Matilda of Flanders.
William sought to strengthen his position by an influential matrimonial alliance. Matilda, daughter of the Duke of Flanders, became the object of his choice. This lady was very beautiful and an adept in the accomplishments of her time—music and tapestry weaving. In fact a wonderful piece of tapestry known as the Bayeaux Tapestry and even now in a state of comparative preservation, is said to have been the work of Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror. This famous piece of embroidery on linen is four hundred feet long and nearly two feet wide; it is a series of designs illustrating the various events and incidents of the Battle of Hastings and other exploits of the Conqueror.
William and Matilda were married in 1052, the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, so that the Bayeaux Tapestry has resisted the gnawing tooth of time for more than eight hundred years.
Who shall unerringly perceive in the glare of the passing day, what is great, what small: what is enduring, what evanescent! Linen fibres, silken threads, a woman’s needlework—endure: shields, helmets, swords, battle axes, all the iron horrors of Hastings have passed away.
And the moral values of the passing hour are, to human perception, equally elusive, intangible, untraceable. But are we called upon to understand the full meaning of the passing show?
Surely the Power above us smiles at our endeavors to fit together here in Time things whose fitness shall not have developed in a thousand years.
The old Norse story runs that when Thor went to Jotun-heim, the home of the Giants, he failed ignominiously in the accomplishments of the tasks imposed upon him. He struck with might and main at the head of the prostrate giant Skrymir, but the huge creature only moved restlessly and murmured in his sleep that a leaf or twig had fallen upon his face. Thor failed in the race with Hugi. Thor failed in the drinking bout proposed by Utgard-Loki. Thor failed in the wresting match with Elli, the old nurse of Utgard-Loki. Thor failed to lift the Giant’s sleeping cat, and though he tugged with all his strength, he succeeded in lifting only one paw from the ground. Thor failed apparently in every task that was set before him.
But, behold! when revelation was made, it was found that Thor had, indeed, been Thor and that his failure-achievements had terrified even the Norns. For the giant Skrymir later confessed to Thor that by magic he had shielded his head with a mountain when Thor struck with his hammer, and that the mountain had been well nigh severed by the blow. And as to the race with Hugi, why Hugi is Thought; and no man may hope to surpass the speed of thought. And as to Thor’s failure in the drinking bout, why the drinking horn had been secretly in connection with the ocean, and Thor’s deep draughts had seriously lowered old ocean’s vast domain. And as to Elli, the nurse, why she was Old Age and her no mortal may overcome. And as to Thor’s failure to lift the sleeping cat—why the seeming cat had been in dread reality, the Midgard serpent coiled around the world, and his nearly successful efforts to rouse the serpent and tear it from the charmed circle, had terrified even the Norns. And so Thor was still Thor in his failure-achievements in Jotun-heim: so likewise may we, in the great Revelation, be found to have been splendid conquerors in the grim failure-strife of Time. And then, too, shall a fateful Skrymir make known to us the true nature of the forces against which we strove; the fatal necessity of failure in such a strife, were we Thor or even Odin: then too shall we learn with astonishment and delight the Herculean results of our labors; and throughout all the upward cycles of our immortality we shall be stronger and better because of our failure-achievements down in earth’s Jotun-heim.