Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Europe -- Description and travel
In the new state of society which we are trying to found in America, it
must be our effort to hasten the consummation. These great estates of
old countries may keep it for their share of the matter to work out
perfect models, while we will seize the ideas thus elaborated, and make
them the property of the million.
As we were going out, we stopped a little while at the porter's lodge to
look at some relics.
Now, I dare say that you have been thinking, all the while, that these
stories about the wonderful Guy are a sheer fabrication, or, to use a
convenient modern term, a myth. Know, then, that the identical armor
belonging to him is still preserved here; to wit, the sword, about
seven feet long, a shield, helmet, breastplate, and tilting pole,
together with his porridge pot, which holds one hundred and twenty
gallons, and a large fork, as they call it, about three feet long; I am
inclined to think this must have been his toothpick! His sword weighs
twenty pounds.
There is, moreover, a rib of the mastodon cow which he killed, hung up
for the terror of all refractory beasts of that name in modern days.
Furthermore, know, then, that there are authentic documents in the
Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, showing that the family run back to within
four years after the birth of Christ, so that there is abundance of time
for them to have done a little of almost every thing. It appears that
they have been always addicted to exploits, since we read of one of
them, soon after the Christian era, encountering a giant, who ran upon
him with a tree which he had snapped off for the purpose, for it seems
giants were not nice in the choice of weapons; but the chronicler says,
"The Lord had grace with him, and overcame the giant," and in
commemoration of this event the family introduced into their arms the
ragged staff.
It is recorded of another of the race, that he was one of seven children
born at a birth, and that all the rest of his brothers and sisters were,
by enchantment, turned into swans with gold collars. This remarkable
case occurred in the time of the grandfather of Sir Guy, and of course,
if we believe this, we shall find no difficulty in the case of the cow,
or any thing else.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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