CHAPTER V CWICHELM'S HLAWE
It was a wild and lonely spot, eight hundred feet above sea level, the highest ground of the central downs of Berkshire, looking northward over a vast expanse of fertile country, as yet but partially tilled, and mainly covered with forest.
A tumulus or barrow of huge dimensions arose on the summit, no less than one hundred and forty yards in circumference, and at that period some fifty feet in height; it had been raised five hundred years earlier in the history of the country over the remains of the Saxon King Cwichelm, son of Cynegils, and grandson of Ceol, who dwelt in the Isle of Ceol—or Ceolseye—and left his name to Cholsey.
A wood of firs surrounded the solemn mound, which, however, dominated them in height; the night wind was sighing dreamily over them, the heavens were alternately light and dark as the aforesaid wind made rifts in the cloud canopy and closed them again—ever and anon revealing the moon wading amidst, or rather beyond, the masses of vapour.
An aged crone stood on the summit of the mound clad in long flowing garments of coarse texture, bound around the waist with a girdle of leather; her hair, white as snow, streamed on the wind. She supported her strength by an ebony staff chased with Runic figures. Any one who gazed might perchance have thought her a sorceress, or at least a seer of old times raised again into life.
"Ah, he comes!"
Over the swelling ridges of the downs she saw a horseman approaching; heard before she saw, for the night was murky.
The horseman dismounted in the wood, tied his horse to a tree, left it with a huge boar-hound, as a guard, and penetrating the wood, ascended the mound.