Some of these casques had come from Troy, and were like Phrygian caps, or surmounted by aigrettes of red horsehair; some of the pilgrims, though they were fat-faced and paunchy, wore helms with outspread wings, but had no notion of flying; then came those who had on their heads salades that snails would have disdained for their lack of greenery.
But the greater part had casques so old and rusty that they seemed to date from the days of Gambrinus, the King of Flanders and of beer, the which monarch lived nine hundred years before Our Lord and wore a quart pot for a hat, so that he need never have to refrain from drinking for lack of a cup.
All at once rang, droned, thundered, thumped, squealed, brayed, clattered bells, bagpipes, shawms, drums, and ironmongery.
At the sound of this din, the signal for the pilgrims, they turned about, placing themselves face to face by bands of seven, and by way of provocation every man thrust his flaming candle into the face of his opposite. Therefrom arose great sternutation. And it began to rain green wood. And they fought with foot, with head, with heel, with everything. Some hurled upon their adversaries like rams, casque foremost, smashing it down on to their shoulders, and ran blinded to fall on a seven-fold rank of furious pilgrims, the which received them ungently.
Others, whimperers and cowards, bemoaned themselves because of the blows, but while they were mumbling their dolorous paternosters, there whirled upon them, swift as a thunderbolt, two sevens of struggling pilgrims, flinging the poor blubberers to earth and trampling them without compassion.
And the hermit laughed.
Other sevens, keeping in clusters like grapes, rolled from the top of the plateau into the very stream where they still exchanged shrewd strokes without quenching their fury.
And the hermit laughed.
Those that remained upon the plateau were blacking each other’s eyes, breaking each other’s teeth, tearing out each other’s hair, rending each other’s doublet and breeches.
And the hermit would laugh and call out: