The Project Gutenberg eBook of Early English Hero Tales, by Jeanette Marks.

The master-stories of English literature told for young readers. The author, who has been professor of English Literature at Mt. Holyoke and the author of several successful books for both younger and older readers, has been occupied for a long time in making a selection of the best stories from the greatest English writers beginning with "Beowulf" and the dawn of English letters.

The present volume offers masterpieces chosen from the earliest English literature from the seventh to the fourteenth century, stories which are not readily accessible.

The second volume will offer hero tales of the Middle English period, from Chaucer and others.

In later volumes selections will be made from the masters of modern English literature.

From 600 to 1340
Other books in preparation
Each illustrated, 12mo, Cloth, 50 cents net
Harper & Brothers, Publishers

EARLY
ENGLISH
HERO TALES

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAP.		PAGE
	Introduction	vii
I	The First English Hero	1
II.	Welsh Magic	9
III.	The Battle at the Ford	18
IV.	Cædmon the Cowherd	30
V.	The Shepherd of Lauderdale	41
VI.	The Boy Who Won a Prize	48
VII.	A Fisherman's Boy	57
VIII.	The Werewolf	68
IX.	At Geoffrey's Window	75
X.	A Famous Kitchen Boy	85
	Chronology	101

INTRODUCTION

Supposing you were asked to enter a Great Palace? And within that palace, you were told, were more than a thousand golden doors? And those doors opened into rooms and upon gardens and balconies, all of which were the most beautiful of palace rooms and gardens? And some were more beautiful than anything the world had ever known before? Do you think you would go through the gate to that palace?

And if you were told that in the palace were lamps so bright that they lighted not only the palace, but cast a glow over the whole world? And that these lamps hung from chains the ends of which you could not see, just as Pryderi was not able to see the ends of the hanging golden chains in the palace which he entered? And once within the Great Palace you were not only better for being there, but also happier and stronger and more beautiful, and never any more could you be lonely? It sounds like an Aladdin's lamp, does it not, which, once seen and touched, could bring so much beauty and power into our lives! Indeed, it is Aladdin's lamp—the lamp of men's minds and souls. And the Great Palace is the Palace of English Literature.

Over those doors are many names written—names never to be forgotten while the English tongue is spoken. And in that palace there is fairyland; there are giants and monsters; there are warrior heroes like Beowulf, and saintly heroes like Cuthbert; there are noble boys like Alfred; there are poets, princes, lovely ladies, little children, spirited horses, faithful dogs; there are heard the sound of singing, the playing of the harp, the beat of feet dancing, cries of gladness, cries of sorrow, the rolling of the organ, the fluting of birds, the laughter of water, and the whisper of every wind that has blown upon the fields of the world; there are seen flowers of every marvelous and starlike shape, of every rainbow hue, and jewels as shining as the lamps hanging in the Great Palace, and fruits rare and strange filling the Great Palace with sweet fragrance and color; there are rooms unlike any rooms we have ever seen before; and the years are there—nearly two thousand—numbered and made beautiful; there, too, are Wisdom and Kindness and Courage and Faith and Modesty and Love and Self-Control, coming and going hither and yon through the wide hallways or on service bent up and down the narrow corridors.

It is a Palace of Enchantment, is it not? Yes, it is a Palace of Enchantment, and I can think of no greater happiness, no stronger assurance that we shall learn how to be our best selves and to rule ourselves, no greater inspiration to be wise and kind while we are boys and girls, and when we grow up no fuller promise of a good time and many kinds of happiness and pleasure, than just to take the gate into that palace, listen to its songs and poems and stories, taste of its fruits, hold some of its flowers in our hands, grow warm in its sunshine, dream in its moonlight, and watch the fairies dance with the feet that dance there, play with its jewels, listen to the whisper of the winds that blow around the world, lay our hands in the brave hands of Love and Courage, Wisdom and Kindness, who dwell there; knock on those golden doors where we would go in and be alone; and come out again, knowing that we have won the great enchantment, which is the companionship of beautiful and imperishable story and poem, song and play.

It is a wonderful Palace of English Literature in which we shall see many marvels: the first English hero, Beowulf, and the monster Grendel; all the fortunes and misfortunes of the little, radiant-browed Welsh boy called Taliesin, the battle of the friends Cuchulain and Ferdiad, who were betrayed by the false Irish Queen Maeve; how song came to our first great English poet, Cædmon, in the cow-stall at the Monastery of Whitby (670); of the courage of a shepherd lad who had became a saint, and of even the seals who loved St. Cuthbert (seventh century); of the young Prince Alfred who won a book as a prize (849-900); of Havelok, the son of the King of Denmark, who lived with Fisherman Grim at Grimsby; of a man who was under enchantment as a wolf part of the week and whom Marie de France called a Werewolf; of all the marvels that Geoffrey of Monmouth (1147) saw from his window; and especially of the wonders which King Arthur's magician, Merlin, worked; and of the red and white dragons that came out of a drained pond; and of a famous kitchen-boy who became a great knight, and about whom Sir Thomas Malory tells one exciting adventure in the Morte d'Arthur (1469).

What boys and girls will enter the gate with me? Shall we go into the Great Palace to-day? And on what golden door shall we rap first that we may be admitted?

I

THE FIRST ENGLISH HERO

The first golden door we open in the Great Palace shows us a hero, and that is as it should be, for the English have always been brave. Yet probably the poem about this first English hero is not the first poem. The first is a poem by the name of the "Far Traveller." "Many men and rulers have I known," says this traveler; "through many strange lands I have fared throughout the spacious earth." This poem may not be of great value, but it is a wonderful experience to open this door and see back, back, back, thousands of [Pg 2]years to the very cradle in which English literature was born. This first Englishman was a wanderer, as all Englishmen, despite their love of home, have been, or else they would not hold so many great dominions as they do to-day. Then, too, there was "Deor's Lament," with its sad refrain,

Thas ofer eode, thisses swa maeg (That was overcome, so may this be)

and its grave thought that "The All-wise Lord of the world worketh many changes." One more poem, or, better, fragment, is spoken of in Beowulf. "The Fight at Finnesburg" is full of the savagery and fierceness of warfare; it is even more wild and barbarous than "Beowulf."

Now let us open the door over which is written Beowulf. It is one of the oldest and rudest of the golden doors in the Great Palace of English Poetry, but also one of the most precious. The pictures we are to see are beautiful sometimes. More often they are cruel and pitiless.

The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the air was as sweet-smelling as if it rose from fields of lilies, and it was the very springtime of the world some two thousand years ago.

By song little Widsith has seen his master bind all men and all beasts. Not only the fish and worms forgot their tasks, but even the cattle stopped grazing, and, where they passed, men and children paused to listen. They were on their[Pg 3] way to the Great Hall to have a sight of the hero, Beowulf.

Behind them lay the sea and the coast-guard pacing up and down. Before them, landward, rose a long, high-roofed hall. It had gable ends from which towered up huge stag-horns. And the roof shone only less brightly than the sun, for it was covered with metal.

About the Great Hall toward which little Widsith and the master were traveling was the village made up of tiny houses, each in its own patch of tilled ground and apple-trees, and with fields in which sheep and oxen and horses were pastured. Narrow paths wound in and out everywhere. In front of the Hall was a broad meadow across which the king and queen and their lords and ladies were used to walk.

There was much going on that day in Heorot. Flocks of children were playing about the pretty paths. Mothers and aunts and older sisters sat spinning in the open doorways. Beyond the wide meadow young men and boys were leading or riding spirited horses up and down to exercise them.

And all—men, women, and children alike—were talking about Beowulf, who had come to kill the monster Grendel and free the people of Heorot.

Beowulf had not much more than entered the Hall when the scôp, or singer, as little Widsith's master was called, entered too. In those days[Pg 4] singers were welcome everywhere. They saw Beowulf stride mightily across the many-colored floor of Heorot and go up to the old King. And they heard his voice, which sounded like the rumble of a heavy sea on their rock-bound coast.

"Hrothgar!" he said to the old King, "across the sea's way have I come to help thee."

"Of thee, Beowulf, have we need," replied the old King in tears, "for Heorot has suffered much from the monster."

"I will deliver thee, Hrothgar," said Beowulf, in his great voice; "thee and all who dwell in Heorot."

"Steep and stony are the sea cliffs, joyless our woods and wolf-haunted, robbed is our Heorot, for to Grendel can no man do aught. He breaks the bones of my people. And those of my people he cannot eat in Heorot he drags away on to the moor and devours alive."

And the old, bald-headed King, seated on his high seat in the Hall between his pretty daughter and his tired Queen, sighed as he thought of the approaching night. Yet, now that Beowulf had come, he hoped.

Together they gathered about the banquet. Beowulf sat among the sons of the old King. The walls inside were as bright as the roof, and gold-gilded, and the great fires from which smoke poured out through openings in the roof were cheerful and warm.

Then little Widsith's master was called up, and Widsith placed the harp for him. Clear rose the song from the scôp's lips, and all the company was still. For a while they forgot the monster which, even now with the falling dusk, was striding up from the sea, perhaps by the same path Beowulf and Widsith and the scôp had come. Already it had grown dark under heaven and darker in the Hall, and the place was filled with shadowy shapes.

And now came Grendel stalking from the cloudy cliffs toward the Gold Hall. It would have been hard for four men to have carried his huge head, so big it was. The nails of his hands were like iron, and large as the monstrous claws of a wild beast. And, since there was a spell upon him, no sword or spear could harm him.

While others slept—even frightened little Widsith, who had thought he could never sleep—Beowulf lay awake, ready with his naked hands to fight Grendel.

Suddenly the monster smote the door of Heorot, and it cracked asunder. In he strode, flame in his eyes, and before Beowulf could spring upon him or any one awake, he snatched a sleeping warrior and tore him to pieces.

Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty men in his body, gripped him, and the dreadful battle and noise began. The benches were overturned, the walls cracked, the fires were scattered, and[Pg 6] dust rose in clouds from the many-colored floor as Beowulf wrestled with Grendel.

The scôp had seized his harp and was playing a great battle song, but music has no power over such evil as Grendel's. Beowulf himself, who was struggling to break the bone-house of the monster in the din of the mighty battle, did not hear it, either. And the song was lost in the noise and dust which rose together in Heorot.

Even the warriors, who struck Grendel with their swords, could not help Beowulf, for neither sword nor spear could injure the monster. Only the might of the hero, himself, could do aught.

At last, with the strength of thirty men, Beowulf gripped the monster. And Grendel, with rent sinews and bleeding body, fled away to the ocean cave where he had lived. And there in the cave, with the sea blood-stained and boiling above him, he died, outlawed for evil.

In the second part of this poem Beowulf was living as king in his own land, and ruling like the great and brave king he was. But a huge old dragon who was guarding a treasure was robbed. So angry was the dragon that he left his heap of treasure and came down upon the land of King Beowulf, burning it and terrifying the people. Then Beowulf, who had become an old man, felt that he must fight to save his people. He went[Pg 7] out and slew the dragon, but was himself scorched to death by the fiery breath of the dragon.

"Beowulf" is the epic of our old English period. An epic is an heroic poem. In "Beowulf" the story of Beowulf's great deeds—such as his struggle with Grendel and Grendel's mother—and of his death is told. Probably it was sung before the fifth century, when the English conquered Britain, for England itself is not mentioned in this wonderful poem. Indeed, the country described is that of the Goths of Sweden and of the Danes. Your geography will show you where Sweden and Denmark are. When the English forefathers came to England they brought this poem with them, perhaps in the form of short poems which were woven together by a Christian Northumbrian poet in the eighth century or thereabouts.

It will be interesting to see how this wild moorland, over which Grendel stalked and over which the dreadful dragon dragged his length, became, with the cultivation of the land and advancing civilization, the gentle and beautiful dwelling of the fairies. The fairies will not live where it is too wild.

Much is to be learned from this epic of the customs and the manners of the men who came to Britain and conquered it. We can see these people as they lived in their sea-circled settlements, the ships they used to sail upon the sea, how their villages looked, and the boys and girls[Pg 8] and grown-ups in them; the rocks and hills and ocean waves that made up their out-of-door world; the good times they had; their games and amusements. We come to know the respect that was given to their women; we see the bravery of the men in facing death, and we hear the songs they sang.

"Beowulf" is a great poem—English literature knows no poem that is more sacred to it—but it is a sorrowful poem, too. These people believed in Fate, for Christ had not yet been brought to them with His message of love and peace and joy. English poetry to-day is much more joyous—because it is Christian poetry—than it ever could have been if England had remained a heathen land. Yet English poetry still has much in common with "Beowulf," in love of the sea and worship of nature, and a strange sense of Fate.

But we must close this door over which is written Beowulf, for the Great Palace is full of many doors and many stories, and we have only just begun our journey from golden door to golden door.

II

WELSH MAGIC

On the other side of most of the golden doors through which we shall pass, our own tongue, English, is spoken. Yet in this wonderful palace, full of beautiful thoughts and beautiful expression, there are two doors which when thrown open we may enter, but where our English would not be understood. They both admit us to the poems and prose of families of the same race—a race called Celtic. Over one door of this family, however, is written Cymric, and all that is Cymric is written and spoken in Welsh. On the other door is Gaelic, and all that is Gaelic is Irish and Scotch. And the Great Palace of English Literature, with its innumerable golden doors, would not be at all the same palace if it were not for these two little doors, for out of them has come much that is best in poetry and prose.

The Welsh were already in Britain when the so-called "English" landed on the island, and these [Pg 10]English, after one hundred and fifty years, succeeded in driving the Welsh, or Cymru, back to the mountains and coast on the west of the island. There they lived among the mountains, holding fast to their customs and to their songs and poetry. And by and by, when it was time for this miracle to happen, the little golden door over which was written Cymric, or Welsh, opened, and out of it there passed one of the most beautiful story-cycles the world has ever known, the tales about King Arthur. But of this great story we shall hear later.

This little golden door may be the oldest in all the palace, for long before the Arthur story was born there were other tales which the Cymru loved. There is a word "prehistoric" which accurately describes some of these stories known as Mabinogion, which means, literally, Tales for the Children, or Little Ones. This famous book was translated from Welsh into English by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1838. Among the oldest of these tales is "Taliesin," which has behind it a prehistoric singer, a mythic singer.

And now let us open that door over which is written Cymric, or Welsh, and look in.

Long ago, at the beginning of King Arthur's time and the famous Round Table, there lived a man whose name was Tegid Voel. His wife was called Caridwen. And there was born to them a son, Avagddu, who was the ugliest boy in all the world.

When Caridwen looked at Avagddu, and knew beyond any doubt that he was the ugliest boy in all the world, she was much troubled. Therefore she decided to boil a caldron of Inspiration and Science for her son, so that Avagddu might hold an honorable position because of his knowledge.

Caridwen filled the caldron and began to boil it, and all knew that it must not cease boiling for one year and a day—that is, until three drops of Inspiration had been distilled from it. Gwion Bach she put to stirring the caldron, and Morda, a blind man, was to keep the caldron boiling day and night for the whole year. And every day Caridwen gathered charm-bearing herbs and put them in to boil.

And it was one day toward the close of the year that three drops of the liquid in the caldron flew out upon the finger of Gwion Bach, who was stirring the liquid. It burnt him, and he put his finger in his mouth. Because of the magic of those drops he knew all that was going to happen. And he was afraid of the wiles of Caridwen, and in fear he ran away.

All the liquor in the caldron, except the three charm-bearing drops that had fallen upon the finger of Gwion Bach, was poisonous, and therefore the caldron burst. When Caridwen saw the work of her whole year lost, she was angry and seized a stick of wood. With the stick she struck Morda on the head.

When little Gwion saw her coming, because of the magic drops that had touched his finger, he was able to change himself into a hare. But thereupon Caridwen changed herself into a greyhound, and there was a race fleeter almost than the wind. Caridwen was nearly upon him when little Gwion turned toward the river and became a fish. Then Caridwen changed herself from a greyhound into an otter, and chased little Gwion under the water. So close was the chase that he had to turn himself into a bird of the air. Whereupon Caridwen became a hawk and followed him and gave him no rest in the sky. She was just swooping down upon him, and little Gwion thought that the hour of his death had come, when he saw a heap of winnowed wheat on the floor of the barn, and he dropped into the wheat and turned himself into one of the grains. And then what do you think happened? Caridwen changed herself into a high-crested black hen, hopped into the wheat, scratching it with her feet, found poor little Gwion Bach, who had once been a boy, then in turn became a rabbit, a fish, a bird of the air, and was now a grain of wheat.

Caridwen swallowed him! But so powerful was the magic of those three drops of Inspiration which had touched his finger, that little Gwion appeared in the world again, entering it as a beautiful child. And even Caridwen, because of his beauty, could not bear to kill him, so she wrapped him in a leathern bag and cast him into the sea. That was on the twenty-ninth day of April.

Where Caridwen threw little Gwion into the sea was near the fishing-weir of Gwyddno by Aberstwyth. And even as Caridwen had the ugliest son in all the world, so had Gwyddno the most unlucky, and his name was Elphin. This year Gwyddno had told Elphin that he might have the drawing of the weir on May Eve. Usually the fish they drew from the weir were worth about one hundred pounds in good English silver. His father thought that if luck were ever going to come to Elphin, it would come with the drawing of the weir on May Eve.

But on the next day, when Elphin went to look, there was nothing in the weir except a leathern bag hanging on a pole.

One of the men by the weir said to Elphin: "Now hast thou destroyed the virtue of the weir. There is nothing in it but this worthless bag."

"How now," said Elphin, "there may be in this bag the value of an hundred pounds."

They took the bag down from the pole, and[Pg 14] Elphin opened it, and as he opened it he saw the forehead of a beautiful boy.

Although Elphin lamented his bad luck at the weir, yet he carried the child home gently on his ambling horse. Suddenly the little boy began to sing a song in which he told Elphin that the day would come when he would be of more service to him than the value of three hundred salmon.

And this song of comfort was the first poem the little, radiant-browed Taliesin ever sang. But when Gwyddno, the father of Elphin, asked him what he was, he sang again and told the story of how he had fled in many shapes from Caridwen; as a frog, as a crow, as a chain, as a rose entangled in a thicket, as a wolf cub, as a thrush, as a fox, as a martin, as a squirrel, as a stag's antler, as iron in glowing fire, as a spear-head from the hand of one who fights, as a fierce bull, as a bristly boar, and in many other forms, only to be gobbled up in the end as a grain of wheat by a black hen.

"I shall profit Elphin more than the weir has ever profited thee," answered Taliesin.

"Wherefore should a stone be hard; Why should a thorn be sharp-pointed; Who is hard like flint; Who is salt like brine; Who is sweet like honey; Who rides in the gale?"

Then bade he Elphin wager the King that he had a horse better and swifter than any of the King's horses. Thus Elphin did, and the King set the day and the time for the race at the place called the Marsh of Rhiannedd. And thither every one followed the King, who took with him four-and-twenty of his swiftest horses.

The course was marked and the horses were placed for running. Then in came Taliesin with four-and-twenty twigs of holly, which he had burned black, and he put them in the belt of the youth who was to ride Elphin's horse. He told this youth to let all the King's horses get ahead of him; but as he overtook one horse after the other he was to take one of the burnt twigs of holly and strike the horse over the crupper, then let the twig fall. This the youth who rode Elphin's horse was to do to each of the King's horses as he overtook it, and he was to watch where his own horse should stumble, and throw down his cap on that spot.

Thereupon the youth who rode Elphin's horse, and all the King's riders, pricked forth upon their steeds, their horses with bridles of linked gold on their heads, and gold saddles upon their backs. And the racing horses with their shell-formed hoofs cast up sods, so swiftly did they run, like swallows in the air. Blades of grass bent not beneath the fleet, light hoofs of the coursers.

Elphin's horse won the race. Taliesin brought Elphin, when the race was over, to the place where the horse had stumbled and where the youth had thrown down his cap as he had been told. Elphin did as Taliesin bade him and put workmen to dig a hole in this spot. And when they had dug the ground deep enough, there was found a large caldron full of gold.

Then said Taliesin: "Elphin, behold! See what I give thee for having taken me out of the weir and the leathern bag! Is this not worth more to thee than three hundred salmon?"

In the Mabinogion stories, first collected and set down some time in the twelfth century, we live in a world of enchantment and fairies. Those tales are full of gold—the gold of a wondrous imagination. It would be nice if we could keep this door, over which is written Welsh, open long enough so that I might tell you the story of Pryderi, too, and how Pryderi found a castle where no castle had ever been, how he entered[Pg 17] it and saw "In the center of the castle floor ... a fountain with marble-work around it, and on the margin of the fountain a golden bowl on a marble slab, and chains hanging from the air, to which he saw no end." What happened to him when he seized this cup, how the castle faded away, how the heroes of the story were changed to mice—for none of this can we hold open the golden door any longer. The ends of the golden chains of many a story are not to be seen by us.

III

THE BATTLE AT THE FORD

It is interesting to think, is it not, that if it had not been for those two little Celtic doors of gold over one of which was written Cymric, or Welsh, and over the other, Gaelic, or Irish, our Great Palace of English Literature could not have been the same palace, nor half so beautiful. It is not only that there would not have been so many wonderful golden doors leading into story-land, but the stories themselves would not have been told in the same way. The Scotch, too, who belong to the Celtic family, are almost as great story-tellers as the Welsh and Irish.

When the Roman Tacitus wrote about the Welsh and Irish he said, "Their language differs little." And even their buildings, Cæsar said, were "almost similar." What was true of their speech and their buildings was more true of the gifts they have left in the Great Palace. They have the same delightful way of telling a story;[Pg 19] what they have to say naturally falls into conversations, and they are quick as a wink in the wit and fun and beauty and sadness of what they do say.

This little golden door and the wonderful room beyond it were, perhaps, longer in being built than the Welsh. These stories and poems of the Irish were composed at the time of Cæsar and the Christian era. The epic cycle of Conchubar and Cuchulain is the first group of tales in Irish literature. They are made up of prose with occasional verses here and there. The Irish are very clever at invention, and these stories are among the most wonderful ever written or sung. Among the best of these stories is one we shall open a door to listen to—the story of Ferdiad and Cuchulain in "The Battle at the Ford."

The dialogue in "The Battle at the Ford" shows us plainly how great the Irish dramatic gift has always been. They were born makers of plays. Just see how the Irish genius makes Ferdiad and Cuchulain talk, and how lifelike they are! The story is there, not much changed from what it was two thousand years ago, and shows all the Irish sense of form. By sense of form is meant simply the story's way of expressing itself. You see, a story or poem is like a human being. It has not only thoughts, but also a body to hold these thoughts. It is because of these two golden doors, over which are written the words, Welsh, Irish,[Pg 20] that English Literature is likely to produce most of the great plays which will be acted, and most of the great novels.

Every Christian and Jewish boy and girl knows the Bible story of David and Jonathan—that Jonathan who loved David as his soul, and David who loved Jonathan more than a brother can love. This friendship of a king's son with the son of a shepherd was very beautiful and tender and pure. "The Battle at the Ford" is not so gentle a story, but it is, nevertheless, and despite the treachery of the Queen and the sad end of Ferdiad, the David and Jonathan story of Irish Literature.

The men of Ireland settled it that Ferdiad and Cuchulain should fight the next day. But when they sent messengers to fetch Ferdiad he would not come, for he learned that they wanted him to fight against his friend Cuchulain.

Then Maeve, the Queen, sent the Druids after him, who by their hurtful poems about Ferdiad should raise three blisters on his face—the blisters of Shame, Blemish, and Reproach.

So Ferdiad had to come to answer the Queen, Maeve. She offered him great riches if he would fight against his friend Cuchulain—speckled satins and silver and gold, with lands, horses, and bridles.

But to Maeve Ferdiad replied, "If you offered[Pg 21] me land and sea I would not take them without the sun and moon."

For he loved his friend Cuchulain so that there was no wealth which could tempt Ferdiad to go out against him to wound him.

"But," said Maeve, "you shall have your fill of the jewels of the earth. Here is my brooch with its hooked pin and my daughter, Findabair."

"Nay," answered Ferdiad, "these things and all things like unto them shall remain yours, for there is nothing I would take to go into battle against my friend Cuchulain. Nothing shall come between him and me—he who is the half of my heart without fault, and I the half of his own heart. By my spear, were Cuchulain killed, I would be buried in his grave—the one grave for the two of us! Misfortune on you, Maeve, misfortune on you for trying to put your face between us!"

"He said," answered Maeve, "that there would be no wonder in it did you fall in the first trial of arms against him."

Then was Ferdiad angry. "That had Cuchulain no right to say! If it be true he said this thing, then will I fight with him to-morrow!"

At that Fergus left Ferdiad and Maeve, and went out in his chariot to tell Cuchulain what had happened.

"I give my word," exclaimed Cuchulain, "for my friend to come against me is not my wish!"

"It will go hard with you getting the better of him," answered Fergus, "for he has the strength of a hundred."

"My word and oath," said Cuchulain, "it is I who will be victorious over Ferdiad."

Then went Fergus joyfully back to the encampment. But Ferdiad, gloomy and heavy-hearted, slept only through the early part of the night. Toward the end of night he told his driver to harness his horses.

"Ferdiad," said the driver, "it would be better for you to stop here, for grief will come of that meeting with Cuchulain."

Yet the chariot was yoked and they went forward to the ford, and day and its full light came upon them there. Then Ferdiad slept while he waited for the coming of Cuchulain.

With the full light of day Cuchulain himself rose up, and said to his driver, "Laeg, yoke the chariot, for the man who comes to meet us to-day is an early riser."

With that Cuchulain leaped into the chariot, and about him shouted the people of the gods of Dana, and the witches and the fairies.

Then Ferdiad's driver heard them coming, the straining of the harness, the creaking of the chariot, the ringing of the armor and the shields, and the thunder of the horses' hoofs.

"Good Ferdiad," said the driver, laying his hand upon his master, "rise up. Cuchulain comes, and he is coming not slowly, but quick as the wind or as water from a high cliff or like swift thunder."

And they saw Cuchulain coming, swooping down on them like a hawk from a cliff on a day of hard wind. Cuchulain drew up on the north side of the ford.

"Till this day would I have been glad to hear that welcome," answered Cuchulain; "but now it is no longer the welcome of a friend."

"Before the setting of the sun to-night," said Ferdiad, "you will be fighting as with a mountain, and it is not white that battle will be."

"You are fallen into a gap of danger," answered Cuchulain, "and the end of your life has come."

"Leave off your boasting," shouted Ferdiad, "you heart of a bird in a cage, you giggling fellow."

But to this Cuchulain replied, "You were my heart companion, you were my people, you were my family—I never found one who was dearer."

"Good Ferdiad," answered Cuchulain, "it is not right for you to come out against me through the meddling of Maeve. Do not break your oath not to fight with me. Do not break friendship. We were heart companions, comrades, and sharing one bed."

And Ferdiad answered: "Do not be remembering our companionship, for it will not protect you this day. It is I will give you your first wounds."

Then began they with their casting weapons—their round-handled spears and their little quill spears and their ivory-hilted knives and their ivory-hafted spears, and these weapons were flying to and fro like bees on the wing on a summer's day. Yet good as the throwing was, the defense was better, and neither hurt the other. There was no cast that did not hit the protecting shields, and by noon their weapons were all blunted against the faces and bosses of the shields.

So they left these weapons and took to their straight spears. And from the middle of midday till the fall of evening each threw spears at the other. But good as the defense was, in that time each wounded the other.

Then each came to the other and put his hands[Pg 25] around the neck of the other and gave him three kisses. And that night one inclosure held their horses and at one fire sat their chariot-drivers. And of every healing herb that was put on Cuchulain's wounds Cuchulain sent an equal share westward across the ford for the wounds of Ferdiad. And of food and drink Ferdiad sent a fair share northward to Cuchulain and his men.

"Then let us take our great broad spears, for so by the end of evening shall we be nearer the end of the fight."

From the twilight of the early morning till the fall of evening each cut at and wounded the other, till, were it the custom of birds in their flight to pass through the bodies of men, they might have done so on this day.

"Let us stop from this, now," said Cuchulain, "for our horses and men are tired and down-hearted. Let us put the quarrel away for a while."

So they threw their spears into the hands of their chariot-drivers, and each put his hand around the neck of the other and gave him three kisses. And that night they slept on wounded[Pg 26] men's pillows their chariot-drivers had made for them. A full share of every charm and spell used to cure the wounds of Cuchulain was sent to Ferdiad. And of food Ferdiad sent a share.

Again early on the morrow they came to the ford of battle, and there was a dark look on Ferdiad that day.

"No one has ever put food to his lips, Ferdiad, and no one has ever been born for whose sake I would have hurt you."

"Cuchulain," cried Ferdiad, "it was not you, but Maeve, who has betrayed us, and now my word and my name will be worth nothing if I go back without doing battle with you."

And that day they fought with their swords, and each hacked at the other from dawn till evening. When they threw their swords from them into the hands of their chariot-drivers, their parting that night was sad and down-hearted.

Early the next morning Ferdiad rose up and went by himself to the ford, and there clad himself in his shirt of striped silk with its border of speckled gold, over that a coat of brown leather, and on his head a crested helmet of battle. Taking his strong spear in his right hand and sword in his left, he began to show off very cunningly, [Pg 27]wonderful feats that were made up that day by himself against Cuchulain.

But when Cuchulain came to the ford, it was his turn to choose the weapons for the day. And they fought all the morning. By midday the anger of each was hot upon him, and Cuchulain leaped up onto the bosses of Ferdiad's shield, but Ferdiad tossed him from him like a bird on the brink of the ford, or as foam is thrown from a [Pg 28]wave. Then did Cuchulain leap with the quickness of the wind and the lightness of a swallow, and lit on the boss of Ferdiad's shield. But Ferdiad shook his shield and cast Cuchulain from him. Cuchulain's anger came on him like flame; and so close was the fight that their shields were broken and loosened, that their spears were bent from their points to their hilts; and so close was the fight that they drove the river from its bed, and that their horses broke away in fear and madness.

Then Ferdiad gave Cuchulain a stroke of the sword and hid it in his body. And Cuchulain took his spear, Gae Bulg, cast it at Ferdiad, and it passed through his body so that the point could be seen.

"O Cuchulain," cried Ferdiad, when Gae Bulg pierced him, "it was not right that I should fall by your hand! My end is come, my ribs will not hold my heart. I have not done well in the battle."

Then Cuchulain ran toward him and put his two arms about him, and laid him by the ford northward. And he began to keen and lament: "What are joy and shouting to me now? It is to madness I am driven after the thing I have done. O Ferdiad, there will never be born among the men of Connaught who will do deeds equal to yours!

"O Ferdiad, you were betrayed to your death! You to die, I to be living. Our parting for ever[Pg 29] is a grief for ever! We gave our word that to the end of time we would not go against each other.

"Dear to me was your beautiful ruddiness, dear to me your comely form, dear to me your clear gray eye, dear your wisdom and your talk, and dear to me our friendship!

"It was not right you to fall by my hand; it was not a friendly ending. My grief! I loved the friend to whom I have given a drink of red blood. O Ferdiad, this thing will hang over me for ever! Yesterday you were strong as a mountain. And now there is nothing but a shadow!"

IV

CÆDMON THE COWHERD

A very great modern poet, Coleridge, who wrote "The Ancient Mariner," said that prose was words in their best order, but that poetry was the best words in their best order. This is a simple and good definition of poetry. Yet there is even more than best words in their best order in the room beyond the door over which is written Poetry. Perhaps, however, beautiful words in their best order would always teach us to find what is beautiful and to love the good. I do not know. Do you?

Cædmon's poem, written about 670, marks the beginning of English poetry in Great Britain, for "Beowulf" was first sung in another land—the land of the conquerors of England—before it was brought to British soil. The verses of Cædmon's poetry are as stormy as the sea which beats at the bottom of the cliffs of Whitby, on which rose the monastery of Streoneshalh. Cædmon was at first a servant in this monastery, but when the[Pg 31] power to sing came to him it lifted not only Cædmon himself to something better than he had been; it has also lifted men and women ever since to better ways of thinking and feeling and to greater happiness than they would ever have had without English poetry. Bede, who wrote about Cædmon, said, "He did not learn the art of poetry from men, nor of men, but from God." Cædmon sang many songs, chiefly songs about stories in the Bible. Our first poetry was religious. "Dark and true and tender is the north," and true and tender is all great English poetry since that most precious of all the golden doors was thrown open in the Great Palace of English Literature.

Almost more interesting than the stories which Cædmon resung for the world is the story of the way the gift of song came to Cædmon.

One day a little boy stood by a fishing-boat from which he had just leaped. He dug his toe in the sand and looked up to the edge of the rocky cliff above him.

"What dost see, lad?" said his uncle, who was tossing his catch of fish to the sand; "creatures of the mist in the clouds yonder?"

"Nay, uncle," answered Finan, "there is no Grendel in the clouds. Last night at the Hall a man sang to the harp that Grendel was a moor-treader. Also he told of the deeds of the hero [Pg 32]Beowulf, and he said that Beowulf had killed Grendel."

Finan's eyes were on the distant moor, which was the color of flame in the evening light. Already twinkling above were little stars bright as the sheen of elves. There, he knew, for everybody said so, lived elf and giant and monster. There in the moor pools lived the water-elves. Across its flame of heather strode mighty march-gangers like Grendel, and in the dark places of the mountains lived a dragon, crouched above his pile of gold and treasure.

There stood the miraculous tree, of great size, on which were carved the figures of beasts and birds and strange letters which told what gods the heathen worshiped before the gentle religion of Christ was brought to England. There lived the Wolf-Man, too, so friendless and wild that he became the comrade of the wolves which howled in those dark places. There lived a bear, old and terrible, and the wild boar rooting up acorns with his huge curved tusks.

Nearer the village was the wolf's-head tree—more terrible tree than any in the mysteries of forest and fen-land. This was the gallows on which the village folk hung those who did evil. Finan could see the tree where it stood alone in the sunset light. And he heard the rough cawing of ravens as they settled down into its dark branches to roost.

The fisherman looked up. He heard the chanting from the church, and saw an immense white cross upright on the cliff's edge. But he knew not of what adventure little Finan was thinking.

So it came about that little Finan climbed the cliff on that evening which was to prove a night wonderful in its miracle. There was born that night that which, like the love of Christ, has made children's lives better and happier.

Finan reached the top of the cliff by those steps which were cut into it, and then took the main road, paved and straight, which led toward the Great Hall. He went along slowly under the apple-trees. He saw a black-haired Welsh woman draw water. Little children not so big as Finan were sitting on the steps by their mothers, who were spinning in their doorways. He passed a dog gnawing a bone flung to it for its supper.

A cobbler, laying by his tools, looking up, saw Finan and greeted him. A jeweler was fixing [Pg 34]ornaments on a huge horn he had polished. Carpenters were leaving a little cottage which they were building. The road was full of men—swineherds and cowherds, plowboys and wood-choppers from the forests beyond, gardeners and shepherds—all on their way to the Great Hall. Some men there were in armor, too, their long hair floating over their shoulders.

Inside the windows, which in those days contained no window-glass, torches and firelight would soon begin to flame, and mead would be passed. Already a loud horn was calling all who would to come.

A man, a woman, and a little child came rushing from one of the household yards, flapping their garments and screaming: "The bees! The bees!"

They had just found their precious hive empty. The bees had swarmed, and unless they could find them there would be no more sweet-smelling mead made from honey in that household that year.

Another bee stung Finan. And there they were clinging to a low apple bough just above his head. They hung in a great cluster, like a bunch of dark grapes.

"Dame," said a cowherd, who was in the road, to the people who were crying out for their bees, "yonder lad knows where the bees are."

The man and woman and Finan took handfuls of gravel from the roadside and flung them over the bees, and sang again and again, "Never to the wood, fly ye wildly more!"

"Now," said Cædmon, who was a wise cowherd, "hang veneria on the hive, and if ye would have them safe lay on the hive a plant of madder. Then can naught lure them away."

When they reached the Hall folk were already eating inside. Little Finan saw Cædmon go in quietly, for Cædmon was attached to the Abbess Hild's monastery and had a right to go in and eat. Inside they were singing for the sake of mirth, and the torches and firelight were flaming.

Through the open window—for windows were always open then, and the word window meant literally "wind-eye"—Finan saw the harp being passed from one to another.

They sang many songs as the harp passed from hand to hand, songs of war and songs of home.

But when the harp was passed to Cædmon, who had charmed the bees, he shook his head sorrowfully, saying that he could not sing, and got up sad and ashamed and went out.

Little Finan wanted to shout through the window to him to sing about the bees. He did not dare, for he was afraid of being discovered. Instead he followed behind Cædmon. He wished to ask him why he could not sing. This he did not dare to do, either, but he went on to the fold where the cowherd had gone to care for the cattle. And there on the edge of the fold the little boy, unseen by the cowherd, fell asleep. Shortly afterward Cædmon, too, fell asleep.

It must have been near the middle of the night when the stars one and all were shining and dancing with the sheen of millions and millions of elves, and the sea down below the cliff was singing a mighty lullabye, that little Finan started wide awake, hearing a voice speak.

"Cædmon," spoke a man who stood beside the sleeping cowherd, "sing me something."

Cædmon drowsily answered: "I cannot sing anything. Therefore went I away from the mirth and came here, for I know not how to sing."

And at once Cædmon began to sing in a strong voice, and very beautifully, the praise of God who made this world. And his song had all the [Pg 37]beat of sea waves in it—sometimes little waves that lapped gently on the shore and bore in beautiful shells and jeweled seaweed. But more often its rhythm was as mighty as ocean waves that tossed big ships.

Then the wandering stranger, hearing the beauty of the song, vanished. Cædmon awoke from his sleep, and he remembered all that he had sung and the vision that had come to him. And he was glad. He arose and went to the Abbess Hild to tell her what had happened to him, the least of her servants.

In the presence of many wise men did Hild bid Cædmon tell his dream and sing his verses. And he did as he was told, and it was plain to all that an angel had visited Cædmon. The Abbess Hild took him into the monastery, and she ordered that everything be done for him. And Cædmon became the first and one of the greatest of English poets. And even as Christ was born in a manger in Bethlehem, English poetry was born in a cattle-fold in a town which was called Streoneshalh, which means "Bay of the Beacon." And to mankind since Cædmon, the first English poet, English song has been a beacon to all the world.

If you open a book written in the English of to-day, it is easy to read it—just as easy as to [Pg 38]understand the speech we use among one another. But the English of fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago would be difficult to read. There is an illustration of this English in a line from "Deor's Lament":

Thas ofer eode, thisses swa maeg.

It is easy to pick this out word for word, and see that it means, "That was overcome (or overpassed), so may this be." The English in that Great Palace, some of whose doors are more than twelve hundred years old, is the same English, just as the oak-tree two hundred years old is the same oak-tree, though different, that it was when planted. But you would find it difficult to read the English in which Cædmon wrote his great poems.

Old English poetry, too, seems as different from the poetry of to-day as the language we speak seems different from the language they used to speak. For one thing, old English poetry did not have rhymes.

Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, Gave thee life and bade thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

This poem was written somewhat over a hundred years ago by William Blake, but it is modern and part of that brightest and most beautiful room of all English poetry—Nineteenth Century Poetry. What is a rhyme? You can tell if you will study this stanza from "The Lamb." You will see that "thee" of the first line rhymes with "thee" of the second, that "feed" and "mead" rhyme, and that "delight" and "bright" rhyme just as "voice" and "rejoice." Old English poetry was different, too, in that it did not count the syllables in a line of poetry. If you drum on the table and count the syllables of the first and second lines, you will see that each has six, and the following six lines have seven syllables each, and the last two six each. Then if you drum a little more you will see that each of the first two lines has three accents or stresses, and the following six four accents or stresses each.

Then, you ask, what was this old English poetry like? Even if the syllables were not counted and there was no rhyme, it had accents just as our modern poetry has. Every line was divided into half verses by a pause, as, for example:

Warriors of winters young with words spake.

There are two accented syllables in the first half of this line, and one in the second. And now, instead of rhyme, what do you think the old English[Pg 40] poetry had? Alliteration. That is a big word, but it is not nearly so difficult as it seems, for it means simply the repetition of the same letter at the beginning of two or more words. Here it is, the letter "w" that is repeated. It was poetry with alliteration and stress which little Finan heard on that night so long ago when the angel came to Cædmon and commanded him to sing.

V

THE SHEPHERD OF LAUDERDALE

After Cædmon's day there were more and more religious poets. Very often the men who wrote the poetry and prose during the time of Cædmon and of Cuthbert lived in monasteries, where the life was a religious life. In the Great Palace of English Literature there is a pretty story told about Ealdhelm, who was a young man when Cædmon died. This young man later became the Abbot of Malmesbury. He was not only a religious poet, but he also made songs and could sing them to music. He traveled from town to town, and, finding that the men at the fairs did not come to church as they should, he would stand on the bridge and sing songs to them in the English tongue, persuading them thus to come to hear the word of God. Living at this same time—that is, during the latter half of the seventh century—was St. Cuthbert, not so great a scholar as Ealdhelm, but as great a wanderer.

There is a little valley between England and [Pg 42]Scotland called Lauderdale—a little valley watered by a river which flows into the Tweed. There Cuthbert did not keep the flocks of his father as did David, yet, like David, he was a warrior lad. Day and night Cuthbert lived in the open, shepherding the sheep of many masters.

There was not among the lads of that time a boy more active, more daring than Cuthbert. He could walk on his hands, turn somersaults, fight boldly, and become a victor in almost every race. There was no other boy so active but that Cuthbert was better at games and sports. And when all the others were tired he would ask whether there was not some one who could go on playing. Then suddenly a swelling came on his knee and the poor little boy could play no longer, and had to be carried in and out, up and down, by attendants. This continued until one day a horseman, clothed in white garments and riding a horse of incomparable beauty, appeared before the sick boy and cured his knee. Little Cuthbert was now able to walk about once more, but never again did he play the games he used to play.

Not far from where Cuthbert lived was the monastery of Tiningham, by the mouth of the river Tyne. Some of the monks were bringing down on rafts wood which they had spent a long time felling and sawing up. They were almost opposite the monastery and were just about to draw the wood to the shore, when a great wind came up from the west and drove the rafts out[Pg 43] toward the sea. There were five of them, and so quickly did they drift away that it was not more than a few minutes before they began to look in the distance as small as five little birds. Those upon the rafts were in much danger of losing their lives. Those in the monastery came out and prayed upon the shore for them. But the five rafts that now looked like the tiniest of birds went on drifting out to sea. And the populace, which had been heathens very lately, began to jest at the monks because their prayers were in vain.

Then said Cuthbert: "Friends, you do wrong to speak evil of those you see hurried away to death. Would it not be better to pray for their safety?"

"No!" shouted the people, angrily. "They took away our old worship, and you can see that nothing comes of the new."

At this the young Cuthbert began to pray, bowing his head to the ground. And the winds were turned around and brought the rafts in safety to the shore of the monastery.

Like David, this boy Cuthbert was very near to God, and one night, while keeping the sheep of his masters, he saw angels descending from heaven. Cuthbert was on a remote mountain with other shepherds, and keeping not only his sheep, but also the vigil of prayer, when a light streamed down from heaven and broke the thick[Pg 44] darkness. Then Cuthbert made up his mind to serve God by entering a monastery.

One day he was on a journey on horseback when he was not quite fifteen years old. He turned aside to the farmstead which he saw at some distance, and entered the house of a very good woman. He wanted to rest himself. But even more he wanted to get food for his horse. The woman urged him to let her prepare dinner for him. But Cuthbert would not eat, for it was a fast-day.

"Consider," said the woman, "that on your journey you will find no village nor habitation of man; for indeed a long journey is before you, nor can you possibly accomplish it before sunset. Wherefore, I beg of you to take some food before setting out, lest you be obliged to fast all day, or perhaps even until to-morrow."

But Cuthbert would not break his fast. Night came on and he saw that he could not finish his journey, and there was no house anywhere in which to take shelter. As he went on, however, he noticed some shepherds' huts which had been roughly thrown together in the summer. He entered one of these to pass the night there, tied his horse to the wall, and set before the horse a bundle of hay to eat. Suddenly Cuthbert noticed that his horse was raising his head and pulling at the thatching of the hut. And as the horse drew the thatch down there fell out also a folded[Pg 45] napkin. In the napkin was wrapped the half of a loaf of bread, yet warm, and a piece of meat—enough for Cuthbert's supper.

At last, followed by his squire, and with his lance in hand, the youthful shepherd-warrior, then but fifteen years old, appeared before the gates of the monastery of Melrose. For Cuthbert had decided to serve God in a religious life rather than upon the battle-field.

There was not a village so far away, or a mountain so steep, or a cottage so poverty-stricken, but that the boy Cuthbert, strong and energetic, visited it. Most often he traveled on horseback; but there were places so rough and wild they were not to be reached on horseback. These places along the coast he visited in a boat. Cuthbert thought nothing of hunger and thirst and cold. From the Solway to the Forth he covered Scotland with his pilgrimages. This, of course, was in the seventh century—a long time ago—yet stories are still told there of the wonderful work of Cuthbert.

While he was young in the life of the monastery it was Cuthbert's good fortune to entertain an angel unawares, as, perhaps, we all do sometimes. At the monastery Cuthbert, so pleasant and winning were his manners, was appointed guest-master. Going out one morning from the inner buildings of the monastery to the guest-chamber, [Pg 46]he found a young man seated there. He welcomed him with the usual forms of kindness, gave him water to wash his hands, himself bathed his feet and wiped them with a towel and warmed them. He begged the young man not to go forward on his journey until the third hour, when he might have breakfast. He thought the stranger must have been wearied by the night journey and the snow. But the stranger was very unwilling to stay until Cuthbert urged him in the Divine Name. Immediately after the prayers of tierce—or the third hour—were said, Cuthbert laid the table and offered the stranger food.

"Refresh thyself, master, until I return with some new bread, for I expect it is ready baked by this time."

But when he returned the guest whom he had left at the table had gone. Although a recent snowfall had covered the ground, and Cuthbert looked for his footprints, none were to be found. On entering the room again, there came to him a very sweet odor, and he saw lying beside him three loaves of bread, warm and of unwonted whiteness and beauty.

"Lo," said Cuthbert, "this was an angel of God who came to feed and not to be fed. These are such loaves as the earth cannot produce, for they surpass lilies in whiteness, roses in smell, and honey in flavor."

By all human beings and creatures was Cuthbert beloved. He usually spent the greater part[Pg 47] of the night in prayer. One night one of the brothers of the monastery followed him to find out where he went when he left the monastery. St. Cuthbert went out to the shore and entered the cold water of the sea till it was up to his arms and neck. And there in praises, with the sound of the waves in his ears, he spent the night. When dawn was drawing near he came out of the water and finished his prayer upon the shore. While he was doing this two seals came from out of the depths of the sea, warmed his feet with their breath and dried them with their hair. And when Cuthbert's feet were warm and dry he stood up and blessed the seals and sent them back into the sea, wherein these humble creatures swam about praising God.

VI

THE BOY WHO WON A PRIZE

You know what sort of stories Bede was fond of telling—of course in Latin. If you should be asked with whom English prose began, I think it would be safe to say, "With Bede, who wrote the life of St. Cuthbert and the Ecclesiastical History." But that is not why you should say that Bede began English prose, but because at his death he was busy finishing a book written in English and called Translation of the Gospel of St. John.

"There is still a chapter wanting," said the youth who always took down all of Bede's dictation, "and it is hard for thee to question thyself longer."

When twilight came the boy cried out, "There is still one sentence unwritten, dear master."

Singing the praise of God, his scholars and the boy scribe about him, he died. Alas that this English book that he bravely finished has been lost!

Bede was born about 673 and lived most of his life in the monastery at Jarrow in Northumbria in the north of England. With Bede's death the home of English prose literature was changed from the north to the south, from Northumbria to Wessex, where there lived a noble boy called Alfred. Asser, the man who was his secretary after the boy grew up, has written a life of Alfred.

From the very first this little boy was full of promise and very attractive. This fact is rather hard on some of us, is it not, who find it difficult to be good and to win the confidence of grown-up people. But the confidence of others is precisely what the boy Alfred did win, and it was not because he was a molly-coddle, for no young prince ever swung a battle-ax more lustily than did Alfred.

When he was a little bit of a chap only five years old, he was taken to Rome to see the Pope. Alfred was born in 849 at the town of Wantage, so you know what year it was when he went to[Pg 50] Rome. The Pope took a great fancy to him and hallowed him as his "bishop's son." Just how old this charming boy was when he began to read we do not know. At that time, of course, all boys read Latin, for there were no English books to read. But there is an old English couplet—a couplet is two lines of verse with a rhyme at the end of each line—which may tell the story of Alfred's reading:

At writing he was good enough, and yet as he telleth me, He was more than ten years old ere he knew his A B C.

Alfred may have been younger or older than this. We don't know, and the probability is that we never shall know. This little boy was much loved by his father, King Ethelwulf, and his mother, Queen Osburh. He had many brothers and sisters, and was himself the fifth child. But he was a finer-looking boy than the others, and more graceful in his way of speaking and in his manners.

From the time that he was a tiny child he loved to know things. And yet his parents and nurses allowed him to remain untaught in reading and writing until he was quite a big boy. But at night, when the gleemen sang songs to the harp in the royal villa, Alfred listened attentively. He had memorized very early some splendid old English songs, such as "Beowulf." He knew all [Pg 51]about Grendel, and all about the death of the warrior Beowulf after his battle with the dragon. And he had listened to gentler songs, like the one of the cowherd, Cædmon. He listened to the singing of poems which were full of the sea and full of war. Saints, warriors, and pirates were the chief heroes. A Roman poet, thinking of the warriors and pirates, called the English people "sea wolves." All their poetry was full of the sea, and it is still true that the English love the sea.

But you must not think of these people, in the midst of whom Alfred was born, as just warriors. They loved their homes, and their poetry is full of love for their families and for the dear old home-place, wherever it happened to be. Besides home-loving poetry, the gleemen sang many religious poems to which the little Alfred listened. Among them was the story of Cædmon, as I have said. We hear, too, of warrior saints, good men who did not go out to slay a fire-spewing dragon lying on a heap of gold, as did Beowulf, but who taught them how to fight the dragon of evil which lurks somewhere near or within us all the time.

It is this sort of golden and every-day victory that not only Cædmon, the cowherd, sings, but also Cynewulf, who lived during the last half of the eighth century. Cynewulf was a minstrel at the court of one of the Northumbrian kings—just such a minstrel or gleeman as Alfred sometimes listened to on many a night when he[Pg 52] was committing to memory some stirring or beautiful Anglo-Saxon poem. This poet-singer loved the sea with all his heart, and his poetry is full of this love. And in our own day, eleven centuries later, Tennyson wrote poems in their spirit not unlike Old English poems. There is one called "The Sailor Boy" which resembles an Anglo-Saxon poem called "The Seafarer." It is a spirited little poem and begins:

He rose at dawn and, fired with hope, Shot o'er the sultry harbour-bar, And reached the ship and caught the rope, And whistled to the morning star.

God help me! save I take my part Of danger on the roaring sea, A devil rises in my heart, Far worse than any death to me.

That devil is, of course, the devil of idleness, of uselessness. These stanzas are worth memorizing. You can see the spirit of a poet sometimes has a very long life. Here is one of the Old English riddles:

On the sand I stayed, by the sea-wall near,
All beside the surge-inflowing! Firm I sojourned there,
Where I first was fastened. Only few of men
Watched among the waste where I wonned on the earth.
But the brown-backed billow, at each break of day,
With its water-arms enwrapt me! Little weened I then,
That I e'er should speak, in the after-days,
Mouthless o'er the mead-bench....

What do you think that meant? A reed flute—a little flute on which one played a song.

When Christianity came to England, as it did in 597 with St. Augustine, almost three hundred years before little Alfred was born, it made men care less for warfare and more for Christ. It is difficult to do what Christ told us to do—love one another, and at the same time fight one another. And that we should love one another was the great new message of Christianity. Christ was in men's minds, however, in those olden days, not only our gentle Saviour, but also a hero who went forth to war.

Alfred knew all about warfare, but it was not for warfare that this gentle boy and brave man cared most. One day his noble mother, Osburh, showed him and his brothers a book of poetry written in English.

"Whichever of you," she said, "shall the soonest learn this volume shall have it for his own."

This book was a very beautiful book with an illuminated letter at the beginning of the volume. An illuminated letter is usually bright with gold as well as with other colors. Of course the boy Alfred wanted this wonderful book.

He said before all his brothers, who were older than he, "Will you really give that book to one of us, that is to say to him who can first understand and repeat it to you?"

Alfred thereupon took the book from her hand and went to his master to read it. And it was not so very long before he had it all by heart. Then one day he brought the book to his mother and recited it. And so well did he do that he received the gift as his mother had promised him he should.

We have taken a look through the golden door over which is written Old English Poetry. We know something of what the boy Alfred learned from the book his mother gave him.

By that time he had grown to be a large boy. When he was still a little boy he had been taken from his nurses and taught the use of arms and how to ride. All his training was teaching him how to be a soldier. Yet there was something for which Alfred cared even more. All about them in those days were the Danes, the fiercest of fighting-men. Government, the gentle religion of Christ, peace, had been almost dislodged by these fierce, heathen Danes. Yet in the midst of the war-filled years of his boyhood and young manhood Alfred was dreaming of what English books, of what education in their own tongue, might do for his people.

And even in war times they were very busy just getting things together in order to live. They had to have food, they had to be warm, they had to have houses and clothes. In the woods they[Pg 55] had pigs—wild-looking swine with tusks. In the fields they had cattle and sheep and chickens. From the sea they took fish. They made butter and cheese, ale and mead, candles, leather from skins, and they wove cloth and silk. They kept bees, too, as you know from what happened to little Finan in the story of Cædmon. Besides all these things they had their carpenter's work, their blacksmith's, their baker's, hunting, woodcutting, the making of weapons, and a hundred and one other employments.

Still, despite all the warfare and the work, Alfred, when he became king in 871, had time to do a great deal for the education of the boys and girls of those stirring days. The young king wrote in English and translated from Latin into English so that the people might have books in their own tongue. And since Bede's translation of the Gospel of St. John was lost, Alfred must be called the true "father of English prose." Just as Whitby and the stall in which Cædmon saw the vision and learned how to sing was the cradle of English poetry, so was Winchester the cradle of English prose. To accomplish this work the good king brought scholars from all over the world. Asser, his secretary and biographer, has compared Alfred to a most productive bee which flew here and there asking questions as he went. He made it possible for every free-born youth to learn to read and write English perfectly. Indeed, this[Pg 56] wonderful king made himself into a schoolmaster and took on the direction of a school in his own court. He translated from well-known books into English, among others Bede's History and Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care. Although he freed his people from the fierce Danes, through his love for a book he did more for his own times and for all times—more, almost, than any other English boy has ever grown up to do.

VII

A FISHERMAN'S BOY

When we say that we are English-speaking, it seems as if it were not necessary to say more than that. But the more we wander about in the Great Palace of English Literature opening golden doors, the more do we realize that we cannot say that this palace was built by English hands alone. No, the men who built it were not only English, they were, as you know already, Welsh, Irish, Scotch. Indeed, the very word "English" was brought to England by an invader, just as the word "America" was brought to the North American continent by a discoverer. Not only was this Palace of English Literature built by those who were Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, as well as English, but also by Danes and Normans.

The English came to Britain in 449. About three hundred and fifty years later (790) the Danes began to ravage Northumbria, which you have come to know through the story of Cædmon the cowherd. But the Danes were of English stock,[Pg 58] so to speak, and they neither changed the language nor altered things in the life of boys and girls and men and women. After all it was much the same life after they came as it was before. They brought with them some stories—just as the English "Beowulf." Among the Danish-English stories were "Havelok the Dane" and "King Horn," both written down about 1280, but told and sung much before that time.

In her early days before she became a great world power, England had many conquerors. Not only the English and the Danes, but also the Normans were her conquerors in 1066 under William the Conqueror. English story-telling, as, for example, Malory's "Morte d'Arthur," could never have been the same without the Norman or French influence. If we pick up a handful of so-called English words, we shall see that some of these words are English, others are French, and still others Latin in their origin. But the Norman spoke French only for a while in England. He soon left the speaking and writing of French for that of English. However, there are many beautiful words, many strong words, many words of customs and manners which we should not find in the Great Palace of English Literature but for the conquerors who came to England.

There are several manuscripts in which the story of Havelok is found. But the one which is[Pg 59] written in an English dialect shows best how old the story is.

There was a King whose name was Aethelwold, whose only heir was a tiny little girl. And the little girl's name was Goldborough. Alas, the King found he must die and leave his little girl fatherless! So he called to him the wisest and mightiest of his earls. The name of this Earl was Godrich. And the King made the Earl promise that he would guard his little girl until she was twenty years old, and that then he would give her in marriage to the fairest and strongest man alive.

But when the Earl Godrich saw how lovely little Goldborough was going to be, and knew that he would have to give up the kingdom to her before long, he was angry, and took her from Winchester to Dover on the English seacoast and shut little Goldborough up in a castle so that she could not get out.

In Denmark, just about this time, there lived a King whose name was Birkabeyn who had one boy and two sweet little girls. He, too, realized that he had to die. So he called to him his wisest Earl, a man by the name of Godard, and charged him to care for his children until Havelok, the boy, was old enough to rule the land. But this wicked Earl shut little Swanborow and Helfled up in a castle and had them killed.

And Godard was just about to kill Havelok, [Pg 60]too, when he bethought him he would have somebody else do this terrible deed. The wicked Earl sent for a fisherman who would, he knew, do his will.

"Grim," said the wicked Earl, "to-morrow I will make thee rich if thou wilt take this child and throw him into the sea to-night."

Grim took the boy Havelok and bound him and gagged him and took him home in a black bag. When Grim carried the sack into his cottage, Dame Leve, his wife, was so frightened that she dropped the sack her husband had handed to her, and cracked poor little Havelok's head against a stone.

They let the boy lie this way until midnight, when it would be dark enough for Grim to drown Havelok in the sea. Leve was just bringing Grim some clothes that he might put on to go out and drown the King's son, when they saw a light shining about the child.

In haste the fisherman rose and they went over to the child, about whose head shone a clear light, from whose mouth came rays of light like sunbeams. It was as if many candles were burning in that tiny fisherman's hut. They unbound the boy and they found on his right shoulder a king's mark, bright and fair like the lights.

They were overcome by what Godard had done [Pg 61]and had almost led them to do. They fell upon their knees before the little boy and promised to feed and clothe him. And so they did, and they were very good to him and kept him from all harm. But Grim and his wife became frightened, for fear that Godard would discover that they had not drowned the child and would hang them. Thereupon Grim sold all that he had, sheep, cow, horse, pigs, goat, geese, hens—everything, in short, that was his. Taking his money, he put his wife, his three little sons, and two pretty little girls and Havelok into his fishing-boat and they set sail for England.

HENRY III. SAILING HOME FROM GASCONY, 1243
Drawn by Matthew Paris
MS. Roy. 14 C. vii

The north wind blew and drove them down upon the coast of England near the river Humber, and there Grim landed, and the place is called[Pg 62] Grimsby to this day. Then Grim set himself to his old occupation of fishing, and he caught sturgeon, whale, turbot, salmon, seal, porpoise, mackerel, flounder, plaice, and thornback. And he and his sons carried the fish about in baskets and sold them.

Yet while Grim fed his family well, Havelok lay at home and did naught. And when Havelok stopped to think about that, he was ashamed, for he was a fine, strong boy.

And the next day he carried to market as much fish as four men could. And every bit of fish did he sell and brought back the money, keeping not a farthing for himself. Alas! there came a famine about this time, and Grim had great fear on Havelok's account lest the boy starve.

"Havelok," said Grim, "our meat is long since gone. For myself it does not matter, but I fear for thee. Thou knowest how to get to Lincoln, and there they will give thee a chance to earn thy food. Since thou art naked, I will make thee a coat from my sail."

This he did, and with the coat on and barefoot the King's son found his way to Lincoln. For two days the lad had no food. On the third day he heard some one crying, "Bearing-men, bearing-men, come here!" Havelok leaped forward to the [Pg 63]Earl's cook and bore the food to the castle. Another time he lifted a whole cart-load of fish and bore it to the castle.

The cook looked him over and said: "Wilt thou work for me? I will feed thee gladly."

"Feed me," answered Havelok, "and I will make thy fire burn and wash thy dishes."

And because Havelok was a strong lad and a good boy, as all kings' sons are not, he worked hard from that day forth. He bore all the food in and carried all the wood and the water, and worked as hard as if he were a beast. And he was a merry lad, too, for he knew how to hide his griefs. And the old story says that all who saw him loved him, for he was meek and strong and fair. But still he had nothing but the wretched coat to wear. So the cook took pity on him and bought him span-new clothes and gave him stockings and shoes. And when he had put them on he looked the King's son he was. At the Lincoln games he was "like a mast," taller and straighter than any youth there. In wrestling he overcame every one. Yet he was known for his gentleness. Never before had Havelok seen stone-putting, but when his master told him to try, Havelok threw the stone twelve feet beyond what any one else could do.

The story of the stone-putting was being told in castle and hall when Earl Godrich heard it, and said to himself that here was the tallest, strongest, and fairest man alive, and he would fulfil his[Pg 64] promise and get rid of Goldborough, the King's daughter, by giving her to Havelok, whom he thought to be just a cook's boy. Now Havelok did not wish to marry any more than did Goldborough, but they were forced to. And when they were married Havelok knew not whither they could go, for he saw that Godrich hated them and that their lives were not safe.

Therefore they went on foot to Grimsby, and royal was their welcome. Grim, the fisherman, had died.

But his five children fell on their knees and said: "Welcome, dear lord. Stay here and all is thine."

And that night as they lay on their bed in the fisherman's hut, Goldborough discovered, because of the bright light which came from the mouth of Havelok, that he was a King's son. And it was not long after this they all set sail for Denmark, so that Havelok, with the help of Grim's sons and many others, might win back the kingdom of Denmark.

It was in the house of Bernard Brown, the magistrate of the Danish town, that sixty strong thieves, clad in wide sleeves and closed capes, attacked him. Bernard Brown seized an ax and leaped to the door to defend his home.

And he broke the door asunder with a boulder.[Pg 65] Whereupon Havelok took the great bar from across the door. And with the bar he slew several, yet the thieves had wounded him in many places, when Grim's sons came upon the scene to defend their lord and saw the thieves treating Havelok as a smith does his anvil. Like madmen the three sons of Grim leaped into the fight, and they fought until not one of the thieves was left alive.

When Earl Ubbe heard of this he rode down to Bernard Brown's. Then he heard the story of Havelok's bravery and of the terrible wounds he had received, so that Bernard Brown feared he might die because of them.

"Fetch Havelok quickly," commanded Ubbe. "If he can be healed, I myself will dub him knight."

"Come forth now," said Ubbe to Havelok, "thou and Goldborough and thy three servants."

And with rejoicing did Ubbe bring them to his city. And about the middle of the night Ubbe saw a great light in the tower where Havelok was sleeping. He peered through a crack and he saw that the "sunny gleam" came from Havelok's mouth. It was as if a hundred and seven candles were burning, and on Havelok's shoulder was a clear, shining cross.

"He is Birkabeyn's heir," said Ubbe, "for never[Pg 66] in Denmark was brother so like to brother as this fair man is like the dead King."

And Earl Ubbe and his men fell at Havelok's feet and awoke him. And very happy was Havelok, and thankful to God. And then came barons and warriors and thanes and knights and common men, and all swore fealty to Havelok. With a bright sword Ubbe dubbed Havelok knight and made him King. And the three sons of Grim were also made knights. Thereat were all men happy, and they wrestled and played, played the harp and the pipe, read romances from a book, and sang old tales. There was every sort of sport and plenty of food.

Finally they all, a thousand knights and five thousand men, set forth that Havelok might take vengeance on the wicked Earl Godard. There was a hard fight, but at last they caught and bound Earl Godard. And he was hung on the gallows and died there. Such was the end of one who betrayed his trust.

The wicked Earl Godrich in England, who had robbed Goldborough of her kingdom, heard that Havelok was become King of Denmark and also that he was come to Grimsby. So he gathered all his army together and there was a great battle. And the battle was going against Havelok, when the wicked hand of Godrich was struck off. After that Havelok and his men were victorious. Then did they condemn the Earl Godrich to death.[Pg 67] And he was bound to an ass and led through London and burned at the stake. Such was the end of one who betrayed his trust.

And after that Havelok and Goldborough reigned in England for sixty years. So great was the love of the King and Queen for each other that all marveled at it. Neither was happy away from the other. And never were they angry, for their love for each other was always new.

VIII

THE WEREWOLF

In the Great Palace of English Literature over one of the golden doors hangs a horn of ivory, and a sword of which the name is Durendal. Above that door is written Chanson de Roland, which means the Song of Roland. Often in the stillness of the early morning or at dusk the Great Palace rings faintly with the music from that ivory horn which belonged to Roland, and which he sounded for the last time in the Pass of Roncevaux. Or there is heard the clinking of Durendal against the stone of the palace walls—no doubt the wind stirring it where it hangs beside the door it guards.

"Chanson de Roland!" You see the story is French. The Normans brought it with them when they came to conquer Britain in 1066 under William of Normandy. Before the soldiers of William, the minstrel, Taillefer, rode singing of "Charlemagne, and of Roland, and of Oliver, and the vassals who fell at Roncevaux."

"Roland, comrade," said Oliver, "blow thy horn of ivory, and Charles shall hear it and bring hither again his army, and ... succor us."

"Roland, comrade," urged Oliver, "blow thy horn of ivory, that Charles may hear it."

"Prithee look!" begged Oliver. "They are close upon us. Thou wouldst not deign to sound thy horn of ivory. Were the King here we should suffer no hurt."

Oliver was wise and Roland was brave, and the song that the minstrel Taillefer chanted before the conquering hosts of William of Normandy was a wonderful, stirring song. No doubt there flows in English veins to-day much of the courage of Roland and the wisdom of Oliver. Although the English continued English, yet for a long time following the conquest of England by the Normans songs were sung in French rather than in English. And ready and witty was all that was written down in French, for the literature of the Normans was as brightly colored as a jewel and not grand and melancholy as was that of the Anglo-Saxons. "Beowulf" was the battle song of the Anglo-Saxons, the "Song of Roland" that of the Normans. Melancholy was the poem of [Pg 70]"Beowulf." White and clear, stirring and flashing in the sunshine was the "Chanson de Roland," even as Roland's beloved sword Durendal, which is heard clinking against the stone of the Great Palace of English Literature.

But "Roland" represented only a fraction of the story-telling in the French poetry of that time. The most exquisite and delightful story-teller of that twelfth century collected and wrote here charming stories on English soil and dedicated them to Henry II., who died in 1189. Her name was Marie de France, and of her lays a rival poet wrote:

All love them much and hold them dear,
Baron, count and chevalier,
Applaud their form and take delight
To hear them told by day and night.
In chief, these tales the ladies please;
They listen glad their hearts to ease.

Marie de France's lays are based on British tradition. There are many of these delightful stories. Among the most interesting of them is "The Werewolf."

Once upon a time in the days of King Arthur—for later there are some lines in Malory's "Morte d'Arthur" which tells us that this story must have been true—there lived a man who for part of the week was a wolf—that is, he had the form [Pg 71]and the appetite of a wolf, and was called a werewolf. But nobody knew that he was a werewolf for three days in the week. Not even his wife, whom he loved well and devotedly, knew what happened to her husband while he was away from her these three days every week.

It vexed the wife very much that she did not know, but she was afraid to question her husband, lest he be angry. At last one day she did question him.

"Ask me no more," replied the husband, "for if I answered you you would cease to love me."

Nevertheless she gave him no peace until he had told her that three days in the week, because of a spell which was over him, he was forced to be a werewolf, and that when he felt the change coming over him he hid himself in the very thickest part of the forest.

Then the wife demanded to know what became of his clothes, and he answered that he laid them aside. The wife asked where he put them. He begged her not to ask him, for only the garments made it possible for him to return to human shape again. But the wife cried and begged until the knight, her husband, had told her all.

"Wife," he said, "inside the forest on a crossroad is a chapel. Near the chapel under a shrub is a stone. Beneath the stone is a hole, and in that hole do I hide my clothes until the enchantment makes it possible for me to take my human shape again."

Now the wife was not a good wife. Instead of trying to help her husband to get free from the wolf shape he had to assume three days in every week, thereafter she loathed him and was afraid of him. And what is worse still, she betrayed him to another knight. She took this other knight into her confidence and told him where her husband hid his clothes when the spell came upon him and he took the form of a wolf. Thereupon the knight to whom she had told this dreadful secret stole the clothes, and they hid them where the poor wolf could never find them again. After that these two wicked people were married, while the poor wolf wandered about in the forest, grieving, for he had loved his wife well and truly.

Some time after this the King was hunting one day in the forest, and his hounds gave chase to a wolf. At last, when the wretched beast was in danger of being overtaken by the hounds and torn into a thousand pieces, he fled to the King, seized him by the stirrup, and licked his foot submissively.

The King was astonished. He called his companions, and they drove off the dogs, for the King would not have the wolf harmed. But when they started to leave the forest the wolf followed the King and would not be driven away. The King was much pleased, for he had taken a great liking to the wolf. He therefore made a pet of the lonely beast, and at night he slept in the King's own[Pg 73] chamber. All the courtiers came to love the wolf, too, for he was a gentle wolf and did no one any harm.

A long time had passed when one day the King had occasion to hold a court. His barons came from far and near, and among them the knight who had betrayed the werewolf. No sooner did the wolf see him than he sprang at him to kill him. And had the King not called the wolf off he would have torn the false knight to pieces. Every one was astonished that this gentle beast should show such rage. But after the court was over and as time went on they forgot the beast's savage act.

At length the King decided to make a tour throughout his kingdom. And he took the wolf with him, for that was his custom. Now the werewolf's false wife heard that the King was to spend some time in the part of the country where she lived. So she begged for an audience. But no sooner did she enter the presence-chamber than the wolf sprang at her and bit off her nose.

The courtiers were going to slay the beast, but a wise man stayed their weapons.

"Sire," said the councilor, "we have all caressed this wolf and he has never done us any harm. This lady was the wife of a man you held dear, but of whose fate we none of us know anything. Take my counsel and make this lady answer your[Pg 74] questions, so shall we come to know why the wolf sprang at her."

This was done. The false knight who had married her was brought also, and they told all the wickedness they had done to the poor wolf. Then the King caused the wolf's stolen clothes to be fetched. But the wolf acted as if he did not see the clothes.

"Sire," said the councilor, "if this beast is a werewolf he will not change back into his human shape until he is alone."

They left him alone in the King's chamber, and put the clothes beside him. Then they waited for a long time. Lo, when they entered the chamber again, there lay the long-lost knight in a deep sleep on the King's bed! Quickly did the King run to him and embrace him, and after that he restored to him all his lost lands, and he banished the false wife and her second husband from the country. And they who were banished lived in a strange land, and all the girls among their children and grandchildren were without noses.

So close we this little golden door—not the less precious because little—over which is written in letters all boys and girls should love: Marie de France, who wrote "The Werewolf."

IX

AT GEOFFREY'S WINDOW

Among all the golden doors in the Great Palace of English Literature about which we are coming to know something, and through some of which we have already passed, there was one golden window on the stairway of the palace. This window on the stairway of the palace looked out upon a busy town and down upon the windings of the river Wye, and off upon hills and upon the ruins of a wonderful old abbey called Tintern Abbey, about which, some six hundred years later, an English poet called William Wordsworth was to write a poem called "Tintern Abbey." Wordsworth wrote "We Are Seven," and also this little poem about a butterfly:

I've watched you now a full half-hour,
Self-poised upon that yellow flower;
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! Not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees
And calls you forth again.
This plot of orchard ground is ours;
[Pg 76] My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days when we were young;
Sweet childish days that were as long
As twenty days are now.

But the golden window at which Geoffrey sat was in Monmouth, and he was called Geoffrey of Monmouth. That was some seven hundred years ago. No doubt the little town was very busy even in 1137 when Geoffrey sat at his window and wrote his famous chronicle called British History.

Before Geoffrey began to write down his marvelous stories, other stories and poems were written. In King Alfred's time, when the home of English literature was shifted from the north to the south, two fine battle songs were written. They were the "Song of Brunanburh" and the "Song of the Fight at Maldon." These were written in the tenth century. "The Charge of the Light Brigade," composed some eight hundred years later by the poet Tennyson, is like these old songs in its short, rapid lines and in its thought. Every one should learn these lines from the poem Alfred Tennyson wrote:

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

But we have been long enough away from that golden window by which Geoffrey of Monmouth sat and wrote his immortal stories. Geoffrey was called a chronicler. And what he was supposed to be doing was jotting down accurately historical events year after year. Some of the chronicles written in this way have become the chief sources of English history. Among the men who wrote these chronicles were William of Malmesbury and Matthew Paris. And between them came Geoffrey himself.

It will never be known, unless it should prove possible to roll time back some seven hundred [Pg 78]years, just what Geoffrey did see from his window as he looked out upon the busy town of Monmouth, or all that went on in his nimble mind. In any event it is plain that he had the best of good times inventing or retelling stories in his chronicle. There is to be found the story of King Lear and his three daughters, Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia—Lear, the hero of Shakespeare's play, "King Lear," written over four hundred years later. There, too, is the story of Ferrex and Porrex. Geoffrey had a nimble quill pen with which to follow his nimble wit. He writes of Julius Cæsar and of how he came to Great Britain. What Geoffrey of Monmouth says may be ridiculous enough in the light of history, but there it is, and there is Cæsar himself, not only looking upon the coast of Britain but actually standing upon it. We become familiar, too, with many names known in stories about King Arthur. Perceval is one of these. And Uther Pendragon, who was the father of King Arthur, is another.

One of the marvelous facts about Geoffrey is that when he looked out of that golden window he could see so much farther than just Monmouth. He could see all the way to the sea, and on its shores that beautiful city Tintagel, where Queen Igraine, the mother of Arthur, lived. But in Geoffrey's chronicle she was called Igerna. A name is sometimes like a long, long journey, not only in its romance, but also because it takes you to other lands and other people, and passes, even[Pg 79] as the road upon a long journey, through many changes.

Geoffrey saw from his golden window not only Tintagel, that beautiful South Welsh city by the sea, but also a little village in North Wales called Beddgelert. This little village is set down in the midst of mountains like a lump of sugar in the bottom of a deep cup. Outside this little village is a hill called Dinas Emrys. Geoffrey looked northward out of his golden window in Monmouth, and what do you think he saw? He saw the magician, Merlin, the youth who had never had a father. And this lad was quarreling with another lad in Caernarvon, a Welsh city thirteen miles away from the little village of Beddgelert.

Now Vortigern had been attempting to build a tower on Dinas Emrys, but whatever the workmen did one day was swallowed up the next.

Then some wise men said to Vortigern: "You must find a youth who has never had a father. You must sacrifice him and sprinkle the foundations with his blood."

So Vortigern sent men to find a boy who had never had a father and who should be brought him that they might kill him. When Vortigern's messenger reached Caernarvon, thirteen miles away from Beddgelert and the hill Dinas Emrys, they found two boys playing games and quarreling about their parentage. And one of them,[Pg 80] Dabutius, was accusing the other, Merlin, of having no father. They took him to Vortigern.

And Vortigern said, "My magicians told me to seek out a lad who had no father, with whose blood the foundations of my building are to be sprinkled to make it stand."

"Order your magicians," answered Merlin, "to come before me and I will convict them of a lie."

It is a terrible thing to be convicted of a lie, and of course the magicians did not wish to come. But King Vortigern made them come and ordered them to sit down before Merlin.

Merlin spoke to them after this manner: "Because you are ignorant what it is that hinders the foundations of the tower, you have told the King to kill me and to cement the stones with my blood. But tell me now, what is there under the foundations that will not suffer it to stand?"

Then said Merlin, "I entreat your Majesty would command your workmen to dig into the ground, and you will find a pond which causes the foundations to sink."

Then said Merlin to the King's magicians, "Tell me, ye false men, what is there under the pond?"

Merlin turned to King Vortigern and said, "Command the pond to be drained, and at the bottom you will see two hollow stones, and in them are two dragons asleep."

The King had the pond drained, and he found all just as Merlin said it would be. And as the King sat on the edge of the drained pond out came the two dragons, one red and one white, and, approaching each other, they began to fight, blowing forth fire from their nostrils. At last the white dragon got the advantage and made the red dragon fly to the other end of the drained pond.

When King Vortigern asked Merlin to explain what this meant, Merlin burst into tears.

Then commanding his voice, he spoke: "In the days that are to come gold shall be squeezed from the lily and the nettle, and silver shall flow from the hoofs of bellowing cattle. The teeth of wolves shall be blunted and the lion's whelps shall be transformed into sea-fishes."

And unto this day nobody knows exactly what Merlin meant, or what Geoffrey thought he meant, although there has been much guessing.

Geoffrey must have been very fond of looking out of his window and seeing Merlin, for many a story he tells about him. There is the story of how Merlin helped to remove the stones of the Giants' Dance from Ireland. Giants of old had brought them from the farthest coast of Africa.[Pg 82] They were mystical stones and had value to heal and cure men. When these stones were found too heavy to be lifted by human hands, Merlin found a way, nevertheless, to lift them. Then the stones of the Giants' Dance were carried across the sea and placed in England at Stonehenge. It is an exciting story Geoffrey tells about the Giants' Dance, yet I fear we know no more really how the big stones got to Stonehenge than we know about the ribs of our solid earth. Certainly those stones were set up in Stonehenge even before men began recording history or Geoffrey of Monmouth sat in his golden window.

And there is the story of the 40,060 kings who never existed—which is more almost than ever did exist. And of the coming of St. Augustine to England, bringing with him the gentle religion of Christ.

It would be very nice if all this about Merlin and the dragons and the Giants' Dance were what might be called true history. Alas, it is not! In the first place, Geoffrey tells stories which vary greatly from what was actually known to be history. Then, too, this chronicle is full, as you have seen, of miraculous stories of one sort or another. And there are other reasons, also, why these delightful stories of Geoffrey of Monmouth must be taken with a pinch of salt.

But it is because Geoffrey did sit at his window in the little town of Monmouth, writing these[Pg 83] stories which have to be taken with a pinch of salt, that English story-telling began to grow. Geoffrey's imagination was to English story-telling what the sunlight is in making a tulip grow. Story-telling grew out of the Chronicles, the so-called historical literature. The men of Geoffrey's time said that "he had lied saucily and shamelessly." No doubt he had. Yet these same men could not help reading the stories he told, for they were so interesting that all men read them. What he had done was to take several Welsh legends, put them together cleverly, as a carpenter joins a delicate bit of woodwork, translate these Welsh legends into Latin and call the work a Chronicle. Not only was it read in England, but it was read all over the continent of Europe, too. It had great success.

Geoffrey Gaimer put these stories into French. The stories traveled to France. Once there, other legends were added, and when Geoffrey's Chronicle turned up again in England it came back as the work of Wace, a Norman trouveur, or ballad-singer. But Geoffrey's stories were too good to let drop even after they had been through so many hands. An English priest in Worcestershire by the name of Layamon, translating the French poem which Wace had made out of Geoffrey's prose stories, retold the stories in English poetry. That was in 1205, after Geoffrey had died.

Geoffrey of Monmouth must have been very[Pg 84] happy as he sat in his sunny, golden window and heard about the tales he had written there. He must have chuckled many a time over what the world had made out of his nimble story-telling wits. English literature could not be at all the same, in either prose or poetry, if it were not for that golden palace door over which was written Welsh or that window upon the stairway where Geoffrey sat.

But it was the Normans who brought the taste for history with them to England in 1066, when they conquered the land which had been King Alfred's land. It was some time before the Normans became what we call English in their feeling. Probably the Normans would never have become so strongly English in feeling if English patriotism, even after the conquest of 1066, had not remained very much alive. The English had written down in English some of the proverbs of their former King Alfred. The parents of the chronicler, William of Malmesbury, were both English and Norman. And, strangely enough, Layamon's "Brut" is not unlike the poetry of the cowherd Cædmon, the first of the great English singers, the first of English poets.

Perhaps this very hour the sun is shining down upon that golden window of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and laughing for joy because the man who "lied so saucily" was the first of the great English story-tellers.

X

A FAMOUS KITCHEN BOY

Geoffrey's window is a very fascinating place to be—possibly the most interesting window the world has ever seen. It is not just one lifetime which has found that window interesting, but more lifetimes than we can count comfortably. Sir Thomas Malory, who wrote his Morte d'Arthur in 1469, fairly lived in that window; so did Shakespeare when he wrote "King Lear" in 1605, and even the modern poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who wrote "The Charge of the Light Brigade," composed a series of poems called "Idylls of the King," which return for their sources through Malory to Geoffrey at his window.

There is one story, however, which Geoffrey did not see as he looked out of his golden window—the story of the famous kitchen boy, or "Gareth and Linet." This tale is found in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, which was not completed until 1469, many years after the writing [Pg 86]of Geoffrey's Chronicle in 1147. Clear and sunshiny is the English of this wonderful book of Malory's, and nowhere in the world can more beautiful, exciting, and marvelous stories be found than between the covers of the Morte d'Arthur. The Morte d'Arthur was written about twenty years after the invention of printing by Coster and Gutenberg. Sixteen years after the completion of the book by Malory, Caxton printed it in black letter in English. There is only one perfect copy of this book by Caxton, the first of the English printers, and that is in Brooklyn, New York. In the preface which Caxton wrote for the Morte d'Arthur, he says that in this book will be found "many joyous and pleasant histories, and noble and renowned acts of humanity, gentleness and chivalries.... Do after the good and leave the evil, and it shall bring you good fame and renown." Certainly that is what the kitchen boy did, and it brought him to good fame.

It was one day when King Arthur was holding a Round Table court at Kynke Kenadonne by the sea. And they were at their meat, three hundred and fifty knights, when there came into the hall two men well clad and fine-looking. And, as the old story says, there leaned upon their shoulders "the goodliest young man and the fairest that ever they all saw, and he was large and long and broad in the shoulders, and well visaged, and the fairest and the largest-handed that ever man saw, [Pg 87]
but he fared as if he might not go or bear himself—"

The two men supported the young man up to the high dais upon which Arthur was feasting. When the young man that was being helped forward was seen there was silence. Then the young man stretched up straight and besought Arthur that he would give him three gifts.

"The first gift I will ask now," he said, "but the other two gifts I will ask this day twelve months wheresoever you hold your high feast."

"Sir, this is my petition for this feast: that you will give me meat and drink enough for this twelvemonth, and at that day I will ask mine other two gifts."

But the young man would ask no more. And when the King, who had taken a great liking to him, asked him for his name, the young man said that he could not tell him.

The King took him to Sir Kay, the steward, and charged him to give the young man the best of all the meats and drinks and to treat him as a lord's son.

But Sir Kay was angry, and said: "An he had come of gentlemen, he would have asked of you horse and armor, but such as he is, so he asketh.[Pg 89] And since he hath no name, I shall give him a name that shall be Beaumains, that is Fair-hands, and into the kitchen shall I bring him, and there he shall have fat brose every day, that he shall be as fat by the twelvemonth's end as a pork hog."

And Sir Kay scorned him and mocked at him. On hearing this both Sir Launcelot, the greatest of the Knights of the Round Table, and Sir Gawaine were wroth and bade Sir Kay leave his mocking.

"I dare lay my head," said Sir Launcelot, "he shall prove a man of great worship."

Beaumains, or Fair-hands, was put into the kitchen, and lay there nightly as the boys of the kitchen did. The old book says: "He endured all that twelvemonth, and never displeased man nor child, but always he was meek and mild. But ever when he saw any jousting of knights, that would he see an he might."

Sir Launcelot gave him gold to spend, and clothes, and whenever the boy went where there were games or feats of strength he excelled in them all.

But always Sir Kay would taunt him with these words spoken to others, "How like you my boy of the kitchen?"

And so Fair-hands, the kitchen boy, continued[Pg 90] in service for a year. At the close of the year came a lady to the court and told about her sister who was besieged in a castle by a tyrant who was called the Red Knight of the Red Laundes. But she would not tell her name, and therefore the King would not permit any of his knights to go with her to rescue her sister from the Red Knight, who was one of the worst knights in the world.

But at the King's refusal, Beaumains, or Fair-hands, as he was called, spoke, "Sir King, God thank you, I have been this twelvemonth in your kitchen, and have had my full sustenance, and now I will ask my two gifts that be behind."

"Sir, this shall be my two gifts: first, that you will permit me to go with this maiden that I may rescue her sister. And second, that Sir Launcelot shall ride after me and make me knight when I require it of him."

And both these requests the King granted. But the maiden was angry because, she said, he had given her naught but his kitchen page.

Then came one to Fair-hands and told him that his horse and armor were come for him. And there was a dwarf with everything that Beaumains needed, and all of it the richest and best it was possible for man to have. But though he was horsed and trapped in cloth of gold, he had neither shield nor spear.

Just as Beaumains overtook the maiden, so did Sir Kay overtake his former kitchen page.

"Yea," said Beaumains, "I know you for an ungentle knight of the court. Therefore beware of me."

Thereupon Sir Kay put his spear in the rest and ran straight upon him, and Beaumains came fast upon him with his sword in his hand. And Beaumains knocked the spear out of the knight's hand and Sir Kay fell down as he had been dead. Beaumains took Sir Kay's shield and spear and rode away upon his own horse. The dwarf took Sir Kay's horse.

Just then along came Sir Launcelot, and Beaumains challenged him to a joust. And so they fought for the better part of an hour, rushing together like infuriated boars. And Sir Launcelot marveled at the young man's strength, for he fought more like a giant than like a knight. At last he said, "Fight not so sore; your quarrel and mine is not so great but we may leave off."

"Truly that is truth," said Beaumains, "but it doth me good to feel your strength, and yet, my lord, I showed not the most I could do."

Then Sir Launcelot confessed to Beaumains that he had much ado to save himself, and that Beaumains need fear no earthly knight. And[Pg 92] then Beaumains confessed to Sir Launcelot that he was the brother of Sir Gawaine and the youngest son of King Lot; that his mother, Dame Morgawse, was sister to King Arthur, and that his name was Gareth.

After that Launcelot knighted Gareth, and Gareth rode on after the maiden whose sister was kept a prisoner by the Red Knight.

When he overtook her she turned upon him and said: "Get away from me, for thou smellest all of the kitchen. Thy clothes are dirty with grease and tallow. What art thou but a ladle-washer?"

"Damosel," replied Beaumains, "say to me what you will, I will not go from you whatsoever you say, for I have undertaken to King Arthur for to achieve your adventure, and so shall I finish it to the end or I shall die therefor."

Then came a man thereby calling for help, for six thieves were after him. Even when Beaumains had slain all the six thieves and set the man free from his fears, then the maiden used him despicably, calling him kitchen boy and other shameful names.

On the next day Beaumains slew two knights who would not allow him and the maiden to cross a great river.

But all the maiden did was to taunt him. "Alas," she said, "that ever a kitchen page should have that fortune to destroy even two doughty[Pg 93] knights; but it was not rightly force, for the first knight stumbled and he was drowned in the water, and by mishap thou earnest up behind the last knight and thus happily slew him."

"Say what you will," said Beaumains, "but with whomsoever I have ado withall, I trust to God to serve him or he depart."

"Fie, fie, foul kitchen knave," answered the maiden, "thou shalt see knights that shall abate thy boast."

And so she continued to scold him and would not rest therefrom. And they came to a black land, and there was a black hawthorn, and thereon hung a black banner, and on the other side there hung a black shield, and by it stood a black spear great and long, and a great black horse covered with silk, and a black stone fast by.

And before the Knight of the Black Lands the maiden used Beaumains despicably, calling him kitchen knave and other such names. And the Black Knight and Beaumains came together for battle as if it had been thunder. After hard struggle Beaumains killed the Black Knight and rode on after the damosel.

"Away, kitchen boy, out of the wind," she cried, "for the smell of thy clothes grieves me."

And so ever despitefully she used him. Yet he overcame the Green Knight, who was the brother of the Black Knight, and spared his life at the maiden's request.

And it was after the vanquishing of the Green Knight that they saw a tower as white as any snow, and all around the castle it was double-diked. Over the tower gate there hung fifty shields of divers colors, and under that tower was a fair meadow. And the lord of the tower looked out of his window and beheld Beaumains, the maiden, and the dwarf coming.

"With that knight will I joust," called the lord of the tower, "for I see that he is a knight errant."

And ever he replied, patiently, "Damosel, you are uncourteous so to rebuke me, for meseemeth I have done you good service." Then did the heart of the maiden soften a little.

"I marvel what manner of man you be," she said, "for it may never be otherwise but that you come of a noble blood, for so shamefully did woman never rule a knight as I have done you, and ever courteously you have suffered me, and that comes never but of gentle blood."

"Damosel," answered Beaumains, "a knight may little do that may not suffer a damosel. And whether I be gentleman born or not, I let you wit, fair damosel, I have done you gentleman's service."

Then they met Sir Persant of Inde, who was dwelling only seven miles from the siege, and the maiden besought Beaumains to flee while there was yet time. But he refused.

And when Sir Persant and Beaumains met they met with all that ever their horses might run, and broke their spears either into three pieces, and their horses rushed so together that both their horses fell dead to the earth. And they got off their horses and fought for more than two hours. And Beaumains spared his life only at the maiden's request.

Then Beaumains told Sir Persant that his name was Sir Gareth. And the maiden said that hers was Linet, and that she was sister to Dame Lionesse, who was besieged.

Then the dwarf took word to the lady who was besieged, and the others came on after.

"How escaped he," said the lady, Dame Lionesse, "from the brethren of Sir Persant?"

"Ah," said Dame Lionesse, "commend me unto your gentle knight, and pray him to eat and drink and make him strong. Also pray him that he be of good heart and courage, for he shall meet with a knight who is neither of bounty, courtesy, nor gentleness; for he attendeth unto nothing but murder, and that is the cause I cannot praise him nor love him."

All that night Beaumains lay in an hermitage, and upon the morn he and the damosel Linet broke their fast and heard mass. Then took they their horses, and, riding through a fair forest, they came out upon a plain where there were many pavilions and tents and a castle and much smoke and a great noise. When they came near the siege Beaumains espied upon great trees goodly knights hanging by the neck, their shields about their necks with their swords, and gilt spurs upon their heels. There hung high forty knights.

"Fair sir, "answered the damosel, "these knights came hither to this siege to rescue my sister, Dame Lionesse, and when the Red Knight of the Red Lands had overcome them he put them to this shameful death."

Then rode they to the dikes, and saw them double-diked with full warlike walls; and there were lodged many great lords nigh the walls; and there was great noise of minstrelsy; and the sea beat upon the side of the walls, where there were many ships and mariners' noise. And also there was fast by a sycamore-tree, and there hung a horn, the greatest that ever they saw, of an elephant's bone. Therewith Beaumains spurred his horse straight to the sycamore-tree, and blew so eagerly the horn that all the siege and the castle rang thereof. And then there leaped out knights out of their tents and pavilions, and they within[Pg 97] the castle looked over the walls and out of windows. Then the Red Knight of the Red Lands armed him hastily, and two barons set on his spurs upon his heels, and all was blood red, his armor, spear, and shield.

"Sir," said the damosel Linet, "look you be glad and light, for yonder is your deadly enemy, and at yonder window is my sister, Dame Lionesse."

Then Beaumains and the Red Knight put their spears in their rests, and came together with all their might, and either smote the other in the middle of their shields, that the surcingles and cruppers broke and fell to the earth both, and the two knights lay stunned upon the ground. But soon they got to their feet and drew their swords and ran together like two fierce lions. And then they fought until it was past noon, tracing, racing, and foining as two boars. Thus they endured until evensong time, and their armor was so hewn to pieces that men might see their naked sides. Then the Red Knight gave Beaumains a buffet upon the helm, so that he fell groveling to the earth.

Then cried the maiden Linet on high: "Oh, Sir Beaumains, where is thy courage? Alas! my sister beholdeth thee and she sobbeth and weepeth."

When Beaumains heard this he lifted himself up with great effort and got upon his feet, and lightly he leaped to his sword and gripped it in his hand. And he smote so thick that he smote[Pg 98] the sword out of the Red Knight's hand. Sir Beaumains fell upon him and unlaced his helm to have slain him. But at the request of the lords he saved his life and made him yield him to the lady.

And so it was that Beaumains, or Sir Gareth, as his real name was, came into the presence of his lady and won her love through his meekness and gentleness and courtesy and courage, as every true knight should win the love of his lady.

So ends happily one of the charming stories of adventure and knighthood in one of the greatest Cycles of Romance the world has ever known. Indeed, in that Great Palace we have entered, and some of whose golden doors we have been opening, there is no door more loved by human beings than the one over which is written Romance, for boys and girls and their elders have always loved a romantic story, and always will.

There are four great romantic stories in the Palace of English Literature. The first is King Arthur and the Round Table, which Geoffrey of Monmouth discovered for us by his golden window. The second great romance is the story of Charlemagne. This was in the twelfth century, and the most valiant story which grew out of the Charlemagne Cycle was that of Roland. Every one should know the story of Roland and his famous sword, Durendal. The third is the Life [Pg 99]of Alexander, which came to England from the east. And the fourth is the Siege of Troy, composed in the thirteenth century and written in Latin.

It takes many, many stories to satisfy our love of Romance. As we pass through the golden door over which is written Romance, one whole wall is filled with the names of lesser romances forgotten long, long ago. But the stories which Sir Thomas Malory gave us in his Morte d'Arthur, written in 1469, will never be forgotten as long as the English language is spoken.

Medieval London	Frontispiece
(From Green's Short History of the English People.)
Kings in Armor	27
(From Green's Short History of the English People.)
Henry III. Sailing Home from Gascony, 1243	61
(From Green's Short History of the English People.)
Knight in Armor	87
(From Green's Short History of the English People.)

EARLY
ENGLISH
HERO TALES

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

I

THE FIRST ENGLISH HERO

II

WELSH MAGIC

III

THE BATTLE AT THE FORD

IV

CÆDMON THE COWHERD

V

THE SHEPHERD OF LAUDERDALE

VI

THE BOY WHO WON A PRIZE

VII

A FISHERMAN'S BOY

VIII

THE WEREWOLF

IX

AT GEOFFREY'S WINDOW

X

A FAMOUS KITCHEN BOY

CHRONOLOGY

EARLY ENGLISH HERO TALES

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

I THE FIRST ENGLISH HERO

II WELSH MAGIC

III THE BATTLE AT THE FORD

IV CÆDMON THE COWHERD

V THE SHEPHERD OF LAUDERDALE

VI THE BOY WHO WON A PRIZE

VII A FISHERMAN'S BOY

VIII THE WEREWOLF

IX AT GEOFFREY'S WINDOW

X A FAMOUS KITCHEN BOY

CHRONOLOGY

EARLY
ENGLISH
HERO TALES

I

THE FIRST ENGLISH HERO

II

WELSH MAGIC

III

THE BATTLE AT THE FORD

IV

CÆDMON THE COWHERD

V

THE SHEPHERD OF LAUDERDALE

VI

THE BOY WHO WON A PRIZE

VII

A FISHERMAN'S BOY

VIII

THE WEREWOLF

IX

AT GEOFFREY'S WINDOW

X

A FAMOUS KITCHEN BOY