Sir Tristram at the Court of Arthur.
(From the fresco by William Dyer, R.A., in the King’s Robing-Room in the Houses of Parliament.)
“The blue-eyed race
Whose force rough-handed should renew the world.”
What warriors be these who now pass by? Tall, big-boned, blue-eyed men they are, with long yellow hair falling upon their shoulders from beneath their winged helmets.
Their home is a sad, barren, overcrowded country, and their poverty drives them to a life of plunder on the seas and to the shores of more favoured lands. They love fighting as the breath of their nostrils; and now, in their long ships, these dreaded pirates harry Britain at a hundred points. Death frights them not, for he who falls gloriously in battle rides Odin’s horse to Valhalla, where his days will be spent in cleaving the helmets and hacking the limbs of like heroes with himself, and his nights in feasting on a great boar whose flesh never grows less and in drinking great draughts of mead out of the skulls of his enemies. For the “niddering” coward who dies ingloriously in his bed these English pirates have nothing but scorn and contempt. To avoid the shame of a peaceful death they will hurl themselves from the cliffs, or push out in a frail craft into tempestuous seas, and perishing amidst the wind and the waves, win the right to enter Odin’s halls. A Roman poet says of them: “Fierce are they beyond other foes; the sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that live on the plunder of the world.” Such are the foes against whom Arthur fights and falls.
The warriors whom we now greet are Hengist and Horsa, the two English chiefs who first won a foothold for themselves on the soil of Britain. An old legend tells us that they were scouring the coasts of Kent what time Vortigern, the British king, was sore beset by the Picts and Scots. Half beside himself with terror at their raids, he calls on these adventurers to aid him. If they will drive back the northern barbarians, they shall have food and pay for their services. The bargain is struck. Hengist and Horsa beach their keels on the gravel spit at Ebbsfleet and land their warriors. The Picts and Scots are driven back, and the victorious English return from the fray. Then they ask a whimsical boon—namely, as much land as a bull’s hide can encompass. The request is granted, and Hengist cuts his bull’s hide into long strips, and with them engirdles a rocky place, whereon he erects a fortress. Thus the English secure their first foothold in Britain.
The news is wafted across the sea, and a new swarm of “sea-wolves” appears. They come in seventeen ships, and on the stern of the leading vessel the banner of the White Horse waves in the breeze. With the newcomers arrives a new conqueror, wearing no helmet and carrying no battle-axe, but armed only with a pair of beautiful blue eyes and a face of surpassing loveliness. She is Hengist’s fair daughter Rowena, the English princess who is destined to win more British acres by her bright glances than the “sea-wolves” have won by their swords and numberless forays. Vortigern feasts with her father, and she hands him the cup of greeting which she has kissed, and bids him “Waes hael.” He falls a willing victim to her charms; he woos and wins her, and as a marriage gift Vortigern bestows upon her brothers a large part of his kingdom.
Bitterly resenting this gift, the jealous Britons gather in arms and attack the English. Horsa is slain at the battle of the Fort-of-the-Eagles, and for a time the banner of the White Horse is trailed in the dust. Hengist, driven to his ships, returns with reinforcements, offering peace to the British chiefs, whom he invites to a feast. Both sides are to come unarmed to the hospitable board; but Hengist orders his followers to conceal their swords beneath their garments, and when the wine-cup has gone round, the fatal signal is given, and they fall upon their guests and slaughter every Briton present save Vortigern. The legends vary, but the truth remains that the English mastered the Britons on the south and east coasts, and established large settlements. Hengist’s success was the signal for a host of other English adventurers to put their fortune to the test. They swarmed across the North Sea, and the work of conquest and settlement began.