BoAr:FNQ:HerewardXXV
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thread begins with the title
page
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 Alreheche ; fecit quoque illo
etiam advehi multam struem lignorum et lapidum, atque ex omni materia
aggerationem, et omnes piscatores provinciæ cum naviculis ad Cotingelade 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 rex suis semper præcepit et
mandavit Herwardum produci ad se, vivum et incolumem semper servare. 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 opus
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 visionis apparuit, et stridor
flammarum crepitantibus virgis virgultorum eum arboribus salicum terribiliter
insonuit. Unde obstupefacti et nimis
territi fugam inierunt unusquisque viam suam, et per inculta paludis in illa
via aquosa non diu gradientes, nec callem quientes tenere. 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 insimilietr 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, me
non ista nobis sic provenerant.
Isto autem tempore, Radulfus
comes cognominato Waer, clam coacto simul maximo exercitu in 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 Tedford et ad Sudbiri
devastans sibi subjugavit. Pro quo tres
memorati 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 design 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
Waer9,
having secretly gathered together a very large army, 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 Tedford10
and Sudbury. Wherefore three Earls, named above11,
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 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 ‘By some means, she was raised opposite the island and for
a long time was made to declaim to the islanders, numerous confutations
(examples of the islanders’ errors), [illnesses] and making inventions of
overthrow and following after, always at the end of her oration and
incantations, displayed herself uncovered.’ This last point will have been what
Sweeting expressed as her ‘turning her back on them in derision’. Clearly, Sweeting
saw her as raising her skirt and mooning at the islanders; but that is not exactly,
what he wrote. Neither, exactly, did Hugh.
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. The un-frequented parts, off the causeway.
8. Aldreth Causeway.
9. ↑ He is Ralph Guader, son of Ralph the Staller.
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
In King Edward’s
10. Thetford (grid ref TL8683).
The distribution of the three places named indicates that he took more or less
the whole of
11. ↑ 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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