“Only this, my lord. I would make the Normans believe that all the blubber-devils of Crowland were come back to earth to drive them from the house.”
“I see, yet do not fully comprehend,” said Lord Hereward; “but we will talk of these things with Girolamo to-night, when this my first feast as Lord of Brunn is over, and when every Saxon shall have seen that the hospitality of mine ancestors is not to know decrease in me.”
And late that night, when Hereward’s first and most bountiful feast was over, and when his guests had betaken themselves to the town of Brunn, or to their beds or to clean hay and rushes in the manor-house, Elfric and Girolamo followed Hereward to his inner chamber, and consulted with him about the best means of driving out the French from Crowland. First crossing himself—for although he feared not man, he had a lively dread of all manner of goblins and demons—the Lord of Brunn said, “Elfric, thou mayest now tell us about thy Crowland devils.”
“You wist well, my lord,” said Elfric, “for who should know it better, that in the heathenish times the whole of the isle[[129]] of Crowland and all the bogs and pools round about were haunted day and night, but most at night, by unaccountable troops and legions of devils, with blubber-lips, fiery mouths, scaley faces, beetle heads, sharp long teeth, long chins, hoarse throats, black skins, hump shoulders, big bellies, burning loins, bandy legs, cloven hoofs for feet, and long tails at their buttocks. And who so well as your lordship knoweth that these blubber-fiends, angered at that their fens and stinking pools should be invaded, allowed our first monks of Crowland no peace nor truce, but were for ever gibing and mowing at them, biting them with their sharp teeth, switching them with their filthy tails, putting dirt in their meat and drink, nipping them by the nose, giving them cramps and rheums and shivering agues and burning fevers, and fustigating and tormenting not a few of the friars even to death! And your lordship knows that these devils of Crowland were not driven away until the time when that very pious man Guthlacus became a hermit there, and cut the sluices that lead from the fetid pools to the flowing rivers. Then, in sooth, the devils of Crowland were beaten off by prayer and by holy water, and the horrible blue lights which they were wont to light upon the most fetid of the pools, ceased to be seen of men.”[[130]]
“All this legend I know full well,” said the Lord of Brunn, explaining it to Girolamo of Salerno, who crossed himself many times as he heard the description of the very hideous Crowland devils.
“All that dwell in the fen-country know the legend,” continued Elfric; “the house of Crowland is full of the legend, and the usurping Norman crew must know the legend well, and in the guilt of their conscience must needs tremble at it! The devils are painted in cloister and corridor, their blue lights are painted, as they used to appear to our first good monks; and the most pious anchorite Guthlacus[[131]] is depicted in the act of laying the evil ones. If a Saxon saint laid them, these Norman sinners have done enough to bring them back again; and it can only be by the bones of our saints and the other Saxon relics that lie in the church of Crowland, that the devils of Crowland are prevented from returning. Now all that I would do is this,—I would haunt the house and the fens round about with sham devils, and so make these Norman intruders believe that the old real blubber-fiends were upon them! I do not believe they would stand two days and nights of such a siege as I could give them, if your lordship would but consent and Girolamo lend his aid.”
“But were it not sinful for christened Saxon men to play at devils?”
“Assuredly not, when playing against devils like these Normans, and for a holy end, and for the restoration of such good men and true Saxons as my Lord Abbat of Crowland and his expelled brotherhood.”
Hereward put the question, as a case of conscience, to Girolamo, as vir bonus et sapiens, a good man and learned; and Girolamo was of opinion that, as the wicked ofttimes put on the semblance of saints to do mischief, the good might, with certain restrictions, be allowed to put on the semblance of devils to do good. His patron Hereward, he said, would give him credit for being a true believer, and a devout, though weak and sinful, son of the church, yet would he think it no sin to play the part of a Crowland devil, or to give to Elfric the benefit of his science in making ghastly blue lights, or in causing flames to appear on the surface of the stagnant waters, or in fact in doing anything that might be required of him in order to scare away the Normans. Hereward had still some misgivings, but he yielded to the representations of Elfric and the exceeding great earnestness of Girolamo; and when he dismissed them for the night he said, “Well, since you will have it so, go and play at devils in Crowland. Only have a care that ye be not taken or slain, and be back to this house as soon as ye can; for if Crowland cannot be taken, we must try and blockade it, and proceed to Ey to collect more strength.”
“I have good hope, my lord,” said Girolamo; “for with my white magic I can do things that will carry terror to the hearts of these untaught Normans; and then this young man Elfric hath ever succeeded in all that he hath attempted: he already knoweth enough of my language (thanks to the little Latin he got as a novice) to make out my meaning and to act as my interpreter to others. He tells me that even should the devil experiment fail, he can assure our retreat, with scarcely any chance of danger.”