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XI

HEREWARD'S EXPLOITS

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pelled him to go into the king's hall, where many of the Norman leaders were assembled. Some of them doubted the likeness; others asked him if he knew Hereward. To the latter he replied, "I wish that man of Belial were now here among us. I hate him more than any one, and would wreak vengeance upon him ; for he carried off a cow of mine, and four sheep, and everything else I possessed except these pots and my beast, with which I support myself and my two sons." After that he was sent back to the kitchen, where the servants, cooks, and kitchen boys attempted to make him drunk, so that they might have sport by blindfolding him and making him stumble over his pots. Finding him disinclined to be the victim of their frolicsome antics, they grew angry, and one of them struck him a heavy blow. Hereward, never the man to turn the other cheek to the smiter, returned the blow with such interest that his tormentor fell down and lay like one dead. Then all the menials and hangers-on of the kitchen set upon him; but he made such sturdy resistance that he killed one of them and wounded many more before he was overpowered. A soldier was then summoned to fetter him; but he broke away from his captors, slew the soldier with his own sword, and, mounting his mare, escaped from the camp and rode back to the Isle of Ely. When King William heard of what he had done he protested that Hereward was "a man of noble soul and a most distinguished warrior."

On another occasion Hereward disguised himself and joined a party of fenmen whom the Normans had set to work at making mounds and banks among the swamps on which to fight and employ their engines of war. For several days he worked among them unrecognized, and then, the work being completed, he set fire to the wood on which the mounds were built and so destroyed them. And again the Norman king was astonished at his enemy's daring, and commanded that if he were captured he should be brought to him alive. Then he set about rebuilding the mounds, and when they were

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finished, occupied them with his forces and commenced an assault upon the English of the Isle. To encourage his men, he placed in their midst, on a high point where she was visible to them all, the witch whom Hereward had lodged with, whose charms and incantations would, it was believed, have a baneful effect upon the English fighting men. But the English, "who were hidden all around the swamp, on the right and left among the reeds and rough briars of the swamp, set the reeds on fire, and by the help of the wind the smoke and flame spread up against their (the Normans') camp. Extending some two furlongs, the fire, rushing hither and thither among them, formed a horrible spectacle in the marsh, and the roar of the flames, with the crackling twigs of the brushwood and willows, made a terrible noise. Stupefied and excessively alarmed the Normans took to flight, each man for himself; but they could not go far through the desert parts of the swamp in that watery road, nor could they keep the path with ease. Wherefore very many of them were suddenly swallowed up, and overwhelmed with arrows, for in the fire and in their flight they could not with javelins resist the bands of men who came out cautiously and secretly from the Isle to repel them. And among them that woman aforesaid of infamous art, in the great alarm fell down head first from her exalted position and broke her neck."

De Gestis Herwardi Saxonis is, as its title announces, made up of the doings of Hereward and the refugees on the Isle of Ely, and the translation * from which I have quoted is a capital

* De Gestis Herwardi Saxonis (The Exploits of Hereward the Saxon). From an original manuscript, contained in a book compiled by Robert of Swaffham, in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough. Transcribed by S. H. Miller, and translated by the Rev. W. D. Sweeting. Peterborough: G. C. Caster. Mr. Miller says, "This MS. is undoubtedly the most ancient existing document touching the exploits of Hereward, and tradition says that it has its foundation in a record written by the masspriest, Leofric, in the lifetime of the hero. The original narrative was lost, by some mischance, or only fragments of it were left, and upon these, and

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companion for the stranger who wishes to acquaint himself with the scenes to which its stories refer. I have not space in which to quote further from it, or I might tell how the Norman soldier Deda made his way to the Isle; how Hereward quarrelled with the men of Ely because they made an agreement with the Norman king; how he took vengeance on the Abbot of Burgh, and afterwards saw a strange vision and flames like "fairies' lights" flickering on his followers' spears; nor can I deal with the sayings and doings of the Earls of Warrenne and Ivo Taillebois, and the rest of the French leaders who matched their military skill and personal prowess against the skill and might of the warlike Wake. But I must add a few lines to what I have written about the celebrated Saxon leader. For many months he held out against the Normans, who, in spite of their immense numerical superiority, were quite unable to resist his sudden attacks or surprise his watchful guardians of the Isle. Treachery, however, at last came to their aid. Certain of the monks of Ely, growing tired of their long isolation, sent a message to King William, offering, on condition that he would protect and guarantee to them their property, to show him a path through the fens by which his men might reach and capture the English camp. This offer was accepted and the terms agreed to, and, led by the treacherous monks, the Normans came down unexpectedly upon the Camp of Refuge, killing a third. of its garrison and compelling many of the English to surrender.

perhaps some legendary tales, the learned monk, Hugo Candidus, based his story as here reproduced. Historians, no doubt, have rejected the narrative as unauthentic, and assigned it to the region of fiction; and it must be affirmed that although it is here put forth in its entirety it is not given as veritable history. At the same time it is difficult to understand how the monkish writers came to bestow so much care on that which had no ground-work of truth in it. Hereward himself has been thought, by some, to have been a mere imaginary being—a combination of heroic deeds personified. Genealogists, however, have shown an unbroken line of descent in the family of the Wakes, who have their seat at this day in Northamptonshire."

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