenetrable wall of the enemy--where he fell, the last billow of the battle broke, for the companion waves had rolled out far to seaward, and only the shore over which they had broken was left, strewn over with the wrecks of the slain. death had at last done his mighty work; and under his dark and awful banner edwin had distinguished himself; those gloomy gates had opened the way to the kingdom from which he had so long been driven. through the assistance of redwald, he not only became the king of the deira, but conquered the broad provinces of bernicia, driving before him the sons of ethelfrith, and sitting down sole king of northumbria, for he united under his sway the kingdoms which ida had governed, and ella, his father, had won. thus, the youth who had so long been a wanderer and an exile, who scarcely knew where to fly for shelter, who was ever in fear of his life, became at last the undisputed monarch of two mighty saxon kingdoms, the deira and bernicia. edwin no sooner found himself firmly seated on the throne of northumbria, than he sent into kent, and solicited the hand of edilburga in marriage. she was the daughter of the late ethelbert, so distinguished for his kindness to the christian missionaries. probably edwin had become acquainted with her while he wandered "homeless, amid a thousand homes." her brother eadbald had, by this time, become a christian, had hurled down his heathen idols and pagan altars, and established himself beside the church at canterbury, which had long been the metropolis of kent. eadbald justly argued, that it was wrong for a christian maiden to become the wife of a pagan husband, of one who could neither share with her the holy sacrament, nor kneel down to worship before the altar of the same holy god. edwin bound himself by a solemn promise that he would offer no obstacle to the royal lady following her own faith, but that all who accompanied her, whether women, priests, or laymen, should have full liberty to follow their own form of religion; and that if, upon close examination by the wise and good men of his own faith, he found the christian creed better than that of odin, he might at last adopt it. the saxon princess had the fullest confidence in the promise of the pagan king, and with a long train of noble and lowly attendants, headed by paulinus, who was by this time created a bishop, she left the home of her fathers in kent, and as rowena had beforetime done, went to sojourn among strangers. many a prayer was offered up by the way, and the holy rites of the church to which she belonged were daily celebrated. timidly must the maiden's heart have beaten when she first set foot within that pagan land; but she probably remembered the time when many of her father's subjects were idolaters. nothing for the first year seems to have ruffled the smooth course of love between the pagan king and his christian queen. paulinus continued to preach, but made no converts; and the love of edilburga, and the worship of odin, went on together hand in hand; for though edwin himself listened to the music of lips as sweet as those of bertha, which had murmured conversion into the ears of ethelbert, yet his creed remained unchanged. he loved, listened, and sighed, with his heathen faith still unshaken. it was at the holy time of easter, while edwin was seated in his palace beside the derwent, that a messenger suddenly arrived from cwichhelm, the pagan king of wessex, and sought an audience, to make known his mission. he was, of course, admitted. while kneeling lowly to deliver his message, the stranger suddenly started up, drew forth a dagger which was concealed under his dress, and was in the act of rushing upon the king, when lilla, a thane in attendance, threw himself, in a moment, between the body of the monarch and the assassin--just in that brief interval of time which elapsed between the uplifting and the descending of the weapon; yet with such force was the deadly blow driven home, that the dagger passed clean through the body of lilla, and slightly wounded the king. although the swords of the attendants were instantly drawn, yet the assassin was not cut down until he had stabbed another knight with the dagger, which he had drawn from the body of the faithful thane who so nobly sacrificed his life to save that of the king. on the same evening, (it was easter sunday,) edilburga was delivered of a daughter--the event probably hastened by the shock the murderer had occasioned. edwin returned thanks to odin for the birth of his child; and when paulinus again drew his attention to the god who had so miraculously preserved his life, he promised he would follow the new faith which the bishop was so anxious to convert him to, if he was victorious over the king of wessex, who had sent out his emissary to destroy him. edwin further consented that his daughter should be baptized, as an earnest of his good faith. several of his household were at the same time united to the christian church. the account of edwin's campaign against the king of wessex is so very vague and uncertain, that we are compelled to pass it over altogether. it appears, however, that he slew his enemy and returned home victorious--still he delayed his baptism, although he abandoned his idol-worship, and might often be seen sitting alone, as if holding serious communion with himself; still he was undecided whether or not to change his ancient faith. he also held long and frequent conversations with paulinus, and had many serious discussions with his own nobles. he was even honoured with a letter from the pope, urging him to abandon his idols. edilburga also received a letter from the same high authority, pointing out her duty, to do all that she could, by her intercession, to hasten his conversion; but edwin still remained unchanged. the stormy halls of odin and the boisterous revels in which the spirits of the departed warriors were ever supposed to partake, were more congenial to the martial hearts of the saxons, than the peace, humility, and gentleness which clothed the christian religion. a vision or a miracle is again called in by the venerable bede to complete the conversion of edwin. this we shall pass over without openly expressing a feeling of doubt or disbelief. the means which the almighty might take to bring about the conversion of a heathen nation are beyond the comprehension of man. we doubt not the light which fell upon and surrounded saul, when breathing slaughter against the christians whilst he was on his way to damascus, for there we at once acknowledge the wonder-working hand of god. it required no such powerful agency for paulinus to become acquainted with edwin's previous dream. nor does there appear to have been anything miraculous in the token which the king was reminded of; neither was the incident at all so startling as it first appears to be, for he had beyond doubt made edilburga acquainted with the subject of his dream, and what would not a woman do, to accomplish the conversion of a husband she loved? even after all, edwin assembled his nobles and counsellors together openly, to discuss the new religion before he was baptized, for the vision or miracle had not yet dispelled his doubts. when edwin assembled his pagan priests and nobles together, and threw open before them the whole subject, coifi, who had long administered the rites at the altar of odin, and, as it appears, reaped but little benefit, thus spoke out, plainly and feelingly, at once. (we trust edilburga was not present.) "you see, o king, what is now preached to us; i declare to you most truly, what i have most certainly experienced, that the religion which we have hitherto professed, contains no virtue at all, nor no utility. not one of your whole court has been more attentive to the worship of your gods than myself, although many have received richer benefits, greater honours, and have prospered more than i have done. now, if these gods had been of any real use, would they not have assisted me, instead of them? if, then, after due inquiry, you see that these 'new things' which they tell us of will be better, let us have them without any delay." coifi was weary of waiting for the good things which stood ready prepared for him in the halls of valhalla; he wanted to have a foretaste whilst living. but we will leave plain-spoken coifi to introduce the next orator, who was one of nature's poets, though a pagan; and the passage is doubly endeared to us, by the knowledge that on a later day, alfred the great translated it, word for word, and letter for letter. we regret that we cannot give the original, for there are many words in it which seem out of place, such as we believe the eloquent orator never uttered, although bede lived about this time, and probably heard it from the lips of some one who was present when it was spoken. it ran nearly as follows: "the life of man while here, o king, seems to me, when i think of that life which is to come, and which we know not of, like a scene at one of your own winter feasts. when you sit in your hall, with the blaze of the fire in the midst of it, and round you your thanes and ealdermen, and the whole hall is bright with the warmth, and while storms of rain and snow are heard out in the cold air, in comes a small sparrow at one door, and flies round our feast; then it goes out another way into the cold. while it is in, it feels not the winter storm, but is warm, and feels a comfort while it stays; but when out in the winter cold, from whence it came, it goes far from our eyes. such is here the life of man. it acts and thinks while here, but what it did when we saw it not, we do not know, nor do we know what it will do when it is gone." he then finished by adding something about the new religion, and prayed of them to adopt it, if it was more worthy of their belief, and opened clearer views respecting a future state than the old. paulinus was present, and when he had satisfactorily answered all questions, a fearful feeling still seemed to linger amongst the pagans, as to who should first desecrate their old temple, and overthrow the idols and altars before which they had so long worshipped. "give me a horse and a spear," said coifi, "and i will." they were brought to him. we cannot help picturing coifi in his eagerness to get rid of the old religion, nor how paulinus, with his dark hair, hooked nose, swarthy countenance, and darker eyes, just looked for a moment at edwin, as the pagan priest hurled his spear at the idol temple, and profaned it. "the people without thought him mad." what coifi thought of the people is not on record. he knew what the idols were better than they did. witness the results of his own experience; for day after day, and year after year, had he administered to the shrine, yet received no reward; and doubtless coifi thought that, let the new religion be what it might, it could not be worse than the old one. when he had hurled his spear against the temple, it was profaned, and could never more be dedicated to the worship of odin; for such an act was held impious by the ancient saxon pagans. the building was then destroyed, and the surrounding enclosures levelled to the ground. this scene took place near the derwent, not far from the spot where edwin had so narrow an escape from the assassin eumer. in bede's time it was called godmundham, or the home of the gods. after this, edwin and his nobility were baptized, and through his persuasion, the son of his protector, redwald, embraced christianity, and diffused it amongst his subjects in east anglia. edwin himself, as we have shown, had in his younger days been a wanderer and an exile; and although we have no account of the privations he endured, they were doubtless great, and perhaps we should not much err in surmising that many a time he had endured the pangs of hunger and thirst: for on a later day he caused stakes to be fastened beside the highways wherever a clear spring was to be found, and to these posts, brazen dishes were chained, to enable the weary and thirsty traveller to refresh himself. for houses were then few and far apart, and the wayfarer had often to journey many a dreary league before he could obtain refreshment, as the monasteries were the only places in which he could halt and bait. in edwin's reign, and through his kingdom, it is said that a woman with an infant at her breast might walk from the tweed to the trent without fearing injury from any one. he seems to have been beloved by all, and edilburga ever moved beside him like a ministering angel. but edwin was not destined to go down peaceably to his grave; some quarrel arose between him and the son of his old welsh host, cadvan: what the cause was, we know not; it, however, led to a severe battle, and as it was fought near morpeth, it is evident that the welsh king was the invader. edwin was, as usual, victorious, and chased cadwallon into wales. some time after this event, there sprang up a renowned pagan warrior amongst the saxons, named penda, who governed the kingdom of mercia, a portion of britain that up to this period scarcely attracts the historian's attention. this mercian king, cadwallon prevailed upon to unite his forces with his own, and attack the northumbrian monarch. the battle is believed to have taken place at hatfield chase, in yorkshire, at the close of autumn in the year ; in it king edwin was slain, together with one of his sons, named osfrid. most of his army perished--a clear proof of the stern struggle they made to conquer. cadwallon, and his ally, penda, the pagan king, overran the united kingdoms of northumbria, desolating the deiri and bernicia in their march, and spreading terror wherever they appeared. edilburga escaped with her children into kent; paulinus accompanied her, for the christian churches appear to have been the chief objects which the mercian monarch sought to destroy. the world seemed to have no charms for edilburga after the death of her royal husband. her brother, eadbald, the king of kent, received her kindly and sorrowfully: the widowed queen, by his consent, built a monastery at liming, and afterwards took the veil. such was the end of the beautiful daughter of ethelbert, she who when a girl had many a time seen augustin at her father's court, and doubtless looked with childish wonder on the holy banner which the missionaries bore before them, whereon the image of the blessed redeemer was portrayed, when they first appeared in kent. upon the death of edwin, the kingdom of northumbria was again divided. osric, a descendant of ella, ascended the throne of the deiri, and eanfrid, the son of ethelfrith, whom edwin had driven into exile, reigned over bernicia. osric soon perished, for cadwallon still continued his ravages, and while the king of deiri was besieging a strong fortress which the welsh monarch occupied, an unexpected sally was made, and in the skirmish osric was slain. eanfrid met with a less glorious death, for while within the camp of cadwallon, suing for peace, he was, even against all the acknowledged laws of that barbarous age, put to death. this welsh king appears to have been as great a scourge to the saxons as ever king arthur was in his day, nor does his old ally, penda, seem to have been a jot less sparing of his own countrymen;--but his doings will form the subject of our next chapter. in fourteen battles and sixty skirmishes is cadwallon said to have fought, and so odious was the last year in which he distinguished himself--so blotted by his ravages and the apostasy of many of the saxon kings, that bede says, the annalists, by one consent, refused to record the reigns of these renegades, so added it to the sovereignty of oswald. the most important event that we have to record in his reign was the victory he obtained over cadwallon, which occurred soon after he was seated upon the throne of bernicia. oswald was already celebrated for his piety, and previous to his battle with the welsh king, he planted the image of the cross upon the field, holding it with his own hands, while his soldiers filled up the hollow which they had made in the earth to receive it. when the cross was firmly secured, he exclaimed, "let us all bend our knees, and with one heart and voice pray to the true and the living god, that he in his mercy will defend us from a proud and cruel enemy: for to him it is known that we have commenced this war, for the salvation and safety of our people." all knelt, as he had commanded, around the cross, and when the last murmur of the solemn prayer had died away, they marched onward with stouter hearts to meet the terrible enemy. of the battle we have scarcely any other record than that which briefly relates the death of cadwallon and the destruction of his army. the spot in which the cross was planted was called "heaven-field," and was for ages after held in great reverence. but neither the piety of oswald, nor his victory over the welsh king, could protect him from the wrath of penda: and the scene of our history now shifts to the kingdom of mercia, which, up to this time, had seemed to sleep in the centre of the saxon dominions: for those who had settled down in the midland districts had, with the exception of crida, scarcely left so much as a name behind, and he is only known as the grandfather of penda. to the deeds of the latter we have now arrived, and he who assisted to slay five kings, is the next stormy spirit that throws its shadow upon our pages. chapter xiv. penda, the pagan monarch of mercia. "the gates of mercy shall be all shut up: and the fleshed soldier,--rough and hard of heart,-- in liberty of bloody hand, shall range with conscience wide as hell: mowing like grass your fresh fair virgins and your flowering infants." shakspere. hitherto the kingdom of mercia has scarcely arrested our attention, but the time at last came when it was destined to rise with a startling distinctiveness above the rest of the saxon states, under the sovereignty of penda. as the midland counties bordered upon the deiri, it is not improbable that mercia had been subject to the sway of the more northern monarchs, until the grandson of crida appeared, and, struck by its fallen state, resolved at once to raise it to its true dignity. we have seen him before figure in the battle where he joined cadwallon, and overthrew the once-powerful edwin; then he gained but an empty victory, he now resolved to retrace his steps and reap a more substantial harvest or perish in the attempt. above sixty years had already rolled over his head, yet for military skill and talent he had scarcely an equal, and when, ten years before, he was crowned king of mercia, many foresaw that his would be a terrible reign; he had linked himself with the british--daringly thrown down his gauntlet and challenged all comers; no one was found bold enough to pick it up. wherever he appeared, mercy fled with a shiver, and hope placed her fair hands before her eyes to weep: from step to step did he advance as he grew grey in crime, still glorying in the hoariness of his iniquities. bold, ambitious, and cruel, he sought out danger wherever it was to be found, and attacked power in the very heart of his stronghold; he knew only mercy by the name of death, nor shunned he the fate to which he consigned others. he hated not the christians who adhered rigidly to the tenets of their new creed, but if they halted between two opinions, he abhorred them; while on his part he worshipped odin, and never left the altars of his grim war-god dry for want of a victim. endowed with a strong and fearless mind, and a body that age only seemed to harden, he led the way from battle to battle, and victory to victory, while the neighbouring kings looked on and trembled. no marvel that such a conqueror found ready allies amongst the cymry, or that they were ever eager to join him when he required their aid, while he in return seems to have stood ready armed for any cause, that might chance to fall in his way, and but for his assistance to cadwallon, edwin might probably have died an old man in his bed, with edilburga and his children kneeling beside him. but ambition was the rock on which nearly all these ancient kings were wrecked; the open ocean was not wide enough for them; wherever it was rumoured that danger lurked, there they at once steered--they deemed it but cowardly to wait for the coming of death, so seized the helm and sailed boldly out to look for his dark dominions. to be chained to the domestic hearth was to them a misery, the bark of the old hound, and the recognising flutter of the familiar hawk, and the prattle of children became weary! weary! old household affections but palled; edilburga might smile, and paulinus pray, but the tramp of the war-horse, and the ringing of the sword upon the buckler, and the clang of the battle-axe, as it cleaved its way through helmet and armour, were sweeter sounds than these; the spirit within but yearned for the sleep which was purchased by a dearly won victory; even the eyes of grey-headed old men brightened when the contest was talked over in which they had fought, and they went out of the hall, tottering at every step, to bask in the sunshine, and sigh over the deeds done in those "good old times." wearisome was the morning light to their eyes, which dawned not upon the tented field; they loved better to see the banner of the red dragon of the britons waving upon some distant height, opposite to which their own standard of the white horse fluttered, than to watch the motion of the trees, or the rustle of the yellow corn, or to hear the bleating and the lowing of "the cattle upon a thousand hills:" to such belonged penda, the ruler of mercia. whether the death of cadwallon, the british king, with whom penda's forces were allied when edwin was defeated at the battle of hatfield-chase, caused the mercian monarch to invade bernicia, to revenge his fall and defeat, or whether the love of conquest alone induced penda to undertake this expedition, is not recorded, neither is it clearly made out that he was not present at the battle in which cadwallon was slain. whatever were his motives, he attacked and slew oswald, without any apparent cause of quarrel, and in him perished one of the best of the northern kings. it is said that while the barbed javelin which caused his death was still fixed in his breast, he never for a moment ceased to pray; and that for centuries after his death his name was ever linked with the following pious sentence: "may the lord have mercy on their souls! as oswald said, when he fell on the battle-field." it is also recorded of oswald that one day, as he was about to partake of the refreshments which were placed before him in a silver dish, the almoner, whose office it was to relieve the poor, stepped in and informed him that a number of beggars were waiting without soliciting alms:--when his eye alighted upon the rich vessel in which the dainties were piled, the thoughts of their wants, and his own unnecessary luxuries, rose before him with so striking a contrast, that he ordered the untouched food to be distributed amongst the beggars, and the silver dish to be broken up and given to them; yet penda caused the head and limbs of this pious and charitable king to be severed from the body, transfixed on stakes, and exposed to the public gaze. he then marched through northumbria, spreading death and desolation wherever he trod; attacked the castle of bamborough, and, unable to carry it by storm, demolished all the buildings in the neighbourhood, and piled up the wood and thatch around the strong fortress, and then set fire to the ruins he had heaped together. fortunately for the besieged, the wind changed just as the flames began to rise, and the eddying gust blew back the blazing ruins upon the besiegers. penda then turned his back upon northumbria, and we next meet with him in wessex, where he makes war upon cenwalch, for some insult the latter had offered to penda's sister; cenwalch is driven out of his kingdom, remains in exile three years, and then returns, having doubtless reconciled himself to the mercian king. when he had finished his work in wessex, and sigebert had resigned his crown, he directed his steps to east anglia, for redwald had long since slept with his fathers: he had also founded a school, from which it is not improbable the present university of cambridge sprung; and having given his kingdom to his kinsman ecgric, and built a monastery, into which he at last retired, he had long since taken a farewell of all his greatness. but sigebert had been renowned in his day; and now danger was knocking at the door, the east anglians were unwilling that an old warrior should be pattering his prayers when he ought to be wielding his battle-axe; and it is recorded that his former subjects drew him forcibly out of the monastery, and compelled him to lead them on against penda. with only a white wand in his hand, and probably robed in his monkish habiliments, the old soldier took the command of the battle; his religious scruples, however, preventing him from using any warlike weapon. we can almost picture him, pale with his ascetic life, for no one had adhered more rigidly to the monastic rules than he had done, standing with his white wand uplifted amid a throng of warriors, pointing to the most salient points of the opposing army, with a martial glimmer just lighting up for a moment the cold grey eye, which for years had only contemplated that glory which he hoped to enjoy beyond the grave. we can imagine the sudden contrast of sounds--from the low muttered prayer, or the holy hymns chaunted within the walls of his monastery, to the shout, the rush, the struggle, and the clanging of arms. nor is it difficult to picture the look of contempt with which the pagan king penda would gaze upon his ghostly opponent, or to imagine the bitter jeers to which the hardened heathen would give utterance as he wiped his bloody battle-axe, and gazed upon the monk-king and his crowned kinsman, as they lay together amid the slain--for both sigebert and ecgric fell, and their whole army was routed or slaughtered by the hitherto invincible penda. anna succeeded ecgric, and sigebert; but scarcely was he seated upon the perilous throne of east anglia, before the pagan warrior again made his appearance; for although penda was now an old man, grey-headed, and eighty years of age, he could no more live without fighting than he could without food. anna had been guilty of sheltering cenwalch, the king of wessex, after penda had dethroned him; an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the hoary old heathen; so he marched once more into east anglia, and slew him. he had by this time sent five kings and thousands of their followers as offerings to odin, and not yet satisfied, he resolved once more to visit the northern kingdoms, for the pleasant vallies which stretched on either side the trent had no charms for penda. the "thirty-armed river," as milton has called it, could not retain him within its boundaries; he liked not the air of our midland counties, so set off to pay another visit to the deiri or bernicia, with every mile of which he was doubtless familiar. he had grown grey in fighting battles, had been a king thirty years, and during the whole period was either preparing to attack, marching, or fighting. the old chroniclers compare him to a vulture, a wild beast, ravenous for prey, and one whose chief delight was in the clashing of arms, and the shedding of human blood. after having slain oswald and brutally exhibited his remains, he appears to have paid frequent visits to oswy, who succeeded him. but oswy had no disposition to fight, and therefore endeavoured to keep the quarrelsome old mercian quiet by exhausting the northumbrian treasury. growling like a tiger, penda refused to accept all the treasures he could heap together; he was neither to be bought over by gold nor prayers; he came to fight, and fight he would; he seemed like a drunken man who is determined to quarrel, even if he has to run his head against the first post he meets with. he had come, he said, to extirpate the whole race of the northumbrians--the deiri, bernicia, and all--he came to kill. when oswy found that all entreaties were in vain, he mustered his forces together, which were far inferior to penda's in number. before commencing the battle, oswy vowed, like jephthah of old, that if he obtained the victory, he would dedicate his daughter to the service of the lord; and having formed this resolution, he issued forth to meet the mighty man-slayer, who had hitherto scarcely sustained a single defeat. the northumbrian, with a heavy heart, divided the command of his little army between himself and his son alfred. the battle took place somewhere in yorkshire, but where cannot now with certainty be pointed out; it was in the neighbourhood of a river, and not far distant from york. the contest was terrible; the army under the command of penda appears to have been made up of britons and saxons, some of whom were dragged reluctantly into the battle, and but waited the first favourable moment to turn their arms against the dreaded chieftain. the low land in the rear of penda's army was flooded; beyond, the deep-swollen river was already roaring as if in expectation of its prey. penda charged as usual--hot, eager, and impetuous, as if the victory was already his own; but the old man's arms were not so strong as they had been,--he could not see his way so clearly as he had done beforetime. odilwald, who occupied a favourable position, had not yet stirred a step. it seems as if one portion of penda's mighty force was jealous of another; there was the river roaring behind, and oswy bearing down upon them before. midway all was confusion, and in the midst of it stood penda, blinded with fury, and bleeding from his wounds. over the dying and the dead trampled the victorious army of oswy. over penda they trod, who lay upon the ground a hideous mass, his grey head cloven open by a blow from a battle-axe. none paused to survey him. before the northumbrians the routed host rushed onward, onward, until the ringing of armour, and the clashing of blade upon blade, sunk into a gurgle, and a moan, and a splash; and still the river tore on its way, as if in haste to make room for more. downward the defeated plunged, into deep beds, where the hungry pike slept, and the slimy eel lay coiled. the flooded fields were manured with the dead; hideous sights which many a rich harvest has since covered; the river-bed was clogged up with the bodies of the slain, which fishes fed upon, and winter rains at last washed away--rich relics to pave the floor of that gloomy hall, where hela the terrible reigned. if ever there was a clattering of skulls in valhalla it was then; or if odin ever rushed out with open arms, to meet the bloodiest of his worshippers, it was when the soul of penda came. what a crimson country is ours! what rivers of gore has it taken to make our green england what it is! no marvel that even the rims of our daisies are dyed crimson by contact with such a sanguinary soil. oswy, after this unexpected victory, now overran mercia, and subjected it to his sway. his daughter alchfleda he also gave in marriage to peada, the son of penda, and installed him in his father's kingdom, on condition that he should introduce christianity into his dominions. alfred, the son of oswy, in return married the daughter of penda, whose name was cyneburga. thus on each side a pagan was united to a christian, and the work of conversion went on prosperously; for there were now but few corners of the british dominions in which the true faith was not introduced. such changes were enough to make the stern old saxon heathen leap out of his grave. in his lifetime no one would have been found bold enough to have proposed them. alchfleda's mother was still living, and remained a firm follower of the old idolatrous creed; she seems to have accompanied her daughter into mercia, and had doubtless in her train many a grey old veteran, who still bowed the knee before the altars of odin, and who looked upon a religion which taught peace, good will, and charity to all mankind, with disdain. it is not clearly made out by whose instigation peada was assassinated. both his wife and her mother stand accused of the deed, but no cause is assigned for the former perpetrating so dreadful a crime; nor can any other reason be assigned for the latter having done it, beyond what we have given. peada, however, fell at the holy time of easter, which seems to have been a favourite season for assassination amongst the pagan saxons, in proof of which numerous instances might be quoted. before his death, peada commenced the famous monastery of peterborough, which his brother wulfhere completed. nor was wulfhere content with only finishing the minster, for he gave to the abbot saxulf, to the monks, and their successors for ever, all the lands and waters, meads, fens, and weirs, which lay for many miles around it, and covered in extent what forms more than one english shire. wulfhere, like sigebert, appears to have been as much of a monk as a warrior, though a little of old penda's blood still flowed in his veins; and when cenwalch, of wessex, who had been humbled and disgraced by penda, resolved to have his revenge upon the son, although he was at first successful, the mercians at last became conquerors, and cenwalch was again exiled, and his kingdom fell into the hands of the mercian sovereign. the king of essex, about this time, made frequent visits to oswy's court, and the northumbrian sovereign lost no opportunity of dissuading him from following his idol worship. the arguments oswy used, though simple, were convincing; he told him that such objects as were fashioned out of stone or wood, and which the axe or the fire could so readily destroy and consume, could not contain a godhead. such reasoning had the desired effect, and the king of essex, together with numbers of his subjects, abandoned their pagan belief. the sovereign of sussex was also converted through the instrumentality of wulfhere, who was as eager to spread the doctrines of christianity as his father had ever been to uphold the worship of woden. cenwalch, the king of wessex, who, like so many others about this period, keeps crossing the busy stage at intervals, only to fill up the scenes, at length died, but whether in exile or not is uncertain. saxburga, the widowed queen, stepped into the vacant throne; but the wessex nobles refused to be governed by a woman, although she wielded the sceptre with a firmer hand, and ruled the kingdom better than her husband had ever done; strengthening her forces, and ever holding herself in readiness in case of an invasion. still there was ever some one amongst her nobles who shared her rule; and one of these, a descendant from the renowned cerdric, led her forces against the king of mercia. essex was at this time under the sway of wulfhere, and it is likely enough that he looked with a jealous eye upon the bold front which saxburga's kingdom presented, after the death of cenwalch, who had been so frequently conquered. a battle was fought in wiltshire, in which neither party appear to have reaped any material advantage; and in little more than a year after the contest, both the leaders were in their graves. oswy, the conqueror of penda, had before this died, and his son ecgfrid became the king of northumbria, in which the deiri and bernicia were now united. alfred, who had married penda's daughter, after having aided in destroying her father and his powerful army, at the battle in yorkshire, was not allowed to succeed oswy, on account of some flaw in his birth. nearly all beside, of any note, who figured in this busy period, had passed away, excepting the last son of penda, named ethelred, who, after the death of wulfhere, ascended the mercian throne. ecgfrid fell in a battle against the picts, though not before he had invaded mercia, for although ethelred had married his sister, it seemed as if the hostile blood which had so long flowed between the sons, oswy and penda, was not to be blended by marriage. the archbishop theodore stepped in between the combatants, and healed up the breach long before ecgfrid perished. about this time, also, died cadwaladyr, the last of the cymry who aspired to the sovereignty of britain. his death was the cause of a battle being fought. similar unimportant events make up the catalogue which closes the account of this period. the saxon kingdoms seemed to stand upon an ever-moving earthquake: one was swallowed to-day, and cast up again on the morrow: the earth was ever rocking and reeling: kings came and went, as the images shift in a kaleidoscope. if one year saw a sovereign victorious, the next beheld him dethroned and an exile; he put on his crown, or laid it aside, just as his more powerful neighbour bade him. when fortune placed him uppermost, he retaliated in the same way on his former conqueror. still we have before us the stirring times of offa the terrible; egbert and ethelwulf followed by the stormy sea-kings, whose invasions were more merciless than those of the saxons; for the history of this period is like an ocean studded with islands, some of which lie near together, others wide apart; and many which, from the distance, seem to have a barren and forbidding look, are, on a nearer approach, found rich in ancient remains; and though now silent and desolate, we discover in what is left behind traces of the once mighty inhabitants, that ages ago have passed away. such is the history of the early saxon kingdoms. where an idle voyager would yawn and grow weary, his intelligent companion would linger, and gaze, and ponder in silent wonder and reverential awe. chapter xv. decline of the saxon octarchy. "let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings:-- how some have been deposed, some slain in war; some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed; all murdered:--for within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps death his court."--shakspere. the remainder of our journey through the kingdoms which anciently formed the saxon octarchy now lies in a more direct road, where there are fewer of those perplexing paths and winding ways, such as we have hitherto been compelled to thread, in our difficult course through this dimly-discovered country of the past. we are now on the sun-bright borders of those dark old forest fastnesses, amid which we could scarcely see what flowers were at our feet, or catch a clear glimpse of the outstretched sky that hung above our heads; a few steps from this, and we leave this land of twilight and uncertain shadows behind. after the death of ecgfrid, alfred, who is already distinguished as having fought in the battle in which penda fell, and afterwards, as having married his daughter, ascended the throne of northumbria. we have before shown how, on account of his birth, his succession was disputed by the nobles; against their decision he offered neither defence nor resistance, but betaking himself to study, he so enriched his mind, under the instruction of the famous bishop wilfrid, that bede classes him as first amongst the kings of anglo-saxons for his literary acquirements. he "waded not through slaughter to a throne," but calmly abided his time, and when it came, quitted his study to sway the sceptre. his court was the resort of literary men and enlightened travellers, and aldhelm, the celebrated scholar of that day, stood high in his favour. there was a firmness about his character worthy of the name which afterwards becomes so endeared to us, for when he could not conscientiously agree in certain matters with his old tutor, wilfrid, he allowed the bishop to quit his dominions, nor had a letter from the pope influence enough to alter his resolution. nothing of note appears to have occurred in northumbria during his reign, for the expulsion of eadwulf, and the ascension of osred, were accomplished without difficulty. ceolwulf came next, to whom bede dedicated his ecclesiastical history; but we must not step too suddenly into the familiar light which seems all at once about to break upon us. ceadwalla, a descendant of the renowned cerdric's, after the death of ecgfrid, made a stand against the nobles of wessex, who had banished him from that kingdom. he first attacked the king of sussex, slew him, and desolated his dominions. he then, accompanied by his brother mollo, made an inroad into kent, where they ravaged and destroyed the towns and villages for miles around. while mollo, with several of his soldiers, were busied in plundering a house, they were surrounded by the enraged men of kent, who, preventing the escape of the marauders, set fire to the building on every side, and burnt all within alive. the king of wessex revenged his brother's death, and, far and wide, around the scene of this terrible sacrifice, he made "a land of mourning." after this he went on a pilgrimage to rome, was baptized by the pope, and died the week after. ina then ascended the throne of wessex; his celebrated laws are still in existence, and as they throw considerable light upon the manners of this remote period, we will take a hasty glance at them before proceeding further. if a child was not baptized within thirty days after its birth, a penalty of thirty shillings was demanded; if that period elapsed and the ceremony was still neglected, the priest or the parents must forfeit all they possessed. if a slave or theow worked on sunday by his master's commands, he became free; if a freeman worked on that day, by his own consent, he forfeited his freedom. if any one sold his servant, whether a slave or a freeman, he must pay his full value. if a poor man died, and left his wife with a child, six shillings a-year was to be paid for its maintenance, together with a cow in the summer, and an ox in winter--its kindred was to take charge of the house until the child became of age. if a man was killed, his life was valued according to what he was worth, and the slayer had to pay a fixed price for his death. crude as these laws are, and barbarous as they prove the people to have been for which they were made, still they are the first landmarks, reared in a wild and uncivilized country, which point out to man the extent of his possessions and his power; the first attempt to draw an even line between might and right; for here the poor theow, the slave of the soil, he who was sold, like the cattle upon the estate, to the next purchaser, felt secure within his allotted mark. the day of holy rest was his own; if his lord compelled him to labour, the laws of ina, next day, made him a free man. ina, like his predecessors, was compelled to fight his way to peace, and amid his hostilities, he became involved in a war with ceolred, king of mercia. his queen appears to have been as courageous as himself, and is said to have besieged one of her husband's enemies at taunton, and to have levelled the castle in which he was sheltered to the ground. ina rebuilt the abbey of glastonbury, and endowed it with rich gifts. it seems to have grown a custom amongst the saxon kings at this period, to go on pilgrimage to rome, resign their crowns, and become monks. ina's queen had long tried, but in vain, to induce her husband to follow what she considered such worthy examples; but her entreaties had hitherto proved useless. she at last hit upon the following device. a feast had been held in one of ina's castles; and the morning after the banquet they went out together to ride; when they returned, she conducted ina into the banqueting hall, which was now covered with filth, and occupied by a herd of swine, a litter of which was resting upon the very couch he had before occupied. well might so sudden a change astonish him, and we can readily imagine the dark spot that gathered upon his angry brow. such a mode of conversion would have startled either augustin or paulinus, and made even cunning coifi pause before he changed his opinion. the queen pleaded guilty to the fault, and reasoned upon the matter as follows: "my lord," said she, "this is very different from the noise and hilarity of yesterday; there are no brilliant hangings now; no table weighed down with silver vessels, no delicacies to delight the palate, neither flatterers nor parasites--all these have vanished like the smoke before the wind--have all passed away into nothingness. ought we not, then, to feel alarmed, who covet them so much, yet are everyway as transient? are not all such things so? and are we not ourselves like a river, that hurries headlong and heedlessly along to the dark and illimitable ocean of time? unhappy must we ever be if we let such things occupy our minds. think, i entreat you, how disgusting those things become of which we are so enamoured; and see what filthy objects we have become attached to; for in those filthy relics we may see what our pampered bodies will at last become. oh! let us reflect, that the greater we have been, and the more powerful we now are, the more alarmed we ought to be, for the greater will be the punishment of our misconduct." ina listened, sighed, resigned his crown, and set off for rome, where he founded a school, and imposed a tax of a penny upon every family in his kingdom, which was called romescot, and which went to support the institution he had raised. as a proof of his sincerity, he wore a common dress, lived meanly, cut his hair, laboured hard, and dwelt in retirement with his queen, until he died "a good old man." his brother, inigils, had died a few years before him, a name that falls silent as snow upon the pages of history; yet like the snow, doing its silent work, for he must have been a man of some note in his day and generation, to have been the father of egbert and the grandfather of alfred the great, from whom descended a long line of kings. the mercian nobles rose up and put to death ostrida, the wife of ethelred their king, for what cause history is altogether silent; neither the why nor the wherefore is given--the sentence reads in the saxon chronicle like an epitaph upon a gravestone, yet she was the daughter of the once powerful oswy of northumbria, and when destroyed, queen of the mercians. the very mystery which hangs around her fate interests us, and we want to know something about what she had done to draw down such dreadful punishment, but all our inquiries are vain; beyond the mere entry of her violent death, not even a doubt is registered, for us to pause over. the deed was done, and is recorded in one brief, terrible sentence, and we know no more. her husband, ethelred, abandoned the crown of mercia to his nephew cenred, and entered the monastery of bardney, as a monk, going through all the routine of common duties, like a humble brother, until at last he rose to the rank of abbot in the monastery which he himself had founded. ethelbald is the next king of mercia who commands our attention. he had been nursed in the stern school of privation; like edwin of northumbria, he had been persecuted in his youth, and owed his life to guthlac, the hermit of croyland. picture the warrior monk and the young king in those wild marshes--where no monastery was as yet built up, and where, upon that swamp, which was afterwards crowned with a splendid abbey, only a humble hut, and a rude cross of wood, were then to be seen. the stormy old warrior, guthlac, who had done battle in many a hard-fought field, was at last weary of a soldier's life, and hearing that there was an island surrounded by a lake in a corner of mercia, he got one of the rude lincolnshire fishermen to row him to the spot, where for some time he remained alone; here he was visited by ethelbald, a man elegant in form, with a frame of iron, and a bold, undaunted spirit. there must have been some strange charm in the society of the soldier-monk, thus to have won over the young king to share with him such a solitude, for the marshes of croyland must in those days have worn a most forbidding appearance, and even now, as they wave in summer, with their dark, coarse patches of goose-grass, and in some places, no stir of life is seen, excepting where the gosherd drives before him his noisy flock, an air of melancholy reigns over the scenery, and the mind unconsciously wanders back among the shadows of the dead. nor did ethelbald, when he ascended the throne of mercia, forget his exile, or his companion guthlac, but gave the island of croyland to the monks who had accompanied his friend, and preserved their piety amid all the privations which surrounded that solitude, and over the monument which the mercian king erected to the monk, was afterwards built the monastery of croyland. ethelbald conquered northumbria, and, aided by cuthred, king of wessex, obtained a victory over the welsh; but although they had thus fought side by side, a spirit of jealousy lurked within each bosom, and the wessex king only waited for the first favourable opportunity to throw off the mask, and free himself from the power of the mercian monarch. unforeseen circumstances, for some time, prevented cuthred from openly taking the field against ethelbald; his son rose up in rebellion, and no sooner was he put down, than one of his nobles, named edelhun, took up arms, and would have conquered cuthred, had he not been wounded at the very time when the battle had turned in his favour. these rebellions ethelbald is accused of having fomented. the rival kings at last met near burford in oxfordshire; ethelbald had under his command the combined forces of essex, kent, east anglia, and mercia; cuthred, the soldiers of wessex alone, and the powerful arm of the former rebel, edeldun, who was now his friend. from roger de wendover, we, with a few slight alterations, copy the following description of the battle, as being one of the most picturesque accounts which we have met with in the pages of the early historians: "the attack on each side was headed by the standard-bearers of the opposing king; edeldun bore the banner of wessex, on which was emblazoned a golden dragon, and rushing forward with the ensign in his hand, he struck down the mercian standard-bearer, a daring deed which called forth a loud shout from the army of cuthred. a moment after, and the noise was drowned by the clashing of weapons, the mingled din, and roaring, and shouting, which swelled into the prolonged thunder of battle, amid which, if a brief pause intervened, it was filled up by the shrieks and groans of the wounded and the dying, or the falling of some dreaded instrument which terminated the agony of death. havoc spread like the destroying flames, into the midst of which the maddened masses plunged. death and danger were disregarded; they fought as if the fate of a kingdom rested upon the blows dealt by each single arm. for a moment the sunlight fell upon a mass of dazzling armour, gilding the plumed helmet, the pointed spear, the uplifted sword, and broad-edged battle-axe, and the rich banner, which, as it was borne onward amid the hurried charge, fluttered in gaudy colours, high over the heads of the eager combatants; a few moments more, and all this brave array was broken; another moving mass rushed onward in the thickest of the strife, the banner rocked and swayed, then went down; point after point the uplifted spears rose and sank, the helmets seemed as if crowded together; then the space which they occupied was filled up by others who passed onward, the moving waves heaved and fell, and passed along, while over all rolled that terrible sea of death which had swallowed up horse, rider, banner, sword, and battle-axe. foremost in the ranks, stood edeldun; wherever he moved, the spot was marked by the rapid circles which his ponderous battle-axe made around his head. at every stroke, death descended; wherever that terrible edge alighted, the hollow earth groaned, as it made room for another grave; no armour was proof against the blows which he dealt, for the fall of his arm was like that of a dreaded thunderbolt that rives asunder whatever it strikes. like two consuming fires, each having set in from opposite quarters and destroyed all that lay in their path, so did edeldun and ethelbald at last meet, flame hurrying to flame, nothing left between to consume; behind each lay a dead, desolated, and blackened pathway." here we are compelled to halt; the sternest image we could gather from the pages of homer, would still leave the idea of their meeting imperfect. ethelbald fled, having first exchanged a few blows with his dreaded adversary. wessex shook off the mercian yoke, and ethelbald never again raised his head so high as it had before been, when he looked proudly above those of the surrounding kings. cuthred died, and the king of mercia was soon after slain in a civil war in his own dominions. after his death, our attention is riveted upon the events which took place between these rival kingdoms, for the rest of the saxon states, with scarcely an exception, were soon swallowed up in that great vortex, which at last bore the immortal name of england. after the death of cuthred, the throne of wessex was occupied by sigebyhrt, whose reign was brief and unpopular; he paid no regard to the laws which had been established by ina; he took no heed of the remonstrances of his subjects, but when cumbra, one of the most renowned of their nobles, boldly proclaimed the grievances of the people, he was put to death. this was the signal for a revolt--the nobles assembled, the people were summoned to the council, and sigebyhrt was deposed. fearful of the vengeance of his subjects, the exiled king fled into the wild forest of andredswold, where he concealed himself amid its gloomy thickets. here it is probable that for a time the rude peasantry supplied him with food, and that the wild man of the wood was the whole talk and wonder of the neighbouring foresters. one day, however, he was met by a swineherd named ansiam, who had doubtless seen him beforetime when he visited his murdered master cumbra--the swineherd knew him at the first glance, and although he did not kill the king on the spot, yet he waited his time, and revenged his master's death by stabbing sigebyhrt to the heart. he appears to have watched him to his hiding-place, and when the fallen king lay stretched upon his couch of leaves, under the shade of gloomy and overhanging boughs, the savage swineherd stole silently through the thicket, and with one blow sent the unhappy sovereign to sleep his last sleep. as in the death of queen ostrida, we find but a brief entry of his terrible ending in the old chronicles; he suited them not, was slain, cast aside, and so made room for another, and cynewulf, in whose veins the blood of woden was believed to flow, reigned in his stead. we will now hasten on and make a brief survey of the state of northumbria. ceolwulf, the patron of bede, resigned his crown for the quietude of the cloister. eadbert succeeded to the vacant throne. whilst he was warring with the picts, his dominions were invaded by the mercians; he reigned for twenty-three years, then retired to a monastery, making the eighth saxon king who had voluntarily laid aside the crown for the cowl. it is said that the fate of sigebyrht and the fall of ethelbald caused him to contrast their turbulent ending with the peaceful death-bed of ceolwulf--a strange change was thus wrought in the minds of these old saxon kings--the glory of woden had departed; no eager guests now rushed to the banquetting-halls of valhalla; they looked for other glories beyond the grave. osulf succeeded his father to the throne of northumbria, scarcely reigned a year, and was treacherously slain. taking no warning by his fate, edelwold was bold enough to accept the crown; as usual, the path from the throne to the tomb was but a brief step, and he perished. another and another still succeeded. alred, a descendant of ida, stepped into the empty seat, just looked around, and was driven out of the kingdom. then ethelred came, put two of his generals to death on the evidence of two others, when, a few months after, the accusers turned round upon him, conquered him, and drove him from the throne. he fled like alred. alfwold was the next king that came to be killed; he just reigned long enough to leave his name behind before he bade the world "good night." osred next mounted, made his bow, was asked to sit down, then driven out. ethelred was beckoned back again; he came, stabbed eardulf, who had aspired to the crown, and left him bleeding at the gate of a monastery; dragged the children of alfwold from york, and slaughtered them; put to death osred, who, like himself, had been deposed, and just when he thought he had cleared away every obstacle, and was about to sit down upon the throne which he had stuffed with the dead to make it more easy, his subjects rewarded him for what he had done by slaying him. he was followed by osbald, who sat trembling with the crown upon his head for twenty-seven days, but not having reigned long enough to merit death, he was permitted to retire into a cloister. eardulf, whom we left bleeding at the gates of the monastery, was taken in and cured by the monks, fled to rome, was received by charlemagne, and at last placed upon the throne of northumbria, where he had not sat long before his subjects revolted. the crown and sceptre of northumberland were then thrown aside--men shunned them as they would have done a plague; the curse of death was upon them, no man could take them up and live. "death kept his court" within the one, and when he wielded the other, the gold had ever pointed either to the grave or the cloister. from such a murderous court numbers of the nobles and bishops fled--the throne stood vacant for several years; no man was found bold enough to occupy it. the sword which ever hung there had fallen too often--not another damocles could be found to ascend and survey the surrounding splendour from such a perilous position. in looking over this long list of natural deaths, murders, and escapes which took place in one kingdom after the abdication of eadbert, we have but recorded the events which occurred within forty short years, from seven hundred and fifty-seven to about seven hundred and ninety. from the landing of hengist and horsa, about three centuries before, nearly one hundred and fifty kings had sat upon the different thrones of the anglo-saxon kingdoms. the bulk of these are unknown to us excepting by name; we can with difficulty just make out the petty states they reigned over, and that is nearly all. some died in the full belief of their heathen creed, with a firm faith that from a death-bed in the field of battle to the brutal immortality which their bloody deeds had merited was but a step, and that their happiness hereafter would consist in feasting and holiday murders in the halls of woden. others calmly breathed their last with their dying eyes fixed upon the cross of christ, while the anchor of their faith sunk noiselessly into the deep sea of death, and their weary barques were safely moored in that tranquil harbour where neither waves beat nor tempest roared, and where, at last, the "storm-beat vessel safely rode." what a fearful history would those three centuries present if it could but be truly written--if we could but have the everyday life of those all but unknown kings! forgotten as their very graves are, and scattered their ashes into dust, which ages ago mingled imperceptibly with the breeze, and was blown onward, unseen and unfelt. yet there was a time when even the meanest and the most unknown marched in pomp to the pagan temple, or lowly christian church, when before them the noisy heralds went, and the applauding mob swelled behind, and rude as the crown and sceptre might be, and all the barbaric pearl and gold, still the holy oil was poured forth, and solemn prayers offered up, and the whole witena-gemot, with the neighbouring nobles, were assembled together, and the little world around them for days after talked only of the coronation of the king. thousands at their command had mustered in battle, high nobles had bowed their heads before them; on a word from their lips life or death frequently hung; valour and beauty were gathered around their thrones, and, when they rode forth in grand procession, the wondering crowd rushed out to gaze,--even as it does now. edwin, with his banner borne before him, and offa, with his trumpets sounding in the streets, were as much a marvel above a thousand years ago, as her present majesty is in the provinces in our own time. yet there are many in the present day who think it a waste of time to dwell for a few hours upon the fates of those ancient kings, who, forsooth! because they have been so long dead, are considered as undeserving of notice by those who seem to measure the events of the past by their own present insignificance, who, conscious that they themselves will be forgotten for ever as soon as the grave has closed over them, look begrudgingly upon almost every name that time has not wholly obliterated. chapter xvi. offa, surnamed the terrible. "come, come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; and fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between the effect and it! come to my woman's breasts, and take my milk for gall."--shakspere. to the kingdom of mercia must we again turn the reader's attention for a few moments, and take up the thread of our history from the death of ethelbald, who, it will be remembered, fell, while endeavouring to put down the rebellion which was headed by bernred. of the latter we know nothing, excepting that he reigned for a few months, when he was either banished by the nobles, or driven from the throne by offa, surnamed the terrible, who descended from a brother of the king-slaying penda. though we have no clear proofs of the means by which offa got possession of the crown of mercia, there are many dark allusions scattered over the works of the monkish historians who were living about this period, which scarcely leave a doubt that he obtained the title of the terrible through the violent measures he had recourse to in attaining it. bede says, he won the kingdom of mercia "with a bloody sword." one of the most romantic incidents which occur in the records of this period, is that which first introduced the future queen, drida, into offa's presence. she was a bold, beautiful, ambitious, and cruel woman, and appears to have been related to charlemagne. she committed some crime, for which she was doomed to undergo the ordeal of iron or fire; but although her deeds were so clearly proved, yet, as she was allied to charlemagne, she was allowed the more merciful ordeal of water, and launched alone upon the pathless ocean, in a small boat, without either oar, rudder, or sail. she was supplied with food for a few days, and left to the winds and waves, by which she was driven upon the british coast, somewhere on the territory over which offa reigned. the storm-tossed beauty was conducted to the presence of the mercian monarch, and having had ample time, while thrown from wave to wave, companionless upon the ocean, to make up a false tale, she at once gave utterance to a story which won both the pity and the love of offa at the same time. he resigned her to the care of his mother for a few days, frequently visited her, and speedily married her. "he loved her for the dangers she had passed, and she loved him that he did pity them." such is the account given in his life, written by a monk of st. albans, the abbey of which was founded by offa. could we prove that homer was familiar to the monkish historian, we should be justified in imagining that he had transformed ulysses into drida, and changed calypso to offa; but whether or not, the wild legend has a doubtful look, though it has been quoted by grave authors, and is admitted into several histories. offa was not a king who sat asleep with the sceptre in his hand; there was the wakeful and ambitious queen drida now by his side; and, startling as it may seem, the dark events which stained their reign, and the deeds of offa's daughter, edburga, would in the hands of a shakspere furnish the materials for another tragedy, that might stand side by side with macbeth. her cold cruel pride, and chilling haughtiness, are said to have broken the heart of offa's mother, and, in a few months, to have hurried her into the grave. the blinded king saw only her superb beauty, for she appears to have been a female fiend, that outwardly wore an angel's form. brave as a lion, and possessing talents that would have broken through the gloom of the most benighted period, the mercian king marched onward from conquest to conquest, now achieving deeds that win our admiration, then sinking down to commit such crimes as must have made his subjects shudder. on each side of him drida and his daughter are ever rising up, like two spirits that attract our attention, as they come out in the sunshine to smile, or rush shrieking from amid the darkness, into which they had plunged, to accomplish some new and horrible deed; they seem to come and go with a terrible distinctness, that makes us tremble as they either approach or vanish, as if mercy fled before them, and we heard, in the place from which she had hurried affrighted, dying moans, and love wailing upon the very lips on which he, expiring, kissed the poison of death. all is dim as a dream, or startling as some appalling reality which we look upon with a doubtful consciousness. so perplexing and unnatural appear the events of this period, that the generality of historians seem to have paused, looked round for a moment, in doubt and wonder, then hastened off to visit less forbidding scenes: as if they feared to grapple with the shadows and the realities, that here seem to be ever exchanging places, throwing aside what is only doubtful as feeble, and dreading to look among events which seem cruel and unnatural for their horrible truth, as if years, because they have rolled away, were empty of events, and days dawned not upon hopes and fears as in the present day. wild-roses blew, and nightingales sang, as they do now, and the smell and sound were as sweet to those who went out to look and listen, in the noonday, or in the twilight, and returning, were stabbed by the way, or laid their heads upon their pillows unconscious of the poison that would, before the dawning, with a noiseless power, unlock and throw open the silent gates of death. the murdered kings who were hurried into their graves by these merciless women, once enjoyed the tender green of spring, and the sober gold of the autumnal foliage, as we still do. what a period are we now picturing! a king is murdered and consigned to his grave; his successor builds a monastery, or makes a pilgrimage to rome, and believes that he has purchased forgiveness. a queen rushes out of the chamber, and leaves behind her the yet warm body of the husband she has poisoned, crosses the sea, and becomes an abbess. a young king comes wooing, in all the hey-day of life, is allured from the banquet by the mother of the fair princess for whose hand he is suing, taken into the next apartment, and put to death. and these are the solemn truths of english history--the dark deeds that were done by those who sat on the very throne which alfred the great himself occupied. the events which we record in this chapter, were written down by alfred nearly a thousand years ago; he heard them from the lips of those whose fathers had lived and moved through all these stirring scenes. we have before shown in what a defenceless state northumbria was left. offa, doubtless well acquainted with the civil dissensions by which it was rent asunder, attacked it, as his uncle penda had done beforetime; what advantages he gained, are not recorded. he next marched into kent, fought a hardly contested battle at otunford or otford, conquered, and annexed that kingdom to mercia. at the battle of bensington, he defeated cynewulf, king of wessex, and either took possession of his dominions, or compelled him to become his ally; that offa did not dethrone him is evident from an incident which we shall shortly have to narrate. the ancient britons were not yet at rest, for whenever a favourable opportunity occurred, they sallied forth from the corners into which they were driven, slew and plundered the saxons, and hastened back again into their mountain-fortresses as soon as they saw a stronger force approaching. they had several times invaded mercia, and, emboldened by their success, at length drove the saxons who dwelt beside the severn, further into the heart of the kingdom. offa at last armed, and led on, a powerful force against them. the welsh fled into their hidden fastnesses, where they stood until his back was turned upon them, when they again ventured forth. the mercian king once more approached, when the mountaineers, as usual, fled, and all the open country, from the severn to the river wye, was cleared of them; this time offa determined to imprison this daring remnant of the old cymry within their own limited territories. to accomplish this, he commanded a vast trench to be dug, and a huge rampart to be thrown up, as the roman generals had done centuries before; and this gigantic work he extended for nearly a hundred miles, carrying it over marsh, and morass, and mountain, from the river dee to the entrance of the wye, strengthening it also with fortresses, which he manned with chosen and hardy soldiers. but the welsh were not long before they filled up a large portion of the ditch, made a wide gap through the ramparts, and fell upon offa's warriors while they were holding their christmas feast, and more than one saxon fortress was left standing all throughout that dark winter night without a sentinel. offa again arose, and revenged the deaths of his followers; the king of north wales, and many of the old british nobles, fell at the battle of rhuddlan, and those who were taken prisoners were doomed to the severest slavery. mercia was not disturbed again by the welsh during the reign of offa the terrible. the remains of the immense work, which ages after retained the name of claudh offa, or offa's dyke, are still visible, and for centuries were the acknowledged barrier that divided england from wales; many an unrecorded combat was fought on those ancient boundaries, and the remains of many a hero, whose name will never now be known, lie buried deep down within those filled-up trenches. perhaps offa's marriage with drida was the first cause of his opening a correspondence with the renowned charlemagne; but whatever it might be, the letters that passed between them reveal the earliest traces of a protected trade with the continent. the frankish king offered to permit all pilgrims to pass securely through his dominions; and such as came not on religious missions, but were engaged in commerce, were to pass safely to and fro, after paying the requisite duties. to offa, charlemagne sent as proofs of his kindness and friendship, a rich belt, an hungarian sword, and two cloaks of silk. trifling as these matters may at first appear, they show what silent strides civilization was already making; duties paid on commerce for protection are different things to the dogs and horses which, centuries before, the britons were wont to present to the roman emperors whenever they required their aid. egbert, who was destined to become the grandfather of alfred the great, resided for a time at offa's court; but when brihtric ascended the throne of wessex, and demanded the hand of edburga, egbert hastened to france, where he became a great favourite with charlemagne; and there he not only improved himself in learning and military tactics, but by departing from britain, saved his life, for brihtric was already jealous of the fame he had won, while residing with offa, and sought to destroy him. had the gifted young prince offended edburga by refusing her hand, and was this jealousy aroused by queen drida and her daughter? there is one of those mysterious blanks here which we are at a loss to fill up rightly, for it is not clear that egbert fled to offa for protection, but on the contrary he appears to have been a guest of the mercian king's, for some time before brihtric sought the hand of edburga. according to william of malmesbury, egbert's claim to the throne of wessex was superior to brihtric's; but we must not pass over the event by which the throne of wessex became vacant. cynewulf we have already seen measuring arms with offa at the battle of bensington, where he was defeated. he became jealous of cyneheard, who was a brother of sigebyrht, a king who had been driven from the throne of wessex, and he either sought to slay him, or banish him from the kingdom. cyneheard made his escape, but no further than into a neighbouring wood, near merton in surrey, where he lay concealed, having, however, a number of spies about him, who were ever on the look out after the king, for cyneheard had resolved to strike the first blow; nor was it long before an opportunity occurred that favoured his purpose. a fair lady lived at merton, whom cynewulf frequently visited, often coming with only a few attendants; his enemy was on the look out, and soon surrounded the house after he had seen the king enter. cynewulf threw open the door, rushed out, and wounded cyneheard; a dozen swords were at once uplifted against him; the king of wessex fought alone against them all; his followers were in another part of the house; there was not one by to aid him, and he was slain. assistance came too late; the tumult had aroused those within, and, snatching up their weapons, they hastened out to defend their master; they beheld him fallen and bleeding beside the threshold. cyneheard parleyed with them for a few moments, offered them broad lands, and rich rewards, if they would serve him; they threw back his offer with disdain, and foot to foot, and hand to hand, did they fight until only one remained alive; the dead followers, and the dead king, lay side by side. the tidings of cynewulf's death were soon blown abroad, and others speedily rode up to revenge the murder of their sovereign. to these cyneheard made the same offers, and received the same reply, their only answer being the naked weapons they presented; they had come to revenge the death of their king, to demand life for life, and with but few words they fell upon cyneheard and his followers, and slew them all, excepting one, who was severely wounded. thus brihtric ascended the throne of wessex, and married the daughter of offa,--and dark was the bridal chamber into which he entered. turn we to another scene. a young lady was leaning upon the ledge of the palace-window, watching a long train of knights entering the court-yard, and admiring the beauty of one who appeared to be their chief, when she called upon her mother to come forward and witness the scene. that lady was the youngest daughter of offa, the woman she called her mother, queen drida, the youth she had admired, ethelbert, who had just succeeded to the throne of east anglia, and had now come with costly presents, to seek her hand, and form an alliance with the powerful house of mercia. drida had those beyond the sea whom she wished to serve, with whom she had in vain endeavoured to unite her daughter in marriage; there was but one left single now, the youngest, alfleda, and the youthful king of east anglia had come to carry her off also. she had seen her husband welcome him, and the warm reception ethelbert had received, was gall and wormwood to her. the evil spirit rose strong within her, and she resolved he should never again quit her roof until he was carried to his grave. she called offa aside. she well knew the power of her beauty: the weak point of her husband--ambition. she pointed out the number of followers who, encamped without the palace walls, had accompanied ethelbert,--assured him that marriage was not the errand he had come upon;--that his design extended to the crown of mercia. offa doubted her assertions. cunning as she was cruel, she suddenly turned round the point of her argument, then proceeded to show him that if even the young king did marry their daughter, he would, from the moment of his union, consider himself as heir to the throne of mercia, and hourly look for offa's death; nay, seek to hasten it if an opportunity offered. she showed him how ethelbert had made himself acquainted with the roads which led through mercia--how he must have observed every salient point of the kingdom as he passed along; and, perceiving that the king looked perplexed, she added--"either he will shortly be the cause of your death, or you must now be the cause of his."--the poor blinded husband admitted the truth of her argument, confessed that he was exposed to peril; yet, according to one of the old chroniclers, turned away, and firmly refused to partake in such a "detestable crime as she suggested; which," added he, "would bring eternal disgrace upon me and my successors." the two kings sat down to the feast; the hall of the palace resounded with mirth. drida came in every now and then, and when called upon to account for her absence, said she had been looking after the apartment which she was fitting up for the reception of her royal guest: for ethelbert had spent the previous night in his camp, as the day was drawing to a decline long before he reached the royal residence. in the room which the queen had set apart for the east anglian king, she had caused a splendid throne to be erected, which was overhung with curious drapery, and surmounted by a rich canopy. in the adjoining apartment a beautiful couch was fitted up, on which he was to sleep. she came in again with the same smiling look, and armed with that beauty which time had only rendered more imposing and majestic. she sat down to the feast, and whiled away the hour with pleasant and playful conversation. all without looked calm, and cheerful, and captivating, while within, there rolled dark and deep-moving murder, and savage vengeance; and all the awful turmoil, which ever beats about the restless brain of disappointed ambition. the saxon gleemen sung, and tumbled; the wine-cup circulated--rich pigment, sweetened with honey, and flavoured with spices, was handed round in costly vessels; mead mellowed with the juice of mulberries, and strong wines, made odoriferous with the flowers and sweet-herbs which had been used in the preparation, passed from hand to hand; and all went "merry as a marriage bell," when the antiquated syren turned sweetly round, and assumed one of those studied looks which had saved her from the fiery ordeal--which, when tossed like a wave upon the ocean, had won its way through offa's heart to his throne; she exclaimed, (and probably laid her hand upon the shoulder of her unsuspecting victim, as she spoke;) "come, my son, alfleda anxiously awaits you in the chamber i have prepared; she wishes to hear the words of love which her intended husband has to say." it is not improbable that she led him in playfully by the hand--not one of his attendants followed. when he entered the room, she bade him sit down upon the throne, which stood in readiness to receive him; and, looking round with feigned wonder, marvelled why her daughter had not already arrived. with the merry mead playing about his brain, we can almost picture ethelbert uttering some jest as he threw himself laughing into the gorgeous seat. we can see the last smile linger about drida's eye, the sparkling fire of vengeance heaving up, as the demon-like glare flashed forth, the instant she had released her hand--for the moment ethelbert threw himself upon the throne, it sunk beneath him, into the pit, or well over which it had been placed. there was help at hand, men behind the arras, who listened silently for the fall. they rushed forth, drida aided them. beds, pillows, and hangings, were thrown upon the shrieking king, to drown his cries; and when all was silent, the trap-door was again closed. there is scarcely a doubt that offa was privy to the deed. the fact of his taking possession of east anglia immediately after the murder of ethelbert, is a strong proof of his guilt; though some have attempted to show that he but seized upon it in self-defence, when the east anglians swore to revenge the death of their sovereign. alfleda, the fair betrothed, fled from the murderous court, to the monastery of croyland; and in the midst of those wild marshes, where the bittern boomed, and the tufted plover went ever wailing through the air, she assumed the habit of a nun, and dedicated the remainder of her days, which were few, to the service of god. in the "life of offa," which we have before alluded to, it is stated that the mercian monarch banished the royal murderess to one of the most solitary fortresses in his dominions,--that she carried with her an immense treasure, which she had reaped from many a crime, and wrung from many a one who had groaned beneath her oppression: that, lonely and neglected, she was left to gloat over the gold for which she had perilled her soul. but vengeance was not long before it overtook her. the lonely fortress to which she was banished was attacked by robbers, her treasures taken from her, and she herself cruelly tortured, then thrown into a well, where she was left to expire, unwept, and unpitied. a strange resemblance does her end bear to that of the youthful king, whom she caused to be so ruthlessly butchered. edburga inherited all her mother's vices; she was envious, ambitious, and cruel. those who became favourites with her husband, brihtric, she hated, allowing no one to share his confidence or his counsel without drawing down her vengeance; and when she could not succeed in obtaining their disgrace or banishment, she caused them to be secretly poisoned, for there were ever emissaries at her elbow, ready to do their wicked work. like her mother drida, she found a pleasure in the execution of dark and dreadful deeds. there was a youth who stood high in the estimation of the king, whom edburga had long endeavoured, but in vain, to overthrow. brihtric turned a deaf ear to all her complaints, and seldom trusted his envied favourite out of his sight. but she had sent too many of her victims to the grave, and was acquainted with too many ready roads, which led direct to death, to abandon her prey; so, following her old sure and speedy path, she poured poison into his wine-cup. that night the king drank out of the same vessel as his favourite, and died. she sent one soul more to the dark dominions than she had intended; and, dreading the vengeance of her nobles, she packed up all the treasures she could find in the palace, and hastened off to france. the west saxons passed a decree that no king's consort should in future share her husband's throne, but that the title of queen should be abolished. the murderess presented herself before charlemagne, with all her treasures, and, doubtless, as her mother drida had before-time done, when tossed by the angry ocean upon the british coast, she feigned some story to account for her coming, for charlemagne asked her whether she would choose himself or his son, who stood beside him, for her husband. she boldly replied--"your son, because he is the youngest." the monarch answered: "that if she had chosen him, it was his intention to have given her to his son; but now," added he, "you shall have neither." a strong proof that she had forged some tale about the death of brihtric, for such a proposition would never have been made to her had charlemagne known that she had just hurried, with breathless haste, from the dead body of her murdered husband. she went into a monastery, became abbess, and was quickly driven out for the immoral and infamous life she there led. "last scene of all"--the haughty daughter of offa became a common beggar in the streets of pavia, where she was led about by a little girl. king alfred mentions these facts; he heard them from those who knew her well. offa was then in his grave. his son reigned but a few months--edburga died a beggar in the streets--alfleda soon after in the monastery of croyland. the whole race was swept away; not one was left alive in whose veins there ran the blood of offa the terrible. neither sable tragedy nor dark romance were ever woven from wilder materials than the historical truths which form this gloomy chapter. chapter xvii. egbert, king of all the saxons. "o my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows! when that my care could not withhold thy riots, what wilt thou do, when riot is thy care? o, thou wilt be a wilderness again, peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!"--shakspere. egbert was no sooner apprised of the death of brihtric, than he hastened out of france, to take possession of the throne of wessex, and never had a saxon sovereign that had hitherto swayed the perilous sceptre come armed with the experience of the new king. he had studied in the stern school of charlemagne, had narrowly scanned the policy pursued by that great monarch, both in the council and in the camp, and was well prepared to collect and reduce to order the stormy elements which had so long been let loose over britain; for, in addition to the civil discords which shook the land, the danes had already invaded our island. few kings had ever received a warmer welcome from their subjects than that which awaited egbert on his accession, for he was the last descendant of the race of cerdric. kent, essex, and east anglia, had already acknowledged the power of mercia; northumbria had long been rent asunder by internal dissensions; and sussex was by this time united to wessex. having thus doubled its strength and enlarged its territories, the kingdom over which egbert reigned was, with the exception of mercia, the only independent state that stood unbroken amid the ruins of the octarchy. kenwulf sat firmly upon the throne, whose foundation offa had so well consolidated. egbert watched him with an eagle eye, but though ever on the alert, the mercian king was too wary to become an aggressor; and the wessex sovereign knew too well the strength of his rival, to be the first to commence an attack. both kingdoms seemed overhung with the same threatening sky, but no one could tell on which it would first break, though all could foresee that, in spite of its remaining so long stationary, the storm must at last burst forth. as the petty states around them crumbled to pieces, were gathered up and built in upon other foundations, so did each silently seek to possess himself of the ruins and overtop the other, making an outward parade of their strength; yet each tacitly acknowledging, by their forbearance, how much they envied, yet respected, their neighbours' power. like two expert wrestlers, each retained his hold, without venturing to overthrow his adversary. this state of things could not last long; yet while kenwulf lived, he kept the balance so equally poised, that, with all his ambition, egbert ventured not to touch the scale. the king of mercia died, and, from that moment, wessex slowly gained the ascendancy. hitherto egbert had contented himself by carrying his arms into cornwall and devonshire, and waging war with the britons. after kenwulf's death, he aimed at the sole sovereignty of britain, and circumstances soon favoured his long-meditated conquest. had egbert died first, kenwulf would have aspired to the same power. the mercian king left his son kinelm, who was only seven years of age, and heir to the throne, to the charge of his sisters. windreda, the eldest, was not long before she caused her brother to be put to death. his tutor, askebert, was the instrument chosen by this unnatural sister to accomplish the deed. it is said that she promised to share with him the sovereignty. under the pretence of hunting, the unsuspicious prince was led into a neighbouring wood, and there murdered. the spot in which the body was interred was, after some time, discovered by a herdsman, who went in search of one of his cows which had gone astray; a miracle in the old monkish legends is appended to the discovery. the sceptre of mercia was wrested from the hands of windreda by her uncle, ceolwulf, who, however, did not retain it long before he was driven from the throne by beornwulf, which revolution soon shook the kingdom of mercia to its very centre. egbert still stood aloof; the time for action had not yet arrived. he foresaw that the last usurper would not long remain inactive; nor was he wrong. beornwulf rushed headlong into a war with wessex. the battle took place at wilton, which, in ancient times, was called ellan; and although the mercians mustered together the largest force upon the field, egbert, after a sharp contest, won the victory. although the king of wessex did not carry his victorious arms at once into mercia, he lost no time in annexing kent to his dominions, thus weakening at once his rival's power. to accomplish this, he despatched his son ethelwulf, the father of our alfred the great, with a strong force into kent, who drove the vassal king across the thames. egbert next promised to support the east anglians, if they would rise and declare themselves independent of the mercian king. he kept his word. beornwulf fell in the first battle. ludecan succeeded him, and also perished in the next contest. wiglaf then took the command of the mercian forces, but before he had time to strengthen his army, and make up for their previous defeats, egbert was upon him, and the power of wessex was at last triumphant. wiglaf fled into the monastery of croyland, and appears to have been so closely pursued, that he was compelled to seek shelter in the very cell which the daughter of offa occupied--the sanctity of which the invaders respected: here he remained four months. what a shock must the feelings of the fair nun have undergone when the last defender of mercia rushed into her little apartment to save his life--from the very night when she fled from her father's palace, pale and woe-begone, and horror-struck at the murder of her intended husband--from that very night had the fortune of her family begun to decline, and now she was all that remained of the once powerful house of offa. what changes had that saxon princess witnessed, what shifting scenes could she recal as she sat in the solitude of her cell, contemplating the past as it rose before her! by the intercession of siward, wiglaf was permitted to occupy the throne of mercia, on condition that he paid tribute to egbert--the abbot of croyland attested the payment. prior to this period, the northumbrians grew weary of being without a king, and eanred now sat upon the throne. during the reign of kenwulf he had been bold enough to invade mercia. as egbert had by this time subdued the whole octarchy, with the exception of northumbria, he determined to carry his victorious army into deiri and bernicia. eanred well knew that it was useless to measure arms with a monarch who had already compelled five saxon kingdoms to acknowledge his power, so he came forth submissively, and, like the rest, became a tributary vassal to the king of wessex. egbert next invaded wales, and penetrated into the very heart of snowdon: victory still attended him. from the tweed to the land's end of cornwall, no one now arose to dispute his sovereign sway. no saxon king had ever before ruled over such a vast extent of territory, for he was at last sole king of england, although he never assumed that proud title; neither did any saxon king after him ever rule over such a length and breadth of land. we have before stated that, during the reign of offa, the danes had landed in england; they first arrived with three ships, approached one of the royal cities, when the sheriff of the place, thinking they were foreign merchants, rode up with a few attendants to inquire their business. their answers being unsatisfactory, he ordered them to be driven away, when they fell upon him, and he, with all who accompanied him, were slain. the danes then plundered the town; but before they escaped to their ships, offa's soldiers attacked them. after this defeat, they returned again, landed in northumbria, ravaged the country, sacked the abbey of lindisfarne, slew several of the monks, then retreated with an immense spoil to their ships. at several other parts of the island they had also landed, before egbert occupied the throne of wessex. in the year they came again; egbert had made the whole kingdom of the octarchy bow before the power of wessex, and doubtless had sat down, expecting to doze away the remainder of his days peaceably upon his throne, when tidings came that a number of these savage pagans had landed in the isle of sheppey, slaughtered several of the inhabitants, and, laden with plunder, had again escaped to sea without a single vessel pursuing them. the next year, the danes came with thirty-five ships, and were met by egbert at charmouth, in dorsetshire, and if the english were not defeated in this engagement, they lost a considerable number of men, amongst whom were two bishops and two ealdermen; while the danes sustained but little loss, and escaped, as before, with their ships. so serious had the ravages of the sea-kings now become, that a council was held in london, to devise the best means to prevent their depredations. at this council egbert presided, and, according to the charter which wiglaf granted to the abbey of croyland, wherein direct allusion is made to a promise given at the time, there were present, "egbert, and athelwulf his son, and all the bishops and great ealdermen of england, consulting together as to the best means of repelling the constant incursions of the danes on the english coast." these northern invaders soon found ready allies amongst the remnant of the ancient cymry, who still inhabited a corner of cornwall and the adjacent neighbourhood, and were as ready as in the days of king arthur, to league themselves with any enemy who was bold enough to attack the saxons. but the martial spirit of the ancient britons had all but died out; the few embers that remained, when stirred, retained all their former glow, then faded again in their old ashy grey, and sank into a lesser compass at every touch; for the smouldering waste had slowly gone on, year after year, and no new fuel having been added, the hidden sparks huddled hopelessly together--liberty had neglected to come, as the bards had promised she would do: the altar and the spark were still there, but the long-looked for sacrifice never came, which was to light the whole island with its blaze. still, the old cymry were not yet dead; they hailed the danes as their deliverers, and thinly as they were sprinkled over the surrounding country, they gladly mustered what force they could, and joined the stormy sea-kings at hengston hill, in cornwall. egbert met them with a well-appointed army, and defeated their united forces with terrible slaughter. the following year, egbert died, after a reign of thirty-seven years, and was succeeded by his son, ethelwulf, the father of alfred the great. the king of all the saxons sank into his grave, with the fond hope that the whole octarchy had now become united like one family, all acknowledging one sway; that the civil dissensions by which each separate state had so long been torn asunder had for ever ceased; and as the danish invaders had not again appeared since their dreadful defeat at hengston hill, he closed his dying eyes, and left his country at peace. but scarcely was he within his grave, before the northern hordes again poured into england, spreading greater consternation than the saxons had ever done amongst the britons. the hour of retribution, which the cymry had so long looked for, was fast approaching, but few of their ancient race lived to witness its fulfilment; for time, and conquest, and slavery, and death, had left but few of those early inhabitants behind, whose forefathers first landed upon our island, and called it the country of sea cliffs. but we have reached another of those ancient landmarks, which stand wide apart along the shores of history, the grey monuments which overlook that still sea of death, where nameless millions have for ages been buried. from these we must now turn away to gaze upon another race, more savage and uncivilized than the preceding invaders ever were, when, nearly four centuries before, they first rowed their long chiules over the same stormy seas, and marvelled to find an island in the ocean, which contained walled cities and stately temples, and tall columns, that might have vied with classic rome. to the danes must we now turn--those children of the creeks, who, under the guidance of their sea-kings, followed the road of the swans, as they called the ocean, and hewed out a home with their swords, wherever the winds or the waves wafted or drifted them. =invasion of the danes.= chapter xviii. the ancient sea-kings. "the northmen sailed in their nailed ships, on the roaring sea over deep water-- they left behind them raw to devour the sallow kite, the swarthy raven with horny nib, and the house vulture, with the eagle swift, and that grey beast, the wolf of the wold, to consume the prey." anglo-saxon war song.--ingram's _translation_. the danes, norwegians, or norsemen, for it matters not by which title we distinguish them, descended from the same primitive race as the anglo-saxons--the old teutonic or gothic tribes. but to enter fully into the mixed population, all of whom sprung from this ancient stock, and at different periods invaded england, we should have to go deeply into the early history of norway, sweden, and denmark. their religion was the same as that which we have described at the commencement of the saxon invasion. they worshipped odin, and died in the hope of enjoying the brutal delights which their imaginations pictured as never-ending in the halls of valhalla. from the rocky coast of norway, and the very islands where hengist, and cerdric, and ella, first led their followers, the stormy sea-kings came: across the rough baltic they rode; they swarmed like locusts along the neighbouring shores, and were neither intimidated by the tempest, nor disheartened by the defeats which they frequently sustained. the kingdoms from whence they came were divided into petty sovereignties, where one chief made war upon the other--where the conqueror of yesterday was likely enough to be driven on the morrow to the sea-coast, and, finally, out into the ocean, when, with his ships, he became a sea-king, and over the billows rode merrily to discover some other country. if he returned enriched with plunder, he was respected; if he came back empty-handed, he was despised. his vessels laden with spoil soon procured him plenty of followers, and then his former conqueror fell a victim; for over each province, or state, that could furnish forth a dozen ships, each of which contained about sixty or seventy armed men, there a sea-king was to be found. norway alone, at one period, was divided into about thirty of these sovereignties. others there were who possessed not a rood of territory, whose only property was their ships, the crews their subjects, the sword their sceptre; who had no alternative but to plunder or perish, to slay or starve, or stay at home and prey upon their brethren, who themselves were ever darting out from the herbless coast to seize whatever they saw passing upon the sea. if the family retained any landed possession, one son stayed at home to inherit it, the rest sallied out with their ships to seek their fortune across the deep; for a few vessels, well equipped and ably manned, were considered a rich inheritance amongst the danes. at twelve years of age, they were initiated into this piratical profession, and taught to believe that to plunder and to slay were the only honourable passports to wealth and glory--the only employments that were considered noble. the lessons their fathers taught them, all tended to the same end, for they left their children no wealth. "go, my sons," said they, "and reap riches and renown, with your ships and your swords." they learned to despise inherited property; they valued that most which had been won by the greatest danger, and prized highest the plunder which they had become possessed of by venturing into the most perilous paths. in bays and creeks, and in the shadows of jutting headlands, they concealed themselves, where they were ever ready, at a moment's notice, to rush upon the passing prey. when out at sea, they cared not where they were driven to, so long as it was not to their own coast. they called the storm their servant, and wherever it carried them, they said "that was the spot where they desired to go--the tempest that hurled them along with its mighty breath but came, that the rowers might rest their weary arms." those who were drowned, they believed, went safely to odin; those who survived, but laughed at the storm they had escaped. danger depressed them not, and death they but considered as a common and necessary companion, who went on his appointed mission to conduct them to the halls of odin, and returned again unheeded, and dwelt amongst them from day to day; coming and going like a common messenger that scarcely merited a passing remark. they looked upon the saxon christians as traitors to their gods; and as they had been crushed under the iron hand of charlemagne, and been subjected to revolting cruelties to compel them to renounce their ancient creed, they believed that they rendered true service to odin by slaughtering the priests, and destroying the churches of christ. such of the unconverted saxons as still inhabited the neighbourhood of jutland, readily formed a league with the more distant sea-kings, and, thus banded together, they made head against their common enemies, though their near brethren; for they now looked upon them as renegades, and neither the resemblance which they bore to each other in feature or language, nor the remembrance that all were once of the same religion, checked for a moment their hostile spirit. in former times, they worked themselves up into fits of madness, bit their shields, and imitated the howling of wolves, and the barking of dogs; and, under this excitement, performed feats of unnatural strength, such as maniacs alone are capable of achieving. when in this state, woe to the warriors they rushed upon! such savage deeds were common in early times amongst the followers of odin. it is said that, in the darker centuries, they ate the flesh of horses raw, dragged the infant from the breast of its mother, and tossed it from one to another upon the points of their lances. they decorated the prows of their ships with the figures of animals: the heads of shaggy lions, and savage bulls, and hideous dragons, were placed at the front of their vessels, and threw their grim shadows upon the waves. along the sides of their ships they hung their shields, which, placed together, threw back the billows, and thus protected them from the surges of the sea, as they did from the blows dealt in battle. on their masts were placed the figures of birds, whose outstretched wings veered round with every wind that blew. some of their vessels were built in the form of a serpent, the prow resembling the head, the long stern forming the tail; these they called the great sea-serpents, or sea-dragons. when they unloosed their cables, and left their ships to career freely over the waves, they called it giving their great sea-horses the rein. they lashed the prows of their vessels together, and while thus linked, steered right into their enemies' ships; over the dragons', and the bulls', and the lions' heads they leaped, and courageously boarded the foe. the huge club, studded with spikes, which dealt death wherever it fell, they called the "star of the morning." when they fought, they called their war-cry, "chaunting the mass of lances;" to show their contempt for the christian creed, they stabled their horses in the christian churches; and when they finished the repast which they had compelled the reluctant host to furnish, they slew him, and burnt his house.[ ] when they ascended the rivers, and found a convenient and secure station, they drew up their vessels, as the romans had done beforetime, threw up intrenchments, and left a guard behind, while the bulk of their force sallied out to scour the country, burning and slaying wherever they came, seizing upon all the horses they could capture, to carry their plunder over-land; and when hotly pursued, or followed by a superior force, they broke up their encampment, and trusted for safety to their ships. after a time, they became bolder; drove away or slaughtered the natives, and settled down upon the land they had taken from the inhabitants. some they allowed to reside amongst them, on condition that they renounced their religion; and the ceremony of a christian becoming a pagan consisted of his partaking of the flesh of a horse, which was sacrificed on one of their altars dedicated to the worship of odin. when the sea-kings made a solemn vow, they swore upon a golden bracelet. in their social hours, all were equal; no man was then addressed as chief; all distinction was levelled. they sat in a circle, and passed the drinking-horn from hand to hand. he whom they obeyed in battle, whom they followed wherever he chose to steer his ship--when the victory was won, laid his dignity aside; for the stormy spirit who ruled in the tempest and heralded the way in the fight, (though still a sea-king if the alarm was given,) was, while peace lasted, and the feast continued, on a level with the lowest of his followers. this very unbending, during these festive moments, linked the chief closer to his subjects, and made them feel that he was one of themselves; it left ambition less to aspire to, and lowly valour to receive the same meed of praise. he was chosen king, who was best fitted to endure the greatest hardships, and not for his high rank alone; one who had never slept under a house-roof, nor emptied a cup beside the domestic hearth, but whose habitation had, from childhood, ever been his ship, was the sea-king they would follow to the gates of the grave; such a one they chose, when the leader in whose veins the blood of woden was believed to have flowed, either slept beneath the waves, or furnished a feast for the ravens in the deserted battle-field. the dangers they recklessly dared, would necessarily require a frequent change of chieftains; and as such qualities as we have enumerated were essential to the character of a sea-king, the command was left open to all who, by their bravery, chose to aspire to it; and nothing could be more conducive to the cultivation of a high spirit of valour than that levelling of all distinction. he who in his social moments hailed all as his equals, would, in the hour of trial, rally around him the stoutest and the truest hearts; and to prove their devotedness, they would follow him through fire and flood, nor leave him when he fell across the dark threshold of death. such were the stormy sea-kings, whose ships were now darkening the ocean, who were soon to become sharers of the island which their adventurous brethren had wrested from the britons, and who were destined to enrich the plains of england with each other's blood. the grim gods of the ancient cymry seemed to require some savage sacrifice before they departed for ever from the wave-washed island on which their altars had for centuries blazed. through a land whose skies were reddened by the fires of the destroyer, and whose fields were heavy and wet with the blood of the slain, are we now about to journey; and after toiling through two weary centuries of slaughter, we shall but sit down upon the shore, to be startled again by the sound of the norman trumpets. a king lives and dies, a battle is won and lost; and he who next succeeds to the throne, or wins the victory, sweeps over the dead who have passed away, as the autumn-blast whirls the withered leaves before it, until the very storm itself dies out, and others awaken from the caverned sleep in which they have grown strong enough to contend with the green array of a new summer. briton, saxon, dane, and norman, are like the four seasons which make up the long year of our history. chapter xix. first settlement of the danes in northumbria. "on norway's coast the widowed dame may wash the rock with tears, may long look o'er the shipless seas before her mate appears; may sit and weep, and hope in vain,-- her lord lies in the clay, and never more will he again ride o'er the salt sea-spray." the old ballad of "hardyknute." ethelwulph, although placed, in his father's life-time, upon the throne of kent, had assumed the monastic habit, and a dispensation from the pope had to be obtained before he could be crowned king of wessex. he appears to have been a man of a mild and indolent disposition, one who would have made a better monk than a monarch, and have been much happier in the dreamy quietude of the cloister, than in the stir and tumult of the camp. alstan, the bishop of sherbourne, who had shared the council and favour of egbert, was the first to arouse ethelwulph from his natural lethargy; for the bishop possessed a fiery and military spirit, better adapted to lead an army into battle, and to sound the war-cry, than to guide a peaceful flock along those pleasant pastures, where prayer and praise ought alone to be heard. could the king and the priest but have exchanged places, the spirit of egbert would yet have been left in the land; as it was, however, alstan did his best--recruited the exchequer, raised a strong military force, and, though but feebly backed by his sovereign, he placed the country in an abler state of defence than it otherwise would have been, and was instrumental in baffling many of the daring incursions of the danes. every attack they now made became more formidable; they ventured up the largest rivers; pillaging all the towns they came near, and escaping with the spoil;--for four days, with a favourable wind, was time enough to sail from their own shores to the southern coast of britain. at length, they began to think that the hours lost in voyaging to and fro might be turned to better account if they settled down at once upon our coast; and in the year , they took up their winter quarters in the island of thanet. there could now no longer remain any doubt of their intentions; they were treading in the very footsteps which hengist and horsa had left behind; they had taken possession of the soil. the following spring, three hundred and fifty ships entered the thames; london and canterbury were plundered; the danes marched onward into mercia, defeated bertulph, ravaged the country for miles, then turned round again and entered surrey. here, however, they found ethelwulph, and his son ethelbald, at the head of the west saxons, ready to receive them; and at okely, or the field of oaks, as the spot was then called, the saxons, after a hard fight, won the victory--such a desperate and deadly struggle had not taken place for many years in britain; more than half of the danish army perished in the field. another son of ethelwulph's had defeated the danes at sandwich, and captured nine of their ships. the men of devonshire had also obtained a victory over them at wenbury. such was the consternation they had already spread, that every wednesday was now set apart as a day of prayer, to implore the divine aid against the danes. hitherto it had but been the muttering of the tempest, with a few flashes playing about the dark edges of the thunder-cloud; the terrible and desolating burst had yet to come. but there was now slowly growing up to manhood one who was soon destined to stand in the front of the storm--who was born to tread, sure-footed, through the rocking of the whirlwind:--to his boyish days will we now for a few moments turn aside. the mother of alfred was named osberga; she was the daughter of oslac, the king's cup-bearer--as ambassador of ethelwulph, he signed the charter in which wiglaf gave the monastery and lands of croyland to the abbot siward and his successors. osberga was a lady celebrated for her piety and intellectual attainments, talents which could have been of but little service in the education of alfred, for before he had reached his seventh year, ethelwulph, in his old age, became enamoured of a youthful beauty--judith, the daughter of charles of france, and her he married, although there scarcely remains a doubt that osberga was still living. it was on his return from rome with the youthful alfred, that ethelwulph first became smitten with the princess judith. we have shown that it was customary for the saxon kings to make a pilgrimage to rome, and as ethelwulph is said to have loved alfred "better than his other sons," he had him introduced to the pope, and anointed with holy oil, although he was the youngest of all his children--a clear proof that he intended him to become his successor. the presents which ethelwulph made to the pope were of the costliest description, and show that even at this early period the saxon kings must have been in the possession of considerable wealth. they consisted of a crown of pure gold, which weighed four pounds, two vessels of the same material, two golden images, a sword adorned with pure gold, and four dishes of silver gilt, besides several valuable dresses. he also gave gold and silver to the priests, the nobles, and the people; rebuilt the school which ina had founded, and which, by accident or carelessness, had been burnt down; and above all, procured an order from the pope, that no englishman, while in rome, whether an exile or a public penitent, should ever again be bound with iron bonds. when he returned to england with his girlish wife, and the youthful alfred, he found his eldest son ethelbald at the head of a rebellion, backed by his old friend bishop alstan, and the earl of somerset. the cause assigned for this insurrection was, that ethelwulph had raised judith to the dignity of queen, contrary to the law of wessex, for, as we have before shown, the west saxons had abolished that title, on account of the crimes committed by edburga. the real cause, however, appears to have been a jealousy of the favour shown to alfred. but ethelwulph was now in his dotage, and as in his younger days he had never evinced much of a warlike spirit, he by the intercession of his nobles came to an amicable arrangement with his son, and after this survived about two years, leaving ethelbald the crown, which he had been so eager to assume. but neither crown, throne, nor sceptre, satisfied ethelbald, unless he also possessed the young widow, judith. it is said that she was but twelve years old when ethelwulph married her, and that she had never been more to the old king than a companion. this, however, silenced not the clamour of the church, and ethelbald is said to have dismissed her;--a point much doubted,--although it is clear enough that he did not survive his father above three years. the monkish writers attribute his short career to his unnatural marriage. judith left england, and for a short time resided in france, in a convent near senlis. while here, she captivated baldwin, surnamed the arm of iron, by whom she was carried off (nothing loth) and married. her father, it is said, applied to the pope to excommunicate baldwin, for having taken away a widow forcibly. but whether the pretty widow told another tale, or baldwin had influence enough to reach the ear of the pontiff, or by whatever other means the matter was arranged, the pope took a very lenient view of the affair, and judith's third marriage was solemnized with the full approbation of her father. baldwin became earl of flanders. the son of judith, on a later day, married the daughter of alfred the great, from whom matilda, the wife of william the conqueror, afterwards descended, and from whom has come down our long race of english kings to the present time. the adventures of queen judith, her marriages with ethelwulph and his son, together with her elopement from the convent with baldwin, the grand forester, are matters that still sleep amongst the early records of the olden time, and such as require the hand of a bold historian to bring them clearly before the public eye. we are now reaching the border-land of more stirring times. ethelbert succeeded his brother ethelbald; and his short reign was disturbed by the repeated attacks of the danes, who again wintered in the isle of thanet, overran kent, and extended their ravages to the eastern parts of the country. after a reign of six years, ethelbert died, and ethelred ascended the throne of wessex;--during his reign, alfred began to take an active part in the government. but we must now glance backward, and bring before our readers a few of the danish leaders. chief amongst the sea-kings who invaded england about this period, was ragnar lodbrog, whose celebrated death-song has been frequently translated, and is considered one of the oldest of the northern poems which we possess. it was this famous sea-king who led on that terrible expedition which overran france, and destroyed paris. after this, he returned to norway, and built two of the largest ships which had ever sailed upon the northern seas. these he filled with armed men, and boldly steered for the english shore. the art of navigation was then in its infancy; the mighty vessels which ragnar had built he had no control over; they were thrown upon the coast of northumberland, and wrecked. a saxon king, named ella, at this time ruled the northern kingdom, for egbert had long before placed tributary sovereigns over all the states he conquered. the bold sea-king had no choice left to him, but either to plunder or perish, no matter how powerful the enemy might be that came out against him; his ships were wrecked, and all means of escape cut off. with an overwhelming force compared with that of ragnar, ella met the sea-king, and though so unequally matched, the pirate and his followers behaved bravely. four times did ragnar rush into the opposing ranks, making an opening through them wherever he appeared. he saw his warriors perish around him one by one, until he alone was left alive out of all that daring band,--every soul, excepting himself, was slain in the combat. ella took the brave sea-king prisoner, and, bleeding as he was with his wounds, shut him up in a deep dungeon, among live and venomous adders. the charmed mantle which his wife aslauga had given him, had proved of no protection; and it was upon his death that the celebrated song, which we have before-mentioned, was composed. it has been attributed to the sea-king himself, though it is hardly possible that it could have been his own composition; for as he perished in the dungeon, it is not likely that his enemies would preserve a lay that set at defiance all their tortures, and triumphed over their former defeats. the following extracts will convey some idea of the ancient scandinavian war-songs:-- "we struck with our swords, when in the flower of my youth i went out to prepare the banquet of blood for the wolves, when i sent the people from that great combat in crowds to the halls of odin. our lances pierced their cuirasses--our swords clave their bucklers. "we struck with our swords, and hundreds lay around the horses of the island rocks--those great sea promontories of england. we chaunted the mass of spears with the uprising sun. the blood dropped from our swords; the arrows whistled in the air as they went in quest of the helmets. oh! it was a pleasure to me, equal to what i felt when i first held my beautiful bride in my arms. "we struck with our swords, on that day when i laid low the young warrior who prided himself on his long hair, and who had just returned that morning from wooing the beautiful girls. but what is the lot of a brave man but to die amongst the first? a wearisome life must he lead who is never wounded in the great game of battle--man must resist or attack. "we struck with our swords! but now i feel that we follow the decrees of fate, and bow to the destiny of the dark spirits. never did i believe that from ella the end of my life would come, when i urged my vessels over the waves--but we left along the bays of scotland a banquet for the beasts of prey. still it delights me to know that the seats of odin are ready for the guests, and that there we shall drink ale out of large hollowed skulls. then grieve not at death in the dread mansion of fiolner. "we struck with our swords! oh! if the sons of aslauga but knew of my danger, they would draw their bright blades and rush to my rescue. how the venomous snakes now bite me. but the mother of my children is true; i gained her that they might have brave hearts. the staff of vithris will soon stick in ella's heart. how the anger of my sons will swell when they know how their father was conquered. in the palace of my heart the envenomed vipers dwell. "we struck with our swords! in fifty and one combats have i fought, and summoned my people by my warning-spear-messenger. there will be found few kings more famous than i. from my youth i loved to grasp the red spear. but the goddess invites me home from the hall of spoils; odin has sent for me. the hours of my life are gliding away, and, laughing, i will die." the tidings of the terrible death of ragnar were not long in travelling to the rocky coast of norway; in every creek, and bay, and harbour, it resounded, and wherever a sea-king breathed around the baltic, he swore on his bracelet of gold to revenge the death of the renowned chieftain; all petty expeditions were laid aside; dane, swede, and norwegian, united like one man; and eight kings, and twenty jarls, or petty chieftains, all joined in the enterprise, at the head of which ingwar and hubba, the two sons of ragnar, were placed; all the relations and friends of ragnar, no matter how remote, swelled the force that had congregated to revenge his death. although this mighty fleet was directed towards northumbria, by some chance it passed the coast, and came to anchor on the shores of east anglia. no one in england was apprized of its approach. ethelred had not been long seated on the throne of wessex, and northumbria was still shaken by internal revolutions; for osbert, who had been expelled by ella from the deiri, was now making preparations to regain the kingdom. the danes did not, however, commence hostilities so soon as they landed, but quietly overawing the country by their mighty force, they took up their winter quarters within their intrenchments, and moored their vessels along the shore. they demanded a supply of horses; the king of east anglia furnished them; he intruded not upon their encampment, neither did they molest him. the rest of the saxon states looked calmly on, trusting that the tempest would burst where it had gathered, and that they should escape the terrible storm; but they were doomed to be disappointed. with the first warm days of spring, the whole danish host was in motion; such an army had never before overrun the british island. the sons of ragnar strode sullenly onward at its head. they halted not until they reached york, the metropolis of the deira; they swept through the city in their devastating march, leaving sorrow, and slaughter, and death, to mark their footsteps; destroying all before them as they passed, until they reached the banks of the tyne. osbert and ella had by this time become united, and began to advance at the head of a large army, which numbered amongst its commanders eight earls. the danes had again fallen back upon york, and near the outskirts of that city were first attacked by the northumbrians. the assault was so sudden that the pagans were compelled to fly into the city for shelter. flushed with this temporary victory, the saxons began to pull down the city walls, and once within its streets, the danes then rose up, and fell upon the northumbrians, whom they cut down with terrible slaughter--nearly the whole of the saxon army perished. ella fell alive into their hands, and horribly did the sons of ragnar revenge their father's death. all the tortures which cruelty could devise, they inflicted upon him. so decisive was the victory, that northumbria never again became a saxon kingdom, but was ruled over with an iron hand by one of the sons of ragnar. the work of vengeance could go no further; they had put the king to a lingering and agonizing death, and having desolated his kingdom, one of the sons of the terrible sea-king, whose spirit they had appeased, sat down upon the vacant throne, and, from the tyne unto the humber, reigned the undisputed sovereign. thus was the death of ragnar revenged. having once taken possession of the kingdom, the danes began to fortify york, and to strengthen the principal towns in the neighbourhood. from northumberland to the shores of the humber they strengthened their great mustering ground, and made it a rallying point for all the sea-kings who had courage enough to brave the perils of the baltic, and venture their lives, like the sons of ragnar, for a kingdom. all who had aided in revenging the death of ragnar, now invited their kindred and followers over to england. they came in shoals, until northumbria was filled like an overstocked hive that awaits a favourable opportunity to swarm. that deep buzzing was soon heard which denoted that they were ready to swarm, for there was now no longer room for so many. the dark cloud passed with a humming sound through the deiri, along the pleasant valley of the trent, through the wild forest of sherwood, whose old oaks then stood in all their primitive grandeur, until they saw before them the walls of nottingham rising high above their rocky foundation. the inhabitants fled into the surrounding forest, or hurried over the trent into the adjoining county of lincolnshire, where burrhed, the king of mercia, resided. alarmed by the rumour of such an host, the mercian king sent into wessex for assistance; and ethelred, joined by his brother alfred, who was now slowly rising, like a star on the rim of the horizon, hastened with their united armies to assist the mercian king. but the danes were too strongly entrenched within the walls of nottingham to be driven out by the combined forces of mercia and wessex. the saxons, well aware of the strength of these fortifications, were compelled to encamp without the walls, for the tall rocky barriers on which the castle yet stands, and the precipitous and cavernous heights which still look down upon the river lene, formed strong natural barriers from which the danish sentinels could look down with triumph, and defy the assembled host that lay encamped at their feet. after some delay, a treaty was entered into between the contending armies, and the danes agreed to fall back upon york; the river idel, which is so narrow that the points of two long lances would meet, if held by a tall chieftain on either shore, was the slender barrier that divided the opposing nations; a roe-buck from a rising summit could readily overleap it, and in an hundred places it was fordable. ethelred and his brother alfred, (who had now numbered about nineteen years,) led back their army into wessex, and allowed the danes to pursue their way quietly into deiri. this forbearance is greatly censured by the early historians, but we must bear in mind that alfred was not yet king, and that ethelred but came up as an ally on the side of mercia. he who was destined to become the greatest sovereign that ever sat upon the english throne, was at this period one of the most daring followers of the chase, for, although he was from childhood a martyr to a painful disease, yet where the antlered monarch of the forest led the way, there was alfred to be seen foremost amongst the hunters. young as he was, he had already married a mercian lady, called ealswitha, and some portion of wessex was allotted to him, probably such as had been held by his father ethelwulph, when the subjects rebelled on account of his step-mother judith. slightly as we have passed by this frail fair lady, alfred was greatly indebted to her; she first tempted him to read when he was only twelve years of age; but for her he might, like his brothers, have remained in ignorance. she first pointed out the path which guided him to the literature of rome; he had trod the streets of the "eternal city," and his wise laws tell us the use he made of his learning. we are compelled to drag the great king bit by bit before our readers, lest we should startle them by his too sudden appearance; for he seems to rise above the age in which he lived with an unnatural majesty--there is no relief near to where he stands, no neighbouring summit which he might descend that would seem to lessen his giant form in its shadow;--bold and bare and giant-like his god-imaged figure heaves up, and with its mighty shadow eclipses the very sunset which, though ever sinking, leaves not in gloom the bright form that makes the "darkness visible" by which it is surrounded. chapter xx. ravages of the danes--death of ethelred. "we look in vain for those old ruins now, for the green grass waves o'er that ample floor, and where the altar stood rank nettles grow; none mourned its fall more than the neighbouring poor, they passed its ruins sighing, day by day, and missed the beadsman in his hood of gray, who never bade the hungry turn away."--the old abbey. spring, that gives such life and beauty to the landscape, but aroused the danes to new aggressions, and they this time marched into the opposite division of mercia, crossing the humber and the trent, and landing in that part of lincolnshire which is still called lindsey, where they spread death and desolation wherever they passed. from north to south they swept onward like a destroying tempest; the busy hamlet, the happy home, and the growing harvest, all vanished beneath their footsteps. where in the morning sunshine, the pleasant village, and the walled town, stood upon the high cliffs and overlooked the wild wold and reedy marish; the dim twilight dropped down upon a waste of smoking ruins, and blackened ashes, while such of the inhabitants as escaped the merciless massacre, either sheltered in the gloomy wood, where "the grey wolf of the weald" had its lair, or in the sedgy swamp where the wild swan built, and the black water-hen went paddling onward before her dusky and downy young ones. wherever a church or a monastery stood up amid the scenery, thitherward the danes directed their steps, for to slaughter the priest at the altar, and carry their clamorous war-cry into the choir, where they changed the hymning of the psalter into the groans and shrieks of agonised death, was to them a delight, equal to that of the heaven which they hoped to inhabit hereafter. but sack, slay, burn, and destroy, are words which but faintly describe the ravages of these northern pagans, that fall upon the ear with an indistinct meaning; and it is only by following them step by step, and bringing their deeds before the eye of the reader, that we can throw the moving shadows of these savage sea-kings for a moment upon our pages. having ravaged the district of lindsey, destroyed the beautiful monastery of bardney, and killed every monk they found within its walls, they crossed the witham, and entered that division of lincolnshire which is called kesteven--here a stand was made against them. the earl of algar, with his two officers, wibert and leofric, mustered together the inhabitants who dwelt around the wild and watery neighbourhood of croyland, and being joined by the forces which osgot the sheriff of lincoln had collected, and aided by a monk who had once been a famous warrior, and now cast aside his cowl to don a heavy helmet, they sallied forth in the september of , and gave battle to the danes. after a sharp contest, in which three of the sea-kings were slain, the men of mercia drove the pagans into their intrenchments, nor did they cease from assailing them in their stronghold until darkness had settled down upon the land. but a thousand men, though backed by so good a cause, were sure to fall at last before such a mighty and overwhelming host as the invaders presented. it so chanced that during the day, when the handful of brave saxons were victorious, the danish forces had divided, but in the night the division, which had been delayed by their work of destruction, entered the camp, into which the defeated force had been driven. thus, by daylight, the pagan army was more than doubled. amongst these new comers were the two sea-kings who had taken such terrible vengeance on ella, for the death of their father, ragnar. the arrival of such a force spread great consternation amongst the little band of saxons, who were encamped without the danish intrenchments, and many of the peasants fled during the night to their homes--the brave only remained behind to die. in the early dawn of that bygone autumn morning, the danes arose and buried the three sea-kings who had fallen the day before in battle. the saxons looked calmly on, but moved not, until the solemn ceremony was ended: the savage hubba was present at that funeral. algar stood ready, with his little force drawn up in the form of a wedge; he placed himself and his officers in the centre, confided the right wing to the monk tolius, and the left to the sheriff of lincoln; they planted their shields so closely together, that each one touched its fellow; they held their strong projecting spears pointing outward with a firm grasp, for they knew that their safety depended upon being thus banded together, and thus, awaiting the attack, the solid wedge-like triangle stood. leaving behind a sufficient force to protect their encampment, which was filled with plunder and captives, the remainder of the danes, headed by four kings and eight jarls or earls, sallied forth to give battle to the saxons. the first shock was terrible, but it broke not the well-formed phalanx, though it jarred along the lines like a chain that is struck; for a moment each link swung, there was a waving motion along the ranks, then the horsemen recoiled again, for the line was still unbroken. the danish javelins penetrated only the shields, the horses shrank back from the piercing points of the saxon spears. savage hubba could not get near enough to strike with his heavy battle-axe--the morning-star, which made bright flashes around the head of ingwar as he wielded it, swung harmless before that bristling forest of steel. upon the lonely moors and the damp marshes a dim mist began to gather, and along the distant ridge where the wild forest stretched far away, the evening shadows began to fall, when the danes, wearied and enraged at being so long repulsed, made another attack;--then wheeling round, feigned a defeat. in vain was the warning voice of the earl of algar raised; in vain did the monk intreat of them, by the name of every blessed saint in the calendar, to stand firm; it was too late--the little band was broken--they were off in the pursuit--the danes were flying before them--and onward they rushed, making the air resound again with the shouts of victory. suddenly the danish force turned upon their pursuers. hubba made a circle with his cavalry to the right; to the left the centre came back like an overwhelming wave, and the saxons were surrounded. all was lost. neither the skill of algar nor the bravery of tolius were now of any avail; there was nothing left but to stand side by side, and to fight until they fell. but few of that brave band escaped; those who did, availed themselves of the approaching darkness, and plunging into the adjoining forest, hastened to the distant monastery of croyland, to publish their own defeat. it was the hour of matins, when, pale, weary, and breathless, two or three of the saxon youths who had escaped from the scene of slaughter, rushed into the choir of the monastery with the tidings that all excepting themselves had perished. the abbot uplifted his hand to command silence when he saw them enter, and the solemn anthem in a moment ceased. he then bade the monks who were young and strong, to take a boat, and carry off the relics of the saints, the sacred vessels, jewels, books, and charters, and all the moveable articles of value, and either to bury them in the marshes, or sink them beneath the waters of the lake, until the storm had passed over. "as for myself," added the abbot, "i will remain here, with the old men and children, and peradventure, by the mercy of god, they may take pity on our weakness." the children were such as at that period were frequently brought up, by the consent of their parents, in the habits of a monastic life, and who in their early years sung in the choir:--amongst the old monks were two whose years outnumbered an hundred. alas! the venerable abbot might as well have looked for mercy from a herd of ravenous and howling wolves, that came, gaunt, grey, and hungry, from the snow-covered wintry forest, as from the misbelieving danes, who were then fast approaching. all was done as he commanded; the most valuable treasures were rowed across the lake to the island of thorns, and in the wood of ancarig, those who were not brave enough to abide the storm found shelter. one rich table plated with gold, that formed a portion of the great altar, rose to the surface, and as they could not sink it, it was taken back, and again restored to its place in the monastery. meantime the flames which shone redly between the forest-trees, told that the last village had been fired; every moment brought nearer the clamour of the assailants, until at last the tramp of horses could be distinctly heard: then the ominous banner on which the dusky raven was depicted hove in sight, and the whole mass came up with a deep, threatening murmur, which drowned the voice of the abbot and the monks, and the little children, as they continued to chaunt the psalter in the monastery. at the foot of the altar, in his sacerdotal robes, was the abbot hewn down; the grey hairs of the venerable priests protected them not--those who rushed out of the choir were pursued and slaughtered; there was scarcely a slab on the floor of the sacred edifice that was not slippery with blood. some were tortured to make them confess where their treasures were concealed, and afterwards beheaded, for the danes acted more like fiends, let loose to do the work of destruction, than like men. there was one exception on that dreadful day--one human life was saved by the intervention of a dane, and but for him every soul would have perished. the prior had been struck down early in the massacre by the battle-axe of hubba; as he lay dead upon the pavement, a little boy about ten years of age clung to him and wept bitterly, for he had been greatly attached to the prior. the slaughter was still going on, when sidroc, one of the sea-kings, paused with the uplifted sword in his hand to gaze on the boy, who knelt weeping beside the dead body of the prior. struck by his beautiful and innocent countenance, the danish chief took off his cassock, and throwing it around the little chorister, said, "quit not my side for a moment." he alone was saved--excepting those who had previously fled with the boat and the treasures. disappointed at finding neither gold nor jewels, the pagans broke open the tombs, and scattered around the bones of the dead, and as there was no longer any one at hand to slay, they set fire to the monastery. laden with cattle and plunder, they next proceeded to peterborough, burning and slaying, and destroying whatever they met with on their march. the abbey of peterborough was considered at this time as one of the finest ecclesiastical edifices in england. it was built in the solid saxon style, with strong stunted pillars, crypts, vaulted passages, oratories, and galleries, while the thick massy walls were pierced with circular windows, and contained the finest library which had ever been collected together in britain; the gift of many a pilgrim who had visited the still proud capital of italy. the doors of this famous building were so strong that for some time they resisted the attacks of the danes, and as the monks and their retainers had resolved to defend themselves as long as they could, neither the besieged nor the besiegers remained idle. from the circular windows, and the lofty roof of the abbey, the monks and their allies threw down heavy stones, and hurled their sharp javelins at the enemy, who had hitherto endeavoured in vain to break open the ponderous doors. at last the brother of hubba was struck to the earth by a stone, and carried wounded into his tent. this act seemed to redouble the fierce energy of the danes, and in a few minutes after they drove in the massy gates. in revenge for the wound his brother had received, the brutal hubba, with his own hand, put eighty-four monks to death;--he demanded to be the chief butcher on the occasion, and the request was freely granted him. the child whom sidroc had rescued from death at croyland stood by and witnessed that savage slaughter, and the friend who had saved him stooped down, and whispering in his ear, bade him not approach too near hubba. the boy, as we shall see, needed not a second warning. all who had aided in defending the monastery, excepting the few who escaped at the commencement of the attack, were put to death. the library was burnt, the sepulchres broken open, and the abbey fired; and for nearly fifteen days was that noble edifice burning, before it was totally consumed. many a deed and charter, and valuable manuscript, which would have thrown a light on the manners and customs of that period, were consumed in the flames. laden with spoil, the merciless pagans next marched towards huntingdon. sidroc had charge of the rear-guard, which brought up the plunder. two of the cars, containing the spoil of the monastery, were overturned in a deep pool, while passing a river, and as the sea-king lingered behind, and was busily engaged in superintending his soldiers, and aiding them to save all they could from the wreck, the child who had witnessed such scenes of bloodshed took advantage of the confusion, and escaped. having concealed himself in a wood until the faint and far-off sounds of the danish army had died away, he set off across the wild marshes alone, and in the course of a day and a night found his way back again to croyland. poor little fellow! the smoking ruins and the weeping monks, who had returned from their hiding-place in the island of thorns, and who were then wailing over their murdered brethren, were the melancholy sights and sounds that greeted his return home;--a stern school was that for a child of ten years old to be nursed in! he told them all he had witnessed at peterborough; they gathered around him to listen; they ceased to throw water on the burning ruins until his tale was ended; they left the headless body of their venerable abbot beneath the mighty beam which had fallen across it, nor attempted to extricate it until he had finished "his sad, eventful history." then it was that they again wept aloud, throwing themselves upon the ground in their great anguish, until grief had no longer any tears, and the sobbing of sorrow had settled down into hopeless silence. that over, they again commenced their sad duty: the huge grave was deepened, the dead and mutilated bodies were dragged from under the burning ruins, and placing the abbot on the top of the funeral pile, they left them in one grave, covered beneath the same common earth, to sleep that sleep which no startling dream can ever disturb. scarcely was this melancholy duty completed, before the few monks who had escaped from the massacre of peterborough made their appearance. they had come all that way for assistance, for, excepting themselves, there were none left alive to help to bury their murdered brethren, on whose bodies the wolves from the woods, they said, were already feeding. with heads bent, and weeping eyes, and breaking hearts, those poor monks had moved mournfully along, leaving the wolves to feed upon their butchered brothers beside the blackened ruins of their monastery, until they could find friends who would help them to drag the half-consumed remains from beneath the burning rafters, place them side by side, and, without distinction, bury them in one common and peaceful grave. how clearly we can picture that grave group on their journey! their subdued conversation by the way, of the dead, whose good deeds they discussed, or whose vices they left untouched, as they recalled their terrible ending; the country through which they passed, desolate; the inhabitants, who were wont to come on holy-days to worship, fled; a hamlet here reduced to ashes, there a well-known form, half consumed, stretched across the blackened threshold. we can picture the wolf stealing away until they had passed; the raven, with his iron and ominous note, making a circle round their heads, then returning to the mother or the infant, half hidden in the sedge beside the mere, or with her long hair floating loose amongst the water-flags, amid which she was stabbed as she ran shrieking, with the infant at her breast. wherever they turned their eyes, there would they behold desolation, and death, and decay,--see homes which the fire had consumed, in ruins; or where the children had escaped, witness them weeping beside the roofless walls, fatherless, motherless, hopeless; for such was the england of those days, over which the destroying sea-kings passed. let us, however, hope, that there were a few like sidroc amongst them; that the raven and the wolf were not their only attendants, but that the angel of mercy, though concealed in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night, was still there, and though unseen, many a time stretched forth his hand to rescue. it is painful to picture such scenes as our history presents at this period; they are all either soaked through with the blood of the slain, or black and crackled with the scorching flames which have passed over them. it makes us shudder to think what they who once lived and moved as we now do, must have endured; while, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years, we cannot portray their sufferings without sympathizing with their sorrows, and experiencing a low, heart-aching sensation. the grave that covers up and buries the past, inters not all pain and sorrow with the dead, but leaves a portion behind, that the living may feel what they once suffered--the agonizing shriek, and the heart-rending cry, ring for ages after upon our ears;--such sounds disturb not the silent chambers of the dead! the danes now proceeded to march into east anglia, a kingdom whose inland barrier was marked by vast sheets of water that set in from the wash, and went winding away into the low marshes of cambridge, far away beyond ely, over a country above an hundred miles in extent. along this boggy and perilous course did the pagans advance with their plunder, their cars, and their cavalry; razing the monastery of ely to the ground as they passed, nor pausing until they came to the residence of the king of east anglia, which stood beside a river that then divided suffolk from norfolk. when the danish king came in sight of edmund's residence, he sent him a message, commanding him to divide his treasures with him; also bidding the messenger to tell the east anglian king that it was useless to oppose a nation whom the storms of the ocean favoured--whom the tempests served as rowers, and the lightning came down to guide, that they might in dark nights escape the rocks. they gave the saxon king but little time for hesitation before they dragged him forth, and bound him to a tree. they had no words to waste: slaughter was their work, and they commenced it at once. they began by shooting arrows at his limbs, without injuring the body; but finding that they could neither get him to confess their superiority, nor show any symptom of fear, ingwar at last uplifted his heavy battle-axe, and severed the head at a blow. thus, east anglia, like a portion of northumbria, became a danish province; and godrun, a celebrated sea-king, whom we shall again meet during the reign of alfred, was placed upon the throne. their next step was towards wessex; for they well knew that if they could but once conquer that kingdom, the dominions of mercia would become an easy prey, as these were the only two saxon states that seemed able to withstand them. wessex, as we have shown, was much enlarged since the first formation of the octarchy, and was soon destined to swallow up for ever the kingdom of mercia; for burrhed was not competent to stand long at the helm and steer safely through such a storm as surrounded him. having reached berkshire, the northmen took possession of reading without opposition, when they at once sent out a strong body of cavalry to plunder, while the remainder of the army commenced throwing up an intrenchment to strengthen their position. scarcely had they time to complete this work before the west saxons attacked them; and though at the first they seem to have had the best of the battle, they were in the end compelled to retreat, and leave the invaders masters of the field. at the second attack, both ethelred and alfred were present; they led up the strongest array that could be mustered;--to every town, thorpe, and grange, war-messengers had been despatched with the naked sword and arrow in their hands, uttering the ancient proclamation, which none had hitherto disobeyed, and which bade "each man to leave his house and land, and come;" the mustering ground was near Æscesdun, or ash-tree hill. the danes divided their army into two bodies, each of which was commanded by two kings and two earls. ethelred followed the example they had set him, giving the command of one division of his army to alfred. as the danes had been the first to form into battle order, so did they commence the attack; and although they had the advantage of the rising ground, alfred, nothing daunted, led his forces in close order up the ascent to meet them. near the hoar ash-tree the contending ranks closed, and there many a dane and saxon fell, who never more passed that barrier until they were borne away on the bier. although ethelred had heard the war-cry, and knew that the battle had commenced, he refused to leave his tent until his priest had finished the prayer which he was offering up, when the danes first charged down the hill-side. by the time it was ended, alfred, with his inferior force, though fighting their way foot to foot, were slowly losing ground, and but for the timely appearance of ethelred, and the division under his command, he must have retreated. as it was, however, the sudden arrival of such a strong force changed the fortune of the day. one of the sea-kings fell; and beside him, sidroc, who had saved the child from the massacre of croyland; then the danish ranks began to waver, for thousands of the invaders had already fallen. but the carnage ended not here: all night long did the saxons chase their pagan enemies, until, towards the evening of the next day, and from the foot of the hill where the battle was fought--far away over the fields of ashdown, and over the country that now lies beside ashbury, up to the very intrenchment at reading--was the whole line of road strewn with the dying and the dead;--there the massacre of croyland and peterborough was revenged, and for days after the bodies of the danes lay blackening in the sun. but terrible as was the slaughter, and complete the victory, a fortnight saw the northmen again in the field, strengthened by reinforcements, who had landed upon the coast, and by these were the saxons, in their turn, defeated. in the next battle that was fought between them, ethelred received his death wound; and alfred the great ascended the throne of wessex. over the threshold of this perilous period must we now pass, to the presence of one of england's greatest kings. chapter xxi. accession and abdication of alfred. "in fortune's love--then the bold and coward, the wise and fool, the artist and unread, the hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin;-- but in the wind and tempest of her frown, distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, puffing at all, winnows the light away."--shakspere. alfred was scarcely twenty-two years of age when he ascended the throne of wessex--it was on the eve of a defeat when the sceptre fell into his hands--when the danes were flushed with victory, and nearly all england lay prostrate at their feet. with such a gloomy prospect before him, we can easily account for the reluctance he showed in accepting the crown, although it was offered to him by all the chiefs and earls who formed the witenagemot, when there were children of his elder brother ethelbald alive, who, according to the saxon order of succession, were the next heirs to the crown. but the wessex nobles were already well acquainted with alfred's talents, for during the twelve months prior to his accession, he had distinguished himself in eight pitched battles against the danes, and had fought in many an unrecorded skirmish against parties of the enemy who were sent out to forage. alfred well knew that the death of ethelred would hardly leave him breathing-time, before he should again be compelled to take the field; that he also had to fight under the disadvantage which necessarily attends a defeat; while the enemy came swelling in all the triumph of recent victory; that he had to repair his late losses, and rouse afresh his subjects, who were still smarting with the wounds they had received from their conquerors, while the invaders were made more daring by every conquest, and more insolent by every concession. such was the state of the kingdom into which alfred was ushered by the death of his brother: nor was this all--he no doubt, with his clear eye, saw that it was no longer a mere struggle between two parties, where the one seeks to plunder, and the other to protect his property, but a contest for the very land on which they fought. the danes had ceased to trust for safety to their "sea-horses"--they had abandoned "the road of the swans," they but travelled over it to a land in which their countrymen were now kings, where their brethren were in the possession of cities and lands--they came to share in the inheritance of the soil--either to find their future homes, or their graves in england. the prize each party was now contending for, was england itself--it was neither more nor less than to decide whether our island should in future be ruled over by the danes, or the saxons. it was but what the romans had beforetime aspired to, and what, after a hard struggle, the saxons themselves had accomplished. well might alfred despair when he looked at his shattered army, and saw how small a portion of england he possessed. what had he gained by the eight hard-fought battles he shared in the year before his accession to the crown? the places of those whom he had helped to hew down were filled up again by the first favourable wind that blew towards his ill-starred kingdom; as the grave closed over the dead, the sea threw another living shoal upon the coast--none returned--if they retreated, it was but to some neighbouring intrenchment, or some kingdom over which a sea-king reigned. alfred had not sat upon the throne of wessex a month, before his army was attacked, at wilton, during his absence, and defeated by the northmen. wearied of a war which only brought victory to-day, to be followed by defeat on the morrow, he made peace with his enemies, and they left the kingdom of wessex, though on what terms we know not, unless it was that alfred agreed not to assist the king of mercia, as his brother ethelred had frequently done. it would almost appear by their marching at once into mercia, that such were the conditions on which they quitted wessex. nine battles in one year must have made a sad opening amongst the west saxons, for, unlike the danes, they had no ships constantly arriving upon the coast to fill up the places of those that were slain. oh, how the young king must have yearned for retirement, and his books! when he looked round and saw the miserable and almost defenceless state of his kingdom--his brave warriors dropping off daily, and none to close the gap that was left open in his ranks. let us leave him for a brief space--his heart heavy, his soul sad, and his head resting upon his hand, with not a ray of hope to cheer him, excepting his trust in god--while we follow the footsteps of the danes. that part of the danish army which abandoned wessex took up its winter quarters in london, at about the same time that another portion of the invaders marched from northumbria, and wintered at repton, in derbyshire, where they sacked and destroyed the beautiful monastery, which for above two centuries had been the burial-place of the mercian kings; and, as at croyland and peterborough, they broke open the sepulchres and scattered abroad the ashes of the saxon monarchs. twice had burrhed, the king of mercia, negotiated with these truce-breakers, as the old chroniclers called them, and finding that they paid no regard to their oaths, and wearied with such a repetition of conflicts, burrhed quitted his throne, went to rome, where he died, and left his subjects to struggle on, or perish, as they best could. instead of placing one of their own kings upon the throne of mercia, the danes gave the crown to ceolwulf, under the stipulation that he should pay them tribute, and assist them with his forces whenever he was called upon; and that when he ceased to fulfil these conditions, he should from that moment resign his power. it would almost appear that there was so little left in the kingdom of mercia worth their taking that they left him to gather up the remainder of the spoil, while they turned their attention to more substantial plunder; but his reign was short, he was hated by those by whom he was employed, as well as by those whom he plundered, for he robbed alike the peasant, the merchant, the clergy, and even on the remnant of the poor monks of croyland, whose brethren had been slain, and whose abbey had been destroyed, regardless of their losses and their sufferings, he imposed a tax of a thousand pounds. but in spite of this stern severity, he soon grew into disfavour with his new masters, was stripped of everything, and perished miserably. after his death, mercia never existed again as a kingdom, but was blotted out for ever from the saxon octarchy as a distinct state; and in an after day, when the power of the invaders began to wane, it was united by alfred to wessex, never again to exist as a separate province. the arena of england was now only occupied by two powers; on the one hand, by alfred, with his little kingdom and his mere handful of west saxons: on the other, by the danes, who were in possession of nearly the whole of the remainder of the island--for, with the exception of the kingdom of wessex, all the rest of the saxon states were in the hands of the invaders. three of the danish sea-kings, named godrun, oskitul, and amund, having, with their army, wintered at cambridge, set out again, early in the spring, to attack wessex; to give alfred another proof how useless it was by either treaty or concession to hope to put off the evil day. this time they brought a large force to oppose him, and besides crossing the country, they sailed round by dorsetshire, where they stormed the castle of wareham; and though alfred destroyed their ships, those who passed inland devastated the country for miles around. alfred seems at this period to have grown weary of war, to have lost all heart and hope, and, for the first time, he purchased peace of them with gold; nor was he long before he had to repent of such timid policy, for although they swore as usual upon their bracelets, and even, at his request, pledged themselves solemnly upon the relics of the christian saints, yet only a few nights after this useless ceremony, they rushed upon his encampment, slew a great portion of his cavalry, and, carrying off the horses, mounted their own soldiers upon them, and rode off to exeter, where they passed the following winter. though weary and dispirited, alfred did not remain idle, but commenced building larger ships and galleys, so that he might be better able to compete with his enemies upon the ocean. such a plan, had it been pursued earlier by the saxon kings, would have caused thousands of the northmen to have found their graves in the ocean ere their feet touched our coast; but now the whole land behind him was filled with enemies, from the edge of the channel, which his own kingdom overlooked, deep down, and far inland, to where the green lands of england stretched unto the frith of forth. hopeless as it now was, alfred boldly sallied forth with his ships, to encounter a fleet of northmen off the hampshire coast, where, having suffered much damage in a previous storm, the danes were defeated, with the loss of one hundred and twenty of their ships. emboldened by this success, alfred collected his army and went forth to attack the danes in their stronghold at exeter. here, however, instead of renewing the assault, and turning to advantage the victory which he had obtained at sea, he contented himself with a few hostages, and a renewal of the oaths, which his experience ought to have taught him they would break on the first favourable occasion, and allowed them once more to depart into mercia. we can only account for this strange conduct on the part of alfred by believing that the population of wessex had been greatly thinned by the rapid succession of battles which had been fought at the close of the reign of ethelred. we now arrive at the most unaccountable action in the life of this great king, the abdication of his throne, and desertion of his subjects. his real cause for acting in this strange manner (unless some new and authentic document should be brought to light) will never be known. in the january of , the danes attacked chippenham; it is not clearly proved that alfred struck a single blow; all we really know for truth is that many of the west saxons fled, some of them quitting england, that alfred was nowhere to be found, not even by his most intimate friends. these are historical truths, too clearly proved to remain for a moment doubtful. the cause we will as carefully examine as if the great saxon king stood on his trial before us, for the honour of alfred is dear to every englishman, for though dead "he yet speaketh" in the wise laws he has bequeathed to us. we know, from many authorities, that when the danes invaded wessex in january, numbers of the inhabitants fled. the effect such conduct would produce on a sensitive mind like alfred's, it is easy to picture; his sensations would be a minglement of pity, contempt, and disgust, and his proud heart would inwardly feel that they knew not how to value him aright; that if left to themselves for a little time they would then know how to estimate the king they had lost. we could fill a chapter with good, tangible reasons, showing why alfred acted as he did, and yet we should, probably, after all, fall far short of the true cause. it might be injured pride, stern necessity, or the very despair which drives men to retire from the contest, to wait for better days. there is one undeniable point clearly in his favour, he did not retreat to enjoy a life of luxury and ease, but to endure one of hardship, privation, and suffering. in this he still remained the great and noble-hearted king. asser, who loved him, clearly proves that alfred, at this time, laboured under a low, desponding, and melancholy feeling. his words are, "he fell often into such misery that none of his subjects knew what had befallen him." surely no king had ever greater cause to feel unhappy; the man who, day after day, struggles on, and still finds matters worse on the morrow, becomes weary of the ever-flickering rays of hope, grows desperate, and plunges amongst the deepest shadows of despair; others, again, through very despondency, fold their arms, and wait until the worst comes, as if a fatality overwhelmed them, for all human perseverance hath its limits; these once passed, men become believers in inevitable destiny. to these alfred, at this time, probably belonged. it appears that alfred did not desert his subjects before they deserted him; and after the many battles that were fought within the year which saw him king of wessex, we can readily conceive he had not a single soldier to spare. he is accused, by those who knew him well, who conversed with him frequently, and saw him daily, of having been high, haughty, and severe; in a word, of looking down with contempt upon those around him. this is a grave charge; but where, with one or two exceptions, could he in his whole kingdom find a kindred mind to his own? asser loved him, but he was an exception. his relation, neot, rebuked him, and a young king would but ill brook lecturing. his chiefs or earls were brave, but illiterate men, not even fit companions for his own cabinet; for he was familiar with the forms of government in civilized rome and classic greece; and, excepting when engaged in the battle-field, there could be no reciprocal feeling between them. these were the sharp and forbidding angles that time was sure to smooth down; but the saxon nobles could not comprehend how they ever came to exist--they did not understand him. there is nothing new in this--it occurs every day. let a man of superior intelligence rise up in a meeting of unlettered boors, and he will find some amongst the herd ready to oppose him, and these generally the least ignorant of the mass, but jealous of one whose capabilities stretch so far beyond their own. who knows how many heart-burnings of this kind he had to endure, when assembled with his barbarous councillors--his mind was not their mind, his thoughts soared far above their understanding. where they believed they distinguished the right, he would at a glance discover palpable wrong; where they doubted, he had long before come to a clear conviction. and no marvel that he at times treated their ignorant clamours with contempt, for he appears to have been as decided and hasty as he was intelligent and brave. he was young. the children of his eldest brother were now men, and from their high station would take an active part in the government. according to the order of saxon succession, one of these ought to have sat upon the throne of wessex. who more likely than they to oppose his wise plans--to thwart him when he was anxiously labouring for the good of his subjects? all that has been brought against him but proves that he was hasty in his temper, high and haughty, and unbending when in the right; and somewhat severe in the administration of justice, especially upon those whom he had appointed as judges, when he found them guilty of tampering with it for selfish ends. it will be borne in mind, that after alfred had compelled the danes to abandon exeter, they retired into mercia, where, in the autumn, they were joined by a strong force of northmen, another cloud of those "locusts of the baltic." they entered wessex at the close of the year, and in january had taken up their winter quarters at chippenham in wiltshire, it would almost appear, without meeting any opposition; for very little dependence can be placed on the account of alfred having been attacked while celebrating christmas there; of numbers being slaughtered on both sides, and alfred escaping alone in the night. no mention has been made of such a battle in the records which were written during alfred's life, and which have descended to us. all we know for a certainty is, that on the approach of the danes, many of the inhabitants fled in terror, some to the isle of wight, others into france; while numbers went over to ireland. it is at this time that we find alfred himself absent from his kingdom. "such became his distress," says turner, quoting from the old chronicles, "that he knew not where to turn; such was his poverty, that he had even no subsistence but that which by furtive or open plunder he could extort, not merely from the danes, but even from those of his subjects who submitted to their government, or by fishing and hunting obtain. he wandered about in woods and marshes in the greatest penury, with a few companions; sometimes, for greater secresy, alone. he had neither territory, nor for a time the hope of regaining any." near to that spot where the rivers thone and parret meet, there is a beautiful tract of country, which still retains its old saxon name of athelney, now diversified by corn and pasture lands; but at the time of alfred, according to the description in the life of st. neot, written at that period, "it was surrounded by marshes, and so inaccessible, that no one could get to it, but by a boat; it had also a great wood of alders, which contained stags, goats, and many animals of that kind. into this solitude alfred had wandered, where, seeing the hut of a peasant, he turned to it, asked, and received shelter." it was in this hut that the incident occurred between the cowherd's wife and alfred, which is so familiar to every reader of english history. we quote asser's description, for there is no doubt that he gave it nearly literally, as he heard it from king alfred's own lips: "it happened, that on a certain day the rustic wife of this man prepared to bake her bread; the king, sitting then near the hearth, was making ready his bows and arrows, and other warlike instruments, when the rough-tempered woman beheld the loaves burning at the fire. she ran hastily and removed them, scolding the king, and exclaiming: 'you man! you will not turn the bread you see burning, but you will be very glad to eat it when done.' this unlucky woman little thought," continues asser, "that she was addressing the king, alfred." this anecdote was often told in an after day, and no doubt awakened many a smile around the cheerful saxon hearths, among both noble and lowly, when the brave monarch had either driven the ravagers from his dominion, or compelled the remnant to settle down peaceably in such places as he in his wisdom had allotted to them. and now, even through the dim distance of nearly a thousand years, we can call up the image of the saxon king, with his grave, intelligent countenance, as he sat in the humble hut, preparing his weapons of the chase, his thoughts wandering far away to those he loved, or brooding thoughtfully over the causes which had forced him from his high estate. we can fancy the angry spot gathering for a moment upon his kingly brow, as, startled by the shrill clamour of the cowherd's wife, he half turned his head, and the faint, good-natured smile that followed, while the glowing embers threw a sunshine over his face, as he afterwards stooped down and turned the loaves which the rough-tempered, but warm-hearted saxon woman had prepared for their homely meal; and this anecdote is all the more endeared to us by the fact that the noble-minded king, on a later day, recommended the cowherd denulf to the study of letters, and afterwards promoted him to a high situation in the church. while residing in the neighbourhood of this cowherd's hovel, says an old manuscript, written a century or two after these events, and attributed to an abbot of croyland, "alfred was one day casually recognised by some of his people, who, being dispersed, and flying all around, stopped where he was. an eager desire then arose both in the king and his knights to devise a remedy for their fugitive condition. in a few days they constructed a place of defence as well as they could; and here, recovering a little of his strength, and comforted by the protection of a few friends, he began to move in warfare against his enemies. his companions were very few in number compared with the barbarian multitude, nor could they on the first day, or by their first attacks, obtain any advantages; yet they neither quitted the foe nor submitted to their defeats; but, supported by the hope of victory, as their small number gradually increased, they renewed their efforts, and made one battle but the preparation for another. sometimes conquerors and sometimes conquered, they learned to overcome time by chance, and chance by time. the king, both when he failed, and when he was successful, preserved a cheerful countenance, and supported his friends by his example." what a rich, unwritten volume, does this last extract contain; what a diary of valorous deeds, keen privations, and patient sufferings! what "footmarks on the sands of time" are here left! these are the great gaps in history which we mourn over--the changes which time has made, as he passed through the human ranks he has hewn down, and which we regret he has not chronicled. we would forgive the grim scythe-bearer the ten thousand battles he has buried in oblivion, had he but preserved for us one day of the life of alfred on this lonely island--one brief record of what he said and did between sunrise and sunset, whilst he sojourned with denulf, the cowherd. alas! alas! time has but shaken off the blood that dappled his pinions, upon the pages of history; the sweet dew-drops which hung like silver upon his plumes, and fed the flowers, have evaporated in the sunsets that saw them wither. although a gloom seemed to have settled down upon the land during the absence of alfred, yet all was not so hopeless as it appeared; for hubba, who with his own hand had shed the blood of so many monks at the massacre of peterborough, had himself been slain by odun, the earl of devonshire; and the magical banner which the three sisters of hubba are said to have woven in one noontide, during which they ceased not to chaunt their mystic rhymes, had fallen into the hands of the saxons. the rumour of such a victory cheered the heart of alfred, and he must have felt humbled at the thought that, while he himself was inactive, there still existed english hearts that preferred pouring forth their best blood to becoming slaves to their invaders. to render his island retreat more secure, alfred caused a defensive tower to be erected on each side of the bridge; and, as this was the only point of access by land, he there placed, as sentinels, a few of his most trusty followers, so that they might be ready to give the alarm in the event of their hiding-place being discovered. scarcely a day passed, but he sallied forth at the head of his little band and assailed the enemy. too weak to attack the main body, he hung upon, and harassed their foragers; he waylaid the danish plunderers as they passed on their way to their camp with the spoil, and again wrested from them what they had wrung from his own countrymen. day and night, alfred and his followers were ever springing unaware upon the invaders from out the wood, the marsh, and the morass; wherever a clump of trees grew, or a screen of willows gave them shelter, there did the saxons conceal themselves until the enemy appeared, when, rushing forth, they laid the spoilers low. such a system of warfare made the king well acquainted with all the secret passes in the neighbourhood, and thus enabled him with his little band to thread his way securely between the bog and the morass, and to attack the northmen at such unexpected points as they never dreamed it was possible for the enemy to pass. such a rugged method of attack also inured them to hardships, kindled the martial spirit which had too long slumbered, and thus schooled alfred in that generalship which he so skilfully brought to bear upon a larger scale when he overthrew the danes. even before his rank was discovered, his fame had spread for miles around the country; and all who had spirit enough to throw off the danish yoke, who preferred a life of freedom in the woods and wilds and had sufficient courage to abandon their homes for the love of liberty, gathered around and fought under the banner of the island stranger. such of the saxons as had stooped to acknowledge the danish rulers, did not escape scathless from the attacks of alfred and his followers; for he made them feel how feeble was the power upon which their cowardly fears had thrown themselves for protection, when measured beside the strength of their own patriotic countrymen. of the straits to which he was sometimes driven, time has preserved one touching record, which beautifully illustrates the benevolence of his character. one day, while his attendants were out hunting, or searching for provisions, and the king sat alone in the humble abode which had been hastily reared for his accommodation, whiling away the heavy hours by the perusal of a book, a poor man came up to him, weary and hungry, and asked his alms in god's name. alfred took up the only loaf which remained, and, breaking it asunder, said, "it is one poor man visiting another;" then, thanking god that it was in his power to relieve the beggar, he shared his last loaf with him; for he well remembered his own privations when he first applied for shelter at the cowherd's hut. turn we now to a brighter page in the life of this great king, when, emerging from his hiding-place, he seemed to spring up suddenly into a new existence, and by his brave and valorous deeds to startle alike both friend and foe. chapter xxii. alfred the great. "'tis much he dare: and, to that dauntless temper of his mind, he hath a wisdom that doth guide his brain to act in safety."--shakspere. near westbury, in wiltshire, may still be seen a hill, which, as it overlooks the neighbouring plain, appears rugged, lofty, abrupt, and difficult of ascent; its summit is marked with the trenches and ditches which the danes threw up when they were encamped upon and around it during the reign of alfred. this spot the saxon king resolved to visit in disguise before he risked the battle on which the fate of his kingdom depended. to accomplish this, he assumed the character of a harper, or gleeman, and approaching the enemy's outposts, he attracted the attention of the sentries by his singing and music; after playing for some time among the tents of the common soldiers, the minstrel was at last led by one of the danish chiefs to the camp of godrun, the sea-king. what were the thoughts of alfred while he looked full in the face of his enemy as he stood before him in his tent? what was the air he played--the words he sang?--though fancy stands ready, with her lips apart, to pour both into our ear, truth, with a grave look, bids us pass on, and from her silence we know they are lost for ever. that alfred narrowly reconnoitred their position, is best proved by the plan he adopted after the victory, when he drew a belt around the whole intrenchment. after he was dismissed from the danish encampments with praise and presents (the latter the plunder of his own subjects), he hastened to his island retreat at athelney, and began to make preparations for attacking the enemy. the naked sword and arrow were borne by faithful emissaries throughout the whole length and breadth of the counties of wiltshire, hampshire, dorsetshire, and somersetshire; and in addition to the ancient and imperative summons brought by these war messengers, they were intrusted with the secret of alfred's hiding-place, and all were commanded to meet him with the strongest military force they could muster, within three days from the time they first received a message. the east side of selwood forest, or, as the saxon name signifies, the wood of willows, was the mustering ground. the spot itself was marked by egbert's stone, said to have been the remains of a druidical monument, and celebrated on account of a victory which egbert once won there. this wood of willows, in the time of alfred, extended about fifteen miles in length, and six in breadth, stretching over the country which now lies from beyond frome to burham. [illustration: _alfred describing the danish camp on his return._] the news of alfred's being alive, when no tidings had been heard of him for nearly six months, spread hope and delight throughout all the adjoining counties; and for three days the west saxons rushed in joyfully to the appointed place of meeting; and never before had the silent shades of selwood forest been startled by such a braying of trumpets and clamour of voices as were ever and anon raised to welcome each new comer--never had alfred before received such warm-hearted homage as he did during those three days from his subjects, nor had king ever before so boldly perilled himself as to enter alone into the enemy's encampment. a grand sight must it have been to have witnessed the saxon banner, with the white horse displayed upon its folds, floating above that grey old druidical monument--to have seen that assembly of brave warriors in the morning sunshine encamped beside the great willow wood, which was then waving in all the green luxuriance that adorns the willow-tree at the latter end of may. it was a sight which, once to have seen, would have made an old man die happy. how we long to know how alfred looked, and what he wore, the colour of the horse he rode upon, and what he said to each new-comer, and whether, during his absence, he looked thinner, or older, or more care-worn. yet all this was seen and heard by thousands, although not a record remains to bring him again before our "mind's eye." when all was ready, alfred marched his newly-raised forces into the enemy's neighbourhood; and though not clearly made out, it would almost appear as if he encamped for the night on a hill, which fronted the intrenchments of the danes. next morning, both armies drew up on the plains of ethandune. behind the forces commanded by godrun rose bratton hill, with its strong encampment, and on this the danes could fall back if they were defeated; behind alfred, there lay, miles away, the little island of athelney, the bridge, the towers, and the cowherd's hut; there was nothing, if he looked back, to tempt him to retreat, only the broad marshes and the wild willow wood for him again to fall upon. the sea-king little thought, as he looked on, a shade paler than when he sat listening to the saxon gleeman in his tent, that the same minstrel commanded the mighty force which was then arrayed before him. by his richest armlet of gold, and the shoulder-blade of his choicest war-horse, he would have sworn, that had he known of the quality of his harper, he would that night have sent him to have played in the banquet-hall of odin. the saxons commenced the attack; for the danish leader, as if something foreboded a defeat, seemed with his army to hug the foot of his encampment;--eager, hot, and impetuous, alfred's soldiers rushed upon the enemy in that reckless order which often ends in defeat, unless it is the impulsive outbreak of determined valour. the danish ranks were broken for a few moments, then rallied again in the hand-to-hand fight as they met the foremost saxons, who had been thrown in amongst them. in this mingled _mêlée_ of uplifted swords, battle-axes, and javelins, and while the danes were slowly regaining the ground they had lost, a shower of arrows was suddenly poured in amongst them, which came full and blinding into their faces, and this was followed by the instant charge of the saxon spearmen; and to add to the panic which had fallen upon the danes, a cry was raised amongst the superstitious soldiers under alfred, that one of the saxon saints had suddenly appeared amongst them, had seized the banner, and borne it into the very thickest of the enemy's ranks. from that moment, the danes began to retreat; there was no withstanding an army which fought under the belief that they were led on by a supernatural leader. alfred himself had risen up so unexpectedly amongst them, that their enthusiasm, which had taken the place of despair, was raised to the highest pitch, they were ready to believe that st. neot, or any other saint in the saxon calendar, had taken their king under his special protection, and they cheerfully followed the mysterious standard-bearer into the very heart of the danish ranks. they scattered the enemy before them like thistle-down before the autumnal blast; wherever the sea-kings rallied for a moment, and made head against the islanders, the saxon storm tore over them, and they vanished like the foam which the wind tears from the billow, and bears howling along as it rushes over the waves, which roll away affrighted before its wrath. the field was strewn with the dead; never before had the danes met with so sudden and decisive a defeat. godrun retreated with the shattered remnant of his army into the intrenchments. alfred surrounded him in his stronghold; every day which saw the danish garrison grow weaker for want of provisions and water, saw the army of alfred strengthened by the arrival of new forces. the saxon king had not left his enemies a single passage by which they could escape, without first fighting their way through the besieging army. on the fourteenth day, godrun capitulated, and humbly sued for peace. generous as he was brave, alfred readily acceded to his request, on such mild terms as must have made the invaders ashamed of the cruelties they had formerly inflicted upon their conquerors. alfred well knew the little value that the danes placed either upon their oaths or their hostages; the former they had ever broken the moment they escaped; and as to the latter, they left them either to perish or be liberated, just as chance directed. they cared not to come back and redeem their pledges when there was plunder before them. alfred knew that england was ample enough for them both; and he proposed that if they would abandon their pagan creed, and settle down peaceably, to cultivate the soil, instead of the arts of war, they should for the future be friends, and he would give them east anglia for an inheritance. godrun thankfully accepted the noble offer, and was baptized. alfred became answerable for the "promises and vows" made by the danish king at the font. the boundaries of the two nations were sworn to in a solemn treaty, and godrun was installed in his new territory, which he parcelled out amongst his followers. the immense space of ground which alfred allotted to the danish king and his soldiers consisted of that which is now occupied by the counties of norfolk, suffolk, cambridgeshire, and essex, together with portions of hertfordshire, bedfordshire, and even a part of huntingdonshire. but alfred did not rest content with merely presenting them with such vast territory; he also protected them with the same equal laws; he made no distinction in the punishment of a crime, whether it was committed by a dane or a saxon--each was to be alike tried by a jury of twelve men. he made ethelred, who afterwards married his daughter ethelfleda, commander over the kingdom of mercia, strengthened his army, and thus planted a strong barrier between that kingdom and the danish settlements of deiri and bernicia. cities, and castles, and fortifications which had fallen into neglect and ruin, he repaired and rebuilt; he separated the country into hundreds and tythings, and established a militia, which were to serve for a given number of weeks, then return home again, and their places to be supplied by others, each changing about in succession. hitherto, the saxons had but little to defend; but now the country was so well protected, that the soldier came and went with a cheerful heart, for he no longer found a pile of blackened ashes to mark the spot where his home had once stood. instead of shuddering lest he should see the mangled remains of his wife and children, or the danish fires reddening the sky, he now approached the calm comforts of his humble english home, and slept securely in the assurance that the eagle eye of alfred was ever sweeping over sea and land, and that ten thousand saxon swords were always ready to be uplifted at his bidding. saxon carols were chaunted in the harvest-fields at the close of the summer of ; and merry voices were heard, where only the year before there sounded "the wailing tones of sad lament," for a mighty mind was now engrossed with the welfare of the people. about this time, a large fleet of danes, under the command of the famous sea-king hastings, arrived in the thames, and, crossing the country, sought the alliance of godrun, who with his soldiers was following the peaceful occupations of husbandry, and the more useful arts of civilized life, when their northern brethren landed. hastings, finding that he could not win godrun from his allegiance to alfred, after wintering at fulham, crossed over into flanders, where he remained for some time at ghent. meantime, alfred continued to increase his navy, to build ships of a larger size, and of such forms as were better adapted to ride out the storm, and to grapple with the enemy on their own element. the saxon and danish ships were constantly coming in contact on the ocean, and now victory generally declared itself in favour of the former. in , another danish fleet invaded england and besieged rochester, but the citizens valiantly defended the place until alfred with his army arrived to relieve them. no sooner did the saxon king appear, than the danes abandoned their fortress, leaving behind the horses and captives they had brought over from france; and, hurrying off with their ships, they again set sail for the coast of gaul. no sooner were they driven out of england, than alfred had to hasten into east anglia, where a strong force of northmen had arrived, and who seemed determined to force the followers of godrun into rebellion. many of the danish settlers preferred their old piratical habits to the more peaceful mode of life which alfred had compelled them to adopt, and readily took down the battle-axe from the smoke-discoloured beam where it had so peacefully rested,[ ] and withdrew the club, bristling with iron spikes, the star of the morning, from its hiding-place, to join the new comers. the first danish ships the saxons attacked, they either captured or sunk, and the northmen are said to have fought so fiercely, that every soul on board perished. another fleet arrived, and gained some slight advantage over the saxons; but in the end alfred conquered, and compelled the danes who occupied east anglia again to settle down to their peaceful occupations. the most celebrated sea-king that tried his strength with alfred, was hastings, or haestan--who again made his appearance--for the weight of his arm had hitherto fallen upon france and flanders, and the opposite coast. for years this famous vikinger had lived upon the ocean; the poets of the period extol him as a monarch whose territories were unbounded, whose kingdom no eye could ever take in at a glance; for his home was upon the sea, his throne where the tempest rose, and his sceptre swayed over realms into which the shark, the sea-horse, the monsters of the deep, and the birds of the ocean dare only venture. he called his ships together by the sound of an ivory horn, which was ever suspended around his neck, and the shrill tones of which might be heard for miles inland, and over the sea--the saxons called it the danish thunder. whenever that blast broke out, the herdsman hurried his cattle into the darkest recesses of the forest--the thane barricaded the doors of his habitation, and the earl drew up his drawbridge, looked up his armour and his attendants, and never ventured to parley with either the sea-king or his followers, unless the deep moat was between them. for a quarter of a century had he harassed the neighbouring nations, living upon the plunder he obtained, until, weary of leading such an unsettled life, he resolved to become a king either over the danes or the saxons, and, now that godrun was dead, he doubted not but that, if he could conquer alfred, his own countrymen would gladly accept him for their monarch. the mighty mind of alfred was busy meditating upon the welfare of his people, and devising plans for their future improvement, when his study was interrupted by the arrival of this new horde of northmen, and he was compelled to throw aside his books and take up the sword. skilled alike in a knowledge of both arts and arms, he readily transformed himself from the statesman to the soldier, and moved, with but little preparation, from the closet to the camp. a heart less brave than alfred's would have quailed at beholding two hundred and fifty danish vessels darkening the kentish coast, especially when the forces they contained landed safely near the large forest of andreade, that far-stretching land of gloomy trees, which had proved so fatal to the britons, when ella led on his saxon hosts to battle with the ancient islanders. but alfred looked on, and remembered the battle of ethandune, and his large eye-lids quivered not, neither did a motion of fear cloud his firmly-chiselled countenance; for he knew that he reigned in the hearts of his subjects. he saw the fortress carried which had been erected in the marshes of romney; beheld his enemies ravaging the country along the coast, and as far inland as berkshire; saw hastings enter the mouth of the thames, with eighty ships, and strongly fortify himself near milton, and then he began to act. wheeling up his army midway, the saxon king struck in between the two divisions of the danish forces; on his right he left them the gloomy forest of andreade, and the straits of dover to fall back upon; on his left the deep mouth of the thames, which opens upon the coast of essex, yet even there planting a strong force between the shore and their ships. wherever the danes moved, to the right or to the left, landward or seaward, the forces of alfred were upon them. if they endeavoured to cross over into essex, they were driven back upon their intrenchments; if they sought to rejoin their brethren beside the sea-coast, the west saxons drove them back. the sea-shores and the skirts of the forest were guarded with jealous eyes. wherever a danish helmet appeared, there was a saxon sword already uplifted. hastings was awe-struck; he was a prisoner in his own stronghold; he lay like a giant, manacled with the very fetters his own strength had forged. if he but stirred a foot, saxon blows fell thick and heavily upon it, and jarred again upon the other limb, which stood useless, and so far apart. alfred left the danes who inhabited east anglia to break loose and ravage at their will, they could but prey upon each other. he kept them aloof from the quarry he was hunting down. shut up within his camp, and not able to send out a single forager with safety, hastings had at last recourse to stratagem, and sent messengers to alfred, offering to leave the kingdom if he would guarantee him a free passage to his ships. to this proposition alfred consented; but no sooner had hastings embarked, as if to fulfil his engagement, than the other division of the army rushed across the country, in the rear of alfred's forces, and crossing the thames where it was fordable, landed in essex, where they met the division assembled under hastings at benfleet. only a portion, however, passed; for, turning his back upon the north foreland, alfred pursued the remainder into surrey, and overtook them at farnham, where he obtained a complete victory; for alfred had so manoeuvred his forces as to place the remnant of the danish army between himself and the thames, and that too at a spot where it was no longer fordable. thus, those who escaped the saxon swords plunged into the river, and were drowned. those who could swim, and a small portion who were fortunate enough to pass the current on horseback, escaped through middlesex into essex, where alfred pursued them across the coln, and finally blockaded them in the isle of mersey. alfred continued the siege long enough to compel the northmen to sue for peace, which he granted them, on condition that they at once quitted england. but scarcely had alfred succeeded in defeating the enemy in one quarter before a new force sprung up, ready armed, and began to make head against him. the danes of northumbria and east anglia, who had for a number of years exchanged their swords and spears for the sickle and the pruning-hook, were no longer able to withstand the temptations which war and plunder offered; but uniting their forces together, resolved to attack wessex. the essex fleet, which, combined with that of hastings, consisted of about a hundred sail, passed without interruption round the north foreland, and along the southern coast, as far as devonshire, where they laid siege to exeter. the other division, consisting of forty vessels that had been fitted out in northumbria, sailed round the north of scotland, and along the western coast, until they reached the bristol channel, where they laid siege to a fortified town on the north of the severn. no sooner did the tidings of this new invasion reach the ears of alfred, than he hastened off to the relief of exeter, where he again conquered the danes, drove them back to their ships, then, crossing over to the severn, he compelled the northumbrian fleet to hasten out of the bristol channel, and once more left the west of england in a state of security. the movements of hastings at this period are not very clearly laid down. he appears to have crossed the thames again, and once more to have established himself in essex, at south benfleet. but whether it was here that the camp of the danish king was broken up and plundered, and his wife and children taken prisoners, or whether it was when he abandoned his encampment in kent that these disasters befel him, it is difficult to understand, so rapid were the movements of both the danes and the saxons at this period. alfred, however, baptized both the sons of hastings, and loading them with presents, sent them back again, together with their mother, in safety to the camp of the danish king. but delicacy and kindness were alike wasted upon this danish chief. having neither home nor country which he could call his own, and a vast family of rapacious robbers to provide for, he had no alternative but either to plunder or starve. he probably would have quitted england, but he knew not where to go; and his danish brethren, fearful that he should settle down with his numerous followers, and take possession of the land which they had for several years so peacefully cultivated, chose what appeared to them the least evil, and assisted him to win new territories from the saxons. [illustration: _alfred releasing the family of hastings._] leaving a portion of his followers to protect the intrenchment in wessex, hastings marched at the head of a powerful force into mercia: for he found it difficult to secure supplies in a neighbourhood which was so narrowly watched by alfred. scarcely was his back turned, before the saxons attacked the stronghold he had quitted, and again carried off his wealth, his family, and his ships. this was the second time the wife and children of hastings had fallen into the hands of alfred. his chiefs intreated of him to put them to death, for hastings had again violated the oath which he had taken to quit the kingdom, but the noble nature of alfred recoiled from so cruel and cold-blooded an act, and loading them a second time with presents, he sent his own followers to conduct them in safety to the camp of the danish king. another division of the danes had again attacked exeter; alfred hastened with his cavalry across the country as before, and compelled them to retreat to their ships. the fleet put out to sea, then doubled again towards the land, and attacked chichester; but here they were defeated by the citizens and the neighbouring peasantry, and hundreds were slain. when alfred returned from exeter, he found hastings once more intrenched in essex, with his forces greatly strengthened by the northumbrian and east anglian danes, who had joined him in mercia. a less active king than alfred would never have kept pace with the rapid motions of the danish monarch. hastings now boldly sailed up the thames. he then marched across to the severn, where he was followed by the governor of mercia, and attacked by the united forces of the saxons and the men of south wales. alfred again advanced to join them, and the invaders were hemmed round by the saxon army in the strong fortress of buttington on the severn. here hastings and his followers were compelled to endure all the horrors of a sharp siege, for to such straits were the danes driven, that they were under the necessity of killing their horses for food. blockaded alike on the land and on the river, and reduced to such a state of famine that numbers perished, the northmen resolved at last to sally out upon the saxons, and either to force a passage through the besieging army, or perish in the attempt. they rushed out headlong from their intrenchments, with a determined valour, worthy of a better cause. thousands were either slain or drowned; and the remnant, with hastings at their head, again escaped into essex. the loss on the part of the saxons was also severe; since, exhausted as the danes must have been by siege and famine, it would not have been difficult to have cut off their retreat, had not the battle been so desperate; for alfred had to fight with an enemy who was compelled either to conquer or perish; who had been defeated and driven from nearly every kingdom on the continent, and who seemed to pine for a home in a fertile country, where so many of his brethren had taken up their abode. the very bread he ate depended upon the chances of plunder; he would have been contented to settle down peaceably, as godrun had beforetime done, but when alfred saw the east anglian and northumbrian danes rendering their aid to every new-comer, and eager, as of old, to oppose him, he found that a further extension of such lenient policy would soon wrest the remainder of the island entirely from his hands, and he resolved they should yet feel that a saxon arm grasped the sceptre of england. none of the sea-kings had kept their faith like godrun; he, alone, regarded the oaths which he swore on the golden bracelets that were sacred to his gods, and remained true to his allegiance. the army of hastings was soon recruited again from the former resources, and early in the spring he once more set out into the midland counties, plundering along his march until he reached chester, where he again threw up a strong intrenchment. alfred, at the head of his army, was soon in pursuit of the dangerous sea-king, and when he found how strongly he had fortified himself at chester, the saxon monarch had recourse to his old plan of starving out the garrison; and to effect this purpose he gathered up all the cattle in the neighbourhood, and all the corn in the district for miles around. hastings and his followers had too bitter a remembrance of the famine they had endured at buttington, to run another risk of suffering such privation, while there yet remained a chance of escape; so they once more forced their way through the saxon army, rushed into north wales, carried off from thence what booty they could, and retreated into east anglia through such counties as were inhabited by the danes, carefully avoiding every spot which alfred and his army occupied. the county of essex seems always to have been the favourite rallying point of hastings, and here he appears to have settled down amongst his countrymen in the autumn of ; to protect his ships during the winter, he built a fortress on the river lea, which divides middlesex from essex, and there drew up his fleet within a distance of twenty miles from london. in this neighbourhood he appears to have reposed in safety until the following summer, when london poured forth its troops to attack the danish fortress; but so strongly had hastings intrenched himself, that all the military array of middlesex was unable to penetrate the encampment of the sea-king. at the close of summer, alfred considered it necessary to be in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, to protect his subjects from the attacks of the danes while they gathered in their harvest. driving in foragers, attacking outposts, and checking attempted sallies, had rendered alfred as familiar with the construction of the invaders' fortresses as they were themselves; and one day while meditating how he could most advantageously strike a decisive blow, and compel the enemy to abandon their stronghold, he hit upon the daring plan of draining the river lea, and leaving the whole of the danish fleet aground. to accomplish this, he ordered his soldiers to dig three new channels below the level of the river, and to raise two fortresses on either side the lea to protect their operations. he drew off the waters into a tributary stream which emptied itself into the thames, so that, as an old writer says, "where a ship might sail in time afore past, then a little boat might scarcely row." in the night, hastings again broke through the toils with which the inventive genius of alfred had encompassed him; and abandoning his ships, which were now useless, he contrived to send off the wives and children of his followers into east anglia, to the care of his countrymen; he thus escaped from alfred, and reached bridgenorth, near the severn, where he again intrenched himself. although, as usual, he was quickly followed by the saxon king, yet so strong was the military position which the danes occupied, that with the exception of a slight skirmish or two, they were allowed to pass the winter unmolested. many of the danish vessels which hastings had left behind were again set afloat, and conducted with great triumph into the thames. the remainder were burnt and destroyed. harassed and defeated on every hand, the spirit of hastings at last bowed down before the superior genius of alfred; and as dissensions already began to break out in the danish camp, the brave but unfortunate sea-king fitted up his shattered fleet as he best could, and in the spring of departed for france, where some small portion of territory was allotted to him by the king, and there he passed the remainder of his days. a few naval engagements of but little note took place after the departure of hastings, in all of which the saxons were victorious; and towards the close of his reign alfred treated these sea-pirates with great severity, and on one occasion ordered several of them to be executed. these, however, appear to have belonged to either northumbria or east anglia,--and all such had sworn allegiance to alfred. before the close of his reign, the saxon fleet consisted of above a hundred strongly-built and well-rigged vessels, many of these were manned by frieslanders, and as they were placed in such situations as the danes had generally selected for their landing-places, they silently overawed and checked the inroads of the enemy, as they went prowling about "like guardian giants along the coast." this great king did not survive the departure of hastings above three years. he died on the th of october, in the year , or . hitherto we have been compelled to confine ourselves to the military achievements of this celebrated monarch. a summary of his great intellectual attainments, which a volume would scarcely suffice to contain, we shall attempt to crowd within the brief space of another chapter. chapter xxiii. character of alfred the great. "hear him but reason on divinity, and, all-admiring, with an inward wish, you would desire the king were made a prelate; hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, you would say--it hath been all-in-all his study: list his discourse of war, and you shall hear a fearful battle rendered you in music." shakspere. we have seen the shadow of this great king pass, through the clouds of sorrow and suffering, into the glory and immortality which still shed their lustre around his memory, after the darkness of nearly a thousand winters has gathered and passed over his grave. even the gloomy gates of death could not extinguish, in the volumed blackness they enclose, the trailing splendour which accompanied his setting, without leaving behind a summer twilight, over a land where before there was nothing but darkness to mark the departing day. upon a sky dim, and unsprinkled with the golden letters of light, alfred first rose, the evening star of english history. from his first appearance a brightness marked his course; even in the morning of life, he "flamed upon the forehead of the sky." instead of the dull, cold, leaden grey, which announced the appearance of other kings, his crowned head broke the stormy rack, in a true splendour that befitted such majesty, and though dimmed for awhile, every observant eye could see that it was the sun which hung behind the clouds. in childhood, long before his step-mother, judith, had taught him to read, his chief delight was in committing to memory the poems which the saxon bards chaunted in his father's court; and who can doubt but that many a wandering minstrel descended from the ancient cymry, struck his harp within the saxon halls, and made the boyish heart of alfred thrill again, as he heard the praises of those early british heroes sung, whose bare breasts and sharp swords were the bold bulwarks that so long withstood the mailed legions which the haughty emperor of rome had sent, swarming over our own island shores. in this rude school was alfred first taught that the names of the good, the great, and the brave can never die; that valour and virtue were immortal; and he resolved to emulate the deeds of those whose memories time can never obliterate; by whose names we number the footsteps of eternity, when marble and monumental brass have crumbled into dust. it was at the castaly of the muses, which then but trickled from a rude, grey saxon font, where alfred first drank in the draught that gave him immortality. eager for knowledge, he looked around in vain for any one to instruct him; he had not a clergyman about him who could translate the prayers he read in latin, into saxon; until poor old asser came from wales, he could not find in his whole court a scholar equal to himself. his nobles could hunt and fight; his brothers could do no more: they lived and died, and their names would never have been remembered had they not chanced to have been kings. the mind of alfred was fashioned in another mould; accident had made him a king, and he resolved to become a man, to think and act worthy of a being who bore on his brow god's image--to be something more than the mere heir to a hollow crown and the lands of wessex; so he threw aside his sword, which he knew a thousand arms could wield as well as his own, and took up his pen. he was the first saxon king who attempted to conquer his enemies without killing them--who offered them bread instead of the sword. he was much wiser than many legislators in our own enlightened times. he gave godwin and his danes land and seed, bade them work, and live honestly and peacefully; they had felt the weight of his arm before-time, and, for a long period after, they disturbed not his study again. what benefit was it to alfred to whiten with human bones a land which he knew it would be better to cultivate?--there was room enough for them all, so he sat down again to enrich his own mind. we can readily imagine that he never took up his sword without a feeling of reluctance--that he thought a man could not be worse employed than in slaying his fellow men. alfred was england's earliest reformer. when his nobles found that he had determined to find them no more fighting, they took to reading and writing, for time hung heavily upon their hands. he then allowed them to share in his councils, and they began to make laws for the living, instead of slaying, and then fixing a price to be paid to the kindred of the dead for the murder they had committed. a lingering and painful disease, which had for years baffled the skill of all his physicians--the constant inroads of the northmen, who were ever keeping the country in a state of alarm--a dearth of kindred spirits to cheer him in his intellectual labours--prevented not the persevering king from struggling onward, in his toilsome journey, in search of knowledge and truth. bede, with the exception of a single poem, had composed all his works in latin; and, with scarcely an exception, there was no production of any merit that alfred could obtain, at that period, but what was written in the same language; and when he looked round amongst all the thousands he ruled over, not one could be found, until asser appeared, who was capable of instructing him, or who could translate into the saxon tongue the knowledge for which he thirsted. he sent in quest of literary men to rome, to france, to ireland; wherever they could be found, he despatched messengers with presents to intreat and tempt them to visit his court. when they arrived, he made them equals and friends--he promoted them to the highest offices in his government--he valued them higher than all his treasures of gold and silver--by day and night they were his inseparable companions. he listened to the passages they translated, stopped them from time to time, and made notes of the most striking thoughts, and, in an after day, in numerous instances, he extended the crude ideas of the ancient writers, and threw in a thousand beautiful illustrations of his own, and such as were never dreamed of by the original authors; they reflect his own thoughts and feelings; and while we peruse them we know that we are drinking in the wisdom of alfred. in his translation of orosius he made a great portion of the geography and history of the world, as it was then understood, familiar to his countrymen; by his translation of bede he gave them an insight into the records of their own land, and showed his nobles how indifferently their predecessors had conducted the government. by his boethius he instilled into their minds many moral axioms, imparted to them his own thoughts and feelings, and slowly raised them to that high intellectual station to which he had, by his own exertions, attained; for though he still ever soared high above them, yet there were eminences up which they never could have climbed unless by his aid. he found his nobles but little better than the northern barbarians, and he left them wise and thinking men. he made a green and flowery place of what had been before but a wide and weedy wilderness. he divided his attendants into three bodies, and when one party had served him a month, they returned home, and were succeeded by another; for it was not in the nature of alfred to compel any of his attendants to neglect their own private affairs while serving him. by this means he but claimed their services during four months in the year, the remainder of the time they were allowed to dedicate to their own domestic matters. he divided his income into separate portions, appropriating each part to a particular purpose--first, he allotted a portion to his warriors and attendants; the next allotment was expended in building, in the improvement of which he collected many eminent architects from different nations; the third he expended in the relief of foreigners; no matter from what country they came, they left not the court of alfred empty-handed: the remainder of his revenue was dedicated to religious purposes, to the support of the monasteries he had built, the schools he had erected, and of the various churches throughout the whole of the dominions. out of this division the larger portion was religiously dedicated to the relief of the poor. not only his treasures, but his time, was also equally divided; he but allowed one-third for rest and retirement, and within it scrupulously included the whole that he thought necessary to be consumed in partaking of his meals. the second eight hours he devoted wholly to the affairs of his kingdom, to the meeting of his council, to the assembling of his witena-gemot, audiences, plans of protection for the repelling of invasions, and for the better working of the great machinery which he had set in motion to better the condition of his subjects and weaken the power of his enemies. the remaining third of his time he appropriated to study and his religious duties. it was in this division, doubtless the happiest of all, that asser and grimbald read and translated while he listened, and in the little note-book which asser had made him, he put down such thoughts as made the greatest impression on his mind. alfred had neither clock nor chronometer with which to measure out the hours, only the sun and moving shadow by which he could mete out time, and they could neither guide him on the dull, cloudy day, nor the dark night. to overcome this difficulty, and mark the divisions of the twenty-four hours, he had wax candles made, twelve inches in length, each of which was marked at equal distances, and although the time taken up in replacing and re-lighting them would scarcely serve to mark accurately the lapse of minutes, yet they were so equally made, that six of them, with but little variation, used in succession, lasted out the twenty-four hours. to guard against the casualties of winds and draughts, he inclosed his candles in thin, white, transparent horn, and this result led to the invention of lanterns; and thus he measured time, which to him was the most valuable of all earthly treasures, for he considered his life as a trust held for the benefit of his people; and the knowledge which he himself accumulated he felt it a sacred duty to impart to others. from what was then considered the remotest corners of the earth, he despatched emissaries to gather information; he sent an embassy to india, and had messengers continually passing to and from rome. the danes, whom he had permitted to settle down peaceably in his dominions, he placed upon the same footing as the saxons, giving to them equal laws, and punishing the criminals of both nations with the same impartial rigour, which many historians have considered to be somewhat too severe. justice was then but little understood; and when the judges came to such decisions as alfred considered unfair to the party injured, he occupied the tribunal, and had the matter brought before him, and according to his own judgment decided the case. he caused one of his own judges, named cadwine, to be hanged, for having condemned a man to death without the consent of the whole jury. freberne he also ordered to be executed, for sentencing one harpin to suffer death, when the jury were undecided in their verdict; for when there was a doubt, alfred concluded it was but just to save the accused. he would neither permit the jury to return an unjust verdict, nor the judge to influence their decision; but where there was doubt and difficulty to contend against, he brought the whole weight of his own clear, unbiassed intellect to bear upon the subject. without breaking down the warlike spirit of the people, he by a salutary law checked the thirst of personal revenge, permitting no man to slay his enemy in secret, not even if he knew that that enemy was seated at home beside his own hearth, he was not allowed to fight with him until he had publicly demanded redress. if the body of a murdered man was found, the penalty, which, considering the value of money in those times, was heavy, fell upon the whole hundred or tything in which the dead body was discovered. by this means, the innocent had the powerful motive of self-interest to induce them to give up the murderer. rude and primitive as such a system may at first appear, these laws were well adapted to the spirit of the barbarous age in which he lived, when a pagan dane considered it a meritorious work to slay a saxon christian, and the latter thought that he was doing heaven service when he sent the spoiler of its monasteries, and the slayer of its priests, to revel in the halls of the blood-stained gods he worshipped. elders were appointed over each hundred, and were answerable for the conduct of all who belonged to them. if a crime was committed, the roll was called over, and suspicion naturally fell upon the missing man who had fled. no other hundred could register his name until he had dwelt a given time amongst them; and through this strict system of espionage, pardonable only in such turbulent times, the land, as it were, was engirded with a continuous chain, not a link of which could be broken without the gap becoming visible. alfred not only introduced the decalogue into his laws, but so adapted the mosaic code to the habits of the age in which he lived, as to render it as effective amongst the anglo-saxons as it had been with the israelites of old. his witena-gemot, or assembly of nobles, or parliament, or by whatever name we choose to designate the council of the land, was called upon to give its consent to these enactments, before they were put into operation, and such clauses as it objected to, alfred blotted out from his dom-boc. he first drew the bold outline of our present mode of government; and limned with his hand, though rudely, the grand form of our glorious constitution. he was proverbially known amongst his subjects by the title of the "truth-teller;" and it was a saying during his reign, that golden bracelets might be hung upon the landmarks beside the common highways without a fear of their removal, such a vigorous watch did the law keep. in the character of alfred was embodied all the elements which the poet, the dramatist, and the novelist attempt to throw around their most perfect ideas of a hero. he was a warrior, a statesman, and a scholar, and as perfect in each of these capacities as if he had spent his whole life in the battle-field, had dedicated his days and nights to law and politics, or been only a fond dreamer amongst books in the flowery fields of literature. he would have taken the lead in any age as the commander of an army; have either risen to the dignity of a chancellor or a premier in civil government, or have stood first in the high and ambitious rank of authorship. in him were beautifully blended courage and tenderness, perseverance and patience; justice which would have been stern, but for the softening quality of mercy, high-mindedness, and humbleness, and, above all, a universal love for his fellow men, not disfigured by the weak partiality of unworthy favouritism. he found england in a state of despondency, raised and cheered her, and then elevated her to a much higher station than that from which she had fallen. but for alfred the great, england would have been a desert, and never have recovered from the destructive fires and desolating ravages of the danes. his name will be revered until time shall be no more. chapter xxiv. edward the elder. "awake remembrance of these valiant dead, and with your puissant arm renew their feats; you are their heir, you sit upon their throne; the blood and courage that renowned them runs in your veins.---- all do expect that you should rouse yourself, as did the former lions of your blood."--shakspere. edward the elder, in the year , was, by the unanimous consent of the saxon nobles, elected king of wessex. he had already distinguished himself for his valour, as he fought by the side of his father alfred against hastings. although he was the son of alfred, and elected by the consent of the whole witena-gemot, his cousin ethelwold laid claim to the crown, and took possession of wimburn, which he vowed death alone should compel him to give up. no sooner, however, did edward appear before the gates of the town with his army, than ethelwold fled; and escaping by night, reached northumbria, where he was gladly received by the danes, who, doubtless, thinking that they should have a better claim to the land of england, if a saxon prince reigned over them, chose him for their sovereign, and at york he was appointed head monarch over all the sea-kings and their chiefs. with the saxon king at their head, the danes were not long before they aspired to the sovereignty of the whole island. but ethelwold could not remain long amongst his subjects without partaking of their piratical habits, so he set up sea-king; and finding that the ocean yielded but a poor harvest, he visited the coast of france, and, either by promises or presents, mustered such a force as enabled him to man a considerable fleet, with which he returned to england and ravaged mercia. as he landed in essex, the east anglian danes readily joined him. edward led his army into lincolnshire in pursuit of ethelwold, and overtook him a little below gainsborough. the battle appears to have been fought on a small island, still called axeholme, which is situated beside the river trent, and the inhabitants of which are still called "the men of the isle." edward, having ravaged the neighbourhood around the isle of axeholme, ordered his forces to retreat slowly, but on no account to separate. this order the kentish troops neglected to obey, and either took a different route from the rest of the army, or remained behind to plunder, when ethelwold, at the head of a superior force, rushed upon them, and they were defeated. although it appears to have been more of a skirmish than a pitched battle, victory was purchased, on the part of the danes, by the death of ethelwold, and england then enjoyed a two years' peace. after this brief interval, war again broke out. edward, at the head of his saxons and mercians, over-ran and plundered northumbria. in the following spring, the danes retaliated, and attacked mercia on each side of the river trent. while edward was busy on the south-eastern coast, repairing and collecting together his ships, a rumour circulated amongst the danes that he had gone over to the opposite shore with his fleet. misguided by these tidings, the danish army passed across the country in the direction of the severn, plundering every place they approached, and moving about in that irregular manner which showed that they were not apprehensive of any attack. great was their surprise when they saw a powerful army approaching them; they discovered not the danger until it was too late to fly from it, for edward was upon them, and there was no alternative but to fight. the battle took place at wodensfield, and thousands of the danes were slain, for, beside many earls and chiefs, they left two of their kings dead upon the field. the result of this battle established the power of edward, and insured the safety of the saxon kingdom. like his father alfred, he trusted not to the chances of war alone for security, but protected his frontiers by a line of strong fortresses, and placed a powerful guard over such weak points as had been most open to the invasion of the enemy. he filled these garrisons with chosen soldiers, who, united with the provincials or militia which alfred had established, rushed out upon the danes the moment they approached, without either awaiting the command of the king or of his earls, and by such watchful energy they ever kept the enemy in subjection. inheriting her father's bravery, ethelfleda, who was now a widow, acted in concert with her brother edward, and made her name a terror to the danes on the frontiers of mercia, so that the governorship which had been intrusted to her husband ethelred lost none of its power in her hands. the fortresses which edward thus reared, in time, became inhabited towns; around them sprung up human habitations and cultivated fields, for the soldiers had their allotted hours of duty and recreation, and when not employed in keeping a watch over the enemy, they followed the more peaceful occupations of agriculture. many of these fortifications were placed in commanding situations; of such were wigmore in herefordshire; bridgnorth and cherbury in shropshire; in cheshire, edesbury; in staffordshire, stafford and wedesborough; all admirably adapted to coerce the welsh upon the western boundaries; while runcorne and thelwall in cheshire, and bakewell in derby, served to protect the northern frontier of the saxon kingdom from the invaders. manchester, tamworth, leicester, nottingham, and warwick, also formed strong barriers of defence to that portion of mercia, while other places guarded the entrance of important rivers, which the danes had never failed to avail themselves of, when they poured their forces over the land. never in alfred's time had the saxon states presented such an impenetrable frontage as they did during the reign of edward, and the governorship of his sister ethelfleda; for the saxon princess hesitated not to head the forces intrusted to her command, whenever the enemy appeared: since she had shared in all the hardships of those stormy times, and proved herself a worthy daughter of alfred. edward was not long before he was again compelled to take up arms against the northmen, who, after having entered the severn and ravaged north wales, carried their devastation into herefordshire. but the military force established in the fortresses of hereford and gloucester, joined by the neighbouring inhabitants, rushed upon the danes, and compelled them to seek shelter in an adjacent wood. they soon made head again; but edward, who had by this time drawn his army together, kept so narrow a watch over them, that they despaired of escaping, and were fearful of again measuring their strength with the saxons. in the night they separated into two divisions and began to retreat. edward divided his army, pursued and defeated them. such as escaped the slaughter, fled into wales, where they for a short time found shelter, and at last sailed over into ireland. but it is wearisome to run over such a catalogue of combats--of fortresses attacked and defended--of the victors of to-day who were vanquished on the morrow--of battles fought under commanders whose names have many ages ago perished--of castles besieged, the very sites of which are now unknown, and over whose ruins a thousand harvests have probably been reaped. suffice it, that edward so far secured his dominions, that the east anglian danes chose him for their "lord and patron"--that the welsh princes acknowledged and submitted to his power, while the king of the scots addressed him by the title of "father and lord," and the danes of northumbria looked up to him as their supreme sovereign. such acknowledgments as these are proofs that he left the saxon monarchy established on a solid foundation, and that he had not neglected the wise plans which his father had drawn out for the better security of his kingdom. edward died in berkshire, about , after having reigned for nearly a quarter of a century, and though he had several sons and daughters both by his first and second wife, he appointed by his will his illegitimate son, athelstan, as his successor to the throne. the saxon nobles confirmed his choice. edward had never to contend with such difficulties as beset his father, yet, had he not possessed a great share of the same military talent, the fabric which alfred had erected might, if less skilfully defended, have again been overthrown. his character would have stood out more boldly on the page of history, had it not been placed by the side of alfred the great. chapter xxv. the reign of athelstan. "clamour was on the earth. they darted from their hands many a stout spear; the sharpened arrows flew--the bows were busy-- the buckler's received the weapon's point. bitter was the fight--warriors fell on either side. the youths lay slain." death of bryhtnoth, . although athelstan was the illegitimate son of edward the elder, and his mother, a woman of surpassing beauty, only the daughter of a humble shepherd, yet he was in his thirtieth year elected to the crown, by the consent of the whole witena-gemot, or saxon parliament, in accordance with the will left by his father. while but a child, his beauty and gentle manners had interested his grandfather alfred, and the great king, as if foreseeing the splendid station to which the future monarch would one day rise, had with his own hand invested the boy with the honours of knighthood; had doubtless many a time placed him upon his own knee, and as he sat in childish pomp, in his purple garment, jewelled belt, and with his saxon sword, buried in its golden sheath, dangling by his side, had instilled into his youthful mind those precepts which had guided his own career, and shown him how he should think and act when he became king. when alfred died, his daughter ethelfleda took athelstan with her into mercia, and joined with her husband ethelred in watching narrowly over his education; so that when he was called upon to ascend the throne of wessex, there could be but few found in that day whose scholastic and military attainments excelled those of athelstan. at the time of athelstan's accession, sigtryg, a grandson of ragnar lodbrog's, reigned over a portion of northumbria, and although, like all the rest of the sea-kings, he was a bold and fearless pirate, and still worse, was guilty of the murder of his own brother, yet athelstan gave to him his own sister in marriage, and the nuptials of the danish king and the saxon princess were celebrated with all the barbaric pomp of the period at tamworth. what motive athelstan had for establishing this union, we are at a loss to divine. it has been attributed to fear--a wish to conciliate a powerful enemy. this could not be the case: for we find the saxon king preparing to invade his dominions a few months after he had married his sister. the conditions of the marriage were that sigtryg should renounce his idolatry, and become a christian--propositions which he swore to accede to by his own heathen oath on the bracelets; and, with his heart still clinging to the altars of odin, he was baptized and married. he soon grew weary of his new wife and his new religion, put on his golden armlets again, and, solemnly swearing by his heathen gods, renounced them both: for, reigning over a land inhabited solely by unbelieving danes, we can scarcely marvel at such an act when performed by a pagan, who understood not the attributes of the true god. athelstan lost no time in preparing to resent the insult offered to his religion and to his sister, but began at once to march his forces towards northumbria. eager, however, as he had been to arm, when he reached the danish dominions he found that death had stepped in before him; for sigtryg, after renouncing both his christian and his heathen creed, had died, and the sons whom he had had by a former wife fled at the approach of athelstan. anlaf, in his ship, escaped to ireland; and godifrid sought shelter and protection under constantine, the king of the scots. to the latter, athelstan sent messengers, demanding of him to deliver up the danish prince. constantine prepared to obey the peremptory summons, but during the journey godifrid escaped. after enduring many perils both by sea and land, he at last fell into the hands of athelstan, whose anger had by that time subsided, for he received the poor fugitive courteously, and treated him kindly, and gave him a warm welcome to his own court. but four days of princely ease in a saxon palace were quite enough for the great grandson of the stormy old sea-king, ragnar lodbrog, and on the fifth he fled, seized a ship, and set up pirate, as his forefathers had formerly done; for "he was," says one of the old chroniclers, "as incapable as a fish of living out of water." although athelstan added northumbria to his dominions, the danes were resolved not to give up a country of which they had so long retained possession without a struggle. many a vikingr still existed, who claimed kindred with the grandsons of ragnar lodbrog; and tidings soon reached the rocky coast of norway, that the saxon king had laid claim to the anglo-danish territories, over which their brethren had ruled as kings; and though the ivory horn of hastings no longer summoned their sea-horses from the creeks and harbours in which they were stabled, they soon again began to ride over the road of the swans, and to climb the stormy waves of the baltic in their armed ships. such formidable preparations were made for the invasion as threatened at last to overwhelm for ever the saxon monarchy. the rumour of such a victory rang through england, and arrested the gaze of the neighbouring nations. we will briefly glance at the cause of this great commotion. it appears that constantine had violated the treaty which he had made with athelstan, and that the latter ravaged the scottish dominions both by sea and land, carrying his army among the picts and scots, and the ancient cymry, who inhabited the valley of the clyde, and his ships as far north as caithness. unable to compete with the saxon forces, constantine began to look abroad for assistance, and formed a league with anlaf, who, as we have before stated, had escaped to ireland, where he was made king over some little state. he, it will be borne in mind, had fled from northumbria at the approach of athelstan, and doubtless considered that he had as just a claim to the throne of northumbria as athelstan had to that of wessex. the welsh princes, who, still settled down as petty sovereigns, had felt the weight of the strong arm of athelstan, and readily confederated with constantine and anlaf--the danes of northumbria, east anglia, and cumbria, had so long been settlers in the country, that self-defence alone compelled them to league themselves against a king who threatened ere long to reduce the whole of dane-land to his sway. added to these, were the ships already fitting out in norway, or breasting the billows of the baltic. thus were arrayed against athelstan and his handful of saxons, the whole forces of scotland--the irish fleet commanded by anlaf--the remnant of the ancient britons--the danes of east anglia and northumbria--together with the legions who were hourly pouring in from norway and the baltic--a force formidable enough to have blanched the cheek of the great alfred himself, had he lived to have looked upon it. athelstan saw the storm as it gathered about him, and knowing that it would before long break over him, he prepared himself like a man who is resolved to buffet it--who is determined to do his best to weather the tempest, whatever may betide. he resolved not to sit listlessly down with folded arms to be drenched by the overwhelming torrent, if safety could be won by hard struggling. he offered high rewards to every warrior who chose to fight in his cause; and thorolf and egil, two of those restless sea-pirates who cared not whether they plundered or slew for themselves or others, so long as it brought in wealth, arrived with three hundred followers, and entered the service of athelstan. another celebrated chief, named rollo, also sent him assistance from normandy. the war was commenced by anlaf, who sailed into the humber with a large fleet which consisted of about six hundred ships, while the forces under his command numbered at least forty thousand men. they overpowered the saxon army which athelstan had placed on the edge of the deira and the northern frontier of mercia; and the remnant fled to the head-quarters occupied by the saxon king. anlaf is said to have visited athelstan's camp, disguised in the character of a minstrel, as alfred himself had before time done, when he reconnoitred the stronghold of godrun. although he escaped, he was discovered, and athelstan was warned to remove his tent, by which means his life was saved, as a night attack was made upon the camp, and the bishop of sherbourne, who had exchanged his mitre for a helmet, and who soon after arrived with his soldiers, was stationed in the quarter which the king had so recently quitted, and fell a victim, instead of athelstan, for whose destruction the attack was planned. after this night combat, in which the enemy proved victorious, athelstan knew that there was no time to be lost, and therefore began to arrange the forces for the battle, which was to decide his fate. anlaf also drew up his large army in readiness for the approaching affray. the saxon king placed his boldest troops at the front of the battle; leaving them to the command of egil, who, though only a hired chieftain, was a brave and honourable soldier. to thorolf he entrusted the followers whom he had been accustomed to lead, mingling with them a few of his own saxon soldiers, who appear to have been steadier, and better able to repel the attacks of the irish who had come over with anlaf, and were in the habit of moving quickly from place to place, and by their changes disarranging the order of battle. over the mercian warriors, and the brave english hearts which london had poured forth, he placed turketul, the chancellor, and bade him, when the war-cry was sounded, to charge headlong upon constantine, and the scots whom he commanded. athelstan himself headed the west saxons, placing them opposite to the point occupied by anlaf, as if fearful of trusting any other than himself in the most dangerous post. anlaf altered not his position, but stood front to front with his forces, drawn up opposite the saxon monarch. behind the right wing of the army of anlaf there stretched a vast wood; facing, and nearly out-flanking it, were drawn up the soldiers thorolf commanded; who, eager as a hawk to rush upon the quarry, was the first to plunge headlong upon the enemy, and in a moment he was in the very thickest of the ranks, having far outstripped all, but a few of the foremost of his companions. adils, a british prince, who fought under the banner of anlaf, wheeled his welsh forces round, and severed thorolf and his friends from the rest of their followers, and slew them. egil saw the standard of thorolf surrounded by the enemy, beheld it rocking and reeling above the heads of the combatants as it was borne towards the wood, and conscious that his brave companion in arms had not betrayed his trust; that the banner of thorolf was never seen to retreat whilst its leader was alive; he, with his shield slung behind his back, and wielding his huge claymore, rushed on like a dreaded thunderbolt to revenge his death. the forces which athelstan trusted to his command deserted him not; they hewed their way through the enemy's ranks, they pursued them into the wood, and adils fell in the fight, for the welsh wing, which occupied the front of the forest, was defeated with terrible slaughter. meantime, in the centre of the plain, the combat raged with unabated fury; arrows, darts, and javelins, were abandoned; for it was now the close hand to hand contest, when blows were dealt at arm's length with the sword, and the battle-axe, and the club, bristling with sharp steel spikes, which bit through, or crushed the heaviest helmet;--when the huge two-handed claymore was swung with giant arms, and men fell before it like grass before the scythe of the mower in a summer field;--when blood flowed and none heeded it, but the combatant placed his foot upon the dead that the blow might fall with heavier force;--when vassal and chief rolled over together;--when horse and rider fell, yet scarcely broke for a moment the enraged ranks who passed over them--while over all the war-cry, and the shouts of the combatants rang, drowning the moans of the wounded and the dying. cool and collected amid this breathless struggle, the chancellor turketul selected a chosen band from amongst the londoners and the brave men of worcestershire, who were renowned for their valour, and who feared nothing while singin was at their head. these the warlike chancellor placed in close order, and himself leading the way, they plunged headlong upon constantine and his scots, turketul paying no more regard to the arrows that stuck in his armour than a rhinoceros would if pierced with a dozen pins, nor did he halt until he had dealt a heavy blow on the helmet of the caledonian monarch. had not the scots rushed up in a body to the rescue, turketul would have dragged their king, horse and all, into the saxon ranks; they, however, came just in time to save him. never had a warrior a narrower escape with his life than turketul. he was surrounded by the scots, foremost amongst whom was the son of constantine--who also narrowly escaped from being captured--when, just as the weapons were uplifted to despatch the chancellor, singin rushed in at the head of his worcestershire warriors, slew the scottish prince with a single blow of his battle-axe, and rescued turketul. the well-timed attack led on by singin completed the defeat of the scottish army, and they made no other attempt to rally; constantine escaped. leaving turketul, egil, and singin to pursue the routed forces of the welsh and scots, we must now glance at that part of the field where the opposing forces, commanded by athelstan and anlaf, were engaged. here the combat continued to rage unabated. the figure of the saxon king was seen in the very thickest of the fight, and while he was hemmed in by his enemies, and showering down blows upon all who came within the reach of his weapon, his sword suddenly broke short at the handle. to receive the blows which were aimed at him upon his shield and snatch up another weapon were scarcely the work of a moment; but during that brief interval, anlaf's troops obtained a slight advantage, and began to press more heavily upon the saxon ranks. it were then that anlaf, suddenly turning his head, beheld confusion in his rear; for turketul and egil, having returned from the pursuit, had thus suddenly hemmed in the only portion of the enemy's forces that remained upon the field. with the powerful forces of athelstan before, and an enemy, already flushed with victory, attacking him in the rear, anlaf saw his hitherto brave soldiers wavering on all sides; the centre of his strong line was broken, and to the left and right all was hurry, retreat, confusion, and slaughter, while in the centre the saxon banner waved triumphant, and the loud cry of victory rang out in front, and was echoed back from the rear of the defeated army:--the conflict was at an end--the combined forces fled on every hand, and the conquerors pursued the flying enemy until their arms became weary with slaughter. far as the eye could reach, it rested upon a long line of the dying and the dead. never during the wars of alfred had so many fallen upon one field as perished in the battle of brunanburg. but few of the poems which have been written to commemorate these ancient victories have descended to us perfect. that which was composed to celebrate the saxon triumph at the battle of brunanburg, has, however, been more fortunate, having found a place even in the saxon chronicle itself. although it has been frequently translated, and quoted by many historians, there is something so forbidding to the eye in the short, heavy lines, something so difficult to comprehend, in the lengthy extension, and abrupt transition of the sentences, that we shall venture upon a somewhat free adaptation of the literal version, yet endeavour to preserve unaltered the original thought and spirit of the poem: anglo-saxon song on the victory at brunanburg. athelstan, king of earls, the lord, the giver of golden bracelets to the heroes, and his brother, the noble edmund the elder, won a lasting glory in battle by slaughter with the edges of their swords at brunanburg. they, with the rest of the family of the children of edward, clove asunder the wall of shields, and hewed down the waving banners, for it was but natural to them from their warlike ancestry to defend their treasures, their home, and their land, against all enemies in the battle-field. from the time the sun rose up in the morning hour, to when the great star of the eternal lord, that noble creature, god's candle bright, hastened to his setting, they pursued and destroyed the scottish bands, and the men of the fleet in numbers dying, fell, and the wide field was everywhere covered with the blood of warriors; many a soldier lay there dead with darts struck down; many heroes over whose shields the showery arrows were shot, whom the battle would never again weary, and who would never more boast that they were of the race of mars the red. throughout the day the west saxons fiercely pressed on the loathed bands, they scattered the rear of the army, and hewed down the fugitives with their strong mill-sharpened swords. the mercians shrunk not from the hard-hand-play, from the men, who with anlaf over the ever beating deep, in the ships sheltered, sought this land for the deadly fight. in that blood dyed battle-field, five kings in the bloom of youth did the sword send to slumber, also seven of anlaf's earls, and numbers of the ship-borne army slept with the slain. the scots with the lord of the northmen were chased away--fate compelled him to seek the noisy deep, and with a small host in his floating ship on the felon flood he escaped with his life, so also constantine with his routed remnant in hasty flight, hurried to the north. silent sat the hoary hero of hilda amongst his kindred, for small cause had he to boast who had left his friends slain in combat; and his son, the fair-haired youth, unused to the conflict, mangled with wounds in the battle-field. inwood the aged, nor anlaf, no more with the wreck of their armies could now exult or boast that they, on the stern battle-field, were better at lowering the banners, 'mid the clashing of spears, and the crashing of weapons, and the meeting of heroes on the field of slaughter, than the sons of edward, whom they opposed. on the roaring sea; over the deep waters, a dreary and silent remnant, the northman sailed in their nailed ships, and sought in dublin and ireland to bury their disgrace. athelstan and his brother again sought their country, the west saxon land from fight triumphant. they left behind them, to devour the prey, the ominous kite and the black raven, with horned beak, the horse-toad, and the eagle, swift to feast on the white flesh; the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey beast, the wolf of the weald. the poem then concludes by stating "as the books of the old historians inform us, never had there before been so great a slaughter in this island since the saxons first came over the sea to conquer the welsh, and gain the land." the victory of brunanburg made athelstan the monarch of england, for not only had he subjugated the danes in east anglia and northumbria, but had compelled the welsh also to acknowledge his power. as the eyes of europe had been turned upon him, before he entered the field against the combined forces his valour defeated, so did the different nations now rival each other in their congratulations on his victory. england was no longer the unknown island, which in former times the romans had such difficulty to discover; but began to raise her head proudly amongst the neighbouring nations. the exiles who were compelled to flee from the ravages of the northmen, he received and succoured in his own court. he sheltered his sister elgiva, and her son louis, when her husband, the king of france, was dethroned and imprisoned. he was appealed to for advice and assistance, when a dispute arose about the succession to the throne of france; and as he adjudged, so was the matter decided. his sisters were sought in marriage by powerful princes; his consent was courted by embassies, backed with costly presents; and he even fitted out a fleet, and sent it to the aid of france--thus being the first to cement a union with that kingdom, whose history in latter days has become so closely interwoven with our own. even otho, who was afterwards surnamed the great, obtained the hand of athelstan's sister in marriage; and there is still in existence, in the cotton library, a beautiful manuscript copy of the gospels, in latin, which was presented by otho and his sister to athelstan, on which the anglo-saxon kings are said to have sworn when they took the coronation oath. he was also honoured with the friendship of henry the first, the emperor of germany, and by the alliance of his son in marriage with his sister editha. athelstan also formed a league with harold, king of norway, and through the instrumentality of the two kings, the system of piracy, which had long rendered the ocean as perilous as the tempests that sweep over it, was, by the interference of harold, and the intercession of athelstan, put down: for harold not only chased the pirates from his own dominions, but pursued them over the sea until he overtook, and destroyed them, and when he had cleared the ocean of these ancient robbers, he drew up a code of severe laws for the punishment of all who dared to attack either the british or the norwegian fleets. in such high estimation was athelstan held by harold, that he sent his son haco over to england to be educated in the saxon court, and so delighted was the norway king with the progress the young prince made in his studies and warlike exercises, that he presented to athelstan a beautiful ship, with purple sails, surrounded with shields that were richly gilt, while the prow, or figure at the head, was wrought out of pure gold. to the prince, the saxon king presented a costly sword, which haco the good, (as he was afterwards called, when he became king) treasured until the day of his death. when harold died, and some difficulty arose as to the succession of haco to the throne of norway, athelstan provided him with soldiers and a strong fleet, and thus enabled him to take possession of his kingdom. on the thrones of france, bretagne, and norway, sat three kings who were all indebted to athelstan for their crowns; a strong proof of the power and dignity to which england had risen. he is said to have restored howel to the kingdom of wales, and constantine to the throne of scotland, after having conquered their dominions. having assisted to dethrone eric, and to place the crown of norway on the head of haco, he made the former king of northumbria, as a proof of the respect he bore to the memory of his father harold. nor was he less liberal to the monks, but contributed freely to enriching the monasteries, both with money, books, and costly vessels, while several are said to have been built at his own expense. like his grandfather alfred, he was also generous to the poor; from the royal farms he ordered to be given to the needy every month a measure of meal, a gammon of bacon, or a ram worth fourpence, besides clothing once a year. these were to be distributed by the gerefa, who appears to have stood in the same position as an overseer, or relieving officer, having also to perform the duty of chief constable, and to warn the hundred when the folk-mote or folcgemot was to assemble. if he neglected to distribute the royal charity, he was fined thirty shillings, which was divided amongst the poor of the neighbouring tything. high, however, as the character of athelstan stands, it is not free from the stains which too often blotted the brightest names that adorned this barbarous age, though we cannot tell, at this remote period, how reluctantly he may have yielded to the stern sentence of his witenagemot, when he consigned his brother to death. edwin had been leagued with others to oppose the accession of athelstan to the throne, and the king ordered him to be placed within the "rotten carcass of a boat, nor rigged, nor tackle, sail, nor mast," and without even an oar, to be launched upon the ocean, and left to chance, and the mercy of the waves. for some time the unfortunate prince continued to keep afloat within sight of land, until at last the wind rose, and perceiving that every billow but rolled him further into the hopeless ocean, he preferred an instant to a lingering death, and leaped boldly into the deep. his body was afterwards washed ashore, and for seven years athelstan is said to have mourned over his brother's death, with deep and bitter sorrow. athelstan died about the year or ; and, as he left no children, he was succeeded by his brother edmund. chapter xxvi. the reigns of edmund and edred. "the time has been, my senses would have cool'd to hear a night shriek; and my fell of hair would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir as life were in't: i have supped full with horrors; direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, cannot once start me.--wherefore was that cry? the king, my lord, is dead."--shakspere. edmund, surnamed the elder, had scarcely attained his eighteenth year, when he ascended the saxon throne. many of athelstan's former enemies were still alive, and anlaf, who had played so prominent a part at the battle of brunanburg, again came over from ireland, and placed himself at the head of the northumbrian danes, with whom he marched into mercia, attacked tamworth, and, in his first battle, defeated the saxons. england was not yet destined to be subject to the sway of one king, for, after several defeats, edmund employed the archbishops of york and canterbury to negotiate with anlaf, and peace was concluded on the conditions that the northumbrian prince was to reign over that part of england which extended to the north of watling street--the boundaries of which it is difficult to define. another clause was also annexed, which placed the saxon throne in greater jeopardy than it had ever before been; for edmund entered into an agreement with anlaf, that whoever survived the other should become the sole and undisputed sovereign of england. death saved the saxons from the degrading and dangerous position into which they had fallen, for anlaf died in the following year, and after his death edmund lost no time in taking possession of that portion of the kingdom which had been wrested from him by the valour of the danish king. it may be that the youth or inexperience of edmund made him fearful of measuring his strength against a veteran like anlaf, for when he had once resolved to reduce the danes to authority, he acted as became a descendant of alfred, and not only subjected northumbria to his sway, but drove the danes from the towns they had so long occupied on the frontiers of mercia, clearing the whole line of country from stamford to lincoln; and, crossing the trent, he drove them from the cities of leicester, nottingham, and derby, thus sweeping the whole of the midland counties of the danes, and peopling the strongholds from which he had driven them with saxons, and amply making up for the vacillating weakness which marked the first year of his reign. neither did his conquests end here; he next invaded cumbria, unnecessarily tortured the sons of dunmail, and then gave the small state to malcolm of scotland, on condition that he should defend the northern dominions, both by sea and land, against all invaders. strange as it may appear, he was assisted in the subjugation of this petty kingdom by one of the welsh kings, although cumberland and westmoreland, which formed the kingdom of cumbria, were at this time inhabited by a remnant of the ancient britons, over whom reigned dunmail, its last celtic king. although the reign of edmund is among the briefest of our early saxon kings, containing but the mere entry of his name, a battle or two, and then his untimely death, embracing, from his first assuming the crown to his being borne to the grave, not more than five years, it offers to the contemplative mind much matter for meditation. he commenced his reign by a dishonourable concession, such as athelstan would never have thought of, though it had cost him both his kingdom and his life in resisting it. he ended it by an act of cruelty, causing the eyes of the sons of dunmail to be put out. shortly after this, he fell in his own banqueting-hall, by the hand of a robber, in the midst of his nobles; while the wine-cup was circulating in celebration of the great saxon feast held in memory of st. augustine, he was struck dead by the dagger of leof. at what place the deed was done, how the robber obtained admittance into the hall, whether angry words were exchanged between the assassin and the king, nothing certain is known--so much do the accounts vary in the old chronicles, although all admit the fact. leof had been banished for six years; he suddenly appeared in the presence of the king; his object, beyond doubt, was to slay him. could we but prove that the murderer belonged to the ancient cymry, we should probably not be far in error in concluding that he came to revenge the tortures which had been inflicted on the british princes, who were blinded by the command of edmund. vengeance only could have induced an armed and banished robber to rush into the presence of the king, when he was feasting in the midst of his nobles, and there, on his own hearth, to deprive him of life. strange that the scene of an event so well known, should be buried in obscurity. there must have been motives that impelled the murderer to perpetrate such a deed, which were unfavourable to the character of edmund, or we should have met with something more than the mere entry of his violent death in the early chronicles. he was slain in his twenty-third year--in the dawn of manhood; but where he fell, or in what place he was buried, history has not left a single record that we can rely upon. malmesbury says, "his death opened the door for fable all over england." how ominous his rising! how dark and sudden his setting! what splendour surrounded his noonday career; yet, withal, his life might be written in four brief sentences--"he perilled his kingdom in his youth--nobly redeemed the false step he had taken--committed an act of inhuman cruelty--was afterwards murdered, in the year ." edred succeeded edmund, for the son of the latter was but a child when his father was slain. they were both sons of edward the elder by his second marriage, and, from the date of his death, must have been mere infants when he died. both could claim the great alfred as their grandfather. during the short reign of anlaf, and the subjection of northumbria by edmund, we lose sight of eric, the son of harold of norway, to whom athelstan had generously given the crown of this northern kingdom, out of the respect he bore to his father. but eric cared not to occupy a peaceful throne: if he was to be a king at all, he was resolved it should be a sea-king, so he took to his ships, and left his subjects to shift for themselves as they best could; for he had often, during his sovereignty, whiled away the pleasant summer months with a little pirating--had often treated his followers to an agreeable excursion on the sea, where they plundered all the ships they could, and conquered and slew their crews, no doubt capturing our own merchants, whenever a chance offered. after amusing himself and his companions for some time, by preying upon all who came in his way, around the coast of scotland, he ventured over into ireland, gathered what he could there, crossed the sea again, and ravaged wales, picking up along the northern coast, whenever he came near home, all the choice spirits he could find about the orkneys and the hebrides. with these he roamed at his pleasure, plundering wherever he could, and performing such feats on the ocean as robin hood and his merry men are, in a later day, supposed to have done in our old english forests. he was also joined by many of the most renowned sea-robbers from norway, for the bold vikingr found but little encouragement to plunder under the government of "haco the good." when eric was weary of these rough mid-summer holidays, he came back again to his kingdom, moored his ships, and placed his battle-axe upon the "smoky beam" until the following spring, never troubling himself about law or justice, but leaving his subjects either to do as they pleased, or follow the lawless example he set them:--he quaffed his cup, and sang his stormy sea-songs, and little recked eric the norwegian how the world went, so long as he could get out upon the windy ocean, and meet with prey and plunder upon the billows of the deep. all seems to have gone merrily with him, until, in an evil hour, he was either tempted or persuaded to ravage england. where he landed is not known, but his success is said to have been great, and when he returned to northumbria laden with plunder, his danish subjects received him with warm welcome; although they had but just before sworn fidelity to edred, still their hearts were with the daring sea-king, and they hailed him the more eagerly since edred, after having received their oaths of allegiance, had turned his back upon the north. the saxon king, although young, soon turned round, and punished the wavering danes for their disloyalty. they again promised submission; but scarcely had he reached york before eric was upon his heels, and so unexpectedly did he fall upon the army of the saxon king, that he cut off the rear-guard before he retreated. edred once more wheeled round, over-ran northumbria, compelled them to renounce eric, inflicted a heavy fine, again received hostages and promises of allegiance, and took his departure. eric but lingered on the sea until he was fairly out of sight, and then prepared to take vengeance upon the subjects who had disowned him. there is but little doubt that the danes who renounced eric were backed by a strong saxon force which edred had taken the precaution of leaving in the neighbourhood. a battle was fought, which is said to have lasted the whole day, and in it eric, with five other sea-kings, was slain. edred speedily availed himself of the advantages obtained by this victory. he carried away captive many of the danish chiefs who had been engaged in the rebellion, imprisoned wulfstan, an archbishop, who had been foremost in heading the revolt, divided the kingdom into baronies and hundreds, over which he placed his own officers, and overawing the country by strong garrisons, he at last reduced it into a greater state of order and subjection than it had ever before been since the danes were first allowed to occupy it. although still inhabited by danes, they were no longer allowed even a sub-king to reign over them, but, like the rest of the saxon states, were under the sole government of edred, and thus rendered less independent than they had ever been during the reign of the victorious athelstan. so distinguished a sea-king as eric was not likely to perish in battle without awakening the genius of the scandinavian muse. "i have dreamt a dream," begins the northern poet; "at the golden dawn of morning i was carried into the hall of valhalla, and bade to prepare the banquet for the reception of the brave who had fallen in the battle. i blew the brazen trumpet of heimdal, and awoke the heroes from their sleep. i bade them to arise and arrange the seats and drinking-cups of skulls, as for the coming of a king." "'what meaneth all this noise?' exclaimed braghi; 'why are so many warriors in motion, and for whom are all these seats prepared?' "'it is because eric is on his way to valhalla,' replied odin, 'whose coming i await with joy. let the bravest go forth to meet him.' "'how is it that his coming pleaseth thee more than that of any other king?' "'because,' answered odin, 'in more battle-fields hath his sword been red with blood; because in more places hath his deep-dyed spear spread terror, for he hath sent more than any other king to the palace of the dead.' "i heard a rushing sound as of mighty waters: the hall was filled with shadows. then odin exclaimed: 'i salute thee, eric! enter, brave warrior; thrice welcome art thou to valhalla. say what kings accompany thee?--how many have come with thee from the combat?' "'five kings accompany me,' replied eric; 'and i am the sixth.'" although eric was baptized, before he was placed on the throne of northumbria by athelstan, yet the northern scald was resolved to rescue him from his christian paradise, and place him in those halls, which he thought were more befitting the spirit of a sea-king to dwell in. after the death of eric, many of the anglo-danes became christians, and several enrolled themselves amongst the religious orders, thus becoming servants in the churches, which it had hitherto been their chief delight to burn and destroy. it was during the reign of edred that the celebrated or notorious dunstan rose into such notice, for there is scarcely another character throughout the whole range of history, upon which the opinions of writers vary so much as in their summary of this singular man. madness, excessive sanctity, enthusiasm, hypocrisy, cruelty, cunning, ambition, tyranny, have all been called in, to account for the motives by which he was actuated. with some the saint, and with others the sinner, has predominated, according to the medium by which his actions have been surveyed by different historians. it is difficult to sit down and contemplate his character in that grave mood which is so essential to depict the truths of history, for with satan on the one hand, and the saint on the other, the bellowing of the fiend, and the clattering of the anvil, we get so confused between the monk and the "brazen head," that we seem in a land of "wild romance," instead of standing on the sober shore of history. we will, however, deal as fairly with the dead, as the few facts we are in possession of enable us to do, without sacrificing our honest judgment. but first we must consign the remains of edred to the grave of his forefathers. he died in , after having reigned nine years. he was afflicted with a slow, wasting disease, which gave to him the appearance of old age, although at his death he had numbered but little more than thirty winters. he was succeeded by edwin, the son of edmund the elder. chapter xxvii. edwin and elgiva. "he was a man of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking himself with princes;---- his own opinion was his law, he would say untruths; and be ever double, both in his words and meaning. he was never but where he meant to ruin, pitiful. he was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one; exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading; lofty and sour, to them that loved him not, but to those men that sought him sweet as summer." shakspere. edwin was not more than sixteen years of age when he ascended the throne. although so young, he had married a beautiful and noble lady of his own age, who appears to have been somewhat too closely related to him to please the stern dignitaries who were then placed at the head of the church, for it was at this period when the rigid discipline of the benedictine monks was first introduced into england. odo, a dane, and a descendant from those savage sea-kings who destroyed the abbeys of croyland and peterborough, was, at this time, archbishop of canterbury, for it was not then uncommon to place the pastoral crook in warlike hands, as there are many instances on record which show that those who could best wield the battle-axe were entrusted with the crosier; and odo had served both under edward and athelstan, and had fought and prayed at the battle of brunanburg. but before describing the most important events of the reign of edwin, we must give a brief sketch of the life of dunstan, and endeavour to throw a little light upon the dark shadows which have so long settled down upon his character. dunstan, who plays so prominent a part at this period, appears to have lived near glastonbury, and while yet a boy, seems to have been fond of visiting an ancient british church which had probably been erected by the christians soon after the departure of the romans. at a very early period of his life, he was a believer in dreams and visions, and while yet unknown, imagined that a venerable figure appeared to him and pointed out the spot on which he was one day to erect a monastery. his studies were encouraged, and his abilities are said to have been so great that he was soon enabled to outstrip all his companions in learning. we next find him suffering from a severe fever, probably the result of excessive application, and which at last produced a state of dreadful delirium. in the height of his madness, he seized a stick and rushed out of his chamber, running with the speed of a maniac over hills and plains; and fancying in his frantic flight that a pack of wild hounds were pursuing him. night found him in the neighbourhood of a church, on which workmen had been employed during the day; the invalid ascended the scaffold, and without injuring himself, got safely into the church, where he sank into a heavy slumber, from which he awoke not until morning, when he found his intellects restored, though, to draw a charitable conclusion from any of his future actions, we should be justified in believing that there were intervals when the disease returned. he had sufficient patronage to obtain an introduction to the church or monastery at glastonbury, where he again renewed his studies, and besides obtaining a thorough knowledge of the literature of that age, he appears to have excelled in mathematics, music, writing, engraving, and painting, and also to have been a skilful worker in metals. such talents as these, when so few excelled in any branch of the polite or finer mechanical arts, could not fail of bringing him speedily into notice, and he seems to have had an introduction to the royal palace early in the reign of edmund. no greater proof of his intellectual attainments can be adduced, than his being accused while at court of dealing in the arts of magic; for so far had he shot beyond the ignorance and error of the age, that what could now be readily comprehended by an ordinary understanding, was in that benighted period attributed to supernatural agency; and so strongly did the current of prejudice set in against him, that dunstan was driven from the court. we can imagine with what shouts of derision he was pursued, and with what loathing and heartburning he must have quitted the palace as he fled before his insulting enemies, who, not content with having hurled him from his high estate, pursued him, and threw him into a miry ditch, beside a marsh, where they left him to escape or perish. we can picture him reaching his friend's house, at about a mile distant, the sorrow that wrapped his heart as he looked upon his blighted prospects, the anger that lighted his eye, and the burning scorn which he poured in withering words upon the unlettered herd, as he breathed his sorrow, and suffering, and disgrace, into the bosom of his friend, and, with a sigh, looked upon all his hopes thus undeservedly overthrown. for a short period, we here lose sight of dunstan; when we next meet with him, he is on the point of marriage with a maiden to whom he appears to have been greatly attached. he is dissuaded from marriage by his relation, the bishop of Ælfheag, who tells him that such inclinations only emanate from the evil one, and persuades him to become a monk. love for a time made dunstan eloquent, and our only marvel is, that a man who was so susceptible of the tender passion should, on a future day, become the unfeeling opponent of marriage, and wield the power he possessed with an unrelenting and iron arm over every priest who had entered into this honourable bond of union. for a long time the bishop argued in vain. dunstan had then many reasons to urge in favour of love and marriage; and probably, at that period, never dreamed that he should have to use both force and argument against them; but he seems to have been doomed to suffer disappointment: and, although he endured it, it soured his better nature, for, like jonah's gourd, all that promised him hope and delight seemed as if it only grew up to perish a withering mockery. sickness again attacked him, a disease that brought him well nigh to death's door; he gave up all hopes of recovery, he renounced all earthly happiness, and when he began to turn his inward eye to that spiritual existence beyond the grave, earth heaved up slowly, and to him sadly, and shut out the coveted land of which he had obtained a dim glimpse, but that earth was no longer to him the garden of hope and love. he rose from his sick bed a melancholy and altered man; became a monk, and in his cold, grey, stony cell, which shut him up as in a grave, from the warm womanly heart he had once so fondly doted upon, he vowed to lead a life of celibacy. up to this period of his life, dunstan wins our sympathy: we have seen him driven out, amid hooting and derision, from the court; we have seen the golden link of love, which still bound him to mankind, snapped heartlessly asunder; and now we behold him buried, with all his genius and learning, in the lonely cell of a silent monastery. no marvel that, like the weary lion who has been hard pressed by the cruel hunters, he at last got up and shook himself--looked round with disgust upon the narrow cave he had been driven into, and glared with scorn and rage as he thought upon the puny power he had fled from; then shook his majestic mane and rushed out, and filled the whole neighbourhood with his roar. how from his soul he must have spurned the ignorant mass who came to look at him in the cell which he had dug in the earth, and which seems to have been but little larger than a common grave! what contempt he must have felt for the illiterate crowd, as he toiled in his smithy, to hear them attribute the roaring of his bellows, and the clattering of his hammer, to the howling and bellowing of the devil; and, even sick and weary as he was of the world, a suppressed smile must have played about the corner of his mouth, as he saw the credulous crowd gather around, who believed that he had seized the foul fiend by the nose. still it is hard to suppose that a man of his learning and talent would for a moment lend himself to so improbable a tale: he might, however, have seen the power he was likely to gain from such a rumour, so let it take its course, leaving those to credit it who were simple enough to do so. the making for himself a narrow cell, and living in it for a given time, was no uncommon penance at that period, when hermits were found in lonely places, and priests, who had been driven from their monasteries by the danes, were compelled to shelter in caves and forests, which they frequently never quitted until death. guthlac, on the lonely island at croyland, differed but little from dunstan in his self-inflicted probation. it is, after all, difficult to suppose that his fame spread amongst the highest ranks, through an idle and vulgar rumour being circulated of his having pulled satan's nose. such a report would never have drawn the lady ethelfleda, who had descended from alfred the great, to visit him--to extol his conversation, and to praise his piety; to introduce him to the king, and, at her death, to leave him all her wealth. still less likely is it that such a fabrication would have raised him high in the estimation of the venerable chancellor turketul, the man who had so distinguished himself, in the reign of athelstan, at the battle of brunanburg. nor can we believe that a grandson of the great alfred would be so credulous as to appoint him abbot of glastonbury, unless he had had some solid proofs of his learning and piety; for edred made him his confidential friend and councillor, and entrusted to his care all his treasure.[ ] we will not acquit him of ambition, nor deny that he might have deviated a little from a fair and honest course to obtain power; that he became cautious and reserved; for the man who in his younger days had been driven from the court for his candour, and rolled in a ditch by those who were either envious of his talents or too ignorant to appreciate his high intellectual attainments, would naturally become more wary for the future. he who but received hardship and insult as a reward for his wisdom, would best display it afterwards by remaining silent. martyrs to a good cause act otherwise; but all men covet not such immortality. we are painting the character of a man disappointed in ambition and love; yet eager as of old for power--such elements, though imperfect, are human. the man who inflicted stripes upon himself for refusing the see of winchester, in the hopes of one day being made archbishop of canterbury, had before been whipped for his honesty; and although such deception would ill become one who aspired to be a saint, it would be pardoned in a disappointed statesman. a man kicked out of court, under the imputation of having "dealings with the devil," but played trick for trick when he put the lash into the hand of st. peter. dunstan had his eye upon an eminence, and was resolved to attain it. usurers and misers sometimes fix their thoughts upon a given sum, which they resolve to obtain, and then become honest. human nature a little warped was the same nine hundred years ago as now. we are drawing the character of one who was then a living and moving man, subject to human infirmities, for in his alleged saint-ship we have no belief whatever, though dunstan himself might aspire to the title, and with a brain at times diseased, try at last to find that sanctity within himself which others attributed to him, even as a healthy man with a yellowish look discovers, through the allusions of his friends, that he has got the jaundice, although his countenance has only been exposed to the sun. in miracles, the hand of god is manifested; when the dead are raised, and the blind suddenly restored to sight, we question not the almighty power; but we doubt st. peter lacerating the back of dunstan, and even acquit the latter of so merry a joke, as that which was invented about his taking the devil by the nose with his red hot tongs, and alarming all the neighbourhood by his bellowings. if "possibility" is dragged into the argument, we must remain silent, for no one is impious enough to limit the power of the deity. where it would evince a want of faith to doubt the holiness of the apostles, it would be no sin to hesitate before we pronounced dunstan, or thomas-à-becket, or peter the hermit, saints. what a simple-minded peasant would devoutly believe to be the truth in the present day, an intelligent person would be scarcely tolerated in enlightened society for asserting,--and by such homely facts as these are the truths of history only to be tested. [illustration: _dunstan dragging king edwy from elgiva._] the first act which brings dunstan so prominently forward in the reign of edwin is his rude attack upon the king on the day of his coronation. edwin had retired early from the banquet-hall, to seek the society of his beautiful wife elgiva, in her own apartment, when his absence was remarked by the assembled guests. odo, the danish archbishop, was present at the coronation feast, and perceiving that the retirement of the king displeased the company, commanded those persons who were attendant upon him to fetch edwin back. after some demur by the party whom odo addressed, dunstan and another bishop, his relation, undertook to bring back the king. elgiva's mother was in the chamber with edwin and her daughter when the two bishops entered, rudely, and unannounced. edwin, it appears, at the moment of their entrance, was in one of his merry moods, and doubtless glad that he had escaped from the drunken revels of a saxon feast, had taken off his crown and placed it on the ground, and was engaged in a playful struggle with his queen, when the bishops broke so rudely upon his retirement; or it is very probable that the crown had fallen off his head while toying with her, and that seeing the emblem of sovereignty thus cast aside like a bauble, may for a moment have chafed the temper of the irritable and decorous dunstan. we could see nothing to condemn on the part of the bishop, if he had respectfully solicited the return of the king to the banquet; but when edwin refused to go, and dunstan dragged him rudely from his seat, and forced the crown again upon his head, the latter far out-stepped his commission, and acted more like a traitor than a loyal subject in thus attempting to coerce the king. it would, in those days, have been held a justifiable act on the part of edwin to have laid the haughty prelate dead at his feet. elgiva, with the spirit of a true woman, upbraided the bishop for his insolence, and dunstan, we fear, made use of such epithets as belonged more to the smithy than the sanctum; and in which he alluded to the painted lady who is described in the old testament as having been thrown out of her window, and devoured by dogs. nor should we think that the man who had the boldness to attempt to drag out the king by force, would hesitate to throw out a gentle hint, that, if opposed, he would adopt the same method of silencing her as that which was used in stilling the tongue of a "king's daughter." to account for this palace brawl, we must conclude that the danish prelate and the saxon bishop had pledged each other to such a depth in their cups as perilled their reason, or, in other words, there is but little doubt, the reputed saint was the worse for the wine-cup. edwin's first act was, however, sufficient to restore him again to his senses, and although he was the friend of turketul, the chancellor, and stood high in the estimation of odo, the archbishop of canterbury, the young king deprived dunstan of all the offices he held, confiscated his wealth, and sentenced him to banishment. here we behold dunstan once more driven from court, and he no longer carries our sympathies with him, as before-time. a private gentleman, much less a king, could not calmly have brooked the insult dunstan offered to his sovereign. ten thousand men might be found in the present day, who would have rebuked the proudest bishop that ever wore a mitre, had he but dared to intrude thus upon their privacy. we have before stated that elgiva was somewhat closely related to her husband, though it is pretty clear that this kinship extended not nearer than to that of cousin. such as it was, however, the savage odo made it a plea for divorce, and separated the king from his wife. not contented with this, the bloody-minded and cruel archbishop sent a party of savage soldiers to seize her--to drag her like a criminal from her own palace, and, oh! horrible to relate, to brand that beautiful face, which only to look on was to love, with red hot iron--the lips and cheeks which the young king had so proudly hung over and doted upon, were, by the command of the cursed odo, burnt by the hands of ruffianly soldiers--by the order of this miscalled man of god--yet the lightning of heaven descended not to drive his mitre molten into his brain. oh, what heart-rending shrieks must that beautiful woman have sent forth!--what inhuman monsters must they have been who held her white wrists, as she writhed in convulsive agony. death, indeed, would have been mercy compared to such bloody barbarism; after this, she was banished, in all her agony, to ireland. time, that, like sleep, is the great soother of so many sorrows, healed the wounds which the hard-hearted odo had caused to be inflicted on the youthful queen, and her surpassing beauty once more broke forth, and erased the burning scars with which it had been disfigured,--like a rose, that, in its full-blown loveliness, leaves no trace of the blight that had settled down upon the bud. with a heart, yearning all the more fondly for her youthful husband, through the sufferings, which had been embittered by his absence, she rushed, on the eager wings of love, to pour her sorrows into his bosom, and to pillow her beautiful head on that heart which had known no rest since their cruel separation; but the demons of destruction were again let loose upon her. she was pursued and overtaken before she had reached those arms which were open to receive her, and so dreadfully was the body of that lovely lady mangled, that the blood rolls back chilly into the heart, while we sit and sigh over her sufferings. we will not pain our readers by describing this unparalleled butchery. but odo reaped his reward. "vengeance is mine," saith the lord; and before his unerring tribunal the spirit of the mitred murderer, centuries ago, trembled. from the hour of elgiva's murder, the spirit of edwin drooped. he seems to have sat like a shadow with the sceptre in his hand, "nerveless, listless, dead." his subjects rebelled against him. dunstan was recalled from banishment, and new honours were heaped upon his head. edwin's kingdom was divided, and though his brother edgar was not more than thirteen years of age, the dominions of northumbria and mercia were placed under his sway. the infamous odo, and his emissaries, were at last triumphant; and there is scarcely a doubt but that, a few years after the death of his wife, edwin himself was murdered in gloucestershire. in several old chronicles it is darkly hinted that he met with a violent death: in one, which is still extant in the cotton library, it is clearly asserted that he was slain. a youthful king, on whose head the crown, with all its cares and heart-aches, was placed at the age of sixteen, was but ill-armed to battle with the hoary-headed, cunning, and grey iniquity which surrounded his throne. he, who would cast his crown upon the ground to toy with his beautiful wife, was no match for that hypocrisy which was hidden beneath the folds of a saintly garb. when, with a spirit far beyond his years, he boldly resented the insult that dunstan had offered to him, the whole power of the court was at once arrayed against him, for dunstan was already venerated by the ignorant people as a saint: he had the chancellor and the primate on his side; and few would be found to make head against a cause on the part of which such powerful authorities were arranged as leaders. the respect which was due to a king must have been greatly lessened by the insult which dunstan had offered to his sovereign. it resembled more the conduct of a schoolmaster towards an unruly pupil than that of a subject to his superior. edwin closed his troublous career about the year ; and by his death edgar, who had for three years ruled over the northern dominions, became king of england. chapter xxviii. the reign of edgar. "the royal letters are a thing of course; a king, that would, might recommend his horse, and deans, no doubt, and chapters with one voice, as bound in duty, would confirm the choice. behold your bishop! well he plays his part, christian in name, and infidel in heart."--cowper. over the reign of edgar, who ascended the throne in his sixteenth year, the shadow of dunstan again falls, and those who had rent the kingdom asunder, and placed him, when a mere boy, upon the throne of mercia, kept a more tenacious hold of the crown as its circle widened, and gathered closer round edgar as they saw his power increased. dunstan had by this time risen to the dignity of bishop of london. the infamous odo had died about the close of the reign of edwin, and, weakened as the power of that unfortunate king was, he had spirit enough to appoint another to the primacy of england. the bishop that edwin had nominated perished in the snow while crossing the alps; for the pontiffs had issued a decree that no one should be established in the dignity of archbishop till he had first visited rome, and received the pallium; which, as we have before described, was a tippet made of the whitest and purest of lamb's wool, chequered with purple crosses, and worn over the shoulders. another bishop was appointed in his place, but he was soon compelled to resign the primacy, the objections raised against him being, that he was modest, humble, and of a gentle temper--virtues which, although they form the very basis of the christian character, but ill accorded with the views of the ambitious churchmen who now surrounded the throne of the young king. in , only a year after the accession of edgar, dunstan, although he held the sees of winchester, worcester, rochester, and london, was appointed archbishop of canterbury, and received the pallium from the hand of pope john the twelfth, at rome. dunstan lost no time in promoting the interests of those who had assisted in raising him to his new dignity. he appointed oswald, a relation of odo, to the bishopric of worcester; and ethelwold, with whom he had been educated in his early years, he made bishop of winchester. they also, by the intercession of dunstan, became the king's councillors. by this means, he had ever those who were his sworn friends and servants at the elbow of the sovereign. that he contributed to the spreading of education and to the encouragement of the fine arts will ever redound to the credit of dunstan; while the supernatural gifts to which he laid claim--the vision of his mother's marriage with the saviour--the song which, he said, the angel taught him, and with which he roused every monk in the monastery, at morning light, to learn--we must, in charity, attribute to that temporary insanity to which he was at times subject, and which did not even pass unnoticed by his contemporaries. nearly the first act of the primate appears to have been the establishment of the benedictine rules in the monasteries; for the severe and rigid tenets which were adhered to by this new order of monks appear to have suited the cold, stony nature of the new archbishop, the warm emotions of whose heart had now died out, and faded into that cold, ashy grey, which, having lost all sympathy with the living and breathing world, lies as if dead and in a grave, while the heartless body still lives and acts. sorry we are that edgar so implicated himself with the views of the ambitious primate, that whatever dunstan planned, the king executed, and in every way favoured the new order of monks. the following may be taken as a sample of edgar's eloquence in favour of the benedictine order; it was delivered at a public synod, over which the king presided. after condemning the secular clergy for the smallness of their tonsure, in which the least possible patch of baldness was displayed, and finding fault with them for mixing with the laity, and living with concubines, for that was the new name by which dunstan now designated the wives of the clergy, he addressed the primate as follows: "it is you, dunstan, by whose advice i founded monasteries, built churches, and expended my treasure in the support of religion and religious houses. you were my councillor and assistant in all my schemes; you were the director of my conscience; to you i was obedient in all things. when did you call for supplies which i refused you? was my assistance ever wanting to the poor? did i deny support and establishments to the clergy or the convents? did i not hearken to your instructions, who told me that these charities were of all others the most grateful to my maker, and fixed a perpetual fund for the support of religion? and are all our pious endeavours now frustrated by the dissolute lives of the priests? not that i throw any blame on you; you have reasoned, besought, inculcated, inveighed: but it now behoves you to use sharper and more vigorous remedies, and, conjoining your spiritual authority with the civil power, to purge effectually the temple of god from thieves and intruders." although edgar was such an unflinching advocate of celibacy, and is said to have made married priests so scarce, that it was a rarity to see the face of one about his court, he appears to have fixed no limits to his own vicious propensities. while his first queen was yet surviving, he carried off a beautiful young lady, of noble birth, named wulfreda, from the nunnery of wilton, where she was receiving her education, under the sanctity of the veil. this, however, was no protection for her person; but dunstan had the courage to step in, and inflict a penance upon the royal ravisher; which was, to fast occasionally; to lay aside his crown for seven years; to pay a fine to the nunnery; and, as if to make all in keeping with the action, for which he was thus mulct, he was to expel all the married clergy, and fill up their places with monks. such was the penalty imposed upon him by dunstan, who, himself disappointed in love in his earlier years, was now the sworn enemy of all married priests. whether such edicts as he promulgated, and rigidly enforced, were calculated to check or increase such infamous acts as the above, there can scarcely remain matter of doubt; but how many wulfredas the enforcing of his unnatural laws of celibacy were the means of violating can never now be known. edgar having heard rumours of the beauty of elfrida, who was the daughter of ordgar, earl of devonshire, despatched one of his noblemen, named athelwold, on some feigned business, to the castle of her father, to see if her features bore out the report he had heard of her beauty. athelwold saw her, was suddenly smitten with her charms, and keeping the mission he was sent upon a secret, offered her his hand, was accepted, and married her. though athelwold had reported unfavourably of her beauty, and, through this misrepresentation, obtained edgar's consent to marry her, influenced, as he said, by her immense wealth, the truth was not long before it reached the ears of edgar, who resolved upon paying her a visit himself. the king's will was law; and all athelwold could now do was to entreat of edgar to allow him to precede him, pleading, as an excuse for his request, that he might put his house in order for the reception of his royal guest. his real object, however, was to gain time, and to persuade his wife to disguise her beauty by wearing homely attire, or to suffer another to personate her until the king's departure. but elfrida, who, like drida of old, concealed, under the form of an angel, the evil passions of a fiend, rebuked her husband sternly for having stepped in, and prevented her from ascending the throne, and for having himself snatched up that beauty which might have raised her to the rank of queen. all, however, was not yet lost; and never before had elfrida bestowed such pains in decorating her person as she did on the day of the king's arrival. she was resolved upon captivating him; and as nature had done so much, she called in the charms of art to give a finish to her unequalled beauty. we can almost fancy poor athelwold fidgeting about the turret-stair, and thinking every minute which she spent over her toilet an hour; and what a hopeless look the poor saxon nobleman must have given, as, startled by the trumpets which announced the coming of the king, she rose from her seat with a proud step, and a kindling eye, glancing contemptuously upon her husband as she passed, and hurrying eagerly to the gate, to be foremost in welcoming the sovereign. the king was charmed; athelwold was found murdered in a neighbouring wood; edgar married elfrida, and her name is another of those foul stains which disfigure the page of history. there is no proof that edgar stabbed athelwold with his own hand; on the contrary, there was a natural bravery about the king, more in keeping with the chivalric age than the barbarous times in which he lived. to cite a proof of his valour: it had been reported to him that kenneth of scotland, who was then on a visit at the english court, had one day said that it was a wonder to him so many provinces should obey a man so little; for edgar was not only small in stature, but very thin. the saxon king never named the matter to his guest, until one day when they were riding out together, in a lonely wood, when edgar produced two swords, and handing one to the scottish sovereign, said, "our arms shall decide which ought to obey the other; for it will be base to have asserted that at a feast which you cannot maintain with your sword." kenneth recalled his ill-timed remark, apologized, and was forgiven. such a man would scarcely stoop to so base an act as assassination. none of the saxon kings had ever evinced such a love of pomp and display as edgar. he summoned all the sovereigns to do homage for the kingdoms they held under him, at chester; and, not content with this acknowledged vassalage, he commanded his barge to be placed in readiness on the river, and, seating himself at the helm, was rowed down the dee by the eight tributary kings who were his guests. but with all his pride he was generous; and to kenneth of scotland, who had thus condescended to become one of his royal bargemen, he gave the whole wide county of louth, together with a hundred ounces of the purest gold, and many costly rings, ornaments, and precious stones, beside several valuable dresses of the richest silk; only exacting in return that kenneth should, once a year, attend his principal feast. every spring he rode in rich array through his kingdom, accompanied by dunstan and the nobles of his court, when he examined into the conduct of the rulers he had appointed over the provinces, and rigorously enforced obedience to the laws. he gave great encouragement to foreign artificers, regardless from what country they came; if they but evinced superior skill in workmanship, it was a sure passport to the patronage of edgar. the tax which athelstan imposed upon the welsh, after he had won the battle of brunanburg, edgar commuted into an annual tribute of three hundred wolves' heads; and, by such a wise measure, the kingdom was so thinned of this formidable animal, that on the fourth year a sufficient number could not be found to make up the tribute. three centuries after, and in the reign of edward the first, we find england again so infested with wolves, that a royal mandate was issued to effect their extinction in the counties of gloucester, worcester, hereford, and stafford, and that in other places great rewards were also given for their destruction. our saxon ancestors called january wolf-month, "because," says an old chronicle, "people are wont always in that moneth to be more in danger to be devoured of wolves than in any season els of the yere, for that through the extremity of cold and snow, those ravenous creatures could not find of other beasts sufficient to feed upon." the terror with which the wolf was regarded by our forefathers, doubtless caused many of the saxon kings and leaders to assume the name of an animal which was so formidable for its courage and ferocity. thus we find such names as Æthelwulf, the noble wolf; berhtwulf, the illustrious wolf; wulfric, powerful as a wolf; eardwulf, the wolf of the province; wulfheah, the tall wolf; sigwulf, the victorious wolf; and ealdwolf, the old wolf. so infested were the "cars" of lincolnshire, and the wolds of yorkshire, with wolves, which were wont to breed, in what are now the marshlands beside the trent, amongst the sedge and rushes, that the shepherds were compelled to drive their flocks at night for safety into the towns and villages. and in the time of athelstan, a retreat was built in the forest of flixton, in yorkshire, for passengers to shelter in, and defend themselves from the attacks of wolves. [illustration: _the welch tribute of wolves heads._] edgar died in the year , at the age of thirty-two. by his first wife he had a son named edward, who succeeded him; also a daughter who ended her life in a nunnery. by elfrida, the widow of the murdered athelwold, he had two sons, edmund, who died young, and ethelred, who in his turn obtained the crown by the murder which elfrida caused to be committed. elfric, who lived a few years after the death of edgar, has left the following highly-coloured testimonial in praise of his character: "of all the kings of the english nation, he was the most powerful. and it was the divine will that his enemies, both kings and earls, who came to him desiring peace, should, without any battle, be subjected to him to do what he willed. hence he was honoured over a wide extent of land." this panegyric, we think, is somewhat overdrawn: it is true that he kept up a large fleet, consisting of twelve hundred ships, which he stationed on different points of the coast--that he punished those who plundered the vessels of his merchants--executed the law rigorously on the coiners of false money, and left england as free from robbers as it had been at the close of the reign of alfred. still, with all his high-sounding titles, which in some of his charters run to the length of eighteen lines; he rivets not the eye, nor interests the heart, like many of his predecessors who grace the great gallery of our early saxon kings. chapter xxix. edward the martyr. "for saints may do the same things by the spirit, in sincerity, which other men are tempted to, and at the devil's instance do."--butler's _hudibras_. "the tyrannous and bloody act is done; the most arch deed of piteous massacre that ever yet this land was guilty of."--shakspere. edward, called the martyr, was a mere boy of fifteen when he ascended the throne, which was vacated by the death of his father, edgar. as he had been schooled under dunstan, and his mind moulded to suit the purposes of the ambitious primate, he was chosen, in opposition to the wishes of elfrida, who boldly came forward and claimed the crown for her son ethelred, then a child only six years old. this aspiring queen was not without her adherents; and as the rigorous measures to which dunstan had resorted, to coerce the married clergy and exclude them from officiating in the churches, had rendered him unpopular in many quarters, numbers were found ready to rally round elfrida and her son ethelred. but edward had been appointed king by the will of his father, and the charge against his legitimacy appears to have been altogether unfounded; for he was the undoubted son of edgar, and the fruit of his first marriage with elfleda, who was called "the fair;" and dunstan adopted the readiest method of settling the dispute by assembling the bishops, and such of the nobles as were favourable to his cause, then placing the crown at once upon his head. meantime, the contest continued to be waged more keenly between the monks and the secular clergy. dunstan had opposed the coronation of ethelred; and elfrida, who was as bold as she was cruel, rose up, and took the part of the married priests. elfere, the governor of mercia, also set the primate at defiance, emptied all the monasteries in his province of the benedictine monks, and levelled many of their buildings to the ground--a strong proof that the power of the archbishop was on the wane. alwin, the governor of east anglia, took the side of dunstan; gave shelter to the monks who had been driven out of mercia; and chased the married priests from the province over which he ruled. beside mercia, the secular clergy had obtained possession of many monasteries; and to end these disputes, dunstan convened a synod at winchester. here a voice is said to have issued from the crucifix which was fixed in the wall, which forbade all change; and instead of arguing the matter fairly, dunstan at once exclaimed--"a divine voice has determined the affair; what wish ye more?" this artifice, however, did not succeed; for there were then, as now, men who had great misgivings about dunstan's miracles, and who believed that he would not hesitate to avail himself of any means he could impress, to carry out his object. dunstan, seeing the mistrust and doubt with which his pretended miracle was received, resolved that, if they did not accede to his wishes, his next attempt at the marvellous should be accompanied with proof of his vengeance. it was in the year that this second or third council was held at calne. it was, as before, a saxon parliament, or witena-gemot, consisting of the nobles and principal clergy of the nation. the opponents of dunstan appear to have grown hot in argument, and, according to one of our ancient historians, william of malmesbury, "the matter was agitated with great warmth of controversy, and the darts of many reproaches were thrown on dunstan, but could not shake him." the following reply of the primate to the attack made upon him is given from osberne, who was the friend and councillor of the archbishop langfranc, a man who held dunstan in the highest estimation. osberne was alive about a century after the event took place which he records. after having defended himself for some time, dunstan concluded with these remarkable words: 'since you did not, in such a lapse of time, bring forward your accusation, but, now that i am old and cultivating taciturnity, seek to disturb me by these antiquated complaints, _i confess that i am unwilling that you should conquer me_. i commit the cause of his church to christ as the judge.' he spoke, and the wrath of the angry deity corroborated what he said; for the house was immediately shaken; the chamber was loosened under their feet; his enemies were precipitated to the ground, and oppressed by the weight of the crushing timbers. but where the saint was reclining with his friends, there no ruin occurred." eadmar, who was contemporary with osberne, expresses himself still more clearly, though he appears not for a moment to have suspected that the villanous affair was arranged by dunstan and his confidential friends. "he spoke, and, lo! the floor under the feet of _those who had come together against him fell from beneath them_, and all were alike precipitated; but where _dunstan stood with his friends_, no ruin of the house, no accident happened." the saxon chronicle, an authentic record of that period, also notices the falling in of the floor, and the escape of dunstan. as this is the greatest blot on his character, we have been careful in producing such undisputed authorities. to attribute the catastrophe to an accident, would be reasonable, had only dunstan himself escaped; but when we look at the conclusion of the speech which is attributed to him by those who admired his character--"i confess that i am unwilling you should conquer"--and see it recorded that all his friends were uninjured, we are surely justified in concluding that the floor had been previously undermined, and that all was so arranged that, at a given signal, the only remaining prop was removed, and dunstan and his friends were left secure to glut their gaze on their slain and wounded enemies; for many of the nobles on whom the beams and rafters fell were killed upon the spot. that the crime rested with dunstan alone, we cannot believe--many must have been cognisant of it; the strength of the council was against the primate, and but for this accident, miracle, or, as we believe, carefully-planned scheme of villany, dunstan's power would at once have ended; as it was, to quote the words of the old chronicler, "this miracle gave peace to the archbishop." when his friend athelwold died, and the see of winchester was vacant, dunstan wished to appoint his friend elphegus to the bishopric; but meeting with some opposition amongst the nobles, he boldly asserted that st. andrew had appeared to him, and commanded him to appoint his friend to the vacant see. here we have another proof of the use which dunstan made of the sanctity that was attributed to his character. the miracles which are ascribed to him--his combats with the devil, who was constantly appearing to him in every imaginable shape, such as that of a bear, a dog, a viper, and a wolf, may be found fully recorded in the ancient life, written by bridfirth, who was personally acquainted with dunstan.[ ] we have dwelt thus lengthily on the life of this singular and ambitious man, as in it we see fully illustrated the evil consequence of persecuting and retarding the progress of superior talent. it is probable that no one ever set out in the world with a firmer determination of acting honestly and uprightly than dunstan; it is also clear, that in intellectual attainments he ranked amongst the highest which that age produced; nor do we think that we should be much in error in assuming that when, in his old age, he looked back, through the dim vista of years, to the bright and promising morning of his life, he often sighed for that retirement which he might have enjoyed in the society of her whom his heart first clung to; nor can we marvel if the crimes which are attributed to him are true, which is strongly supported by the evidence we have produced, that in his old age his slumber was often broken by such fearful apparitions--the creation of a guilty conscience, as his friend and biographer bridfirth has stated were ever present before his diseased imagination. dunstan still stood high in the favour of his youthful sovereign, and the primate shielded him, for a time, from the vengeance of elfrida, who aimed at placing the crown upon the head of her son ethelred; to accomplish this, a conspiracy had been formed to assassinate edward, in which the governor of mercia, who had driven out the clergy, is said to have leagued himself with the queen-dowager; for party-feeling still raged as strongly on the sides of the monks and the secular clergy as ever; and aged as dunstan was, there yet remained many enemies, who anxiously sought his overthrow; but the nobles continued to remain true to their king, and, while they surrounded him, he was safe from the meditated blow. the long looked for hour came at last. edward was out, one day, hunting near wareham, in dorsetshire, when, either having outridden his attendants, or purposely resolved to visit his mother-in-law, he rode up to corfe castle, where she resided with her son ethelred, and without alighting from his horse, had a brief interview with elfrida, at the gate. she received him with an assumed kindness, and urgently pressed him to dismount. this he declined doing, and having requested to see his brother ethelred, he called for a cup of wine, which was brought, when, just as he had raised it to his lips, one of elfrida's attendants stepped behind him, and stabbed him in the back. dropping the cup from his hand, he struck the spurs into his horse, and fled; for we can readily imagine that one glance at the countenance of elfrida satisfied the wounded monarch that she was the instigator of the murderous deed. with no one near to follow or support him, he soon fainted through loss of blood, and fell from his saddle; the affrighted steed still plunged onward, with headlong speed, dragging the body of the king along, over the rugged road, as he still hung with his foot suspended in the stirrup. when discovered by his attendants, he was dead--his course was traced by the beaten ground over which his mangled body had passed, and the blood that had stained the bladed grass, and left its crimson trail upon the knotted stems against which it had struck. his remains were burnt, and there is some doubt whether even his ashes were preserved for interment. "no worse deed," says the saxon chronicle, "had been committed among the people of the anglo-saxons since they first came to the land of britain." edward was not more than eighteen years of age when he was murdered. his death, however, was not the first that elfrida had caused. in the records of ely, mention is made of an abbot named brythonod, who attracted her attention as he came to the palace on matters connected with his abbey. as he was about to take his departure, elfrida requested to speak with him apart, under the plea of unburthening her conscience. what passed at this private interview would probably never have been known, but through her own confession, when she became a penitent, and acknowledged her guilt. she made such proposals to the abbot as he was unwilling to concede to. her fondness soon changed to revenge, and shortly after the virtuous abbot was assassinated. such was the woman who comes heaving up, like a blood-stained shadow, into the next reign, and whose evil influence brought such woe upon england. it is said that ethelred wept bitterly at the death of his brother edward, whom he dearly loved, and that his mother seized either a torch or a thick wax candle, and beat the young prince with it until he was senseless. so unpopular were elfrida and her son, that an attempt was made to raise an illegitimate daughter of edgar to the throne. the young lady was the daughter of wulfreda, whom he had violently carried from the nunnery of wilton. the plot failed, and ethelred succeeded to the crown, in , and in the tenth year of his age. chapter xxx. ethelred the unready. "and when they talk of him, they shake their heads, and whisper one another in the ear; and he that speaks, doth gripe the hearer's wrist; while he that hears, makes fearful action, with wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes." shakspere. the ambitious hopes of elfrida were justly doomed to meet with disappointment: the power she sought to obtain by the assassination of edward eluded her grasp, and dunstan, though aged and infirm, still stood at the head of his party, triumphant. the saxons looked with disgust upon a woman who had caused her son-in-law to be stabbed at her own castle-gate; and there is but little doubt that the primate, for a time, so successfully raised the popular indignation against her, that she was compelled to seek shelter in a nunnery until the storm subsided. on the head of the son of the murderess, the primate placed the crown, in ; and it is recorded that, instead of pronouncing a blessing upon it, the stern churchman gave utterance to a bitter malediction, foreboding that a reign which was begun with bloodshed and murder, could only end in sorrow, suffering, and dishonourable humiliation. ethelred possessed not those qualities which, by their sterling worth, weigh down all unpopular opinion; where the darkness had once settled, it remained; for he illuminated it not by the brilliant achievement of glorious deeds. in the eyes of the saxon nation the blood of alfred was at last contaminated; the wisdom which had so long governed england peaceably, had waned away; and the arm which had struck terror into the hearts of five nations on the field of brunanburg, was now weak and powerless; for the throne of england was at last occupied by the child of a murderess, whom dunstan, from his apparent apathy, had already nick-named "the unready." england had long been rent asunder by civil dissensions, which the accession of ethelred only tended to increase instead of assuaging: the sceptre had before-time fallen into young and helpless hands without diminishing the kingdom's strength, but there were then none of those private heart-burnings to contend against; none of that party bitterness which divided family against family, for the state was supported by the united strength of its nobles, and its councils swayed by a feeling of union and harmony. it was not the monks and the secular clergy that this long contention alone affected; almost every town and village was divided against itself, for the quarrel extended to the domestic hearth. dunstan could not drive a married priest from the church without making enemies of the whole family: there was the insulted wife as well as the husband to appease; then came a wide circle of relations and friends, while, on the part of the monks, no such extensive ramifications were arrayed. thousands were therefore found ready to overthrow a government which was headed by the primate. such internal dissensions as these could not pass unnoticed by the danes, who were ever on the alert to shake off the saxon yoke when an opportunity presented itself; and rumours of the discords which reigned in england were soon blown over the baltic; and many an anxious eye began to look out over the sea for succour; for the northmen had long pined for a king of their own nation to reign over the territory which they occupied in england. dunstan, who had lent his powerful aid in supporting the sceptre throughout three reigns, had, by this time, grown old, and feeble, and helpless; elfrida had weakened the power she once possessed, by the very means she took to strengthen it; and two years after the accession of ethelred, danish ships again began to appear, and pour out their pirates to ravage as of old, and spread terror along the english coasts, for the tidings soon reached the rocky shores of norway, that there was no longer the wisdom of an alfred to guide the government, nor the arm of an athelstan to protect the english throne. while, to add to this state of disunion and broken government, it is believed many of the influential saxons were in league with the danes, and covertly encouraged the new invaders. passing over the minor invasions, which first consisted of seven ships, and then of three, and of the trifling engagements which succeeded, and in which the saxons were at one time defeated, and at another victorious, we shall commence with the first formidable force, which was commanded by justin and gurthmund, and which was opposed by a strong saxon force, headed by byrhtnoth, the governor of essex. the sea-kings first sent a herald to the saxon court, demanding tribute; the saxon nobleman raised his buckler, and, looking sternly at the messenger while he shook his javelin in his face, exclaimed--"herald of the men of the ocean, hear from my lips the answer of this people to thy message. instead of tribute, they will bestow on you their weapons, the edge of their spears, their ancient swords, and the weight of their arms. hear me, mariner, and carry back my message of high indignation in return. say, that a saxon earl, with his retainers, here stands undaunted; that he will defend unto death this land, the domain of my sovereign, ethelred, his people, and his territory. tell the vikingrs that i shall think it but dastardly if they retire to their ships with the booty, without joining in battle, since they have advanced thus far into our land." a river divided the hostile forces, and the saxon earl allowed the invaders a free passage across it unmolested, before the battle commenced. one of the sea-kings fell early in the conflict; bryhtnoth selected the other for his opponent, and the bold vikingr accepted the challenge. the first javelin which the sea-king hurled, slightly wounded the saxon leader; bryhtnoth then struck the sea-king with his spear, but the dane "so manoeuvred with his shield, that the shaft broke, and the spear sprang back and recoiled." the next blow struck by the saxon earl pierced the ringed chains of the sea-king's armour, and the pointed weapon stuck in his heart. the dane had no sooner fallen, than the saxon was struck by a dart: a youth, named wulfmor, "a boy in the field," who appears to have been the earl's page, or armour-bearer, with his own hand drew out the javelin which had transfixed the body of bryhtnoth, and hurled it back at the dane who had just launched it, with such force, and so sure an aim, that it struck him, and he fell dead. the saxon earl was already staggering through loss of blood, when one of the pirates approached him, with the intent of plundering him of "his gems, his vestment, his ring, and his ornamental sword." but bryhtnoth had still strength enough left to uplift his heavy battle-axe, "broad and brown of edge," and to strike such a blow on the corslet of the dane, that it compelled him to loose his hold. after this he fell, covered with wounds, but uttering his commands to the last moment. although the battle was continued for some time after his death, the saxons were defeated. turn we now to ethelred. while here and there a saxon chief was found bold enough to make head, like bryhtnoth, against the invaders, the dastardly sovereign assembled his witena-gemot, to consult as to what amount of tribute should be paid to the invaders, to induce them to abandon the island. siric, the successor of dunstan, is said to have been the first who proposed this cowardly measure. had the old primate been alive, with all his faults, he would have seen england drenched with saxon blood, and been foremost in the ranks to have spilt his own, ere he would have seen his country degraded by such an unmanly concession. ten thousand pounds was the disgraceful grant paid to purchase a temporary peace with the danes. the invaders received their money, departed, and speedily returned with a greater force to demand a larger sum. the northmen found no lack of allies in a land where their countrymen had so long been located, who, shaking off their allegiance to england, flew eagerly to arms, and joined the new-comers. but the old saxon spirit was not yet wholly extinct. there was still remaining amongst the nobles a few who were resolved not to be plundered with impunity. with great effort they at last succeeded in arousing the lethargic king; and by his command, a few strong ships were built at london, and filled with chosen soldiers; and to alfric, the governor of mercia, was entrusted the guidance of the saxon fleet. his first orders were to sail round the southern coast, and to attack the danes at some particular port, in which they could easily be surrounded. a duke and two bishops were also joined with him in the command. alfric turned traitor, communicated to the danes the meditated mode of attack, then carried with him what force he could in the night, and secretly joined the invaders. the rest of the fleet remained true to their unworthy king, and honestly executed their duty; although, through the frustration of their able plans, they found the danish ships in full flight, and at first were only able to capture one of the enemy's vessels. but that courage and perseverance which have so long distinguished the english navy, were, even in this early age, frequently evinced; and before the danish ships were able to regain a safe harbour, many of them were captured by the saxons, and, amongst the rest, were those which the traitor alfric had carried over to the enemy; he, however, contrived to escape; and ethelred,--who had been trained in the barbarous school of elfrida,--to avenge the crimes committed by alfric, ordered the eyes of his son, algar, to be put out. the next attack was made upon lincolnshire, but the command of the saxons was again entrusted to three chiefs of danish origin, who appear to have crossed over, and joined their countrymen at the commencement of the battle. it was in the spring of that a formidable fleet entered the thames, consisting of nearly a hundred ships, and commanded by olaf, king of norway, and swein, king of denmark. on first landing, they took formal possession of england, according to an ancient custom of their country, by first planting one lance upon the shore, and throwing another into the river they had crossed. although some resistance was offered, and they were compelled to abandon their original plan of plundering london, they were enabled to over-run essex and kent; and satisfied with the plunder they obtained in these counties, they next turned their arms successfully against sussex and hampshire, and in none of these places did they meet with opposition of sufficient importance to draw forth a word of comment from the ancient chroniclers--a strong proof of the disaffection that must have reigned amongst the saxons, and of the unpopularity of ethelred's government. instead of arming in the defence of his kingdom, ethelred again had recourse to his exchequer, and despatched messengers to know the terms the danes demanded for a cessation of hostilities. sixteen thousand pounds (though some of our early historians have named a much larger sum) was the price the northern kings now claimed for the purchase of peace. it was paid; and the king of norway, after having received hostages for his safety, paid a visit to the saxon court. while he was ethelred's guest he was baptized, and, as it appears, not for the first time, for the sea-kings cared but little for changing their creed, when rich presents accompanied the persuasions of the christian bishops. but whether olaf departed a pagan or a christian, he solemnly promised never more to invade england, and religiously kept his word. after the lapse of about three years, swein, king of denmark, again resumed his hostilities. wessex, wales, cornwall, and devonshire, were this time ravaged. the monastery of tavistock was destroyed, and although laden with plunder, so little dread had the danes of the saxons that they boldly took up their quarters for the winter in the island. it is true they were not allowed to carry on their work of destruction without molestation; but no sooner was an attack planned and a battle arranged, than either treason or accident overthrew or checked the operation. a spirit of disaffection reigned amongst the people. that earnestness of purpose, and determined valour, which had hitherto so strongly marked the saxon character seemed all but to have died out. as for ethelred, though like his mother, handsome in features, and tall of stature, he had neither the abilities to figure in the field nor the cabinet. william of malmesbury pictured his character in three words, when he called him a "fine sleeping figure." while swein was engaged in a war with olaf of norway, another army of danes landed in england, though under what leader has not transpired. at every new invasion the danes rose in their demands, and this time their forbearance was purchased by the enormous sum of twenty-four thousand pounds. we now arrive at one of the darkest pages of english history--a massacre which throws into shade the sanguinary slaughter committed by the command of hengist, at stonehenge. by what means this vast conspiracy was formed is not clearly stated, although it is on record that letters were sent secretly from the king to every city and town in england, commanding all the saxon people throughout the british dominions to rise on the same day, and at the same hour, to slaughter the danes. on the day that ushered in the feast of st. brice, in the year , this cruel command was executed, though we trust that there is some exaggeration in the accounts given by the ancient chroniclers, which state, that all the danish families scattered throughout england; husbands, wives, children, down to the smiling infant that pressed the nipple with "its boneless gums," were, within the space of one brief hour, mercilessly butchered. even gunhilda, the sister of swein, the danish king, who had married a saxon earl, and become a christian, was not saved from the inhuman massacre; and her boy, though the son of a saxon nobleman, was first slain before her face, ere she herself was beheaded. for nearly five generations had the danes been settled down in england; yet we fear this dreadful order spared not those whose forefathers had been born on the soil. through the eye of imagination we look with horror upon such a scene. we picture near neighbours who had lived together for years--who had, when children, played together--who had grown up and intermarried;--we picture the wife rising up against the husband, the father slaying his son-in-law; for neither guest, friend, nor relation appear to have been spared. the insolence, and excess, and brutality of the danish soldiers formed no excuse for the slaughter of the more peaceable inhabitants who had so long been allowed to occupy the land, and had become naturalized to the soil. pomp and grandeur, and military array, to a certain extent, disguise the horrors of war, though they lessen not the effect such scenes produce upon a sensitive mind: but here there was nothing to conceal cold-blooded and naked murder from the open eye of day. but swein is already at the head of his fleet, riding over the billows, and to him we will now turn, as he stands upon the deck of his vessel, breathing vengeance against the saxons. the army which swein led on is said to have consisted of only the bravest and noblest soldiers. there was not a slave, nor a freed man, nor an old man amongst the number. the ships in which they were embarked rose long and high above the waters, and on the stem of each was engraven the same figure as that which was wrought upon the banner of its commander. the vessel which bore the king of denmark was called the great sea dragon: it was built in the shape of a serpent, the prow curving, and forming the arched neck and fanged head of the reptile, while over the stern of the ship hung the twisted folds which resembled its tail. on the heads of others were semblances of maned bulls and twined dolphins, and grim figures of armed men, formed of gilt and burnished copper, which flashed back the rays of sunlight, and left trails, like glittering gold, upon the waves. when they landed, they unfurled a mysterious flag of white silk, in the centre of which was embroidered a black raven, with open beak, and outstretched wings, as if in the act of seizing upon its prey. this banner, to secure victory, according to the scandinavian superstition, had been worked by the hands of swein's three sisters in one night, while they accompanied the labour with magic songs and wild gestures. such was the formidable array which, in the spring of , approached the shores of england. when the danes landed, they seized upon all the horses they could meet with, and thus formed a strong body of cavalry; they then attacked exeter, slew many of the inhabitants, and plundered the city. the county of wilts was next ravaged, and savagely did swein avenge the murder of his countrymen. castles and towns were taken in rapid succession, and wherever they passed, they left behind them desolating traces of fire and sword. when they were met by the saxon army, the leader alfric feigned illness, and declined the contest; thus, without scarcely a blow having been struck by the english, the danes ravaged and plundered the country, and slew thousands of the inhabitants; then escaped in safety with the spoil, and regained their ships, leaving behind them a land of mourning, which a grievous famine was now also afflicting. in the following year, swein returned to england with his fleet, and destroyed norwich. some slight opposition was offered to him by the east anglians, but it was not sufficient to prevent him from reaching his ships, and escaping, as usual, with the plunder. turketul, who had an interview with swein, drew the following vivid picture of the miseries of england at this period. "we possess," said he, "a country illustrious and powerful; a king asleep, solicitous only about women and wine, and trembling at war; hated by his people, and derided by strangers. generals, envious of each other; and weak governors, ready to fly at the first shout of battle." in , the danes again appeared, and this time they received thirty-six thousand pounds to forbear their hostilities. they, however, attacked canterbury, and made elfeg, the archbishop, prisoner. he was secured with chains, and removed from one encampment to another; for they believed him to be rich, and were resolved not to part with him, unless he first paid a heavy ransom. the price they fixed upon was three thousand gold pieces. "i have no money of my own," said the archbishop, "and am resolved not to deprive my ecclesiastical territory of a single penny on my account." it was in vain that the danes urged him, day after day, to raise a ransom. the archbishop was firm, and said, "i will not rob my poor people of that which they have need of for their sustenance." one day, when they had been drinking freely, the primate was brought before the danish chiefs for pastime, bound, and seated upon a lean, meagre-looking horse. in this pitiable plight, he was led into the centre of the enemy's encampment, in which was placed a huge circle of stones, and on these the sea-kings and their followers were seated. around them were scattered heaps of bones of oxen, the remains of their rude repast. some of the chiefs sat with their drinking-horns in their hands, others resting idly with their hands on the hilts of their swords and battle-axes. as soon as the primate appeared in the circle, they raised a loud shout, and exclaimed: "give us gold, bishop--give us gold! or we will compel thee to play such a game as shall be talked of throughout the whole world." elfeg calmly answered: "i have but the gold of wisdom to offer you; receive that, and abandon your superstitions, and become converts to the true god." the drunken chiefs, considering this as an insult to their religion, hastily rose up from their mock tribunal, and, seizing upon the legs and thigh bones of the oxen which they had been devouring, they beat him until he fell prostrate upon the ground. he endeavoured in vain to kneel, and offer up a last prayer, but sank forward, through weakness; when a danish soldier, whom he had formerly baptized, stepped forward, and dealt him a heavy blow on the skull with his battle-axe, and terminated his sufferings. the body of the murdered bishop was purchased by the saxons, and carried to london, where it was buried.[ ] the next method which ethelred had recourse to, was to lay an oppressive tax upon the land; every hides of land was assessed to build one vessel, and every eight hides to furnish a helmet and breastplate. thus a naval force was raised which consisted of seven hundred and eighty-five ships, together with armour for , men. this fleet assembled at sandwich. but treason and misfortune seem now to have dogged every step which the saxons took. wulfnoth, who was appointed one of the commanders, carried off twenty ships, and set up pirate. brihtric, another leader, pursued him with eighty vessels, part of which the tempest wrecked, while the remainder fell into the hands of the traitor and pirate, wulfnoth, and he burnt them. such events as these extinguished the last ray of hope that dimly gleamed upon the disheartened saxons. the danes had now only to command and receive. sixteen counties were at once given up to them, together with the sum of £ , . ethelred was now king of only a portion of england; every day the people began to secede from him, and to shelter themselves under the sovereignty of the king of denmark. it would only be a dry and wearisome catalogue of names, to run over the roll of cities, as they one after another, opened their gates to the danish king. london remained faithful to the last, and it was not until ethelred fled to the isle of wight, and afterwards to normandy, where he was kindly received by the duke, whose daughter he had married, that the metropolis of england acknowledged swein as its sovereign, for the saxons had at last become weary of being plundered by the danes, and of the oppressive taxes which they had been constantly called upon to pay to their own king; so that they sat down sternly with folded arms, under a new sovereignty, conscious that it could not be worse than the old. swein, however, did not survive long to wear his regal honours, but died the year after his elevation to the english throne. where the ancient town of gainsborough looks down upon the silver trent, that goes murmuring for miles through the still wild marshes of lincolnshire, did swein, the king of denmark and of england, breathe his last; and a majestic pile of ruins, yet in parts inhabited, stands upon the site of the mercian castle in which he died. after the death of swein, the danish population of england chose his son canute, or knut, as their sovereign; while the saxon nobles sent messengers over to normandy, offering to restore the crown to ethelred, if he would "govern them more righteously than he had done before." the king dispatched his son edmund with the necessary pledges, demanding in return that they should hold every danish king an outlaw, who should declare himself monarch of england; to this they consented, and having pledged himself "to amend all that had been complained of," ethelred, the unready, returned to england. canute was, however, resolved to maintain the crown which his father had won, and in order to intimidate the saxons, he landed at sandwich the hostages which swein had received from the english as pledges of their good faith and submission, after having cruelly cut their hands and faces; these chiefly consisted of the sons of the saxon nobility--a savage retaliation for the danish massacre which ethelred had authorized. following the policy adopted by athelstan, ethelred now made an offer of high rewards to every warrior, of whatever country, who chose to come and fight under the saxon standard--many came, and amongst the number, olave, a celebrated vikingr, who afterwards obtained the crown of norway. canute also secured the aid of one of the norwegian earls, named eric. edmund, surnamed ironside, who was the illegitimate son of ethelred, now began to distinguish himself by his opposition to the danish king, and to him the saxons already looked up as a deliverer, even before his father died, which event took place at the close of the year . as the struggles between the english and the danes were carried on with great vigour by edmund ironside and canute, they become matter of history which are connected with the next brief reign. we find a gloomy picture of the miserable state of england, during the sovereignty of ethelred, in the following complaint made by a saxon bishop who was living at the period: "we perpetually pay the danes tribute," says this old divine, "and they ravage us daily. they burn, spoil, and plunder, and carry off our property to their ships. such is their successful valour, that one of them will in battle, put ten of our men to flight. two or three will drive a troop of captive christians through the country, from sea to sea. very often they seize the wives and daughters of our thanes, and cruelly violate them before the great chieftain's face. the slave of yesterday becomes the master of his lord to-day, or he abandons his master, flies to the sea-kings, and seeks his owner's life in the first battle that is waged against us. soldiers, famine, flames, and effusion of blood, are found on every side. theft and murder, pestilences, diseases, calumny, hatred, and rapine, dreadfully afflict us. widows are frequently compelled into unjust marriages; many are reduced to penury and are pillaged. the poor men are sorely seduced, and cruelly betrayed, and though innocent, are sold far out of this land to foreign slavery. cradle-children are made slaves out of this nation, through an atrocious violation of the law for little stealings. the right of freedom is taken away; the rights of the servile are narrowed, and the right of charity is diminished. freemen may not govern themselves, nor go where they wish, nor possess their own as they like. slaves are not suffered to enjoy what they have obtained from their allowed leisure, nor what good men have benevolently given for them. the clergy are robbed of their franchises, and stripped of all their comforts."[ ] such was england at the period when the sceptre was all but wrested from the descendants of alfred, and about to be wielded by the hand of a danish king. at the last struggle which was made to retain it, before the saxon glory was for a time eclipsed, we have now arrived. chapter xxxi. edmund, surnamed ironside. "his death, whose spirit lent a fire even to the dullest peasant in his camp, being bruited once, took fire and heat away from the best tempered courage in his troops: for from his metal was his party steeled; which, once in him abated, all the rest turned on themselves, like dull and heavy lead." shakspere. edmund, who, for his valour and hardy constitution, was surnamed ironside, had already distinguished himself against the danes, and shown signs of promise, which foretold that, whenever the sceptre fell into his hand, it would be ably wielded. like those meteoric brilliancies which startle us by their sudden splendour, then instantly depart, so was his career--bright, beautiful, and brief. we perceive a trailing glory along the sky over which he passed, but no steady burning of the star that left it behind. had he ascended the throne at a peaceful and prosperous period, he might probably have dozed away his days in apathy; for he was one of those spirits born to blaze upon the fiery front of danger, and either speedily to consume, or be consumed. he began by measuring his stature against a giant, and raised himself so high by his valiant deportment, that had a little longer time been allowed him to develope his growth, he would have overtopped the great canute, by whose side he stood. he had scarcely leisure to put off the mourning which he had worn at his father's funeral, before he was compelled to arm in defence of the capital of the kingdom; for the danish forces, headed by canute, had already laid siege to london, and nearly the half of england was at that period in the possession of his enemies. the struggle to carry the capital was maintained with great spirit by the besiegers, and as bravely repelled by the besieged; and the wall which then ran along the whole front of the city, beside the thames, was the scene of many a valorous exploit. a bridge, even at this early period, stretched over into southwark, and on the surrey side it was stoutly defended by the enemy, who for a long time held the saxons at bay; for they were strengthened by the ships which canute had brought up from greenwich, and placed on the west side of the bridge; thus cutting off all aid from the river; while he left a part of his fleet below, to guard against surprise from the mouth of the thames. london was so strongly protected by its fortresses and citizens, that edmund was enabled to remove a great portion of his army, and to fight two battles in the provinces during the time it was besieged. the most important of these was his engagement at scearstan, where he addressed his soldiers before commencing the battle, and so kindled their valour by his eloquence, that at the first onset, which was sounded by the braying of the trumpets, the danish soldiers staggered as if the weight of a mighty avalanche had come thundering down amongst them. edmund himself fought amid the foremost ranks--there was no sword that went deeper into the advanced line of the enemy than his own--no arm that made such bleeding gaps as the sovereign's. he seemed as if present in almost every part of the field at once--wherever his eager eye caught a wavering motion in the ranks, there he was seen to rally, and cheer them on. edric, who had long been in the service of ethelred, fought on the side of canute, and by his influence arrayed the men of wiltshire and somerset against edmund. so obstinately was the battle maintained on both sides, that neither party could claim the victory when night settled down upon the hard-fought field. the dawn of a summer morning saw the combat renewed. while yet the silver dew hung pure and rounded upon the blood-stained grass, the saxon trumpets sounded the charge. foremost as ever in the conflict, edmund fought his way into the very thickest of the strife, until he found himself face to face with canute. the first blow which the saxon king aimed at his enemy, canute received upon his shield: it was cloven asunder; and with such force had the sword of edmund descended, that after severing the buckler, the edge of the weapon went deep into the neck of the horse which the danish king bestrode. the english monarch still stood alone amid a crowd of danes, making such destructive circles with his two-handed sword, that no one dared approach him. after having slightly wounded canute, and slain several of his choicest warriors, edmund was compelled to fall back amongst his own soldiers, whom he now found in retreat and confusion. while edmund was thus busily engaged in the very heart of the battle, the traitor edric had struck off the head of a soldier, named osmear, whose countenance closely resembled that of the king, and holding it by the hair, he had ridden rapidly along the saxon lines, exclaiming: "fly! fly! and save yourselves--behold the head of your king." edmund had just succeeded in fighting his way through the danish ranks, when he beheld the panic which edric had spread amongst the soldiers--his first act was to seize a spear and hurl it at the traitor--he stooped, missed the blow, and the weapon pierced two soldiers who stood near him. edmund then threw down his helmet, and taking the advantage of a rising ground, stood up bareheaded, and called upon his warriors to renew the combat; but many were already beyond hearing. it was now near sunset, for the conflict had lasted all day long, and those who rallied around him were just sufficient to keep up the struggle without retreating, until darkness again dropped down upon the scene. so ended the second day, and neither side could claim the victory. edmund again encamped upon the battle-field, for he had still sufficient faith in the force that remained with him to renew the contest in the morning. day-dawn, however, revealed the departure of the danes, and the saxons found themselves alone, surrounded by the wounded and the dead; for canute had taken advantage of the midnight darkness, and retreated from the field. the danish king hurried off with his army to renew the siege of london; edmund followed him, and drove the enemy as far as brentford. here another battle took place; and as we find canute, soon after, once more beleaguering the capital, the advantages the saxon king gained could only have been slight. seeing that he could make no impression upon london, canute next led his army into mercia, where he appears to have met with but little opposition; he is said to have burnt every town he approached. at otford, in kent, edmund once more attacked the danish king, and drove him to sheppey. unfortunately, the saxon sovereign had admitted edric the traitor again into his friendship, and he betrayed him; but for this, it is questionable if canute could have maintained another attack. it was on the eve of one of these battles, in which the northmen were defeated, that a danish chief, named ulfr, who was hotly pursued by the saxons, rushed into a wood, in the hurry of defeat, and lost his way. it was no uncommon hardship for a sea-king to throw himself at the foot of the nearest oak, pillow his head upon the root, and sleep soundly until the morning; he would only miss the murmur of the ocean, and, to make up for its lulling sound, would be saved the trouble of raising his hand every now and then to sweep off the salt spray that dashed over him. but the dawn of day found him no better off than the midnight; he would have known what course to have steered had he been out alone upon the open ocean, but in a forest, where one tree looked, in his eyes, just like another, he knew not on what tack to sail. after wandering about for some time, he met a saxon peasant, who was driving home his oxen, at that early hour, for it was probably dangerous to allow them to be found in the forest after daylight, as the forest-laws were already severe. the danish chief first accosted the churl, by inquiring his name. "it is godwin," answered the peasant; "and you are one of the danes who were compelled yesterday to fly for your life." the sea-king acknowledged it was true, and asked the herdsman if he could guide him either to the danish ships, or to where the army was encamped. "the dane must be mad," answered godwin, "who trusts to a saxon for safety." ulfr entreated this rude gurth of the forest to point him out the way, at the same time urging his argument by presenting the herdsman with a massive gold ring, to win his favour. godwin looked at the ring--it was probably the first time in his life he had ever seen so costly a treasure--and after having carefully examined it, he again placed it in the hand of the sea-king, and said, "i will not take this, but will show you the way." ulfr spent the day at the herdsman's cottage; night came, and found godwin in readiness to be his guide. the herdsman had an aged father, who, before he permitted his son to depart, thus addressed the danish chief--"it is my only son whom i allow to accompany you; to your good faith i entrust him; for, remember, that there will no longer be any safety for him amongst his countrymen, if it is once known that he has been your guide. present him to your king, and entreat him to take my son into his service." ulfr promised, and he kept his word, since there is no doubt that the young herdsman had gained upon his favour during the journey, for when the sea-king reached the danish encampment, he took the peasant into his own tent, placed him upon a seat, (a great honour in those days,) which was as high as the one he himself occupied, and treated him as if he had been his own son. this humble cowherd, who afterwards married the sea-king's sister, will, ere long, have to figure amongst the most prominent characters in our history, but we must leave him for a time, and follow the fortunes of the saxon king, edmund. after sustaining the alternations of victory and defeat--having been again betrayed by edric, and making an offer to canute to decide the fate of the kingdom by single combat, a challenge which the danish king is generally believed to have declined--a treaty was entered into by the rival sovereigns, in which it was agreed that england should be divided between them. they then, to all appearance, became friends, exchanged gifts and garments, and the opposing armies for a time separated: edmund to reign in the south, and canute to be king of the north--the exact division of the kingdom is not recorded. it was, however, a hollow treaty on the part of the dane, who is said afterwards to have rewarded every one who brought him the head of a saxon. edmund did not long survive this treaty; that he was assassinated, there remains not a doubt, but where, or by whose hand, is unknown. two of his own chamberlains are said to have been bribed, by either edric or canute, to destroy him. his death took place in the year . unlike ethelred, "he was long and deeply lamented by his people," though his reign was so short. with his death, all hopes of regaining the kingdom from the power of the danes seems, for a time, to have departed, and canute was allowed to sit down upon the saxon throne without opposition. more than five hundred years, with but few intervals of peace between, had elapsed since hengist and horsa first landed in the isle of thanet; yet all the blood which during that long period had been spilt, had been insufficient to cement firmly together the foundation on which the tottering throne was erected. neither the blood of britons, romans, saxons, nor danes, could extinguish the volcano which was ever bursting from beneath it; the cry that issued forth was still, "give, give!" chapter xxxii. canute the dane. "he doth bestride the world like a colossus: and we petty men walk under his huge legs, and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves."--shakspere. by the death of edmund, canute became king of all england in the twentieth year of his age. before his coronation took place, he assembled the saxon nobles and bishops, and danish chiefs in london, who had been witnesses to the treaty entered into between himself and edmund, when the kingdom was divided; and either by intimidation, persuasion, or presents, succeeded in obtaining their unanimous assent to his succession to the crown. in return for this acknowledgment, he promised to act justly and righteously, and placed his bare hand upon the hands of his chiefs and nobles as a token of his sincerity. but in spite of these promises, the commencement of his reign was marked by acts of unnecessary severity and cruelty. those who had been in any way related to either ethelred or edmund, he banished; and many who had taken a prominent part in the late struggles to support the saxon monarchy, he put to death. he also decreed that edwig, the half-brother of edward, should be slain. the late king had left two children, one of whom was named edmund after himself, and the other edward; canute, with the approbation of the saxon nobles, became their guardian; and no sooner were they placed within his power, than he meditated their destruction; but a fear that his throne was not sufficiently established to prevent the saxons from rising to revenge their death, caused him to postpone it; and under the plea of securing their safety, the children were committed to the charge of the king of sweden; the messenger who accompanied them at the same time giving instructions that they were to be secretly killed. but the swedish sovereign was not willing to become a murderer at the bidding of canute, and therefore committed the children to the care of the king of hungary, by whom they were preserved and educated. edmund died, but edward lived to marry the daughter of the emperor of germany, and from their union sprang edgar atheling, a name that afterwards figures in the pages of history. edward and alfred, the remaining sons of ethelred, were still safe at the court of their uncle, richard, duke of normandy, with their mother, emma, the dowager queen; and scarcely was canute seated upon the throne before the norman duke despatched an embassy to the english court, demanding that the crown of england should be restored to his eldest nephew. emma, it will be remembered, was herself a norman, and although she became the wife of ethelred, her sympathies never seem to have leaned much on the side of the saxons. as early as the time of the invasion of swein, she had fled to her brother's court with her children, nor does it appear that she returned with her husband, ethelred, when he was reinstated upon the throne. whether the proposition first emanated from canute, or her brother, the norman duke, is somewhat uncertain; but whichever way it might be, it was soon followed up by the marriage of emma, the widow of ethelred, the dowager-queen of the saxons, with canute, the danish king, and now the sole sovereign of england. the murdering, the banishing, the usurping dane, became the husband of "the flower of normandy." after her union, it is said that she paid no regard to the saxon princes whom she left at her brother's court, but, like an unnatural mother, abandoned them to chance; and that, as they grew up, they forgot even the language of their native country, and followed the habits and customs of the normans, for emma soon became the mother of a son by canute, and disowned for ever her saxon offspring. after his marriage with emma, canute disbanded the greater portion of his danish troops, and reserving only forty of his native ships, sent back the remainder of his fleet to denmark. canute then chiefly confined his government to that part of the island which alfred the great had reigned over; for it is on record that he ever held in the highest veneration the memory of this celebrated king. he made turketul, to whom he was greatly indebted for the subjection of england, governor of east anglia. to eric, the norwegian prince, he gave the government of northumbria, and to the traitor, edric, mercia. although he had in turn deserted ethelred, edmund, and even canute himself, he entrusted to him the government of this kingdom. the traitor, however, was not allowed to retain the dignities of his new dukedom long: a quarrel is said to have taken place between him and canute, in the palace which overlooked the thames at london. edric is said to have urged his claim to greater rewards, by exclaiming, in the heat of his passion, "i first deserted edmund to benefit you, and for you i killed him." canute paced the apartment, angrily, coloured deeply, bit his lips, and while his eyes, which were always unnaturally fierce and bright, seemed to flash fire, he replied, "'tis fit, then, you should die, for your treason to god and me. you killed your own lord! him who by treaty and friendship was my brother! your blood be upon your own head for murdering the lord's anointed; your own lips bear witness against you." such a sentence came but with an ill grace from one who had encouraged, countenanced, and rewarded villany; but canute, though young, was a deep adept in the blackest arts of kingcraft. he either called in, or gave a secret signal to eric, the norwegian, who most likely was present at the interview; for, having killed one king, we should hardly think canute considered himself safe, alone with a murderer; but be this as it may, eric laid him lifeless with one blow from his battle-axe; and, without creating any disturbance in the palace, the body of edric was thrown out of the window into the thames. the old historians considerably differ in their descriptions of the manner of his death, though the majority agree that the deed was done in the palace at london. in , so firmly had canute established himself upon the throne of england, that he paid a visit to his native country of denmark, where he passed the winter. but the government of england appears not to have been conducted to his satisfaction during his absence, for on his return he banished the duke ethelwerd, whom he had left in a situation of great trust, and, shortly after, turketul, the governor of east anglia. a swedish fleet, soon after this period, is said to have attacked the forces of canute, and the victory, on the side of the english, is rumoured to have been owing to the valour of godwin, who, at the close of the reign of edmund, was a humble cowherd, but had, in the space of a few brief years, risen to the dignity of an earl. in his conflict with the swedes, ulfr, the patron of godwin, was instrumental in saving canute's life. after this they quarrelled at a feast. it appears that they were amusing themselves with some game at the time, and that ulfr, well acquainted with the natural irritability of the dane's temper, had either retired, or was about to retreat, when canute accused him of cowardice. ulfr, ill-brooking an accusation which he seems never to have merited, angrily exclaimed, "was i a coward when i rescued you from the fangs of the swedish dogs?" as in the case of edric, the dane liked not to have those about him to whom he had been obliged; it was indifferent to him whether they did his work by valour or treachery; thus, shortly after, ulfr was stabbed by the command of canute, while performing his religious duties in a neighbouring church. he next turned his attention towards norway, over which eglaf, or st. olave, as he has been called by some, now reigned. the dane is said to have commenced his attack by corrupting the norwegian subjects with presents of money. this done, he went boldly over, with a fleet of fifty ships, carrying with him many of the bravest of the saxon nobles. from the preparations which he had made, and the formidable force with which he appeared, he was received with that apparent welcome which necessity is sometimes compelled to accord, and, wherever he approached, was hailed as "lord." after having carried away with him as hostages the sons and relations of the principal norwegian chiefs, he appointed haco, the son of that eric whose battle-axe was ever ready to do his bidding, governor of the kingdom. haco returned to england for his wife, who was residing at the castle of his father, the governor of northumbria, but a heavy storm coming on, he was unable to land. his ship was last seen looming in the evening sunset, off caithness, in scotland, while the wind was blowing heavily in the direction of pentland frith, but neither haco, his crew, nor his ship, were ever beheld again, after the sun had sunk behind the billows. after this, eglaf returned to the throne of norway, and was put to death by the hands of his subjects for making laws and founding institutions which were calculated to accelerate the progress of learning and civilization. norway, which had for centuries sent from its stormy shores such swarms of sea-kings and pirates, could not be brought to understand that they should ever reap such benefits, if they changed their habits of rapine and robbery for those of honesty and industry, and the more rational pleasures of civilized life. they understood the laws of "strandhug," and they acknowledged no other. if they landed upon a hospitable shore, amongst a nation with whom they were at peace, and found their provisions growing short, they recruited their stock from the flocks and herds they saw grazing in the neighbouring pastures, paid whatever amount they pleased as the value of the animals they had slaughtered, carried off corn and drink under the same free-trade tariff; and sometimes, when remonstrated with on the smallness of the amount paid, settled the balance by the blow of a battle-axe. although canute was the son of a pagan, he became a zealous christian, rebuilt many of the monasteries which his father had burnt, endowed others, and, either from a feeling of piety, or to ingratiate himself with the saxons, he erected a monument to elfeg, the archbishop, at canterbury, whose violent death had doubtless been accelerated by those very veterans who had assisted him in conquering the saxons. not content with honouring the murdered archbishop with a monument, he resolved that the body should be placed in the abbey which had witnessed the services of so pious a primate; so he demanded the body of the bishop from the inhabitants of london, who had purchased it from the danes, and buried it in their own city. the londoners, however, refused to deliver it up; when the dane, mingling the old habits of the sea-king with his devotions, put on his helmet and breastpiece, placed himself at the head of his troops, carried off the coffin by force, and, between two long lines of his armed soldiers, that were drawn up on each side of the street which led from the church to the thames, had the dead body of the archbishop borne to the war-ship, which stood ready to receive it. there is something of magnificence in such an act of barbarous veneration as this, which was accomplished without either injury or bloodshed; and we can imagine that in every corner of the london of that day, nothing was talked of but the daring piety of canute, which had led him to carry off the body of their reputed saint; that public opinion would be divided in the motives it attributed to such an act; that little groups would assemble at the corners of the streets, and that long after twilight had settled down upon the old city, their conversation would still be about canute and his soldiers, and the enormous war-ship, with its gilt figure-head, that resembled a dragon, and the dead bishop it would carry away; then the city-gates would be closed, and over all would reign the ancient midnight silence and darkness, while the dragon-headed ship and the danes went slowly down the silver thames, freighted with the king, and the coffin, and the murdered man. there appears, at a first glance, something incongruous in such an act as that of canute's carrying off the dead body of the bishop by force, when it was done with the intent of making a favourable impression upon the saxons; yet we must not forget the stout resistance made by the capital in the defence of edmund, which the danish king seems also to have borne in mind, when he exacted from the city the sum of eleven thousand pounds. canute seems to have been a man in whom the elements of refinement and barbarism, which our ancient writers love to dwell upon in their moral masks, were oddly blended; he was one who believed that cruelty was necessary in the administration of justice, but looked with horror upon a deed that was committed without the pale of this shadowy boundary. in a moment of unguarded passion, he with his own hand slew one of his soldiers; thereby committing a deed which, according to his own laws, the penalty was, in its mildest form, a heavy mulct. after reflecting upon the crime he was guilty of, and the evil example he was setting to others, he assembled his army, and, arrayed in his royal robes, descended from his gorgeous throne in the midst of the armed ranks; expressed his sorrow for the deed he had done, and demanded that he should be tried and punished like the humblest subject over whom he reigned. he further offered a free pardon to his judges, however severe might be the judgment they passed upon him; then throwing himself prostrate upon the ground, in silence awaited their verdict. many a hardy soldier, whose weather-beaten cheeks were seamed with the scars of battle, is said to have shed tears as he beheld the royal penitent thus prostrate at his feet. those who were appointed judges retired for a few moments to deliberate; but either believing that canute was not sincere, or having the example of those before their eyes who had formerly done his bidding, they timidly resolved to allow him to appoint his own punishment. this he did, and as the fine for killing a man was then forty talents of silver, he sentenced himself to pay three hundred and sixty, beside nine talents of gold. it would, perhaps, be uncharitable to say that the whole affair was a mere mockery; but when we remember that a word from his lips could wring a thousand times that amount from the oppressed saxons, and that he himself had compelled them to pay heavier taxes than had ever been demanded by their own native kings, we are surely justified in concluding, that after all, he acquitted himself on very moderate terms. during the ravages of the danes, the tribute which the saxons paid to rome had been suspended. this canute resolved to revive; and, as if to make up for the ravages of his countrymen, the sea-kings, for the monks they had murdered, and the churches they had destroyed, he inflicted a tax of a penny on every inhabited house, which was called peter's-pence; thus further punishing the poor saxons, by levying a fine upon them "to the praise and glory of god," for so was the royal ordinance worded, that they might show their gratitude to mother church, through the hands of those who had been instrumental in slaughtering their priests, overthrowing their altars, and desolating their land. in brief, it was the descendant of the murderer levying a tax upon the relatives of the murdered to purchase forgiveness for the slayer--one of those crooked paths by which, in that barbarous age, men hoped to reach heaven. the plan he adopted to reprove his flattering courtiers displayed, at best, much unnecessary show. a man who, by his valour and abilities, had ascended a throne which had been occupied by a long line of kings, and although an open enemy, had compelled a powerful nation to acknowledge him as their sovereign--one who had himself ridden over the stormy sea, and been tossed like a weed from billow to billow, can never be supposed to have entertained the thought for a moment that the angry ocean with its rising tide would obey him, or roll back its restless waves when he commanded. it was the same love of display which caused him to erect the throne in the midst of his army, and step forth in his royal robes, the haughty king, while he assumed the part of the humble penitent for having slain one of his soldiers. the same theatrical display which caused him to order his lumbering throne to be placed beside the sea-shore, and to sit down in all his kingly dignity, robed, crowned, and sceptered--the gilt and tinsel that are so effective beyond the footlights--induced him to adopt this stage effect; for canute, in the dress of a common man, with his foot in the spray, would not have produced half that impression upon his audience, many of whom, we can readily imagine, must have felt disgusted at such useless parade. in a pompous manner, he is said to have thus addressed his courtiers:--"confess ye now how frivolous and vain is the might of an earthly king compared to that great power who rules the elements, and can say unto the ocean, 'thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.'" we should not probably err much if, instead of the words uttered by the danish king, something like the following was the real language of his inward thought, and that, as he looked sternly upon them, he said to himself, "think not that i believe you such idiots as to suppose that the sea will obey my bidding--a breath of mine would sever the proudest head that now rises above the beach. i alone am king, more powerful than any present, and i only want to prove that there is but one mightier than i am, and that while the waves wash my feet, they would surely drown such common rascals as you all are." in a word, the whole scene is too rich a piece of mockery to be treated seriously. it is as if a man mounted a lofty steeple, and threw down his hat, merely to convince the spectators below that if his head had been in it, it would assuredly have been broken. it is but the old cry of the mahometan fruit-seller, which ends with, "in the name of the prophet--figs." another proof of his overbearing vanity is given in his conduct to thorarin, the danish bard. the poet had written some verses in praise of canute. it appears that the king was either engaged or seated at the banquet when the scald intreated of him to listen to the verses which he had written, urging as a reason, what a patron in modern times would most likely have listened to--namely, that they were but short. the dane, however, true to his character, in a love of display and praise, turned round indignantly upon thorarin, and in an angry tone exclaimed, "are you not ashamed to do what none but yourself would dare--to write a _short_ poem upon me? unless by to-morrow at noon you produce above thirty verses on the same subject, your head shall be forfeited." the poor bard retired, and having whipped his muse into the finest order for lying and flattering, he by the next day produced such a splendid piece of adulation, that the praise-loving monarch rewarded him with fifty marks of silver. [illustration: _canute rebuking his courtiers._] following the example of the saxon kings, canute made a pilgrimage to rome, to visit the tombs of the saints: although accompanied by a large train of attendants, he himself bore a wallet upon his shoulder, and carried a long pilgrim's staff in his hand. on every altar he, with his own hand, placed rich gifts--doubtless, wrung from many a poor saxon--pressed the pavement with his lips, and knelt down before the shrines; he purchased the arm of st. augustine, for which he paid a hundred talents of gold and the same number of talents in silver, and this he afterwards presented to the church of coventry. he then despatched a letter to england, which has been frequently quoted by ancient historians. it is curious as a specimen of early epistolary art, and places the character of canute in a much more favourable light than the incidents which we have above described; and as we obtain through it glimpses of the manners and customs of this remote period, we shall present it entire:-- "knut, king of england and denmark, to all the bishops and primates and all the english people, greeting. i hereby announce to you that i have been to rome for the remission of my sins, and the welfare of my kingdoms. i humbly thank the almighty god for having granted me, once in my life, the grace of visiting in person his very holy apostles peter and paul, and all the saints who have their habitation, either within the walls, or without the roman city. i determined upon this journey because i had learned from the mouths of wise men, that the apostle peter possesses great power to bind or to loose, and that he keeps the keys of the celestial kingdom; wherefore, i thought it useful to solicit specially his favour and patronage with god. "during the easter solemnity was held here a great assembly of illustrious persons,--namely, pope john, the emperor kunrad, and all the chief men of the nations from mount gargano to the sea which surrounds us. all received me with great distinction, and honoured me with rich presents. i have received vases of gold and silver, and stuffs and vestments of great price; i have conversed with the emperor, the lord pope, and the other princes, upon the wants of all the people of my kingdoms, english and danes. i have endeavoured to obtain for my people justice and security in their pilgrimages to rome, and especially that they may not for the future be delayed on their road by the closing of the mountain passes, or vexed by enormous tolls. i also complained to the lord pope of the immensity of the sums extorted, to this day, from my archbishops, when, according to custom, they repair to the apostolical court to obtain the pallium. it has been decided that this shall not occur for the future. "i would also have you know that i have made a vow to almighty god to regulate my life by the dictates of virtue, and to govern my people with justice. if during the impetuosity of my youth i have done anything contrary to equity, i will for the future, with the help of god, amend this to the best of my power; wherefore, i require and command all my councillors, and those to whom i have confided the affairs of my kingdom, to lend themselves to no injustice, either in fear of me, or to favour the powerful. i recommend them, if they prize my friendship and their own lives, to do no harm or violence to any man, rich or poor: let every one, in his place, enjoy that which he possesses, and not be disturbed in that enjoyment, either in the king's name, or in the name of any other person; nor under pretext of levying money for my treasury, for i need no money obtained by unjust means. "i propose to return to england this summer, and as soon as the preparations for my embarkation shall be completed. i intreat and order you all, bishops and officers of my kingdom of england, by the faith you owe to god and to me, to see that before my return all our debts to god be paid--namely, the plough dues, the tithe of animals born within the year, and the pence due to saint peter from every house in town and country; and further, at mid-august, the tithe of the harvest, and at martinmas, the first fruit of the seed; and if, on my landing, these dues are not fully paid, the royal power will be exercised upon defaulters, according to the rigour of the law and without any mercy." canute died in the year , and was buried at winchester. chapter xxxiii. reigns of harold harefoot and hardicanute. "what need i fear of thee? but yet i'll make assurance doubly sure, and take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live, that i may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, and sleep in spite of thunder." barnardine. "i have been drinking hard all night; i will not consent to die this day, that's certain. duke. o, sir, you must: and therefore i beseech you, look forward on the journey you shall go." shakspere. while even the succession to the saxon throne was sometimes disputed when not a doubt remained about the right of a claimant to the crown, it will not be wondered at, as at his death canute left three sons, two of whom were beyond doubt illegitimate, that there should be some difference of opinion among the chiefs and earls respecting the election of a new sovereign. hardicanute was the undoubted offspring of emma and canute; she, it will be remembered, being the widow of ethelred at the time of her marriage with the danish king. there is a doubt whether harold, who ascended the throne after the death of canute, was in any way related to the danish king; or that his pretended mother, whose name was alfgiva, and who was never married to canute, finding that she was likely to have no children, passed off the son of a poor cobbler--whom she named harold--as her own. it is said that swein, the other reputed son of canute, was introduced by her in the same way. the latter, canute placed upon the throne of norway during his lifetime, also expressing a wish before his death that harold should rule over england, and that hardicanute, his undisputed son, should succeed him as king of denmark. beside these claimants, it must be borne in mind that the children of ethelred were still alive, although, as we have before shown, wholly neglected by the twice-widowed queen, emma. the witena-gemot assembled at oxford to elect a new sovereign; and as there were by this time several danish chiefs among the council, a division at once took place, the danish party making choice of harold, while the saxons, headed by the powerful earl godwin, once the humble cowherd, preferred hardicanute, because his mother had been the wife of a saxon king. a third party advocated the claims of the sons of ethelred, who were still in normandy. leofric, earl of mercia, ranged his forces on the side of harold; and even london shook off its allegiance to the old saxon line, and proclaimed in his favour. although hardicanute was in denmark, earl godwin resolved to maintain his right to the throne; and it was not until the country was on the very eve of a civil war, and when many of the inhabitants had fled into the wild parts to avoid its ravages, that the saxon earl compelled the partisans of harold to give up all the provinces south of the thames to hardicanute. thus godwin and emma ruled in the south, in behalf of hardicanute, and held their court at winchester; while harold, with london for his capital, and the whole country north of the thames for his dominions, was acknowledged king of england; although it is on record, that the archbishop refused to crown him, because the children of ethelred were still alive; that he even forbade any of the bishops to administer the benediction, but placing the crown and sceptre upon the altar, left him to crown, anoint, and bless himself as he best could. but whoever's son harold might be, he resented this slight with all the spirit of a true sea-king. he crowned himself without the aid of the saxon bishops; despised their blessings, and, instead of attending church, sallied out with his hounds to hunt during the hours of divine service; and so fleet was he of foot in following the chase, that he obtained the surname of harefoot. he set no store by the christian religion, but defied all the bishops in christendom, sounded his hunting horn while the holy anthem was chaunted, and conducted himself in every way like a hard-drinking, misbelieving dane. we again arrive at one of those mysterious incidents which occasionally darken the pages of history, and render it difficult to get at the real actors of the tragedy. a letter is written--the sons of ethelred are invited over to england. one arrives--he is to all appearance hospitably received; in the night his followers are murdered, and he himself shortly after put to a most cruel death. that the events we are about to record took place, has never been doubted; the obscurity that will, probably, for ever reign around them, conceals the real instigator of the deed. emma, it appears, was at this time living at the court of harold in london, when a letter arrived at normandy (as if from her), earnestly urging her sons, edward and alfred, to return to england--stating, that the saxons were already weary of the danish king, and were anxious to place the crown upon either of their heads. the letter was answered by alfred, the youngest, appearing in person, accompanied by a troop of norman soldiers; which was contrary to the advice of the letter, as the instructions it contained especially requested them to come secretly. he first attempted to land at sandwich, but why he altered his mind, and went round the north foreland, has never been satisfactorily accounted for; for we cannot see what difference it made whether earl godwin received him at one point or the other. it is, however, just probable that a party of danes, or those who were favourable to harold, may by chance, or by command, have been stationed at the spot alfred first selected for debarkation, the secret having got bruited abroad. but be this as it may, the saxon prince at last landed somewhere between herne-bay and the isle of sheppy, and when he had advanced a short distance into the country he was met by earl godwin, who swore fealty to him, and promised to bring him safely to his mother emma, wishing him, however, to avoid london, where harold then resided, and with whom there is some slight reason to believe godwin was now in league, though this suspicion hangs by a very slender thread. it is probable that the powerful earl took a dislike to the strong body of normans who accompanied alfred; and, jealous that the power he sought to obtain by raising the saxon prince to the throne of england might be weakened by these retainers, he resolved to cut them off at once, then make the best terms he could. the saxon prince and his followers, who amounted to about seven hundred, were quartered for the night in the town of guildford, just as accommodation could be found for them, in parties of ten and twelve--in every lodging abundance of meat and drink was provided. earl godwin was in attendance upon alfred until late at night, and when he departed, he promised to wait upon him early in the morning. morning came, but the earl made not his appearance, and it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the partisans of harold had heard of the arrival of godwin, that they entered guildford in the night, and that godwin and his followers, who were unequal to cope with the danish force, escaped. further, that these were the danes whom alfred had seen while off sandwich, and, since the course of his steering round the north foreland, and landing near the isle of sheppy, they had crossed the country. if so, the saxon prince and his norman followers must have marched through kent and into surrey, within a few miles of the danish army, who were probably watching the motions of both godwin and alfred. harold may have caused the letter to have been written, and confided his plans to godwin, and the latter have resolved to rescue the son of ethelred from the snare that was set to entrap him, for godwin was fully competent to execute such an act if a favourable opportunity offered itself. emma may have been in earnest, yet her purpose before accomplished might have been betrayed, for although she is accused of having been an unkind mother, there is no proof of that cruelty of disposition evinced, which would justify us in concluding that she countenanced the murder of her son. she might cling more fondly to hardicanute, who was her youngest child, than to the rest--such a feeling is not uncommon. but these doubts and reasons might be multiplied into pages, and then we should probably be as wide apart from the truth. in the old town of guildford, above years ago, nearly seven hundred foreigners, most of them strangers to england, retired to rest, some fondly dreaming of the possessions they should obtain when the prince whose fortunes they followed ascended the throne. weary with their long journey, others would fall at once to sleep, without bestowing a thought upon the morrow, for that night there appears to have been no lack of either food or wine. when hark, hark! it is the dead midnight, and the chambers in which they sleep are filled with armed men--figures in armour, some holding lights, others with their swords pointed, bend over them--men who grasp strong spears are stationed at the doors--some bind their arms with cords--they attempt to reach their weapons, but find they have been removed--some struggle for a few moments, but are speedily overpowered. chains and ropes are at hand, stern-looking men set their teeth together, and kneel upon them until their limbs are bound--and in every house at the self same hour they are all secured and made prisoners. a few defended themselves and were slain. what a night must that have been in the old town of guildford--what saxon hearts must have ached at day-dawn, when the maidens beheld the young and handsome foreigners led to execution! for some, doubtless, over their cups, had boasted, that when the saxon prince had "regained his own," they would return again--and fond, foolish old mothers, whose hearts beat in favour of the royal saxon, may have wetted their lips, and drank destruction to the danes, and talked about what they had heard their great-grandmothers say of alfred the great, and hoped that he who then aspired to the throne would be found worthy of the name he bore:--for a hundred years would only have added to the fame of the great king, and in that old saxon town there were doubtless many living whose ancestors had fought under alfred the great. the morning that dawned upon the grey country witnessed the execution of the normans; they were led to death in tens, and one out of every ten was left alive--the rest perished; but whether beheaded by the battle-axe, or pierced through with the sword or spear, or hung upon the nearest oak, history has not recorded. but whether godwin or harold was the cause of their death will never now be known. vengeance, who is never silent, bore their dying groans to the shores of normandy, and from that hour revenge rose up, and, with his red right arm bared, pointed with his bloody sword to the shores of england. for thirty years that grim landmark stood pointing over the sea, until at last it leaped from the stormy headland, and led the way to the blood-stained shores of britain. meantime, the saxon prince was carried captive to london, when, after having endured the insults and reproaches of harold, he was hurried off to ely, to be tried by a mock court of danish judges, who, after having offered him every insult they could invent, cruelly sentenced him to lose his eyes. the barbarous sentence was fulfilled, and a day or two after its execution death put an end to the sufferings of alfred. after the death of alfred, emma was banished from england by the command of harold; an act which goes far to prove that she had been instrumental in tempting her ill-starred son to visit england, though it seems somewhat strange that she should take up her residence at bruges, while her son edward, who was the true heir to the english throne, yet resided in normandy. she, however, despatched messengers to denmark, intreating her son hardicanute to revenge the death of his maternal brother alfred, who, she said, had been betrayed by earl godwin, and assassinated by the command of harold. during the remainder of the reign of harold harefoot, we lose sight of earl godwin, so that if even he had any share in the plot which terminated in the murder of the young prince, it appears not to have advanced his interests at the court of harold; who, before the close of his reign, attained the full title of king of england. nor does it appear that hardicanute ever set foot on the territory allotted to him by the council of oxford, on the south of the thames; and which, as we have shown, was held for a time on his behalf by godwin, and his mother, emma of normandy. the son of canute was at bruges with his mother, having retired thither to consult her previous to his meditated invasion of england, when a deputation arrived there, from england, announcing the death of harold. he had already left a strong fleet at the mouth of the baltic, ready at his command, when the first favourable wind blew, to commence hostilities against britain; nine ships, well armed, had also accompanied him on his visit to his mother, in flanders, when, just as his plan of attack was decided upon, and all was in readiness for the invasion, harold's brief and blood-stained reign terminated, in the year , and he was buried at westminster. nearly the first act that disgraced the reign of hardicanute, was his disinterment of the body of harold; which, after having exhumed and decapitated, he commanded to be thrown into the thames, from which it was taken out by a danish fisherman, and again interred in a cemetery in london, where the danes only buried their dead. his next act was to summon earl godwin before a court of justice, in which he was accused of being instrumental in procuring the death of alfred. at the appointed day godwin appeared; and, according to a law which was at that period extant, procured a sufficient number of witnesses to swear that they believed he was innocent of the crime of which he was accused. godwin stepped forward, and swore, by the holy sacrament, "in the lord: i am innocent, both in word and deed, of the charge of which i am accused." the witnesses then came forward, and taking the oath, exclaimed, "in the lord: the oath is clean and upright that earl godwin has sworn." simple and inefficient as such a mode of trial may appear, it must be borne in mind that perjury was in those days visited with the severest punishment; not confined merely to bodily pain, the infliction of a heavy penalty, or the loss of worldly goods--but a perjured man was classed with witches, murderers, sorcerers, the wolf heads, and outcasts of society; and if slain, no one took cognizance of his death; he was debarred even from the trial of ordeal, and whether he was murdered or died, was refused the rites of christian burial. although alfred had established the trial by jury, such a judicial custom as godwin availed himself of continued to exist after the norman conquest. such a legal proof, however, was not sufficient to satisfy the cupidity of hardicanute; and the earl was compelled to purchase his favour by presenting him with a splendid ship, richly gilt, and manned by eighty warriors, armed with helmet and hauberk, each bearing a sword, a battle-axe, and a javelin, and their arms ornamented with golden bracelets, each of which weighed sixteen ounces. a saxon bishop was also accused of having been leagued with godwin, and he followed the example of the earl, by purchasing the king's favour with rich presents, which at this period appear to have been the readiest mode of procuring an acquittal. the two brief years that hardicanute reigned, he seems to have passed in feasting and drinking; his banqueting table was spread out four times a-day, and his carousals carried far into the night. such excesses could only be kept up by constant supplies of money; his "huscarles," or household troops, were ever out levying taxes; and as these armed collectors were all danes, many of them descendants of the old sea-kings, it will be readily imagined that the saxons were the greatest sufferers, and compelled to contribute more than their share to this infamous dane-geld, as the tax was called. but these marauders, although armed by kingly authority, did not always escape scathless. the inhabitants of worcester rose up and killed two of the chiefs, who were somewhat too arbitrarily exceeding their duty. hardicanute ordered a danish army to march at once against the rebels, but when the authorized forces came up, they found the city abandoned; the inhabitants had forsaken their houses, and strongly entrenched themselves in a neighbouring island, and though a great part of the city was destroyed, the people remained unconquered. such a brave example was not lost upon the saxons. opposition was now offered in many quarters, and the danish yoke at last became lighter; for hardicanute seemed to care but little how his kingdom was ruled, so that his table was every day laden with good cheer, and his wine-cup filled whenever he called for it; for he had been nursed in the cradle of the sea-kings, and his chief delight was to sit surrounded by these stormy sons of the ocean, and to drink healths three fathom deep. altogether, hardicanute seems to have been a merry thoughtless king. he invited his half-brother, edward, the son of ethelred, over to england, and gave him and his norman followers a warm welcome at his court; left his mother emma, and earl godwin, to manage the kingdom as they pleased, and died as he had lived, a hard-drinker, with the wine-cup in his hand. it was at a marriage-feast, somewhere in lambeth, in the year , when hardicanute drank his last draught. at a late hour in the night he rose, staggering, with the wine-cup in his hand, and pledged the merry company that were assembled--then drinking such a draught as only the son of a sea-king could swallow, he fell down senseless upon the floor, "and never word again spake he." he was buried near his father canute, in the church of winchester. with his death ended the danish race of kings; and edward, the son of ethelred, the descendant of a long line of saxon monarchs, ascended the throne of england. chapter xxxiv. accession of edward the confessor. "it is the curse of kings to be attended by slaves." "favourites, made proud by princes, that advance their pride against the power that bred it." "thou wouldst be great. what thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily: wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win."--shakspere. edward, surnamed the confessor, had resided in england for some time, when the throne became vacant by the death of hardicanute; and the danes, left without a leader by the sudden and unexpected demise of their king, had no means of resisting the saxon force, which all at once wheeled up on the side of edward, and, led on by godwin, placed the crown of england upon the head of the son of ethelred. to strengthen the power which he already possessed, the earl godwin proposed that the king should marry his daughter, editha, who appears to have been a lady of high intellectual attainments: it was said of her, in contrast to the stern and ambitious character of her father, that, as the thorn produces the rose, so godwin produced editha. ingulphus, one of the most celebrated historians living at this period, after describing her as being very beautiful, meek, modest, faithful, virtuous, a lady of learning, and the enemy of no one, says, "i have very often seen her, when, only a boy, i visited my father in the royal court. often, as i came from school, she questioned me on letters and my verse; and willingly passing from grammar to logic, she caught me in the subtle nets of argument. i had always three or four pieces of money counted by her maiden, and was sent to the royal larder for refreshment." but all these amiable qualities were not sufficient to bring happiness to the royal hearth; the earl was ever stepping in between edward and editha, for godwin became jealous of the normans, who were constantly coming over, and obtaining dignities and honours from the court. norman soldiers were placed over the english fortresses; norman priests officiated in the saxon churches, and, as the danish power waned, and the offices which hardicanute had given to his own countrymen became vacant, edward filled up the places with his norman favourites. those who had befriended him in his exile came over--such as had grown up side by side with him till they reached manhood--had shared his sports and pastimes--dined at the same table with him when, without friend or companion, except his brother alfred, he landed a stranger upon the shores of normandy;--all such as had clung to him, and assisted him while he was in exile, now came over to congratulate their old acquaintance who had so suddenly emerged from his obscurity, and become, by the voice of the whole saxon nation, and the tacit consent of the overawed and powerless danes, the undisputed monarch of england. edward, on the other hand, landed in his native country almost a stranger; he brought with him foreign habits, foreign manners, and even spake the norman-french more fluently than the plain saxon tongue of his ancestors. he was but a child when he left england, and nearly thirty years residence in a foreign court must have caused his native language to have sounded harshly on his ears when he again landed on the shores of britain. with the exception of those who accompanied him, england would seem like a strange country; he found none there whose habits and tastes were congenial to his own, none with whom he had interchanged the warm friendship which is natural to youth; and he must instinctively have shunned the advances made to him by earl godwin, standing suspected, as he did, of having indirectly contributed to the death of his brother alfred, or, at the least, of having deserted him in the night, and left him in the hands of the danes. either edward must have stood far aloof from such suspicion, or, when he consented to marry the daughter of godwin, have purchased the crown of england by making a sacrifice of his feelings and of his honour. edward's mother, it will also be remembered, was a norman, and while the friends of her son poured into the english court, she herself was followed by those who claimed kindred with her race, until even the very language of the norman usurped that of the saxon. the norman costume now became fashionable; those who were ambitious of rising in the king's favour, or who wished to stand high in the estimation of his favourites, began to speak in broken norman, until, in the neighbourhood of the court, the saxon seemed to have grown into an unfashionable language. one man alone, and he, the most powerful in the kingdom, still stuck sturdily to the old saxon habits, and openly expressed his dislike of the norman favourites. this was the cowherd, the son of ulfnoth, whose daughter the king of england had married; and he, with his sons, who had proved themselves second to none in valour in the hard-fought field, rose up, and made head against the norman encroachments. the saxon earl, and his tall sons, boldly shouldered their way through the crowded court, where their sister and daughter reigned as queen; they lowered their helmets to no one, but rudely jostled as they passed the groups of knaves and place-seekers who infested the palace. thus, without, at the folk-moots, and the guilds, the saxon earl and his sons were the favourites of the people; while within, and about the palace, they were bitterly hated by the norman favourites. such was the state of parties at the english court nearly a thousand years ago, and it will be necessary for the reader to bear them in mind, for the better understanding of the changes which they lead to--the invasion of england by the normans--a period at which we are now rapidly arriving. whether edward believed that his mother emma had a share in the death of her son alfred, or was stung with the remembrance that she had left them to the mercy of a strange court, and that his position in england was rendered uneasy by those who had followed him with their clamorous claims across the ocean, or he disliked her for the favour which she had shown to her danish son, hardicanute, or envious of the immense wealth and possessions she is said to have accumulated during the reckless reign of the hard-drinking sea-king--whether led by one or another of these motives of dislike and suspicion, or actuated by a wish to resent the neglect with which she had treated him, he seized upon her possessions, lessened her power, and either confined her in the abbey of wearwell, or limited her residence within the compass of the lands he granted her near winchester. this act was countenanced by godwin, who, though he studied his own aggrandisement, seems never wholly to have neglected the interests of the saxons. her alleged intercourse with the bishop of winchester--her passing through the ordeal of fire unscathed, with naked feet over burning plough-shares, are dim traditions entirely unauthenticated by any respectable historian, although such trials were not uncommon, as we shall show, when we come to treat of the manners and customs of the anglo-saxons. after this period, emma of normandy is scarcely mentioned again by our early historians. during the second year of his reign, edward was menaced with an invasion by magnus, king of norway and denmark, who sent letters to england demanding the crown of edward; to which the english king replied by mustering a large fleet at sandwich, and declaring himself ready to oppose his landing. but the attention of magnus was soon diverted from england to secure his new territory of denmark, as sweyn, the son of ulfr, (the latter being the same sea-king whom the cowherd godwin guided to the danish camp when he had lost his way in the forest,) now aspired to the sceptre of denmark. the son of ulfr requested aid from edward to support his claim to the danish sceptre; and this request was strongly backed by earl godwin, who, whatever other stain he may have had upon his character, cannot in this instance be accused of ingratitude, for he earnestly pleaded that fifty ships should be fitted out, and sent to the aid of the son of his early patron. godwin's proposition was, however, overruled by leofric and siward, earls of mercia and northumbria, who will frequently be seen to stand between earl godwin and his claims upon the throne. what aid godwin afforded the son of ulfr of his own accord we know not, though it is on record that sweyn obtained the crown of denmark on the demise of magnus, which happened shortly after the application he made for aid to edward of england. with the death of magnus ended all attempts upon the english crown on the part of the danes, and we hear no more of the ravages of these stormy sea-kings, nor of the civil wars in england between these two nations, who had, through the alternations of war and peace, been settled in various parts of england long before the star of alfred the great rose up and illumined the dark night of our history. a new enemy was now, with slow and silent step, coming stealthily into england; he had already obtained a footing in the palace and in the church; he had left his slimy trail in the camp, and on the decks of the saxon vessels; he had come with a strange voice, and muttered words which they could not understand. those who had often quarrelled were now neighbours; the difference in language and manners was beginning to disappear; for as they, to a certain extent, understood each other's dialect, the saxon and the danish idioms began to assimilate; they, with few exceptions, lived under the same common law; their children mingled and played together in the same streets, in the same fields and forests, became men and women, married, and forgot the quarrels of their forefathers, and at last began to settle down like one nation upon the soil. thus, each party looked upon the norman favourites with the same jealous eye. with the exception of the bickerings both on the part of the saxon and danish chiefs against the normans whom edward countenanced, all went on in tolerable order at the saxon court for seven or eight years; for leofric and siward were ever throwing their formidable weight into the opposite scale, and thus keeping an even balance between the power of godwin and the throne. edward had rendered himself popular with both the danes and the saxons; he had revived the old laws of his ancestors, abolished the odious tax of dane-geld, without retaliating upon such of his subjects as belonged to that nation, as canute and harold had beforetime done while lording it over the saxons. an event at last occurred which scarcely any one would have foreseen or have guarded against, and which reads more like a drunken frolic, or a common street brawl, than the grave record of history, although it ended by embittering the feelings of the saxons against the normans, and was another of those almost invisible steps which eventually led to the conquest of england. amongst the foreigners who came to pay their court at this time to the king of england, was eustace, count of boulogne, who had married a sister of edward, but whether maid or widow at the time of her union with the french count, is not very clearly made out; nor is it recorded whether she was the daughter of emma of normandy, though she laid claim to ethelred as her father. eustace, proud to claim such a relationship, whatever it might be, mounted the two slips of feathered whalebone in his helmet, and with a showy train of followers visited the english court, where he and his retinue were hospitably entertained by edward. here he met with normans and french who spoke nearly the same language as himself, and there is but little doubt that such an assembly did not fail to show their contempt for everything that was saxon, voting vulgar a court in which a cowherd had risen to the rank of earl; and probably extolling their own ancestry, who, time out of mind, had been brought up to the more "polite" profession of murder and robbery both by sea and land. while returning on his visit from edward, he commanded his train to halt before they entered dover, and putting on his coat of mail, ordered his followers to do the same; and thus armed, they entered the town. they then commenced riding up and down the streets, insulting the inhabitants, and selecting the best houses in which to take up their quarters for the night; for such had been the custom of the danes, who made the houses of the saxons their inns, sometimes permitting, as a great favour, the owner and his family to share the meal which they had compelled them to provide. it is pretty clear that the deeds of these "good old times" had furnished the topic of conversation amongst the visitors at the saxon court, made up as it would be of normans and northmen, and descendants of the vikingrs, who now found it dangerous to follow the "honourable" employment of their ancestors--men who mourned over the changes which no longer allowed them with impunity to insult the wife and daughter of the saxon, whom they compelled to be their host--to eat the meal which they forced him to provide, and for which they considered they made him an ample return if they did not stab him upon his own hearth, and then set fire to his house. these cruel and bloody deeds, which had been counted valorous, had often, doubtless, furnished the midnight conversation of the cruel sea-kings, as they congregated around their fire, seated upon-- "a dismal circle of druid stones upon the forlorn moor, where the chill rain begun at shut of eve in dull november; and their chancel-vault the heaven itself was blinded through the night."--keats. alas! such horrors were again to be renewed; though there were but few at this time who foresaw the storm which was now slowly heaving up, and was ere long doomed to burst with renewed fury upon england. while the french count and his followers were prancing through the streets of dover, full, perhaps, of the thoughts of such scenes as we have faintly pictured, one of them alighted upon the threshold of a sturdy saxon, who, considering his house was his castle, refused to allow the insulting foreigner to enter. the frenchman or norman instantly drew his sword and wounded the saxon, who in his turn slew the aggressor. the count and his followers attacked the englishman, and put him to death upon his own hearth. all dover was instantly in arms, for the foreigners now rode through the town sword in hand, striking at all they came near, and trampling every one they could ride over under the hoofs of their horses. they were at last met by an armed body of the townsmen. a severe combat took place, and it was not until nineteen of his followers were slain, that the count of boulogne took flight with all the speed he could; and not venturing to embark, he hastened back, with such of his train as remained, to the court of the english king. edward at once forgave his brother-in-law, and, on his bare assertion, believed that the inhabitants of dover were wholly to blame; he then sent for earl godwin, within whose governorship dover was included, and ordered him without delay to attack the town, and punish all who had risen up in arms against the count of boulogne and his followers. but the saxon earl was loath to appear in arms against his countrymen on the mere report of a stranger, and reasonably enough suggested that the whole affair should be investigated by competent judges; "for it ill becomes you," replied godwin, "to condemn without a hearing the men whom it is your duty to protect." urged on by the clamours of his favourites, edward insisted upon immediate vengeance being executed upon the inhabitants of dover; and when the saxon earl refused to fulfil his commands, he then cited him to appear before the council at gloucester, where the court was then held. godwin was well acquainted with the characters who would preside at the court before which he was summoned, and well knew that, right or wrong, sentence of banishment would be proclaimed against him, as it consisted chiefly of normans, who were his sworn enemies, and who would not hesitate, by any means, to lessen the power he possessed: so, seeing the foreign enemies that were arrayed against him, and the unfair trial that awaited him, he resolved to overthrow this corrupt court by an appeal to arms, and, without offering any violence to the king, rescue both himself and england from the "cunning of the normans." for as an old writer observes, while describing the events which preceded and were followed by those which took place about this period, "the all-powerful god must have proposed to himself at once two plans of destruction for the english race, and must have framed a sort of military ambuscade against it: for, on one hand, he let loose the danish invasion; on the other, he created and cemented the norman alliance; so that, if we escaped the blows aimed at our faces by the danes, the cunning of the normans might be at hand to surprise us." when godwin refused to be tried by the corrupt and packed court of gloucester, he commenced assembling his forces together; for he was governor over the whole of the extensive country south of the thames, and the popularity of his quarrel caused numbers to flock to his standard, as he was now looked up to by the saxons as the defender of their rights. harold, his oldest son, also collected a large army from the eastern coast between the thames and boston wash; while sweyn, his second son, mustered many followers along the banks of the severn and the frontiers of wales. the three armies commanded by godwin and his sons united, and drew up near gloucester, when the earl sent messengers to the king, demanding that the count of boulogne, with his followers, together with such of the normans and frenchmen as had rendered themselves objectionable, should be given up to the justice of the english nation. meantime, edward had not been idle, but had despatched messengers to siward and leofric, with orders to muster all the forces they could without loss of time, and during the interval that preceded their arrival, he kept up a seeming negotiation with godwin; but no sooner did he find himself surrounded by a powerful army, headed by his own chosen leaders, than he refused boldly to give up his norman and french favourites. but a great and unexpected change had taken place in the spirit of the people; for although edward had followed that cruel policy which kings have too often had recourse to, that of setting one nation against another, the danes of mercia and northumberland which had marched up under the banners of their earls, when confronted together, refused to make war upon the saxons. they now considered them as their countrymen--so would not shed their blood for edward and his foreign favourites; a strong proof how popular the cause was which godwin had taken up; whilst neither the saxon nor danish chiefs would draw their swords in such a quarrel. when on neither side parties could be found who were willing to shed each other's blood, peace was at once agreed upon, and it was decided that the dispute should be investigated by an assembly in london. hostages and oaths were exchanged, both swearing to maintain the peace of god, and perfect friendship. on the side of edward this solemn promise does not appear to have been sincere, as he availed himself of the interval between taking the oath and the appointed time on which the assembly was to take place, in levying a powerful army from every available source, and in nearly every instance giving the command of the various troops to his norman and french favourites. this immense army was quartered in and around london, so that the appointed council was held in the very heart of a strongly fortified camp, the leaders of which were the enemies of godwin. before this council godwin and his sons were summoned to appear without an escort, and unarmed. the earl, in return, demanded that hostages should be given for their safety; for he well knew that they had but few friends in the council. edward refused to furnish hostages, or to guarantee their safety either in coming or going; and after having been twice or thrice summoned, and refused the unconditional terms of surrender, sentence of banishment was pronounced against earl godwin and his sons, and only five days allowed them to quit england, with all their family. even before the expiration of that period, king edward, instigated doubtless by his favourites, who thirsted both for the blood and the estates of the saxon earl, ordered a troop of horse to pursue the banished nobleman and his family, but the command of the party was fortunately entrusted to a saxon, who was in no hurry to overtake them. godwin, with his wife, and three of his sons, sweyn, tostig, and gurth, with such treasure as they could amass, sailed for flanders, and were kindly received by earl baldwin; while harold and leofwin, his other sons, embarked from bristol, and escaped into ireland. all their broad lands were confiscated; the high situations they had held were given to the norman favourites; the castles they had inhabited, with all they contained, fell into the hands of their enemies; and godwin found himself, in his old age, and after a busy life spent in the service of courts and camps, but little richer than, when a humble cowherd, he led ulfr through wild forest paths to the danish camp. editha the queen was now left alone in the midst of her father's enemies; nor was she long before she felt the weight of their hatred and vengeance. "it was not right," the norman favourites said, "that while her family was in exile, she herself should sleep upon down." she was also deprived of all the possessions which on her marriage had been bequeathed to her by her father, and then shut up in a nunnery. calm and passionless as an historian ought ever to be, he would scarcely feel any regret if the norman invasion had taken place in the life-time of such a weak-minded monarch as this edward the confessor, were it only for his conduct to the beautiful and highly-gifted editha, whose character ingulphus has so delicately drawn. still less do we admire the forbearance by which he obtained his much-lauded sanctity, which was but a species of "refined cruelty" towards a lady whose very soul must have been a shrine fit for the purest affection to dwell in. but, after all, we feel a pity for edward. his life was uncheered either by the affection of father or mother, excepting in the very early years of childhood. as he grew up, he became a prey to false friends and unprincipled priests, who, while they pretended to draw his attention to the treasures "which neither rust nor moth doth corrupt," were themselves revelling in the very heart of vile and selfish corruption. ambitious as godwin might be, there was much more of the nobleness of human nature in his character than existed in the soul of edward; and, although we feel sorry for the king's weakness, we can never pardon him for leaving that lovely lady alone in the cold grey cloisters of a nunnery, where, to use the words of one of our old chroniclers, she "in tears and prayers expected the day of her release," doubtless looking beyond the grave for that happiness which it was never her lot to know on earth. but we have now arrived at the fall and banishment of earl godwin, and must leave him for awhile in exile, to glance at the merry doings in the english court during his absence. chapter xxxv. edward the confessor. "as i was banished, i was banished, but as i come, i come.-- will you permit that i shall stand condemned a wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties plucked from my arms perforce, and given away to upstart spendthrifts? what would you have me do? i am a subject, and challenge law; attornies are denied me; and therefore, personally, i lay my claim to my inheritance."--shakspere. after the banishment of earl godwin, the english court must have resembled the joyous uproar which often breaks out in a school during the absence of the master, for the days which followed are described as "days of rejoicing and big in fortune for the foreigners." the dreaded earl in exile--his warlike sons far away from england--and the beautiful queen editha weeping among the cold cloisters--left nothing more to do but revel in the triumph of the victory thus attained. there was now a norman archbishop of canterbury, a norman bishop of london, and in nearly every fortress a norman or french governor; and, to crown all, william, duke of normandy, called alike the bastard and the conqueror, came over with a numerous train to visit king edward, and to see how matters stood in england. it is difficult to prove now, whether the duke of normandy was invited by edward, or came over at the suggestion of his countrymen, "to see how the land lay;" the latter is the more probable; and we can imagine the picture which must have been drawn of england, either in the letter sent, or by the messenger who went over; and how the son of robert the devil (for such was the surname his father bore in normandy) must have smiled at the ascendancy his countrymen had obtained over the weak-minded king of england. we can fancy some such gentleman as the count of boulogne, full of "smart sayings," recounting how he and his followers "amused" themselves at dover; and how the few trifling murders they committed were instrumental in driving out the family of godwin; in a word, that do whatever they might, edward would stand up to support them, and that they could now ride rough-shod over the saxons. before proceeding further, it is necessary that we should give some account of this new guest; who, either by good fortune, cunning, or valour, changed the whole face of england, and shook into dust the power from which, through a succession of many centuries, had sprung a race of powerful kings. this william, who will ever bear the proud title of the conqueror, was the natural son of robert duke of normandy, who was nearly allied to emma, the queen of both ethelred and canute, and the mother of edward. william's mother was the daughter of a tanner, or some one humbly situated in the town of falaise, and was one day busily engaged in washing clothes at a brook, when the eye of duke robert chanced to alight upon her as he was returning from hunting. pleased with her beauty, he sent one of his knights to make proposals to her father, offering no doubt, on pretty liberal terms, to make her his mistress. the father received the proposition coldly, but probably dreading that his daughter might be carried off by force--and our only wonder is that she was not--he went to consult his brother, who is said to have lived in a neighbouring forest, and to have stood high in the estimation of all around for his sanctity. the "pious" brother gave his opinion, and said that in all things it was fitting to obey the will of the prince. so arlette, or harlot, as her name is sometimes spelt, was consigned to duke robert, who, we must conclude, was already married. illegitimacy, as we have shown in several reigns, was thought but little of at this period, many of our own saxon kings having had no better claim to the crown than william had to the dukedom of normandy. however, robert the devil, as he was called from his violent temper, was greatly attached to both the tanner's daughter and the child she bore him, whom he brought up with as much affection as if he had been the son of a lawful wife.[ ] when william was only seven years old, his father was seized with a fit of devotion, and resolved to make a pilgrimage, on foot, to jerusalem, to obtain forgiveness for his sins. his chiefs and barons rightly argued that such a journey was not free from danger, and that if he chanced to die, they should be left without a ruler. "by my faith," answered the duke, "i will not leave you without a lord. i have a little bastard, who will grow up and be a gallant man, if it please god. i know he is my son. receive him, then, as your lord, for i make him my heir, and give him from this time forth the whole duchy of normandy." the norman barons did as duke robert desired; and placing their hands between the child's, acknowledged him as their ruler. the duke did not live to return from his pilgrimage; and although some opposition was offered to the election of william, and a civil war ensued, the adherents of the bastard were victorious.[ ] nor was william long before he gave proofs of that daring and valour which form so prominent a feature in his character; he was soon able to buckle on his armour, and mount his war-horse without the aid of the stirrup; and on the day when he first sprang into his saddle without assistance, the veterans who had drawn their swords in defence of his claim to the dukedom made it a day of great rejoicing. bold, fearless, and determined, and as if resolved to triumph over those who had objected to his election on the ground of his birth, he occasionally issued his commands, and put forth his charter with the bold beginning that proclaimed his origin, and wrote, "we, william the bastard, hereby decree, &c." he soon evinced a love for horses and military array, and while yet young made war upon his neighbours of anjou and brittany. nor did he fail to punish those who made any allusion to his birth; although he himself at times made a boast of his illegitimacy, yet to none others would he allow that privilege in his hearing without resenting it as an insult; and his vengeance was at times accomplished with the most merciless cruelty. while attacking the town of alençon, the besieged appeared upon the walls, and beating their shields, which were covered with leather, exclaimed, "hides! hides!" in allusion to the calling of his mother's father. the cruel norman immediately ordered the hands and feet of the prisoners he had captured in an attempted sally to be cut off, and thrown over the walls into the town by his slingers. such was the inhuman act committed by the savage who now came as a spy and a guest to the court of england. great must have been the delight of duke william to see, wherever he moved, his own countrymen at the head of the navy and army. if he visited a fortress, a norman was ready as governor to receive him; if he entered a church, a norman bishop stood forth to meet him; if he remained in the palace, norman friends surrounded him; and he heard only the language of his own country spoken, and was acknowledged by all who in england approached him (excepting the king, and a few saxon chiefs) as their lord and governor. wherever he moved, he was met by normans, and bowed down to, as if he had already been england's king; for nearly all the high offices in the kingdom were either in the hands of the norman or french favourites. what secret consultations he had with his friends, what notes were made on the strength of the fortresses, the safest roads, the best landing places, is not recorded, although it is evident that the norman duke had already fixed his eye upon the crown of england, and but waited for a favourable pretext to seize upon it. edward, beyond doubt, received his cousin william kindly, perhaps more so than he had done any other norman; for all his affections seemed planted in the land where he had spent the years of his youth; beside, william's father had been kind to him and his brother alfred, when they had no friends in england whom they knew of. nor could william well allude to the english throne becoming vacant on the death of edward, nor deplore that he left no son behind to reign in his stead, for edward, the son of his half-brother, edmund ironside, was still alive; so william wisely held his peace, and left all to time and chance--taking care to watch both. previous to his return, edward presented him with arms, horses, dogs, and falcons, loaded his attendants with presents, and gave the duke every proof of his sincere affection. after his departure, the norman favourites became more arrogant than ever; for there is but little doubt that they now began to look upon england as their own, and but waited for the death of the weak-minded king, and the return of duke william, to take possession. all this seems secretly and silently to have been arranged. these plans, however, were for a time doomed to be frustrated. earl godwin and his powerful sons were still alive, and making such preparations as the court parasites had never dreamed of for returning to england, and avenging themselves upon their enemies. still, the cunning of duke william failed him not. chances favoured him; and we seem as we were now about to weave and unweave the web of a wild romance, instead of recounting the truthful events of history. yet, in the great drama which we are about to open, popes, and crowned kings, and mitred bishops, princes, and priests, are the actors; and the prize contended for is that england which now claims the proud title of "queen of the world"--that little island which has dwarfed ancient rome and classic greece by its gigantic grandeur. earl godwin during his exile had not remained idle; he had still a few friends in england who would take care to acquaint him with all that was going on at court. here and there a saxon had also managed to retain the command of a fortress, and but few of his countrymen now remained that were not heartily disgusted with the arrogance and tyranny of the norman favourites. such wealth as godwin had carried out with him, or been able to muster, he had made good use of; and having got together a powerful fleet, he, in the summer of , ventured once more upon the english court. he had taken the precaution to despatch faithful emissaries before him, and thousands of the saxons and danes had sworn an oath, that they would take up arms, and "fight until death for earl godwin." his first attack was not very successful; for although he managed to elude the fleet, which was commanded by his enemies the normans, he was at last discovered, pursued, and compelled to shelter in the pevensey roads. a tempest arose while godwin lay at anchor, and dispersed the royal fleet. near the isle of wight he was joined by his sons, harold and leofwin, who had returned from ireland, and brought with them both men and ships--a clear proof that godwin had carefully arranged his plans. wherever the saxon fleet now moved along the coast they met with a warm welcome; wherever they chose to land, armed bands appeared, and joined with them; the peasants brought in stores of provisions; and the name of earl godwin was again proclaimed with as much heartiness and sincerity as when he alone dared to beard the norman favourites in the palace--the current of popularity had every way set in his favour. part of his forces he landed at sandwich, then daringly doubled the north foreland, and sailed like a conqueror up the thames, to the very foot of the grey wave-washed wall where edmund and canute had carried on the struggle, when london was besieged and defended. what a buzzing there would again be in the old city throughout all that summer night! what whispering in the secret corners of the old-fashioned streets! for godwin had managed to land many of his followers, and they had friends on shore, and appointed places of meeting and passwords, by which they could recognise each other in the dark; and arms would be seen glancing, half concealed by short saxon and danish cloaks, and treason be as rife in every hole-and-corner as it ever was in any of the centuries which have since elapsed. from the royal army, troops were deserting every hour, and all around the coast, and up the thames, the ships that were sent out to oppose him turned round their heads, and either willingly, or through fear, followed in his wake, and, instead of becoming enemies, strengthened his formidable fleet. before a blow was struck by his impatient followers, godwin sent a respectful message to the king, requesting the revision of the sentence which had been passed against him, and demanding a restitution of his property and honours; in return for which he promised to become a true and faithful subject in all duty to the king. edward refused the proffered submission, though every hour saw his forces thinned, and, with the exception of his foreigners, those who remained appeared unwilling to fight. other messengers were despatched to edward, for godwin was reluctant to employ the large force under his command against the weak and wavering followers of the king, whose numerical strength bore no comparison to his own; for he clearly saw that, if his army would but have the patience to wait, he should obtain a bloodless victory; it was, however, with great difficulty that he could restrain them, so eager were they to be revenged on the normans. nor were the latter at all backward in urging edward to commence the attack, for they well knew that concession on the king's part would be their ruin, while, in the chances of a fight, godwin might probably be killed, or if even victorious there would be something for all who ventured into such a scramble. but the few ships which edward had drawn up above london-bridge could not be depended on; the king knew that a battle on his part was a hopeless affair, yet still he remained unbending and obstinate. there were still a few saxon nobles true to edward; they were of those whose ancestors had followed alfred, and athelstan, and ethelred through good and through evil report; and who, like the nobles that have for centuries succeeded them, resolved to remain true subjects while ever one sat upon the throne in whose veins the blood of hengist or horsa flowed. to such as these in the hour of real danger edward was still wise enough to listen. he for once disregarded the advice of his norman favourites, and leaving stigand, his bishop, to act as president, permitted the saxon chiefs who belonged to his own party to meet those who came over in the favour of earl godwin, with the mutual intention of effecting a reconciliation. where both parties were anxious for peace, there was but little probability of a war; this the normans saw, and well knew that there was not a moment to be lost. and now our old english chroniclers fairly lose themselves in the feelings of delight with which they describe the hasty departure of the norman favourites. never before was there amongst them such packing and saddling! at every little portal-gate they were seen sallying out of london; in his hurry to escape, the norman archbishop of canterbury left behind his pallium. stigand found it, threw it over his own shoulders, and on the strength of the sanctity which it was supposed to contain, set up archbishop on his own account. some galloped off and left all their effects behind, glad to get to the seaside at any price, and to creep into little dirty fishing-boats, filled with "ancient smells," and there concealing themselves, crept over to the opposite coast as speedily as possible. others, following the example set them on a former occasion by eustace of boulogne, trampled underfoot the children that were playing in the summer twilight in the streets of london, and thus slew by proxy earl godwin's saxons, for of such metal were these foreign favourites made of. we can picture the saxon wives of that day picking up their dead and wounded children, and cursing the cowards as the thunder of their horses' hoofs died away in the dim distance. the witena-gemot again assembled in london for the trial of earl godwin; the balance of power was this time in his own hands--there were no norman enemies to fear--and the saxon boldly defended himself; his sons also showed that they were justified in acting as they had done, and "all the great men and chiefs of the country," before whom they appeared, were satisfied. the sentence of banishment was recalled; their honours and estates restored; and it was then decreed that all the normans should be banished from england, as "promoters of discord, enemies of peace, and calumniators of the english to their king." a son and grandson of godwin's were then given up to edward as hostages; and, for better security, the king sent them over to duke william of normandy--these we shall have to return to again as our plot deepens, and we draw nearer to the end of the bloody tragedy which ended in the destruction of the saxons. editha left her convent, and the family of earl godwin were once more triumphant at the english court. an exception was made to one of the old earl's sons, named sweyn, not for the part he had taken in ousting the norman favourites, but for offences of a graver nature. he, however, became penitent, donned a pilgrim's garb, walked barefooted to jerusalem, and died, as robert the devil had done before him, on his way home. a few exceptions of but little note were made to this decree of banishment against the normans; the archbishop, who had run away without his pallium, was restored; and a few others, who appear to have stood aloof from the quarrels fomented by their countrymen, or who, at least, had the tact to steer clear of open danger, were, at the intercession of edward, permitted to remain in england. we have attempted a sketch of the english court after the exile of godwin's family--of the joy and triumph that reigned in edward's palace: the picture reversed must have presented a faithful representation of the rage and hatred of the normans, when, after their hasty flight, they again assembled at duke william's court. what raving and storming must there have been amongst the disappointed courtiers, what a stamping of armed feet and dropping of sabres, as they swore what they would do if ever they met the saxon earl in arms! above all, what curses loud and deep must have been vented against godwin and all his family! we can picture duke william biting his lip, and walking moodily apart, until the two hostages arrived; and then his cunning eye would brighten for a moment, as he felt he had still a hold, though but a slender one, upon the weak-minded monarch of england. godwin, who was now an old man, did not long survive his triumph. the account of his death is given in various ways by the old chroniclers. it appears to have taken place at the easter festival, in the year ; and although not so sudden as some of the monkish writers have described it to be, the earl never rallied again from the hour when he first fainted at the banquet table in the presence of the king. one of the servants, while in the act of pouring out a cup of wine, stumbled with one foot, and would have fallen but for the dexterity with which he advanced the other. godwin raised his eyes, and, smiling, said to the king, "the brother has come to assist the brother." "ay," answered edward, looking with a deep meaning on the saxon chief, "brother needs brother, and would to god mine still lived!" "oh, king," exclaimed godwin, "why is it that, on the slightest recollection of your brother, you always look so angrily on me? if i contributed even indirectly to his death, may the god of heaven grant that this piece of bread may choke me!" godwin put the bread in his mouth, say the authors who relate this anecdote, and was immediately strangled. his death, however, was not so sudden; for, falling from his seat, he was carried out by his two sons, tostig and gurth, and expired five days after. but the account of this event varies, according as the writer is of norman or english race. "i ever see before me two roads, two opposite versions," says an historian of less than a century later; "i warn my readers of the peril in which i find myself."[ ] siward, the chief of northumberland, who had at first followed the royal party against the saxon earl, but eventually assisted in expelling the foreign favourites, expired soon after godwin. he was by birth a dane, and the population of the same origin over whom he ruled gave him the title of siward-digr, siward the strong; a rock of granite was long shown, which he is said to have split with one blow of his axe. feeling his end approach, he said to those who surrounded him, "raise me up, and let me die like a soldier, and not huddled together like a cow; put me on my coat of mail, place my helmet on my head, my shield on my left arm, and my gilt axe in my right hand, that i may expire in arms." siward left one son, named waltheof, who being too young to succeed to his government, it was given to tostig, godwin's third son. harold, who was the eldest son, succeeded godwin to the government south of the thames; and edward showed more kindness to the son than he had ever done to the father, for on him there rested no suspicion connected with the death of alfred, a subject which was ever settling down like a dark cloud upon the sunniest moments that godwin and edward enjoyed. harold was the most gifted of all godwin's sons, and soon became as popular with the people as his father; having, moreover, no enemies in the court,--for to such favourites as the king wished to retain harold offered no opposition; nor was it necessary, for edward was now fast verging into dotage; his intellect, which, at best, was never very brilliant, now became clouded, and he passed a greater portion of his time amongst his priests. no one ever sat upon the saxon throne worse adapted to play the part of a king than edward the confessor; he was not cut out for the rough business of this work-a-day world. to a peasant who once offended him, he said, "i would hurt you if i were able;" an exclamation, as sharon turner observes, "which almost implies imbecility." for some time there was a dispute between harold and algar, the son of leofric, the governor of mercia. godwin, on succeeding to the earldom, had either voluntarily, or at the request of edward, given up the command of east anglia to algar; but no sooner did harold find himself in full power, than he compelled the son of leofric to give up the governorship, and, accusing him of treason, made war upon him. nothing daunted by his first defeat, algar went into wales, and obtaining assistance of griffith, one of the welsh kings, and mustering many powerful allies amongst his own connexions, he returned, ravaged hereford, burnt the abbey, and slew several priests; and raulf, who commanded the garrison, being a norman, rather encouraged than opposed the ravages of algar. it is said that he caused the saxons to fight on horseback, a mode of warfare to which they were unaccustomed. but harold was not long before arriving at the scene of action, when he soon defeated algar and his welsh allies, driving them back into their mountain fastnesses, and, it is said, compelling the welsh chiefs to swear that they would never again pass the frontier of wales. harold granted the prisoners he had taken their lives, on the condition that the oath was kept, while on his part he solemnly vowed, that if a welshman was taken in arms on the english side of offa's-dyke, he should have his right hand cut off. to algar these terms extended not, and harold was at last compelled to negotiate with him, and restore him to his former dignities. meantime tostig but succeeded indifferently in the governorship of northumbria. siward, who had so long had the command over them, was himself a dane; and as the inhabitants of the north, with but few exceptions, were of danish origin, they took a dislike to the son of godwin. he imposed heavy taxes upon them, violated their ancient privileges, and seems, in fact, to have rendered himself as unpopular as the norman governors had ever been with the saxons. worn down by oppression, the anglo-danes at last rebelled, attacked the city of york, in which the chief residence of tostig stood, and put many of his principal followers to death, amongst whom were several of their own countrymen. although tostig escaped, and the danes seized upon his treasures, they rested not satisfied with such a victory, but assembling a great council they pronounced sentence of banishment against him, and elected morkar, one of the sons of algar, governor in his stead. morkar took the command of the rebel army, and drove tostig into mercia; he was also strengthened by the welsh force, who, led on by his brother edward, had, in despite of their oath, once more ventured across offa's-dyke in arms. the old feeling was not yet dead amongst the ancient cymry, who seem to have been as eager as ever they were before time to fight against the saxons. there is considerable confusion in the time and dates of these attacks upon the welsh, by harold and his brother tostig, and it is difficult to separate one invasion from the other, although it seems evident that the welsh king, griffith, fell in the latter, and that his head was sent to harold. but though the welsh were defeated, terms of negotiation were entered into with the anglo-danes. harold required of them to state their grievances. they did; and boldly told him that his brother's tyranny was the cause of their appearing in arms. harold tried to exculpate his brother, and promised that he should rule better for the future, if they would again accept him as their governor. they refused. "we were born free," said one of the danish leaders, "and brought up free, a haughty chief is insupportable to us; we will, like our ancestors, live or die free. we have no other answer to give to the king." harold not only delivered the message, but dissuaded edward from protracting the war, and on his return ratified their rights with his own signature, as representative of the king; sanctioning the election of the son of algar, and the rejection of his brother. tostig, in a rage, departed to flanders to his father-in-law, vowing vengeance against harold and his countrymen. as the tax called peter-pence began to fail, so did the friendship of the church of rome towards england abate; there was no longer any law in existence to enforce the payment, all that was sent over being a voluntary contribution. it was then that the mother church began to complain of simony being practised in england, of saxon bishops who had purchased their sees; not that the church of rome was herself guiltless of such transactions, but that she objected to a system in which she partook not of the profits. the storm first broke over the head of eldred, archbishop of york, who, when he went to rome to solicit the pallium, was refused, and it was only through the interference of a saxon nobleman that he at last obtained it. robert, the norman archbishop of canterbury, had again been driven from his see by the saxons; and stigand, who had before snatched up the pallium, which the archbishop had left behind in his eagerness to escape, again officiated in the place of the banished primate. but robert this time flew to rome, and there branded the saxon bishop as an usurper. the result was, that the archbishop returned with a letter from the pontiff, commanding stigand to resign. but before robert reached england another pope had been chosen by the principal roman families, and to benedict the saxon bishop appealed, who granted him permission to wear the pallium. the election of benedict was the signal for an army to advance upon italy, and enforce another election which the king of germany approved of. two popes could not reign; the last was victorious. benedict was defeated, and excommunicated, and the pallium he had given to stigand was now useless. had benedict been victorious, it would have been as good a pallium as ever pontiff blessed; packed up, and despatched from the eternal city, as it was, "it was a thing of naught." trifling, as matters of history, as such petty squabbles must appear, they, nevertheless, had their weight and influence--widening the breach which had already been made between the church of rome and england; and when the time arrived, and the vindictive mother saw the opportunity of striking a blow effectually, she did so, and brought all the power she possessed to aid william the norman when he attacked england. norman robert and saxon stigand, though but feathers floating in the air, showed unerringly that the wind which blew from rome was unfavourable to the interests of england. while britain also seemed drifting away daily wider and further from rome, william of normandy was still drawing nearer to the eternal city, and constantly seeking its favour and protection. alexander the second, who had driven out and excommunicated the anti-pope, benedict, had refused to sanction duke william's marriage with matilda, a refusal which was countenanced by the learned monk, lanfranc, then resident at the norman court. although the fiery duke dared not do more than murmur at the opposition of the pontiff, which was grounded on the near relationship of william to matilda, still he was resolved not to brook the reproaches of lanfranc, much as he valued the monk as a councillor; so he banished him from his court. lanfranc went to rome, grew in favour with the new pope, and, instead of resenting william's harsh treatment, the monk obtained from the pontiff a dispensation. alexander the second acknowledged the marriage of william of normandy and matilda, and lanfranc was the bearer of the good tidings to the norman court. who so grateful as duke william--who so highly honoured as the monk, lanfranc, the man who had more power over the pontiff than the duke himself? who so blind, that he cannot see the chain which now reached from normandy to rome--the links, william, lanfranc, and all the friends of the pope? we must bear in mind that on every mount in normandy were perched those ill-omened birds of prey, who were wetting their beaks, and looking with hungry eyes towards england, from which they had been driven by godwin and his sons, just as they were about to gorge themselves. on the coast of france, also, many a disappointed cormorant might be seen, looking eagerly in the same direction. about this period, edward sent over to hungary for his nephew, the son of edmund ironside, who must by this time have been a man far advanced in years, as edmund himself died about , and it seems to have been some time between the year and , when edward the son of edmund arrived in england, at the invitation of his uncle. it appears to have been the intention of edward the confessor to have appointed his nephew edward successor to the throne of england; but this was prevented by the death of the son of edmund ironside. dark hints are thrown out respecting the death of this prince, and harold is hinted at as having hastened his end; but there seems to be no solid ground for such suspicion, and the rumour was probably circulated by the normans, whom edward still retained, and who were envious of the power the son of godwin had acquired. there still remained edgar, the grandson of edmund ironside, and the son of edward, who died soon after his arrival in england; but the king does not appear to have turned his eyes towards him as his successor. as the end of edward the confessor draws nigh, our attention is divided between william of normandy and earl harold, the son of godwin; and as we may consider the king as already dead, for his name scarcely appears again, unless as connected with the events which succeeded his death, we will leave him to his devotions, and take up the clue which leads us through the dark labyrinths to the gloomy end of this portion of our history. the clearest light which has been thrown upon the mysteries of this period, and the best reason given for harold's visit to norway, will be found in the following extract from thierry's "norman conquest:"-- "for two years internal peace had reigned in england without interruption. the animosity of king edward to the sons of godwin disappeared from want of aliment, and from the habit of constantly being with them. harold, the new chief of this popular family, fully rendered to the king that respect and deferential submission of which he was so tenacious. some ancient histories tell us that edward loved and treated him as his own son; but, at all events, he did not feel towards him that aversion mingled with fear with which godwin had ever inspired him; and he had now no longer any pretext for retaining, as guarantees against the son, the two hostages whom he had received from the father. it will be remembered that these hostages had been confided by the suspicious edward to the care of the duke of normandy. they had, for more than ten years, been far from their country, in a sort of captivity. towards the end of the year , harold, their brother, and their uncle, deeming the moment favourable for obtaining their deliverance, asked permission of the king to go and demand them in his name, and bring them out of exile. without showing any repugnance to release the hostages, edward appeared greatly alarmed at the project which harold had formed of going in person to normandy. 'i will not compel you to stay,' said he; 'but if you go, it will be without my consent; for your journey will certainly bring some evil upon yourself and upon your country. i know duke william and his crafty mind; he hates you, and will grant you nothing unless he gain greatly by it; the only way safely to obtain the hostages from him were to send some one else.'" harold, however, went, in spite of this friendly warning, with his hawk on his wrist, and his hounds baying at his heels, hunting and hawking on his way, until he arrived at bosham in sussex, where he quietly embarked with his followers to visit william, duke of normandy, and fetch back his brother and nephew. we must now follow the perilous footsteps of earl harold, and for a short period draw the attention of our readers to duke william and the court of normandy. chapter xxxvi. earl harold's visit to normandy. "richard. -------- now do i play the touch, to try if thou be current gold, indeed:-- edward lives:--think now what i would speak. buckingham. say on, my loving lord. richard. i say i would be king--" we have already given what we believe to be the real motive of harold's visit to normandy. that he went at the request of edward to announce the king's intention of appointing william as his successor, the incidents which we shall record, on harold's arrival, clearly disprove; for if such were the case, what occasion would there have been for the duke to entrap the son of godwin into taking the oath on the relics as he did? the saxon earl had not been long out at sea before a contrary wind arose; and after buffeting about for some time, he was at last driven upon the opposite coast of france, near the mouth of the river somme, and upon the territory which was then held by guy, count of ponthieu. adhering to the maxims of the old sea-kings, the count considered all his own that he either found upon the ocean or picked up along the coast; so he seized harold and his followers, and held them prisoners until they could pay the ransom he demanded. the captives were taken to the fortress of beaurain, near montreuil. harold communicated with william of normandy, and the latter speedily sent messengers demanding the release of the prisoners, under the plea that they were sent on matters of business to his own court, and, for that reason, he was bound to protect them. the duke is said to have accompanied his message with a menace. this the count paid no regard to, and william, who had many reasons for keeping on good terms with his french neighbours, was too wary to execute the threat he had thrown out; so he paid the ransom, and liberated harold, whom he was anxious to have in his own possession. when the saxon earl reached rouen, william received him with an apparent warmth, and a cordiality, that looked as if he had some end to obtain. he overwhelmed him with kindness, declared that the hostages were his, and might accompany him back at once; but, as a courteous guest, he trusted harold would remain a few days with him, visit the country, and join in the festivals which he had prepared for his welcome. it would have required a clearer-sighted and more suspicious man than earl harold appears to have been, to have seen into duke william's motives through all this professed friendship; but the saxon's eyes were opened at last; william did not lead him from castle to castle for nothing; he well knew the price he had fixed upon the knighthood he conferred upon harold, and never was a glittering sword, a silver baldric, and a bannered lance, purchased more dearly than those the son of godwin received from the son of robert the devil. harold went gaily with his brother and nephew to war against the bretons, at william's request; the saxons distinguished themselves by their valour, and no one was praised more in the camp than harold the saxon, who, with his own hand, had saved several norman soldiers when they were nigh perishing amongst the quicksands of coësnon. while the war lasted, it is recorded that william and harold slept in the same tent, and ate at the same table. this was the first act of the drama in which william played so masterly a part. the curtain again draws up, and we behold the duke and the earl riding lovingly side by side on their way to the castle of bayeux. william begins to talk about his youthful days, of the happy hours he had spent with edward of england, when he was in normandy; no doubt he mentioned some of their boyish pranks, told anecdotes that drew a peal of laughter from the unsuspicious saxon, when all at once he said, "when edward and i lived under the same roof, like two brothers, he promised me, that if ever he became king of england, he would make me heir to his kingdom." no doubt the son of robert the devil looked down upon his saddle-bow, or out of the corner of his keen cunning eye, or threw off the sentence as if he had no meaning in it; then made some passing remarks upon his horse, or any object near at hand. after he had done speaking, harold, it appears, was taken by surprise, and either made no reply, or merely uttered some such unmeaning word as "indeed!" when william, having ventured one foot upon the ice, tried the other, and thus proceeded: "harold, if thou wouldst aid me in realising this promise, be sure that if i obtain the kingdom, whatever thou askest of me that shalt thou have." harold, be it remembered, was in the enemy's country, surrounded by those who had ever been foes to his family; his brother and nephew were also, like himself, in duke william's power; and there cannot be a doubt but that, if he had openly declared himself opposed to the duke's views, neither he nor they would again have set foot upon the shores of england. the saxon had no alternative but to appear to acquiesce to his wishes, though we can fancy with what an ill grace he seemed to comply. it was the armed ruffian alone with the victim in his power, who, thinking that he can borrow more than he shall get by murdering his companion, boldly asks for the loan, and, having through fear extorted the promise, presents a bond, gets it signed, then appoints the time and place where it is to be paid; and should the victim seek to evade the responsibility which self-preservation alone compelled him to incur, the other upbraids him as a perjurer and a villain, proclaims to the world what he has done, and gets the consent of all his creditors, who hoped to be enriched by the loan, to assist in murdering the helpless and unfortunate wretch he has entrapped. having extracted something like a vague promise, william then presented the bond, and said, "since thou consentest to serve me, thou must engage to fortify dover castle, to dig there a well of fresh water, and deliver it up, when the time comes, to my people. thou must also give thy sister in marriage to one of my barons" (did he mean queen editha?) "and thyself marry my daughter, adeliza; moreover, on thy departure, thou must leave me, as guarantee for thy promise, one of the two hostages thou claimest, and i will restore him to thee in england when i come there as king."[ ] so far the wily norman duke had succeeded, and he was now resolved to make assurance doubly sure. in both instances he had won. and now we see the third act of this "eventful history" revealing duke william seated upon his throne in the castle of bayeux; he is surrounded by his nobles. harold, who is ushered into his presence, has not a friend amongst the number. william does not yet want "his pound of flesh;" but he is resolved to test the validity of the bond he has possessed himself of. he objects not to the signature, but wishes others to be witness that it is the handwriting of harold--this admitted, he is willing to await the time of payment, and lock it up in that great iron-safe--his heart. not content with living witnesses, this ancient shylock summoned the dead to add solemnity to the oath he was about to administer. had the bones of godwin been in normandy, there is but little doubt william would have dug them up as dumb witnesses. they were not; so he collected all the bones of the reputed saints that could be found in the neighbouring churches. he summoned the priests to strip their shrines; a bone or a body was all one to william; a tooth or a toe-nail came not amiss to the norman--all were emptied into the great vessel he had prepared for their reception; and how each church would pick out its own again concerned not the son of robert the devil. "nose of turk and tartar's lips; finger of birth-strangled babe, ditch-delivered by a drab." so that "the charm was firm and good," was all the duke cared for; and when the relics were ready, the unsuspecting saxon earl was called in. how the norman thieves, who had been kicked out of england, and been witness to what was prepared and covered carefully up against harold's coming, must have grinned when they saw the son of godwin enter. william sat upon a throne, holding a drawn sword in his hand. a crucifix was placed upon the cloth of gold that covered the relics, and concealed them entirely from the eyes of harold; the whole formed, no doubt, to resemble a table, when the duke, bowing to the saxon, began thus: "harold, i require of thee, before this noble assembly, to confirm by oath the promises thou hast made to me, to aid me to obtain the kingdom of england after the death of edward, to marry my daughter adeliza, and to send thy sister, that i may wed her to one of my barons." harold swore to do all--he had no alternative--so he "grinned and bided his time," no more meaning to keep his promise than a man would to send a fifty pound note by return of post to the address of the ruffian who had met him on a lonely moor at midnight, and presented a pistol to his ear. when harold had sworn, the assembled nobles exclaimed, "god aid him!" the third act was then over, and again the curtain fell; the figure of william was seen near the foot-lights, the cloth of gold lying at his feet, and harold looking on the relics on which he had unconsciously sworn. well might the saxon shudder. william had shown himself worthy of the name his father had borne. we want but the thunder and the lightning, the red fire and the grey spirits, to outdo all that the presiding genius of scenic horrors ever invented. were not the motives so deep, devilish, and villanous, we might sit as spectators, and enjoy the horrors; but when we know that the whole was real--that the motive was serious--that the death's head and cross bones were real representatives of the red warm human blood that was doomed to flow, ere the terrible tragedy ended; we turn away, like harold, pale and trembling; and as we retreat, we look round in affright, and are still followed by the skeletons of the dead. from a land filled with such plots and pitfalls, harold was glad to escape under any promise or at any price, and though he brought away his nephew with him, he was compelled to leave his younger brother in the hands of the norman. [illustration: _harold swearing on the relics of the saints._] the duke of normandy was a man who boggled at nothing, so long as it aided him in accomplishing his ends. whether he attempted to win a kingdom or a wife, he considered all means fair that he could avail himself of. thus, after having for some time courted matilda, daughter of baldwin, earl of flanders, and found himself objected to by the father on account of his birth, and by the maiden because she was already in love with another, he hit upon the strangest stratagem that a lover ever had recourse to, to make his way into a fair lady's affections. weary of sighing and suing, of continued entreaty which was only met by successive rejections, he resolved boldly to win the inner fortress by battering down the outward walls, and carrying by force that citadel, the lady's heart, which he had so long besieged. any other lover would have been content with carrying off his fair captive. duke william acted very differently. he began by beating his prisoner into compliance, leaving it to herself to decide between another thrashing and surrendering at once; neither did he take her in her dishabille, but waited until the lady was very neatly attired; and lest he should kill her in the strange way he took of displaying his affection, he first permitted her to attend mass. this over, he began his suit in downright earnest. he waylaid her in the street of bruges, and after rolling her very lovingly in the dirt, and making her, as a lady might say, a perfect fright, he then by way of finish, and as a proof of the strength of his affection, administered to her a few good solid hearty cuffs, and without either stopping to pick her up or wishing her good-bye, he mounted his horse and galloped off. this new mode of wooing had its desired effect. matilda had often been threatened by love, but never before had he visited her in such a substantial shape. she little dreamed that the fluttering of his purple pinions after such soft hoverings, and gentle breathings, would end in downright hard blows from his clenched fists, but finding such was the case, she went home, rubbed her bruises, changed her attire, and got married as quickly as possible. matilda herself, taking a lesson out of the same book, resolved that the lover who had so long stood between herself and william's affections, should not escape scathless, after what she had suffered for his sake; and, although it was long after her marriage, she obtained possession of the estates of the saxon nobleman, brihtric, who had had the misfortune to be sent ambassador to her father's court when she first fell in love with him; and the pretty tigress, now finding that her claws were full-grown, in revenge for the slight she had endured, and the thrashing she had borne, after having robbed him of all he possessed, threw him into prison, and was the cause of his death. a frail fair maiden, the niece of a kentish nobleman, whom matilda suspected of conquering the heart of her husband while he was conquering england, it is believed fared little better in her hands, but that she caused her to be mutilated like elgiva of old, and either ham-strung her, or slit open the beautiful mouth which had won the conqueror from his allegiance to his savage lady. for this cruel deed, matilda is said to have received another beating from her husband, and this time from a bridle which he brought in his hand for the purpose.[ ] when harold returned to england, he presented himself before king edward, and made him acquainted with all that had occurred between duke william and himself in normandy. the king became pale and pensive, and said, "did i not forewarn thee that i knew this william, and that thy journey would bring great evils both upon thyself and upon thy nation? heaven grant that they happen not in my time." these words, which are given both by eadmar and roger of hovedon, although they prove that it was far from the wish of edward that duke william should be his successor, still leave the matter doubtful, whether or not in his younger years he had rashly promised to leave him the crown at his death. william, however, had already obtained a great advantage. an oath, sworn upon relics, no matter under what circumstances, was sure, if violated, to be visited with the fullest vengeance of the ecclesiastical power; and we have already shown that england at this time was looked upon with an unfavourable eye by the church of rome. the rumour of the oath which harold had taken was soon made known in england. "gloomy reports flew from mouth to mouth; fears and alarms spread abroad, without any positive cause for alarm; predictions were dug up from the graves of the saints of the old time. one of these prophesied calamities such as the saxons had never experienced since their departure from the banks of the elbe; another announced the invasion of a people from france, who would subject the english people, and abase their glory in the dust for ever. all these rumours, hitherto unheeded or unknown, perhaps indeed purposely forged at the time, were now thoroughly credited."[ ] in addition to all these imaginary terrors, and before the monarch was borne to his tomb, a large comet became visible in england. the greatest danish army that ever landed upon our island never spread such consternation as was produced by this fiery messenger. such a phenomenon as this was but wanted to crown their superstitious horrors. the people assembled to gaze on it with pale and terror-stricken countenances in the streets of the towns and villages. in their eyes it denoted death, desolation, famine, invasion, slaughter, and "all the ills which flesh is heir to." a monk of malmesbury, who professed the study of astronomy, gave utterance to the following ominous declaration:--"thou hast, then, returned at length; thou that wilt cause so many mothers to weep! many years have i seen thee shine; but thou seemest to me more terrible now, that thou announcest the ruin of my country." edward never held up his head again, nor uttered another cheerful word after the return of harold. from that time, until he expired, he scarcely ever ceased to reproach himself for having caused the war which hung so threateningly over england, by entrusting foreigners, instead of his own countrymen, with the affairs of his government. day and night these thoughts beset him, and he endeavoured in vain to drive them away by religious exercises, and by adding donation upon donation to the churches and monasteries. in vain did the priests pray--in vain did he seek respite by listening to the bible, which was read to him, for those passages of sublime and fearful grandeur which figuratively announce the coming of the most high, to punish the nations who had rebelled against his commandments, fell upon his ear like an ominous knell. writhing upon his death-bed, he would exclaim, "the lord hath bent his bow--he hath prepared his sword, and hath manifested his anger." such words struck horror into the souls of all who surrounded his bed, with the exception of stigand, the archbishop of canterbury, who, it is said, smiled with contempt upon those who trembled at the ravings of a sick old man. according to the authority of the saxon chronicle, eadmar, roger of hoveden, florence of worcester, simeon of durham, and partially by william of malmesbury, and thierry, a careful ransacker of ancient chronicles, it is said, "however weak the mind of the aged edward, he had the courage, before he expired, to declare to the chiefs who consulted him as to the choice of his successor, that, in his opinion, the man worthy to reign was harold, the son of godwin." edward just lived to see the opening of the most eventful year in our annals--that in which england was invaded by the normans. he expired on the eve of epiphany, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and was buried in westminster abbey, where his shrine, though mutilated by time and rude hands, still remains standing in that edifice which his own piety caused him to rebuild, and which illness alone prevented him from being present to witness its consecration. he was long remembered by the saxons for the body of laws he compiled, which his oppressed countrymen made their rallying cry, whenever they gained an ascendancy over their stern task-masters, the normans. his conduct to editha, doubtless, arose from his dislike to earl godwin, and the persuasions of his norman favourites, for he seems to have ever been a man of a wavering mind, and who seldom acted from an opinion of his own. with him perished the last king who was legitimately descended from the great alfred; for although harold was a saxon, and displayed as much military and political genius as any (excepting alfred) in whose veins flowed the blood of kings, he was still the son of the cowherd godwin, a humble, but more honourable line of descent than that of william the bastard, against whom he was so soon to measure his strength, for he was at this period busily though silently preparing for the invasion of england. the danes were heathens; they professed not christianity--this norman did; yet when england was ruled over by a king who had been elected by the voice of the whole witena-gemot, an election that had scarcely ever been disputed, this norman bastard, this son of robert the devil, came over with his hired cut-throats, and armed robbers, and having drenched a once happy country with blood, he covered its smiling shores and cheerful fields with desolation and blackened ashes. chapter xxxvii. accession of harold, the son of godwin. "you have conspired against our royal person, joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his coffers received the golden earnest of our death; wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter, his princes and his peers to servitude, his subjects to oppression and contempt, and his whole kingdom unto desolation."--shakspere. harold, the last saxon who sat upon the throne of england, was elected king by a large assembly of chiefs and nobles in london, on the evening of the very day which saw the body of edward the confessor consigned to the tomb. he was crowned by the archbishop stigand, who, although labouring under the ban of the court of rome, boldly officiated at this important ceremony. the archbishop is represented in the bayeux tapestry as standing on the left hand of harold, who is seated upon the throne, on the day of his coronation. edgar atheling, the grandson of edmund ironside, was still alive, and was the undoubted heir to the crown, though none of the nobles appear to have advocated his claim. harold was honourably and legally elected by the witenagemot, which, as we have shown on several occasions, had by its unanimous consent frequently set the rightful heir aside, and placed upon the throne such a successor as was considered most competent to govern. one of our old chroniclers, holinshed, says, "he studied by all means which way to win the people's favour, and omitted no occasion whereby he might show any token of bounteous liberality, gentleness, and courteous behaviour towards them. the grievous customs, also, and taxes which his predecessor had raised, he either abolished or diminished; the ordinary wages of his servants and men of war he increased; and, further, showed himself very well bent to all virtue and goodness." sharon turner wisely and cautiously observes, that "the true character of harold cannot be judged from his actions in the emergency of competition; as he perished before the virtues of his disposition could be distinguished from those of his convenience." harold commenced his reign by restoring things to their old saxon forms; he affixed saxon signatures to his deeds, instead of the norman seal. although he did not go so far as to banish all the normans from his court, it is not improbable that such as were permitted to remain did so at the intercession of edward on his death-bed. it was a norman who bore the tidings of the death of edward to duke william. the duke was engaged in his park near rouen when he received the news of harold's accession; he was busy trying some new arrows when the messenger arrived. in a moment he became thoughtful, crossed the seine, and hastened to his palace; when he entered the great hall, he began to pace hurriedly to and fro, occasionally fastening and untying the cord that secured his cloak, then again sitting down for a moment, and the next instant hastily arising. he was evidently staggered by harold's boldness; not probably that he expected his aid, but at the suddenness with which he had assumed the crown. for some time no one dared speak to the "fiery duke;" all stood apart, either in silence or conversing in subdued whispers. an officer at last entered, who either being admitted to more familiarity, or possessing more courage than the rest, thus accosted the angry norman: "my lord," said he, "why not communicate your intelligence to us? it is rumoured that the king of england is dead, and that harold has broken his faith to you, by seizing the kingdom." "they report truly," answered the duke, sternly and briefly; "my anger is touching his death, and the injury harold has done to me." this courtier must have been well acquainted with william's designs, and we can readily fancy the grim smile that faded over the duke's countenance when the officer had completed his harangue, which was as follows: "chafe not at a thing that may be amended. there is no remedy for edward's death; but for the wrong which harold has done, there is. yours is the right. you have good knights; strike boldly--well begun is half done."[ ] no one knew this better than the duke himself; he now found that he could not obtain the kingdom by trickery--that all the trouble he had taken to muster the relics together had been labour in vain,--that fighting in a distant country was an expensive business,--so he went in to consult with his councillors--to consider the ways and means, to reckon up the cost of this great expected gain, and to see which would be the best and cheapest way of executing the few thousands of murders which it was necessary to perpetrate before he could gain possession. the evil genius of the son of robert the devil was equal to the emergency. we must now return to tostig, who, it will be remembered, when harold advocated the cause of the oppressed danes, fled to flanders, and found shelter at the court of earl baldwin, whose daughter, judith, he had married. earl baldwin, it will be borne in mind, was the father of matilda; thus, william the norman, and tostig, the son of godwin, and brother to king harold, had married two sisters. tostig seems never to have forgiven his brother for deciding in favour of morkar, the son of algar,--who had supplanted him in the government of northumbria; and no sooner did he hear that harold was seated upon the throne of england, than he hastily left flanders, and hurried to normandy to urge his brother-in-law, duke william, to commence hostilities against england. although the plans of the norman duke were not yet matured, william had no objection to set brother against brother; thinking, no doubt, that any attack would serve to divert the attention of harold from the main invasion, and give him a better opportunity of striking the meditated blow. william supplied tostig with several vessels, promising him also, as soon as he was prepared, to come to his assistance. with these ships, which were insufficient for the attack, tostig sailed into the baltic in search of allies, promising the kingdom to any one who would assist him to conquer it. for this purpose, he sought out the king of denmark, who was related to him on his mother's side; but the danish sovereign, well aware that thousands of his subjects were then living peacefully and happily in england, reprimanded him sternly for attempting to invade his brother's dominions, and refused to assist him. nothing daunted by his ill success, tostig next steered to the coast of norway, where harald hardrada, the last of the bold scandinavian sea-kings, reigned. few men of that day had seen more service than the norwegian king, harald; he had fought endless battles, both by sea and land,--had, in turn, set out to pillage as a pirate, and to conquer and subdue with all the right and might of a sea-king. he had fought in the east, visited constantinople, enrolled himself in a troop of his own countrymen who, by their valour and daring, had already distinguished themselves both in asia and africa; and, though brother to a king, he had, with his battle-axe on his shoulders, timed his footsteps to a march as he mounted guard, like a humble sentinel, at the sculptured gates of the asiatic palaces. having enriched himself by serving as a "soldier of fortune," he became weary of the outward grandeur and internal languor of these effeminate courts, pined for the fresh air which blew about his own bluff headlands, and longed again to feel the cold sea spray beating upon his sun-tanned cheeks, and to guide his sea-horse over the ever-moving billows. so one day he entered the palace with his battle-axe over his shoulder, and said that it was his intention to return to norway. his resignation was received with reluctance: the asiatic king would rather have parted with a hundred of his followers than with harald hardrada. the norwegian soon found it was his intention to detain him by force; so, seizing a ship, he carried with him a beautiful princess whose affections he had won, and left the imperial palace to guard itself. once upon the sea, harald was in no hurry to reach home. he had still room in his ship for more treasures,--he had his beautiful and willing captive for a companion,--his ship filled with grim warriors, who, at his bidding, were ready to grapple with the most formidable dangers; so, after a long piratical cruise along the coast of sicily, during which he had laden his vessel with treasures, he returned home, raised an army, and laid claim to the throne of norway. he soon succeeded in obtaining a share of the dominions. to this valorous vikingr, so renowned for his perilous adventures and daring deeds, tostig came for assistance, promising him england if he could but win it. hardrada was easily persuaded; he loved to be where blows rained heavily, where dangers hemmed him in--he seemed to breathe more freely where the current of air was stirred by the struggle of arms,--so promised that, as soon as the ice melted and liberated his fleet, he would set sail for england.[ ] impatient to commence the attack, tostig landed upon the northern coast of england, at the head of such adventurers as he could muster, and began to pillage the towns and villages north of the humber. he was opposed by morkar, the governor of northumbria, and compelled to retreat into scotland, where he awaited the arrival of harald hardrada. while these events were in progress, the duke of normandy was not inactive, but despatched a messenger to england, who, arriving at the court of harold, thus addressed the saxon king: "william, duke of normandy, reminds thee of the oath which thou didst swear to him, by mouth and by hand, on good and holy relics." the son of godwin answered,--"it is true that i swore such an oath to duke william, but i swore it under compulsion; i promised that which did not belong to me, and which i could not perform; for my royalty is not mine, and i cannot divest myself of it without the consent of my country, nor, without the consent of the country, can i marry a foreign wife. as to my sister, whom the duke claims, to marry her to one of his chiefs, she died this year:--would he have me send him her body?" william, who was not yet ready to commence operations against england, after having received harold's answer, sent the saxon king another message, requesting him to fulfil at least a portion of the promise he had made, and if he would not enter into all the conditions he had sworn to, to marry his daughter, according to promise. but harold was resolved not to fulfil a single promise which had been forced from him under such circumstances, therefore sent back a flat refusal, and a few days after married a saxon lady, the sister of morkar, governor of northumbria. from the very moment that the news of this marriage reached the norman court, all concession was at an end. william swore a solemn oath, and vowed, by the splendour of god, that within a year he would appear in person, and demand the whole of the debt, and "pursue the perjurer to the very places where he thought he had the surest and firmest footing." leaving duke william busily preparing for his invasion, we must again glance at england, which harald hardrada was already on his way to attack, with a large fleet. a feeling of fear and discontent seems to have reigned amid the norwegian soldiers. many of them were disturbed by signs and omens--others believed that they had prophetic revelations during their sleep. "one of them," says thierry, "dreamed that he saw his companions land on the coast of england, and in the presence of the english army; that in the front of this army, riding upon a wolf, was a woman of gigantic stature; the wolf held in his jaws a human body, dripping with gore, and when he had devoured it, the woman gave him another. a second soldier dreamed that the fleet sailed, and that a flock of crows, vultures, and other birds of prey, were perched upon the masts and sails of the vessels. on an adjacent rock a woman was seated, holding a drawn sword in her hand, and looking at and counting the vessels. she said to the birds, 'go without fear, you shall have enough to eat, and you shall have plenty to choose from, for i go with them.'" after the relation of such dreams as these had cast a gloom over the whole fleet, every petty disaster which would have passed unnoticed at another time, was construed into an evil omen. thus, when harald hardrada, who was a tall, heavy man, placed his foot on board the royal vessel, they fancied that the weight of his body either tilted it aside, or pressed it down more than usual; and such a trifling incident as this could not be viewed without disheartening the soldiers. but the bold sea-king was not to be affrighted by such airy shadows as these. he sailed along the eastern coast of scotland, until he came to where tostig's vessels were anchored; when uniting their forces, they made their way to scarborough, and attacked the town. here hardrada was again in his element. the saxon and danish inhabitants made a bold defence. in vain did the sea-king thunder at the gates with his battle-axe--he could not gain admission. a portion of the town of scarborough at this time lay stretched out at the foot of a high and commanding rock. the bold norwegian had stormed too many towns to be daunted by trifles; so summoning his followers to cut down all the trees which grew at hand, he raised an enormous pile of trunks and branches upon the summit of the rock, and firing it, with the stubble and dried grass which he had placed below, he raised such a conflagration as the inhabitants had never before witnessed. while the high pile was crackling, and blazing, and lighting up the country for miles around, he ordered his soldiers to roll down the burning mass upon the houses at the foot of the rock. the gates were speedily opened; and as the inhabitants rushed out, the sea-king and his followers entered to pillage the town. leaving scarborough behind, they quitted the german ocean and entered the humber, and sailed round the wolds of yorkshire into the ouse, for tostig was eager to reach york, and instal himself once more in the seat of his former government. morkar, who had succeeded him, and whose sister king harold had married, mustered his forces together, and gave battle to the invaders; he was, however, compelled to retreat, and escaping into york, which was strongly fortified, he shut himself up, and left the besiegers encamped around the walls. meantime king harold was in the south, waiting the arrival of duke william, for with a powerful army he had kept a watch upon the coast nearest norway night and day. but the summer was now over, and autumn having set in, harold, it is said, misled by a message which he is reported to have received from baldwin, earl of flanders, was led to believe that the duke of normandy would not commence his threatened invasion until the following spring. but whether this report was true or not, the son of godwin well knew that his kingdom would be exposed to greater danger if he allowed two armies to march upon him at once; that with the norwegians advancing from the north, and the normans from the south, he should be hemmed in between two enemies; so turning his face towards york, he resolved to attack those who had already landed, to clear the ground, and make more space for the new comers. having once decided, harold lost not a moment, but riding himself at the head of his chosen troops, he by rapid marches reached york, on the evening of the fourth day after his departure. the next day was appointed for the surrender of the city; for many of the inhabitants, fearful that the enemy would assail their city as they had before done scarborough, had resolved to throw open the gates on the following morning, and accept again their ancient governor tostig. harold, apprised of this, ordered such of the citizens as were faithful to resume their arms, keep a close guard over the gates, and on no account to allow any one to pass over to the norwegian camp during the night. encouraged by the tidings of the arrival of the saxon army, the citizens remained true to their trust; nor were hardrada nor tostig aware, until the next day, that harold was encamped in the neighbourhood. the morning ushered in one of those bright and beautiful days, which look as if summer had come back again to peep at the earth before her final departure; for although it was now near the close of september, and the harvest-fields were silent the sunlight broke as brilliantly upon the grey old walls of the city of york as ever it had done while the green old waysides of england were garlanded with the wild roses of june. the day being hot and bright, the norwegians, unconscious that they were so near an enemy, had left their coats of mail on board of the ships, which were at some distance from the city. as they were marching up to enter the gates, as they supposed, peaceably, and in accordance with the terms which were agreed upon the previous day, the king of norway beheld a cloud of dust rising in the distance, amid which his experienced eye instantly detected the glittering of arms in the sunshine. "who are these men advancing towards us?" said hardrada to tostig. "it can only be englishmen coming to demand pardon and implore our friendship," answered tostig; but scarcely had he uttered the words, before a large and well ordered body of men in armour stood out clear and distinct in the distance, headed by harold, the last king of the saxons. "the enemy--the enemy!" resounded from line to line; and three horsemen were instantly despatched with all speed to bring up the remainder of the army, who were behind in the camp; and the king of norway, unfurling his banner, which he called the "ravager of the world!" drew up his army around it in the form of a half moon, the outer verge of which extended towards harold, while the rounded wings, which bent back, were filled up with the same strength and depth as the centre. the first line stood with the ends of their lances planted in the ground and held in an upward and slanting direction, with the points turned towards the saxons. the second line held their spears above the shoulders of the first, ready to plunge them into the riders when their horses had rushed upon the points of the foremost spears. they stood shoulder to shoulder, and shield to shield, while the king of norway, on his black charger, rode along the ranks, encouraging his men to stand firm, and, although without their cuirasses, to fear not the edges of blue steel. "the sun glitters upon our helmets," said he; "that is enough for brave men." while hardrada was riding round, and encouraging his men, his heavy black war-horse stumbled, and he fell to the ground; but he sprang up again in an instant, and leaped into his saddle. harold, who stood near enough to see his fall, inquired who that large and majestic person was. when answered that it was the king of norway, harold replied, "his fortune will be disastrous." the sea-king wore on that day a blue tunic, while his head was surmounted by a splendid helmet, both of which had attracted the attention of the saxon king. before the battle commenced, harold ordered a score of his warriors, who were well mounted, and armed from head to heel, to advance towards the front of the norwegian lines, and summon his brother tostig to appear. the saxon rode out of the norwegian ranks, when one of the horsemen exclaimed, "thy brother greets thee by me, and offers thee peace, his friendship, and thy ancient honours." tostig replied, "these words are very different from the insults and hostilities they made me submit to a year ago; but if i accept them, what shall be given to my faithful ally, harald hardrada, king of norway?" "he," answered the saxon messenger, "shall have seven feet of ground, or, as he is a very tall man, perhaps a little more." tostig bade the messengers depart, and tell his brother harold to prepare for fight; for, true to his word, the saxon was resolved to stand or fall with the brave norwegian sea-king.[ ] near the commencement of the battle, the norwegian king was slain by a random arrow, which pierced his throat. the first charge of the saxon cavalry was received firmly on the points of the implanted spears, and it was not until the english horsemen began to retreat in some confusion, when the norwegians were tempted to break through their hitherto impenetrable ranks, that the saxons obtained any advantage. while the combat still raged fiercely under the command of tostig, harold once more singled out his brother in the battle-field, dispatched to him a messenger, and again offered him both peace and life, with permission to the norwegians to return to their own country unmolested; but tostig had resolved to win either death or victory. he was determined to accept no favour from his brother's hands, and the arrival of fresh troops from the ships, who were completely armed, seemed to revive fresh hopes in his bosom. but these new troops were not in a fit state to enter the field. heated with the rapidity with which they had marched, under a weight of heavy armour, that the sun seemed to burn through, they offered but a feeble resistance to the charge of the saxon cavalry; and when a rumour ran through the field that their standard was captured, tostig and most of the norwegian leaders slain, they gladly accepted the peace which king harold for the third time offered them. olaf, the son of the king of norway, having sworn friendship to harold, returned to his own country with the sad remnant of his father's fleet. "the same wind," says thierry, "which swelled the saxon banners, as they fluttered over a victorious field, filled the norman sails, and wafted a more formidable enemy towards the coast of sussex." the ominous curtain was drawn up for the last time, which in a few days was doomed to fall down, and shut out for ever the last of the saxons that ever wore the crown of england. =the norman invasion= chapter xxxviii. england invaded by the normans. "down royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence! and to the english court assemble now, from every region, apes of idleness! now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum: have you a ruffian, that will swear, drink, dance, revel the night; rob, murder, and commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways? be happy, he will trouble you no more: england shall double gild his treble guilt; england shall give him office, honour, might."--shakspere. we must now carry our readers to normandy, to the life and stir, and busy preparation which nearly eight hundred years ago took place in that country. we must waft their imagination across the ocean to those masses of living and moving men who then existed, and endeavour to look at them, as if they still lived, and were actuated then as now. at the busy workmen who were employed in building ships, labouring all the more eagerly in hopes that amid the scramble of the war they might become the commanders of the vessels they were helping to construct--at the smiths and armourers, who were then forging lances and swords, and coats of mail, trusting that when their work was done, and the victory won, they should in england become great lords, and have a score or two of followers to carry before them the very lances which their own hard hands had hammered out. at the tailor, who sat hemming gonfannons, and the embroiderer who worked the figures of lions' and bulls' heads, dragons, and all imaginable monsters, upon pennon or banner, fondly dreaming they should one day sit in the lordly halls of england with the banner, the cunning workmanship of their hands fluttering above their heads, while they, no longer "knights of the shears and thimble," should throw aside the goose and needle, and become great rulers in conquered england. at the cooper, who thundered away cheerfully as he drove his hoops down the casks, believing that when his work was finished, he should on the other side of the ocean become a count; the shoemaker, who hammered and stitched for every shoeless vagabond who came toiling up the dusty roads from maine and anjou, under promise that he should have the fairest saxon wife he could capture. the tinker, who had clouted pots and pans, but now turned his hand to the riveting of helmets, under the hope of becoming a rich thane when he landed in britain. for hedgers and ditchers, weavers, and drovers--all the scum and outcast of poitou, and brittany, france, and flanders, now came in rags and tatters--the "shoeless-stocracy" from aquitaine and burgundy, hurried up under the hope of one day becoming the aristocracy of england--some offered to murder and burn for their food and lodging only--others brought their bread and cheese and garlic, ready bundled up, and were willing to slay and desolate, and do any damnable deed for their passage alone, so that they might be allowed to pick up a stray saxon princess or two, or take possession of any old comfortable castle, when the burning and murdering were over. such a collection of thieves and vagabonds, and un-hung rascals, were never covered in under the hatches of all the ships that have carried out convicts since the day that england first discharged its cargoes of vice and wretchedness upon the shores of australia. all these ragged and unprincipled rascals--no matter from what quarter they came--were instantly set at work; some, who were fit for nothing else, rubbed and scrubbed and polished corslets and helmets, shields and spurs; others sharpened spears and pikes and javelins, grinding and rubbing the points upon any stone they could find; many were beasts of burthen, and toiled from morning till night, in carrying stores to the ships; and all these ragamuffins were destined to sail under a banner, which the pope himself had consecrated, and under a bull to which a ring was appended, containing one of the hairs of st. peter set in a diamond of great value. all these dogs in doublets, hounds in armour, murderers in mail, cut-throats in corslets, and robbers at heart, were, about eight hundred years ago, congregated on that great mustering-ground of villany, normandy; and there they matured their plans for breaking into the peaceful homes, and slaying the unoffending inhabitants of england. the evil one, doubtless, cast his triumphant eye over that vast assembly, then hurried off to enlarge his fiery dominion against their coming. before setting out on his invasion, the crafty norman had, by laying an accusation of sacrilege against harold, at the court of rome, obtained permission to bring back england to the obedience of the holy church, and to enforce the payment of the tax of peter's-pence. added to this, he got a bull of excommunication against the saxon king and his adherents; and armed with such credentials, he set out to murder, burn, and desolate, under the sanction of the holy church. thus, william was armed with a power more dreaded, in that superstitious age, by the blinded and ignorant multitude, than the edge of the sword. nor is it probable, considering the breach which existed between england and rome, that the pontiff for a moment took into consideration the circumstances under which william extorted the oath from harold. besides obtaining the vindictive sanction of that church which professed only peace and good-will towards all mankind--whose harshest emblem was a pastoral crook, with which to draw back tenderly the sheep that had wandered from the fold--but who, instead of this, consecrated (solemn mockery!) the banner which was so soon to wave over a field steeped with the blood of christians. besides obtaining this unholy power, the norman duke made use of all the duplicity he was master of, to persuade and compel his subjects to furnish the funds which were so necessary to fit out his expedition. he summoned his brothers, by the mother's side, eudes and robert, sons of the old tanner of falaise, who had now turned down the sleeves of their doublets, cast aside their leathern aprons, and having got rid of the aroma of the tan-pit, one had become bishop of bayeux, and the other count of mortain. these, together with his barons, summoned to the conference, pledged themselves, not only to serve him with their body and their goods, but even to the selling or mortgaging of their estates, although they were pretty sure, in case of success, of having whatever they might advance returned to them an hundred-fold. they were of opinion, that those who were not so likely to become partakers of the spoil, should be compelled to contribute to the cost. on this hint, which was probably his own, duke william convoked a large assembly of men from all professions and stations of life in normandy, amongst whom were many of the richest merchants in his dominions. when they met, he explained his wants, and solicited their assistance. they listened, then withdrew, in order to consult each other as to what measures should be taken. seldom had there been such a hubbub in normandy as this assembly presented. some, whom there is but little doubt had previously made their arrangements with either the duke or his officials, were ready to give ships, money, or anything they possessed; others, who had come to no understanding as to what return was to be made, would give nothing, but said that they were already burthened with more debts than they could pay. in the midst of this confusion, when fifty were talking like one, and they could scarcely hear each other speak for their own clamour, william fitz-osbern, the seneschal, or ducal lieutenant of normandy, entered the hall, and raising his voice high above the rest, he exclaimed, "why dispute ye thus? he is your lord--he has need of you; it were better your duty to make your offers, and not to await his request. if you fail him now, and he gain his end, he will remember it; prove, then, that you love him, and act accordingly." "doubtless," cried the opponents, "he is our lord; but is it not enough for us to pay him his dues? we owe him no aid beyond the seas; he has already enough oppressed us with his wars; let him fail in his new enterprise, and our country is undone."[ ] it was at last resolved that fitz-osbern should lead the way, and make the best terms he could with the duke. he did; and they followed him probably not further than the next apartment, where william was awaiting their decision; and great must have been their astonishment when the seneschal commenced his oration. in vain did they shrug up their shoulders, lift up their eyes, and exclaim, "no, no! we did not say this; we will not do that." onward plunged fitz-osbern deeper and deeper, declaring that they were the most loyal and zealous people in the world--that they were ready to serve him here, there, and everywhere,--that they would give him all they possessed; and, more than that, that those who had supplied him with two mounted soldiers would now furnish four. in vain they roared out, "no, no! we will serve him in his own country, but nowhere beside." fitz-osbern had in his imagination jerked them across the ocean, and furnished william with an army in no time; and when he had finished, he left them to settle as they best could with the duke,--for there is no doubt the matter had been previously concocted between the seneschal and william. the duke of normandy either was, or pretended to be surprised and enraged beyond measure. could his seneschal have deceived him, or could they be so disloyal as to refuse to furnish him with the aid he required? such a matter must be looked into--and it was. he sent separately for the most influential of the leaders; had a private conference with each; and, when they came out, they were ready to grant him everything. he gave them sealed letters for security; and what they contained we may readily guess--for the man who consented to portion out england to his followers before they had conquered it, was not likely to stick at giving away all europe [on parchment] to secure his ends. by such tricks as these, sorry are we to write it, he obtained the aid of many brave and honourable men. but for this, we might have ranked his invasion with an army of unprincipled adventurers, amongst the ravages of those goths and vandals who in the darker ages overran greece and rome. "he published his proclamation," says thierry, "in the neighbouring countries, and offered good pay and the pillage of england to every man who would serve him with lance, sword, or cross-bow; and multitudes accepted the invitation, coming by every road, far and near, from north and south. all the professional adventurers, all the military vagabonds of western europe, hastened to normandy by long marches; some were knights and chiefs of war, the others simple foot-soldiers and serjeants-of-arms, as they were then called. some demanded money-pay, others only their passage, and all the booty they might make. some asked for land in england, a domain, a castle, a town; others simply required some rich saxon in marriage. every thought, every desire of human avarice presented itself; "william rejected no one," says the norman chronicle, "and satisfied every one as well as he could." from spring to autumn, normandy was the great rallying point for every one who had strength enough to wield arms, and were willing to dash out the brain of his fellow-men. the three-lion banner threw its folds over more crime and cruelty than was, perhaps, ever found amongst the same number of men; and the doors of this huge inhuman stye were about to be opened, and the grim, savage, and tusked herd turned loose, to slay, root-up, overrun, and desecrate a country to which alfred the great had given laws--a kingdom that already stood second to none in the wide world for civilization. these man-slayers ran together to hunt in couples--they became sworn brothers in arms--they vowed to share all they gained--they made these promises in churches--they knelt hand in hand before the holy altars, and blasphemously called god to witness that they would equally divide what they obtained by bloodshed and robbery. prayers were said, and psalms chaunted, and tapers burnt in churches for the success of these armed marauders; yet neither the thunder nor the lightning nor an avenging arm descended to strike dead the impious priests who thus dared to invoke his sacred name in so unholy a cause; and for ages after, many a golden cross and sacred vessel of gold or silver, which had once decorated the altars of the english monasteries, were seen in the mis-called sacred buildings of normandy--rewards which were given by the norman bastard to these mitred blasphemers. some were honourable enough to refuse to co-operate with the norman on any terms, like the high-minded gilbert fitz-richard, who came over with the duke because he was his liege lord; and when the period of his servitude had expired, returned again to his own country, no richer than when he came. but there were few, we fear, like him. thierry says, "he was the only one among the knights who accompanied the norman that claimed neither lands nor gold." many, we know, while the army was encamped near the river dive, did homage for the lands which were then in the peaceable possession of the saxons, who little dreamed, while they were superintending the gathering in of their harvest, that the norman bastard was already portioning out their fair domains amongst men who had sworn to do his "bloody business." when william applied to philip of france for his assistance--and in the most humiliating terms offered to do homage for england, and to hold it as the vassal of france--philip refused to assist him. with the count of flanders, his brother-in-law, he fared no better; and when conan, king of brittany, heard that duke william, whom he looked upon as an usurper, and the murderer of his father, was preparing for the invasion of england, he sent him the following message by one of his chamberlains:--"i hear that thou art about to cross the sea, to conquer the kingdom of england. now, duke robert, whose son thou pretendest to be, on departing for jerusalem, remitted all his heritage to count allan, my father, who was his cousin; but thou and thy accomplices poisoned my father. thou hast appropriated to thyself his seigneury, and hast detained it to this day, contrary to all justice, seeing that thou art a bastard. restore me, then, the duchy of normandy, which belongs to me, or i will make war upon thee to the last extremity with all the forces at my disposal." the norman historians state that william was somewhat alarmed at this message, as such an attack must have prevented his meditated invasion; but the king of brittany did not survive his threat many days. the norman succeeded in bribing the chamberlain to murder his royal master, and this he accomplished by rubbing the mouth-piece of his hunting horn with deadly poison, so that when conan next rode to the chase, he blew his last blast. many of william's enemies were at this time, beyond doubt, removed by similar means. nor do such deeds startle the historian as he draws nearer to that land of horrors; to the threshold of that country which, by his command, was stained with the blood of a hundred thousand murders. the successor of conan, warned by the fate of father and son, patched up a peace with the norman, and allowed many of his subjects to accompany the expedition. when all was in readiness for this long threatened invasion, a contrary wind set in, and kept the large fleet, which amounted to many hundred sail, for nearly a whole month at the mouth of the dive, a river which falls into the sea between the seine and the orne. after this a southerly breeze sprang up, and wafted the mighty armament as far as the roadsteads of st. valery, near dieppe; then the wind suddenly changed, and there they were compelled to lie at anchor for several days. many of the vessels were wrecked; and lest an alarm should spread amongst his troops, william caused the bodies of the drowned men to be buried with speed, and in privacy. nor did such disasters fail in producing their effects upon his superstitious followers. some deserted his standard, for they thought that an expedition, which the very elements seemed to oppose, could only be attended with evil. murmurs broke out in the fleet--the soldiers began to converse with each other, and to exaggerate the number of dead bodies which had been buried in the sand--to conjure up perils and difficulties which they had never before seen. "the man is mad," said they, "who seeks to seize the land of another. god is offended with such designs, and proves it by refusing us a favourable wind." in vain did william increase the rations of provisions, and supply them with larger portions of strong liquor--the same low feeling of despondency reigned along the shore and in the ships. the soldiers were weary of watching the monotonous waves that ever rolled from the same quarter--they were tired of feeling the wind blow upon their faces from the same direction--but there was no help--no change; the breeze shifted not; and they paced wearily! wearily! along the shore; reckoning up again the number of dead bodies which had already been buried in the sand, then shaking their heads, and muttering to each other, "so many have perished, and yet we are no nearer the battle than when we set out." others deserted on the morrow. in vain did duke william attend the church of st. valery daily, and pray before the shrine of the saint--the little weathercock on the bell-tower still pointed in the same direction day after day--his prayers were of no avail; and sometimes he came out of the church with such an expression on his countenance, as led the beholder to conclude that, from the bottom of his heart, he wished the wind, the weathercock, and the saint, with that dusky gentleman after whom the normans had nicknamed his father. weary and disheartened, like his followers, at this long delay, william at last hit upon a device, that at least served to arouse the spirits of his soldiers from the state of despondency into which they had sunk, and to chase from their minds the gloomy doubts and forebodings with which they had been so long overcast. to accomplish this, he took from the church of st. valery the coffer that contained the relics of the patron saint, and this he had carried with great ceremony through the camp in the centre--it was at last set down; and prayers having been offered up for a favourable wind, the soldiers in procession passed by the relics of the reputed saint, each throwing upon it what he could best afford, until the "shrine was half buried in the heaps of gold, silver, and precious things, which were showered upon it. thus artfully did he, instead of interposing the authority of a sovereign and a military leader, to punish the language of sedition and mutiny among his troops, oppose superstition to superstition, to amuse the short-sighted instruments of his ambition."[ ] on the following night the wind chanced to change, to the great delight of the priests who attended the camp, and who, while they packed up the rich offerings which had been thrown over the dry and marrowless bones of a good and pious old man, failed not to attribute the natural change in the current of the atmosphere to the intercession of st. valery. at daybreak, on the twenty-seventh of september, the sky was bright and beautiful--the wind blowing in a favourable direction from the south, and the sun, which had for many days been enveloped in mists and clouds, now rose with a summer-like splendour, throwing long trails of golden light over the green and ridgy sea. the camp was immediately broken up, the sails were hoisted, and in a few hours the large fleet, which contained upwards of sixty thousand men, launched forth into the open sea amid the deep braying of the norman trumpets. foremost in the van rode the beautiful vessel which contained william, duke of normandy. at its mast-head fluttered the consecrated banner which had been sent by the pope, and below this streamed out another flag, marked with the cross of calvary, for so was the emblem of our salvation profaned. the sails were of various colours, and on them were emblazoned in gold the three lions, the haughty arms of normandy. the prow of the vessel was decorated with the figure of a child, bearing a bent bow in its hand, as if in the act of discharging an arrow. when night closed in over the sea, a large lantern was hoisted to the mast-head of this magnificent vessel, and through the hours of darkness that vast fleet marched from wave to wave, every billow rolling it nearer to the shores of england. when the grey morning again dawned upon the sea, the norman chief, finding that he had far outsailed his fleet, sent one of his sailors up the mast to see if he could descry the lagging ships in the distance. at first, the man who was despatched to look out saw nothing but sea and sky; but on his third ascent, he exclaimed, "i see a forest of masts and sails!" william then either dropped his anchor, or took in his canvas, until the foremost vessels approached, and in a few hours after, the vast armament was riding safely in pevensey bay; only one or two vessels having been lost, while crossing the english channel, and in one of these was a famous astrologer who had predicted that the voyage would terminate without a disaster; but when william heard of his death, he shrewdly remarked, "that he who could not foresee his own fate, was ill adapted to foretel the fate of others." it appears that the saxon vessels which had so long been cruising upon the coast of sussex, awaiting the arrival of the normans, had returned to port from want of provisions. thus william was enabled to land his troops without opposition; and on the th of september, his forces disembarked at pevensey, on the coast of sussex. the archers, who wore short coats, and had their hair cut close, were the first to land. they were followed by the knights, who wore corslets of burnished mail, and conical shaped helmets of glittering steel; each bore in his hand a strong lance, while at his side hung a long, straight, double-edged sword. then came the pioneers, the carpenters, and the smiths, each wheeling up and forming themselves into separate divisions, until the whole shore was covered with armed men and horses, above whose heads fluttered the gonfannons and the larger banners, which were so soon to serve as beacons in the rallying points of battle. william was the last to land, and his foot had scarcely touched the sandy shore before he stumbled and fell. a murmur arose amid the assembled host, and voices were heard to exclaim, "this is an evil sign." but the duke, with that ready talent which enabled him to give a favourable appearance to serious as well as trifling disasters, suddenly sprang up, and showing the sand which he had grasped in his fall, exclaimed, "lords, what is it you say? what, are you amazed? i have taken seizin of this land with my hands, and, by the splendour of god, all that it contains is ours." one of the soldiers then ran hastily forward, and tearing a handful of thatch from the roof of a neighbouring cottage, an ancient mode of conveyance, which still exists, he presented it to the duke, saying, "sire, i give you _seizin_, in token that the realm is yours." william answered, "i accept it, and may god be with us." refreshments were then distributed to the soldiers as they rested upon the beach. the army moved a little onward in the direction of hastings, a spot favourable to encamp upon having been selected, two strong wooden fortresses, which had been prepared in normandy, were erected; and thus strongly fortified, william awaited the coming of the saxons. on the following day, the work of pillage commenced. troops of normans over-ran the country--the whole coast was in a state of alarm; the inhabitants fled from their houses, concealing their cattle and goods, and congregating in the churches and churchyards, as if they trusted that the dust of the dead would be a protection to them against their foreign invaders. the peasants assembled on the distant hills, and looked with terror upon the strong fortresses, and the immense body of men which they could see moving about the coast. a saxon knight mounted his horse, and hurried off, without slackening his rein, to carry the tidings to harold. day and night did he ride, scarcely allowing himself time for either food or refreshment, until, reaching the ancient hall at york, where harold was seated at his dinner, he rushed into the presence of the saxon king, and delivering his message in four brief ominous words, exclaimed, "the normans are come!"[ ] chapter xxxix. battle of hastings. "'tis better to die at the head of the herd, than to perish alone, unmourned, uninterred; to be bound with the brave amid summer's last sheaves, than be left, the last ear that the reaper's hand leaves; 'tis better to fall grasping arrow and bow, amid those whom we love, than be slave to a foe; for life is the target at which death's shafts fly, if they miss us we live--if they hit us we die." royston gower. elated by the victory which a hasty march and a sudden surprise had enabled him to obtain more easily over the norwegians, the brave harold again, without a day's delay, proceeded to advance rapidly in the direction of the norman encampment, wearied and thinned as his forces were by the late encounter; hoping by the same unexpected manoeuvre and headlong attack, to overthrow at once this new enemy. so sanguine was the saxon king of obtaining the victory, that he commanded a fleet of seven hundred vessels to hasten towards the english channel, and intercept the enemy's ships if they should, on his approach, attempt to return to normandy. the force thus despatched, to remain idle and useless upon the ocean, greatly diminished the strength of the army which harold was about to lead into the field. added to this, many had abandoned his standard in disgust, because he prohibited them from plundering the northmen, whom they had so recently conquered--an act of forbearance which, when placed beside his generous dismissal of the vanquished, shows that harold, like alfred, blended mercy instead of revenge with conquest. too confident in the justice of his cause--brave, eager, impetuous, and burning with the remembrance of the wrongs which he had endured, while he lay helpless at the foot of the norman duke in his own country, the saxon king hastened with forced marches to london; where he only waited a few days to collect such forces as were scattered about the neighbourhood, instead of gathering around him the whole strength of mercia, and the thousands which he might have marshalled together from the northern and western provinces. those who flocked to his standard came singly, or in small bands; they consisted of men who had armed hastily, of citizens who lived in the metropolis, of countrymen who were within a day or two's march of the capital, and even of monks who abandoned their monasteries to defend their country against the invaders. morkar, the great northern chieftain, who had married harold's sister, mustered his forces at the first summons, but long before he reached london, harold was on his way to hastings. the western militia, and such straggling bands as we have already described, were all that made up for the losses he had sustained at york--for the many who had deserted him because he forbade them to plunder the norwegians--and the numbers whom he had so unwisely sent away to strengthen the fleet--so that the saxon king, by his precipitate and ill-timed march, reached the battle-field with a tired and jaded force, which scarcely numbered twenty thousand; and with these he was compelled to combat a practised and subtle leader, who had sixty thousand men at his command, and who, excepting their plunder and forages in the surrounding neighbourhood, had already rested fifteen days in their encampment. the haste that harold made was increased by the rumours he heard of the ravages committed by the normans. it was to put a check to the sufferings which his countrymen were enduring in the vicinity of the norman encampment, that caused the saxon king to ride at the head of his brave little army, and to leave london in the twilight of an october evening; and, though so ill prepared, to endeavour to check the insolence of the rapacious invaders. harold possessed not the cool cunning and calculating foresight of his crafty adversary, but trusted to the goodness of his cause; no marvel then that he evinced the impatience which is so characteristic of a wronged and brave englishman. it is on record, that the norman duke forbade his soldiers to plunder the people, but his future conduct is marked by no such forbearance, and we have proof that the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of the encampment abandoned their houses and fled; nor is it probable, for a moment, that such a rabble as he had brought over would rest, for fifteen days, without molesting the english, whose country had already been divided, in promise, amongst them. harold found the norman outposts stationed at some distance from hastings, and therefore drew up his forces on the range of hills which stand near the site of battle-abbey. it is said the altar of the abbey was afterwards built on the very spot where the saxon king planted his standard. duke william drew up his army more inland, and occupied the opposite eminence. the features of the country have undergone so many changes, that it would almost be impossible to point out the identical hills on which the opposing armies took up their stations, although it seems pretty clear that the place which still bears the name of battle was that on which the struggle took place. the hills on which the saxon forces stood arrayed were flanked by a wood. a great portion of this they felled, to strengthen their position by palisades and breastworks, and redoubts, formed by stakes, hurdles, and earth-works, which they hastily threw up, although the soldiery were wearied with their rapid march from london. messengers had already passed between harold and william. the latter had offered the saxon king all the lands beyond the humber, if he would abandon the throne; or, if he preferred it, to leave the matter to the pope, or to decide the quarrel by single combat. harold answered, that the god of battles should decide between them. it is said that the saxon king offered the norman a large sum to quit the kingdom: but it is difficult to reconcile such a statement with that of his having despatched seven hundred vessels to prevent the invaders from escaping. a whole day is said to have been wasted in useless messages; and, at length, the norman went so far as to offer gurth, harold's brother, the whole of the lands which had been held by earl godwin. these, with such as extended beyond the humber, and which he was willing that the saxon king should retain, would have left the wily norman in possession of a much greater portion of england than he was able to obtain until long after that sanguinary struggle had been decided. harold was firm to his country. he rejected all offers of concession, and was resolved either to rid england of so dangerous an enemy, or perish in the field, and by his example to show those into whose hands the freedom of england might be entrusted, that if he could not conquer he would die as became a brave saxon, in the defence of his country. harold seems to have been well aware that the battle would be boldly contested; for when the spies he had sent out to reconnoitre returned with the tidings, that there were more priests in the norman encampment than soldiers--they having mistaken for monks all such as shaved the beards, and wore the hair short--he smiled, and said, "they whom you saw in such numbers are not priests, but warriors, who will soon show us their worth:" a clear proof that he well knew the valour of the norman chivalry. when duke william found that harold was resolved to fight, he, as a last resource, sent over a monk to renew his offer, and to proclaim that all who aided him were excommunicated by the pope, and that he already possessed the papal bull which pronounced them accursed. many of the english chiefs began to look with alarm on each other when they heard themselves threatened with excommunication. but one of them, according to the norman chronicle, boldly answered, "we ought to fight, however great the danger may be; for the question is not about receiving a new lord, if our king were dead--the matter is far different. this duke has given our lands to his barons, knights, and people, many of whom have already done homage for them. they will demand the fulfilment of his promises: and were he to become our king, he would be compelled to give to them our lands, our goods, our wives and our daughters; for he has beforehand promised them all. they have come to wrong both us and our descendants--to take from us the country of our ancestors;--and what shall we do, or where shall we go, when we have no longer any country?" after such an answer as this, the norman must have been satisfied that all further attempts at concession were useless--that his real motives were unveiled, that they knew he had abandoned england to the mercy of the armed marauders, who were already drawn up to "kill and take possession,"--and that the army opposed to him consisted of men who were resolved to conquer or die. nor was he mistaken; for, by the time that the messengers had regained the norman encampment, the saxons had vowed before god, that they would neither make peace, nor enter into treaty with such an enemy, but either drive the normans out of england, or leave their dead bodies in the battle-field. we wonder not that men who had formed such a resolution should spend the night in chaunting their ancient national songs, and in pledging each other's health, as they passed the cup from hand to hand for the last time--that the bravest of this sworn brotherhood in arms should boast how they would hew their way into the enemy's ranks on the morrow--that many had made up their minds that they should fall--that they had recounted the number of battles they had fought in, the omens they had witnessed, and which foretold their deaths, (for such superstitions were firmly believed by our saxon ancestors)--that with such feelings as these the ale cup circulated until that clear, cold october midnight had rolled into the heavens all its host of stars. their talk would be of victory or death--of the hard blows that would be dealt before the moon again climbed so high up the blue steep of midnight--of the friends who were far behind--of the many who, in the face of such an enemy, would be certain to fall;--and, ever and anon, a few stragglers would come dropping in, and welcome recognitions be given. the normans, who had no new arrivals to pledge, betook themselves to confessing their sins, and preparing for the death they so richly merited. they who were about to bleed for the defence of their country, had already offered up their hearts on freedom's holy altar--the blow only had to be struck, and the blood to flow, and the sacrifice was ended. they had sworn in solemn league, that liberty was to them dearer than life, and such a vow had divested death of all its terrors. in the defence of their homes, their wives, and their children, they had come forth resolved to leave them free or perish. the valley beneath yawned like a newly made grave, and many a brave saxon, as he looked into it, knew that there "the wicked would cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest." they who had made up their minds to die in such a cause needed no confession to men--they had registered their vows in heaven; and if the recording angel might be pictured as looking down upon the saxon encampment, it would be with a face pale with pity, and a tear-dimmed eye. what true english heart would not sooner have pledged the healths of the brave saxons on that eventful night, as they were assembled around their watch-fires, than have bowed amongst the guilty normans?--have shared death in the glorious halo which the former threw above the grave, rather than have groped their way thither amid the groans and sighs of that great band of meditative murderers, who must have trembled as the hour of danger and death drew nearer. gurth had endeavoured in vain to dissuade his brother harold from taking part in the combat. the saxon king was deaf to all intreaties; he was too brave to abandon a field, and give up a kingdom with which he had been entrusted, because an oath had been extorted from him on the relics. such an act would have consigned his name to endless infamy. the morning sun found harold beside his standard, in the centre of his brave saxons, which the enemy outnumbered by nearly four to one, besides possessing a formidable army of cavalry; the saxons appear to have been wholly without such a force, for no mention is made of their horsemen. it was on saturday morning, the th of october, nearly eight hundred years ago, when the grey dawn, which many a sleepless eye had so anxiously watched, broke dimly over the rival armies, as they stood ranged along the opposite heights; and as the faint autumnal mist passed away, the sun rose slowly upon the scene, and gilded the arms of the combatants, falling upon the large white horse on which the bishop of bayeux was mounted, as, with a hauberk over his rochet, he rode along the norman ranks, and arranged the cavalry. the norman duke, not less conspicuous, was seen mounted on a spanish charger, accompanied by toustain the fair, who bore in his hand the banner which the roman pontiff had consecrated; the duke wore around his neck a portion of the relics on which harold had sworn; for he well knew that the remains of dead men strangle not. his face was flushed; in his haste he had at first put on his hauberk the wrong way; some had remarked that it was an evil omen, and, as yet, he had scarcely regained his composure, though there was a restlessness about his eyes which bespoke great excitement--he sat gallantly in his saddle--the haughty charger neighed and curvetted as it sniffed the morning air. he divided his army into three columns, and these solid bodies he flanked with light infantry, who were armed with bows, and steel cross-bows. the adventurers he left to the command of their own leaders, placing himself at the head of his own norman soldiers. when all was ready for action, he addressed them nearly as follows--for the meaning has been better preserved than the precise words he uttered. "fight your best, and put every one to death; for if we conquer, we shall all be rich. what i gain, you gain; if i conquer, you conquer; if i take the land, you will share it: know, however, that i am not come here merely to take that which is my due, but to revenge our whole nation for the felon acts, perjuries, and treason of these english. they put to death the danes, men and women, on the night of saint brice. they decimated the companions of my relation alfred, and put him to death. on, then, in god's name, and chastise them for all their misdeeds."[ ] there is scarcely throughout the whole range of english history a more cruel and merciless command to be found than this which issued from the lips of the vindictive norman. slay, spare not, and take possession, is the sum and substance of his speech. as for his pretended sympathy for the danes, we have proof that after the battle they were doomed to share the same misery and death which alighted upon the saxons. but unerring justice at last avenged these wrongs, and there were but few death-beds more melancholy than that of william the norman. on the opposite hill the saxons were also ranged ready for the combat. they were drawn up in a compact, wedge-like body behind their palisades and trenches; the foremost rank, which consisted of the warlike men of kent, standing shoulder to shoulder, and shield to shield. beside the saxon standard stood harold and his two brothers, gurth and leofwin, supported by the most renowned of the saxon chiefs. they were surrounded by the brave citizens of london, a select portion of whom formed the king's body-guard. as the normans advanced, they uttered their war-cry of "god help us! god help us!" to which the saxons answered, "the holy cross! the cross of god!" the staff which supported the saxon banner was planted in the ground, for on that day there remained not an idle hand to bear it. on its folds were emblazoned the figure of a man in combat, woven in threads of gold and jewels, which glittered in the morning sun. a norman, named taillefer, who on that day played the part of both warrior and minstrel, advanced first, chaunting the ballad of charlemagne and roland; and as he continued to sing, and urge his charger onward, he threw up his sword in the air, and caught it in his right hand, while the norman chivalry joined in the burthen of the song. the minstrel obtained permission to strike the first blow, and, having slain one saxon, and felled another to the ground, he was, while in the act of attacking a third, himself mortally wounded. before the ranks closed, william glanced his eye up the neighbouring slope, which was filled with armed men, and inquired of a warrior who rode near him, if he knew which was the spot that harold occupied. the soldier pointed to where the saxon standard was stationed near the summit of the hill, as being the spot most likely to be occupied by the english king. william appeared surprised that harold was present at the conflict, muttered something about the oath which he had extracted from him, and said that his perjury would be that day punished. the saxons had no cavalry; all who had joined harold on horseback, dismounted, to fight on foot, following the example which the king himself had set them. the general action was commenced by the archers first discharging their arrows, and the cross-bowmen their heavy headed bolts; but these the saxons either received upon their shields, or they fell nearly harmless upon the defences they had hastily thrown up; no effect was produced: scarcely a wavering motion was seen along the front of that impenetrable phalanx. the norman infantry armed with lances, and the well-mounted cavalry next advanced, to the very foot of the saxon trenches; but the saxons hewed off the heads of their javelins, and cut through the norman coats of mail with a single blow of their heavy battle-axes. they had also prepared themselves with heavy stones, which they hurled at the invaders. many of the normans fell in the first charge; but all their attempts to carry the redoubts were useless: they might as well have wheeled up their horses against the great cliffs which overlook our sea-girt coast, and tried to bear them down, as to make any impression upon that brave band, who stood shoulder to shoulder, as if they were consolidated into one mass. breathless and wearied, the normans fell back again upon the main body, which was commanded by the duke, who had beheld with astonishment the impenetrable front which the saxons presented. having recovered from the disorder, the duke commanded a large body of archers to advance, and instead of shooting forward to discharge their arrows higher in the air, so that in their descent they might gall the saxons by wounding them in the face, neck, or shoulders. this discharge was seconded by the advance of the infantry and cavalry, without producing any serious effect. a few of the saxons were wounded by this manoeuvre, but the cavalry were still unable to break through the english line, and when they again retreated, they were driven into a deep ravine, the edge of which appears to have been covered with the natural growth of brushwood, and here many of the norman chivalry perished; for the saxons pursued them, and with their heavy battle-axes, which they wielded with both hands, speedily put to death such as they had unhorsed, who were unable to escape. up to this time the saxons had succeeded in beating off the enemy. the left wing of the norman army gave way, and were pursued by the english. terror and dismay reigned in the ranks of the invaders--all was confusion and flight; and to add to the consternation, a rumour ran along the line, that duke william was slain. but the duke himself appeared at this critical moment, and turned the tide of battle. it is very probable that, during this confusion and retreat, the horse which the duke rode was killed under him, and that some of the soldiers who witnessed his fall, spread the tidings that he was slain. behold him again mounted--his helmet off--his teeth clenched--his brows knit together--and his countenance burning with high indignation, as with his weapon he strikes at his own soldiers, who are hurrying past him in the retreat and confusion, exclaiming, in a voice of thunder, which rings out above the clang of arms, and the groans of the wounded and the dying--"i am here--look at me--i still live--by the help of god i will yet conquer--what madness induces you to fly?--what way is there for you to escape?--they whom you are driving and destroying, if you choose, you may kill like cattle--you fly from victory--you run upon ruin--and if you retreat will all perish." between each sentence he struck at those who continued to rush past him with his lance, until, having checked many of the fugitives, he placed himself helmetless at their head, and compelled the saxons to hasten back again to the main body of their army. although many of the english fell in this charge, they gained an advantage over their enemies, and there is but little doubt, had they continued to act upon the defensive, confining themselves to their entrenchments, or only sallying out when they saw the norman line giving way, that weak as they were in numbers, they would at last have obtained the victory; for in spite of this desperate charge, headed by the duke himself, and all the force that he could bring to bear upon the front of the saxon army, they remained firm as a rock, and not a breach could be made in that wall of iron-armed and lion-hearted englishmen. the archers continued to discharge their arrows in the air, but where they alighted no gap was visible--there was the same firm front--the same wedge-like mass--the unaltered array of shields--the deep range of firm figures rising above one another, which displayed neither fear nor defeat, but stood grim, unmoved, and resolved; strong pillars, that can neither be made to bend nor bow, until the building which they support is destroyed, and they themselves lay broken and shapeless amid the ruins. such was the power duke william had still to contend with. the battle had already lasted above six hours; it was now three o'clock, and all the success the normans had hitherto obtained was when they so suddenly rallied, and drove back the saxons within their entrenchments. wearied with the stubborn resistance which they displayed, the duke had at last recourse to a stratagem, and ordered a thousand horse, under the command of eustace, count of boulogne, to advance to the edge of the saxon lines, assail them, and then suddenly retreat as if in disorder. this manoeuvre was successful; numbers of the saxons rushed out eagerly in the pursuit. another body of norman horse stood ready to dash in between the saxons and separate them from the main body, who still stood firm behind the entrenchments. they were also hemmed in by the enemy's infantry, and thus jammed between horse and foot, they had no longer room to wield their heavy battle-axes, which required both hands; and few of that brave band, who had so rashly sallied out upon the normans, lived to boast of the deeds which they had achieved. not one surrendered--no quarter was given--none asked--there was no eye, excepting the enemy's, to look upon their valorous deeds--no one to record the brave defence they made: death alone was able to vanquish them, and there they lay, grim and silent trophies of his victory. many a saxon thane distinguished himself by his individual prowess, and one among the rest achieved such deeds with his battle-axe, that the dead lay piled around him like a wall--but the long lances of the normans at last reached him; he fell, and not even his name has been preserved. twice or thrice was this manoeuvre repeated towards the close of the day, and each time accompanied with the same success; for the saxons now burned to revenge the death of their countrymen--they rushed out of their entrenchments--they attacked the normans hand to hand--they plunged into the very thickest of the danger. those who were wounded still fought with one hand resting upon their shields, while those who were dying strove with their last breath to animate their countrymen. it is not certain whether harold was slain before or after the attack was made upon the saxon standard. it was, however, late in the day when he fell; his brain pierced by a random arrow which one of the norman archers had shot, which goes far to prove that his death took place before the enemy had broken through the saxon fortifications. he had distinguished himself by his bravery and firmness throughout the day; had placed himself in the most dangerous positions, and by his personal exertions set an example of valour and vigilance to his soldiers. after the normans had broken through the entrenchments, the english still closed firmly around their standard, which was defended to the last by the brothers of harold, gurth and leofwin, and many of the english thanes; who, though hemmed round by the enemy, resolved not to resign their banner, while an arm remained capable of striking a blow in its defence. once robert fitz-ernest, a norman knight, approached so near that he was within a few inches of grasping it, when he was laid dead by a single blow from a battle-axe. a score of the normans then pledged themselves solemnly to carry off the standard, or perish. it was in this struggle that both the brothers of harold fell. nor was the saxon ensign torn down, and the banner which had been consecrated by the pope raised in its place, until many of the norman knights were slain, who had sworn to achieve so perilous a triumph. the sun was setting as the saxon standard was lowered. it was the last hard-fought field over which the banner of alfred floated; though many a contest afterwards took place between the invaders and the english--yet this was the great struggle. "the wreck of the english army," says thierry, "without chief and without standard, prolonged the struggle till the end of the day, until it was so dark and late, that the combatants only recognised each other by their language. then, and not till then, did this desperate resistance end. harold's followers dispersed, many dying upon the roads of their wounds, and the fatigue of the combat. the norman horse pursued them, granting quarter to none." during the day, the duke of normandy had three horses killed under him, and though he himself escaped without a wound, his helmet bore the dint of a heavy blow he had received from a battle-axe, that, but for the finely tempered steel of which the casque was made, would have left him to sleep his last sleep on the same battle-field where harold the saxon reposed. many of the saxons dispersed, and escaped through the woods which lay in the rear of their broken encampment. they were pursued by the normans, but wherever a little body of the defeated had congregated they made a stand, and many a norman fell that night in the moonlight combat, or returned wounded and bleeding to the camp, who had escaped the edges of the saxon battle-axes during the day. "thus," says an old writer, "was tried by the great assize of god's judgment in battle, the right of power between the english and norman nations; a battle the most memorable of all others; and howsoever miserably lost, yet most nobly fought on the part of england." "if," says sharon turner, "william's wishes had been fulfilled, and he had appeared in england a month earlier than he did, he would have invaded harold before the king of norway attacked him, and perhaps have shared his fate. for if the english king, with the disadvantages of a loss and desertion of his veteran troops, of new levies of an inferior force was yet able to balance the conflict with william's most concentrated, select, and skilfully exerted strength, until night was closing; if the victory was only decided by his casual death, how different would have been the issue if harold had met him with the troops which he marched against the norwegians! but providence had ordained that a new dynasty should give new manners, new connexions, and new fortunes to the english nation." alas! for them--not us. better would it have been had the whole saxon race perished in the battle-field, than that a remnant should have survived to groan beneath the weight of the norman yoke. they were alone happy who perished in the combat. we feel more pity for those who were left behind, and had to endure the miseries that followed, than we do for the dead, though all have, ages ago, been at rest. they have ceased "moaningly to crave household shelter;" the "wintry winds" will sweep over their graves no more, for even the last hillocks that covered their remains are swept away, and they have, centuries ago, mingled dust with dust; on the wide field not a human bone can now be found, of "those who fought and those who fell." the solemn sabbath day that dawned upon that battle-ground saw the norman conqueror encamped amidst the living and the dead. and when he called over the muster-roll which had been prepared before he left the opposite coast, many a knight, who on the day when he sailed, had proudly answered to his name, was then numbered with the dead. the land which he had done homage for was useless to him then. he had perilled his life, and a few feet of common earth was all the reward that death allotted to him. the conqueror had lost nearly a fourth of his army--a number, from all we can gather, equal to the whole of the saxon force engaged in the field. those who survived received for their share of the victory the spoils of the slaughtered saxons. the dead body of harold is said to have laid long upon the field before any one ventured to claim it, but at length his mother, the widow of earl godwin, ventured forth, and craved permission to bury it. it is said that she offered to give the norman duke the weight of his body in gold, but that he sternly refused to grant her request; and, in his savage triumph, exclaimed, "he shall have no other sepulchre than the sand upon the sea-shore." he, however, relented at last, says thierry, "if we are to believe an old tradition, in favour of the monks of waltham abbey, which harold had founded and enriched. two saxon monks, osgod and ailrik, deputed by the abbot of waltham, demanded and obtained permission to transport the remains of their benefactor to their church. they sought among the mass of slain, despoiled of arms and clothes, examining them carefully one after the other, but could not recognise the body of him they sought, so much had his wounds disfigured him. despairing ever to succeed in their research unaided, they addressed themselves to a woman whom harold, before he became king, had kept as a mistress, and intreated her to assist them. she was called edith, and surnamed the beauty with the swan's neck. she consented to accompany the two monks, and was more successful than they in discovering the corpse of him whom she loved." [illustration: _discovery of the body of harold._] although the saxon throne was for ever overthrown, many a struggle took place, and many a concession was made, before england was wholly in the hands of the normans. here, however, the gates of history close upon our saxon forefathers for a long period. their language has outlived that of the conqueror's; and we shall find that our island again became saxon, and that the laws of edward the confessor had to be restored before the country could be tranquillized:-- "for freedom's battle once begun, bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, though baffled oft, is ever won." =the anglo-saxons.= their religion. we have already described the paganism of the saxons, both as it existed on the continent, and after their arrival in england; and we must now glance briefly at their change to christianity, and the early modes of worship which they adopted. when they landed in england, they found the britons generally worshippers of the true divinity. christianity had become grafted and grown, and overpowered and bore down the remains of druidism, on which it was first planted. the idolatry that existed had assumed a more classic form; and instead of the grim wicker idols of the druids, the sightly forms of the heathen gods, which the romans worshipped, had usurped their places. among the ancient cymry who had not come into such close contact with the roman conquerors, the old druidical forms of idolatry still lingered; though through them we are enabled to catch faint glimpses of the deity, and to discover a slow, but sure approach towards the creator. we have already shown how the saxon invasion checked the progress of christianity--how the churches were overthrown, and the priests massacred, until pope gregory sent over augustin, who succeeded in converting the saxon king, ethelbert, to the religion of christ. how paulinus accompanied edilburga into northumbria, and edwin, the king of the deira and bernicia, became a convert to the holy faith. we have shown how the abbey of croyland rose up amid the wild marshes of lincolnshire, and the gospel sound was carried through the vast territory of mercia, until at last the whole of the saxon octarchy bowed before the image of the dying redeemer. to the forms of worship which were adopted in these ancient christian churches, we must now turn. a rude wooden cross, planted by the roadside, a humble cell scooped out of the rock, or a wattled shed, thatched with the tufted rushes or the broad-leaved water-flags, first marked the places of worship of the primitive christians. some came over, and settled down upon waste and lonely places; their piety and peaceful habits soon attracted the attention of the neighbouring peasantry, and of the chief, who granted them permission to reside and build upon the soil; allowed them to fell timber in the adjacent forest, or to hew stone from the distant quarry. nor were they long in procuring assistance; many came and laboured for the love of god; they dug foundations; they mixed cement; the trees were sawn, and squared into beams; a forge was erected, and, as the blue smoke curled above the landscape, the clattering of the brawny smith was heard upon the anvil, as, with his "buck-horn fist," he shaped the iron which bound together beam and rafter. at length a tower rose up above the wild waste of marshes, and morning, and evening, and often at intervals during the day, the little bell was heard to toll; and as the sound fell upon the wayfarer's ears who journeyed past, he thought of life, and death, and heaven. vast estates were at length given to them; they received rich donations, houses, and lands, and forests, which were secured by grants and charters, and attested by the signatures of kings. these bequests were made from love--and fear--a hope to escape future punishments, and by the intercession of the priests to enter heaven. thus was a door thrown open, into which good and evil were promiscuously admitted. the truly pious, and the hardened sinner, received alike encouragement--bells were rung, and masses said, no matter for whom, as long as the altar was piled high with treasure--and mankind were at last wrongfully taught, that forgiveness could be purchased by wealth. still the knee had to be bended, and prayers offered up, penances performed, and fastings endured, before the conscientious priest promised to intercede for the sinner. then instead of the wooden cross, the naked walls, and the floor strewn with rushes, woven tapestry, and glaring pictures, graven images, and relics of saints, costly vessels of gold and silver, rich vestments and dazzling gems, and all the glitter and pomp which had hitherto been confined to courts, or borne in triumphal processions, were called up to decorate the buildings dedicated to god. in place of the lowly dwelling, scarcely distinguishable from the thatched hut of the peasant that rose above the waste, mighty fabrics were erected by skilful architects, whose roofs seemed to rest on the rim of the horizon, and the traveller looked in vain for those beautiful openings in the landscape which had so long been familiar to his eye. mighty barons, who had distinguished themselves in many a hard-fought field, became abbots; kings laid aside their costly robes, their crowns, and sceptres, put on the grey homely serge of the pilgrim, and, with staff in hand, journeyed weary miles to kneel before the shrines of saints, and either left their bones to moulder in a foreign land, or returned home again to die in the quiet solitude of the cloister--leaving miles of hill and vale, and wood and river, to enrich the revenues of the grey abbey in which they expired, amid the shady sadness of long-embowered aisles. these religious houses were happy havens for the poor and needy, the hungry, the wretched, and the oppressed. they became landmarks to the sick, storm-tossed, and rain-drenched wayfarer. all who came thither were sheltered and relieved; none were sent away empty-handed, for spiritual and bodily comfort were alike administered to all. they were the only resting places where the traveller could halt, and find refreshment and welcome, where his steed was stabled, his wants attended to, and where, without charge, he was dismissed on the morrow with a prayer and a blessing. nor did their works of charity end here: they sent out missionaries to other countries, to the benighted land from which their ancestors first came, over the sounding billows, to many a shore whose echoes had never yet rung back the holy hallelujah. although there were many things in their ancient forms of worship which in us awaken a sigh or a smile, we must remember that religion was then in its infancy--that they had but few guides, but few books to instruct them. there were but few able to translate the gospels from the latin into the saxon tongue; such versions as they were enabled to make were crude and incorrect, and many of the priests were incompetent to instruct them in points of faith. they ventured but little further in their instruction than to teach that the soul was immortal, and lived in a future state, where the good were rewarded, and the evil punished; that christ died for our salvation--that the dead arose, and the faithful and just would at last be admitted into eternal glory. into the more intricate mysteries of our religion they ventured not. every priest was commanded to read the gospels, and to study well the holy book, that "he might teach his people rightly, who looked up to him." several valuable mss. of the translation of the gospel into the saxon language, which were written between the reigns of alfred and harold, are still in existence. although they used the cross as the sign of their salvation, they were taught not to reverence the wood, but to bear in mind his form who had suffered upon it. they held relics in high veneration; and though the remains of good and holy men cannot be contemplated without awakening a religious feeling, they carried their reverence to a superstitious excess; for by them they believed that the greatest miracles could be worked, and that they were the only safeguards against disease, magic, and witchcraft. the priests were only allowed to celebrate mass when fasting; nor, unless in cases of sickness, was this ceremony to be held anywhere but upon the altar in the church; and to this altar no woman was permitted to approach during its celebration; neither dogs nor swine were allowed to come within the enclosure that surrounded the holy edifice. the purest of bread, wine, and water, were only to be used in celebrating the eucharist, and the sacramental cup was to be formed of gold, or silver, glass, or tin; and none made of earth or wood were permitted to be used. the altar was always to be kept clean, and covered; and the mass-priest was to have his missal, his psalter, his reading-book, penitential, numeral, hand-book, and singing-book. he was also to learn some handicraft, and to abolish all witchcraft. each priest performed his allotted duty; the ostiary guarded the church doors, and tolled the bell; the exorcist drove out devils, and sprinkled houses which were infested with witches and foul fiends, with abyssum; the lector read the gospels to the congregation; the acolyth held the tapers while the lector read; the deacon attended on the mass-priest, placed the oblations on the altar, baptized children, and administered the eucharist to the people; the sub-deacon had charge of the holy vessels, and waited at the altar while the mass-priest preached and consecrated the eucharist. the bishop was looked up to as a comforter to the wretched, and a father to the poor; the priests were forbidden to carry their controversies before a lay tribunal, and when they could not settle it amongst themselves, it was left to the decision of the bishop. the high-born were taught not to despise those that were lowly; they were ordered to teach youth with care--to give alms, and chaunt holy hymns during the distribution; to humble themselves, and to become examples of mildheartedness. many of the penances they inflicted were severe; he who was guilty of any heinous offence, was to lay aside his weapons, travel barefooted many weary miles, nor seek household shelter during the night. he was to pay no regard to his dress, nor to enter a bath, neither might he eat flesh, nor taste strong drink, but fast, watch, and pray, both by day and night. the wealthy, however, might evade the heaviest penances, by giving alms; and the following extract will show to what useful purposes the church applied these penalties:-- "he that hath ability may raise a church to the praise of god, and if he has wherewithal, let him give land to it, and allow ten young men, so that they may serve in it, and minister the daily service. he may repair churches where he can, and make folk-ways, with bridges over deep waters, and over miry places; assist poor men's widows, step-children, and foreigners. he may free his own slaves, and redeem the liberty of those who belong to other masters, and especially the poor captives of war. he may feed the needy, house them, clothe and warm them, and give them baths and beds." thus did our pious ancestors make crime administer to the wants of the poor; they filtered the pure waters of charity from these corrupt sources, and displayed a wisdom which our modern legislators have yet to be taught. government and laws. when the saxons first landed in england they could have had no previous knowledge of the roman laws, which were then in existence in our island; for the government of the conquerors had long overthrown the primitive customs which were in use among the ancient britons before the landing of julius cæsar. we have already shown that the earliest of our saxon invaders were led on by some military chief, who claimed his descent from odin, and was acknowledged as leader by the consent of his followers, also allowed the largest share of the plunder or captives which were taken in war. thus it would naturally follow, that when they came to settle down upon the soil which they had conquered, the power of the military chief would soon be acknowledged, and that to him would be given the greatest portion of the land; while amongst his followers such shares would be distributed as were considered proportionate to their rank. after having conquered and divided the land, they would naturally unite together to defend the possessions they had won, and the chief, or his descendant,--if found worthy of being still retained at their head, by his wisdom or valour--would, either in peace or war, continue to hold the title and power of ruler; and thus would governments be formed, thrones established, and laws made by the wealthy and powerful, to keep their followers and captives in subjection. nor would it be probable in all instances that the conquered were made captives. many by their valour and opposition would still present a formidable front to the invaders; and as both parties would in time grow weary of a continued system of attack or defence, concessions would be made, peace agreed upon, the land divided, vows sworn, and penalties fixed, to be paid by those who first broke the treaty. in such cases, war would not be entered into by either party without their first stating the grievances. this, again, would lead to discussions, assemblies, accusations, defences; times and places would be allotted for meeting; and so courts and tribunals were formed; and thus in all countries did law and civilization commence. we have shown how england was at first divided into separate kingdoms; how chief after chief came over, fought, conquered, and established a separate state, until the octarchy was formed; and that when the whole island was occupied, the saxon kings began to make war upon each other, until state after state was subdued, and one king at last reigned over all. that governors had to be placed over different divisions of this vast extent of territory; that these, again, placed officers over the sub-divisions: thus there were earls or aldermen, sheriffs, or shrieves, officers to each hundred or tithing; headboroughs, frankpledges, who attended the court-leet which was held at given periods, and accounted for all grievances or violations of the law. the first laws made would naturally be those which protected persons and property,--to punish acts of violence and theft, and to prevent personal vengeance being inflicted. thus, murder might be compounded for, under certain circumstances, at a fixed penalty, and every portion of the body injured had its price, from the leg to the little finger, even down to the hair, tooth, or nail. the loss of an eye and a leg appears to have been considered the most important, and was punished by a fine of fifty shillings. to lame a person only, the sum exacted was thirty shillings. to wound, or strike such a blow as caused deafness, twenty-five shillings; for fracturing the skull, twenty shillings; for cutting off the little finger, eleven shillings; tearing off the hair, ten shillings. for tearing off a nail, or driving out a tooth, the penalty was one shilling; but if a front tooth, the charge was six shillings. robbery was punished according to the rank of the party plundered. if a freeman committed robbery, he forfeited all his goods and his freedom; if he was taken in the fact, and the stolen property found in his hand, the king had the option of killing him, of selling him, or receiving the value of his were, which was the sum at which his life would have been rated had he been murdered. even the life of the king had its were or value. one hundred and twenty pounds was the price fixed to be paid as the penalty for the murder of a king. a noble's, a bishop's, an alderman's, a thane's, a servant's, had each its fixed penalty, according to the rank of the deceased,--from that of the king, as above named, to the humblest hind, whose life was rated at thirty shillings. besides the were, there was another protection, called the mund. this seems to have been a penalty paid for disturbing the peace of a man's household; or, as sharon turner has observed, "it was a privilege which made every man's house his castle." the saxons had also their bail or sureties. thus, when a man had committed homicide, he had to find borh, or sureties for the payment of the penalty. the time allowed for payment is not mentioned, excepting in one case, where it appears to have been limited to forty days. the head of every tithing, or ten families, also appears to have been responsible for those under his jurisdiction or keeping, as we have previously shown in the reign of alfred. he who had no surety, or borh, or could not pay the penalty for the crime committed, or had no kinsman to redeem him, either became a slave, or might be slain, according to the nature of the offence. their mode of trial was very simple, and their general method of arriving at the innocence or guilt of the party accused appears to have been influenced by the number and respectability of the witnesses who swore for or against the prisoner. thus, if a man stood charged with any offence, and he could bring the given number of persons to swear that he was innocent, the prisoner was acquitted, unless the accusing party could produce a greater number of witnesses to swear against him, and show clearer proofs of his guilt. when this was the case, the offender either submitted to the punishment or underwent the trial of ordeal, or, as it was considered, submitted to the "judgment of god." the ordeal consisted either of hot water or hot iron; in some cases the iron weighed three pounds, and was to be carried nine paces. the ordeal appears to have taken place in the church; if the trial was to be by hot iron, a number of men were allowed to enter the church, and, being ranged on each side, the priest sprinkled them with holy water; they were then to kiss the gospel, and were signed with the cross. the priest afterwards read a prayer, and during this period the fire was not to be mended, and if burnt out the iron still rested upon the staples to cool, so that in no instance could it be red-hot; the paces were measured by the feet of the accused, and it has been computed that the hot iron would hardly remain in his hand beyond two seconds. whether the culprit moved rapidly or walked slowly, or threw the iron upon the floor, or placed it on some allotted spot, we cannot tell; though there is but little doubt that means were taken to render the trial as short as possible. when the ordeal was by water, it was sufficient if four witnesses stepped forward to state that they had seen it boiling; whether the vessel was of iron, copper, or clay, a stone was placed in it, which the accused with his bare hand and arm had to take out; the vessel was shallow or deep, according to the nature of the offence he stood charged with; in some cases he had only to plunge in his hand to take out the stone, in others his arm to the elbow. as in the ordeal by heated iron, the same ceremonies were observed, and during the time that elapsed in praying and sprinkling the witnesses the fire was not allowed to be mended; while the act took place, a prayer was offered up to god to discover the truth. when the trial was over, the hand or arm was bound up, and the bandages were not removed until the expiration of three days. it does not appear that the marks of burning or scalding were the tests of guilt; it was only when the wounds were found foul and unhealed that the accused was pronounced guilty; if they looked healthy and well, and were nearly healed, it was considered a proof of innocence. it will be readily imagined that few who were guilty would willingly undergo such a trial, for it must be borne in mind that punishment still followed; and when the signs were unfavourable, there can be but little doubt after so solemn a ceremony that the penalty the accused was doomed to suffer must have been severe. it could, however, like homicide, be compounded for; and capital punishment seems seldom to have taken place amongst the saxons, unless the crime was committed in open day, and the culprit was caught in the fact, or under such circumstances as were considered too clear to need any trial; in such cases, vengeance was generally taken on the spot, and the robber or murderer was either hanged upon the nearest tree, or slain where he was captured--no evidence was required,--no defence was allowed. [illustration: _trial by ordeal._] there were two other forms of ordeal, called the cross and the corsned; the former consisted of two pieces of wood, which were covered over, one bearing the mark of the cross; if the accused drew this, he was considered innocent; if the piece that was unmarked, guilty. the other consisted in swallowing a piece of bread which the priest had blessed; if it stuck in the throat, or the culprit turned pale, or trembled, or had a difficulty in swallowing it, he stood condemned. besides fines, many of the punishments they inflicted were severe; they used the whip and the heated brand, mutilated the face, imprisoned, banished, sentenced the guilty to slavery, or doomed them to suffer imprisonment, while their capital punishments appear to have been hanging and stoning to death. the land was divided into what was called "folkland" and "bocland." the folkland was such as belonged to the king and the people; that which was held by agreement or charter was called "bocland," or land made over by agreement of the book, or some written instrument, though conveyances of land were sometimes made by the delivery of an arrow, a spear, or any other object. the king had, however, his bocland or private property, as is proved by the will of king alfred; and the word folkland in time was changed to crownland, which, no doubt, means that the wastes and commons which the people were allowed to make use of, and were not private property, were considered to belong to the king or the state. boclands appear originally only to have been granted during the life of the holder. it was the work of time and the change of events which caused them to become hereditary. the saxons were divided into many classes or ranks; first stood the king, then the earls, nobles, or chiefs; then came the other class of small landed proprietors; and below these another grade, whom we may term freemen; the theows, ceorls, or villains, came last, and were slaves of the soil; if the estate changed hands, the theow went to the next owner; on no account could he remove from the land; he was, however, protected, and, so long as he did his duty, could not be removed by the owner; neither could more than a regular portion of labour be exacted from him; but we have before alluded to his privileges in the laws of ina. the ceremonies used at their witenagemotes, guilds, moots, and other courts, are matters of law rather than subjects suited to a narrative and picturesque history of england. literature. we have no proof that the early pagan saxons possessed an alphabet, or had any acquaintance with a written language, until the introduction of christianity; for, unlike the britons, they had not the enlightened romans to instruct them. even as late as alfred's time, we have shown that but few of the english chiefs could either read or write; and we find wihtred, king of kent, as long after the saxon invasion as the year , unable to affix his signature to a charter, but causing some scribe, who had probably drawn up the document, to add as an explanation to the royal mark, that "i, wihtred, king of kent, have put this sign of the holy cross to the charter, on account of my ignorance of writing." as the saxons were the avowed enemies of the ancient cymry, and came amongst them only to slay, destroy, and take possession of the land, it is easy to account for the length of time that must have elapsed before the britons would impart the knowledge they had gathered from the romans to their saxon conquerors. one of the earliest histories we possess is that to which the name of gildas is affixed, who appears, however, to have belonged to the cymry, and to have had a brother at that period who was celebrated as one of the welsh bards. to him we have already alluded; also to nennius, who is said to have been one of the monks of bangor, and to have had a narrow escape from the massacre, in which so many of his brethren perished. to his early history of britain we have before alluded. columbanus, a celebrated irishman, who died in italy about the year , appears to have been well acquainted with both the greek and hebrew languages. literature at this period seems to have been confined principally to the monasteries; and towards the close of the sixth century, we find aldhelm, an abbot of malmsbury, celebrated for his latin writings. "but his meaning," says sharon turner, "is clouded by gorgeous rhetoric: his style an endless tissue of figures, which he never leaves till he has converted every metaphor into a simile, and every simile into a wearisome episode." but the venerable bede's is the most distinguished name amongst the early anglo-saxon writers. he also wrote in latin, and his ecclesiastical history of england still stands as the chief authority, whence we derive the clearest knowledge of the manners and customs of the early anglo-saxons. he was born about , or , at a village named yarrow, which stands near the mouth of the tyne, and was educated at the neighbouring monastery of wearmouth. he was acquainted with egbert, the learned archbishop of york, to whom he addressed a letter, which is still extant. egbert left behind him a famous library, mention of which is made by the celebrated alcuin, who proposed to charlemagne that the boys he was educating should be sent out of france, to "copy and carry back the flowers of britain, that the garden might not be shut up in york, but the fruits of it placed in the paradise of tours." though both writing in the same language, and about the same period, no two authors out of the thousands who have since lived and written, have ever exhibited a greater contrast in the style of composition than that which exists between the writings of aldhelm and bede. "the style of bede," says turner, "in all his works, is plain and unaffected. attentive only to his matter, he had little solicitude for the phrase in which he dressed it; but, though seldom eloquent, and often homely, it is clear, precise, and useful." alfred was the first who translated the works of bede into saxon, and made them familiar to his subjects. alcuin, who speaks so highly of the library collected at york by the archbishop egbert, was sent on an embassy by offa, surnamed the terrible, to charlemagne. alcuin was a pupil of bede's, and a native of northumbria; and while he resided in france, he was instrumental in persuading the emperor to collect many valuable manuscripts. his works seem to have been written for the use and instruction of his friend and patron, the emperor charlemagne; and, though highly valuable in their day, they lack that living spirit which was infused into the writings of bede. but few of the civilized nations of europe possess works which will bear comparison with those produced by our early saxon writers; nor has any other of the gothic tribes, from which our old germanic language sprung, a literature of so old a date, that in any way approaches to the perfection attained by the early anglo-saxons. what we possess is wonderful, considering the short time that elapsed from the first introduction of letters amongst the saxons, to the troubles which followed the danish invasion, when so many monasteries and libraries were destroyed by those illiterate but brave barbarians. the first business of the saxons, after they had ceased fighting, and settled down in england, would be to build and plant; and much time and labour would be required in erecting their habitations, preparing a supply of food, and defending their possessions in a new and hostile country, before they would be enabled to find leisure to direct their thoughts to literature, or do anything more than establish those civil institutions which were necessary for the protection of the colony. they had that work to do which we find ready done to our own hands; fields to inclose, and roads to make; and even the monks to whom we are indebted for our earliest writings were at first compelled to assist in building the monasteries they wrote in, and to cultivate the waste lands which lay around them: yet, in spite of these drawbacks, what wonderful progress was made in literature by the close of the reign of alfred! though illiterate, the early saxons were a highly intelligent race: look at the speech of the chieftain we have already quoted in the reign of edwin, the king of deiri--the beautiful and applicable imagery of the bird, the warm hall it enters in winter, and the cold and darkness, which is compared to death, that reigns without; all evince a fine appreciation of the true elements which constitute poetry; yet we have no doubt in our own minds that this heathen orator could neither read nor write. when the saxons once turned their attention to letters, none of the barbarous nations excelled them--the progress made during the reign of alfred, we again repeat, is marvellous. nothing can be more primitive than our anglo-saxon poetry. every line bears the stamp of originality. the praise of brave warriors is ever the subject. it has always been the same. they but extolled what then stood highest in their estimation--the brave--the giver of rewards--the terror of enemies--the leader of battles are but the plaudits of men put into metre--the natural outbreak of admiration. watch a fond mother when alone, talking to her infant--nature is still the same--she addresses it as her darling, her dearest, her life, her delight; and when she has exhausted every endearing epithet--uttered every fond word that her heart dictated, she evinces her affection by caresses. to what lengths could we extend the comparison! but neither mother nor child in those days called forth the lavish praises which were expended on a brave chieftain. we need only refer to the extracts we have already given in the body of our history, from the welsh bards, to prove this. the literature in no country was ever built upon so original a foundation as that of the anglo-saxons. their language at an early period was enriched by the danish: their habits resembled those of the sea-kings. long before the norman conquest, they had melted into one; the sea-horses, and the road of the swans, were to them familiar images; there was a sublimity about the ocean, and the storm, and the giant headlands, which they felt and understood; and had we the space, we could fill pages with proofs of this grand poetical appreciation--of this natural inspiration. the saxon ode which celebrates athelstan's victory at brunanburg bears evidence of the fiery spirit which the scandinavians diffused. neither drew from the classic stores of rome or greece. their homilies and graver works scarcely come within the compass of our history; they require more serious treatment than we are able to bestow upon them. those attributed to alfric are now on the eve of becoming widely known; and we doubt not but that, in the course of time, the study of the anglo-saxon language will be pursued by every man who aspires to literature. a few days' attention to it, renders the reading of chaucer easy; and although it may be long before the student is enabled to decypher an old saxon manuscript, yet he will be rewarded by the facility with which he will get through our early stores of black-letter lore. ballads were sung in the english streets before the time of alfred. our music and singing-parties are nothing new. more than a thousand years ago, the harp sounded in the festal hall, accompanied by the voice of the singer. look at the beauty of the following extract. it is an old saxon ditty, and was known long before the normans invaded england. read it; then turn to some of our specimens of modern versification. the exile is banished from his friends, and encounters many hardships. he is doomed to dwell in a cave within the forest; and thus he complains:-- this earthly dwelling is cold, and i am weary; the mountains are high up, the dells are gloomy, their streets full of branches, roofed with pointed thorns; i am weary of so cheerless an abode. my friends are now all in the earth-- the grave guards all that i loved; i alone remain above, and thitherward am i going. all the long summer day i sit weeping under the oak tree, near my earthly cave, and there may i long weep. the exile's path still lies through a land of troubles; my mind knows no rest--it is the cave of care. throughout life has weariness ever pursued me. this passage wants but the polish of shakspere, and to be uttered by his own mournful monarch, king richard the second, to be worthy of a place in his immortal writings.[ ] architecture, art, and science. that the saxons possessed considerable skill in architecture before they took possession of england, we have already shown in our description of the pagan temple, which was erected in their own country.[ ] it is also on record, that the christian missionaries sent over by pope gregory, converted the heathen temples, which they found already erected in our island, into churches, destroying only the idols they found therein; but whether these edifices were erected by the britons or romans, or by the saxons themselves, it is difficult to decide. all we know for a certainty is, that the church in which augustin and his monks were located on their arrival at canterbury was called an ancient british temple, and was probably built by the first christians who were converted by the romans. the earliest churches which the saxons erected after their conversion to christianity were formed of wood, and covered with thatch; and even as late as the time of chaucer, we find mention of the sacred edifices being roofed with the same substance. the celebrated cathedral of lindisfarne could boast of no costlier material than sawn oak and a straw roof, until eadbert, the seventh bishop, removed the thatch, and threw over the rafters a covering of lead. the minster of york, founded by edwin, after his marriage with edilburga, the daughter of ethelbert, was built of stone; and as early as , we find mention of the windows being glazed. prior to this period, the windows consisted of mere openings in the walls, through which the light was admitted; they were called eye-holes, and were protected by lattice-work, through which the birds flew in and out, and built inside the fabric; nor was there any other means of keeping out the rain and snow, excepting by lowering down the simple linen blinds. the few remains we possess of saxon architecture display great strength and solidity without grace. the columns are low and massy, the arches round and heavy, seeming as if they formed a portion of the bulky pillars, instead of springing from them with that light and airy grace which is the great beauty of gothic architecture. their chief ornament in building appears to have been the zig-zag moulding which resembles sharks' teeth. the very word they used in describing this form of ornament also signified to gnaw or eat; and from the saxon word fret, or teeth work, the common term of fret-work arose. towards the close of the seventh century, the celebrated bishop wilfrid, who had visited rome, made great improvements in ecclesiastical architecture. he brought with him several eminent artists from italy; and as he stood high in the favour of oswy, king of the deiri and bernicia, he was enabled to reward his architects liberally. he restored the church which paulinus founded at york. but the most celebrated edifice he raised, appears to have been the church at hexham, of which the following description is given by richard, who was the prior of hexham, and who wrote while the building still existed about the close of the twelfth century:--"the foundations of this church," says prior richard, "were laid deep in the earth for the crypts and oratories, and the passages leading to them, which were then with great exactness contrived and built under ground. the walls, which were of great length, and raised to an immense height, and divided into three several stories, or tiers, he supported by square and various other kinds of well-polished columns. also, the walls, the capitals of the columns which supported them, and the arch of the sanctuary, he decorated with historical representations, imagery, and various figures in relief, carved in stone, and painted with a most agreeable variety of colours. the body of the church he compassed about with pentices and porticoes, which, both above and below, he divided, with great and inexpressible art, by partition walls and winding stairs. within the staircases, and above them, he caused flights of steps and galleries of stone, and several passages leading from them, both ascending and descending, to be artfully disposed, that multitudes of people might be there, and go quite round the church, without being seen by any one below in the nave." prior richard goes on further to state, that he also caused several altars to be erected to the blessed saints. in , the church of st. peter's at york having been either damaged or destroyed by fire, was rebuilt by archbishop albert, assisted by the celebrated alcuin. here, also, we find mention of lofty arches, supported on columns, of vaultings, windows, porticoes, galleries, and altars, richly ornamented. what additions the genius of alfred made to the architecture of the period we know not. we have, however, already shown that he set apart a great portion of his revenue to the building and repairing of churches. but he lived amid stormy times, when the strengthening of military fortresses was of more consequence to the welfare of his kingdom than the erection of costly edifices; and during the ravages of the danes the fine arts appear not to have made any advance. we have scarcely any records of the domestic architecture of the saxons, but may safely infer, from the simple style of their early churches, that their houses were built of wood, and thatched with reeds, and we have proof that timber houses continued until a comparatively modern period. of their painting and sculpture we know but little: the horn of ulphus, which is still preserved, is beautifully carved; and we find mention of the tomb of the bishop of hexham having been richly decorated. their paintings seem to have been imported from rome, and were principally pictures of saints and martyrs, which appear to have formed the most attractive ornaments in their churches. their illuminated missals we have already alluded to. the saxon ladies were skilful embroiderers, weavers, and spinners, arts in which the daughters of edward the elder excelled. even the celebrated st. dunstan, with all his surliness, deigned to draw patterns for his fair countrywomen to copy in their embroidery. among other costly gifts, mentioned in a charter relating to croyland abbey, granted by a king of mercia, we find a golden veil, on which was enwrought the famous siege of troy. many of the initial letters, already mentioned, are of the most intricate patterns, scroll is interlaced within scroll, chain-like links, and heads of birds and serpents, running into the most beautiful flourishes, and compelling us to admit that the saxons were either excellent copyists, or gifted with considerable invention. their musical instruments consisted of horns, trumpets, flutes, drums, cymbals, a stringed instrument not unlike the violin, which was played upon with a bow, and the harp; and in their churches organs which must have shaken the sacred buildings with their powerful tones. dunstan was celebrated for his skill upon the harp; he also made an organ with brass pipes, and made several presents of bells to the saxon churches. from the description given of a harp in an old poem, it was made of birch-wood, with oaken keys, and strung with the long hairs pulled from the tails of horses. the cymbals were formed of mixed metals, and when played, struck on the concave side, as they are now; and bede dwells upon their beautiful modulation in the hands of a skilful player. he describes the drum as having been made of stretched leather, fastened on rounded hoops, and which emitted a loud sound when struck--he mentions tones, and semi-tones, and thus concludes his remarks on the power of music: "among all the sciences this is the more commendable, pleasing, courtly, mirthful, and lovely. it makes men liberal, cheerful, courteous, glad, and amiable--it rouses them to battle--it exhorts them to bear fatigue, and comforts them under labour: it refreshes the mind that is disturbed, chases away headache and sorrow, and dispels the depraved humours, and cheers the desponding spirits." we find the saxon organs described as rising high, some having gilded pipes, and many pairs of bellows; one especially is pointed out by the monk wolfstan, as having stood in winchester cathedral. "such a one," says the monk, "had never before been seen." "it seems to have been a prodigious instrument," says sharon turner, in a note to his history of the anglo-saxons. "it had twelve bellows above, and fourteen below, which were alternately worked by seventy strong men, covered with perspiration, and emulously animating each other to impel the blast with all their strength. there were four hundred pipes, which the hand of the skilful organist shut or opened as the tune required. two friars sat at it, whom a rector governed. it had concealed holes adopted to forty keys; they struck the seven notes of the octave, the carmine of the lyric semi-tone being mixed. it must," adds the learned historian, "have reached the full sublime of musical sound, so far as its quantity produces sublimity." in arithmetic, they simply studied the division of even numbers, separating them into those "metaphysical distinctions of equally equal, and equally unequal," though they seem to have attained something approaching to perfection in calculation. in natural philosophy, bede was far in advance of many of the roman writers. in astronomy, they drew their information from such greek and latin treatises as chanced to fall into their hands. they believed that comets portended war, pestilence, and famine, and all those evils which the ignorant still attribute to their appearance in the present day. of geography they knew but little, until the work of orosius was translated by our own alfred. they trusted to cure diseases by charms, though they were not without physicians, herbs being what they principally used for medicine; and, no doubt, many of our village herb-doctors, who trust to the full or wane of the moon, for finding the healing virtues in their favourite plants, are fair samples of the early saxon practitioner in the same art; and that many such old books, as "the gentlewoman's closet," &c., contain the genuine recipes used by the saxons. from a rare original work, in our possession, we quote the following, whose counterpart may be found in many a valuable saxon ms.: "the sixth and tenth days of march shalt thou draw out blood of the right arm, the eleventh day of april, and in the end of may, of which arm thou wilt, and that against a fever; and if thou dost, neither shalt thou lose thy sight, nor thou shalt have no fever so long as thou livest!" he who fell sick on the first day of the month, was supposed to be in danger for three days after; on the second day, would get well; on the third, was to be ill for twenty-eight days; on the fourth, to escape; on the fifth, to suffer grievously; on the eighth, "if he be not whole on the twelfth day, he shall be dead." and so on for every day throughout the month and year.[ ] costume, manners, customs, and everyday life. of the every-day life and domestic manners of our anglo-saxon forefathers, we possess considerable information, partly from written records, such as charters, wills, grants, and leases, but more especially from the drawings which we find in the ancient manuscripts which are still preserved. amongst the higher classes we discover that the walls were hung with tapestry, ornamented with gold and rich colours, for the needles of the saxon ladies seem ever to have been employed in forming birds, animals, trees, and flowers, upon the hangings which were so necessary to keep out the wind that must have blown in at every chink of their wooden apartments. their garments were loose and flowing, that of the men consisting of a shirt, over which they wore a coat or tunic, open at the neck and partly up the sides, having wide sleeves which reached to the wrists; and as this was ample enough to be put on by slipping it over the head, (not unlike the common frock worn by our carters or peasantry,) it was occasionally, and no doubt always in cold weather, to make it sit closer, confined to the waist by a girdle or belt. over this they occasionally wore a short cloak, which was fastened to the breast by a brooch or loop; they also wore drawers or long hose, which were bandaged crosswise, from the ankle to the knee, with strips of coloured cloth or leather. their shoes, which were open at the front, were secured by thongs; and though the poorer classes are sometimes represented as bare-legged, yet they are seldom drawn without shoes, which are generally painted black, while many of them wear the short stocking or sock. that their shoes were made of leather is expressly stated by bede, who describes st. cuthbert, as often keeping on his shoes for months together, and that it was with difficulty he could be persuaded to take them off, to permit his feet to be made clean. hats or caps they seem rarely to have worn, although there are one or two instances in which they appear. they seem generally to have gone bareheaded, excepting when in battle; then they wore a pointed helmet. in nearly all the early illustrations, we find the hair worn long, parted in the middle, and falling down upon the neck and shoulders. the beard is also long and forked. silk garments were not uncommon amongst the nobles: as early as the time of ethelbert, king of kent, mention is made of a silk dress. we also read of a coronation garment, which was made of silk, and woven of gold and flowers. in the churches the altars were generally covered with silk, and at his death, the body of the venerable bede was enclosed in a silken shroud. the saxon noblemen seem to have been lavish in their ornaments, and to have worn costly bracelets on their arms, and rings upon their fingers--the ring appears to have been worn upon the third finger of the right hand--it was called the gold finger, and the penalty for cutting this off was greater than for amputating any of the other fingers. furs of the sable, beaver, fox, martin, and other animals, were also worn, and amongst the poorer classes the skins of lambs and sheep. the costume of the saxon ladies seems to have varied but little, excepting in length, from that worn by the men. the gunna, or gown, which was worn over the skirt or kirtle, was of the same form as the tunic already described; it was a little shorter than the kirtle, which reached to the feet--the latter being covered by shoes similar to those already mentioned. the women, however, wore a head-dress, formed of linen or silk, which looks not unlike the hood of comparatively modern times. it was called the head-rail, and besides forming a covering for the head, was made to enfold the neck and shoulders, not unlike the gorget which we see in ancient armour, in appearance; but formed by throwing fold over fold--making the face appear as if it looked out from a close-fitting helmet or gorget. nor were the saxon ladies at all deficient in ornaments. they had their cuffs and ribbons, necklaces and bracelets, ear-rings and brooches, set with gems--were quite adepts at twisting and curling the hair; and, as it is the historian's duty to tell the whole truth, we are compelled to confess, that at this early period they were also guilty of painting their cheeks, so that england has long had its rouged, as well as its rosy daughters. we read also of pale tunics, of dun-coloured garments, of white kirtles--and, in the anglo-saxon illustrations, we see robes of purple bordered with yellow, of green striped with red, of lilac interlaced with green, crimson striped with purple, all showing that a love of rich and pleasing colours was, above a thousand years ago, common to the ladies of england. gloves appear to have been rarely worn. the sleeve of the tunic was made long enough to be drawn over the hand in cold weather; where the glove is represented, the thumb only is separate, the remainder of the fingers are covered, without any division, like the mits, or mittens, worn by children at the present day. the military costume we have already described: nor does it appear to have undergone any alteration until after the norman conquest. they wore helmets, had wooden shields covered with leather, rimmed, and bossed with iron, had a kind of ringed armour to defend the breast, and such weapons as we have frequently made mention of in our descriptions of the battles. turning to their furniture, we find, that besides benches and stools, they had also seats with backs to them, not unlike the chairs or sofas of the present day. many of these are richly ornamented with the forms of lions, eagles, and dragons; and no better proof need be advanced than this profusion of carved work, to show, that in their domestic comforts they had stepped far beyond the mere wants and common necessaries of life, and made considerable progress in its refinements and luxuries. their chairs and tables were not only formed of wood richly carved, but sometimes inlaid with gold, silver, and ivory. nor were the eating and drinking vessels of the nobles less costly. mention is made of gold and silver cups, on which figures of men and animals were engraven; and the weight of some of these was from two to four pounds. they covered their tables with cloths; had knives, spoons, drinking-horns, bowls, dishes, but in no instance do we meet with a fork. the roast meat or fowl appears to have been served on long spits; each guest cut off what he approved of, and then the attendant passed on to the next, who also helped himself--the bread and salt standing ready for all upon the table. the saxons were hard drinkers--mead, wine, and ale flowed freely at their feasts; and it seems to have been a common custom for the guests to have slept in the apartment where the feast was held; for we read of the tables being removed, of bolsters being brought into the hall, and the company throwing themselves upon the floor, their only covering being their cloaks or skins, while their weapons were suspended from the boarded walls over their heads. bedsteads were, however, in use, though they appear to have been low; the part where the head rested was raised like the end of a modern couch; beds, pillows, bed-clothes, curtains, sheets, and coverlets of linen and skins, are occasionally mentioned in the old saxon wills, where we also find both the words sacking and bolster. the bed-pillows appear occasionally to have been made of plaited straw; and in one place we find mention of bed-curtains formed of gilded fly-net, but what this may have been we are ignorant of. we read also of candlesticks, hand-bells, and mirrors, being made of silver. glass appears to have been used more sparingly, though it is mentioned by bede as being "used for lamps and vessels of many uses." the use of the bath is also frequently named; and we find them using frankincense, pepper, and cinnamon, and other spices. england, at this period, abounded in woods, and the chief meat of the saxons appears to have been the flesh of swine. swine are frequently mentioned in wills. they were given in dowries, bequeathed to abbeys and monasteries, together with the land on which the swine fed. oxen and sheep they used more sparingly; and it is very probable that they were not at this period so plentiful as swine. deer, goats, and hares, and several varieties of fowl, were also used for food. of fish, the eel appears to have been the most abundant. eels were often received in payment of rent; estates were held by no other form than that of presenting so many eels annually; and eel-dykes are mentioned as forming the boundary lines of different possessions. herrings, salmon, sturgeons, flounders, plaice, crabs, lobsters, oysters, muscles, cockles, winkles, and even the porpoise, is named amongst the fish which they consumed. cheese, milk, butter, and eggs, were among the common articles of the food of the saxons. they used also both wheat and barley bread, and had wind and water mills to grind their corn. they appear to have been great consumers of honey; and amongst their vegetables, beans and colewort are frequently mentioned. in their soups they used herbs; and amongst their fruits we find pears, apples, grapes, nuts, and even almonds and figs were grown in the orchards which belonged to the monasteries. salt was extensively used; and they seem to have slaughtered numbers of their cattle in autumn, which they cured and salted for winter consumption; and from this we might infer that there was a scarcity of fodder during the winter months. they boiled, baked, and roasted their victuals as we do now. mention is made of their ovens and boiling vessels, and of their fish having been broiled. to eat or drink what a cat or dog had spoiled, they were compelled afterwards to undergo a penance; also, if any one gave to another any liquor in which a mouse or a weazel had been found dead, four days' penance was inflicted; or if a monk, he was doomed to sing three hundred psalms. there seem to have been ale-houses or taverns at a very early period; and we find a priest forbidden to either eat or drink in those places where ale was sold. so plentiful does animal food appear to have been, that a master was prohibited from giving it to his servants on fast-days; if he did, he was sentenced to the pillory. beginning with their in-door sports and pastimes, we find games similar to chess and backgammon amongst their social amusements, while gleemen, dancers, tumblers, and harpers, contributed to their merriment. in the early illuminations we see jugglers throwing up three knives and balls, and catching each alternately, just as the same feat is performed in the present day. the saxons were also great lovers of the chase. alfred, as we have shown, was a famous hunter; and harold received his surname of harefoot through his swiftness in following the chase. boars and wild deer appear to have been their favourite game, and sometimes they hunted down "the grey wolf of the weald." wolf-traps and wolf-pits are often mentioned in the saxon records. england was not in those days cursed with game-laws. every man might pursue the game upon his own land, and over hundreds of miles of wood and moor-hill, dale and common, without any one interfering with him. there was no exception made, only to the spot in which the king hunted, and this restriction appears only to have been limited to the time and place where he followed the chase. when the royal hunt was over, the forest was again free. the saxons hunted with hawks and hounds; and alfred the great wrote instructions on the management of hawks. nets, pits, bows and arrows, and slings, were also used for capturing and destroying game. the women were protected by many excellent laws; and violence offered to them was visited by such severe pains and penalties as make us ashamed of the justice which the insulted female obtains in modern times when she seeks redress. the first step towards marriage consisted in obtaining the lady's consent, the second that of her parents or friends; the intended husband then pledged himself to maintain his wife in becoming dignity; his friends were bound for the fulfilment of his engagement. next, provision was made for the children; and here, again, the husband had to find sureties. then came the morgen-gift, or jointure, which was either money or land, paid or made over the day after the marriage. provision was also made in case of the husband's death, but if a widow married within twelve months of her widowhood she forfeited all claim to the property of her former husband. the marriage ceremony was solemnized by the presence of the priest, who having consecrated their union, prayed for the divine blessing to settle upon them, and that they might live in holiness, happiness, and prosperity. women had property in their own right, which they could dispose of without the husband's consent; they were also witnesses at the signing of deeds and charters. in the saxon manuscripts we never meet with the figures of women engaged in out-of-door labour; this was always done by the men, although the wealthy classes had their slaves of both sexes. to women the household occupation seems solely to have belonged. alfred the great wrote the following beautiful description of the love of a wife for her husband:--"she lives now for thee, and thee only; hence she loves nothing else but thee. she has enough of every good in this present life, but she has despised it all for thee alone. she has shunned it all because she has not thee also. this one thing is now wanting to her; thine absence makes her think that all which she possesses is nothing. hence, for thy love she is wasting; and full nigh dead with tears and sorrow." who can doubt but that this passage describes his own feelings, when he wandered hungry and homeless about the wilds of athelney, and thought of her he had left weeping in solitude behind? it is one of the many beautiful original passages which are found in his boethius, for alfred was no mere translator, but enriched his author from the storehouse of his own thoughts. while pagans, the saxons frequently burnt the bodies of their dead, but this custom they for ever abandoned after they became converts to christianity. their first mode of interment appears to have been a grave, in which they placed the body without any covering excepting the earth which was thrown over it. sometimes the body was rolled in a sheet of lead; and at swinehead's abbey, in lincolnshire, several skeletons have been dug up lately, wrapped round with the same material, but without any vestige of a coffin appearing; though this is no proof of wooden coffins not having been used at the period of interment, which through the lapse of long centuries may have decayed and mingled with the soil. stone coffins were commonly used by the wealthy, and but few were at first allowed to be buried within walled towns. by degrees the churches began to be used as places of sepulture, though only men distinguished for their piety and good works appear at first to have been buried in these ancient edifices. after a time, the churches and church-yards became crowded with graves, and then the bodies were removed to some distance for burial. the passing-bell was rung at a very early period; it is mentioned by bede, and there is but little doubt that the custom dates from nearly the first introduction of christianity. the clergy, on the death of a person, received a payment, called the "soul-scot," which at times amounted to an immense sum; even land was left by the dead, that prayers might be offered up for the welfare of the soul; and thus in early times the churches were enriched. the burial of archbishop wilfred, in the eighth century, is thus described by eddius:--"upon a certain day, many abbots and clergy met those who conducted the corpse of the holy bishop in a hearse, and begged that they might be permitted to wash the body, and dress it honourably, as befitted its dignity. this was granted; and an abbot named baculus then spread his surplice on the ground, and the brethren depositing the body upon it, washed it with their own hands, then, dressing it in the ecclesiastical habit, they carried it along, singing psalms and hymns as they proceeded. when they approached the monastery, the monks came out to meet it, and scarcely one refrained from shedding tears and weeping aloud. and thus it was borne, amid hymns and tears, to its final resting-place, the church which the good bishop had built and dedicated to st. peter." the saxons had also gilds or clubs, in which the artizans, or such as seem to have consisted of the middle classes, subscribed for the burial of a member, and a fine was inflicted upon every brother who did not attend the funeral. thus, above a thousand years ago, were burial societies established in england--a clear proof of the respect which the saxons paid to their dead. savill & edwards, printers, , chandos-street, covent-garden. illustrations. by william harvey, esq. . conversion of ethelbert _frontispiece._ . combat between romans and britons . caractacus carried captive to rome . vortigern and rowena . alfred describing the danish camp . alfred releasing the family of hastings . dunstan dragging king edwin from elgiva . the welsh tribute of wolves' heads . canute rebuking his courtiers . harold swearing on the relics of the saints . discovery of the body of harold . trial by ordeal footnotes: [ ] history of scotland, vol. i. p. . [ ] turner's "anglo-saxons," to which i am indebted for many of the facts recorded in this chapter. [ ] turner's anglo-saxons, vol. i. p . [ ] a catholic history of england. by william bernard mac cabe. carefully compiled from our earliest records, and purporting to be a literal translation of the writings of the old chroniclers, miracles, visions, &c. from the time of gildas; richly illustrated with notes, which throw a clear, and in many instances a new light on what would otherwise be difficult and obscure passages. [ ] thierry's norman conquest; turner's anglo-saxons, and the early english chronicles. [ ] thierry's norman conquest. [ ] turner's "anglo-saxons," vol. , p. . although we differ from this honest and able historian in many of the inferences he has drawn from undisputed facts, we believe no writer ever sat down with a firmer determination to do justice to the memory of the dead than sharon turner. [ ] at page of turner's "anglo-saxons," vol. ii., is the commencement of a long and valuable note on the ancient lives of st. dunstan, which are still extant. [ ] thierry's norman conquest. european library edition. vol. i. pages and . [ ] turner's anglo-saxons, page , vol. ii. edition, . [ ] william of malmsbury. [ ] thierry's "norman conquest," p. , european library edition. [ ] thierry's "norman conquest." [ ] thierry's "norman conquest," vol. i. p. . [ ] miss strickland's lives of the queens of england, vol. i. pp. , , . for the love and affection which is said to have existed between william and matilda, we must refer our readers to the above work, to which we are indebted for these revolting facts. [ ] thierry's norman conquest, vol. i. p. . [ ] thierry, vol. ii. p. . [ ] thierry's "norman conquest." [ ] turner's anglo-saxons, vol. ii. p. . [ ] thierry's norman conquest, vol. i. p. . [ ] "lives of the queens of england," by agnes strickland, vol. i. p. , . [ ] "lives of the queens of england," by agnes strickland vol. i. p. , . [ ] thierry's norman conquest, vol. i. p. . [ ] i had marked several passages in the translated poems of beowulf, judith, cedmon, &c., which would require but little alteration to insure them a place amongst our choicest extracts; but am compelled to omit them, as they would occupy too much space, and scarcely be in keeping with the character of the present work. [ ] see p. . [ ] "a groat's worth of wit." no date. * * * * * * transcribers' note: punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired quotation marks were retained. ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. two occurrences of "strown" retained; text mostly uses "strewn". two occurrences of "welch" retained; text mostly uses "welsh". text uses both "before-time" and "beforetime"; both retained. text uses various forms of "villan" and "villain"; all retained. text mostly uses various forms of "vikingr", rather than "viking". text uses both "scearston" and "scearstan"; both retained. text uses both "witenagemot" and "witena-gemot"; both retained. text uses both "william of malmsbury" and "william of malmesbury"; both retained. text mostly uses "shakspere", so two occurrences of "shakspeare" were changed by transcriber for consistency. page : "constantine, chlorus" should not contain the comma. page : "martrydom" was printed that way. page : "tatooing" was printed that way. page : "recal" was printed that way. page : "marish" may be a misprint for "marsh". page : "secresy" was printed that way. page : unmatched quotation mark in paragraph ending "no ruin occurred." page : "develope" was printed that way. page : "instal" was printed that way. page : unmatched quotation mark in paragraph ending "as well as he could." page : "muscles" and "weazel" were printed that way. this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book v. death and love. chapter i. harold, without waiting once more to see edith, nor even taking leave of his father, repaired to dunwich [ ], the capital of his earldom. in his absence, the king wholly forgot algar and his suit; and in the mean while the only lordships at his disposal, stigand, the grasping bishop, got from him without an effort. in much wrath, earl algar, on the fourth day, assembling all the loose men-at-arms he could find around the metropolis, and at the head of a numerous disorderly band, took his way into wales, with his young daughter aldyth, to whom the crown of a welch king was perhaps some comfort for the loss of the fair earl; though the rumour ran that she had long since lost her heart to her father's foe. edith, after a long homily from the king, returned to hilda; nor did her godmother renew the subject of the convent. all she said on parting, was, "even in youth the silver cord may be loosened, and the golden bowl may be broken; and rather perhaps in youth than in age, when the heart has grown hard, wilt thou recall with a sigh my counsels." godwin had departed to wales; all his sons were at their several lordships; edward was left alone to his monks and relic-venders. and so months passed. now it was the custom with the old kings of england to hold state and wear their crowns thrice a year, at christmas, at easter, and at whitsuntide; and in those times their nobles came round them, and there was much feasting and great pomp. so, in the easter of the year of our lord , king edward kept his court at windshore [ ], and earl godwin and his sons, and many others of high degree, left their homes to do honour to the king. and earl godwin came first to his house in london--near the tower palatine, in what is now called the fleet--and harold the earl, and tostig, and leofwine, and gurth, were to meet him there, and go thence, with the full state of their sub-thegns, and cnehts, and house-carles, their falcons, and their hounds, as become men of such rank, to the court of king edward. earl godwin sate with his wife, githa, in a room out of the hall, which looked on the thames,--awaiting harold, who was expected to arrive ere nightfall. gurth had ridden forth to meet his brother, and leofwine and tostig had gone over to southwark, to try their band-dogs on the great bear, which had been brought from the north a few days before, and was said to have hugged many good hounds to death, and a large train of thegns and house-carles had gone with them to see the sport; so that the old earl and his lady the dane sate alone. and there was a cloud upon earl godwin's large forehead, and he sate by the fire, spreading his hands before it, and looking thoughtfully on the flame, as it broke through the smoke which burst out into the cover, or hole in the roof. and in that large house there were no less than three "covers," or rooms, wherein fires could be lit in the centre of the floor; and the rafters above were blackened with the smoke; and in those good old days, ere chimneys, if existing, were much in use, "poses, and rheumatisms, and catarrhs," were unknown, so wholesome and healthful was the smoke. earl godwin's favourite hound, old, like himself, lay at his feet, dreaming, for it whined and was restless. and the earl's old hawk, with its feathers all stiff and sparse, perched on the dossal of the earl's chair and the floor was pranked with rushes and sweet herbs--the first of the spring; and githa's feet were on her stool, and she leaned her proud face on the small hand which proved her descent from the dane, and rocked herself to and fro, and thought of her son wolnoth in the court of the norman. "githa," at last said the earl, "thou hast been to me a good wife and a true, and thou hast borne me tall and bold sons, some of whom have caused us sorrow, and some joy; and in sorrow and in joy we have but drawn closer to each other. yet when we wed thou wert in thy first youth, and the best part of my years was fled; and thou wert a dane and i a saxon; and thou a king's niece, and now a king's sister, and i but tracing two descents to thegn's rank." moved and marvelling at this touch of sentiment in the calm earl, in whom indeed such sentiment was rare, githa roused herself from her musings, and said, simply and anxiously: "i fear my lord is not well, that he speaks thus to githa!" the earl smiled faintly. "thou art right with thy woman's wit, wife. and for the last few weeks, though i said it not to alarm thee, i have had strange noises in my ears, and a surge, as of blood, to the temples." "o godwin! dear spouse," said githa, tenderly, "and i was blind to the cause, but wondered why there was some change in thy manner! but i will go to hilda to-morrow; she hath charms against all disease." "leave hilda in peace, to give her charms to the young; age defies wigh and wicca. now hearken to me. i feel that my thread is nigh spent, and, as hilda would say, my fylgia forewarns me that we are about to part. silence, i say, and hear me. i have done proud things in my day; i have made kings and built thrones, and i stand higher in england than ever thegn or earl stood before. i would not, githa, that the tree of my house, planted in the storm, and watered with lavish blood, should wither away." the old earl paused, and githa said, loftily: "fear not that thy name will pass from the earth, or thy race from power. for fame has been wrought by thy hands, and sons have been born to thy embrace; and the boughs of the tree thou hast planted shall live in the sunlight when we its roots, o my husband, are buried in the earth." "githa," replied the earl, "thou speakest as the daughter of kings and the mother of men; but listen to me, for my soul is heavy. of these our sons, or first-born, alas! is a wanderer and outcast--sweyn, once the beautiful and brave; and wolnoth, thy darling, is a guest in the court of the norman, our foe. of the rest, gurth is so mild and so calm, that i predict without fear that he will be warrior of fame, for the mildest in hall are ever the boldest in field. but gurth hath not the deep wit of these tangled times; and leofwine is too light, and tostig too fierce. so wife mine, of these our six sons, harold alone, dauntless as tostig, mild as gurth, hath his father's thoughtful brain. and, if the king remains as aloof as now from his royal kinsman, edward the atheling, who"--the earl hesitated and looked round--"who so near to the throne when i am no more, as harold, the joy of the ceorls, and the pride of the thegns?--he whose tongue never falters in the witan, and whose arm never yet hath known defeat in the field?" githa's heart swelled, and her cheek grew flushed. "but what i fear the most," resumed the earl, "is, not the enemy without, but the jealousy within. by the side of harold stands tostig, rapacious to grasp, but impotent to hold--able to ruin, strengthless to save." "nay, godwin, my lord, thou wrongest our handsome son." "wife, wife," said the earl, stamping his foot, "hear me and obey me; for my words on earth may be few, and while thou gainsayest me the blood mounts to my brain, and my eyes see through a cloud." "forgive me, sweet lord," said githa, humbly. "mickle and sore it repents me that in their youth i spared not the time from my worldly ambition to watch over the hearts of my sons; and thou wert too proud of the surface without, to look well to the workings within, and what was once soft to the touch is now hard to the hammer. in the battle of life the arrows we neglect to pick up, fate, our foe, will store in her quiver; we have armed her ourselves with the shafts--the more need to beware with the shield. wherefore, if thou survivest me, and if, as i forebode, dissension break out between harold and tostig, i charge thee by memory of our love, and reverence for my grave, to deem wise and just all that harold deems just and wise. for when godwin is in the dust, his house lives alone in harold. heed me now, and heed ever. and so, while the day yet lasts, i will go forth into the marts and the guilds, and talk with the burgesses, and smile on their wives, and be, to the last, godwin the smooth and the strong." so saying; the old earl arose, and walked forth with a firm step; and his old hound sprang up, pricked its ears, and followed him; the blinded falcon turned its head towards the clapping door, but did not stir from the dossel. then githa again leant her cheek on her hand, and again rocked herself to and fro, gazing into the red flame of the fire,--red and fitful through the blue smoke,--and thought over her lord's words. it might be the third part of an hour after godwin had left the house, when the door opened, and githa, expecting the return of her sons, looked up eagerly, but it was hilda, who stooped her head under the vault of the door; and behind hilda came two of her maidens, bearing a small cyst, or chest. the vala motioned to her attendants to lay the cyst at the feet of githa, and that done, with lowly salutation they left the room. the superstitions of the danes were strong in githa; and she felt an indescribable awe when hilda stood before her, the red light playing on the vala's stern marble face, and contrasting robes of funereal black. but, with all her awe, githa, who, not educated like her daughter edith, had few feminine resources, loved the visits of her mysterious kinswoman. she loved to live her youth over again in discourse on the wild customs and dark rites of the dane; and even her awe itself had the charm which the ghost tale has to the child;--for the illiterate are ever children. so, recovering her surprise, and her first pause, she rose to welcome the vala, and said: "hail, hilda, and thrice hail! the day has been warm and the way long; and, ere thou takest food and wine, let me prepare for thee the bath for thy form, or the bath for thy feet. for as sleep to the young, is the bath to the old." hilda shook her head. "bringer of sleep am i, and the baths i prepare are in the halls of valhalla. offer not to the vala the bath for mortal weariness, and the wine and the food meet for human guests. sit thee down, daughter of the dane, and thank thy new gods for the past that hath been thine. not ours is the present, and the future escapes from our dreams; but the past is ours ever, and all eternity cannot revoke a single joy that the moment hath known." then seating herself in godwin's large chair, she leant over her seid- staff, and was silent, as if absorbed in her thoughts. "githa," she said at last, "where is thy lord? i came to touch his hands and to look on his brow." "he hath gone forth into the mart, and my sons are from home; and harold comes hither, ere night, from his earldom." a faint smile, as of triumph, broke over the lips of the vala, and then as suddenly yielded to an expression of great sadness. "githa," she said, slowly, "doubtless thou rememberest in thy young days to have seen or heard of the terrible hell-maid belsta?" "ay, ay," answered githa shuddering; "i saw her once in gloomy weather, driving before her herds of dark grey cattle. ay, ay; and my father beheld her ere his death, riding the air on a wolf, with a snake for a bridle. why askest thou?" "is it not strange," said hilda, evading the question, that belsta, and heidr, and hulla of old, the wolf-riders, the men-devourers, could win to the uttermost secrets of galdra, though applied only to purposes the direst and fellest to man, and that i, though ever in the future,--i, though tasking the nornas not to afflict a foe, but to shape the careers of those i love,--i find, indeed, my predictions fulfilled; but how often, alas! only in horror and doom!" "how so, kinswoman, how so?" said githa, awed yet charmed in the awe, and drawing her chair nearer to the mournful sorceress. "didst thou not fortell our return in triumph from the unjust outlawry, and, lo, it hath come to pass? and hast thou not" (here githa's proud face flushed) "foretold also that my stately harold shall wear the diadem of a king?" "truly, the first came to pass," said hilda; "but----" she paused, and her eye fell on the cyst; then breaking off she continued, speaking to herself rather than to githa--"and harold's dream, what did that portend? the runes fail me, and the dead give no voice. and beyond one dim day, in which his betrothed shall clasp him with the arms of a bride, all is dark to my vision--dark--dark. speak not to me, githa; for a burthen, heavy as the stone on a grave, rests on a weary heart!" a dead silence succeeded, till, pointing with her staff to the fire, the vala said, "lo, where the smoke and the flame contend--the smoke rises in dark gyres to the air, and escapes, to join the wrack of clouds. from the first to the last we trace its birth and its fall; from the heart of the fire to the descent in the rain, so is it with human reason, which is not the light but the smoke; it struggles but to darken us; it soars but to melt in the vapour and dew. yet, lo, the flame burns in our hearth till the fuel fails, and goes at last, none know whither. but it lives in the air though we see it not; it lurks in the stone and waits the flash of the steel; it coils round the dry leaves and sere stalks, and a touch re-illumines it; it plays in the marsh--it collects in the heavens--it appals us in the lightning--it gives warmth to the air--life of our life, and the element of all elements. o githa, the flame is the light of the soul, the element everlasting; and it liveth still, when it escapes from our view; it burneth in the shapes to which it passes; it vanishes, but its never extinct." so saying, the vala's lips again closed; and again both the women sate silent by the great fire, as it flared and flickered over the deep lines and high features of githa, the earl's wife, and the calm, unwrinkled, solemn face of the melancholy vala. chapter ii. while these conferences took place in the house of godwin, harold, on his way to london, dismissed his train to precede him to his father's roof, and, striking across the country, rode fast and alone towards the old roman abode of hilda. months had elapsed since he had seen or heard of edith. news at that time, i need not say, was rare and scarce, and limited to public events, either transmitted by special nuncius or passing pilgrim, or borne from lip to lip by the talk of the scattered multitude. but even in his busy and anxious duties, harold had in vain sought to banish from his heart the image of that young girl, whose life he needed no vala to predict to him was interwoven with the fibres of his own. the obstacles which, while he yielded to, he held unjust and tyrannical, obstacles allowed by his reluctant reason and his secret ambition--not sanctified by conscience--only inflamed the deep strength of the solitary passion his life had known; a passion that, dating from the very childhood of edith, had, often unknown to himself, animated his desire of fame, and mingled with his visions of power. nor, though hope was far and dim, was it extinct. the legitimate heir of edward the confessor was a prince living in the court of the emperor, of fair repute, and himself wedded; and edward's health, always precarious, seemed to forbid any very prolonged existence to the reigning king. therefore, he thought that through the successor, whose throne would rest in safety upon harold's support, he might easily obtain that dispensation from the pope which he knew the present king would never ask--a dispensation rarely indeed, if ever, accorded to any subject, and which, therefore, needed all a king's power to back it. so in that hope, and fearful lest it should be quenched for ever by edith's adoption of the veil and the irrevocable vow, with a beating, disturbed, but joyful heart he rode over field and through forest to the old roman house. he emerged at length to the rear of the villa, and the sun, fast hastening to its decline, shone full upon the rude columns of the druid temple. and there, as he had seen her before, when he had first spoken of love and its barriers, he beheld the young maiden. he sprang from his horse, and leaving the well-trained animal loose to browse on the waste land, he ascended the knoll. he stole noiselessly behind edith, and his foot stumbled against the grave-stone of the dead titan-saxon of old. but the apparition, whether real or fancied, and the dream that had followed, had long passed from his memory, and no superstition was in the heart springing to the lips, that cried "edith" once again. the girl started, looked round, and fell upon his breast. it was some moments before she recovered consciousness, and then, withdrawing herself gently from his arms, she leant for support against the teuton altar. she was much changed since harold had seen her last: her cheek had grown pale and thin, and her rounded form seemed wasted; and sharp grief, as he gazed, shot through the soul of harold. "thou hast pined, thou hast suffered," said he, mournfully: "and i, who would shed my life's blood to take one from thy sorrows, or add to one of thy joys, have been afar, unable to comfort, perhaps only a cause of thy woe." "no, harold," said edith, faintly, "never of woe; always of comfort, even in absence. i have been ill, and hilda hath tried rune and charm all in vain. but i am better, now that spring hath come tardily forth, and i look on the fresh flowers, and hear the song of the birds." but tears were in the sound of her voice, while she spoke. "and they have not tormented thee again with the thoughts of the convent?" "they? no;--but my soul, yes. o harold, release me from my promise; for the time already hath come that thy sister foretold to me; the silver cord is loosened, and the golden bowl is broken, and i would fain take the wings of the dove, and be at peace." "is it so?--is there peace in the home where the thought of harold becomes a sin?" "not sin then and there, harold, not sin. thy sister hailed the convent when she thought of prayer for those she loved." "prate not to me of my sister!" said harold, through his set teeth. "it is but a mockery to talk of prayer for the heart that thou thyself rendest in twain. where is hilda? i would see her." "she hath gone to thy father's house with a gift; and it was to watch for her return that i sate on the green knoll." the earl then drew near and took her hand, and sate by her side, and they conversed long. but harold saw with a fierce pang that edith's heart was set upon the convent, and that even in his presence, and despite his soothing words, she was broken-spirited and despondent. it seemed as if her youth and life had gone from her, and the day had come in which she said, "there is no pleasure." never had he seen her thus; and, deeply moved as well as keenly stung, he rose at length to depart; her hand lay passive in his parting clasp, and a slight shiver went over her frame. "farewell, edith; when i return from windshore, i shall be at my old home yonder, and we shall meet again." edith's lips murmured inaudibly, and she bent her eyes to the ground. slowly harold regained his steed, and as he rode on, he looked behind and waved oft his hand. but edith sate motionless, her eyes still on the ground, and he saw not the tears that fell from them fast and burning; nor heard he the low voice that groaned amidst the heathen ruins, "mary, sweet mother, shelter me from my own heart!" the sun had set before harold gained the long and spacious abode of his father. all around it lay the roofs and huts of the great earl's special tradesmen, for even his goldsmith was but his freed ceorl. the house itself stretched far from the thames inland, with several low courts built only of timber, rugged and shapeless, but filled with bold men, then the great furniture of a noble's halls. amidst the shouts of hundreds, eager to hold his stirrup, the earl dismounted, passed the swarming hall, and entered the room, in which he found hilda and githa, and godwin, who had preceded his entry but a few minutes. in the beautiful reverence of son to father, which made one of the loveliest features of the saxon character [ ] (as the frequent want of it makes the most hateful of the norman vices), the all-powerful harold bowed his knee to the old earl, who placed his hand on his head in benediction, and then kissed him on the cheek and brow. "thy kiss, too, dear mother," said the younger earl; and githa's embrace, if more cordial than her lord's, was not, perhaps, more fond. "greet hilda, my son," said godwin, "she hath brought me a gift, and she hath tarried to place it under thy special care. thou alone must heed the treasure, and open the casket. but when and where, my kinswoman?" "on the sixth day after thy coming to the king's hall," answered hilda, not returning the smile with which godwin spoke,--"on the sixth day, harold, open the chest, and take out the robe which hath been spun in the house of hilda for godwin the earl. and now, godwin, i have clasped thine hand, and i have looked on thy brow, and my mission is done, and i must wend homeward." "that shalt thou not, hilda," said the hospitable earl; "the meanest wayfarer hath a right to bed and board in this house for a night and a day, and thou wilt not disgrace us by leaving our threshold, the bread unbroken, and the couch unpressed. old friend, we were young together, and thy face is welcome to me as the memory of former days." hilda shook her head, and one of those rare, and for that reason most touching, expressions of tenderness of which the calm and rigid character of her features, when in repose, seemed scarcely susceptible, softened her eye, and relaxed the firm lines of her lips. "son of wolnoth," said she, gently, "not under thy roof-tree should lodge the raven of bode. bread have i not broken since yestere'en, and sleep will be far from my eyes to-night. fear not, for my people without are stout and armed, and for the rest there lives not the man whose arm can have power over hilda." she took harold's hand as she spoke, and leading him forth, whispered in his ear, "i would have a word with thee ere we part." then, reaching the threshold, she waved her hand thrice over the floor, and muttered in the danish tongue a rude verse, which, translated, ran somewhat thus: "all free from the knot glide the thread of the skein, and rest to the labour, and peace to the pain!" "it is a death-dirge," said githa, with whitening lips, but she spoke inly, and neither husband nor son heard her words. hilda and harold passed in silence through the hall, and the vala's attendants, with spears and torches, rose from the settles, and went before to the outer court, where snorted impatiently her black palfrey. halting in the midst of the court, she said to harold, in a low voice: "at sunset we part--at sunset we shall meet again. and behold, the star rises on the sunset; and the star, broader and brighter, shall rise on the sunset then! when thy hand draws the robe from the chest, think on hilda, and know that at that hour she stands by the grave of the saxon warrior, and that from the grave dawns the future. farewell to thee!" harold longed to speak to her of edith, but a strange awe at his heart chained his lips; so he stood silent by the great wooden gates of the rude house. the torches flamed round him, and hilda's face seemed lurid in the glare. there he stood musing long after torch and ceorl had passed away, nor did he wake from his reverie till gurth, springing from his panting horse, passed his arm round the earl's shoulder, and cried: "how did i miss thee, my brother? and why didst thou forsake thy train?" "i will tell thee anon. gurth, has my father ailed? there is that in his face which i like not." "he hath not complained of misease," said gurth, startled; "but now thou speakest of it, his mood hath altered of late, and he hath wandered much alone, or only with the old hound and the old falcon." then harold turned back, and, his heart was full; and, when he reached the house, his father was sitting in the hall on his chair of state; and githa sate on his right hand, and a little below her sate tostig and leofwine, who had come in from the bear-hunt by the river-gate, and were talking loud and merrily; and thegns and cnehts sate all around, and there was wassail as harold entered. but the earl looked only to his father, and he saw that his eyes were absent from the glee, and that he was bending his head over the old falcon, which sate on his wrist. chapter iii. no subject of england, since the race of cerdic sate on the throne, ever entered the courtyard of windshore with such train and such state as earl godwin.--proud of that first occasion, since his return, to do homage to him with whose cause that of england against the stranger was bound, all truly english at heart amongst the thegns of the land swelled his retinue. whether saxon or dane, those who alike loved the laws and the soil, came from north and from south to the peaceful banner of the old earl. but most of these were of the past generation, for the rising race were still dazzled by the pomp of the norman; and the fashion of english manners, and the pride in english deeds, had gone out of date with long locks and bearded chins. nor there were the bishops and abbots and the lords of the church,--for dear to them already the fame of the norman piety, and they shared the distaste of their holy king to the strong sense and homely religion of godwin, who founded no convents, and rode to war with no relics round his neck. but they with godwin were the stout and the frank and the free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of english manhood; and they who were against him were the blind and willing and fated fathers of slaves unborn. not then the stately castle we now behold, which is of the masonry of a prouder race, nor on the same site, but two miles distant on the winding of the river shore (whence it took its name), a rude building partly of timber and partly of roman brick, adjoining a large monastery and surrounded by a small hamlet, constituted the palace of the saint-king. so rode the earl and his four fair sons, all abreast, into the courtyard of windshore [ ]. now when king edward heard the tramp of the steeds and the hum of the multitudes, as he sate in his closet with his abbots and priests, all in still contemplation of the thumb of st. jude, the king asked: "what army, in the day of peace, and the time of easter, enters the gates of our palace?" then an abbot rose and looked out of the narrow window, and said with a groan: "army thou mayst well call it, o king!--and foes to us and to thee head the legions----" "inprinis," quoth our abbot the scholar; "thou speakest, i trow, of the wicked earl and his sons." the king's face changed. "come they," said he, "with so large a train? this smells more of vaunt than of loyalty; naught--very naught." "alack!" said one of the conclave, "i fear me that the men of belial will work us harm; the heathen are mighty, and----" "fear not," said edward, with benign loftiness, observing that his guests grew pale, and himself, though often weak to childishness, and morally wavering and irresolute,--still so far king and gentleman, that he knew no craven fear of the body. "fear not for me, my fathers; humble as i am, i am strong in the faith of heaven and its angels." the churchmen looked at each other, sly yet abashed; it was not precisely for the king that they feared. then spoke alred, the good prelate and constant peacemaker--fair column and lone one of the fast-crumbling saxon church. "it is ill in you, brethren to arraign the truth and good meaning of those who honour your king; and in these days that lord should ever be the most welcome who brings to the halls of his king the largest number of hearts, stout and leal." "by your leave, brother alred," said stigand, who, though from motives of policy he had aided those who besought the king not to peril his crown by resisting the return of godwin, benefited too largely by the abuses of the church to be sincerely espoused to the cause of the strong-minded earl; "by your leave, brother alred, to every leal heart is a ravenous mouth; and the treasures of the king are well-nigh drained in feeding these hungry and welcomeless visitors. durst i counsel my lord i would pray him, as a matter of policy, to baffle this astute and proud earl. he would fain have the king feast in public, that he might daunt him and the church with the array of his friends." "i conceive thee, my father," said edward, with more quickness than habitual, and with the cunning, sharp though guileless, that belongs to minds undeveloped, "i conceive thee; it is good and most politic. this our orgulous earl shall not have his triumph, and, so fresh from his exile, brave his king with the mundane parade of his power. our health is our excuse for our absence from the banquet, and, sooth to say, we marvel much why easter should be held a fitting time for feasting and mirth. wherefore, hugoline, my chamberlain, advise the earl that to-day we keep fast till the sunset, when temperately, with eggs, bread, and fish, we will sustain adam's nature. pray him and his sons to attend us--they alone be our guests." and with a sound that seemed a laugh, or the ghost of a laugh, low and chuckling--for edward had at moments an innocent humour which his monkish biographer disdained not to note [ ],--he flung himself back in his chair. the priests took the cue, and shook their sides heartily, as hugoline left the room, not ill pleased, by the way, to escape an invitation to the eggs, bread, and fish. alred sighed; and said, "for the earl and his sons, this is honour; but the other earls, and the thegns, will miss at the banquet him whom they design but to honour, and----" "i have said," interrupted edward, drily, and with a look of fatigue. "and," observed another churchman, with malice, "at least the young earls will be humbled, for they will not sit with the king and their father, as they would in the hall, and must serve my lord with napkin and wine." "inprinis," quoth our scholar the abbot, "that will be rare! i would i were by to see. but this godwin is a man of treachery and wile, and my lord should beware of the fate of murdered alfred, his brother!" the king started, and pressed his hands to his eyes. "how darest thou, abbot fatchere," cried alred, indignantly; "how darest thou revive grief without remedy, and slander without proof?" "without proof?" echoed edward, in a hollow voice. "he who could murder, could well stoop to forswear! without proof before man; but did he try the ordeals of god?--did his feet pass the ploughshare?-- did his hand grasp the seething iron? verily, verily, thou didst wrong to name to me alfred my brother! i shall see his sightless and gore-dropping sockets in the face of godwin, this day, at my board." the king rose in great disorder; and, after pacing the room some moments, disregardful of the silent and scared looks of his churchmen, waved his hand, in sign to them to depart. all took the hint at once save alred; but he, lingering the last, approached the king with dignity in his step and compassion in his eyes. "banish from thy breast, o king and son, thoughts unmeet, and of doubtful charity! all that man could know of godwin's innocence or guilt--the suspicion of the vulgar--the acquittal of his peers--was known to thee before thou didst seek his aid for thy throne, and didst take his child for thy wife. too late is it now to suspect; leave thy doubts to the solemn day, which draws nigh to the old man, thy wife's father!" "ha!" said the king, seeming not to heed, or wilfully to misunderstand the prelate, "ha! leave him to god;--i will!" he turned away impatiently; and the prelate reluctantly departed. chapter iv. tostig chafed mightily at the king's message; and, on harold's attempt to pacify him, grew so violent that nothing short of the cold stern command of his father, who carried with him that weight of authority never known but to those in whom wrath is still and passion noiseless, imposed sullen peace on his son's rugged nature. but the taunts heaped by tostig upon harold disquieted the old earl, and his brow was yet sad with prophetic care when he entered the royal apartments. he had been introduced into the king's presence but a moment before hugoline led the way to the chamber of repast, and the greeting between king and earl had been brief and formal. under the canopy of state were placed but two chairs, for the king and the queen's father; and the four sons, harold, tostig, leofwine, and gurth, stood behind. such was the primitive custom of ancient teutonic kings; and the feudal norman monarchs only enforced, though with more pomp and more rigour, the ceremonial of the forest patriarchs--youth to wait on age, and the ministers of the realm on those whom their policy had made chiefs in council and war. the earl's mind, already embittered by the scene with his sons, was chafed yet more by the king's unloving coldness; for it is natural to man, however worldly, to feel affection for those he has served, and godwin had won edward his crown; nor, despite his warlike though bloodless return, could even monk or norman, in counting up the old earl's crimes, say that he had ever failed in personal respect to the king he had made; nor over-great for subject, as the earl's power must be confessed, will historian now be found to say that it had not been well for saxon england if godwin had found more favour with his king, and monk and norman less. [ ] so the old earl's stout heart was stung, and he looked from those deep, impenetrable eyes, mournfully upon edward's chilling brow. and harold, with whom all household ties were strong, but to whom his great father was especially dear, watched his face and saw that it was very flushed. but the practised courtier sought to rally his spirits, and to smile and jest. from smile and jest, the king turned and asked for wine. harold, starting, advanced with the goblet; as he did so, he stumbled with one foot, but lightly recovered himself with the other; and tostig laughed scornfully at harold's awkwardness. the old earl observed both stumble and laugh, and willing to suggest a lesson to both his sons, said--laughing pleasantly--"lo, harold, how the left foot saves the right!--so one brother, thou seest, helps the other!" [ ] king edward looked up suddenly. "and so, godwin, also, had my brother alfred helped me, hadst thou permitted." the old earl, galled to the quick, gazed a moment on the king, and his cheek was purple, and his eyes seemed bloodshot. "o edward!" he exclaimed, "thou speakest to me hardly and unkindly of thy brother alfred, and often hast thou thus more than hinted that i caused his death." the king made no answer. "may this crumb of bread choke me," said the earl, in great emotion, "if i am guilty of thy brother's blood!" [ ] but scarcely had the bread touched his lips, when his eyes fixed, the long warning symptoms were fulfilled. and he fell to the ground, under the table, sudden and heavy, smitten by the stroke of apoplexy. harold and gurth sprang forward; they drew their father from the ground. his face, still deep-red with streaks of purple, rested on harold's breast; and the son, kneeling, called in anguish on his father: the ear was deaf. then said the king, rising: "it is the hand of god: remove him!" and he swept from the room, exulting. chapter v. for five days and five nights did godwin lie speechless [ ]. and harold watched over him night and day. and the leaches [ ] would not bleed him, because the season was against it, in the increase of the moon and the tides; but they bathed his temples with wheat flour boiled in milk, according to a prescription which an angel in a dream [ ] had advised to another patient; and they placed a plate of lead on his breast, marked with five crosses, saying a paternoster over each cross; together with other medical specifics in great esteem [ ]. but, nevertheless, five days and five nights did godwin lie speechless; and the leaches then feared that human skill was in vain. the effect produced on the court, not more by the earl's death-stroke than the circumstances preceding it, was such as defies description. with godwin's old comrades in arms it was simple and honest grief; but with all those under the influence of the priests, the event was regarded as a direct punishment from heaven. the previous words of the king, repeated by edward to his monks, circulated from lip to lip, with sundry exaggerations as it travelled: and the superstition of the day had the more excuse, inasmuch as the speech of godwin touched near upon the defiance of one of the most popular ordeals of the accused,-- viz. that called the "corsned," in which a piece of bread was given to the supposed criminal; if he swallowed it with ease he was innocent; if it stuck in his throat, or choked him, nay, if he shook and turned pale, he was guilty. godwin's words had appeared to invite the ordeal, god had heard and stricken down the presumptuous perjurer! unconscious, happily, of these attempts to blacken the name of his dying father, harold, towards the grey dawn succeeding the fifth night, thought that he heard godwin stir in his bed. so he put aside the curtain, and bent over him. the old earl's eyes were wide open, and the red colour had gone from his cheeks, so that he was pale as death. "how fares it, dear father?" asked harold. godwin smiled fondly, and tried to speak, but his voice died in a convulsive rattle. lifting himself up, however, with an effort, he pressed tenderly the hand that clasped his own, leant his head on harold's breast, and so gave up the ghost. when harold was at last aware that the struggle was over, he laid the grey head gently on the pillow; he closed the eyes, and kissed the lips, and knelt down and prayed. then, seating himself at a little distance, he covered his face with his mantle. at this time his brother gurth, who had chiefly shared watch with harold,--for tostig, foreseeing his father's death, was busy soliciting thegn and earl to support his own claims to the earldom about to be vacant; and leofwine had gone to london on the previous day to summon githa who was hourly expected--gurth, i say, entered the room on tiptoe, and seeing his brother's attitude, guessed that all was over. he passed on to the table, took up the lamp, and looked long on his father's face. that strange smile of the dead, common alike to innocent and guilty, had already settled on the serene lips; and that no less strange transformation from age to youth, when the wrinkles vanish, and the features come out clear and sharp from the hollows of care and years, had already begun. and the old man seemed sleeping in his prime. so gurth kissed the dead, as harold had done before him, and came up and sate himself by his brother's feet, and rested his head on harold's knee; nor would he speak till, appalled by the long silence of the earl, he drew away the mantle from his brother's face with a gentle hand, and the large tears were rolling down harold's cheeks. "be soothed, my brother," said gurth; "our father has lived for glory, his age was prosperous, and his years more than those which the psalmist allots to man. come and look on his face, harold, its calm will comfort thee." harold obeyed the hand that led him like a child; in passing towards the bed, his eye fell upon the cyst which hilda had given to the old earl, and a chill shot through his veins. "gurth," said he, "is not this the morning of the sixth day in which we have been at the king's court?" "it is the morning of the sixth day." then harold took forth the key which hilda had given him, and unlocked the cyst, and there lay the white winding-sheet of the dead, and a scroll. harold took the scroll, and bent over it, reading by the mingled light of the lamp and the dawn: "all hail, harold, heir of godwin the great, and githa the king-born! thou hast obeyed hilda, and thou knowest now that hilda's eyes read the future, and her lips speak the dark words of truth. bow thy heart to the vala, and mistrust the wisdom that sees only the things of the daylight. as the valour of the warrior and the song of the scald, so is the lore of the prophetess. it is not of the body, it is soul within soul; it marshals events and men, like the valour--it moulds the air into substance, like the song. bow thy heart to the vala. flowers bloom over the grave of the dead. and the young plant soars high, when the king of the woodland lies low!" chapter vi. the sun rose, and the stairs and passages without were filled with the crowds that pressed to hear news of the earl's health. the doors stood open, and gurth led in the multitude to look their last on the hero of council and camp, who had restored with strong hand and wise brain the race of cerdic to the saxon throne. harold stood by the bed-head silent, and tears were shed and sobs were heard. and many a thegn who had before half believed in the guilt of godwin as the murderer of alfred, whispered in gasps to his neighbour: "there is no weregeld for manslaying on the head of him who smiles so in death on his old comrades in life!" last of all lingered leofric, the great earl of mercia; and when the rest had departed, he took the pale hand, that lay heavy on the coverlid, in his own, and said: "old foe, often stood we in witan and field against each other; but few are the friends for whom leofric would mourn as he mourns for thee. peace to thy soul! whatever its sins, england should judge thee mildly, for england beat in each pulse of thy heart, and with thy greatness was her own!" then harold stole round the bed, and put his arms round leofric's neck, and embraced him. the good old earl was touched, and he laid his tremulous hands on harold's brown locks and blessed him. "harold," he said, "thou succeedest to thy father's power: let thy father's foes be thy friends. wake from thy grief, for thy country now demands thee,--the honour of thy house, and the memory of the dead. many even now plot against thee and thine. seek the king, demand as thy right thy father's earldom, and leofric will back thy claim in the witan." harold pressed leofric's hand, and raising it to his lips replied: "be our houses at peace henceforth and for ever." tostig's vanity indeed misled him, when he dreamed that any combination of godwin's party could meditate supporting his claims against the popular harold--nor less did the monks deceive themselves, when they supposed that, with godwin's death, the power of his family would fall. there was more than even the unanimity of the chiefs of the witan, in favour of harold; there was that universal noiseless impression throughout all england, danish and saxon, that harold was now the sole man on whom rested the state--which, whenever it so favours one individual, is irresistible. nor was edward himself hostile to harold, whom alone of that house, as we have before said, he esteemed and loved. harold was at once named earl of wessex; and relinquishing the earldom he held before, he did not hesitate as to the successor to be recommended in his place. conquering all jealousy and dislike for algar, he united the strength of his party in favour of the son of leofric, and the election fell upon him. with all his hot errors, the claims of no other earl, whether from his own capacities or his father's services, were so strong; and his election probably saved the state from a great danger, in the results of that angry mood and that irritated ambition with which he had thrown himself into the arms of england's most valiant aggressor, gryffyth, king of north wales. to outward appearance, by this election, the house of leofric--uniting in father and son the two mighty districts of mercia and the east anglians--became more powerful than that of godwin; for, in that last house, harold was now the only possessor of one of the great earldoms, and tostig and the other brothers had no other provision beyond the comparatively insignificant lordships they held before. but if harold had ruled no earldom at all, he had still been immeasurably the first man in england--so great was the confidence reposed in his valour and wisdom. he was of that height in himself, that he needed no pedestal to stand on. the successor of the first great founder of a house succeeds to more than his predecessor's power, if he but know how to wield and maintain it. for who makes his way to greatness without raising foes at every step? and who ever rose to power supreme, without grave cause for blame? but harold stood free from the enmities his father had provoked, and pure from the stains that slander or repute cast upon his father's name. the sun of the yesterday had shone through cloud; the sun of the day rose in a clear firmament. even tostig recognised the superiority of his brother; and after a strong struggle between baffled rage and covetous ambition, yielded to him, as to a father. he felt that all godwin's house was centred in harold alone; and that only from his brother (despite his own daring valour and despite his alliance with the blood of charlemagne and alfred, through the sister of matilda, the norman duchess,) could his avarice of power be gratified. "depart to thy home, my brother," said earl harold to tostig, "and grieve not that algar is preferred to thee. for, even had his claim been less urgent, ill would it have beseemed us to arrogate the lordships of all england as our dues. rule thy lordship with wisdom: gain the love of thy lithsmen. high claims hast thou in our father's name, and moderation now will but strengthen thee in the season to come. trust on harold somewhat, on thyself more. thou hast but to add temper and judgment to valour and zeal, to be worthy mate of the first earl in england. over my father's corpse i embraced my father's foe. between brother and brother shall there not be love, as the best bequest of the dead?" "it shall not be my fault, if there be not," answered tostig, humbled though chafed. and he summoned his men and returned to his domains. chapter vii. fair, broad, and calm set the sun over the western woodlands. hilda stood on the mound, and looked with undazzled eyes on the sinking orb. beside her, edith reclined on the sward, and seemed with idle hand tracing characters in the air. the girl had grown paler still, since harold last parted from her on the same spot, and the same listless and despondent apathy stamped her smileless lips and her bended head. "see, child of my heart," said hilda, addressing edith, while she still gazed on the western luminary, "see, the sun goes down to the far deeps, where rana and aegir [ ] watch over the worlds of the sea; but with morning he comes from the halls of the asas--the golden gates of the east--and joy comes in his train. and yet then thinkest, sad child, whose years have scarce passed into woman, that the sun, once set, never comes back to life. but even while we speak, thy morning draws near, and the dunness of cloud takes the hues of the rose!" edith's hand paused from its vague employment, and fell droopingly on her knee;--she turned with an unquiet and anxious eye to hilda, and after looking some moments wistfully at the vala, the colour rose to her cheek, and she said in a voice that had an accent half of anger: "hilda, thou art cruel!" "so is fate!" answered the vala. "but men call not fate cruel when it smiles on their desires. why callest thou hilda cruel, when she reads in the setting sun the runes of thy coming joy!" "there is no joy for me," returned edith, plaintively; and i have that on my heart," she added, with a sudden and almost fierce change of tone, "which at last i will dare to speak. i reproach thee, hilda, that thou hast marred all my life, that thou hast duped me with dreams, and left me alone in despair." "speak on," said hilda, calmly, as a nurse to a froward child. "hast thou not told me, from the first dawn of my wondering reason, that my life and lot were inwoven with--with (the word, mad and daring, must out)--with those of harold the peerless? but for that, which my infancy took from thy lips as a law, i had never been so vain and so frantic! i had never watched each play of his face, and treasured each word from his lips; i had never made my life but part of his life--all my soul but the shadow of his sun. but for that, i had hailed the calm of the cloister--but for that, i had glided in peace to my grave. and now--now, o hilda--" edith paused, and that break had more eloquence than any words she could command. "and," she resumed quickly, "thou knowest that these hopes were but dreams--that the law ever stood between him and me--and that it was guilt to love him." "i knew the law," answered hilda, "but the law of fools is to the wise as the cobweb swung over the brake to the wing of the bird. ye are sibbe to each other, some five times removed; and therefore an old man at rome saith that ye ought not to wed. when the shavelings obey the old man at home, and put aside their own wives and frillas [ ], and abstain from the wine cup, and the chase, and the brawl, i will stoop to hear of their laws,--with disrelish it may be, but without scorn. [ ] it is no sin to love harold; and no monk and no law shall prevent your union on the day appointed to bring ye together, form and heart." "hilda! hilda! madden me not with joy," cried edith, starting up in rapturous emotion, her young face dyed with blushes, and all her renovated beauty so celestial that hilda herself was almost awed, as if by the vision of freya, the northern venus, charmed by a spell from the halls of asgard. "but that day is distant," renewed the vala. "what matters! what matters!" cried the pure child of nature; "i ask but hope. enough,--oh! enough, if we were but wedded on the borders of the grave!" "lo, then," said hilda, "behold, the sun of thy life dawns again!" as she spoke, the vala stretched her arm, and through the intersticed columns of the fane, edith saw the large shadow of a man cast over the still sward. presently into the space of the circle came harold, her beloved. his face was pale with grief yet recent; but, perhaps, more than ever, dignity was in his step and command on his brow, for he felt that now alone with him rested the might of saxon england. and what royal robe so invests with imperial majesty the form of a man as the grave sense of power responsible, in an earnest soul? "thou comest," said hilda, "in the hour i predicted; at the setting of the sun and the rising of the star." "vala," said harold, gloomily, "i will not oppose my sense to thy prophecies; for who shall judge of that power of which he knows not the elements? or despise the marvel of which he cannot detect the imposture? but leave me, i pray thee, to walk in the broad light of the common day. these hands are made to grapple with things palpable, and these eyes to measure the forms that front my way. in my youth, i turned in despair or disgust from the subtleties of the schoolmen, which split upon hairs the brains of lombard and frank; in my busy and stirring manhood entangle me not in the meshes which confuse all my reason, and sicken my waking thoughts into dreams of awe. mine be the straight path and the plain goal!" the vala gazed on him with an earnest look, that partook of admiration, and yet more of gloom; but she spoke not, and harold resumed: "let the dead rest, hilda,--proud names with glory on earth and shadows escaped from our ken, submissive to mercy in heaven. a vast chasm have my steps overleapt since we met, o hilda--sweet edith; a vast chasm, but a narrow grave." his voice faltered a moment, and again he renewed,--" thou weepest, edith; ah, how thy tears console me! hilda, hear me! i love thy grandchild--loved her by irresistible instinct since her blue eyes first smiled on mine. i loved her in her childhood, as in her youth--in the blossom as in the flower. and thy grandchild loves me. the laws of the church proscribe our marriage, and therefore we parted; but i feel, and thine edith feels, that the love remains as strong in absence: no other will be her wedded lord, no other my wedded wife. therefore, with heart made soft by sorrow, and, in my father's death, sole lord of my fate, i return, and say to thee in her presence, 'suffer us to hope still!' the day may come when under some king less enthralled than edward by formal church laws, we may obtain from the pope absolution for our nuptials--a day, perhaps, far off; but we are both young, and love is strong and patient: we can wait." "o harold," exclaimed edith, "we can wait!" "have i not told thee, son of godwin," said the vala, solemnly, "that edith's skein of life was inwoven with thine? dost thou deem that my charms have not explored the destiny of the last of my race? know that it is in the decrees of the fates that ye are to be united, never more to be divided. know that there shall come a day, though i can see not its morrow, and it lies dim and afar, which shall be the most glorious of thy life, and on which edith and fame shall be thine,--the day of thy nativity, on which hitherto all things have prospered with thee. in vain against the stars preach the mone and the priest: what shall be, shall be. wherefore, take hope and joy, o children of time! and now, as i join your hands, i betroth your souls." rapture unalloyed and unprophetic, born of love deep and pure, shone in the eyes of harold, as he clasped the hand of his promised bride. but an involuntary and mysterious shudder passed over edith's frame, and she leant close, close, for support upon harold's breast. and, as if by a vision, there rose distinct in her memory a stern brow, a form of power and terror--the brow and the form of him who but once again in her waking life the prophetess had told her she should behold. the vision passed away in the warm clasp of those protecting arms; and looking up into harold's face, she there beheld the mighty and deep delight that transfused itself at once into her own soul. then hilda, placing one hand over their heads, and raising the other towards heaven, all radiant with bursting stars, said in her deep and thrilling tones: "attest the betrothal of these young hearts, o ye powers that draw nature to nature by spells which no galdra can trace, and have wrought in the secrets of creation no mystery so perfect as love,--attest it, thou temple, thou altar!--attest it, o sun and o air! while the forms are divided, may the souls cling together--sorrow with sorrow, and joy with joy. and when, at length, bride and bridegroom are one,--o stars, may the trouble with which ye are charged have exhausted its burthen; may no danger molest, and no malice disturb, but, over the marriage-bed, shine in peace, o ye stars!" up rose the moon. may's nightingale called its mate from the breathless boughs; and so edith and harold were betrothed by the grave of the son of cerdic. and from the line of cerdic had come, since ethelbert, all the saxon kings who with sword and with sceptre had reigned over saxon england. this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book ii. lanfranc the scholar. chapter i. four meals a day, nor those sparing, were not deemed too extravagant an interpretation of the daily bread for which the saxon prayed. four meals a day, from earl to ceorl! "happy times!" may sigh the descendant of the last, if he read these pages; partly so they were for the ceorl, but not in all things, for never sweet is the food, and never gladdening is the drink, of servitude. inebriety, the vice of the warlike nations of the north, had not, perhaps, been the pre- eminent excess of the earlier saxons, while yet the active and fiery britons, and the subsequent petty wars between the kings of the heptarchy, enforced on hardy warriors the safety of temperance; but the example of the danes had been fatal. those giants of the sea, like all who pass from great vicissitudes of toil and repose, from the tempest to the haven, snatched with full hands every pleasure in their reach. with much that tended permanently to elevate the character of the saxon, they imparted much for a time to degrade it. the anglian learned to feast to repletion, and drink to delirium. but such were not the vices of the court of the confessor. brought up from his youth in the cloister-camp of the normans, what he loved in their manners was the abstemious sobriety, and the ceremonial religion, which distinguished those sons of the scandinavian from all other kindred tribes. the norman position in france, indeed, in much resembled that of the spartan in greece. he had forced a settlement with scanty numbers in the midst of a subjugated and sullen population, surrounded by jealous and formidable foes. hence sobriety was a condition of his being, and the policy of the chief lent a willing ear to the lessons of the preacher. like the spartan, every norman of pure race was free and noble; and this consciousness inspired not only that remarkable dignity of mien which spartan and norman alike possessed, but also that fastidious self-respect which would have revolted from exhibiting a spectacle of debasement to inferiors. and, lastly, as the paucity of their original numbers, the perils that beset, and the good fortune that attended them, served to render the spartans the most religious of all the greeks in their dependence on the divine aid; so, perhaps, to the same causes may be traced the proverbial piety of the ceremonial normans; they carried into their new creed something of feudal loyalty to their spiritual protectors; did homage to the virgin for the lands that she vouchsafed to bestow, and recognised in st. michael the chief who conducted their armies. after hearing the complin vespers in the temporary chapel fitted up in that unfinished abbey of westminster, which occupied the site of the temple of apollo [ ], the king and his guests repaired to their evening meal in the great hall of the palace. below the dais were ranged three long tables for the knights in william's train, and that flower of the saxon nobility who, fond, like all youth, of change and imitation, thronged the court of their normanised saint, and scorned the rude patriotism of their fathers. but hearts truly english were not there. yea, many of godwin's noblest foes sighed for the english- hearted earl, banished by norman guile on behalf of english law. at the oval table on the dais the guests were select and chosen. at the right hand of the king sat william; at the left odo of bayeux. over these three stretched a canopy of cloth of gold; the chairs on which each sate were of metal, richly gilded over, and the arms carved in elaborate arabesques. at this table too was the king's nephew, the earl of hereford, and, in right of kinsmanship to the duke, the norman's beloved baron and grand seneschal, william fitzosborne, who, though in normandy even he sate not at the duke's table, was, as related to his lord, invited by edward to his own. no other guests were admitted to this board, so that, save edward, all were norman. the dishes were of gold and silver, the cups inlaid with jewels. before each guest was a knife, with hilt adorned by precious stones, and a napkin fringed with silver. the meats were not placed on the table, but served upon small spits, and between every course a basin of perfumed water was borne round by high-born pages. no dame graced the festival; for she who should have presided--she, matchless for beauty without pride, piety without asceticism, and learning without pedantry--she, the pale rose of england, loved daughter of godwin, and loathed wife of edward, had shared in the fall of her kindred, and had been sent by the meek king, or his fierce counsellors, to an abbey in hampshire, with the taunt "that it was not meet that the child and sister should enjoy state and pomp, while the sire and brethren ate the bread of the stranger in banishment and disgrace." but, hungry as were the guests, it was not the custom of that holy court to fall to without due religious ceremonial. the rage for psalm-singing was then at its height in england; psalmody had excluded almost every other description of vocal music; and it is even said that great festivals on certain occasions were preluded by no less an effort of lungs and memory than the entire songs bequeathed to us by king david! this day, however, hugoline, edward's norman chamberlain, had been pleased to abridge the length of the prolix grace, and the company were let off; to edward's surprise and displeasure, with the curt and unseemly preparation of only nine psalms and one special hymn in honour of some obscure saint to whom the day was dedicated. this performed, the guests resumed their seats, edward murmuring an apology to william for the strange omission of his chamberlain, and saying thrice to himself, "naught, naught--very naught." the mirth languished at the royal table, despite some gay efforts from rolf, and some hollow attempts at light-hearted cheerfulness from the great duke, whose eyes, wandering down the table, were endeavouring to distinguish saxon from norman, and count how many of the first might already be reckoned in the train of his friends. but at the long tables below, as the feast thickened, and ale, mead, pigment, morat, and wine circled round, the tongue of the saxon was loosed, and the norman knight lost somewhat of his superb gravity. it was just as what a danish poet called the "sun of the night," (in other words, the fierce warmth of the wine,) had attained its meridian glow, that some slight disturbance at the doors of the hall, without which waited a dense crowd of the poor on whom the fragments of the feast were afterwards to be bestowed, was followed by the entrance of two strangers, for whom the officers appointed to marshal the entertainment made room at the foot of one of the tables. both these new-comers were clad with extreme plainness; one in a dress, though not quite monastic, that of an ecclesiastic of low degree; the other in a long grey mantle and loose gonna, the train of which last was tucked into a broad leathern belt, leaving bare the leggings, which showed limbs of great bulk and sinew, and which were stained by the dust and mire of travel. the first mentioned was slight and small of person; the last was of the height and port of the sons of anak. the countenance of neither could be perceived, for both had let fall the hood, worn by civilians as by priests out of doors, more than half way over their faces. a murmur of great surprise, disdain, and resentment, at the intrusion of strangers so attired circulated round the neighbourhood in which they had been placed, checked for a moment by a certain air of respect which the officer had shown towards both, but especially the taller; but breaking out with greater vivacity from the faint restraint, as the tall man unceremoniously stretched across the board, drew towards himself an immense flagon, which (agreeably to the custom of arranging the feast in "messes" of four) had been specially appropriated to ulf the dane, godrith the saxon, and two young norman knights akin to the puissant lord of grantmesnil,--and having offered it to his comrade, who shook his head, drained it with a gusto that seemed to bespeak him at least no norman, and wiped his lips boorishly with the sleeve of his huge arm. "dainty sir," said one of those norman knights, william mallet, of the house of mallet de graville [ ], as he moved as far from the gigantic intruder as the space on the settle would permit, "forgive the observation that you have damaged my mantle, you have grazed my foot, and you have drunk my wine. and vouchsafe, if it so please you, the face of the man who hath done this triple wrong to william mallet de graville." a kind of laugh--for laugh absolute it was not--rattled under the cowl of the tall stranger, as he drew it still closer over his face, with a hand that might have spanned the breast of his interrogator, and he made a gesture as if he did not understand the question addressed to him. therewith the norman knight, bending with demure courtesy across the board to godrith the saxon, said: "pardex [ ], but this fair guest and seigneur seemeth to me, noble godree (whose name i fear my lips do but rudely enounce) of saxon line and language; our romance tongue he knoweth not. pray you, is it the saxon custom to enter a king's hall so garbed, and drink a knight's wine so mutely?" godrith, a young saxon of considerable rank, but one of the most sedulous of the imitators of the foreign fashions, coloured high at the irony in the knight's speech, and turning rudely to the huge guest, who was now causing immense fragments of pasty to vanish under the cavernous cowl, he said in his native tongue, though with a lisp as if unfamiliar to him-- "if thou beest saxon, shame us not with thy ceorlish manners; crave pardon of this norman thegn, who will doubtless yield it to thee in pity. uncover thy face--and--" here the saxon's rebuke was interrupted; for one of the servitors just then approaching godrith's side with a spit, elegantly caparisoned with some score of plump larks, the unmannerly giant stretched out his arm within an inch of the saxon's startled nose, and possessed himself of larks, broche, and all. he drew off two, which he placed on his friend's platter, despite all dissuasive gesticulations, and deposited the rest upon his own. the young banqueters gazed upon the spectacle in wrath too full for words. at last spoke mallet de graville, with an envious eye upon the larks-- for though a norman was not gluttonous, he was epicurean--"certes, and foi de chevalier! a man must go into strange parts if he wish to see monsters; but we are fortunate people," (and he turned to his norman friend, aymer, quen [ ] or count, d'evreux,) "that we have discovered polyphemus without going so far as ulysses;" and pointing to the hooded giant, he quoted, appropriately enough, "monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum." the giant continued to devour his larks, as complacently as the ogre to whom he was likened might have devoured the greeks in his cave. but his fellow intruder seemed agitated by the sound of the latin; he lifted up his head suddenly, and showed lips glistening with white even teeth, and curved into an approving smile, while he said: "bene, me fili! bene, lepidissime, poetae verba, in militis ore, non indecora sonant." [ ] the young norman stared at the speaker, and replied, in the same tone of grave affectation: "courteous sir! the approbation of an ecclesiastic so eminent as i take you to be, from the modesty with which you conceal your greatness, cannot fail to draw upon me the envy of my english friends; who are accustomed to swear in verba magistri, only for verba they learnedly substitute vina." "you are pleasant, sire mallet," said godrith, reddening; "but i know well that latin is only fit for monks and shavelings; and little enow even they have to boast of." the norman's lip curled in disdain. "latin!--o, godree, bien aime!-- latin is the tongue of caesars and senators, fortes conquerors and preux chevaliers. knowest thou not that duke william the dauntless at eight years old had the comments of julius caesar by heart?--and that it is his saying, that 'a king without letters is a crowned ass?' [ ] when the king is an ass, asinine are his subjects. wherefore go to school, speak respectfully of thy betters, the monks and shavelings, who with us are often brave captains and sage councillors,--and learn that a full head makes a weighty hand." "thy name, young knight?" said the ecclesiastic, in norman french, though with a slight foreign accent. "i can give it thee," said the giant, speaking aloud for the first time, in the same language, and in a rough voice, which a quick ear might have detected as disguised,--"i can describe to thee name, birth, and quality. by name, this youth is guillaume mallet, sometimes styled de graville, because our norman gentilhommes, forsooth, must always now have a 'de' tacked to their names; nevertheless he hath no other right to the seigneurie of graville, which appertains to the head of his house, than may be conferred by an old tower on one corner of the demesnes so designated, with lands that would feed one horse and two villeins--if they were not in pawn to a jew for moneys to buy velvet mantelines and a chain of gold. by birth, he comes from mallet [ ], a bold norwegian in the fleet of rou the sea-king; his mother was a frank woman, from whom he inherits his best possessions--videlicet, a shrewd wit, and a railing tongue. his qualities are abstinence, for he eateth nowhere save at the cost of another--some latin, for he was meant for a monk, because he seemed too slight of frame for a warrior--some courage, for in spite of his frame he slew three burgundians with his own hand; and duke william, among their foolish acts, spoilt a friar sans tache, by making a knight sans terre; and for the rest--" "and for the rest," interrupted the sire de graville, turning white with wrath, but speaking in a low repressed voice, "were it not that duke william sate yonder, thou shouldst have six inches of cold steel in thy huge carcase to digest thy stolen dinner, and silence thy unmannerly tongue.--" "for the rest," continued the giant indifferently, and as if he had not heard the interruption; "for the rest, he only resembles achilles, in being impiger iracundus. big men can quote latin as well as little ones, messire mallet the beau clerc!" mallet's hand was on his dagger; and his eye dilated like that of the panther before he springs; but fortunately, at that moment, the deep sonorous voice of william, accustomed to send its sounds down the ranks of an army, rolled clear through the assemblage, though pitched little above its ordinary key:-- "fair is your feast, and bright your wine, sir king and brother mine! but i miss here what king and knight hold as the salt of the feast and the perfume to the wine: the lay of the minstrel. beshrew me, but both saxon and norman are of kindred stock, and love to hear in hall and bower the deeds of their northern fathers. crave i therefore from your gleemen, or harpers, some song of the olden time!" a murmur of applause went through the norman part of the assembly; the saxons looked up; and some of the more practised courtiers sighed wearily, for they knew well what ditties alone were in favour with the saintly edward. the low voice of the king in reply was not heard, but those habituated to read his countenance in its very faint varieties of expression, might have seen that it conveyed reproof; and its purport soon became practically known, when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter of the hall, in which sate certain ghost-like musicians in white robes--white as winding-sheets; and forthwith a dolorous and dirgelike voice chaunted a long and most tedious recital of the miracles and martyrdom of some early saint. so monotonous was the chaunt, that its effect soon became visible in a general drowsiness. and when edward, who alone listened with attentive delight, turned towards the close to gather sympathising admiration from his distinguished guests, he saw his nephew yawning as if his jaw were dislocated--the bishop of bayeux, with his well-ringed fingers interlaced and resting on his stomach, fast asleep--fitzosborne's half-shaven head balancing to and fro with many an uneasy start--and, william, wide awake indeed, but with eyes fixed on vacant space, and his soul far away from the gridiron to which (all other saints be praised!) the saint of the ballad had at last happily arrived. "a comforting and salutary recital, count william," said the king. the duke started from his reverie, and bowed his head: then said, rather abruptly, "is not yon blazon that of king alfred?" "yea. wherefore?" "hem! matilda of flanders is in direct descent from alfred: it is a name and a line the saxons yet honour!" "surely, yes; alfred was a great man, and reformed the psalmster," replied edward. the dirge ceased, but so benumbing had been its effect, that the torpor it created did not subside with the cause. there was a dead and funereal silence throughout the spacious hall, when suddenly, loudly, mightily, as the blast of the trumpet upon the hush of the grave, rose a single voice. all started--all turned--all looked to one direction; and they saw that the great voice pealed from the farthest end of the hall. from under his gown the gigantic stranger had drawn a small three-stringed instrument--somewhat resembling the modern lute--and thus he sang,-- the ballad of rou. [ ] i. from blois to senlis, wave by wave, roll'd on the norman flood, and frank on frank went drifting down the weltering tide of blood; there was not left in all the land a castle wall to fire, and not a wife but wailed a lord, a child but mourned a sire. to charles the king, the mitred monks, the mailed barons flew, while, shaking earth, behind them strode the thunder march of rou. ii. "o king," then cried those barons bold, "in vain are mace and mail, we fall before the norman axe, as corn before the hail." "and vainly," cried the pious monks, "by mary's shrine we kneel, for prayers, like arrows, glance aside, against the norman teel." the barons groaned, the shavelings wept, while near and nearer drew, as death-birds round their scented feast, the raven flags of rou. iii. then said king charles, "where thousands fail, what king can stand alone, the strength of kings is in the men that gather round the throne. when war dismays my barons bold, 'tis time for war to cease; when heaven forsakes my pious monks, the will of heaven is peace. go forth, my monks, with mass and rood the norman camp unto, and to the fold, with shepherd crook, entice this grisly rou." iv. "i'll give him all the ocean coast, from michael mount to eure, and gille, my child, shall be his bride, to bind him fast and sure: let him but kiss the christian cross, and sheathe the heathen sword, and hold the lands i cannot keep, a fief from charles his lord." forth went the pastors of the church, the shepherd's work to do, and wrap the golden fleece around the tiger loins of rou. v. psalm-chanting came the shaven monks, within the camp of dread; amidst his warriors, norman rou stood taller by the head. out spoke the frank archbishop then, a priest devout and sage, "when peace and plenty wait thy word, what need of war and rage? why waste a land as fair as aught beneath the arch of blue, which might be thine to sow and reap?"--thus saith the king to rou. vi. "'i'll give thee all the ocean coast, from michael mount to eure, and gille, my fairest child, as bride, to bind thee fast and sure; if then but kneel to christ our god, and sheathe thy paynim sword, and hold thy land, the church's son, a fief from charles thy lord." the norman on his warriors looked--to counsel they withdrew; the saints took pity on the franks, and moved the soul of rou. vii. so back he strode and thus he spoke, to that archbishop meek: "i take the land thy king bestows from eure to michael-peak, i take the maid, or foul or fair, a bargain with the toast, and for thy creed, a sea-king's gods are those that give the most. so hie thee back, and tell thy chief to make his proffer true, and he shall find a docile son, and ye a saint in rou." viii. so o'er the border stream of epte came rou the norman, where, begirt with barons, sat the king, enthroned at green st. clair; he placed his hand in charles's hand,--loud shouted all the throng, but tears were in king charles's eyes--the grip of rou was strong. "now kiss the foot," the bishop said, "that homage still is due;" then dark the frown and stern the smile of that grim convert, rou. ix. he takes the foot, as if the foot to slavish lips to bring; the normans scowl; he tilts the throne, and backwards falls the king. loud laugh the joyous norman men--pale stare the franks aghast; and rou lifts up his head as from the wind springs up the mast; "i said i would adore a god, but not a mortal too; the foot that fled before a foe let cowards kiss!" said rou. no words can express the excitement which this rough minstrelsy-- marred as it is by our poor translation from the romance-tongue in which it was chanted--produced amongst the norman guests; less perhaps, indeed, the song itself, than the recognition of the minstrel; and as he closed, from more than a hundred voices came the loud murmur, only subdued from a shout by the royal presence, "taillefer, our norman taillefer!" "by our joint saint, peter, my cousin the king," exclaimed william, after a frank cordial laugh; "well i wot, no tongue less free than my warrior minstrel's could have so shocked our ears. excuse his bold theme, for the sake of his bold heart, i pray thee; and since i know well" (here the duke's face grew grave and anxious) "that nought save urgent and weighty news from my stormy realm could have brought over this rhyming petrel, permit the officer behind me to lead hither a bird, i fear, of omen as well as of song." "whatever pleases thee, pleases me," said edward, drily; and he gave the order to the attendant. in a few moments, up the space in the hall, between either table, came the large stride of the famous minstrel, preceded by the officer and followed by the ecclesiastic. the hoods of both were now thrown back, and discovered countenances in strange contrast, but each equally worthy of the attention it provoked. the face of the minstrel was open and sunny as the day; and that of the priest, dark and close as night. thick curls of deep auburn (the most common colour for the locks of the norman) wreathed in careless disorder round taillefer's massive unwrinkled brow. his eye, of light hazel, was bold and joyous; mirth, though sarcastic and sly, mantled round his lips. his whole presence was at once engaging and heroic. on the other hand, the priest's cheek was dark and sallow; his features singularly delicate and refined; his forehead high, but somewhat narrow, and crossed with lines of thought; his mien composed, modest, but not without calm self-confidence. amongst that assembly of soldiers, noiseless, self-collected, and conscious of his surpassing power over swords and mail, moved the scholar. william's keen eye rested on the priest with some surprise, not unmixed with pride and ire; but first addressing taillefer, who now gained the foot of the dais, he said, with a familiarity almost fond: "now, by're lady, if thou bringest not ill news, thy gay face, man, is pleasanter to mine eyes that thy rough song to my ears. kneel, taillefer, kneel to king edward, and with more address, rogue, than our unlucky countryman to king charles." but edward, as ill-liking the form of the giant as the subject of his lay, said, pushing back his seat as far as he could: "nay, nay, we excuse thee, we excuse thee, tall man." nevertheless, the minstrel still knelt, and so, with a look of profound humility, did the priest. then both slowly rose, and at a sign from the duke, passed to the other side of the table, standing behind fitzosborne's chair. "clerk," said william, eying deliberately the sallow face of the ecclesiastic; "i know thee of old; and if the church have sent me an envoy, per la resplendar de, it should have sent me at least an abbot." "hein, hein!" said taillefer, bluntly, "vex not my bon camarade, count of the normans. gramercy, thou wilt welcome him, peradventure, better than me; for the singer tells but of discord, and the sage may restore the harmony." "ha!" said the duke, and the frown fell so dark over his eyes that the last seemed only visible by two sparks of fire. "i guess, my proud vavasours are mutinous. retire, thou and thy comrade. await me in my chamber. the feast shall not flag in london because the wind blows a gale in rouen." the two envoys, since so they seemed, bowed in silence and withdrew. "nought of ill-tidings, i trust," said edward, who had not listened to the whispered communications that had passed between the duke and his subjects. "no schism in thy church? the clerk seemed a peaceful man, and a humble." "an there were schism in my church," said the fiery duke, "my brother of bayeux would settle it by arguments as close as the gap between cord and throttle." "ah! thou art, doubtless, well read in the canons, holy odo!" said the king, turning to the bishop with more respect than he had yet evinced towards that gentle prelate. "canons, yes, seigneur, i draw them up myself for my flock conformably with such interpretations of the roman church as suit best with the norman realm: and woe to deacon, monk, or abbot, who chooses to misconstrue them." [ ] the bishop looked so truculent and menacing, while his fancy thus conjured up the possibility of heretical dissent, that edward shrank from him as he had done from taillefer; and in a few minutes after, on exchange of signals between himself and the duke, who, impatient to escape, was too stately to testify that desire, the retirement of the royal party broke up the banquet; save, indeed, that a few of the elder saxons, and more incorrigible danes, still steadily kept their seats, and were finally dislodged from their later settlements on the stone floors, to find themselves, at dawn, carefully propped in a row against the outer walls of the palace, with their patient attendants, holding links, and gazing on their masters with stolid envy, if not of the repose at least of the drugs that had caused it. chapter ii. "and now," said william, reclining on a long and narrow couch, with raised carved work all round it like a box (the approved fashion of a bed in those days), "now, sire taillefer--thy news." there were then in the duke's chamber, the count fitzosborne, lord of breteuil, surnamed "the proud spirit"--who, with great dignity, was holding before the brazier the ample tunic of linen (called dormitorium in the latin of that time, and night-rail in the saxon tongue) in which his lord was to robe his formidable limbs for repose [ ],--taillefer, who stood erect before the duke as a roman sentry at his post,--and the ecclesiastic, a little apart, with arms gathered under his gown, and his bright dark eyes fixed on the ground. "high and puissant, my liege," then said taillefer, gravely, and with a shade of sympathy on his large face, "my news is such as is best told briefly: bunaz, count d'eu and descendant of richard sanspeur, hath raised the standard of revolt." "go on," said the duke, clenching his hand. "henry, king of the french, is treating with the rebel, and stirring up mutiny in thy realm, and pretenders to thy throne." "ha!" said the duke, and his lip quivered; "this is not all." "no, my liege! and the worst is to come. thy uncle mauger, knowing that thy heart is bent on thy speedy nuptials with the high and noble damsel, matilda of flanders, has broken out again in thine absence--is preaching against thee in hall and from pulpit. he declares that such espousals are incestuous, both as within the forbidden degrees, and inasmuch as adele, the lady's mother, was betrothed to thine uncle richard; and mauger menaces excommunication if my liege pursues his suit! [ ] so troubled is the realm, that i, waiting not for debate in council, and fearing sinister ambassage if i did so, took ship from thy port of cherbourg, and have not flagged rein, and scarce broken bread, till i could say to the heir of rolf the founder--save thy realm from the men of mail, and thy bride from the knaves in serge." "ho, ho!" cried william; then bursting forth in full wrath, as he sprang from the couch. "hearest thou this, lord seneschal? seven years, the probation of the patriarch, have i wooed and waited; and lo, in the seventh, does a proud priest say to me, 'wrench the love from thy heart-strings!'--excommunicate me--me--william, the son of robert the devil! ha, by god's splendour, mauger shall live to wish the father stood, in the foul fiend's true likeness, by his side, rather than brave the bent brow of the son!" "dread my lord," said fitzosborne, desisting from his employ, and rising to his feet; "thou knowest that i am thy true friend and leal knight; thou knowest how i have aided thee in this marriage with the lady of flanders, and how gravely i think that what pleases thy fancy will guard thy realm; but rather than brave the order of the church, and the ban of the pope, i would see thee wed to the poorest virgin in normandy." william, who had been pacing the room like an enraged lion in his den, halted in amaze at this bold speech. "this from thee, william fitzosborne!--from thee! i tell thee, that if all the priests in christendom, and all the barons in france, stood between me and my bride, i would hew my way through the midst. foes invade my realm--let them; princes conspire against me--i smile in scorn; subjects mutiny--this strong hand can punish, or this large heart can forgive. all these are the dangers which he who governs men should prepare to meet; but man has a right to his love, as the stag to his hind. and he who wrongs me here, is foe and traitor to me, not as norman duke but as human being. look to it--thou and thy proud barons, look to it!" "proud may thy barons be," said fitzosborne, reddening, and with a brow that quailed not before his lord's; "for they are the sons of those who carved out the realm of the norman, and owned in rou but the feudal chief of free warriors; vassals are not villeins. and that which we hold our duty--whether to church or chief--that, duke william, thy proud barons will doubtless do; nor less, believe me, for threats which, braved in discharge of duty and defence of freedom, we hold as air." the duke gazed on his haughty subject with an eye in which a meaner spirit might have seen its doom. the veins in his broad temples swelled like cords, and a light foam gathered round his quivering lips. but fiery and fearless as william was, not less was he sagacious and profound. in that one man he saw the representative of that superb and matchless chivalry--that race of races--those men of men, in whom the brave acknowledge the highest example of valiant deeds, and the free the manliest assertion of noble thoughts [ ], since the day when the last athenian covered his head with his mantle, and mutely died: and far from being the most stubborn against his will, it was to fitzosborne's paramount influence with the council, that he had often owed their submission to his wishes, and their contributions to his wars. in the very tempest of his wrath, he felt that the blow belonged to strike on that bold head would shiver his ducal throne to the dust. be felt too, that awful indeed was that power of the church which could thus turn against him the heart of his truest knight: and he began (for with all his outward frankness his temper was suspicious) to wrong the great-souled noble by the thought that he might already be won over by the enemies whom mauger had arrayed against his nuptials. therefore, with one of those rare and mighty efforts of that dissimulation which debased his character, but achieved his fortunes, he cleared his brow of its dark cloud, and said in a low voice, that was not without its pathos: "had an angel from heaven forewarned me that william fitzosborne would speak thus to his kinsman and brother in arms, in the hour of need and the agony of passion, i would have disbelieved him. let it pass----" but ere the last word was out of his lips, fitzosborne had fallen on his knees before the duke, and, clasping his hand, exclaimed, while the tears rolled down his swarthy cheek, "pardon, pardon, my liege! when thou speakest thus my heart melts. what thou willest, that will i! church or pope, no matter. send me to flanders; i will bring back thy bride." the slight smile that curved william's lip, showed that he was scarce worthy of that sublime weakness in his friend. but he cordially pressed the hand that grasped his own, and said, "rise; thus should brother speak to brother." then--for his wrath was only concealed, not stifled, and yearned for its vent--his eye fell upon the delicate and thoughtful face of the priest, who had watched this short and stormy conference in profound silence, despite taillefer's whispers to him to interrupt the dispute. "so, priest," he said, "i remember me that when mauger before let loose his rebellious tongue thou didst lend thy pedant learning to eke out his brainless treason. methought that i then banished thee my realm?" "not so, count and seigneur," answered the ecclesiastic, with a grave but arch smile on his lip; "let me remind thee, that to speed me back to my native land thou didst graciously send me a horse, halting on three legs, and all lame on the fourth. thus mounted, i met thee on my road. i saluted thee; so did the beast, for his head well nigh touched the ground. whereon i did ask thee, in a latin play of words, to give me at least a quadruped, not a tripod, for my journey. [ ] gracious, even in ire, and with relenting laugh, was thine answer. my liege, thy words implied banishment--thy laughter pardon. so i stayed." despite his wrath, william could scarce repress a smile; but recollecting himself, he replied, more gravely, "peace with this levity, priest. doubtless thou art the envoy from this scrupulous mauger, or some other of my gentle clergy; and thou comest, as doubtless, with soft words and whining homilies. it is in vain. i hold the church in holy reverence; the pontiff knows it. but matilda of flanders i have wooed; and matilda of flanders shall sit by my side in the halls of rouen, or on the deck of my war-ship, till it anchors on a land worthy to yield a new domain to the son of the sea-king." "in the halls of rouen--and it may be on the throne of england--shall matilda reign by the side of william," said the priest in a clear, low, and emphatic voice; "and it was to tell my lord the duke that i repent me of my first unconsidered obeisance to mauger as my spiritual superior; that since then i have myself examined canon and precedent; and though the letter of the law be against thy spousals, it comes precisely under the category of those alliances to which the fathers of the church accord dispensation:--it is to tell thee this, that i, plain doctor of laws and priest of pavia, have crossed the seas." "ha rou!--ha rou!" cried taillefer, with his usual bluffness, and laughing with great glee, "why wouldst thou not listen to me, monseigneur?" "if thou deceivest me not," said william, in surprise, "and thou canst make good thy words, no prelate in neustria, save odo of bayeux, shall lift his head high as thine." and here william, deeply versed in the science of men, bent his eyes keenly upon the unchanging and earnest face of the speaker. "ah," he burst out, as if satisfied with the survey, "and my mind tells me that thou speakest not thus boldly and calmly without ground sufficient. man, i like thee. thy name? i forget it." "lanfranc of pavia, please you my lord; called some times 'lanfranc the scholar' in thy cloister of bec. nor misdeem me, that i, humble, unmitred priest, should be thus bold. in birth i am noble, and my kindred stand near to the grace of our ghostly pontiff; to the pontiff i myself am not unknown. did i desire honours, in italy i might seek them; it is not so. i crave no guerdon for the service i proffer; none but this--leisure and books in the convent of bec." "sit down--nay, sit, man," said william, greatly interested, but still suspicious. "one riddle only i ask thee to solve, before i give thee all my trust, and place my very heart in thy hands. why, if thou desirest not rewards, shouldst thou thus care to serve me--thou, a foreigner?" a light, brilliant and calm, shone in the eyes of the scholar, and a blush spread over his pale cheeks. "my lord prince, i will answer in plain words. but first permit me to be the questioner." the priest turned towards fitzosborne, who had seated himself on a stool at william's feet, and, leaning his chin on his hand, listened to the ecclesiastic, not more with devotion to his calling, than wonder at the influence one so obscure was irresistibly gaining over his own martial spirit, and william's iron craft. "lovest thou not, william lord of breteuil, lovest thou not fame for the sake of fame?" "sur mon ame--yes!" said the baron. "and thou, taillefer the minstrel, lovest thou not song for the sake of song?" "for song alone," replied the mighty minstrel. "more gold in one ringing rhyme than in all the coffers of christendom." "and marvellest thou, reader of men's hearts," said the scholar, turning once more to william, "that the student loves knowledge for the sake of knowledge? born of high race, poor in purse, and slight of thews, betimes i found wealth in books, and drew strength from lore. i heard of the count of rouen and the normans, as a prince of small domain, with a measureless spirit, a lover of letters, and a captain in war. i came to thy duchy, i noted its subjects and its prince, and the words of themistocles rang in my ear: 'i cannot play the lute, but i can make a small state great.' i felt an interest in thy strenuous and troubled career. i believe that knowledge, to spread amongst the nations, must first find a nursery in the brain of kings; and i saw in the deed-doer, the agent of the thinker. in those espousals, on which with untiring obstinacy thy heart is set, i might sympathise with thee; perchance"--(here a melancholy smile flitted over the student's pale lips), "perchance even as a lover: priest though i be now, and dead to human love, once i loved, and i know what it is to strive in hope, and to waste in despair. but my sympathy, i own, was more given to the prince than to the lover. it was natural that i, priest and foreigner, should obey at first the orders of mauger, archprelate and spiritual chief, and the more so as the law was with him; but when i resolved to stay despite thy sentence which banished me, i resolved to aid thee; for if with mauger was the dead law, with thee was the living cause of man. duke william, on thy nuptials with matilda of flanders rests thy duchy--rest, perchance, the mightier sceptres that are yet to come. thy title disputed, thy principality new and unestablished, thou, above all men, must link thy new race with the ancient line of kings and kaisars. matilda is the descendant of charlemagne and alfred. thy realm is insecure as long as france undermines it with plots, and threatens it with arms. marry the daughter of baldwin--and thy wife is the niece of henry of france --thine enemy becomes thy kinsman, and must, perforce, be thine ally. this is not all; it were strange, looking round this disordered royalty of england--a childless king, who loves thee better than his own blood; a divided nobility, already adopting the fashions of the stranger, and accustomed to shift their faith from saxon to dane, and dane to saxon; a people that has respect indeed for brave chiefs, but, seeing new men rise daily from new houses, has no reverence for ancient lines and hereditary names; with a vast mass of villeins or slaves that have no interest in the land or its rulers; strange, seeing all this, if thy day-dreams have not also beheld a norman sovereign on the throne of saxon england. and thy marriage with the descendant of the best and most beloved prince that ever ruled these realms, if it does not give thee a title to the land, may help to conciliate its affections, and to fix thy posterity in the halls of their mother's kin. have i said eno' to prove why, for the sake of nations, it were wise for the pontiff to stretch the harsh girths of the law? why i might be enabled to prove to the court of rome the policy of conciliating the love, and strengthening the hands, of the norman count, who may so become the main prop of christendom? yea, have i said eno' to prove that the humble clerk can look on mundane matters with the eye of a man who can make small states great?" william remained speechless--his hot blood thrilled with a half superstitious awe; so thoroughly had this obscure lombard divined, detailed all the intricate meshes of that policy with which he himself had interwoven his pertinacious affection for the flemish princess, that it seemed to him as if he listened to the echo of his own heart, or heard from a soothsayer the voice of his most secret thoughts. the priest continued "wherefore, thus considering, i said to myself, now has the time come, lanfranc the lombard, to prove to thee whether thy self-boastings have been a vain deceit, or whether, in this age of iron and amidst this lust of gold, thou, the penniless and the feeble, canst make knowledge and wit of more avail to the destinies of kings than armed men and filled treasuries. i believe in that power. i am ready for the test. pause, judge from what the lord of breteuil hath said to thee, what will be the defection of thy lords if the pope confirm the threatened excommunication of thine uncle? thine armies will rot from thee; thy treasures will be like dry leaves in thy coffers; the duke of bretagne will claim thy duchy as the legitimate heir of thy forefathers; the duke of burgundy will league with the king of france, and march on thy faithless legions under the banner of the church. the handwriting is on the walls, and thy sceptre and thy crown will pass away." william set his teeth firmly, and breathed hard. "but send me to rome, thy delegate, and the thunder of mauger shall fall powerless. marry matilda, bring her to thy halls, place her on thy throne, laugh to scorn the interdict of thy traitor uncle, and rest assured that the pope shall send thee his dispensation to thy spousals, and his benison on thy marriage-bed. and when this be done, duke william, give me not abbacies and prelacies; multiply books, and stablish schools, and bid thy servant found the royalty of knowledge, as thou shalt found the sovereignty of war." the duke, transported from himself, leaped up and embraced the priest with his vast arms; he kissed his cheeks, he kissed his forehead, as, in those days, king kissed king with "the kiss of peace." "lanfranc of pavia," he cried, "whether thou succeed or fail, thou hast my love and gratitude evermore. as thou speakest, would i have spoken, had i been born, framed, and reared as thou. and, verily, when i hear thee, i blush for the boasts of my barbarous pride, that no man can wield my mace, or bend my bow. poor is the strength of body--a web of law can entangle it, and a word from a priest's mouth can palsy. but thou!--let me look at thee." william gazed on the pale face: from head to foot he scanned the delicate, slender form, and then, turning away, he said to fitzosborne: "thou, whose mailed hand hath fell'd a war-steed, art thou not ashamed of thyself? the day is coming, i see it afar, when these slight men shall set their feet upon our corslets." he paused as if in thought, again paced the room, and stopped before the crucifix, and image of the virgin, which stood in a niche near the bed-head. "right, noble prince," said the priest's low voice, "pause there for a solution to all enigmas; there view the symbol of all-enduring power; there, learn its ends below--comprehend the account it must yield above. to your thoughts and your prayers we leave you." he took the stalwart arm of taillefer, as he spoke, and, with a grave obeisance to fitzosborne, left the chamber. chapter iii. the next morning william was long closeted alone with lanfranc,--that man, among the most remarkable of his age, of whom it was said, that "to comprehend the extent of his talents, one must be herodian in grammar, aristotle in dialectics, cicero in rhetoric, augustine and jerome in scriptural lore," [ ]--and ere the noon the duke's gallant and princely train were ordered to be in readiness for return home. the crowd in the broad space, and the citizens from their boats in the river, gazed on the knights and steeds of that gorgeous company, already drawn up and awaiting without the open gates the sound of the trumpets that should announce the duke's departure. before the hall- door in the inner court were his own men. the snow-white steed of odo; the alezan of fitzosborne; and, to the marvel of all, a small palfrey plainly caparisoned. what did that palfrey amid those steeds?--the steeds themselves seemed to chafe at the companionship; the duke's charger pricked up his ears and snorted; the lord of breteuil's alezan kicked out, as the poor nag humbly drew near to make acquaintance; and the prelate's white barb, with red vicious eye, and ears laid down, ran fiercely at the low-bred intruder, with difficulty reined in by the squires, who shared the beast's amaze and resentment. meanwhile the duke thoughtfully took his way to edward's apartments. in the anteroom were many monks and many knights; but conspicuous amongst them all was a tall and stately veteran, leaning on a great two-handed sword, and whose dress and fashion of beard were those of the last generation, the men who had fought with canute the great or edmund ironsides. so grand was the old man's aspect, and so did he contrast in appearance the narrow garb and shaven chins of those around, that the duke was roused from his reverie at the sight, and marvelling why one, evidently a chief of high rank, had neither graced the banquet in his honour, nor been presented to his notice, he turned to the earl of hereford, who approached him with gay salutation, and inquired the name and title of the bearded man in the loose flowing robe. "know you not, in truth?" said the lively earl, in some wonder. "in him you see the great rival of godwin. he is the hero of the danes, as godwin is of the saxons, a true son of odin, siward, earl of the northumbrians." [ ] "norse dame be my aid,--his fame hath oft filled my ears, and i should have lost the most welcome sight in merrie england had i not now beheld him." therewith, the duke approached courteously, and, doffing the cap he had hitherto retained, he greeted the old hero with those compliments which the norman had already learned in the courts of the frank. the stout earl received them coldly, and replying in danish to william's romance-tongue, he said: "pardon, count of the normans, if these old lips cling to their old words. both of us, methinks, date our lineage from the lands of the norse. suffer siward to speak the language the sea-kings spoke. the old oak is not to be transplanted, and the old man keeps the ground where his youth took root." the duke, who with some difficulty comprehended the general meaning of siward's speech, bit his lip, but replied courteously: "the youths of all nations may learn from renowned age. much doth it shame me that i cannot commune with thee in the ancestral tongue; but the angels at least know the language of the norman christian, and i pray them and the saints for a calm end to thy brave career." "pray not to angel or saint for siward son of beorn," said the old man hastily; "let me not have a cow's death, but a warrior's; die in my mail of proof, axe in hand, and helm on head. and such may be my death, if edward the king reads my rede and grants my prayer." "i have influence with the king," said william; "name thy wish, that i may back it." "the fiend forfend," said the grim earl, "that a foreign prince should sway england's king, or that thegn and earl should ask other backing than leal service and just cause. if edward be the saint men call him, he will loose me on the hell-wolf, without other cry than his own conscience." the duke turned inquiringly to rolf; who, thus appealed to, said: "siward urges my uncle to espouse the cause of malcolm of cumbria against the bloody tyrant macbeth; and but for the disputes with the traitor godwin, the king had long since turned his arms to scotland." "call not traitors, young man," said the earl, in high disdain, "those who, with all their faults and crimes, have placed thy kinsman on the throne of canute." "hush, rolf," said the duke, observing the fierce young norman about to reply hastily. "but methought, though my knowledge of english troubles is but scant, that siward was the sworn foe to godwin?" "foe to him in his power, friend to him in his wrongs," answered siward. "and if england needs defenders when i and godwin are in our shrouds, there is but one man worthy of the days of old, and his name is harold, the outlaw." william's face changed remarkably, despite all his dissimulation; and, with a slight inclination of his head, he strode on moody and irritated. "this harold! this harold!" he muttered to himself, "all brave men speak to me of this harold! even my norman knights name him with reluctant reverence, and even his foes do him honour;--verily his shadow is cast from exile over all the land." thus murmuring, he passed the throng with less than his wonted affable grace, and pushing back the officers who wished to precede him, entered, without ceremony, edward's private chamber. the king was alone, but talking loudly to himself, gesticulating vehemently, and altogether so changed from his ordinary placid apathy of mien, that william drew back in alarm and awe. often had he heard indirectly, that of late years edward was said to see visions, and be rapt from himself into the world of spirit and shadow; and such, he now doubted not, was the strange paroxysm of which he was made the witness. edward's eyes were fixed on him, but evidently without recognising his presence; the king's hands were outstretched, and he cried aloud in a voice of sharp anguish: "sanguelac, sanguelac!--the lake of blood!--the waves spread, the waves redden! mother of mercy--where is the ark?--where the ararat?-- fly--fly--this way--this--" and he caught convulsive hold of william's arm. "no! there the corpses are piled--high and higher--there the horse of the apocalypse tramples the dead in their gore." in great horror, william took the king, now gasping on his breast, in his arms, and laid him on his bed, beneath its canopy of state, all blazoned with the martlets and cross of his insignia. slowly edward came to himself, with heavy sighs; and when at length he sate up and looked round, it was with evident unconsciousness of what had passed across his haggard and wandering spirit, for he said, with his usual drowsy calmness: "thanks, guillaume, bien aime, for rousing me from unseasoned sleep. how fares it with thee?" "nay, how with thee, dear friend and king? thy dreams have been troubled." "not so; i slept so heavily, methinks i could not have dreamed at all. but thou art clad as for a journey--spur on thy heel, staff in thy hand!" "long since, o dear host, i sent odo to tell thee of the ill news from normandy that compelled me to depart." "i remember--i remember me now," said edward, passing his pale womanly fingers over his forehead. "the heathen rage against thee. ah! my poor brother, a crown is an awful head-gear. while yet time, why not both seek some quiet convent, and put away these earthly cares?" william smiled and shook his head. "nay, holy edward, from all i have seen of convents, it is a dream to think that the monk's serge hides a calmer breast than the warrior's mail, or the king's ermine. now give me thy benison, for i go." he knelt as he spoke, and edward bent his hands over his head, and blessed him. then, taking from his own neck a collar of zimmes (jewels and uncut gems), of great price, the king threw it over the broad throat bent before him, and rising, clapped his hands. a small door opened, giving a glimpse of the oratory within, and a monk appeared. "father, have my behests been fulfilled?--hath hugoline, my treasurer, dispensed the gifts that i spoke of?" "verily yes; vault, coffer, and garde-robe--stall and meuse.-are well nigh drained," answered the monk, with a sour look at the norman, whose native avarice gleamed in his dark eyes as he heard the answer. "thy train go not hence empty-handed," said edward fondly. "thy father's halls sheltered the exile, and the exile forgets not the sole pleasure of a king--the power to requite. we may never meet again, william,--age creeps over me, and who will succeed to my thorny throne?" william longed to answer,--to tell the hope that consumed him,--to remind his cousin of the vague promise in their youth, that the norman count should succeed to that "thorny throne:" but the presence of the saxon monk repelled him, nor was there in edward's uneasy look much to allure him on. "but peace," continued the king, "be between thine and mine, as between thee and me!" "amen," said the duke, "and i leave thee at least free from the proud rebels who so long disturbed thy reign. this house of godwin, thou wilt not again let it tower above thy palace?" "nay, the future is with god and his saints;" answered edward, feebly. "but godwin is old--older than i, and bowed by many storms." "ay, his sons are more to be dreaded and kept aloof--mostly harold!" "harold,--he was ever obedient, he alone of his kith; truly my soul mourns for harold," said the king, sighing. "the serpent's egg hatches but the serpent. keep thy heel on it," said william, sternly. "thou speakest well," said the irresolute prince, who never seemed three days or three minutes together in the same mind. "harold is in ireland--there let him rest: better for all." "for all," said the duke; "so the saints keep thee, o royal saint!" he kissed the king's hand, and strode away to the hall where odo, fitzosborne, and the priest lanfranc awaited him. and so that day, halfway towards the fair town of dover, rode duke william, and by the side of his roan barb ambled the priest's palfrey. behind came his gallant train, and with tumbrils and sumpter-mules laden with baggage, and enriched by edward's gifts; while welch hawks, and steeds of great price from the pastures of surrey and the plains of cambridge and york, attested no less acceptably than zimme, and golden chain, and embroidered robe, the munificence of the grateful king. [ ] as they journeyed on, and the fame of the duke's coming was sent abroad by the bodes or messengers, despatched to prepare the towns through which he was to pass for an arrival sooner than expected, the more highborn youths of england, especially those of the party counter to that of the banished godwin, came round the ways to gaze upon that famous chief, who, from the age of fifteen, had wielded the most redoubtable sword of christendom. and those youths wore the norman garb: and in the towns, norman counts held his stirrup to dismount, and norman hosts spread the fastidious board; and when, at the eve of the next day, william saw the pennon of one of his own favourite chiefs waving in the van of armed men, that sallied forth from the towers of dover (the key of the coast) he turned to the lombard, still by his side, and said: "is not england part of normandy already?" and the lombard answered: "the fruit is well nigh ripe, and the first breeze will shake it to thy feet. put not out thy hand too soon. let the wind do its work." and the duke made reply: "as thou thinkest, so think i. and there is but one wind in the halls of heaven that can waft the fruit to the feet of another." "and that?" asked the lombard. "is the wind that blows from the shores of ireland, when it fills the sails of harold, son of godwin." "thou fearest that man, and why?" asked the lombard with interest. and the duke answered: "because in the breast of harold beats the heart of england." this ebook was produced by tapio riikonen and david widger book xii. the battle of hastings chapter i. in the heart of the forest land in which hilda's abode was situated, a gloomy pool reflected upon its stagnant waters the still shadows of the autumnal foliage. as is common in ancient forests in the neighbourhood of men's wants, the trees were dwarfed in height by repeated loppings, and the boughs sprang from the hollow, gnarled boles of pollard oaks and beeches; the trunks, vast in girth, and covered with mosses and whitening canker-stains, or wreaths of ivy, spoke of the most remote antiquity: but the boughs which their lingering and mutilated life put forth, were either thin and feeble with innumerable branchlets, or were centred on some solitary distorted limb which the woodman's axe had spared. the trees thus assumed all manner of crooked, deformed, fantastic shapes--all betokening age, and all decay--all, in despite of the noiseless solitude around, proclaiming the waste and ravages of man. the time was that of the first watches of night, when the autumnal moon was brightest and broadest. you might see, on the opposite side of the pool, the antlers of the deer every now and then, moving restlessly above the fern in which they had made their couch; and, through the nearer glades, the hares and conies stealing forth to sport or to feed; or the bat wheeling low, in chase of the forest moth. from the thickest part of the copse came a slow human foot, and hilda, emerging, paused by the waters of the pool. that serene and stony calm habitual to her features was gone; sorrow and passion had seized the soul of the vala, in the midst of its fancied security from the troubles it presumed to foresee for others. the lines of the face were deep and care-worn--age had come on with rapid strides--and the light of the eye was vague and unsettled, as if the lofty reason shook, terrified in its pride, at last. "alone, alone!" she murmured, half aloud: "yea, evermore alone! and the grandchild i had reared to be the mother of kings--whose fate, from the cradle, seemed linked with royalty and love--in whom, watching and hoping for, in whom, loving and heeding, methought i lived again the sweet human life--hath gone from my hearth--forsaken, broken-hearted--withering down to the grave under the shade of the barren cloister! is mine heart, then, all a lie? are the gods who led odin from the scythian east but the juggling fiends whom the craven christian abhors? lo! the wine month has come; a few nights more, and the sun which all prophecy foretold should go down on the union of the icing and the maid, shall bring round the appointed day: yet aldyth still lives, and edith still withers; and war stands side by side with the church, between the betrothed and the altar. verily, verily, my spirit hath lost its power, and leaves me bowed, in the awe of night, a feeble, aged, hopeless, childless woman!" tears of human weakness rolled down the vala's cheeks. at that moment, a laugh came from a thing that had seemed like the fallen trunk of a tree, or a trough in which the herdsman waters his cattle, so still, and shapeless, and undefined it had lain amongst the rank weeds and night-shade and trailing creepers on the marge of the pool, the laugh was low yet fearful to hear. slowly, the thing moved, and rose, and took the outline of a human form; and the prophetess beheld the witch whose sleep she had disturbed by the saxon's grave. "where is the banner?" said the witch, laying her hand on hilda's arm, and looking into her face with bleared and rheumy eyes, "where is the banner thy handmaids were weaving for harold the earl? why didst thou lay aside that labour of love for harold the king? hie thee home, and bid thy maidens ply all night at the work; make it potent with rune and with spell, and with gums of the seid. take the banner to harold the king as a marriage-gift; for the day of his birth shall be still the day of his nuptials with edith the fair!" hilda gazed on the hideous form before her; and so had her soul fallen from its arrogant pride of place, that instead of the scorn with which so foul a pretender to the great art had before inspired the king-born prophetess, her veins tingled with credulous awe. "art thou a mortal like myself," she said after a pause, "or one of those beings often seen by the shepherd in mist and rain, driving before them their shadowy flocks? one of those of whom no man knoweth whether they are of earth or of helheim? whether they have ever known the lot and conditions of flesh, or are but some dismal race between body and spirit, hateful alike to gods and to men?" the dreadful hag shook her head, as if refusing to answer the question, and said: "sit we down, sit we down by the dead dull pool, and if thou wouldst be wise as i am, wake up all thy wrongs, fill thyself with hate, and let thy thoughts be curses. nothing is strong on earth but the will; and hate to the will is as the iron in the hands of the war-man." "ha!" answered hilda, "then thou art indeed one of the loathsome brood whose magic is born, not of the aspiring soul, but the fiendlike heart. and between us there is no union. i am of the race of those whom priests and kings reverenced and honoured as the oracles of heaven; and rather let my lore be dimmed and weakened, in admitting the humanities of hope and love, than be lightened by the glare of the wrath that lok and rana bear the children of men." "what, art thou so base and so doting," said the hag, with fierce contempt, "as to know that another has supplanted thine edith, that all the schemes of thy life are undone, and yet feel no hate for the man who hath wronged her and thee?--the man who had never been king if thou hadst not breathed into him the ambition of rule? think, and curse!" "my curse would wither the heart that is entwined within his," answered hilda; "and," she added abruptly, as if eager to escape from her own impulses, "didst thou not tell me, even now, that the wrong would be redressed, and his betrothed yet be his bride on the appointed day?" "ha! home, then!--home! and weave the charmed woof of the banner, broider it with zimmes and with gold worthy the standard of a king; for i tell thee, that where that banner is planted, shall edith clasp with bridal arms her adored. and the hwata thou hast read by the bautastein, and in the temple of the briton's revengeful gods, shall be fulfilled." "dark daughter of hela," said the prophetess, "whether demon or god hath inspired thee, i hear in my spirit a voice that tells me thou hast pierced to a truth that my lore could not reach. thou art houseless and poor; i will give wealth to thine age if thou wilt stand with me by the altar of thor, and let thy galdra unriddle the secrets that have baffled mine own. all foreshown to me hath ever come to pass, but in a sense other than that in which my soul read the rune and the dream, the leaf and the fount, the star and the scin-laeca. my husband slain in his youth; my daughter maddened with woe; her lord murdered on his hearthstone; sweyn, whom i loved as my child,"--the vala paused, contending against her own emotions,--"i loved them all," she faltered, clasping her hands, "for them i tasked the future. the future promised fair; i lured them to their doom, and when the doom came, lo! the promise was kept! but how?--and now, edith, the last of my race; harold, the pride of my pride!--speak, thing of horror and night, canst thou disentangle the web in which my soul struggles, weak as the fly in the spider's mesh?" "on the third night from this, will i stand with thee by the altar of thor, and unriddle the rede of my masters, unknown and unguessed, whom thou hadst duteously served. and ere the sun rise, the greatest mystery earth knows shall be bare to thy soul!" as the witch spoke, a cloud passed over the moon; and before the light broke forth again, the hag had vanished. there was only seen in the dull pool, the water-rat swimming through the rank sedges; only in the forest, the grey wings of the owl, fluttering heavily across the glades; only in the grass, the red eyes of the bloated toad. then hilda went slowly home, and the maids worked all night at the charmed banner. all that night, too, the watch-dogs howled in the yard, through the ruined peristyle--howled in rage and in fear. and under the lattice of the room in which the maids broidered the banner, and the prophetess muttered her charm, there couched, muttering also, a dark, shapeless thing, at which those dogs howled in rage and in fear. chapter ii. all within the palace of westminster showed the confusion and dismay of the awful time;--all, at least, save the council-chamber, in which harold, who had arrived the night before, conferred with his thegns. it was evening: the courtyards and the halls were filled with armed men, and almost with every hour came rider and bode from the sussex shores. in the corridors the churchmen grouped and whispered, as they had whispered and grouped in the day of king edward's death. stigand passed among them, pale and thoughtful. the serge gowns came rustling round the archprelate for counsel or courage. "shall we go forth with the king's army?" asked a young monk, bolder than the rest, "to animate the host with prayer and hymn?" "fool!" said the miserly prelate, "fool! if we do so, and the norman conquer, what become of our abbacies and convent lands? the duke wars against harold, not england. if he slay harold----" "what then?" "the atheling is left us yet. stay we here and guard the last prince of the house of cerdic," whispered stigand, and he swept on. in the chamber in which edward had breathed his last, his widowed queen, with aldyth, her successor, and githa and some other ladies, waited the decision of the council. by one of the windows stood, clasping each other by the hand, the fair young bride of gurth and the betrothed of the gay leofwine. githa sate alone, bowing her face over her hands--desolate; mourning for the fate of her traitor son; and the wounds, that the recent and holier death of thyra had inflicted, bled afresh. and the holy lady of edward attempted in vain, by pious adjurations, to comfort aldyth, who, scarcely heeding her, started ever and anon with impatient terror, muttering to herself, "shall i lose this crown too?" in the council-hall debate waxed warm,--which was the wiser, to meet william at once in the battle-field, or to delay till all the forces harold might expect (and which he had ordered to be levied, in his rapid march from york) could swell his host? "if we retire before the enemy," said gurth, "leaving him in a strange land, winter approaching, his forage will fail. he will scarce dare to march upon london: if he does, we shall be better prepared to encounter him. my voice is against resting all on a single battle." "is that thy choice?" said vebba, indignantly. "not so, i am sure, would have chosen thy father; not so think the saxons of kent. the norman is laying waste all the lands of thy subjects, lord harold; living on plunder, as a robber, in the realm of king alfred. dost thou think that men will get better heart to fight for their country by hearing that their king shrinks from the danger?" "thou speakest well and wisely," said haco; and all eyes turned to the young son of sweyn, as to one who best knew the character of the hostile army and the skill of its chief. "we have now with us a force flushed with conquest over a foe hitherto deemed invincible. men who have conquered the norwegian will not shrink from the norman. victory depends upon ardour more than numbers. every hour of delay damps the ardour. are we sure that it will swell the numbers? what i dread most is not the sword of the norman duke, it is his craft. rely upon it, that if we meet him not soon, he will march straight to london. he will proclaim by the way that he comes not to seize the throne, but to punish harold, and abide by the witan, or, perchance, by the word of the roman pontiff. the terror of his armament, unresisted, will spread like a panic through the land. many will be decoyed by his false pretexts, many awed by a force that the king dare not meet. if he come in sight of the city, think you that merchants and cheapmen will not be daunted by the thought of pillage and sack? they will be the first to capitulate at the first house which is fired. the city is weak to guard against siege; its walls long neglected; and in sieges the normans are famous. are we so united (the king's rule thus fresh) but what no cabals, no dissensions will break out amongst ourselves? if the duke come, as come he will, in the name of the church, may not the churchmen set up some new pretender to the crown-- perchance the child edgar? and, divided against ourselves, how ingloriously should we fall! besides, this land, though never before have the links between province and province been drawn so close, hath yet demarcations that make the people selfish. the northumbrians, i fear, will not stir to aid london, and mercia will hold aloof from our peril. grant that william once seize london, all england is broken up and dispirited; each shire, nay, each town, looking only to itself. talk of delay as wearing out the strength of the foe! no, it would wear out our own. little eno', i fear, is yet left in our treasury. if william seize london, that treasury is his, with all the wealth of our burgesses. how should we maintain an army, except by preying on the people, and thus discontenting them? where guard that army? where are our forts? where our mountains? the war of delay suits only a land of rock and defile, or of castle and breast-work. thegns and warriors, ye have no castles but your breasts of mail. abandon these, and you are lost." a general murmur of applause closed this speech of haco, which, while wise in arguments our historians have overlooked, came home to that noblest reason of brave men, which urges prompt resistance to foul invasion. up, then, rose king harold. "i thank you, fellow-englishmen, for that applause with which ye have greeted mine own thoughts on the lips of haco. shall it be said that your king rushed to chase his own brother from the soil of outraged england, yet shrunk from the sword of the norman stranger? well indeed might my brave subjects desert my banner if it floated idly over these palace walls while the armed invader pitched his camp in the heart of england. by delay, william's force, whatever it might be, cannot grow less; his cause grows more strong in our craven fears. what his armament may be we rightly know not; the report varies with every messenger, swelling and lessening with the rumours of every hour. have we not around us now our most stalwart veterans--the flower of our armies--the most eager spirits--the vanquishers of hardrada? thou sayest, gurth, that all should not be perilled on a single battle. true. harold should be perilled, but wherefore england? grant that we win the day; the quicker our despatch, the greater our fame, the more lasting that peace at home and abroad which rests ever its best foundation on the sense of the power which wrong cannot provoke unchastised. grant that we lose; a loss can be made gain by a king's brave death. why should not our example rouse and unite all who survive us? which the nobler example--the one best fitted to protect our country--the recreant backs of living chiefs, or the glorious dead with their fronts to the foe? come what may, life or death, at least we will thin the norman numbers, and heap the barriers of our corpses on the norman march. at least, we can show to the rest of england how men should defend their native land! and if, as i believe and pray, in every english breast beats a heart like harold's, what matters though a king should fall?--freedom is immortal." he spoke; and forth from his baldric he drew his sword. every blade, at that signal, leapt from the sheath: and, in that council-hall at least, in every breast beat the heart of harold. chapter iii. the chiefs dispersed to array their troops for the morrow's march; but harold and his kinsmen entered the chamber where the women waited the decision of the council, for that, in truth, was to them the parting interview. the king had resolved, after completing all his martial preparations, to pass the night in the abbey of waltham; and his brothers lodged, with the troops they commanded, in the city or its suburbs. haco alone remained with that portion of the army quartered in and around the palace. they entered the chamber, and in a moment each heart had sought its mate; in the mixed assembly each only conscious of the other. there, gurth bowed his noble head over the weeping face of the young bride that for the last time nestled to his bosom. there, with a smiling lip, but tremulous voice, the gay leofwine soothed and chided in a breath the maiden he had wooed as the partner for a life that his mirthful spirit made one holiday; snatching kisses from a cheek no longer coy. but cold was the kiss which harold pressed on the brow of aldyth; and with something of disdain, and of bitter remembrance of a nobler love, he comforted a terror which sprang from the thought of self. "oh, harold!" sobbed aldyth, "be not rashly brave: guard thy life for my sake. without thee, what am i? is it even safe for me to rest here? were it not better to fly to york, or seek refuge with malcolm the scot?" "within three days at the farthest," answered harold, "thy brothers will be in london. abide by their counsel; act as they advise at the news of my victory or my fall." he paused abruptly, for he heard close beside him the broken voice of gurth's bride, in answer to her lord. "think not of me, beloved; thy whole heart now be england's. and if--if"--her voice failed a moment, but resumed proudly, "why even then thy wife is safe, for she survives not her lord and her land!" the king left his wife's side, and kissed his brother's bride. "noble heart!" he said; "with women like thee for our wives and mothers, england could survive the slaughter of thousand kings." he turned, and knelt to githa. she threw her arms over his broad breast, and wept bitterly. "say--say, harold, that i have not reproached thee for tostig's death. i have obeyed the last commands of godwin my lord. i have deemed thee ever right and just; now let me not lose thee, too. they go with thee, all my surviving sons, save the exile wolnoth,--him whom now i shall never behold again. oh, harold!--let not mine old age be childless!" "mother,--dear, dear mother, with these arms round my neck i take new life and new heart. no! never hast thou reproached me for my brother's death--never for aught which man's first duty enjoined. murmur not that that duty commands us still. we are the sons, through thee, of royal heroes; through my father, of saxon freemen. rejoice that thou hast three sons left, whose arms thou mayest pray god and his saints to prosper, and over whose graves, if they fall, thou shalt shed no tears of shame!" then the widow of king edward, who (the crucifix clasped in her hands) had listened to harold with lips apart and marble cheeks, could keep down no longer her human woman's heart; she rushed to harold as he still knelt to githa--knelt by his side, and clasped him in her arms with despairing fondness: "o brother, brother, whom i have so dearly loved when all other love seemed forbidden me;--when he who gave me a throne refused me his heart; when, looking at thy fair promise, listening to thy tender comfort,--when, remembering the days of old, in which thou wert my docile pupil, and we dreamed bright dreams together of happiness and fame to come,--when, loving thee methought too well, too much as weak mothers may love a mortal son, i prayed god to detach my heart from earth!--oh, harold! now forgive me all my coldness. i shudder at thy resolve. i dread that thou should meet this man, whom an oath hath bound thee to obey. nay, frown not--i bow to thy will, my brother and my king. i know that thou hast chosen as thy conscience sanctions, as thy duty ordains. but come back--oh, come back--thou who, like me," (her voice whispered,) "hast sacrificed the household hearth to thy country's altars,--and i will never pray to heaven to love thee less-- my brother, o my brother!" in all the room were then heard but the low sounds of sobs and broken exclamations. all clustered to one spot-leofwine and his betrothed-- gurth and his bride--even the selfish aldyth, ennobled by the contagion of the sublime emotion,--all clustered round githa the mother of the three guardians of the fated land, and all knelt before her, by the side of harold. suddenly, the widowed queen, the virgin wife of the last heir of cerdic, rose, and holding on high the sacred rood over those bended heads, said, with devout passion: "o lord of hosts--we children of doubt and time, trembling in the dark, dare not take to ourselves to question thine unerring will. sorrow and death, as joy and life, are at the breath of a mercy divine, and a wisdom all-seeing: and out of the hours of evil thou drawest, in mystic circle, the eternity of good. 'thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.' if, o disposer of events, our human prayers are not adverse to thy pre-judged decrees, protect these lives, the bulwarks of our homes and altars, sons whom the land offers as a sacrifice. may thine angel turn aside the blade--as of old from the heart of isaac! but if, o ruler of nations, in whose sight the ages are as moments, and generations but as sands in the sea, these lives are doomed, may the death expiate their sins, and, shrived on the battle-field, absolve and receive the souls!" chapter iv. by the altar of the abbey church of waltham, that night, knelt edith in prayer for harold. she had taken up her abode in a small convent of nuns that adjoined the more famous monastery of waltham; but she had promised hilda not to enter on the novitiate, until the birthday of harold had passed. she herself had no longer faith in the omens and prophecies that had deceived her youth and darkened her life; and, in the more congenial air of our holy church, the spirit, ever so chastened, grew calm and resigned. but the tidings of the norman's coming, and the king's victorious return to his capital, had reached even that still retreat; and love, which had blent itself with religion, led her steps to that lonely altar. and suddenly, as she there knelt, only lighted by the moon through the high casements, she was startled by the sound of approaching feet and murmuring voices. she rose in alarm--the door of the church was thrown open--torches advanced--and amongst the monks, between osgood and ailred, came the king. he had come, that last night before his march, to invoke the prayers of that pious brotherhood; and by the altar he had founded, to pray, himself, that his one sin of faith forfeited and oath abjured, might not palsy his arm and weigh on his soul in the hour of his country's need. edith stifled the cry that rose to her lips, as the torches fell on the pale and hushed and melancholy face of harold; and she crept away under the arch of the vast saxon columns, and into the shade of abutting walls. the monks and the king, intent on their holy office, beheld not that solitary and shrinking form. they approached the altar; and there the king knelt down lowlily, and none heard the prayer. but as osgood held the sacred rood over the bended head of the royal suppliant, the image on the crucifix (which had been a gift from alred the prelate, and was supposed to have belonged of old to augustine, the first founder of the saxon church--so that, by the superstition of the age, it was invested with miraculous virtues) bowed itself visibly. visibly, the pale and ghastly image of the suffering god bowed over the head of the kneeling man; whether the fastenings of the rood were loosened, or from what cause soever,--in the eyes of all the brotherhood, the image bowed. [ ] a thrill of terror froze every heart, save edith's, too remote to perceive the portent, and save the king's, whom the omen seemed to doom, for his face was buried in his clasped hands. heavy was his heart, nor needed it other warnings than its own gloom. long and silently prayed the king; and when at last he rose, and the monks, though with altered and tremulous voices, began their closing hymn, edith passed noislessly along the wall, and, stealing through one of the smaller doors which communicated to the nunnery annexed, gained the solitude of her own chamber. there she stood, benumbed with the strength of her emotions at the sight of harold thus abruptly presented. how had the fond human heart leapt to meet him! twice, thus, in the august ceremonials of religion, secret, shrinking, unwitnessed, had she, his betrothed, she, the partner of his soul, stood aloof to behold him. she had seen him in the hour of his pomp, the crown upon his brow,--seen him in the hour of his peril and agony, that anointed head bowed to the earth. and in the pomp that she could not share, she had exulted; but, oh, now--now,--oh now that she could have knelt beside that humbled form, and prayed with that voiceless prayer! the torches flashed in the court below; the church was again deserted; the monks passed in mute procession back to their cloister; but a single man paused, turned aside, and stopped at the gate of the humbler convent: a knocking was heard at the great oaken door, and the watch-dog barked. edith started, pressed her hand on her heart and trembled. steps approached her door--and the abbess, entering, summoned her below, to hear the farewell greeting of her cousin the king. harold stood in the simple hall of the cloister: a single taper, tall and wan, burned on the oak board. the abbess led edith by the hand, and at a sign from the king, withdrew. so, once more upon earth, the betrothed and divided were alone. "edith," said the king, in a voice in which no ear but hers could have detected the struggle, "do not think i have come to disturb thy holy calm, or sinfully revive the memories of the irrevocable past: where once on my breast, in the old fashion of our fathers, i wrote thy name, is written now the name of the mistress that supplants thee. into eternity melts the past; but i could not depart to a field from which there is no retreat--in which, against odds that men say are fearful, i have resolved to set my crown and my life--without once more beholding thee, pure guardian of my happier days! thy forgiveness for all the sorrow that, in the darkness which surrounds man's hopes and dreams, i have brought on thee (dread return for love so enduring, so generous and divine!)--thy forgiveness i will not ask. thou alone perhaps on earth knowest the soul of harold; and if he hath wronged thee, thou seest alike in the wronger and the wronged, but the children of iron duty, the servants of imperial heaven. not thy forgivenness i ask--but--but--edith, holy maid! angel soul!--thy--thy blessing!" his voice faltered, and he inclined his lofty head as to a saint. "oh that i had the power to bless!" exclaimed edith, mastering her rush of tears with a heroic effort; "and methinks i have the power-- not from virtues of my own, but from all that i owe to thee! the grateful have the power to bless. for what do i not owe to thee--owe to that very love of which even the grief is sacred? poor child in the house of the heathen, thy love descended upon me, and in it, the smile of god! in that love my spirit awoke, and was baptised: every thought that has risen from earth, and lost itself in heaven, was breathed into my heart by thee! thy creature and thy slave, hadst thou tempted me to sin, sin had seemed hallowed by thy voice; but thou saidst 'true love is virtue,' and so i worshipped virtue in loving thee. strengthened, purified, by thy bright companionship, from thee came the strength to resign thee--from thee the refuge under the wings of god--from thee the firm assurance that our union yet shall be--not as our poor hilda dreams, on the perishable earth,--but there! oh, there! yonder by the celestial altars, in the land in which all spirits are filled with love. yes, soul of harold! there are might and holiness in the blessing the soul thou hast redeemed and reared sheds on thee!" and so beautiful, so unlike the beautiful of the common earth, looked the maid as she thus spoke, and laid hands, trembling with no human passion, on that royal head-that could a soul from paradise be made visible, such might be the shape it would wear to a mortal's eye! thus, for some moments both were silent; and in the silence the gloom vanished from the heart of harold, and, through a deep and sublime serenity, it rose undaunted to front the future. no embrace--no farewell kiss--profaned the parting of those pure and noble spirits--parting on the threshold of the grave. it was only the spirit that clasped the spirit, looking forth from the clay into measureless eternity. not till the air of night came once more on his brow, and the moonlight rested on the roofs and fanes of the land entrusted to his charge, was the man once more the human hero; not till she was alone in her desolate chamber, and the terrors of the coming battle-field chased the angel from her thoughts was the maid inspired, once more the weeping woman. a little after sunrise the abbess, who was distantly akin to the house of godwin, sought edith, so agitated by her own fear, that she did not remark the trouble of her visitor. the supposed miracle of the sacred image bowing over the kneeling king, had spread dismay through the cloisters of both nunnery and abbey; and so intense was the disquietude of the two brothers, osgood and ailred, in the simple and grateful affection they bore their royal benefactor, that they had obeyed the impulse of their tender credulous hearts, and left the monastery with the dawn, intending to follow the king's march [ ], and watch and pray near the awful battle-field. edith listened, and made no reply; the terrors of the abbess infected her; the example of the two monks woke the sole thought which stirred through the nightmare dream that suspended reason itself; and when, at noon the abbess again sought the chamber, edith was gone;--gone, and alone-- none knew wherefore--one guessed whither. all the pomp of the english army burst upon harold's view, as, in the rising sun, he approached the bridge of the capital. over that bridge came the stately march,--battle-axe, and spear, and banner, glittering in the ray. and as he drew aside, and the forces filed before him, the cry of; "god save king harold!" rose with loud acclaim and lusty joy, borne over the waves of the river, startling the echoes in the ruined keape of the roman, heard in the halls restored by canute, and chiming, like a chorus, with the chaunts of the monks by the tomb of sebba in st. paul's--by the tomb of edward at st. peter's. with a brightened face, and a kindling eye, the king saluted his lines, and then fell into the ranks towards the rear, where among the burghers of london and the lithsmen of middlesex, the immemorial custom of saxon monarchs placed the kingly banner. and, looking up, he beheld, not his old standard with the tiger heads and the cross, but a banner both strange and gorgeous. on a field of gold was the effigies of a fighting warrior; and the arms were bedecked in orient pearls, and the borders blazed in the rising sun, with ruby, amethyst, and emerald. while he gazed, wondering, on this dazzling ensign, haco, who rode beside the standard-bearer, advanced, and gave him a letter. "last night," said he, "after thou hadst left the palace, many recruits, chiefly from hertfordshire and essex, came in; but the most gallant and stalwart of all, in arms and in stature, were the lithsmen of hilda. with them came this banner, on which she has lavished the gems that have passed to her hand through long lines of northern ancestors, from odin, the founder of all northern thrones. so, at least, said the bode of our kinswoman." harold had already cut the silk round the letter, and was reading its contents. they ran thus:-- "king of england, i forgive thee the broken heart of my grandchild. they whom the land feeds, should defend the land. i send to thee, in tribute the best fruits that grow in the field, and the forest, round the house which my husband took from the bounty of canute;--stout hearts and strong hands! descending alike, as do hilda and harold (through githa thy mother,) from the warrior god of the north, whose race never shall fail--take, o defender of the saxon children of odin, the banner i have broidered with the gems that the chief of the asas bore from the east. firm as love be thy foot, strong as death be thy hand, under the shade which the banner of hilda,--under the gleam which the jewels of odin,--cast on the brows of the king! so hilda, the daughter of monarchs, greets harold the leader of men." harold looked up from the letter, and haco resumed: "thou canst guess not the cheering effect which this banner, supposed to be charmed, and which the name of odin alone would suffice to make holy, at least with thy fierce anglo-danes, hath already produced through the army." "it is well, haco," said harold with a smile. "let priest add his blessing to hilda's charm, and heaven will pardon any magic that makes more brave the hearts that defend its altars. now fall we back, for the army must pass beside the hill with the crommell and gravestone; there, be sure, hilda will be at watch for our march, and we will linger a few moments to thank her somewhat for her banner, yet more justly, methinks, for her men. are not yon stout fellows all in mail, so tall and so orderly, in advance of the london burghers, hilda's aid to our fyrd?" "they are," answered haco. the king backed his steed to accost them with his kingly greeting; and then, with haco, falling yet farther to the rear seemed engaged in inspecting the numerous wains, bearing missiles and forage, that always accompanied the march of a saxon army, and served to strengthen its encampment. but when they came in sight of the hillock by which the great body of the army had preceded them, the king and the son of sweyn dismounted and on foot entered the large circle of the celtic ruin. by the side of the teuton altar they beheld two forms, both perfectly motionless: but one was extended on the ground as in sleep or in death; the other sate beside it, as if watching the corpse, or guarding the slumber. the face of the last was not visible, propped upon the arms which rested on the knees, and bidden by the hands. but in the face of the other, as the two men drew near, they recognised the danish prophetess. death in its dreadest characters was written on that ghastly face; woe and terror, beyond all words to describe, spoke in the haggard brow, the distorted lips, and the wild glazed stare of the open eyes. at the startled cry of the intruders on that dreary silence, the living form moved; and though still leaning its face on its hands, it raised its head; and never countenance of northern vampire, cowering by the rifled grave, was more fiendlike and appalling. "who and what art thou?" said the king; "and how, thus unhonored in the air of heaven, lies the corpse of the noble hilda? is this the hand of nature? haco, haco, so look the eyes, so set the features, of those whom the horror of ruthless murder slays even before the steel strikes. speak, hag, art thou dumb?" "search the body," answered the witch, "there is no wound! look to the throat,--no mark of the deadly gripe! i have seen such in my day.--there are none on this corpse, i trow; yet thou sayest rightly, horror slew her! ha, ha! she would know, and she hath known; she would raise the dead and the demon; she hath raised them; she would read the riddle,--she hath read it. pale king and dark youth, would ye learn what hilda saw, eh? eh? ask her in the shadow-world where she awaits ye! ha! ye too would be wise in the future; ye too would climb to heaven through the mysteries of hell. worms! worms! crawl back to the clay--to the earth! one such night as the hag ye despise enjoys as her sport and her glee, would freeze your veins, and sear the life in your eyeballs, and leave your corpses to terror and wonder, like the carcase that lies at your feet!" "ho!" cried the king, stamping his foot. "hence, haco; rouse the household; summon hither the handmaids; call henchman and ceorl to guard this foul raven." haco obeyed; but when he returned with the shuddering and amazed attendants, the witch was gone, and the king was leaning against the altar with downcast eyes, and a face troubled and dark with thought. the body of the vala was borne into the house; and the king, waking from his reverie, bade them send for the priests and ordered masses for the parted soul. then kneeling, with pious hand he closed the eyes and smoothed the features, and left his mournful kiss on the icy brow. these offices fulfilled, he took haco's arm, and leaning on it, returned to the spot on which they had left their steeds. not evincing surprise or awe,--emotions that seemed unknown to his gloomy, settled, impassible nature--haco said calmly, as they descended the knoll: "what evil did the hag predict to thee?" "haco," answered the king, "yonder, by the shores of sussex, lies all the future which our eyes now should scan, and our hearts should be firm to meet. these omens and apparitions are but the ghosts of a dead religion; spectres sent from the grave of the fearful heathenesse; they may appal but to lure us from our duty. lo, as we gaze around--the ruins of all the creeds that have made the hearts of men quake with unsubstantial awe--lo, the temple of the briton!--lo, the fane of the roman!--lo, the mouldering altar of our ancestral thor! ages past lie wrecked around us in these shattered symbols. a new age hath risen, and a new creed. keep we to the broad truths before us; duty here; knowledge comes alone in the hereafter." "that hereafter!--is it not near?" murmured haco. they mounted in silence; and ere they regained the army paused, by a common impulse, and looked behind. awful in their desolation rose the temple and the altar! and in hilda's mysterious death it seemed that their last and lingering genius,--the genius of the dark and fierce, the warlike and the wizard north, had expired for ever. yet, on the outskirt of the forest, dusk and shapeless, that witch without a name stood in the shadow, pointing towards them, with outstretched arm, in vague and denouncing menace;--as if, come what may, all change of creed,--be the faith ever so simple, the truth ever so bright and clear,--there is a superstition native to that border-land between the visible and the unseen, which will find its priest and its votaries, till the full and crowning splendour of heaven shall melt every shadow from the world! chapter v. on the broad plain between pevensey and hastings, duke william had arrayed his armaments. in the rear he had built a castle of wood, all the framework of which he had brought with him, and which was to serve as a refuge in case of retreat. his ships he had run into deep water, and scuttled; so that the thought of return, without victory, might be banished from his miscellaneous and multitudinous force. his outposts stretched for miles, keeping watch night and day against surprise. the ground chosen was adapted for all the manoeuvres of a cavalry never before paralleled in england nor perhaps in the world,--almost every horseman a knight, almost every knight fit to be a chief. and on this space william reviewed his army, and there planned and schemed, rehearsed and re-formed, all the stratagems the great day might call forth. but more careful, and laborious, and minute, was he in the manoeuvre of a feigned retreat. not ere the acting of some modern play, does the anxious manager more elaborately marshal each man, each look, each gesture, that are to form a picture on which the curtain shall fall amidst deafening plaudits than did the laborious captain appoint each man, and each movement, in his lure to a valiant foe:--the attack of the foot, their recoil, their affected panic, their broken exclamations of despair;--their retreat, first partial and reluctant, next seemingly hurried and complete,--flying, but in flight carefully confused:--then the settled watchword, the lightning rally, the rush of the cavalry from the ambush; the sweep and hem round the pursuing foe, the detachment of levelled spears to cut off the saxon return to the main force, and the lost ground,--were all directed by the most consummate mastership in the stage play, or upokrisis, of war, and seized by the adroitness of practised veterans. not now, o harold! hast thou to contend against the rude heroes of the norse, with their ancestral strategy unimproved! the civilisation of battle meets thee now!--and all the craft of the roman guides the manhood of the north. it was in the midst of such lessons to his foot and his horsemen-- spears gleaming--pennons tossing--lines reforming--steeds backing, wheeling, flying, circling--that william's eye blazed, and his deep voice thundered the thrilling word; when mallet de graville, who was in command at one of the outposts, rode up to him at full speed, and said in gasps, as he drew breath: "king harold and his army are advancing furiously. their object is clearly to come on us unawares." "hold!" said the duke, lifting his hand; and the knights around him halted in their perfect discipline; then after a few brief but distinct orders to odo, fitzosborne, and some other of his leading chiefs, he headed a numerous cavalcade of his knights, and rode fast to the outpost which mallet had left,--to catch sight of the coming foe. the horsemen cleared the plain--passed through a wood, mournfully fading into autumnal hues--and, on emerging, they saw the gleam of the saxon spears rising on the brows of the gentle hills beyond. but even the time, short as it was, that had sufficed to bring william in view of the enemy, had sufficed also, under the orders of his generals, to give to the wide plain of his encampment all the order of a host prepared. and william, having now mounted on a rising ground, turned from the spears on the hill tops, to his own fast forming lines on the plain, and said with a stern smile: "methinks the saxon usurper, if he be among those on the height of yon hills, will vouchsafe us time to breathe! st. michael gives his crown to our hands, and his corpse to the crow, if he dare to descend." and so indeed, as the duke with a soldier's eye foresaw from a soldier's skill, so it proved. the spears rested on the summits. it soon became evident that the english general perceived that here there was no hardrada to surprise; that the news brought to his ear had exaggerated neither the numbers, nor the arms, nor the discipline of the norman; and that the battle was not to the bold but to the wary. "he doth right," said william, musingly; "nor think, o my quens, that we shall find a fool's hot brain under harold's helmet of iron. how is this broken ground of hillock and valley named in our chart? it is strange that we should have overlooked its strength, and suffered it thus to fall into the hands of the foe. how is it named? can any of ye remember?" "a saxon peasant," said de graville, "told me that the ground was called senlac [ ] or sanglac, or some such name, in their musicless jargon." "grammercy!" quoth grantmesnil, "methinks the name will be familiar eno' hereafter; no jargon seemeth the sound to my ear--a significant name and ominous,--sanglac, sanguelac--the lake of blood." "sanguelac!" said the duke, startled; "where have i heard that name before? it must have been between sleeping and waking.--sanguelac, sanguelac!--truly sayest thou, through a lake of blood we must wade indeed!" "yet," said de graville, "thine astrologer foretold that thou wouldst win the realm without a battle." "poor astrologer!" said william, "the ship he sailed in was lost. ass indeed is he who pretends to warn others, nor sees an inch before his eyes what his own fate will be! battle shall we have, but not yet. hark thee, guillaume, thou hast been guest with this usurper; thou hast seemed to me to have some love for him--a love natural since thou didst once fight by his side; wilt thou go from me to the saxon host with hugues maigrot, the monk, and back the message i shall send?" the proud and punctilious norman thrice crossed himself ere he answered: "there was a time, count william, when i should have deemed it honour to hold parle with harold the brave earl; but now, with the crown on his head, i hold it shame and disgrace to barter words with a knight unleal and a man foresworn." "nathless, thou shalt do me this favour," said william, "for" (and he took the knight somewhat aside) "i cannot disguise from thee that i look anxiously on the chance of battle. yon men are flushed with new triumph over the greatest warrior norway ever knew, they will fight on their own soil, and under a chief whom i have studied and read with more care than the comments of caesar, and in whom the guilt of perjury cannot blind me to the wit of a great general. if we can yet get our end without battle, large shall be my thanks to thee, and i will hold thine astrologer a man wise, though unhappy." "certes," said de graville gravely, "it were discourteous to the memory of the star-seer, not to make some effort to prove his science a just one. and the chaldeans----" "plague seize the chaldeans!" muttered the duke. "ride with me back to the camp, that i may give thee my message, and instruct also the monk." "de graville," resumed the duke, as they rode towards the lines, "my meaning is briefly this. i do not think that harold will accept my offer and resign his crown, but i design to spread dismay, and perhaps revolt amongst his captains; i wish that they may know that the church lays its curse on those who fight against my consecrated banner. i do not ask thee, therefore, to demean thy knighthood, by seeking to cajole the usurper; no, but rather boldly to denounce his perjury and startle his liegemen. perchance they may compel him to terms-- perchance they may desert his banner; at the worst they shall be daunted with full sense of the guilt of his cause." "ha, now i comprehend thee, noble count; and trust me i will speak as norman and knight should speak." meanwhile, harold seeing the utter hopelessness of all sudden assault, had seized a general's advantage of the ground he had gained. occupying the line of hills, he began forthwith to entrench himself behind deep ditches and artful palisades. it is impossible now to stand on that spot, without recognising the military skill with which the saxon had taken his post, and formed his precautions. he surrounded the main body of his troops with a perfect breastwork against the charge of the horse. stakes and strong hurdles interwoven with osier plaits, and protected by deep dykes, served at once to neutralise the effect of that arm in which william was most powerful, and in which harold almost entirely failed; while the possession of the ground must compel the foe to march, and to charge, up hill, against all the missiles which the saxons could pour down from their entrenchments. aiding, animating, cheering, directing all, while the dykes were fast hollowed, and the breastworks fast rose, the king of england rode his palfrey from line to line, and work to work, when, looking up, he saw haco leading towards him up the slopes, a monk, and a warrior whom, by the banderol on his spear and the cross on his shield, he knew to be one of the norman knighthood. at that moment gurth and leofwine, and those thegns who commanded counties, were thronging round their chief for instructions. the king dismounted, and beckoning them to follow, strode towards the spot on which had just been planted his royal standard. there halting, he said with a grave smile: "i perceive that the norman count hath sent us his bodes; it is meet that with me, you, the defenders of england, should hear what the norman saith." "if he saith aught but prayer for his men to return to rouen,-- needless his message, and short our answer," said vebba, the bluff thegn of kent. meanwhile the monk and the norman knight drew near and paused at some short distance, while haco, advancing, said briefly: "these men i found at our outposts; they demand to speak with the king." "under his standard the king will hear the norman invader," replied harold; "bid them speak." the same sallow, mournful, ominous countenance, which harold had before seen in the halls of westminster, rising deathlike above the serge garb of the benedict of caen, now presented itself, and the monk thus spoke: "in the name of william, duke of the normans in the field, count of rouen in the hall, claimant of all the realms of anglia, scotland, and the walloons, held under edward his cousin, i come to thee, harold his liege and earl." "change thy titles, or depart," said harold, fiercely, his brow no longer mild in its majesty, but dark as midnight. "what says william the count of the foreigners, to harold, king of the angles, and basileus of britain?" "protesting against thy assumption, i answer thee thus," said hugues maigrot. "first, again he offers thee all northumbria, up to the realm of the scottish sub-king, if thou wilt fulfil thy vow, and cede him the crown." "already have i answered,--the crown is not mine to give; and my people stand round me in arms to defend the king of their choice. what next?" "next, offers william to withdraw his troops from the land, if thou and thy council and chiefs will submit to the arbitrement of our most holy pontiff, alexander the second, and, abide by his decision whether thou or my liege have the best right to the throne." "this, as churchman," said the abbot of the great convent of peterboro', (who, with the abbot of hide, had joined the march of harold, deeming as one the cause of altar and throne), "this as churchman, may i take leave to answer. never yet hath it been heard in england, that the spiritual suzerain of rome should give us our kings." "and," said harold, with a bitter smile, "the pope hath already summoned me to this trial, as if the laws of england were kept in the rolls of the vatican! already, if rightly informed, the pope hath been pleased to decide that our saxon land is the norman's. i reject a judge without a right to decide; and i mock at a sentence that profanes heaven in its insult to men. is this all?" "one last offer yet remains," replied the monk sternly. "this knight shall deliver its import. but ere i depart, and thou and thine are rendered up to vengeance divine, i speak the words of a mightier chief than william of rouen. thus saith his holiness, with whom rests the power to bind and to loose, to bless and to curse: 'harold, the perjurer, thou art accursed! on thee and on all who lift hand in thy cause, rests the interdict of the church. thou art excommunicated from the family of christ. on thy land, with its peers and its people, yea, to the beast in the field and the bird in the air, to the seed as the sower, the harvest as the reaper, rests god's anathema! the bull of the vatican is in the tent of the norman; the gonfanon of st. peter hallows yon armies to the service of heaven. march on, then: ye march as the assyrian; and the angel of the lord awaits ye on the way!'" at these words, which for the first time apprised the english leaders that their king and kingdom were under the awful ban of excommunication, the thegns and abbots gazed on each other aghast. a visible shudder passed over the whole warlike conclave, save only three, harold, and gurth, and haco. the king himself was so moved by indignation at the insolence of the monk, and by scorn at the fulmen, which, resting not alone on his own head, presumed to blast the liberties of a nation, that he strode towards the speaker, and it is even said of him by the norman chroniclers, that he raised his hand as if to strike the denouncer to the earth. but gurth interposed, and with his clear eye serenely shining with virtuous passion, he stood betwixt monk and king. "o thou," he exclaimed, "with the words of religion on thy lips, and the devices of fraud in thy heart, hide thy front in thy cowl, and slink back to thy master. heard ye not, thegns and abbots, heard ye not this bad, false man offer, as if for peace, and as with the desire of justice, that the pope should arbitrate between your king and the norman? yet all the while the monk knew that the pope had already predetermined the cause; and had ye fallen into the wile, ye would but have cowered under the verdict of a judgment that has presumed, even before it invoked ye to the trial, to dispose of a free people and an ancient kingdom!" "it is true, it is true," cried the thegns, rallying from their first superstitious terror, and, with their plain english sense of justice, revolted at the perfidy which the priest's overtures had concealed. "we will hear no more; away with the swikebode." [ ] the pale cheek of the monk turned yet paler, he seemed abashed by the storm of resentment he had provoked; and in some fear, perhaps, at the dark faces bent on him, he slunk behind his comrade the knight, who as yet had said nothing, but, his face concealed by his helmet, stood motionless like a steel statue. and, in fact, these two ambassadors, the one in his monk garb, the other in his iron array, were types and representatives of the two forces now brought to bear upon harold and england--chivalry and the church. at the momentary discomfiture of the priest, now stood forth the warrior; and, throwing back his helmet, so that the whole steel cap rested on the nape of the neck, leaving the haughty face and half- shaven head bare, mallet de graville thus spoke: "the ban of the church is against ye, warriors and chiefs of england, but for the crime of one man! remove it from yourselves: on his single head be the curse and the consequence. harold, called king of england--failing the two milder offers of my comrade, thus saith from the lips of his knight, (once thy guest, thy admirer, and friend,) thus saith william the norman:--'though sixty thousand warriors under the banner of the apostle wait at his beck, (and from what i see of thy force, thou canst marshal to thy guilty side scarce a third of the number,) yet will count william lay aside all advantage, save what dwells in strong arm and good cause; and here, in presence of thy thegns, i challenge thee in his name to decide the sway of this realm by single battle. on horse and in mail, with sword and with spear, knight to knight, man to man, wilt thou meet william the norman?'" before harold could reply, and listen to the first impulse of a valour, which his worst norman maligner, in the after day of triumphant calumny, never so lied as to impugn, the thegns themselves almost with one voice, took up the reply. "no strife between a man and a man shall decide the liberties of thousands!" "never!" exclaimed gurth. "it were an insult to the whole people to regard this as a strife between two chiefs, which should wear a crown. when the invader is in our land, the war is with a nation, not a king. and, by the very offer, this norman count (who cannot even speak our tongue) shows how little he knows of the laws, by which, under our native kings, we have all as great an interest as a king himself in our fatherland." "thou hast heard the answer of england from those lips, sire de graville," said harold: "mine but repeat and sanction it. i will not give the crown to william in lieu for disgrace and an earldom. i will not abide by the arbitrement of a pope who has dared to affix a curse upon freedom. i will not so violate the principle which in these realms knits king and people, as to arrogate to my single arm the right to dispose of the birthright of the living, and their races unborn; nor will i deprive the meanest soldier under my banner, of the joy and the glory to fight for his native land. if william seek me, he shall find me, where war is the fiercest, where the corpses of his men lie the thickest on the plains, defending this standard, or rushing on his own. and so, not monk and pope, but god in his wisdom, adjudge between us!" "so be it," said mallet de graville, solemnly, and his helmet re- closed over his face. "look to it, recreant knight, perjured christian, and usurping king! the bones of the dead fight against thee." "and the fleshless hands of the saints marshal the hosts of the living," said the monk. and so the messengers turned, without obeisance or salute, and strode silently away. chapter vi. the rest of that day, and the whole of the next, were consumed by both armaments in the completion of their preparations. william was willing to delay the engagement as long as he could; for he was not without hope that harold might abandon his formidable position, and become the assailing party; and, moreover, he wished to have full time for his prelates and priests to inflame to the utmost, by their representations of william's moderation in his embassy, and harold's presumptuous guilt in rejection, the fiery fanaticism of all enlisted under the gonfanon of the church. on the other hand, every delay was of advantage to harold, in giving him leisure to render his entrenchments yet more effectual, and to allow time for such reinforcements as his orders had enjoined, or the patriotism of the country might arouse; but, alas! those reinforcements were scanty and insignificant; a few stragglers in the immediate neighborhood arrived, but no aid came from london, no indignant country poured forth a swarming population. in fact, the very fame of harold, and the good fortune that had hitherto attended his arms, contributed to the stupid lethargy of the people. that he who had just subdued the terrible norsemen, with the mighty hardrada at their head, should succumb to those dainty "frenchmen," as they chose to call the normans; of whom, in their insular ignorance of the continent, they knew but little, and whom they had seen flying in all directions at the return of godwin; was a preposterous demand on the imagination. nor was this all: in london, there had already formed a cabal in favour of the atheling. the claims of birth can never be so wholly set aside, but what, even for the most unworthy heir of an ancient line, some adherents will be found. the prudent traders thought it best not to engage actively on behalf of the reigning king, in his present combat with the norman pretender; a large number of would-be statesmen thought it best for the country to remain for the present neutral. grant the worst--grant that harold were defeated or slain; would it not be wise to reserve their strength to support the atheling? william might have some personal cause of quarrel against harold, but he could have none against edgar; he might depose the son of godwin, but could he dare to depose the descendant of cerdic, the natural heir of edward? there is reason to think that stigand, and a large party of the saxon churchmen, headed this faction. but the main causes for defection were not in adherence to one chief or to another. they were to be found in selfish inertness, in stubborn conceit, in the long peace, and the enervate superstition which had relaxed the sinews of the old saxon manhood; in that indifference to things ancient, which contempt for old names and races engendered; that timorous spirit of calculation, which the over-regard for wealth had fostered; which made men averse to leave trade and farm for the perils of the field, and jeopardise their possessions if the foreigner should prevail. accustomed already to kings of a foreign race, and having fared well under canute, there were many who said, "what matters who sits on the throne? the king must be equally bound by our laws." then too was heard the favourite argument of all slothful minds: "time enough yet! one battle lost is not england won. marry, we shall turn out fast eno' if harold be beaten." add to all these causes for apathy and desertion, the haughty jealousies of the several populations not yet wholly fused into one empire. the northumbrian danes, untaught even by their recent escape from the norwegian, regarded with ungrateful coldness a war limited at present to the southern coasts; and the vast territory under mercia was, with more excuse, equally supine; while their two young earls, too new in their command to have much sway with their subject populations, had they been in their capitals, had now arrived in london; and there lingered, making head, doubtless, against the intrigues in favour of the atheling;--so little had harold's marriage with aldyth brought him, at the hour of his dreadest need, the power for which happiness had been resigned! nor must we put out of account, in summing the causes which at this awful crisis weakened the arm of england, the curse of slavery amongst the theowes, which left the lowest part of the population wholly without interest in the defense of the land. too late--too late for all but unavailing slaughter, the spirit of the country rose amidst the violated pledges, but under the iron heel, of the norman master! had that spirit put forth all its might for one day with harold, where had been the centuries of bondage! oh, shame to the absent--all blessed those present! there was no hope for england out of the scanty lines of the immortal army encamped on the field of hastings. there, long on earth, and vain vaunts of poor pride, shall be kept the roll of the robber-invaders. in what roll are your names, holy heroes of the soil? yes, may the prayer of the virgin queen be registered on high; and assoiled of all sin, o ghosts of the glorious dead, may ye rise from your graves at the trump of the angel; and your names, lost on earth, shine radiant and stainless amidst the hierarchy of heaven! dull came the shades of evening, and pale through the rolling clouds glimmered the rising stars; when,--all prepared, all arrayed,--harold sat with haco and gurth, in his tent; and before them stood a man, half french by origin, who had just returned from the norman camp. "so thou didst mingle with the men undiscovered?" said the king. "no, not undiscovered, my lord. i fell in with a knight, whose name i have since heard as that of mallet de graville, who wilily seemed to believe in what i stated, and who gave me meat and drink, with debonnair courtesy. then said he abruptly,--'spy from harold, thou hast come to see the strength of the norman. thou shalt have thy will--follow me.' therewith he led me, all startled i own, through the lines; and, o king, i should deem them indeed countless as the sands, and resistless as the waves, but that, strange as it may seem to thee, i saw more monks than warriors." "how! thou jestest!" said gurth, surprised. "no; for thousands by thousands, they were praying and kneeling; and their heads were all shaven with the tonsure of priests." "priests are they not," cried harold, with his calm smile, "but doughty warriors and dauntless knights." then he continued his questions to the spy; and his smile vanished at the accounts, not only of the numbers of the force, but their vast provision of missiles, and the almost incredible proportion of their cavalry. as soon as the spy had been dismissed, the king turned to his kinsmen. "what think you?" he said; "shall we judge ourselves of the foe? the night will be dark anon--our steeds are fleet--and not shod with iron like the normans;--the sward noiseless--what think you?" "a merry conceit," cried the blithe leofwine. "i should like much to see the boar in his den, ere he taste of my spear-point." "and i," said gurth, "do feel so restless a fever in my veins that i would fain cool it by the night air. let us go: i know all the ways of the country; for hither have i come often with hawk and hound. but let us wait yet till the night is more hushed and deep." the clouds had gathered over the whole surface of the skies, and there hung sullen; and the mists were cold and grey on the lower grounds, when the four saxon chiefs set forth on their secret and perilous enterprise. "knights and riders took they none, squires and varlets of foot not one; all unarmed of weapon and weed, save the shield, and spear, and the sword at need." [ ] passing their own sentinels, they entered a wood, gurth leading the way, and catching glimpses, through the irregular path, of the blazing lights, that shone red over the pause of the norman war. william had moved on his army to within about two miles from the farthest outpost of the saxon, and contracted his lines into compact space; the reconnoiterers were thus enabled, by the light of the links and watchfires, to form no inaccurate notion of the formidable foe whom the morrow was to meet. the ground [ ] on which they stood was high, and in the deep shadow of the wood; with one of the large dykes common to the saxon boundaries in front, so that, even if discovered, a barrier not easily passed lay between them and the foe. in regular lines and streets extended huts of branches for the meaner soldiers, leading up, in serried rows but broad vistas, to the tents of the knights, and the gaudier pavilions of the counts and prelates. there, were to be seen the flags of bretagne and anjou, of burgundy, of flanders, even the ensign of france, which the volunteers from that country had assumed; and right in the midst of this capital of war, the gorgeous pavilion of william himself, with a dragon of gold before it, surmounting the staff, from which blazed the papal gonfanon. in every division they heard the anvils of the armourers, the measured tread of the sentries, the neigh and snort of innumerable steeds. and along the lines, between hut and tent, they saw tall shapes passing to and from the forge and smithy, bearing mail, and swords, and shafts. no sound of revel, no laugh of wassail was heard in the consecrated camp; all was astir, but with the grave and earnest preparations of thoughtful men. as the four saxons halted silent, each might have heard, through the remoter din, the other's painful breathing. at length, from two tents, placed to the right and left of the duke's pavilion, there came a sweet tinkling sound, as of deep silver bells. at that note there was an evident and universal commotion throughout the armament. the roar of the hammers ceased; and from every green hut and every grey tent, swarmed the host. now, rows of living men lined the camp-streets, leaving still a free, though narrow passage in the midst. and, by the blaze of more than a thousand torches, the saxons saw processions of priests, in their robes and aubes, with censer and rood, coming down the various avenues. as the priests paused, the warriors knelt; and there was a low murmur as if of confession, and the sign of lifted hands, as if in absolution and blessing. suddenly, from the outskirts of the camp, and full in sight, emerged, from one of the cross lanes, odo of bayeux himself, in his white surplice, and the cross in his right hand. yea, even to the meanest and lowliest soldiers of the armament, whether taken from honest craft and peaceful calling, or the outpourings of europe's sinks and sewers, catamarans from the alps, and cut-throats from the rhine,--yea, even among the vilest and the meanest, came the anointed brother of the great duke, the haughtiest prelate in christendom, whose heart even then was fixed on the pontiff's throne--there he came, to absolve, and to shrive, and to bless. and the red watchfires streamed on his proud face and spotless robes, as the children of wrath knelt around the delegate of peace. harold's hand clenched firm on the arm of gurth, and his old scorn of the monk broke forth in his bitter smile and his muttered words. but gurth's face was sad and awed. and now, as the huts and the canvas thus gave up the living, they could indeed behold the enormous disparity of numbers with which it was their doom to contend, and, over those numbers, that dread intensity of zeal, that sublimity of fanaticism, which from one end of that war-town to the other, consecrated injustice, gave the heroism of the martyr to ambition, and blended the whisper of lusting avarice with the self-applauses of the saint! not a word said the four saxons. but as the priestly procession glided to the farther quarters of the armament, as the soldiers in their neighbourhood disappeared within their lodgments, and the torches moved from them to the more distant vistas of the camp, like lines of retreating stars, gurth heaved a heavy sigh, and turned his horse's head from the scene. but scarce had they gained the centre of the wood, than there rose, as from the heart of the armament, a swell of solemn voices. for the night had now come to the third watch [ ], in which, according to the belief of the age, angel and fiend were alike astir, and that church-division of time was marked and hallowed by a monastic hymn. inexpressibly grave, solemn, and mournful came the strain through the drooping boughs, and the heavy darkness of the air; and it continued to thrill in the ears of the riders till they had passed the wood, and the cheerful watchfires from their own heights broke upon them to guide their way. they rode rapidly, but still in silence, past their sentries; and, ascending the slopes, where the force lay thick, how different were the sounds that smote them! round the large fires the men grouped in great circles, with the ale-horns and flagons passing merrily from hand to hand; shouts of drink-hael and was-hael, bursts of gay laughter, snatches of old songs, old as the days of athelstan, --varying, where the anglo-danes lay, into the far more animated and kindling poetry of the pirate north,--still spoke of the heathen time when war was a joy, and valhalla was the heaven. "by my faith," said leofwine brightening; "these are sounds and sights that do a man's heart good, after those doleful ditties, and the long faces of the shavelings. i vow by st. alban, that i felt my veins curdling into ice-bolts, when that dirge came through the woodholt. hollo, sexwolf, my tall man, lift us up that full horn of thine, and keep thyself within the pins, master wassailer; we must have steady feet and cool heads to-morrow." sexwolf, who, with a band of harold's veterans, was at full carousal, started up at the young earl's greetings, and looked lovingly into his smiling face as he reached him the horn. "heed what my brother bids thee, sexwolf," said harold severely; "the hands that draw shafts against us to-morrow will not tremble with the night's wassail." "nor ours either, my lord the king," said sexwolf, boldly; "our heads can bear both drink and blows,--and--(sinking his voice into a whisper) the rumour runs that the odds are so against us, that i would not, for all thy fair brother's earldoms, have our men other than blithe tonight." harold answered not, but moved on, and coming then within full sight of the bold saxons of kent, the unmixed sons of the saxon soil, and the special favourers of the house of godwin, so affectionate, hearty, and cordial was their joyous shout of his name, that he felt his kingly heart leap within him. dismounting, he entered the circle, and with the august frankness of a noble chief, nobly popular, gave to all cheering smile and animating word. that done, he said more gravely: "in less than an hour, all wassail must cease,--my bodes will come round; and then sound sleep, my brave merry men, and lusty rising with the lark!" "as you will, as you will, dear our king," cried vebba, as spokesman for the soldiers. "fear us not--life and death, we are yours." "life and death yours, and freedom's," cried the kent men. coming now towards the royal tent beside the standard, the discipline was more perfect, and the hush decorous. for round that standard were both the special body-guard of the king, and the volunteers from london and middlesex; men more intelligent than the bulk of the army, and more gravely aware, therefore, of the might of the norman sword. harold entered his tent, and threw himself on his couch, in deep reverie; his brothers and haco watched him silently. at length, gurth approached; and, with a reverence rare in the familiar intercourse between the two, knelt at his brother's side, and taking harold's hand in his, looked him full in the face, his eyes moist with tears, and said thus: "oh, harold! never prayer have i asked of thee, that thou hast not granted: grant me this! sorest of all, it may be, to grant, but most fitting of all for me to press. think not, o beloved brother, o honoured king, think not that it is with slighting reverence, that i lay rough hand on the wound deepest at thy heart. but, however surprised or compelled, sure it is that thou didst make oath to william, and upon the relics of saints; avoid this battle, for i see that thought is now within thy soul; that thought haunted thee in the words of the monk to-day; in the sight of that awful camp to-night;-- avoid this battle! and do not thyself stand in arms against the man to whom the oath was pledged!" "gurth, gurth!" exclaimed harold, pale and writhing. "we," continued his brother, "we at least have taken no oath, no perjury is charged against us; vainly the thunders of the vatican are launched on our heads. our war is just: we but defend our country. leave us, then, to fight to-morrow; thou retire towards london and raise fresh armies; if we win, the danger is past; if we lose, thou wilt avenge us. and england is not lost while thou survivest." "gurth, gurth!" again exclaimed harold, in a voice piercing in its pathos of reproach. "gurth counsels well," said haco, abruptly; "there can be no doubt of the wisdom of his words. let the king's kinsmen lead the troops; let the king himself with his guard hasten to london and ravage and lay waste the country as he retreats by the way [ ]; so that even if william beat us, all supplies will fail him; he will be in a land without forage, and victory here will aid him nought; for you, my liege, will have a force equal to his own, ere he can march to the gates of london." "faith and troth, the young haco speaks like a greybeard; he hath not lived in rouen for nought," quoth leofwine. "hear him, my harold, and leave us to shave the normans yet more closely than the barber hath already shorn." harold turned ear and eye to each of the speakers, and, as leofwine closed, he smiled. "ye have chid me well, kinsmen, for a thought that had entered into my mind ere ye spake"-- gurth interrupted the king, and said anxiously: "to retreat with the whole army upon london, and refuse to meet the norman till with numbers more fairly matched!" "that had been my thought," said harold, surprised. "such for a moment, too, was mine," said gurth, sadly; "but it is too late. such a measure, now, would have all the disgrace of flight, and bring none of the profits of retreat. the ban of the church would get wind; our priests, awed and alarmed, might wield it against us; the whole population would be damped and disheartened; rivals to the crown might start up; the realm be divided. no, it is impossible!" "impossible," said harold, calmly. "and if the army cannot retreat, of all men to stand firm, surely it is the captain and the king. i, gurth, leave others to dare the fate from which i fly! i give weight to the impious curse of the pope, by shrinking from its idle blast! i confirm and ratify the oath, from which all law must absolve me, by forsaking the cause of the land, which i purify myself when i guard! i leave to others the agony of the martyrdom or the glory of the conquest! gurth, thou art more cruel than the norman! and i, son of sweyn, i ravage the land committed to my charge, and despoil the fields which i cannot keep! oh, haco, that indeed were to be the traitor and the recreant! no, whatever the sin of my oath, never will i believe that heaven can punish millions for the error of one man. let the bones of the dead war against us; in life, they were men like ourselves, and no saints in the calendar so holy as the freemen who fight for their hearths and their altars. nor do i see aught to alarm us even in these grave human odds. we have but to keep fast these entrenchments; preserve, man by man, our invincible line; and the waves will but split on our rock: ere the sun set to-morrow, we shall see the tide ebb, leaving, as waifs, but the dead of the baffled invader." "fare ye well, loving kinsmen; kiss me, my brothers; kiss me on the cheek, my haco. go now to your tents. sleep in peace and wake with the trumpet to the gladness of noble war!" slowly the earls left the king; slowest of all the lingering gurth; and when all were gone, and harold was alone, he threw round a rapid, troubled glance, and then, hurrying to the simple imageless crucifix that stood on its pedestal at the farther end of the tent, he fell on his knees, and faltered out, while his breast heaved, and his frame shook with the travail of his passion: "if my sin be beyond a pardon, my oath without recall, on me, on me, o lord of hosts, on me alone the doom. not on them, not on them--not on england!" chapter vii. on the fourteenth of october, , the day of st. calixtus, the norman force was drawn out in battle array. mass had been said; odo and the bishop of coutance had blessed the troops; and received their vow never more to eat flesh on the anniversary of that day. and odo had mounted his snow-white charger, and already drawn up the cavalry against the coming of his brother the duke. the army was marshalled in three great divisions. roger de montgommeri and william fitzosborne led the first; and with them were the forces from picardy and the countship of boulogne, and the fiery franks; geoffric martel and the german hugues (a prince of fame); aimeri, lord of thouars, and the sons of alain fergant, duke of bretagne, led the second, which comprised the main bulk of the allies from bretagne, and maine, and poitou. but both these divisions were intermixed with normans, under their own special norman chiefs. the third section embraced the flower of martial europe, the most renowned of the norman race; whether those knights bore the french titles into which their ancestral scandinavian names had been transformed--sires of beaufou and harcourt, abbeville, and de molun, montfichet, grantmesnil, lacie, d'aincourt, and d'asnieres;--or whether, still preserving, amidst their daintier titles, the old names that had scattered dismay through the seas of the baltic; osborne and tonstain, mallet and bulver, brand and bruse [ ]. and over this division presided duke william. here was the main body of the matchless cavalry, to which, however, orders were given to support either of the other sections, as need might demand. and with this body were also the reserve. for it is curious to notice, that william's strategy resembled in much that of the last great invader of nations--relying first upon the effect of the charge; secondly, upon a vast reserve brought to bear at the exact moment on the weakest point of the foe. all the horsemen were in complete link or net mail [ ], armed with spears and strong swords, and long, pear-shaped shields, with the device either of a cross or a dragon [ ]. the archers, on whom william greatly relied, were numerous in all three of the corps [ ], were armed more lightly--helms on their heads, but with leather or quilted breastplates, and "panels," or gaiters, for the lower limbs. but before the chiefs and captains rode to their several posts they assembled round william, whom fitzosborne had called betimes, and who had not yet endued his heavy mail, that all men might see suspended from his throat certain relics chosen out of those on which harold had pledged his fatal oath. standing on an eminence in front of all his lines, the consecrated banner behind him, and bayard, his spanish destrier, held by his squires at his side, the duke conversed cheerily with his barons, often pointing to the relics. then, in sight of all, he put on his mail, and, by the haste of his squires, the back-piece was presented to him first. the superstitious normans recoiled as at an evil omen. "tut!" said the ready chief; "not in omens and divinations, but in god, trust i! yet, good omen indeed is this, and one that may give heart to the most doubtful; for it betokens that the last shall be first--the dukedom a kingdom--the count a king! ho there, rou de terni, as hereditary standard-bearer take thy right, and hold fast to yon holy gonfanon." "grant merci," said de terni, "not to-day shall a standard be borne by me, for i shall have need of my right arm for my sword, and my left for my charger's rein and my trusty shield." "thou sayest right, and we can ill spare such a warrior. gautier giffart, sire de longueville, to thee is the gonfanon." "beau sire," answered gautier; "par dex, merci. but my head is grey and my arm weak; and the little strength left me i would spend in smiting the english at the head of my men." "per la resplendar de," cried william, frowning;--"do ye think, my proud vavasours, to fail me in this great need?" "nay," said gautier; "but i have a great host of chevaliers and paid soldiers, and without the old man at their head will they fight as well?" "then, approach thou, tonstain le blanc, son of rou," said william; "and be thine the charge of a standard that shall wave ere nightfall over the brows of thy--king!" a young knight, tall and strong as his danish ancestor, stept forth, and laid gripe on the banner. then william, now completely armed, save his helmet, sprang at one bound on his steed. a shout of admiration rang from the quens and knights. "saw ye ever such beau rei?" [ ] said the vicomte de thouars. the shout was caught by the lines, and echoed afar, wide, and deep through the armament, as in all his singular majesty of brow and mien, william rode forth: lifting his hand, the shout hushed, and thus he spoke "loud as a trumpet with a silver sound." "normans and soldiers, long renowned in the lips of men, and now hallowed by the blessing of the church!--i have not brought you over the wide seas for my cause alone; what i gain, ye gain. if i take the land, you will share it. fight your best, and spare not; no retreat, and no quarter! i am not come here for my cause alone, but to avenge our whole nation for the felonies of yonder english. they butchered our kinsmen the danes, on the night of st. brice; they murdered alfred, the brother of their last king, and decimated the normans who were with him. yonder they stand,--malefactors that await their doom! and ye the doomsmen! never, even in a good cause, were yon english illustrious for warlike temper and martial glory [ ]. remember how easily the danes subdued them! are ye less than danes, or i than canute? by victory ye obtain vengeance, glory, honours, lands, spoil,--aye, spoil beyond your wildest dreams. by defeat,--yea, even but by loss of ground, ye are given up to the sword! escape there is not, for the ships are useless. before you the foe, behind you the ocean. normans, remember the feats of your countrymen in sicily! behold a sicily more rich! lordships and lands to the living,--glory and salvation to those who die under the gonfanon of the church! on, to the cry of the norman warrior; the cry before which have fled so often the prowest paladins of burgundy and france--'notre dame et dex aide!'" [ ] meanwhile, no less vigilant, and in his own strategy no less skilful, harold had marshalled his men. he formed two divisions; those in front of the entrenchments; those within it. at the first, the men of kent, as from time immemorial, claimed the honour of the van, under "the pale charger,"--famous banner of hengist. this force was drawn up in the form of the anglo-danish wedge; the foremost lines in the triangle all in heavy mail, armed with their great axes, and covered by their immense shields. behind these lines, in the interior of the wedge, were the archers, protected by the front rows of the heavy armed; while the few horsemen--few indeed compared with the norman cavalry--were artfully disposed where they could best harass and distract the formidable chivalry with which they were instructed to skirmish, and not peril actual encounter. other bodies of the light armed; slingers, javelin throwers, and archers, were planted in spots carefully selected, according as they were protected by trees, bushwood, and dykes. the northumbrians (that is, all the warlike population, north the humber, including yorkshire, westmoreland, cumberland, etc.), were, for their present shame and future ruin, absent from that field, save, indeed, a few who had joined harold in his march to london. but there were the mixed races of hertfordshire and essex, with the pure saxons of sussex and surrey, and a large body of the sturdy anglo-danes from lincolnshire, ely and norfolk. men, too, there were, half of old british blood, from dorset, somerset, and gloucester. and all were marshalled according to those touching and pathetic tactics which speak of a nation more accustomed to defend than to aggrieve. to that field the head of each family led his sons and kinsfolk; every ten families (or tything) were united under their own chosen captain. every ten of these tythings had, again, some loftier chief, dear to the populace in peace; and so on the holy circle spread from household, hamlet, town,--till, all combined, as one county under one earl, the warriors fought under the eyes of their own kinsfolk, friends, neighbours, chosen chiefs! what wonder that they were brave? the second division comprised harold's house-carles, or bodyguard,-- the veterans especially attached to his family,--the companions of his successful wars,--a select band of the martial east-anglians,--the soldiers supplied by london and middlesex, and who, both in arms, discipline, martial temper and athletic habits, ranked high among the most stalwart of the troops, mixed, as their descent was, from the warlike dane and the sturdy saxon. in this division, too, was comprised the reserve. and it was all encompassed by the palisades and breastworks, to which were but three sorties, whence the defenders might sally, or through which at need the vanguard might secure a retreat. all the heavy armed had mail and shields similar to the normans, though somewhat less heavy; the light armed had, some tunics of quilted linen, some of hide; helmets of the last material, spears, javelins, swords, and clubs. but the main arm of the host was in the great shield, and the great axe wielded by men larger in stature and stronger of muscle than the majority of the normans, whose physical race had deteriorated partly by inter-marriage with the more delicate frank, partly by the haughty disdain of foot exercise. mounting a swift and light steed, intended not for encounter (for it was the custom of english kings to fight on foot, in token that where they fought there was no retreat), but to bear the rider rapidly from line to line [ ], king harold rode to the front of the vanguard;-- his brothers by his side. his head, like his great foe's, was bare, nor could there be a more striking contrast than that of the broad unwrinkled brow of the saxon, with his fair locks, the sign of royalty and freedom, parted and falling over the collar of mail, the clear and steadfast eye of blue, the cheek somewhat hollowed by kingly cares, but flushed now with manly pride--the form stalwart and erect, but spare in its graceful symmetry, and void of all that theatric pomp of bearing which was assumed by william--no greater contrast could there be than that which the simple earnest hero-king presented, to the brow furrowed with harsh ire and politic wile, the shaven hair of monastic affectation, the dark, sparkling tiger eye, and the vast proportions that awed the gaze in the port and form of the imperious norman. deep and loud and hearty as the shout with which his armaments had welcomed william, was that which now greeted the king of the english host: and clear and full, and practised in the storm of popular assemblies, went his voice down the listening lines. "this day, o friends and englishmen, sons of our common land--this day ye fight for liberty. the count of the normans hath, i know, a mighty army; i disguise not its strength. that army he hath collected together, by promising to each man a share in the spoils of england. already, in his court and his camp, he hath parcelled out the lands of this kingdom; and fierce are the robbers who fight for the hope of plunder! but he cannot offer to his greatest chief boons nobler than those i offer to my meanest freeman--liberty, and right, and law, in the soil of his fathers! ye have heard of the miseries endured in the old time under the dane, but they were slight indeed to those which ye may expect from the norman. the dane was kindred to us in language and in law, and who now can tell saxon from dane? but yon men would rule ye in a language ye know not, by a law that claims the crown as the right of the sword, and divides the land among the hirelings of an army. we baptized the dane, and the church tamed his fierce soul into peace; but yon men make the church itself their ally, and march to carnage under the banner profaned to the foulest of human wrongs! outscourings of all nations, they come against you: ye fight as brothers under the eyes of your fathers and chosen chiefs; ye fight for the women ye would save from the ravisher; ye fight for the children ye would guard from eternal bondage; ye fight for the altars which yon banner now darkens! foreign priest is a tyrant as ruthless and stern as ye shall find foreign baron and king! let no man dream of retreat; every inch of ground that ye yield is the soil of your native land. for me, on this field i peril all. think that mine eye is upon you wherever ye are. if a line waver or shrink, ye shall hear in the midst the voice of your king. hold fast to your ranks, remember, such amongst you as fought with me against hardrada,-- remember that it was not till the norsemen lost, by rash sallies, their serried array, that our arms prevailed against them. be warned by their fatal error, break not the form of the battle; and i tell you on the faith of a soldier who never yet hath left field without victory,--that ye cannot be beaten. while i speak, the winds swell the sails of the norse ships, bearing home the corpse of hardrada. accomplish this day the last triumph of england; add to these hills a new mount of the conquered dead! and when, in far times and strange lands, scald and scop shall praise the brave man for some valiant deed wrought in some holy cause, they shall say, 'he was brave as those who fought by the side of harold, and swept from the sward of england the hosts of the haughty norman.'" scarcely had the rapturous hurrahs of the saxons closed on this speech, when full in sight, north-west of hastings, came the first division of the invader. harold remained gazing at them, and not seeing the other sections in movement, said to gurth, "if these are all that they venture out, the day is ours." "look yonder!" said the sombre haco, and he pointed to the long array that now gleamed from the wood through which the saxon kinsmen had passed the night before; and scarcely were these cohorts in view, than lo! from a third quarter advanced the glittering knighthood under the duke. all three divisions came on in simultaneous assault, two on either wing of the saxon vanguard, the third (the norman) towards the entrenchments. in the midst of the duke's cohort was the sacred gonfanon, and in front of it and of the whole line, rode a strange warrior of gigantic height. and as he rode, the warrior sang: "chaunting loud the lusty strain of roland and of charlemain, and the dead, who, deathless all, fell at famous roncesval." [ ] and the knights, no longer singing hymn and litany, swelled, hoarse through their helmets, the martial chorus. this warrior, in front of the duke and the horsemen, seemed beside himself with the joy of battle. as he rode, and as he chaunted, he threw up his sword in the air like a gleeman, catching it nimbly as it fell [ ], and flourishing it wildly, till, as if unable to restrain his fierce exhilaration, he fairly put spurs to his horse, and, dashing forward to the very front of a detachment of saxon riders, shouted: "a taillefer! a taillefer!" and by voice and gesture challenged forth some one to single combat. a fiery young thegn who knew the romance tongue, started forth and crossed swords with the poet; but by what seemed rather a juggler's sleight of hand than a knight's fair fence, taillefer, again throwing up and catching his sword with incredible rapidity, shore the unhappy saxon from the helm to the chine, and riding over his corpse, shouting and laughing, he again renewed his challenge. a second rode forth and shared the same fate. the rest of the english horsemen stared at each other aghast; the shouting, singing, juggling giant seemed to them not knight, but demon; and that single incident, preliminary to all other battle, in sight of the whole field, might have sufficed to damp the ardour of the english, had not leofwine, who had been despatched by the king with a message to the entrenchments, come in front of the detachment; and, his gay spirit roused and stung by the insolence of the norman, and the evident dismay of the saxon riders, without thought of his graver duties, he spurred his light half-mailed steed to the norman giant; and, not even drawing his sword, but with his spear raised over his head, and his form covered by his shield, he cried in romance tongue, "go and chaunt to the foul fiend, o croaking minstrel!" taillefer rushed forward, his sword shivered on the saxon shield, and in the same moment he fell a corpse under the hoofs of his steed, transfixed by the saxon spear. a cry of woe, in which even william (who, proud of his poet's achievements, had pressed to the foremost line to see this new encounter) joined his deep voice, wailed through the norman ranks; while leofwine rode deliberately towards them, halted a moment, and then flung his spear in the midst with so deadly an aim, that a young knight, within two of william, reeled on his saddle, groaned, and fell. "how like ye, o normans, the saxon gleeman?" said leofwine, as he turned slowly, regained the detachment, and bade them heed carefully the orders they had received, viz., to avoid the direct charge of the norman horse, but to take every occasion to harass and divert the stragglers; and then blithely singing a saxon stave, as if inspired by norman minstrelsy, he rode into the entrenchments. chapter viii. the two brethren of waltham, osgood and ailred, had arrived a little after daybreak at the spot in which, about half a mile, to the rear of harold's palisades, the beasts of burden that had borne the heavy arms, missiles, luggage, and forage of the saxon march, were placed in and about the fenced yards of a farm. and many human beings, of both sexes and various ranks, were there assembled, some in breathless expectation, some in careless talk, some in fervent prayer. the master of the farm, his sons, and the able-bodied ceorls in his employ, had joined the forces of the king, under gurth, as earl of the county [ ]. but many aged theowes, past military service, and young children, grouped around: the first, stolid and indifferent--the last, prattling, curious, lively, gay. there, too, were the wives of some of the soldiers, who, as common in saxon expeditions, had followed their husbands to the field; and there, too, were the ladies of many a hlaford in the neighbouring district, who, no less true to their mates than the wives of humbler men, were drawn by their english hearts to the fatal spot. a small wooden chapel, half decayed, stood a little behind, with its doors wide open, a sanctuary in case of need; and the interior was thronged with kneeling suppliants. the two monks joined, with pious gladness, some of their sacred calling, who were leaning over the low wall, and straining their eyes towards the bristling field. a little apart from them, and from all, stood a female; the hood drawn over her face, silent in her unknown thoughts. by and by, as the march of the norman multitude sounded hollow, and the trumps, and the fifes, and the shouts, rolled on through the air, in many a stormy peal,--the two abbots in the saxon camp, with their attendant monks, came riding towards the farm from the entrenchments. the groups gathered round these new comers in haste and eagerness. "the battle hath begun," said the abbot of hide, gravely. "pray god for england, for never was its people in peril so great from man." the female started and shuddered at those words. "and the king, the king," she cried, in a sudden and thrilling voice; "where is he?--the king?" "daughter," said the abbot, "the king's post is by his standard; but i left him in the van of his troops. where he may be now i know not. wherever the foe presses sorest." then dismounting, the abbots entered the yard, to be accosted instantly by all the wives, who deemed, poor souls, that the holy men must, throughout all the field, have seen their lords; for each felt as if god's world hung but on the single life in which each pale trembler lived. with all their faults of ignorance and superstition, the saxon churchmen loved their flocks; and the good abbots gave what comfort was in their power, and then passed into the chapel, where all who could find room followed them. the war now raged. the two divisions of the invading army that included the auxiliaries had sought in vain to surround the english vanguard, and take it in the rear: that noble phalanx had no rear. deepest and strongest at the base of the triangle, everywhere front opposed the foe; shields formed a rampart against the dart--spears a palisade against the horse. while that vanguard maintained its ground, william could not pierce to the entrenchments, the strength of which, however, he was enabled to perceive. he now changed his tactics, joined his knighthood to the other sections, threw his hosts rapidly into many wings, and leaving broad spaces between his archers--who continued their fiery hail--ordered his heavy-armed foot to advance on all sides upon the wedge, and break its ranks for the awaiting charge of his horse. harold, still in the centre of the vanguard, amidst the men of kent, continued to animate them all with voice and hand; and, as the normans now closed in, he flung himself from his steed, and strode on foot, with his mighty battle-axe, to the spot where the rush was dreadest. now came the shock--the fight hand-to-hand: spear and lance were thrown aside, axe and sword rose and shore. but before the close- serried lines of the english, with their physical strength and veteran practice in their own special arm, the norman foot were mowed as by the scythe. in vain, in the intervals, thundered the repeated charges of the fiery knights; in vain, throughout all, came the shaft and the bolt. animated by the presence of their king fighting amongst them as a simple soldier, but with his eye ever quick to foresee, his voice ever prompt to warn, the men of kent swerved not a foot from their indomitable ranks. the norman infantry wavered and gave way; on, step by step, still unbroken in array, pressed the english. and their cry, "out! out! holy crosse!" rose high above the flagging sound of "ha rou! ha rou!--notre dame!" "per la resplendar de," cried william. "our soldiers are but women in the garb of normans. ho, spears to the rescue! with me to the charge, sires d'aumale and de littain--with me, gallant bruse, and de mortain; with me, de graville and grantmesnil--dex aide! notre dame." and heading his prowest knights, william came, as a thunderbolt, on the bills and shields. harold, who scarce a minute before had been in a remoter rank, was already at the brunt of that charge. at his word down knelt the foremost line, leaving nought but their shields and their spear-points against the horse. while behind them, the axe in both hands, bent forward the soldiery in the second rank, to smite and to crush. and, from the core of the wedge, poured the shafts of the archers. down rolled in the dust half the charge of those knights. bruse reeled on his saddle; the dread right hand of d'aumale fell lopped by the axe; de graville, hurled from his horse, rolled at the feet of harold; and william, borne by his great steed and his colossal strength into the third rank--there dealt, right and left, the fierce strokes of his iron club, till he felt his horse sinking under him-- and had scarcely time to back from the foe--scarcely time to get beyond reach of their weapons, ere the spanish destrier, frightfully gashed through its strong mail, fell dead on the plain. his knights swept round him. twenty barons leapt from selle to yield him their chargers. he chose the one nearest to hand, sprang to foot and to stirrup, and rode back to his lines. meanwhile de graville's casque, its strings broken by the shock, had fallen off, and as harold was about to strike, he recognised his guest. holding up his hand to keep off the press of his men, the generous king said briefly: "rise and retreat!--no time on this field for captor and captive. he whom thou hast called recreant knight, has been saxon host. thou hast fought by his side, thou shalt not die by his hand!--go." not a word spoke de graville; but his dark eye dwelt one minute with mingled pity and reverence on the king; then rising, he turned away; and slowly, as if he disdained to fly, strode back over the corpses of his countrymen. "stay, all hands!" cried the king to his archers; "yon man hath tasted our salt, and done us good service of old. he hath paid his weregeld." not a shaft was discharged. meanwhile, the norman infantry, who had been before recoiling, no sooner saw their duke (whom they recognised by his steed and equipment) fall on the ground, than, setting up a shout--"the duke is dead!" they fairly turned round, and fled fast in disorder. the fortune of the day was now well-nigh turned in favour of the saxons; and the confusion of the normans, as the cry of "the duke is dead!" reached, and circled round, the host, would have been irrecoverable, had harold possessed a cavalry fit to press the advantage gained, or had not william himself rushed into the midst of the fugitives, throwing his helmet back on his neck, showing his face, all animated with fierce valour and disdainful wrath, while he cried aloud: "i live, ye varlets! behold the face of a chief who never yet forgave coward! ay, tremble more at me than at yon english, doomed and accursed as they be! ye normans, ye! i blush for you!" and striking the foremost in the retreat with the flat of his sword, chiding, stimulating, threatening, promising in a breath, he succeeded in staying the flight, reforming the lines, and dispelling the general panic. then, as he joined his own chosen knights, and surveyed the field, he beheld an opening which the advanced position of the saxon vanguard had left, and by which his knights might gain the entrenchments. he mused a moment, his face still bare, and brightening, as he mused. looking round him, he saw mallet de graville, who had remounted, and said, shortly: "pardex, dear knight, we thought you already with st. michael!--joy, that you live yet to be an english earl. look you, ride to fitzosborne with the signal-word, 'li hardiz passent avant!' off, and quick." de graville bowed, and darted across the plain. "now, my quens and chevaliers," said william, gaily, as he closed his helmet, and took from his squire another spear; "now, i shall give ye the day's great pastime. pass the word, sire de tancarville, to every horseman--'charge!--to the standard!'" the word passed, the steeds bounded, and the whole force of william's knighthood, scouring the plain to the rear of the saxon vanguard, made for the entrenchments. at that sight, harold, divining the object, and seeing this new and more urgent demand on his presence, halted the battalions over which he had presided, and, yielding the command to leofwine, once more briefly but strenuously enjoined the troops to heed well their leaders, and on no account to break the wedge, in the form of which lay their whole strength, both against the cavalry and the greater number of the foe. then mounting his horse, and attended only by haco, he spurred across the plain, in the opposite direction to that taken by the normans. in doing so, he was forced to make a considerable circuit towards the rear of the entrenchment, and the farm, with its watchful groups, came in sight. he distinguished the garbs of the women, and haco said to him,-- "there wait the wives, to welcome the living victors." "or search their lords among the dead!" answered harold. "who, haco, if we fall, will search for us?" as the word left his lips, he saw, under a lonely thorn-tree, and scarce out of bowshot from the entrenchments, a woman seated. the king looked hard at the bended, hooded form. "poor wretch!" he murmured, "her heart is in the battle!" and he shouted aloud, "farther off! farther off?--the war rushes hitherward!" at the sound of that voice the woman rose, stretched her arms, and sprang forward. but the saxon chiefs had already turned their faces towards the neighbouring ingress into the ramparts, and beheld not her movement, while the tramp of rushing chargers, the shout and the roar of clashing war, drowned the wail of her feeble cry: "i have heard him again, again!" murmured the woman, "god be praised!" and she re-seated herself quietly under the lonely thorn. as harold and haco sprang to their feet within the entrenchments, the shout of "the king--the king!--holy crosse!" came in time to rally the force at the farther end, now undergoing the full storm of the norman chivalry. the willow ramparts were already rent and hewed beneath the hoofs of horses and the clash of swords; and the sharp points on the frontals of the norman destriers were already gleaming within the entrenchments, when harold arrived at the brunt of action. the tide was then turned; not one of those rash riders left the entrenchments they had gained; steel and horse alike went down beneath the ponderous battle-axes; and william, again foiled and baffled, drew off his cavalry with the reluctant conviction that those breastworks, so manned, were not to be won by horse. slowly the knights retreated down the slope of the hillock, and the english, animated by that sight, would have left their stronghold to pursue, but for the warning cry of harold. the interval in the strife thus gained was promptly and vigorously employed in repairing the palisades. and this done, harold, turning to haco, and the thegns round him, said joyously: "by heaven's help we shall yet win this day. and know you not that it is my fortunate day--the day on which, hitherto, all hath prospered with me, in peace and in war--the day of my birth?" "of your birth!" echoed haco in surprise. "ay--did you not know it?" "nay!--strange!--it is also the birthday of duke william! what would astrologers say to the meeting of such stars?" [ ] harold's cheek paled, but his helmet concealed the paleness:--his arm drooped. the strange dream of his youth again came distinct before him, as it had come in the hall of the norman at the sight of the ghastly relics;--again he saw the shadowy hand from the cloud--again heard the voice murmuring: "lo, the star that shone on the birth of the victor;" again he heard the words of hilda interpreting the dream --again the chaunt which the dead or the fiend had poured from the rigid lips of the vala. it boomed on his ear; hollow as a death bell it knelled through the roar of battle-- "never crown and brow shall force dissever, till the dead men, unforgiving, loose the war-steeds on the living; till a sun whose race is ending sees the rival stars contending, where the dead men, unforgiving, wheel their war-steeds round the living!" faded the vision, and died the chaunt, as a breath that dims, and vanishes from, the mirror of steel. the breath was gone--the firm steel was bright once more; and suddenly the king was recalled to the sense of the present hour, by shouts and cries, in which the yell of norman triumph predominated, at the further end of the field. the signal words to fitzosborne had conveyed to that chief the order for the mock charge on the saxon vanguard, to be followed by the feigned flight; and so artfully had this stratagem been practised, that despite all the solemn orders of harold, despite even the warning cry of leofwine, who, rash and gay-hearted though he was, had yet a captain's skill--the bold english, their blood heated by long contest and seeming victory, could not resist pursuit. they rushed forward impetuously, breaking the order of their hitherto indomitable phalanx, and the more eagerly because the normans had unwittingly taken their way towards a part of the ground concealing dykes and ditches, into which the english trusted to precipitate the foe. it was as william's knights retreated from the breastworks that this fatal error was committed: and pointing toward the disordered saxons with a wild laugh of revengeful joy, william set spurs to his horse, and, followed by all his chivalry, joined the cavalry of poitou and boulogne in their swoop upon the scattered array. already the norman infantry had turned round--already the horses, that lay in ambush amongst the brushwood near the dykes, had thundered forth. the whole of the late impregnable vanguard was broken up, divided corps from corps,--hemmed in; horse after horse charging to the rear, to the front, to the flank, to the right, to the left. gurth, with the men of surrey and sussex, had alone kept their ground, but they were now compelled to advance to the aid of their scattered comrades; and coming up in close order, they not only awhile stayed the slaughter, but again half turned the day. knowing the country thoroughly, gurth lured the foe into the ditches concealed within a hundred yards of their own ambush, and there the havoc of the foreigners was so great, that the hollows are said to have been literally made level with the plain by their corpses. yet this combat, however fierce, and however skill might seek to repair the former error, could not be long maintained against such disparity of numbers. and meanwhile, the whole of the division under geoffroi martel, and his co-captains, had by a fresh order of william's occupied the space between the entrenchments and the more distant engagement; thus when harold looked up, he saw the foot of the hillocks so lined with steel, as to render it hopeless that he himself could win to the aid of his vanguard. he set his teeth firmly, looked on, and only by gesture and smothered exclamations showed his emotions of hope and fear. at length he cried: "gallant gurth! brave leofwine, look to their pennons; right, right; well fought, sturdy vebba! ha! they are moving this way. the wedge cleaves on--it cuts its path through the heart of the foe." and indeed, the chiefs now drawing off the shattered remains of their countrymen, still disunited, but still each section shaping itself wedge-like,--on came the english, with their shields over their head, through the tempest of missiles, against the rush of the steeds, here and there, through the plains, up the slopes, towards the entrenchment, in the teeth of the formidable array of martel, and harassed behind by hosts that seemed numberless. the king could restrain himself no longer. he selected five hundred of his bravest and most practised veterans, yet comparatively fresh, and commanding the rest to stay firm, descended the hills, and charged unexpectedly into the rear of the mingled normans and bretons. this sortie, well-timed though desperate, served to cover and favour the retreat of the straggling saxons. many, indeed, were cut off, but gurth, leofwine, and vebba hewed the way for their followers to the side of harold, and entered the entrenchments, close followed by the nearer foe, who were again repulsed amidst the shouts of the english. but, alas! small indeed the band thus saved, and hopeless the thought that the small detachments of english still surviving and scattered over the plain, would ever win to their aid. yet in those scattered remnants were, perhaps, almost the only men who, availing themselves of their acquaintance with the country, and despairing of victory, escaped by flight from the field of sanguelac. nevertheless, within the entrenchments not a man had lost heart; the day was already far advanced, no impression had been yet made on the outworks, the position seemed as impregnable as a fortress of stone; and, truth to say, even the bravest normans were disheartened, when they looked to that eminence which had foiled the charge of william himself. the duke, in the recent melee, had received more than one wound, his third horse that day had been slain under him. the slaughter among the knights and nobles had been immense, for they had exposed their persons with the most desperate valour. and william, after surveying the rout of nearly one half of the english army, heard everywhere, to his wrath and his shame, murmurs of discontent and dismay at the prospect of scaling the heights, in which the gallant remnant had found their refuge. at this critical juncture, odo of bayeux, who had hitherto remained in the rear [ ], with the crowds of monks that accompanied the armament, rode into the full field, where all the hosts were reforming their lines. he was in complete mail, but a white surplice was drawn over the steel, his head was bare, and in his right hand he bore the crozier. a formidable club swung by a leathern noose from his wrist, to be used only for self- defence: the canons forbade the priest to strike merely in assault. behind the milk-white steed of odo came the whole body of reserve, fresh and unbreathed, free from the terrors of their comrades, and stung into proud wrath at the delay of the norman conquest. "how now--how now!" cried the prelate; "do ye flag? do ye falter when the sheaves are down, and ye have but to gather up the harvest? how now, sons of the church! warriors of the cross! avengers of the saints! desert your count, if ye please; but shrink not back from a lord mightier than man. lo, i come forth, to ride side by side with my brother, bareheaded, the crozier in my hand. he who fails his liege is but a coward--he who fails the church is apostate!" the fierce shout of the reserve closed this harangue, and the words of the prelate, as well as the physical aid he brought to back them, renerved the army. and now the whole of william's mighty host, covering the field, till its lines seemed to blend with the grey horizon, came on serried, steadied, orderly--to all sides of the entrenchment. aware of the inutility of his horse, till the breastworks were cleared, william placed in the van all his heavy armed foot, spearmen, and archers, to open the way through the palisades, the sorties from which had now been carefully closed. as they came up the hills, harold turned to haco and said: "where is thy battle-axe?" "harold," answered haco, with more than his usual tone of sombre sadness, "i desire now to be thy shield-bearer, for thou must use thine axe with both hands while the day lasts, and thy shield is useless. wherefore thou strike, and i will shield thee." "thou lovest me, then, son of sweyn; i have sometimes doubted it." "i love thee as the best part of my life, and with thy life ceases mine: it is my heart that my shield guards when it covers the breast of harold." "i would bid thee live, poor youth," whispered harold; "but what were life if this day were lost? happy, then, will be those who die!" scarce had the words left his lips ere he sprang to the breastworks, and with a sudden sweep of his axe, down dropped a helm that peered above them. but helm after helm succeeds. now they come on, swarm upon swarm, as wolves on a traveller, as bears round a bark. countless, amidst their carnage, on they come! the arrows of the norman blacken the air: with deadly precision, to each arm, each limb, each front exposed above the bulwarks whirrs the shaft. they clamber the palisades, the foremost fall dead under the saxon axe; new thousands rush on: vain is the might of harold, vain had been a harold's might in every saxon there! the first row of breastworks is forced--it is trampled, hewed, crushed down, cumbered with the dead. "ha rou! ha rou! notre dame! notre dame!" sounds joyous and shrill, the chargers snort and leap, and charge into the circle. high wheels in air the great mace of william; bright by the slaughterers flashes the crozier of the church. "on, normans!--earldom and land!" cries the duke. "on, sons of the church! salvation and heaven!" shouts the voice of odo. the first breastwork down--the saxons yielding inch by inch, foot by foot, are pressed, crushed back, into the second enclosure. the same rush, and swarm, and fight, and cry, and roar:--the second enclosure gives way. and now in the centre of the third--lo, before the eyes of the normans, towers proudly aloft, and shines in the rays of the westering sun, broidered with gold, and, blazing with mystic gems, the standard of england's king! and there, are gathered the reserve of the english host; there, the heroes who had never yet known defeat-- unwearied they by the battle--vigorous, high-hearted still; and round them the breastworks were thicker, and stronger, and higher, and fastened by chains to pillars of wood and staves of iron, with the waggons and carts of the baggage, and piled logs of timber-barricades at which even william paused aghast, and odo stifled an exclamation that became not a priestly lip. before that standard, in the front of the men, stood gurth, and leofwine, and haco, and harold, the last leaning for rest upon his axe, for he was sorely wounded in many places, and the blood oozed through the links of his mail. live, harold; live yet, and saxon england shall not die! the english archers had at no time been numerous; most of them had served with the vanguard, and the shafts of those within the ramparts were spent; so that the foe had time to pause and to breathe. the norman arrows meanwhile flew fast and thick, but william noted to his grief that they struck against the tall breastworks and barricades, and so failed in the slaughter they should inflict. he mused a moment, and sent one of his knights to call to him three of the chiefs of the archers. they were soon at the side of his destrier. "see ye not, maladroits," said the duke, "that your shafts and bolts fall harmless on those ozier walls? shoot in the air; let the arrow fall perpendicular on those within--fall as the vengeance of the saints falls--direct from heaven! give me thy bow, archer,--thus." he drew the bow as he sate on his steed, the arrow flashed up, and descended in the heart of the reserve, within a few feet of the standard. "so; that standard be your mark," said the duke, giving back the bow. the archers withdrew. the order circulated through their bands, and in a few moments more down came the iron rain. it took the english host as by surprise, piercing hide cap, and even iron helm; and in the very surprise that made them instinctively look up--death came. a dull groan as from many hearts boomed from the entrenchments on the norman ear. "now," said william, "they must either use their shields to guard their heads--and their axes are useless--or while they smite with the axe they fall by the shaft. on now to the ramparts. i see my crown already resting on yonder standard!" yet despite all, the english bear up; the thickness of the palisades, the comparative smallness of the last enclosure, more easily therefore manned and maintained by the small force of the survivors, defy other weapons than those of the bow. every norman who attempts to scale the breastwork is slain on the instant, and his body cast forth under the hoofs of the baffled steeds. the sun sinks near and nearer towards the red horizon. "courage!" cries the voice of harold, "hold but till nightfall, and ye are saved. courage and freedom!" "harold and holy crosse!" is the answer. still foiled, william again resolves to hazard his fatal stratagem. he marked that quarter of the enclosure which was most remote from the chief point of attack--most remote from the provident watch of harold, whose cheering voice, ever and anon, he recognised amidst the hurtling clamour. in this quarter the palisades were the weakest, and the ground the least elevated; but it was guarded by men on whose skill with axe and shield harold placed the firmest reliance--the anglo- danes of his old east-anglian earldom. thither, then, the duke advanced a chosen column of his heavy-armed foot, tutored especially by himself in the rehearsals of his favourite ruse, and accompanied by a band of archers; while at the same time, he himself, with his brother odo, headed a considerable company of knights under the son of the great roger de beaumont, to gain the contiguous level heights on which now stretches the little town of "battle;" there to watch and to aid the manoeuvre. the foot column advanced to the appointed spot, and after a short, close, and terrible conflict, succeeded in making a wide breach in the breastworks. but that temporary success only animates yet more the exertions of the beleaguered defenders, and swarming round the breach, and pouring through it, line after line of the foe drop beneath their axes. the column of the heavy-armed normans fall back down the slopes--they give way--they turn in disorder--they retreat--they fly; but the archers stand firm, midway on the descent--those archers seem an easy prey to the english--the temptation is irresistible. long galled, and harassed, and maddened by the shafts, the anglo-danes rushed forth at the heels of the norman swordsmen, and sweeping down to exterminate the archers, the breach that they leave gapes wide. "forward," cries william, and he gallops towards the breach. "forward," cries odo, "i see the hands of the holy saints in the air! forward! it is the dead that wheel our war-steeds round the living!" on rush the norman knights. but harold is already in the breach, rallying around him hearts eager to replace the shattered breastworks. "close shields! hold fast!" shouts his kingly voice. before him were the steeds of bruse and grantmesnil. at his breast their spears:-- haco holds over the breast the shield. swinging aloft with both hands his axe, the spear of grantmesnil is shivered in twain by the king's stroke. cloven to the skull rolls the steed of bruse. knight and steed roll on the bloody sward. but a blow from the sword of de lacy has broken down the guardian shield of haco. the son of sweyn is stricken to his knee. with lifted blades and whirling maces the norman knights charge through the breach. "look up, look up, and guard thy head," cries the fatal voice of haco to the king. at that cry the king raises his flashing eyes. why halts his stride? why drops the axe from his hand? as he raised his head, down came the hissing death-shaft. it smote the lifted face; it crushed into the dauntless eyeball. he reeled, he staggered, he fell back several yards, at the foot of his gorgeous standard. with desperate hand he broke the head of the shaft, and left the barb, quivering in the anguish. gurth knelt over him. "fight on," gasped the king, "conceal my death! holy crosse! england to the rescue! woe-woe!" rallying himself a moment, he sprang to his feet, clenched his right hand, and fell once more,--a corpse. at the same moment a simultaneous rush of horsemen towards the standard bore back a line of saxons, and covered the body of the king with heaps of the slain. his helmet cloven in two, his face all streaming with blood, but still calm in its ghastly hues, amidst the foremost of those slain, fell the fated haco. he fell with his head on the breast of harold, kissed the bloody cheek with bloody lips, groaned, and died. inspired by despair with superhuman strength, gurth, striding over the corpses of his kinsmen, opposed himself singly to the knights; and the entire strength of the english remnant, coming round him at the menaced danger to the standard, once more drove off the assailants. but now all the enclosure was filled with the foe, the whole space seemed gay, in the darkening air, with banderols and banners. high, through all, rose the club of the conqueror; high, through all, shone the crozier of the churchman. not one englishman fled; all now centering round the standard, they fell, slaughtering if slaughtered. man by man, under the charmed banner, fell the lithsmen of hilda. then died the faithful sexwolf. then died the gallant godrith, redeeming, by the death of many a norman, his young fantastic love of the norman manners. then died, last of such of the kent-men as had won retreat from their scattered vanguard into the circle of closing slaughter, the english-hearted vebba. even still in that age, when the teuton had yet in his veins the blood of odin, the demi-god,--even still one man could delay the might of numbers. through the crowd, the normans beheld with admiring awe,-- here, in the front of their horse, a single warrior, before whose axe spear shivered, helm drooped;--there, close by the standard, standing breast-high among the slain, one still more formidable, and even amidst ruin unvanquished. the first fell at length under the mace of roger de montgommeri. so, unknown to the norman poet (who hath preserved in his verse the deeds but not the name), fell, laughing in death, young leofwine! still by the enchanted standard towers the other; still the enchanted standard waves aloft, with its brave ensign of the solitary "fighting man" girded by the gems that had flashed in the crown of odin. "thine be the honour of lowering that haughty flag," cried william, turning to one of his favourite and most famous knights, robert de tessin. overjoyed, the knight rushed forth, to fall by the axe of that stubborn defender. "sorcery," cried fitzosborne, "sorcery. this is no man, but fiend." "spare him, spare the brave," cried in a breath bruse, d'aincourt, and de graville. william turned round in wrath at the cry of mercy, and spurring over all the corpses, with the sacred banner borne by tonstain close behind him, so that it shadowed his helmet,--he came to the foot of the standard, and for one moment there was single battle between the knight-duke and the saxon hero. nor, even then, conquered by the norman sword, but exhausted by a hundred wounds, that brave chief fell [ ], and the falchion vainly pierced him, falling. so, last man at the standard, died gurth. the sun had set, the first star was in heaven, the "fighting man" was laid low, and on that spot where now, all forlorn and shattered, amidst stagnant water, stands the altar-stone of battle abbey, rose the glittering dragon that surmounted the consecrated banner of the norman victor. chapter ix. close by his banner, amidst the piles of the dead, william the conqueror pitched his pavilion, and sate at meat. and over all the plain, far and near, torches were moving like meteors on a marsh; for the duke had permitted the saxon women to search for the bodies of their lords. and as he sate, and talked, and laughed, there entered the tent two humble monks: their lowly mien, their dejected faces, their homely serge, in mournful contrast to the joy and the splendour of the victory-feast. they came to the conqueror, and knelt. "rise up, sons of the church," said william, mildly, "for sons of the church are we! deem not that we shall invade the rights of the religion which we have come to avenge. nay, on this spot we have already sworn to build an abbey that shall be the proudest in the land, and where masses shall be sung evermore for the repose of the brave normans who fell in this field, and for mine and my consort's soul." "doubtless," said odo, sneering, "the holy men have heard already of this pious intent, and come to pray for cells in the future abbey." "not so," said osgood, mournfully, and in barbarous norman; "we have our own beloved convent at waltham, endowed by the prince whom thine arms have defeated. we come to ask but to bury in our sacred cloisters the corpse of him so lately king over all england--our benefactor, harold." the duke's brow fell. "and see," said ailred, eagerly, as he drew out a leathern pouch, "we have brought with us all the gold that our poor crypts contained, for we misdoubted this day," and he poured out the glittering pieces at the conqueror's feet. "no!" said william, fiercely, "we take no gold for a traitor's body; no, not if githa, the usurper's mother, offered us its weight in the shining metal; unburied be the accursed of the church, and let the birds of prey feed their young with his carcase!" two murmurs, distinct in tone and in meaning, were heard in that assembly: the one of approval from fierce mercenaries, insolent with triumph; the other of generous discontent and indignant amaze, from the large majority of norman nobles. but william's brow was still dark, and his eye still stern; for his policy confirmed his passions; and it was only by stigmatising, as dishonoured and accursed, the memory and cause of the dead king, that he could justify the sweeping spoliation of those who had fought against himself, and confiscate the lands to which his own quens and warriors looked for their reward. the murmurs had just died into a thrilling hush, when a woman, who had followed the monks unperceived and unheeded, passed with a swift and noiseless step to the duke's foot-stool; and, without bending knee to the ground, said, in a voice which, though low, was heard by all: "norman, in the name of the women of england, i tell thee that thou darest not do this wrong to the hero who died in defence of their hearths and their children!" before she spoke she had thrown back her hood; her hair dishevelled, fell over her shoulders, glittering like gold, in the blaze of the banquet-lights; and that wondrous beauty, without parallel amidst the dames of england, shone like the vision of an accusing angel, on the eyes of the startled duke, and the breathless knights. but twice in her life edith beheld that awful man. once, when roused from her reverie of innocent love by the holiday pomp of his trumps and banners, the childlike maid stood at the foot of the grassy knoll; and once again, when in the hour of his triumph, and amidst the wrecks of england on the field of sanguelac, with a soul surviving the crushed and broken heart, the faith of the lofty woman defended the hero dead. there, with knee unbent, and form unquailing, with marble cheek, and haughty eye, she faced the conqueror; and, as she ceased, his noble barons broke into bold applause. "who art thou?" said william, if not daunted at least amazed. "methinks i have seen thy face before; thou art not harold's wife or sister?" "dread lord," said osgood; "she was the betrothed of harold; but, as within the degrees of kin, the church forbade their union, and they obeyed the church." out from the banquet-throng stepped mallet de graville. "o my liege," said he "thou hast promised me lands and earldom; instead of these gifts undeserved, bestow on me the right to bury and to honour the remains of harold; today i took from him my life, let me give all i can in return--a grave!" william paused, but the sentiment of the assembly, so clearly pronounced, and, it may be, his own better nature, which, ere polluted by plotting craft, and hardened by despotic ire, was magnanimous and heroic, moved and won him. "lady," said he, gently, "thou appealest not in vain to norman knighthood: thy rebuke was just; and i repent me of a hasty impulse. mallet de graville, thy prayer is granted; to thy choice be consigned the place of burial, to thy care the funeral rites of him whose soul hath passed out of human judgment." the feast was over; william the conqueror slept on his couch, and round him slumbered his norman knights, dreaming of baronies to come; and still the torches moved dismally to and fro the waste of death, and through the hush of night was heard near and far the wail of women. accompanied by the brothers of waltham, and attended by link-bearers, mallet de graville was yet engaged in the search for the royal dead-- and the search was vain. deeper and stiller, the autumnal moon rose to its melancholy noon, and lent its ghastly aid to the glare of the redder lights. but, on leaving the pavilion, they had missed edith; she had gone from them alone, and was lost in that dreadful wilderness. and ailred said despondingly: "perchance we may already have seen the corpse we search for, and not recognised it; for the face may be mutilated with wounds. and therefore it is that saxon wives and mothers haunt our battle-fields, discovering those they search by signs not known without the household." [ ] "ay," said the norman, "i comprehend thee, by the letter or device, in which, according to your customs, your warriors impress on their own forms some token of affection, or some fancied charm against ill." "it is so," answered the monk; "wherefore i grieve that we have lost the guidance of the maid." while thus conversing, they had retraced their steps, almost in despair, towards the duke's pavilion. "see," said de graville, "how near yon lonely woman hath come to the tent of the duke--yea, to the foot of the holy gonfanon, which supplanted 'the fighting man!' pardex, my heart bleeds to see her striving to lift up the heavy dead!" the monks neared the spot, and osgood exclaimed in a voice almost joyful: "it is edith the fair! this way, the torches! hither, quick!" the corpses had been flung in irreverent haste from either side of the gonfanon, to make room for the banner of the conquest, and the pavilion of the feast. huddled together, they lay in that holy bed. and the woman silently, and by the help of no light save the moon, was intent on her search. she waved her hand impatiently as they approached, as if jealous of the dead; but as she had not sought, so neither did she oppose, their aid. moaning low to herself, she desisted from her task, and knelt watching them, and shaking her head mournfully, as they removed helm after helm, and lowered the torches upon stern and livid brows. at length the lights fell red and full on the ghastly face of haco--proud and sad as in life. de graville uttered an exclamation: "the king's nephew: be sure the king is near!" a shudder went over the woman's form, and the moaning ceased. they unhelmed another corpse; and the monks and the knight, after one glance, turned away sickened and awe-stricken at the sight: for the face was all defeatured and mangled with wounds; and nought could they recognise save the ravaged majesty of what had been man. but at the sight of that face a wild shriek broke from edith's heart. she started to her feet--put aside the monks with a wild and angry gesture, and bending over the face, sought with her long hair to wipe from it the clotted blood; then with convulsive fingers, she strove to loosen the buckler of the breast-mail. the knight knelt to assist her. "no, no," she gasped out. "he is mine--mine now!" her hands bled as the mail gave way to her efforts; the tunic beneath was all dabbled with blood. she rent the folds, and on the breast, just above the silenced heart, were punctured in the old saxon letters; the word "edith;" and just below, in characters more fresh, the word "england." "see, see!" she cried in piercing accents; and, clasping the dead in her arms, she kissed the lips, and called aloud, in words of the tenderest endearments, as if she addressed the living. all there knew then that the search was ended; all knew that the eyes of love had recognised the dead. "wed, wed," murmured the betrothed; "wed at last! o harold, harold! the words of the vala were true--and heaven is kind!" and laying her head gently on the breast of the dead, she smiled and died. at the east end of the choir in the abbey of waltham, was long shown the tomb of the last saxon king, inscribed with the touching words-- "harold infelix." but not under that stone, according to the chronicler who should best know the truth [ ], mouldered the dust of him in whose grave was buried an epoch in human annals. "let his corpse," said william the norman, "let his corpse guard the coasts, which his life madly defended. let the seas wail his dirge, and girdle his grave; and his spirit protect the land which hath passed to the norman's sway." and mallet de graville assented to the word of his chief, for his knightly heart turned into honour the latent taunt; and well he knew, that harold could have chosen no burial spot so worthy his english spirit and his roman end. the tomb at waltham would have excluded the faithful ashes of the betrothed, whose heart had broken on the bosom she had found; more gentle was the grave in the temple of heaven, and hallowed by the bridal death-dirge of the everlasting sea. so, in that sentiment of poetry and love, which made half the religion of a norman knight, mallet de graville suffered death to unite those whom life had divided. in the holy burial-ground that encircled a small saxon chapel, on the shore, and near the spot on which william had leapt to land, one grave received the betrothed; and the tomb of waltham only honoured an empty name. [ ] eight centuries have rolled away, and where is the norman now? or where is not the saxon? the little urn that sufficed for the mighty lord [ ] is despoiled of his very dust; but the tombless shade of the kingly freeman still guards the coasts, and rests upon the seas. in many a noiseless field, with thoughts for armies, your relics, o saxon heroes, have won back the victory from the bones of the norman saints; and whenever, with fairer fates, freedom opposes force, and justice, redeeming the old defeat, smites down the armed frauds that would consecrate the wrong,--smile, o soul of our saxon harold, smile, appeased, on the saxon's land! notes note (a) there are various accounts in the chroniclers as to the stature of william the first; some represent him as a giant, others as of just or middle height. considering the vulgar inclination to attribute to a hero's stature the qualities of the mind (and putting out of all question the arguments that rest on the pretended size of the disburied bones--for which the authorities are really less respectable than those on which we are called upon to believe that the skeleton of the mythical gawaine measured eight feet), we prefer that supposition, as to the physical proportions, which is most in harmony with the usual laws of nature. it is rare, indeed, that a great intellect is found in the form of a giant. note (b) game laws before the conquest. under the saxon kings a man might, it is true, hunt in his own grounds, but that was a privilege that could benefit few but thegns; and over cultivated ground or shire-land there was not the same sport to be found as in the vast wastes called forest-land, and which mainly belonged to the kings. edward declares, in a law recorded in a volume of the exchequer, "i will that all men do abstain from hunting in my woods, and that my will shall be obeyed under penalty of life." [ ] edgar, the darling monarch of the monks, and, indeed, one of the most popular of the anglo-saxon kings, was so rigorous in his forest-laws that the thegns murmured as well as the lower husbandmen, who had been accustomed to use the woods for pasturage and boscage. canute's forest-laws were meant as a liberal concession to public feeling on the subject; they are more definite than edgar's, but terribly stringent; if a freeman killed one of the king's deer, or struck his forester, he lost his freedom and became a penal serf (white theowe)-- that is, he ranked with felons. nevertheless, canute allowed bishops, abbots, and thegns to hunt in his woods--a privilege restored by henry iii. the nobility, after the conquest, being excluded from the royal chases, petitioned to enclose parks, as early even as the reign of william i.; and by the time of his son, henry i., parks became so common as to be at once a ridicule and a grievance. note (c) belin's gate. verstegan combats the welsh antiquaries who would appropriate this gate to the british deity bal or beli; and says, if so, it would not have been called by a name half saxon, half british, gate (geat) being saxon; but rather belinsport than belinsgate. this is no very strong argument; for, in the norman time, many compound words were half norman, half saxon. but, in truth, belin was a teuton deity, whose worship pervaded all gaul; and the saxons might either have continued, therefore, the name they found, or given it themselves from their own god. i am not inclined, however, to contend that any deity, saxon or british, gave the name, or that billing is not, after all, the right orthography. billing, like all words ending in ing, has something very danish in its sound; and the name is quite as likely to have been given by the danes as by the saxons. note (d) the question whether or not real vineyards were grown, or real wine made from them, in england has been a very vexed question among the antiquaries. but it is scarcely possible to read pegge's dispute with daines barrington in the archaeologia without deciding both questions in the affirmative.--see archaeol. vol. iii. p. . an engraving of the saxon wine-press is given in strutt's horda. vineyards fell into disuse, either by treaty with france, or gascony falling into the hands of the english. but vineyards were cultivated by private gentlemen as late as . our first wines from bordeaux-- the true country of bacchus--appear to have been imported about , by the marriage of henry ii. with eleanor of aquitaine. note (e) lanfranc, the first anglo-norman archbishop of canterbury. lanfranc was, in all respects, one of the most remarkable men of the eleventh century. he was born in pavia, about . his family was noble--his father ranked amongst the magistrature of pavia, the lombard capital. from his earliest youth he gave himself up, with all a scholar's zeal, to the liberal arts, and the special knowledge of law, civil and ecclesiastical. he studied at cologne, and afterwards taught and practised law in his own country. "while yet extremely young," says one of the lively chroniclers, "he triumphed over the ablest advocates, and the torrents of his eloquence confounded the subtlest rhetorician." his decisions were received as authorities by the italian jurisconsults and tribunals. his mind, to judge both by his history and his peculiar reputation (for probably few, if any, students of our day can pretend to more than a partial or superficial acquaintance with his writings), was one that delighted in subtleties and casuistical refinements; but a sense too large and commanding for those studies which amuse but never satisfy the higher intellect, became disgusted betimes with mere legal dialectics. those grand and absorbing mysteries connected with the christian faith and the roman church (grand and absorbing in proportion as their premises are taken by religious belief as mathematical axioms already proven) seized hold of his imagination, and tasked to the depth his inquisitive reason. the chronicle of knyghton cites an interesting anecdote of his life at this, its important, crisis. he had retired to a solitary spot, beside the seine, to meditate on the mysterious essence of the trinity, when he saw a boy ladling out the waters of the river that ran before him into a little well. his curiosity arrested, he asked "what the boy proposed to do?" the boy replied, "to empty yon deep into this well." "that canst thou never do," said the scholar. "nor canst thou," answered the boy, "exhaust the deep on which thou dost meditate into the well of thy reason." therewith the speaker vanished, and lanfranc, resigning the hope to achieve the mighty mystery, threw himself at once into the arms of faith, and took his refuge in the monastery of bec. the tale may be a legend, but not an idle one. perhaps he related it himself as a parable, and by the fiction explained the process of thought that decided his career. in the prime of his manhood, about , when he was thirty-seven years old, and in the zenith of his scholarly fame, he professed. the convent of bee had been lately founded, under herluin, the first abbot; there lanfranc opened a school, which became one of the most famous throughout the west of europe. indeed, under the lombard's influence, the then obscure convent of bee, to which the solitude of the site and the poverty of the endowment allured his choice, grew the academe of the age. "it was," says oderic, in his charming chronicle, "it was under such a master that the normans received their first notions of literature; from that school emerged the multitude of eloquent philosophers who adorned alike divinity and science. from france, gascony, bretagne, flanders, scholars thronged to receive his lessons." [ ] at first, as superficially stated in the tale, lanfranc had taken part against the marriage of william with matilda of flanders--a marriage clearly contrary to the formal canons of the roman church, and was banished by the fiery duke; though william's displeasure gave way at "the decent joke" (jocus decens), recorded in the text. at rome, however, his influence, arguments, and eloquence were all enlisted on the side of william: and it was to the scholar of pavia that the great norman owed the ultimate sanction of his marriage, and the repeal of the interdict that excommunicated his realm. [ ] at rome he assisted in the council held (the year wherein the ban of the church was finally and formally taken from normandy), at which the famous berenger, archdeacon of angers (against whom he had waged a polemical controversy that did more than all else to secure his repute at the pontifical court), abjured "his heresies" as to the real presence in the sacrament of the eucharist. in , or , duke william, against the lombard's own will (for lanfranc genuinely loved the liberty of letters more than vulgar power), raised him to the abbacy of st. stephen of caen. from that time, his ascendancy over his haughty lord was absolute. the contemporary historian (william of poitiers), says that "william respected him as a father, venerated him as a preceptor, and cherished him as a brother or son." he confided to him his own designs; and committed to him the entire superintendence of the ecclesiastical orders throughout normandy. eminent no less for his practical genius in affairs, than for his rare piety and theological learning, lanfranc attained indeed to the true ideal of the scholar; to whom, of all men, nothing that is human should be foreign; whose closet is but a hermit's cell, unless it is the microcosm that embraces the mart and the forum; who by the reflective part of his nature seizes the higher region of philosophy--by the energetic, is attracted to the central focus of action. for scholarship is but the parent of ideas; and ideas are the parents of action. after the conquest, as prelate of canterbury, lanfranc became the second man in the kingdom--happy, perhaps, for england had he been the first; for all the anecdotes recorded of him show a deep and genuine sympathy with the oppressed population. but william the king of the english escaped from the control which lanfranc had imposed on the duke of the normans. the scholar had strengthened the aspirer; he could only imperfectly influence the conqueror. lanfranc was not, it is true, a faultless character. he was a priest, a lawyer, and a man of the world--three characters hard to amalgamate into perfection, especially in the eleventh century. but he stands in gigantic and brilliant contrast to the rest of our priesthood in his own day, both in the superiority of his virtues, and in his exemption from the ordinary vices. he regarded the cruelties of odo of bayeux with detestation, opposed him with firmness, and ultimately, to the joy of all england, ruined his power. he gave a great impetus to learning; he set a high example to his monks, in his freedom from the mercenary sins of their order; he laid the foundations of a powerful and splendid church, which, only because it failed in future lanfrancs, failed in effecting the civilisation of which he designed it to be the instrument. he refused to crown william rufus, until that king had sworn to govern according to law and to right; and died, though a norman usurper, honoured and beloved by the saxon people. scholar, and morning star of light in the dark age of force and fraud, it is easier to praise thy life, than to track through the length of centuries all the measureless and invisible benefits which the life of one scholar bequeaths to the world--in the souls it awakens--in the thoughts it suggests! [ ] note (f) edward the confessor's reply to magnus of denmark who claimed his crown. on rare occasions edward was not without touches of a brave kingly nature. snorro sturleson gives us a noble and spirited reply of the confessor to magnus, who, as heir of canute, claimed the english crown; it concludes thus:--"now, he (hardicanute) died, and then it was the resolution of all the people of the country to take me, for the king here in england. so long as i had no kingly title i served my superiors in all respects, like those who had no claims by birth to land or kingdom. now, however, i have received the kingly title, and am consecrated king; i have established my royal dignity and authority, as my father before me; and while i live i will not renounce my title. if king magnus comes here with an army, i will gather no army against him; but he shall only get the opportunity of taking england when he has taken my life. tell him these words of mine." if we may consider this reply to be authentic, it is significant, as proof that edward rests his title on the resolution of the people to take him for king; and counts as nothing, in comparison, his hereditary claims. this, together with the general tone of the reply, particularly the passage in which he implies that he trusts his defence not to his army but his people--makes it probable that godwin dictated the answer; and, indeed, edward himself could not have couched it, either in saxon or danish. but the king is equally entitled to the credit of it, whether he composed it, or whether he merely approved and sanctioned its gallant tone and its princely sentiment. note (g) heralds. so much of the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" which invest the age of chivalry is borrowed from these companions of princes, and blazoners of noble deeds, that it may interest the reader, if i set briefly before him what our best antiquaries have said as to their first appearance in our own history. camden (somewhat, i fear, too rashly) says, that "their reputation, honour, and name began in the time of charlemagne." the first mention of heralds in england occurs in the reign of edward iii., a reign in which chivalry was at its dazzling zenith. whitlock says, "that some derive the name of herald from hereauld, "a saxon word (old soldier, or old master), "because anciently they were chosen from veteran soldiers." joseph holland says, "i find that malcolm, king of scots, sent a herald unto william the conqueror, to treat of a peace, when both armies were in order of battle." agard affirms, that "at the conquest there was no practice of heraldry;" and observes truly, "that the conqueror used a monk for his messenger to king harold." to this i may add, that monks or priests also fulfil the office of heralds in the old french and norman chronicles. thus charles the simple sends an archbishop to treat with rolfganger; louis the debonnair sends to mormon, chief of the bretons, "a sage and prudent abbot." but in the saxon times, the nuncius (a word still used in heraldic latin) was in the regular service both of the king and the great earls. the saxon name for such a messenger was bode, and when employed in hostile negotiations, he was styled warbode. the messengers between godwin and the king would seem, by the general sense of the chronicles, to have been certain thegns acting as mediators. note (h) the fylgia, or tutelary spirit. this lovely superstition in the scandinavian belief is the more remarkable because it does not appear in the creed of the germanic teutons, and is closely allied with the good angel, or guardian genius, of the persians. it forms, therefore, one of the arguments that favour the asiatic origin of the norsemen. the fylgia (following, or attendant, spirit) was always represented as a female. her influence was not uniformly favourable, though such was its general characteristic. she was capable of revenge if neglected, but had the devotion of her sex when properly treated. mr. grenville pigott, in his popular work, entitled "a manual of scandinavian mythology," relates an interesting legend with respect to one of these supernatural ladies: a scandinavian warrior, halfred vandraedakald, having embraced christianity, and being attacked by a disease which he thought mortal, was naturally anxious that a spirit who had accompanied him through his pagan career should not attend him into that other world, where her society might involve him in disagreeable consequences. the persevering fylgia, however; in the shape of a fair maiden, walked on the waves of the sea after her viking's ship. she came thus in sight of all the crew; and halfred, recognising his fylgia, told her point blank that their connection was at an end for ever. the forsaken fylgia had a high spirit of her own, and she then asked thorold "if he would take her." thorold ungallantly refused; but halfred the younger said, "maiden, i will take thee." [ ] in the various norse saga there are many anecdotes of these spirits, who are always charming, because, with their less earthly attributes, they always blend something of the woman. the poetry embodied in their existence is of a softer and more humane character than that common with the stern and vast demons of the scandinavian mythology. note (i) the origin of earl godwin. sharon turner quotes from the knytlinga saga what he calls "an explanation of godwin's career or parentage, which no other document affords;" viz.--"that ulf, a danish chief, after the battle of skorstein, between canute and edmund ironsides, pursued the english fugitives into a wood, lost his way, met, on the morning, a saxon youth driving cattle to their pasture, asked him to direct him in safety to canute's ships, and offered him the bribe of a gold ring for his guidance; the young herdsman refused the bribe, but sheltered the dane in the cottage of his father (who is represented as a mere peasant), and conducted him the next morning to the danish camp; previously to which, the youth's father represented to ulf, that his son, godwin, could never, after aiding a dane to escape, rest in safety with his countrymen, and besought him to befriend his son's fortunes with canute." the dane promised, and kept his word; hence godwin's rise. thierry, in his "history of the norman conquest," tells the same story, on the authority of torfaeus, hist. rer. norweg. now i need not say to any scholar in our early history, that the norse chronicles, abounding with romance and legend, are never to be received as authorities counter to our own records, though occasionally valuable to supply omissions in the latter; and, unfortunately for this pretty story, we have against it the direct statements of the very best authorities we possess, viz. the saxon chronicle and florence of worcester. the saxon chronicle expressly tells us that godwin's father was childe of sussex (florence calls him minister or thegn of sussex [ ]), and that wolnoth was nephew to edric, the all- powerful earl or duke of mercia. florence confirms this statement, and gives the pedigree, which may be deduced as follows: ________________________________ | | edric married egelric, edgith, daughter of surnamed leofwine king ethelred ii. | egelmar, | wolnoth. | godwin. thus this "old peasant," as the north chronicles call wolnoth, as, according to our most unquestionable authorities, a thegn of one of the most important divisions in england, and a member of the most powerful family in the kingdom! now, if our saxon authorities needed any aid from probabilities, it is scarcely worth asking, which is the more probable, that the son of a saxon herdsman should in a few years rise to such power as to marry the sister of the royal danish conqueror--or that that honour should be conferred on the most able member of a house already allied to saxon royalty, and which evidently retained its power after the fall of its head, the treacherous edric streone! even after the conquest, one of streone's nephews, edricus sylvaticus, is mentioned (simon. dunelm.) as "a very powerful thegn. "upon the whole, the account given of godwin's rise in the text of the work appears the most correct that conjectures, based on our scanty historical information, will allow. in a.d., wolnoth, the childe or thegn of sussex, defeats the fleets of ethelred, under his uncle brightric, and goes therefore into rebellion. thus when, in (five years afterwards), canute is chosen king by all the fleet, it is probable that wolnoth and godwin, his son, espoused his cause; and that godwin, subsequently presented to canute as a young noble of great promise, was favoured by that sagacious king, and ultimately honoured with the hand, first of his sister, secondly of his niece, as a mode of conciliating the saxon thegns. note (k) the want of fortresses in england. the saxons were sad destroyers. they destroyed the strongholds which the briton had received from the roman, and built very few others. thus the land was left open to the danes. alfred, sensible of this defect, repaired the walls of london and other cities, and urgently recommended his nobles and prelates to build fortresses, but could not persuade them. his great-souled daughter, elfleda, was the only imitator of his example. she built eight castles in three years. [ ] it was thus that in a country, in which the general features do not allow of protracted warfare, the inhabitants were always at the hazard of a single pitched battle. subsequent to the conquest, in the reign of john, it was, in truth, the strong castle of dover, on the siege of which prince louis lost so much time, that saved the realm of england from passing to a french dynasty: and as, in later periods, strongholds fell again into decay, so it is remarkable to observe how easily the country was overrun after any signal victory of one of the contending parties. in this truth, the wars of the roses abound with much instruction. the handful of foreign mercenaries with which henry vii. won his crown,--though the real heir, the earl of warwick (granting edward iv.'s children to be illegitimate, which they clearly were according to the rites of the church), had never lost his claim, by the defeat of richard at bosworth;--the march of the pretender to derby,--the dismay it spread throughout england,--and the certainty of his conquest had he proceeded;--the easy victory of william iii. at a time when certainly the bulk of the nation was opposed to his cause;-- are all facts pregnant with warnings, to which we are as blind as we were in the days of alfred. note (l) the ruins of penmaen-mawr. in camden's britannia there is an account of the remarkable relics assigned, in the text, to the last refuge of gryffyth ap llewellyn, taken from a manuscript by sir john wynne in the time of charles i. in this account are minutely described, "ruinous walls of an exceeding strong fortification, compassed with a treble wall, and, within each wall, the foundations of at least one hundred towers, about six yards in diameter within the walls. this castle seems (while it stood) impregnable; there being no way to offer any assault on it, the hill being so very high, steep, and rocky, and the walls of such strength, --the way or entrance into it ascending with many turnings, so that one hundred men might defend themselves against a whole legion; and yet it should seem that there were lodgings within those walls for twenty thousand men. "by the tradition we receive from our ancestors, this was the strongest refuge, or place of defence, that the ancient britons had in all snowdon; moreover, the greatness of the work shows that it was a princely fortification, strengthened by nature and workmanship." [ ] but in the year , governor pownall ascended penmaen-mawr, inspected these remains, and published his account in the archaeologia, vol. iii. p. , with a sketch both of the mount and the walls at the summit. the governor is of opinion that it never was a fortification. he thinks that the inward inclosure contained a carn (or arch-druid's sepulchre), that there is not room for any lodgment, that the walls are not of a kind which can form a cover, and give at the same time the advantage of fighting from them. in short, that the place was one of the druids' consecrated high places of worship. he adds, however, that "mr. pennant has gone twice over it, intends to make an actual survey, and anticipates much from that great antiquary's knowledge and accuracy." we turn next to mr. pennant, and we find him giving a flat contradiction to the governor. "i have more than once," [ ] says he, "visited this noted rock, to view the fortifications described by the editor of camden, from some notes of that sensible old baronet, sir john wynne, of gwidir, and have found his account very just. "the fronts of three, if not four walls, presented themselves very distinctly one above the other. i measured the height of one wall, which was at the time nine feet, the thickness seven feet and a half." (now, governor pownall also measured the walls, agrees pretty well with pennant as to their width, but makes them only five feet high.) "between these walls, in all parts, were innumerable small buildings, mostly circular. these had been much higher, as is evident from the fall of stones which lie scattered at their bottoms, and probably had once the form of towers, as sir john asserts. their diameter is, in general, from twelve to eighteen feet (ample room here for lodgement); the walls were in certain places intersected with others equally strong. this stronghold of the britons is exactly of the same kind with those on carn madryn, carn boduan, and tre'r caer." "this was most judiciously chosen to cover the passage into anglesey, and the remoter part of their country; and must, from its vast strength, have been invulnerable, except by famine; being inaccessible by its natural steepness towards the sea, and on the parts fortified in the manner described." so far, pennant versus pownall! "who shall decide when doctors disagree?" the opinion of both these antiquarians is liable to demur. governor pownall might probably be a better judge of military defences than pennant; but he evidently forms his notions of defence with imperfect knowledge of the forts, which would have amply sufficed for the warfare of the ancient britons; and moreover, he was one of those led astray by bryant's crotchets as to "high places," etc. what appears most probable is, that the place was both carn and fort; that the strength of the place, and the convenience of stones, suggested the surrounding the narrow area of the central sepulchre with walls, intended for refuge and defence. as to the circular buildings, which seem to have puzzled these antiquaries, it is strange that they appear to have overlooked the accounts which serve best to explain them. strabo says that "the houses of the britons were round, with a high pointed covering--," caesar says that they were only lighted by the door; in the antonine column they are represented as circular, with an arched entrance, single or double. they were always small, and seem to have contained but a single room. these circular buildings were not, therefore, necessarily druidical cells, as has been supposed; nor perhaps actual towers, as contended for by sir john wynne; but habitations, after the usual fashion of british houses, for the inmates or garrison of the enclosure. taking into account the tradition of the spot mentioned by sir john wynne, and other traditions still existing, which mark, in the immediate neighbourhood, the scenes of legendary battles, it is hoped that the reader will accept the description in the text as suggesting, amidst conflicting authorities, the most probable supposition of the nature and character of these very interesting remains in the eleventh century [ ], and during the most memorable invasion of wales (under harold), which occurred between the time of geraint, or arthur, and that of henry ii. note (m) the idol bel. mons. johanneau considers that bel, or belinus, is derived from the greek, a surname of apollo, and means the archer; from belos, a dart or arrow. [ ] i own i think this among the spurious conceits of the learned, suggested by the vague affinities of name. but it is quite as likely, (if there be anything in the conjecture,) that the celt taught the greek, as that the greek taught the celt. there are some very interesting questions, however, for scholars to discuss--viz. st, when did the celts first introduce idols? d, can we believe the classical authorities that assure us that the druids originally admitted no idol worship? if so, we find the chief idols of the druids cited by lucan; and they therefore acquired them long before lucan's time. from whom would they acquire them? not from the romans; for the roman gods are not the least similar to the celtic, when the last are fairly examined. nor from the teutons, from whose deities those of the celt equally differ. have we not given too much faith to the classic writers, who assert the original simplicity of the druid worship? and will not their popular idols be found to be as ancient as the remotest traces of the celtic existence? would not the cimmerii have transported them from the period of their first traditional immigration from the east? and is not their bel identical with the babylonian deity? note (n) unguents used by witches. lord bacon, speaking of the ointments used by the witches, supposes that they really did produce illusions by stopping the vapours and sending them to the head. it seems that all witches who attended the sabbat used these unguents, and there is something very remarkable in the concurrence of their testimonies as to the scenes they declared themselves to have witnessed, not in the body, which they left behind, but as present in the soul; as if the same anointments and preparatives produced dreams nearly similar in kind. to the believers in mesmerism i may add, that few are aware of the extraordinary degree to which somnambulism appears to be heightened by certain chemical aids; and the disbelievers in that agency, who have yet tried the experiments of some of those now neglected drugs to which the medical art of the middle ages attached peculiar virtues, will not be inclined to dispute the powerful and, as it were, systematic effect which certain drugs produce on the imagination of patients with excitable and nervous temperaments. note (o) hilda's adjurations. i. "by the urdar fount dwelling, day by day from the rill, the nornas besprinkle the ash ygg-drasill." the ash ygg-drasill.--much learning has been employed by scandinavian scholars in illustrating the symbols supposed to be couched under the myth of the ygg-drasill, or the great ash-tree. with this i shall not weary the reader; especially since large systems have been built on very small premises, and the erudition employed has been equally ingenious and unsatisfactory: i content myself with stating the simple myth. the ygg-drasill has three roots; two spring from the infernal regions --i.e. from the home of the frost-giants, and from niffl-heim, "vapour- home, or hell"--one from the heavenly abode of the asas. its branches, says the prose edda, extend over the whole universe, and its stem bears up the earth. beneath the root, which stretches through niffl-heim, and which the snake-king continually gnaws, is the fount whence flow the infernal rivers. beneath the root, which stretches in the land of the giants, is mimir's well wherein all wisdom is concealed; but under the root which lies in the land of the gods, is the well of urda, the norna--here the gods sit in judgment. near this well is a fair building, whence issue the three maidens, urda, verdandi, skulda (the past, the present, the future). daily they water the ash-tree from urda's well, that the branches may not perish. four harts constantly devour the birds and branches of the ash-tree. on its boughs sits an eagle, wise in much; and between its eyes sits a hawk. a squirrel runs up and down the tree sowing strife between the eagle and the snake. such, in brief, is the account of the myth. for the various interpretations of its symbolic meaning, the general reader is referred to mr. blackwell's edition of mallett's northern antiquities, and pigott's scandinavian manual. note (p) harold's accession. there are, as is well known, two accounts as to edward the confessor's death-bed disposition of the english crown. the norman chroniclers affirm, first, that edward promised william the crown during his exile in normandy; secondly, that siward, earl of northumbria, godwin, and leofric had taken oath, "serment de la main," to receive him as seigneur after edward's death, and that the hostages, wolnoth and haco, were given to the duke in pledge of that oath [ ]; thirdly, that edward left him the crown by will. let us see what probability there is of truth in these three assertions. first, edward promised william the crown when in normandy. this seems probable enough, and it is corroborated indirectly by the saxon chroniclers, when they unite in relating edward's warnings to harold against his visit to the norman court. edward might well be aware of william's designs on the crown (though in those warnings he refrains from mentioning them)--might remember the authority given to those designs by his own early promise, and know the secret purpose for which the hostages were retained by william, and the advantages he would seek to gain from having harold himself in his power. but this promise in itself was clearly not binding on the english people, nor on any one but edward, who, without the sanction of the witan, could not fulfil it. and that william himself could not have attached great importance to it during edward's life, is clear, because if he had, the time to urge it was when edward sent into germany for the atheling, as the heir presumptive of the throne. this was a virtual annihilation of the promise; but william took no step to urge it, made no complaint and no remonstrance. secondly, that godwin, siward, and leofric, had taken oaths of fealty to william. this appears a fable wholly without foundation. when could those oaths have been pledged? certainly not after harold's visit to william, for they were then all dead. at the accession of edward? this is obviously contradicted by the stipulation which godwin and the other chiefs of the witan exacted, that edward should not come accompanied by norman supporters--by the evident jealousy of the normans entertained by those chiefs, as by the whole english people, who regarded the alliance of ethelred with the norman emma as the cause of the greatest calamities--and by the marriage of edward himself with godwin's daughter, a marriage which that earl might naturally presume would give legitimate heirs to the throne.--in the interval between edward's accession and godwin's outlawry? no; for all the english chroniclers, and, indeed, the norman, concur in representing the ill-will borne by godwin and his house to the norman favourites, whom, if they could have anticipated william's accession, or were in any way bound to william, they would have naturally conciliated. but godwin's outlawry is the result of the breach between him and the foreigners.--in william's visit to edward? no; for that took place when godwin was an exile; and even the writers who assert edward's early promise to william, declare that nothing was then said as to the succession to the throne. to godwin's return from outlawry the norman chroniclers seem to refer the date of this pretended oath, by the assertion that the hostages were given in pledge of it. this is the most monstrous supposition of all; for godwin's return is followed by the banishment of the norman favourites--by the utter downfall of the norman party in england--by the decree of the witan, that all the troubles in england had come from the normans--by the triumphant ascendancy of godwin's house. and is it credible for a moment, that the great english earl could then have agreed to a pledge to transfer the kingdom to the very party he had expelled, and expose himself and his party to the vengeance of a foe he had thoroughly crushed for the time, and whom, without any motive or object, he himself agreed to restore to power or his own probable perdition? when examined, this assertion falls to the ground from other causes. it is not among the arguments that william uses in his embassies to harold; it rests mainly upon the authority of william of poitiers, who, though a contemporary, and a good authority on some points purely norman, is grossly ignorant as to the most accredited and acknowledged facts, in all that relate to the english. even with regard to the hostages, he makes the most extraordinary blunders. he says they were sent by edward, with the consent of his nobles, accompanied by robert, archbishop of canterbury. now robert, archbishop of canterbury, had fled from england as fast as he could fly on the return of godwin; and arrived in normandy, half drowned, before the hostages were sent, or even before the witan which reconciled edward and godwin had assembled. he says that william restored to harold "his young brother;" whereas it was haco, the nephew, who was restored; we know, by norman as well as saxon chroniclers, that wolnoth, the brother, was not released till after the conqueror's death, (he was re-imprisoned by rufus;) and his partiality may be judged by the assertions, first, that "william gave nothing to a norman that was unjustly taken from an englishman;" and secondly, that odo, whose horrible oppressions revolted even william himself, "never had an equal for justice, and that all the english obeyed him willingly." we may, therefore, dismiss this assertion as utterly groundless, on its own merits, without directly citing against it the saxon authorities. thirdly, that edward left william the crown by will. on this assertion alone, of the three, the norman conqueror himself seems to have rested a positive claim [ ]. but if so, where was the will? why was it never produced or producible? if destroyed, where were the witnesses? why were they not cited? the testamentary dispositions of an anglo-saxon king were always respected, and went far towards the succession. but it was absolutely necessary to prove them before the witan [ ]. an oral act of this kind, in the words of the dying sovereign, would be legal, but they must be confirmed by those who heard them. why, when william was master of england, and acknowledged by a national assembly convened in london, and when all who heard the dying king would have been naturally disposed to give every evidence in william's favour, not only to flatter the new sovereign, but to soothe the national pride, and justify the norman succession by a more popular plea than conquest,--why were no witnesses summoned to prove the bequest! alred, stigand, and the abbot of westminster, must have been present at the death-bed of the king, and these priests concurred in submission to william. if they had any testimony as to edward's bequest in his favour, would they not have been too glad to give it, in justification of themselves, in compliment to william, in duty to the people, in vindication of law against force! but no such attempt at proof was ventured upon. against these, the mere assertion of william, and the authority of normans who could know nothing of the truth of the matter, while they had every interest to misrepresent the facts--we have the positive assurances of the best possible authorities. the saxon chronicle (worth all the other annalists put together) says expressly, that edward left the crown to harold: "the sage, ne'ertheless, the realm committed to a highly-born man; harold's self, the noble earl. he in all time obeyed faithfully his rightful lord, by words and deeds: nor aught neglected which needful was to his sovereign king." florence of worcester, the next best authority, (valuable from supplying omissions in the anglo-saxon chronicle,) says expressly that the king chose harold for his successor before his decease [ ], that he was elected by the chief men of all england, and consecrated by alred. hoveden, simon (dunelm.), the beverley chronicler, confirm these authorities as to edward's choice of harold as his successor. william of malmesbury, who is not partial to harold, writing in the reign of henry the first, has doubts himself as to edward's bequest, (though grounded on a very bad argument, viz. "the improbability that edward would leave his crown to a man of whose power he had always been jealous;" there is no proof that edward had been jealous of harold's power--he had been of godwin's;) but malmesbury gives a more valuable authority than his own, in the concurrent opinion of his time, for he deposes that "the english say," the diadem was granted him (harold) by the king. these evidences are, to say the least, infinitely more worthy of historical credence than the one or two english chroniclers, of little comparative estimation, (such as wike,) and the prejudiced and ignorant norman chroniclers [ ], who depose on behalf of william. i assume, therefore, that edward left the crown to harold; of harold's better claim in the election of the witan, there is no doubt. but sir f. palgrave starts the notion that, "admitting that the prelates, earls, aldermen, and thanes of wessex and east-anglia had sanctioned the accession of harold, their decision could not have been obligatory on the other kingdoms (provinces); and the very short time elapsing between the death of edward and the recognition of harold, utterly precludes the supposition that their consent was even asked." this great writer must permit me, with all reverence, to suggest that he has, i think, forgotten the fact that, just prior to edward's death, an assembly, fully as numerous as ever met in any national witan, had been convened to attend the consecration of the new abbey and church of westminster, which edward considered the great work of his life; that assembly would certainly not have dispersed during a period so short and anxious as the mortal illness of the king, which appears to have prevented his attending the ceremony in person, and which ended in his death a very few days after the consecration. so that during the interval, which appears to have been at most about a week, between edward's death and harold's coronation [ ], the unusually large concourse of prelates and nobles from all parts of the kingdom assembled in london and westminster would have furnished the numbers requisite to give weight and sanction to the witan. and had it not been so, the saxon chroniclers, and still more the norman, would scarcely have omitted some remark in qualification of the election. but not a word is said as to any inadequate number in the witan. and as for the two great principalities of northumbria and mercia, harold's recent marriage with the sister of their earls might naturally tend to secure their allegiance. nor is it to be forgotten that a very numerous witan had assembled at oxford a few months before, to adjudge the rival claims of tostig and morcar; the decision of the witan proves the alliance between harold's party and that of the young earl's--ratified by the marriage with aldyth. and he who has practically engaged in the contests and cabals of party, will allow the probability, adopted as fact in the romance, that, considering edward's years and infirm health, and the urgent necessity of determining beforehand the claims to the succession--some actual, if secret, understanding was then come to by the leading chiefs. it is a common error in history to regard as sudden, that which in the nature of affairs never can be sudden. all that paved harold's way to the throne must have been silently settled long before the day in which the witan elected him unanimi omnium consensu. [ ] with the views to which my examination of the records of the time have led me in favour of harold, i can not but think that sir f. palgrave, in his admirable history of anglo-saxon england, does scanty justice to the last of its kings; and that his peculiar political and constitutional theories, and his attachment to the principle of hereditary succession, which make him consider that harold "had no clear title to the crown any way," tincture with something like the prejudice of party his estimate of harold's character and pretensions. my profound admiration for sir f. palgrave's learning and judgment would not permit me to make this remark without carefully considering and re-weighing all the contending authorities on which he himself relies. and i own that, of all modern historians, thierry seems to me to have given the most just idea of the great actors in the tragedy of the norman invasion, though i incline to believe that he has overrated the oppressive influence of the norman dynasty in which the tragedy closed. note (q) physical peculiarities of the scandinavians. "it is a singular circumstance, that in almost all the swords of those ages to be found to the collection of weapons in the antiquarian museum at copenhagen, the handles indicate a size of hand very much smaller than the hands of modern people of any class or rank. no modern dandy, with the most delicate hands, would find room for his hand to grasp or wield with ease some of the swords of these northmen." this peculiarity is by some scholars adduced, not without reason, as an argument for the eastern origin of the scandinavian. nor was it uncommon for the asiatic scythians, and indeed many of the early warlike tribes fluctuating between the east and west of europe, to be distinguished by the blue eyes and yellow hair of the north. the physical attributes of a deity, or a hero, are usually to be regarded as those of the race to which he belongs. the golden locks of apollo and achilles are the sign of a similar characteristic in the nations of which they are the types; and the blue eye of minerva belies the absurd doctrine that would identify her with the egyptian naith. the norman retained perhaps longer than the scandinavian, from whom he sprang, the somewhat effeminate peculiarity of small hands and feet; and hence, as throughout all the nobility of europe the norman was the model for imitation, and the ruling families in many lands sought to trace from him their descents, so that characteristic is, even to our day, ridiculously regarded as a sign of noble race. the norman probably retained that peculiarity longer than the dane, because his habits, as a conqueror, made him disdain all manual labour; and it was below his knightly dignity to walk, as long as a horse could be found for him to ride. but the anglo-norman (the noblest specimen of the great conquering family) became so blent with the saxon, both in blood and in habits, that such physical distinctions vanished with the age of chivalry. the saxon blood in our highest aristocracy now predominates greatly over the norman; and it would be as vain a task to identify the sons of hastings and rollo by the foot and hand of the old asiatic scythian, as by the reddish auburn hair and the high features which were no less ordinarily their type. here and there such peculiarities may all be seen amongst plain country gentlemen, settled from time immemorial in the counties peopled by the anglo- danes, and inter-marrying generally in their own provinces; but amongst the far more mixed breed of the larger landed proprietors comprehended in the peerage, the saxon attributes of race are strikingly conspicuous, and, amongst them, the large hand and foot common with all the germanic tribes. note (r) the interment of harold. here we are met by evidences of the most contradictory character. according to most of the english writers, the body of harold was given by william to githa, without ransom, and buried at waltham. there is even a story told of the generosity of the conqueror, in cashiering a soldier who gashed the corpse of the dead hero. this last, however, seems to apply to some other saxon, and not to harold. but william of poitiers, who was the duke's own chaplain, and whose narration of the battle appears to contain more internal evidence of accuracy than the rest of his chronicle, expressly says, that william refused githa's offer of its weight in gold for the supposed corpse of harold, and ordered it to be buried on the beach, with the taunt quoted in the text of this work--"let him guard the coast which he madly occupied;" and on the pretext that one, whose cupidity and avarice had been the cause that so many men were slaughtered and lay unsepultured, was not worthy himself of a tomb. orderic confirms this account, and says the body was given to william mallet, for that purpose. [ ] certainly william de poitiers ought to have known best; and the probability of his story is to a certain degree borne out by the uncertainty as to harold's positive interment, which long prevailed, and which even gave rise to a story related by giraldus cambrensis (and to be found also in the harleian mss.), that harold survived the battle, became a monk in chester, and before he died had a long and secret interview with henry the first. such a legend, however absurd, could scarcely have gained any credit if (as the usual story runs) harold had been formally buried, in the presence of many of the norman barons, in waltham abbey--but would very easily creep into belief, if his body had been carelessly consigned to a norman knight, to be buried privately by the sea-shore. the story of osgood and ailred, the childemaister (schoolmaster in the monastery), as related by palgrave, and used in this romance, is recorded in a ms. of waltham abbey, and was written somewhere about fifty or sixty years after the event--say at the beginning of the twelfth century. these two monks followed harold to the field, placed themselves so as to watch its results, offered ten marks for the body, obtained permission for the search, and could not recognise the mutilated corpse until osgood sought and returned with edith. in point of fact, according to this authority, it must have been two or three days after the battle before the discovery was made. footnotes [ ] sismondi's history of france, vol. iv. p. . [ ] "men's blinded hopes, diseases, toil, and prayer, and winged troubles peopling daily air." [ ] merely upon the obscure ms. of the waltham monastery; yet, such is the ignorance of popular criticism, that i have been as much attacked for the license i have taken with the legendary connection between harold and edith, as if that connection were a proven and authenticated fact! again, the pure attachment to which, in the romance, the loves of edith and harold are confined, has been alleged to be a sort of moral anachronism,--a sentiment wholly modern; whereas, on the contrary, an attachment so pure was infinitely more common in that day than in this, and made one of the most striking characteristics of the eleventh century; indeed of all the earlier ages, in the christian era, most subjected to monastic influences. [ ] notes less immediately necessary to the context, or too long not to interfere with the current of the narrative, are thrown to the end of the work. [ ] there is a legend attached to my friend's house, that on certain nights in the year, eric the saxon winds his horn at the door, and, in forma spectri, serves his notice of ejectment. [ ] the "edinburgh review," no. clxxix. january, . art. i. "correspondance inedite, de mabillon et de montfaucon, avec l'italie." par m. valery. paris, . [ ] and long before the date of the travesty known to us, and most popular amongst our mediaeval ancestors, it might be shown that some rude notion of homer's fable and personages had crept into the north. [ ] "the apartment in which the anglo-saxon women lived, was called gynecium."--fosbrooke, vol. ii., p. . [ ] glass, introduced about the time of bede, was more common then in the houses of the wealthy, whether for vessels or windows, than in the much later age of the gorgeous plantagenets. alfred, in one of his poems, introduces glass as a familiar illustration: "so oft the mild sea with south wind as grey glass clear becomes grimly troubled." shar. turner. [ ] skulda, the norna, or fate, that presided over the future. [ ] the historians of our literature have not done justice to the great influence which the poetry of the danes has had upon our early national muse. i have little doubt but that to that source may be traced the minstrelsy of our borders, and the scottish lowlands; while, even in the central counties, the example and exertions of canute must have had considerable effect on the taste and spirit of our scops. that great prince afforded the amplest encouragement to scandinavian poetry, and olaus names eight danish poets, who flourished at his court. [ ] "by the splendour of god." [ ] see note (a) at the end of this volume. [ ] it is noticeable that the norman dukes did not call themselves counts or dukes of normandy, but of the normans; and the first anglo- norman kings, till richard the first, styled themselves kings of the english, not of england. in both saxon and norman chronicles, william usually bears the title of count (comes), but in this tale he will be generally called duke, as a title more familiar to us. [ ] the few expressions borrowed occasionally from the romance tongue, to give individuality to the speaker, will generally be translated into modern french; for the same reason as saxon is rendered into modern english, viz., that the words may be intelligible to the reader. [ ] "roman de rou," part i., v. . [ ] the reason why the normans lost their old names is to be found in their conversion to christianity. they were baptised; and franks, as their godfathers, gave them new appellations. thus, charles the simple insists that rolf-ganger shall change his law (creed) and his name, and rolf or rou is christened robert. a few of those who retained scandinavian names at the time of the conquest will be cited hereafter. [ ] thus in , about a century after the first settlement, the danes of east anglia gave the only efficient resistance to the host of the vikings under justin and gurthmund; and brithnoth, celebrated by the saxon poet, as a saxon par excellence, the heroic defender of his native soil, was, in all probability, of danish descent. mr. laing, in his preface to his translation of the heimskringla, truly observes, "that the rebellions against william the conqueror, and his successors, appear to have been almost always raised, or mainly supported, in the counties of recent danish descent, not in those peopled by the old anglo-saxon race." the portion of mercia, consisting of the burghs of lancaster, lincoln, nottingham, stamford, and derby, became a danish state in a.d. ;-- east anglia, consisting of cambridge, suffolk, norfolk, and the isle of ely, in a.d. - ; and the vast territory of northumbria, extending all north the humber, into all that part of scotland south of the frith, in a.d. .--see palgrave's commonwealth. but besides their more allotted settlements, the danes were interspersed as landowners all over england. [ ] bromton chron--via., essex, middlesex, suffolk, norfolk, herts, cambridgeshire, hants, lincoln, notts, derby, northampton, leicestershire, bucks, beds, and the vast territory called northumbria. [ ] palgrave's history of england, p. . [ ] the laws collected by edward the confessor, and in later times so often and so fondly referred to, contained many introduced by the danes, which had grown popular with the saxon people. much which we ascribe to the norman conqueror, pre-existed in the anglo-danish, and may be found both in normandy, and parts of scandinavia, to this day. --see hakewell's treatise on the antiquity of laws in this island, in hearne's curious discourses. [ ] palgrave's history of england, p. . [ ] the name of this god is spelt odin, when referred to as the object of scandinavian worship; woden, when applied directly to the deity of the saxons. [ ] see note (b), at the end of the volume. [ ] the peregrine hawk built on the rocks of llandudno, and this breed was celebrated, even to the days of elizabeth. burleigh thanks one of the mostyns for a cast of hawks from llandudno. [ ] hlaf, loaf,--hlaford, lord, giver of bread; hleafdian, lady, server of bread.--verstegan. [ ] bedden-ale. when any man was set up in his estate by the contributions of his friends, those friends were bid to a feast, and the ale so drunk was called the bedden-ale, from bedden, to pray, or to bid. (see brand's pop. autiq.) [ ] herleve (arlotta), william's mother, married herluin de conteville, after the death of duke robert, and had by him two sons, robert, count of mortain, and odo, bishop of bayeux.-ord. vital. lib. vii. [ ] mone, monk. [ ] strutt's horda. [ ] there is an animated description of this "battle of london bridge, "which gave ample theme to the scandinavian scalds, in snorro sturleson: "london bridge is broken down; gold is won and bright renown; shields resounding, war-horns sounding, hildur shouting in the din, arrows singing, mail-coats ringing, odin makes our olaf win." laing's heimskringla, vol. ii. p. . [ ] sharon turner. [ ] hawkins, vol. ii. p. . [ ] doomsday makes mention of the moors, and the germans (the emperor's merchants) that were sojourners or settlers in london. the saracens at that time were among the great merchants of the world; marseilles, arles, avignon, montpellier, toulouse, were the wonted stapes of their active traders. what civilisers, what teachers they were--those same saracens! how much in arms and in arts we owe them! fathers of the provencal poetry they, far more than even the scandinavian scalds, have influenced the literature of christian europe. the most ancient chronicle of the cid was written in arabic, a little before the cid's death, by two of his pages, who were mnssulmans. the medical science of the moors for six centuries enlightened europe, and their metaphysics were adopted in nearly all the christian universities. [ ] billingsgate. see note (c), at the end of the volume. [ ] london received a charter from william at the instigation of the norman bishop of london; but it probably only confirmed the previous municipal constitution, since it says briefly, "i grant you all to be as law-worthy as ye were in the days of king edward." the rapid increase, however, of the commercial prosperity and political importance of london after the conquest, is attested in many chronicles, and becomes strikingly evident even on the surface of history. [ ] there seems good reason for believing that a keep did stand where the tower stands, before the conquest, and that william's edifice spared some of its remains. in the very interesting letter from john bayford relating to the city of london (lel. collect. lviii.), the writer, a thorough master of his subject, states that "the romans made a public military way, that of watling street, from the tower to ludgate, in a straight line, at the end of which they built stations or citadels, one of which was where the white tower now stands." bayford adds that "when the white tower was fitted up for the reception of records, there remained many saxon inscriptions." [ ] rude-lane. lad-lane.--bayford. [ ] fitzstephen. [ ] camden. [ ] bayford, leland's collectanea, p. lviii. [ ] ludgate (leod-gate).--verstegan. [ ] see note (d), at the end of the volume. [ ] massere, merchant, mercer. [ ] fitzstephen. [ ] meuse. apparently rather a hawk hospital, from muta (camden). du fresne, in his glossary, says, muta is in french le meue, and a disease to which the hawk was subject on changing its feathers. [ ] scotland-yard.--strype. [ ] the first bridge that connected thorney isle with the mainland is said to have been built by matilda, wife of henry i. [ ] we give him that title, which this norman noble generally bears in the chronicles, though palgrave observes that he is rather to be styled earl of the magesetan (the welch marches). [ ] eadigan.--s. turner, vol. i. p. . [ ] the comparative wealth of london was indeed considerable. when, in , all the rest of england was taxed to an amount considered stupendous, viz., , saxon pounds, london contributed , pounds besides. [ ] complin. the second vespers. [ ] camden--a church was built out of the ruins of that temple by sibert, king of the east saxons; and canute favoured much the small monastery attached to it (originally established by dunstan for twelve benedictines), on account of its abbot wulnoth, whose society pleased him. the old palace of canute, in thorney isle, had been destroyed by fire. [ ] see note to pluquet's roman de rou, p. . n.b.--whenever the roman de rou is quoted in these pages it is from the excellent edition of m. pluquet. [ ] pardex or parde, corresponding to the modern french expletive, pardie. [ ] quen, or rather quens; synonymous with count in the norman chronicles. earl godwin is strangely styled by wace, quens qwine. [ ] "good, good, pleasant son,--the words of the poet sound gracefully on the lips of the knight." [ ] a sentiment variously assigned to william and to his son henry the beau clerc. [ ] mallet is a genuine scandinavian name to this day. [ ] rou--the name given by the french to rollo, or rolf-ganger, the founder of the norman settlement. [ ] pious severity to the heterodox was a norman virtue. william of poictiers says of william, "one knows with what zeal he pursued and exterminated those who thought differently;" i.e., on transubstantiation. but the wise norman, while flattering the tastes of the roman pontiff in such matters, took special care to preserve the independence of his church from any undue dictation. [ ] a few generations later this comfortable and decent fashion of night-gear was abandoned; and our forefathers, saxon and norman, went to bed in puris naturalibus, like the laplanders. [ ] most of the chroniclers merely state the parentage within the forbidden degrees as the obstacle to william's marriage with matilda; but the betrothal or rather nuptials of her mother adele with richard iii. (though never consummated), appears to have been the true canonical objection.--see note to wace, p. . nevertheless, matilda's mother, adele, stood in the relation of aunt to william, as widow of his father's elder brother, "an affinity," as is observed by a writer in the "archaeologia," "quite near enough to account for, if not to justify, the interference of the church."--arch. vol. xxxii. p. . [ ] it might be easy to show, were this the place, that though the saxons never lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which gradually regained the liberty from the gripe of the anglo-norman kings, were achieved by the anglo-norman aristocracy. and even to this day, the few rare descendants of that race (whatever their political faction), will generally exhibit that impatience of despotic influence, and that disdain of corruption, which characterise the homely bonders of norway, in whom we may still recognise the sturdy likeness of their fathers; while it is also remarkable that the modern inhabitants of those portions of the kingdom originally peopled by their kindred danes, are, irrespective of mere party divisions, noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their resolute independence of character; to wit, yorkshire, norfolk, cumberland, and large districts in the scottish lowlands. [ ] ex pervetusto codice, ms. chron. bec. in vit. lanfranc, quoted in the "archaeologia," vol. xxxii. p. . the joke, which is very poor, seems to have turned upon pede and quadrupede; it is a little altered in the text. [ ] ord. vital. see note on lanfranc, at the end of the volume. [ ] siward was almost a giant (pene gigas statures). there are some curious anecdotes of this hero, immortalised by shakspere, in the bromton chronicle. his grandfather is said to have been a bear, who fell in love with a danish lady; and his father, beorn, retained some of the traces of the parental physiognomy in a pair of pointed ears. the origin of this fable seems evident. his grandfather was a berserker; for whether that name be derived, as is more generally supposed, from bare-sark,--or rather from bear-sark, that is, whether this grisly specimen of the viking genus fought in his shirt or his bearskin, the name equally lends itself to those mystifications from which half the old legends, whether of greece or norway, are derived. [ ] wace. [ ] see note (e), at the end of the volume (foot-note on the date of william's marriage). [ ] anglo-saxon chronicle. [ ] some writers say fifty. [ ] hovenden. [ ] bodes, i.e. messengers. [ ] anglo-saxon chronicle. [ ] or fleur-de-lis, which seems to have been a common form of ornament with the saxon kings. [ ] bayeux tapestry. [ ] see note (f), at the end of the volume. [ ] the york chronicle, written by an englishman, stubbs, gives this eminent person an excellent character as peacemaker. "he could make the warmest friends of foes the most hostile." "de inimicissimis, amicissimos faceret." this gentle priest had yet the courage to curse the norman conqueror in the midst of his barons. that scene is not within the range of this work, but it is very strikingly told in the chronicle. [ ] heralds, though probably the word is saxon, were not then known in the modern acceptation of the word. the name given to the messenger or envoy who fulfilled that office was bode or nuncius. see note (g), at the end of the volume. [ ] when the chronicler praises the gift of speech, he unconsciously proves the existence of constitutional freedom. [ ] recent danish historians have in vain endeavoured to detract from the reputation of canute as an english monarch. the danes are, doubtless, the best authorities for his character in denmark. but our own english authorities are sufficiently decisive as to the personal popularity of canute in this country, and the affection entertained for his laws. [ ] some of our historians erroneously represent harold as the eldest son. but florence, the best authority we have, in the silence of the saxon chronicle, as well as knyghton, distinctly states sweyn to be the eldest; harold was the second, and tostig was the third. sweyn's seniority seems corroborated by the greater importance of his earldom. the norman chroniclers, in their spite to harold, wish to make him junior to tostig--for the reasons evident at the close of this work. and the norwegian chronicler, snorro sturleson, says that harold was the youngest of all the sons; so little was really known, or cared to be accurately known, of that great house which so nearly founded a new dynasty of english kings. [ ] anglo-saxon chronicle, a. d. . "stigand was deposed from his bishopric, and all that he possessed was seized into the king's hands, because he was received to his mother's counsel, and she went just as he advised her, as people thought." the saintly confessor dealt with his bishops as summarily as henry viii. could have done, after his quarrel with the pope. [ ] the title of basileus was retained by our kings so late as the time of john, who styled himself "totius insulae britannicae basileus."--agard: on the antiquity of shires in england, op. hearne, cur. disc. [ ] sharon turner. [ ] see the introduction to palgrave's history of the anglo-saxons, from which this description of the witan is borrowed so largely, that i am left without other apology for the plagiarism, than the frank confession, that if i could have found in others, or conceived from my own resources, a description half as graphic and half as accurate, i would only have plagiarised to half the extent i have done. [ ] girald. gambrensis. [ ] palgrave omits, i presume accidentally, these members of the witan, but it is clear from the anglo-saxon chronicle that the london "lithsmen" were represented in the great national witans, and helped to decide the election even of kings. [ ] by athelstan's law, every man was to have peace going to and from the witan, unless he was a thief.--wilkins, p. . [ ] goda, edward's sister, married first rolf's father, count of nantes; secondly, the count of boulogne. [ ] more correctly of oxford, somerset, berkshire, gloucester, and hereford. [ ] yet how little safe it is for the great to despise the low-born. this very richard, son of scrob, more euphoniously styled by the normans richard fitz-scrob, settled in herefordshire (he was probably among the retainers of earl rolf), and on william's landing, became the chief and most active supporter of the invader in those districts. the sentence of banishment seems to have been mainly confined to the foreigners about the court--for it is clear that many norman landowners and priests were still left scattered throughout the country. [ ] seneca, thyest. act ii.--"he is a king who fears nothing; that kingdom every man gives to himself." [ ] scin-laeca, literally a shining corpse; a species of apparition invoked by the witch or wizard.--see sharon turner on the superstitions of the anglo-saxons, b. ii. c. . [ ] galdra, magic. [ ] fylgia, tutelary divinity. see note (h), at the end of the volume. [ ] morthwyrtha, worshipper of the dead. [ ] it is a disputed question whether the saex of the earliest saxon invaders was a long or short curved weapon,--nay, whether it was curved or straight; but the author sides with those who contend that it was a short, crooked weapon, easily concealed by a cloak, and similar to those depicted on the banner of the east saxons. [ ] see note (k), at the end of the volume. [ ] saxon chronicle, florence wigorn. sir f. palgrave says that the title of childe is equivalent to that of atheling. with that remarkable appreciation of evidence which generally makes him so invaluable as a judicial authority where accounts are contradictory, sir f. palgrave discards with silent contempt the absurd romance of godwin's station of herdsman, to which, upon such very fallacious and flimsy authorities, thierry and sharon turner have been betrayed into lending their distinguished names. [ ] this first wife thyra, was of very unpopular repute with the saxons. she was accused of sending young english persons as slaves into denmark, and is said to have been killed by lightning. [ ] it is just, however, to godwin to say, that there is no proof of his share in this barbarous transaction; the presumptions, on the contrary, are in his favour; but the authorities are too contradictory, and the whole event too obscure, to enable us unhesitatingly to confirm the acquittal he received in his own age, and from his own national tribunal. [ ] anglo-saxon chronicle. [ ] william of malmesbury. [ ] so robert of gloucester says pithily of william, "kyng wylliam was to mild men debonnere ynou."--hearne, v. ii. p. . [ ] this kiss of peace was held singularly sacred by the normans, and all the more knightly races of the continent. even the craftiest dissimulator, designing fraud, and stratagem, and murder to a foe, would not, to gain his ends, betray the pledge of the kiss of peace. when henry ii. consented to meet becket after his return from rome, and promised to remedy all of which his prelate complained, he struck prophetic dismay into becket's heart by evading the kiss of peace. [ ] snorro sturleson's heimskringla.--laing's translation, p. - . [ ] the gre-hound was so called from hunting the gre or badger. [ ] the spear and the hawk were as the badges of saxon nobility; and a thegn was seldom seen abroad without the one on his left wrist, the other in his right hand. [ ] bed epist. ad egbert. [ ] tegner's frithiof. [ ] some of the chroniclers say that he married the daughter of gryffyth, the king of north wales, but gryffyth certainly married algar's daughter, and that double alliance could not have been permitted. it was probably, therefore, some more distant kinswoman of gryffyth's that was united to algar. [ ] the title of queen is employed in these pages, as one which our historians have unhesitatingly given to the consorts of our saxon kings; but the usual and correct designation of edward's royal wife, in her own time, would be, edith the lady. [ ] ethel. de gen. reg. ang. [ ] ailred, de vit. edward confess. [ ] ingulfus. [ ] the clergy (says malmesbury), contented with a very slight share of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacraments; and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. other authorities, likely to be impartial, speak quite as strongly as to the prevalent ignorance of the time. [ ] house-carles in the royal court were the body-guard, mostly, if not all, of danish origin. they appear to have been first formed, or at least employed, in that capacity by canute. with the great earls, the house-carles probably exercised the same functions; but in the ordinary acceptation of the word in families of lower rank, house- carle was a domestic servant. [ ] this was cheap. for agelnoth, archbishop of canterbury, gave the pope lb. weight of silver for the arm of st. augustine.-- malmesbury. [ ] william of malmesbury says, that the english, at the time of the conquest, loaded their arms with gold bracelets, and adorned their skins with punctured designs, i.e., a sort of tattooing. he says, that they then wore short garments, reaching to the mid-knee; but that was a norman fashion, and the loose robes assigned in the text to algar were the old saxon fashion, which made but little distinction between the dress of women and that of men. [ ] and in england, to this day, the descendants of the anglo- danes, in cumberland and yorkshire, are still a taller and bonier race than those of the anglo-saxons, as in surrey and sussex. [ ] very few of the greater saxon nobles could pretend to a lengthened succession in their demesnes. the wars with the danes, the many revolutions which threw new families uppermost, the confiscations and banishments, and the invariable rule of rejecting the heir, if not of mature years at his father's death, caused rapid changes of dynasty in the several earldoms. but the family of leofric had just claims to a very rare antiquity in their mercian lordship. leofric was the sixth earl of chester and coventry, in lineal descent from his namesake, leofric the first; he extended the supremacy of his hereditary lordship over all mercia. see dugdale, monast. vol. iii. p. ; and palgrave's commonwealth, proofs and illustrations, p. . [ ] ailred de vit. edw. [ ] dunwich, now swallowed up by the sea.--hostile element to the house of godwin. [ ] windsor. [ ] the chronicler, however, laments that the household ties, formerly so strong with the anglo-saxon, had been much weakened in the age prior to the conquest. [ ] some authorities state winchester as the scene of these memorable festivities. old windsor castle is supposed by mr. lysons to have occupied the site of a farm of mr. isherwood's surrounded by a moat, about two miles distant from new windsor. he conjectures that it was still occasionally inhabited by the norman kings till . the ville surrounding it only contained ninety-five houses, paying gabel-tax, in the norman survey. [ ] ailred, de vit. edward. confess. [ ] "is it astonishing," asked the people (referring to edward's preference of the normans), "that the author and support of edward's reign should be indignant at seeing new men from a foreign nation raised above him, and yet never does he utter one harsh word to the man whom he himself created king?"--hazlitt's thierry, vol. i. p. . this is the english account (versus the norman). there can be little doubt that it is the true one. [ ] henry of huntingdon, etc. [ ] henry of huntingdon; bromt. chron., etc. [ ] hoveden. [ ] the origin of the word leach (physician), which has puzzled some inquirers, is from lids or leac, a body. leich is the old saxon word for surgeon. [ ] sharon turner, vol. i. p. . [ ] fosbrooke. [ ] aegir, the scandinavian god of the ocean. not one of the aser, or asas (the celestial race), but sprung from the giants. ran or rana, his wife, a more malignant character, who caused shipwrecks, and drew to herself, by a net, all that fell into the sea. the offspring of this marriage were nine daughters, who became the billows, the currents, and the storms. [ ] frilla, the danish word for a lady who, often with the wife's consent, was added to the domestic circle by the husband. the word is here used by hilda in a general sense of reproach. both marriage and concubinage were common amongst the anglo-saxon priesthood, despite the unheeded canons; and so, indeed, they were with the french clergy. [ ] hilda, not only as a heathen, but as a dane, would be no favourer of monks; they were unknown in denmark at that time, and the danes held them in odium.--ord vital., lib. vii. [ ] chron. knyghton. [ ] weyd-month. meadow month, june. [ ] cumen-hus. tavern. [ ] fitzstephen. [ ] william of malmesbury speaks with just indignation of the anglo-saxon custom of selling female servants, either to public prostitution, or foreign slavery. [ ] it will be remembered that algar governed wessex, which principality included kent, during the year of godwin's outlawry. [ ] trulofa, from which comes our popular corruption "true lover's knot;" a vetere danico trulofa, i.e., fidem do, to pledge faith.-- hicke's thesaur. "a knot, among the ancient northern nations, seems to have been the emblem of love, faith, and friendship."--brande's pop. antiq. [ ] the saxon chronicle contradicts itself as to algar's outlawry, stating in one passage that he was outlawed without any kind of guilt, and in another that he was outlawed as swike, or traitor, and that he made a confession of it before all the men there gathered. his treason, however, seems naturally occasioned by his close connection with gryffyth, and proved by his share in that king's rebellion. some of our historians have unfairly assumed that his outlawry was at harold's instigation. of this there is not only no proof, but one of the best authorities among the chroniclers says just the contrary-- that harold did all he could to intercede for him; and it is certain that he was fairly tried and condemned by the witan, and afterwards restored by the concurrent articles of agreement between harold and leofric. harold's policy with his own countrymen stands out very markedly prominent in the annals of the time; it was invariably that of conciliation. [ ] saxon chron., verbatim. [ ] hume. [ ] "the chaste who blameless keep unsullied fame, transcend all other worth, all other praise. the spirit, high enthroned, has made their hearts his sacred temple." sharon turner's translation of aldhelm, vol. iii. p. . it is curious to see how, even in latin, the poet preserves the alliterations that characterised the saxon muse. [ ] slightly altered from aldhelm. [ ] it is impossible to form any just view of the state of parties, and the position of harold in the later portions of this work, unless the reader will bear constantly in mind the fact that, from the earliest period, minors were set aside as a matter of course, by the saxon customs. henry observes that, in the whole history of the heptarchy, there is but one example of a minority, and that a short and unfortunate one; so, in the later times, the great alfred takes the throne, to the exclusion of the infant son of his elder brother. only under very peculiar circumstances, backed, as in the case of edmund ironsides, by precocious talents and manhood on the part of the minor, were there exceptions to the general laws of succession. the same rule obtained with the earldoms; the fame, power, and popularity of siward could not transmit his northumbrian earldom to his infant son waltheof, so gloomily renowned in a subsequent reign. [ ] bayeux tapestry. [ ] indeed, apparently the only monastic order in england. [ ] see note to robert of gloucester, vol. ii. p. . [ ] the saxon priests were strictly forbidden to bear arms.--spelm. concil. p. . it is mentioned in the english chronicles, as a very extraordinary circumstance, that a bishop of hereford, who had been harold's chaplain, did actually take sword and shield against the welch. unluckily, this valiant prelate was slain so soon, that it was no encouraging example. [ ] see note (k), at the end of the volume. [ ] the normans and french detested each other; and it was the norman who taught to the saxon his own animosities against the frank. a very eminent antiquary, indeed, de la rue, considered that the bayeux tapestry could not be the work of matilda, or her age, because in it the normans are called french. but that is a gross blunder on his part; for william, in his own charters, calls the normans "franci." wace, in his "roman de rou," often styles the normans "french;" and william of poitiers, a contemporary of the conqueror, gives them also in one passage the same name. still, it is true that the normans were generally very tenacious of their distinction from their gallant but hostile neighbours. [ ] the present town and castle of conway. [ ] see camden's britannia, "caernarvonshire." [ ] when (a.d. ) the bishops, germanicus, and lupus, headed the britons against the picts and saxons, in easter week, fresh from their baptism in the alyn, germanicus ordered them to attend to his war-cry, and repeat it; he gave "alleluia." the hills so loudly re-echoed the cry, that the enemy caught panic, and fled with great slaughter. maes garmon, in flintshire, was the scene of the victory. [ ] the cry of the english at the onset of battle was "holy crosse, god almighty;" afterwards in fight, "ouct, ouct," out, out.--hearne's disc. antiquity of motts. the latter cry, probably, originated in the habit of defending their standard and central posts with barricades and closed shields; and thus, idiomatically and vulgarly, signified "get out." [ ] certain high places in wales, of which this might well be one, were so sacred, that even the dwellers in the immediate neighbourhood never presumed to approach them. [ ] see note (l), at the end of the volume. [ ] see note (m), at the end of the volume. [ ] the welch seem to have had a profusion of the precious metals very disproportioned to the scarcity of their coined money. to say nothing of the torques, bracelets, and even breastplates of gold, common with their numerous chiefs, their laws affix to offences penalties which attest the prevalent waste both of gold and silver. thus, an insult to a sub-king of aberfraw is atoned by a silver rod as thick as the king's little finger, which is in length to reach from the ground to his mouth when sitting; and a gold cup, with a cover as broad as the king's face, and the thickness of a ploughman's nail, or the shell of a goose's egg. i suspect that it was precisely because the welch coined little or no money, that the metals they possessed became thus common in domestic use. gold would have been more rarely seen, even amongst the peruvians, had they coined it into money. [ ] leges wallicae. [ ] mona, or anglesea. [ ] ireland. [ ] the welch were then, and still are, remarkable for the beauty of their teeth. giraldus cambrensis observes, as something very extraordinary, that they cleaned them. [ ] i believe it was not till the last century that a good road took the place of this pass. [ ] the saxons of wessex seem to have adopted the dragon for their ensign, from an early period. it was probably for this reason that it was assumed by edward ironsides, as the hero of the saxons; the principality of wessex forming the most important portion of the pure saxon race, while its founder was the ancestor of the imperial house of the basileus of britain. the dragon seems also to have been a norman ensign. the lions or leopards, popularly assigned to the conqueror, are certainly a later invention. there is no appearance of them on the banners and shields of the norman army in the bayeux tapestry. armorial bearings were in use amongst the welch, and even the saxons, long before heraldry was reduced to a science by the franks and normans. and the dragon, which is supposed by many critics to be borrowed from the east, through the saracens, certainly existed as an armorial ensign with the cymrians before they could have had any obligation to the songs and legends of that people. [ ] "in whose time the earth brought forth double, and there was neither beggar nor poor man from the north to the south sea." powell's hist. of wales, p. . [ ] "during the military expeditions made in our days against south wales, an old welchman, at pencadair, who had faithfully adhered to him (henry ii.), being desired to give his opinion about the royal army, and whether he thought that of the rebels would make resistance, and what he thought would be the final event of this war, replied: 'this nation, o king, may now, as in former times, be harassed, and, in a great measure, be weakened and destroyed by you and other powers; and it will often prevail by its laudable exertions, but it can never be totally subdued by the wrath of man, unless the wrath of god shall concur. nor do i think that any other nation than this of wales, or any other language (whatever may hereafter come to pass), shall in the day of severe examination before the supreme judge answer for this corner of the earth!'"--hoare's giraldus cambrensis, vol. i. p. . [ ] gryffyth left a son, caradoc; but he was put aside as a minor, according to the saxon customs. [ ] bromton chron., knyghton, walsingham, hoveden, etc. [ ] bromton, knyghton, etc. [ ] the word "decimated" is the one generally applied by the historians to the massacre in question; and it is therefore retained here. but it is not correctly applied, for that butchery was perpetrated, not upon one out of ten, but nine out of ten. [ ] the above reasons for harold's memorable expedition are sketched at this length, because they suggest the most probable motives which induced it, and furnish, in no rash and inconsiderate policy, that key to his visit, which is not to be found in chronicler or historian. [ ] see note (n). [ ] faul was an evil spirit much dreaded by the saxons. zabulus and diabolus (the devil) seem to have been the same. [ ] ygg-drassill, the mystic ash-tree of life, or symbol of the earth, watered by the fates.--see note (o.) [ ] mimir, the most celebrated of the giants. the vaner, with whom he was left as a hostage, cut off his head. odin embalmed it by his seid, or magic art, pronounced over it mystic runes, and, ever after, consulted it on critical occasions. [ ] asa-lok or loke--(distinct from utgard-lok, the demon of the infernal regions)--descended from the giants, but received among the celestial deities; a treacherous and malignant power fond of assuming disguises and plotting evil-corresponding in his attributes with our "lucifer." one of his progeny was hela, the queen of hell. [ ] "a hag dwells in a wood called janvid, the iron wood, the mother of many gigantic sons shaped like wolves; there is one of a race more fearful than all, named 'managarm.' he will be filled with the blood of men who draw near their end, and will swallow up the moon and stain the heavens and the hearth with blood."--from the prose edda. in the scandinavian poetry, managarm is sometimes the symbol of war, and the "iron wood" a metaphor for spears. [ ] "wolf month," january. [ ] bayeux tapestry. [ ] roman de rou, see part ii. . [ ] belrem, the present beaurain, near montreuil. [ ] roman de rou, part ii. . [ ] william of poitiers, "apud aucense castrum." [ ] as soon as the rude fort of the middle ages admitted something of magnificence and display, the state rooms were placed in the third story of the inner court, as being the most secure. [ ] a manor (but not, alas! in normandy) was held by one of his cooks, on the tenure of supplying william with a dish of dillegrout. [ ] the council of cloveshoe forbade the clergy to harbour poets, harpers, musicians, and buffoons. [ ] ord. vital. [ ] canute made his inferior strength and stature his excuse for not meeting edward ironsides in single combat. [ ] odo's licentiousness was, at a later period, one of the alleged causes of his downfall, or rather against his release from the prison to which he had been consigned. he had a son named john, who distinguished himself under henry i.--ord. vital. lib. iv. [ ] william of poitiers, the contemporary norman chronicler, says of harold, that he was a man to whom imprisonment was more odious than shipwreck. [ ] in the environs of bayeux still may perhaps linger the sole remains of the scandinavian normans, apart from the gentry. for centuries the inhabitants of bayeux and its vicinity were a class distinct from the franco-normans, or the rest of neustria; they submitted with great reluctance to the ducal authority, and retained their old heathen cry of thor-aide, instead of dieu-aide! [ ] similar was the answer of goodyn the bishop of winchester, ambassador from henry viii. to the french king. to this day the english entertain the same notion of forts as harold and goodyn. [ ] see mr. wright's very interesting article on the "condition of the english peasantry," etc., archaeologia, vol. xxx. pp. - . i must, however, observe, that one very important fact seems to have been generally overlooked by all inquirers, or, at least, not sufficiently enforced, viz., that it was the norman's contempt for the general mass of the subject population which more, perhaps, than any other cause, broke up positive slavery in england. thus the norman very soon lost sight of that distinction the anglo-saxons had made between the agricultural ceorl and the theowe; i.e., between the serf of the soil and the personal slave. hence these classes became fused in each other, and were gradually emancipated by the same circumstances. this, be it remarked, could never have taken place under the anglo-saxon laws, which kept constantly feeding the class of slaves by adding to it convicted felons and their children. the subject population became too necessary to the norman barons, in their feuds with each other, or their king, to be long oppressed; and, in the time of froissart, that worthy chronicler ascribes the insolence, or high spirit, of le menu peuple to their grand aise, et abondance de biens. [ ] twelve o'clock. [ ] six a.m. [ ] a celebrated antiquary, in his treatise in the "archaeologia," on the authenticity of the bayeux tapestry, very justly invites attention to the rude attempt of the artist to preserve individuality in his portraits; and especially to the singularly erect bearing of the duke, by which he is at once recognised wherever he is introduced. less pains are taken with the portrait of harold; but even in that a certain elegance of proportion, and length of limb, as well as height of stature, are generally preserved. [ ] bayeux tapestry. [ ] ail. de vit. edw.--many other chroniclers mention this legend, of which the stones of westminster abbey itself prated, in the statues of edward and the pilgrim, placed over the arch in dean's yard. [ ] this ancient saxon lay, apparently of the date of the tenth or eleventh century, may be found, admirably translated by mr. george stephens, in the archaeologia, vol. xxx. p. . in the text the poem is much abridged, reduced into rhythm, and in some stanzas wholly altered from the original. but it is, nevertheless, greatly indebted to mr. stephens's translation, from which several lines are borrowed verbatim. the more careful reader will note the great aid given to a rhymeless metre by alliteration. i am not sure that this old saxon mode of verse might not be profitably restored to our national muse. [ ] people. [ ] heaven. [ ] omen. [ ] the eastern word satraps (satrapes) made one of the ordinary and most inappropriate titles (borrowed, no doubt, from the byzantine court), by which the saxons, in their latinity, honoured their simple nobles. [ ] afterwards married to malcolm of scotland, through whom, by the female line, the present royal dynasty of england assumes descent from the anglo-saxon kings. [ ] by his first wife; aldyth was his second. [ ] flor. wig. [ ] this truth has been overlooked by writers, who have maintained the atheling's right as if incontestable. "an opinion prevailed," says palgrave, "eng. commonwealth," pp. , , "that if the atheling was born before his father and mother were ordained to the royal dignity, the crown did not descend to the child of uncrowned ancestors. "our great legal historian quotes eadmer, "de vit. sanct. dunstan," p. , for the objection made to the succession of edward the martyr, on this score. [ ] see the judicious remarks of henry, "hist. of britain," on this head. from the lavish abuse of oaths, perjury had come to be reckoned one of the national vices of the saxon. [ ] and so, from gryffyth, beheaded by his subjects, descended charles stuart. [ ] brompt. chron. [ ] see note p. [ ] it seems by the coronation service of ethelred ii. still extant, that two bishops officiated in the crowning of the king; and hence, perhaps, the discrepancy in the chronicles, some contending that harold was crowned by alred, others, by stigand. it is noticeable, however, that it is the apologists of the normans who assign that office to stigand, who was in disgrace with the pope, and deemed no lawful bishop. thus in the bayeux tapestry the label, "stigand," is significantly affixed to the officiating prelate, as if to convey insinuation that harold was not lawfully crowned. florence, by far the best authority, says distinctly, that harold was crowned by alred. the ceremonial of the coronation described in the text, is for the most part given on the authority of the "cotton ms." quoted by sharon turner, vol. iii. p. . [ ] introduced into our churches in the ninth century. [ ] the wyn-month: october. [ ] "snorro sturleson." laing. [ ] the vaeringers, or varangi, mostly northmen; this redoubtable force, the janissaries of the byzantine empire, afforded brilliant field, both of fortune and war, to the discontented spirits, or outlawed heroes of the north. it was joined afterwards by many of the bravest and best born of the saxon nobles, refusing to dwell under the yoke of the norman. scott, in "count robert of paris," which, if not one of his best romances, is yet full of truth and beauty, has described this renowned band with much poetical vigor and historical fidelity. [ ] laing's snorro sturleson.--"the old norwegian ell was less than the present ell; and thorlasius reckons, in a note on this chapter, that harold's stature would be about four danish ells; viz. about eight feet."--laing's note to the text. allowing for the exaggeration of the chronicler, it seems probable, at least, that hardrada exceeded seven feet. since (as laing remarks in the same note), and as we shall see hereafter, "our english harold offered him, according to both english and danish authority, seven feet of land for a grave, or as much more as his stature, exceeding that of other men, might require." [ ] snorro sturleson. see note q. [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] hoveden. [ ] holinshed. nearly all chroniclers (even, with scarce an exception, those most favouring the normans), concur in the abilities and merits of harold as a king. [ ] "vit. harold. chron. ang. norm." ii, . [ ] hoveden. [ ] malmesbury. [ ] supposed to be our first port for shipbuilding.--fosbrooke, p. . [ ] pax. [ ] some of the norman chroniclers state that robert, archbishop of canterbury, who had been expelled from england at godwin's return, was lanfranc's companion in this mission; but more trustworthy authorities assure us that robert had been dead some years before, not long surviving his return into normandy. [ ] saxon chronicle. [ ] saxon chronicle.--"when it was the nativity of st. mary, then were the men's provisions gone, and no man could any longer keep them there." [ ] it is curious to notice how england was represented as a country almost heathen; its conquest was regarded quite as a pious, benevolent act of charity--a sort of mission for converting the savages. and all this while england was under the most slavish ecclesiastical domination, and the priesthood possessed a third of its land! but the heart of england never forgave that league of the pope with the conqueror; and the seeds of the reformed religion were trampled deep into the saxon soil by the feet of the invading norman. [ ] william of poitiers.--the naive sagacity of this bandit argument, and the norman's contempt for harold's deficiency in "strength of mind," are exquisite illustrations of character. [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] does any scandinavian scholar know why the trough was so associated with the images of scandinavian witchcraft? a witch was known, when seen behind, by a kind of trough-like shape; there must be some symbol, of very ancient mythology, in this superstition! [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] so thierry translates the word: others, the land-ravager. in danish, the word is land-ode, in icelandic, land-eydo.--note to thierry's "hist. of the conq. of england," book iii. vol. vi. p. (of hazlitt's translation). [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] see snorro sturleson for this parley between harold in person and tostig. the account differs from the saxon chroniclers, but in this particular instance is likely to be as accurate. [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] sharon turner's anglo-saxons, vol. ii. p. . snorro sturleson. [ ] snorro sturleson. [ ] the quick succession of events allowed the saxon army no time to bury the slain; and the bones of the invaders whitened the field of battle for many years afterwards. [ ] it may be said indeed, that, in the following reign, the danes under osbiorn (brother of king sweyn), sailed up the humber; but it was to assist the english, not to invade them. they were bought off by the normans,--not conquered. [ ] the saxons sat at meals with their heads covered. [ ] henry. [ ] palgrave--"hist. of anglo-saxons." [ ] palgrave--"hist. of anglo-saxons." [ ] the battle-field of hastings seems to have been called senlac, before the conquest, sanguelac after it. [ ] traitor-messenger. [ ] "ne meinent od els chevalier, varlet a pie de eskuier; ne nul d'els n'a armes portee, forz sol escu, lance, et espee." roman de rou, second part, v. , . [ ] "ke d'une angarde [eminence] u ils 'estuient cels de l'ost virent, ki pres furent." roman de rou, second part, v. , . [ ] midnight. [ ] this counsel the norman chronicler ascribes to gurth, but it is so at variance with the character of that hero, that it is here assigned to the unscrupulous intellect of haco. [ ] osborne--(asbiorn),--one of the most common of danish and norwegian names. tonstain, toustain, or tostain, the same as tosti, or tostig,--danish. (harold's brother is called tostain or toustain, in the norman chronicles). brand, a name common to dane or norwegian --bulmer is a norwegian name, and so is bulver or bolvaer--which is, indeed, so purely scandinavian that it is one of the warlike names given to odin himself by the norse-scalds. bulverhithe still commemorates the landing of a norwegian son of the war-god. bruce, the ancestor of the deathless scot, also bears in that name, more illustrious than all, the proof of his scandinavian birth. [ ] this mail appears in that age to have been sewn upon linen or cloth. in the later age of the crusaders, it was more artful, and the links supported each other, without being attached to any other material. [ ] bayeux tapestry. [ ] the cross-bow is not to be seen in the bayeux tapestry--the norman bows are not long. [ ] roman de rou. [ ] william of poitiers. [ ] dieu nous aide. [ ] thus, when at the battle of barnet, earl warwick, the king- maker, slew his horse and fought on foot, he followed the old traditional customs of saxon chiefs. [ ] "devant li dus alout cantant de karlemaine e de rollant, ed 'olever e des vassalls ki morurent en ronchevals." roman de rou, part ii. i. , . much research has been made by french antiquaries, to discover the old chant de roland, but in vain. [ ] w. pict. chron. de nor. [ ] for, as sir f. palgrave shrewdly conjectures, upon the dismemberment of the vast earldom of wessex, on harold's accession to the throne, that portion of it comprising sussex (the old government of his grandfather wolnoth) seems to have been assigned to gurth. [ ] harold's birthday was certainly the th of october. according to mr. roscoe, in his "life of william the conqueror," william was born also on the th of october. [ ] william pict. [ ] thus wace, "guert (gurth) vit engleiz amenuisier, vi k'il n'i ont nul recovrier," etc. "gurth saw the english diminish, and that there was no hope to retrieve the day; the duke pushed forth with such force, that he reached him, and struck him with great violence (par grant air). i know not if he died by the stroke, but it is said that it laid him low." [ ] the suggestions implied in the text will probably be admitted as correct; when we read in the saxon annals of the recognition of the dead, by peculiar marks on their bodies; the obvious, or at least the most natural explanation of those signs, is to be found in the habit of puncturing the skin, mentioned by the malmesbury chronicler. [ ] the contemporary norman chronicler, william of poitiers. see note (r). [ ] see note (r). [ ] "rex magnus parva jacet hic gulielmus in urna-- sufficit et magno parva domus domino." from william the conqueror's epitaph (ap-gemiticen). his bones are said to have been disinterred some centuries after his death. [ ] thomson's essay on magna charta. [ ] orderic. vital. lib. . [ ] the date of william's marriage has been variously stated in english and norman history, but is usually fixed in - . m. pluquet, however, in a note to his edition of the "roman de rou," says that the only authority for the date of that marriage is in the chronicle of tours, and it is there referred to . it would seem that the papal excommunication was not actually taken off till ; nor the formal dispensation for the marriage granted till . [ ] for authorities for the above sketch, and for many interesting details of lanfranc's character, see orderic. vital. hen. de knyghton, lib. ii. gervasius; and the life of lanfranc, to be found in the collection of his works, etc. [ ] pigott's scand. mythol. p. . half. vand. saga. [ ] "suthsaxonum ministrum wolfnothem." flor. wig. [ ] asser. de reb. gest. alf. pp. , . [ ] camden, caernarvonshire. [ ] pennant's wales, vol. ii. p. . [ ] the ruins still extant are much diminished since the time even of pownall or pennant; and must be indeed inconsiderable, compared with the buildings or walls which existed at the date of my tale. [ ] johann. ap. acad. celt. tom. iii. p. . [ ] william of poitiers. [ ] he is considered to refer to such bequest in one of his charters: "devicto harlodo rege cum suis complicibus qui michi regnum prudentia domini destinatum, et beneficio concessionis domini et cognati mei gloriosi regis edwardi concessum conati sunt auferre."-- forestina, a. . but william's word is certainly not to be taken, for he never scrupled to break it; and even in these words he does not state that it was left him by edward's will, but destined and given to him--words founded, perhaps, solely on the promise referred to, before edward came to the throne, corroborated by some messages in the earlier years of his reign, through the norman archbishop of canterbury, who seems to have been a notable intriguer to that end. [ ] palgrave, "commonwealth," . [ ] "quo tumulato, subregulus haroldus godwin ducis filius, quem rex ante suam decessionem regni successorem elegerat, a totius angliae primatibus, ad regale culmen electus, die eodem ab aldredo eboracensi archiepiscopo in regem est honorifice consecratus."--flor. wig. [ ] some of these norman chroniclers tell an absurd story of harold's seizing the crown from the hand of the bishop, and putting it himself on his head. the bayeux tapestry, which is william's most connected apology for his claim, shows no such violence; but harold is represented as crowned very peaceably. with more art, (as i have observed elsewhere,) the tapestry represents stigand as crowning him instead of alred; stigand being at that time under the pope's interdict. [ ] edward died jan. th. harold's coronation is said to have taken place jan. the th; but there is no very satisfactory evidence as to the precise day; indeed some writers would imply that he was crowned the day after edward's death, which is scarcely possible. [ ] vit. harold. chron. ang. norm. [ ] laing's note to snorro sturleson, vol. iii. p. . [ ] this william mallet was the father of robert mallet, founder of the priory of eye, in suffolk (a branch of the house of mallet de graville).--pluquet. he was also the ancestor of the great william mallet (or malet, as the old scandinavian name was now corruptly spelt), one of the illustrious twenty-five "conservators" of magna charta. the family is still extant; and i have to apologise to sir alexander malet, bart. (her majesty's minister at stutgard), lieut.- col. charles st. lo malet, the rev. william windham malet (vicar of ardley), and other members of that ancient house, for the liberty taken with the name of their gallant forefather. the end. transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. words printed in italics are marked with underlines: _italics_. the cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain. wager of battle; a tale of saxon slavery in sherwood forest. by henry w. herbert, author of "henry viii and his six wives," "the captains of the greek and roman republics," "the roman traitor," "marmaduke wyvil," "oliver cromwell," etc. etc. etc. new york: published by mason brothers, park row. . entered, according to act of congress, in the year , by mason brothers, in the clerk's office of the district court for the southern district of new york. stereotyped by thomas b. smith, & beekman st. printed by john a. gray, cliff st. to israel de wolf andrews, esq., of eastport, maine, this historical romance, "wager of battle," descriptive of the manners, customs and institutions of our mutual ancestry, saxon and norman, at the period of their fusion into the great race, speaking the english tongue, by whatever name, in distant and widely severed isles and continents, it is destined to be known, and illustrative of the nature of saxon serfdom in the twelfth century of our era, is dedicated, as a slight token of great esteem, of gratitude for many good offices, and of friendship, which, he hopes and wishes, will stand all tests of time and change, unaltered, by his sincere friend and servant, henry wm. herbert. the cedars, july , . preface. it is, perhaps, unfortunate that the period and, in some degree, the scene of my present work, coincide nearly with those of the most magnificent and gorgeous of historical romances, sir walter scott's ivanhoe. it is hoped, however, that--notwithstanding this similarity, and the fact that in both works the interest turns in some degree on the contrast between the manners of the saxon and norman inhabitants of the isle, and the state of things preceding the fusion of the two races into one--notwithstanding, also, that in each a portion of the effect depends on the introduction of a judicial combat, or "wager of battle"--the resemblance will be found to be external and incidental only, and that, neither in matter, manner, nor subject, is there any real similarity between the books, much less any imitation or absurd attempt, on my part, at rivalry with that which is admitted to be incomparable. it will be seen, at once, by those who have the patience to peruse the following pages, that i have aimed at something more than a mere delineation of outward habits, customs, and details of martial or pacific life; that i have entered largely into the condition of classes, the peculiar institution of serfdom, or white slavery, as it existed among our own ancestors--that portion of whom, from which our blood is in the largest degree descended, being the servile population of the island--in the twelfth century, and the steps which led to its gradual abolition. in doing this, i have been unavoidably led into the necessity of dealing with the ancient jurisprudence of our race, the common law of the land, the institution of trial by jury, and that singular feature in our old judicial system, the reference of cases to the direct decision of the almighty by wager of battle, or, as it was also called, "the judgment of god." i will here merely observe that, while the gist of my tale lies in the adventures and escape of a fugitive saxon slave from the tyranny of his norman lord, my work contains no reference to the peculiar institution of any portion of this country, nor conceals any oblique insinuation against, or covert attack upon, any part of the inhabitants of the continent, or any interest guaranteed to them by the constitution. nevertheless, i would recommend no person to open a page of this volume, who is prepared to deny that slavery _per se_ is an evil and a wrong, and its effects deteriorating to all who are influenced by its contact, governors alike and governed, since they will find nothing agreeable, but much adverse to their way of thinking. that it is an evil and a wrong, in itself, and a source of serious detriment to all parties concerned, i can not but believe; and that, like all other wrongs and evils, it will in the end, by god's wisdom, be provided for and pass away, without violence or greater indirect wrong and evil, i both believe and hope. but i neither arrogate to myself the wisdom of imagining how this is to be peacefully brought about in the lapse of ages, nor hesitate to dissent from the intemperance of those who would cut the gordian knot, like alexander, with the sword, reckless if the same blow should sever the sacred bonds that consolidate the fabric of the union. henry wm. herbert. the cedars, september, st., . contents. page chapter i. the forest chapter ii. the good service chapter iii. the guerdon of good service chapter iv. the norman lords chapter v. the serf's quarter chapter vi. the saxon's constancy chapter vii. the slave-girl's self-devotion chapter viii. guendolen's bower chapter ix. guendolen chapter x. the lady and the slave chapter xi. the lady's game chapter xii. the departure chapter xiii. the progress chapter xiv. the new home chapter xv. the old home chapter xvi. the escape chapter xvii. the pursuit chapter xviii. the sands chapter xix. the suppliant chapter xx. the lady and her lover chapter xxi. the arrest chapter xxii. the sheriff chapter xxiii. the trial chapter xxiv. the acquittal chapter xxv. the false charge and the true chapter xxvi. wager of battle chapter xxvii. the bridal day sherwood forest; or, wager of battle. chapter i. the forest. "he rode half a mile the way; he saw no light that came of day; then came he to a river broad, never man over such one rode; within he saw a place of green, such one had he never erst seen." early metrical romaunts. guy of warwick. in the latter part of the twelfth century--when, in the reign of henry ii., fourth successor of the conqueror, and grandson of the first prince of that name, known as beauclerc, the condition of the vanquished saxons had begun in some sort to amend, though no fusion of the races had as yet commenced, and tranquillity was partially restored to england--the greater part of the northern counties, from the trent to the mouths of tyne and solway, was little better than an unbroken chase or forest, with the exception of the fiefs of a few great barons, or the territories of a few cities and free borough towns; and thence, northward to the scottish frontier, all was a rude and pathless desert of morasses, moors, and mountains, untrodden save by the foot of the persecuted saxon outlaw. in the west and north ridings of the great and important shire of york, there were, it is true, already a few towns of more than growing importance; several of which had been originally the sites, or had grown up in the vicinity and under the shelter of roman stative encampments; whereof not a few of them have retained the evidence in their common termination, _caster_, while others yet retain the more modern saxon appellations. of these two classes, doncaster, pontefract, rotherham, sheffield, ripon, may be taken as examples, which were even then flourishing, and, for the times, even opulent manufacturing boroughs, while the vastly larger and more wealthy commercial places, which have since sprung up, mushroom-like, around them, had then neither hearths nor homes, names nor existence. in addition to these, many great lords and powerful barons already possessed vast demesnes and manors, and had erected almost royal fortalices, the venerable ruins of which still bear evidence to the power and the martial spirit of the norman lords of england; and even more majestic and more richly endowed institutions of the church, such as fountains, jorvaulx, and bolton abbayes, still the wonder and reproach of modern architecture, and the admiration of modern artists, had created around themselves garden-like oases among the green glades and grassy aisles of the immemorial british forests; while, emulating the example of their feudal or clerical superiors, many a military tenant, many a gray-frocked friar, had reared his tower of strength, or built his lonely cell, upon some moat-surrounded mount, or in some bosky dingle of the wood. in the east riding, all to the north of the ancient city of the shire, even then famous for its minster and its castle, even then the see and palace of the second archbishop of the realm, was wilder yet, ruder and more uncivilized. even to this day, it is, comparatively speaking, a bleak and barren region, overswept by the cold gusts from the german ocean, abounding more in dark and stormy wolds than in the cheerful green of copse or wildwood, rejoicing little in pasture, less in tillage, and boasting of nothing superior to the dull market towns of the interior, and the small fishing villages nested among the crags of its iron coast. most pitilessly had this district been ravaged by the conqueror and his immediate successor, after its first desperate and protracted resistance to the arms of the norman; after the saxon hope of england fell, to arise no more, upon the bloody field of hastings; and after each one of the fierce northern risings. the people were of the hard, old, stubborn, danish stock, more pertinacious, even, and more stubborn, than the enduring saxon, but with a dash of a hotter and more daring spirit than belonged to their slower and more sluggish brethren. these men would not yield, could not be subdued by the iron-sheathed cavalry of the intrusive kings. they were destroyed by them, the lands were swept bare,[ ] the buildings burned, the churches desecrated. manors, which under the native rule of the confessor had easily yielded sixty shillings of annual rent, without distress to their occupants, scarcely paid five to their foreign lords; and estates, which under the ancient rule opulently furnished forth a living to two[ ] english gentlemen of rank with befitting households, now barely supported two miserable saxon cultivators, slaves of the soil, paying their foreign lords, with the blood of their hands and the sweat of their brows, scarcely the twelfth part of the revenue drawn from them by the old proprietors. [ ] omnia sunt wasta. modo omnino wasta. ex maxima parte wasta.--_doomsday book_, vol. i. fol. . [ ] duo taini tenueri. ibi sunt ii villani cum i carruca. valuit xl solidos. modo ilii sol.--_ibid._ vol. i. fol. . when, in a subsequent insurrection, the norman king again marched northward, in full resolve to carry his conquering arms to the frontiers of scotland, and, sustained by his ferocious energy, did actually force his way through the misty moorlands and mountainous mid-regions of durham, northumberland, and westmoreland, he had to traverse about sixty miles of country, once not the least fertile of his newly-conquered realm, in which his mail-clad men-at-arms saw neither green leaves on the trees, nor green crops in the field; for the ax and the torch had done their work, not negligently; passed neither standing roof nor burning hearth; encountered neither human being nor cattle of the field; only the wolves, which had become so numerous from desuetude to the sight of man, that they scarce cared to fly before the clash and clang of the marching squadrons. to the northward and north-westward, yet, of yorkshire, including what are now lancashire, westmoreland, northumberland, and cumberland, though the conqueror, in his first irresistible prosecution of red-handed victory, had marched and countermarched across them, there was, even at the time of my narrative, when nearly a century had fled, little if any thing of permanent progress or civilization, beyond the establishment of a few feudal holds and border fortresses, each with its petty hamlet clustered beneath its shelter. the marches, indeed, of lancashire, toward its southern extremity, were in some degree permanently settled by military colonists, in not a few instances composed of flemings, as were the welch frontiers of the neighboring province of cheshire, planted there to check the inroads of the still unconquered cymri, to the protection of whose mountains, and late-preserved independence, their whilom enemies, the now persecuted saxons, had fled in their extremity. it is from these industrious artisans, then the scorn of the high-born men-at-arms, that the trade had its origin, which has filled the bleak moors, and every torrent gorge of lancaster and western york, with a teeming population and a manufacturing opulence, such as, elsewhere, the wide earth has not witnessed. even at the time of which i write, the clack of their fulling-mills, the click of their looms, and the din of their trip-hammers, resounded by the side of many a lonely cheshire stream; but all to the north and westward, where the wildest hillsides and most forbidding glens are now more populous and richer than the greatest cities of those days, all was desolate as the aspect of the scenery, and inhospitable as the climate that lowers over it in constant mist and darkness. only in the south-western corner of westmoreland, the lovely land of lakes and mountains and green pastoral glens, beyond morecambe bay and the treacherous sands of lancaster, had the norman nobles, as the entering tide swept upward through the romantic glens and ghylls of netherdale and wharfedale, past the dim peaks of pennigant and ingleborough, established their lines in those pleasant places, and reared their castellated towers, and laid out their noble chases, where they had little interruption to apprehend from the tyrannic forest laws of the norman kings, which, wherever their authority extended, bore not more harshly on the saxon serf than on the norman noble. to return, however, toward the midland counties, and the rich regions with which this brief survey of northern england in the early years of the twelfth century commenced--a vast tract of country, including much of the northern portions of nottingham and derbyshire, and all the south of the west riding of york, between the rivers trent and eyre, was occupied almost exclusively by that most beautiful and famous of all british forests, the immemorial and time-honored sherwood--theme of the oldest and most popular of english ballads--scene of the most stirring of the old romaunts--scene of the most magnificent of modern novels, incomparable ivanhoe--home of that half historic personage, king of the saxon greenwoods, robin hood, with all his northern merry-men, scathelock, and friar tuck, and little john, allen-a-dale, wild forest minstrel, and the blythe woodland queen, maid marion--last leafy fortalice, wherein, throughout all england proper, lingered the sole remains of saxon hardihood and independence--red battle-field of the unsparing conflicts of the rival roses. there stand they still, those proud, majestic kings of bygone ages; there stand they still, the "hallowed oaks, who, british-born, the last of british race, hold their primeval rights by nature's charter, not at the nod of cæsar;" there stand they still, erect, earth-fast, and massive, grasping the green-sward with their gnarled and knotty roots, waving "their free heads in the liberal air," full of dark, leafy umbrage clothing their lower limbs; but far aloft, towering with bare, stag-horned, and splintered branches toward the unchanged sky from which so many centuries of sunshine have smiled down, of tempest frowned upon their "secular life of ages." there stand they, still, i say; alone, or scattered here and there, or in dark, stately groups, adorning many a noble park of modern days, or looming up in solemn melancholy upon some "one-tree hill," throughout the fertile region which lies along the line of that great ancient road, known in the saxon days as ermine-street, but now, in common parlance, called "the dukeries," from seven contiguous domains, through which it sweeps, of england's long-lined nobles. not now, as then, embracing in its green bosom sparse tracts of cultivated lands, with a few borough-towns, and a few feudal keeps, or hierarchal abbayes, but itself severed into divers and far-distant parcels, embosomed in broad stretches of the deepest meadows, the most teeming pastures, or girded on its swelling, insulated knolls by the most fertile corn-lands, survives the ancient sherwood. watered by the noblest and most beautiful of northern rivers, the calm and meadowy trent, the sweet sylvan idle, the angler's favorite, fairy-haunted dee, the silver eyre, mountainous wharfe, and pastoral ure and swale; if i were called upon to name the very garden-gem of england, i know none that compares with this seat of the old-time saxon forest. you can not now travel a mile through that midland region of plenty and prosperity without hearing the merry chime of village bells from many a country spire, without passing the happy doors of hundreds of low cottage homes, hundreds of pleasant hamlets courting the mellow sunshine from some laughing knoll, or nestling in the shrubberies of some orchard-mantled hollow. nor are large, prosperous, and thriving towns, rich marts of agricultural produce, or manufactures of wealth richer than gold of el dorado, so far apart but that a good pedestrian may travel through the streets of a half a dozen in a day's journey, and yet stand twenty times agaze between their busy precincts in admiration--to borrow the words of the great northern romancer, with the scene and period of whose most splendid effort my humble tale unfortunately coincides--in admiration of the "hundreds of broad-headed, short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed, perhaps, the stately march of the roman soldiers." and here, let none imagine these to be mere exaggerations, sprung from the overflowing brain of the romancer, for, not fifty miles distant from the scene described above, there is yet to be seen a venerable patriarch of sherwood, which boasted still, within a few short years, some garlands of surviving green--the oak of cowthorpe--probably the largest in the island; which is to this day the boundary corner of two marching properties, and has been such since it was constituted so in doomsday book, wherein it was styled _quercum ingentem_, the gigantic oak. since the writing of those words eight centuries have passed, and there are many reasons for believing that those centuries have added not an inch to its circumference, but rather detracted from its vigor and its growth; and, to me, it seems far more probable that it was a full-grown tree, with all its leafy honors rife upon it, when the first cæsar plunged, waist-deep, into the surges of the british channel from the first roman prow, than that it should have sprung up, like the gourd of a jonah, in a single night, to endure a thousand years' decay without entirely perishing. in those days, however, a man might ride from "eve to morn, from morn to dewy eve," and hear no sound more human than the deep "belling" of the red deer, if it chanced to be in the balmy month of june; the angry grunt of the tusky boar, startled from his mud-bath in some black morass; or, it may be, the tremendous rush of the snow-white, black-maned bull, crashing his way through shivered saplings and rent under-brush, mixed with the hoarse cooings of the cushat dove, the rich song-gushes of the merle and mavis, or the laughing scream of the green woodpecker. happy, if in riding all day in the green leafy twilight, which never, at high noon, admitted one clear ray of daylight, and, long before the sun was down, degenerated into murky gloom, he saw no sights more fearful than the rabbits glancing across the path, and disappearing in the thickets; or the slim doe, daintily picking her way among the heather, with her speckled fawns frolicking around her. thrice happy, if, as night was falling, cold and gray, the tinkling of some lonely chapel bell might give him note where some true anchorite would share his bed of fern, and meal of pulse and water, or jolly clerk of copmanhurst would broach the pipe of malvoisie, bring pasties of the doe, to greet the belated wayfarer. such was the period, such the region, when, on a glorious july morning, so early that the sun had not yet risen high enough to throw one sweeping yellow ray over the carpet of thick greensward between the long aisles of the forest, or checker it with one cool shadow--while the dew still hung in diamonds on every blade of grass, on every leaf of bush or brackens; while the light blue mists were still rising, thinner and thinner as they soared into the clear air, from many a woodland pool or sleepy streamlet--two men, of the ancient saxon race, sat watching, as if with some eager expectation, on a low, rounded, grassy slope, the outpost, as it seemed, of a chain of gentle hills, running down eastward to the beautiful brimful idle. around the knoll on which they sat, covered by the short mossy turf, and over-canopied by a dozen oaks, such as they have been described, most of them leafy and in their prime, but two or three showing above their foliage the gray stag-horns of age, the river, clear as glass, and bright as silver, swept in a semicircle, fringed with a belt of deep green rushes and broad-leaved water-lilies, among which two or three noble swans--so quietly sat the watchers on the hill--were leading forth their little dark-gray black-legged cygnets, to feed on the aquatic flies and insects, which dimpled the tranquil river like a falling shower. across the stream was thrown a two-arched freestone bridge, high-backed and narrow, and half covered with dense ivy, the work, evidently, of the roman conquerors of the island, from which a yellow, sandy road wound deviously upward, skirting the foot of the rounded hill, and showing itself in two or three ascending curves, at long intervals, above the tree-tops, till it was lost in the distant forest; while, far away to the eastward, the topmost turret of what seemed a tall norman keep, with a square banner drooping from its staff in the breezeless air, towering above the dim-wood distance, indicated whither it led so indirectly. in the rear of the slope or knoll, so often mentioned, was a deep tangled dell, or dingle, filled with a thickset growth of holly, birch, and alder, with here a feathery juniper, and there a graceful fern bush; and behind this arose a higher ridge, clothed with tall, thrifty oaks and beeches, of the second growth, and cutting off in that direction all view beyond its own near horizon. it was not in this direction, however, nor up the road toward the remote castle, nor down across the bridge over the silver idle, that the watchers turned their eager eyes, expecting the more eagerly, as, at times, the distant woods before them--lying beyond a long stretch of native savanna, made probably by the beaver, while that industrious animal yet figured in the british fauna--seemed to mourn and labor with a deep, indefinite murmuring sound, half musical, half solemn, but liker to an echo than to any known utterance of any living human being. it was too varied for the noise of falling waters, too modulated for the wind harp of the west, which was sighing fitfully among the branches. eagerly they watched, with a wild look of almost painful expectation in their keen, light-blue eyes, resembling in no respect the lively glance with which the jovial hunter awaits his gallant quarry; there was something that spoke of apprehension in the haggard eye--perhaps the fear of ill-performing an unwilling duty. and if it were so, it was not unnatural; not at that day, alas! uncommon; for dress, air, aspect, and demeanor, all told them at first sight, to be of that most wretched, if not most abject class, the saxon serfs of england. they were both clad alike, in short, close-cut frocks, or tunics, of tanned leather, gathered about their waists with broad buff belts, fastened with brazen buckles, in each of which stuck a long buckhorn-hafted two-edged sheffield whittle; both were bare-headed, both shod with heavy-clouted shoes, and both wore, soldered about their necks, broad brazen dog-collars, having the brand of their condition, with their own names and qualities, and that and the condition of their master. here, however, ended the direct resemblance, even of their garb; for, while the taller and better formed man of the two, who was also somewhat the darker haired and finer featured, wore a species of rude leather gauntlets, with buskins of the same material, reaching as high as the binding of the frock, the other man was bare-armed and bare-legged also, with the exception of an inartificial covering of thongs of boar-hide, plaited from the ankle to the knee upward. the latter also carried no weapon but a long quarter-staff, though he held a brace of noble snow-white alans--the wire-haired grayhounds of the day--in a leash of twisted buckskin; while his brother--for so strong was their personal resemblance, that their kinship could scarcely be doubted--carried a short, steel-headed javelin in his hand, and had beside him, unrestrained, a large coarser hound, of a deep brindled gray color, with clear, hazel eyes; and what was strange to say, in view of the condition of this man, unmaimed, according to the cruel forest code of the norman kings. this difference in the apparel, and, it may be added, in the neatness, well-being, and general superior bearing of him who was the better armed, might perhaps be explained by a glance at the engraving on the respective collars. for while that of the one, and he the better clad and better looking, bore that he was "kenric the dark, thral of the land to philip de morville," that of the other stamped him "eadwulf the red, gros thral" of the same norman lord. both saxon serfs of the mixed northern race, which, largely intermixed with danish blood, produced a nobler, larger-limbed, loftier, and more athletic race than the pure saxons of the southern counties--they had fallen, with the properties of the saxon thane, to whom they had belonged in common, into the hands of the foreign conqueror. yet kenric was of that higher class--for there were classes even among these miserable beings--which could not be sold, nor parted from the soil on which they were born, but at their own option; while eadwulf, although his own twin-brother, for some cause into which it were needless to inquire, could be sold at any time, or to any person, or even swapped for an animal, or gambled away at the slightest caprice of his owner. to this may be added, that, probably from caprice, or perhaps from some predilection for his personal appearance and motions, which were commanding, and even graceful, or for his bearing, which was evidently less churlish than that of his countrymen in general, his master had distinguished him in some respects from the other serfs of the soil; and, without actually raising him to any of the higher offices reserved to the normans, among whom the very servitors claimed to be, and indeed were, gentlemen, had employed him in subordinate stations under his huntsman, and intrusted him so far as occasionally to permit his carrying arms into the field. with him, as probably is the case in most things, the action produced reaction; and what had been the effect of causes, came in time to be the cause of effects. some real or supposed advantages procured for him the exceeding small dignity of some poor half-conceded rights; and those rights, the effect of perhaps an imaginary superiority, soon became the causes of something more real--of a sentiment of half independence, a desire of achieving perfect liberty. in this it was that he excelled his brother; but we must not anticipate. what were the characters of the men, and from their characters what events grew, and what fates followed, it is for the reader of these pages to decipher. after our men had tarried where we found them, waiting till expectation should grow into certainty for above half an hour, and the morning had become clear and sunny, the distant indescribable sound, heard indistinctly in the woods, ripened into that singularly modulated, all sweet, but half-discordant crash, which the practiced ear is not slow to recognize as the cry of a large pack of hounds, running hard on a hot scent in high timber. anon the notes of individual hounds could be distinguished; now the sharp, savage treble of some fleet brach, now the deep bass of some southron talbot, rising above or falling far below the diapason of the pack--and now, shrill and clear, the long, keen flourish of a norman bugle. at the last signal, kenric rose silently but quickly to his feet, while his dog, though evidently excited by the approaching rally of the chase, remained steady at his couchant position, expectant of his master's words. the snow-white alans, on the contrary, fretted, and strained, and whimpered, fighting against their leashes, while eadwulf sat still, stubborn or stupid, and animated by no ambition, by no hope, perhaps scarce even by a fear. but, as the chase drew nigher, "up, eadwulf!" cried his brother, quickly, "up, and away. thou'lt have to stretch thy legs, even now, to reach the four lane ends, where the relays must be, when the stag crosses. up, man, i say! is this the newer spirit you spoke of but now? this the way you would earn largess whereby to win your freedom? out upon it! that i should say so of my own brother, but thou'lt win nothing but the shackles, if not the thong. away! lest my words prove troth." eadwulf the red arose with a scowl, but without a word, shook himself like a water-spaniel, and set off at a dogged swinging trot, the beautiful high-bred dogs bounding before his steps like winged creatures, and struggling with the leashes that debarred their perfect freedom--the man degraded, by the consciousness of misery and servitude, into the type of a soulless brute--the brutes elevated, by high breeding, high cultivation, and high treatment, almost into the similitude of intellectual beings. kenric looked after him, as he departed, with a troubled eye, and shook his head, as he lost sight of him among the trees in the fore-ground. "alack!" he said, "for eadwulf, my brother! he waxes worse, not better." but, as he spoke, a nearer crash of the hounds' music came pealing through the tree-tops, and with a stealthy step he crossed over the summit to the rear of the hillock, where he concealed himself behind the boll of a stupendous oak, making his grayhound lie down in tall fern beside him. the approaching hounds came to a sudden fault, and silence, deep as that of haunted midnight, fell on the solitary place. chapter ii. the good service. "'tis merry, 'tis merry, in good green wood, when mavis and merle are singing; when the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, and the hunter's horn is ringing." lady of the lake. there is something exceedingly singular in the depth of almost palpable silence which seems to fall upon a tract of woodland country, on the sudden cessation of a full cry of stag-hounds; which cry has in itself, apart from its stirring harmony of discords, something of cheerfulness and sociality, conveyed by its sound, even to the lonely wayfarer. although, during that hush of the woods, the carol of the birds, the hum of insects, the breezy voice of the tree-tops, the cooing of the ringdove, the murmur of falling waters, and all the undistinguished harmonies of nature, unheard before, and drowned in that loud brattling, sound forth and fill the listener's ear, yet they disturb it not, nor seem to dissipate, but rather to augment, the influence of the silence. kenric had not the educated sentiments which lead the most highly civilized of men to sympathize most deeply with the beautiful sounds and sights of nature. yet still, as is mostly the case with dwellers in the forest or on the wild mountain tops, he had a certain untutored eye to take in and note effects--an unlearned ear with which to receive pleasant sounds, and acquire a fuller pleasure from them than he could perfectly comprehend or explain to his own senses. and now, when the tumult of the chase had fallen asleep, he leaned against the gnarled and mossy trunk, with his boar-spear resting listlessly against his thigh, and a quiet, meditative expression replacing on his grave, stern features the earnest and excited gaze, with which he had watched the approach of the hunt. the check, however, lasted not long; the clear, shrill challenge of a favorite hound soon rose from the woodlands, accompanied by loud cheers, "taró, taró, tantáro!" and followed by the full crash of the reassembled pack, as they rallied to their leader, and struck again on the hot and steaming scent. nearer and nearer came the cry, and ever and anon uprose, distant and mellow, the cadenced nourishes of the clear french horns, giving new life to the trackers of the deer, and filling the hearts of the riders with almost mad excitement. ere long, several cushats might be seen wheeling above the tree-tops, disturbed from their procreant cradles by the progress of the fierce din below them. a moment afterward, dislodged from their feeding-grounds along the boggy margin of the idle, a dozen woodcock flapped up from the alder-bushes near the brink, and came drifting along before the soft wind, on their feebly whistling pinions, and, fluttering over the head of the watcher, dropped into the shelter of the dingle in his rear, with its thick shade of varnished hollies. the next instant, a superb red deer, with high branching antlers, leaped with a mighty spring over and partly through the crashing branches of the thicket, and swept with long, graceful bounds across the clear savanna. a single shout, "tayho!" announced the appearance of the quarry in the open, and awakened a responsive clangor of the horns, which, all at once, sounded their gay tantivy, while the sharp, redoubled clang of the whips, and the cries of "arriere! arriere!" which succeeded, told kenric that the varlets and attendants of the chase were busy stopping the slow hounds, whose duty was accomplished so soon as the stag was forced into the field; and which were now to be replaced by the fleet and fiery alans, used to course and pull down the quarry by dint of downright strength and speed. the stretch of green savanna, of which i have spoken as running along the northern margin of the idle, below the wooded ridges of the lower hills, could not have been less than four miles in length, and was traversed by two sandy paths, unguarded by any fence or hedge-row, which intersected each other within a few hundred yards of the belt of underwood, whence the hunted deer had broken covert. at this point of intersection, known as the four-lane-ends, a general term in yorkshire for such cross-roads, stood a gigantic oak, short-boughed, but of vast diameter, with gnarled and tortuous branches sweeping down almost to the rank greensward which surrounded it, and concealing any person who stood within their circumference, as completely as if he were within an artificial pavilion. that way, winged by terror, bounded the beautiful hart royal; for no less did his ten-tined antlers, with their huge cupped tops denote him; and, though it presented no real obstacle to his passage, when he saw the yellow road, winding like a rivulet through the deep grass, he gathered all his feet together, made four or five quick, short buck-leaps, and then, soaring into the air like a bird taking wing, swept over it, and alighted ten feet on the hither side, apparently without an effort--a miracle of mingled grace, activity, and beauty. as he alighted, he paused a moment, turned his long, swan-like neck, and gazed backward for a few seconds with his large, lustrous, melancholy eyes, until, seeing no pursuers, nor hearing any longer the crash which had aroused him from his harbor, he tossed his antlers proudly, and sailed easily and leisurely across the gentle green. but at this moment, eadwulf the red, who was stationed beneath that very oak-tree with the first relay of grayhounds, uttered a long, shrill whoop, and casting loose the leashes, slipped the two snow-white alans on the quarry. the whoop was answered immediately, and, at about half a mile's distance from the spot where the deer had issued, two princely-looking norman nobles, clearly distinguishable as such by their richly-furred short hunting-coats, tight hose, and golden spurs of knighthood, came into sight, spurring their noble andalusian coursers--at that period the fleetest strain in the world, which combined high blood with the capacity to endure the weight of a man-at-arms in his full panoply--to their fullest speed; and followed by a long train of attendants--some mounted, some on foot, huntsmen and verdurers, and yeomen prickers, with falconers, and running footmen, some leading alans in the leash, and some with nets and spears for the chase of the wild boar, which still roamed not unfrequent in the woody swamps that intersected the lower grounds and lined many of the river beds of sherwood. it was a gay and stirring scene. the meadow, late so quiet in its uniform green garniture, was now alive with fluttering plumes, and glittering with many-colored scarfs and cassocks, noble steeds of all hues, blood-bay and golden chestnut, dappled and roan, and gleamy blacks, and one, on which rode the foremost of the noble normans, white as december's snow; and in the middle of the picture, aroused by the shouts in his rear, and aware of the presence of his fresh pursuers, the superb stag, with his neck far stretched out, and his grand antlers pressed close along his back, straining every nerve, and literally seeming to fly over the level sward; while the snow-white alans, with their fierce black eyes glowing like coals of fire, and their blood-red tongues lolling from their open jaws, breathless and mute, but stanch as vindictive fiends, hung hard upon his traces. at first, the hunted stag laid his course upward, diagonally, aiming for the forest land on the hillside; and although, at first, he had scarce thirty yards of law, and was, moreover, so nearly matched in speed by his relentless enemies, that, for many hundred yards, he neither gained nor lost a yard's distance, still he gradually gathered way, as yards fell into furlongs, furlongs into miles, and drew ahead slowly, but surely, until it appeared almost certain that he must soon gain the shelter of the tall timber, where the keen eyes of the alans, impotent of scent, would be worthless in pursuit, and where he must again be dislodged by slow hounds, or the chase abandoned. just as he was within fifty yards, however, of the desired covert's edge, sir philip de morville--for he it was who rode the foremost--raised his bugle to his lips, and sounded it long and shrill, in a most peculiar strain, to which a whoop responded, almost from the point for which the stag was making, and, at the same time, a second brace of alans--one a jet black, and the other a deep-brindled fawn color--darted out, and flew down the gentle slope, right at the head of the yet unwearied quarry. springing high into air, he instantly made a perfect demivolte, with an angry toss of his antlers, and shot, with redoubled efforts in the contrary direction, cutting across the very noses of his original pursuers, which, when they had turned likewise, were brought within fifty yards of his haunches, and away like an arrow toward the bridge across the idle. from this moment, the excitement of the spectacle was redoubled; nor could any one, even the coldest of spectators, have looked on without feeling the blood course, like molten lava, through his veins. it was no longer a stern chase, where the direct speed only of the rival and hostile animals was brought into play; for, as the stag turned to the left about, the black and brindled alans, which had been started at his head, were thrown by the movement some thirty yards wide on his right quarter; while the white dogs, who had pursued him so savagely from the beginning, were brought to a position nearly equidistant on his left flank. henceforth it was a course of fleet bounds, short turns, and windings of wonderful agility; and at this instant a new spectator, or spectatress rather, was added to the scene. this was a young girl of some sixteen or seventeen years, at the utmost, beautifully formed, and full of easy grace and symmetry, who came careering down the road, from the direction of the castle, as fast as the flying bounds of a beautiful red roan arab--with mane and tail of silver, scarcely larger or less fleet than the deer in the plain below--could carry her. her face and features were not less beautiful than her form; the latter would have been perfectly grecian and classical but for the slightest possible upward turn in the delicate thin nose, which imparted an arch, half-saucy meaning to her rich, laughing face. her eyes were clear, bright blue, with long, dark lashes, a pure complexion, ripe, crimson lips, and a flood of dark auburn tresses, which had escaped from the confinement of her purple velvet bonnet, and flowed on the light breeze in a flood of glittering ringlets, completed her attractions. her garb was the rich attire peculiar to her age, rank, and the period of which we write--the most picturesque, perhaps, and appropriate to set off the perfections of a female figure of rare symmetry, that ever has been invented. a closely-fitting jacket, following every curve and sinuous line of her beauteous shape, of rich green velvet, furred deeply at the cape and cuffs with white swansdown, and bordered at the hips by a broad band of the same pure garniture; loose-flowing skirts, of heavy sendal of the same hue, a crimson velvet shoulder-belt supporting a richly-embroidered hawking-pouch, a floating plume of white ostrich feathers, and a crimson-hooded merlin on her wrist, with golden bells and jesses, completed her person's adornment; and combined, with the superb housings and velvet headstall of her exquisite palfrey, to form a charming picture. so rapidly did she ride, that a single page--a boy of ten or twelve years, who followed her--spurring with all his might, could scarcely keep her in sight; and, as she careered down toward the bridge, which she had almost reached, was lost to view in the valley immediately behind the ridge, the southern slope of which she was descending. the stag, by this time, which had been aiming hitherto to cross the road on which she was galloping, had been turned several times by the fresh relay of alans, which were untired and unimpaired of speed, and had been thus edged gradually away from the road and bridge, toward the white dogs, which were now running, as it is technically termed, _cunning_, laying up straight ahead, on a parallel line, and almost abreast with the deer. now they drew forward, shot ahead, and passed him. at once, seeing his peril, he wheeled on his haunches, and, with a desperate last effort, headed once more for the road, striving, for life! for life! to cut across the right-hand couple of deer grayhounds; but, fleet as he was, fleeter now did they show themselves, and once more he was forced to turn, only to find the white dogs directly in his path. one, the taller and swifter of the two, was a few yards in advance of the other, and, as the stag turned full into his foaming jaws, sprang at its throat with a wild yell. but the deer bounded too, and bounded higher than the dog, and, as they met in mid air, its keen, sharp-pointed hoofs struck the brave staghound in the chest, and hurled him to the ground stunned, if not lifeless. four strides more, and he swept like a swallow over a narrow reach of the little river; and then, having once more brought the three surviving hounds directly astern, turned to the westward along the river shore, and cantering away lightly, no longer so hard pressed, seemed likely to make his escape toward a broad belt of forest, which lay some mile and a half that way, free from ambuscade or hidden peril. at this turn of the chase, fiercer was the excitement, and wilder waxed the shouting and the bugle blasts of the discomfited followers of the chase, none of whom were nearer to the bridge than a full half mile. but so animated was the beautiful young lady, whose face had flushed crimson, and then turned ashy pale, with the sudden excitement of that bold exploit of dog and deer, that she clapped her hands joyously together, unhooding and casting loose her merlin, though without intention, in the act, and crying, gayly, "well run, brave hercules! well leaped, brave hart o' grease;" and, as she saw the hunters scattered over the wide field, none so near to the sport as she, she flung her arm aloft, and with her pretty girlish voice set up a musical whoop of defiance. now, at the very moment when the deer's escape seemed almost more than certain--as often is the case in human affairs, no less than cervine--"a new foe in the field" changed the whole aspect of the case. the great brindled gray deerhound, which had lain thus far peaceful by kenric's side, seeing what had passed, sprang out of the fern, unbidden, swam across the idle in a dozen strokes, and once more headed the hunted deer. the young girl was now within six horses' length of the bridge, when the deer, closely pursued by its original assailants, and finding itself now intercepted by kenric's dog "kilbuck" in front, turned once again in the only direction now left it, and wheeled across the bridge at full speed, black with sweat, flecked with white foam-flakes, its tongue hanging from its swollen jaws, its bloodshot eyeballs almost starting from its head, mad with terror and despair. all at once, the arab horse and the gorgeous trappings of the rider glanced across its line of vision; fire seemed, to the affrighted girl, to flash from its glaring eyes, as it lowered its mighty antlers, and charged with a fierce, angry bray. pale as death, the gallant girl yet retained her courage and her faculties; she pulled so sharply on her left rein, striking the palfrey on the shoulder with her riding-rod, that he wheeled short on his haunches, and presented his right flank to the infuriated deer, protecting his fair rider by the interposition of his body. no help was nigh, though the norman nobles saw her peril, and spurred madly to the rescue; though kenric started from his lair with a portentous whoop, and, poising his boar spear, rushed down, in the hope to turn the onset to himself. but it was too late; and, strong as was his hand, and his eyes steady, he dared not to hurl such a weapon as that he held, in such proximity to her he would defend. with an appalling sound, a soft, dead, crushing thrust, the terrible brow antlers were plunged into the defenseless flanks of the poor palfrey; which hung, for a second on the cruel prongs, and then, with a long, shivering scream, rolled over on its side, with collapsed limbs, and, after a few convulsive struggles, lay dead, with the lovely form of its mistress rolled under it, pale, motionless, with the long golden hair disordered in the dust, and the blue eyes closed, stunned, cold, and spiritless, at least, if not lifeless. attracted by the gay shoulder-belt of the poor girl, again the savage beast stooped to gore; but a strong hand was on his antler, and a keen knife-point buried in his breast. sore stricken he was, yet, not slain; and, rearing erect on his hind legs, he dealt such a storm of blows from his sharp hoofs, each cutting almost like a knife, about the head and shoulders of his dauntless antagonist, as soon hurled him, in no better condition than she, beside the lady he had risked so much to rescue. then the dogs closed and seized him, and savage and appalling was the strife of the fierce brutes, with long-drawn, choking sighs, and throttling yells, as they raved, and tore, and stamped, and battled, over the prostrate group. it was a fearful sight that met the eyes of the first comer. he was the norman who had ridden second in the chase, but now, having outstripped his friendly rival in the neck-or-nothing skurry that succeeded, thundered the first into the road, where the dogs were now mangling the slaughtered stag, and besmearing the pale face of the senseless girl with blood and bestial foam. to spring from his saddle and drop on his knees beside her, was but a moment's work. "my child! my child! they have slaughtered thee. woe! woe!" chapter iii. the guerdon of good service. "'twere better to die free, than live a slave." euripides. it was fortunate, for all concerned, that no long time elapsed before more efficient aid came on the ground, than the gentleman who first reached the spot, and who, although a member of that dauntless chivalry, trained from their cradles to endure hardship, to despise danger, and to look death steadfastly and unmoved in the face, was so utterly paralyzed by what he deemed, not unnaturally, the death of his darling, that he made no effort to relieve her from the weight of the slaughtered animal, though it rested partially on her lower limbs, and on one arm, which lay extended, nevertheless, as it had fallen, in the dust. but up came, in an instant, philip de morville, on his superb, snow-white andalusian, a norman baron to the life--tall, powerful, thin-flanked, deep-chested, with the high aquiline features and dark chestnut hair of his race, nor less with its dauntless valor, grave courtesy, and heart as impassive to fear or tenderness or pity, as his own steel hauberk. up came esquires and pages, foresters and grooms, and springing tumultuously to the ground, under the short, prompt orders of their lord, raised the dead palfrey bodily up, while sir philip drew the fair girl gently from under it, and raising her in his arms more tenderly than he had ever been known to entreat any thing, unless it were his favorite falcon, laid her on the short, soft greensward, under the shadow of one of the huge, broad-headed oaks by the wayside. "cheer thee, my noble lord and brother," he exclaimed, "the lady guendolen is not dead, nor like to die this time. 'tis only fear, and perchance her fall, for it was a heavy one, that hath made her faint. bustle, knaves, bustle. bring water from the spring yonder. has no one a leathern bottiau? you, damian, gallop, as if you would win your spurs of gold by riding, to the sumpter mule with the panniers. it should be at the palmer's spring by this time; for, hark, the bells from the gray brothers' chapel, in the valley by the river, are chiming for the noontide service. bring wine and essences, electuaries and ambergris, if the refectioner have any with him. you, raoul," he continued, addressing a sturdy, grim-featured old verdurer, who was hanging over the still senseless girl with an expression of solicitude hardly natural to his rugged and scar-seamed countenance, "take a led horse, and hie thee to the abbey; tell the good prior what hath befallen, and pray the brother mediciner he will ride this way, as speedily as he may; and you," turning to the old, white-haired seneschal, "send up some of the varlets to the castle, for the horse-litter; she may not ride home this day." in the mean time, while he was accumulating order on order, while pages and horse-boys, grooms and esquires, were galloping off, in different directions, as if with spurs of fire, and while the barons themselves were awkwardly endeavoring to perform those ministrations for the fair young creature, which they were much more used themselves to receive at the hands of the softer sex, who were in those rude days often the chirurgeons and leeches, as well as the comforters and soothers of the bed of pain and sickness, than to do such offices for others, the bold defender of guendolen--kenric the dark-haired--lay in his blood, stark and cold, deemed dead, and quite forgotten, even by the lowest of the norman varletry, who held themselves too noble to waste services upon a saxon, much more upon a thral and bondsman. they--such of them, that is to say, as were not needed in direct attendance on the persons of the nobles, or as had not been dispatched in search of aid--applied themselves, with characteristic zeal and eagerness, to tend and succor the nobler animals, as they held them, of the chase; while they abandoned their brother man and fellow-countryman, military levites as they were, to his chances of life or death, without so much as even caring to ask or examine whether he were numbered with the living or the dead. the palfrey was first seen to, and pronounced dead; when his rich housings were stripped off carefully, and cleaned as well as time and place permitted; when the carcass was dragged off the road, and concealed, for the moment, with fern leaves and boughs lopped from the neighboring bushes, while something was said among the stable boys of sending out some of the "dog saxon serfs" to bury him on the morrow. the deer was then dragged roughly whence it lay, across the breast of kenric, in whose left shoulder one of its terrible brow antlers had made a deep gash, while his right arm was badly shattered by a blow of its sharp hoofs. so careless were the men of inflicting pain on the living, or dishonor on the dead, that one of them, in removing the quarry, set his booted foot square on the saxon's chest, and forced, by the joint effect of the pressure and the pain, a stifled, choking sound, half involuntary, half a groan, from the pale lips of the motionless sufferer. with a curse, and a slight, contemptuous kick, the norman groom turned away, with his antlered burthen, muttering a ribald jest on "the death-grunt of the saxon boar;" and drawing his keen wood-knife, was soon deep in the mysteries of the _cureé_, and deeper yet in blood and grease, prating of "nombles, briskets, flankards, and raven-bones," then the usual terms of the art of hunting, or butchery, whichever the reader chooses to call it, which are now probably antiquated. the head was cabbaged, as it was called, and, with the entrails, given as a reward to the fierce hounds, which glared with ravenous eyes on the gory carcass. even its peculiar morsel was chucked to the attendant raven, the black bird of st. hubert, which--free from any apprehension of the gentle hunters, who affected to treat him with respectful and reverential awe--sat on the stag-horned peak of an aged oak-tree, awaiting his accustomed portion, with an observant eye and an occasional croak. by-and-by, when the sumpter mule came up, with kegs of ale and bottiaus of mead and hypocras, and wine of gascony and anjou, before even the riders' throats were slaked by the generous liquor, the bridle-bits and cavessons, nose-bags and martingales of the coursers were removed, and liberal drenches were bestowed on them, partly in guerdon of past services, partly in order to renew their strength and stimulate their valiant ardor. long ere this, however, fanned by two or three pages with fans of fern wreaths, and sprinkled with cold spring-water by the hands of her solicitous kinsman, the young girl had given symptoms of returning life, and a brighter expression returned to the dark, melancholy visage of her father. two or three long, faint, fluttering sighs came from her parted lips; and then, regular, though low and feeble, her breathing made itself heard, and her girlish bosom rose and fell responsive. her father, who had been chafing her hands assiduously, pressed one of them caressingly, at this show of returning animation, and raised it to his lips; when, awakening at the accustomed tenderness, her languid eyes opened, a faint light of intelligence shone forth from them, a pale glow of hectic color played over her face, and a smile glittered for a second on her quivering lips. "dear father," she whispered, faintly; but, the next moment, an expression of fear was visible in all her features, and a palpable shiver shook all her frame. "the stag!" she murmured; "the stag! save me, save"--and before the word, uttered simultaneously by the two lords--"he is dead, dear one," "he will harm no one any more"--had reached her ears, she again relapsed into insensibility, while with equal care, but renewed hope, they tended and caressed her. but kenric no one tended, no one caressed, save, "faithful still, where all were faithless found," the brindled staghound, "kilbuck," who licked his face assiduously, with his grim, gory tongue and lips, and besmearing his face with blood and foam, rendered his aspect yet more terrible and death-like. but now the returning messengers began to ride in, fast and frequent; first, old raoul, the huntsman, surest, although not fleetest, and with him, shaking in his saddle, between the sense of peril and the perplexity occasioned him by the high, hard trot of the norman war-horse pressed into such unwonted service, "like a boar's head in aspick jelly," the brother mediciner from the neighboring convent, with his wallet of simples and instruments of chirurgery. by his advice, the plentiful application of cold water, with essences and stimulants in abundance, a generous draught of rich wine of burgundy, and, when animation seemed thoroughly revived, the gentle breathing of a vein, soon restored the young lady to her perfect senses and complete self-possession, though she was sorely bruised, and so severely shaken that it was enjoined on her to remain perfectly quiet, where she lay, with a lincoln-green furred hunting-cloak around her, until the arrival of the litter should furnish means of return to the castle of her father's host and kinsman. and, in good season, down the hill, slowly and toilsomely came the horse-litter, poor substitute for a wheeled vehicle; but even thus the best, if not only, conveyance yet adopted for the transport of the wounded, the feeble, or the luxurious, and, as such, used only by the wealthy and the noble. with the litter came three or four women; one or two, norman maidens, the immediate attendants of the lady guendolen, and the others, saxon slave girls of the household of sir philip de morville, who hurried down, eager to gain favor by show of zealous duty, or actuated by woman's feelings for woman's suffering, even in different grades and station. the foremost of them all, bounding along with all the wild agility and free natural gracefulness of wood-nymph or bacchante, was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, not above the middle height of her sex, but plump as a partridge, with limbs exquisitely formed and rounded, a profusion of flaxen tresses floating unrestrained on the air, large dark-blue eyes, and a complexion all of milk and roses--the very type of rural saxon youth and beauty. as she outstripped all the rest in speed, she was the first to tender gentle service to the lady guendolen, who received her with a smile, calling her "edith the fair," and thanking her for her ready aid. but, ere long, as the courtlier maidens arrived on the ground, poor edith was set aside, as is too often the case with humble merit, while the others lifted the lady into the horse-litter, covered her with light and perfumed garlands, and soon had all ready for her departure. but, in the mean time, edith had turned a hasty glance around her; and descrying the inanimate body of the saxon serf, lying alone and untended, moved by the gentle sympathy of woman for the humblest unknown sufferer, she hastened to assist, if assistance were still possible. but, as she recognized the limbs, stately, though cold and still, and the features, still noble through gore and defilement, a swift horror smote her, that she shook like a leaf, and fell, with a wild, thrilling shriek, "o, kenric, kenric!" on the body of the wounded man. "ha! what is this?" cried sir philip, who now first saw or remembered what had passed. "how is this? knaves, is there a man hurt here?" "a saxon churl, beausire," replied one of the pages, flippantly, "who has gotten his brisket unseamed by his brother saxon yonder!" and he pointed to the dead carcass of the stag. "our lady save us," murmured the gentle guendolen, who seemed about to relapse into insensibility; "he saved my life, and have ye let him perish?" "now, by the splendor of our lady's eyes!" cried yvo de taillebois, the father of the fair young lady, "this is the gallant lad we saw afar, in such bold hand-to-hand encounter with yon mad brute. we have been ingrately, shamefully remiss. this must be amended, philip de morville." "it shall, it shall, my noble friend," cried philip; "and ye, dogs, that have let the man perish untended thus, for doing of his devoir better than all the best of ye, bestir yourselves. if the man die, as it seems like enow, ye shall learn ere ye are one day older, what pleasant bed-rooms are the vaults of waltheofstow, and how tastes the water of the moat." meantime the monk trotted up, and, after brief examination, announced that, though badly hurt, his life was in no immediate peril, and set himself at once to comfort and revive him. "he is not slain; he will not die, my child," said sir yvo, softly, bending over the litter to his pale lily, who smiled faintly as she whispered in reply-- "dear father, nor be a slave any longer?" "not if i may redeem him," he answered; "but i will speak with sir philip at once. meanwhile be tranquil, and let them convey you homeward. forward, there, with the litter--gently, forward!" and, therewith, he turned and spoke eagerly to de morville, who listened with a grave brow, and answered; "if it may be, my noble friend and brother. if it may be. but there are difficulties. natheless, on my life, i desire to pleasure you." "nay! it comports not with our name or station, that the noble guendolen de taillebois should owe life to a collared thral--a mere brute animal. my lord, your word on it! he must be _free_, since yvo de taillebois is his debtor." "my word _is_ pledged on it," replied de morville. "if it can be at all, it _shall_ be. nay, look not so black on it. it shall be. we will speak farther of it at the castle! and now, lo! how he opes his eyes and stares. he will be right, anon; and ye, knaves, bear him to the castle, when the good brother bids ye, and gently, if ye would escape a reckoning with me. and now, good friends, to horse! to horse! the litter is half-way to the castle gates already. to horse! to horse! and god send us no more such sorry huntings." chapter iv. the norman lords. "oh! it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but tyrannous to use it like a giant." measure for measure. high up in a green, gentle valley, a lap among the hills, which, though not very lofty, were steep and abrupt with limestone crags and ledges, heaving themselves above the soil on their upper slopes and summits, perched on a small isolated knoll, or hillock, so regular in form, and so evenly scarped and rounded, that it bore the appearance of an artificial work, stood the tall norman fortalice of philip de morville. it was not a very large building, consisting principally of a single lofty square keep, with four lozenge-shaped turrets at the angles, attached to the body of the place, merlonwise, as it is termed in heraldry, or corner to corner, rising some twenty feet or more above the flat roof of the tower, which was surrounded with heavy projecting battlements widely overhanging the base, and pierced with crenelles for archery, and deep machicolations, by which to pour down boiling oil, or molten lead, upon any who should attempt the walls. in the upper stories only, of this strong place, were there any windows, such as deserved the name, beyond mere loops and arrowslits; but there, far above the reach of any scaling-ladder, they looked out, tall and shapely, glimmering in the summer sunshine, in the rich and gorgeous hues of the stained glass--at that time the most recent and costly of foreign luxuries, opening on a projecting gallery, or bartizan, of curiously-carved stonework, which ran round all the four sides of the building, and rendered the dwelling apartments of the castellan and his family both lightsome and commodious. one of the tall turrets, which have been described, contained the winding staircase, which gave access to the halls and guard-rooms which occupied all the lower floors, and to the battlements above, while each of the others contained sleeping-chambers of narrow dimensions, on each story, opening into the larger apartments. this keep, with the exception of the tall battlemented flanking walls, with their esplanades and turrets, and advanced barbican or gate-house, was the only genuine norman portion of the castle, and occupied the very summit of the knoll; but below it, and for the most part concealed and covered by the ramparts on which it abutted, was a long, low, roomy stone building, which had been in old times the mansion of the saxon thane, who had occupied the rich and fertile lands of that upland vale, in the happy days before the advent of the fierce and daring normans, to whom he had lost both life and lands, and left an empty name alone to the inheritance, which was not to descend to any of his race or lineage. below the walls, which encircled the hillock about midway between the base and summit, except at one spot, where the gate-house was thrust forward to the brink of a large and rapid brook, which had been made by artificial means completely to encircle the little hill, the slopes were entirely bare of trees or underwood, every thing that could possibly cover the advances of an enemy being carefully cut down or uprooted, and were clothed only by a dense carpet of short, thick greensward, broidered with daisies pied, and silver lady's smocks; but beyond the rivulet, covering all the bottom of the valley with rich and verdant shade, were pleasant orchards and coppices, among which peeped out the thatched roofs and mud walls of the little village, inhabited by the few free laborers, and the more numerous thralls and land-serfs, who cultivated the demesnes of the foreign noble, who possessed them by right of the sword. through this pleasant little hamlet, the yellow road, which led up to the castle, wound devious, passing in its course by an open green, on which half a dozen sheep and two or three asses were feeding on the short herbage, with a small saxon chapel, distinguished by its low, round, wolf-toothed arch and belfry, on the farther side; and, in singular proximity to the sacred edifice, a small space, inclosed by a palisade, containing a gallows, a whipping-post, and a pair of stocks--sad monuments of saxon slavery, and norman tyranny and wrong. in one of the upper chambers of the feudal keep, a small square room, with a vaulted roof, springing from four clustered columns in the corners, with four groined ribs, meeting in the middle, from which descended a long, curiously-carved pendant of stone, terminating in a gilt iron candelabrum of several branches, two men were seated at a board, on which, though the solid viands of the mid-day meal had been removed, there were displayed several silver dishes, with wastel bread, dried fruits, and light confections, as well as two or three tall, graceful flasks of the light fragrant wines of gascony and anjou, and several cups and tankards of richly-chased and gilded metal, intermixed with several large-bowled and thin-stemmed goblets of purple and ruby-colored glass. the room was a very pleasant one, lighted by two tall windows, on two different sides, which stood wide open, admitting the soft, balmy, summer air, and the fresh smell of the neighboring greenwoods, the breezy voice of which came gently in, whispering through the casement. the walls were hung with tapestries of embossed and gilded spanish leather, adorned with spirited figures of arab skirmishers and christian chivalry, engaged in the stirring game of warfare; while, no unfit decoration for a wall so covered, two or three fine suits of chain and plate armor, burnished so brightly that they shone like silver, with their emblazoned shields and appropriate weapons, stood, like armed knights on constant duty, in canopied niches, framed especially to receive them. varlets, pages, and attendants, had all withdrawn; and the two norman barons sat alone, sipping their wine in silence, and apparently reflecting on some subject which they found it difficult to approach without offense or embarrassment. at last, the younger of the two, sir philip de morville, after drawing his open hand across his fair, broad forehead, as if he would have swept away some cloud which gloomed over his mind, and drinking off a deep goblet of wine, opened the conversation with evident confusion and reluctance. "well, well," he said, "it must out, sir yvo, and though it is not very grateful to speak of such things, i must needs do so, lest i appear to you uncourtly and ungracious, in hesitating to do to you, mine own most tried and trusty friend, to whom i owe no less than my own life, so small a favor as the granting liberty to one poor devil of a saxon. i told you i would do it, if i might; yet, by my father's soul, i know not how to do it!" "where is the rub, my friend?" replied the other, kindly. "i doubt not, if we put both our heads together, we can accomplish even a greater thing than making a free english yeoman of a saxon thrall." "i never was rich, as you well know, de taillebois; but at the time of the king's late incursion into wales, when i was summoned to lead out my power, i had no choice but to mortgage this my fortalice, with its demesne of waltheofstow, and all its plenishing and stock, castle and thralls, and crops and fisheries, to abraham of tadcaster, for nineteen thousand zecchins, to buy their outfitting, horses, and armor; and this prohibits me from manumitting this man, kenric, although i would do so right willingly, not for that it would pleasure you only, but that he is a faithful and an honest fellow for a thrall, and right handy, both with arbalast and longbow. i know not well how to accomplish it." "easily, easily, philip," answered sir yvo, laughing. "never shall it be said that nineteen thousand zecchins stood between yvo de taillebois and his gratitude; besides, this will shoot double game with a single arrow. it will relieve our trusty kenric from the actual bondage of a corporeal lord and master, and liberate my right good friend and brother in arms, philip de morville, from the more galling spiritual bondage of that foul tyrant and perilous oppressor, debt. tush! no denial, i say," he continued, perceiving that sir philip was about to make some demur; "it is a mere trifle, this, and a matter of no moment. i am, as you well know, passing rich, what with my rents in westmoreland, and my estates beyond the sea. i have even now well-nigh twice the sum that you name, lying idle in my bailiff's hands at kendall, until i may find lands to purchase. it was my intent to have bought those border lands of clifford's, that march with my moorlands on hawkshead, but it seems he will not sell, and i am doubly glad that it gives me the occasion to serve you. i will direct my bailiff at once to take horse for tadcaster and redeem your mortgage, and you can take your own time and pleasure to repay it. there is no risk, heaven knows, for waltheofstow is well worth nineteen thousand zecchins three times told, and, in lieu of usance money, you shall transfer the man kenric from thee and thine to me and mine, forever. so shall my gratitude be preserved intact, and my pretty guendolen have her fond fancy gratified." "be it so, then, in god's name; and by my faith i thank you for the loan right heartily; for, on mine honor! that same blood-sucker of israel hath pumped me like the veriest horse-leech, these last twelve months, and i know not but i should have had to sell, after all. we must have kenric's consent, however, that all may be in form; for he is no common thrall, but a serf of the soil, and may not be removed from it, nor manumitted even, save with his own free will." "who ever heard of a serf refusing to be free, more than of a jew not loving ducats? my life on it, he will not be slow to consent!" "i trow not, i trow not, de taillebois, but let us set about it presently; a good deed can not well be done too quickly. you pass the wine cup, too, i notice. let us take cap and cloak, and stroll down into the hamlet yonder; it is a pleasant ramble in the cool afternoon, and we can see him in his den; he will be scant of wind, i trow, and little fit to climb the castle hill this evensong, after the battering he received from that stout forester. but freedom will be a royal salve, i warrant me, for his worst bruises. shall we go?" "willingly, willingly. i would have it to tell guendolen at her wakening. 't will be a cure to her also. she is a tender-hearted child ever, and was so from her cradle. why, i have known her cry like the lady niobe, that the prior of st. albans told us of--who wept till she was changed into a chipping fountain, when blessed st. michael and st. george slew all her tribe of children, for that she likened herself, in her vain pride of beauty, to the most holy virgin mother, st. mary of sienna--at the killing of a deer by a stray shaft, that had a suckling fawn beside her foot; and when i caused them to imprison wufgitha, that was her nurse's daughter, for selling of a hundred pounds of flax that was given her to spin, she took sick, and kept to her bed two days and more, all for that she fancied the wench would pine; though her prison-house was the airiest and most lightsome turret chamber in my house at kendal, and she was not in gyves nor on prison diet. faith! i had no peace with her, till i gave the whole guidance of the women into her hands. they are all ladies since that day at kendal, or next akin to it." "over god's forbode!" answered philip, laughing. "it must have been a black day for your seneschal. how rules he your warders, since? my fellow, hundibert, swears that the girls need more watching than the laziest swine in the whole saxon herd. but come; let us be moving." with that they descended the winding stone stairway into the great hall or guard-room, which occupied the whole of one floor of the castle--a noble vaulted room, stone-arched and stone-paved, its walls hung with splendid arms and well-used weapons, "old swords, and pikes, and bows, and good old shields, and targets, that had borne some stout old blows." thence, through an echoing archway, above which in its grooves of stone hung the steel-clinched portcullis, and down a steep and almost precipitous flight of steps, without any rail or breastwork, they reached the large court-yard, where some of the retainers were engaged in trying feats of strength and skill, throwing the hammer, wrestling, or shooting with arbalasts at a mark, while others were playing at games of chance in a cool shadowy angle of the walls, moistening their occupation with an occasional pull at a deep, black tankard, which stood beside them on the board. after tarrying a few minutes in the court, observing the wrestlers and cross-bowmen, and throwing in an occasional word of good-humored encouragement at any good shot or happy fall, the lords passed the drawbridge, which was lowered, giving access to the pleasant country, over which the warder was gazing half-wistfully, and watching a group of pretty girls, who were washing clothes in the brook at about half a mile's distance, laughing as merrily and singing as tunefully as though they had been free maidens of gentle norman lineage, instead of contemned and outlawed saxons, the children, and the wives and mothers of slaves and bond-men in the to be hereafter. "hollo! old stephen," cried the knight of morville, gayly, as he passed the stout dependent; "i thought thou wert too resolute a bachelor to cast a sheep's-eye on the lasses, and too thorough-paced a norman to let the prettiest saxon of them all find favor in your sight." "i don't know, sir; i don't know that," answered the man, with a grin, half-bashfully, and between bantering and earnest. "there's little edith down yonder; and, bond or free, there's not a girl about the castle, or within ten miles of it, for that matter, that has got an eye to come near those blue sparklers of her's; and as for her voice, when she's singing, it would wile the birds out of heaven, let alone the wits of a poor soldier's brain-pan. hark to her now, sir philip. sang ever nightingale so sweetly as yon trill, sir knight?" "win her, stephen. win her, i'll grant you my permission, for your paramour; and if you do, i'll give her to you for your own. i owe you a boon of some sort, for that service you did me when you knocked that welch churl on the head, who would have driven his long knife into my ribs, that time i was dismounted in the pass near dunmailraise. win her, therefore, if you may, stephen, and yours she shall be, as surely and as steadfastly as though she were the captive of your spear." "small chance, sir philip," replied the man, slowly; "all thanks to you, natheless. but she's troth-plighted to that tall, well-made fellow, kenric, they say, that saved the lady guendolen from the stag this morning. they'll be asking your consent to the wedding and the bedding, one of these days, beausire. to-morrow, as like as not, seeing this feat of the good youth's will furnish forth a sort of plea for the asking of a favor." "that will not much concern you, warder," said sir yvo. "your rival will be out of your way shortly. i have asked his freedom but now of sir philip, and shall have him away with me the next week, to the north country." "i don't know that will do me much good. they say she loves him parlously, and he her; and she ever looks coldly on me." "a little perseverance is a certain remedy for cold looks, stephen. so, don't be down-hearted. you will have a clear field soon." "i am not so sure of that, sir. i should not wonder if he refused to go." "refused to go--to be free--to be his own master, and a thrall and slave no longer!" "who can tell, sir?" answered the man. "saxon or norman, bond or free, we're all men, after all; and women have made fools of us all, since the days of sir adam in paradise, and will, i fancy, to the end of all time. i'd do and suffer a good deal myself to win such a look out of edith's blue eyes, as i saw her give yon saxon churl, when he came to after we had thrown cold water on him. and, after all, if sir hercules, of greece, made a slave of himself, and a she-slave, too, as that wandering minstrel sang to us in the hall the other day, all to win the love of the beautiful sultana, omphale, i don't see, for myself, why a saxon serf, that's been a serf all his life, and got pretty well used to it by this time, shouldn't stay a serf all the rest of it, to keep the love of edith, who is prettier a precious sight than the fair turk, omphale, i'll warrant. i don't know but what i would myself." "pshaw! stephen; that smacks norman--smacks of the _gai science_, chivalry, sentiment, and fine high romance. you'll never see a saxon sing 'all for love,' i'll warrant you." "well, sir, well. we shall see. a saxon's a man, as i said before; and a saxon in love is a man in love; and a man in love isn't a man in his senses any more than sir hercules of greece was, and when a saxon's in love, and out of his senses, there's no saying what he'll do; only one may guess it will be nothing over wise. and so, as i said before, i should not wonder if kenric should not part with collar, thong, and shackles, if he must needs part too with little edith the fair. i would not, any wise, if i were he, beausire." chapter v. the serf's quarter. "as they sat in englyshe wood, under the greenwode tree, they thought they heard a woman wepe, but her they mought not see." adam bell, etc. leaving the warder lounging listlessly at his post, as in a well-settled district and in "piping times of peace," with no feudal enemies at hand, and no outlaws in the vicinity, none at least so numerous as to render any guard necessary, except as a matter of dignity and decorum, the two knights strolled down the sandy lane toward the village, or quarter of the serfs; who were not admitted generally to reside within the walls, partly as a precaution, lest, in case of some national affray, they might so far outnumber the norman men-at-arms as to become dangerous, partly because they were not deemed fitting associates for the meanest of the feudal servitors. the two gentlemen in question were excellent specimens of the norman baron of the day, without, however, being heroes or geniuses, or in any particular--except perhaps for good temper and the lack of especial temptation toward evil--manifestly superior to others of their class, caste, and period. neither of them was in any respect a tyrant, individually cruel, or intentionally an oppressor; but both were, as every one of us is at this day, used to look at things as we find them, through our own glasses, and to seek rather for what is the custom, than for what is right, and therefore ought to be; for what it suits us, and is permitted to us by law to do to others, than for what we should desire others to do unto us. reckless of life themselves, brought up from their cradles to regard pain as a thing below consideration, and death as a thing to be risked daily, they were not like to pay much regard to the mere physical sufferings of others, or to set human life at a value, such as to render it worth the preserving, when great stakes were to be won or lost on its hazard. accustomed to set their own lives on the die, for the most fantastic whim of honor, or at the first call of their feudal suzerains, accustomed to see their norman vassals fall under shield, and deem such death honorable and joyous, at their own slightest bidding, how should they have thought much of the life, far more of the physical or mental sufferings, of the saxon serf, whom they had found, on their arrival in their newly-conquered england, a thing debased below the value, in current coin, of an ox, a dog, or a war-horse--a thing, the taking of whose life was compensated by a trivial fine, and whom they naturally came to regard as a dull, soulless, inanimate, stupid senseless animal, with the passions only, but without the intellect of the man. of the two barons, sir yvo de taillebois was the superior, both in intellect and culture; he was in easy circumstances also, while his far younger friend, sir philip de morville, was embarrassed by the _res angusta domi_, and by the importunity of relentless creditors, which often drives men to do, as well as to suffer, extremes. it was no hardness of nature or cruelty of disposition, therefore, which led either of these noble men--for they were noble, not in birth only, but in sentiment and soul, according to the notions of their age, which were necessarily _their_ notions, and to the lights vouchsafed to them--to speak concerning the saxon serfs, and act toward them, ever as if they were beasts of burden, worthy of care, kindness, and some degree of physical consideration, rather than like men, as themselves, endowed with hearts to feel and souls to comprehend. had they been other than they were, they had been monsters; as it was, they were excellent men, as men went then, and go now, fully up to the spirit of their own times, and to the strain of morality and justice understood thereby, but not one whit above it. therefore, sir yvo de taillebois, finding himself indebted for his daughter's life to the hardihood and courage of the saxon serf, whom he regarded much as he would have done his charger or his hound, desired, as a point of honor, rather than of gratitude, to secure to the serf an indemnity from toil, punishment, or want, during the rest of his life, just as he would have assigned a stall, with free rack and manger, to the superannuated charger which had saved his own life in battle; or given the run of kitchen, buttery, and hall, to the hound which had run the foremost of his pack. the sensibilities of the saxon were as incomprehensible to him as those of the charger or the staghound, and he thought no more of considering him in his social or family relations, than the animals to which, in some sort, he likened him. he would not, it is true, if asked as a philosophical truth, whether the life of a saxon serf and of an andalusian charger were equivalent, have replied in the affirmative; for he was, according to his lights, a christian, and knew that a saxon had a soul to be saved; nor would he have answered, that the colt of the high-bred mare, or the whelp of the generous brach, stood exactly in the same relation as the child of the serf to its human parent; but use had much deadened his perceptions to the distinction; and the impassive and stolid insensibility of the saxon race, imbruted and degraded by ages of serfdom, caused him to overlook the faint and rarely seen displays of human sensibilities, which would have led him less to undervalue the sense and sentiment of his helpless fellow-countrymen. as it was, he would as soon have expected his favorite charger or best brood mare to pine hopelessly, and grieve as one who could not be consoled, at being liberated from spur and saddle, and turned out to graze at liberty forever in a free and fertile pasture, while its colts should remain in life-long bondage, as he would have supposed it possible for the saxon serf to be affected beyond consolation by the death, the deportation, or the disasters of his family. nor, again, did he regard liberty or servitude in an abstract sense, apart from ideas of incarceration, torture, or extreme privation, as great and inherent right or wrong. the serf owed him absolute service; the free laborer, or villeyn, service, in some sort, less absolute; his vassals, man-service, according to their degree, either in the field of daily labor, the hunting-field, or the battle-field; he himself owed service to his suzerain; his suzerain to the king. it was all service, and the difference was but in the degree; and if the service of the serf was degraded, it was a usual, a habitual degradation, to which, it might be presumed, he was so well accustomed, that he felt it not more than the charger his demipique, or the hawk his bells and jesses; and, for the most part, he did not feel it more, nor regret it, nor know the lack of liberty, save as connected with the absence of the fetters or the lash. and this, indeed, is the great real evil of slavery, wheresoever and under whatsoever form it exists, that it is not more, but less, hurtful to the slave than to the master, and that its ill effects are in a much higher and more painful degree intellectual than physical; that, while it degrades and lowers the inferiors almost to the level of mere brutes, through the consciousness of degradation, the absence of all hope to rise in the scale of manhood, and the lack of every stimulus to ambition or exertion, it hardens the heart, and deadens the sensibilities of the master, and renders him, through the strange power of circumstance and custom, blind to the existence of wrongs, sufferings, and sorrows, at the mere narration of which, under a different phase of things, his blood would boil with indignation. such, then, was in some considerable degree, the state of mind, arising from habit and acquaintance with the constitution of freedom and slavery, intermingled every where in the then world, any thing to the contrary of which they had never seen nor even heard of, in which the two norman lords took their way down the village street, if it could be so called, being a mere sandy tract, passable only to horsemen, or carts and vehicles of the very rudest construction, unarmed, except with their heavy swords, and wholly unattended, on an errand, as they intended, of liberality and mercy. the quarter of the serfs of sir philip de morville was, for the most part, very superior to the miserable collection of huts, liker to dog-houses than to any human habitation, which generally constituted the dwellings of this forlorn and miserable race; for the knight was, as it has been stated, an even-tempered and good-natured, though common-place man; and being endowed with rather an uncommon regard for order and taste for the picturesque, he consequently looked more than usual to the comfort of his serfs, both in allotting them small plots of garden-ground and orchards, and in bestowing on them building materials of superior quality and appearance. all the huts, therefore, rudely framed of oak beams, having the interstices filled in with a cement of clay and ruddle, with thatched roofs and wooden lattices instead of windows, were whole, and for the most part weather-proof. many of the inhabitants had made porches, covered with natural wild runners, as the woodbine and sweet-brier; all had made gardens in front, which they might cultivate in their hours of leisure, when the day's task-work should be done, and which displayed evidently enough, by their orderly or slovenly culture, the character and disposition of their occupants. the few men whom the lords met on their way, mostly driving up beasts laden with fire-wood or forage to the cattle, for the day was not yet far spent, nor the hours devoted to toil well-nigh passed, were hale, strong, sturdy varlets, in good physical condition, strong-limbed, and giving plentiful evidences in their appearance of ample coarse subsistence; they were well-dressed, moreover, although in the plainest and coarsest habiliments, made, for the most part, of the tanned hides of beasts with the hair outward, or in some cases of cheap buff leather, their feet protected by clumsy home-made sandals, and their heads uncovered, save by the thick and matted elf-locks of their unkempt and dingy hair. they louted low as their lord passed them by, but no gleam of recognition, much less any smile of respectful greeting, such as passes between the honored superior and the valued servant, played over their stolid and heavy countenance, begrimed for the most part with filth, and half-covered with disordered beards and unshorn mustaches. neither in form, motion, nor attire, did they show any symptom of misusage; there were no scars, as of the stripes, the stocks, or the fetters, on their bare arms and legs; they were in good physical condition, well-fed, warmly-lodged, sufficiently-clad--perhaps in the best possible condition for the endurance of continuous labor, and the performance of works requiring strength and patience, rather than agility or energetic exertion. but so also were the mules, oxen, or horses, which they were employed in driving, and which, in all these respects, were fully equal to their drivers, while they had this manifest advantage over them, that they were rubbed down and curry-combed, and cleaned, and showed their hides glossy and sleek, and their manes free from scurf and burrs, which is far more than could be stated of their human companions, who looked for the most part as if their tanned and swart complexions were as innocent of water as were their beards and elf-locks of brush or currycomb. in addition, however, to their grim and sordid aspect, and their evident ignorance, or carelessness, of their base appearance, there was a dull, sullen, dogged expression on all their faces--a look not despairing, nor even sorrowful, but perfectly impassive, as if they had nothing to hope for, or regret, or fear; the look of a caged bear, wearied and fattened out of his fierceness, not tamed, civilized, or controlled by any human teaching. the stature and bearing, even of the freeborn and noble saxon, in the day when his fair isle of albion was his own, and he trod the soil its proud proprietor, had never been remarkable for its beauty, grace, or dignity. he was, for the most part, short, thick-set, sturdy-limbed, bull-necked, bullet-headed; a man framed more for hardihood, endurance, obstinate resolve, indomitable patience to resist, than for vivid energy, brilliant impulsive vigor, or ardor, whether intellectual or physical; but these men, though they neither lounged nor lagged behind, plodded along with a heavy, listless gait, their frowning brows turned earthward, their dull gray eyes rolling beneath their light lashes, meaningless and spiritless, and the same scowl on every gloomy face. the younger women, a few of whom were seen about the doors or gardens, busied in churning butter, making cheese, or performing other duties of the farm and dairy, were somewhat more neatly, and, in some few cases, even tastefully attired. some were of rare beauty, with a profusion of auburn, light brown, or flaxen hair, bright rosy complexions, large blue eyes, and voluptuous figures; and these bore certainly a more cheerful aspect, as the nature of woman is more hopeful than that of man, and a more gentle mood than their fellows; yet there were no songs enlivening their moments of rest or alleviating their hours of toil--no jests, no romping, as we are wont to see among young girls of tender years, occupied in the lighter and more feminine occupations of agricultural life. some one or two of these, indeed, smiled as they courtesied to their lord, but the smile was wan and somewhat sickly, nor seemed to come from the heart; it gave no pleasure, one would say, to her who gave--no pleasure to him who received it. the little children, however, who tumbled about in the dust, or built mud-houses by the puddles in the road, were the saddest sight of all. half-naked, sturdy-limbed, filthy little savages, utterly untaught and untamed, scarcely capable of making themselves understood, even in their own rude dialect; wild-eyed, and fierce or sullen-looking as it might, subject to no control or correction, receiving no education, no culture whatsoever--not so much even as the colt, which is broken at least to the menage, or the hound-puppy, which is entered at the quarry which he is to chase; ignorant of every moral or divine truth--ignorant even that each one of them was the possessor of a mortal body, far more of an immortal soul! but not a thought of these things ever crossed the mind of the stately and puissant normans. no impression such as these, which must needs now strike home to the soul of every chance beholder, had ever been made on their imaginations, by the sight of things, which, seeing every day, they had come to consider only as things which were customary, and were, therefore, right and proper--not the exception even to the rule, but the rule without exception. so differently, indeed, did the circumstances above related strike sir yvo de taillebois, that he even complimented his friend on the general comfort of his villenage, and the admirable condition of his people, the air of capacity of his men, and the beauty of his women; nay! he commented even upon the plump forms and brawny muscles of the young savages, who fled diverse from before their footsteps, shrieking and terrified at the lordly port and resounding strides of their masters, as indicative of their future strength, and probable size and stature. and philip replied, laughing, "ay! ay! they are a stout and burly set of knaves and good workers on the main. the hinges of the stocks are rusted hard for want of use, and the whipping-post has not heard the crack of the boar's hide these two years or better; but then i work them lightly and feed them roundly, and i find that they do me the more work for it, and the better; besides, the food they consume is all of their own producing, and i have no use for it. they raise me twice as much now as i can expend, on this manor. now i work my folk but ten hours to the day, and give them meat, milk, and cheese, daily, and have not flogged a man since martinmas two twelvemonths; and i have thrice the profit of them that my friend and neighbor, reginald maltravers, has, though his thralls toil from matin to curfew, with three lenten days to the week, and the thong ever sounding. it is bad policy, i say, to over-do the work or under-do the feeding. besides, poor devils, they have not much fun in life, and if you fill their bellies, you fill them with all the pleasure and contentment they are capable of knowing. but, hold! here is kenric's home--the best cabin in the quarter, as the owner is the best man. let us go in." "and carry him a welcome cure for his aching bones," said sir yvo, as they entered the little gate of a pretty garden, which stretched from the door down to a reach of the winding stream, overshadowed by several large and handsome willows. "by my faith! he must needs be a good man," resumed the speaker--"why, it is as neat as a thane's manor, and neater, too, than many i have seen." but as he spoke, the shrill and doleful wail of women came from the porch of the house. "ah, well-a-day! ah, well-a-day! that i should live to see it. soul of my soul, kenric, my first-born and my best one--thou first borne in, almost a corpse; and then, my darling and delight--my fair-haired edgar's son dead of this doleful fever. ah, well-a-day! ah, well-a-day! would god that i were dead also, most miserable that i am, of women!" and then the manly voice of kenric replied, but faint for his wounds and wavering for the loss of blood; "wail not for me, mother," he said; "wail not for me, for i am strong yet, and like to live this many a day--until thy toils are ended, and then god do to me as seems him good. but, above all, i say to thee, wail not for adhemar the white-haired. his weakness and his innocence are over, here on earth. he has never known the collar or the gyves--has never felt how bitter and how hard a thing it is to be the slave of the best earthly master! his dream--his fever-dream of life is over; he is free from yoke and chain; he has awoken out of human servitude, to be the slave of the everlasting god, whose strictest slavery is perfect liberty and perfect love." but still the woman wailed--"ah, well-a-day! ah, well-a-day! would god that i were dead, most miserable of mothers that i am!" and the norman barons stood unseen and silent, smitten into dumbness before the regal majesty of the slave's maternal sorrow, perhaps awakened to some dim vision of the truth, which never had dawned on them until that day, in the serf's quarter. chapter vi. the saxon's constancy. "and i'll be true to thee, mary, as thou'lt be true to me; and i never will leave thee, never, mary, as slave man or as free; for we're bound forever and ever, mary, till death shall set us free-- free from the chain of the flesh, mary, free from the devil's chain-- free from the collar and gyves, mary, and slavery's cursed pain; and then, when we're free in heaven, mary, we'll pray to be bound again." old english song. it was with grave and somewhat downcast brows, and nothing of haughtiness or pride of port or demeanor, that the lord and his friend entered under the lowly roof, invested for the moment with a majesty which was not its own, by the strange sacredness of grief and death. there never probably, in the whole history of the world, has been a race of men, which entertained in their own persons a more boundless contempt of death, or assigned less value to the mere quality of life, than the warlike normans. not a man of them, while in the heyday of life and manhood, would have hesitated for a moment in choosing a death under shield, a death of violence and anguish, winning renown and conferring deathless honor, to the gentlest decay, the most peaceful dissolution. not a man would have shed a tear, or shown a sign of sorrow, had he seen his favorite son, his most familiar friend, his noblest brother in arms, felled from his saddle in the mêlée, and trampled out of the very form of humanity beneath the hoofs of the charging cavalry. not a man but would have ridden over a battlefield, gorged with carcasses and drunk with gore, without expressing a thought of terror, a sentiment beyond the victory, the glory, and the gain. but such is the sovereignty of death, in the silence and solitude of its natural gloom, stripped of the pomp and paraphernalia of funereal honors, and unadorned by the empty braveries of human praise and glory--such is the empire of humble, simple, overruling sorrow, that, as they entered the low-roofed, undecorated chamber, where lay the corpse of the neglected, despised serf--the being, while in life, scarce equal to the animals of the chase--with his nearest of kin, serfs likewise, abject, ignorant, down-trodden, and debased--in so far as man can debase god's creations--mourning in christian sorrow over him, the nobles felt, for a moment, that their nobility was nothing in the presence of the awful dead; and that they, too, for all their pride of antique blood, for all their strength of limb and heaven-daring valor, for all their lands and lordships, must be brought down one day to the dust, like the poor slave, and go forth, as they entered this world, bearing nothing out, before one common lord and master, who must in the end sit in universal judgment. such meditations are not, perhaps, very common to the great, the powerful, and the fortunate of men, in any time or place, so long as the light of this world shine about, and their ways are ways of pleasantness; but if rare always, and under all ordinary circumstances, with the chivalrous, high-hearted, and hot-headed knights of the twelfth century, they were assuredly of the rarest. yet now so powerfully did they come over the strong minds of the two grave nobles, that they paused a moment on the threshold before entering; and yvo de taillebois, who was the elder man, and of deeper thoughts and higher imagination than his friend, raised his plumed bonnet from his brow, and bowed his head in silence. it was a strange and moving scene on which they looked. the room, which was the ordinary dwelling-place of the family, was rather a large, dark parallelogram, lighted only through the door and a couple of narrow latticed windows, which, if closed, would have admitted few half-intercepted rays, but which now stood wide open, to admit the fresh and balmy air, so that from one, at the western end of the cottage, a clear ruddy beam of the declining sun shot in a long pencil of light, bringing out certain objects in strong relief against the surrounding gloom. the door, at which the two knights stood, chanced to be so placed under the shadow of one of the great trees which overhung the house, that there was little light for them to intercept. hence, those who were within, occupied by their own sad and bitter thoughts, did not at first so much as observe their presence. facing the entrance, a large fire-place, with great projecting jambs, inclosing on each side a long oaken settle, occupied one half the length of the room; and on one of these, propped up with some spare bedding and clothing, lay the wounded man, kenric, to whom the baron de taillebois owed his beloved child's life, half recumbent, pale from the loss of blood, yet chafing with annoyance, that he should be thus bedridden, when his strength might have been of avail to others, feebler and less able to exert themselves almost than he, bruised though he was, and gored from the rude encounter. a little fire was burning low on the hearth, with a pot simmering over it--for, in their bitterest times of anguish and desolation, the very poor must bestir themselves, at least, to house service--and from the logs, which had fallen forward on the hearth, volumes of smoke were rolling up and hanging thick about the dingy rafters, and the few hams and flitches which, with strings of oat-cakes garnished the roof, its only ornament. but, wholly unconscious of the ill-odored reek, though it streamed up close under his very eyes, and seeing nothing of the chevaliers, who were watching not six paces from him, kenric lay helpless, straining his nerveless eyes toward the spot where the ruddy western sunlight fell, like a glory, on the pale, quiet features of the dead child, and on the cold, gray, impassive head of the aged mourner, aged far beyond the ordinary course of mortal life, who bent over the rude bier; and, strange contrast, on the sunny flaxen curls, and embrowned ruddy features of two or three younger children, clustered around the grandam's knee, silent through awe rather than sorrow, for they were too young as yet to know what death meant, or to comprehend what was that awful gloom which had fallen upon hearth and home. every thing in that humble and poor apartment was scrupulously clean and tidy; a white cloth was on the table, with two or three platters and porringers of coarse earthenware, as if the evening meal had been prepared when death had entered in, and interposed his awful veto--some implements of rustic husbandry, an ax or two, several specimens of the old english bill and sheffield whittle; and one short javelin, with a heavy head, hung on the walls, with all the iron work brightly polished and in good order; fresh rushes were strewn on the floor, a broken pitcher, full of newly-gathered field-flowers, adorned the window-sill; and what was strange indeed at that age, and in such a place, two or three old, much tattered, dingy manuscripts graced a bare shelf above the chimney corner. the aged woman had ceased from the wild outbreak of grief with which she had bewailed the first sign of death on the sick boy's faded brow, and was now rocking herself to and fro above the body, with a dull, monotonous murmur, half articulate, combining fragments of some old saxon hymn with fondling epithets and words of unmeaning sorrow, while the tears slowly trickled down her wan cheeks, and fell into her lap unheeded. kenric was silent, for he had no consolation to offer, even if consolation could have been availing, in that the first dark hour of nothingness, the last of danger and distress. such was the spectacle which met the eyes of those high-born men, who had come down from their high place into the lowly village, with the intention of bestowing happiness and awakening gratitude, and who now found themselves placed front to front with one far mightier than themselves, whose presence left no room for joy, even with those the least used to such emotion. it is, however, i fear, but too much the case even with the more refined and better nurtured classes of the present century, while they are compassionating the sorrows and even endeavoring to alleviate the miseries of their poorer and less-cultivated brethren, to undervalue the depth of their sensations, to fancy that the same events harrow not up their less vivid sensibilities, and inflict not on their coarser and less intellectual natures the same agonies, which they effect upon their own. but, although it may be true that, in the very poor, the necessity of immediate labor, of all-engrossing occupation, rendering thought and reflection on the past impossible, sooner removes from them the pressure of past grief, than from those who can afford to brood over it in indolent despair, and indulge in morbid and selfish woe, there can be no doubt that, in the early moments of a new bereavement, the agony is as acute to the dullest and heaviest as to the loftiest and most imaginative intellect. since it is the heart itself, that is touched in the first instance; and, though in after hours imagination may assume its share, so that the most imaginative minds dwell longest on the bygone suffering, the heart is the same in the peasant as in the peer, and that of the wisest of the sons of men bleeds neither more nor less profusely than that of the rudest clown. and so, perchance, in some sort it was now. for, after pausing and looking reverently on the sad picture, until it was evident that they were entirely overlooked, if not unseen, sir philip de morville took a step or two forward into the cottage, his sounding tread at once calling all eyes toward his person, in a sort of half-stupid mixture of alarm and astonishment. for in those days, the steps of a norman baron rarely descended to the serf's quarters, unless they were echoed by the clanking strides of armed subordinates, and too often followed by the clash of shackles or the sound of the hated scourge. sir philip was indeed, as it has been observed, an even-tempered and just master, as things went in those times; that is to say, he was neither personally cruel nor exacting of labor; nor was he niggardly in providing for his people; nor did he, when it came before his eyes, tolerate oppression, or permit useless severity on the part of subordinates, who were often worse tyrants and tormentors than the lords. still, his kindliest mood amounted to little more than bare indifference; and he certainly knew and studied less concerning any thing beyond the mere physical wants and condition of his thralls and bondsmen, than he did of the nurture of his hawks or hounds. all the inmates, therefore, looked up in wonder, not altogether unmixed with fear, as, certainly for the first time in his life, the castellan entered the humble tenement of the serf of the soil. but all idea of fear passed away on the instant; for the knight's face was open and calm, though grave, and his voice was gentle, and even subdued, as he spoke. "soh!" he said, "what is this, kenric, which causes us, in coming down to see if we might not heal up thy heart and cheer thy spirits by good tidings, to find worse sorrow, for which we looked not, nor can reverse it by any mortal doing. who is the boy?" "pardon that i rise not, beausire, to reply to you," answered the serf, "but this right leg of mine will not bear me; and when the hand of sickness hold us down, good will must make shift in lieu of good service. it is my nephew adhemar, sir philip, the only son of my youngest brother edgar, who was drowned a year since in the great flood of the idle." "in striving to rescue my old blind destrier sir roland, ah! i remember him; a stout and willing lad! but i knew not, or forgot, that he was thy brother. and so this is his son," he added, striding up to the side of the rude bier, and laying his broad hand upon his brow. "he is young," he said, musingly, "very young to die. but we must all die one day, kenric; and who knows but it is best to die young?" "at least, the ancient greeks and romans said so," interposed yvo de taillebois, speaking for the first time. "they have a proverb, that, whomsoever the gods love, dies young." "i think it _is_ best, beausire," answered the serf; "it is never cold in the grave, in the dreariest storms; nor sultry in the scorching august. and they are never hungry there, nor sorefooted, nor weary unto death. i think it is best to die young, before one has tasted overmuch sorrow here on earth to burden his heart and make him stubborn and malicious. it was this i was saying to old bertha, as your noblenesses entered; but she has never held her head up since my brother, edgar, died; he was her favorite, since she always held that he had most favor of our grandfather." "she is very old?" said sir philip, half questioning, half musing. "she is very old?" "above ninety years, sir philip, i have heard father eadbald say, who died twenty years since, at the abbey, come next michaelmas. it should have been he who married her. her mother was the last free woman of our race. we had three hydes of land, i've heard her tell, in those days, down by the banks of idle, held of old waltheof, who gave his name to this your noble castle. but they are all gone before us, and we must follow them when our day comes. and then, as i tell bertha, we shall be free, all, if not equal; for the most virtuous must be _first_ there, as father engelram tells us. may mary and the saints be about us!" "come, kenric," said de morville, cheeringly, "thou talkest now more like to a gray brother, than to the stout woodman who struckest yon brave blow but a while since, and saved sir yvo's fair lady, guendolen. faith! it was bravely done, and well; and well shall come of it to you, believe me. it is to speak of that to thee that we came hither, but this boy's death hath put it from our minds. but, hark ye, boy! i will send down some wenches hither from the castle, with ale and mead for his lykewake, and linen for a shroud; and father engelram shall see to the church-service; and there shall be a double dole to the poor at the abbey; and i myself will pay ten marks, in masses for his soul. if he died a serf, he shall be buried as though he were a freeman, and a franklin's son; and all for thy sake, and for the good blow thou struckest but three hours agone." kenric's brow flushed high, whether it was with gratification, or gratitude, or from wounded pride; but he stuttered confusedly, as he attempted to thank his lord, and only found his tongue as he related to his grandmother, in his native language, the promises and goodly proffers of the castellan; and she, for a moment, spoke eagerly in reply, but then seemed to forget, and was silent. a word or two passed in french between the nobles, yvo de taillebois urging that the time was inopportune for speaking of the matter on which they had come down; for that it was not well to mingle great joys with great sorrows; but sir philip insisted, declaring that there was no so good way to cure a past grief as by the news of a coming joy. "so, hark you, kenric," he said; "the cure we came to bring you for your bruised bones, and the guerdon for your gallant deed, in two words, is this--i may not, as you may have heard tell, liberate my serfs, under condition, but i may _sell_; and i have sold thee to mine ancient friend and brother in arms, yvo de taillebois." "not to hold in thrall," exclaimed yvo de taillebois, eagerly, as he saw the face of the wounded man flush fiery red, and then grow pale as ashes. "not to hold in thrall, but to liberate; but to make thee as free as the birds of the wildest wing--a freeman; and, if thou wilt follow me, a freeholder on my lands beyond the lakes, in the fair shire of westmoreland." "i am a serf of the soil, beausire de morville, and i may not be sold from the soil, unless legally convicted of felony. i know no felony that i have done, sir philip." "felony, man!" exclaimed sir philip; "art thou mad? we would reward thee for thy good faith and valor. we would set thee free. of course, thou canst not be sold, but with thine own consent. but thou hast only to consent, and be free as thy master." "sir philip," replied the man, turning even paler than before, and trembling, as if he had a fit of palsy, "would i could rise to bless you, on my bended knee! may the great god of all things bless you! but i can not consent--think me not ungrateful--but i can not be free!" "not free!" exclaimed both nobles in a breath; and sir yvo gazed on him wistfully, as if he but partially understood; but philip de morville turned on his heel, superciliously. "come, sir yvo," he said; "it skills not wasting time, or breath, on these abjects. why, by the light of heaven! had i been fettered in a dungeon, with a ton of iron at my heels, i had leaped head-high to know myself once more a freeman; and here this slave, by 'r lady! i can not brook to speak his name! can not consent, forsooth! can not consent to be free! heaven's mercy! let him rot a slave, then! unless, perchance, thou wouldst crave him for thy sake, and the virgin mother's sake, to take good counsel and be free. out on it! out on it! i am sick to the soul at such baseness!" and he left the cottage abruptly, in scorn and anger. but sir yvo de taillebois stood still, gazing compassionately and inquiringly on the man, over whose face there had fallen a dark, gray, death-like shadow, as he lay with his teeth and hands clinched like vices. "can this be? i thought not that on earth there lived a man who might be free, and would not. dost not love liberty, kenric?" "ask the wild eagle in his place of pride! ask the wild goat on pennigant or ingleborough's head; and when they come down to the cage and chain, believe, then, that i love it not. freedom! freedom! to be free but five minutes, i would die fifty deaths of direst torture. and yet it can not be--it can not be! peace, tempter, peace; you can not stir my soul. slave i was born, slave i must die, and only in the grave shall be a slave no longer. leave me, beausire; but think me not ungrateful. i never looked to owe so much to living man, and least of all to living man of your proud race, as i owe you to-day. but leave me, noble sir; you can not aid us. so go your way, and leave us to our sorrow, and may the god of serfs and seigneurs be about you with his blessing." "passing strange! this is passing strange!" said de taillebois, as he turned to go likewise; "i never saw a beast that would not leave his cage when the door was open." "but i have!" answered kenric; "when the beast's brood were within, and might not follow him. but i am _not_ a beast, sir knight; but though a serf, a man--a saxon, not a norman, it is true; but a man, yet, _a man_! there may be collar on my neck, and gyves on wrist and ankle, but my soul wears no shackles. it is as free as thine, and shall stand face to face with thine, one day, before the judgment seat. i am a man, i say, sir yvo de taillebois; there sits old bertha, surnamed the good, a serf herself, mother of serfs, and grandmother; there lies my serf-brother's boy, himself a serf no longer; there sprawl unconscious on the hearth his baby brethren, serfs from the cradle to the grave; and here comes," he added, in a deeper, sterner, lower tone, as the beautiful saxon slave-girl entered, whom they had seen near the drawbridge, washing in the stream--"here comes--look upon her, noble knight and norman!--here comes my plighted bride, my edith the fair-haired! i am a man, norman! should i be man, or beast, if, leaving these in bondage, i were to fare forth hence, alone, into dishonored freedom?" chapter vii. the slave girl's self-devotion. "i say not nay, but that all day, it is both writ and said, that woman's faith is, as who sayeth, all utterly decayed; but neverthelesse, right good witnesse in this case might be laid, that they love true and continue-- recorde the not-browne mayde; which, when her love came her to prove, to her to make his mone, wolde have him part--for in her hart she loved him but alone." the not-browne mayde. how true a thing is it of the human heart, and alas! how pitiful a thing, that use has such wondrous power over it, whether for good or for evil; but mostly--perhaps because such is its original nature--unto evil. custom will harden the softest spirit to the ice-brook's temper, and blind the clearest philosophic eye to all discrimination, that things the most horrible to behold shall be beheld with pleasure, and things the most unjust regarded as simple justice, or, at least, as the inevitable course and pervading law of nature. true as this is, in all respects, in none is it more clearly or fatally discoverable than in every thing connected with what may be called slavery, in the largest sense--including the subjugation, by whatever means, not only of man to man, but even of animals to the human race. in all such cases, it would appear that the hardening and deteriorating influence of habit, and perhaps the unavoidable tendency to believe every thing subordinate as in itself inferior, soon brings the mind to regard the power to enforce and the capacity to perform, as the rule of justice between the worker and the master. the generally good and kind-hearted man, who has all his life been used to see his beasts of burden dragging a few pounds' weight above their proper and merciful load, soon comes to regard the extraordinary measure as the proper burden, and to look upon the hapless brute, which is pining away by inches, in imperceptible and insensible decay, as merely performing the work, and filling the station, to perform and fill which it was created. and so, and yet more fatally, as regards the subjugation of man, or a class of men, to man. we commence by degrading, and end by thinking of him as of one naturally degraded. we reduce him to the standard and condition of a brute, then assume that he is but a brute in feelings, intellect, capacity to acquire, and thence argue--in the narrowest of circles--that being but a brute, it is but right and natural to deal with him as what he is. nor is this tendency of the human mind limited in its operation to actual slavery; but prevails, more or less, in relation to all servitude and inferiority, voluntary or involuntary; so that many of the best, all indeed but the very best, among us, come in the end to look upon all, placed by circumstances and society in inferior positions, as inferiors in very deed, and as naturally unequal to themselves in every capacity, even that of enjoyment, and to regard them, in fact, as a subordinate class of animals and beings of a lower range of creation. this again, still working in a circle, tends really to lower the inferior person; and, by the tendency of association, the inferior class; until degenerating still, as must occur, from sire to son, through centuries, the race itself sinks from social into natural degradation. this had already occurred in a very great degree in the saxon serfs of england, who had been slaves of saxons, for many centuries, before the arrival of the norman conquerors. the latter made but small distinction, in general, between the free-born and the slave of the conquered race, but reduced them all to one common state of misery and real or quasi-servitude--for many, who had once been land-holders and masters, sunk into a state of want and suffering so pitiable and so abject, that, generation succeeding generation with neither the means nor the ambition to rise, they became almost undistinguishable from the original serfs, and in many instances either sold themselves into slavery to avoid actual starvation, or were seized and enslaved, in defiance of all law, in the dark and troublous time which followed the norman conquest. there being then two classes of serfs existing on british soil, though not recognized as different by law, or in any wise differing in condition, kenric, himself descended in the third degree from a freeman and landholder, exhibited a fair specimen at the first; although it by no means followed of course that men in his relative position were actually superior to the progeny of those, who could designate no point before which their ancestors were free. and this became evident, at once, to those who looked at the characters of kenric the dark, and eadwulf the red, of whom the former was in all respects a man of sterling qualities, frank, bold demeanor, and all the finer characteristics of independent, hardy, english manhood; while the second, though his own brother, was a rude, sullen, thankless, spiritless, obstinate churl, with nothing of the man, except his sordid, sensual appetites, and every thing of the beast, except his tameless pride and indomitable freedom. it was, therefore, even with one of the better class of these unfortunate men, a matter of personal character and temper, whether he retained something of the relative superiority he bore to his yet more unfortunate companions in slavery, or whether he sank self-lowered to their level. nothing, it is true, had either to which he might aspire; no hope of bettering his condition; no chance of rising in the scale of humanity. acts of emancipation, as rewards of personal service, had been rare even among the saxons, since, the utmost personal service being due by the thrall to his lord, no act of personal service, unless in most extreme cases, could be esteemed a merit; and such serfs as owed their freedom to the voluntary commiseration of their owners, owed it, in the great majority of cases, to their superstition rather than to their mercy, and were liberated on the deathbed, when they could serve their masters in no otherwise, than in becoming an atonement for their sins, and smoothing their path through purgatory to paradise. with the normans, the chance of liberation was diminished an hundred-fold; for the degraded race, held in utter abhorrence and contempt, and looked upon as scarce superior to the abject jew, was excluded from all personal contact with their haughty lords, who rarely so much as knew them by sight or by name--was incapable of serving them directly, in the most menial capacity--and, therefore, could hardly, by the wildest good fortune, hope for a chance of attracting even observation, much less such praise as would be like to induce the high boon of liberty. again, on the deathbed, the norman knight or noble, scarce condescending to think of his serf as a human being, could never have entertained so preposterous an idea, as that the better or worse usage, nay! even the life or death of hundreds of these despised wretches could weigh either for him or against him, before the throne of grace. so that the deathbed emancipations, which had been so frequent before the conquest, and which were recommended and inculcated by abbots and prelates, while abbots and prelates were of saxon blood, as acts acceptable on high, now that the high clergy, like the high barons of the realm, were strangers to the children of the soil, had fallen into almost absolute disuse. in fact, in the twelfth century, the saxon serf-born man had little more chance of acquiring his freedom, than an english peasant of the present day has of becoming a temporal or spiritual peer of the realm; and, lacking all object for emulation or exertion, these men too often justified the total indifference with which they were looked upon by the owners of the soil. this fact, or rather this condition of things in their physical and moral aspect, has been dwelt upon, somewhat at length, in order to show how it is possible that a gentleman of the highest birth, of intellects, acquirements, ideas of justice and right, vastly more correct than those entertained by the majority of his caste--a gentleman, sensitive, courteous, kindly, the very mirror of faith and honor--should have distorted devotion so noble, faith so disinterested, a sense of honor so high, a piety so pure, as that displayed by kenric the dark, in his refusal of the bright jewel liberty, in his eloquent assertion of his rights, his sympathies, his spiritual essence as a man, into an act of _outrecuidance_, almost into a personal affront to his own dignity. yet, so it was, and alas! naturally so--for so little was he, or any of his fellows, used to consider his serf in the light of an arguing, thinking, responsible being, that probably balaam was but little more astonished when his ass turned round on him and spoke, than was yvo de taillebois, when the serf of the soil stood up in his simple dignity as a man, and refused to be free, unless those he loved, whom it was his duty to support, cherish, shield, and comfort, might be free together with him. certain it is, that he left the cottage which he had entered full of gratitude, and eager to be the bearer of good tidings, disappointed, exasperated against kenric, vexed that his endeavors to prove his gratitude had been frustrated, and equally uncertain how he should disclose the unwelcome tidings to his daughter, and how reconcile to his host the conduct of the saxon, which he had remained in the hope of fathoming, and explaining to his satisfaction. in truth, he felt himself indignant and wounded at the unreasonable perduracy of the man, in refusing an inestimable boon, for what he chose to consider a cause so trivial; and this, too, though had he himself been in the donjon of the infidel, expecting momentary death by the faggot or the rack, and been offered liberty, life, empire, immortality, on condition of leaving the least-valued christian woman to the harem of the mussulman, he would have spurned the offer with his most arrogant defiance. this seemed to him much as it would seem to the butcher, if the bull, with the knife at his throat, were to speak up and refuse to live, unless his favorite heifer might be allowed to share his fortunes. it appeared to him wondrous, indeed, but wondrously annoying, and almost absurd. in no respect did it strike him as one of the noblest and most generous deeds of self-abandonment of which the human soul is capable; though, had the self-same offer been spurned, as the slave spurned it, and in the very words which he had found in the rude eloquence of indignation, by belted knight or crowned king, he had unhesitatingly styled it an action of the highest glory, and worthy of immortal record in herald's tale or minstrel's story. such is the weight of circumstance upon the noblest minds of men. with his brow bent, and his arms folded on his breast, moodily, almost sorrowfully, did the good knight of taillebois wend his way back toward the towers of waltheofstow, making no effort to overtake his brother-in-arms and entertainer, whom he could clearly see stalking along before him, in no more placable mood than himself, but burying himself on his return in his own chamber, whence he made his appearance no more that evening; though he might hear sir philip storming through the castle, till the vaulted halls and passages resounded from barbican to battlement. meantime, in the lowly cottage of the serf--for the lord, though angry and indignant, had not failed of his plighted word--the lykewake of the dead boy went on--for that was a saxon no less than a celtic custom, though celebrated by the former with a sort of stolid decorum, as different as night is from day from the loud and barbarous orgies of their wilder neighbors. the consecrated tapers blazed around the swathed and shrouded corpse, and sent long streams of light through the open door and lattices of the humble dwelling, as though it had been illuminated for a high rejoicing. the death hymn was chanted, and the masses sung by the gray brothers from the near saxon cloister. the dole to the poor had been given, largely, out of the lord's abundance; and the voices of the rioting slaves, emancipated from all servitude and sorrow, for the nonce, by the humming ale and strong metheglin, were loud in praises of their bounteous master, until, drenched and stupefied with liquor, and drunk with maudlin sorrow, they staggered off to their respective dens, to snore away the fumes of their unusual debauch, until aroused at dawn by the harsh cry of the task-master. by degrees the quiet of the calm summer night sank down over the dwelling and garden of kenric, as guest after guest departed, until no one remained save one old saxon brother, who sat by the simple coffin, telling his beads in silence, or muttering masses for the soul of the dead, apparently unconscious of any thing passing around him. the aged woman had been removed, half by persuasion, half by gentle force, from the dwelling-room, and had soon sunk into the heavy and lethargic slumber which oftentimes succeeds to overwhelming sorrow. the peaceful moonlight streamed in through the open door of the cheerless home, like the grace of heaven into a disturbed and sinful heart, as one by one the tapers flickered in their sockets and expired. the shrill cry of the cricket, and the peculiar jarring note of the night-hawk, replaced the droning of the monkish chants, and the suppressed tumult of vulgar revelry; but, though there was solitude and silence without, there was neither peace nor heart-repose within. sorely shaken, and cruelly gored by the stag in trunk and limbs, and yet more sorely shaken in his mind by the agitation and excitement of the angry scene with his master, and by the internal conflict of natural selfishness with strong conscientious will, kenric lay, with his eyes wide open, gazing on his dead nephew, although his mind was far away, with his head throbbing, and his every nerve jerking and tense with the hot fever. but by his side, soothing his restless hand with her caressing touch, bathing his burning temples with cold lotions, holding the soft medicaments to his parched lips, beguiling his wild, wandering thoughts with gentle lover's chidings, and whispering of better days to come, sat the fair slave girl, edith, his promised wife, for whose dear sake he had cast liberty to the four winds, and braved the deadly terrors of the unforgiving norman frown. she had heard enough, as she entered the house at that decisive moment, to comprehend the whole; and, if the proud and high-born knights were at a loss to understand, much less appreciate, the noble virtue of the serf, the poor uneducated slave girl had seen and felt it all--felt it thrill to her heart's core, and inspire her weakness with equal strength, equal devotion. she had argued, she had prayed, she had implored, clinging to his knees, that for the love of heaven, for the love of herself, he would accept the boon of freedom, and leave her to her fate, which would be sweeter far to her, she swore, from the knowledge of his prosperity, than it could be rendered by the fruition of the greatest worldly bliss. and then, when she found prayer and supplication fruitless, she, too, waxed strong and glorious. she lifted her hand to heaven, and swore before the blessed virgin and her ever-living son, that, would he yield to her entreaties and be free, she would be true to him, and to him alone, forever; but should he still persist in his wicked and mad refusal of god's own most especial gift of freedom, she would at least deprive him of the purpose of his impious resolution, place an impenetrable barrier between them two, and profess herself the bride of heaven. at length, as he only chafed and resisted more and more, till resistance and fever were working almost delirium--any thing but conviction and repentance--like a true woman, she betook herself from argument, and tears, and supplication, to comforting, consoling, and caressing; and, had the rage and fever of his body, or the terrible excitement of his tortured mind, been less powerful, she could not but have won the day, in the noblest of all strifes--the strife of mutual disinterestedness and devotion. "o woman! in our hours of ease, inconstant, coy, and hard to please; when pain and anguish rend the brow, a ministering angel thou!" chapter viii. guendolen's bower. "four gray walls, and four square towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the lady of shalott." tennyson. high up in the gray square tower, which constituted the keep of the castle of waltheofstow, there was a suite of apartments, the remains of which are discoverable to this day, known as the lady's bower; which had, it is probable, from the construction of the edifice, been set apart, not only as the private chambers of the chatelaine and ladies of the family, her casual guests and their attendants, but as what we should now call the drawing-rooms, wherein the more social hours of those rude days were passed, when the sexes intermingled, whether for the enjoyment of domestic leisure, or for gayety and pleasure. the keep of waltheofstow consisted, as did indeed all the smaller fortalices of that date, when private dwellings, even of the great and powerful, were constructed with a view to defense above all beside, of one large massive building of an oblong square form, with a solid circular buttress at each angle, which, above the basement floor, was hollowed into a lozenge-shaped turret, extending above the esplanade of the highest battlements, and terminating at a giddy height in a crenellated and machicolated lookout, affording a shelter to the sentries, and a flanking defense to the _corps de logis_. for its whole height, from the guard-room, which occupied the whole ground-floor, to the battlements, one of these turrets contained the great winding stone staircase of the castle, lighted at the base by mere shot-holes and loops, but, as it rose higher and higher above the danger of escalade, by mullioned windows of increasing magnitude, until, at the very summit, it was surmounted by a beautifully-wrought lanthorn of gothic stone-work. the other three, lighted in the same manner, better and better as they ascended, formed each a series of small pleasant rooms, opening upon the several stories, and for the most part were fitted as the sleeping-rooms of the various officers. the whole floor, first above the guard-room, was divided into the kitchen, butteries, and household offices; while the next in order, being the third in elevation above the court-yard, was reserved in one superb parallelogram of ninety feet by sixty, well lighted by narrow lanceolated windows, and adorned with armors of plate and mail, scutcheons rich with heraldic bearings, antlers of deer and elk, horns of the bull, yet surviving, of the great caledonian forests, skulls of the grizzly boars grinning with their ivory tusks, and banners dependent from the lofty groinings of the arched roof, trophies of many a glorious day. this was the knight's hall, the grand banqueting-saloon of the keep; while of its three turrets, one was the castle chapel, a second a smaller dining-hall, and the last the private cabinet and armory of the castellan. above this, again, on the fourth plat, were bed-chambers of state, the larger armory, and the dormitories of the warders, esquires, pages, and seneschal, who alone dwelt within the keep, the rest of the garrison occupying the various out-buildings and towers upon the flanking walls and ramparts. the fifth story, at least a hundred feet in air above the inner court, and nearly thrice that elevation above the base of the scarped mount on which the castle stood, contained the lady's bower; and its whole area of ninety feet by sixty was divided, in the first instance, laterally by three partitions, into three apartments, each sixty feet in length by thirty wide. of these, however, the first and last were subdivided equally in two squares of thirty feet. the whole of the bower, thus, contained a handsome ante-chamber, opening from the great staircase, with a large room for the waiting-women to the right, communicating with the turret chamber corresponding to the stairway. beyond the vestibule, by which access was had to it, lay the grand ladies' hall, furnished with all the superabundance of splendor and magnificence, and all the lack of real convenience, which was the characteristic of the time; divans, and deep settles, and ponderous arm-chairs covered with gold and velvet; embroideries and emblazoned foot-cloths on the floor; mirrors of polished steel, emulating venetian crystals, on the walls; mighty candelabra of silver gilt; tables of many kinds, some made for the convenience of long-forgotten games, some covered with cups and vessels of gold, silver, and richly-colored glass, and one or two, smaller, and set away in quiet nooks, with easy seats beside them, showing the feminine character of the occupants, by a lute, a gittern, and two or three other musical implements long since fallen into disuse; pages of music written in the old musical notation of the age; some splendidly-bound and illuminated missals and romances, in priceless manuscript, each actually worth its weight in gold; silks and embroideries; a working-stand, with a gorgeous surcoat of arms half finished, the needle sticking in the superb material where the fairy fingers had left it, when last called from their gentle task; and great vases full of the finest flowers of the season. such was the aspect of the room, beheld by the declining rays of the sun, which had already sunk so low that his stray beams, instead of falling downward through the gorgeous hues of the tinted-windows, streamed upward into that lofty place, playing on the richly-carved and gilded ceilings, catching here on a mirror, there on a vase of gold or silver, and sending hundreds of burning specks of light dancing through the motley haze of gold and purple, which formed the atmosphere of that almost royal bower. from this rich withdrawing-room, strangely out of place in appearance, though not so in reality, in the old gray norman fortress, among the din of arms and flash of harness, opened two bed-rooms, equal in costliness of decoration to the saloon without, each having its massive four-post bedstead in a recess, accessible by three or four broad steps, as if it were a throne of honor, each with its mirror and toilet, its appurtenances for the bath, its easy couches, and its chair of state; its _prie dieu_ and kneeling-hassock, in a niche, with a perfumed lamp burning before a rudely-painted picture of the madonna, each having communication with a pretty turret-chamber, fitted with couch and reading-desk, and opening on a bartizan or balcony, which, though they were intended in times of war or danger for posts of vantage to the defense, whence to shower missiles or pour seething pitch or oil on the heads of assailants, were filled in the pleasant days of peace with shrubs and flowers, planted in large tubs and troughs, waving green and joyous, and filling the air with sweet smells two hundred feet above their dewy birth-place. it may be added, that so thick and massive were the walls at this almost inaccessible height, that galleries had been, as it were, scooped out of them, offering easy communication from one room to another, and even private staircases from story to story, with secret closets large enough for the accommodation of a favorite page or waiting-damsel, where nothing of the sort would be expected, or could indeed exist, within a modern dwelling. thus, the inconveniences of such an abode, all except the height to which it was necessary for the female inmates to climb, were more imaginary than real; and it was perfectly easy, and indeed usual, for the ladies of such a castle to pass to and fro from the rooms of their husbands, fathers, or brothers, and even from the knights' hall to their own bower, without meeting any of the retainers of the place, except what may be called the peaceful and familiar servants of the household. through the thick-vaulted roofs of stone, which rendered every story of the keep a separate fortress, no sound of arms, of revelry or riot, could ascend to the region of the ladies; and if their comforts were inferior to those of our modern beauties, their magnificence, their splendor of costume, of equipage, of followings, their power at home, and their influence abroad, where they shone as "queens of love and beauty," were held the arbiters of fame and dispensers of honor, where their smiles were held sufficient guerdon for all wildest feats of bravery, their tears expiable by blood only, their importance in the outer world of arms, of romance, of empire, were at the least as far superior; and it may be doubted, whether some, even the most spoiled of our modern fair ones, would not sigh to exchange, with the dames and demoiselles of the twelfth century, their own soft empire of the ball-room for the right to hold courts of love, as absolute unquestioned sovereigns, to preside at tilt and tournament, and send the noblest and the most superb of champions into mortal combat, or yet more desperate adventure, by the mere promise of a sleeve, a kerchief, or a glove. she, however, who now occupied alone the lady's bower of waltheofstow was none of your proud and court-hardened ladies, who could look with no emotion beyond a blush of gratified vanity on the blood of an admirer or a lover. though for her, young as she was, steeds had been spurred to the shock, and her name shouted among the splintering of lances and the crash of mortal conflict, she was still but a simple, amiable, and joyous child, who knew more of the pleasant fields and waving woodlands of her fair lake-country, than of the tilt-yard, the court pageant, or the carousal, and who better loved to see the heather-blossom and the blue-bell dance in the free air of the breezy fells, than plumes and banners flaunt and flutter to the blare of trumpets. the only child of sir yvo de taillebois, a knight and noble of the unmixed norman blood, a lineal descendant of one of those hardy barons who, landing with duke william on his almost desperate emprise, had won "the bloody hand" at hastings, and gained rich lands in the northern counties during the protracted struggle which ensued, the lady guendolen had early lost her mother, a daughter of the noble house of morville, and not a very distant relative of the good knight, sir philip, whose hospitality she was now partaking with her father. to a girl, for the most part, the loss of a mother, before she has reached the years of discretion, is one never to be repaired, more especially where the surviving parent is so much occupied with duties, martial or civil, as to render his supervision of her bringing-up impossible. it is true that, in the age of which i write, the accomplishments possessed by the most delicate and refined of ladies were few and slight, as compared to those now so sedulously inculcated to our maidens, so regularly abandoned by our matrons; and that, at a period later by several centuries, he who has been styled, by an elegant writer,[ ] the last of the norman barons, great warwick the kingmaker, held it a boast that his daughters possessed no arts, no knowledge, more than to spin and to be chaste. [ ] sir e. lytton bulwer. yet even this small list of feminine attainments was far beyond the teaching of the illiterate and warlike barons, who knew nought of the pen, save when it winged the gray-goose shaft from the trusty yew, and whose appropriate and ordinary signatures were the impress of their sword-hilts on the parchments, which they did not so much as pretend to read; and, in truth, the kingmaker's statement must either be regarded as an exaggeration, or the standard of female accomplishment had degenerated, as is not unlikely to have been actually the case, during the cruel and devastating wars of the roses, which, how little soever they may have affected the moral, political, or agricultural condition of the english people at large, had unquestionably dealt a blow to the refinement, the courtesy, the mental culture, and personal polish of the english aristocracy, from which they began only to recover in the reigns of the later tudors. but in the case of the fair guendolen, neither did the loss of her mother deprive her of the advantages of her birth, nor would the incapacity of her father, had the occasion been allowed him of superintending the culture of his child, have done so; for he was--at that day rarer in england than was a wolf, though literary culture had received some impulse from the present monarch, and his yet more accomplished father, beauclerc--a man of intellectual ability, and not a little cultivation. he had been largely employed by both princes on the continent, in diplomatic as well as military capacities; had visited provence, the court of poetry and minstrelsy, and the _gai science_; had dwelt in the norman courts of italy, and even in rome herself, then the seat of all the rising schools of literature, art, and science; and while acquiring, almost of necessity, the tongues of southern europe, had both softened and enlarged his mind by not a few of their acquirements. of this advantage, however, it was only of late years, when she was bursting into the fairest dawn of adolescence, that she had been permitted to profit; for, between her fifth and her fifteenth years, she had seen but little of her father, who, constantly employed, either as a statesman at home, an embassador abroad, or a conquering invader of the wild welsh marches, or the wilder and more barbarous shores of ireland, had rarely been permitted to call a day his own, much less to devote himself to those home duties and pleasures for which he was, beyond doubt, more than ordinarily qualified. yet, however unfortunate she might have been in this particular, she had been as happy in other respects, and had been brought up under circumstances which had produced no better consequences on her head than on her heart, on the graces of her mind and body, than on the formation of her feminine and gentle character. chapter ix. guendolen. "the sweetest lady of the time,-- well worthy of the golden prime of good haroun alraschid." alfred tennyson. a sister of guendolen's departed mother, abbess of st. hilda, a woman of unusual intellect, and judgment, character and feelings, in no degree inferior to her talents, had taken charge of her orphan niece immediately after the mother's death, and had brought her up, a flower literally untouched by the sun as by the storms of the world, in the serene and tranquil life of the cloister, when the cloister was indeed the seat of piety, and purity, and peace; in some cases the only refuge from the violence and savage lusts of those rugged days; never then the abode, at least in england, of morose bigotry or fierce fanaticism, but the home of quiet contemplation, of meek virtue, and peaceful cheerfulness. the monasteries and priories of those days were not the sullen gaols of the soul, the hives of drones, or the schools of ignorance and bitter sectarian persecution which they have become in these latter days, nor were their inmates then immured as the tenants of the dungeon cell. the abbey lands were ever the best tilled; the abbey tenants ever the happiest, the best clad, the richest, and the freest of the peasantry of england. the monks, those of saxon race especially, were the country curates of the twelfth century; it was they who fed the hungry, who medicined the sick, who consoled the sad at heart, who supported the widow and the fatherless, who supported the oppressed, and smoothed the passage through the dark portals to the dying christian. there were no poor laws in those days, nor alms-houses; the open gates and liberal doles of the old english abbeys bestowed unstinted and ungrudging charity on all who claimed it. the abbot on his soft-paced palfrey, or the prioress on her well-trained jennet, as they made their progresses through the green fields and humble hamlets of their dependents, were hailed ever with deferential joy and affectionate reverence; and the serf, who would lout sullenly before the haughty brow of his military chief, and scowl savagely with hand on the dudgeon hilt after he had ridden past, would run a mile to remove a fallen trunk from the path of the jolly prior, or three, to guide the jennet of the mild-eyed lady abbess through the difficult ford, or over the bad bit of the road, and think himself richly paid by a benediction. in such a tranquil tenor had been passed the early years of the beautiful young guendolen; and while she learned every accomplishment of the day--for in those days the nunneries were the schools of all that was delicate, and refined, and gentle, the schools of the softer arts, especially of music and illumination, as were the monasteries the shrines which alone kept alive the fire of science, and nursed the lamp of letters, undying through those dark and dreary ages--she learned also to be humble-minded, no less than holy-hearted, to be compassionate, and kind, and sentient of others' sorrows; she learned, above all things, that meekness and modesty, and a gentle bearing toward the lowliest of her fellow-beings, were the choicest ornaments to a maiden of the loftiest birth. herself a norman of the purest norman strain, descended from those of whom, if not kings themselves, kings were descended, who claimed to be the peers of the monarchs to whom their own good swords gave royalty, she had never imbibed one idea of scorn for the conquered, the debased, the downfallen saxon. the kindest, the gentlest, the sagest, and at the same time the most refined and polished of all her preceptors, her spiritual pastor also, and confessor, was an old saxon monk, originally from the convent of burton on the trent, who had migrated northward, and pitched the tent of his declining years in a hermitage situate in the glade of a deep northumbrian wood, not far removed from the priory over which her aunt presided with so much dignity and grace. he had been a pilgrim, a prisoner in the holy land, had visited the wild monasteries of lebanon and athos; he had seen the pyramids "piercing the deep egyptian sky," had mused under the broken arches of the coliseum, and listened, like the great historian of rome, to the bare-footed friars chanting their hymns among the ruins of jupiter capitoline. like ulysses, he had seen the lands, he had studied the manners, and learned to speak the tongues, of many men and nations; nor, while he had learned in the east strange mysteries of science, though he had solved the secrets of chemistry, and learned, long before the birth of "starry galileo," to know the stars with their uprisings and their settings; though he knew the nature, the properties, the secret virtues, and the name of every floweret of the forest, of every ore of the swart mine, he had not neglected the gentler culture, which wreathes so graciously the wrinkled brow of wisdom. not a poet himself, so far as the weaving the mysterious chains of rhythm, he was a genuine poet of the heart. not a blush, not a smile, not a tear, not a frown on the lovely face of nature, but awakened a response in his large and sympathetic soul; not an emotion of the human heart, from the best to the basest, but struck within him some chord of deep and hidden feeling; to read an act of self-devoted courage, of charity, of generosity, of self-denial, would make his flesh quiver, his hair rise, his cheek burn. to hear of great deeds would stir him as with the blast of a war trumpet. he was one, in fact, of those gifted beings who could discern "music in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every thing;" and as he felt himself, so had he taught her to feel; and of what he knew himself, much he had taught her to know likewise. seeing, hearing, knowing him to be what he was, and, as is the wont ever with young and ingenuous minds, imagining him to be something far wiser, greater, and better than he really was, she was content at first, while other men were yet unknown to her, to hold him something almost supernaturally, ineffably beneficent and wise; and this incomparable being she knew also to be a saxon. she saw her aunt, who, gentle as she was, and gracious, had yet a touch of the old norse pride of blood, untutored by the teachings of religion, and untamed by the discipline of the church, bow submissively to his advice, defer respectfully to his opinion, hang persuaded on his eloquence--and yet he was a saxon. when she burst from girlhood into womanhood--when her father, returned from the honors and the toils of foreign service, introduced her into the grand scenes of gorgeous chivalry and royal courtesy, preparatory to placing her at the head of his house--though she mingled with the paladins and peers of normandy and norman england, she saw not one who could compare in wisdom, in eloquence, in all that is highest and most heaven-reaching in the human mind, with the old saxon, father basil. how then could she look upon the race from which he sprang as inferior--as low and degraded by the hand of nature--when not the sagest statesman, the most royal prince, the proudest chevalier, the gentlest troubadour, could vie with him in one point of intellect or of refinement--with him, the saxon priest, son himself, as he himself had told her, of a saxon serf. these were the antecedents, this the character of the beautiful girl, who, on the morning following her adventure in the forest, lay, supported by a pile of cushions, on one of the broad couches in the lady's bower of waltheofstow, inhaling the fresh perfumed breath of the western air, as it swept in, over the shrubs and flowers in the bartizan, through the window of the turret chamber. she was beautiful as ever, but very pale, and still suffering, as it would seem, from the effects of her fall and the injuries she had received in the struggle with the terrible wild beast; for, whenever she attempted to move or to turn her body, an expression of pain passed for a moment across the pure, fair face, and once a slight murmur escaped from her closed lips. one or two waiting-maids, of norman race, attended by the side of her couch, one of them cooling her brow with a fan of peacock's feathers, the other sprinkling perfumes through the chamber, and now and again striving to amuse her by reading aloud from a ponderous illuminated tome, larger than a modern cyclopedia, the interminable adventures and sufferings of that true love, whose "course never did run smooth," and feats of knightly prowess, recorded in one of the interminable romances of the time. but to none of these did the lady guendolen seriously incline her ear; and the faces of the attendant girls began to wear an expression, not of weariness only, but of discontent, and, perhaps, even of a deeper and bitterer feeling. the lady guendolen was ill at ease; she was, most rare occurrence for one of her soft though impulsive disposition, impatient, perhaps querulous. she could not be amused by any of their efforts. her mind was far away; she craved something which they could not give, and was restless at their inability. three times since her awakening, though the hour was still early, she had inquired for sir yvo, and had sent to desire his presence. the first time, her messengers brought her back word that he had not yet arisen; the second, that he was breakfasting, but now, in the knight's hall with sir philip, and the sieurs of maltravers, de vesey, and mauleverer, who had ridden over to waltheofstow to fly their hawks, and that he would be with her ere long; and the third, that the good knight must have forgotten, for that he had taken horse and ridden away with the rest of the company into the meadows by the banks of brimful idle, to enjoy the "mystery of rivers," as it was the fashion to term the sport of falconry, in the high-flown language of the chase. for a moment her pale face flushed, her eye flashed, and she bit her lip, and drummed impatiently with her little fingers on the velvet-pillows which supported her aching head; then, smiling at her own momentary ill-humor, she bade her girl marguerite go seek the saxon maiden, edith, if she were in the castle, and if not, to see that a message should be sent down for her to the serfs' quarter. with many a toss of her pretty head, and many a wayward feminine expression of annoyance, which from ruder lips would probably have taken the shape of an imprecation, the injured damsel betook herself, through winding passages and stairways in the thickness of the wall, to the pages' waiting-chamber on the next floor below. then tripping, with a demure look, into the square vaulted room, in which were lounging three gayly-dressed, long-haired boys, one twanging a guitar in the embrasure of the window, and the other two playing at tables on a board covered with a scarlet cloth-- "here, damian," she said, somewhat sharply, for the temper of the mistress is sure to be reflected in that of the maid, losing nothing by the transmission, "for what are you loitering there, with that old tuneless gittern, when the lady guendolen has been calling for you this hour past?" "and how, in the name of st. hubert," replied the boy, who had rather been out with the falconers on the breezy leas, than mewed in the hall to await a lady's pleasure--"how, in the name of st. hubert! should i know that the lady guendolen had called for me, when no one has been near this old den since sir yvo rode forth on brown roncesval, with diamond on his fist? and as for my gittern being tuneless, i've heard you tell a different tale, pretty mistress marguerite. but let us have your message, if you've got one; for i see you're as fidgety as a thorough-bred sorrel filly, and as hot-tempered, too." "sorrel filly, indeed!" said the girl, half-laughing, half-indignant. "i wish you could see my lady, damian, if you call me fidgety and hot-tempered. i wish you could see my lady, that's just all, this morning." "the message, the message, marguerite, if there be one, or if you have aught in your head but to make mischief." "why, i do believe my lady's bewitched since her fall; for nothing will go down with her now-a-days but that pink-and-white, flaxen-haired doll, edith. i can't think what she sees in her, that she must needs ever have the clumsy saxon wench about her. i should think gentle norman blood might serve her turn." "i don't know, marguerite," answered the boy, wishing to tease her; "edith is a very pretty girl, indeed; i don't know but she's the very prettiest i ever saw. dark-haired and dark-eyed people always admire their opposites, they say; and for my part, i think her blue eyes glance as if they reflected heaven's own light in them; and her flaxen-hair looks like a cloud high up in heaven, that has just caught the first golden glitter of the morning sunbeams. and clumsy! how can you call her clumsy, marguerite? i am sure, when she came flitting down the hill, with her long locks flowing in the breeze, and her thin garments streaming back from her shapely figure, she looked liker to a creature of the air, than to a mere mortal girl, running down a sandy road. i should like to see you run like her, mistress marguerite." "me run!" exclaimed the norman damsel, indignantly; "when ever did you see a norman lady _run_? but you're just like the rest of them; caught ever by the first fresh face. well, sir, since you're so bewitched, like my pretty lady above stairs, with your saxon angel, the message i have brought you will just meet your humor. you will see, sir, if this saxon angel be in the castle, sir; and if she be not, sir, your magnificence will proceed to the saxon quarter, and request her angelship to come forthwith to my lady's chamber, and to come quickly, too. and you can escort her, sir page, and lend her your hand up the hill; and steal a kiss, if you can, sir page, on the way!" "just so, mistress marguerite," returned the boy, "just so. your commands shall be obeyed to the letter. and as to the kiss, i'll try, if i can get a chance; but i'm afraid she's too modest to kiss young men." and, taking up his dirk and bonnet from the board, he darted out of the room, without awaiting her reply, having succeeded, to his heart's content, in chafing her to somewhat higher than blood-heat; so that she returned to her lady's bower even more discomposed than when she left it; but guendolen was too much occupied with other thoughts to notice the girl's ill-temper, and within half an hour a light foot was heard at the door, and the saxon slave girl entered. "how can i serve you, dear lady?" she said, coming up, and kneeling at the couch side. "you are very pale. i trust you be not the worse this morning." "very weak, edith, and sore all over. i feel as if every limb were broken; and i want you, with your gentle hand and gentle voice, to soothe me." "ah! dearest lady, our holy mother send that your spirit never may be so sore as to take no heed of the body's aching, nor your heart so broken as to know not whether your limbs were torn asunder." chapter x. the lady and the slave. "weep not for him that dieth, for his struggling soul is free, and the world from which it flieth is a world of misery; but weep for him that weareth the collar and the chain; to the agony he beareth, death were but little pain." caroline norton. "what mean you, edith?" inquired the girl, raising herself from her pillow, as her attention was called to the unusually subdued tones of the saxon maiden, who was, in her ordinary mood, so gay and joyous, and who appeared to be the general favorite of all around her; "what mean you, edith?" she repeated; "you can not be speaking of yourself; you, who are ever blithesome and light-hearted as the bee on the blossom, or the bird on the bough. you can have no sorrows of the heart, i think, so penetrating as to make all outward bodily pains forgotten, and yet--you are pale, you are weeping? tell me, girl--tell me, dear edith, and let me be your friend." "friend! lady," said the girl, looking at her wistfully, yet doubtfully withal; "you _my_ friend, noble lady! that were indeed impossible. i will not say, that to the poor, to the saxon, to the _slave_, there can be _no_ friend, under heaven; but that you--you, a noble and a norman! alas! alas! that were indeed impossible!" "impossible!" cried guendolen, eagerly, forgetting her ailments in her fine and feeling excitement. "wherefore, how should it be impossible? one god made us both, edith; and made us both out of one clay, with one life here on earth, and one hereafter; both children of one fallen race, and heirs of one promise; both daughters of one fair, free land; both englishwomen--then why not friends, edith, and sisters?" "of one land, lady, it is true," said the girl, gently. "yes! daughters of one _fair_ land, for even to the slave england is very beautiful and dear, even as to you she is _free_. but for us, who were once her first-born and her favorites, that magic word has passed away, that charm has ceased, forever. for us, in free england's wide-rejoicing acres, there is no spot free, save the six feet of earth that shall receive our bodies, when the soul shall be a slave's no longer. lady, lady, alas! noble lady, if one god made us both of one clay, that shall go downward to mingle with the common sod, and of one spirit that shall mount upward, when the weariness and woe shall be at an end forever, man has set a great gulf between us, that we can not pass over it at all, to come the one unto the other. our wants may be the same, while we are here below, and our hopes may be the same heavenward; but there all sameness ends between us. my joys can not be your joys, and god forbid that my sorrows should be yours, either. our hearts may not feel, our heads may not think, in unison, even if our flesh be of one texture, and our souls of one spirit. you are good, and gentle, and kind, lady, but you may never understand what it is to be such as i." she ceased, but she ceased weeping also, and seemed lost in deep thought, and almost forgetful of herself and her surroundings, as she remained on her knees by the bedside of guendolen, with her head drooping from her fair bended neck, and her embrowned but shapely hands folded in her lap. the lady looked at her silently for a few moments, partly in sympathy, partly, it must be said, in wonder. new ideas were beginning to be awakened in her mind, and a perception of something, which had never before dawned upon her, became palpable and strong. that which we behold, and have beheld daily perhaps for years, naturally becomes so usual and customary in our eyes, that we cease to regard it as any thing but as a fact, of which we have never seen and scarcely can conceive any thing to the contrary--that we look at it as a part of that system which we call nature, and of which we never question the right or the wrong, the injustice or the justice, but, knowing that it _is_, never think of inquiring wherefore it is, and whether it ought to be. thus it was with guendolen de taillebois. she had been accustomed, during all her life, to see saxons as serfs, and rarely in any other capacity; for the franklins and thanes who had retained their independence, their freedom, and a portion of their ancestral acres, were few in numbers, and held but little intercourse with their norman neighbors, being regarded by them as rude and semi-barbarous inferiors, while they, in turn, regarded them as cruel and insolent usurpers and oppressors. she had seen these serfs, rudely attired indeed, and employed in rugged, laborious, and menial occupations; but, then, it was clear that their boorish demeanor, stolid expression, and apparent lack of capacity or intelligence for any superior employment, seemed to indicate them as persons filling the station in society for which nature had adapted them. well-clad, sufficiently clothed, warmly lodged--in all outward things perhaps equal, if not superior, to the peasantry of most european countries in the present day--never, except in extreme and exceptional cases, cruelly or severely treated, since it was ever the owner's interest to regard the well-doing of his serfs, it had never occurred to her that the whole race was in itself, from innate circumstances, and apart from extraordinary sorrows or sufferings, hopeless, miserable, and conscious of unmerited but irretrievable degradation. had she considered the subject, she would of course have perceived and admitted that sick or in health, sorrowful or at ease, to be compelled to toil on, toil on, day after day, wearily, at the bidding and for the benefit of another, deriving no benefit from that toil beyond a mere subsistence, was an unhappy and forlorn condition. yet, how many did she not see of her own conquering countrymen of the lower orders, small landholders in the country, small artisans and mechanics in the boroughs, reduced to the same labors, and nearly to the same necessity. with the personal condition or habits of the serfs, the ladies and even the lords of the great norman families had little acquaintance, little means even of becoming acquainted. the services of their fortalices, all but those menial and sordid offices of which those exalted persons had no cognizance, were discharged by domestics, higher or lower in grade, the highest being of gentle blood, and, in very noble houses, even of noble blood, of their own proud race; and the saxons, whether bond-servants of the soil, or, what was of rare occurrence at that time, free tenants on man service, were employed in the fields or in the forest, under the bailiff or overseer, who ruled them at his own discretion, and punished them, if punishment were needed, with the stocks, the gyves, or the scourge, without consulting the lord, and of course without so much as the knowledge of the lady. even if, by hazard, it did reach the dainty ears of some fair chatelaine, that osrick or edmund had undergone the lash for some misdoing or short-coming, she heard of it much as a modern lady would read of the committal of a pickpocket or drunkard to the treadmill, or of a vagrant hussy to pick hemp; wondering why those low creatures would do such wicked things, and sorrowfully musing why such punishments should be necessary--never suspecting the injustice of the law, or doubting the necessity of the punishment. and eminently thus it was with guendolen. while in her good aunt's priory, she had ever seen the serfs of the church well looked after, well doing, not overworked, not oppressed, cared for if sick, comforted if sorrowing, well tended in age, a contented if not a happy race, so far as externals only were regarded, and nothing hitherto had led her to look farther than to externals. on her father's princely barony she saw even less of them than she had been accustomed to do at the priory, passing them casually only when in the fields at hay-making or harvest work, or pausing perhaps to observe a rosy-cheeked child in the saxon quarter, or to notice a cherry-lipped maiden by the village well. but here, too, so far as she did see, she saw them neither squalid nor starved, neither miserable nor maltreated. no acts of tyranny or cruelty reached her ears, perhaps none happened which should reach them; and of the rigorous, oppressive, insolent, and cruel laws which regulated their condition, controlled their progress, prevented their rise in the social scale, fettered and cramped their domestic relations, she knew nothing. since her sojourn at waltheofstow, she had gained more personal acquaintance with her down-trodden saxon countrymen and countrywomen, and more especially since her accident in the forest, than in all her previous life. for, in the first place, sir philip de morville, being unmarried and without female relations in his family, had no women of norman blood employed as attendants or domestics in the castle, the whole work of which was performed by serf girls of various degrees, under the superintendence of an emancipated saxon dame, who presided over what we should now call the housekeeper's department. of these girls, edith, and one or two others, elgythas, berthas, and the like, ministered to the lady's bower, and having perhaps contracted something of unusual refinement and expression from a nearer attendance on the more courtly race, and especially on the norman ladies who at times visited the castle, presented, it is certain, unusually favorable specimens of the saxon peasantry, and had attracted the attention of guendolen in a greater degree than any saxons she had previously encountered. up to that time, she had regarded them, certainly, on the whole, as a slow, as a somewhat stolid, impassive, and unimpassioned race, less mercurial than her own impetuous, impulsive kindred, and far less liable to strong emotions or keen perceptions, whether of pain or pleasure. the girlish liveliness and gentleness, and even the untaught graces of edith had, at the first, attracted her; and, as she was thrown a good deal into contact with her, from the fact of her constant attendance on the chambers she occupied, she had become much interested in her, regarding her as one of the happiest, most artless, and innocent little girls she had ever met--one, she imagined, on whom no shadow of grief had ever fallen, and whose humble lot was one of actual contentment, if not of positive enjoyment. nor, hitherto, insomuch as actual realities were concerned, was guendolen much in error. sir philip de morville, as has been stated already, was, according to the times and their tenor, a good and considerate lord. his bailiff was a well-intentioned, strict man, intent on having his master's work done to the last straw, but beyond that neither an oppressor nor a tyrant. kenric, her distant kinsman and betrothed, was confessedly the best man and most favored servant in the quarter; and his mother, who had grown old in the service of sir philip's father, whom she had nursed with simple skill through the effects of many a mimic battle in the lists, or real though scarce more dangerous fray, now superannuated, reigned as much the mistress of her son's hearth as though she had been a free woman, and the cot in which she dwelt her freehold. edith herself was the first bower-maiden of the castle, and, safe under the protecting wings of dame ulrica, the housewife, defied the impertinence of forward pages, the importunate gallantry of esquires, and was cheerfully acknowledged as the best and prettiest lass of the lot, by the old gray-haired seneschal, in his black velvet suit and gold chain of office. really, therefore, none of her own immediate family had known any actual wants, or suffered any material hardships or sorrows, through their condition, up to the period at which my tale commences. their greatest care, perhaps, had arisen from the temper, surly, rude, insolent, and provocative, of eadwulf the red, kenric's brother, who had already, by misconduct, and even actual crime, according to the norman code, subjected himself to severe penalties, and been reduced, in default of harsher treatment, to the condition of a mere slave, a chattel, saleable like an ox or ass, at the pleasure of their lord. this, both in its actual sense, as keeping them in constant apprehension of what further distress eadwulf's future misconduct might bring upon them, and in its moral bearing, as holding them constantly reminded of their own servile condition, had been, thus far, their prime grief and cause of complaint, had they been persons given to complain. still, although well-nigh a century had elapsed since the norman conquest, and the heir of the conqueror in the fourth generation was sitting on the throne which that great and politic prince won on the fatal day of hastings, their condition had not become habitual or easy to those, at least, who had been reduced to slavery from freedom, by the consequences of that disastrous battle. and such was the condition of the family whence sprang kenric and edith. the saxon thane, waltheof, whose name and that of his abode had descended to the norman fortalice which had arisen from the ashes of his less aspiring manor, had resisted the norman invaders so long, with such inveterate and stubborn valor, and, through the devotion of his tenants and followers, with such cost of life, that when he fell in fight, and his possessions were granted to his slayer, all the dwellers on his lands were involved in the common ruin. to the serfs of the soil, who had been serfs before the conquest, it mattered but little. the slave to the saxon was but changed into the slave of the norman, and did not perhaps find in him a crueller, though he might a haughtier and more overbearing master. but to the freeman, the doom which consigned him to the fetters of the norman, which converted him from the owner into the serf of the soil, was second only, if second, to the bitterness of death. and such had been the doom of the grandfather of kenric and eadwulf. their mother herself had been born free, not far from the hovel in which she still dwelt a slave, though she was but an infant when the hurricane of war and ruin swept over the green oaks of sherwood, and had no memory of the time when she was not the thrall of a foreign lord. her father, wulfred, was the largest tenant under waltheof, himself a franklin, or small landholder, and of blood as noble, and station more elevated than that of one half the adventurers who had flocked to the banner of william the invader. with his landlord and friend, he had fought to the last, not at hastings only, but in every bloody ineffectual rising, until the last spark of saxon liberty was trampled out under the iron hoofs of the norman war-horse; but, less happy than waltheof, he had survived to find himself a slave, and the father of slaves, tilling for a cruel foreign conqueror the land which had been his own and his father's, and his father's father's, but in which he and his heirs should have no heritage for evermore, beyond the six-foot measure which should be meted to them every one, for his long home. and the memory of these things had not yet passed away, nor the bitterness of the iron departed from the children, which had then entered into the soul of the parent. an irrepressible desire came over the mind of guendolen, to know and comprehend something more fully the sentiments and sorrows of the girl who had nursed and attended her so gently since her adventure with the stag; and perceiving intuitively that the slave girl, who, strange as it appeared to her, seemed to have a species of pride of her own, would not reveal her inward self in the presence of the vain and flippant norman waiting girls, she hastened to dismiss them, without wounding their self-esteem, on a pretext of which they would be willing enough to avail themselves. "lilian and marguerite," she said, "you must be weary my good girls, with watching me through this long night and my peevish temper must have made you yet more weary, for i feel that i am not myself, and that i have tried your patience. go, therefore, now, and get some repose, that when i shall truly need your services again, you may be well at ease to serve me. i feel as if i could sleep now; and while i slumber, edith, here, can watch beside me, and drive away the gnats with her fan, as well as a more experienced bower-woman." whether the girls suspected or not that their mistress desired to be rid of them, they were not sorry to be dismissed from attendance on her couch; and whether they proposed to devote the opportunity to repose, or to gay flirtation with the pages of their own lord's or of sir philip's household, they withdrew at once, leaving the lady gazing fixedly on the motionless and hardly conscious figure of the slave girl. by a sudden impulse she passed her small white hand caressingly over the soft and abundant tresses of edith's fair hair; and so unusual was the sensation to the daughter of the downfallen race, that she started, as if a blow had been dealt her, and blushed crimson, between surprise and wonder, as she raised her great blue eyes wide open to the face of the young lady. "and is it so hard?" she asked, in reference more to what she understood edith to mean, than to any thing she had spoken, or even hinted--"is it so hard, my poor child? i had thought that your lot sat as lightly on you as the dew-drop in the chalice of the bluebell. i had fancied you as happy as any one of us here below. will you not tell me what is this sorrow which weighs on you so heavily? it may be i can do something to relieve it." "lady, i am, as you know, a saxon, and a slave, the daughter of a slave, and, should it ever be my lot to wed, the wife, to be, of a serf, a bondman of the soil, and the mother of things doomed, or ere they see the blessed light of heaven, to the collar and the chain from the cradle to the grave. think you a woman, with such thoughts as these at her heart, can be very gay or joyous?" "and yet, you were both gay and joyous yesterday, edith; and all last week, since i have been at the castle, i have heard no sounds so gay or so pleasant to my ear as your merry ballads. and you are no more a serf this morn than you were yestrene, and the good god alone knows what any of us all may be on the morrow, edith. something, i know, must have happened, girl, to make you wear a face so altered on this beautiful summer day, and carry so sad a heart, when all the world is so happy." "all the world, lady!" replied edith; "all the world happy! alas! not one tenth of it, unless you mean the beasts and the birds, which, knowing nothing, are blithe in their happy innocence. of the human world around us, lady, one half knows not, and more by far than one half cares not, how miserable or how hopeless are their fellows--nor, if all knew and cared for all, could they either comprehend or console, much less relieve, the miserable." "but if i be one of those, edith, who know not, i am at least not one of those who care not. therefore, i come back to the place whence i started. something has happened, which makes you dwell so much more dolefully to-day, upon that which weighed not on you, yestrene, heavier than a feather." "something _has_ happened, lady. but it is all one; for it resolves itself in all but into this; i am a slave--a slave, until life is over." "this is strange," said guendolen, thoughtfully. "i do not understand--_may_ not understand this. it does not seem to me that your duties are so very hard, your life so very painful, or your rule so very strict, that you should suddenly thus give way to utter gloom and despondency, for no cause but what you have known for years, and found endurable until this moment." "but henceforth unendurable. oh! talk not, lady, talk not. you may console the dying, for to him there is a hope, a present hope of a quick-coming future. but comfort not the slave; for to him the bitterest and most cruel past is happier than the hopeless present, if only for that it is past; and the present, hopeless as it is, is yet less desperate than the future; for to the slave, in the future, every thing except happiness is possible. i may seem to speak enigmas to you, lady, and i am sure that you do not understand me--how should you? none but a slave can know or imagine what it is to be a slave; none can conceive what a slave feels, thinks, suffers. and yet a slave is a man, after all; and a lord is no more than a man, while living--and yet, what a gulf between them!" "and you will not tell me, edith," persisted the lady guendolen, "you will not tell me what it is that has happened to you of late, which makes you grieve so despondently, thus on a sudden, over your late-endured condition? then you must let me divine it. you have learned your own heart of late. you have discovered that you love, edith." "and if it were so, lady," replied the girl, darkly, "were not that enough to make a woman, who is at once a christian and a slave, both despond and despair? first to love a slave--for to love other than a slave, being herself a slave were the same, as for a mortal to be enamored of a star in heaven--and then, even if license were granted to wed him she loved, which is not certain or even of usual occurrence, to be the mother of babes, to whom but one reality is secured, beyond a peradventure, the reality that they too must be slaves and wretched. but you are wrong, lady. i have not learned my own heart of late--i have known it long. i have not discovered but now that i love, nor has he whom i love. we have been betrothed this year and better." "what then? what then?" cried guendolen, eagerly. "will not sir philip consent? if that be all, dry your tears, edith; so small a boon as that i can command by a single word." "sir philip heeds not such matters, lady. his bailiff _has_ consented, if that were all." "what is it, then? this scruple about babes," said guendolen, thoughtfully. "it is sad--it is sad, indeed. yet if you love _him_, as you say, and your life in its actual reality be not so bitter----" "no, lady, no; it is not even that. if i had scruples on that head, they have vanished; kenric has convinced me----" "kenric!" exclaimed guendolen, starting erect into a sitting attitude, forgetful of her pains and bruises. "what, the brave man who saved me from the stag at the risk of his own life, who was half slain in serving me--is he--is he _your_ kenric?" "the same," answered edith, with the quiet accent of fixed sorrow. "and the same for whom you procured the priceless boon of liberty." an idea flashed, like the electric fluid, across the mind of guendolen, who up to that moment had suspected nothing of the connection between her preserver and the beautiful girl before her, and who knew nothing of his grand refusal to accept even liberty itself, most inestimable of all gifts, which could not be shared by those whom he loved beyond liberty or life; and she imagined that she read the secret, and had pierced the maiden's mystery. "can it be?" she said, sorrowfully, and seeming rather to be communing with herself, than inquiring of her companion. "can it be that one so brave, so generous, and seemingly so noble, should be so base and abject? oh! but these men, these men, if tale and history speak true, they are the same all and ever--false, selfish, and deceivers!" "kenric, lady?" "and because he is free--the freeman but of the hour--he has despised thee, edith, the slave girl? but hold thy head high, sweet one, and thy heart higher. thou shalt be free to-morrow, girl, and the mate of his betters; it shall be thou, to-morrow, who shall repay scorn with scorn, and----" "no, lady, no," cried the girl, who had been hitherto silenced and overpowered by the impulsive vehemence of guendolen. "you misapprehend me altogether. it is not i whom he rejected, for that _he_ was free; but liberty that he cast from him, as a toy not worth the having, because i might not be free with him--i, and his aged mother, of whom he is, alone, the only stay and comfort." "noble! noble!" cried the norman girl, joyously clapping her hands together. "noble and glorious, gentle and great! this, this, indeed, is true nobility! why do we normans boast ourselves, as if we alone could think great thoughts, or do great deeds? and here we are outdone, beyond all question or comparison, in the true gentleness of perfect chivalry; and that, by a saxon slave. but be of good cheer, edith, my sister and my friend; be of good cheer. the sun shall not go down looking upon you still a slave, nor upon your kenric, nor yet upon his mother. you shall be free, all free, free as the blessed winds of heaven, before the sun set in the sea. and you shall be the wife of no serf, but of a freeman, and a freeholder, in my own manor lands of kendal upon kent; and you shall be, god willing, the mother of free englishmen, to do their lady as leal service as their stout father did before them. fear nothing, and doubt nothing, edith; for this shall be, so surely as i am guendolen of taillebois. so small a thing as this i can right readily do with my good father, and he as readily with our true friend, noble sir philip de morville. but hark! i hear their horses' hoofs and the whimpering of their hounds in the court-yard. to the bartizan, girl, to the bartizan! is it they--is it the chase returning?" "it is they, dear lady--your noble sire and sir philip, and all the knights who rode forth this morning--all laughing in high merriment and glee! and now they mount the steps--they have entered." "no better moment, then, to press a boon. fly, girl, be your wishes wings to your speech. i would see my father straightway!" chapter xi. the lady's game. "and if she will, she will! you may depend on't." old saying. it did not prove, in truth, a matter altogether so easy of accomplishment as guendolen, in her warm enthusiasm and sympathy, had boasted, to effect that small thing, as she had termed it in her thoughtless eagerness, the liberation of three human beings, and the posterity of two, through countless generations, from the curse and degradation of hereditary bondage. the value, in the first place, of the unhappy beings, to each of whom, as to a beast of burden, or to a piece of furniture, a regular money-price was attached, although they could not be sold away from the land to which they appertained, unless by their own consent, was by no means inconsiderable even to one so rich as sir yvo de taillebois; for in those days the wealth even of the greatest landed proprietors lay rather in the sources of revenue, than in revenue itself; and men, whose estates extended over many parishes, exceeding far the limits of a modern german principality, whose forests contained herds of deer to be numbered by the thousand head, whose cattle pastured over leagues of hill and valley, who could raise armies, at the lifting of their banners, larger than many a sovereign prince of the nineteenth century, were often hard set to find the smallest sums of ready money on emergency, unless by levying tax or scutage on their vassals, or by applying to the jews and lombards. in the second place, the scruples of kenric, which justly appeared so generous and noble to the fine, unsophisticated intellect of the young girl, by no means appeared in the same light to the proud barons, accustomed to regard the saxon, and more especially the serf, as a being so palpably and manifestly inferior, that he was scarcely deemed to possess rights, much less sentiments or feelings, other than those of the lower animals. to them, therefore, the saxon's refusal to consent to his own sale as a step necessary to manumission, appeared an act of insolent outrecuidance, or at the best a bold and impudent piece of chicanery, whereby to extort from his generous patrons a recompense three times greater than they had thought of conferring on him, in the first instance. it was with scorn, therefore, and almost with anger, that sir yvo listened to the first solicitations of guendolen in behalf of her clients; and he laughed at her high-flown sentiments of admiration and wonder at the self-devotion, the generosity, the immovable constancy, of the noble saxon. "the _noble_ saxon! by the glory of heaven!" he exclaimed, "these women would talk one out of all sense of reason, with their sympathetic jargon! why, here's a sturdy knave, who has done what, to win all this mighty gratitude? just stuck his whittle into a wild stag's weasard, and saved a lady's life, more by good luck than by good service--as any man, or boy, of norman blood, would have done in a trice, and thought no more of it; and then, when his freedom's tendered him as a reward for doing that for which ten-pence had well paid him, and for failing to do which he had deserved to be scourged till his bones lay bare, he is too mighty to accept it--marry! he names conditions, he makes terms, on which he will consent to oblige his lords by becoming free; and you--you plead for him. the _noble_ saxon! by the great gods, i marvel at you, guendolen." but she, with the woman's wily charm, replied not a word while he was in the tide of indignation and invective; but when he paused, exhausted for the moment by his own vehemence, she took up the word-- "ten-pence would have well paid him! at least, i am well content to know," she said, "the value of my life, and that, too, at my own father's rating. the saxons may be, as i have heard tell, but have not seen that they are, sordid, degraded, brutal, devoid of chivalry and courtesy and love of fame; but i would wager my life there is not a free saxon man--no, not the poorest franklin, who would not rate the life of his coarse-featured, sun-burned daughter at something higher than the value of a heifer. but it is very well. i am rebuked. i will trouble you no farther, valiant sir yvo de taillebois. i have no _right_ to trouble you, beausire, for i must sure be base-born, though i dreamed not of it, that my blood should be dearly bought at ten-pence. were it of the pure current that mantled in the veins of our high ancestors, it should fetch something more, i trow, in the market." "nay! nay! thou art childish, guendolen, peevish, and all unreasonable. i spoke not of thy life, and thou knowest it right well, but of the chance, the slight merit of his own, by which he saved it." "slight merit, father!" "pshaw! girl, thou hast gotten me on the mere play of words. but how canst make it tally with the vast ideas of this churl's chivalry and heaven-aspiring nobility of soul, that he so little values liberty, the noblest, most divine of all things, not immortal, as to reject it thus ignobly?" "it skills not to argue with you, sir," she answered, sadly; "for i see you are resolved to refuse me my boon, as wherefore should you not, setting so little value on this poor life of mine. i know that i am but a poor, weak child, that i was a disappointment to you in my cradle, seeing that i neither can win fresh honors to your house amid the spears and trumpets, nor transmit even the name, of which you are so proud, to future generations; but i am, at least in pride, too much a taillebois to crave, as an importunate, unmannerly suitor, what is denied to me as a free grace. only this--were you and i in the hands of the mussulman, captives and slaves together, and you should accept freedom as a gift, leaving your own blood in bondage, i think the normans would hold you dishonored noble, and false knight; i am sure the saxons would pronounce you _nidering_. i have done, sir. let the saxon die a slave, if you think it comports with the dignity of de taillebois to be a slave's debtor. i thought, if you did not love me, that you loved the memory of my mother better." "there! there!" replied sir yvo, quite overpowered, and half amused by the mixture of art and artlessness, of real passion and affected sense of injury by which she had worked out her purpose. "there! there! enough said, guendolen. you will have it as you will, depend on't. i might have known you would, from the beginning, and so have spared myself the pains of arguing with you. it must be as you will have it, and i will go buy the brood of sir philip at once; pray heaven only that they will condescend to be manumitted, without my praying them to accept their liberty upon my knee. it will cost me a thousand zecchins or more, i warrant me, at the first, and then i shall have to find them lands of my lands, and to be security for their "were and mund," and i know not what. alack-a-day! women ever! ever women! when we are young it is our sisters, our mistresses, our wives; when we grow old, our daughters!--and by my hopes of heaven, i believe the last plague is the sorest!" "my funeral expenses, with the dole and alms and masses, would scarcely have cost you so much, sir yvo. pity he did not let the stag work his will on me! don't you think so, sir?" "leave off your pouting, silly child. you have your own way, and that is all you care for; i don't believe you care the waving of a feather for the saxons, so you may gratify your love of ruling, and force your father, who should show more sense and firmness, to yield to every one of your small caprices. so smooth that bent brow, and let us see a smile on those rosy lips again, and you may tell your edith, if that's her name, that she shall be a free woman before sunset." "so you confess, after all this flurry, that it was but a _small_ caprice, concerning which you have so thwarted me. well, i forgive you, sir, by this token,"--and, as she spoke, she threw her white arms about his neck, and kissed him on the forehead tenderly, before she added, "and now, to punish you, the next caprice i take shall be a great one, and you shall grant it to me without wincing. hark you, there are the trumpets sounding for dinner, and you not point-device for the banquet-hall! but never heed to-day. there are no ladies to the feast, since i am not so well at ease as to descend the stair. send me some ortolans and beccaficos from the table, sir; and above all, be sure, with the comfits and the hypocras, you send me the deeds of manumission for kenric and edith, all in due form, else i will never hold you true knight any more, or gentle father." "fare you well, my child, and be content. and if you rule your husband, when you get one, as you now rule your father, heaven in its mercy help him, for he will have less of liberty to boast than the hardest-worked serf of them all. fare you well, little wicked guendolen." and she laughed a light laugh as the affectionate father, who used so little of the father's authority, left the bower, and cried joyously, "free, free! all free! i might have been sure that i should succeed with him. dear, gentle father! and yet once, once for a time, i was afraid. yet i was right, i was right; and the right must ever win the day. edith! edith!" she cried, as she heard her light foot without. "you are free. i have conquered!" it is needless, perhaps it were impossible, to describe the mingled feelings of delight, gratitude, and wonder, coupled to something akin to incredulity, which were aroused in the simple breast of the saxon maiden, by the tidings of her certain manumission, and, perhaps even gladder yet, of her transference, in company with all those whom she loved, to a new home among scenes which, if not more lovely than those in which her joyless childhood and unregretted youth had elapsed, were at least free from recollections of degradation and disgrace. the news circulated speedily through the castle, how the gratitude of the lady guendolen had won the liberty of the whole family of her preserver, with the sole exception of the gross thrall eadwulf; and it was easily granted to edith, that she should be the bearer of the happy tidings to the saxon quarter. sweet ever to the captive's, to the slave's, ear must be the sound of liberty, and hard the task, mighty the sacrifice, to reject it, on any terms, however hard or painful; but if ever that delightful sound was rendered doubly dear to the hearer, it was when the sweetest voice of the best beloved--even of her for whom the blessed boon had been refused, as without her nothing worth--conveyed it to the ears of the brave and constant lover, enhanced by the certainty that she, too, who announced the happiness, had no small share in procuring it, as she would have a large share of enjoying it, and in rendering happy the life which she had crowned with the inestimable gift of freedom. that was a happy hearth, a blessed home, on that calm summer evening, though death had been that very day borne from its darkened doors, though pain and suffering still dwelt within its walls. but when the heart is glad, and the soul contented and at peace, the pains of the body are easily endured, if they are felt at all; and happier hearts, save one alone, which was discontent and bitter, perhaps bitterer from the contemplation of the unparticipated bliss of the others, were never bowed in prayer, or filled with gratitude to the giver of all good. eadwulf sat, gloomy, sullen, and hard of heart, beside the cheerful group, though not one of it, refusing to join in prayer, answering harshly that he had nothing for which to praise god, or be thankful to him; and that to pray for any thing to him would be useless, for that he had never enjoyed his favor or protection. his feelings were not those of natural regret at the continuance of his own unfortunate condition, so much as of unnatural spite at the alteration in the circumstances of his mother, his brother, and that brother's beautiful betrothed; and it was but too clear that, whether he should himself remain free or no, he had been better satisfied that they should continue in their original condition, rather than that they should be elevated above himself by any better fortune. kenric had in vain striven to soothe his morose and selfish mood, to cheer his desponding and angry, rather than sorrowful, anticipations--he had pointed out to him that his own liberation from slavery, and elevation to the rank and position of a freeman and military tenant of a fief of land, did not merely render it probable, but actually make it certain, that eadwulf also would be a freeman, and at liberty to join his kindred in a short time in their new home; "for it must be little, indeed, that you know of my heart," said the brave and manly peasant, "or of that of edith, either, if you believe that either of us could enjoy our own liberty, or feel our own happiness other than unfinished and incomplete, so long as you, our own and only brother, remain in slavery and sorrow. your price is not rated so high, brother eadwulf, but that we may easily save enough from our earnings, when once free to labor for ourselves, within two years at the farthest, to purchase your freedom too from sir philip; and think how easy will be the labor, and how grateful the earnings, when every day's toil finished, and every zecchin saved, will bring us a day nearer to a brother's happy manumission." "words!" he replied, doggedly--"mighty fine words, in truth. i marvel how eloquent we have become, all on the sudden. your labor _will_ be free, as you say, and your earnings your own; and wondrous little shall i profit by them. i should think now, since you are so mighty and powerful with the pretty lady guendolen, all for a mere chance which might have befallen me, or any one, all as well as yourself, you might have stipulated for my freedom--i had done so i am sure, though i do not pretend to your fine sympathies and heaven-reaching notions----" "and so have lost _their_ freedom!" replied kenric, shaking his head, as he waved his hand toward the women; "for that would have been the end of it. for the rest, i made no stipulations; i only refused freedom, if it were procurable only by leaving my aged mother and my betrothed bride in slavery. as it was, i had lost my own liberty, and not gained theirs, if it had not been for edith, who won for us all, what i had lost for one." "and no one thought of me, or my liberty! i was not worth thinking of, nor worthy, i trow, to be free." "you say well, eadwulf--you say right well," cried edith, her fair face flushing fiery red, and her frame quivering with excitement. "you are _not_ worthy to be free. there is no freedom, or truth, or love, or honor, in your heart. your spirit, like your body, is a serf's, and one would do dishonor to the soul of a dog, if she likened it to yours. had _you_ been offered freedom, you had left all, mother, brother, and betrothed--had any maiden been so ill-advised as betroth herself to so heartless a churl--to slavery, and misery, and infamy, or death, to win your own coveted liberty. nay! i believe, if they had been free, and you a serf, you would have betrayed them into slavery, so that you might be alone free. a man who can not feel and comprehend such a sacrifice as kenric made for all of us, is capable of no sacrifice himself, and is not worthy to be called a man, or to be a freeman." thus passed away that evening, and with the morrow came full confirmation; and the bold saxon stood upon his native soil, as free as the air he breathed; the son, too, of a free mother, and with a free, fair maiden by his side, soon to be the free wife of a free englishman. and none envied them, not one of their fellow-serfs, who remained still condemned to toil wearily and woefully, until their life should be over--not one, save eadwulf, the morose, selfish, slave-souled brother. chapter xii. the departure. "he mounted himself on a steed so talle, and her on a pale palfraye, and slung his bugle about his necke, and roundly they rode awaye." the childe of elle. the glad days rapidly passed over, and the morning of the tenth day, as it broke fair and full of promise in the unclouded eastern sky, looked on a gay and happy cavalcade, in all the gorgeous and glittering attire of the twelfth century, setting forth in proud array, half martial and half civil, from the gates of waltheofstow. first rode an old esquire, with three pages in bright half armor, hauberks of chain mail covering their bodies, and baçinets of steel on their heads, but with their arms and lower limbs undefended, except by the sleeves of their buff jerkins and their close-fitting hose of dressed buckskin. behind these, a stout man-at-arms carried the guidon with the emblazoned bearings of his leader, followed by twenty mounted archers, in doublets of kendal green, with yew bows in their hands, wood-knives, and four-and-twenty peacock-feathered cloth-yard arrows in their girdles, and battle-axes at their saddle-bows. in the midst rode sir yvo de taillebois, all armed save his head, which was covered with a velvet mortier with a long drooping feather, and wearing a splendid surcoat; and, by his side, on a fleet andalusian jennet, in a rich purple habit, furred at the cape and cuffs, and round the waist, with snow-white swansdown, the fair and gentle guendolen, followed by three or four gay girls of norman birth, and, happier and fairer than the happiest and fairest, the charming saxon beauty, pure-minded and honest edith. behind these followed a train of baggage vans, cumbrous and lumbering concerns, groaning along heavily on their ill-constructed wheels, and a horse-litter, intended for the use of the lady, if weary or ill at ease, but at the present conveying the aged freed-woman, who was departing, now in well-nigh her ninetieth summer, from the home of her youth, and the graves of her husband and five goodly sons, departing from the house of bondage, to a free new home in the far north-west. the procession was closed by another body of twenty more horse-archers, led by two armed esquires; and with these rode kenric, close shaven, and his short, cropped locks curling beneath a jaunty blue bonnet, with a heron's feather, wearing doublet and hose of forest green, with russet doeskin buskins, the silver badge of sir yvo de taillebois on his arm, and in his hand the freeman's trusty weapon, the puissant english bow, which did such mighty deeds, and won such _los_ thereafter, at those immortal fields of cressy and poictiers, and famous agincourt. as the procession wound down the long slope of the castle hill, and through the saxon quarter, the serfs, who had collected to look on the show, set up a loud hurrah, the ancient saxon cry of mirth, of greeting, or defiance. it was the cry of _caste_, rejoicing at the elevation of a brother to the true station of a man. but there was one voice which swelled not the cry; one man, who turned sullenly away, unable to bear the sight of another's joy, turned away, muttering vengeance--eadwulf the red--the only soul so base, even among the fallen and degraded children of servitude and sorrow, as to refuse to be glad at the happiness which it was not granted him to share, though that happiness were a mother's and a brother's escape from misery and degradation. many days, many weeks, passed away, while that gay cavalcade were engaged in their long progress to the north-westward, through the whole length of the beautiful west riding of yorkshire, from its southern frontier, where it abuts on nottinghamshire and the wild county of derby, to its western border, where its wide moors and towering crag-crested peaks are blended with the vast treeless fells of westmoreland. and during all that lengthened but not weary progress, it was but rarely, and then only at short intervals, that they were out of the sight of the umbrageous and continuous forest. here and there, in the neighborhood of some ancient borough, such as doncaster, pontefract, or ripon, through which lay their route, they came upon broad oases of cultivated lands, with smiling farms and pleasant corn-fields and free english homesteads, stretching along the fertile valley of some blue brimful river; again, and that more frequently, they found small forest-hamlets, wood-embosomed, with their little garths and gardens, clustering about the tower of some inferior feudal chief, literally set in a frame of verdure. sometimes vast tracks of rich and thriftily-cultured meadow-lands, ever situate in the loveliest places of the shire, pastured by abundant flocks, and dotted with sleek herds of the already celebrated short-horns, told where the monks held their peaceful sway, enjoying the fat of the land; and proclaimed how, in those days at least, the priesthood of rome were not the sensual, bigot drones, the ignorant, oppressive tyrants, whose whereabout can be now easily detected by the squalid and neglected state of lands and animals and men, whenever they possess the soil and control the people. such were the famous abbey-stedes of fountain's and jorvaulx, then, as now, both for fertility and beauty, the boast of the west riding. still, notwithstanding these pleasant interchanges of rural with forest scenery, occurring so often as to destroy all monotony, and to keep up a delightful anticipation in the mind of the voyager, as to what sort of view would meet his eye on crossing yon hill-top, or turning that curvature of the wood-road, by far the greater portion of their way led them over sandy tracks, meandering like ribbons through wide glades of greensward, under the broad protecting arms of giant oaks and elms and beeches, the soft sod no less refreshing to the tread of the quadrupeds, than was the cool shadow of the twilight trees delicious to the riders. those forests of the olden day were rarely tangled or thicketlike, unless in marshy levels, where the alder, the willow, and other water-loving shrubs replaced the monarchs of the wild; or where, in craggy gullies, down which brawled impetuous the bright hill-streams, the yew, the holly, and the juniper, mixed with the silvery stems and quivering verdure of the birches, or the deeper hues of the broad-leaved witch-elms and hazels, formed dingles fit for fairy bowers. for the most part, the huge bolls of the forest-trees stood far apart, in long sweeping aisles, as regular as if planted by the hand of man, allowing the grass to grow luxuriantly in the shade, nibbled, by the vast herds of red and fallow deer and roes, into the softest and most even sward that ever tempted the foot of high-born beauty. and no more lovely sight can be imagined than those deep, verdant solitudes, at early morn, when the luxuriant feathery ferns, the broom and gorse blazing with their clusters of golden blossoms, the crimson-capped foxgloves, the sky-blue campanulas by the roadside, the clustering honeysuckles overrunning the stunt hawthorns, and vagrant briars and waving grasses were glittering far and near in their morning garniture of diamond dewdrops, with the long level rays of the new-risen sun streaming in yellow lustre down the glades, and casting great blue lines of shadow from every mossy trunk--no sight more lovely than the same scenes in the waning twilight, when the red western sky tinged the gnarled bolls with lurid crimson, and carpeted the earth with sheets of copper-colored light, while the skies above were darkened with the cerulean robes of night. nor was there lack of living sounds and sights to take away the sense of loneliness from the mind of the voyager in the green wilderness--the incessant songs of the thrush and blackbird, and whistle of the wood-robin, the mellow notes of the linnets, the willow warblers and the sedge birds in the watery brake, the harsh laugh of the green-headed woodpecker, and the hoarse cooing of the innumerable stock-doves, kept the air vocal during all the morning and evening hours; while the woods all resounded far and wide with the loud belling of the great stags, now in their lusty prime, calling their shy mates, or defying their lusty rivals, from morn to dewy eve. and ever and anon, the wild cadences of the forest bugles, clearly winded in the distance, and the tuneful clamor of the deep-mouthed talbots, would tell of some jovial hunts-up. now it would be some gray-frocked hedge priest plodding his way alone on foot, or on his patient ass, who would return the passenger's benedicite with his smooth _pax vobiscum_; now it would be some green-kirtled forest lass who would drop her demure curtsey to the fair norman lady, and shoot a sly glance from her hazel eyes at the handsome norman pages. here it would be a lord-abbot, or proud prior with his lay brothers, his refectioners and sumptners, his baggage-mules, and led andalusian jennets, and as the poet sung, "with many a cross-bearer before, and many a spear behind," who would greet them fairly in some shady nook beside the sparkling brook or crystal well-head, and pray them of their courtesy to alight and share his poor convent fare, no less than the fattest haunch, the tenderest peacock, and the purest wine of gascony, on the soft green sward. there, it would be a knot of sun-burned saxon woodmen, in their green frocks and buckram hose, with long bows in their hands, short swords and quivers at their sides, and bucklers of a span-breadth on their shoulders, men who had never acknowledged norman king, nor bowed to norman yoke, who would stand at gaze, marking the party, from the jaws of some bosky dingle, too proud to yield a foot, yet too few to attack; proving that to be well accompanied, in those days, in sherwood, was a matter less of pomp than of sound policy. anon, receiving notice of their approach from the repeated bugle-blasts of his verdurers, as they passed each successive _mere_ or forest-station, a norman knight or noble, in his garb of peace, would gallop down some winding wood-path, with his slender train scattering far behind him, to greet his brother in arms, and pray him to grace his tower by refreshing his company and resting his fair and gentle daughter for a few days or hours, within its precincts. in short, whether in the forest or in the open country, scarcely an hour, never a day, was passed, without their encountering some pleasant sight, some amusing incident, some interesting adventure. there was a vast fund of romance in the daily life of those olden days, an untold abundance of the picturesque, not a little, indeed, of what we should call stage-effect, in the ordinary habits and every-day affairs of men, which we have now, in our busy, headlong race for affluence, ambition, priority, in every thing good or evil, overlooked, if not forgotten. life was in england then, as it was in france up to the days of the revolution, as it never has been at any time in america, as it is nowhere now, and probably never will be any where again, unless we return to the primitive, social equality, and manful independence of patriarchal times; when truth was held truth, and manhood manhood, the world over; and some higher purpose in mortality was acknowledged than the mere acquiring, some larger nobleness in man than the mere possessing, of unprofitable wealth. much of life, then, was spent out of doors; the mid-day meal, the mid-day slumber, the evening dance, were enjoyed, alike by prince and peasant, under the shadowy forest-tree, or the verdure of the trellised bower. the use of flowers was universal; in every rustic festival, of the smallest rural hamlets, the streets would be arched and garlanded with wreaths of wild flowers; in every village hostelry, the chimney would be filled with fresh greens, the board decked with eglantine and hawthorn, the beakers crowned with violets and cowslips, just as in our days the richest ball-rooms, the grandest banquet-halls, are adorned with brighter, if not sweeter or more beautiful, exotics. the great in those days had not lost "that touch of nature" which "makes the whole world kin" so completely, as to see no grace in simplicity, to find no beauty in what is beautiful alike to all, to enjoy nothing which can be enjoyed by others than the great and wealthy. the humble had not been, then, bowed so low that the necessities had precluded all thought, all care, for the graces of the existence of man. if the division between the noble and the common of the human race, as established by birth, by hereditary rank, by unalterable caste, were stronger and deeper and less eradicable than at this day, the real division, as visible in his nature, between man and man, of the noble and the common, the difference in his tastes, his enjoyments, his pleasures, his capacity no less than his power of enjoying, was a mere nothing then, to what it is to-day. the servants, the very serfs, of aristocracy, in those days, when aristocracy was the rule of blood and bravery, were not, by a hundredth part, so far removed below the proudest of their lords, in every thing that renders humanity graceful and even glorious, in every thing that renders life enjoyable, as are, at this day, the workers fallen below the employers, when nobility has ceased to be, and aristocracy is the sway of capital, untinctured with intelligence, and ignorant of gentleness or grace. it is not that the capitalist is richer, and the operative poorer--though this is true to the letter--than was the prince, than was the serf of those days. it is not only that the aristocrat of capital, the noble by the grace of gold, is ten times more arrogant, more insulting, more soulless, cold-hearted, and calmly cruel, than the aristocrat of the sword, the noble by the grace of god; and that the worker is worked more hardly, clad more humbly, fed more sparely, than the villain of the middle ages--though this, also, is true to the letter--but it is, that the very tastes, the enjoyments, and the capacities for enjoyment, in a word, almost the nature of the two classes are altered, estranged, unalterably divided. the rich and great have, with a few rare exceptions that serve only to prove the rule, lost all taste for the simple, for the natural, for the beautiful, unless it be the beautiful of art and artifice; the poor and lowly have, for the most part, lost all taste, all perception of the beautiful, of the graceful, in any shape, all enjoyment of any thing beyond the tangible, the sensual, the real. hence a division, which never can be reconciled. both classes have receded from the true nature of humanity, in the two opposite directions, that they no longer even comprehend the one the tastes of the other, and scarce have a desire or a hope in common; for what the poor man most desires, a sufficiency for his mere wants, physical and moral, the rich man can not comprehend, never having known to be without it; while the artificial nothings, for which the capitalist strives and wrestles to the last, would be to his workman mere syllabub and flummery to the tired and hungry hunter. in those days the enjoyments, and, in a great measure, the tastes, of all men were alike, from the highest to the lowest--the same sports pleased them, the same viands, for the most part, nourished, the same liquors enlivened them. fresh meat was an unusual luxury to the noble, yet not an impossible indulgence to the lowest vassal; wine and beer were the daily, the sole, beverages of all, differing only, and that not very widely, in degree. the same love of flowers, processions, out-of-door amusements, dances on the greensward, suppers in the shade, were common to all, constantly enjoyed by all. now, it is certain, the enjoyments, the luxuries of the one class--nay, the very delicacy of their tables, if attainable, would be utterly distasteful to the other; and the rich soups, the delicate-made dishes, the savor of the game, and the purity of the light french and rhenish wines, which are the _ne plus ultra_ of the rich man's splendid board, would be even more distasteful to the man of the million, than would be his beans and bacon and fire-fraught whisky to the palate of the gaudy millionaire. throughout their progress, therefore, a thousand picturesque adventures befell our party, a thousand romantic scenes were presented by their halts for the noon-day repose, the coming meal, or the nightly hour of rest, which never could now occur, unless to some pleasure-party, purposely masquerading, and aping the romance of other days. sometimes, when no convent, castle, hostelry, or hermitage, lay on the day's route, the harbingers would select some picturesque glen and sparkling fountain; and, when the party halted at the spot, an extempore pavilion would be found pitched, of flags and pennoncelles, outspread on a lattice-work of lances, with war-cloaks spread for cushions, and flasks and _bottiaus_ cooling in the spring, and pasties and boar's meat, venison and game, plates of silver and goblets of gold, spread on the grass, amid pewter-platters and drinking-cups of horn, a common feast for man and master, partaken with the same appetite, hallowed by the same grace, enlivened by the same minstrelsy and music, and enjoyed no less by the late-enfranchised serfs, than by the high-born nobles to whom they owed their freedom. sometimes, when it was known beforehand that they must encamp for the night in the greenwood, the pages and waiting-women would ride forward, in advance of the rest, with the foragers, the baggage, and a portion of the light-armed archery; and, when the shades of evening were falling, the welcome watch-setting of the mellow-winded bugles would bid the voyagers hail; and, as they opened some moon-lit grassy glade, they would behold green bowers of leafy branches, garlanded with wild roses and eglantine, and strewn with dry, soft moss, and fires sparkling bright amid the shadows, and spits turning before the blaze, and pots seething over it, suspended from the immemorial gipsy tripods. and then the horses would be unbridled, unladen, groomed, and picketed, to feed on the rich forest herbage; and the evening meal would be spread, and the enlivening wine-cup would go round, and the forest chorus would be trolled, rendered doubly sweet by the soft notes of the girls, until the bugles breathed a soft good-night, and, the females of the party withdrawing to their bowers of verdure, meet tiring rooms for oberon and his wild titania, the men, from the haughty baron to the humblest groom, would fold them in their cloaks, and sleep, with their feet to the watch-fires, and their untented brows toward heaven, until the woodlark, and the merle and mavis, earlier even than the village chanticleer, sounded their forest reveillé. chapter xiii. the progress. "great mountains on his right hand, both does and roes, dun and red, and harts aye casting up the head. bucks that brays and harts that hailes, and hindes running into the fields, and he saw neither rich nor poor, but moss and ling and bare wild moor." sir eger, sir greysted, and sir gryme. in this life there was much of that peculiar charm which seems to pervade all mankind, of whatever class or country, and in whatever hemisphere; which irresistibly impels him to return to his, perhaps, original and primitive state, as a nomadic being, a rover of the forest and the plain; which, while it often seduces the refined and civilized man of cities to reject all the conveniences and luxuries of polite life, for the excitement and freshness, the inartificial liberty and self-confiding independence of semi-barbarism, has never been known to allow the native savage to renounce his freeborn instincts, or to abandon his natural and truant disposition, for all the advantage, all the powers, conferred by civilization. and if, even to the freeborn and lofty-minded noble, the careless, unconventional, equalizing life of the forest was felt as giving a stronger pulsation to the free heart, a wider expansion to the lungs, a deeper sense of freedom and power, how must not the same influences have been enjoyed by those, who now, for the first time since they were born, tasted that mysterious thing, liberty--of which they had so often dreamed, for which they had longed so wistfully, and of which they had formed, indeed, so indefinite an idea--for it is one of the particulars in the very essence of liberty, as it is, perhaps, of that kindred gift of god, health, that although all men talk of it as a thing well understood and perfectly appreciated, not one man in ten understands or appreciates it in the least, unless he has once enjoyed it, and then been deprived of its possession. it is true that, personally, neither kenric nor edith had ever known what it is to be free; but they came of a free, nay! even of an educated stock, and, being children of that northern blood, which never has long brooked even the suspicion of slavery, and, in some sort, of the same race with their conquerors and masters, they had never ceased to feel the consciousness of inalienable rights; the galling sense of injustice done them, of humiliating degradation inflicted on them, by their unnatural position among, but not of, their fellows; had never ceased to hope, to pray, and to labor for a restitution to those self-existing and immutable rights--the rights, i mean, of living for himself, laboring for himself, acquiring for himself, holding for himself, thinking, judging, acting for himself, pleasing and governing himself, so long as he trench not on the self-same right of others--to which the meanest man that is born of a woman is entitled, from the instant when he is born into the world, as the heir of god and nature. the saxon serf was, it is true, a being fallen, debased, partially brutalized, deprived of half the natural qualities of manhood, by the state of slavery, ignorance, and imbecility, into which he had been deforced, and in which he was willfully detained by his masters; but he had not yet become so utterly degraded, so far depressed below the lowest attributes of humanity, as to acquiesce in his own debasement, much less to rejoice in his bondage for the sake of the flesh-pots of egypt, or to glory in his chains, and honor the name of master. from this misery, from this last perversion and profanation of the human intellect divine--the being content to be a slave--the saxon serf had escaped thus far; and, thanks to the great god of nature, of revelation, that last curse, that last profanation, he escaped forever. his body the task-master had enslaved; his intellect he had emasculated, debased, shaken, but he had not killed it; for there, there, amid the dust and ashes of the all-but-extinguished fire, there lurked alive, ready to be enkindled by a passing breath into a devouring flame, the sacred spark of liberty. ever hoping, ever struggling to be free, when the day dawned of freedom, the saxon slave was fit to be free, and became free, with no fierce outbreak of servile rage and vengeance, consequent on servile emancipation, but with the calm although enthusiastical gladness which fitted him to become a freeman, a citizen, and, as he is, the master of one half of the round world. it is not, ah! it is not the chain, it is not the lash, it is not the daily toil, it is not the disruption of domestic ties and affections, that prove, that constitute the sin, the sorrow, and the shameful reproach of slavery. ah! no. but it is the very converse of these--the very point insisted on so complacently, proclaimed so triumphantly, by the advocates of this accursed thing--it is that, in spite of the chain, in spite of the lash, in spite of the enforced labor, in spite of the absence or disruption of family ties and affections, the slave is sleek, satisfied, self-content; that he waxes fat among the flesh-pots; that he comes fawning to the smooth words, and frolics, delighted, fresh from the lash of his master, in no wise superior to the spaniel, either in aspiration or in instinct. it is in that he envies not the free man his freedom, but, in his hideous lack of all self-knowledge, self-reliance, self-respect, is content to be a slave, content to eat, and grow fat and die, without a present concern beyond the avoidance of corporeal pain and the enjoyment of sensual pleasure, without an aspiration for the future, beyond those of the beasts, which graze and perish. it is in this that lies the mortal sin, the never-dying reproach, of him who would foster, would preserve, would propagate, the curse of slavery; not that he is a tyrant over the body, but that he is a destroyer of the soul--that he would continue a state of things which reduces a human being, a fellow-man, whether of an inferior race or no--for, as of congenerous cattle there are many distinct tribes, so of men, and of caucasian men too, there be many races, distinct in physical, in moral, in animal, in intellectual qualities, as well as in color and conformation, if not distinct in origin--to the level of the beast which knoweth not whence he cometh or whither he goeth, nor what is to him for good, or what for evil, which hopes not to rise or to advance, either here or hereafter, but toils day after day, contented with his daily food, and lies down to sleep, and rises up to labor and to feed, as if god had created man with no higher purpose than to sleep and eat alternately, until the night cometh from which, on earth, there shall be no awakening. but of this misery the saxon serf was exempt: and, to do him justice, of this reproach was the norman conqueror exempt also. of the use of arms, and the knowledge of warfare, he indeed deprived his serfs, for as they outnumbered him by thousands in the field, equalled him in resolution, perhaps excelled him in physical strength, to grant such knowledge would have been to commit immediate suicide--but of no other knowledge, least of all of the knowledge that leads to immortality, did he strive to debar him. admittance to holy orders was patent to the lowest saxon, and in those days the cloister was the gate to all knowledge sacred or profane, to all arts, all letters, all refinements, and above all to that knowledge which is the greatest power--the knowledge of dealing with the human heart, to govern it--the knowledge, which so often set the hempen sandal of the saxon monk upon the mailed neck of the norman king, and which, in the very reign of which i write, had raised a low-born man of the common saxon race to be archbishop of canterbury, the keeper of the conscience of the king, the primate, and for a time the very ruler of the realm. often, indeed, did the superior knowledge of the cowled saxon avenge on his masters the wrongs of his enslaved brethren; and while the learned priesthood of the realm were the brethren of its most abject slaves, no danger that those slaves should ever become wholly ignorant, hopeless, or degraded--and so it was seen in the end; for that very knowledge which it was permitted to the servile race to gain, while it taught them to cherish and fitted them to deserve freedom, in the end won it for them; at the expense of no floods of noble blood, through the sordure and soil of no savage saturnalia, such as marked the emancipation alike of the white serfs of revolutionized france, and the black slaves of disenthralled st. domingo. and so it was seen in the deportment of kenric the serf, and of the slave girl edith, even in these first days of their newly-acquired freedom. self-respect they had never lost altogether; and their increased sense of it was shown in the increased gravity and calmness and becomingness of their deportment. slaves may be merry, or they may be sullen. but they can not be thoughtful, or calm, or careworn. the french, while they were feudal slaves, before the revolution, were the blithest, the most thoughtless, the merriest, and most frolicsome, of mortals; they had no morrows for which to take care, no liberties which to study, no rights which to guard. the english peasant was then, as the french is fast becoming now, grave rather than frivolous, a thinker more than a fiddler, a doer very much more than a dancer. was he, is he, the less happy, the less respectable, the lower in the scale of intellect, that he is the farther from the monkey, and the nearer to the man? the merriment, the riotous glee, the absolute abandonment of the plantation african to the humor, the glee of the moment, is unapproached by any thing known of human mirthfulness. the gravity, the concentrated thought, the stern abstractedness, the careworn aspect of the free american is proverbial--the first thing observable in him by foreigners. he has more to guard, more at which to aspire, more on which he prides himself, at times almost boastfully, more for which to respect himself, at times almost to the contempt of others, than any mortal man, his co-equal, under any other form of government, on any other soil. is he the less happy for his cares, or would he change them for the recklessness of the well-clad, well-fed slave--for the thoughtlessness of the first subject in a despotic kingdom? kenric had been always a thinker, though a serf; his elder brother had been a monk, a man of strong sense and some attainment; his mother had been the daughter of one who had known, if he had lost, freedom. with his mother's milk he had imbibed the love of freedom; from his brother's love and teachings he had learned what a freeman should be; by his own passionate and energetic will he had determined to become free. he would have become so ere long, had not accident anticipated his resolve; for he had laid by, already, from the earnings of his leisure hours, above one half of the price whereby to purchase liberty. he was now even more thoughtful and calmer; but his step was freer, his carriage bolder, his head was erect. he was neither afraid to look a freeman in the eye, nor to render meet deference to his superior. for the freeman ever knows, nor is ashamed to acknowledge, that while the equality of man in certain rights, which may be called, for lack of a better title, natural and political, is co-existent with himself, inalienable, indefeasible, immutable, and eternal, there is no such thing whatever, nor can ever be, as the equality of man in things social, more than there can be in personal strength, grace, or beauty, in the natural gifts of intellect, or in the development of wisdom. of him who boasts that he has no superior, it may almost be said that he has few inferiors. thereof kenric--as he rode along with his harness on his back, and his weapons in his hand, a freeman among freemen, a feudal retainer among the retainers, some norman, some saxon, of his noble lord--was neither louder, nor noisier, nor more exultant, perhaps the reverse, than his wont, though happier far than he had conceived it possible for him to be. and by his bearing, his comrades and fellows judged him, and ruled their own bearing toward him. the saxons of the company naturally rejoiced to see their countryman free by his own merit, and, seeing him in all things their equal, gladly admitted him to be so. the haughtier normans, seeing that he bore his bettered fortunes as became a man, ready for either fortune, admitted him as one who had won his freedom bravely, and wore it as if it had been his from his birth--they muttered beneath their thick mustaches, that he deserved to be a norman. edith, on the contrary, young yet, and unusually handsome, who had been the pet of her own people, and the favorite of her princely masters, who had never undergone any severe labor, nor suffered any poignant sorrow, who knew nothing of the physical hardships of slavery, more than she did of the real and tangible blessings of liberty, had ever been as happy and playful as a kitten, and as tuneful as a bird among the branches. but now her voice was silent of spontaneous song, subdued in conversation, full fraught with a suppressed deeper feeling. the very beauty of the fair face was changed, soberer, more hopeful, farther seeing, full no longer of an earthly, but more with something of an angel light. the spirit had spoken within her, the statue had learned that it had a soul. and guendolen had noted, yet not fully understood the change or its nature. more than once she had called her to her bridle-rein and conversed with her, and tried to draw her out, in vain. at last, she put the question frankly-- "you are quieter, edith, calmer, sadder, it seems to me," she said, "than i have ever seen you, since i first came to waltheofstow. i have done all that lies in me to make you happy, and i should be sorry that you were sad or discontented." "sad, discontented! oh! no, lady, no!" she replied, smiling among her tears. "only too happy--too happy, to be loud or joyous. all happiest things, i think, have a touch of melancholy in them. do you think, lady, yonder little stream," pointing to one which wound along by the roadside, now dancing over shelvy rapids, now sleeping in silent eddies, "is less happy where it lies calm and quiet, reflecting heaven's face from its deep bosom, and smiling with its hundred tranquil dimples, than where it frolics and sings among the pebbles, or leaps over the rocks which toss it into noisy foam-wreaths? no! lady, no. there it gathers its merriment and its motion, from the mere force of outward causes; here it collects itself from the depth of its own heart, and manifests its joy and love, and thanks god in silence. it is so with me, lady guendolen. my heart is too full for music, but not too shallow to reflect boundless love and gratitude forever." the lady smiled, and made some slight reply, but she was satisfied; for it was evident that the girl's poetry and gratitude both came direct from her heart; and in the smile of the noble demoiselle there was a touch of half-satiric triumph, as she turned her quick glance to sir yvo, who had heard all that passed, and asked him, slyly, "and do you, indeed, think, gentle father, that these saxons are so hopelessly inferior, that they are fitting for nothing but mere toil; or is this the mere inspiration that springs from the sense of freedom?" "i think, indeed," he replied, "that my little guendolen is but a spoiled child at the best; and, as to my thoughts in regard to the saxons, them i shall best consult my peace of mind and pocket by keeping my own property; since, by our lady's grace! you may take it into your head to have all the serfs in the north emancipated; and that is a little beyond my powers of purchase. but see, guendolen, see how the sunbeams glint and glitter yonder on the old tower of barden, and how redly it stands out from those purple clouds which loom so dark and thunderous over the peaceful woods of bolton. give your jennet her head, girl, and let her canter over these fair meadows, that we may reach the abbey and taste the noble prior's hospitality before the thunder gust is upon us." and quickening its pace, the long train wound its way upward, by the bright waters of the beautiful wharfe, and speedily obtained the shelter, and the welcome they expected from the good and generous monks of bolton, the noblest abbaye in the loveliest dale of all the broad west riding. the next morning found them traversing the broken green country that lies about the head of the romantic eyre, and threading the wild passes of ribbledale, beneath the shadow of the misty peaks of pennigant and ingleborough, swathed constantly in volumed vapor, whence the clanging cry of the eagle, as he wheeled far beyond the ken of mortal eyes, came to the ears of the voyagers, on whom he looked securely down as he rode the storm. that night, no castle or abbey, no village even, with its humble hostelry, being, in those days, to be found among those wild fells and deep valleys, bowers were built of the materials with which the hillsides were plentifully feathered throughout that sylvan and mountainous district, of which the old proverbial distich holds good to this very day: "o! the oak, the ash, and the bonny ivy tree, they flourish best at home in the north countree." young sprouts of the juniper, soft ferns, and the delicious purple heather, now in its most luxurious flush of summer bloom and perfume, furnished agreeable and elastic couches; and, as the stores carried by the sumpter mules had been replenished by the large hospitality of the prior of bolton, heronshaw and egret, partridge and moorgame, wildfowl and venison, furnished forth their board, with pasties of carp and eels, and potted trout and char from the lakes whither they were wending, and they fared most like crowned heads within the precincts of a royal city, there, under the shadow of the gray crags and bare storm-beaten brow of bleak whernside, there where, in this nineteenth century, the belated wayfarer would deem himself thrice happy, if he secured the rudest supper of oat-cakes and skim-milk cheese, with a draught of thin ale, the luxuries of the hardy agricultural population of the dales. chapter xiv. the new home. "sweetly blows the haw and the rowan-tree, wild roses speck our thickets sae briery; still, still will our walk in the green-wood be-- oh, jeanie! there's nothing to fear ye." hogg's ballads. on the following morning they entered westmoreland; and as they approached the term of their journey, advancing the more rapidly as they entered the wilder and more sparsely-populated regions toward the lakes and fells, where the castellated dwellings of the knightly nobles and the cloisters of the ecclesiastical lords became few and far between, they reached kendal, then a small hamlet, with a noble castle and small priory, before noon; and, making no stay, pressed onward to the shores of windermere, which they struck, not far from the scattered cottages and small chapel of ease, tended by two aged brothers from kendal, known then, as it is now, not having grown much since that day, as the village of bowness. on the lake, moored at a rude pier, lay a small but gayly-decorated yacht, or galley, with the arms of sir yvo de taillebois emblazoned on its foresail, and a gay streamer flaunting from its topmast, awaiting the arrival of the party, which had been announced to their vassals by a harbinger sent forward from bolton abbey. and here the nobles, with their immediate train, separated from the bulk of the party, the former going on board the galley, and crossing the pellucid waters of the beautiful lake to sir yvo's noble castle, which lay not a mile from the strand, embosomed in a noble chase, richly-wooded with superb oak and ash forests, midway of the gentle and green valley between the lake and the western mountains, over which his demesnes extended, while the escort, with the horse-boys, grooms, and servitors, took the longer and more difficult way around the head of the lake--a circuit of some twenty miles--over the sites of the modern towns of ambleside and hawkshead, the castle lying in cumberland, although the large estates of de taillebois extended for many miles on both sides of the water, and in both counties, being the last grand feudal demesne on the south side of the mountains. further to the north, again, where the country spread out into plains beyond keswick, toward penrith and carlisle, and the untamed scottish borders, there were again found vast feudal demesnes, the property of the lords of the marches, the howards, the percys, the umfravilles, and others, whose prowess defended the rich lowlands of york and lancaster from the incursions of the border riders. to the north, the nearest neighbor of de taillebois was the threlkeld, of threlkeld castle, on the skirts of keswick, at thirty miles or more of distance across the pathless mountains of scafell, helvellyn, saddleback, and skiddaw. nigher to him, on the south, and adjoining his lands, lay the estates of the abbots of furness; and to the westward, beyond the wide range of moor and mountain, which it took his party-two days to traverse, and in which, from bolton till they reached kendal, they had seen, according to the words of the motto prefixed to this chapter, ----------- "neither rich, nor poor, but moss, and ling, and bare wild moor," lay the lands of the cliffords and the mighty nevilles. all the inner country, among those glorious peaks, those deep glens, encumbered with old unshorn woods, those blue waters, undisturbed by the presence of a foreigner, since the eagles of the ubiquitous roman glittered above his camps on the stern hill-sides, over that most unprofitable of his conquests, was virgin ground, uninhabited, save by fugitive serfs, criminal refugees from justice, and some wild families of liberty-loving saxons, who had fled to the mountains, living by the strong hand and the bended bow, and content to sacrifice all else for the priceless boon of freedom. it was, perhaps, the very wildness and solitude of the locality, as much as the exquisite charm of the loveliest scenery in england, to which, strange to say, he was fully alive--enhanced by the certainty that in those remote regions, where there were no royal forests, nor any territorial magnates who could in any way rival himself, his forest rights, of which every norman was constitutionally jealous, were perfectly intangible and unassailable--which had so much attached sir yvo de taillebois to his cumbrian castle of high furness, in preference to all his fair estates and castles in the softer and more cultivated portions of the realm. certain it is, that he did love it better than all his other lands united; and hither he resorted, whenever he could escape from the duties of camps and the restraint of courts, to live a life among his vassals, his feudal tenants, and his humbler villagers, more like that of an oriental patriarch than of a norman warrior, but for the feudal pomp which graced his castle halls, and swelled his mountain hunts into a mimicry of warfare. at about ten miles distant across the lake, up toward the lower spurs of the north-eastern mountains, lies the small lake of kentmere, the head-waters and almost the spring of the river kent; which, flowing down southward through the vale of kendal, falls into the western head of morecambe bay, having its embouchure guarded by the terrible sands of lancaster, so fatal to foot-passengers, owing to the terrific influx of the entering tides. set like a gem of purest water in a rough frame of savage mountains, their lower sides mantled with rich deciduous woods, their purple heathery brows dotted with huge scotch firs, single, or in romantic groups, their scalps bald and broken, of gray and schistous rock, kentmere fills up the whole basin of the dell it occupies, with the exception of a verge of smooth, green meadow-land, never above a hundred or two of yards in width, margined with a silvery stripe of snow-white sand, and studded by a few noble oaks. at the head of the lake, half encircled by the dancing brook which formed its only inlet, rose a soft swell of ground, smooth and round-headed, neither hill nor hillock; its southern face, toward the lake, cleared of wood, and covered with short, close greensward, its flanks and brow overgrown with luxuriant oak-wood of the second growth, interspersed with varnished hollies, silver-stemmed birches, and a score or two of gigantic fir-trees, overtopping the pale green foliage of the coppice, and contrasting its lightsome tints by their almost sable hue. behind this fairy knoll the hill rose in rifted perpendicular faces of rock, garlanded and crowned with hanging coppices, for two or three hundred feet in height; the nesting-place of noble falcons, peregrines, gosshawks, haggards of the rock, and of a single pair of golden eagles, the terror of the dale from time immemorial. in all lake land, there is no lovelier spot than kentmere. the deep meadows by its side in early spring are one glowing garden of many-colored crocuses, golden, white, purple lady-smocks, yellow king-cups, and all sweet and gay-garbed flowers that love the water-side; the rounded knoll and all the oak-wood sides are alive with saffron primroses, cowslips, and meadow-sweets; and the air is rife with the perfume of unnumbered violets, and vocal with the song of countless warblers. and on the mid slope of that rounded, bosom-like swell of land, there stood, at the period of my tale, a low stone building of one story, long for its height, narrow, and massively built of blocks of the native gray stone of the hills, with a projecting roof of heavy flags, forming a porch over the door, and two chimneys, one at either end, of a form peculiar, to this day, to that district, each covered with a flat stone slab supported on four columns, to prevent the smoke from driving down into the chambers, under the influence of the whirling gusts from the mountain tops. glass windows were unknown in those days, save to the castellated mansions of the great, or the noble minsters and cathedrals of the great cities--the art having been first introduced, after the commencement of the dark ages, in the reign of edward the confessor, although it must have been well known and of common occurrence in england during its occupation by the romans, who used glass for windows as well as implements so early as the time of cicero, and who would seem to have brought its manufacture to a perfection unattainable by us moderns, since it is credibly asserted that they had the art to render it malleable. horn and talc, or oiled parchment, were used by the middle classes, but this was a luxury confined to the dwellers in towns; and the square mullioned apertures, which here served for windows, were closed by day and in fine weather by slender lattices, and during storms or at night by wooden shutters. the want of these luxuries, however, being unknown, was unregarded; and the verdurer's house at kentmere was regarded in those days as a fine specimen of rural architecture, and stood as high by comparison as many an esquire's hall of the present day. for the rest, it was partly overrun with ivy and woodbine, and was overhung at the western end by a noble mountain-ash, from under the roots of which welled out a small crystal spring, and sheltered to the east by a group of picturesque scotch firs. an out-building or two, a stone barn, a cow-house, and what, by the baying and din of hounds, was clearly a dog-kennel, stood a little way aloof, under the skirts of the coppice, and completed the appurtenances of what was then deemed a very perfect dwelling for a small rural proprietor, and would be held now a very tolerable mountain farm-house for a tenant cotter. this was the new home of kenric and edith, now by the good offices of the old curate of bowness made man and wife; and here, with the good old mother nodding and knitting by the hearth, and two stout boys, kenric's varlets, to tend the hounds and hawks, and to do the offices of the small hill farm, they dwelt as happy as the day; he occupying the responsible position of head-forester of upper kentdale, and warder of the cotters, shepherds, and verdurers, whose cottages were scattered in the woods and over the hill-sides, and both secure in the favor of their lovely lady, and proud of the confidence of their lord. chapter xv. the old home. "your knight for his lady pricks forth in career, and is brought home at even-song, pricked through with a spear." ivanhoe. that was a dark day for eadwulf, on which the train of sir yvo de taillebois departed from the tower of waltheofstow; and thenceforth the discontented, dark-spirited man became darker, more morose and gloomy, until his temper had got to such a pass that he was shunned and avoided by every one, even of his own fellows. it is true, that in the condition of slavery, in the being one of a despised and a detested caste, in being compelled to labor for the benefit of others than himself, in the being liable at any moment to be sold, together with the glebe to which he is attached for life, like the ox or ass with which he toils as a companion, there is not much to promote contentedness, to foster a quiet, placable, and gentle disposition, to render any man more just, or grateful, or forbearing to his fellows. least of all is it so, where there is in the slave just enough of knowledge, of civilization, of higher nurture, to enable him to desire freedom in the abstract, to pine for it as a right denied, and to hate those by whom he is deprived of it, without comprehending its real value, or in the least appreciating either the privileges which it confers or the duties which it imposes on the freeman--least of all, when the man has from nature received a churlish, gloomy, sullen temperament, such as would be likely to make to itself a fanciful adversity out of actual prosperity, to resent all opposition to its slightest wish as an injury, and to envy, almost to the length of hating, every one more fortunate than himself. it may, however, as all other conditions of inferiority, of sorrow, or of suffering, be rendered lighter and more tolerable by the mode of bearing it. not that one would desire to see any man, whether reduced by circumstances to that condition, or held to it from his birth, so far reduced to a tame and senseless submission as to accept it as his natural state, or to endure it apathetically, without an effort at raising himself to his proper position in the scale of humanity and nature. it is perfectly consistent with the utmost abhorrence of the condition, and the most thorough determination to escape from it by any means lawful to a christian, to endure what is unavoidable, and to do that which must be done, bravely, patiently, well, and therefore nobly. but it was not in the nature of eadwulf to take either part. his rugged, stubborn, animal character, was as little capable of forming any scheme for his own prospective liberation, to which energy, and a firm, far-reaching will, should be the agents, as it was either to endure patiently or to labor well. perpetually remiss, working reluctantly and badly, ever a recusant, a recreant, a sullen and morose grumbler, while he in no respect lightened, but, it is probable, rather enhanced his difficulties, he detracted from what slight hope there might exist of his future emancipation, by carefully, as it would seem, conciliating the ill-opinion and ill-will of all men, whether his equals or his superiors--while he entirely neglected to earn or amass such small sums as might be within his reach, and as might perhaps, in the end, suffice to purchase his liberation. so long as kenric and his mother remained in the hamlet of waltheofstow, and he was permitted to associate with them in their quarter, in consequence of the character for patience, honesty, fidelity, and good conduct, which his brother had acquired with his masters, eadwulf's temper had been in some sort restrained by the influence, unconfessed indeed, and only half-endured with sullen reluctance, which that brother obtained over him, through his clearer and stronger intellect. but when they had departed, and when he found himself ejected, as a single man in the first place, and yet more as one marked for a bad servant and a dangerous character, from the best cottage in the quarter, to which he had begun to fancy himself of right entitled, he became worse and worse, until, even in the sort of barrack or general lodging of the male slaves of the lowest order, he was regarded by his fellows as the bad spirit of the set, and was never sought by any, unless as the ringleader in some act of villainy, wickedness, or rebellion. it is probable, moreover, that the beauty and innocence of edith, who, however averse she might be to the temper and disposition of the man, had been wont, since her betrothal to his brother, to treat him with a certain friendship and familiarity, might have had some influence in modifying his manner, at least, and curbing the natural display of his passionate yet sullen disposition. certain it is, that in some sort he loved her--as much, perhaps, as his sensual and unintelligent soul would allow him to love; and though he never had shown any predilection, never had made any effort to conciliate her favor, nor dared to attempt any rivalry of his brother, whom he wholly feared, and half-hated for his assumed superiority, he sorely felt her absence, regretted her liberation from slavery, and even felt aggrieved at it, since he could not share her new condition. his brother's freedom he resented as a positive injury done to himself; and his bearing away with him the beautiful edith, soon to become his bride, he looked on in the light of a fraudulent or forcible abstraction of his own property. from that moment, he became utterly brutalized and bad; he was constantly ordered for punishment, and at length he got to such a pitch of idleness, insolence, and rebellion, that sir philip de morville, though, in his reluctance to resort to corporeal punishment, he would not allow him to be scourged or set in the stocks, ordered his seneschal to take steps for selling him to some merchant, who would undertake to transport him to one of the english colonies in ireland. circumstances, however, occurred, which changed the fate both of the master and the slave, and led in the end to the events, which form the most striking portion of the present narrative. for some time past, as was known throughout all the region, sir philip de morville had been, if not actually at feud, at least on terms of open enmity with the nobleman whose lands marched with his own on the forest side, sir foulke d'oilly--a man well-advanced in years, most of which he had spent in constant marauding warfare, a hated oppressor and tyrant to his tenantry and vassals, and regarded, among his norman neighbors and comrades, as an unprincipled, discourteous, and cruel man. with this man, recently, fresh difficulties had arisen concerning some disputed rights of chase, and on a certain day, within a month after the departure of sir yvo de taillebois, the two nobles, meeting on the debatable ground, while in pursuit of the chase, under very aggravating circumstances, the hounds of both parties having fallen on the scent of the same stag, high words passed--a few arrows were shot by the retainers on both sides, sir philip's being much the more numerous; a forester of sir foulke d'oilly's train was slain; and, had it not been for the extreme forbearance of de morville, a conflict would have ensued, which could have terminated only in the total discomfiture of his rival and all his men. this forbearance, however, effected no good end; for, before the barons parted, some words passed between them in private, which were not heard by any of their immediate followers, and the effect of which was known only by the consequences which soon ensued. on the following morning, at the break of day, before the earliest of the serfs were summoned to their labors, the castle draw-bridge was lowered, and sir philip rode forth on his destrier, completely armed, but followed only by a single esquire in his ordinary attire. the vizor of the knight's square-topped helmet was lowered, and the mail-hood drawn closely over it. his habergeon of glittering steel-rings, his mail-hose, fortified on the shoulders and at the knees by plates of polished steel, called poldrons and splents, shone like silver through the twilight; his triangular shield hung about his neck, his great two-handed broad-sword from his left shoulder to his heel, and his long steel-headed lance was grasped in his right hand; none could doubt that he was riding forth to do battle, but it was strange that he wore no surcoat of arms over his plain mail, that no trumpet preceded, no banner was borne behind him, no retainers, save that one unarmed man, in his garb of peace, followed the bridle of their lord. he rode away slowly down the hill, through the serf's quarter, into the wood; the warder from the turret saw him turn and gaze back wistfully toward his hereditary towers, perhaps half prescient that he should see them no more. he turned, and was lost to view; nor did any eye of his faithful vassals look on him in life again. noon came, and the dinner hour, but the knight came not to the banquet hall--evening fell, and there were no tidings; but, at nightfall, eadwulf came in, pale, ghastly, and terrified, and announced that the knight and the esquire both lay dead with their horses in a glade of the wood, not far from the scene of the quarrel of the preceding day, on the banks of the river idle. no time was lost. with torch and cresset, bow and spear, the household hurried, under their appointed officers, to the fatal spot, and soon found the tidings of the serf to be but too true. the knight and his horse lay together, as they had fallen, both stricken down at the same instant, in full career as it would seem, by a sudden and instantaneous death-stroke. the warrior, though prostrate, still sat the horse as if in life; he was not unhelmed; his shield was still about his neck; his lance was yet in the rest, the shaft unbroken, and the point unbloodied--the animal lay with its legs extended, as if it had been at full speed when the fatal stroke overtook it. a barbed cloth-yard arrow had been shot directly into its breast, piercing the heart through and through, by some one in full front of the animal; and a lance point had entered the throat of the rider, above the edge of the shield which hung about his neck, coming out between the shoulders behind, and inflicting a wound which must have been instantaneously mortal. investigation of the ground showed that many horses had been concealed or ambushed in a neighboring dingle, within easy arrow-shot of the murdered baron; that two horsemen had encountered him in the glade, one of whom, he by whose lance he had fallen, had charged him in full career. it was evident to the men-at-arms, that sir philip's charger had been treacherously shot dead in full career, by an archer ambushed in the brake, at the very moment when he was encountering his enemy at the lance's point; and that, as the horse was in the act of falling, he had been bored through from above, before his own lance had touched the other rider. the esquire had been cut down and hacked with many wounds of axes and two-handed swords, one of his arms being completely severed from the trunk, and his skull cleft asunder by a ghastly blow. his horse's brains had been dashed out with a mace, probably after the slaughter of the rider; and that this part of the deed of horror had been accomplished by many armed men, dismounted, and not by the slayer of de morville, was evident, from the number of mailed and booted footsteps deeply imprinted in the turf around the carcasses of the murdered men and butchered animals. efforts were made immediately to track the assassins by the slot, several, both of the men-at-arms and of the yorkshire foresters, being expert at the art; but their skill was at fault, as well as the scent of the slow-hounds, which were laid on the trail; for, within a few hundred yards of the spot, the party had entered the channel of the river idle, and probably followed its course upward, to a place where it flowed over a sheet of hard, slaty, rock; and where the land farther back consisted of a dry, sun-burned, upland waste, of short, summer-parched turf, which took no impression of the horses' hoofs. there was no proof, nor any distinct circumstantial evidence; yet none doubted any more than if they had beheld the doing of the dastardly deed, that the good lord de morville had fallen by the hand of sir foulke d'oilly and of his associates in blood-shedding. for the rest, the good knight lay dead, leaving no child, wife, brother, nor any near relation, who should inherit either his honors or his lands. he had left neither testament nor next of kin. literally, he had died, and made no sign. the offices of the church were done duly, the masses were chanted over the dead, and the last remains of the good knight were consigned to dust in the chapel vaults of his ancestral castle, never to descend to posterity of his, or to bear his name again forever. in a few days it was made known that sir philip had died deeply indebted to the jews of york, of tadcaster, even of london; that his estates, all of which were unentailed and in his own right, were heavily mortgaged; and that the lands would be sold to satisfy the creditors of the deceased. shortly after, it was whispered abroad, and soon proclaimed aloud, that sir foulke d'oilly had become purchaser of whatever was saleable, and had been confirmed by the royal mandate in the possession of the seigneurial and feudal rights of the lapsed fief of waltheofstow. there had been none to draw attention to the suspicions which weighed so heavily against sir foulke in the neighborhood, and among the followers of the dead knight; they were men of small rank and no influence, and had no motive to induce them wantonly to incur the hatred of the most powerful and unscrupulous noble of the vicinity, by bringing charges which they had no means to substantiate, if true, and which, to disprove, it was probable that he had contrivances already prepared by false witness. within a little while, sir foulke d'oilly assumed his rights territorial and seigneurial; but he removed not in person to waltheofstow, continuing to reside in his own larger and more magnificent castle of fenton in the forest, within a few miles' distance, and committing the whole management of his estates and governance of his serfs to a hard, stern, old man-at-arms, renowned for his cruel valor, whom he installed as the seneschal of the fief, with his brother acting as bailiff under him, and a handful of fierce, marauding, free companions, as a garrison to the castle. the retainers of the old lord were got rid of peacefully, their dues of pay being made up to them, and themselves dismissed, with some small gratuity. one by one the free tenants threw up the farms which they rented, or resigned the fiefs which they held on man-service; and, before sir philip had been a month cold in his grave, not a soul was left in the place, of its old inhabitants, except the miserable saxon serfs, to whom change of masters brought no change of place; and who, regarded as little better than mere brutes of burden, were scarce distinguished one from the other, or known by name, to their new and vicarious rulers. on them fell the most heavily the sudden blow which had deprived them of a just, a reasonable, and a merciful lord, as justice and mercy went in those days, and consigned them defenseless and helpless slaves, to one among the cruellest oppressors of that cruel and benighted period--and, worse yet than that, mere chattels at the mercy of an underling, crueller even than his lord, and wanting even in the sordid interest which the owner must needs feel in the physical welfare of his property. woe, indeed, woe worth the day, to the serfs of waltheofstow, when they fell into the hands of sir foulke d'oilly, and tasted of the mercies of his seneschal, black hugonet of fenton in the forest! it was some considerable time before the news of this foul murder reached the ears of sir yvo de taillebois; and when it did become known to him, and measures were taken by him to reclaim the manor of waltheofstow, in virtue of the mortgage he had redeemed, it was found that so many prior claims, and that to so enormous an extent, were in existence, as to swallow up the whole of the estates, leaving sir yvo a loser of the nineteen thousand zecchins which he had advanced, with nothing to show in return for his outlay beyond the freedom of kenric and his family. the good knight, however, was too rich to be seriously affected by the circumstance, and of too noble and liberal a strain to regret deeply the mere loss of superabundant and unnecessary gold. but not so did he regard the death of his dear companion and brother in arms; yet, though he caused inquiries to be set on foot as to the mode of his decease, so many difficulties intervened, and the whole affair was plunged in so deep a mystery and obscurity, that he was compelled to abandon the pursuit reluctantly, until, after months had elapsed, unforeseen events opened an unexpected clew to the fatal truth. chapter xvi. the escape. then said king florentyne, "what noise is this? 'fore saint martyn, some man," he said, "in my franchise, hath slain my deer and bloweth the prize." guy of warwick. one of those serfs, eadwulf, was little disposed to resign himself tranquilly to his fate; as within a short period after the occupation of waltheofstow by the new seneschal, his wonted contumacy had brought him into wonted disgrace and condemnation, and, there being no longer any clemency overruling the law for the mitigation of such penalties as should seem needful, the culprit was on several occasions cruelly scourged, and imprisoned in the lowest vaults of the castle dungeon. maddened by this treatment, he at length resolved to escape at all risks, and knowing every path and dingle of the forest, he flattered himself that he should easily elude pursuers who were strange, as yet, to that portion of the country; and having, on the departure of his brother, contrived stealthily to possess himself of the crossbow and bolts which had belonged to him, being intrusted to his care as an unusual boon, owing to his good conduct and his occupation as a sort of underkeeper in the chase, fancied that he should be able easily to support himself by killing game in the forests through which he must make his way, until he should arrive at the new residence of that brother, where he doubted not of finding comfort and assistance. during the days which had elapsed between the emancipation of kenric and his departure from the castle, much had been ascertained, both by the new freeman and his beautiful betrothed, concerning the route which led to their future abode, its actual position, and the wild and savage nature of the country on which it abutted. all this had naturally enough become known to eadwulf; and he, having once been carried as far as to lancaster by the late lord's equerry, to help in bringing home some recently-purchased war-horses, knew well the general direction of the route, and, having heard, while there, of the fordable nature of the lancastrian sands, made little doubt of being able to find his way to his brother, and by his aid to gain the wild hills, where he trusted to subsist himself as a hunter and outlaw on the vast and untraversed heaths to the northward. it was his hope to gain sufficient start, in the first instance, to enable him to make off so long before his absence should be discovered, that bloodhounds could not be laid on his track until the scent should be already cold; and then keeping the forest-ground, and avoiding all cleared or cultivated lands, to cross the lancaster sands, and thence, by following up the course of the kent river, on which he knew kenric would be stationed as verdurer, to gain the interior labyrinth of fells, moors, morasses, and ravines, which at that time occupied the greater part of westmoreland and cumberland. to this end, he managed to conceal himself at nightfall not far from the quarter, before the serfs had collected in their dormitory, intending to prosecute his flight so soon as the neighborhood should be steeped in the silence of night, and the moon should give him sufficient light to find his way through the deep forest mazes; and thus, before daybreak, was already some twenty miles distant from waltheofstow, where he concealed himself in a deep hazel brake, intending to sleep away the hours of daylight, and resume his flight once more during the partial darkness of the night. it was true that his route lay through the woodland-chase, which spread far and wide over the environs of fenton in the forest, and was the property of his new master; but for this he cared little, since there had been so small intercourse between the tenantry and vassals of his late lord and those of sir foulke d'oilly, that he had no fears of being recognized by any chance retainer whom he might possibly encounter, while he knew that, should he chance to be discovered by a passing serf of his own oppressed race, he should not be betrayed by them to their mutual tyrants. armed, therefore, at large, and already at a considerable distance from the scene of his captivity, he considered himself well-nigh safe when he concealed himself, in the early gray of the dawn, in such a dingle as he felt sure would secure him from the chance intrusion of any casual wayfarers. under one difficulty, however, he sorely labored. he had been unable to carry with him any provision, however slender; and he must depend on his skill as a forester for his sustenance, by poaching in the woods which he had to traverse, and cooking his game as best he might, borrowing an hour or two of the darkness for the purpose, and kindling his fire in the most remote and obscure places, to avoid danger of the smoke being observed by day, or the glare of the fire by night. he had lost his evening meal on the previous day, and the appetite of the saxon peasant was proverbially mighty; while, as is ever the case with men who have no motives to self-restraint or economy, abstinence was an unknown power. it was vastly to his joy, therefore, that when the sun was getting fairly above the horizon, after he had been himself lurking an hour or two in the thick covert, he saw among the branches a noble stag come picking his way daintily along a deer-path which skirted the dingle, accompanied by two slim and graceful does, evidently intending to lay up, during the day, in the very brake which he unwittingly had occupied. he had no sooner espied the animal, which was coming down wind upon him, utterly unconscious of the proximity of his direst foe, then he crouched low among the fern, fitted a quarrel to the string of his arbalast, and waited until his game was within ten paces of his ambush. then the winch was released, the bow twanged, and the forked head of the ponderous bolt crashed through the brain of the noble stag. one great bound he made, covering six yards of forest soil in that last leap of the death agony, and then laid dead almost at the feet of his unseen destroyer. the terrified does fled in wild haste into the opener parts of the forest, and, in an instant, the keen wood-knife of the saxon had pierced the throat of the deer, and selected such portions, carved from the still quivering carcass, as he could most easily carry with him. these thrust carefully into the sort of hunting-pouch, or wallet, which he wore slung under his left arm, he proceeded, with the utmost wariness and caution, to cover up the slaughtered beast with boughs of the trees and brackens, rejoicing in his secret soul that he had secured to himself provision for two days longer at the least, and hoping that on the fourth morning he would be in security, beyond the broad expanse of morecambe bay. but wonderfully deceitful are the hopes of the human heart; and, in the present instance, as often is the case, the very facts which he regarded as most auspicious were pregnant with the deepest danger. even where he had most warily calculated his chances, and chosen his measures with the deepest precaution, selecting the full of the moon for the period of his escape, and choosing the route in which he had anticipated the least danger of interruption, he had erred the most signally. for it had so fallen out that sir foulke d'oilly, having appointed this very day for a grand hunting match in his woods of fenton, had issued orders to a strong party of his vassals, under the leading of black hugonet, his seneschal, and his brother, ralph wetheral, the bailiff, to come up from waltheofstow by daybreak, and rendezvous at a station in the forest not a league distant from the spot in which eadwulf had so unhappily chosen to conceal himself. at the very moment in which the serf had launched his fatal bolt against the deer, the bailiff, ralph wetheral, who was, by virtue of his office, better acquainted with his person than any others of the household, was within a half a mile of his lair, engaged in tracking up the slot of the very animal which he was rejoicing to have slain, by aid of a mute lymer, or slow-hound, of an especial breed, kept and trained for the purpose; and in furtherance of his pursuit, had dismounted from his horse, and was following the dog as he dragged him onward, tugging at the leash; while ten or fifteen of his companions were scattered through the woods behind him, beating them carefully, in order to track the stags or wild boars to their lairs, before the arrival of their lord. it was, perhaps, half an hour after he had discharged the shot, when he was alarmed by a light rustling of the under-wood and the cracking of dry sticks under a cautious footstep, and at first surmised that a second beast of chase was following on the track of his predecessor. but, in a moment, he was undeceived, by hearing the voice of a man whispering a few low words of encouragement to a dog, and at once the full extent of his danger flashed upon him. the dog was evidently questing the animal he had shot, and, within an instant, would lead his master to the spot. under the cruel enactment of the norman forest-laws, to slay a deer was a higher offense than to kill a fellow-man; the latter crime being in many cases remissible on the payment of a fine, while the former inevitably brought down on the culprit capital punishment, often enhanced by torture. to be found hidden, close behind a warm and yet bleeding stag, was tantamount to being taken red-handed in the fact, and instant death was the least punishment to be looked for. discovery was so close at hand, that flight itself seemed impossible; yet in immediate flight lay the sole chance of safety. he had already started from his lair, when the slow-hound, coming on the track of the fresh blood, set up a wild and savage yell, broke from the leash, and in a second was standing over the slaughtered quarry, tearing away with his fangs and claws the bushes which covered the carcass. at the same moment, the branches were parted, and the bailiff of waltheofstow stood before the culprit, carrying an unbended long-bow in his hand, and having a score of cloth-yard arrows at his belt, a short anlace at his side, and his bugle slung about his neck. the recognition on each side was immediate, and the norman advanced fearlessly to seize the fugitive, raising his bugle to his lips, as he came on, to summon succor. but eadwulf, who had already laid a quarrel in the groove of the crossbow, with some indefinite idea of shooting the dog before the man should enter upon the scene, raised the weapon quickly to his shoulder, and, taking rapid aim, discharged it full at the breast of the bold intruder. the heavy missile took effect, just as it was aimed, piercing the cavity of the man's heart, that he sprang a foot or better up into the air, and fell slain outright upon the body of the deer, which his dog had discovered, his spirit passing away without a struggle or a convulsion. the dog uttered a long, melancholy, wailing howl, stooped to snuff at and lick the face of its murdered master, and then, as eadwulf was drawing forth a third quarrel, before he could bend the arbalast again, or fit the missile to the string, fled howling into the wood whence he had come, as if he foresaw his purpose. "a curse upon the yelling cur; he will bring the hue-and-cry down on me in no time. there is nothing but a run for it, and but a poor chance at that." and, with the words, he dashed away toward the northwest, through the opener parts of the forest, at a speed which, could he have maintained it, would have soon carried him out of the reach of pursuit. and wonderfully he did maintain it; for at the end of the second hour he had run nearly fifteen miles from the scene of the murder; and here, on the brink of a small brimful river, of perhaps forty or fifty yards in width, flowing tranquilly but rapidly through the greenwoods, in a course not very much from the direction which he desired to follow, he cast himself down on the turf, and lay panting heavily for some minutes on the sward, until he had in some degree recovered his breath, when he bathed his face in the cool water, drank a few swallows, and then crossing the stream by some large stepping-stones which lay here in a shallow spot, continued his flight with singular speed and endurance. he had not, however, fled above a hundred or two of yards beyond the water, when he heard, at the distance of about three miles behind him, the sound he most dreaded to hear, the deep bay of bloodhounds. beyond doubt, they were on his track; and how was he to shun their indomitable fury? he was a man of some resource and skill in woodcraft, although rude and barbarous in other matters; and, in desperate emergencies, men think rapidly, and act on the first thought. the second tone of the dogs had scarcely reached his ear, before he was rushing backward, as nearly as possible in his own tracks, to the river, into which, from the first stepping-stone, he leaped head-foremost, and swam vigorously and lightly down the current, which bore him bravely on his way. the stream was swift and strong; and its banks, clothed with thick underwood, concealed his movements from the eyes of any one on either margin; and he had floated down considerably more than a mile, before he heard the bloodhounds come up in full cry to the spot where he had passed the water, and cross over it, cheered by the shouts and bugle-blasts of the man-hunters. then their deep clamor ceased at once, where he had turned on his back track, and he knew they were at fault, and perceived that the men, by their vociferations and bugle-notes, were casting them to and fro in all directions, to recover his scent. still he swam rapidly onward, and had interposed nearly another mile between himself and his pursuers, when he heard, by their shouts coming down either bank, that they had divined the stratagem to which he had had recourse, and were trailing him down the margins, secure of striking his track again, wherever he should leave the river. he was again becoming very anxious, when a singular accident gave him another chance of safety. a wood-pigeon, flapping its wings violently as it took flight, attracted his attention to the tree from which it took wing. it was a huge oak, overhanging the stream, into which one of its branches actually dipped, sound and entire below, but with a large hollow at about twenty feet from the ground, which, as he easily divined, extended downward to the level of the soil. no sooner seen, than he had seized the pendulous branch, swung himself up by it, through a prodigious exertion, and, springing with mad haste from bough to bough, reached the opening in the decayed trunk. it was a grim, dark abyss, and, should he enter it, he saw not how he should ever make his exit. but a nearer shout, and the sounds of galloping horsemen, decided him. he entered it foot-foremost, hung by his hands for a moment to the orifice, in hesitation, and then, relaxing his hold, dropped sheer down through the rotten wood, and spiders'-webs, and unhealthy funguses, to the bottom of the tunnel-shaped hollow. aroused from their diurnal dreams by the crash of his descent, two great brown-owls rushed out of the summit of the tree, and swooped down over the heads of the men-at-arms, who just at the instant passed under the branches, jingling in their panoply, and effectually prevented any suspicion from attaching to the hiding-place. for the moment he was safe; and there he stood, in almost total darkness, shivering with wet and cold, amid noisome smells and damp exhalations, listening to the shouts of his enemies, as they rode to and fro, until they were lost in the distance. chapter xvii. the pursuit. "now tell me thy name, good fellow, said he, under the leaves of lyne. nay, by my faith, quoth bold robin, till thou have told mo thine." robin hood and guy of gisborne. until the last glimmer of daylight had faded out in the west, and total darkness had prevailed for several hours through the forest, eadwulf remained a prisoner in his hollow trunk, unable to discover the whereabout of his enemies, yet well-assured that they had not returned, but had taken up some bivouac for the night, not very far in advance of his hiding-place, with the intention of again seeking for his trail on the morrow, when they judged that he would have once more taken the road. but as soon as, looking up the chimney-like aperture of his hiding-place, he discovered the foliage silvered by the moonbeams, he scaled the inside of the trunk, not without some difficulty, working his way upward with his back and knees, after the fashion of a modern chimney-sweep, and, emerging into the open air, drew a long breath, and again lowered himself as he had ascended, by the drooping-branches, and once more entered the channel of the stream. the rivulet was in this place shallow, with a hard bottom, the current which was swift and noisy, scarce rising to his knee, so that he waded down it without much difficulty, and at a tolerable speed. after he had proceeded in this manner about two miles, he discovered a red-light in an open glade of the forest, at a short distance ahead, on the left bank of the river; and, as he came abreast of it, readily discovered his enemies, with the bloodhounds in their leashes, sitting or lying around a fire which they had kindled, ready, it was evident, to resume the search with the earliest dawn. this he was enabled to discern without quitting the bed of the stream, whose brawling ripples drowned the sound of his footsteps; and as the water deepened immediately ahead of him, he again plunged noiselessly, and swam forward at least two miles farther; when, calculating that he had given them a task of two or three hours at least before they could succeed in finding where he had quitted the water-course, if he had not entirely thrown them out, he took land on the opposite side to that, on which they were posted, and struck at his best pace across the waste. it might have been ten o'clock in the evening when he left the oak-tree, and, though weary and hungry, he plodded forward at a steady pace, never falling short of four miles an hour, and often greatly exceeding that speed, where the ground favored his running, until perhaps an hour before daybreak. at that darkest moment of the night, after the moon had set, he paused in a little hollow of the hills, having placed, as he calculated, at least five-and-thirty miles between himself and his hunters, lighted a fire, cooked a portion of his venison, and again, just as the skies began to brighten, got under way, supposing that at about this hour his foes would resume their search, and might probably in a couple of hours get the hounds again upon his scent. ere that, however, he should have gained another ten miles on them, and he well knew that the scent would be so cold that it would be many hours more before they could hunt it up, if they should succeed in doing so at all. all day, until the sun was high at noon, he strode onward across the barren heath and wild moors into which the forest had now subsided, when, after catching from a hill-top a distant view of a town and castle to the northward, which he rightly judged to be skipton, he reached an immense tract, seeming almost interminable, of green, oozy morasses, cut up by rivulets and streamlets, and often intersected by dangerous bogs, from which flowed the interlinked tributaries of the eyre, the ribble, and the hodder. through this tract, he was well aware, neither horse could follow nor bloodhound track him; and it was overgrown in so many places with dense brakes of willow and alder, that his flight could not be discovered by the eye from any of the surrounding eminences. into this dreary region he, therefore, plunged joyously, feeling half-secure, and purposely selecting the deepest and wettest portions of the bog, and, where he could do so without losing the true line of his course, wading along the water-courses until about two in the afternoon, when he reached an elevated spot or island in the marsh, covered with thrifty underwood, and there, having fed sparingly on the provision he had cooked on the last evening, made himself a bed in the heather, and slept undisturbed, and almost lethargically, until the moon was up in the skies. then he again cooked and ate; but, before resuming his journey, he climbed a small ash-tree, which overlooked the level swamp, and thence at once descried three watch-fires, blazing brilliantly at three several spots on the circumference of the morass, one almost directly ahead of him, and nearly at the spot where he proposed to issue on to the wild heathery moors of bolland forest, on the verge of the counties of york and lancaster, and within fifty miles of the provincial capital and famous sands of the latter. by these fires he judged easily that thus far they had traced him, and found the spot where he had entered the bogs, the circuit of which they were skirting, in order once more to lay the death-hounds on his track, where ever he should again strike the firm ground. in one hour after perceiving the position of his pursuers, he passed out of the marsh at about a mile north of the western-most watch-fire, and, in order as much as possible to baffle them, crawled for a couple of hundred yards up a shallow runnel of water, which drained down from the moorland into the miry bottom land. once more he had secured a start of six hours over the normans, but with this disadvantage--that they would have little difficulty in finding his trail on the morrow, and that the country which he had to traverse was so open, that he dared not attempt to journey over it by daylight. forward he fared, therefore, though growing very weak and weary, for he was foot-sore and exhausted, and chilled with his long immersion in the waters, until the sun had been over the hills for about two hours, much longer than which he dared not trust himself on the moors, when he began to look about eagerly for some water-course or extensive bog, by which he might again hope to avoid the scent of the unerring hounds. none such appeared, however, and desperately he plodded onward, almost despairing and utterly exhausted, without a hope of escaping by speed of foot, and seeing no longer a hope of concealment. suddenly when the sun was getting high, and he began to expect, at every moment, the sounds of the death-dogs opening behind him, he crossed the brow of a round-topped heathery hill, crested with crags of gray limestone, and from its brow, at some thirty miles distance, faintly discerned the glimmering expanse of morecambe bay, and the great fells of westmoreland and cumberland looming up like blue clouds beyond them. but through the narrow ghyll, immediately at his feet, a brawling stream rushed noisily down the steep gorge from the north, southerly. headlong he leaped down to it, through the tall heather, which here grew rank, and overtopped his head, but before he reached it, he blundered into a knot of six or seven men, sleeping on a bare spot of greensward, round the extinct ashes of a fire, and the carcass of a deer, which they had slain, and on which they had broken their fast. startled by his rapid and unceremonious intrusion into their circle, the men sprang to their feet with the speed of light, each laying a cloth-yard arrow to the string of a bended long-bow, bidding him "stand, or die." for a moment, he thought his hour was come; but the next glance reassured him, and he saw that his fortune had again brought him safety, in the place of ruin. the men were saxons, outlaws, fugitives from the norman tyranny, and several of them, like himself, serfs escaped from the cruelty of their masters. one of them had joined the party so recently, that, like eadwulf, he yet wore the brazen collar about his neck, the badge of servitude and easy means of detection, of which he had not yet found the means to rid himself. a few words sufficed to describe his piteous flight, and to win the sympathy and a promise of protection from the outlaws; but when the bloodhounds were named, and their probably close proximity, they declared with one voice that there was not a moment to be lost, and that they could shelter him without a possibility of danger. without farther words, one by one they entered the brook, scattering into it as if they were about to pass down it to the southward, but the moment their feet were in the water, turning upward and ascending the gorge, which grew wilder and steeper as they proceeded, until, at a mile's distance, they came to a great circular cove of rocks, walled in by crags of three hundred feet in height, with the little stream plunging down it, at the upward extremity, small in volume, but sprinkling the staircase of rocks, down which it foamed, with incessant sheets of spray. scarcely had they turned the projecting shoulder of rock which guarded the entrance of this stern circle, before the distant bay of the bloodhounds came heavily down the air; and, at the same instant, the armed party galloped over the brow of the bare moor which eadwulf had passed so recently, cheering the fierce dogs to fresh exertions, and expecting, so hotly did their sagacious guides press upon the recent trail, to see the fugitive fairly before them. much to their wonder, however, though the country lay before their eyes perfectly open, in a long stretch of five or six miles, without a bush, a brake, or apparently a hollow which could conceal a man if he were in motion, he was not to be discovered within the limits of the horizon. "by st. paul!" exclaimed the foremost rider; shading his eyes with his hand, to screen them from the rays of the level sun, "he can not have gained so much on us as to have got already beyond the range of eyeshot. he must have laid up in the heather. at all events, we are sure of him. forward! forward! halloo! hark, forward!" animated by his cheering cry, the dogs dashed onward furiously, reached the brink of the rill, and were again at fault. "ha! he is at his old tricks again;" shouted the leader, who was no other than hugonet, surnamed the black, the brother of the murdered bailiff. "but it shall not avail him. we will beat the brook on both banks, up and down, to its source and to its mouth, if it needs, but we will have him. you, wetherall, follow it northerly to the hills with six spears and three couple of the hounds. i will ride down toward the sea; i fancy that will prove to be the line he has taken. if they hit off the scent, or you catch a view of him, blow me five mots upon your bugle, thus, _sa-sa-wa-la-roa_! and, lo! in good time, here comes sir foulke." and thundering up on his huge norman war-horse, cursing furiously when he perceived that the hounds were at fault, came that formidable baron; for his enormous weight had kept him far in the rear of his lighter-armed, and less ponderous vassals. his presence stimulated them to fresh exertions, but all exertions were in vain. evening fell on the wide purple moorlands, and they had found no track of him they sought. wetherall, after making a long sweep around the cove and the waterfall, and tracing back the rill to its source, in a mossy cairn among the hills, at some five miles' distance, descended it again and rejoined the party, with the positive assurance that the serf had not gone in that direction, for that the hounds had beaten both banks the whole way to the spring-head, and that he had not come out on either side, or their keen scent would have detected him. meantime, the other party had pursued the windings of the stream downward, with the rest of the pack, for more than ten miles, at full gallop, until they were convinced that had he gone in that direction, they must long ere this have overtaken him. they were already returning, when they were met by wetherall, the bearer of no more favorable tidings. sorely perplexed how their victim should have thus vanished from them, in the midst of a bare open moor, as if he had been swallowed up by the earth, _aut tenues evasit in auras_, and half suspecting witchcraft, or magic agency, they lighted fires, and encamped on the spot where they had lost his track, intending to resume the research on the morrow, and, at last, if the latest effort should fail of recovering the scent, to scatter over the moors, in small parties or troops, and beat them toward the lancaster sands, by which they were well-assured, he meditated his escape. in the interval, the band of outlaws quickening their pace as they heard the cry of the bloodhounds freshening behind them, arrived at the basin, into which fell the scattered rain of the mimic cataract, taking especial care to set no foot on the moss or sand, by the brink, which should betray them to the instinct of the ravening hounds. "up with thee, wolfric," cried one of the men to one who seemed the chief. "up with thee! there is no time to lose. we must swear him when we have entered the cave. forward comrade; this way lies your safety." and, with the words, he pointed up the slippery chasm of the waterfall. up this perilous ladder, one by one, where to an unpracticed eye no ascent appeared possible, the outlaws straggled painfully but in safety, the spray effacing every track of their footsteps, and the water carrying off every trace of the scent where they had passed, until they reached the topmost landing-place. there the stream was projected in an arch from the rock, which jutted out in a bold table; and there, stooping under the foamy sheet, the leader entered a low cavern, with a mouth scarce exceeding that of a fox earth, but expanding within into a large and roomy apartment, where they ate and caroused and slept at their ease, during the whole day and all the succeeding night; for the robbers insisted that no foot must be set without their cavern by the fugitive, until they should have ascertained by their spies that the normans had quitted their neighborhood. this they did not until late in the following day, when they divided themselves into three parties, and struck off northwesterly toward the upper sands at the head of the bay, for which they had evidently concluded that eadwulf was making, after they had exhausted every effort of ingenuity to discover the means of his inexplicable disappearance, on the verge of that tiny rivulet, running among open moors on the bare hill-sides. so soon as they were certain of the direction which the enemy had taken, and of the fact that they had abandoned the farther use of the bloodhounds, as unprofitable, the whole party struck due westerly across the hills, on a right line for lancaster, guiding their companion with unerring skill across some twenty miles of partially-cultivated country, to the upper end of the estuary of the lon, about one mile north of the city, which dreary water they reached in the gloaming twilight. here a skiff was produced from its concealment in the rushes, and he was ferried over the frith, as a last act of kindness, by his entertainers, who, directing him on his way to the sands, the roar of which might be heard already in the distance, retreated with all speed to their hill fastnesses, from which they felt it would be most unsafe for them to be found far distant by the morning light. the distance did not much exceed four miles; but, before he arrived at the end, eadwulf met the greatest alarm which had yet befallen him; for, just as it was growing too dark to distinguish objects clearly, a horseman overtook him, or rather crossed him from the northward, riding so noiselessly over the sands, that he was upon him before he heard the sound of his tread. though escape was impossible, had it been a foe, he started instinctively to fly, when a voice hailed him friendly in the familiar saxon tongue. "ho! brother saxon, this is thou, then, is it?" "i know not who thou art," replied eadwulf, "nor thou me, i'll be sworn." "ay! but i do, though, bravely. thou art the saxon with the price of blood on thy head, whom the normans have chased these three days, from beyond rotherham. they lie five miles hence on the hither side the lon, and inquired after thee at twilight. but fear not for me. only cross the sands early; the tide will answer with the first gray glimmer; and thou art safe in westmoreland. and so god speed thee, brother." a mile or two farther brought him to the verge of the wet sands, and there in the last brushwood he laid him down, almost too weary to be anxious for the morrow. chapter xviii. the sands. splendor in heaven, and horror on the main! sunshine and storm at once--a troubled day; clouds roll in brightness, and descend in rain. now the waves rush into the rocky bay, shaking the eternal barriers of the land; and ocean's face is like a battle-plain, where giant demons combat hand to hand. ebenezer elliott. it was a wild and wicked morning, in the first red light of which, eadwulf, awakening from the restless and uneasy sleep into which he had last night fallen, among the scattered brushwood growing on the seaward slope of the sand hills of lancashire, looked across the wide sands, now left bare by the recess of the tide, stretching away to the bleak coasts of westmoreland and cumberland, and the huge mountain ridges, which might be seen indistinctly looming up blue and massive in the distance inland, distinguishable from clouds only by the hard abruptness of their outlines, as they cut sharp and clean against the lurid sky of the horizon. along the sea line, which lay grim and dark in ominous repose, the heaven's glared for a span's breadth, as it appeared to the eye, with a wild brassy light, above which brooded a solid belt of purple cloud, deepening into black as it rose upward, and having a distinct, solid-looking edge, scolloped, as it were, into huge rounded masses, as material as if they had been earthy hills, instead of mere piles of accumulated vapor. these volumed masses lay motionless, as yet, in the brooding calm; but, all upward to the zenith, the sky was covered with tortured and distracted wrack-wreaths, some black as night, some just touched by the sun, which was arising unseen by mortal eyes behind the cloud-banks which mustered so thick to the eastward, and some glowing with a fiery crimson gleam, as if they issued from the mouth of a raging furnace. every thing was ominous of a storm, but every thing as yet was calm, tranquil, and peaceful. in the very quiet, however, there was something awful, something that seemed to whisper of coming horror. the wide sands lay gray and leaden at the feet of the observer, reflecting the lowering clouds which overhung them, except where the brassy glare of the horizon tinged their extreme verge with an angry rust-colored hue, that seemed to partake the nature of shadow rather than of light. the face of the saxon fell as he gazed over the fearful waste, beyond which lay his last hope of safety; for, though he had never before seen those treacherous sands, he had learned much of their nature, especially from the outlaws, with whom he found his last shelter; and he knew, that to cross them certainly and in safety, the passenger on foot should set out with the receding tide, so as to reach the mid labyrinth of oozy channels and half-treacherous sand banks, through which the scanty and divided rivers of the fair lakeland found their way oceanward, when the water was at its lowest ebb. instead of this, however, so heavily had he slept toward morning, the utter weariness of his limbs and exhaustion of his body having completely conquered the watchfulness of his anxious mind, that the tide had so long run out, leaving the sands toward the shore, especially at this upper end of the bay, bare and hard as a beaten road, that it might well be doubted whether it had not already turned, and might not be looked for, ere he could reach the mid-channel, pouring in, unbroken, as it is wont to do in calm weather, over those boundless flats, with a speed exceeding that of horses. there was no time for delay, however; for, from the report of the horseman who had overtaken him just before twilight, he could not doubt that his pursuers had not halted for the night farther than five or six miles in his rear; so that their arrival might be looked for at any moment, on any one of the headlands along the shore, whence they would have no difficulty in discerning him at several miles distance, while traveling over the light-colored surface of the sands. onward, therefore, he hastened, as fast as his weary limbs could carry him, hardly conscious whether he was flying from the greater danger, or toward it. he had a strong suspicion that the flood would be upon him ere he should reach the channel of kent; and that he should find it an unfordable river, girdled by pathless quicksands. he knew, however, that be his chances of escape what they might by persisting onward, his death was as certain, by strange tortures, as any thing sublunary can be called certain, should the normans overtake him, red-handed from what they were sure to regard as recent murder. on, therefore, he fled into the deceitful waste. at first, the sands were hard, even, and solid, yet so cool and damp under the worn and blistered feet of the wretched fugitive, that they gave him an immediate sense of pleasurable relief and refreshment; and for three or four miles he journeyed with such ease and rapidity as, compared to the pain and lassitude with which on the past days he had stumbled along, over the stony roads, and across the broken moors, that his heart began to wax more cheerful, and his hopes of escape warmed into something tangible and real. ere long, the sun rose clear above the eastern fog-banks, and all seemed still fair and tranquil; the sands, dry as yet, and firm, smiled golden-bright under the increasing warmth and lustre of the day, and the little rivulets, by which the fresh waters oozed to the deep, glittered like silver ribbons, checkering the yellow expanse. the very gulls and terns, as they swooped joyously about his head, screaming and diving in the sunny air, or skimmed the sands in pursuit of such small fry as might have been left by the retreat of the waters, seemed, by their activity and happiness, to give him fresh hope and strength to support it. occasionally he turned, and cast a hurried glance toward the hills he had just left, down which the slant rays were streaming, to the limit where the green grass and scattered shrubs gave way to the bare sea-sands; and, as from each anxious scrutiny of the ground, he returned to his forward progress without discovering any signs of peril, his face lighted up anew, and he advanced with a freer and a bolder foot. still so weary was he, and so worn with his past toils, that he made but little real progress; and when he had been already an hour on the sands, he had accomplished little more than three miles of his route. the sands, from the point at which he had entered them, over against the city of lancaster, and almost due west from that city to the nearest accessible headland of the opposite shore, were not less than nine miles in extent, the deepest and most dangerous parts being those nearest to the farther coast; but, measured to the place for which he was making, a considerable distance up the estuary of the kent, they were at least three miles longer. two or three channels the fugitive had already crossed, and was rejoiced at finding the sandy bottom, over which the fresh water flowed some two or three inches deep, perfectly hard and beaten; at the end of his third mile he reached a broader expanse of water, where the sands were covered to the width of a hundred yards, and where the current, if that might be called a current which had scarcely any perceptible motion downward, took him nearly to the midleg. the foothold was, moreover, less firm than before, and his heavy brogues sank to the latchet in the yielding soil. this was the course of the first and smaller of the two rivers which fall into the eastern side of the bay from the county of lancaster, and at about two miles distant, he could see the course of the second, glittering blue among the low sand-rollers which divided them. here he paused, undecided, for a few moments. he knew not what should be the depth of the water, or what the nature of the bottom; yet already he almost doubted, almost feared, that the time was passed, and that the tide had turned. he looked southward, in the direction of the sea, which lay broad in view, though at many leagues distance; and, for the first time, it struck him that he could hear the moaning roll of its ever restless waves. he fancied, too, that the sands looked darker and more plashy, and that the silvery line which marked the margin of the waters, where the sun glinted on their quiet ripples, appeared nearer than when he had descended from the solid strand. but, on the other hand, the sun-lighted slopes and crags of the opposite lancastrian shore, near flockborough head, and the green point of westmoreland, between the mouths of windermere and the river kent, lying in the full blaze of the unintercepted morning, looked much nearer than they really were, and seemed to beckon him forward with a smile of welcome. "even if it be that the tide is turning," he thought, "i have yet the time to outstrip it; and, the quicker it mount, the wider the barrier it will place between me and my enemies." almost as these ideas passed his mind, a sound came to his ears, which banished in a moment every thought of the time, the tide, the peril of the sands. it was the keen blast of a bugle, clearly winded on the shore from which he had just departed, but at a point a little higher up, to the northward, than that at which he had himself left it. in an instant, before he had even the time to turn round and take observation, a second bugle, yet farther to the north, took up the cadence, and, as that died away, yet a third, so faint, and so far to the northward, that it seemed like a mere echo of the first, replied. he looked, and, clustered on the brink of the sands, examining the tracks his feet had left on the moist surface, there stood a little knot of three or four horsemen, one of whom it was easy to see, by the glitter of his mail-hood and hauberk, was completely armed. two miles higher up, likewise on the shore, was another group, that which had replied to the first bugle-note, and which was now exchanging signals with those in the foreground, by the wafture of the pennoncelles which adorned their long lances. there was now no longer a doubt. his pursuers had divided themselves into scattered parties, the better to scour the country, two of which had already discovered him, while there was evidently a third in communication with these by bugle-blast, not yet discernible to the eye, but prepared doubtless to strike across the upper portion of the sands near the head of the bay, and to intercept his flight, should he escape his immediate pursuers. another wild and prolonged flourish of the bugle, the very note which announces to the jovial hunters that the beast of chase is afoot, rang wildly over the sands, was repeated once and again; and then, with a fierce shout, spurring their heavily-barbed horses, and brandishing their long lances, the man-hunters dashed forward in pursuit. the first party rode directly on the track of the fugitive, who toiled onward in full view as he ran, terror lending wings to his speed, almost directly northward, with his long shadow streaming westward over the dank sands, cutting the bright sunshine with a blue, rippling wake. the second, taking the passage higher up, rode at an oblique angle to the first pursuers, laying up to the point of westmoreland, in order to cut off the fugitive; and, in a few moments afterward, yet another group might be seen skirting the shore line, as if intent to intercept him in case of his landing. the soil and water, spurned from the feet of the heavy chargers, flew high into the air, sparkling and plashing in the sunshine, like showers of metallic dust. it was a fearful race--a race for life and death, with odds, as it would seem, not to be calculated, against the panting fugitive. at first, the horses careered easily over the surface, not sinking the depth of their iron-shoes in the firm substratum, while the man, whether from fatigue and fear, or that he was in worse ground, labored and slipped and stumbled at almost every step. the horses gained upon him at every stride, and the riders shouted already in triumph. it seemed, indeed, as if his escape was hopeless. the cavalry reached the first channel; it had widened a little, yet perceptibly, since eadwulf had crossed it; but the horses leaped it, or dashed through it, without an effort. the fugitive was now nearly in the middle of the sands; but his pursuers had already crossed, in a few minutes, one half of the space which it had cost him a painful two hours' toil to traverse; and, with at least five miles before him yet, what hope that he could maintain such speed as to run in the ratio of two to three of distance, against the strength and velocity of high-blooded horses? but he had now reached the channel of the beetham-water, and, as he crossed it, he stooped to ladle up a few drops in the hollow of his hand, to bathe his parched lips and burning brow. he saw it in an instant. the tide had turned, the waters were spreading wider and wider sensibly, they were running not slowly upward, they were salt to the taste already. his rescue or his ruin, the flood-tide was upon him; and, strange to say, what at another time would have aroused his wildest terror, now wakened a slight hope of safety. if he could yet reach, yet pass, the channel of the kent, which lay, widening every moment, at some two miles farther yet before him, he might still escape both the cruel waters and the more savage man-hunters; but the distance was long, the fugitive weak with fatigue, weaker yet with fear, and the speed of thorough-bred horses was hard, as yet, behind him. he paused a moment to watch, as the first party, his direct pursuers, reached the broad river-bed--they crossed it, and that seemingly without alarm or suspicion of danger, though their heavily-barbed horses sank belly-deep in the treacherous ford; but having stemmed it, as they charged onward, it was clear to eadwulf that the horses buried their hoofs deeper at every stride; soon they were fetlock-deep in the heavy sands. the second party crossed the same water-course higher up, and with less trouble; and these were now within two miles of the panting slave, shouting their war-cries, and spurring yet more furiously onward, having lost, if they had ever entertained any, all idea of danger, in the furious excitement of the chase, and taking no heed of the tokens of imminent and awful peril; and yet those tokens were now sufficient to appall the boldest. one of the peculiarities of those terrible and fatal sands is, that the first approach of those entering tides, which come on, not with the ordinary roll and thunder of billows and flash of snowy surf, but swift and silent as the pestilence that flies by night, is harbingered by no outward and visible sight or sound, but by the gradual and at first imperceptible conversion of the solid sands into miry and ponderous sludge, into moving quicksand, into actual water. when the sounds and sights are heard and seen, it is too late to make an effort. death is at hand, inevitable. and now sights and sounds were both clear, palpable, nigh at hand. the dull murmur of the inrolling volumes might have been heard by the ears of any, so that they were not jangled and deafened by the clangor of their own iron-harness; the long white line of surf might have been seen by the eyes of any, so that they were not so riveted on some other object, that they could take heed of naught else within the range of their vision. but the pursuers heard, saw nothing--nothing, unless it were the beating of their own savage hearts, the snorting of their laboring chargers, the clanking din of their spurs and scabbards, and the jingle of their chain-mail--unless it were the wretched fugitive, panting along, with his tongue literally hanging out of his parched jaws, and his eyes bursting from their sockets, like those of an over-driven ox, stumbling, staggering, splashing along, often falling, through the mingled sand and water, now mid-leg deep. the party which had taken the sands at the most northern point had now so far over-reached upon the fugitive, that he had no longer a chance of crossing the course of the kent in advance of them. if he persisted in his course, ten minutes more would have placed him under the counters of their horses and the points of their lances. the other body, who had followed him directly, had already perceived their danger, had pulled up, and were retracing their steps slowly, trying to pick their way through the dryest ground, and, coasting up and down the side of the beetham water, were endeavoring to find a ford passable for their heavy horses. lower down the bay, by a mile or two, they were the first to be overtaken, the sands were already all afloat, all treacherous ooze, around them; the banks, dry places there were no longer any, were not to be distinguished from the channels of the rivers. suddenly, seeing himself cut off, blinded by his immediate terrors, and thinking only to avoid the more instant peril, eadwulf turned southward--turned toward the billows, which were now coming in, six feet abreast, not two miles below him, tossing their foamy crests like the mane of the pale-horse of the apocalypse, with a sound deeper and more appalling than the roar of the fiercest thunder. he saw the hopelessness of his position; and, at the same moment, the first horror of their situation dawned on the souls of his savage pursuers. in that one glance, all was revealed to them; every thought, every incident, every action of their past lives, flashed before the eyes of their mind, as if reflected in a mirror; and then all was blank. every rein was drawn simultaneously, every horse halted where he stood, almost belly-deep in the sands, snorting and panting, blown and dead-beat by that fruitless gallop; and now the soil, every where beneath them and about them, was melting away into briny ooze, with slimy worms and small eels and lampreys wriggling obscenely, where a little while before, the heaviest war-horse might have pawed long and deep without finding water; and the waves were gaining on them, with more than the speed of charging cavalry, and the nearest shore was five miles distant. within a furlong, on a solitary black stone, which might overtop the entering flood for an hour's space or better, lay eadwulf, the serf. utterly beaten, unable to move hand or foot, unable even to raise his head, or look the coming death in the face, where he had fallen, there he lay. two minutes, and the farthest of those horsemen might have taken him, might have speared him, where he lay, unresisting, unbeseeching. but none thought of him--none thought of any thing but the sea--the sea. they paused for an instant to breathe their horses, before turning to ride that desperate race--but in that instant they saw such a sight as chilled their very blood. the other party, which had now retreated before the tide to within a mile of them to the eastward, had now determined, as it seemed, at all risks, to force their way back through the channel of the beetham water, and entered it one by one, in single file, the unarmed guide leading, and the mail-clad rider bringing up the rear. each after each, lower they sank and lower, their horses struggling and rolling in the surge. now their croupes, now their withers disappeared from the eyes of the beholders; now the necks only of the horses and the bodies of the riders were visible above the wash. a moment of suspense, almost intolerable, for every one of those mute gazers felt that he was looking on the counterpart and perfect picture of what must in a few minutes, more or less, be his own fate also! a moment, and the guide's horse struggled upward, his withers reappeared, his croupe--he had cleared the channel, he was safe. a light page followed him, with the like success; two half-armed troopers followed; already, presaging safety, a shout of exultation trembled on the lips of the spectators, when the mail-clad rider on his heavy horse reached the mid-passage--reached the spot where his horse should have gradually emerged--then in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, before one could breathe a sigh or syllable, a last "god save him"--he sank, sheer and sudden, as if the bottom had yawned under him, and without an effort, a cry, a struggle, was sucked under. he was there--he was gone; never more to be seen above the face of the waters. at the same instant, just as they uttered one wild cry of horror and despair, or ere they could turn their horses' heads landward, a deep, cold, wet wind breathed upon them; a gray mist swept down on them, out-running the trampling squadrons of the foamy waves; a fierce hail storm smote them; and, in an instant, every thing--shores, billows, skies--vanished from them, wrapped in utter gloom. then they dispersed, each struggling through the rapidly-mounting waters in that direction which he fancied, in his blindness, should be shoreward. no one of them met other, more, in this world. strange it is to tell, but truths are ofttimes very strange, stranger than fiction, at that sharp, awful cry, wrenched by the horrible catastrophe of their comrade from the souls of his pursuers, aroused from the stupor which had fallen upon him, between the excess of weariness and the extremity of despair, eadwulf raised his head. he saw the white surf tossing and breaking furiously in the distance; he saw the long line of deep, unbroken, swelling water, which had not been driven up from the sea, but had gushed and welled upward through the pores of the saturated sand, rolling in five feet abreast, far in advance of the white rollers; swifter than either, darker and more terrible, he saw the ink-black, ragged hail-storm, a mere mist on the waters' surface--but, above, a contorted pile of solid, convoluted clouds, driving in, like a hurricane, before the breath of the rushing southeaster. but, in that one lightning glance, he saw also, on the dark polished surface of the smooth water, in advance of the breakers, under the storm-cloud, a long black object, hurrying down before wind and tide, with speed exceeding that of the fleetest race horse, right upon the spot where he sat, despairing. he recognized it, at once, for one of the leathern coracles, as they were called, or rude fishing-boats of the natives of those wild and stormy shores; the rudest perhaps, but at the same time the most buoyant and seaworthy of boats. she was empty, he saw that at a glance, and rode the waves, outstripping the breakers, gallantly. could he reach her, he might yet be saved. he sat erect on his rock, resolute, with every nerve quivering with intense excitement, with every faculty braced, ready for the last exertion. the cloud fell on him black as midnight; the fierce wind smote his elf-locks, making them stream and shiver in its currents; the cutting hail lashed him with arrowy keenness. quickly as it came, it passed; and a gleam of troubled sunshine shimmered through a rent in the black storm, and glanced like a hopeful smile upon the waters. in that momentary brilliance, the wretch caught a glimpse of the black boat, floating past his solitary rock, and without an instant's hesitation, rushing waist deep into the frothy eddies, fought his way, he never well knew how, through surge and quicksand, till he had caught her by the gunwale. then, spurning the yielding sands with a tremendous effort, he leaped, or hurled himself rather, into her, and lay for a breathing-space motionless, and stunned by the very perception of the strange vicissitude to which he owed his safety. but it was no time for self-indulgence; and, ignorant as he was, semi-barbarous, and half-brutalized, he perceived the nature of the crisis. the oars or paddles by which the coracle was impelled were lashed by thongs to her row-locks, and, getting them out at once, eadwulf plied them vigorously, keeping her right stern before the entering tide, and pulling with all his might, to outstrip the combing of each successive roller. for a short space, the glimmer in the air continued; then the mist gathered down again, and all was gloom, except the white caps of the breakers, tossing and shivering in the twilight. but it was now mist only; the wind had sunk, and the storm-cloud been driven landward. and now, so dexterously had the serf managed his little vessel, that, as he shot away from each combing sea-cap, the surges had swept under instead of over him, and he found himself riding buoyantly on the long, gentle swell, while the surf, gradually subsiding, ran up the sands, murmuring hoarsely far before him. suddenly, close ahead of him, not as it seemed ten yards from the bow of the boat, there arose an angry clash of steel, a loud cry, "jesu! jesu maria!" and a deep groan; and, the next instant, the body of a riderless horse, with its head half submerged, panting and snorting out its last agonies, was swept so close to his vessel that he could have touched it with the oar. one other minute, and a light air was felt sensibly; the mist began to lift and shiver; the darkness seemed to melt, and to be penetrated and imbued with the sunbeams, till it resembled a gauzy screen interposed before a strong light. another moment, and it rose bodily from the water, floated upward into the skies, and left all below laughing, clear in the sunlight. there was no sand now to be seen, save a narrow yellow stripe on the edge of the soft verdant points, which stretched out from the shores of westmoreland, sparkling in the sun and glittering in the rain-drops, into the broad bosom of morecambe bay, which was now filled with the tide, though it had not as yet nearly risen to its highest mark--but here and there, at intervals, dark spots showed in the expanse of waters, where the tops of the highest sand-banks were scarcely submerged at all, on which the gentle eddies rippled and sparkled, as wavelet after wavelet rolled in by its own mounting impulse, but hastened by no angry gust or turbulent billow. on one of these sand-banks, having so long escaped, heaven knows how, quicksands and breakers, and having made his way thus far landward, sat a tall, powerful man-at-arms, sheathed from head to heel in a complete panoply of chain mail. his horse was likewise caparisoned in the heaviest bardings--chamfront and poitrel, steel demipique and bard proper--nothing was wanting of the heaviest caparison with which charger or man ever rode into the tilt-yard or mêlée. the tide was already above the horse's belly, and the rider's plated shoes and mail hose were below the surface. deep water was around him on every side, the nearest shore a mile distant, and to swim fifty yards, much less a mile, under that weight of steel, was impossible; still he sat there, waiting his doom, silent and impassive. he was the last of the pursuers; he alone of the two parties, who but three short hours before had spurred so fiercely in pursuit of the wretched slave, had escaped the fate of pharaoh and his host, when the red sea closed above them. he alone breathed the breath of life; and he, certain of death, awaited it with that calm composure, which comes to the full as much of artificial training as of innate valor. as the clouds lifted, this solitary man saw, at once, the boat approaching, and saw who rowed it--saw rescue close at hand, yet at the same time saw it impossible. his face had hardly the time to relax into one gleam of hope, before it again settled down into the iron apathy of despair. the coracle swept up abreast of him, then paused, as eadwulf, half unconsciously, rested on his oars, and gazed into the despairing and blank features of his enemy. it was the seneschal of waltheofstow, the brother of the man whom he had slain in the forest. their eyes met, they recognized each other, and each shuddered at the recognition. for a moment, neither spake; but, after a short, bitter pause, it was the rider who broke silence. "so, it is thou, saxon dog, who alone hast escaped from this destruction!" "it is i, man-hunter. where are thy boasts and threats now? why dost not ask the serf, now, for life, for mercy?" "because thou couldst not give it, if thou wouldst; and wouldst not, if thou couldst. go thy way, go thy way! we shall meet one day, in that place whither our deeds will carry us. go thy way, unless thou wouldst stay, and look how a norman dies. i fear neither death, nor thee. go thy way, and the fiend go with thee." and, with the word, he went his way, coldly, sternly, pitilessly, and in silence; for he felt, in truth, that the seneschal had spoken truly, that he could not save him if he would, unless he would save his own sworn destroyer. sullenly, slowly, he rowed onward, reached the land; and still, as he looked back, with his horse's neck and his armed trunk eminent above the level waters, glittering in his bright mail, sat the fearless rider. wearied and utterly exhausted, both in mind and body, the serf gazed, half-remorsefully, at the man whom he had so mercilessly abandoned to his fate, and who bore it so sternly, awaiting the last inevitable moment with more than a stoic's fortitude and pride. for a moment he hesitated whether he should pursue his journey; but an irresistible fascination compelled him to sit down and await the end, and he did so. and there those two sat, face to face, at a mile's distance, for a long half hour, in plain view, each almost fancying that he could peruse the features, almost fancying that he could read the thoughts of his enemy--each in agony of soul, and he, perhaps, in the greater anguish who had escaped, as it would seem, all peril, and for whom death seemed to wait, distant and unseen, at the end of a far perspective. at the termination of half an hour, there was a motion, a strife--the water had reached the nostrils of the charger. he tossed his head a few times, angrily; then, after rearing once or twice, with his rider yet erect in his saddle, subsided into deep water, and all was over. eadwulf crept away up the bank, found a thick dingle in the wood, and, coiling himself up in its densest spot, slept, dreamless and unrepentant, until the morrow's sun was high in heaven. chapter xix. the suppliant. brother, be now true to me, and i shall be as true to thee; as wise god me speed. amys and amyllion. the year had by this time worn onward to the last days of summer, or one might almost say to the earliest days of autumn, and the lovely scenery of the lake country had begun to assume its most beautiful and picturesque coloring. for in the early summer months the hues of the whole region are too generally green, without any variation except that produced by the effect of sunshine and shadow. the sides of the turf-covered mountains, the birch and oak coppices on their lower slopes, the deep meadows, at their base, are all overspread with the richest and most intense verdure; even the reflections in the bosom of the clear lakes preserve the same general tints, diversified only by the cerulean blue caught from the deep overhanging heavens, and the not dissimilar hue of the craggy summits of the loftier hilltops, where the slaty character of the rocks, partly impregnated with iron, partly incrusted with gray lichens, "overspread in many places," to quote the words of a fine writer and true lover of nature, "the steep and almost precipitous sides of the mountains, with an intermixture of colors like the compound hues of a dove's neck." "when, in the heat of advancing summer," he proceeds thereafter, "the fresh green tint of the herbage has somewhat faded, it is again revived by the appearance of the fern profusely spread every where; and upon this plant, more than upon any thing else, do the changes, which the seasons make in the coloring of the mountains depend. about the first week in october, the rich green, which prevailed through the whole summer, has usually passed away. the brilliant and various colors of the fern are then in harmony with the autumnal woods; bright yellow, or lemon color, at the base of the mountains, melting gradually, through orange, to a dark russet brown toward the summits, where the plant, being more exposed to the weather, is in a more advanced state of decay. neither heath nor furze are generally found upon the sides of the mountains, though in some places they are richly adorned by them. we may add, that the mountains are of height sufficient to have the surface toward the summits softened by distance, and to imbibe the finest aërial hues. in common also with other mountains, their apparent forms and colors are perpetually changed by the clouds and vapors which float round them; the effect indeed of mist or haze, in a country of this character, is like that of magic. i have seen six or seven ridges rising above each other, all created, in a moment, by the vapors upon the side of a mountain, which, in its ordinary appearance, showed not a projecting point to furnish even a hint for such an operation. "i will take this opportunity of observing, that they who have studied the appearances of nature feel that the superiority, in point of visual interest, of mountainous over other countries, is more strikingly displayed in winter than in summer. this, as must be obvious, is partly owing to the forms of the mountains, which, of course, are not affected by the seasons, but also, in no small degree, to the greater variety that exists in their winter than their summer coloring. this variety is such, and so harmoniously preserved, that it leaves little cause of regret when the splendor of the season has passed away. the oak coppices, upon the sides of the mountains, retain russet leaves; the birch stands conspicuous with its silver stems and puce-colored twigs; the hollies, with green leaves and scarlet berries, have come forth into view from among the deciduous trees, whose summer foliage had concealed them; the ivy is now plentifully apparent upon the stems and boughs of the trees, and among the wooded rocks. in place of the uniform summer-green of the herbage and fern, many rich colors play into each other over the surface of the mountains; turf, the tints of which are interchangeably tawny-green, olive, and brown, beds of withered fern and gray rocks being harmoniously blended together. the mosses and lichens are never so flourishing as in winter, if it be not a season of frost; and their minute beauties prodigally adorn the foreground. wherever we turn, we find these productions of nature, to which winter is rather favorable than unkindly, scattered over the walls, banks of earth, rocks and stones, and upon the trunks of trees, with the intermixture of several species of small fern, now green and fresh; and, to the observing passenger, their forms and colors are a source of inexhaustible admiration."--wordsworth. thus far have i quoted the accurate and simple language of the great poet of the lakes, since, none other that i can choose would place before the eyes of my readers so vivid a reality of the scenery of that loveliest portion of picturesque england, in its finest aspect. it was not, indeed, quite so deep in the season, that all the changes so beautifully depicted above had yet occurred, when, late in a clear autumnal evening, kenric and edith stood together in the porch of their new home, gazing across the tranquil bosom of the little mere, and down the pastoral valley of the kent, yet the face of the picture was close to that described in the quotations. the trees, in the level ground and in the lower valleys, had not lost all their verdure, though the golden, the russet, and the ruddy-red, had intermingled largely with the green; the meadows, by the water-edge, had not changed a tint, a shade of their summer glory, but all the hill-sides were as they stand painted by the poet-pen of the child of nature. the sun was setting far away, to the right hand, as they gazed down the long dale to the southward, behind the mighty tops of hawkshead and blackcomb, which towered against the gorgeous golden-sky, flecked with a thousand glowing cloudlets, orange and rosy-red, and glaring crimson, like a huge perpendicular wall of dusky purple; with the long basin of windermere, visible from that elevation over the lower intervening ridges, lying along their bases as it seemed, though in truth many miles distant, a sheet of beaten-gold. the lower hills, to the west of kentmere, downward to bowness, whose chapel-window gleamed like fire in the distance, were shrouded in soft purple haze, and threw long blue shadows across the rich vale, broken by the slant golden beams which streamed through the gaps in their summits, in far-reaching pencils of misty light. at the same time, the little lake of kentmere lay at the feet of the spectators, still, clear, and transparent as an artificial mirror, giving back a counterfeit presentment of every thing around and above it, only less real than the actual reality; while toward the precipitous and craggy hills, behind them and on their left, the westering sun sent forth such floods of rosy and golden light as illuminated all their projections and cavities, bringing them, with all their accidents of crag or coppice, ivy-bush or silvery birch-tree, close to the eye of the beholder, blended with an intermixture of solemn shadows, seen distinctly through the clear atmosphere. over this scene the happy couple gazed with such feelings as none can gaze, but they who are good and happy. the sleepy hum of the good mother's wheel came drowsily through the open doorway; the distant laugh and cry of the hunter's boys, as they were clearing the kennels and feeding the hounds for the night, with an occasional bay or whimper of their impatient charges, rose pleasantly on the night air. most of the natural sounds and sights had ceased; the songs of the birds were silent, for the nightingales visit not those valleys of the west; the bleat of the flocks was heard no more; the lowing of the herds had passed homeward; only a few late swallows skimmed the bosom of the mere, which a leaping trout would break, now and then, with a loud plash, into a silvery maze of circling dimples; and the jarring note of the nighthawk, as his swift wing glanced under the brown shadows of the oak, in chase of the great evening moths, was heard in the gloaming; and the pinions of the great golden-eagle hung like a shadow, leagues up in the burning sky. perfect contentment was the breathing spirit of the calm and gentle scene, with something of that heavenly peace which induced the friend of izaak walton to apostrophize the sabbath, as "sweet day, so calm, so pure, so bright, the bridal of the earth and sky;" and perfect were the contentment and peace which the adjuncts inspired into the hearts of those, who, of late so hopeless and suffering, now looked over the face of the fair earth, and thence upward to the boundless sky, as who should say, "not in one only, but in both of these, we have our heritage." but while they gazed, the sun sunk lower in the west, the round tops of the vast blue mountains intercepted his lustrous disk, and heavy twilight fell, like the shadow of a cloud, over the valley and the steep faces of the north-eastern hills. just at this moment, while the girl was whispering something about entering the house and preparing the evening-meal, she observed her husband's eye fixed on the declivity of the hills above the lake shore, and, following the direction of his glance, she speedily discovered a dark figure making its way in a crouching attitude among the stunted shrubs, and evidently avoiding, or striving to avoid, observation. something between a shudder and a start seemed to shake the manly form of kenric for an instant; and his young wife, perceiving it as she clung to his arm, looked up to his face for explanation. "something is going wrong up yonder," said the verdurer; "some marauder after the roe-deer, i trow. i must up and after him. give me my bugle, edith, my wood-knife, and my gisarme; i will take the black alan with me; he lies under the settle, by the hearth. fetch them, girl." and while she went, he stood gazing with his hawk's eye on the lurking figure, though it was wonderful, in the distance and gloom, that he could distinguish even the outlines of the human form. yet it was evident that he did distinguish something more than that, for he smote his thigh with his hand heavily, as he muttered, "it is he, by st. edward the confessor! what new disaster can have brought him hither?" the next moment edith stood beside him, bearing the weapons, and accompanied by the great grizzly deer-grayhound. "kenric," she said, as he was leaving her, "this is something more than mere marauders. there is danger!" "i trust not, girl," he answered, kindly; "but if there be, i and black balder here, are men enough to brunt it. but hark you, girl, get supper over as quickly as you may, and have our mother to her chamber, and the varlets to their quarter in the kennels; and do you sit up, without a light, mark me, and, whatever shall fall out, be silent. i may bring some one with me." "i knew it," she murmured to herself, as she turned away to do his bidding. "it is eadwulf. what brings him hither? no good, i warrant me." meanwhile kenric scaled the crags rapidly, with the hound at his heels, and, when he reached the spot where he had seen the figure, halted, and whistled a bar or two of an old saxon ballad of sherwood. it was answered, and from out of the brushwood eadwulf came, cringing, travel-soiled, weary, and disaster-stricken, to the knees almost of his brother. "so. this is thou, eadwulf? i thought as much. what brings thee hither?" "almost as fair cause as i find fair welcome." "i looked for no other. thou art a runaway, then, and pursued? come, speak out, man, if thou wouldst have me aid thee." "thou dost not seem overly glad to see me, brother." "how should i be glad? when did thy presence ever bring joy, or aught else than disaster and disgrace? but speak, what brings thee hither? how hast thou escaped? art thou pursued? what dost thou require?" "last asked, first answered. rest, refuge, clothing, food, asylum. last monday is a week, i _was_ pursued; pursuit has ceased, but i misdoubt me i am tracked. by strong hand i escaped, and fleet foot----" "by red hand?" asked kenric. "ay! red, with the blood of deer!" "and of man, eadwulf? nay! man, lie not to me. dark as it is, i read it in thy black brow and sullen eye." "well, then, man's blood, if you will. and now, will you yield your own brother's life a forfeit to the man-hunter, or the hunter of blood?" "no," answered kenric, sadly; "that must not be. for you _are_ my brother. but i must know _all_, or i will do nothing. you can tell me as we go; my home is in the valley yonder. there you can rest to-night; to-morrow you must away to the wilderness, there to be safe, if you may, without bringing ruin upon those who, doing all for you, look for nothing from you but wrong and ingratitude." "to-morrow! true brotherly affection! right saxon hospitality. our fathers would have called this _nidering_!" "never heed thou that. tell me all that has passed, or thou goest not to my house, even for this night only. for myself, i care nothing, and fear nothing. my wife, and my mother--these, thy blind selfishness and brute instincts, at least, shall not ruin." and thereupon, finding farther evasion useless, as they went homeward by a circuitous path among the rocks and dingles, he revealed all that the reader knows already, and this farther, which it is probable he has suspected, that eadwulf, lying concealed in the forest in pursuance of some petty depredation, had been a witness of the dastardly murder of sir philip de morville by the hands of sir foulke d'oilly and his train, among whom most active was the black seneschal, who had perished so fearfully in the quicksands. "terrible, terrible indeed!" said kenric, as he ended his tale, doggedly told, with many sullen interruptions. "terrible his deed, and terrible thy deeds, eadwulf; and, of all, most terrible the deeds of him who worked out his will by storm, and darkness, and the terror of the mighty waters. and of a surety, terrible will be the vengeance of foulke d'oilly. he is not the man to forget, nor are thy deeds, deeds to be forgotten. but what shall i say to thee, obstinate, obdurate, ill-doer, senseless, rash, ungrateful, selfish? already, in this little time, had edith and i laid by, out of our humble gains, enough to purchase two thirds of thy freedom. ere yule-tide, thou hadst been as free a man as stands on english earth, and now thou art an outlaw, under ban forever, and blood-guiltiness not to be pardoned; and upon us--us, who would have coined our hearts' blood into gold, to win thy liberty--thou hast brought the odor, and the burden, and, i scarce doubt it, the punishment, of thy wicked wilfullness. it were better thou hadst perished fifty-fold in the accursed sands of lancaster, or ere thou hadst done this thing. it were better a hundred-fold that thou hadst never been born." "why dost not add, 'better a thousand-fold thou wert delivered up to the avenger of blood,' and then go deliver me?" "words are lost upon thee," replied his brother, shaking his head mournfully, "as are actions likewise. follow me; thou must have 'tendance and rest above all things, and to-morrow must bring forth the things of to-morrow." nothing more passed between them until they reached the threshold of kenric's humble dwelling, where, in silence and darkness, with the door ajar, listening to every distant sound of the fitful breeze or passing water, the fair young wife sat awaiting them. she arose, as they entered. "ah! it is thou, eadwulf; i thought so, from the first. enter, and sit. wilt eat or bathe first? thou art worn and weary, brother, as i can see by this gloaming light. there is a good bed ready for thee, under the rafters, and in the morning thou wilt awake, refreshed and strong----" "thou thoughtst so from the first. i warrant me thou didst--mayhap thy husband told thee so. brother, too! _he_ hath not greeted me as brother. eat, bathe, sleep? neither of the three, girl. i'll drink first of all; and, if that please thee, then eat, then sleep; and bathe when i may, perhaps not at all." "bring him the mead-pitcher, edith, and the big horn, and then avoid ye. there is blood on his hand, and worse than blood on his soul. leave the meat on the board. i'll see to him." and when his wishes were fulfilled, they were left alone, and a long, gloomy conversation followed; and, if the dark, sullen, and unthankful heart of the younger brother was in no sort touched, or his better feelings--if he had any--awakened, at least his fears were aroused, and, casting aside all his moroseness, he became a humble, i had almost said a craven, suppliant for protection. "protection!" said kenric, "i have it not to give, nor can i ask those who could. i know not, in truth, whether in sheltering you, even now, i do not risk the safety of all that is dear to me. what i can do, i will. this night, and all the day to-morrow, i will conceal thee here, come of it what come may; and, at the dead of the next night, will guide thee, through the passes, to the upper hill country, where thou wilt soon find men, like thyself, of desperate lives and fortunes. money, so much as i have, i will give thee, and food for thy present need; but arms, save thy wood-knife, thou shalt take none hence. i will not break faith nor betray duty to my lord, let what may come of it; and, if i find thee trespassing on his chase, or hunting of his deer, i will deal with thee as a stranger, not as a kinsman. no thanks, eadwulf; nor no promises. i have no faith in thee, nor any hope, save that we two may never meet again. and so, good-night." and with the word, he led him to a low room under the rafters, furnished with a tolerable bed, but remote from all observation, where he was tended all the following day, and watched by edith, or by himself in person, until the next night settled dark and moonless over wild fell and mountain tarn; when he conducted him up the tremendous passes which lead to the desolate but magnificent wilderness, stretching, in those days, untrodden save by the deer, the roebuck, the tusky boar, the gray wolf, or the grizzly outlaw, for countless leagues around the mighty masses of helvellyn, saddleback, and skiddaw, the misty mountain refuge of all conquered races--of the grim celts from the polished romans, of the effete britons from the sturdy saxons, of the vanquished anglo-saxons, from the last victorious normans. they parted, with oaths of fidelity and vows of gratitude never to be fulfilled on the part of eadwulf, with scarce concealed distrust on the part of kenric. it was broad day when the latter returned to his happy home by kentmere; and the first object he beheld was his wife, gazing despondingly on his own crossbow and bolts, each branded with his name--"kenric, born thrall of philip de morville," of which, unwittingly he had disarmed his brother on the night of his arrival. his heart fell as he looked upon the well-known weapons; and thought that probably it was one of those marked and easily-recognized bolts which had quivered in the heart of the bailiff of waltheofstow; but his wife knew not the dark tale, and he was not the man to disturb her peace of mind, however his own might be distracted, by any dubious or uncertain fear. "it is my old arbalast," he said, "which eadwulf brought with him from our ancient home. lay it aside. i will never use it more; but it will be as a memento of what we once were, but, thanks to god and our good lords, are no longer. and now give me my breakfast, edith; i must be at the castle, to speak of all this with sir yvo, ere noon; i will be back to-night, girl; but not, i trow, until the northern bear has sunk behind the hills. till then, may he keep thee!" and he was grave and abstracted during all the morning meal, and only kissed her in silence, and blessed her inwardly, in his own true heart, as he departed. chapter xx. the lady and her lover. fair ellen that was so mild more she beheld triamour the child, than all other men. sir triamour. long before the dawn had begun to grow gray in the east, kenric had taken his way to the castle, by a direct path across the hills to a point on the lake shore, where there always lay a small ferry-boat, for the use of the castellan, his household, and vassals. edith, to whom he had told all that he had extorted from eadwulf, and who, like himself, clearly foresaw difficulty and danger at hand, arising from the conduct and flight of the ill-conditioned and ill-starred brother, went about her household work, most unusual for her, with a melancholy and despondent heart. she, who while a serf had been constantly, almost recklessly gay, as one who had no sorrow for which to care, wore a grave brow, and carried a heavy heart. for liberty, if it give independence to the body and its true expansion to the soul, brings responsibility also, and care. she carolled this morning no blythe old saxon ballads as she kneaded her barley cakes, or worked her overflowing churn; she had this morning no merry word with which to greet the verdurer's boys, as they came and went from her ample kitchen with messes for the hounds to the kennels, or raw meat for the eyasses in the mews; and they wondered not a little, for the kindness and merry humor of their young mistress had won their hearts, and they were grieved to see her downcast. she was restless, and unable, as it seemed, to settle herself to any thing, coming and going from one place to another, without much apparent object, and every half hour or so, opening the door and gazing wistfully down the valley, toward the sea, not across the hills over which her husband had bent his way. it must have been nearly ten o'clock, in those unsophisticated days approaching nearly to the dinner hour, when something caught her eye at a distance, which instantly brought a bright light into it, and a clear, rich color to her cheek; and she clapped her hands joyously, crying, "i am so glad! so glad!" then, hurrying into the house, she called to the boys, giving them quick, eager orders, and set herself to work arranging the house, strewing the floor with fresh green rushes, and decking the walls with holly branches, the bright-red berries of the mountain ash, wild asters, and such late wood-flowers as yet survived, with a spirit very different from the listless mood which had possessed her. what was the vision that had so changed the tenor of her mind? winding through one of those green lanes--which form so exquisite a feature in the scenery of the lake country, with their sinuous, gray boundary stone walls, bordered with ashes, hazels, wild roses, and beds of tall fern at their base, while the walls themselves are overspread with small ferns, wild strawberries, the geranium, and rich lichens--there came a fair company, the persons of which were easily distinguished by edith, in that clear atmosphere, when at a mile's distance from the cottage--a mile which was augmented into nearly three by the meanderings of the lane, corresponding with those of the brook. in the front rode a lady, the lady guendolen, on a beautiful chestnut-colored andalusian jennet, with snow-white mane and tail, herself splendidly attired in a dark murrey-colored skirt, passamented with black embroidery, and above it a surcoat or tunic, fitting the body closely a little way below the hips, of blue satin, embroidered in silver with the armorial bearings of her house--a custom as usual in those days with the ladies as with the knights of the great houses. her head was covered with a small cap of blue velvet, with one white feather, and on her left hand, covered by a doe-skin hawking-glove, was set a superb gosshawk, unhooded, so familiar was he with his bright mistress, and held only by a pair of silver jesses, corresponding with the silver bells which decked his yellow legs, and jingled at his every motion. by her side, attending far more to his fair companion than to the fiery horse which he bestrode, was a young cavalier, bending over her with an air of the deepest tenderness, hanging on her words as if they were more than the sweetest music to his soul, and gazing on her with affection so obvious as to show him a permitted lover. he was a powerful, finely-formed young man, of six or eight-and-twenty years, with a frank open countenance, full of intellect, nobleness, and spirit, with an occasional shadow of deep thought, but hardly to be called handsome, unless it were for the expression, since the features, though well cut, were not regular, and the complexion was too much sun-burned and weather-hardened even for manly beauty. altogether he was, however, a remarkably attractive-looking person. he sat his horse superbly, as a king might sit his throne; his every motion was perfect majesty of grace; and when he smiled, so radiant was the glance lighting up the dark face, that he was, for the moment, actually handsome. he was dressed in a plain, dark hunting suit, with a bonnet and feather of the same hue, and untanned deer buskins, the only ornament he wore being a long blue scarf, of the same color as the surcoat of his mistress, and embroidered, probably by her hand, with the same bearings. the spurs in his buskins, however, were not gilded, and the light estoc, or sharp-pointed hunting-sword, which hung at his left side, showed by its form that he had not yet attained the honors of knighthood. aradas de ratcliffe was the heir male of a line, one of the first and noblest which had settled in the lake country, in the beautiful vale of rydal, but a little way distant to the northward from the lands of sir yvo de taillebois. his father, a baron of great renown, had taken the cross when far advanced in life, and proceeding to the holy land with that disastrous second crusade, led by conrad iii. the german emperor, and louis vii. of france, at the summoning of pope eugene iii., had fallen in the first encounter with the infidels, and dying under shield, knight-like, had left his infant son with no other guardian than his mother, a noble lady of the house of fitz norman. she had discharged her trust as became the character of her race; and so soon as the boy was of sufficient years, he was entered in the household of sir yvo de taillebois, as the finest school in the whole realm for the aspirant to honor in arms. here, as page and esquire, he had served nearly twenty years of his life, first following his lord's stirrup, until he was perfect in the use of his arms, and old enough to wield them; then, fighting in his train, until he had proved himself of such stern fidelity and valor, that he became his favorite attendant, and most trusted man-at-arms. in feudal days, it must be remembered that it was no disgrace to a scion of the highest family to serve his pagehood under a noble or knight of lineage and renown; on the contrary, it was both a condition that must be undergone, and one held as an honor to both parties; so much so, that barons of the greatest name and vastest demesnes in the realm would often solicit, and esteem it as a high favor, to have their sons ride as pages in the train of some almost landless knight, whose extraordinary prowess should have won him an extraordinary name. these youths, moreover, as they were nobly born, so were they nobly entreated; nothing low or mean was suffered to come before them. even in their services, nothing menial was required of them. to arm their lord for battle, to follow him to the tournament or to the field, where to rush in to his rescue if beaten down, to tend his hurts if wounded, to bear his messages, and guard his secrets as his own life, to wait on the ladies--these were the duties of a page in the twelfth century. courage, truth, honor, fidelity unto death, courtesy, humility to the humble, haughtiness to the haughty--these were the lessons taught him. it may be doubted whether our teachings in the nineteenth are so far superior, and whether they bear so far better fruits in the end! be this, however, as it may, aradas de ratcliffe, having grown up in the same household with the beautiful guendolen, though some twelve years her senior, had grown up to love her; and his promise of manhood being in no wise inferior to her beauty, his birth equal to her own, and his dead father an old and trusted friend of sir yvo, he was now riding by her side, not only as her surest defender, but as her affianced husband; it being settled, that so soon as the youthful esquire should have won his knightly spurs, the lands of hawkshead, coniston, and yewdale, should be united with the adjoining demesnes of rydal manor, dim with its grand old woods, by the union of the heiress of de taillebois to the heir of the proud ratcliffes. and now they had ridden forth on this bright and fair autumnal morning, partly to fly their hawks at the herons, for which the grassy meads in the vale of kentmere were famous, partly to visit the new home of guendolen's favorite edith, and more, in truth, than all, to enjoy the pleasure of a loving _tête-à-tête_; for the girl who followed her lady kept discreetly out of ear-shot, and amused herself flirting with the single page who accompanied them; and the rest of the train, consisting of grooms, falconers, and varlets, bearing the hawks and leading the sumpter-mules, lagged considerably in the rear. there was not, however, very much of gayety in the manner of either of the young people; the fair face of guendolen was something paler than its use, and her glad eyes had a beseeching look, even while she smiled, and while her voice was playful; and there was a sorrowful shadow on the brow of aradas, and he spoke in a grave, low tone, though it was full of gentleness and trust. in truth, like jacob of old, when he served for the daughters of laban, the young esquire was waxing weary of the long servitude and the hope deferred. the temporary lull of war, which at that time prevailed over both england and the french provinces belonging to the crown, gave him no hope of speedily winning the desired spurs; and the bloody wars, which were in progress on the shores of the sister island, though fierce and sanguinary enough to satisfy the most eager for the perils and honors of the battle-field, were not so evidently favored by the monarch, or so clear from the taint of piracy, as to justify a cavalier, of untainted character and unbroken fortunes, in joining the invaders. but in this very year had the eyes of all the christian world been strongly turned toward palestine, where baldwin iv., a minor, and a leper, and no match for the talents and power of the victorious saladin, sat feebly on the throne of the strong crusading kings of jerusalem, which was now tottering to its fall, under the fierce assaults of the mussulman. henry ii. and louis of france had sworn to maintain between them the peace of god, and to join in a third crusade for the defense of the tomb of christ and the holy city. in this war, aradas saw the certainty of winning knighthood; but guendolen, who would have armed her champion joyously, and buckled on his sword with her own hand, for any european conflict, shuddered at the tales of the poisoned sarbacanes and arrows with which report armed the gigantic saracens--shuddered at the knives of the assassins of the mountains--at the pestilences which were known to brood over those arid shores; and yet more, at the strange monsters, dragons, and winged-serpents--nay, fiends and incarnate demons--with which superstitious horror peopled the solitudes which had witnessed the awful scenes of the temptation, the passion, and the death, of the son of god. in short, she interposed her absolute nay, with the quiet but positive determination of a woman, and clinched it with a woman's argument. "you do not love me, aradas," she said; "i know you do not love me, or you would never think of speaking of that fearful country, or of taking the cross--that country, from which no one ever returns alive--or, if he do return, returns so bent and bowed with plague and fever, or so hacked and mangled by the poisoned weapons of the savages, that he is an old man ere his prime, and dead before---- no, no! i will not hear of it! no, i will not! i will not love you, if you so much as breathe it to me again, aradas!" "that were a penalty," said the young man, half-sadly smiling; "but, can you help it, guendolen?" "don't trust in that, sir," she said. "one can do any thing--every thing--by trying." "can one, pardie! i would you would show me, then, how to win these spurs of gold, by trying." "i can. be firm, be faithful, and, above all, be patient. remember, without hope, without patience, there is no evidence of faith; without faith, there is, there can be, neither true chivalry nor true love. besides, we are very young, we are very happy as we are; occasion will come up, perhaps is at hand even now; and--and--well, if i am worth having, i am worth waiting for, beausire aradas; and if you don't think so, by'r lady, you'd better bestow yourself where----" "whoop! whoop! so ho! he mounts! he mounts!" a loud shout from the rear of the party interrupted her. in the earnestness of their conversation, they had cleared the confines of the winding lane, and entered, without observing it, a beautiful stretch of meadow-land, intersected by small rivulets and water-courses, sloping down to the lake shore. some of the grooms and varlets had spread out over the flat grass-land, beating the reeds with their hawking-poles, and cheering their merry spaniels. the shout was elicited by the sudden uprising of the great, long-necked hermit-fisher, from a broad reed belt by the stream-side, flapping his broad gray vans heavily on the light air, and stretching his long yellow legs far behind him, as he soared skyward, with his harsh, clanging cry. all eyes were instantly turned to the direction of the shout, and every heart bounded at the sight of the quarry. "whoop! diamond! whoop!" cried the young girl, as she cast off her gallant falcon; and then, seeing her lover throw off his long-winged peregrine to join in the flight, "a wager, aradas. my glove on 'diamond' against 'helvellyn.' what will you wager, beausire?" "my heart!" "nay! i have that already. else you swore falsely. against your turquoise ring. i'll knot my kerchief with it." "a wager! now ride, guendolen; ride; if you would see the wager won." and they gave the head to their horses, and rode furiously. no riding is so desperate, it is said, no excitement so tremendous, as that of the short, fierce, reckless gallop in the chase where bird hunts bird through the boundless fields of air. not even the tremendous burst and rally of the glorious hunts-up, with the heart-inspiring crash of the hounds, and the merry blare of the bugles, when the hart of grease has broken covert, and the pack are running him breast high. in the latter, the heart may beat, the pulse may throb and quiver, but the eye is unoccupied, and free to direct the hand, to rule the courser's gallop, and mark the coming leap. in the former, the eye, as the heart, and the pulse, and the ear, are all bent aloft, up! up! with the straining, towering birds; while the steed must pick its own way over smooth or rough, and the rider take his leaps as they chance to come, unseen and unexpected. such was the glorious mystery of rivers! the wind, what little of it there was when the heron rose, was from the southward, and the bird flew before it directly toward the cottage of kenric, rising slowly but strongly into the upper regions of air. the two falcons, which were nearly half a mile astern of the quarry when they were cast off, flew almost, as it seemed, with the speed of lightning, in parallel lines about fifty yards apart, rising as he rose, and evidently gaining on him at every stroke of their long, sharp pinions, in pursuit. and in pursuit of those, their riders sitting well back in their saddles, and holding them hard by the head, the high-blooded horses tore across the marshy plain, driving fragments of turf high into the air at every stroke, and sweeping over the drains and water-courses which obstructed their career, like the unbridled wind. it was a glorious spectacle--a group of incomparable splendor, in coloring, in grace, in vivacity, motion, fire, sweeping through that panorama of magnificent mountain scenery. the day was clear and sunny, the skies soft and transparently blue; but, ever and anon, huge clouds came driving over the scene, casting vast purple-shadows over the green meadows and the mirrored lake. one of these now came sweeping overhead, and toward it towered the contending birds. the heron, when he saw that he was pursued, uttered a louder and harsher cry, and began to scale the sky in great aërial circles. silent, in smaller circles, towered the falcons, each emulous to out-top the others. up! up! higher and higher! neither victorious yet, neither vanquished. now! now! the falcons are on a level with him, and again rings the clanging shriek of the wild water-bird, and he redoubles his last effort. he rises, he out-tops the hawks, and all vanish in an instant from the eyes of the pursuers, swallowed up in the depths of the great golden cloud. still the harsh clanking cry is heard; and now, as they and the cloud still drift northward, they reappear, now all descending, above the little esplanade before the cottage-door where edith stands watching. the heron is below, falling plumb through the air with his back downward, his wings flapping at random, his long neck trussed on his breast, and his sharp bill projecting upward, perilous as the point of a moorish assagay. the falcons both above him, towering for the swoop, aradas' helvellyn the topmost. he pointed to the birds with his riding-rod triumphantly, and glancing an arch look at his mistress, "helvellyn has it," he said; "palestine or no palestine, on the stoop!" "on the hawks!" she replied; "and heaven decide it!" "i will wear the glove in my casque in the first career," and, as he spoke, the falcon closed his wings and came down with a swoop like lightning on the devoted quarry. the rush of his impetuous plunge, cleaving the air, was clearly audible, above the rustling of the leaves and the noise of the pursuers. but the gallant heron met the shock unflinching, and helvellyn, gallant helvellyn, came down like a catapult upon the deadly beak of the fierce wader, and was impaled from breast to back in a second. there was a minute of wild convulsive fluttering, and then the heron shook off his assailant, who drifted slowly down, writhing and struggling, with all his beauteous plumes disordered and bedropped with gore, to the dull earth, while, with a clang of triumph, the victor once more turned to rise heavenward. the cry of triumph was premature, for, even as it was uttered, brave diamond made his stoop. swift and sure as the bolt of heaven, he found his aim, and, burying his keen singles to the sheath in the back of the tortured waterfowl, clove his skull at a single stroke of the trenchant bill. "hurrah! hurrah! brave diamond," cried the delighted girl. "no palestine! no palestine! for this, your bells and jesses shall be of gold, beautiful diamond, and your drink of the purest wine of gascony." and, giving head to her jennet, the first of all the train she reached the spot where the birds lay struggling on the grass within ten yards of kenric's door, and, as she sprang from her saddle, was caught in the arms of edith. "god's blessings on you! welcome! welcome! dearest lady," cried the beautiful saxon, raining down tears of gratitude. "thanks, edith; but, quick! quick! help me save the falcon, lest the heronshaw hurt him. my life was at stake on his flight, and he has saved my life!" "the heronshaw is dead enough, lady, he will hurt nothing more," said the saxon, following her lady, nevertheless, to secure the gallant gosshawk, which in a moment sat pluming his ruffled feathers, and glaring at her triumphantly with his clear golden eye, as he arched his proud neck to her caresses, on the wrist of his fair mistress. it seemed as though he knew that he had won her wager. the hour of the noonday meal had now fully arrived, and the sumpter mules were soon brought up, and carpets spread on the turf, and flasks and barrels, pasties and brawns, and huge boars' heads unpacked in tempting profusion, and all preparations made for a meal in the open air. but edith pleaded so hard that her dear lady, to whom she owed more than life, whom she loved more than her own life, would honor her humble roof, would suffer the choicest of the viands to be borne into her pleasant, sunny room, and taste her home-brewed mead, that guendolen, who was in rapture at her triumph, readily consented, and aradas, who was pleased to see guendolen happy, made no opposition. so, while amid loud merriment, and the clang of flasks and beakers, and the clash of knives and trenchers, their train fared jovially and lustily without, they feasted daintily and happily within the saxon's cottage. and the sunny room was pleasant; and the light played cheerfully on the polished pewter trenchers on the dresser, and the varnished holly and scarlet berries, and bright wild-flowers on the wall; and the sparkling wood fire was not amiss after the gallop in the clear air; and guendolen preferred the light, foaming mead of the saxon housewife, to the wines of gascony and bordeaux; and all went happily and well. above all, edith gained her point. she got occasion to tell the tale of eadwulf's flight, arrival, and departure, and obtained a promise of protection for her husband, in case he should be brought in question for his share in his brother's escape; and even prevailed that no search should be made after eadwulf, provided he would keep himself aloof, and commit no offense against the pitiless forest laws, or depredations on the people of the dales. many strange emotions of indignation, sympathy, horror, alternately swept through the mind of guendolen, and were reflected from her eloquent eyes; and many times did aradas twirl his thick mustache, and gripe his dagger's hilt, as they heard the vicissitudes of that strange tale--the base and dastardly murder of the noble and good sir philip de morville; the slaying of the bailiff by the hand of eadwulf, which thus came to look liker to lawful retribution than to mere homicide; the strange chances of the serf's escape; the wonderful wiles by which he had baffled the speed of horses and the scent of bloodhounds; and the final catastrophe of the sands, swallowing up, as it would seem, well-nigh all the slaughterers of sir philip, while sparing the panting and heart-broken fugitive. it was indeed a tale more strange and horrible than any thing, save truth. they sat some time in silence, musing. then suddenly, as by an impulse, their eyes met. their meaning was the same. "yes!" he said, bowing his head gravely, in answer to what he read in her look, "there may be an occasion, and a very noble one." "and for such an one, i will bind my glove on your casque, and buckle your sword to your side very gladly." "amen!" said he. "be it as god wills. he will defend the right." so, bidding their pretty hostess adieu, not leaving her without a token of their visit and good-will, they mounted and rode homeward, thinking no more of the sport; graver, perhaps, and more solemn in their manner; but, on the whole, happier and more hopeful than when they set forth in the morning. and edith, though she understood nothing of the impulses of their hearts, was grateful and content; and when her husband returned home, and, hanging about his neck, she told him what she had done, and how she had prospered, and received his approbation and caresses, was that night the happiest woman within the four seas that gird britain. chapter xxi. the arrest. _count._ if thou be he, then thou art prisoner. _tal._ prisoner to whom? shakespeare. for several days after the visit of the lady guendolen and her lover to the house of the verdurer of kentmere, rumors, many of which had been afloat since the catastrophe on the sands, began to increase among the dalesmen, of strangers seen at intervals among the hills or in the scattered hamlets, seeming to observe every thing, but themselves carefully avoiding observation, asking many questions, but answering none, and leaving a general impression on the minds of all who saw them, that they were thus squandered, as it were, through the lake country, as spies, probably of some marauding band, but certainly with no good intent. these individuals bore no sort of resemblance, it was said, or affinity one to the other, nor seemed to have any league of community between them, yet there was an unanimous sentiment, wherever they came and went, which they ordinarily did in succession, that they were all acting on a common plan and with a common purpose, however dissimilar might be their garb, their occupation, or their immediate purpose. and widely dissimilar these were--for one of those suspected was in appearance a maimed beggar, displaying the scallop-shell of st. james of compostella, in token that he had crossed the seas for his soul's good, and vowing that he had lost his left arm in a sanguinary conflict with the saracens, who were besieging jerusalem, in the valley of jehoshaphat; a second was a dashing pedler, with gay wares for the village maidens, and costlier fabrics--lawns from cyprus, and silks and embroideries of ind, for the taste of nobler wearers; another seemed a mendicant friar, though of what order it was not by any means so evident, since, his tonsure excepted, his apparel gave token of very little else than raggedness and filth. nearly a week had passed thus, when, at a late hour in the afternoon, word was conveyed to the castle of sir yvo, under hawkshead, by the bailiff, in person, of the little town of kendal, which lay about midway between kentmere and the bay, that a small body of horse, completely armed, having at their head a gentleman apparently of rank, had entered the town about mid-day, demanded quarters for the night for man and horse, and sent out one or two unarmed riders, as if to survey the country. in any part of england traversed by great roads, this would have created no wonder or surmise; for hundreds of such parties were to be seen on the great thoroughfares every day, few persons at that period journeying without weapons of offense and arms defensive, and gentlemen of rank being invariably attended by bodies of armed retainers, which were indeed rendered indispensable by the prevalence of private feuds and personal hostilities which were never wholly at an end between the proud barons, whose conterminous lands were constant cause of unneighborly bickerings and strife. in these wild rural districts, however, it was quite different, where the roads merely gave access and egress to the country lying below the mountains, but opened no thoroughfare either for trade or travel, there being no means of approach from that side, even to penrith or carlisle, already towns of considerable magnitude, lying but a few miles distant across the vast and gloomy fells and mountains, except by the blindest of paths, known only to shepherds and outlaws, leading through tremendous passes, such as that terrible defile of dunmailraise, famous to this day for its stern and savage grandeur. hence it came, that, unless it were visitors to some of the few castles or priories in the lower valleys, such as furness abbey, calder abbey, lannercost priory, gleaston castle, the stronghold of the flemings, rydal, the splendid manor of the ratcliffes, this fortalice of de taillebois, at hawkshead, and some strong places of the dacres and cliffords, yet farther to the east, not constituting in the whole a dozen within a circumference of fifty miles, no strangers were ever seen in these secluded valleys, without exciting wonder, and something of consternation. so it was in this instance; and so urgent did it appear to sir yvo, that, although he was just sitting down to supper when his officer arrived--for kendal was his manorial town, where he held his courts, leet and baron--that he put off the evening meal an hour, until he should have heard his report, and examined into all the circumstances of the case. then commending his bailiff for his discretion, he dismissed him, with orders to make all speed home again, without signifying at kendal whither he had been, to give all heed and courteous attention to the strangers, keeping ever a sharp eye on their actions, and to expect himself in the burgh ere midnight. this done, he returned to the hall, as calm as if nothing had occurred to move him, though he was indeed doubly moved, both as lord of the manor and sheriff of the country; and, merely whispering to aradas to have fifty lances in the saddle within an hour, and to dispatch a messenger to have the horse-boats ready on the lake, opposite to bowness, took his place at the board-head, with his fair child on his right, and the young esquire on the left, and carved the roe venison and moor fowl, and jested joyously, and quaffed his modicum of the pure light wines of gascony, as if he had nothing on hand that night beyond a walk on the battlements, before retiring. so soon, however, as supper was over, he bade his page go up to his private apartment, and bidding aradas look sharp, for there was little time to lose, he told guendolen, with a smile, that he should make her chatelaine for the night, since he must ride across the lake to kendal. "to-night, father!" she exclaimed, astonished, "why, it is twenty miles; you will not be there before daybreak." "oh, yes, by midnight, girl, if we spur the sharper; and it is partly on your business that i go, too, child; for i fancy there is something afoot, that bodes no good to your friend kenric; but we'll nip it in the bud, we'll nip it in the bud, by st. agatha!" "ah!" said the girl, turning pale, "there will be danger, then----" "danger!" said the old knight, looking at her sharply, "danger, not a whit of it! it is but that villain d'oilly, with a score of spears of sherwood. i must take fifty lances with me, for, as sheriff, i must keep peace without spear-breaking; were it not for that, i would meet him spear to spear; and he should reckon with me, too, for poor sir philip, ere we parted, as he shall do yet, one day, although i see not how to force him to it. so now, kiss me, silly minion, and to bed with you while i go arm me." and the stout old warrior strode up to his cabinet, whence he descended in half an hour, armed _cap-a-pie_ in chain mail, plate armor not having yet come into use, with his flat-topped casque on his head, his heater-shaped shield hung about his neck, and his huge, two-handed sword crossing his whole person, its cross-hilt appearing above his left shoulder, and its tip clashing against the spur on his right heel. as he entered the court of the castle, his men were all in their saddles, sitting firm as pillars of steel, each with his long lance secured by its sling and the socket attached to the stirrup, bearing a tall waxen torch in his right hand, making their mail-coats flash and twinkle in the clear light, as if they were compact of diamonds. aradas was alone dismounted, holding the stirrup for his lord until he had mounted, when he sprang, all armed as he was, into the saddle. the banner-man at once displayed the square banner of his lord, the trumpeter made the old ramparts ring with the old gathering blast of the house of de taillebois, and, two and two, the glittering men-at-arms, defiled through the castle gate, and wound down the steep hill side, long to be traced from the battlements, now seen, now lost among the woods and coppices, a line of sinuous light, creeping, like a huge glow-worm, over the dark champaign. before they reached the lake shore, however, the moon rose, round and red, from behind the yorkshire fells; and, extinguishing their flambeaux, they pricked rapidly forward through the country, which, intricate as it was, soon became as light as at noonday. on the other side of the lake, circumstances of a very different nature, though arising from the same causes, were occurring. early in the afternoon, while kenric was absent on his rounds, a single rider, plainly clad, and unarmed, except his sword, made his appearance, riding up the valley from the direction of kendal, and soon pulling up at the cottage, inquired the road to rydal. then, on being informed that there was no pass through the hills in that direction, and that he ought to have turned off to the eastward, through a gap five miles below, he asked permission to dismount and rest himself and his horse awhile, a favor which edith readily conceded. oat cakes and cheese, then, as now, the peculiar dainties of the dalesmen, with home-brewed mead, were set before him, his horse was fed, and every act of hospitality which could be done to the most honored guest was extended to him. he observed every thing, noted every thing, especially the crossbow which eadwulf had brought with him on his late inopportune arrival, learned the name and station of his entertainer, and how he was the tenant of the lord of hawkshead, yewdale, coniston, and kentmere, and verdurer of the forest in which he dwelt; and then, offering money, which was refused, mounted his horse, and rode back toward kendal more rapidly then he came. so soon as kenric returned from his rounds, he was informed of all that had passed, when, simply observing, "ha! it has come already, has it? i scarce expected it so soon," he bade one of the boys get the pony ready, and prepare himself to go round the lake to the castle, and then sat down with his wife to the evening meal, which she had prepared for him. when they were alone, "now, edith, my dear," he said, "the time has come for which we have been so long waiting. i know for certain that sir foulke d'oilly is in kendal, and our good lord will know it likewise before this time. therefore there is no danger that will not be prevented almost before it is begun. that i shall be taken, either by violence or by legal arrest, this night, is certain--though i think probably by violence, since no true caption may be made after sunset." "then, why not escape at once?" asked his fair wife, opening her great blue eyes wider than their wont. "why not go straight to the castle, and place yourself in my lord's safeguard?" "for two reasons, wife of mine, each in itself sufficient. first, this is my post, and i must hold it, until removed or forced from it. second, my lord deems it best i should be taken now, and the matter ended. but this applies not to you or my mother. the normans must find neither of you here; no woman, young or old, is safe where foulke d'oilly's men are about. you must wrap the old woman as warm as you may, and have her off on the pony to ambleside as quickly as may be. ralph shall go with you. i am on thorns and nettles until you are gone." "i will never leave you, kenric. it is useless to speak of it--never!" "oh! yes, you will, edith," he answered, quietly. "oh! yes, you will, for half a dozen reasons; though one is enough, for that matter. first, you will not see my mother dead through your obstinacy. second, you will not stay to be outraged yourself, before my very eyes, without my having power to aid you----" "kenric!" "it is mere truth, edith. thirdly, it is your duty to go; and last, it is my will that you go, and i never knew you refuse that." "nor ever will, kenric; though it break my heart to do it." "tush! tush! girl; hearts are tough things, and do not break so easily; and when you kiss me to-morrow at the castle, you'll think of this no more. see, here's the boy with the pony and the pillion. now, hurry, and coax my mother out, and get on your cloak and wimple, that's a good lass. i would not have you here when foulke d'oilly's riders come, no! not to be the lord of kentmere. hurry! hurry!" many minutes had not passed, before, after a long embrace, and a flood of tears on the part of edith, the two women mounted on the sturdy pony, the wife in the saddle, and the aged mother seated on a sort of high-backed pillion--made like the seat of an arm-chair--and secured by a broad belt to the waist of her daughter, took their way across the wooded hills toward ambleside, the boy ralph leading the animal by the head, and two brace of noble alans, his master's property, which kenric did not choose to expose to the cupidity of his expected captors, gamboling in front, or following gravely at heel, according to their various qualities of age and temper. the son and husband gazed after them wistfully, so long as they remained in sight; and when, as they crossed the last ridge of the low intermediate hills which divide the narrow glen of the upper kent from the broader dale of windermere, standing out in bold relief against the strong light of the western sky, edith waved her kerchief, he drew his hard hand across his brow, turned into his desolate dwelling, and, sitting down by the hearth, was soon lost in gloomy meditation. darkness soon fell over lake and meadow, mountain and upland. hundreds of stars were twinkling in the clear sky, to which a touch of frost, not unusual at this early season among those hill regions, had lent an uncommon brilliance, but the moon had not yet risen. kenric was now becoming restless and impatient, and, as is frequently the case when we are awaiting even the most painful things, which we know to be inevitable, he soon found himself wishing that the time would come, that he might know the worst, and feeling that the suspense was worse than almost any reality. several times he went to the door, and stood gazing down the valley, over the brown woods and gray, glimmering waters, to look and listen, if he might discover any signs of the coming danger. but his eyes could penetrate but a little way into the darkness, and no sounds came to his ears, but the deep sough of the west wind among the pine boughs of the mountain top, the hoarse ripple of the brook brawling against the boulders which lay scattered in its bed, and the hooting of the brown owls, answering each other from every ivy-bush and holly-brake on the wooded hill-sides. nothing could be more calm or peaceful than the scene, nothing less indicative of man's presence, much more of his violence and angry passions. not even the baying of a solitary house-dog awoke the echoes, though oftentimes the wild, yelping bark of the fox came sharp from the moorland, and once the long-drawn howl of a wolf, that most hideous and unmistakable of savage cries, wailed down the pass like the voice of a spirit, ominous of evil. the hunter's spirit was aroused in the watcher by the familiar sound. he listened intently, but it was heard no more, and, shaking his head, he muttered to himself, "he is up in the dark corrie under norton pike; i noted the wool and bones of lambs, and the spoil of hares there, when i was last through it, but i laid the scathe to the foxes. i knew not we had a wolf so nigh us. well, if they trap not me to-night, i'll see and trap that other thief to-morrow. and thinking of that, since they come not, i trow there is no courtesy compels me to sit up for them, and there's some thing in my head now that chimes a later hour than vespers. i'll take a night-cap, and lay me down on the settle. gilbert, happy dog, has been asleep there on the hearth these two hours;" and, suiting the action to the word, he drew a mighty flagon of mead, quaffed it to the dregs, and, throwing a heavy wooden bar across the door, wrapped his cloak about him, and, casting himself on a settle in the chimney corner, was soon buried in deep slumber. when he woke again, which he did with a sudden start, the moon was shining brightly through the latticed casements, and there were sounds on the air which he easily recognized as the clash of mail coats and the tramp of horses, coming up at a trot over the stony road. looking out from a loop beside the door, he perceived at once that the moment he expected had arrived. ten men, heavily armed, but wearing dark-colored surcoats over their mail, and having their helmets cased with felt, to prevent their being discovered by the glimmering of the steel in the moonlight, had ridden up to the foot of the little knoll on which the cottage stood, and were now concerting their future movements. while he gazed, nine of the men dismounted, linking their horses, and leaving them in charge of the tenth. four then filed off to keep watch, and prevent escape from the rear, or either end of the building; and then, at a given signal, the others marched up to the door, and the leader struck heavily on the panel with the haft of a heavy battle-ax, crying, "open! on pain of death! open!" "to whom? what seek you?" asked kenric, whose hand was on the bar. "to me, foulke d'oilly. i seek my fugitive villeyn, eadwulf the red. we have traced him hither. open, on your peril, or take the consequence." "the man is not here; natheless, i open," replied kenric; and, with the word, he threw open the door; and the men-at-arms rushed in, brandishing their axes, as if they expected resistance. but the saxon stood firm, tranquil, and impassive, on his hearthstone, and gave no pretext for violence. "and who may you be, sirrah," cried the leader, checking the rudeness of his vassals for the moment, "who brave us thus?" "far be it from me," said he, "to brave a nobleman. i am a free saxon man, kenric, the son of werewulf, tenant in fee to my lord of taillebois, and his verdurer and forester for this his manor of kentmere." "thou liest," said one of the men-at-arms. "thou art eadwulf the red, born thrall of sir philip de morville, on his manor of waltheofstow, and now of sir foulke d'oilly, who has succeeded to the same." "thou liest!" replied kenric, stoutly. "and i will prove it on thy body, with permission of sir foulke d'oilly, with quarterstaff or gisarme, battle-ax or broadsword." "art sure this is he, damian? canst swear to the man? is there any other here, who knows the features of the fellow eadwulf, to witness them on oath? light yonder cresset from the embers on the hearth; advance it to his face! now, can you swear to him?" the torch was thrust so rudely and so closely into his face, that it actually singed his beard; yet he started not, nor flinched a hair's breadth. "i can," said the man who had first spoken, stubbornly. "that is eadwulf the red. i have seen him fifty times in the late sir philip's lifetime; and last, the day before he fled and slew your bailiff of waltheofstow in the forest between thurgoland and bolterstone, in september. i will swear to him, as i live by bread, and hope to see paradise." "and i," exclaimed another of the men, after examining his features, whether deceived by the real similitude between them and his brother, which did amount to a strong family likeness, though the color of the hair and the expression of the two men were wholly dissimilar, or only desirous of gratifying his leader. "i know him as well as i do my own brother. i will swear to him any where." "you would both swear falsely," said kenric, coolly. "eadwulf is my brother, son of werewulf, son of beowulf, once henchman to waltheof, of waltheofstow, and a free saxon man before the conquest." "i will swear to him, also," cried a third man, who had snatched down the fatal crossbow and bolts from above the chimney. "kenric and eadwulf are but two names for one man; and here is the proof. this crossbow, with the name kenric burned into the stock, is that which eadwulf carried on the day when he fled; and these quarrels tally, point for point, with those which were found in the carcass of the deer he slew, and in the body of the bailiff he murdered!" "ha! what say you to that, sirrah?" "that it is my crossbow; that my name is kenric, by-named the dark; that i am, as i said before, a free saxon, and have dwelt here on kentmere since the last days of july; so that i could have slain neither deer nor bailiff, between thurgoland and bolterstone, in september. that is all i have to say, sir foulke." "and that is nothing," he replied. "so thou must go along with us. wilt go peaceably, too, if thou art wise, and cravest no broken bones." "have you a writ of _neifty_[ ] for me, sir foulke?" asked kenric, respectfully, having been instructed by sir yvo. [ ] _de nativo habendo._--howell's state trials, , note. "tush! dog, what knowest thou of _neifty_? no, sirrah, i seize mine villeyn, of mine own right, with mine own hand. what sayst to that?" "that you must seize me, to seize justly, by the sheriff; and i deny the villeynage, and claim trial." "and i send you, and your denial, and your _neifty_, to the fiend who hatched them. you are my slave, my born slave; and in my dungeons of waltheofstow will i prove it to you. hugo, raoul, damian, seize him, handcuff his wrists behind him, drag him along if he resist." "i resist not," said kenric. "i yield to force, as i hold you all to witness; you above all, gilbert," addressing the boy who stood staring, half-awake, while they were manacling his hands. "but i pray you, sir foulke, to take notice that in this you do great wrong to my good lord, sir yvo de taillebois, both that he is the lord of hawkshead, coniston, and yewdale, and of this manor of kentmere on which you now trespass, and that he is the sheriff of these counties of lancaster and westmoreland, where you wrongfully seize jurisdiction. and this i notify you, that he will seek the right at your hands, and that speedily." "dog! saxon! slave! dirt of the earth! do you dare threaten me?" cried the fierce baron, purposely lashing himself into fury; and he strode up to the helpless man, whose arms were secured behind his back, and smote him in the mouth with his gauntleted-hand, that the blood gushed from his lips, and streamed over all the front of his leathern hunting-shirt. "that, to teach thee manners. now, then, bring him along, men; set him on the black gelding, chain his legs fast under the brute's belly, ride one of you at each side, and dash his brains out with your axes if he look like escaping. away! away! i would be at kendal before they ring the prime,[ ] and at lonsdale before matins.[ ] so shall we be well among the yorkshire fells before daybreak." [ ] prime was the first service, and began the instant midnight had sounded. [ ] matins was the second service, at a.m. his words were obeyed without demur or delay, and within five minutes the saxon was chained on the back of a vicious, ill-conditioned brute, with a savage ruffian on either side, glaring at him through the bars of their visors, as if they desired no better than a chance to brain him, in obedience with orders; and the whole party, their horses being quite fresh, were thundering down the dale at a pace that would bring them to kendal long enough before midnight. chapter xxii. the sheriff. "the sheriff, with a monstrous watch, is at the door." king henry iv. two hours' hard riding, considering that the riders were men armed in heavy mail, brought the party into the narrow, ill-paved streets of kendal, at least two hours earlier than the time specified by sir foulke d'oilly, and it was not above ten o'clock of the night when they pulled up before a long, low, thatched cabin, above the door of which, a bush and a bottle, suspended from a pole, gave note that it was a house of entertainment. flinging his rein to one of half-a-dozen grooms and horse-boys, who were lounging about the gate, the knight raised the latch, and entered a long, smoky apartment, which seemed to occupy the whole ground floor of the building, affording room for the accommodation of fifty or sixty guests, on occasion of feasts, fairs, or holidays. it was an area of thirty or forty feet in length, by ten or twelve in width, with bare rough-cast walls, and bare rafters overhead, blackened by the smoke which escaped from the ill-constructed chimneys at either end, and eddied overhead in a perennial canopy of sable. the floor, however, was strewed with fresh green rushes, green wreaths and branches were hung on the rough-cast walls, and a large earthen-vase or two of water-lilies and other showy wild-flowers adorned the board, which was covered with clean white napery of domestic fabric. at the upper end of this long table, half-a-dozen or eight men were supping on a chine of hill-kid, with roasted moor-fowl and wild-ducks, the landlord of the tavern being the bailiff of the town, and having his lord's license to take all small game, save bustard, heron, woodcock, and pheasant, for the benefit of his guest-table. on the entrance of sir foulke, these men rose to their feet; and one, the best-armed and best-looking of the party, seeming to be a second esquire or equerry, asked him, in a subdued voice-- "what fortune, sir foulke; have you got the villeyn?" "safe enough, fitz hugh," replied the knight; "but he is no mere brute, as you fellows told me, but a perilous, shrewd, intelligent, clear-headed saxon. he has been advised, too, in this matter, by some one well-skilled in the law, and was, i think, expecting our coming. i should not marvel much, if de taillebois have notice of us. we must be in the saddle again as soon as possible. but i must have a morsel ere we start; i have not tasted aught since high-noon, and then it was but a beggarly oat-cake and a flask of mead. what have you there?" "some right good treble ale, beausire; let me fill you a tankard, and play cup-bearer for once." and, suiting the action to the word, he filled out a mighty horn of the liquid amber, capped with its snowy foam, and handed it to the knight, adding, "the supper is but fragments, but there is more at the fire now. i will go to the stables, and see the fresh horses saddled and caparisoned; and as i pass the buttery and tap, i will stir up the loitering knaves." "do so, fitz hugh," replied the other; "but hasten, jesu maria! hasten! i reckon but half done until we are out of this beggarly hole, and under way for merry yorkshire. and hark you, fitz hugh, let them bring in the prisoner. we must have him along with us; and ten of the best men, lightly armed, and mounted on the pick of our stud. ten more may tarry with the tired beasts we have just used, and bring them on with the baggage and sumpter horses to-morrow." then, as his officer left the hall to attend to his multifarious duties, he quaffed another huge flagon of the strong, heady ale; and, casting himself into a settle in the chimney-corner, what between the warmth of the fire, grateful after his hard ride in the chilly night air, and the fumes of the heady tankard, he sunk into a doze, from which he only aroused himself, when, half an hour afterward, in came a dozen clumsy village servants, stamping and clattering in their heavy-clouted shoes, and loaded the table with smoking platters and huge joints, of which, however coarse the cookery, the odors were any thing but unsavory. to supper accordingly he now applied himself, two or three of the men who had been with him at the seizure of kenric, crowding into the room and taking the lower end of the table, where another great fire was blazing, and others coming in and out in succession, until all were satisfied. it is, however, remarkable, as in character with the sensual, self-indulgent, and unrestrained temperament of this most unworthy and unknightly norman, his race being, of all the northern tribes, that least addicted to gluttony and drunkenness, and priding itself on moderation and decorum at the table, that, notwithstanding his earnest desire to depart from his somewhat perilous situation, he yet yielded to his appetites, and lingered over the board, though it offered nothing beyond coarse viands and strong ale, long after the horses were announced to be in readiness. at length he rose, washed his hands, and calling his page to replace such portions of his armor as he had laid aside, was preparing to move in earnest, when the well-known clash of mail-coats and the thick trampling of a numerous squadron coming up the village street gave notice that he was surprised. the next moment, a man-at-arms rushed into the room, with dismay in his face. "lances, my lord of d'oilly," he cried; "lances and a broad banner! there are full fifty of them coming up the street from the northward, and some of the grooms who were on the out-look report more spears to the south. we are surrounded." "call in the men hither from the stables, then; let them cut short their lances to six feet, and bring their maces and battle-axes; we can make a stout stand here, and command good terms at the worst." time, however, was short, and his orders were but partially obeyed, the men coming in by twos and threes from the stables in the rear, looking gloomy and dispirited, when a trumpet was blown clearly without, and, the cavalcade halting, in mass, in front of the hostelry, a fine deep voice was heard to cry; "what men be these? who dare lift spears, or display banners, in my town of kendal, without license of me?" "it is de taillebois," said d'oilly; "it avails nothing to resist. throw the doors open." but, as he spoke, the reply of his lieutenant was heard to the summons; "we be sir foulke d'oilly's men, and we dare lift spear and display banner, wheresoever our lord order us." "well said, good fellow!" answered the powerful voice of the old knight. "go in, therefore, and tell your lord that the sheriff of lancaster is at the door, with fifty lances, to inforce the king's peace; and that he draw in his men at once, or ere worse come of it, and show cause what he makes here, in effeir of war, in my manor of kendal, and the king's county of westmoreland." d'oilly set his teeth hard, and smote the table with his gauntleted hand. "curses on him," he muttered, "he hath me at advantage." then, as he received the summons, "pray the lord of taillebois," he said; "he will have the courtesy to set foot to ground, and enter in hither, that we hold conference." again the voice was heard without, "ride to the bridge, huon, at the town end, and call me aradas." there was a short pause, and then, as the gallop of a horse was heard coming up to the house, the orders were given to dismount, link bridles, and close up to the doors; and at the next instant, sir yvo entered, stooping his tall crest to pass the low-browed door, followed by his trusty squire, aradas de ratcliffe, and half-a-dozen others of his principal retainers, one or two of them wearing knightly crests upon their burgonets. the first words the knight uttered, as he raised his avantaille and gazed about him, were "st. agatha, how hot it is, and what a reek of peat-smoke and ale! open those windows, some of you, to the street, and let us have a breath of heaven's fresh air. the lord, he knows we need it." in a moment, the thick-wooden shutters and lattices, which had been closed by those within on the first alarm of his coming, were cast wide open, and the spaces were filled at once by the stalwart forms and resolute faces of the men-at-arms of de taillebois, in such numbers as to render treachery impossible, if it had been intended. then, for the first time, did sir yvo turn his eyes toward the intruder, who stood at the farther end of the hall, irresolute how to act, with his men clustered in a sullen group behind him, and the prisoner kenric held firmly by the shoulders by two stout troopers. "ha! sir foulke d'oilly," he said, with a slight inclination of his head. "to what do i owe the honor of receiving that noble baron in my poor manor of kendal; and wherefore, if he come in courtesy and peace, do i not meet him rather in my own castle of hawkshead, where i might show him fitting courtesy, than in this smoky den, fitter for saxon churls than norman nobles?" "to be brief, my lord," replied d'oilly, with a voice half conciliatory, half defiant, "i came neither in enmity, nor yet in courtesy, but to reclaim and seize my fugitive villeyn yonder, eadwulf the red, who hath not only killed deer in my chase of fenton in the forest, but hath murdered my bailiff of waltheofstow, and now hath fled from me, against my will; and i find him here, hidden in an out corner of this your manor of kentmere, in kendal." "there is some error here, sir foulke," said de taillebois, firmly. "that man, whom i see some one hath brutally misused, of which more anon, is not called eadwulf at all, but kenric. nor is he your serf, fair sir, nor any man's serf at all, or villeyn, but a free englishman, as any who stands on this floor. i myself purchased and manumitted him in this july last past, for that he saved the life of my child, the lady guendolen, at risk of his own. of this i pledge my honor, as belted knight and norman noble." "i know the fellow very well, sir yvo," answered the other, doggedly. "four or five of my men here can swear to the knave; and we have proof positive that he is the man who shot a deer about daybreak, and murdered my bailiff on the thirteenth day of september last, in my forest between the meres of thurgoland and bolterstone, in sherwood." "the thirteenth day of last september?" said de taillebois, thoughtfully. "ha! aradas, fitz adhelm, was't not on that day we ran the big mouse-colored hart royal, with the black talbots, from high yewdale, past grisdale pike, to the skirts of skiddaw?" "surely it was, sir yvo," answered both the gentlemen in a breath. "there is some error here, sir foulke," repeated the sheriff, "but the law will decide it. and now, speaking of the law, sir baron, may i crave, by what right, or form of law, you have laid hands on this man, within the jurisdiction of my manor, and under the shadow of night? i say, by what warrant have you done this?" "by the same right, and form, and warrant, by which, wherever i find my stolen goods, there i seize them! by the best law of right; that is, the law of might." "the law of might has failed you, for this time, sir foulke." "that is to say, you being stronger, at this present time, than i, will not allow me to carry off my villeyn, whom i have justly seized." "whom you have most unjustly, most illegally, seized, sir foulke. you know, as well as i, or ought to know, that if you proceed by seizure, it must be upon oath; and none can seize within this shire, but i, the sheriff of it. or if you proceed by writ _de nativo habendo_, no one can serve that writ, within this shire, but i, the sheriff of it. what! when a man can not seize and sell an ox or an ass, that is claimed by another, without due process of law, shall he seize and take, that which is the dearest thing any man hath, even as dear as the breath of his nostrils, his right to himself, his liberty, without any form at all? no, sir foulke, no! our english law presumes every man free, till he be proved a slave; and no man, who claims freedom, can be deprived of freedom, no, not by my lord the king himself in counsel, except upon the verdict of an english jury. but do i understand aright? does this man eadwulf, or kenric, claim to be free, or confess himself to be a villeyn?" "i claim to be a freeman, sir yvo; and i demand liberty to prove it," cried kenric. "i warned sir foulke d'oilly, when he seized me in my cottage by kentmere, as i can prove by the boy gilbert, that i am a freeman, and that were i a villeyn and a fugitive, to make a true seizure, it must be made by the sheriff." "ha! thou didst--didst thou. thou art learned in the law, it seems." "it behooves an englishman, beausire, to know the law by which to guard his liberty, seeing that it is the dearest thing he hath, under heaven. but i am not learned; only i had good advice." "so it seems. and you deny to be a villeyn, and claim to prove your liberty?" "before god, i do, and your worship." "summon my bailiff, aradas; he is a justice of peace for the county, and will tell us what is needed. i will give you this benefit, sir foulke, though you are in no wise entitled to it. because it is on my own ground, and on the person of my own man, you have made this seizure, i will allow it to stand good, as if made legally, in due form. had it been made elsewhere, within the county, i would have held it null, and committed you for false imprisonment, and breach of the king's peace. but no man shall say i avenge my own private griefs by power of my office. now, bailiff, art thou there?" "so please you, sir yvo, i have been here all the evening, and am possessed of the whole case." "well, then, what needs this man kenric?" "a writ, my lord, _de libertate probanda_. i have it here, ready." "recite it to us then, in god's name, and make service of it; for i am waxing weary of this matter." thus exhorted, the bailiff lifted up his voice and read, pompously but distinctly, the following form; and then, bowing low, handed it to the sheriff, calling on two of the men-at-arms, whose names were subscribed, to witness the service: "king henry ii. to the sheriff of lancaster and westmoreland, greeting--kenric, the son of werewulf, of kentmere, in westmoreland, has showed to us, that whereas he is a free man, and ready to prove his liberty, sir foulke d'oilly, knight and baron of waltheofstow and fenton in the forest of sherwood, in yorkshire, claiming him to be his nief, unjustly vexes him; and therefore we command you, that if the aforesaid kenric shall make you secure touching the proving of his liberty, then put that plea before our justices, at the first assizes, when they shall come into those parts, to wit, in our good city of lancaster, on the first day of december next ensuing, because proof of this kind belongeth not to you to take; and in the mean time cause the said kenric to have peace thereupon, and tell the aforesaid sir foulke d'oilly that he may be there, if he will, to prosecute thereof, against the aforesaid kenric. and have there this writ. "_witness_: { william fitz adhelm. { hugo le norman. "this tenth day of october, in the year of grace, . kendal, county of westmoreland." "well, there is a bail-bond needed, is there not, bailiff?" "it is here, sir. william fitz adhelm, knight, and aradas de ratcliffe, esquire, both of the county of westmoreland, are herein bound, jointly and severally, in the sum of two thousand marks, that kenric, as aforesaid, shall appear at the lancaster assizes next ensuing, and show cause why he is a freeman, and not a villeyn, as claimed, of sir foulke d'oilly, as aforesaid. this is according to the law of england, and kenric may go his way until the time of the assize, none hindering him in his lawful business." "therefore," said sir yvo de taillebois, "i will pray sir foulke d'oilly to command his vassals, that they release the man kenric forthwith, nor force me to rescue him by the strong hand." d'oilly, who, during all these proceedings, to which, however unwilling, he was compelled to listen without resistance, had sat on the settle in the chimney corner, in a lounging attitude, gazing into the ashes of the wood fire, and affecting to hear nothing that was passing, rose to his feet sullenly, shook himself, till every link of his mail clashed and rang, and uttered, in a tone more like the short roar of a disappointed lion than the voice of a man, the one word, "_lachez!_" then turning to sir yvo, he said-- "and now, sir, i suppose that i, too, like this saxon cur, about whom there has been so much pother, may go about my lawful business, none hindering me." "so much so, sir foulke, that if you will do me the favor to order your horses, i will mount on the instant, and escort you to the boundary of the shire. you, kenric, tarry here with my harbinger, and get yourself into more fitting guise to return to the castle. now, master bailiff, in quality of host, can you not find a flask of something choicer than your ale and metheglin? ha! wine of anjou! this will wash the cobwebs of the law out of my gullet, rarely. i was nigh choked with them, by st. agatha! sir foulke, i hear your horses stamping at the door. will it please you, mount? it draws nigh to morning." "i will mount," he replied fiercely, "when i am ready; and so give you short thanks for scanty courtesy." "the less we say, i think, about courtesy, sir foulke d'oilly, the better," said sir yvo, sternly; "for courtesy is not, nor ever can be, between us two, until i am certified how my dear friend and comrade in arms, sir philip de morville, came by his death in sherwood forest." the baron glared at him fiercely under the rim of his raised avantaille; then dashed the vizor down over his scowling features, that none might read their fell expression; clinched his gauntleted hand, and dashed it against the shield which hung about his neck, in impotent fury. but he spoke no word more, till they parted, without salutation or defiance, on a bare moor, where the three shires of york, lancaster, and westmoreland, meet, at the county stone, under the looming mountain masses of whernside. chapter xxiii. the trial. _duke._ what, is antonio here? _ant._ ready, so please your grace. _duke._ i am sorry for thee. thou art come to answer a strong adversary, an inhuman wretch. merchant of venice. there is nothing in all the reign of that wise, moderate, and able prince, as viewed according to the circumstances of his position and the intelligence of his era, the second henry of england, so remarkable, or in his character so praiseworthy, as his efforts to establish a perfect system both of judiciary power and of justice throughout england. in these efforts he more than mediately succeeded; and, although some corruptions continued to exist, and some instances of malfeasance to occur, owing in some degree to the king's own avaricious temperament and willingness to commute punishments, and perhaps, at times, even prosecutions, for pecuniary fines, justice was not for many centuries more equitably administered, certainly not four hundred years afterward, in the reign of the eighth monarch of the same christian name, than in the latter portion of the twelfth century. at this period, that justly celebrated lawyer, ranulf de glanville, was high justiciary of england, besides holding the especial duty of administering justice, at the head of five others, in the circuit courts of all the counties north of the trent; and he has left it on record "that there was not now in the king's court one judge, who dared swerve from the path of justice, or to pronounce an opinion inconsistent with truth." during the six weeks, which intervened between the liberation of kenric from the arrest of sir foulke d'oilly, and the day appointed for the holding of the lancaster assizes, there was great tribulation in the castle of hawkshead; and it was known that sir yvo de taillebois was in constant correspondence with the high justiciary; flying posts were coming and going, night and day, booted and spurred, through rain or shine, from york, the present abode of sir ranulf, to the shores of windermere. the old chaplain was buried up to the eyes in old parchments and genealogies; and, to complete the mystery, clarencieux, king-at-arms, came down to the castle, accompanied by a pursuivant, loaded with documents from the college of heralds, a fortnight before the decisive day, and tarried at the castle until the time came, no one knowing especially, save sir yvo, his daughter, aradas de ratcliffe, and the persons employed in the research, what was the matter at issue. necessary, however, as it was deemed, at that time, to hold the proceedings and their cause in perfect secrecy, no such reason exists now; and it may be stated that, the object being no other than to bring sir foulke d'oilly to justice for the murder of sir philip de morville, it was necessary to be prepared at every point. now, according to the criminal law of that day, no prosecutor could put in his charge for murder, until he should have proved himself to be of the blood of the deceased. and this it was now the object of sir yvo to do, there having always been a traditionary belief in a remote kindred between the two families, though the exact point and period were forgotten. at length, in the middle of the month of october, a proclamation was issued, in the name of the king, offering a free pardon for all other offenses, with the exception of high treason and misprision of treason, and five hundred marks reward to any freeman, or freedom to any serf, who, not being a principal in the deed, should appear before the court of assize at lancaster, on the first day of december next ensuing, and give such evidence as should result in the conviction of the murderer or murderers of the late sir philip de morville, of waltheofstow, in the county of york. at the same time, orders were issued to kenric, and all his associate foresters and keepers, to bring in eadwulf, under assurance of pardon, if he might be found in any quarter; and rewards were offered to stimulate the men to exertion. but in vain. the foresters pushed their way into the deepest and wildest recesses of the cumbrian wilderness, at the risk of some smart conflicts with the outlaws of that dark and desolate region, who fancied that they were trespassing on their own savage haunts, with no good or amicable intent; but of eadwulf they found no traces. kenric persisted, alone, after all the rest had resigned the enterprise; and, relying on his saxon origin and late servile condition, mingled with the outlaws, told his tale, showed the proclamation, and succeeded in interesting his auditors in his own behalf and that of his brother; but he, no more than the others, could find any traces of the fugitive, and he began almost to consider it certain that the unhappy eadwulf had perished among the hills, of the inclemency of the weather. he too, at last, returned home, despairing of ever seeing the unhappy outlaw more. in the mean time, an earnest and interesting contest was going on in the castle, between guendolen and aradas on the one hand, and sir yvo de taillebois on the other. for it had been discovered by the heralds, that there did exist proofs of blood-connection between the two families, sufficient to justify sir yvo in putting in a charge of his kinsman's murder against sir foulke d'oilly, on the grounds of common rumor and hearsay, if eadwulf should not be found; and, if he should, then on his testimony. that d'oilly would forthwith claim trial by wager of battle, none might doubt, who knew the character and antecedents of that desperately bad but dauntless man. now, it was the suit of guendolen and aradas, that sir yvo should appoint his young esquire his champion to do battle for the judgment of god--for they were irrevocably convinced--what, between their real faith in the justice of this cause, and the zealous trust, of those who love, in the superiority of the beloved, and the generous confidence of youth in its own glowing and impulsive valor--that aradas would surely beat the traitor down, and win the spurs of gold, to which he so passionately aspired. but the clear-headed veteran regarded matters with a cooler and perhaps a wiser eye. he knew sir foulke d'oilly for a trained, experienced, and all-practiced soldier; not only brave at all times, and brave among the bravest--but a champion, such as there were few, and to be beaten only by a champion. he knew him also desperate, and fighting his last stake. he foresaw that, even for himself, the felon knight, unless the sense of guilt should paralyze his heart, or the visible judgment of god be interposed in the heat of battle--a thing in those days scarcely to be looked for--would prove no easy bargain in the lists; and, how highly soever he might estimate his young esquire's courage and prowess, he yet positively refused to allow him to assume the place of appellant in the lists; and denied utterly that such a conflict, being the most solemn and awful of appeals to the almighty on his judgment-seat, was any proper occasion for the striving after spurs of gold, or aiming at the honors of knighthood. so the lovers were obliged to decline into hopes of some indefinite future chance; and did decline into despondent and listless apathy, until, two days only before that appointed for the departure of the company into lancashire, fortune or fate, which you will, thought fit to take the whole matter into its own hands, and to decide the much-vexed question of the championship by the misstep of a stumbling palfrey. after having ridden all day long on a stout, sure-footed cob, which he had backed for ten years, without knowing him to make a solitary blunder, marking trees for felling, and laying out new plantations with his foresters, sir yvo was wending his way toward the castle gates, across the great home-park, when, a small blind ditch crossing his path, he put the pony at it in a canter. startled by some deer, which rose up suddenly out of the long fern, growing thick among the oak-trees, the pony shyed, set his forefeet in the middle of the drain, and came down on his head, throwing his heavy rider heavily on the hard frozen ground. a dislocated shoulder was the consequence; and, though it was speedily reduced, and no ill consequences followed, the surgeons declared that it was impossible that the knight should support his armor, or wield a sword, within two months; and thus, perforce, guendolen had her way; and it was decided that aradas should be admitted to the perilous distinction of maintaining the charge, in the wager of battle. strange times! when to be permitted to engage in a conflict, in which there was no alternative but victory, or infamy and death, was esteemed a favor, and was sought for, as a boon, not by strong men and soldiers only, but by delicate and gentle girls, in behalf of their betrothed lovers, as a mode of winning _los_ on earth, and glory everlasting in the heavens. yet so it was; and when it was told to guendolen, that her lover was nominated to that dreadful enterprise, a blush, indeed, mantled to her cheek, and a thrill ran through all her quivering frame, and an unbidden tear trembled in her beautiful clear eye; but the blush, and the thrill, and the tear, were of pride and excitement, not of fear or compassion; and the lady never slept sounder or more sweetly than on that eventful night, when she learned that, beyond a peradventure, her true love would be sleeping, within ten little days, under a bloody and dishonorable sod, or living, the winner of those golden-spurs and of her own peerless beauties. there was, however, a strange mixture of simple and fervent faith in those days, with an infinitely larger amount of coarse and open wickedness, violence, and vice, than, perhaps, ever prevailed in any other age. and while the moral restraint on men's conduct and actions, arising from a sense of future responsibility and retribution, was vastly inferior to what now exists, owing to the open sale of indulgences, absolutions, and dispensations, and the other abominable corruptions of the romish church, the belief in temporal judgments, and the present interference of divine justice in the affairs of men, was almost universal. infidelity in those days was a madness utterly unknown; and an atheist, materialist, or any phase of what we now call a free-thinker, would have been regarded with greater wonder than the strangest physical monster. it is not too much to say, that there were not in that day twenty men in england, who did not believe in the real efficacy of the ordeals, whether by water, fire, or battle, in discovering the truth, or one in a thousand who would not be half-defeated, before entering the lists, by the belief that god was fighting against him, or strengthened unto victory by the confidence that his cause was just. one of these one men in a thousand it was, however, about to be the fortune of aradas de ratcliffe to encounter, in the person of sir foulke d'oilly; but this he neither knew, nor would have thought of twice, had he known it. however hardened the heart of his adversary might be by the petrifying effects of habitual vice, however dulled his conscience by impunity and arrogance and self-relying contumacy, his own was so strongly panoplied in conscious honesty, so bucklered by confidence in his own good cause, so puissant by faith in god, that he no more feared what the might of that bad man could do against him, than he doubted the creed of christ and his holy apostles. nor less was the undoubting assurance of the lady of his love, in whom, to her faith in divine justice, to her absolute conviction of d'oilly's damning guilt, was added that over-weening confidence in her lover's absolute superiority, not only to all other men in general, but to every other man individually, which was common to love-sick ladies in those days of romance and chivalry. but we must not anticipate, nor indeed is there cause to do so; for the days flew; until, after leaving kendal castle, the old fortalice of yvo de taillebois, who, coming in with the conqueror, had wedded the sister of the earls morcar and edwin, whence they took their departure as so much nearer to their destination, and journeying four pleasant winter days round the head of morecambe bay, they entered the old town of lancaster. sir yvo de taillebois was borne in a horse-litter, in consequence of his accident, at the head of a dozen knights, his vassals, all armed cap-à-pie; and a hundred spears of men-at-arms followed, with thrice as many of the already famous kendal archers, escorting a long train of litters, conveying the lady and her female attendants, and a yet longer array of sumpter-mules and pack-horses. the town was already crowded; but for a party so distinguished as that of sir yvo de taillebois, high-sheriff of the north-western counties, and chief local officer of the crown, apartments were prepared in the castle, adjoining those of the high justiciary and the itinerant, or, as we should now call them, circuit judges; while his train easily found quarters, some among the garrison of which they formed a part, as of right, and the rest in the vicinity of the castle. at an early hour in the morning, preceded by trumpets and javelin men, clad in all the magnificence of scarlet and ermine, emblematic of judicial purity, but unencumbered by the hideous perukes of horse-hair which later ages have devised for the disfigurement of forensic dignitaries, the high justiciary, ranulf de glanville, followed by his five associate judges, proceeded to the superb oak-wainscoted and oak-groined hall, in which it was used to hold the sittings of "the king's court," at that time the highest tribunal in the realm. this noble apartment, which was above a hundred feet in length by half that width, and measured sixty feet from the floor to the spring of the open arches, independent of the octagon lantern in the center, beneath which burned nearly a ton of charcoal, in a superb brazier of carved bronze, was crowded from the floor to the light, flying galleries, with all the flower of the northern counties, ladies as well as knights and nobles, attracted by one of those untraceable but ubiquitous rumors, which so often precede remarkable events, to the effect that something of more than ordinary moment was likely to occur at the present assize. among this noble assemblage, all of whom rose to their feet, with a heavy rustle of furred and embroidered robes, and a suppressed murmur of applause, as the judges entered, conspicuous on the right-hand side of the nave was sir foulke d'oilly, attended by two or three barons and bannerets of his immediate train, and not less than twenty knights, who held fiefs under him. what, however, was the astonishment of the assembly, when, after the guard of pensioners, in royal livery, armed with halberts, which followed the judges, clarencieux, king-at-arms, in his magnificent costume, supported by six pursuivants, in their tabards, with trumpets, made his appearance in the nave, and then two personages, no less than humphrey de bohun, lord high constable, and william de warrenne, earl mareschal of england, indicating by their presence that the court, about to be held, would be one of chivalry as well as of justice. sir yvo de taillebois, and other officers of the crown, followed in the order; the justiciary and other high dignitaries took their seats, the trumpets sounded thrice, and, with the usual formalities, "the king's court" was declared open. it was remarked afterward, though at the time no one noticed it, none suspecting the cause, that when the heralds and pomp, indicating the presence of a court of chivalry made their appearance, the face of sir foulke d'oilly flushed fiery-red for a moment, and then turned white as ashes, even to the lips; and that he trembled so violently, that he was compelled to sit down, while all the rest were standing. during the first three days of the assize, though many causes were tried of great local and individual interest, nothing occurred to satisfy the secret and eager anticipations of the excited audience, nothing to account for the unusual combination of civil and military powers on the judicial bench; and though all manner of strange rumors were afloat, there were none certainly that came very near the truth. on the fourth morning, however, the crier, at command of the court, called sir foulke d'oilly; who, presently appearing, stated that he was there, in pursuance of the king's order, to prosecute his claim to the possession of one eadwulf the red, alias kenric, a fugitive villeyn, who had fled from his manor of waltheofstow, within the precincts of sherwood forest, against his, sir foulke d'oilly's, will; and who was now in the custody of the sheriff of the county. he concluded by appointing geoffrey fitz peter and william of tichborne, two sergeants, learned in the law, as his counsel. the sheriff of the county was then called into court, to produce the body of the person at issue, and kenric was placed at the bar, his bondsmen surrendering him to take his trial. sir yvo de taillebois then stated the preliminary proceedings, the arrest of kenric by seizure, his purchasing a writ _de libertate probanda_; and that, whereas he, the sheriff, might not try that question in his court, it was now brought up before the eyre of justices for trial. kenric was then called upon to plead, which he did, by claiming to be a free man, and desiring liberty to prove the same before god and a jury of his countrymen. the sheriff was thereupon commanded to impannel a jury; and this was speedily accomplished, twelve men being selected and sworn, six of whom were belted knights, two esquires of norman birth, and four saxon franklins, as they were now termed, who would have been thanes under their ancient dynasty, all free and lawful men, and sufficient to form a jury. then, the defendant in the suit being a poor man, and of no substance, counsel, skilled in the law, were assigned him by the court, thomas de curthose, and matthew gourlay, that he might have fair show of justice; and so the trial was ordered to proceed. then geoffrey fitz peter rose and opened the case by stating that they should prove the person at the bar to be a serf, known as "eadwulf the red," who has escaped from the manor of his lord at waltheofstow, in sherwood forest, against his lord's will, on the th day of july last passed--that he had killed a deer, with a cross-bolt, on that same day, in the forest between thurgoland and bolterstone--and afterward murdered the bailiff of the manor of waltheofstow, as aforesaid, with a similar weapon, at or near the same place, which weapons would be produced in court, and identified by comparison with corresponding weapons, and the arbalast to which they belong, found in the possession of the prisoner, when taken at kentmere in westmoreland--that he had been hunted hot-foot, with bloodhounds, through the forest, and across the moors to the lancaster sands, when he had escaped only by the aid of the fatal and furious tide which had overwhelmed the pursuing horsemen--that he had been seen to land on the shore of westmoreland, by a party of the pursuers, who had escaped the flood-tide by skirting the coastline, and had been traced, foot by foot, by report of the natives of the country, who had heard of the arrival of a fugitive serf in the neighborhood, until he was captured in a cottage beside kentmere, on the th day of october of this present year. and to prove this, he called sir foulke d'oilly. he, being sworn, testified that he knew, and had often seen, his serf "eadwulf the red," on the manor of waltheofstow, and fully believed the person at the bar to be the man in question. he had joined the pursuers of the fugitive on the day after the catastrophe of the sands, had been engaged in tracing him to the cottage on kentmere, and fully believed the person captured to be the same who was traced upward from the sands. positively identified and swore to the person at the bar, as the man captured on the th day of october, and to the crossbow and bolts produced in court, and branded with the name "kenric," as taken in his possession. being cross-examined--he could not swear positively to any personal recollection of the features of "eadwulf the red," or that the person at the bar _was_ the man, or _resembled_ the man, in question. believed him to be the man eadwulf, because it was the general impression of his people that he was so. thomas de curthose said--"this, my lords, is mere hearsay, and stands for naught." and sir ranulf de glanville bowed his head, and replied--"merely for naught." then sir foulke d'oilly, being asked how, when he assumed this person's name to be eadwulf, he ascribed to him the ownership of weapons stamped "kenric," he replied, that "kenric" was a name prepared aforehand, to avert suspicion, and assumed by eadwulf, so to avoid suspicion. being asked where he showed that eadwulf had assumed such other name, or that the name "kenric" had ever been assumed by one truly named "eadwulf," he replied, that "it was probable." thomas de curthose said--"that is mere conjecture." and, again, the justiciary assented. chapter xxiv. the acquittal. no ceremony that to great ones 'longs, not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, the marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, become them with one half so good a grace as "justice" does. measure for measure. then was called ralph brito. he, being sworn, deposed thus--is a man-at-arms of sir foulke d'oilly; has served him these twenty years and over, in france, in wales, and in ireland. has dwelt the last ten years, until this year now current, at sir foulke's castle of fenton in the forest; since the decease of sir philip de morville, has been one of the garrison of waltheofstow. knows eadwulf the red perfectly well--as well as his own brother. has known him these ten years back, when he was gross thrall to sir philip de morville. has seen him since the death of sir philip. has seen him daily, since he made one of the garrison of waltheofstow, until the twelfth day of september last, when he saw him for the last time, until he was taken in the cottage on kentmere. the person at the bar is the man. the person at the bar is eadwulf the red, and is also the man who was taken at the cottage. they are the same. did not follow the prisoner with the bloodhounds; came up, with my lord, the day after the accident on the sands. was engaged in the pursuit till he was taken; was present at the arrest. the weapons in court were taken in the prisoner's house; took them down himself, from above the mantle-piece. the prisoner admitted them to be his weapons. matthew gourlay, cross-examining, asked him--"you swear, certainly, that the man at the bar is _he_, known, in the time of sir philip de morville, as eadwulf the red?" "i do." "of your own knowledge?" "of my own knowledge." "why was he called the red?" "because he _was_ red." "what part of him?" "his hair and beard." "of what color are your own hair and beard?" "red." it so happened that the close-curled hair and the beard, knotted like the wool of a poodle dog, of this man, were of the brightest and most fiery hue of which the human hair is susceptible; while that of kenric was of a deep, glossy auburn, falling in loose waves from a broad fair forehead. "and what color is the person's at the bar?" "why, reddish, i suppose," said ralph brito, sullenly. "about the same color with your own, ha? well, you may go down," he said, satisfied that he had somewhat damaged the evidence, even of this positive perjurer. andrew of spyinghow was then called, and, being sworn, testified, that "he is the brother of ralph wetheral, the bailiff of waltheofstow, who was found dead in the forest of sherwood, on the th day of september last passed; and of hugonet the black, seneschal of waltheofstow, as aforesaid, who was lost in the sands of lancaster, on the th day of the said month. he and his brothers were known as the three spears of spyinghow. he knew the serf, spoken of as eadwulf the red, as well as he knew his own face in the mirror. had known him any time the last ten years, as serf, both to sir philip de morville, and to his own lord, sir foulke d'oilly. had seen him last on the night of september the th, in the castle court at waltheofstow; but had tracked him thence with bloodhounds to the verge of borland forest; had followed him by hue and cry across the moors to the sands of morecambe bay; had seen the fugitive crossing the bay; had seen him land on the westmoreland shore, nor ever had lost the track of him, until he saw him taken in the cottage at kentmere. the prisoner at the bar is the man." the witness then proceeded at length to describe the discovery of the slain stag, and the murdered bailiff, the manner of their deaths, the weapons found in the mortal wounds both of the beast and the man, and of the taking up of the scent of the fugitive from the spot where the double killing had taken place, by the bloodhounds. here thomas de curthose said--"this is a case we are trying, in this court of common pleas, of neifty, _de nativo habendo_; not a case of deer-slaying, in a forest court, or of murder, in a criminal court. therefore, this evidence, as irrelevant, and tending to prejudice the jury against the prisoner, should be ruled out." geoffrey fitz peter said; "this testimony goeth only to prove the weapons, which were carried and used by the fugitive, be he who he may, at that place and that time stated, to be the same with those found in possession of the person at the bar, and owned by him to be his property. and this testimony we propose to use, in order to show that the person at the bar was actually at the place at the time stated as aforesaid, and is the very fugitive in question; not that he is the killer of the deer, or the murderer of the man, which it is not in the province of this court, or in our purpose to examine." sir ranulf de glanville said--"to prove the identity of the person at the bar with the alleged fugitive, this evidence standeth good, but not otherwise." his examination being resumed, the witness described, vividly and accurately, the pursuit of the fugitive with bloodhounds; his superhuman efforts to escape, both by speed of foot and by power of swimming; his wonderful endurance, and, at last, his vanishing, as it were, without leaving a single trace, either for sight or scent, in the midst of a bare moor. great sympathy and excitement were manifested throughout the whole court, at this graphic narrative; and all eyes were turned, especially those of the fair sex, to the fine athletic person and noble features of kenric, as he stood at the bar, alone of all that company, impassive and unmoved, with looks of pity and admiration. but kenric only shook his head, with a grave smile and a quiet wafture of the hand, as if putting aside the undeserved sympathy. but when the witness proceeded to describe the rediscovery of the fugitive crossing the sands, on the second morning after his temporary evasion, the desperate race against the speed of mortal horses, against the untamed velocity of the foam-crested coursers of the roaring ocean tide; when he depicted the storm bursting in the darkness, as of night, over the mailed riders and barbed horses struggling in the pools and quagmires; the fierce billows trampling over them, amid the tempest and the gloom; and the sun shining out on the face of the waters, and lo! there were none there, save hugonet the black, sitting motionless on his armed horse like a statue, until it should please the mounting tide to overwhelm him, from which he could by no earthly means escape, and the fugitive slave floating, in his chance-found coracle, within two oars' length of that devoted man, the excitement in the vast assembly knew no bounds. there were wild cries and sobs, and the multitude rocked and heaved to and fro, and several women swooned, and were carried out of the courthouse insensible, and seemingly lifeless. it was many minutes before order could be restored. then the bolts or quarrels, which had been extracted from the slaughtered deer and the murdered man were produced in court, yet stained with the blood, and bearing the name of kenric branded upon the wooden shafts with an iron stamp. the crossbow and bolts, found in kenric's cottage, and admitted by him to be his property, were also produced, and the quarrels found in the forest tallied from point to point, even to a broken letter in the branding, with those which he acknowledged to be his; and an expert armorer being summoned, testified that those quarrels were proper ones for that very arbalast, and would not fit one other out of twenty, it being of unusual construction. at this point, not a person in the court, from the lowest spectator to the high justiciary on the bench, but believed the case to be entirely made out; and some of the crown lawyers whispered among themselves, wondering why the prisoner had not been arraigned in the forest or criminal courts, for the higher offenses, which seemed to be proved against him. thomas de curthose, cross-examining the witness, asked-- "the man at the bar is eadwulf the red?" "he is." "on your oath, and of your own knowledge." "on my oath, and of my own knowledge." "did you ever hear that 'eadwulf the red' should call himself, or be called by others, 'kenric.'" "never, until now." "and how have you heard it now?" "i have seen it stamped on his quarrels." "had 'eadwulf the red' a brother?" "a brother?" "had 'eadwulf the red' a brother?" "i have heard say he had." "of your own knowledge, on your oath?" "he had a brother." "what was his name?" "i--i have forgotten." "on your oath! on your oath, sirrah!" thundered thomas de curthose. "was not his name 'kenric?'" "i think it was 'kenric.'" "look at the person at the bar." the man did so; but reluctantly, and with an evident tremor. "is not that man 'kenric,' the brother of 'eadwulf the red?'" "that man is 'eadwulf the red'--i have sworn it." "and art forsworn, in swearing it. but again, thou hast sworn, 'that on the third morning, after taking scent of the fugitive from the place of the deer and manslaying, and after hunting him constantly with bloodhounds, you lost all track of him on the bare moor in borland forest?'" "why, ay! i have sworn that; it is quite true," said the man, seemingly reassured, at the change of the line of examination. "i doubt it not. now, when did the hounds take the scent again?" "why, not at all. we saw he was making for the sands, and so squandered ourselves in parties, and on the second morning, at daybreak, saw him crossing them." "how far off was he, when you saw him?" "about three miles." "could you see, to know him, at that distance?" "why, no; but we guessed it was he, when we saw him run from us; and, when we wound up the clew to the end, and caught him, we found that we were right." "you may stand down. who is next?" four other witnesses followed, who all swore positively to the person of the prisoner, as "eadwulf the red," and testified to various points in the circumstances of the pursuit and capture, all tending to the identification of kenric with the fugitive; and though the counsel for the defense had succeeded, more or less, in shaking the credit of some of the witnesses with the jury, and of raising a doubt concerning the existence of a brother, with whom the fugitive might have been confounded, no head had yet been made against the direct testimony of six witnesses, swearing positively to his person, and against the damaging circumstantial evidence of the crossbow and quarrels. when the counsel for the plaintiff rested, and the court adjourned at ten o'clock, for dinner, not a lawyer in the court, except those retained in the defense, but looked on the case of kenric as hopeless; and the party of sir foulke d'oilly were consequently in high glee. but when the court reassembled, at noon, walter gourlay arose, and addressed the six judges-- "may it please your lordships, we shall right shortly prove to your satisfaction and to that of this honorable jury that this case lies in a nutshell, or rather is no case at all, or shadow of a case. first, we shall show to you that this person at the bar is not, nor ever was called, 'eadwulf the red,' though there may be some slight similarity of person between him and his brother, of that name; but that he is, and has been called from his cradle to this day, 'kenric the dark.' secondly, we shall show you that this 'kenric the dark' was not in sherwood forest, or within fifty miles of it, on the th day of september last passed, or on any day within two months thereof. thirdly, we shall show you that this 'kenric the dark' is not serf or villeyn to sir foulke d'oilly, or to any sir in england; but a free man, and free tenant of the lord of kendal, in the county of westmoreland." then william of tichborne, said--"nay! brother gourlay, do not prove too much against us," and he laughed sneeringly; "else thou wilt convict our witnesses as mansworn." and thomas de curthose laughed, and said--"marry will we, and pillory them for it, likewise." then the defense called bertha, the wife of werewulf; and an exceedingly old woman was supported into court, by a younger woman of exceeding beauty; and, in consideration of her age and infirmities, she was accommodated with a seat. she was very feeble, and much emaciated, and her hair was as white as snow; but her figure, though frail and quivering, was erect as a weather-beaten pine, and her eye as clear as an eagle's. "well, mother, and who art thou?" asked the justiciary, in a kindly tone, "and what hast thou to tell us in this matter?" "i am bertha," she replied, in tones singularly clear and distinct, "the wife of werewulf, the son of beowulf, who was henchman to waltheof, who was the lord of waltheofstow, before the normans came to england." "a serf to testify in proof of a serf's liberty!" said william of tichborne. "such evidence may not stand." "she is no serf, my lord," said gourlay, "but as free as my brother of tichborne. let the sheriff of lancaster be sworn." so, sir yvo de taillebois being sworn in his place, testified: "bertha, the wife of werewulf, is a free woman. i bought her myself, with her own free consent, of my friend sir philip de morville, and manumitted her, for reasons of mine own." "let bertha proceed." "i am the mother of seven sons, in lawful wedlock born; five of whom, and three grandsons, sleep with their fathers, in the kirkyard of waltheofstow; two, as i believe, yet draw the breath of life, biding god's good time; 'kenric the dark,' my second born, and 'eadwulf the red,' my youngest. kenric stands yonder, at the bar; eadwulf is a wanderer on the moorland." being cross-examined; "would she know her sons any where; would she know them apart?" "know my own sons!" she made answer; "the flesh of my own flesh, the bone of my own bone! by day or by night, in darkness or in light, by the lowest sound of the voice, by the least pressure of the hand, by the feeling of their hair, or the smell of their breath, would i know them, and know them apart, any where. yon is kenric, and kenric is no more like to eadwulf, than day is to darkness, or a bright summer sunshine to a thunder-cloud in autumn." "call aradas de ratcliffe." he, being sworn, was asked; "know you the person at the bar; and, if ay, what is his name?" "i know him well; his name is kenric; his condition, so far as i know, a freeman, and verdurer to sir yvo de taillebois." "when did you see him first, to know him?" "in july last, when my lord of taillebois returned from yorkshire, and brought him along in his train." "have you seen him in the mean time; and, if ay, how often." "almost daily. he is one of our best foresters, and we rarely hunt or hawk without him." "can you name any one day, in particular, when you saw the person at the bar, between july and october, to know him?" "i can. on the th day of last september, at eight o'clock in the evening, we being then at supper, kenric came into the hall, by permission, to bring tidings that he had tracked the great mouse-colored hart-royal, which has been known in the dales this hundred years, into a deep dingle at the head of yewdale, and that he was laid up for the night. on the th, we were astir before day, and kenric led us to the lair; and we hunted that hart all day long on the th, and killed him at sunset on the skirts of skiddaw. we had to pass the night on the mountain, and i well remember how kenric was the best man in collecting firing and making all things comfortable for the night, it being cold, and a keen white frost." being cross-examined--"i know it was on the th that he brought the tidings, because my rents fall due on that day at rydal manor, and i had ridden over to collect them, and returned home somewhat late for supper, and had just sat down to table, very hungry, when he came in with the news of the great hart-royal; and that spoiled my supper, for the thought of killing that hart on the morrow took away all my appetite." "and did you kill him, sir?" asked sir ranulf de glanville from the bench, eagerly; for if he were famous as a lawyer, he was little less so as a woodman. "with a cloth-yard shaft from my own bow, sir ranulf, at twenty score yards and thirteen." "well, sir, it was a very pretty shot," returned the high justiciary, nothing abashed by the smile which ran through the court; "and you have given very pretty evidence. have you any more witnesses, master gourlay? methinks the jury have had almost enough of this." "we will detain your lordships but a very little longer, william fitz adhelm." and he knew kenric well, and remembered his services particularly on that th day of september; and, to prove the date, he produced a record of the chase, carved on ivory, which was hung from the antlers of that celebrated deer, in the great hall at hawkshead castle, recording the length of the hunt, the dogs and horses engaged, and all the circumstances of the great event. the bailiff of kendal was then called, who swore that he knew kenric, as forester and verdurer, since july last, and that he had seen him since that date almost daily; for that three days had never passed without his bringing him game for his guest-table, according to the orders of his lord. "and here," said thomas de curthose, "we might safely rest, stating merely, in explanation, that the true 'eadwulf the red,' brother of the person at the bar, did, we believe, all the things stated by the witnesses to this court, and did leave, at the cottage on kentmere, the crossbow produced before the court, which he had previously purloined from his brother, while at waltheofstow. but desiring to place this man's freedom on record beyond a question or a peradventure, we will call sir yvo de taillebois." he, of course, testified to all that is known to the readers of this history, and which was not known to the jury or the court; to his own agency, namely, in the purchase and manumission of the serf kenric, and to his establishment of him as a free tenant on his lands of kentmere, in kendal. "and here we rest," said thomas of curthose, "nor shall trouble the court so much as to sum up what is so palpable." the complainants declining to say any thing farther, ranulf de glanville said-- "it is scarce necessary that i should say any thing to this jury, seeing that if the evidence of sir yvo de taillebois be received as credible, the case is at an end. but i would say that, without his testimony, the defense might have rested safely, when they had shown that the alleged fugitive, 'kenric,' was a resident here in westmoreland, on the day, and long before the day, when he is charged on oath to have been a serf in yorkshire. for if a claim a horse, now in the possession of b, swearing, and bring in witnesses to swear, that he, a, lost, or had stolen from him, the said horse, on such a day; and b bring sufficient and true witnesses to satisfy the jury that the said horse, so claimed was in his, b's, possession, days, weeks, or months before the 'such a day' on which a avers to have lost or had the said horse stolen from him--then it is to be presumed, not that a and his witnesses are mistaken as to the day, on which the horse was lost, seeing that he and they have sworn positively to the day, and that it is in him and them, alone, and on no others, truly to know the day on which the said horse was lost or stolen--but that the horse is another horse altogether, and not that horse lost or stolen on the day averred; inasmuch as this horse claimed was, on that day, and theretofore and thereafter, standing here, and could not therefore be lost or stolen elsewhere. this is the law, gentlemen, of an ox, or an ass, or a goat, or a piece of furniture, or of any thing that is property, dead or living. much more so, therefore, of the liberty of a man. for god forbid that on this earth of england the liberty of a man, which is even the dearest thing he hath on earth, should be more lightly jeoparded, or less securely guaranteed to him, than the value of his ox, or his ass, or his goat, or his chattel, whatsoever it may be, that is claimed of him. and now, gentlemen of the jury, i will detain you no longer. you may retire, if you wish to deliberate on your verdict, whether the person at the bar be 'eadwulf the red,' gross thrall of sir foulke d'oilly, or 'kenric the dark,' and a true freeman." "so please the court, we are agreed," was the unanimous answer of the jurymen. "and how will you render your verdict?" "by our foreman, sir ralph egerton, of egerton." "we find," said the foreman, in answer to the eye of the justiciary, "that the person at the bar, 'kenric, surnamed the dark,' is a free man, and that sir foulke d'oilly hath no claim against his liberty or person. and we farther recommend that the witnesses for the plaintiff, more especially ralph brito, and andrew of spyinghow, be taken into custody, and held to answer to a charge of perjury." "you have said well, gentlemen, and i thank you for your verdict," said the justiciary. "clerk of the court, record the verdict; and see that warrants issue against ralph de brito and hugh of spyinghow. kenric, thou art free; free of all charge against thee; free to walk boldly and uprightly before god; and, so far as you do no wrong, to turn aside for fear of no man. go, and thank god, therefore, that you are born on english soil, where every man is held free, till he is proved a slave; and where no man can be delivered into bondage, save on the verdict of a jury of his countrymen. this is the law of england. god save the king. amen!" then, turning to sir yvo de taillebois, "you brought that fellow off with flying colors! now, you will sup with me, at my lodgings, at nine. my brothers of the bench will be with us, and my lord high constable, and the earl mareschal; and we will have a merry time of it. they have choice oysters here, and some lampreys; and that boar's head, and the venison you sent us, are superb. you will come, of course." "with pleasure," said de taillebois, "but"--and he whispered something in his ear. "ha! do you fear so? i think not; but we will provide for all chances; and, in good time, here comes clarencieux. ho! clarencieux, sup with us, at nine to-night; and, look you, we shall want sir foulke d'oilly in court to-morrow. i do not think that he will give us the slip; but, lest he try it, let two of your pursuivants and a dozen halberdiers keep their eye on him till the court sits in the morning; and if he offer to escape, arrest him without scruple, and have him to the constable's lodging. meantime, forget not nine of the clock, in my lodgings." chapter xxv. the false charge and the true. as for the rest appealed, it issues from the rancor of a villain, a recreant and most degenerate traitor; which, in myself, i boldly will defend; and interchangeably hurl down my gage upon this overweening traitor's foot, to prove myself a loyal gentleman, even in the best blood chambered in his bosom. king richard ii. so soon as the court was opened on the following morning, to the astonishment of all parties, and to that of no one, as it would seem, more than of the grand justiciary himself, kenric was again introduced; but this time heavily ironed, and in the charge of two ordinary constables of the hundred. "ha! what is this?" asked ranulf de glanville, sharply. "for what is this man brought here again in this guise? judgment was rendered in his case, last night; and i would have all men to know, that from this court there is no appeal. or is there some new charge against him?" "in some sort, a new charge, my lord," replied the clerk of the court; "he was arrested last night, the moment he had left this court, on the complaint of ralph brito, next of kin to the deceased, for the murder of ralph wetheral, the seneschal of waltheofstow, at the time and in the place, which your lordship wots of, having heard all about it, in the case decided yesterday _de nativo habendo_!" "now, by my halidom!" said glanville, the fire flashing to his dark eyes, "this is wonderful insolence and _outrecuidance_ on the part of master ralph brito, who is himself, or should be, under arrest for perjury----" "so, please you, he hath entered bail for his appearance, and is discharged of custody." "who is his bondsman, and in what bail is he held?" "so please you, in a hundred marks of silver. sir foulke d'oilly is his bondsman." "the bail is well enough; the bondsman is not sufficient. let the proper officer attach the body of ralph brito. upon my life! he has the impudence to brave us here, in court." "who? i not sufficient," cried sir foulke d'oilly, fiercely, rising to his feet, as if to defy the court. "i not sufficient for a paltry bail of a hundred marks of silver? i would have you to know, sir ranulf----" "and i would have you to know, sir," thundered the high justiciary, "that this is 'the king's court,' in the precincts of which you have dared to make your voice be heard; and that i, humble as i am, stand here in _loco regis_, and will be treated with the reverence due to my master. for the rest, i will speak with you anon, when i shall have dealt with this case now before me, which seems one of shameful persecution and oppression." sir foulke d'oilly had remained on his feet during the time the justiciary was speaking; and now, turning his eye to his barons and the knights of his train, who took the cue, and rose silently, he began to move toward the door. "ha! is it so? close up, halberdiers; guard the doors! pursuivants, do your duty. sheriff of lancaster, have you a guard at hand to protect the court?" "surely, my lord," replied sir yvo de taillebois. "without, there! pass the word to the proper officer, that he turn out the guard." in a moment, the call of the bugles of the archery was heard, and was shortly succeeded by the heavy, ordered march of infantry, closing up to the doors, while the cavalry-trumpets rang through the narrow streets of the old city, and the clash of mail-coats and the tramp of chargers told that the men-at-arms were falling in, in great numbers. meanwhile, two of the pursuivants, in waiting on clarencieux, had made their way to sir foulke d'oilly, and whispered something in his ear, which, whatever it was, made him turn as pale as death, and sink down into his seat, without saying a word, while the pursuivants remained standing at his back. the nobles and knights of his train looked at him, and looked at one another, with troubled glances; but, finding no solution to their doubts or answer to their question, seated themselves in sullen discontent. the multitude which filled the court-house, meantime, was in the wildest state of confusion and consternation; the call for the military force had struck terror into all, especially the feebler part of the crowd, the aged persons and women, many of whom were present; for none knew, in those stormy times, how soon swords might be drawn in the court itself or the hall cleared by a volley of cloth-yard arrows from the sheriff's kendal archers. after a while, however, by the exertions of the proper officers, order was restored; and then, as if nothing had occurred to interrupt the thread of his thoughts, de glanville continued in the matter of kenric, who still waited in custody of the sheriff's officers. "be there any other charges against this man, kenric, beside this one of murder?" "one of deer-killing, my lord, against the statute, in the forest court, at the same time, and in the same place, as stated yesterday." "and on the same evidence, doubtless, on which the jury pronounced yesterday. in fact, there can be no other. in the last charge, who is the prosecutor?" "sir foulke d'oilly, my lord." "ah! sir foulke d'oilly! sir foulke d'oilly!" cried sir ranulf, looking lightnings at him, and then turning to the clerk. "well, sir. this matter is not as yet in the province of this court. let it go to the grand jury now in session, and see that they have copies of the warrants, and full minutes of all the evidence rendered in the case _de nativo_, and of the jury's finding, that they may have the power to judge if these charges be not purely malicious." a solemn pause followed, full of grave expectation, while the officers were removing kenric from the hall, and while the high-justiciary, his assessors on the bench, the high-constable, the earl mareschal, and the sheriff of the county were engaged in close consultation. at the end of this conference, the high-sheriff formally appointed sir hugo le norman to be his deputy, with full powers, by the consent of the court, invested him with his chain and staff of office, and, shortly afterward, appeared in his private capacity, in the body of the hall; and it was now observed, which had not been noticed while he wore his robes of his office, that he carried his right arm in a sling, and halted considerably in his gait, as if from a recent injury. "stand forward, now, sir foulke d'oilly," exclaimed the justiciary. "crier, call sir foulke d'oilly into court." then, as the knight made his appearance at the bar, followed by the two pursuivants-- "now, sir foulke d'oilly," he proceeded, "what have you to say, why you stand not committed to answer for the murder of sir philip de morville, and his esquire, jehan de morville, basely and treacherously by you and others unknown, on them, done and committed, in the forest of sherwood, by the river of idle, in the shire of nottingham, on the sixth day of august last passed, as charged on good and sufficient evidence against you?" "by whom is the charge put in?" inquired the felon knight, who, now that he was certain of the worst, had mustered all his ruffian courage to his aid, and was ready to bear down all opposition by sheer brute force and determination. "by sir yvo de taillebois, lord of high yewdale, hawkshead, coniston, and kendal, and high-sheriff of this shire of lancaster." "the knight of taillebois," retorted the other, "can put in no such charge, seeing that he is not of the blood of the man alleged to be murdered." "ha! how say you to that, sir yvo de taillebois?" "i say, my lord," replied de taillebois, "that in this, as in all else, sir foulke d'oilly lies in his teeth and in his throat; and that i _am_ of the blood of sir philip de morville, by him most foully and most treacherously murdered. may it please you, my lord, call clarencieux, king-at-arms." "ho! clarencieux, what knowest thou of this kindred of these houses?" "we find, my lord," replied clarencieux, "that in the reign of duke robert, father of king william the conqueror, raoul, count of evreux, in the calvados, gave his daughter sybilla in wedlock to amelot, lord of taillebois, in the beauvoisis. the son of this raoul of evreux was stephen, invested with the fief of morville, in morbihan, who fought at hastings, and for good service rendered there and elsewhere, received the fief of waltheofstow in sherwood. the son of amelot of taillebois and sybilla was yvo de taillebois, the elder, who fought likewise at hastings, and for good service performed there and elsewhere was enfeoffed of the lordships of coniston and yewdale; as his son became seized, afterward, of those of hawkshead and kendal, in right of his mother, sister and sole heiress of the earls morear and edwin, and wife of yvo de taillebois, first norman lord of kendal. therefore, this stephen de morville, first norman lord of waltheofstow, was maternal uncle to yvo de taillebois, first norman lord of coniston and yewdale. now, philip de morville, deceased, was fourth in descent, in the direct male line, from stephen, who fought at hastings; and yvo de taillebois, here present, is third in descent, in the direct male line, from the elder yvo, the nephew of stephen, who also fought at hastings; as is set down in this parchment roll, which no man can gainsay. therefore, sir yvo de taillebois _is_ of the blood of sir philip de morville, deceased; and is competent to put in a charge of the murder of his kinsman." "on what evidence does he charge me?" "on that of an eye-witness," exclaimed sir yvo de taillebois. "let them call eadwulf the red." "a fugitive serf, deer-slayer, and murderer!" cried sir foulke d'oilly. "but under the king's safe conduct, here in court," said sir ranulf, "and under proclamation of liberty and free pardon of all offenses, if by his evidence conviction be procured of the doers of this most foul murder." then eadwulf was produced in court, miserably emaciated and half-starved, but resolute of mien and demeanor, and obstinate as ever. he had been discovered, by mere chance, in a cavern among the hills, half-frozen, and more than half-starved, by the foresters of high yewdale, who had been instructed to keep a lookout for him; and, having been with difficulty resuscitated, and made acquainted with the tenor of the king's proclamation, had been forwarded, in a litter, by relays of horses, in order to give evidence to the murder. but, as it proved, his evidence was not needed; for, so soon as he saw him in court, sir foulke d'oilly pleaded not guilty, flung down his glove, and declared himself ready to defend his innocence with his body. "the matter is out of my jurisdiction," said sir ranulf de glanville. "my lord high constable, and you, earl mareschal of england, it is before your court of chivalry." "sir yvo de taillebois is the appellant," said the high-constable. "do you take up the glove, and are you ready in like manner to defend your charge with your body?" "i am ready, with my own body, or with that of my champion; for, unless the wager of battle be deferred these two months, i may not brook the weight of my armor, or wield a sword, as my leech has herein on oath testified;" and, with the words, he handed a scroll to the court. "thou hast the right to appear by thy champion. to defer the trial were unseemly," said the constable, after a moment's consultation with the mareschal. "take up his glove, sir yvo de taillebois." de taillebois took it up; and both parties being called upon to produce their pledges, sir yvo de taillebois gave lord dacre and sir hugo le norman, and sir foulke d'oilly, sir reginald maltravers and sir humphrey bigod, who became their godfathers, as it is termed, for the battle. whereupon, sir humphrey de bohun, the high-constable, thus spoke, and the herald, following his words, made proclamation-- "hear ye, sir yvo de taillebois and sir foulke d'oilly, appellant and appellee; ye shall present yourselves, you sir yvo de taillebois, appellant, in your own person, or by your champion, to be by this court approved, and you, sir foulke d'oilly, appellee, in your person, in the tilt-yard of this castle of lancaster, at ten o'clock of the morning of the third day hereafter, to do battle to the uttermost on this quarrel. and the terms of battle shall be these--on foot, shall ye fight; on a spot of dry and even ground, sixty paces in length, and forty in breadth, inclosed with barriers seven feet high, with no one within them, to aid or abet you, save god and your own prowess. your weapons shall be a long sword and a short sword, and a dagger; but your arms defensive may be at your own will; and ye shall fight until one of you be slain, or shall have yielded, or until the stars be seen in heaven. and the conditions of the battle are these; if the appellee slay the appellant, or force him to cry 'craven,' or make good his defense until the stars be seen in heaven, then shall he, the appellee, be acquitted of the murder. but if the appellant slay the appellee, or force him to cry 'craven,' or if the appellee refuse to continue the fight, then shall he, the appellee, be held convicted of the murder. and whosoever of the two shall be slain, or shall cry 'craven,' or shall refuse to continue the fight, shall be stripped of his armor, where he lies, and shall be dragged by horses out of the lists, by a passage made in one of the angles, and shall be hanged, in the presence of the mareschal; and his escutcheon shall be reversed, and his name shall be declared infamous forever. this is the sentence of this court, therefore--that on the third day hence, ye do meet in the tilt-yard of this castle of lancaster, at ten o'clock of the morning, and there do battle, in this quarrel, to the uttermost. and so may god defend the right!" before the court adjourned, a messenger came into the hall from the grand jury, and kenric was re-conducted into the presence, still ironed, and in custody of the officers. sir ranulf de glanville opened the parchment scroll, and read aloud, as follows-- "in the case of kenric surnamed the dark, accused of deer-slaying, against the forest statute, and of murder, or homicide, both alleged to have been done and committed in the forest of sherwood, on the th day of september last passed, the grand inquest, now in session, do find that there is no bill, nor any cause of process. "done and delivered in lancaster castle, this th day of december, in the year of grace . "walleran de vipont, "_foreman of ye grand inquest_." "why, of course not," said ranulf de glanville. "not a shadow of a cause. strike off those irons. he stands discharged, in all innocence and honor. go thy ways, sirrah, and keep clear of the law, i counsel you, in future; and, for this time, thank god and the laws of your country, that you are a freeman, in a whole skin, this evening." "i do thank god, and _you_, sir ranulf, that you have given me a fair trial and free justice." "god forbid, else, man! god forbid, else!" said the justiciary; "and now, this court stands adjourned until to-morrow, in the morning, at six of the clock. heralds, make proclamation; god save the king!" chapter xxvi. wager of battle. "then rode they together full right, with sharpe speares and swordes bright; they smote together sore. they spent speares and brake shields; they pounsed as fowl in the fields; either foamed as doth a boar." sir triamour. the fatal third day had come about, and with it all the dreadful preparations for the judicial combat. with what had passed in the long interval between, to those whose more than lives, whose very hearts and souls, whose ancient names and sacred honors, were staked on the event, it is not for us to know or inquire. whether the young champion, for it was generally known that sir aradas de ratcliffe, invested with the golden-spurs and consecrated with the order of knighthood, by the sword of the earl mareschal, in order to enable him to meet the appellee on equal terms, was appointed, with the full consent of the court of chivalry, champion for the appellant--whether, i say, the young champion ever doubted, and wished he had waited some fairer opportunity, when he might win the golden-spurs without the fearful risk of dying a shameful death, and tarnishing forever an unblemished name, i know not. if he did, it was a human hesitation, and one which had not dishonored the bravest man who ever died in battle. whether the young and gentle maiden, the lovely guendolen, the most delicate and tender of women, who scarce might walk the earth, lest she should dash her foot against a stone; or breathe the free air of heaven, lest it should blow on her damask cheek too rudely--whether _she_ never repented that she had told him, "for this i myself will gird the sword upon your thigh," when she thought of the bloody strife in which two must engage, but whence one only could come forth alive; when she thought of the mangled corpse; of the black gibbet; of the reversed escutcheon; of the dishonored name; whether she never wept, and trembled, and almost despaired, i know not. if she did not, she was more or less than woman. but her face was pale as ivory, and her eyes wore a faint rose-colored margin, as if she had either wept, or been sleepless, for above one night, when she appeared from her lodging on that awful morning; though her features were as firm and rigid as if they had been carved out of that parian marble which their complexion most resembled, and her gait and bearing were as steady and as proud as if she were going to a coronation, rather than to the awful trial that should seal her every hope on earth, of happiness or misery. they little know the spirit of the age of chivalry, who imagine that, because in the tilt, the tournament, the joust, the carrousel, all was pomp and splendor, music and minstrelsy, and military glory, largesse of heralds and love of ladies, _los_ on earth and fame immortal after death, there was any such illusion or enchantment in the dreadful spectacle of an appeal to the judgment of god by wager of battle. in it there were no gayly decorated lists, flaunting with tapestries and glittering with emblazoned shields; no gorgeous galleries crowded with ladies, a galaxy of beauty in its proudest adornment; no banners, no heralds in their armorial tabards, no spirit-thrilling shouts, no soul-inspiring music, only a solitary trumpet for the signals; but, instead of this, a bare space strewed with sawdust, and surrounded with naked piles, rudely-fashioned with the saw and hatchet; an entrance at either end, guarded by men-at-arms, and at one angle, just without the barrier, a huge black-gibbet, a block, with the broad ax, the dissecting-knife, and all the hideous paraphernalia of the headsman's trade, and himself a dark and sordid figure, masked and clad in buff of bull's hide, speckled and splashed with the gory stains of many a previous slaughter, leaning against the gallows. the seats for the spectators--for, like all other tragedies of awful and engrossing interest, a judicial combat never lacked spectators--were strewed, in lieu of silken-hangings and sendal-cushions, with plain black serge; and the spectators themselves, in lieu of the gay, holiday vestments in which they were wont to attend the gay and gentle passages of arms, wore only their every-day attire, except where some friend or favorer of the appellant or appellee, affected to wear white, in token of trust in his innocence, with a belt or kerchief of the colors worn by the favored party. amid all this gloom and horror, the only relieving point was the superb surcoats and armor of the constable and mareschal, and the resplendent tabard of the king-at-arms, who sat on their caparisoned horses without the lists, backed by a powerful body of men-at-arms and archers, as judges of the field, and doomsters of the vanquished in that strife which must end in death and infamy to one or the other of the combatants. from an early hour, long before the first gray dawn of day, all the seats, save those preserved for certain distinguished personages, had been occupied by a well-dressed crowd; all the avenues to the place were filled, choked, to overflowing; the roofs, the balconies, the windows of every house that commanded a view of the lists, the steeples of the neighboring churches, the battlements and the bartizans of the gray old castle, already gray and old in the second century of norman dominion, were crowded with eager and excited multitudes--so great was the interest created by the tidings of that awful combat, and the repute for prowess of the knights who were pitted in it to meet and part no more, until one should go down forever. and now the shadow was cast upon the dial, close to the fated hour of ten, from the clear winter sun, to borrow the words of the greatest modern poet-- "which rose upon that heavy day, and mocked it with its steadiest ray." the castle gates rolled open on their hinges, grating harsh thunder; and forth came a proud procession, the high-justiciary and his five associate judges, with their guard of halberdiers, and the various high officers of the court, among these the sheriff, whose anxious and interested looks, and, yet more, whose pale and lovely daughter, hanging on his arm, so firm and yet so wan and woe-begone, excited general sympathy. and when it was whispered through the multitude, as it was almost instantaneously--for such things travel as by instinct--that she was the betrothed of the young appellant, and that, to win her with his spurs of gold, he had assumed this terrible emprize, all other excitement was swallowed up in the interest created by the cold and almost stern expression of her lovely features, and her brave demeanor. and more ladies than one whispered in the ears of those who were dearest to them; "if he be vanquished, she will not survive him!" and many a manly voice, shaken in a little of its firmness, made reply; "he may be slain, but he can not be vanquished." scarcely had the members of the court been seated, with those of the higher gentry and nobility, who had waited to follow in their suit, when from the tower of a neighboring cistercian house, the clock struck ten; and, now, as in that doleful death-scene in parisina; "the convent-bells are ringing, but mournfully and slow: in the gray square turret swinging, with a deep sound, to and fro, heavily to the heart they go. hark! the hymn is singing-- the song for the dead below, or the living who shortly shall be so; for a departing being's soul the death-hymn peals, and the hollow bells knoll." while those bells were yet tolling, and before the echoes of the last stroke of ten had died away, two barefooted friars entered the lists, one at either end, each carrying a bible and a crucifix; and at the same moment the two champions were seen advancing, each to his own end of the lists, accompanied by his sureties or god-fathers, all armed in complete suits of chain-mail; sir aradas as appellant, entering at the east, sir foulke at the left end of the inclosure. here they were met each by one of the friars, the constable and mareschal riding close up to the barriers, to hear the plighting of their oaths. and at this moment, the eyes of all the multitude were riveted on the forms of the two adversaries, and every judgment was on the stretch to frame auguries of the issue, from the thews, the sinews, and the demeanor, of the two champions. it was seen at a glance that sir foulke d'oilly was by far the stronger-built and heavier man. he was exceedingly broad-shouldered, and the great volume of his humeral muscles gave him the appearance of being round-backed; but he was deep-chested, and long-armed; and, though his hips were thick and heavy, and his legs slightly bowed--perhaps in consequence of his almost living on horseback--it was evident that he was a man of gigantic strength, impaired neither by excess nor age, for he did not seem to be more than in his fortieth year. sir aradas de ratcliffe, on the contrary, was nearly three inches taller than his opponent, and proportionately longer in the reach; but altogether he was built more on the model of an antinous than a hercules. if he were not very broad in the shoulders, he was singularly deep and round in the chest, and remarkable for the arched hollow of his back and the thinness of his flanks. his arms and legs were irreproachable, and, all in all, he trod the firm earth with "a station like the herald mercury, new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill." but it was from the features of the two men that most took their auspices, and that the friends of aradas drew confident augury of his triumph. the face of sir foulke d'oilly was flaccid and colorless, with huge over-lapping brows shading his small keen eyes with a pent-house of grizzly bristles, large pendant cheeks, a sinister hooked nose, and a mouth indicative of lust, cruelty, and iron firmness--altogether, a sordid vulturine type of man. the features of aradas, on the contrary, were clean, clear, fleshless, and finely marked; a broad, smooth forehead, straight-cut black eyebrows, well-opened hazel eyes, with a tawny flash when excited, like to that of a lion or an eagle, a nose slightly aquiline, and a mouth not less benevolent than resolute. no one could look at him and his opponent, without thinking instinctively of the gallant heaven-aspiring falcon matched with the earthly, carrion vulture. nor was there less meaning or omen in the tone of their voices, as they swore. men paused to listen breathlessly; for among the lower classes on the field there were heavy bets pending on the issue, and the critical judges of those days believed that there was much in the voice of a man. as each entered the lists, he was met by a friar, who encountered him with the question, "brother, hast thou confessed thy sins this morning?" to this, d'oilly muttered a reply, inaudible to the questioner; but aradas made answer, in a voice that rang like a silver bell, "i have confessed my sins, father, and, thanks to the lord jesus, have received absolution and the most holy sacrament of his body." the questions were then put to both, to be answered with the hand on the evangelists and the lip on the crucifix-- "do you hereby swear that your former answers and allegations are all true; that you bear no weapons but those allotted by the court; that you have no charms about you; that you place your whole trust in god, in the goodness of your cause, and in your own prowess?" to this solemn query, sir foulke replied only by the two words, "i swear!" and those so obscurely uttered, that the constable called on him to repeat them. but sir aradas raised his head, and looked about him with a frank and princely air. "i hereby swear," he said, "that which i swore heretofore--that sir foulke d'oilly is a murderer, a liar, and a traitor--to be true, and on his body i will prove it; that i have not, nor will use any weapons save what the court allot me; that i wear neither charm nor talisman; and that, save in my good cause, my own right hand, and my trust in god, i have not whereon to rest my hope, here, or hereafter. so may he help me, or desert me at my utmost need, on whose evangelists i am now sworn." then the godfathers led the men up face to face, and each grasping the other by the mailed right hand, they again swore-- the appellant, "my uttermost will i do, and more than my uttermost, if it may be, to slay thee on this ground whereon we stand, or to force thee to cry 'craven'--so help me god, in his most holy heaven!" and the appellee, "my uttermost will i do, and more, if may be, than my uttermost, to prove my innocence upon thy body, on this ground whereon we stand--so help me god, in the highest!" the same difference was observed in the voices of the two men, as they again swore; for while the tones of aradas had the steel-tempered ring of the gallant game-cock's challenge, the notes of sir foulke were liker to the quavering croak of the obscene raven. then the godfathers retired them, till they stood face to face, with thirty feet between them, and delivered to them the arms allotted by the court. these were--a dagger, with a broad, flat blade, eighteen inches in length, worn in a scabbard on the right side, behind the hip; an estoc, or short sword, of about two feet six, with a sharp point, and grooved bayonet-blade, hanging perpendicularly on the left thigh; and a huge two-handed broadsword, four feet from guard to point, with a hilt of twenty inches, and a great leaden pommel to counterbalance the weight of the blade in striking. their defensive arms were nearly similar. each wore a habergeon, or closely-fitting shirt of linked mail, with mail sleeves, mail hose, poldron, genouillieres, and shoes of plated splints of steel; and flat-topped helmets, with avantailles and beavers. but the neck of sir foulke d'oilly was defended by the new-fashioned gorget of steel plates, while aradas adhered to the old mail-hood or tippet, hooked on to the lower rim of his beaver. and it was observed that while d'oilly wore his small heater-shaped shield on his left arm, de ratcliffe threw his over his shoulder, suspended from the chain which held it about his neck, so as to leave both his arms free to wield his mighty war-sword. beyond this, it was only noted that in the casque of sir aradas was a lady's glove, and on his left arm an azure scarf, fringed with gold, such as the pale girl on the seneschal's arm wore, over her snow-white cymar, crossing her left shoulder and the region of her heart. and now the godfathers left the lists, and none remained within them save the two champions facing each other, like two pillars of steel, as solid and as motionless, until the word should be given to set on, and the two barefooted friars, crouching on their knees in the angles of the lists, muttering their orisons before the crucifixes, which they held close before their eyes, as if to shut out every untoward sight which might mar their meditations. then a single trumpet was blown. a sharp, stern, warning blast. and a herald made proclamation; "oyez! oyez! oyez! this is _champ clos_, for the judgment of god. therefore, beware all men, to give no aid or comfort to either combatant, by word, deed, sign, or token, on pain of infamy and mutilation." then the constable rose in his stirrups, and cried aloud-- "let them go!" and the trumpet sounded. "let them go!" and, again, the trumpet sounded. "let them go! do your duty!" and the earl mareschal answered, "and may god defend the right!" and, the third time, the trumpet sounded, short and direful as the blast of doom; and at that deadly summons, with brandished blades, both champions started forward; but the first bound of sir aradas carried him across two thirds of the space, and his sword fell like a thunderbolt on the casque of his antagonist, and bent him almost to his knee. but that was no strife to be ended at a blow; and they closed, foot to foot, dealing at each other sweeping blows, which could not be parried, and could scarcely be avoided, but which were warded off by their armor of proof. it was soon observed that sir foulke d'oilly's blows fell with far the weightier dint, and that, when they took effect, it was all his lighter adversary could do to bear up against them. but, on the other hand, it was seen that, by his wonderful agility, and the lithe motions of his supple and elastic frame, sir aradas avoided more blows than he received, and that each stroke missed by his enemy told almost as much against him as a wound. at the end of half an hour, no material advantage had been gained; the mail of either champion was broken in many places, and the blood flowed, of both, from more wounds than one; that of aradas the more freely. but as they paused, perforce, to snatch a moment's breath, it was clear that sir aradas was the fresher and less fatigued of the two; while sir foulke was evidently short of wind, and hard pressed. it was not the young man's game to give his enemy time--so, before half a minute had passed, he set on him again, with the same fiery vigor and energy as before. his opponent, however, saw that the long play was telling against him, and it appeared that he was determined to bring the conflict to a close by sheer force. one great stride he made forward, measuring his distance accurately with his eye, and making hand and foot keep time exactly, as he swung his massive blade in a full circle round his head, and delivered the sweeping blow, at its mightiest impetus, on the right side of his enemy's casque. like a thunderbolt it fell; and, beneath its sway, the baçinet, cerveilliere, and avantaille of aradas gave way, shattered like an egg-shell. he stood utterly unhelmed, save that the beaver and the base of the casque, protecting the nape of his neck and his lower jaw, held firm, and supported the mailed hood of linked steel rings, which defended his neck to the shoulder. all else was bare, and exposed to the first blow of his now triumphant antagonist. the fight seemed ended by that single blow; and, despite the injunction of the herald, a general groan burst from the assembly. guendolen covered her face with her hands for a second, but then looked up again, with a wild and frenzied eye, compelled to gaze, to the last, on that terribly fascinating scene. but then was it shown what might there is in activity, what resistless power in quickness. for, leaping and bounding round the heavy giant, like a sword-player, letting him waste his every blow on the empty air or in the impassive sawdust, aradas plied his sword like a thrasher's flail, dealing every blow at his neck and the lacings of his casque, till fastening after fastening broke, and it was clear that d'oilly, too, would be unhelmed in a few more moments. the excitement of the people was ungovernable; they danced in their seats, they shouted, they roared. no heralds, no pursuivants, no men-at-arms, could control them. the soul of the people had awakened, and what could fetter it? still, wonderful as they were, the exertions of aradas, completely armed in heavy panoply, were too mighty to last. the thing must be finished. down came the trenchant blade with a circling sweep, full on the jointed-plates of d'oilly's new-fangled gorget. rivet after rivet, plate after plate, gave way with a rending crash; his helmet rolled on the ground. he stood bare-headed, bare-throated, unarmed to the shoulders. but the same blow which unhelmed d'oilly disarmed aradas. his faithless sword was shivered to the hilt; and what should he do now, with only that weak, short estoc, that cumbrous dagger, against the downright force of the resistless double-handed glaive? backward he sprang ten paces. the glittering estoc was in his right, the short massive dagger in his left. he dropped on his right knee, crouching low, both arms hanging loosely by his sides, but with his eye glaring on his foeman, like that of the hunted tiger. no sooner had sir foulke rallied from the stunning effects of the blow, and seen how it was with him, his enemy disarmed, and, as it seemed, at his power, than a hideous sardonic smile glared over his lurid features, and he strode forward with his sword aloft, to triumph and to kill. when he was within six paces of his kneeling adversary, he paused, measured his distance--it was the precise length for one stride, one downright blow, on that bare head, which no earthly power could now shield against it. there was no cry now among the people--only a hush. every heart stood still in that vast concourse. "wilt die, or cry 'craven?'" the eye of aradas flashed lightning. lower, he crouched lower, to the ground. his left hand rose slowly, till the guard of his dagger was between his own left, and his enemy's right eye. his right hand was drawn so far back, that the glittering point of the estoc only showed in front of his hip. lower, yet lower, he crouched, almost in the attitude of the panther couchant for his spring. one stride made sir foulke d'oilly forward; and down, like some tremendous engine, came the sword-sweep--the gazers heard it whistle through the air as it descended. what followed, no eye could trace, no pen could describe. there was a wild cry, like that of a savage animal; a fiery leap through a cloud of whirling dust; a straight flash through the haze, like lightning. one could see that somehow or other that slashing cut was glanced aside, but how, the speed of thought could not trace. it was done in a second, in the twinkling of an eye. and, as the dust subsided, there stood aradas, unmoved and calm as the angel of death, with his arms folded, and nothing in his hand save the dagger shivered to the guard. and at his feet lay his enemy, as if stricken by a thunderbolt, with his eyes wide open and his face to heaven, and the deadly estoc buried, to the gripe, in the throat, that should lie no more forever. pass we the victor's triumph, and the dead traitor's doom; pass we the lovers' meeting, and the empty roar of popular applause. that was, indeed, the judgment of god; and when god hath spoken, in the glory of his speechless workings, it is good that man should hold his peace before him. chapter xxvii. the bridal day. "the roads should blossom, the roads should bloom, so fair a bride shall leave her home! should blossom and bloom with garlands gay, so fair a bride shall pass to-day." longfellow. the dark winter months, with their alternate snows, sheeting the wide moorlands, and roofing the mighty mountain-tops of the lake country with inviolate white, and soft thaws swelling the streamlets into torrents, inundating the grassy meadows, and converting the mountain tarns into inland seas, had passed away; nor passed away all gloomily, or without their appropriate and peculiar pleasures, from the sojourners in hawkshead castle. all over merrie england, but in no part of it more than in the north country, was christmas the gladdest and the blythest time of all the circling year; when every door stood open, from that of the baron's castle and the franklin's hall to that of the poorest cotter's cabin; when the yule log was kindled, and the yule candle lighted; when the furmety smoked on every english board, and the wassail bowl was spiced for all comers; when the waits sang christmas carols under the clear cold moon in the frosty midnights, and the morris-dancers and the mummers rioted and reveled to the rude minstrelsy of the time, and made the most of the short-lived wintery sunshine; when ancient feuds were often reconciled, and ancient friendships riveted by closer ties; when families long dissevered were re-collected and re-united about the old ancestral hearth-stones; when the noble and the rich filled their abundant halls with sumptuous luxury and loud-rejoicing merriment, and the poor were not forgotten by the great. indeed, though there was much that was coarse and rude, much that was hard, cruel, and oppressive, in the social life of england, in those old and almost forgotten days, there was much also that was good and generous and genial, much that was sound and hearty, much that was brave and hale and masculine, which has vanished and departed from the world forever, with the vaunted progress of civilization and refinement, in those old times when the christmas chimes were a merry sound to hear, when the squire's wide hall, and the cottage small, were full of good english cheer. above all, there was this great redeeming virtue, conspicuous among the flagrant wrongs and innate evils of society under the feudal system, that between the governors and the governed, between the lord and his lieges, nay, even between the master and his serfs, there was then no such social gulf established, as now yawns, in these boasted days of civilizing progress and political equality, between castes and classes, separated by little else than their worth, estimated by the standard of gold--gold, which seems, daily and hourly, more and more to be over-riding all distinctions of honored ancestry, high name, noble deeds, personal deserts, nay, even of distinguished bearing, of intellect, of education, of accomplishment, much more of truth, integrity or honor. during these wintery months, accordingly, there had been all the free, open-hearted hospitality of the day, displayed throughout the wide manors of hawkshead, coniston, and yewdale, and in the neighboring demesnes of rydal, and something more even than the wonted merriment and joviality of that sacred yet joyous season. many of the grand baronial families of the vicinity, attracted as much, perhaps, by the singular and romantic interest attaching to the great events, which had filled all the north country with the rumor of their fame as with the blast of a martial trumpet, as by the ties of caste and kindred, had visited the castle palace of sir yvo de taillebois, almost in the guise of bridal guests; for the approaching nuptials of the fair guendolen with aradas the brave were openly announced, although the ceremonial was deferred until the balmy days of spring-time, and the genial month of may. the cliffords of barden, the howards, from naworth and carlisle, the percy, from his already famous strength of alnwick, the scropes, the umfravilles, the nevilles, from their almost royal principality of middleham on the ure, had all in turn tasted the christmas cheer, and shared the older sports of yule, in the wild recesses of kendale; had congratulated the young and noble victor on his double conquest, scarce knowing which was most to be envied, that of the felon knight in the black lists of lancaster, or that of the soft ladye in the sweetest valley of the lone lake country. but now, the wintery days had passed away, the snipe was heard drumming every where on vibrated pinions, as he soared and dived in mid-air over the deep morasses, in which he annually bred unmolested; the swallows had returned from their unknown pilgrimage to the spicy isles of ocean, or the central waters of untrodden africa, and might be seen skimming with rapid wing, the blue mirror of winandermere, and dimpling its surface in pursuit of their insect prey; the cuckoo had been heard in the birch-woods among the ghylls, and in the huge sycamores around the village garths; the heathcocks blew their clarion call of amorous defiance from every heath-clad knoll of the wide moorlands; the cushat had donned the iris hues which paint his swelling neck in the spring days of love and courtship; the meadows were alive with crocuses, brown-streaked and purple, white and golden; the snow-drops had raised their silvery bells, almost before the earth was clear of its winter covering; the primroses gemmed all the banks with their pale saffron blossoms, the air was redolent with the delicious perfume of the violets. it was the eve of may, and as the sun was setting over the misty hills that keep guard over high yewdale, amid a long and joyous train, dragged slowly by ten yoke of milk-white oxen, with nosegays on their horns, and branches of the fragrant may canopying their harness, escorted by troops of village girls, and stout hill shepherds, dancing along and caroling to the cadence of the pipe, the tabor, and the rebeck, the mighty maypole was brought in triumph up the weary winding road to the green esplanade before the castle gates of hawkshead; and there, before midnight, was swung into its place, crowned with garlands, and fluttering with gay streamers, and glad with the leafy garniture of spring, "shrouds and stays holding it fast," holding it erect toward heaven, an emblem of that which never can, whatever fanatics and bigots may declare, be unacceptable on high, the innocent and pure rejoicings of humble loving hearts, forgetting toil and care, and casting away sorrow for one happy day, at least, the merriest and the maddest of the three hundred and sixty-five, which sum the checkered score of man's annual vicissitudes of labor and repose, brief merriment and lasting sorrow. during the night deep silence and deep slumber fell like a shadow over keep and cottage, and not a sound disturbed the stillness of the vernal night, unless it were the quavering cry of some night-bird among the tufted woods, or the shrill bark of the hill fox from the mountain side, or the deep harmonious call "all's well," from the warder on the lofty battlements. but long before the paly dawn had begun to throw its faint yellow glimmer up the eastern sky, while the moon was yet riding lustrous in the cloudless azure, with the morning-star flashing like a diamond by her side, many a cottage door in the silent hamlet, many a one on the gentle slopes of the green hill sides, many a one in the broad pastoral valley, was unbolted, and revolved on noiseless hinges, to send forth the peasant maids, in shy yet merry bands to gather, with many a mystic rite and ceremonial borrowed, unknown to them, from the mythology of other lands, when flora ruled the month of flowers, to gather the puissant dews of may. when the sun rose fair above the eastern hills, "with blessings on his broad and burnished face," his appearance was welcomed by such a burst of joyous and hilarious music from the battlements, as never before had waked the echoes of scafell and skiddaw. in that triumphant gush of music there were blended, not only the resounding clangor of the norman kettle-drums and trumpets, with the clear notes of the mellow bugle, but the tones of a thousand instruments, scarce known on english soil, having been introduced only by the crusaders from those oriental climates, in which music is indigenous and native, and from which the retainers of sir yvo de taillebois had imported, not the instruments only but the skill necessary to give them utterance and expression, and the very airs to which, in the cedar-vales, and among the haunted hills of palestine, they had of old been vocal. the musical chime of many bells attuned, the silver clash of the cymbals, the roll of the syrian atabals, the soft tones of the lute, and shrill strains of the eastern reed-pipes, were blended strangely, but most sonorously with the stirring war-notes of the west. and instantly, as if awakened from sleep by that rejoicing strain, the little chapel bells of bowness began to tinkle with small merry chimes, across the bright blue lake; and answering, yet further in the distance, though still clearly audible, so apt to the conveyance of sounds is the tranquillity and the clear vibrating air of those mountain regions, the full carillon of the magnificent abbey of kendal the stately ruins of which are still extant, as if to teach us boastful men of modern days, the superiority of our semi-barbarous ancestors, as we have the vanity to term them, rang out, proclaiming to the sparse population of the dales, "how fair a bride shall wed to-day." around the maypole on the green, already were assembled, not the vassals only of the great baron, his free-tenants and his serfs, rejoicing in one happy holiday, and in the prospect of gorging themselves ere nightfall throat-full of solid dainties and sound ale, but half the population of the adjacent valleys, hill-farmers, statesmen, as the small land-holders are still called in those unsophisticated districts, burghers from the neighboring towns, wandering monks and wandering musicians, a merry, motley multitude, all in their best attire, all wearing bright looks and light hearts, and expecting, as it would seem from the eager looks directed constantly toward the castle gates, the forthcoming of some spectacle or pageant, on which their interest was fixed. two or three welsh harpers, who had been lured from their cambrian wilds by the far-spread report of the approaching festivities, and by the hope of gaining silver guerdon from the bounty of the splendid normans, were seated on a grassy knoll, not far from the tall garlanded mast, which made itself conspicuous as the emblem--as, perhaps, in former ages, it had been the idol--of the day, and from time to time drew from the horse-hair strings of their rude harps some of those sweet, wild, melancholy airs which are still characteristic of the genius of the kymric race, which still recall the hours "when arthur ruled and taliessin sung;" but neither to them, nor to the indigenous strains, more agreeable perhaps to their untutored ears, of two native crowders of the dales, who were dragging out strange discords from the wires of their rude violins--nor yet to the more captivating and popular arts of three or four foreign jongleurs, with apes and gitterns--the savoyards of that remote age, though coming at that day not from the valleys of the lower alps, but from the western shores of normandy and morbihan--did the eager crowd vouchsafe much of their attention, or many of their pennies. there was a higher interest awake, a more earnest expectation, and these were brought to their climax, when, just as the castle bell tolled eight, the wild and startling blast of a single trumpet rose clear and keen from the inner court, and the great gates flew open. a gay and gallant sight it was, which, as the heavy drawbridge descended, the huge portcullis slowly rose, creaking and clanking, up its grooves of stone, and the iron-studded portals yawned, revealed itself to the eyes of the by-standers; and loud and hearty was the cheer which it evoked from the assembled multitude. the whole inner court was thronged with men and horses, gayly clad, lightly armed, and splendidly caparisoned; and, as obedient to the signals of the officers who marshaled them, the vaunt-couriers of the company rode out, four by four, arrayed in kendal green, with the silver badges and blue sarsenet scarfs of their lord, and white satin favors with long silver streamers, waving from their bonnets, the gleam of embroideries and the fluttering of female garments might be discovered within the long-withdrawing avenue. four hundred strong, the retainers of the high-sheriff, swept forward, with bow and spear, and were succeeded by a herald in his quartered tabard, and a dozen pursuivants with trumpets. behind these came, in proud procession, six tall priests, nobly mounted on ambling palfreys, each bearing a gilded cross, and then the crozier of the abbot of furness abbaye, followed by that proud prelate, with his distinctive, hierarchal head-tire, cope, and dalmatique, and all the splendid paraphernalia of his sacred feudal dignity, supported by all his clergy in their full canonicals, and a long train of monks and choristers, these waving perfumed chalices, those raising loud and clear the hymns appointed for the ceremonial. a hundred gentlemen of birth and station, on foot, bare-headed, clad in the liveries of the house of taillebois, blue velvet slashed and lined with cloth of silver laid down on white satin, came next, the escort of the bridal party, and were followed by a multitude of beautiful girls, dressed in virgin white, strewing flowers before the feet of the bride's palfrey. but when she appeared, mounted on a snow-white andalusian jennet, whose tail and mane literally swept the ground in waves of silver, in her robes of white sendal and cloth of silver, with the bridal head-tire of long-descending gauzy fillets floating around her like a wreath of mist about a graceful cypress, and her long auburn ringlets disheveled in their mazes of bright curls, powdered with diamond dust and garlanded with virgin roses, the very battlements shook to the shouts of applause, which made the banners toss and rustle as if a storm-wind smote them. two pages, dressed in cloth of silver, tended her bridle-reins on either hand, and two more bore up the long emblazoned foot-cloths of white and silver, which would otherwise have embarrassed the paces of the beautiful and docile steed which bore her, timing its tread to the soft symphony of lutes and dulcimers which harbingered the progress; while no less than six belted knights, with their chains of gold about their necks, bore the staves of the satin canopy, or baldacchino, which sheltered her fair beauties from the beams of the blythe may morning. twelve bridesmaids, all of noble birth, mounted like herself on snow-white palfreys, all robed and filleted in white and silver, and garlanded with pale blush roses, nymphs worthy of the present goddess, bridled and blushed behind her. and there, radiant with love and triumph, making his glorious charger--a red roan, with a mane and tail white and redundant as the surges of the creamy sea--caracole, and bound from the dull earth in sobresaults, croupades and balotades, which would have crazed a professor of equitation with admiration, apart from envy, rode aradas de ratcliffe, with his twelve groom's-men glittering with gems, and glorious with silk upon silk, silver upon silver. sir yvo de taillebois, with twenty or thirty of the greatest barons of the north country, his cotemporaries, and many of them his brothers-in-arms, and fellows at the council-table of their puissant norman monarch, whom they admitted only to be first baron of the english barons, _primus inter pares_, brought up the rear of the procession, while yet behind them filed a long band of spears and pennoncelles, and again after these a countless multitude, from all the country side, rejoicing and exulting, to form a portion of the pageant which added so much to the customary pleasures of the maying. thus, for miles, they swept onward through the pleasant meadow-land, tufted and gemmed with unnumbered flowers, between tall hedges white with the many-blossomed may, and overrun with flaunting clusters of the delicious woodbine. once and again they were met by troops of country girls scattering flowers, and as often rode beneath triumphal arches, deftly framed of green leaves and gay wild-flowers by rustic hands, in token of the heart's gratitude, until they reached the shores of the blue lake, where sir yvo's yacht awaited them, convoyed by every barque and boat that could be pressed into the service from all the neighboring meres and lakelets of the county. the wind blew fair and soft, and swelled the sails of cloth of silver, and waved the long azure pennants forward, as omens of happy days ahead; and smoothly over the rippling waters, to the sound of the soft bridal music, galleys and horse-boats, barques and barges, careered in fair procession, while the great multitude, afoot, rushed, like an entering tide, through the horse-roads and lanes around the head of the lake, eager to share the wedding-feast and the wedding dance, at least, if not to witness the nuptial ceremonial. at bowness they took horse again, and escorted by the bailiff and burghers of kendall, proceeded, at an increased pace, to the splendid abbey church, dim with the religious light which streamed through its deeply tinted window-panes, and was yet further obscured by the thick clouds from the tossed chalices of incense, through which swelled, like an angel's choir, the pure chant of girls and children, and the deep diapason of the mighty organ. the nuptial ceremony was followed by a feast fit for kings, served up in the grand hall of kendal castle, wherein, before the norman conquest, the proud saxon earls, morcar and edwin, maternal ancestors of the fair bride, had banqueted and rioted in state, and where, as tradition related, they had held revel for the last time on the eve of their departure for the fatal field of hastings, fatal to saxon liberty, but harbinger of a prouder era, and first cause and creatrix of a nobler race, to rule in merrie england. it needs not, here, to dwell on the strange dainties, the now long-disused and unaccustomed viands and beverages of those old days, more than on the romantic feudal usages and abstruse ceremonials of the day; suffice it that, to their palates, heronshaw, egret and peacock, venison and boar's-meat, and chines of the wild bull, were no less dainty than the choicest of our modern luxuries to the beaux and belles of the nineteenth century; and that hypocras and pigment, morat and mead and clary, made the pulses burn and the cheeks mantle as blythely and as brightly as champagne or burgundy. the ball, for the nobles in the castle-hall, for the commons on the castle-green, followed the feast; but not till the stocking had been thrown, and the curtain drawn, and the beautiful bride fairly bedded, was the nuptial ceremony esteemed fully ended, which gave the lovely guendolen, for weal and not for woe, to the brave and faithful aradas de ratcliffe. the raptures of lovers are not to be described; and if the pen of the ready-writer may gain inspiration to delineate the workings of strong mental passions, of intense moral or physical excitements, to depict stormy wrath, the agonies of hope deferred, the slow-consuming pangs of hopeless regret, there is one thing that must ever defy his powers of representation--the calm enjoyment of every-day domestic happiness; the easy and unvarying pleasures of contentment; the placid routine of hourly duties, hourly delights, hourly labors, hourly affections; and that soft intermixture of small cares and passing sorrows, with great blessings tasted, and great gratitudes due, which make up the sum of the most innocent and blessed human life. and such was the life of sir aradas and the fair guendolen de ratcliffe, until, to borrow the quaint phrase of the narrator of those incomparable tales of the thousand and one nights, "they were visited by the terminator of delights, and the separator of companions. extolled be the perfection of the living, who dieth not!" sir yvo de taillebois lived long enough to see his child's children gathered to his knee; to prognosticate, in their promise, fresh honors to his high-born race; but not so long as to outlive his intellect, his powers to advise, console, enjoy, and, above all, to trust in god. full of years and full of honors, he was gathered to his fathers in the ripeness of his time, and he sleeps in a quiet churchyard in his native valley, where a green oak-tree shades his ashes, and the ever-vocal music of the rippling kent sings his sweet, natural requiem. eadwulf the red never recovered from the starvation and exposure endured in his escape and subsequent wanderings; and, though he received the priceless boon of liberty, and the king's free pardon for his crimes, though he passed his declining days in the beautiful cottage nigh kentmere, with his noble brother, his fair wife, and all the treasured little ones about him, who grew up like olive-branches round kenric's happy, honored board, with every thing to soothe his stubborn heart and soften his morose and bitter spirit, he lived and died a gloomy, disappointed, bitter, and bad-hearted man, a victim in some sort of the vicious and cruel system which had debased his soul more even than it had degraded his body. yet it was not in that accursed system, altogether; for the gallant and good kenric, and his sweet wife, edith the fair, were living proofs, even, as the noble poet sings-- "that gentleness and love and trust prevail o'er angry wave and gust;" and it was no less "the spur, that the clear spirit doth raise," than the grand force of that holiest saxon institution, trial by jury, that raised kenric from a saxon serf to be an english freeman.