| [104] | The Sisters of Ætheldreda. |
| [105] | The delights of heaven. |
| [106] | The writer brings the noted characters of the time into his own tale, and here we find interwoven several names of persons who had no direct connexion with the fen district or its heroes. The Guiscard of the text was the Robert Guiscard (or Wiscard) who acquired the Dukedom of Apulia—crossed over into Epeiros (1081), threatening the Eastern Empire; a great battle was fought at Durazzo, in which banished or adventurous English distinguished themselves. It is notable that Englishmen, then as now, defended Constantinople. |
| [107] | Stephen. |
| [108] | We know of no other Drogo than the one already named ([note] page [82])—he had gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with Duke Robert, the Conqueror’s father, and both died on their journey homeward in 1035. |
| [109] | If the reader will consult a Chart of the Wash—such as Capt. E. K. Calver’s, published by the Admiralty in 1873,—he will see how strictly accurate is the description in the text. The channels are tortuous, intricate, and variable. |
| [110] | The waters of the Wash spread for miles over the flat shores and leave a deposit thereon; this accretion is assisted by “jetties” made of stakes, thrown out from the permanent shore; the flats are thus raised above ordinary tides and on them a coarse herbage grows; sheep are fed on this and as the tide-time approaches these animals may be seen retiring to ground beyond the reach of the waters—numerous are the streamlets or runlets which intersect these flats of the Wash. |
| [111] | The sand bank here called “Dreadful” is we presume the “Dudgeon” (a name allied to Welsh Dygen, malice, ill-will), some 15 miles east of the “Inner Dousing”; the latter lies 10 miles to the east of Sutton-le-Marsh, and runs parallel to the Lincolnshire coast. From the Inner Dousing to Boston Deeps is a south-westerly course. (See [Map] showing distances and direction of these sands from Gibraltar Point.) |
| [112] | Probably means Chapel on Lincolnshire coast. (See [Map].) |
| [113] | Perhaps Heacham in Norfolk is intended (see [Map]); there is no place called Stone’s end between Heacham and Castle Rising—perhaps the name is borrowed from “Stone-ends” the name given to the embankments at the outfall of the river Nene. In other respects the paragraph is geographically correct. |