The Paladins of Edwin the Great

The final "_ut_" came to Hereric the Atheling, but he presented the scarf, with all the ardour of a lover of ten years old, to his little playmate Braga. At the moment that the happy and smiling child received it, a horn was heard in the distance, and all ran at full speed to the gateway left in the line of the defensive hedge. Coelred, the eldest, was allowed to rush on, but the rest were called back by Volisia to await the arrivals within the courtyard.

The view outside the surrounding hedge showed that the home of Seomel, the chief of the Stillingas, stood on the edge of a ridge running east and west, with a stream flowing through the valley below. The homesteads of the Stillingas, each with some tillage and pasturage round it, were built at intervals on either side of the stream, just clear of the highest flood. But beyond the narrow valley the whole landscape consisted of one dense forest. The ridge was chiefly wooded with ash trees, whence the name of Escrick (or Ashridge) for its more eastern part, and a short steep hill led down from the gateway of the Stillingfleet to the margin of the brook.

Coelred ran down the hill, and his bare legs and feet carried him through the water and up the opposite side, just as the cavalcade emerged from the forest. It consisted of Elfric the Atheling; Seomel, the chief of the Stillingas; Guthlaf, the chief of the Hemingas; the Princess Alca, a young girl numbering sixteen summers, with her women; the gleeman Coifi; and a following of warriors returning from a short campaign against their northern neighbours of Bernicia. It is not certain whether the ladies rode as is now the fashion. Some people maintain that the Lady Wake, grandmother of the Fair Maid of Kent, was the first Englishwoman who used a side-saddle, 800 years afterwards. Others consider that the question is unsettled. At all events, while Guthlaf took his leave and rode on to his more distant home with his followers, and the Stillinga folk made for their homesteads in the valley, the rest cantered up the hill and dismounted in the courtyard, where they were warmly greeted by Volisia and the children. Coelred ran like a young deer by his father's horse, and it was his proud privilege to assist the Lady Alca to dismount.

Elfric and Seomel were men of gigantic proportions, tall, sinewy, and well knit, with blonde beards and fair hair flowing over their shoulders, and of the same height. They wore over their linen tunics leathern shirts with iron scales or rings sewn upon them in rows, over which were metal collars. Their hose were blue, cross-gartered from ankle to knee with strips of leather, and their shoes had an opening down the instep tied close with thongs. On their left sides hung long single-edged iron swords, with hilts wrought of silver and bronze and scored with mystic runes, in wooden scabbards tipped and edged with bronze. Short daggers, called seax, were suspended from their girdles on the right side. The small round war-boards or shields, with an iron boss, were slung over their backs, and in their hands were the long ashen spears. Their helmets were of leather bound with iron and crested with iron-wrought figures of wild boars with eyes of brass. Over their armoured shirts they wore embroidered cloaks of blue cloth, fastened on their shoulders with a golden and jewelled buckle. Coifi, the gleeman, was in less warlike guise. He wore a garment with tight sleeves and embroidered breast, not unlike a smock-frock, with a hood attached, his feet and legs being cross-gartered, while a small harp was suspended round his neck and hung at his left side.

The return from a warlike expedition was usually the occasion for a feast in the hall of the chief. It was so in this instance. As the sun went down Alca and the children retired to rest in the inner rooms, while the servants prepared the meal. In the centre of the long hall was the hearth-fire, with a hole in the roof for smoke; but now it was covered with green boughs, and on either side of it the boards were fixed on trestles. The freemen, or ceorls, of the Stillingas and of the Atheling almost filled the great room, seated in rows on the benches or settles, while the Prince and Seomel, with his wife, took their places at the head of the upper board. Our English ancestors were very clean, the use of baths was general, and before the Stillingas sat down to meat water was brought them for hands and feet. The fare was good and plentiful, meat being handed round on spits, while the horns were filled with ale, and the warriors talked in groups over the events of the campaign. But it was not until the Lady Volisia had herself handed round the brimming mead-cups to her guests and had retired, that the harp and song were called for. Then all eyes turned to the famous gleeman who had arrived in the Atheling's train from York. No man in the kingdom came near him for depth of knowledge of the ancient religion or of the folk-lore of the English. He stood by the chiefs at the upper end of the hall and tuned the harp as the mead-cup circulated.

Coifi sang that thrilling legend which never failed to arouse the enthusiasm of his countrymen, and which was peculiarly appropriate after an expedition which had for its object the rescue of a Deiran town from a Bernician invasion. He told how the hero Beowulf came to Heorot with a chosen band, to rescue the subjects of King Hrothgar from the cruelties of their fiendish enemy Grendel; how Beowulf, single-handed, tore the monster's arm from his shoulder; how he then overcame Grendel's mother at the bottom of the sea with the aid of the sword Hrunting; and how he returned home victorious after this dread encounter. The touches of nature in the descriptions of scenery, the exciting speeches and challenges, the warlike sentiments, went right home to the hearts of his hearers, and loud and long was the applause at the conclusion of each fytte or canto, when the mead-cup passed round, and Coifi paused for breath.

And here the singer for his art Not all in vain may plead: The song that nerves a nation's heart Is in itself a deed.

At length the long but inspiriting song was ended. Seomel and the Atheling retired, the Stillingas went to their homes, while straw was shaken down along the hall, behind the mead-benches, as beds for the strangers. An eventful day thus ended, and all was silence in the courts of Seomel.

Alca

Alca was the most beautiful girl that her countrymen had ever beheld; and even then, at the early age of sixteen years, as she tripped out into the crowded court, she appeared to the beholders to be a perfect dream of loveliness, lithe and active, yet with the graceful dignity of a long-descended princess. Her hair was golden, her eyes a deep sapphire blue, with that calm depth of meaning which was then believed to be one attribute of an elf-maiden. Alca, from a young child, had been remarkable for the universality of her love, which was extended to all the gods had made. Her wisdom and knowledge were far beyond her years, and seemed to those around her to be miraculous. She saw the true meanings of beliefs and customs. She alone was able to extract the hidden truth from the mysteries of nature, and could understand those longings and aspirations which her companions could only dimly shadow forth by their creeds and their superstitions. All loved the Princess, but they looked upon her as one nearer to gods than to men; and only children dared to love her without awe, and as a being higher and wiser, but still one of themselves. For the rest of the world Alca was an elf-maiden endowed with special gifts by the gods.

The Princess had accompanied her uncle to Stillingfleet to see her cousins and other young friends, and to visit the Lady Volisia, to whom she was warmly attached. On that summer morning she was to go with her friend to the shrine of a goddess of her people on the other side of the Ouse, attended by the children and by several servants. When they reached the bank it was high tide. A large flat-bottomed boat was run into the water, and the party was pulled across by the boys to an old Roman fort on the opposite side, called Acaster. It consisted of two towers, like those on the column of Trajan, surrounded by a ditch. It was on the verge of a dense forest, in which some clearings had been made. The whole tract forming the angle between the Ouse and Wharfe was forest-clad, except where clearings had been made for planting apple and other fruit trees, and where the ings or swampy meadows formed a fringe between the forest and the river banks. The pilgrims made their way through the thickets by a very narrow path without stopping, for the promised visit to the orchards was to be on their return, after their devotions had been duly paid to the goddess.