Hereward the Wake: "last of the English"
| Average rating |
|
5 out of 5
|
| Based on 1 Ratings and 1 Reviews |
Book Description
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: on the banks of Oxus; one of those magic weapons, brought, men know not how, out of the magic East, which were hereditary in many a Norse family, and sung of in many a Norse saga. 'Look at it,'said Martin Lightf...
MorePurchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: on the banks of Oxus; one of those magic weapons, brought, men know not how, out of the magic East, which were hereditary in many a Norse family, and sung of in many a Norse saga. 'Look at it,'said Martin Lightfoot. 'There is magic in it. It must bring us luck. Whoever holds that must kill his man. It will pick a lock of steel. It will crack a mail corselet as a nut-hatch cracks a nut. It will hew a lance in two at a single blow. Devils and spirits forged it- I know that; Virgilius the Enchanter, perhaps, or Solomon the Great, or whosoever's name is on it, graven there in letters of gold. Handle it, feel its balance ; but no- do not handle it too much. There is a devil in it, who would make you kill me. Whenever I play with it I long to kill a man. It would be so easy- so easy. Give it me back, my lord, give it me back, lest the devil come through the handle into your palm, and possess you.' Hereward laughed, and gave him back his battle-axe. But he had hardly less doubt of the magic virtues of such a blade than had Martin himself. ' Magical or not, thou wilt not have to hit a man twice with that, Martin, my lad. So we two outlaws are both well armed ; and having neither wife nor child, land nor beeves to lose, ought to be a match for any six honest men who may have a grudge against us, and yet have sound reasons at home for running away.' And so those two went northward through the green Brunes- wald, and northward through merry Sherwood, and were not seen in that land again for many a year. CHAPTER II HOW HEREWARD SLEW THE BEAR1 Of Hereward's doings for the next few months nought is known. He may very likely have joined Si ward in the Scotch war. He may have looked, wondering, for the first time in his life, upon 1 This story of the bear is likely not to be ...
You must be a member of JacketFlap to add a video to this page. Please
Log In or
Register.
View Charles Kingsley's profile