The fight began with a discharge of arrows from the Norman ranks, followed by the singular interlude provided by Taillefer, the Norman jongleur, or minstrel, who rode forth from the ranks singing songs of chivalry, and of the knightly doings of Roland and Charlemagne. He had begged from William the privilege of striking the first blow, but as he went out into the space between the confronting armies he assumed first his character of a juggler, throwing his sword into the air, and then catching it, to the astonishment of the English, who doubtless wondered what manner of warrior was this. But, ceasing his tricks, he suddenly rushed upon the English ranks, and piercing one Englishman with his lance and striking down another with his sword, was thereupon himself slain. It was the bravest, or, if you will, the most foolhardy, act of the battle, for he went forth to certain death. But his action did this much: it heated the blood of both sides, and those who might have fought at the beginning without the full fury of enthusiasm, now fell to it in frenzy, fired by his example. It heartened William’s second line, the infantry, to their heavy task of advancing, under the showers of English stones and javelins, up the hill to the attempted destruction of the palisade; but although they strove, the effort was too great. All who approached within the reach of English arms and English axes were struck down, almost cleaved asunder, and although the rear ranks filled the air with _Dieu aide!_ they wavered from that first onset, the English shouting “Out, out!” as they thrust back every one from their defences, varying that cry with the pious invocations, “Holy Rood,” “Holy Cross,” and “God Almighty!” Wace tells us of those battle-cries in his quaint renderings of the English the Normans heard: _Olicrosse_ sovent crioent, E _Godemite_ reclamoent; _Olicrosse_ est en engliez Ke _Sainte Croix_ est en franceiz, Et _Godemite_ altretant Com en franceiz _Dex tot poissant_. Or, translated: Holy Cross they often cried, And shouted God Almighty; Holy Cross is in English What _Sainte Croix_ is in French, And God Almighty is, otherwise, As they say in French, _Dieu tout puissant_. If the English really did say “’Oly Cross,” it shows us that the letter “h” was as slighted in the eleventh century as it is in the twentieth.