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WORKS ON LAYAMON Introduction, Madden's ed. of Brut. H. Morley, English Writers, London, 1888-1890, III, 206-231. L. Stephen and S. Lee, Dictionary of National Biography, London, 1885-1904, under Layamon. WACE, Roman de Brut, ed. Le Roux de Lucy, 2 vols, Rouen, 1836-1838. Roman de Rou, ed.
"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!"
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."
Then there were Corneille, Shakespeare, Petrarch, Cervantes she had read them all; and even Wace, the old Norman trouvere, whose Roman de Rou she knew almost by heart. Was she so very ignorant? There was only one thing to do: she must interest herself in what interested Philip; she must read what he read; she must study naval history; she must learn every little thing about a ship of war.
It was the Norman blood rising within me, the blood of force, and battle, and achievement. Surely there is something in us Normans a hidden fire, which sends us forth and onwards, and makes us claim what we will for our own! And having claimed it, we fight for it, and fighting we win it. So with Tancred of Hauteville, so with Rou, so with William. Will of iron, heart of fire!
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.
"'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.
Before writing Harold the poet "studied many recent plays," and re-read AEschylus and Sophocles. For history he went to the Bayeux tapestry, the Roman de Rou, Lord Lytton, and Freeman. Students of a recent controversy will observe that, following Freeman, he retains the famous palisade, so grievously battered by the axe-strokes of Mr Horace Round.
I have to deal with a simpler age, and a sterner generation; and with the old house, which had stood there, in part at least, from gray and mythic ages, when the first Sir Richard, son of Hamon Dentatus, Lord of Carboyle, the grandson of Duke Robert, son of Rou, settled at Bideford, after slaying the Prince of South-Galis, and the Lord of Glamorgan, and gave to the Cistercian monks of Neath all his conquests in South Wales.
Their confidence in his power to right wrong, became in the course of time half superstitious; and if any of them was in peril or suffered at the hands of his enemy, it became the fashion to shout: "Ha, Rou!" Rou being a corruption of Raoul, the French form of Rolf or Rollo. Then it was the duty of everyone who heard this cry, to hasten to the aid of the sufferer or to pursue his assailant.
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