their books, and their sacred vases, into the impenetrable marshes of that vicinity. Another Lord of Brunn,[92] who at the call of the monks had marched across the fens with all his people, and with all of his family that could wield a sword, had perished close under the walls of Ely Abbey, after defeating the Pagans, and driving them back towards their ships. The blood of each of these Lords of Brunn ran in the veins of Hereward, and his deeds had proved him worthy of the blood. In his youth—in the days of Edward[93] the Confessor—when the cunning Normans were beginning to beset the court of the childless king, and to act as if the inheritance was already their own, and the people of England already their slaves, it chanced that our Hereward, who had been on a pilgrimage to Canterbury,[94] came back to the sea by Dover, and found Count Eustace of Boulogne, and his French men-at-arms engaged in a fierce quarrel with the men of Dover, and galloping through the streets with their naked swords in their hands, striking men and women, and crushing divers children under their horses’ hoofs. Hereward, though but a stripling, drew his blade, rallied the dull townsfolk, who before had no leader, (and so were fighting loosely and without order, and without any science of war,) and renewing the battle at a vantage, he slew with his own hand a French knight; and then the men of Dover slew nineteen of the strangers, wounded many more, and drove Count Eustace and the rest out of the town to fly in dismay back to king Edward. Later, when Harold,[95] as earl of the eastern counties, and chief of king Edward’s armies, marched into Wales to curb the insolent rage of King Griffith, Hereward attended him, and fought with him among the mountains and glens, and lakes and morasses of Wales, until that country was reduced by many victories, and Harold took shipping to return to King Edward with the head of Griffith stuck upon the rostrum or beak of his galley. Later still, when Hereward was of manly age, and King Edward the Confessor was dead, having bequeathed his crown to Harold, and Harold as our true king raised his banner of war to march against his own unnatural brother Earl Tostig,[96] who had brought the King of Norway and a great army of Norwegians into the country of York to deprive him of his throne or dismember his kingdom, Hereward marched with him with many of his father’s stout men of Brunn, and fought under Harold’s eye in the great battle at Stamford Bridge—that battle which ceased not until Earl Tostig and the king of Norway were both slain, and the river was choked up with the Norwegian dead. From Stamford Bridge the march of bold Harold was to Hastings, for the Normans had landed while he had been vanquishing the Norwegians. On that long and rapid march,[97] when hundreds of tried soldiers lagged behind, Hereward kept pace with his royal master; and when the battle was arrayed he was seen riding by Harold’s side; and when the battle