XXVI
Partly from the Greek
She would be as the stars in your sight
That turn in the endless hollow;
That tremble, and always follow
The quiet wheels of the Night.
VI
THE BALLAD OF VAL-ÈS-DUNES
THE VICTORY OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR IN HIS YOUTH OVER THE REBELS AT VAL-ÈS-DUNES IN THE YEAR 1047
[This piece of verse is grossly unhistorical. Val-ès-Dunes is not on the sea but inland. No Norman blazoned a shield or a church window in the middle eleventh century, still less would he frame one in silver, and I doubt gilt spurs. It was not the young Bastard of Falaise, but the men of the King in Paris that really won the battle. There was nothing Scandinavian left in Normandy, and whatever there had been five generations before was slight. The Colentin had no more Scandinavian blood than the rest. There is no such place as Longuevaile. There is a Hauteville, but it has no bay and had nothing to do with the Harcourts, and the Harcourts were not of Bloodroyal—and so forth.]