United States or Eritrea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Gnawed them through, Sire, as we suppose, and escaped through the mire in the dark, after the fashion of these accursed frogs of Girvians." "But did he tell you naught ere he bade you good morning?" "He told as the names of all the seven. He that beat down the swords was Hereward himself." "I thought as much. When shall I have that fellow at my side?" "He that fought Richard was one Wenoch."
"That is St. Etheldreda shooting at us, eh? Then all I can say is, she is a very bad marksman. And the French are in the island?" "They are." "Then forward, men, for one half-hour's pleasure; and then to die like Englishmen." "On?" cried Alwyn. "You cannot go on. The King is at Whichford at this moment with all his army, half a mile off! Right across the road to Ely!" Hereward grew Berserk.
He fled, therefore, swiftly up the ladder, and left Hereward and his deliverer to fight it out with what success chance might determine between them. The circumstances seemed to argue a desperate combat; both were tall, strong, and courageous, both had defensive armour, and the fatal and desperate poniard was their only offensive weapon.
The rich mythology which found its starting-point in this resistance, and especially in its leader, Hereward, we no longer mistake for history; but we should not forget that it embodies the popular attitude towards those who stubbornly resisted the Norman, as it was handed on by tradition, and that it reveals almost pathetically the dearth of heroic material in an age which should have produced it in abundance.
But I intend, nevertheless, to resign my trust into the hands that gave it me. I am going down to Lone to celebrate the marriage of my daughter with the Marquis of Arondelle, and I shall take this box and its contents down with me. I shall, of course, meet the Duke of Hereward there.
Briefly it may be stated that Hereward was a native of Lincolnshire, and was in his prime about 1070. In that year he joined a party of Danes who appeared in England, attacked Peterborough and sacked the abbey there, and afterward took refuge in the Isle of Ely. Here he was besieged by William the Conqueror, and was finally forced to yield to the Norman.
Through the mist of the far past of English history there looms up before our vision a notable figure, that of Hereward the Wake, the "last of the Saxons," as he has been appropriately called, a hero of romance perhaps more than of history, but in some respects the noblest warrior who fought for Saxon England against the Normans.
Hereward did as he was commanded, and having looked at the scroll, and signified, by bending his head, his acquiescence in its contents, he presented it to Irene, who had not read long, ere, with a countenance so embittered that she had difficulty in pointing out the cause of her displeasure to her daughter, she bade her, with animation, "Read that read that, and judge of the gratitude and affection of thy Caesar!"
And now he is all wounded and be-bled; and Winter, who has fought back to back with him, has fallen on his face; and Hereward stands alone, turning from side to side, as he sweeps his sword right and left till the forest rings with the blows, but staggering as he turns. Within a ring of eleven corpses he stands. Who will go in and make the twelfth?
"It was indeed an unusual compliment," said Hereward, "that a man of your knowledge and station should be at the trouble to enquire, among the Varangian cohorts, concerning the descent of one of their constables. I scarcely think that my commander, the Acolyte himself, would think such knowledge worthy of being collected or preserved."
Word Of The Day