CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLII.
CHAPTER XLIII.
CHAPTER XLIV.
NOTE TO CHAPTER I.
NOTE TO CHAPTER II.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XVII.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXII.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXIX.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXII.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXIII.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XLI..
FOOTNOTES
[Illustration]
Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave,—but seemed loath to depart! 1
—Prior.
INTRODUCTION TO IVANHOE.
The Author of the Waverley Novels had hitherto proceeded in an unabated
course of popularity, and might, in his peculiar district of
literature, have been termed _L’Enfant Gâté_ of success. It was plain,
however, that frequent publication must finally wear out the public
favour, unless some mode could be devised to give an appearance of
novelty to subsequent productions. Scottish manners, Scottish dialect,
and Scottish characters of note, being those with which the author was
most intimately, and familiarly acquainted, were the groundwork upon
which he had hitherto relied for giving effect to his narrative. It
was, however, obvious, that this kind of interest must in the end
occasion a degree of sameness and repetition, if exclusively resorted
to, and that the reader was likely at length to adopt the language of
Edwin, in Parnell’s Tale:
“‘Reverse the spell,’ he cries,
‘And let it fairly now suffice.
The gambol has been shown.’”
Nothing can be more dangerous for the fame of a professor of the fine
arts, than to permit (if he can possibly prevent it) the character of a
mannerist to be attached to him, or that he should be supposed capable
of success only in a particular and limited style. The public are, in
general, very ready to adopt the opinion, that he who has pleased them
in one peculiar mode of composition, is, by means of that very talent,
rendered incapable of venturing upon other subjects. The effect of this
disinclination, on the part of the public, towards the artificers of
their pleasures, when they attempt to enlarge their means of amusing,
may be seen in the censures usually passed by vulgar criticism upon
actors or artists who venture to change the character of their efforts,
that, in so doing, they may enlarge the scale of their art.
There is some justice in this opinion, as there always is in such as
attain general currency. It may often happen on the stage, that an
actor, by possessing in a preeminent degree the external qualities
necessary to give effect to comedy, may be deprived of the right to
aspire to tragic excellence; and in painting or literary composition,
an artist or poet may be master exclusively of modes of thought, and
powers of expression, which confine him to a single course of subjects.
But much more frequently the same capacity which carries a man to
popularity in one department will obtain for him success in another,
and that must be more particularly the case in literary composition,
than either in acting or painting, because the adventurer in that
department is not impeded in his exertions by any peculiarity of
features, or conformation of person, proper for particular parts, or,
by any peculiar mechanical habits of using the pencil, limited to a
particular class of subjects.
Whether this reasoning be correct or otherwise, the present author
felt, that, in confining himself to subjects purely Scottish, he was
not only likely to weary out the indulgence of his readers, but also
greatly to limit his own power of affording them pleasure. In a highly
polished country, where so much genius is monthly employed in catering
for public amusement, a fresh topic, such as he had himself had the
happiness to light upon, is the untasted spring of the desert;—
“Men bless their stars and call it luxury.”
But when men and horses, cattle, camels, and dromedaries, have poached
the spring into mud, it becomes loathsome to those who at first drank
of it with rapture; and he who had the merit of discovering it, if he
would preserve his reputation with the tribe, must display his talent
by a fresh discovery of untasted fountains.
If the author, who finds himself limited to a particular class of
subjects, endeavours to sustain his reputation by striving to add a
novelty of attraction to themes of the same character which have been
formerly successful under his management, there are manifest reasons
why, after a certain point, he is likely to fail. If the mine be not
wrought out, the strength and capacity of the miner become necessarily
exhausted. If he closely imitates the narratives which he has before
rendered successful, he is doomed to “wonder that they please no more.”
If he struggles to take a different view of the same class of subjects,
he speedily discovers that what is obvious, graceful, and natural, has
been exhausted; and, in order to obtain the indispensable charm of
novelty, he is forced upon caricature, and, to avoid being trite, must
become extravagant.
It is not, perhaps, necessary to enumerate so many reasons why the
author of the Scottish Novels, as they were then exclusively termed,
should be desirous to make an experiment on a subject purely English.
It was his purpose, at the same time, to have rendered the experiment
as complete as possible, by bringing the intended work before the
public as the effort of a new candidate for their favour, in order that
no degree of prejudice, whether favourable or the reverse, might attach
to it, as a new production of the Author of Waverley; but this
intention was afterwards departed from, for reasons to be hereafter
mentioned.
The period of the narrative adopted was the reign of Richard I., not
only as abounding with characters whose very names were sure to attract
general attention, but as affording a striking contrast betwixt the
Saxons, by whom the soil was cultivated, and the Normans, who still
reigned in it as conquerors, reluctant to mix with the vanquished, or
acknowledge themselves of the same stock. The idea of this contrast was
taken from the ingenious and unfortunate Logan’s tragedy of Runnamede,
in which, about the same period of history, the author had seen the
Saxon and Norman barons opposed to each other on different sides of the
stage. He does not recollect that there was any attempt to contrast the
two races in their habits and sentiments; and indeed it was obvious,
that history was violated by introducing the Saxons still existing as a
high-minded and martial race of nobles.
They did, however, survive as a people, and some of the ancient Saxon
families possessed wealth and power, although they were exceptions to
the humble condition of the race in general. It seemed to the author,
that the existence of the two races in the same country, the vanquished
distinguished by their plain, homely, blunt manners, and the free
spirit infused by their ancient institutions and laws; the victors, by
the high spirit of military fame, personal adventure, and whatever
could distinguish them as the Flower of Chivalry, might, intermixed
with other characters belonging to the same time and country, interest
the reader by the contrast, if the author should not fail on his part.
Scotland, however, had been of late used so exclusively as the scene of
what is called Historical Romance, that the preliminary letter of Mr
Laurence Templeton became in some measure necessary. To this, as to an
Introduction, the reader is referred, as expressing the author’s
purpose and opinions in undertaking this species of composition, under
the necessary reservation, that he is far from thinking he has attained
the point at which he aimed.
It is scarcely necessary to add, that there was no idea or wish to pass
off the supposed Mr Templeton as a real person. But a kind of
continuation of the Tales of my Landlord had been recently attempted by
a stranger, and it was supposed this Dedicatory Epistle might pass for
some imitation of the same kind, and thus putting enquirers upon a
false scent, induce them to believe they had before them the work of
some new candidate for their favour.
After a considerable part of the work had been finished and printed,
the Publishers, who pretended to discern in it a germ of popularity,
remonstrated strenuously against its appearing as an absolutely
anonymous production, and contended that it should have the advantage
of being announced as by the Author of Waverley. The author did not
make any obstinate opposition, for he began to be of opinion with Dr
Wheeler, in Miss Edgeworth’s excellent tale of “Maneuvering,” that
“Trick upon Trick” might be too much for the patience of an indulgent
public, and might be reasonably considered as trifling with their
favour.
The book, therefore, appeared as an avowed continuation of the Waverley
Novels; and it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge, that it met with
the same favourable reception as its predecessors.
Such annotations as may be useful to assist the reader in comprehending
the characters of the Jew, the Templar, the Captain of the mercenaries,
or Free Companions, as they were called, and others proper to the
period, are added, but with a sparing hand, since sufficient
information on these subjects is to be found in general history.
An incident in the tale, which had the good fortune to find favour in
the eyes of many readers, is more directly borrowed from the stores of
old romance. I mean the meeting of the King with Friar Tuck at the cell
of that buxom hermit. The general tone of the story belongs to all
ranks and all countries, which emulate each other in describing the
rambles of a disguised sovereign, who, going in search of information
or amusement, into the lower ranks of life, meets with adventures
diverting to the reader or hearer, from the contrast betwixt the
monarch’s outward appearance, and his real character. The Eastern
tale-teller has for his theme the disguised expeditions of Haroun
Alraschid with his faithful attendants, Mesrour and Giafar, through the
midnight streets of Bagdad; and Scottish tradition dwells upon the
similar exploits of James V., distinguished during such excursions by
the travelling name of the Goodman of Ballengeigh, as the Commander of
the Faithful, when he desired to be incognito, was known by that of Il
Bondocani. The French minstrels are not silent on so popular a theme.
There must have been a Norman original of the Scottish metrical romance
of Rauf Colziar, in which Charlemagne is introduced as the unknown
guest of a charcoal-man. 2
It seems to have been the original of other poems of the kind.
In merry England there is no end of popular ballads on this theme. The
poem of John the Reeve, or Steward, mentioned by Bishop Percy, in the
Reliques of English Poetry, 3 is said to have turned on such an
incident; and we have besides, the King and the Tanner of Tamworth, the
King and the Miller of Mansfield, and others on the same topic. But the
peculiar tale of this nature to which the author of Ivanhoe has to
acknowledge an obligation, is more ancient by two centuries than any of
these last mentioned.
It was first communicated to the public in that curious record of
ancient literature, which has been accumulated by the combined
exertions of Sir Egerton Brydges and Mr Hazlewood, in the periodical
work entitled the British Bibliographer. From thence it has been
transferred by the Reverend Charles Henry Hartshorne, M.A., editor of a
very curious volume, entitled “Ancient Metrical Tales, printed chiefly
from original sources, 1829.” Mr Hartshorne gives no other authority
for the present fragment, except the article in the Bibliographer,
where it is entitled the Kyng and the Hermite. A short abstract of its
contents will show its similarity to the meeting of King Richard and
Friar Tuck.
King Edward (we are not told which among the monarchs of that name,
but, from his temper and habits, we may suppose Edward IV.) sets forth
with his court to a gallant hunting-match in Sherwood Forest, in which,
as is not unusual for princes in romance, he falls in with a deer of
extraordinary size and swiftness, and pursues it closely, till he has
outstripped his whole retinue, tired out hounds and horse, and finds
himself alone under the gloom of an extensive forest, upon which night
is descending. Under the apprehensions natural to a situation so
uncomfortable, the king recollects that he has heard how poor men, when
apprehensive of a bad nights lodging, pray to Saint Julian, who, in the
Romish calendar, stands Quarter-Master-General to all forlorn
travellers that render him due homage. Edward puts up his orisons
accordingly, and by the guidance, doubtless, of the good Saint, reaches
a small path, conducting him to a chapel in the forest, having a
hermit’s cell in its close vicinity. The King hears the reverend man,
with a companion of his solitude, telling his beads within, and meekly
requests of him quarters for the night. “I have no accommodation for
such a lord as ye be,” said the Hermit. “I live here in the wilderness
upon roots and rinds, and may not receive into my dwelling even the
poorest wretch that lives, unless it were to save his life.” The King
enquires the way to the next town, and, understanding it is by a road
which he cannot find without difficulty, even if he had daylight to
befriend him, he declares, that with or without the Hermit’s consent,
he is determined to be his guest that night. He is admitted
accordingly, not without a hint from the Recluse, that were he himself
out of his priestly weeds, he would care little for his threats of
using violence, and that he gives way to him not out of intimidation,
but simply to avoid scandal.
The King is admitted into the cell—two bundles of straw are shaken down
for his accommodation, and he comforts himself that he is now under
shelter, and that
“A night will soon be gone.”
Other wants, however, arise. The guest becomes clamorous for supper,
observing,
“For certainly, as I you say,
I ne had never so sorry a day,
That I ne had a merry night.”
But this indication of his taste for good cheer, joined to the
annunciation of his being a follower of the Court, who had lost himself
at the great hunting-match, cannot induce the niggard Hermit to produce
better fare than bread and cheese, for which his guest showed little
appetite; and “thin drink,” which was even less acceptable. At length
the King presses his host on a point to which he had more than once
alluded, without obtaining a satisfactory reply:
“Then said the King, ‘by God’s grace,
Thou wert in a merry place,
To shoot should thou here
When the foresters go to rest,
Sometyme thou might have of the best,
All of the wild deer;
I wold hold it for no scathe,
Though thou hadst bow and arrows baith,
Althoff thou best a Frere.’”
The Hermit, in return, expresses his apprehension that his guest means
to drag him into some confession of offence against the forest laws,
which, being betrayed to the King, might cost him his life. Edward
answers by fresh assurances of secrecy, and again urges on him the
necessity of procuring some venison. The Hermit replies, by once more
insisting on the duties incumbent upon him as a churchman, and
continues to affirm himself free from all such breaches of order:
“Many day I have here been,
And flesh-meat I eat never,
But milk of the kye;
Warm thee well, and go to sleep,
And I will lap thee with my cope,
Softly to lye.”
It would seem that the manuscript is here imperfect, for we do not find
the reasons which finally induce the curtal Friar to amend the King’s
cheer. But acknowledging his guest to be such a “good fellow” as has
seldom graced his board, the holy man at length produces the best his
cell affords. Two candles are placed on a table, white bread and baked
pasties are displayed by the light, besides choice of venison, both
salt and fresh, from which they select collops. “I might have eaten my
bread dry,” said the King, “had I not pressed thee on the score of
archery, but now have I dined like a prince—if we had but drink enow.”
This too is afforded by the hospitable anchorite, who dispatches an
assistant to fetch a pot of four gallons from a secret corner near his
bed, and the whole three set in to serious drinking. This amusement is
superintended by the Friar, according to the recurrence of certain
fustian words, to be repeated by every compotator in turn before he
drank—a species of High Jinks, as it were, by which they regulated
their potations, as toasts were given in latter times. The one toper
says “fusty bandias”, to which the other is obliged to reply, “strike
pantnere”, and the Friar passes many jests on the King’s want of
memory, who sometimes forgets the words of action. The night is spent
in this jolly pastime. Before his departure in the morning, the King
invites his reverend host to Court, promises, at least, to requite his
hospitality, and expresses himself much pleased with his entertainment.
The jolly Hermit at length agrees to venture thither, and to enquire
for Jack Fletcher, which is the name assumed by the King. After the
Hermit has shown Edward some feats of archery, the joyous pair
separate. The King rides home, and rejoins his retinue. As the romance
is imperfect, we are not acquainted how the discovery takes place; but
it is probably much in the same manner as in other narratives turning
on the same subject, where the host, apprehensive of death for having
trespassed on the respect due to his Sovereign, while incognito, is
agreeably surprised by receiving honours and reward.
In Mr Hartshorne’s collection, there is a romance on the same
foundation, called King Edward and the Shepherd,4 which, considered as
illustrating manners, is still more curious than the King and the
Hermit; but it is foreign to the present purpose. The reader has here
the original legend from which the incident in the romance is derived;
and the identifying the irregular Eremite with the Friar Tuck of Robin
Hood’s story, was an obvious expedient.
The name of Ivanhoe was suggested by an old rhyme. All novelists have
had occasion at some time or other to wish with Falstaff, that they
knew where a commodity of good names was to be had. On such an occasion
the author chanced to call to memory a rhyme recording three names of
the manors forfeited by the ancestor of the celebrated Hampden, for
striking the Black Prince a blow with his racket, when they quarrelled
at tennis:
“Tring, Wing, and Ivanhoe,
For striking of a blow,
Hampden did forego,
And glad he could escape so.”
The word suited the author’s purpose in two material respects,—for,
first, it had an ancient English sound; and secondly, it conveyed no
indication whatever of the nature of the story. He presumes to hold
this last quality to be of no small importance. What is called a taking
title, serves the direct interest of the bookseller or publisher, who
by this means sometimes sells an edition while it is yet passing the
press. But if the author permits an over degree of attention to be
drawn to his work ere it has appeared, he places himself in the
embarrassing condition of having excited a degree of expectation which,
if he proves unable to satisfy, is an error fatal to his literary
reputation. Besides, when we meet such a title as the Gunpowder Plot,
or any other connected with general history, each reader, before he has
seen the book, has formed to himself some particular idea of the sort
of manner in which the story is to be conducted, and the nature of the
amusement which he is to derive from it. In this he is probably
disappointed, and in that case may be naturally disposed to visit upon
the author or the work, the unpleasant feelings thus excited. In such a
case the literary adventurer is censured, not for having missed the
mark at which he himself aimed, but for not having shot off his shaft
in a direction he never thought of.
On the footing of unreserved communication which the Author has
established with the reader, he may here add the trifling circumstance,
that a roll of Norman warriors, occurring in the Auchinleck Manuscript,
gave him the formidable name of Front-de-Bœuf.
Ivanhoe was highly successful upon its appearance, and may be said to
have procured for its author the freedom of the Rules, since he has
ever since been permitted to exercise his powers of fictitious
composition in England, as well as Scotland.
The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes of
some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when
arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned
the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting
Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered
such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe,
that he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is
degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with
temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has
deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal
doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance,
that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied
with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or
attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied
character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the
indulgence of such a rashly formed or ill assorted passion as that of
Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be apt to say, verily Virtue has
had its reward. But a glance on the great picture of life will show,
that the duties of self-denial, and the sacrifice of passion to
principle, are seldom thus remunerated; and that the internal
consciousness of their high-minded discharge of duty, produces on their
own reflections a more adequate recompense, in the form of that peace
which the world cannot give or take away.
Abbotsford, 1_st September_, 1830.
DEDICATORY EPISTLE
TO
THE REV. DR DRYASDUST, F.A.S.
Residing in the Castle-Gate, York.
Much esteemed and dear Sir,
It is scarcely necessary to mention the various and concurring reasons
which induce me to place your name at the head of the following work.
Yet the chief of these reasons may perhaps be refuted by the
imperfections of the performance. Could I have hoped to render it
worthy of your patronage, the public would at once have seen the
propriety of inscribing a work designed to illustrate the domestic
antiquities of England, and particularly of our Saxon forefathers, to
the learned author of the Essays upon the Horn of King Ulphus, and on
the Lands bestowed by him upon the patrimony of St Peter. I am
conscious, however, that the slight, unsatisfactory, and trivial
manner, in which the result of my antiquarian researches has been
recorded in the following pages, takes the work from under that class
which bears the proud motto, “Detur digniori”. On the contrary, I fear
I shall incur the censure of presumption in placing the venerable name
of Dr Jonas Dryasdust at the head of a publication, which the more
grave antiquary will perhaps class with the idle novels and romances of
the day. I am anxious to vindicate myself from such a charge; for
although I might trust to your friendship for an apology in your eyes,
yet I would not willingly stand conviction in those of the public of so
grave a crime, as my fears lead me to anticipate my being charged with.
I must therefore remind you, that when we first talked over together
that class of productions, in one of which the private and family
affairs of your learned northern friend, Mr Oldbuck of Monkbarns, were
so unjustifiably exposed to the public, some discussion occurred
between us concerning the cause of the popularity these works have
attained in this idle age, which, whatever other merit they possess,
must be admitted to be hastily written, and in violation of every rule
assigned to the epopeia. It seemed then to be your opinion, that the
charm lay entirely in the art with which the unknown author had availed
himself, like a second M’Pherson, of the antiquarian stores which lay
scattered around him, supplying his own indolence or poverty of
invention, by the incidents which had actually taken place in his
country at no distant period, by introducing real characters, and
scarcely suppressing real names. It was not above sixty or seventy
years, you observed, since the whole north of Scotland was under a
state of government nearly as simple and as patriarchal as those of our
good allies the Mohawks and Iroquois. Admitting that the author cannot
himself be supposed to have witnessed those times, he must have lived,
you observed, among persons who had acted and suffered in them; and
even within these thirty years, such an infinite change has taken place
in the manners of Scotland, that men look back upon the habits of
society proper to their immediate ancestors, as we do on those of the
reign of Queen Anne, or even the period of the Revolution. Having thus
materials of every kind lying strewed around him, there was little, you
observed, to embarrass the author, but the difficulty of choice. It was
no wonder, therefore, that, having begun to work a mine so plentiful,
he should have derived from his works fully more credit and profit than
the facility of his labours merited.
Admitting (as I could not deny) the general truth of these conclusions,
I cannot but think it strange that no attempt has been made to excite
an interest for the traditions and manners of Old England, similiar to
that which has been obtained in behalf of those of our poorer and less
celebrated neighbours. The Kendal green, though its date is more
ancient, ought surely to be as dear to our feelings, as the variegated
tartans of the north. The name of Robin Hood, if duly conjured with,
should raise a spirit as soon as that of Rob Roy; and the patriots of
England deserve no less their renown in our modern circles, than the
Bruces and Wallaces of Caledonia. If the scenery of the south be less
romantic and sublime than that of the northern mountains, it must be
allowed to possess in the same proportion superior softness and beauty;
and upon the whole, we feel ourselves entitled to exclaim with the
patriotic Syrian—“Are not Pharphar and Abana, rivers of Damascus,
better than all the rivers of Israel?”
Your objections to such an attempt, my dear Doctor, were, you may
remember, two-fold. You insisted upon the advantages which the Scotsman
possessed, from the very recent existence of that state of society in
which his scene was to be laid. Many now alive, you remarked, well
remembered persons who had not only seen the celebrated Roy M’Gregor,
but had feasted, and even fought with him. All those minute
circumstances belonging to private life and domestic character, all
that gives verisimilitude to a narrative, and individuality to the
persons introduced, is still known and remembered in Scotland; whereas
in England, civilisation has been so long complete, that our ideas of
our ancestors are only to be gleaned from musty records and chronicles,
the authors of which seem perversely to have conspired to suppress in
their narratives all interesting details, in order to find room for
flowers of monkish eloquence, or trite reflections upon morals. To
match an English and a Scottish author in the rival task of embodying
and reviving the traditions of their respective countries, would be,
you alleged, in the highest degree unequal and unjust. The Scottish
magician, you said, was, like Lucan’s witch, at liberty to walk over
the recent field of battle, and to select for the subject of
resuscitation by his sorceries, a body whose limbs had recently
quivered with existence, and whose throat had but just uttered the last
note of agony. Such a subject even the powerful Erictho was compelled
to select, as alone capable of being reanimated even by “her” potent
magic—
——gelidas leto scrutata medullas,
Pulmonis rigidi stantes sine vulnere fibras
Invenit, et vocem defuncto in corpore quaerit.
The English author, on the other hand, without supposing him less of a
conjuror than the Northern Warlock, can, you observed, only have the
liberty of selecting his subject amidst the dust of antiquity, where
nothing was to be found but dry, sapless, mouldering, and disjointed
bones, such as those which filled the valley of Jehoshaphat. You
expressed, besides, your apprehension, that the unpatriotic prejudices
of my countrymen would not allow fair play to such a work as that of
which I endeavoured to demonstrate the probable success. And this, you
said, was not entirely owing to the more general prejudice in favour of
that which is foreign, but that it rested partly upon improbabilities,
arising out of the circumstances in which the English reader is placed.
If you describe to him a set of wild manners, and a state of primitive
society existing in the Highlands of Scotland, he is much disposed to
acquiesce in the truth of what is asserted. And reason good. If he be
of the ordinary class of readers, he has either never seen those remote
districts at all, or he has wandered through those desolate regions in
the course of a summer tour, eating bad dinners, sleeping on truckle
beds, stalking from desolation to desolation, and fully prepared to
believe the strangest things that could be told him of a people, wild
and extravagant enough to be attached to scenery so extraordinary. But
the same worthy person, when placed in his own snug parlour, and
surrounded by all the comforts of an Englishman’s fireside, is not half
so much disposed to believe that his own ancestors led a very different
life from himself; that the shattered tower, which now forms a vista
from his window, once held a baron who would have hung him up at his
own door without any form of trial; that the hinds, by whom his little
pet-farm is managed, a few centuries ago would have been his slaves;
and that the complete influence of feudal tyranny once extended over
the neighbouring village, where the attorney is now a man of more
importance than the lord of the manor.
While I own the force of these objections, I must confess, at the same
time, that they do not appear to me to be altogether insurmountable.
The scantiness of materials is indeed a formidable difficulty; but no
one knows better than Dr Dryasdust, that to those deeply read in
antiquity, hints concerning the private life of our ancestors lie
scattered through the pages of our various historians, bearing, indeed,
a slender proportion to the other matters of which they treat, but
still, when collected together, sufficient to throw considerable light
upon the _vie privée_ of our forefathers; indeed, I am convinced, that
however I myself may fail in the ensuing attempt, yet, with more labour
in collecting, or more skill in using, the materials within his reach,
illustrated as they have been by the labours of Dr Henry, of the late
Mr Strutt, and, above all, of Mr Sharon Turner, an abler hand would
have been successful; and therefore I protest, beforehand, against any
argument which may be founded on the failure of the present experiment.
On the other hand, I have already said, that if any thing like a true
picture of old English manners could be drawn, I would trust to the
good-nature and good sense of my countrymen for insuring its favourable
reception.
Having thus replied, to the best of my power, to the first class of
your objections, or at least having shown my resolution to overleap the
barriers which your prudence has raised, I will be brief in noticing
that which is more peculiar to myself. It seems to be your opinion,
that the very office of an antiquary, employed in grave, and, as the
vulgar will sometimes allege, in toilsome and minute research, must be
considered as incapacitating him from successfully compounding a tale
of this sort. But permit me to say, my dear Doctor, that this objection
is rather formal than substantial. It is true, that such slight
compositions might not suit the severer genius of our friend Mr
Oldbuck. Yet Horace Walpole wrote a goblin tale which has thrilled
through many a bosom; and George Ellis could transfer all the playful
fascination of a humour, as delightful as it was uncommon, into his
Abridgement of the Ancient Metrical Romances. So that, however I may
have occasion to rue my present audacity, I have at least the most
respectable precedents in my favour.
Still the severer antiquary may think, that, by thus intermingling
fiction with truth, I am polluting the well of history with modern
inventions, and impressing upon the rising generation false ideas of
the age which I describe. I cannot but in some sense admit the force of
this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse by the following
considerations.
It is true, that I neither can, nor do pretend, to the observation of
complete accuracy, even in matters of outward costume, much less in the
more important points of language and manners. But the same motive
which prevents my writing the dialogue of the piece in Anglo-Saxon or
in Norman-French, and which prohibits my sending forth to the public
this essay printed with the types of Caxton or Wynken de Worde,
prevents my attempting to confine myself within the limits of the
period in which my story is laid. It is necessary, for exciting
interest of any kind, that the subject assumed should be, as it were,
translated into the manners, as well as the language, of the age we
live in. No fascination has ever been attached to Oriental literature,
equal to that produced by Mr Galland’s first translation of the Arabian
Tales; in which, retaining on the one hand the splendour of Eastern
costume, and on the other the wildness of Eastern fiction, he mixed
these with just so much ordinary feeling and expression, as rendered
them interesting and intelligible, while he abridged the long-winded
narratives, curtailed the monotonous reflections, and rejected the
endless repetitions of the Arabian original. The tales, therefore,
though less purely Oriental than in their first concoction, were
eminently better fitted for the European market, and obtained an
unrivalled degree of public favour, which they certainly would never
have gained had not the manners and style been in some degree
familiarized to the feelings and habits of the western reader.
In point of justice, therefore, to the multitudes who will, I trust,
devour this book with avidity, I have so far explained our ancient
manners in modern language, and so far detailed the characters and
sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader will not find himself,
I should hope, much trammelled by the repulsive dryness of mere
antiquity. In this, I respectfully contend, I have in no respect
exceeded the fair license due to the author of a fictitious
composition. The late ingenious Mr Strutt, in his romance of
Queen-Hoo-Hall, 5 acted upon another principle; and in distinguishing
between what was ancient and modern, forgot, as it appears to me, that
extensive neutral ground, the large proportion, that is, of manners and
sentiments which are common to us and to our ancestors, having been
handed down unaltered from them to us, or which, arising out of the
principles of our common nature, must have existed alike in either
state of society. In this manner, a man of talent, and of great
antiquarian erudition, limited the popularity of his work, by excluding
from it every thing which was not sufficiently obsolete to be
altogether forgotten and unintelligible.
The license which I would here vindicate, is so necessary to the
execution of my plan, that I will crave your patience while I
illustrate my argument a little farther.
He who first opens Chaucer, or any other ancient poet, is so much
struck with the obsolete spelling, multiplied consonants, and
antiquated appearance of the language, that he is apt to lay the work
down in despair, as encrusted too deep with the rust of antiquity, to
permit his judging of its merits or tasting its beauties. But if some
intelligent and accomplished friend points out to him, that the
difficulties by which he is startled are more in appearance than
reality, if, by reading aloud to him, or by reducing the ordinary words
to the modern orthography, he satisfies his proselyte that only about
one-tenth part of the words employed are in fact obsolete, the novice
may be easily persuaded to approach the “well of English undefiled,”
with the certainty that a slender degree of patience will enable him to
to enjoy both the humour and the pathos with which old Geoffrey
delighted the age of Cressy and of Poictiers.
To pursue this a little farther. If our neophyte, strong in the
new-born love of antiquity, were to undertake to imitate what he had
learnt to admire, it must be allowed he would act very injudiciously,
if he were to select from the Glossary the obsolete words which it
contains, and employ those exclusively of all phrases and vocables
retained in modern days. This was the error of the unfortunate
Chatterton. In order to give his language the appearance of antiquity,
he rejected every word that was modern, and produced a dialect entirely
different from any that had ever been spoken in Great Britain. He who
would imitate an ancient language with success, must attend rather to
its grammatical character, turn of expression, and mode of arrangement,
than labour to collect extraordinary and antiquated terms, which, as I
have already averred, do not in ancient authors approach the number of
words still in use, though perhaps somewhat altered in sense and
spelling, in the proportion of one to ten.
What I have applied to language, is still more justly applicable to
sentiments and manners. The passions, the sources from which these must
spring in all their modifications, are generally the same in all ranks
and conditions, all countries and ages; and it follows, as a matter of
course, that the opinions, habits of thinking, and actions, however
influenced by the peculiar state of society, must still, upon the
whole, bear a strong resemblance to each other. Our ancestors were not
more distinct from us, surely, than Jews are from Christians; they had
“eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions;” were
“fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the
same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,” as
ourselves. The tenor, therefore, of their affections and feelings, must
have borne the same general proportion to our own.
It follows, therefore, that of the materials which an author has to use
in a romance, or fictitious composition, such as I have ventured to
attempt, he will find that a great proportion, both of language and
manners, is as proper to the present time as to those in which he has
laid his time of action. The freedom of choice which this allows him,
is therefore much greater, and the difficulty of his task much more
diminished, than at first appears. To take an illustration from a
sister art, the antiquarian details may be said to represent the
peculiar features of a landscape under delineation of the pencil. His
feudal tower must arise in due majesty; the figures which he introduces
must have the costume and character of their age; the piece must
represent the peculiar features of the scene which he has chosen for
his subject, with all its appropriate elevation of rock, or precipitate
descent of cataract. His general colouring, too, must be copied from
Nature: The sky must be clouded or serene, according to the climate,
and the general tints must be those which prevail in a natural
landscape. So far the painter is bound down by the rules of his art, to
a precise imitation of the features of Nature; but it is not required
that he should descend to copy all her more minute features, or
represent with absolute exactness the very herbs, flowers, and trees,
with which the spot is decorated. These, as well as all the more minute
points of light and shadow, are attributes proper to scenery in
general, natural to each situation, and subject to the artist’s
disposal, as his taste or pleasure may dictate.
It is true, that this license is confined in either case within
legitimate bounds. The painter must introduce no ornament inconsistent
with the climate or country of his landscape; he must not plant cypress
trees upon Inch-Merrin, or Scottish firs among the ruins of Persepolis;
and the author lies under a corresponding restraint. However far he may
venture in a more full detail of passions and feelings, than is to be
found in the ancient compositions which he imitates, he must introduce
nothing inconsistent with the manners of the age; his knights, squires,
grooms, and yeomen, may be more fully drawn than in the hard, dry
delineations of an ancient illuminated manuscript, but the character
and costume of the age must remain inviolate; they must be the same
figures, drawn by a better pencil, or, to speak more modestly, executed
in an age when the principles of art were better understood. His
language must not be exclusively obsolete and unintelligible; but he
should admit, if possible, no word or turn of phraseology betraying an
origin directly modern. It is one thing to make use of the language and
sentiments which are common to ourselves and our forefathers, and it is
another to invest them with the sentiments and dialect exclusively
proper to their descendants.
This, my dear friend, I have found the most difficult part of my task;
and, to speak frankly, I hardly expect to satisfy your less partial
judgment, and more extensive knowledge of such subjects, since I have
hardly been able to please my own.
I am conscious that I shall be found still more faulty in the tone of
keeping and costume, by those who may be disposed rigidly to examine my
Tale, with reference to the manners of the exact period in which my
actors flourished: It may be, that I have introduced little which can
positively be termed modern; but, on the other hand, it is extremely
probable that I may have confused the manners of two or three
centuries, and introduced, during the reign of Richard the First,
circumstances appropriated to a period either considerably earlier, or
a good deal later than that era. It is my comfort, that errors of this
kind will escape the general class of readers, and that I may share in
the ill-deserved applause of those architects, who, in their modern
Gothic, do not hesitate to introduce, without rule or method, ornaments
proper to different styles and to different periods of the art. Those
whose extensive researches have given them the means of judging my
backslidings with more severity, will probably be lenient in proportion
to their knowledge of the difficulty of my task. My honest and
neglected friend, Ingulphus, has furnished me with many a valuable
hint; but the light afforded by the Monk of Croydon, and Geoffrey de
Vinsauff, is dimmed by such a conglomeration of uninteresting and
unintelligible matter, that we gladly fly for relief to the delightful
pages of the gallant Froissart, although he flourished at a period so
much more remote from the date of my history. If, therefore, my dear
friend, you have generosity enough to pardon the presumptuous attempt,
to frame for myself a minstrel coronet, partly out of the pearls of
pure antiquity, and partly from the Bristol stones and paste, with
which I have endeavoured to imitate them, I am convinced your opinion
of the difficulty of the task will reconcile you to the imperfect
manner of its execution.
Of my materials I have but little to say. They may be chiefly found in
the singular Anglo-Norman MS., which Sir Arthur Wardour preserves with
such jealous care in the third drawer of his oaken cabinet, scarcely
allowing any one to touch it, and being himself not able to read one
syllable of its contents. I should never have got his consent, on my
visit to Scotland, to read in those precious pages for so many hours,
had I not promised to designate it by some emphatic mode of printing,
as {The Wardour Manuscript}; giving it, thereby, an individuality as
important as the Bannatyne MS., the Auchinleck MS., and any other
monument of the patience of a Gothic scrivener. I have sent, for your
private consideration, a list of the contents of this curious piece,
which I shall perhaps subjoin, with your approbation, to the third
volume of my Tale, in case the printer’s devil should continue
impatient for copy, when the whole of my narrative has been imposed.
Adieu, my dear friend; I have said enough to explain, if not to
vindicate, the attempt which I have made, and which, in spite of your
doubts, and my own incapacity, I am still willing to believe has not
been altogether made in vain.
I hope you are now well recovered from your spring fit of the gout, and
shall be happy if the advice of your learned physician should recommend
a tour to these parts. Several curiosities have been lately dug up near
the wall, as well as at the ancient station of Habitancum. Talking of
the latter, I suppose you have long since heard the news, that a sulky
churlish boor has destroyed the ancient statue, or rather bas-relief,
popularly called Robin of Redesdale. It seems Robin’s fame attracted
more visitants than was consistent with the growth of the heather, upon
a moor worth a shilling an acre. Reverend as you write yourself, be
revengeful for once, and pray with me that he may be visited with such
a fit of the stone, as if he had all the fragments of poor Robin in
that region of his viscera where the disease holds its seat. Tell this
not in Gath, lest the Scots rejoice that they have at length found a
parallel instance among their neighbours, to that barbarous deed which
demolished Arthur’s Oven. But there is no end to lamentation, when we
betake ourselves to such subjects. My respectful compliments attend
Miss Dryasdust; I endeavoured to match the spectacles agreeable to her
commission, during my late journey to London, and hope she has received
them safe, and found them satisfactory. I send this by the blind
carrier, so that probably it may be some time upon its journey. 6
The last news which I hear from Edinburgh is, that the gentleman who
fills the situation of Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland, 7 is the best amateur draftsman in that kingdom, and that
much is expected from his skill and zeal in delineating those specimens
of national antiquity, which are either mouldering under the slow touch
of time, or swept away by modern taste, with the same besom of
destruction which John Knox used at the Reformation. Once more adieu;
“vale tandem, non immemor mei”. Believe me to be,
Reverend, and very dear Sir,
Your most faithful humble Servant.
Laurence Templeton.
Toppingwold, near Egremont, Cumberland, Nov. 17, 1817.
IVANHOE.
CHAPTER I
Thus communed these; while to their lowly dome,
The full-fed swine return’d with evening home;
Compell’d, reluctant, to the several sties,
With din obstreperous, and ungrateful cries.
POPE’S ODYSSEY
In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the
river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the
greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between
Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster. The remains of this
extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of
Warncliffe Park, and around Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the
fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were fought many of the most desperate
battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in
ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been
rendered so popular in English song.
Such being our chief scene, the date of our story refers to a period
towards the end of the reign of Richard I., when his return from his
long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped for by his
despairing subjects, who were in the meantime subjected to every
species of subordinate oppression. The nobles, whose power had become
exorbitant during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry
the Second had scarce reduced to some degree of subjection to the
crown, had now resumed their ancient license in its utmost extent;
despising the feeble interference of the English Council of State,
fortifying their castles, increasing the number of their dependants,
reducing all around them to a state of vassalage, and striving by every
means in their power, to place themselves each at the head of such
forces as might enable him to make a figure in the national convulsions
which appeared to be impending.
The situation of the inferior gentry, or Franklins, as they were
called, who, by the law and spirit of the English constitution, were
entitled to hold themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became now
unusually precarious. If, as was most generally the case, they placed
themselves under the protection of any of the petty kings in their
vicinity, accepted of feudal offices in his household, or bound
themselves by mutual treaties of alliance and protection, to support
him in his enterprises, they might indeed purchase temporary repose;
but it must be with the sacrifice of that independence which was so
dear to every English bosom, and at the certain hazard of being
involved as a party in whatever rash expedition the ambition of their
protector might lead him to undertake. On the other hand, such and so
multiplied were the means of vexation and oppression possessed by the
great Barons, that they never wanted the pretext, and seldom the will,
to harass and pursue, even to the very edge of destruction, any of
their less powerful neighbours, who attempted to separate themselves
from their authority, and to trust for their protection, during the
dangers of the times, to their own inoffensive conduct, and to the laws
of the land.
A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance the tyranny of the
nobility, and the sufferings of the inferior classes, arose from the
consequences of the Conquest by Duke William of Normandy. Four
generations had not sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans
and Anglo-Saxons, or to unite, by common language and mutual interests,
two hostile races, one of which still felt the elation of triumph,
while the other groaned under all the consequences of defeat. The power
had been completely placed in the hands of the Norman nobility, by the
event of the battle of Hastings, and it had been used, as our histories
assure us, with no moderate hand. The whole race of Saxon princes and
nobles had been extirpated or disinherited, with few or no exceptions;
nor were the numbers great who possessed land in the country of their
fathers, even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior classes.
The royal policy had long been to weaken, by every means, legal or
illegal, the strength of a part of the population which was justly
considered as nourishing the most inveterate antipathy to their victor.
All the monarchs of the Norman race had shown the most marked
predilection for their Norman subjects; the laws of the chase, and many
others equally unknown to the milder and more free spirit of the Saxon
constitution, had been fixed upon the necks of the subjugated
inhabitants, to add weight, as it were, to the feudal chains with which
they were loaded. At court, and in the castles of the great nobles,
where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman-French was the
only language employed; in courts of law, the pleadings and judgments
were delivered in the same tongue. In short, French was the language of
honour, of chivalry, and even of justice, while the far more manly and
expressive Anglo-Saxon was abandoned to the use of rustics and hinds,
who knew no other. Still, however, the necessary intercourse between
the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that
soil was cultivated, occasioned the gradual formation of a dialect,
compounded betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could
render themselves mutually intelligible to each other; and from this
necessity arose by degrees the structure of our present English
language, in which the speech of the victors and the vanquished have
been so happily blended together; and which has since been so richly
improved by importations from the classical languages, and from those
spoken by the southern nations of Europe.
This state of things I have thought it necessary to premise for the
information of the general reader, who might be apt to forget, that,
although no great historical events, such as war or insurrection, mark
the existence of the Anglo-Saxons as a separate people subsequent to
the reign of William the Second; yet the great national distinctions
betwixt them and their conquerors, the recollection of what they had
formerly been, and to what they were now reduced, continued down to the
reign of Edward the Third, to keep open the wounds which the Conquest
had inflicted, and to maintain a line of separation betwixt the
descendants of the victor Normans and the vanquished Saxons.
The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of that forest,
which we have mentioned in the beginning of the chapter. Hundreds of
broad-headed, short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed
perhaps the stately march of the Roman soldiery, flung their gnarled
arms over a thick carpet of the most delicious green sward; in some
places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies, and copsewood of
various descriptions, so closely as totally to intercept the level
beams of the sinking sun; in others they receded from each other,
forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of which the eye
delights to lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths
to yet wilder scenes of silvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun
shot a broken and discoloured light, that partially hung upon the
shattered boughs and mossy trunks of the trees, and there they
illuminated in brilliant patches the portions of turf to which they
made their way. A considerable open space, in the midst of this glade,
seemed formerly to have been dedicated to the rites of Druidical
superstition; for, on the summit of a hillock, so regular as to seem
artificial, there still remained part of a circle of rough unhewn
stones, of large dimensions. Seven stood upright; the rest had been
dislodged from their places, probably by the zeal of some convert to
Christianity, and lay, some prostrate near their former site, and
others on the side of the hill. One large stone only had found its way
to the bottom, and in stopping the course of a small brook, which
glided smoothly round the foot of the eminence, gave, by its
opposition, a feeble voice of murmur to the placid and elsewhere silent
streamlet.
The human figures which completed this landscape, were in number two,
partaking, in their dress and appearance, of that wild and rustic
character, which belonged to the woodlands of the West-Riding of
Yorkshire at that early period. The eldest of these men had a stern,
savage, and wild aspect. His garment was of the simplest form
imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves, composed of the tanned
skin of some animal, on which the hair had been originally left, but
which had been worn off in so many places, that it would have been
difficult to distinguish from the patches that remained, to what
creature the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from the
throat to the knees, and served at once all the usual purposes of
body-clothing; there was no wider opening at the collar, than was
necessary to admit the passage of the head, from which it may be
inferred, that it was put on by slipping it over the head and
shoulders, in the manner of a modern shirt, or ancient hauberk.
Sandals, bound with thongs made of boars’ hide, protected the feet, and
a roll of thin leather was twined artificially round the legs, and,
ascending above the calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish
Highlander. To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was
gathered at the middle by a broad leathern belt, secured by a brass
buckle; to one side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the
other a ram’s horn, accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the purpose of
blowing. In the same belt was stuck one of those long, broad,
sharp-pointed, and two-edged knives, with a buck’s-horn handle, which
were fabricated in the neighbourhood, and bore even at this early
period the name of a Sheffield whittle. The man had no covering upon
his head, which was only defended by his own thick hair, matted and
twisted together, and scorched by the influence of the sun into a rusty
dark-red colour, forming a contrast with the overgrown beard upon his
cheeks, which was rather of a yellow or amber hue. One part of his
dress only remains, but it is too remarkable to be suppressed; it was a
brass ring, resembling a dog’s collar, but without any opening, and
soldered fast round his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his
breathing, yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting
by the use of the file. On this singular gorget was engraved, in Saxon
characters, an inscription of the following purport:—“Gurth, the son of
Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.”
Beside the swine-herd, for such was Gurth’s occupation, was seated,
upon one of the fallen Druidical monuments, a person about ten years
younger in appearance, and whose dress, though resembling his
companion’s in form, was of better materials, and of a more fantastic
appearance. His jacket had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon
which there had been some attempt to paint grotesque ornaments in
different colours. To the jacket he added a short cloak, which scarcely
reached half way down his thigh; it was of crimson cloth, though a good
deal soiled, lined with bright yellow; and as he could transfer it from
one shoulder to the other, or at his pleasure draw it all around him,
its width, contrasted with its want of longitude, formed a fantastic
piece of drapery. He had thin silver bracelets upon his arms, and on
his neck a collar of the same metal bearing the inscription, “Wamba,
the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.” This
personage had the same sort of sandals with his companion, but instead
of the roll of leather thong, his legs were cased in a sort of gaiters,
of which one was red and the other yellow. He was provided also with a
cap, having around it more than one bell, about the size of those
attached to hawks, which jingled as he turned his head to one side or
other; and as he seldom remained a minute in the same posture, the
sound might be considered as incessant. Around the edge of this cap was
a stiff bandeau of leather, cut at the top into open work, resembling a
coronet, while a prolonged bag arose from within it, and fell down on
one shoulder like an old-fashioned nightcap, or a jelly-bag, or the
head-gear of a modern hussar. It was to this part of the cap that the
bells were attached; which circumstance, as well as the shape of his
head-dress, and his own half-crazed, half-cunning expression of
countenance, sufficiently pointed him out as belonging to the race of
domestic clowns or jesters, maintained in the houses of the wealthy, to
help away the tedium of those lingering hours which they were obliged
to spend within doors. He bore, like his companion, a scrip, attached
to his belt, but had neither horn nor knife, being probably considered
as belonging to a class whom it is esteemed dangerous to intrust with
edge-tools. In place of these, he was equipped with a sword of lath,
resembling that with which Harlequin operates his wonders upon the
modern stage.
The outward appearance of these two men formed scarce a stronger
contrast than their look and demeanour. That of the serf, or bondsman,
was sad and sullen; his aspect was bent on the ground with an
appearance of deep dejection, which might be almost construed into
apathy, had not the fire which occasionally sparkled in his red eye
manifested that there slumbered, under the appearance of sullen
despondency, a sense of oppression, and a disposition to resistance.
The looks of Wamba, on the other hand, indicated, as usual with his
class, a sort of vacant curiosity, and fidgetty impatience of any
posture of repose, together with the utmost self-satisfaction
respecting his own situation, and the appearance which he made. The
dialogue which they maintained between them, was carried on in
Anglo-Saxon, which, as we said before, was universally spoken by the
inferior classes, excepting the Norman soldiers, and the immediate
personal dependants of the great feudal nobles. But to give their
conversation in the original would convey but little information to the
modern reader, for whose benefit we beg to offer the following
translation:
“The curse of St Withold upon these infernal porkers!” said the
swine-herd, after blowing his horn obstreperously, to collect together
the scattered herd of swine, which, answering his call with notes
equally melodious, made, however, no haste to remove themselves from
the luxurious banquet of beech-mast and acorns on which they had
fattened, or to forsake the marshy banks of the rivulet, where several
of them, half plunged in mud, lay stretched at their ease, altogether
regardless of the voice of their keeper. “The curse of St Withold upon
them and upon me!” said Gurth; “if the two-legged wolf snap not up some
of them ere nightfall, I am no true man. Here, Fangs! Fangs!” he
ejaculated at the top of his voice to a ragged wolfish-looking dog, a
sort of lurcher, half mastiff, half greyhound, which ran limping about
as if with the purpose of seconding his master in collecting the
refractory grunters; but which, in fact, from misapprehension of the
swine-herd’s signals, ignorance of his own duty, or malice prepense,
only drove them hither and thither, and increased the evil which he
seemed to design to remedy. “A devil draw the teeth of him,” said
Gurth, “and the mother of mischief confound the Ranger of the forest,
that cuts the foreclaws off our dogs, and makes them unfit for their
trade! 8 Wamba, up and help me an thou be’st a man; take a turn round
the back o’ the hill to gain the wind on them; and when thous’t got the
weather-gage, thou mayst drive them before thee as gently as so many
innocent lambs.”
“Truly,” said Wamba, without stirring from the spot, “I have consulted
my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether of opinion, that to
carry my gay garments through these sloughs, would be an act of
unfriendship to my sovereign person and royal wardrobe; wherefore,
Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their
destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or
of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else than to be
converted into Normans before morning, to thy no small ease and
comfort.”
“The swine turned Normans to my comfort!” quoth Gurth; “expound that to
me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to read
riddles.”
“Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on their four
legs?” demanded Wamba.
“Swine, fool, swine,” said the herd, “every fool knows that.”
“And swine is good Saxon,” said the Jester; “but how call you the sow
when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels,
like a traitor?”
“Pork,” answered the swine-herd.
“I am very glad every fool knows that too,” said Wamba, “and pork, I
think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in
the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a
Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the Castle-hall to
feast among the nobles; what dost thou think of this, friend Gurth,
ha?”
“It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy
fool’s pate.”
“Nay, I can tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone; “there is old
Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the
charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery
French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are
destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in
the like manner; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a
Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.”
“By St Dunstan,” answered Gurth, “thou speakest but sad truths; little
is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been
reserved with much hesitation, solely for the purpose of enabling us to
endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and the
fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best
and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten
distant lands with their bones, leaving few here who have either will
or the power to protect the unfortunate Saxon. God’s blessing on our
master Cedric, he hath done the work of a man in standing in the gap;
but Reginald Front-de-Bœuf is coming down to this country in person,
and we shall soon see how little Cedric’s trouble will avail him.—Here,
here,” he exclaimed again, raising his voice, “So ho! so ho! well done,
Fangs! thou hast them all before thee now, and bring’st them on
bravely, lad.”
“Gurth,” said the Jester, “I know thou thinkest me a fool, or thou
wouldst not be so rash in putting thy head into my mouth. One word to
Reginald Front-de-Bœuf, or Philip de Malvoisin, that thou hast spoken
treason against the Norman,—and thou art but a cast-away
swineherd,—thou wouldst waver on one of these trees as a terror to all
evil speakers against dignities.”
“Dog, thou wouldst not betray me,” said Gurth, “after having led me on
to speak so much at disadvantage?”
“Betray thee!” answered the Jester; “no, that were the trick of a wise
man; a fool cannot half so well help himself—but soft, whom have we
here?” he said, listening to the trampling of several horses which
became then audible.
“Never mind whom,” answered Gurth, who had now got his herd before him,
and, with the aid of Fangs, was driving them down one of the long dim
vistas which we have endeavoured to describe.
“Nay, but I must see the riders,” answered Wamba; “perhaps they are
come from Fairy-land with a message from King Oberon.”
“A murrain take thee,” rejoined the swine-herd; “wilt thou talk of such
things, while a terrible storm of thunder and lightning is raging
within a few miles of us? Hark, how the thunder rumbles! and for summer
rain, I never saw such broad downright flat drops fall out of the
clouds; the oaks, too, notwithstanding the calm weather, sob and creak
with their great boughs as if announcing a tempest. Thou canst play the
rational if thou wilt; credit me for once, and let us home ere the
storm begins to rage, for the night will be fearful.”
Wamba seemed to feel the force of this appeal, and accompanied his
companion, who began his journey after catching up a long quarter-staff
which lay upon the grass beside him. This second Eumaeus strode hastily
down the forest glade, driving before him, with the assistance of
Fangs, the whole herd of his inharmonious charge.