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Early English Hero Tales - Jeannette Augustus Marks · Balder Dead

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  Speaker 1: Introduction of Early English hero tales. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: were to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by
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  Speaker 1: Stacem Early English hero Tales by Jeanette Augustus Marx introduction.
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  Speaker 1: Supposing you were asked to enter a great palace, and
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  Speaker 1: within that palace you were told for more than a
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  Speaker 1: thousand golden doors, and those doors opened into rooms and
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  Speaker 1: upon gardens and balconies, all of which were the most
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  Speaker 1: beautiful palace rooms and gardens, and some were more beautiful
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  Speaker 1: than anything the world had ever known before. Do you
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  Speaker 1: think you would go through the gate to that palace?
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  Speaker 1: And if you were told that in the palace were
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  Speaker 1: lamps so bright that they lighted not only the palace,
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  Speaker 1: but cast a glow over the whole world, And that
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  Speaker 1: these lamps hung from chains, the ends of which you
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  Speaker 1: could not see, just as PRYDERI was not able to
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  Speaker 1: see the ends of the hanging golden chains in the
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  Speaker 1: palace which he entered. And once within the great palace,
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  Speaker 1: you were not only better for being there, but also
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  Speaker 1: happier and stronger, and more beautiful and never any more
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  Speaker 1: could you be lonely. It sounds like an Aladdin's lamp,
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  Speaker 1: does it not, which, once seen and touched, could bring
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  Speaker 1: so much beauty and power into our lives. Indeed, it
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  Speaker 1: is Aladdin's lamp, the lamp of men's minds and souls.
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  Speaker 1: And the Great Palace is the palace of English literature.
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  Speaker 1: Over those doors are many names written, names never to
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  Speaker 1: be forgotten, while the English tongue is spoken. And in
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  Speaker 1: that palace there is fairyland. There are giants and monsters.
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  Speaker 1: There are warrior heroes like Beowuff, and saintly heroes like Cuthbert.
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  Speaker 1: There are noble boys like Alfred. There are poets, princes,
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  Speaker 1: lovely ladies, little children, spirited horses, faithful dogs. There are
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  Speaker 1: heard the sound of singing, the plain of the harp,
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  Speaker 1: the beat of feet, dancing, cries of gladness, cries of sorrow,
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  Speaker 1: the rolling of the organ, the fluting of birds, the
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  Speaker 1: laughter of water, and the whisper of every wind that
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  Speaker 1: has blown upon the fields of the world. There are
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  Speaker 1: seen flowers of every marvelous and starlike shape, of every
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  Speaker 1: rainbow hue, and jewels as shining as the lamps hanging
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  Speaker 1: in the great Palace, and fruits rare and strange, filling
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  Speaker 1: the great Palace with sweet fragrance and color. There are
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  Speaker 1: rooms unlike any rooms we have ever seen before. And
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  Speaker 1: the years are there, nearly two thousand, numbered and made beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: There too are wisdom and kindness, and courage, and faith,
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  Speaker 1: and modesty, and love and self control, coming and going
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  Speaker 1: hither and yon through the wide hallways, or on service
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  Speaker 1: spent up and down the narrow corridors. It is a
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  Speaker 1: palace of enchantment, is it not. Yes, it is a
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  Speaker 1: palace of enchantment. And I can think of no greater happiness,
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  Speaker 1: no stronger assurance that we shall learn how to be
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  Speaker 1: our best selves and to rule ourselves, no greater inspiration
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  Speaker 1: to be wise and kind while we are boys and
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  Speaker 1: girls and when we grow up, no fuller promise of
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  Speaker 1: a good time and many kinds of happiness and pleasure
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  Speaker 1: than just to take the gate into that palace. Listen
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  Speaker 1: to its songs and poems and stories, Taste of its fruits,
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  Speaker 1: hold some of its flowers in our hands, grow warm
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  Speaker 1: in its sunshine, dream in its moonlight, and watch the
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  Speaker 1: fairies dance with the feet that dance there, play with
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  Speaker 1: its jewels. Listen to the whisper of the winds that
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  Speaker 1: blow around the world. Lay our hands in the brave
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  Speaker 1: hands of love and courage, wisdom and kindness, who dwell there.
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  Speaker 1: Knock on those golden doors where we would go in
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  Speaker 1: and be alone, and come out again, knowing that we
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  Speaker 1: have won the great enchantment, which is the companionship of
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  Speaker 1: beautiful and imperishable story and poem, song and play. It
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  Speaker 1: is a wonderful palace of English literature, in which we
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  Speaker 1: shall see many marvels. The first English hero Beowulf, and
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  Speaker 1: the monster Grendel, all the fortunes and misfortunes of the
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  Speaker 1: little radiant browed Welsh boy called Taliesen. The battle of
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  Speaker 1: the friends Kukullen and Ferdiad, who were betrayed by the
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  Speaker 1: false Irish Queen Mave. How song came to our first
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  Speaker 1: great English poet, Cadman in the cow stall at the
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  Speaker 1: Monastery of Whitby six hundred and seventy, of the courage
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  Speaker 1: of a shepherd lad who had became a saint, and
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  Speaker 1: of even the seals who loved Saint Cuthbert seventh century,
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  Speaker 1: of the young Prince Alfred, who won a book as
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  Speaker 1: a Prize eight hundred and forty nine to nine hundred.
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  Speaker 1: Of Havevellach, the son of the King of Denmark, who
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  Speaker 1: lived with fisherman Grim at Grimsby. Of a man who
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  Speaker 1: was under enchantment as a wolf part of the week,
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  Speaker 1: and whom Marie de France called the Werewolf. Of all
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  Speaker 1: the marvels that Geoffrey of Monmouth eleven forty seven saw
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  Speaker 1: from his window, and especially of the wonders which King
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  Speaker 1: Arthur's magician Merlin worked, and of the red and white
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  Speaker 1: dragons that came out of a drained pond. And of
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  Speaker 1: a famous kitchen boy who became a great knight, and
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  Speaker 1: about whom Sir Thomas Mallory tells one exciting adventure in
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  Speaker 1: the mort de Arthur fourteen sixty nine. What boys and
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  Speaker 1: girls will enter the gate with me? Shall we go
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  Speaker 1: into the Great Palace today? And on what golden doors
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  Speaker 1: shall we wrap first? That we may be admitted? J. M.
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  Speaker 1: South Headley, Mass January nineteen fifteen.
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  Speaker 2: End of introduction, Chapter one of Early English hero Tales.
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  Speaker 2: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 2: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: visit LibriVox dot Org read by Winnifred Osman. Early English
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  Speaker 2: hero Tales by Jeannette Augustus Marx. The first English Hero,
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  Speaker 2: the first golden door we open in the Great Palace
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  Speaker 2: shows us a hero, and that is as it should be,
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  Speaker 2: for the English have always been brave. Yet probably the
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  Speaker 2: poem about this first English hero is not the first poem.
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  Speaker 2: The first is a poem by the name of the
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  Speaker 2: Far Traveler. Many men and rulers have I known, says
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  Speaker 2: this traveler, through many strange lands have I fared throughout
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  Speaker 2: the spacious earth. This poem may not be of great value,
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  Speaker 2: but it is a wonderful experience to open this door
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  Speaker 2: and see back back back thousands of years to the
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  Speaker 2: very cradle in which English literature was born. This first
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  Speaker 2: Englishman was a wanderer, as all Englishmen, despite their love
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  Speaker 2: of home, have been, or else they would not hold
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  Speaker 2: so many great dominions as they do to day. Then too,
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  Speaker 2: there was Dare's lament, with its sad refrain thas over Yode,
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  Speaker 2: this is sa Mai that was overcome. So may this
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  Speaker 2: be and its grave thought that the all wise Lord
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  Speaker 2: of the world worketh many changes. One more poem or
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  Speaker 2: better fragment is spoken of in Beowulf. The fight at
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  Speaker 2: Finnisburg is full of the savagery and fierceness of warfare.
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  Speaker 2: It is even more wild and barbarous than Beowulf. Now
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  Speaker 2: let us open the door over which is written Beowulf.
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  Speaker 2: It is one of the oldest and rudest of the
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  Speaker 2: golden doors in the great palace of English poetry, but
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  Speaker 2: also one of the most precious. The pictures we are
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  Speaker 2: to see are beautiful, sometimes, more often they are cruel
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  Speaker 2: and pitiless. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing,
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  Speaker 2: the air was as sweet smelling as if it rose
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  Speaker 2: from fields of lilies, And it was the very springtime
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  Speaker 2: of the world. Some two thousand years ago. By song,
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  Speaker 2: little Widsith has seen his master bind all men and
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  Speaker 2: all beasts. Not only the fish and worms forgot their tasks,
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  Speaker 2: but even the cattle stopped grazing. And where they passed,
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  Speaker 2: men and children paused to listen. They were on their
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  Speaker 2: way to the Great Hall to have a sight of
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  Speaker 2: the hero Beowulf. Behind them lay the sea and the
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  Speaker 2: coast guard, pacing up and down. Before them, landward rose
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  Speaker 2: a long, high roofed hall. It had gable ends from
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  Speaker 2: which towered up huge stag horns, and the roof shone
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  Speaker 2: only less brightly than the sun, for it was covered
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  Speaker 2: with metal. About the great hall toward which Little Widsith
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  Speaker 2: and the Master were traveling was the village, made up
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  Speaker 2: of tiny houses, each in its own patch of tilled
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  Speaker 2: ground and apple trees, and with fields in which sheep
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  Speaker 2: and oxen and horses were pastured. Narrow paths wound in
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  Speaker 2: and out everywhere. In front of the hall was a
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  Speaker 2: broad meadow, across which the King and Queen and their
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  Speaker 2: lords and ladies were used to walk. There was much
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  Speaker 2: going on that day, and herought. Flocks of children were
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  Speaker 2: playing about the pretty paths. Mothers and aunts and older
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  Speaker 2: sisters sat spinning in the open doorways. Beyond the wide meadow,
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  Speaker 2: young men and boys were leading or riding spirited horses
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  Speaker 2: up and down to exercise them. And all men, women
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  Speaker 2: and children alike were talking about Beowulf, who had come
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  Speaker 2: to kill the monster Grendel and free the people of Herod.
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  Speaker 2: Beowulf had not much more than entered the hall when
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  Speaker 2: the sculp or singer, as Little Widsmith's master was called,
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  Speaker 2: entered too. In those days singers were welcome everywhere. They
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  Speaker 2: saw Beowulf stride mightily across the many colored floor of
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  Speaker 2: Heirorot and go up to the old king. And they
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  Speaker 2: heard his voice, which sounded like the rumble of a
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  Speaker 2: heavy sea on their rock bound coast. Hrothgar, he said
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  Speaker 2: to the old king across the sea's way. Have I
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  Speaker 2: come to help thee of Thee? Beowulf, have we need,
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  Speaker 2: replied the old king in tears, For Heiorot has suffered
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  Speaker 2: much from the monster. I will deliver thee, Hrothgar, said
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  Speaker 2: Beowulf in his great voice. Thee and all who dwell
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  Speaker 2: in herat. Steep and stony are the sea cliffs, joyless
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  Speaker 2: are woods, and wolf haunted. Robbed is our herot. For
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  Speaker 2: to Grendel can no man do aught. He breaks the
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  Speaker 2: bones of my people, and those of my people he
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  Speaker 2: cannot eat in herat. He drags away on to the
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  Speaker 2: moor and devours alive. And the old bald headed king,
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  Speaker 2: seated on his high seat in the hall between his
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  Speaker 2: pretty daughter and his tired queen, sighed as he thought
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  Speaker 2: of the approaching night. Yet, now that Beowulf had come,
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  Speaker 2: he hoped. Together they gathered about the banquet, Beowulf sat
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  Speaker 2: among the sons of the old king. The walls inside
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  Speaker 2: were as bright as the roof and gold gilded, and
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  Speaker 2: the great fires, from which smoke poured out through openings
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  Speaker 2: in the roof, were cheerful and warm. Then Little Widsith's
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  Speaker 2: master was called up, and Widsith placed the harp for him.
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  Speaker 2: Clear rose the song from the scalp's lips, and all
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  Speaker 2: the company was still. For a while they forgot the monster, which,
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  Speaker 2: even now with the falling dusk, was striding up from
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  Speaker 2: the sea, perhaps by the same path Beowulf and Widsyth
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  Speaker 2: and the scop had come already. It had grown dark
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  Speaker 2: under heaven, and darker in the hall, and the place
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  Speaker 2: was filled with shepway shapes. And now came Grendel, stalking
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  Speaker 2: from the cloudy cliffs towards the gold Hall. It would
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  Speaker 2: have been hard for four men to have carried his
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  Speaker 2: huge head, so big it was. The nails of his
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  Speaker 2: hands were like iron, and large as the monstrous claws
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  Speaker 2: of a wild beast. And since there was a spell
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  Speaker 2: upon him, no sword or spear could harm him. While
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  Speaker 2: others slept, even frightened little Widsith, who had thought he
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  Speaker 2: could never sleep. Beowulf lay awake, ready with his naked
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  Speaker 2: hands to fight Grendel. Suddenly, the monster smote the door
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  Speaker 2: of Hayrout, and it cracked asunder. In he strode flame
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  Speaker 2: in his eyes, and before Beowulf could spring upon him
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  Speaker 2: or any one awake, he snatched a sleeping warrior and
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  Speaker 2: tore him to pieces. Beowulf, who had the strength of
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  Speaker 2: thirty men in his body, gripped him, and the dreadful
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  Speaker 2: battle and noise began. The benches were overturned, the walls cracked,
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  Speaker 2: the fires were scattered, and dust rose in clouds from
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  Speaker 2: the many colored floor. As Beowulf wrestled with Grendel, the
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  Speaker 2: scot had seized his harp and was playing a great
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  Speaker 2: battle song. But music has no power over such evil
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  Speaker 2: as Grendel's. Beowulf himself, who was struggling to break the
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  Speaker 2: bone house of the monster in the din of the
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  Speaker 2: mighty battle, did not hear it either, and the song
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  Speaker 2: was lost in the noise and dust which rose together
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  Speaker 2: in hare Aut. Even the warriors who struck Grendel with
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  Speaker 2: their swords could not help Beowulf, for neither sword nor
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  Speaker 2: spear could injure the monster. Only the might of the
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  Speaker 2: hero himself could do aught. At last, with the strength
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  Speaker 2: of thirty men, Beowulf gripped the monster, and Grendel, with
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  Speaker 2: rent sinews and bleeding body, fled away to the ocean
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  Speaker 2: cave where he had lived, And there in the cave,
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  Speaker 2: with the sea blood stained and boiling above him, he died,
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  Speaker 2: outlawed for evil. In the second part of this poem,
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  Speaker 2: Beowulf was living as king in his own land and
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  Speaker 2: ruling like the great and brave king he was. But
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  Speaker 2: a huge old dragon who was guarding a treasure was robbed.
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  Speaker 2: So angry was the dragon that he left his heap
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  Speaker 2: of treasure and came down upon the land of King Beowulf,
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  Speaker 2: burning it and terrifying the people. Then Beowulf, who had
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  Speaker 2: become an old man, felt that he must fight to
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  Speaker 2: save his people. He went out and slew the dragon,
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  Speaker 2: but was himself scorched to death by the fiery breath
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  Speaker 2: of the dragon. Beowulf is the epoch of our Old
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  Speaker 2: English period and epic is an heroic poem in Beowulf,
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  Speaker 2: the story of Beowulf's great deeds, such as his struggle
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  Speaker 2: with Grendel and Grendel's mother and of his death is told.
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  Speaker 2: Probably it was sung before the fifth century, when the
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  Speaker 2: English conquered Britain. For England itself is not mentioned in
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  Speaker 2: this wonderful poem. Indeed, the country described as that of
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  Speaker 2: the Goths, of Sweden and of the Danes. Your geography
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  Speaker 2: will show you where Sweden and Denmark are. When the
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  Speaker 2: English forefathers came to England, they brought this poem with them,
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  Speaker 2: perhaps in the form of short poems which were woven
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  Speaker 2: together by a Christian Northumbrian poet in the eighth century
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  Speaker 2: or thereabouts. It will be interesting to see how this
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  Speaker 2: wild moorland over which Grendel stalked, and over which the
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  Speaker 2: dreadful dragon dragged his length became with the cultivation of
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  Speaker 2: the land and advancing civilization, the gentle and beautiful dwelling
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  Speaker 2: of the fairies. The fairies will not live where it
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  Speaker 2: is too wild. Much is to be learned from this
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  Speaker 2: epoch of the customs and the manners of the men
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  Speaker 2: who came to Britain and conquered it. We can see
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  Speaker 2: these people as they lived near sea, circled settlements, the
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  Speaker 2: ships they used to sail upon the sea, how their
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  Speaker 2: villages looked and the boys and girls and grown ups
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  Speaker 2: in them, the rocks and hills and ocean waves that
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  Speaker 2: made up their out of door world, the good times
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  Speaker 2: they had, their games and amusements. We come to know
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  Speaker 2: the respect that was given to their women. We see
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  Speaker 2: the bravery of the men in facing death, and we
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  Speaker 2: hear the songs they sang. Beowulf is a great poem.
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  Speaker 2: English literature knows no poem that is more sacred to it.
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  Speaker 2: But it is a sorrowful poem too. These people believed
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  Speaker 2: in fate, for Christ had not yet been brought to
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  Speaker 2: them with his methods of love and peace and joy.
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  Speaker 2: English poetry to day is much more joyous because it
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  Speaker 2: is Christian poetry than it ever could have been if
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  Speaker 2: England had remained to Heathen land. Yet English poetry still
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  Speaker 2: has much in common with Beowulf, in love of the
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  Speaker 2: sea and worship of nature, and a strange sense of fate.
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  Speaker 2: But we must close this door over which is written Beowulf,
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  Speaker 2: for the Great Palace is full of many doors and
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  Speaker 2: many stories, and we have only just begun our journey
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  Speaker 2: from golden door to golden door. End of chapter one.
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  Speaker 3: Chapter two of Early English hero Tales. This is a
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Early English hero Tales by Jeanette Augustus Martz FoST magic.
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  Speaker 3: On the other side of most of the golden doors
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  Speaker 3: through which we shall pass, our own tongue English is spoken.
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  Speaker 3: Yet in this wonderful palace, full of beautiful thoughts and
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  Speaker 3: beautiful expression, there are two doors, which a throne open,
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  Speaker 3: we may enter, but where our English would not be understood.
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  Speaker 3: They both admit us to the poems and prose of
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  Speaker 3: families of the same race, a race called Celtic. Over
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  Speaker 3: one door of this family, however, is written Chimrick, and
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  Speaker 3: all that is Chimrick is written and spoken in Welsh.
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  Speaker 3: On the other door is Gaelic, and all that is
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  Speaker 3: Gaelic is Irish and Scotch. In the great Palace of
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  Speaker 3: English literature, with its innumerable golden doors, would not be
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  Speaker 3: at all the same palace if it were not for
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  Speaker 3: these two little doors. For out of them has come
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  Speaker 3: much that is best in poetry and prose. The Welsh
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  Speaker 3: were already in Britm and the so called English landed
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  Speaker 3: on the island, and these English after one hundred and
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  Speaker 3: fifty years, succeeding in driving the Welsh or Chimeri back
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  Speaker 3: to the mountains and coast on the west of the island.
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  Speaker 3: There they lived among the mountains, holding fasten their customs,
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  Speaker 3: to their songs and poetry. And by and by, when
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  Speaker 3: it was time for this miracle to happen, the little
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  Speaker 3: Golden door over which was written Kimrick or Welsh open
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  Speaker 3: and out of their past. One of the most beautiful
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  Speaker 3: story cycles the world has ever known, the tales about
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  Speaker 3: King Arthur. But of this great story we shall hear later.
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  Speaker 3: This little Golden Door may be the oldest in all
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  Speaker 3: the palace. For long before the Arthur's story was born,
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  Speaker 3: there are other tales with the Kimri loved. There is
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  Speaker 3: a word prehistoric which accurately describes some of these stories,
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  Speaker 3: known as Mabinogian, which means literally tales for the children
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  Speaker 3: are little ones. This famous book was translated from Welsh
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  Speaker 3: into English by Lady Charlotte Guest in eighteen thirty eight.
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  Speaker 3: Among the oldest of these tales is Te Liason, which
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  Speaker 3: has behind it a prehistoric singer, a mythic singer, and
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  Speaker 3: now let us owe from that door over which is
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  Speaker 3: written Chimeri or Welsh, and look in long ago, at
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  Speaker 3: the beginning of King Arthur's time, in the famous round table,
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  Speaker 3: there lived a man whose name was teagd Full. His
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  Speaker 3: wife was called Cardwin, and there was born to them
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  Speaker 3: a son, a Vajdu, who was the ugliest boy in
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  Speaker 3: all the world. When Cardwin looked at a Vagdu, knew
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  Speaker 3: beyond any doubt that he was the ugliest boy in
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  Speaker 3: all the world. She was much troubled. Therefore, she decided
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  Speaker 3: to boil cauldron of inspiration and science for her son,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: so that Avagdu might hold an honorable position because of
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: his knowledge. Cardwin filled the cauldron and began to boil it,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: and all knew that it must not cease spoiling for
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: one year and a day, that is, until three drops
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: of inspiration had been distilled from it. Guion Bach she
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: put to stirring the cauldron, and Morda, a blind man,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: was to keep the caldron boiling day and night the
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: whole year. And every day Cardwin gathered charm bearing herbs
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: and put them into boil. And it was one day
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: towards the close of the year that three drops of
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: the liquid in the caldron flew out upon the finger
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: of Guiambach, who was stirring the liquid. It burnt him
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: and he put his finger in his mouth. Because of
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: the magic of those drops, he knew all that was
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: going to happen, and he was afraid of the wilds
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: of Cardwin, and in fear he ran away. All the
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: liquid in the cauldron, except the three charm bearing drops
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: that had fallen upon the finger of Guiambach was poisonous,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: and therefore the cauldron burst. When Cardwin saw the work
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: of her whole year lost, she was angry and seized
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: a stick of wood. With the stick, she struck Morta
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: on the head. Thou hast just figured me wrongfully, he said,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: For I am innocent, Thou speakest truth. She replied, it
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: was Gueambach rounded me and Cardwin went forth after guyon Bach, running.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: When little Guion saw her coming. Because of the magic
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: drops that had touched his finger, he was able to
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: change himself into a hair. But thereupon Cardwin changed herself
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: into a greyhound, and there was a race of fleetter
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: almost in the wind. Cardwin was nearly upon him when
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Little Gwion turned toward the river and became a fish.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Then Cardwin changed herself from a greyhound into an otter
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: and chased the little Guion under the water. So close
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: was the chase that he had to turn himself into
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: a bird of the air, whereupon Cardwin became a hawk
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: and followed him and gave him no rest in the sky.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: She was just sweeping down upon him. Little Gwion thought
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: that the hour of his death had come when he
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: saw a heap of windowed wheat on the floor of
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: the barn. He dropped into the wheat and turned himself
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: into one of the greens. And then what do you
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: think happened? Cardwin changed herself into a high crested black hen,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: popped into the wheat, scratching it with her feet. Found
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: poor little guion Bach, who had once been a boy,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: then in turn became a rabbit, a fish, a bird
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: of the air, was now a grain of wheat. Cardwin
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: swallowed him. But so powerful was the magic of those
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: three drops of inspiration which had touched his finger, that
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: little Guion appeared in the world again, entering it as
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: a beautiful child. And even Cardwin, because of his beauty,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: could not bear to kill him. So she wrapped him
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: in a leathern bag and cast him into the sea.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: That was on the twenty ninth day of April. Where
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Cardwin threw little Guion into the sea, was near the
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: fishing ware of Gwino by absterwife. And even as Cardwin
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: had the ugliest son in all the world, so had
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Guino the most unlucky, And his name was Elfin. This
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: yere Gwinno had told Elfin that he he might have
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: the drawing of the wear on May Eve. Usually the
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: fish they drew from the wear were worth about one
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: hundred pounds in good English silver. His father thought that
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: if Fluck were ever going to come to Elfin, he
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: would come with the drawing of the wear on May Eve.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: But on the next day, when Elfin went to look,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: there is nothing in the wear except a leathern bag
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: hanging on a pole. One of the men by the
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: wear said to Elfin, now hast thou destroyed the virtue
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: of the wear. There is nothing in it but this
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: worthless bag. How now, said Elfin, there may be in
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: this bag the valley of a one hundred pounds. They
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: took the bag down from the pole, and Elfin opened
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: it and as he opened it, he saw the forehead
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: of a beautiful boy. Behold a radiant brow, cried Elfin
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: to Liason, shall he be called? Although Elfin lamented his
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: bad luck at the wear, yet he carried the child
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: home gently on his abi horse. Suddenly the little boy
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: began to sing a song in which he told Elfin
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: that the day would come when he would be of
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: more service to him than the valley of three hundred salmon.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: In this song of comfort was the first poem the
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: little radiant brow Telliason ever sang. But when Gwyndo, the
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: father of Elfin, asked him what he was, he sang
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: again and told the story of how he had fled
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: in many shapes of Cardwin, as a frog, as a crow,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: as a chain, as a rose, entangled in a thicket,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: as a wolf, club, as a thrush, as a fox,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: as a martin, as a squirrel, as a stag's antler,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: as iron glowing in fire, as a spearhead from the
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: hand of one who fights, as a fierce full, as
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: a bristly boar, and in many other forms, only to
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: be gobbled up in the end as a grain of
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: wheat by a black hen. What is this said Gweidono
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: to his son Elfin. It is a bard, a poet.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: The sun answered, alas what will he profit thee? I
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: shall profit Elphin more than the wear has ever profited.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Thee answered to Liason, and the little radiant brow boy
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: began to sing another song. Wherefore should a stone be hard?
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Why should a thorn be sharp pointed? Who is hard
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: like flint, who is salt like brine? Who is sweet
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: like honey? Who rides in the gale? Then bide he
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: Elfin wage the king that he had a horse better
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: and swifter than any of the King's horses. Thus Elfin did,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: and the king set the day in the time for
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: the race at the place called a marsh of Rionid.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: And thither every one followed the King, who took with
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: him four and twenty of his swiftest horses. The course
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: was marked, and the horses were placed for running. Then
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: it came to e Liason with four and twenty twigs
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: of holly, which he had burned black, and he put
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: them in the belt of the youth who was to
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: ride Elphins. He told this youth to let all the
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: king's horses get ahead of him, but as he overtook
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: one horse after the other, he was to take one
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: of the burnt twigs of holly and strike the horse
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: over the cropper, then let the twig fall. This the
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: youth who rode Elfin's horse was to do to each
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: of the King's horses as he overtook it, and he
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: was to watch where his own horse should stumble, and
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: throw down his cap on that spot. Thereupon, the youth
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: who rode Elfin's horse, and all the King's riders pricked
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: forth upon their steeds, their horses with bridles of linked
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: gold on their heads and gold saddles upon their backs,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: and the racing horses, with their shell formed hoofs cast
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: up sods. So swiftly did they run like swallows in
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: the air, Blades of grass bent not beneath the fleet
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: light hoofs of the coursers. Elfin's horse won the race.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: To Liason brought Elfin when the race was over to
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: the place where the horse had stumbled, and where the
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: youth had thrown down his cap. As he had been told,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Elfin did as e Lison bade him, and put workmen
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: to dig a hole on this spot. And when they
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: had dugged the ground deep enough, there was found a
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: large caldron full of gold. Then said to Lison Elfin, behold,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: see what I give THEE for having taken me out
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: of the wear and the leathern bag? Is this not
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: worth more to THEE than three hundred salmon? In the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Mabinogian stories, first collected and set down sometime in the
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: twelfth century, we live in a world of enchantment and fairies.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Those tales are full of gold, the gold of a
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: wondrous imagination. It would be nice if we could keep
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: the store over which is written Welsh, open long enough
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: so that they might tell you the story of Prederie too.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: And how Predorie found on a castle where no castle
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: had ever been, How we entered it and saw in
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: the center of the castle floor a fountain with marble
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: work around it, and on the margin of the fountain
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: a golden bowl on a marble slab, and chains hanging
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: from the air, which he saw no end. What happened
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: to him when he sees this cup? Has the castle
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: faded away? How the heroes of the story were changed
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: to mice? For none of this? Can we hold open
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: the golden door any longer? The ends of the golden
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: chains of many a story are not to be seen
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: by us. End of chapter two read by Cassandra A. M.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Chapter three of Early English hero Tales. This is a
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: Early English hero Tales by Jeanette Augustus Marx, Chapter three,
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: The Battle at the Ford. It is interesting to think,
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: is it not, that if it had not been those
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: two little Celtic doors of gold, over one of which
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: was written Kimric or Welsh, and over the other Gaelic
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: or Irish, our great palace of English literature could not
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: have been the same palace, nor half so beautiful. It
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: is not only that there would not have been so
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: many wonderful golden doors leading into story land, but the
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: stories themselves would not have been told in the same way.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: The Scotch, too, who belonged to the Celtic family, are
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: almost as great story tellers as the Welsh and Irish.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: When the Roman Tacitus wrote about the Welsh and Irish,
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: he said their language differs little, and even their buildings,
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: Caesar said, were almost similar. What was true of their
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: speech and their buildings, was more true of the gifts
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: they have left in the Great Palace. They have the
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: same delightful way of telling a story. What they have
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: to say naturally falls into conversations, and they are quick
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: as a wink in the wit and fun, and beauty
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: and sadness of what they do say. This little golden
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: door in the wonderful room beyond it were perhaps longer
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: in being built than the Welsh. These stories and poems
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: of the Irish were composed at the time of Caesar
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: and the Christian era. The epic cycle of Gaher and
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Cuckoolane is the first group of tales in Irish literature.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: They are made up of prose, with occasional verses here
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: and there. The Irish are very clever at invention, and
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: these stories are among the most wonderful ever written or sung.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: Among the best of these stories is one we shall
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: open a door to listen to the story of Furthia
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: and Cuckulane in the Battle at the Ford. The dialog
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: in the Battle at the Ford shows us plainly how
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: great the Irish dramatic gift has always been. They were
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: born makers of plays. Just see how the Irish genius
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: makes Furthia and Cucklane talk, and how lifelike they are.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: The story is there not much changed from what it
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: was two thousand years ago, and shows all the Irish
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: sense of form. By sense of form is meant simply
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: the story's way of expressing itself. You see a story
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: or poem as like a human being. It has not
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: only thoughts, but also a body to hold these thoughts.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: It is because of these two golden doors, over which
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: are written the words Welsh Irish, that English literature is
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: likely to produce most of the great plays which will
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: be acted, and most of the great novels. Every Christian
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: and Jewish boy and girl knows the Bible story of
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: David and Jonathan, that Jonathan who loved David as his soul,
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: and David, who loved Jonathan more than a brother can love.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: This friendship of a king's son with the son of
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: a shepherd was very beautiful and tender and pure. The
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: Battle at the Ford is not so gentle a story,
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: but it is nevertheless, and despite the treachery of the
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: queen and the sad end of fersiaf the David and
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: Jonathan's story of Irish literature. The men of Ireland settled
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: it that Fersiaf and Cuckulaine should fight the next day.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: But when they sent messengers to fetch Furthiof, he would
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: not come, for he learned that they wanted him to
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: fight his friend Cuckolaine. Then Mave the Queen sent the
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: druids after him, who, by their hurtful poems about Fersiaf,
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: should raise three blisters on his faith. But when they
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: sent messengers to fetch Ferjiof, he would not come, for
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: he learned that they wanted him to fight against his
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: friend Cuckolaine. Then Mave the Queen sent the druids after him, who,
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: by their hurtful poems about Ferjiof, should raise three blisters
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: on his face, the blisters of shame, blemish and reproach.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: So Ferjiof had come to answer the Queen Mave. She
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: offered him great riches if he would fight against his
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: friend Kukulin, speckled satins and silver and gold, with lands,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: horses and bridles. But to may Firziot replied, if you
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: offered me land and sea, I would not take them
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: without the sun and moon, for he loved his friend Cuckolaine,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: so that there was no wealth which could tempt Ferziat
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: to go out against him, to wound him. But said, Mave,
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: you shall have your fill of the jewels of the earth.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: Here is my brooch with its hooked pin, and my
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: daughter finolute Nay, answered ferziof these things and all things
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: like unto them shall remain yours. For there is nothing
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: I would take to go into battle against my friend Cuckolaine.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: Nothing shall come between him and me, he who is
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: the half of my heart without fault, and I the
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: half of his own heart by my spear. Were Cuckolaine killed,
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: I would be buried in his grave, the one grave
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: for the two of us. Miss fortune on you, Mav,
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: misfortune on you for trying to put your face between us.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: Then may have considered how she should stir him up
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: and thus get her own ends. Aloud, she said to
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: her people, is it true word? Kukulaine spoke?
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: What word was that?
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Asked Ferziov sharply, he said, answered Mab that there would
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: be no wonder in it. Did you fall in the
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: first trial of arms against him? Then was ferziof angry
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: that had Cukolaye no right to say. If it be true,
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: he said this thing, then will I fight with him tomorrow.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: At that Fergus left Fersiaf and Mave and went out
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: in his chariot to tell Cuckulaine what had happened. I
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: give my word, exclaimed Cukolaine. For my friend to come
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: against me is not my wish. Ferjiof's anger is stirred up,
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: said Fergus, And he has no fear of you. Be quiet,
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: replied Cukolaye, for I can stand against him anywhere. It
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: will go hard, with you getting the better of him,
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: answered Fergus, For he has the strength of a hundred
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: My word an oath, said Cuckolayne. It is I who
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: will be victorious over Ferzioth. Then went Fergus joyfully back
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: to the encampment, but Ferjiaf, gloomy and heavy hearted, slept
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: only through the early part of the night. Toward the
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: end of the night, he told his driver to harness
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: his horses. Ferjiof said the driver, it would be better
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: for you to stop here, for grief will come of
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: that meeting with Cuckolaane. Yet the chariot was yoked and
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: they went forward to the ford and day, in its
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: full light, came upon them. There. Then Ferjiof slept while
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: he waited for the coming of Cuckulaane. With the full
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: light of day. Cuckolayne himself rose up and said to
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: his driver, Leg, yoke the chariot, for the man who
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: comes to meet us to day is an early riser.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: The horses are harnessed, answered Leg. With that, cu Kolaine
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: leaped into the chariot, and about him shouted the people
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: of the gods of Dana, and the witches and the fairies.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: Then Ferziot's driver heard them coming, the straining of the harness,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: the creaking of the chariot, the ringing of the armor
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: and the shields, and the thunder of the horses. Hoofs good, Ferziot,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: said the driver, laying his hand upon his master, Rise up,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: Coukolaine comes. And he is coming not slowly but quick
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: as the wind, or is the water from a high cliff,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: or like a swift thunder. And they saw Cukolaine coming,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: swooping down on them like a hawk from a cliff
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: on a day of hard wind. Coukolaine drew up on
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: the north side of the ford. I am happy at
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: your coming, said Ferziat. Till this day would I have
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: been glad to hear that welcome, answered Cukolaine. But now
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: it is no longer the welcome of a friend. They
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: each spoke unfriendly words, and each began to boast before
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: the setting of the sun to night, said Ferzioth, you
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: will be fighting as with a mountain, and it is
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: not white that battle will be. You were falling into
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: a gap of danger, answered Cuckolaane. And the end of
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: your life is come. Leave off your boasting, shouted Ferziot,
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: You heart of a burden, a cage, you giggling fellow.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: But to this Cukolaine replied, you were my heart companion,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: You were my people, You were my family. I never
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: found one who was dearer. What is the use of
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: this talk, asked Ferziot. Good Ferziot answered Cuckolayne. It is
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: not right for you to come out against me through
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: the meddling of mave. Do not break your oath not
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: to fight with me. Do not break friendship. We were
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: heart companions, comrades and sharing one bed. Infersiaf answered, do
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: not be remembering our companionship, for it will not protect
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: you this day. It is I will give you first wounds.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: Then began they with their casting weapons, their round handled
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: spears and their little quilled spears, and their ivory hilted knives,
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: and their ivory hafted spears. And these weapons were flying
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: to and fro like bees on the wing of a
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: summer's day. Yet good as the throwing was, the defense
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: was better, and neither hurt the other. There was no
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: cast that did not hit the protecting shields. And by
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: noon their weapons were all blunted against the faces and
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: bosses of the shields. So they left these weapons and
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: took to their straight spears, and from the middle of
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: midday till the fall of evening each threw spears at
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: the other. But good as the defense was, in that time,
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: each wounded the other. Let us leave this now, said Ferziath.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Then each came to the other and put his hands
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: around the neck of the other, and gave him three kisses.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: And that night one enclosure held their horses, and at
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: one fire sat their chariot drivers. And of every healing
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: herb that was put on Cukolaine's wounds, Cuckolaine sent an
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: equal share westward across the ford for the wounds of Ferjiat,
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: and of food and drink. Ferjia sent a fair share
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: northward to Cuckolaine and his men, and in the morning
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: they rose up and came to the ford of battle.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: What weapons shall we use today, said Cuckolaine. Today is
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: your choice, for I made the choice yesterday, answered ferjiaf
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: Then let us take our great broad spears, for so
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: by the end of evening shall we be nearer the
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: end of the fight. From the twilight of the early
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: morning till the fall of evening, each cut and wounded
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: the other, till wer it the custom of birds in
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: their flight to pass through the bodies of men, they
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: might have done so on this day. Let us stop
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: this now, said Kukolaine, for our horses and men are
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: tired and downhearted. Let us put the quarrel away for
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: a while. So they threw their spears into the hands
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: of their chariot drivers, and each put his hand around
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: the neck of the other and gave him three kisses.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: And that night they slept on wounded men's pillows. Their
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: chariot drivers had made for them a full share of
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: every charm and spell used to cure the wounds of
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: Cuckolaine were sent to Fersioth and a food. Ferziof sent
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: a chare again. Early on the morrow they came to
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: the ford of Battle, and there was a dark look
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: on Ferjiof that day. It is bad you are looking
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: to day, said Cukolaine. It is not from fear dread
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: of you. I'm looking this way, answered Ferjiof. No one
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: has ever put food to his lips Ferjioth, and no
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: one has ever been born for whose sake I would
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: hurt you. Koko, cried Ferjiath. It was not you, but
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: Mave who has betrayed us. And now my word and
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: my name will be nothing if I go back without
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: doing battle with you. And that day they fought with
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: their swords, and each hacked at the other from dawn
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: till evening, when they threw their swords from them into
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: the hands of their chariot drivers. Their parting that night
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: was sad and downhearted. Early the next morning, Fersiath rose
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: up and went by himself to the ford, and there
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: clad himself in his shirt of striped silk with its
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: border of speckled gold, over a coat of brown leather,
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: and on his head a crested helmet of battle. Taking
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: his strong spear in his right hand and his sword
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: in his left, he began showing off very cunningly wonderful
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: feats that were made up that day by himself against Cukolaine.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: But when Coukolaine came to the ford, it was his
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: turn to choose the weapons for the day, and they
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: fought all the morning. By midday the anger of each
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: was hot upon them, and Kukolaane leaped upon the bosses
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: of Ferjiath's shield, but Ferjiaf tossed him from him like
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: a bird on the brink of the ford, or his
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: foam is thrown from a wave. Then did Kukulaane leap,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: with the quickness of the wind and the lightness of
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: a swallow, and lit on the boss of Ferjiaf's shield.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: But Ferjiof shook the shield and cast Cuckolane from him.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: Kokolane's anger came upon him like a flame. And so
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: close was the fight that their shields were broken and loosened,
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: that their spears were bent from their points to their hilts.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: And so close was the fight that their shields were
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: broken and loosened that their spears were bent from their
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: points to their hilts, and so close was the fight
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: that they drove the river from its bed, and that
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: their horses broke away in fear and madness. Then ferjiaf
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: gave Coukolane a stroke of the sword and hid it
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: in his body, and Kukolaine took his spear. Gay Bulg
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: cast it at Fersiath, and it passed through his body
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: so that the point could be seen. Oh, Cuckulaine cried Fersiat,
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: when gay Bulg pierced him. It is not right that
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: I should fall by your hand. My end is come.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: My ribs will not hold my heart. I have not
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: done well in the battle. Then Cuckolaine ran toward him
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: and put his two arms about him, and laid him
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: by the ford northwest, and he began to keen and lament,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: what are joy and shouting to me? Now it is
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: to madness. I am driven after this thing I have done.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: Oh Fersioth, there will never be born among the men
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: of Connaught who would do the deeds equal to yours.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: Oh Fersioth, you were betrayed to your death. You to die,
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: I to be living our parting forever is a grief forever.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: We gave our word that to the end of time
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: we would not go against each other. Dear to me,
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: was your beautiful ruddiness. Dear to me your comely form,
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Dear to me your clear gray eye, Dear your wisdom
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: and your talk, and dear to me our friendship. It
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: was not right you to fall by my hand. It
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: was not a friendly ending. My grief. I love the
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: friend to whom I have given a drink of red blood.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Oh fersiath this thing will hang over me forever. Yesterday
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: you were strong as a mountain, and now there is
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: nothing but a shadow. End of chapter three, read by Dana.
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: Chapter four of Early English hero Tales. This is a
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: For more information to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Early English hero Tales by Jeanette Augustus Marx Cadman the Cowherd,
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: a very great modern poet. Coleridge, who wrote The Ancient Mariner,
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: said that prose was words in their best order, but
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: that poetry was the best words in their best order.
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: This is a simple and good definition of poetry. Yet
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: there is even more than best words in their best order,
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: in the room beyond the door over which is written poetry. Perhaps, however,
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: beautiful words in their best order would always teach us
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: to find what is beautiful and to love the good.
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: I do not know, do you. Cadman's poem, written about
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: six seventy, marks the beginning of English poetry in Great Britain.
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: For Beowulf was first sung in another land, the land
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: of the conquerors of England, before it was brought to
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: British soil. The verses of Cadman's poetry are as stormy
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: as the sea which beats at the bottom of the
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: cliffs of Whitby, on which rose the monastery austrayon Shala.
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: Cadmen was at first a servant in this monastery, But
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: when the power to sing came to him, it lifted
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: not only Cadmen himself to something better than he had been.
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: It has also lifted men and women ever since to
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: better ways of thinking and feeling, and to greater happiness
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: than they would ever have had without English poetry. Bede,
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: who wrote about Cadmen, said he did not learn the
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: art of poetry from men, nor of men, but from God.
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: Cadman sang many songs, chiefly songs about stories in the Bible.
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: Our first poetry was religious. Dark and true and tender
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: is the North, and true and tender is all great
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: English poetry, since that most precious of all the golden
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: doors was thrown open in the great palace of English literature.
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: Almost more interesting than the stories which cadmen resung for
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: the world is the story of the way the gift
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: of song came to cadmen. One day, a little boy
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: stood by a fishing boat from which he had just leaped.
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: He dug his toe in the sand and looked up
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: to the edge of the rocky cliff above him. What
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: dost see, lad, said his uncle, who was tossing his
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: catch of fish to the sand. Creatures of the mist
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: and the clouds yonder nay, uncle answered Finnan, there is
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: no Grendel in the clouds. Last night at the hall,
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: a men sang to the harp that Grendell was a
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: more treader. Also, he told of the deeds of the
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: hero Beowulf, and he said that Beowulf had killed Grendel.
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: Finnin's eyes were on the distant moor, which was the
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: color of flame in the evening light already twinkling Above
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: were little stars bright as the sheen of elves. There
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: he knew, for everybody said so lived elf and giant
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: and monster. There in the morpools lived the water ells
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: across its flame of heather strode mighty march gangers like Grendel.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: And in the dark places of the mountains lived a
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: dragon crouched above his pile of gold and treasure. There
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: stood the miraculous tree of great size, on which were
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: carved the figures of beasts and birds, and strange letters
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: which told what gods the Heathen worshiped before the gentle
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: religion of Christ was brought to England. There lived the
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: wolf man, too, so friendless and wild that he became
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: the comrade of the wolves which howled. In those dark
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: places there lived a bear, old and terrible, and the
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: wild boar, rooting of acorns with his huge curved tusks.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: Nearer the village was the Wolf's head tree, more terrible
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: tree than any in the mysteries of forest and Finland.
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: This was the gallows on which the village folk hung
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: those who did evil. Finin could see the tree where
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: it stood alone in the sunset, light and He heard
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: the rough coring of ravens as they settled down into
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: its dark branches to roost. Caw cow croaked one raven.
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: Bad man, bad man. Haw cow sang another raven bad.
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: Then they flapped their wings and settled to their sleep.
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: Uncle Finan said, I will go up the cliff side.
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: The fisherman looked up. He heard the chanting from the
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: church and saw an immense white cross upright on the
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: cliff's edge. But he knew not of what adventure. Little
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: Finan was thinking. Ay, he said, go, perhaps you will
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: see the blessed hild. So it came about that little
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: and climbed the cliff on that evening which was to
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: prove a night wonderful in its miracle. There was born
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: that night, that which, like the love of Christ, has
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: made children's lives better and happier. Finnin reached the top
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: of the cliff by those steps which were cut into it,
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: and then took the main road, paved and straight, which
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: led toward the Great Hall. He went along slowly under
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: the apple trees. He saw a black haired Welsh woman
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: draw water. Little children, not so big as Finnin were
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: sitting on the steps by their mothers who were spinning
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: in their doorways. He passed a dog gnawing a bone
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: flung to it for its supper. A cobbler laying by
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: his tools, looking up, saw Finnan and greeted him. A
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: jeweler was fixing ornaments on a huge horn he had polished.
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: Carpenters were leaving a little cottage which they were building.
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: The road was full of men, swine herds and cow herds,
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: plowboys and wood choppers from the forests beyond, gardeners and shepherds,
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: all on their way to the Great Hall. Some men
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: there were in armor, too, their long hair floating over
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: their shoulders. Inside the windows, which in those days contained
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: no window glass, torches and firelight would soon begin to flame,
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: and mead would be passed. Already, a loud horn was
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: calling all who would to come. Suddenly, something sharp stabbed Finan,
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: and he cried out. A man, a woman, and the
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: little child came rushing from one of the household yards,
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: flapping their garments and screaming the bees, the bees. They
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: had just found their precious hive empty. The bees had
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: swarmed and unless they could find them, there would be
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: no more sweet smelling mead made from honey in that household.
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: That year, another bee stung Finnan, and there they were
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: clinging to a low apple bough just above his head.
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: They hung in a great cluster, like a bunch of
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: dark grapes. Dame, said a cowherd who was in the
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: road to the people who were crying out for their bees.
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: Yonder lad knows where the bees are. Finnin rubbed his
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: head and looked up at the angry, humming swarm. Ay,
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: he said, and laughed. Throw gravel on the swarming bees,
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: called the cow herd Cadman. The man and woman and
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: Finnan took handfuls of gravel from the roadside and flung
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: them over the bees, and sang again and again, never
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: to the wood fly ye wildly more. Then they laughed,
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: and the bees swarmed. Now, said Cadman, who was a
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: wise cowherd, Hang venaria on the hive, and if you
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: would have them safe, lay on the hive a plant
• 53:48
  Speaker 6: of madder. Then cannot lure them away. When they reached
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: the hall, folk were already eating inside. Little Finnin saw
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: Cadman go in quietly, For Cadman was attached to the
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: abbot Hill's monastery, and had a right to go in
• 54:02
  Speaker 6: and eat inside. They were singing for the sake of mirth,
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: and the torches and firelight were flaming through the open window,
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: for windows were always open then, and the word window
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: meant literally wind eye. Finnan saw the harp being passed
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: from one to another. They sang many songs as the
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: harp passed from hand to hand, songs of war and
• 54:26
  Speaker 6: songs of home. But when the harp was passed to Cadman,
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: who had charmed the bees, he shook his head sorrowfully,
• 54:33
  Speaker 6: saying that he could not sing, and got up, sad
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: and ashamed, and went out. Little Finnin wanted to shout
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: through the window to him to sing about the bees.
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: He did not dare, for he was afraid of being discovered. Instead,
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: he followed behind Cadman. He wished to ask him why
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: he could not sing.
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: This he did not dare to do either. But he
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: went on to the fold where the cow herd had
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: gone to care for the cattle, And there on the
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: edge of the foe, the little boy, unseen by the
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: cow herd, fell asleep. Shortly afterward, Cadman too fell asleep.
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: It must have been near the middle of the night,
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: when the stars one and all were shining and dancing
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: with the sheen of millions and millions of elves, and
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: the sea down below the cliff was singing a mighty lullaby.
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: That little Finan started wide awake, hearing a voice speak.
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: Cadman spoke a man who stood beside the sleeping cow herd,
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: sing me something. Cadman drowsily answered, I cannot sing anything.
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: Therefore went I away from the mirth and came here,
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: for I know not how to sing. Again, the mysterious
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: stranger spoke, yet you could sing, And Finnan heard the
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: sleep bound voice of Cadman. Ask O, what shall I sing?
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: Sing to me, said the stranger, the beginning of all things?
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: And at once Cadman began to sing, in a strong voice,
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: and very beautifully, the praise of God who made this world.
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: And his song had all the beat of sea waves
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: in it, sometimes little waves that lapped gently on the
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: shore and bore in beautiful shells and jeweled seaweed, But
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: more often its rhythm was as mighty as ocean waves
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: that tossed big ships. Then the wandering stranger, hearing the
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: beauty of the song vanished. Cadman awoke from his sleep,
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: and he remembered all that he had sung, and the
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: vision that had come to him, and he was glad.
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: He arose and went to the Abbess Hilled to tell
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: her what had happened to him, the least of her servants.
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: In the presence of many wise men, did Hild bid
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: Cadman tell his dream and sing his verse. And he
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: did as he was told, and it was plain to
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: all that an angel had visited Cadmen. The Abbess Hild
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: took him into the monastery, and she ordered that everything
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: be done for him. And Cadmen became the first and
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: one of the greatest of English poets. And even as
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: Christ was born in a manger in Bethlehem, English poetry
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: was born in a cattle fold, in a town which
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: was called Streyanshala, which means bay of the beacon and
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: to mankind. Since Cadmen, the first English poet, English song
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: has been a beacon to all the world. If you
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: open a book written in the English of to day,
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: it is easy to read it, just as easy as
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: to understand the speech we use among one another. But
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: the English of fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago would
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: be difficult to read. There is an illustration of this
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: English in a line from Diau's lament. Thus of Rioda,
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: this is soimee. It is easy to pick this out
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: word for word and see that it means that was
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: overcome or overpassed. So may this be the English in
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: that great palace, some of whose doors are more than
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: twelve hundred years old? Is the same English, just as
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: the oak tree two hundred years old is the same
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: oak tree, though different that it was when planted. But
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: you would find it difficult to read the English in
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: which Cadman wrote his great poems. Old English poetry, too,
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: seems as different from the poetry of today as the
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: language we speak seems different from the language they used
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: to speak. For one thing, Old English poetry did not
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: have rhymes. Little Lamb who made thee, dost thou know
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: who made thee? Gave thee life, and bade thee feed
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: by the stream, And o'er the mead gave thee clothing
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: of delight, softest clothing, wooly bright, gave thee such a
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: tender voice, making all the veils rejoice. Little Lamb who
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: made thee dost thou know who made thee? This poem
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: was written somewhat over one hundred years ago by William Blake,
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: But it is mudder and part of that brightest and
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: most beautiful room of all English poetry, nineteenth century poetry.
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: What is a rhyme? You can tell if you will
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: study this stanza from the lamb. You will see that
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: thee of the first line rhymes with thee of the second.
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: That feed and mead rhyme, and that delight and bright rhyme,
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: just as voice and rejoice. Old English poetry was different too,
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: in that it did not count the syllables in a
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: line of poetry. If you drum on the table and
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: count the syllables of the first and second lines, you
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: will see that each has six, and the following six
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: lines have sevens syllables each, and the last two six each.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: Then if you drum a little more, you will see
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: that each of the first two lines has three accents
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: or stresses, and the following six four accents or stresses each.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: Then you ask what was this Old English poetry like?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: Even if the syllables were not counted and there was
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: no rhyme, it had accents just as our modern poetry
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: has every line was divided into half verses by a pause,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: as for example, Warriors of Winters Young with words spake.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: There are two accented syllables in the first half of
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: this line, and one in the second. And now, instead
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: of rhyme, what do you think the old English poetry
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: had alliteration? That is a big word, But it is
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: not nearly so difficult as it seems, for it means
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: simply the repetition of the same letter at the beginning
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: of two or more words. Here it is the letter
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: W that is repeated. It was poetry with alliteration and
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: stress which little Finnan heard on that night so long ago,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: when the Angel came to Cadman and commanded him to sing.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: End of Chapter four, read by Elizabeth Cocknall, Ventura, California,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: March two thousand, twenty four.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: Section five of Early English hero Tales. This is a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 7: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 7: Early English hero Tales by Jeanette Augustus Marx, the Shepherd
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: of Lauderdale. After Cadman's day, there were more and more
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 7: religious poets. Often the men who wrote the poetry and
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 7: prose during the time of Cadman and of Cuthbert lived
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: in monasteries where the life was a religious life. In
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 7: the Great Palace of English literature, there is a pretty
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 7: story told about Eieldhelm, who was a young man when
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: Cadman died. This young man later became the abbot of Malmesbury.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: He was not only a religious poet, but he also
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 7: made songs and could sing them to music. He traveled
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 7: from town to town, and, finding that the men at
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: the fairs did not come to church as they should,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: he would stand on the bridge and sing songs to
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 7: them in the English tongue, persuading them thus to come
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 7: to hear the word of God. Living at this same time,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 7: that is, during the latter half of the seventh century,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: was Saint Cuthbert not so great a scholar as Yieldhelm,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: but as great a wanderer. There is a little valley
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 7: between England and Scotland called Lauderdale, a little valet watered
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 7: by a river which flows into the tweed There. Cuthbert
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 7: did not keep the flocks of his father as did David.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 7: Yet like David, he was a warrior lad day and night.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 7: Cuthbert lived in the open, shepherding the sheep of many masters.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 7: There was naught among the lads of that time a
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 7: boy more active, more daring than Cuthbert. He could walk
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: on his hands, turn somersaults, fight boldly, and become a
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 7: victor in almost every race. There was no other boy
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: so active but that Cuthbert was better at games and sports,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 7: And when all the others were tired, he would ask
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: whether there was not some one who could go on playing.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 7: Then suddenly a swelling came on his knee, and the
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 7: poor little boy could play no longer, and had to
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 7: be carried in and out, up and down by attendants.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: This continued until one day a horseman clothed in white
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: garments and riding a horse of incomparable beauty, appeared before
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 7: the sick boy and cured his knee. Little Cuthbert was
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 7: now able to walk about once more, but never again
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 7: did he play the games he used to play. Not
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 7: far from where Cuthbert lived was the monastery of tining
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 7: Him by the mouth of the River Tyne. Some of
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: the monks were bringing down on rafts wood which they
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: had spent a long time, felling and sawing up. They
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 7: were almost opposite the monastery, and were just about to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 7: draw the wood to the shore, when a great wind
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 7: came up from the west and drove the rafts out
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: toward the sea. There were five of them, and so
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 7: quickly did they drift away that it was not more
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 7: than a few minutes before they began to look in
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 7: the distance as small as five little birds. Those upon
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 7: the rafts were in much danger of losing their lives.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: Those in the monastery came out and preyed upon the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 7: shore for them. But the five rafts, that now looked
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 7: like the tiniest of birds, went on drifting out to sea.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: And the populace, which had been heathens very lately, began
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: to jest at the monks because their prayers were in vain.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 7: Then said Cuthbert, friends, you do wrong to speak evil
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: of those you see hurried away to death. Would it
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: not be better to pray for their safety? No, shouted
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 7: the people angrily. They took away our old worship, and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: you can see that nothing comes of the new. At
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: this the young Cuthbert began to pray, bowing his head
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 7: to the ground, and the winds were turned around and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 7: brought the rafts in safety to the shore of the monastery.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 7: Like David, this boy Cuthbert was very near to God,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: and one night, while keeping the sheep of his masters,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 7: he saw angels descending from heaven. Cuthbert was on a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 7: remote mountain with other shepherds and keeping not only his
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 7: sheep but also the vigil of prayer, when a light
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 7: streamed down from heaven and broke the thick darkness. Then
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 7: Cuthbert made up his mind to serve God by entering
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 7: a monastery. One day, he was on a journey on horseback,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 7: when he was not quite fifteen years old, He turned
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 7: aside to the farmstead which he sough at some distance,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 7: and entered the house of a very good woman. He
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 7: wanted to rest himself, but even more he wanted to
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: get food for his horse. The woman urged him to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 7: let her prepare dinner for him, but Cuthbert would not eat,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 7: for it was a fast day. Consider said the woman
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 7: that on your journey you will find no village nor
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 7: habitation of man. For indeed a long journey is before you,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: nor can you possibly accomplish it before sunset. Wherefore I
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 7: beg of you to take some food before setting out,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 7: lest you be obliged to fast all day, or perhaps
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: even until tomorrow. But Cuthbert would not break his fire.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 7: Night came on, and he saw that he could not
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 7: finish his journey, and there was no house anywhere in
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 7: which to take shelter. As he went on, however, he
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 7: noticed some shepherd's huts which had been roughly thrown together
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 7: in the summer. He entered one of these to pass
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 7: the night. There, tied his horse to the wall, and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 7: set before the horse a bundle of hay to eat.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 7: Suddenly Cuthbert noticed that his horse was raising his head
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 7: and pulling at the thatching of the hut, And as
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 7: the horse drew the thatch down, there fell out also
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: a folded napkin. In the napkin was wrapped the half
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 7: of a loaf of bread yet warm, and a piece
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 7: of meat enough for Cuthbert's supper. At last, followed by
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 7: his squire, and with his lance in hand, the youthful
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: shepherd Warrior, then but fifteen years old, appeared before the
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 7: gates of the monastery of Melrose. For Cuthbert had decided
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 7: to serve God in a religious life, rather than upon
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: the battlefield. There was not a village so far away,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 7: or a mountain so steep, or a cottage so poverty stricken,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 7: but that the boy Cuthbert, strong and energetic, visited it.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 7: Most often. He traveled on horseback, but there were places
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: so rough and wild they were not to be reached
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 7: on horseback. These places along the coast he visited in
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 7: a boat. Cuthbert thought nothing of hunger and thirst and cold.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 7: From the sole way to the fourth he covered Scotland
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 7: with his pilgrimages. This, of course, was in the seventh century,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 7: a long time ago. Yet stories are still told there
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 7: of the wonderful work of Cuthbert. While he was young
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 7: in the life of the monastery. It was Cuthbert's good
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 7: fortune to entertain an angel unawares, as perhaps we all
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 7: do sometimes. At the monastery. Cuthbert, so pleasant and winning
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 7: were his manners, he was appointed guest master. Going out
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 7: one morning from the inner buildings of the monastery to
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 7: the guest chamber, he found a young man seated there.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 7: He welcomed him with the usual forms of kindness, gave
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 7: him water to wash his hands himself, bathed his feet
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 7: and wiped them with a towel, and warmed them. He
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 7: begged the young man not to go forward on his
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 7: journey until the third hour, when he might have breakfast.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 7: He thought the stranger must have been wearied by the
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 7: night journey and the snow. But the stranger was very
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 7: unwilling to stay until Cuthbert urged him in the divine name.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 7: Immediately after the prayers of tears a third hour were said,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 7: Cuthbert laid the table and offered the stranger food. Refresh thyself, master,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: until I return with some new bread, for I expect
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 7: it is ready baked by this time. But when he returned,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 7: the guest whom he had left at the table had gone.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 7: Although a recent snowfall had covered the ground, and Cuthbert
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 7: looked for his footprint, none were to be found. On
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: entering the room again, there came to him a very
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 7: sweet odor, and he saw lying beside him three loaves
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 7: of bread, warm and of unwonted whiteness and beauty. Lo
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 7: said Cuthbert, this was an angel of God who came
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 7: to feed and nought to be fed. These are such
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 7: loaves as the earth cannot produce, for they surpassed lilies
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 7: in whiteness, roses in smell, and honey in flavor by
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 7: all human beings and creatures. Was Cuthbert beloved. He usually
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 7: spent the greater part of the night in prayer. One night,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 7: one of the brothers of the monastery followed him to
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 7: find out where he went. When he left the monastery,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 7: Saint Cuthbert went out to the shore and entered the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 7: cold water of the sea till it was up to
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: his arms and neck, and there in praises, with the
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 7: sound of the waves in his ears, he spent the night.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: When dawn was drawing nea he came out of the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 7: water and finished his prayer upon the shore. While he
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 7: was doing this, two seals came out from the depths
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 7: of the sea, warmed his feet with their breath and
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: dried them with their hair. And when Cuthbert's feet were
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: warm and dry, he stood up and blessed the seals
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: and sent them back into the sea, wherein these humble
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: creatures swam about praising God. End of section five read
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 7: by J.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 8: Thomas, Chapter six of Early English hero Tales. This is
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 8: a LibriVox recording. All Libravot's recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 8: For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravots dot
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 8: Org read by Jim Pearson Perry. Early English hero Tales
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 8: by Jeannette Augustus Marks, chapter six, The Boy who won
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 8: a prize? You know what sort of stories Bede was
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 8: fond of telling, of course in Latin. If you should
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 8: be asked with whom English prose began, I think it
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 8: would be safe to say with Bede, who wrote the
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 8: Life of Saint Cuthbert and the Ecclesiastical History. But that
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 8: is not why you should say that Bede began English prose,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 8: but because at his death he was busy finishing a
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 8: book written in English and called Translation of the Gospel
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 8: of Saint John. When his last day came, the good
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 8: old man called all his scholars about him. There is
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 8: still a chapter wanting, said the youth, who always took
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 8: down all of Bede's dictation. And it is hard for
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 8: thee to question thyself longer. It is easily done, answered Bede.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 8: Take thy pen and write quickly. All day long they wrote.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 8: When twilight came, the boy cried out, there is still
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 8: one sentence unwritten. Dear master, write it, quickly, answered the master.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 8: It is finished now, said the boy. Thou sayest truth?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 8: Came the answer all is finished now, singing the praise
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 8: of God, his scholars, and the boy's scribe about him.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 8: He died alas that this English book that he bravely
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 8: finished has been lost. Bede was born about six seventy
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 8: three and lived most of his life in the monastery
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 8: at Jarro in Northumbria, in the north of England. With
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 8: Bede's death, the home of English prose literature was changed
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 8: from the north to the south, from Northumbria to Wessex,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 8: where there lived a noble boy called Alfred Asser. The
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 8: man who was his secretary after the boy grew up,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 8: has written a life of Alfred. From the very first,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 8: this little boy was full of promise and very attractive.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 8: This fact is rather hard on some of us, is
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 8: it not, who find it difficult to be good and
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 8: to win the confidence of grown up people. But the
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 8: confidence of others is precisely what the boy Alfred did win.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 8: And it was not because he was a mollycoddle. For
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 8: no young prince ever swung a battle axe more lustily
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 8: than did Alfred. When he was a little bit of
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 8: a chap only five years old, he was taken to
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 8: Rome to see the Pope. Alfred was born in eight
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 8: forty nine at the town of Wantage, so you know
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 8: what year it was. When he went to Rome, the
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 8: Pope took a great fancy to him and hallowed him
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 8: as his bishop's son. Just how old this charming boy
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 8: was when he began to read, we do not know.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 8: At that time, of course, all boys read Latin, for
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 8: there were no English books to read. But there is
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 8: an o old English couplet. A couplet is two lines
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 8: of verse with a rhyme at the end of each line,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 8: which may tell the story of Alfred's reading. At writing,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 8: he was good enough, and yet as he telleth me,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 8: he was more than ten years old. Ere he knew
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 8: his A. B. C. Alfred may have been younger or
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 8: older than this, We don't know, and the probability is
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 8: that we never shall know. This little boy was much
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 8: loved by his father, King Ethelwulf, and his mother, Queen Osbur.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 8: He had many brothers and sisters, and was himself the
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 8: fifth child. But he was a finer looking boy than
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 8: the others, and more graceful in his way of speaking
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 8: and in his manners. From the time that he was
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 8: a tiny child, he loved to know things and yet
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 8: his parents and nurses allowed him to remain untaught in
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 8: reading and writing until he was quite a big boy.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 8: But at night when the Gleamans sang songs to the
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 8: harp and the royal villa, Alfred listened attentively. He had
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 8: memorized very early some splendid old English songs, such as Beowulf.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 8: He knew all about Grendel and all about the death
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 8: of the warrior Beowulf after his battle with the dragon.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 8: And he had listened to gentler songs like the one
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 8: of the cowherd Cadmen. He listened to the singing of
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 8: poems which were full of the sea and full of war. Saints,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 8: warriors and pirates were the chief heroes. A Roman poet,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 8: thinking of the warriors and pirates, called the English people
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 8: sea wolves. All their poetry was full of the sea,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 8: and it is still true that the English love the sea.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 8: But you must not think of these people in the
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 8: midst of whom Alfred was born as jest warriors. They
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 8: loved their homes, and their poetry is full of love
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 8: for their families and for the dear old home place,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 8: wherever it had happened to be. Besides home, loving poetry.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 8: The Gleeman sang many religious poems to which the little
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 8: Alfred listened. Among them was the story of Cadman. As
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 8: I have said, we hear too of warrior saints, good
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 8: men who did not go out to slay a fire
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 8: spewing dragon, lying on a heap of gold, as did Beowulf,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 8: but who taught them how to fight the dragon of
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 8: evil which lurks somewhere near or within us all the time.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 8: It is this sort of golden and everyday victory that
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 8: not only Cadman the Cowherd sings, but also Kinnewulf, who
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 8: lived during the last half of the eighth century. Kinnewulf
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 8: was a minstrel at the court of one of the
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 8: Northumbrian kings, just such a minstrel or gleeman, as Alfred
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 8: sometimes listened to on many a night when he was
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 8: committing to memory some stirring or beautiful Anglo Saxon poem.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 8: The poet singer loved the sea with all his heart,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 8: and his poetry is full of this love. And in
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 8: our own day. Eleven centuries later, Tennyson wrote poems in
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 8: their spirit, not unlike old English poems. There is one
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 8: called the Sailor Boy, which resembles an Anglo Saxon poem
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 8: called the Seafarer. It is a spirited little poem, and
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 8: begins he rose at dawn and fired with hope, shot
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 8: o'er the sultry harbor bar and reached the ship, and
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 8: caught the rope, and whistled to the morning star, God
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 8: help me save. I take my part of danger on
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 8: the roaring sea. A devil rises in my heart, far
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 8: worse than any death to me. The devil is, of course,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 8: the devil of idleness, of uselessness. These stanzas are worth memorizing.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 8: You can see the spirit of a poet sometimes has
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 8: a very long life. Here is one of the old
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 8: English riddles. On the sand, I stayed by the sea wall,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 8: near all beside the surgeon flowing firm. My sojourned there.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 8: When I first was fastened. Only few of men watched
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 8: among the waist where I wand on the earth. But
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 8: the brown back billow at the break of day with
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 8: its water arms enwrapped me little weened eye. Then that
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 8: I air should speak in the after days mouthless or
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 8: the mead bench. What do you think that meant? A
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 8: reed flute, A little flute on which one played a song.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 8: When Christianity came to England, as it did in five
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 8: ninety seven with Saint Augustine, almost three hundred years before
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 8: little Alfred was born, it made men care less for
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 8: warfare and more for Christ. It is difficult to do
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 8: what Christ told us to to do, love one another
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 8: and at the same time fight one another. And that
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 8: we should love one another was the great new message
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 8: of Christianity. Christ was in men's minds. However, in those
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 8: olden days not only our gentle Savior but also a
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 8: hero who went forth to war. Alfred knew all about warfare.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 8: But it was not for warfare that this gentle boy
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 8: and brave man cared most. One day, his noble mother
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 8: Osborne showed him and his brothers a book of poetry
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 8: written in English. Whichever of you, she said, shall the
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 8: soonest learn this volume, shall have it for his own.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 8: This book was a very beautiful book, with an illuminated
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 8: letter at the beginning of the volume. An illuminated letter
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 8: is usually bright with gold as well as with other colors.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 8: Of course, the boy Alfred wanted this wonderful book. He
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 8: said before all his brothers, who were older than he,
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 8: will you really give that book to one of us,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 8: that is to say, to him who can first understand
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 8: and repeat it to you? Yes, answered his mother, smiling
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 8: and assuring him that it was so. Alfred thereupon took
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 8: the book from her hand and went to his master
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 8: to read it. And it was not so very long
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 8: before he had it all by heart. Then one day
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 8: he brought the book to his mother and recited it.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 8: And so well did he do that he received the
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 8: gift as his mother had promised him he should. We
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 8: have taken a look through the golden door, over which
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 8: is written old English poetry. We know something of what
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 8: the boy Alfred learned from the book his mother gave him.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 8: By that time he had grown to be a large boy.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 8: When he was still a little boy, he had been
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 8: taken from his nurses and taught the use of arms
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 8: and how to write. All his training was teaching him
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 8: how to be a soldier. Yet there was something for
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 8: which Alfred cared even more. All about them, in those
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 8: days were the Danes, the fiercest of fighting men. Government
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 8: the gentle religion of Christ peace had been almost dislodged
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 8: by these fierce heathen Danes. Yet in the midst of
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 8: the war filled years of his boyhood and young manhood,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 8: Alfred was dreaming of what English books, of what education
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 8: in their own tongue might do for his people. And
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 8: even in war times, they were very busy just getting
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 8: things together. In order to live. They had to have food,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 8: they had to be warm, they had to have houses
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 8: and clothes. In the woods, they had pigs, wild looking
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 8: swine with tusks. In the fields, they had cattle and
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 8: sheep and chickens. From the sea, they took fish. They
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 8: made butter and cheese, ale and mead, candles, leather from skins,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 8: and they wove cloth and silk. They kept bees too,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 8: as you know from what happened to Little Finnan in
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 8: the Story of Cadmen. Besides all these things, they had
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 8: their carpenter's work, their blacksmiths, their baker's hunting, wood cutting,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 8: the making of weapons, and one hundred and one other employments. Still,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 8: despite all the warfare and the work, Alfred, when he
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 8: became king in eight seventy one, had time to do
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 8: a great deal for the education of the boys and
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 8: girls of those stirring days. The young king wrote in
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 8: English and translated from Latin into English, so that the
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 8: people might have books in their own tongue. And since
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 8: Bede's translation of the Gospel of Saint John was lost,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 8: Alfred must be called the true father of English prose.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 8: Just as Whitby and the stall and which Cadman saw
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 8: the vision and learned how to sing, was the cradle
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 8: of English poetry, so was Winchester the cradle of English prose.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 8: To accomplish this work, the good King brought scholars from
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 8: all over the world. Asser, his secretary and biographer, has
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 8: compared Alfred to a most productive bee, which flew here
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 8: and there, asking questions as he went. He made it
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 8: possible for every free born youth to learn to read
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 8: and write English perfectly. Indeed, this wonderful King made himself
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 8: into a schoolmaster and took on the direction of a
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 8: school in his own court. He translated from well known
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 8: books into English, among others, Beade's History and Pope Gregory's
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 8: pastoral care. Although he freed his people from the fierce
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 8: Danes through his love for a book, he did more
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 8: for his own times and for all times, almost than
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 8: any other English boy has ever grown up to do.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 8: End of Chapter.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 9: Six, Section seven of Early English hero Tales. This is
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 9: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 9: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 9: Read by Agnes Robert Bare Early English hero Tales by
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 9: Jeanette Augustus Marks a Fisherman's Boy. When we say that
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 9: we are English speaking, it seems as if it were
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 9: not necessary to say more than that. But the more
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 9: we wander about in the great Palace of English literature,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 9: opening golden doors, the more do we realize that we
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 9: cannot say that this place was built by English hands alone. No,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 9: the men who built it were not only English, they were,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 9: as you know already Welsh, Irish, Scotch. Indeed, the very
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 9: word English was brought to England by an invader, just
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 9: as the word America was brought to the North American
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 9: continent by a discoverer. Not only was this palace of
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 9: English literature built by those who were Welsh, Irish and Scotch,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 9: as well as the English, but also by Danes and Normans.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 9: The English came to Britain and four hundred and forty nine.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 9: About three hundred and fifty years later seven hundred ninety,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 9: the Danes began to ravage Northumbria, but you have come
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 9: to know through the story of Cadman the cow Herd.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 9: But the Danes were of English stocks, so to speak,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 9: and they neither changed the language nor altered things in
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 9: the life of boys and girls and men and women.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 9: After all, it was much the same life after they
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 9: came as it was before. They brought with them some stories,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 9: just as the English beoulf. Among the Danish English stories
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 9: were have Luck the Dane and King Horn, both written
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 9: down about twelve eighty, but told and sung much before
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 9: that time. In her early days, before she became a
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 9: great world power, England had many conquerors. Not only the
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 9: English and the Danes, but also the Normans were her
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 9: conquerors in ten sixty six under William the Conqueror. English
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 9: story telling, as for example, Malory's Mort d'Arthur would never
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 9: have been the same without a Norman or French influence.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 9: If we pick up a handful of so called English words,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 9: we shall see that some of these words are English,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 9: others are French as till others are Latin in their origin.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 9: But the Normans spoke French only for a while in England.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 9: He soon left the speaking and writing of French for
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 9: that of English. However, there are many beautiful words, many
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 9: strong words, many words of customs and manners, which we
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 9: should not find in the great palace of English literature,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 9: but for the conquerors who came to England. There are
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 9: several manuscripts in which the story of Halflocke is found,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 9: but the one which is written in English dialect shows
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 9: best how old the story is. There was a king
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 9: whose name was ethel Wald, whose only heir was a
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 9: tiny little girl, and the little girl's name was Goldborough. Alas,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 9: the king found he must die and leave his little
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 9: girl fatherless, so he called to him the wisest and
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 9: mightiest of his earls. The name of this earl was Gudrich,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 9: and the king made the earl promise that he would
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 9: guard his little girl until she was twenty years old,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 9: and that then he would give her in marriage that
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 9: the fairest and strongest man alive. But when the Earl
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 9: Gudrich saw how lovely little Goldborough was going to be
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 9: and knew that he would have to give up the
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 9: kingdom to her before long, he was angry and take
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 9: her from Winchester to Dover on the English sea coast
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 9: and shut Little Goldborough up in a castle so that
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 9: she could not get out. In Denmark, just about the
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 9: same time there lived a king whose name was ber Kremen,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 9: who had one boy and two sweet little girls. He too,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 9: realized that he hadn't die, so he called to him
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 9: his wisest earl, a man by the name of Gudar,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 9: and charged him to care for his children, and to Havelock,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 9: the boy was old enough to rule the land. The
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 9: wicked earl shut Little Swanborough and half led up in
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 9: a castle and had them killed. Then Guda was just
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 9: about to kill Halvlock too, when he bethought him that
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 9: he would have some one else do this terrible deed.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 9: The wicked Earl sent for a fisherman, who would he
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 9: knew do his will. Grimm, said the wicked earl, to morrow,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 9: I'll make thee rich if thou wilt take this child
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 9: and throw him into the sea. To night, Grim took
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 9: the boy Halvelock, and bound him and ganged him and
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 9: took him home in a black bag. When Grim carried
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 9: the sack into his cottage, Dame Leva, his wife, was
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 9: so frightened that she dropped the sack her husband had
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 9: handed to her, and cracked four little Halvelock's head against
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 9: a stone. They let the boy lie this way until midnight,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 9: when it would be dark enough for Grim to drown
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 9: Halvlock in the sea. Liva was just bringing Grim some
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 9: clothes that he might put on to go out and
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 9: drown the king's son, when they saw a light shining
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 9: about the child. What is that light, Grind, dame leva,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 9: rise up, Grimm in haste. The fishermen arose, and they
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 9: went over to the child, about whose head shone a
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 9: clear light, from whose mouth came rays of light and sunbeams.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 9: It was as if many candles were burning in that
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 9: tiny fisherman's hut. They unbound the boy, and they found
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 9: on his right shoulder a king's mark, bright and fair
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 9: like the lights. They were overcome by what Gudar had done,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 9: they had almost led them to do. They fell upon
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 9: their knees before the little boy and promised to feed
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 9: and clothe him. And so they did, and they were
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 9: very good to him, and kept him from all harm.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 9: But Grim and his wife became frightened for fear that
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 9: Gudar would discover that they had not drowned the child
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 9: and would hang them. Therefore, Grim sold all that he had, sheep, cow, horse, pigs, goat, geese, hands,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 9: everything in short, that was his taking his money. He
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 9: put his wife, his three little sons, and two pretty
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 9: little girls and have luck into his fishing boat, and
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 9: they set sail for England. The north wind blew and
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 9: drove them down upon the coast of England near the
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 9: river Humbar, And there Grim landed, and the place is
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 9: called Grimsby to this day. Then Grim set himself to
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 9: his old occupation of fishing, and he caught sturgeon, whale, turbot, salmon, seal, porpoise, mackerel, flounder,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 9: place and thornback. And he and his sons carried the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 9: fish about in baskets and saw in them. Yet, while
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 9: Grim fed his family well, Havelock lay at home and
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 9: did not, and would Havelock stopped to think about that.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 9: He was ashamed, for he was a fine strong boy.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 9: Work is no shame, said the king's son to himself.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 9: And the next day he carried to market as much
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 9: fish as four men could, and every bit of fish
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 9: did he sell and brought back the money, keeping not
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 9: a farthing for himself. Alas there came a famine about
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 9: this time, and Grim had great fear on Havelock's account.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 9: Lest the voice dove, Avlock said, Grim, ah, meet his
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 9: long since gone. For myself, it does not matter, but
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 9: I fear for thee. Thou knowest how to get the Lincoln,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 9: and there they will give thee a chance to earn
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 9: thy food. Since thou art naked, I will make thee
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 9: a coat from my sail. This he did, and with
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 9: the coat on and barefoot, the king's son found his
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 9: way to Lincoln. For two days, the lad had no food.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 9: On the third day he heard some one crying, bearing men,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 9: bearing men, come here. Ivlock leaped forward to the earl's
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 9: cook and bore the food to the castle. Another time
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 9: he lifted a whole cart load of fish and bore
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 9: it to the castle. The cook looked over him and said,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 9: wilt thou work for me? I will feed thee. Gladly
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 9: feed me, answered Havelock, and I will make thy fo
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 9: burn and wash thy dishes. And because Havelock was a
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 9: strong lad and a good boy, as all king's sons
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 9: are not, he worked hard. From that day forth he
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 9: bore all the food in and carried all the wood
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 9: in the water, and worked as hard as if he
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 9: were a beast. And he was a merry lad too,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 9: for he knew how to hide his griefs. And the
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 9: old story says that all who saw him loved him,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 9: for he was meek and strong and fair. But still
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 9: he had nothing but the wretched coat to wear. So
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 9: the cook took pity on him and brought him span
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 9: new clothes, and gave him stockings and shoes. And when
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 9: he had put them on, he looked the King's son.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 9: He was at the Lincoln Games. He was like a mast,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 9: taller and straighter than any youth there, and wrestling he
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 9: overcame every one. Yet he was known for his gentleness.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 9: Never before had Havelock seen stone putting, but when his
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 9: master told and to try, have locked through the stone
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 9: twelve feet beyond what any one else could do. The
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 9: story of the stone pudding was being told in the
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 9: castle and hall when Earl Guther cred it, and he
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 9: said to himself that he was the tallest, strongest, fairest
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 9: man alive, and he would fulfill his promise and get
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 9: rid of Goldborough, the King's daughter, by giving her to Havelock,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 9: whom he thought to be just a cook's boy. Now
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 9: Havelock did not wish to marry, and he more than
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 9: did Goldborough, but they were forced to. And when they
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 9: were married, Havelock knew not whither they could go, for
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 9: he saw that Guder cated them, and that their lives
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 9: were not safe. Therefore they went on foot to Grimsby,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 9: and royal was their welcome. Grim the fisherman had died,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 9: but his five children fell on their knees and said, welcome,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 9: dear lord, stay here and all is thine. And that night,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 9: as they lay on their bed in the fisherman's hut,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 9: old Borough discovered because of the bright light which came
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 9: from the mouth of Havelock, that he was a king's son.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 9: And it was not long after this they all set
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 9: sail for Denmark, so that Havelock, with the help of
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 9: grim sons and many others, might win back the Kingdom
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 9: of Denmark. It was in the house of Bernard Brown,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 9: the magistrate of the Danish town, that sixty strong thieves
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 9: clad in wide sleeves and closed caps attacked him. Bernard
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 9: Brown's seized an axe and a leaped to the door
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 9: to defend his home. One of the thieves shouted at him,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 9: we will go in at this door to spite thee
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 9: and he broke the door asunder with a bowlder. Whereupon
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 9: Havelock took the great bar from across the door, and
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 9: with the bar he slew several Yet the thieves had
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 9: wounded him in many places. When grimm sons came upon
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 9: the scene to defend their lord, and saw the thieves
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 9: treating Havelock as a smith does an anvil, like madmen.
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 9: The three sons of Grimm leaped into the fight, and
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 9: they fought until not one of the thieves was left alive.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 9: When erl Ube heard of this, he rolled down to
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 9: Bernard Brown's. Then he heard the story of Havelock's bravery
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 9: and of the terrible wounds he had received, so that
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 9: Bernard Brown feared he might die because of them. Fetch
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 9: Havelock quickly commanded, umbey, if he can be healed, I
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 9: myself will dub him knight. When r Leitch saw the
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 9: wounds of Havelock, he told Ube that they could be cured.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 9: Come forth, now, said Ube to Havelock, thou and Goldborough
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 9: and thy three servants, and with rejoicing. Did Ube bring
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 9: them to his city, and about the middle of the
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 9: night whom they saw a great light in the tower
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 9: where Havelock was sleeping. He peered through a crack, and
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 9: he saw that the sunny gleam came from Havelock's mouth.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 9: It was if a hundred and seven candles were burning,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 9: And on Havellock's shoulder was a clear, shining cross. He
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 9: is baker Ben's hair, said Ube, For never in Denmark
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 9: was brother, so like brother as this fair man is
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 9: like the dead King.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 4: And earl.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 9: Ube and his men fell at Havelock's feet and awoke him.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 9: And very happy was Havelock, and thankful to God. And
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 9: then came barons and warriors, and thanes, and knights and
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 9: common men, and all swore fealty to Havelock. With a
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 9: bright sword. Ube dubbed Havelock knight and made him king,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 9: and the three sons of Grim were also made knights.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 9: Thereat were all men happy, and they wrestled and played,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 9: played the harp and the pipe, read romances from a book,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 9: and sang old tales. There was every sort of sport,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 9: and plenty of food. Finally they all a thousand knights
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 9: and five thousand men set forth that Havelock might take
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 9: vengeance on the wicked Earl Gudar. There was a hard fight,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 9: but at last they caught and bound Earl Gudar, and
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 9: he was hung on the gallows and died there. Such
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 9: was the end of one who betrayed his trust, the
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 9: wicked Earl Gudric in England, who had robbed Goldenborough of
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 9: her kingdom. And that Haveloch was become King of Denmark,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 9: and also that he was come to Grimsby. So he
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 9: gathered all his army together, and there was a great battle,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 9: and the battle was going against Havelock when the wicked
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 9: hand of Gudric was struck off. After that Havelock and
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 9: his men were victorious. Then did they condemn the Earl
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 9: Gudric to death, and he was bound to an asse
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 9: and led through London and burned at the stake. Such
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 9: was the end of one who betrayed his trust. And
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 9: after have Locke and Gornborough reigned in England for sixty years.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 9: So great was the love of the King and Queen
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 9: for each other that all marveled at it. Neither was
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 9: happy away from the other, and never were they angry,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 9: for their love for each other was always new. End
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 9: of chapter seven.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 10: Chapter eight of Early English hero Tales. This is a
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 10: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 10: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 10: Read by Detective C. Early English hero Tales by Jeannette
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 10: Augustus Marx, Chapter eight, The Wirewolf in the Great Palace
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 10: of English literature. Over one of the golden doors hangs
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 10: a horn of ivory and a sword, of which the
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 10: name is Durandal. Above that door is written chasson d'a Roland,
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 10: which means the song of Roland. Often in the stillness
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 10: of the early morning or a dusk, the Great Palace
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 10: rings faintly with the music from that ivory horn, which
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 10: belonged to Roland, and which he sounded for the last
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 10: time in the past of ronceval Or. There is heard
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 10: the clinking of Durandal against the stone of the palace walls,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 10: no doubt the wind's stirring it where it hangs beside
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 10: the door at guards Chanson de Roland. You see the
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 10: story as French. The Normans brought it with them when
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 10: they came to conquer Britain in ten sixty six under
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 10: William of Normandy. Before the soldiers of William, the minstrel
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 10: tailorfer rode singing of Charlemagne and of Roland, and of
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 10: Oliver and the vassals who fell at Ronceval. Rowland Comrade said, Oliver,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 10: blow thy horn of Ivory, and Charles shall hear it
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 10: and bring hither again his army and succor us. Nay, first,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 10: will I lay on with Durandale, the good sword girded
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 10: at my side. Rowland Comrade urged, Oliver, blow thy horn
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 10: of Ivory, that Charles may hear it. God forbid that
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 10: they should I sounded my horn, for dread of the
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 10: heathen prythee look begged, Oliver, they are close upon us.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 10: Thou wouldst not deign to sound thy horn of Ivory?
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 10: Were the king here? We should suffer no hurt. Oliver
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 10: was wise, and Rowland was brave. And the song that
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 10: the minstrel tailor had chanted before the conquering hosts of
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 10: William of Normandy was a wonderful, stirring song. No doubt
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 10: there flows in English veins today. Much of the courage
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 10: of Roland and the Wisdom of Oliver. Although the English
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 10: continued English, yet for a long time following the conquest
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 10: of England by the Normans, songs were sung in French
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 10: rather than in English, and ready and witty was all
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 10: that was written down in French. For the literature of
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 10: the Normans was as brightly colored as a jewel, and
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 10: not grand and melancholy as was that of the Anglo Saxons.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 10: Beowulf was the battle song of the Anglo Saxons, the
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 10: song of Roland, that of the Normans. Melancholy was the
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 10: poem of Beowulf. White and clear, stirring and flashing in
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 10: the sunshine was the chassend Roland, even as Roland's beloved
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 10: Su Durandal, which is heard clinking against the stone of
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 10: the Great Palace of English literature. But Roland represented only
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 10: a fraction of the storytelling in the French poetry of
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 10: that time. The most exquisite and delightful storyteller of that
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 10: twelfth century collected and wrote here charming stories on English soil,
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 10: and dedicated them to Henry the Second, who died in
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 10: eleven eighty nine. Her name was Maria Franz, and of
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 10: herlay's arrival poet wrote, all love them much, and hold
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 10: them dear, Baron, count and Chevalier, applaud their form, and
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 10: take delight to hear them told by day and night
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 10: in chief these tales the ladies please, They listen, glad
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 10: their hearts to ease. Maria France's lays are based on
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 10: British tradition. There are many of these delightful stories. Among
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 10: the most interesting of them is the Werewolf Once upon
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 10: a time in the days of King Arthur. For later,
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 10: there are some lines in Mallories More to Stuth which
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 10: tells us that this story must have been true. There
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 10: lived a man who, for part of the week was
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 10: a wolf. That is, he had the form and the
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 10: appetite of a wolf, and was called the werewolf. But
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 10: nobody knew that he was a were wolf for three
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 10: days in the week. Not even his wife, whom he
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 10: loved well and devotedly, knew what happened to her husband
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 10: while he was away from her those three days every week.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 10: It vexed the wife very much that she did not know,
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 10: but she was afraid to question her husband lest he
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 10: be angry. At last, one day she did question him,
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 10: ask me no more, replied the husband, for if I
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 10: answered you, you would cease to love me. Nevertheless, she
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 10: gave him no peace until he had told her that
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 10: three days in the week, because of a spell which
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 10: was over him, he was forced to be a were wolf,
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 10: and that when he felt the change coming over him,
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 10: he hid himself in the very thickest part of the forest.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 10: Then the wife demanded to know what became of his clothes,
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 10: and he answered that he laid them aside. The wife
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 10: asked where he put them. He begged her not to
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 10: ask him, for only the garments made it possible for
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 10: him to return to human shape again. But the wife
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 10: cried and begged until the night her husband had told
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 10: her all. Wife, he said, inside the forest on a
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 10: cross road as a chapel. Near the chapel, under a
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 10: shrub is a stone. Beneath the stone is a hole,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 10: and in that hole do I hide my clothes until
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 10: the enchantment makes it possible for me to take my
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 10: human shape again. Now the wife was not a good wife.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 10: Instead of trying to help her husband to get free
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 10: from the wolf's shape, he had to assume three days
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 10: in every week. Thereafter, she loathed him and was afraid
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 10: of him. And what is worse still, she betrayed him
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 10: to another knight. She took this other night into her
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 10: confidence and told him where her husband hid his clothes.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 10: When the spell came upon him, and he took the
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 10: form of a wolf. Thereupon, the knight to whom she
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 10: had told this dreadful secret, stole the clothes, and they
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 10: hid them where the poor wolf could never find them again.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 10: After that, these two wicked people were married, while the
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 10: poor wolf wandered about in the forest, grieving, for he
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 10: had loved his wife well and truly. Some time after this,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 10: the king was hunting one day in the forest, and
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 10: his hounds gave chase to a wolf. At last, when
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 10: the wretched beast was in danger of being overtaken by
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 10: the hounds and torn into a thousand pieces, he fled
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 10: to the king, seized him by the stirrup, and licked
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 10: his foot submissively. The king was astonished. He called his companions,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 10: and they drove off the dogs, for the king would
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 10: not have the wolf harmed. But when they started to
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 10: leave the forest, the wolf followed the king and would
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 10: not be driven away. The king was much pleased, for
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 10: he had taken a great liking to the wolf. He
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 10: therefore made a pet of the lonely beast, and at
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 10: night he slept in the king's own chamber. All the
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 10: courtiers came to love the wolf too, for he was
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 10: a gentle wolf and did no one any harm. A
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 10: long time had passed when one day the king had
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 10: occasion to hold a court. His barons came from far
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 10: and near, and among them the knight who had betrayed
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 10: the werewolf. No sooner did the wolf see him than
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 10: he sprang at him to kill him, And had the
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 10: king not called the wolf off, he would have torn
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 10: the false knight to pieces. Every One was astonished that
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 10: this gentle beast should show such rage. But after the
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 10: court was over, and as time went on, they forgot
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 10: the beast's savage act. At length, the king decided to
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 10: make a tour throughout his kingdom, and he took the
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 10: wolf with him, for that was his custom. Now, the
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 10: werewolf's false wife heard that the king was to spend
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 10: some time in the part of the country where she lived,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 10: so she begged for an audience. But no sooner did
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 10: she enter the presence chamber than the wolf sprang at
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 10: her and bit off her nose. The courtiers were going
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 10: to slay the beast, but a wise man stayed their weapons. Sire,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 10: said the Counselor, we have all caressed this wolf, and
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 10: he has never done us any harm. This lady was
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 10: the wife of a man you held, dear, but of
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 10: whose fate we none of us know anything. Take my
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 10: counsel and make this lady answer your questions, so we
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 10: shall come to know why the wolf sprang at her.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 10: This was done. The false knight, who had married her
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 10: was brought also, and they told all the wickedness they
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 10: had done to the poor wolf. Then the king caused
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 10: the wolf's stone clothes to be fetched, but the wolf
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 10: acted as if he did not see the clothes. Sire,
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 10: said the Councilor, if this beast is a wowolf, he
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 10: will not change back into his human shape until he
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 10: is alone. They left him alone in the king's chamber
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 10: and put the clothes beside him. Then they waited for
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 10: a long time. Lo when they entered the chamber again,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 10: there lay the long lost Night in a deep sleep
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 10: on the king's bed. Quickly did the king run to
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 10: him and embrace him. And after that he restored to
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 10: him all his lost lands, and he banished the false
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 10: wife and her second husband from the country, And they
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 10: who were banished, lived in a strange land, and all
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 10: the girls, among their children and grandchildren, were without noses.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 10: So close we this little golden door, not the less precious,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 10: because little over which is written in letters, all boys
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 10: and girls should love. Marie de Franz, who wrote the
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 10: Wow Wolf end of chapter.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 11: Eight, Section nine of Early English hero Tales. This is
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 11: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 11: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 11: Early English hero Tales by Jeanette Augustus Marx, Chapter nine,
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 11: At Jeffrey's Window. Among all the golden doors in the
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 11: great Palace of English literature, about which we are coming
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 11: to know something, and through some of which we have
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 11: already passed, there was one golden window on the stairway
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 11: of the palace. This window, on the stairway the palace
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 11: looked out upon a busy town, and down upon the
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 11: windings of the river y, and off upon hills, and
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 11: upon the ruins of a wonderful old abbey called Didn't
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 11: Turn Abbey, about which some six hundred years later an
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 11: English poet called William Wordsworth was to write a poem
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 11: called Didn't Turn Abbey. Wordsworth wrote, we are seven, and
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 11: also this little poem about a butterfly. I've watched you
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 11: now a full half hour, self poised upon that yellow
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 11: flower and little butterfly. Indeed, I know not if you
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 11: sleep or feed, how motionless, not frozen, seas more motionless?
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 11: And then what joy awaits you when the breeze hath
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 11: found you out among the trees and calls you forth again.
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 11: This plot of orchard ground is ours, my trees. They
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 11: are my sister's flowers. Here rest your wings when they
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 11: are weary. Here lodge is in a sanctuary. Come often
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 11: to us, fear no wrong. Sit near us on the bough.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 11: We'll talk of sunshine and of song, and summer days
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 11: when we were young, sweet childish days that were as
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 11: long as twenty days are now. But the golden window
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 11: at which Jeffrey sat was in Monmouth, and he was
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 11: called Jeffrey of Monmouth. That was some seven hundred years ago.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 11: No doubt, the little town was very busy even in
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 11: eleven thirty seven when Jeffrey sat at his window and
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 11: wrote his famous chronicle called British history. Before Geoffrey began
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 11: to write down his marvelous stories, other stories and poems
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 11: were written in King Alfred's time, when the home of
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 11: English literature was shifted from the north to the south.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 11: Two fine battle songs were written. They were the Song
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 11: of the Proba and the Song of the Fight at Malden.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 11: These were written in the tenth century. The Charge of
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 11: the Light Brigade, composed some eight hundred years later by
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 11: the poet Tennyson, is like these old songs, in its short,
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 11: rapid lines and in its thought. Everyone should learn these
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 11: lines from the poem Alfred Tennyson wrote, half a league,
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 11: half a league, half a league. Onward, all in the
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 11: valley of Death, rode the six hundred forward the light
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 11: brigade charged for the guns, he said, into the valley
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 11: of death, rode the six hundred forward the light brigade.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 11: Was there a man dismayed, Not though the soldier knew
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 11: some one had blundered theirs. Not to make reply theirs,
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 11: not to reason why theirs, but to do and die.
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 11: Into the valley of death, rode the six hundred. But
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 11: we have been long enough away from that golden window
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 11: by which Geoffrey of Monmouth sat and wrote his immortal stories.
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 11: Geoffrey was called a chronicler, and what he was supposed
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 11: to be doing was jotting down accurately historical events year
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 11: after year. Some of the chronicles written in this way
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 11: have become the chief sources of English history. Among the
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 11: men who wrote the chronicles were William of Malmsbury and
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 11: Matthew Parris, and between them came Geoffrey himself. It will
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 11: never be known, unless it should prove possible to rule
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 11: time back some seven hundred years just what Geoffrey did
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 11: see from his window as he looked out upon the
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 11: busy town of Monmouth, or all that went on in
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 11: his nimble mind. At any event, it is plain that
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 11: he had the best of good times inventing or retelling stories.
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 11: In his chronicle there is to be found the story
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 11: of King Lear and his three daughters, Reagan, Goneril and
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 11: Cordelia Lear, the hero of Shakespeare's play King Lear, written
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 11: over four hundred years later. There too is the story
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 11: of Ferricks and Boros. Geoffrey had a nimble quill pen
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 11: with which to follow his nimble wit. He writes of
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 11: Julius Caesar and how he came to Great Britain. What
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 11: Geoffrey of Monmouth says may be ridiculous enough in the
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 11: light of history, but there it is, and there is
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 11: Caesar himself, not only looking upon the coast of Britain,
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 11: but actually standing upon it. We become familiar too with
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 11: many names known in stories about King Arthur. Perceval was
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 11: one of these, and Uther Pendragon, who was the father
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 11: of King Arthur, is another. One of the marvelous facts
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 11: about Geoffrey is that when he looked out of that
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 11: golden window he could see so much farther than just Monmouth.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 11: He could see all the way to the sea, and
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 11: on its shores that beautiful city Tintagel, where Queen a Grain,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 11: the mother of Arthur, lived, but in Jeffrey's chronicle she
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 11: was called Igerna. A name is sometimes like a long,
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 11: long journey, not only in its romance, but also because
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 11: it takes you to other lands and other people, and
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 11: passes even as the road upon a long journey through
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 11: many changes. Geoffrey saw from his golden window not only Tintagil,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 11: that beautiful South Welt city by the sea, but also
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 11: a little village in North Wales, called Bedngalet. This little
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 11: village is set down in the midst of mountains, like
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 11: a of sugar in the bottom of a deep cup.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 11: Outside this little village is a hill called dinas Emres.
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 11: Geoffrey looked northward out of his golden window in Monmouth,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 11: and what do you think he saw? He saw the
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 11: magician Merlin, the youth who had never had a father.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 11: And this lad was quarreling with another lad in Carnarvon,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 11: a Welsh city thirteen miles away from the little village
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 11: of Bedgirlut. Now Verdegud had been attempting to build a
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 11: tower on dinas Emres, but whatever the workmen did one
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 11: day was swallowed up the next. Then some wise men
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 11: said to Verdigan, you must find a youth who has
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 11: never had a father. You must sacrifice him and sprinkle
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 11: the foundations with his blood. So Verdigen sent his men
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 11: to find a boy who had never had a father,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 11: and it should be brought him that he might kill him.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 11: When Verdigan's messenger reached Canarvin, thirteen miles away from Bedgulet
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 11: and the hill dinas Emres, they found two boys playing
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 11: games and quarreling about their parentage. And one of them,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 11: but Tutious, was accusing the other Merlin of having no father.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 11: They took him to Berdigen, and Berdigen said, my magicians
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 11: told me to seek out a lad who had no father,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 11: with whose blood the foundations of my building are to
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 11: be sprinkled to make it stand. Or to your magicians,
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 11: answered Merlin, to come before me, and I will convict
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 11: them of a lie. It is a terrible thing to
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 11: be convicted of a lie. And of course the magicians
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 11: did not wish to come, but King Verdigen made them
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 11: come and ordered them to sit down before Merlin. Merlin
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 11: spoke to them after this manner, because you are ignorant
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 11: what it is that hinders the foundations of the tower.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 11: You have told the king to kill me and to
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 11: cement the stones with my blood. But tell me now,
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 11: what is there under the foundations that will not suffer
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 11: it to stand. This they gave no answer, for they
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 11: were frightened. Then said Merlin, I entreat your majesty, would
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 11: command your workmen to dig into the ground, and you
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 11: will find a pond which causes the foundations to sink.
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 11: This the king had done, and a pond was found there.
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 11: Then said Merlin to the king's magicians, tell me, ye,
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 11: false men, what is there under the pond? But they
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 11: were afraid to answer. Merlin turned to King Verdigen and said,
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 11: command the pond to be drained, and at the bottom
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 11: you will see two hollow stones, and in them are
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 11: two dragons asleep. The king had the pawn reigned, and
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 11: he found all just as Merlin said it would be.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 11: And as the king sat on the edge of the
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 11: drained pond, out came the two dragons, one red and
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 11: one white, and approaching each other, they began to fight,
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 11: blowing forth fire from their nostrils. At last, the white
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 11: dragon got the advantage and made the red dragon fly
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 11: to the other end of the drained pond. When King
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 11: Verdigan asked Merlin to explain what this meant, Merlin burst
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 11: into tears. Then, commanding his voice, he spoke, in the
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 11: days that are to come, gold shall be squeezed from
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 11: the lily and the nettle, and silver shall flow from
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 11: the hoofs of bellowing cattle. The teeth of wolves shall
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 11: be blunted, and the lion's whelps shall be transformed into
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 11: sea fishes. And unto this day, nobody knows exactly what
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 11: Merlin meant or what Geoffrey thought he meant, although there
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 11: has been much guessing. Geoffrey must have been very fond
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 11: of looking out of his window and seeing Merlin for
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 11: many a story he tells about him. There is a
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 11: story of how Merlin helped to remove the stones of
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 11: the Giant's Dance from Ireland. Giants of old had brought
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 11: them from the farthest coast of Africa. They were mystical
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 11: stones and had value to heal and cure men. When
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 11: these stones were found too heavy to be lifted by
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 11: human hands, Merlin found a way, nevertheless, to lift them.
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 11: Then the stones of the Giant Dance were carried across
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 11: the sea and placed in England at Stonehenge. It is
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 11: an exciting story Jeffrey tells about the Giant's Dance. Yet
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 11: I fear we know no more really how the big
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 11: stones cut the Stonehenge than we know about the ribs
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 11: of our solid Earth. Certainly those stones were set up
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 11: in Stonehenge even before men began recording history. Where Geoffrey
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 11: of Monmouth sat in his golden window. And there is
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 11: the story of the forty thousand and sixty kings who
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 11: never existed, which is more almost than ever did exist,
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 11: and the coming of Saint Augustine to England, bringing with
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 11: him the gentle religion of Christ. It would be very
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 11: nice if all this about Merlin and the dragons and
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 11: the giants dance were what might be called true history,
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 11: alas it is not. In the first place, Geoffrey tells
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 11: stories which vary greatly from what was actually known to
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 11: be history. Then too, this chronicle is full, as you
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 11: have seen, of miraculous stories of one sort or another.
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 11: And there are other reasons also why these delightful stories
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 11: of Geoffrey of Monmouth must be with a pinch of salt.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 11: But it is because Jeffrey did sit at his window
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 11: in the little town of Monmouth writing these stories, which
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 11: have to be taken with a pinch of salt, that
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 11: English story telling began to grow. Geoffrey's imagination was to
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 11: English story telling what the sunlight is and making a
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 11: tulip grow. Story Telling grew out of the chronicles, the
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 11: so called historical literature. The men of Jeffrey's time said
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 11: that he had lied saucily and shamelessly, no doubt he had.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 11: Yet these same men could not help reading the stories
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 11: he told, for they were so interesting that all men
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 11: read them. What he had done was to take several
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 11: Welsh legends, put them together cleverly as the carpenter joined
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 11: the delicate bit of woodwork, translate these Welsh legends into Latin,
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 11: and call the work a chronicle. Not only was it
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 11: read in England, but it was read all over the
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 11: continent of Europe too. It had great success. Jeffrey Gamer
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 11: put these stories into French. The stories traveled to France.
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 11: Once there, other legends were added, and when Jeoffrey's chronicle
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 11: turned up again in England, it came back as the
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 11: work of Waste, a Norman truver or ballad singer. But
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 11: Jeffrey's stories were too good to let drop, even after
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 11: they had been through so many hands. An English priest
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 11: in Worcestershire by the name of Leaemon, translating the French
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 11: poem which Waste had made out of Jeffrey's prose stories,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 11: retold the stories in English poetry. That was in twelve
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 11: o five, after Jeffrey had died. Jeffrey of Monmouth must
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 11: have been very happy as he sat in his sunny,
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 11: golden window and heard about the tales he had written there.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 11: He must have chuckled many a time over what the
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 11: world had made out of his nimble storytelling. Wits. English
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 11: literature could not be at all the same in either
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 11: prose or poetry if it were not for that golden
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 11: palace door over which was written Welsh, or that window
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 11: upon the stairway where Jeffrey sat. But it was the
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 11: Normans who brought the taste for history with them to
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 11: England in ten sixty six, when they conquered the land
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 11: which had been King Alfred's land. It was some time
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 11: before the Normans became what we call English in their feeling.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 11: Probably the Normans would never have become so strongly English
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 11: in feeling if English patriotism, even after the conquest of
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 11: ten sixty six, had not remained very much alive. The
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 11: English had written down in English some of the proverbs
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 11: of their former King Alfred. The parents of the chronicler
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 11: William of Malmsbury were both English and Norman, and strangely enough,
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 11: Layamond's Brute is not unlike the poetry of the Cowherd Kidmon,
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 11: the first of the great English singers, the first of
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 11: the English poets, perhaps this very hour, the sun is
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 11: shining down upon that golden window of Geoffrey of Monmouth
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 11: and laughing for joy, because the man who lied so
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 11: saucily was the first of the great English story tellers.
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 11: End of section nine, recording by Todd.
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 12: A Famous Kitchen Boy. Jeffrey's window is a very fascinating
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 12: place to be, possibly the most interesting window the world
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 12: has ever seen. It is not just one lifetime which
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 12: has found that window interesting, but more lifetimes than we
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 12: can count comfortably. Sir Thomas Mallory, who wrote his maud'eteur
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 12: in fourteen sixty nine, barely lived in that window. So
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 12: did Shakespeare when he wrote King Lear in sixteen oh five,
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 12: and even the modern poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, who wrote
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 12: The Charge of the Light Brigade, composed a series of
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 12: poems called Idols of the King, which return for their
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 12: sources through Mallory to Jeffrey at his window. There is
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 12: one story, however, which Jeffrey did not see as he
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 12: looked out of his golden window, the story of the
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 12: famous kitchen Boy, or Gareth and Lynette. This tale is
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 12: found in Sir Thomas Malory's mortd'arteur, which was not completed
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 12: until fourteen sixty nine, many years after the writing of
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 12: Jeffrey's Chronicle in eleven forty seven. Clear and Sunshiny is
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 12: the English of this wonderful book of mallories. And nowhere
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 12: in the world can more beautiful, exciting and marvelous stories
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 12: be found than between the covers of the Morte de'arteur.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 12: The mort de'arteur was written about twenty years after the
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 12: invention of printing by Costa and Guttenberg. Sixteen years after
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 12: the completion of the book by Mallory, Caxton printed it
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 12: in black letter in English. There is only one perfect
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 12: copy of this book by Caxton, the first of the
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 12: English printers, and that is in Brooklyn, New York. In
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 12: the preface which Caxton wrote for the Morte de'arteur, he
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 12: says that in this book will be found on many
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 12: joyous and pleasant histories and noble and renowned acts of humanity,
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 12: gentleness and chivalries. Do after the good and leave the evil,
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 12: and it shall bring you good fame and renown. Certainly
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 12: that is what the kitchen boy did, and it brought
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 12: him to good fame. It was one day when King
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 12: Arthur was holding a round table cord at Kinkie kennedone
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 12: by the sea, and they were at their meat, three
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 12: hundred and fifty knights when there came into the hall
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 12: two men, well clad and fine looking, and as the
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 12: old story says, they're leaned upon their shoulders, the goodliest
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 12: young man and the fairest that ever they all saw.
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 12: And he was large and long and broad in the shoulders,
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 12: and well visaged, and the fairest and the largest handed
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 12: that ever man saw. But he fared as if he
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 12: might not go or bear himself. The two men supported
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 12: the young man up to the high upon which Arthur
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 12: was feasting. When the young man that was being held
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 12: forward was seen, there was silence. Then the young man
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 12: stretched up straight and besought Arthur that he would give
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 12: him three gifts. The first gift I will ask now,
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 12: he said. But the other two gifts I will last
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 12: this day twelve months whersoever you hold your high feast,
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 12: ask replied Arthur. And you shall have your asking, sir.
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 12: This is my petition for this feast, that you will
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 12: give me meat and drink enough for this twelvemonth, and
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 12: at that day I will ask mine other two gifts.
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 12: My fair son, said Arthur, ask better. This is but
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 12: simple asking. But the young man would ask no more.
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 12: And when the King, who had taken a great liking
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 12: to him, asked him for his name, the young man
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 12: said that he could not tell him. The King took
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 12: him to Sir Kay the steward, and charged him to
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 12: give the young man the best of all the meats
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 12: and drinks, and to treat him as a lord's son.
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 12: But Sir Kay was angry and said, and he had
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 12: come of gentlemen, he would have asked of you horse
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 12: and armor. But such has he is, so he asketh.
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 12: And since he hath no name, I shall give him
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 12: a name that shall be Bumen's, that is fair hands.
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 12: And into the kitchen shall I bring him, and there
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 12: he shall have fat gross every day that he shall
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 12: be has fat by the twelve months end, has a
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 12: poor cog. And Sir Kay scorned him and mocked at him.
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 12: On hearing this, both Sir Launcelot, the greatest of the
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 12: knights of the round Table, and Sir Gaswayne, were roathe
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 12: and bade Sir Kay leave his mocking. I dare say,
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 12: I dare lay my head, said Sir Launcelot. He shall
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 12: prove a man of great worship. It may not be
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 12: by no reason, replied Sir Kay, For has he so half?
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 12: He asked bumain's or fair hands was put into the
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 12: kitchen and lay there nightly as the boys of the
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 12: kitchen did. The old book says he endured all that
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 12: twelvemonth and never displeased man nor child. But always he
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 12: was meek and mild. But ever when he saw any
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 12: jousting of knights that he would see and he might,
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 12: Sir Launcelot gave him gold to spend, and clothes. And
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 12: whenever the boy went there were games or feats of strength,
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 12: he excelled in them all, but always Sir Kay would
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 12: taunt him with these words spoken to others, how like you,
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 12: my boy of the kitchen, and so fair hands. The
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 12: kitchen boy continued in service.
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 10: For a year.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 12: At the close of the year, came a lady to
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 12: the court and told about her sister, who was besieged
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 12: in a castle by a tyrant who was called the
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 12: Red Knight of the Red Landez. But she would not
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 12: tell her name, and therefore the king would not permit
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 12: any of his knights to go with her to rescue
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 12: her sister from the red Knight, who was one of
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 12: the worst knights in the world. But at the King's refusal, Burmenes,
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 12: or fair Hands as he was called, spoke Sir King, Sir,
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 12: King God, thank you. I have been this twelvemonth in
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 12: your kitchen and have had my full sustenance. And now
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 12: I will ask my two gifts that be behind ask
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 12: upon my peril, said the king. Sir, this shall be
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 12: my two gifts. First that you will permit me to
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 12: go with this maiden that I may rescue her sister.
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 12: And second that Sir Launcelot shall ride after me and
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 12: make me knight when I require it of him. And
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 12: both these request the King granted, but the maiden was
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 12: angry because she said he had given her numb. But
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 12: his kitchen page then came one to fair Hands and
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 12: told him that his horse and armor were come for him.
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 12: And there was a dwarf with everything that baumans needed,
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 12: and all of it the richest and best it was
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 12: possible for a man to have. But though he was
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 12: horsed and trapped in cloth of gold, he had neither
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 12: shield nor spear. Then said Sir Kay openly before all,
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 12: I will ride after my boy of the kitchen. Just
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 12: as Baumans overtook the maiden, so did Sir Kay overtake
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 12: his former kitchen page. Sir know you not me, he demanded, Yes,
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 12: said Bumaines, I know you for an ungentle knight of
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 12: the court. Therefore beware of me. Thereupon Sir Kay put
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 12: his spear in the rest and ran straight upon him,
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 12: and Bumaines came fast upon him with his sword in
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 12: his hand, and Bumaines knocked their spear out of the
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 12: knight's hand, and Sir Kay fell down as he had
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 12: been dead. Bumaines took Sir Kay's shield and spear and
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 12: rode away upon his own horse, But thewarf took Sir
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 12: Kay's horse. Just then along came Sir Launcelot, and Bumains
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 12: challenged him to a joust. And so they fought for
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 12: the better part of an hour, rushing together like infuriated boars,
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 12: and Sir Launcelot marveled at the young man's strength, for
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 12: he fought more like a giant than a knight. At last,
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 12: he said, fight not so sore your quarrel and mine
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 12: is not so great. But we may leave off truth.
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 12: That is truth, said Bumaines, But it doth me good
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 12: to fill your strength, and yet my Lord, I showed
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 12: not the most I could do. Then Sir Launcelot confessed
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 12: the Bumaines that he had much ado to save himself,
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 12: and that Bumains need fear no earthly knight. And then
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 12: Bumain's confessed to Sir Launcelot that he was the brother
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 12: of Sir Gaway and the youngest son of King Lot,
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 12: that his mother, Dame Morgassi, was sister to King Arthur,
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 12: and that his name was Gareth. After that, Launcelot knighted Gareth,
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 12: and Gareth rode on after the maiden, whose sister was
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 12: kept a prisoner by the Red Knight. When he overtook her,
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 12: she turned upon him and said, get away from me,
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 12: for thou smellest of the kitchen. Thy clothes are dirty
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 12: with grease, and tallow. What art thou but a ladlewasher
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 12: Damsel replied, Bumaines, say to me what you will.
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 10: I will not.
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 12: Go from you whatsoever you say, for I have undertaken
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 12: to King Arthur for to achieve your adventure, and so
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 12: shall I finish it to the end, or I shall die. Therefore,
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 12: then came a man thereby, calling for help, for six
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 12: thieves were after him, even when Yumaines had slain all
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 12: the six thieves and set the man free from his fears.
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 12: Then the maid him used him to say despicably, calling
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 12: him kitchen boy and other shameful names. On the next day,
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 12: Jamain slew two knights who would not allow him and
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 12: the maiden to cross a great river. But all the
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 12: maiden did was to taunt him alas she said that
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 12: ever a kitchen page should have that fortune to destroy
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 12: even two doughty knights. But it was not rightly force.
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 12: For the first night stumbled and he was drowned in
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 12: the water. And by mishap thou earnest up behind the
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 12: last night, and thus happily slew him. Say what you will,
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 12: said Bumines, but with whomsoever I have ado with all
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 12: I trust to God to serve him, or he'd apart,
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 12: thy fi foul kitchen knave, answered the maiden, thou shalt
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 12: see knights that shall abate by boast. And so she
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 12: continued to scold him and would not rest therefrom And
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 12: they came to a black land, and there was a
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 12: black hawthorn, and thereupon hung a black banner, and on
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 12: the other side there hung a black shield, and by
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 12: it stood a black spear, great and long, and a
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 12: great black horse covered with silk, and a black stone
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 12: fast by and before the night of the black Lands,
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 12: the Maiden used Bauman's despicably, calling him kitchen Knave and
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 12: other such names, and the Black Knight and Bumains came
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 12: together for battle as if it had been thunder. After
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 12: a hard struggle, Umains killed the Black Knight and rode
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 12: on after the dasel away Kitchen Boy out of the wind.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 12: She cried for the smell of thy clothes grieves me.
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 12: And so ever, despitefully she used him. Yet he overcame
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 12: the Green Knight, who was the brother of the Black Knight,
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 12: and spared his life at the Maiden's request. And it
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 12: was after the vanquishing of the Green Knight that they
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 12: saw a tara as white as any snow, and all
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 12: around the castle it was double dight. Over the tower
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 12: gate there hung fifty shields of divers colors, and under
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 12: the tower was a fair meadow. And the Lord of
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 12: the Tower looked out of his window and beheld Umanes,
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 12: the Maiden and the dwarf coming with that night, will
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 12: I Joust called the Lord of the tower, for I
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 12: see that he is a knight errant. And before the
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 12: night the maiden used him despitefully and ever, he replied patiently, Damsel,
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 12: you are uncourtiers so to rebuke me, for me see
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 12: if I have done you good service. Then did the
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 12: heart of the maiden soften a little? I marvel what
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 12: manner of man you be? She said, for it may
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 12: never be otherwise, but you come of a noble blood.
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 12: For so shamefully did women never rule a knight as
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 12: I have done you, and ever courteously you have suffered me,
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 12: and that comes never but of gentle blood, Damsel answered,
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 12: Bumains a knight may little do that may not suffer
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 12: a damsel. And whether I be gentlemen born or not,
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 12: I let you wit, fair Damsel, I have done you
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 12: gentlemen's service. She begged him to forgive her, and this
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 12: Baumanz did with all his heart. Then they met Sir
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 12: Persant of Indy, who was dwelling only seven miles from
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 12: the siege, and his maiden besought Bumans to flee while
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 12: there was yet time, but he refused, And when Sir
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 12: Persont and Bumanz met, they met with all that ever
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 12: their horses might run and broke their spears ivor into
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 12: three pieces, and their horses rushed so together that both
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 12: their horses fell dead to the earth. And they got
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 12: off their horses and fought for more than two hours,
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 12: and Bauman spared his life only at the maiden's request.
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 12: Then Bumans told Sir Persant that his name was Sir Gareth,
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 12: and the maiden said that hers was Linette, and that
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 12: she was sister to Dame be An, who was besieged.
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 12: Then the dwarf took word to the lady who was besieged,
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 12: and the others came on after how escaped. He said
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 12: the lady, Dame LIONESSI from the brethren of Sir Persant.
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 12: Madam said the dwarf, as a noble knight should ah,
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 12: said Dame LIONESSI commend me unto your gentle knight, and
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 12: pray to eat and drink and make him strong. Also
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 12: pray him that he be of good heart and courage,
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 12: for he shall meet with a knight who is neither
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 12: of bounty, courtesy, nor gentleness. For he attendeth unto nothing
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 12: but murder. And that is the cause I cannot praise
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 12: him nor love him. All that night baumanns lay in
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 12: a hermitage, and upon the morn he and the damsel
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 12: Linette broke their fast and heard mass. Then took they
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 12: their horses, and riding through a fair forest, they came
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 12: out upon a plain where there are many pavilions and tents,
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 12: and a castle, and much smoke and a great noise.
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 12: When they came near the siege, Theymunsa spied upon great trees,
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 12: goodly knights hanging by the neck, their shields about their necks,
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 12: with their swords and gilt spurs upon their hills. There
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 12: hung high forty knights. What mean is this, said Serbiamans,
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 12: fair Sir, answered the damsel. These knights came hither to
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 12: this seas to rescue my sister, Dame LIONESSI. And when
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 12: the Red Knight of the Red Lands had overcome them,
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 12: he put them to this shameful death. Then rode they
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 12: to the dikes, and saw the double dight with full
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 12: warlike walls, and there were lodged many great lords neither walls,
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 12: and there was great noise of minstrelly, and the sea
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 12: beat upon the side of the walls, where there were
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 12: many ships, and mariner's noise and also there was fast
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 12: by a sycamore tree, and there hung a horn, the
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 12: greatest that ever they saw, of an elephant's bone. Therewith
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 12: Beaumann spurred his horse straight to the sycamore tree, and
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 12: blew so eagerly the horn that all the siege and
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 12: the castle rang thereof. And then there leaped out knights
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 12: out of their tents and pavilions, and they within the
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 12: castle looked over the walls and out of windows. Then
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 12: the Red Knight of the Red Lands armed him hastily,
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 12: and two barons set on his spurs upon his hills,
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 12: and all was blood red his armor, spear and shield. Sir,
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 12: said the damsel in it. Look you be glad and lightful.
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 12: Yonder is your deadly enemy, and that yonder wind, who
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 12: is my sister, Dame LYONESSI. Then Bumains and the Red
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 12: Knight put their spears in their rests, and came together
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 12: with all their might, and ithers smote the other in
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 12: the middle of their shields, that the Sir singles and
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 12: cruppers broke and fell to the earth. Both and the
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 12: two knights lay stunned upon the ground. But soon they
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 12: got to their feet and drew their swords and ran
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 12: together like two fierce lions. And then they fought until
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 12: it was past noon, tracing, racing and foining has two boars.
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 12: Thus they endured until evening some time, and their armor
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 12: was so hewn to pieces that men might see their
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 12: naked sides. Then the Red Knight gave Umaines a buffer
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 12: upon the helm, and so that he fell groveling to
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 12: the earth. Then cried the maiden Linnette on high, oh,
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 12: sir Bumains, where is thy courage? Alas my sister beholdeth thee,
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 12: and she sobbeth and weepeth. When Beaumains heard this, he
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 12: lifted himself up with great effort and got upon his feet,
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 12: and lightly he leaped to his sword and gripped it
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 12: in his hand, and he smote so thick fad he
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 12: smote the sword out of the Red Knight's hand. So
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 12: Beaumains fell upon him and unlaced his head, to have
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 12: slain him. But at the request of the lord's he
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 12: saved his life and made him yield to the lady.
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 12: And so it was that Yumains, or Sirgareth has his
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 12: real name was, came into the presence of his lady
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 12: and won her love through his meekness and gentleness, and
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 12: courtesy and courage, as every two knight should win the
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 12: love of his lady. So ends happily one of the
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 12: charming stories of adventure and knighthood, in one of the
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 12: greatest cycles of romance the world has ever known. Indeed,
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 12: in that great palace we have entered, and some of
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 12: whose golden doors we have been opening, there is no
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 12: door more loved by human beings than the one over
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 12: which is written Romance for boys and girls. And the
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 12: elders have always loved a romantic story, and always will.
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 12: There are four great romantic stories in the palace of
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 12: English literature. The first is King Arthur and the Round Table,
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 12: which Geoffrey of Mum both discovered for us by his
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 12: golden window. The second great romance is the story of Charmaine.
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 12: This was in the twelfth century, and the most valiant
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 12: story which grew out of the Charmain cycle was that
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 12: of Roland. Everyone should know the story of Roland and
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 12: his famous sword Girundel. The third is for Life of Alexander,
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 12: which came to England from the East, and the fourth
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 12: is the Siege of Troy, composed in the thirteenth century
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 12: and written in Latin. It takes many, many stories to
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 12: satisfy our love of romance. As we passed through the
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 12: golden door over which is written Romance, one whole wall
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 12: was filled with the names of lesser romances, forgotten long
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 12: long ago. But the stories which Sir Thomas Mallory gave
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 12: us in his Maudieteur, written in fourteen sixty nine, will
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 12: never be forgotten as long as the English language is spoken.
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 12: Attatatatatatatastasattattattattatt