"All clad in grey in Pilgrim sort, His voyage from her he did take, Unto that blessed, holy land, For Jesus Christ, his Saviour's sake." Lastly, recal we the time when the fierce and ruthless Danes were ravaging our land, and there was scarce a town or castle as far as Winchester, which they had not plundered or burnt, and a proposal was made, and per force acceded to by the English king to decide the struggle by single combat. But the odds were great: Colbrand the Danish champion, was a giant, and ere he came to a combat he provided himself with a cart-load of Danish axes, great clubs with knobs of iron, squared barrs of steel lances and iron hooks wherewith to pull his adversary to him. On the other hand the English--and sleepless and unhappy, the king Athelstan pondered the circumstance as he lay on his couch, on St. John Baptist's night--had no champion forthcoming, even though the county of Hants had been promised as a reward to the victor. Roland, the most valiant knight of a thousand, was dead; Heraud, the pride of the nation, was abroad; and the great and valiant Guy, Earl of Warwick, was gone on a pilgrimage. The monarch was perplexed and sorrowful; but an angel appeared to him and comforted him. In conformity with the injunctions of this gracious messenger, the king, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Chichester, placed himself at the north gate of the city (Winchester) at the hour of prime. Divers poor people and pilgrims entered thereat, and among the rest appeared a man of noble visage and stalwart frame, but wan withal, pale with abstinence, and macerated by reason of journeying barefoot. His beard was venerably long and he rested on a staff; he wore a pilgrim's garb, and on his bare and venerable head was strung a chaplet of white roses. Bending low, he passed the gate, but the king warned by the vision, hastened to him, and entreated him "by his love for Jesus Christ, by the devotion of his pilgrimage, and for the preservation of all England, to do battle with the giant." The Palmer thus conjured, underwent the combat, and was victorious. After a solemn procession to the Cathedral, and thanksgiving therein, when he offered his weapon to God and the patron of the Church, before the High Altar, the pilgrim withdrew, having revealed himself to none but the king, and that under a solemn pledge of secrecy. He bent his course towards Warwick, and unknown in his disguise, took alms at the hands of his own lady--for, reader, this meek and holy pilgrim, was none other than the wholesale slayer, whose deeds we have been contemplating--and then retired to a solitary place hard by-- "Where with his hand he hew'd a house, Out of a craggy rock of stone; And lived like a palmer poor, Within that cave himself alone."