RJP:FNQ:HerewardVI

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De Gestis Herwardi Saxonis.

VI.

Quomodo Herwardus transfigurato seipso ad quasdam nuptias a suo domino missus perrexit, ubi quiddam laudabile fecit, sponso occiso et sponsa ablata, eam ut ad suum dominum conduceret.

Dum ergo in extremis terræ partibus contra Conubiam manum inferrent¹, nuncius prædictæ filiæ regis Cornubiæ illis occurrit, per literas hujus mandans : Heu! Heu! ut quid tandem hoc est, quod ancillæ vestræ tam estis immemores. Num ex vobis hæc jam ante diu meditata sententia est, ut et puellulam deciperetis? Ecce me manibus in visu Hiberniæ superioris subreguli trado et me, pronubam vobis, filius ejus ducit invitam. Utinam erga alios vestram industriam nunc in hoc experirer. De cætero namque fidem, quam semel inclito puero regis Hiberniæ filio commisi, integram semper in mente servabo, si aliter nequivero. Honori vestro pro barbaro dum cesseritis et optato sponso quum puellam non vindicaveritis si valetis, reminiscimini quæso quid vobiscum operata sim. His ergo præceptis, filius regis patri puellæ confestim legatos ferme xl. viros competenter militari habitu ornatos cum duobus ducibus misit, mandans ut pristini fœderis reminisceretur, sibi filia ejus in uxore tradita ; alioquin sciret se armis ipsum et invasorem filiæ suæ ac ipsam ubicunque nuberet, appetere. Herwardus autem per aliam viam illud occulte iter agit cum tribus tantum sodalibus, per unguenta seipso transfigurato, mutataque flavente cæsarie in nigredinem et barba juventutis in rubedinem. Ac tandem illuc proveniens, legatos filii regis in custodia, et reguli Cornubiæ futurus gener invenit, sequenti die ad propria cum sponsa iturus. Herwardus ergo statim nuptias ut exploraret ingressus est, et extraneum se a longe profectum fatetur, cujusdam nobilissimi ex occidente in illorum partibus servitium iturum esse : suscipitur autem uti extremus inter nuptialia contubernia et cum convivantium lætitia. Discubuit ergo cum suis in extremis, ac novissimum locum sibi semper elegit. Quod factum filia reguli et notam formam rimatur, sed valde colorem miratur. Tum ex laudabilis viri Herwardi recordatione, quem dudum e carcere liberaverat et ad filium regis Hiberniæ miserat, interim lacrimata est, et ob illius memoriam parapsidem cum ferculo illi direxit dicens : Quoniam extraneus est et ex quali dignitate nescitur, undique depulsus in extremo recumbit, munus continens nunc cum contento accipiat, ne sponsum vel sponsam juvenculam in aliena patria exprobet, aut in cæteris nuptiis denotet. Minister autem illi viciniori ferculum porrexit. Herwardus quidem rem intelligens extendit manum et arripuit pateram, strictis amborum digitis quod sanguis sub unguibus effluxit. Quem proinde plurimum maledixerunt, diabolum hominem et incompositum vocantes, participemque convivii fieri non debere. Quibus e contrario de hoc quod in mente habebat respondit : Nec lætitiam convivii associabo, nec gaudiis nuptiarum participabo, donec isto cum munere sicuti vos nunc iterum ministravero. His ergo illa præceptis continuo magis ac magis quis ipse est in anima percunctatur, et suæ nutrici etiam illis reseratis, si forte Herwardus aut frater ejus est statim ut sciscitaret. Quæ instanter viso illo ipsum esse, mutata per colorem cæsarie, affirmabat, sed tamen melius probare interim admonuit. Sponsa namque post prandium regalibus ornata indumentis, sicut mos provinciæ est, cum puellis potum convivis et conservis patris et matris in extrema die a paterna domo discedens ministratura processit, quodam præcedente cum cythara et unicuique cytharizante cum poculo, quoniam præcipuus illis in locis jocus erat et novus. Una quippe illarum inter alias Herwardo cyathum meri plenum detulit, astante illo cum cythara. Qui renuit accipere a muliebri manu, quoniam ipse votum et filius regis de Hibernia, ut nil reciperent, jam fecerant, priusquam a manu filliæ reguli aliquid diu optatum acciperent. Convivæ quoque illum inde nimis despecta pincerna statim improbabant, et joculator dominæ interim rem objurgando exegit, illa poculum adhuc convivis ministrante. Quæ illuc accessit et Herwardo potum porrexit, contra illo e erecto. Nam ipsum statim illa oculorum acies agnovit, nam in membrorum effigie ipsum esse Herwardum intellexit, unde in sinu ejus ex propria manu continuo annulum contulit illum excusatum de reliquo, inscium consuetudinis, cum cæteris haberi præcipiens. Nec joculator quidem circumquaque vagando his adquievit, sæpe præterito illo autem cytharam percutere indignum esse asseruit, qui in convivio pincernam cum poculo despexerit. Cui tandem Herwardus inde ira commotus respondit, quod ante extremum fieri debitum stulte a stulto differtur, debitori vicem hujus melius si tempus incumberet persolveretur, verum indignans quasi solus in arte peritus cytharam in ulnis illius impulit. Quam suscipiens, efficacissime fibras tetendit, et sonos atque voces interim cunctis admirantibus produxit, altero quidem ex facto nimis verente, cytharamque de manibus illius continuo arripere nitente. At vero convivæ dignum valde munere et ministrum interim habere judicabant. Si persisteret verum potum, forte ne perciperetur quis ipse esset, adquievit, multipliciter cum ea canendo, et per discrimina vocum nunc solitarie et nunc tripliciter cum suis sociis more Girviorum cantavit. Unde valde lætificati, a sponsa tum insigne pallium quasi pro mercede obtinuit, et a sponso, quicquid præter uxorem et terram petere vellet.

At interea, nuntios filii regis Hiberniæ confestim absolvi petivit liberosque dimitti. Quumque ex custodia disponerentur conducere, quidam cujus omnigenarum causa fuit et histrionum invidendo ad hoc dominum prævenit, dicens : Iste ex illorum sceleratorum nunciorum numero est et explorare domum tuam huc accessit, aut potius ut illudat te, abducens inimicos tuos ob vilissimi ludi meritum, vel etiam quod infirma eorum manus, virtute non vero deridendo astutus illusor ex illorum parte obtineat. Quod verbum bonum erat in oculis ejus, primo cœnum illum caute custodire jussit, ne tunc comprehensus tumultus in convivio fieret, in postero die una cum nunciis filii regis Hiberniæ ad spectaculum iturus ad propria, ipso revertente cum sponsa. Nam omnes illos dextro oculo privari debere subjunxit, sicque dimitti. Herwardus vero statim his per filiam regis perceptis fugæ consuluit ; tum advocatis sociis, prævenire eos ob suorum ereptionem contendens, in vicino nemore, prope aquam, quæ partem regni ejus ambit et dividit sese occultando occubuit, expectans illorum adventum et præcedentium multitudinis transfretationem. Quum iatque pene omnes fuissent transgressi et ligamina imposita, ut trans flumen oculorum officio illi prædicti nuncii destituerentur, Herwardus cum suis e latibulo prosiluit, et tyrannum ictu jaculi prævenit, aliosque insequentes, atque interdum ligatos continuo absolventes, ex quibus repente eorum manus non parum moderata est. Tandem Herwardus, tyranni equo ascenso, sponsam illius cum sociis abduxit, obviare filium regis Hiberniæ et exercitum ejus accelerans, quem abjutorio eorum circumduxerat. Denique post trium dierum temporis spatium, lassatis omnibus equitibus, excepto tyranni equo, super quem puella pene abducebatur, plurimisque semianimis sociis ex calore atque fame et fuga, ad tentoria ejus in medio noctis silentio perveniunt. Quibus congratulans valde, virginem in matrimonio copulavit.

The Exploits of Hereward the Saxon

VI.

How Hereward in a disguise was sent by his lord to a wedding, where he achieved a praiseworthy action, in killing the bridegroom and carrying off the bride and conveying her to his lord.

While then in a remote part of the land they were leading their band against Cornwall¹, a messenger from the daughter of the king of Cornwall before mentioned, met them with a letter containing this message : “Alas! alas! why is it that you are so long unmindful of your handmaiden? Could I ever have had this opinion of you, that you would deceive a young girl? Lo I am delivered to the hands of a petty prince of Ireland, under your eyes, and his son is marrying me against my will, who am in love with you. Oh that I might in this emergency experience the energy you display towards others! For otherwise that faith which I have once given to the noble son of the king of Ireland, I shall always preserve whole in my mind, if I cannot escape. Should you abandon your honour like a barbarian, and not save a girl for her betrothed if you can, remember I pray you what dealings I have had with you.” Upon this message, the son of the king immediately sent to the father of the girl ambassadors, some forty men in due military equipment, with two leaders, charging him to remember the former bargain, how his daughter was betrothed to him : otherwise he might know that he would attack with arms both himself and the man who took his daughter, and get her wherever she were married. But Hereward by another road undertook the journey secretly with three companions, only having disguised himself with ointment and having changed his yellow hair to black and his youthful beard to a red colour. And at length arriving at the place he found the messengers of the king’s son in custody, and the intended son-in-law of the Cornish prince about to go on the following day to his own possessions with his bride. Hereward therefore immediately went in to see the wedding, saying that he was a stranger from a long distance and was going into the service of a certain noble man from the west in their parts : but he was received though late into the marriage party and welcomed by the guests. He took his seat therefore with his men at the end of the table and ever chose for himself the lowest seat. The king’s daughter observed this and his familiar form, but was much astonished at his complexion. Then from remembrance of the estimable Hereward, whom she had lately freed form prison, and had sent to the son of the king of Ireland, she wept, and from recollection of him sent him a small dish on a tray, saying : “Since he is a stranger and it is not known of what dignity, and is reclining apart at the end of the table let him accept this present with its contents that he may not abuse the bridegroom or the young bride of a foreign country, or denounce them at another wedding.” Then the attendant drew near to him with the tray. Hereward understanding the affair, laid hold of the dish, and squeezed the fingers of both the attendant’s hands so that the blood flowed out from his nails. Accordingly they abused him excessively, calling him diabolical and disorderly, and that he ought not to share the banquet. To them he answered, with reference to what was passing in his mind ; “I will neither join in the joy of the banquet, nor partake of the pleasures of the wedding, until I can wait upon you as you do now upon me,” On being informed of this the princess more and more kept asking herself who he was, revealing the affair to her nurse, if by chance she could find out if it were Hereward or a brother of his. On seeing him she immediately declared that it was Hereward himself, with the colour of his hair changed ; but yet she advised her to make sure. For the bride, after dinner, in royal dress, as the practice of the province is, went forth with her damsels at the end of the day to offer drink to the guests and servants of her father and mother. As she left her father’s house, one went before with a harp, and as he played offered a cup to each person ; for this is a peculiar and novel piece of humour in those places. And so one of the damsels offered to Hereward a cup full of wine, while the harper was standing by. But he refused to accept it from the hand of a woman, because he and the son of the king of Ireland had just made a vow, to take nothing before they received from the hand of the prince’s daughter something long desired. At this slight to the cup-bearer the guests blamed him very much, and the jester described the affair with much abuse to his mistress, while she was still offering the cup to the guests. Then she drew near to the spot and offered drink to Hereward, standing opposite to him, for a glance of the eyes immediately recognized him and she perceived by the shape of his limbs that it was Hereward himself ; and so she immediately conveyed a ring from her own hand into a fold of his dress, directing that he should be for the future excused as being unacquainted with their customs. But the jester wandering about everywhere would not rest quiet, but as often as he passed declared that the man who at a banquet would despise the cup-bearer with his cup was not worthy to strike the lyre. To him at last Hereward, stirred to anger at his conduct, made answer, which was foolishly spread about by the fool, that if he would give him the opportunity he would better discharge that duty than himself ; and he with indignation, as though he alone were skilled in the art, placed the harp in his arms. And taking it Hereward most skilfully struck the strings, and produced sounds and strains to the admiration of all, while the other was quite frightened at the occurrence and kept trying to seize the harp from his hands. But the guests judged him well worth of a present and meanwhile that he was to have an attendant. But as he persisted in offering him drink, perhaps that it should not be perceived who he was, he acquiesced ; in many ways singing with the harp, and he sang with different tones at one time by himself, at another time with two others of his companions after the manner of the Girvii ². Whereupon all were greatly delighted, and he obtained from the bride a beautiful cloak by way of reward, and from the bridegroom whatever he liked to ask for except his wife and his land. But meanwhile he asked that the messengers of the king of Ireland’s son should be without delay released and set free, And when they were disposed to lead them out of custody, a certain person speaking for the rest, and being jealous of the players, interrupted the lord saying ; “This man is of the number of those wicked messengers, and has come hither to spy out your house, or rather to mock you, leading off your enemies through this most contemptible sport or because their force is weak, the scoffer artful in skill and not only in mockery may obtain some of them.” Which speech was good in his eyes, and first he bid them watch that vile fellow cautiously, lest if he were apprehended at once there should be a tumult at the banquet, as he intended to go the following day with the messengers of the king of Ireland’s son to the show, while he himself returned with the bride to his own home. For he added that all these men ought to be deprived of their right eyes, and so dismissed. But Hereward having previously learnt these things from the daughter of the king took counsel for flight. Then calling his companions, striving to anticipate them because of the seizure of his men, he lay hidden in a neighbouring grove, near some water, which surrounds a part of that kingdom and forms a division, awaiting the arrival and passage of the number of men that went before. And so when almost all had crossed and the men had been bound, so that across the river those messengers before named might be deprived of their eyes, Hereward leapt with his men from his hiding place, and anticipated the tyrant by the hurling of his javelin, and the other men that followed, and by degrees loosening those that were bound, whereby their company soon became of considerable numbers. At length Hereward mounting the tyrant’s horse led away his bride with his companions, hastening to meet the son of the king of Ireland and his army, which he had led round to their assistance. At last after a space of three days, all the cavalry being tired out, except the tyrant’s horse upon which the young lady was being led away, and very many of his companions being half dead with heat and hunger and the retreat, they arrive in silence at his tents in the middle of the night. The prince, heartily congratulating them, married the lady ³.

Commentary.

The text of this chapter is rather dense and inexplicit, so it is difficult to follow what is going on. The key seems to be discovering which land is referred to by terræ (of the land): whether Ireland or Britain.

1. ↑ Chapter V left Hereward in Ireland with his band of soldiers and it would be reasonable to translate ‘Dum ergo in extremis terræ partibus contra Conubiam manum inferrent’ as ‘So, while they were bringing their band into the extremes by the parts of the land opposite Cornwall’. Though that sticks to the Latin idiom too closely to flow well in English. However, the rest of the chapter would fit most naturally into Cornwall, the home of the bride’s family, the people normally expected to entertain a wedding party. There is the further, rather weak argument based on Cornish custom. The outdoor procession is in keeping with the tradition of the furry dance and the Obby oss. The two parties, Hereward’s and that of the king of Ireland’s son, had crossed the water to Cornwall.

2. ↑ If the Cornish prince was of Brythonic rather than Scandinavian descent and his court correspondingly Cornish, this is a revealing reference. The story of the Gyrwyr has not yet been written up, but there is good reason to believe that they represented a pocket of Brythonic culture left in the Fens near Peterborough when the area was surrounded by Anglian settlement in the fifth to sixth centuries. Without naming them, Nennius places Arthur’s first battle on the edge of their territory. Thus these two references distantly link the war leader, Hereward with the dux bellorum Arthur. These two histories; of the Anglo-Danish and of the British military leaders and that of the Anglish hermit Guthlac tend to corroborate each other. That Hereward should have found the musical tradition of the Gyrwyr appropriate to a Cornish party, and that the writer knew of their tradition supports the view of each of these groups, the Gyrwyr, and the prince’s household, as Brythonic Celtic.

3. ↑ In translating the last sentence, Sweeting has adjusted it for clarification. Quibus congratulans valde, virginem in matrimonio copulavit. Heartily congratulating whom, he joined the maiden in matrimony.

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