“As for you all, good dames, who have this night so gallantly carried arms, I institute among you a most honourable Order, under the protection of Madam Mary the Virgin, and I direct that there shall be set up in this place a staff of a good length, and that each Sunday you shall come together here and draw the bow in archery, in memory of the time when with those bows you saved the lives of your husbands and children. And there shall be a fair crown of laurel and a fair purseful of golden peters, bright and new, to be awarded annually to the best archer of the year, and brought to her on a cushion by all the others together. And this purse will dower her if she be a maid, or, if she be a wife, will stand her in good stead against a time of famine.”
In this manner was instituted the Order of Women-Archers of Uccle, who still draw the bow like men every Sunday, under the protection of Our Lady the Virgin.
The Three Sisters
I. Of the three noble ladies and their great beauty.
In the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 690, lived three maidens, descended, by male issue, from the noble line of the great emperor Octavian.
Their names were Blanche, Claire, and Candide.
Though they had dedicated the flower of their maidenhead to God, it is not to be supposed that this was for lack of lovers.
For, on every day that passed, a crowd of people used to collect for nothing else than to see them go by on their way to church, and onlookers would say of them: “See what gentle eyes, see what white hands!”