At this moment we hear for the first time of one whose mythical fame outshines all the names of his generation, and of whom the few historical notices make us wish that details could be filled in from some other source than legend.... Both the voice of legend and the witness of the great Survey agree in connecting Hereward with Lincolnshire, but they differ as to the particular spot in the shire in which he is to be quartered. Legend also has forgotten a fact which the document has preserved, namely, that the hero of the fenland did not belong wholly to Lincolnshire, but that he was also a landholder in the distant shire of Warwick. But the Survey has preserved another fact with which the legendary versions of his life have been specially busy. Hereward, at some time it would seem, before the period of his exploits, had fled from his country.[13] Let us first dismiss from our minds the alleged fact as to Warwickshire. There is absolutely nothing to connect the Count of Meulan's tenant there with the Lincolnshire hero; indeed Mr Freeman admits in his appendix 'that the Hereward of these entries may be some other person' (p. 805). Legend had an excellent reason for ignoring this alleged 'fact' as had 'romances' for having 'perversely forgotten' to mention the deeds or the fate of William Malet in the Isle (_ibid._, p. 473). We must also dismiss the 'fact'--'undoubted history' though it be (_ibid._, p. 805)--of Hereward's 'banishment' at some time between 1062 and 1070. For the Survey gives no date; it merely speaks of 'die quâ aufugiit' (i. 376_b_), which phrase, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, must be referred to his escape from the 'Isle',[14] when (1071) in the words of Florence, 'cum paucis evasit'. This at once explains the Domesday entry (_ante_, p. 160), for he would, of course, have forfeited his holding before that date.