The minstrel, seizing on this theme, began to improvise a scurrilous song, when he was literally cut short in an unexpected manner--his head clove in two by the swift stroke of a Saxon sword. It was Hereward who had done this. Then he turned on the defenceless Normans, who fell, one after the other, beneath his furious blows; those who attempted to escape being intercepted by his companion at the door. His arm was not stayed until the last was slain, and the heads of the Norman lord and fourteen of his knights were raised over the doorway. The historian of these things goes on to say that the Normans in the neighbourhood, hearing of Hereward's return and of this midnight exploit, fled. This proves their wisdom, at the expense of their courage. The Saxons rose on every side, but Hereward at first checked their zeal, selecting only a strong body of relations and adherents, and with them attacking and slaying those of the Normans who dared remain on his estates. Then he repaired to his friend Brand, the Saxon Abbot of Peterborough, from whom, in the Anglo-Saxon manner, he received the honour of knighthood. After suddenly attacking and killing a Norman baron sent against him, he dispersed his followers, and, promising to rejoin them in a year, sailed for Flanders. We next hear of Hereward in the spring of 1070, when he appears in company with the Danes whom William the Conqueror had allowed to winter on the east coast. Together they raised a revolt, first in the Humber and along the Yorkshire Ouse; and then they are found sacking and destroying Peterborough Abbey, by that time under the control of the Norman Abbot Turold. A hundred and sixty armed men were gathered by the Abbot to force them back to their lair at Ely, but they had already left. With the advent of spring Hereward's Danish allies sailed away, rich in plunder, and he and his outlaws were left to do as best they could. For a year he remained quiet in his island fastness, secured by the trackless bogs and fens from attack, while the discontented elements were being attracted to him. With him was that attendant who kept the door at Bourne: Martin of the Light Foot was his name. Others were Leofric "Prat," or the Cunning, skilful in spying out the dispositions of the enemy; Leofric the Mower, who obtained his distinctive name by mowing off the legs of a party of Normans with a scythe, the only weapon he could lay hands on in a hurry; Ulric the Heron, and Ulric the Black--all useful lieutenants in an exhausting irregular warfare. Greater companions were the Saxon Archbishop Stigand, Bishop Egelwin of Lincoln, and the Earls Morcar, Edwin, and Tosti. All these notables, with a large following, flocked into the Isle of Ely, as a Camp of Refuge, and quartered themselves on the monks of the Abbey of Ely. There they lay, and constituted a continual menace to the Norman power. Sometimes they made incursions into other districts, and burnt and