Bourne Archive: FNQ: Hereward XXV
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edit 25 Apr 2010.
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De Gestis Herwardi Saxonis.
XXV.
Quomodo piscatorem se finxit, unde iterum
regem delusit, et quomodo rex fecit debellare insulam et de defensione eorum.
Rex autem,
sicut disposuerat, et pro quo illuc suum iter direxerat, præparatis
instrumentis præliandi, aggressus est perficere, omnem suum exercitum conducens
ad Alreheche1 ; fecit quoque illo etiam advehi
multam struem lignorum et lapidum, atque ex omni materia aggerationem, et omnes
piscatores provinciæ cum naviculis ad Cotingelade2
adesse jussit, ut illuc quæ adduxerant transfretarent, unde globos et montanas
eis Alreheche facerent, super quos bellare deberent. Inter quos cum navicula sicut piscator
adveniens Herwardus cum cæteris, diligenter omne quod adduxerant
transfretabant. Tandem eadem die sole
non occidente absque dampno, priusquam discessit opus suum complevit, imposito
igne in eo, unde totum combustum est, et nonnulli etiam ab eo occisi et
dimersi. Rasus enim erat barba et capite ne agnosceretur : sic varia usus
specie ad hostium necem et ad internecionem inimicorum, magis volens aliquantum
aspectu exinaniore se et compositas crines amittere, quam adversantes sibi
parcere. Nam hoc audito, impune illum
amodo sic conreverti rex detestabile esse dixit, jam illusi ab eo in multis,
tamen inter allia et ante omnia venerabilis rex3 suis
semper præcepit et mandavit Herwardum produci ad se, vivum et incolumem semper
servare [servari]. Hujus siquidem rei damnis
commonefacti, ad omnes suas
res et ad opera nocte et die custodias habuere. Sic per
VII. dies semper præliantes vix unum perfecerunt, et globos quatuor ex ligno in quibus instrumenta bellandi statuere proposuerunt. At illi qui ex insula erant antemuralia et propugnacula
contra statuentes valde rebellabant. In octava siquidem die cum omni virtute eorum omnes
aggressi sunt impugnare insulam, statuentes illam prædictam phithonissam mulierem in eminentiori loco in
medio eorum, ut satis undique
munita libere suæ arti vacaret.
Qua ascensa contra insulam et habitatores ejus diu sermonicata est, plurimas destructiones ..... tudines4↓, et figmenta
subversionis faciens, posterioraque sua semper in fine suæ
orationis et incantationis detecta ostendens. Hæc dum enim illa
hoc suum nefandum opus5
tertio sicut proposuerat aggressa est, ecce illi qui in
palude undique a dextris et
a sinistris inter arundines
et veprium paludis asperitates absconsi erant, ignem in illa parte accenderent, quo, vento urgente, fumus adversus castra eorum et flamma consurgeret. Qua surgente instar
longitudinis duorum stadiorum, ignis huc illucque penes
illos discurrens in palude horrendæ visionis6 apparuit, et stridor flammarum crepitantibus virgis virgultorum eum [cum] arboribus salicum terribiliter insonuit. Unde obstupefacti et nimis territi fugam inierunt
unusquisque viam suam, et per inculta paludis7 in illa via aquosa non diu gradientes, nec callem quientes tenere8. Pro quo enim
plurimi repente absorpti sunt, aliique in aquis eisdem dimersi
et sagittis oppressi, dum manus eorum
qui de insula caute ad rebellandum
licet clam egressi sunt in igne et fuga et jaculis ferre non possent. Inter quos illa præfata
nefandæ artis mulier, de suo proprio statu etiam timore perterrita,
obruta diruens prior fracta cervice
succubuit.
Ipse siquidem memoratus rex necnon in proprio clypeo inter paucos qui effugerant ad numerum occumbentium sagittam fortiter injectam ad tentoria suorum usque portabat. Quod videntes sui perterriti sunt, vulneratum eum æstimantes, et hoc insimiliter conquerentes. Quorum
hæsitationes et metus ut expelleret, rex adjecit, Nec me vulnere infectum conqueror, sed sanum consilium
me non accepisse super omnibus quæ
mihi contigerant condoleo, pro quo jam pene omnes nostri succubuere,
nefandæ mulieris versutia decepti et detestandæ artis imperitia irritati, cui aurem saltem
præbere execrandum nobis esse deberet, me9 non ista nobis sic provenerant.
Isto autem tempore, Radulfus comes cognominato Waer10,
clam coacto simul maximo exercitu in11 quosque de gente Anglorum ad nuptias suas invitaverat et vi eos secum sub
sacramento et dolo tenere coegerat, unde totam terram a Norwico usque ad Tedford12 et ad Sudbiri devastans sibi subjugavit. Pro quo tres memorati13 comites et omnes majores natu qui in insula erant ad eum jam confugerant, quasi vindicaturus sibi regnum et patriam, relicto solo Herwardo cum suis ad custodiendam
insulam.
The Exploits of Hereward the
Saxon.
XXV.
How Hereward disguised himself as a
fisherman, and cheated the King a second time : and
how the King attacked the Isle and about their means of defence.
The King, as he had
arranged, and in pursuit of the object for which he had directed his march to
the spot, when the engines of war were got ready, attempted to carry out his
plans, leading his whole army to Alreheche1
; he caused also to be brought thither a large pile of wood and stones, and a
heap of all kinds of timber ; and he commanded all the fishermen of the
province to come with their boats to Cotingelade2,
so that they might transport what they had brought to the place, and with the
materials construct mounds and hillocks on the top of which they might fight.
Among these Hereward came with the rest like a fisherman with a boat, and they
carefully transported everything that they had brought there. At last on the
same day, the sun not setting without some damage done before he departed, he
finished his work, and then set it on fire, whereby the whole was burnt up, and
some men were also killed by it, and some drowned. For
he had gone with head and beard shaven so as not to be recognised : employing
different disguises for the death of his enemies and destruction of his foes,
more willing to appear for a time in ungainly fashion, and to lose his comely
hair, than to spare his adversaries. And when this was reported, that he had
with impunity again got away, the King said it was a shameful thing that he had
been now more than once mocked by Hereward ; but yet
the worthy King3
among other things and above all gave orders to his men and charged them
Hereward should be brought to him alive, and that they should keep him
unharmed. And being much impressed with
the damage done on this occasion, the King’s men set guards over all their
property and over the works, night and day. So for seven days they struggled,
and with difficulty completed one work ; and they set
up four circular erections of wood on which to put the engines. But the men of
the Isle, erecting outworks and bulwarks to oppose them, made a vigorous
resistance. And so on the eighth day, all advanced to attack the Isle with
their whole strength ; and they put that witch before
mentioned on an elevated spot in their midst, so that she, being sufficiently
protected on all sides, might have free room for the exercise of her skill.
When she had got up
she spoke out for a long time against the Isle and its inhabitants, denouncing
destruction and uttering charms for their overthrow, and at the end of her
talking and incantations turned her back on them in derision4↑. And when she had gone through
this disgusting ceremony5 three times, as she had proposed, behold,
the men who were hidden all around in 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 camp. Extending some
two furlongs the fire rushing hither and thither among them formed a horrible
spectacle in the marsh6↑, and the roar of the flames, with
the crackling twigs of the brushwood and willows, made a terrible noise.
Stupefied and excessively alarmed, they took to flight, each man for himself ; but they could not go far through the desert parts7
of the swamp in that watery road, nor could they keep to the path8
with ease. Wherefore very many were suddenly swallowed up, and others drowned
in the same waters, and overwhelmed with arrows, for in the fire and in their
flight they could not with their 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 greatest alarm, fell down head first from her
exalted position, and broke her neck.
And the great King
himself, among the few (compared to the number of the fallen) who had escaped,
carried in his shield, right up to the tents of his men, an arrow that had
struck deep. Seeing this his men were alarmed, supposing
him wounded, and loudly bewailed the accident. To remove their hesitation and
alarm the King said, “I have no wound to complain of ;
but I do complain that I did not take a sound design9
from all those that were submitted to me, and this is why nearly all our men
have fallen, deceived by the subtlety of an infamous woman, and moved without
knowledge of her detestable art, even to listen to whom ought to have been for
us an accursed thing, for so these things would not have happened to us.”
At this time Radulfus the Earl, surnamed Waer10,
having secretly gathered together a very large army11,
had invited certain persons from the nation of the English to his wedding, and
had compelled them by force and trickery to bind themselves to him by oath : and so he laid waste and subjugated to himself the
whole land from Norwich to Tedford12 and Sudbury.
Wherefore three Earls, named above13, and all the
elders who were in the Isle, had now gone off to him, as though he meant to
make a claim for the kingdom and country, leaving Hereward by himself with his
men to guard the Isle.
Commentary.
1. ↑ Aldreth
(grid ref TL4473) lies on the southern edge of the
2. This
is most likely to have been Cottingham Lode. Most of
the Cambridgeshire fen-edge villages had, one for each, a water connection
through its fen to the Great Ouse directly or via the River Cam. This canalized stream was called a lode. Using Cottingham Lode would have brought the goods fairly close
to the works without the need to pass close by the fortifications of the
Islanders.
3. This
will be Hugh Candidus writing, in the twelfth century, when the House of
Normandy was firmly in charge in
4. ↑ The series of dots in the Latin text might
represent something about which Sweeting was shy, or indicate that this part of
the transcription was missing, perhaps because the original was damaged. That
it should have happened in a description of a witch’s curses makes it likely
either that someone had scratched it from the manuscript or that Sweeting was
being coy. His translation does show as bowdlerized when compared with the
original text.
The ‘tudines’ looks like the end of a
word such as valetudines. It is a third declension noun
like legio
with a nominative singular of valetudo. The nominative, vocative and accusative plurals
are therefore all ‘valetudines’:
states of health. But here, the appropriate meaning would be ‘sicknesses’ or
‘weaknesses’ (Langenscheidt). This does not explain the
coyness but my scant knowledge of Latin does not extend to recognizing the
language’s rude words from their endings, so the best I can do as a translation
is ‘When she had got up opposite the island and its inhabitants, for a long
time she declaimed, making numerous demolitions of them, [something about illnesses]
and taunts of overthrow. Always (after each of three performances), she ended
her oration and incantations, by showing her uncovered buttocks’.
Even allowing for differences in
cultural attitude as between now and nine hundred and forty years ago, this can
hardly have been very effective as psychological warfare since her voice can
have carried against the wind we are told about shortly, to at most, only a few
of her opponents. For most, she will have presented a very small, distant
figure.
5. As
with respect for William, the ultimate winner of these battles, so, as a
Christian monk, Hugh had to express disapproval of the witch’s beliefs and
rituals. This was no doubt in keeping with his feelings.
6. ↑ Words
like marsh, swamp and fen are translations of palus, paludis. Latin is a language developed
in southern Europe where the climate and non-tidal sea gave rise to different
wetland habitats from those found in north-west
7. Literally,
these are the uncultivated or neglected parts: the un-frequented parts, off the
causeway.
8. Aldreth
Causeway.
9. ↑ Me is probably
intended as se, a Medieval Latin
contraction of sed.
10. He
is Ralph Guader, son of Ralph the Staller. His Guader name
comes from the estate he inherited from his Breton mother. The French name of
its centre is Gaël.
It now lies at the western end of Ille-et-Vilaine.
This is one of the points in which the story is open to
question. It may be that by the time Hugh was writing it down, people’s
memories had confused Ralph’s revolt with another but his marriage and the
events which caused his exile occurred from 1075. If the present text is
accurate, this would imply that the Siege of Ely continued until that date. In
other words, it lasted nearly five years. From the brisk and businesslike
narrative, it is easy to get an impression of greater rapidity of events than
the reality may justify.
For example, William had sent for
the witch, who was brought from
On the other hand, the Liber Eliensis states explicitly
that people were gathering for what became the siege in 1069.
In King Edward’s
11. ↑ ‘In’ serves no purpose here and seems to
have crept in accidentally at some stage.
12. ↑ Thetford (grid ref. TL8683). The distribution of the three places named
indicates that he took more or less the whole of
13. ↑ These were Edwin of Mercia, Morcar of Northumbria and
Tostig. This seems to be misinformation as Edwin died in 1071 (ASC), until we note that William took
the Earls Edwin and Morcar to
This apart, it might be possible
to reconcile the present text with the ASC if the events at Ely in 1071 may
have become a stalemate for the reasons of natural defences and
self-sufficiency referred to at various points earlier in the text and that
William left to attend to other business. There was indeed, business pressing
on his attention, in
Taking the view presented by the present text, it took the
alcohol at Ralph Gwader’s wedding in Exning to bring the deadlock to a crisis. At this point
Hereward’s broader support was gone and the islanders lost their nerve, as we
shall see later. In the past, where the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the present
text have been at odds, the ASC has been believed. There is a need to see how
far the various versions of the ASC independently corroborate each other at
this point.
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