Harold | Page 2

grand
tragedy of Harold, and as careful as contradictory evidences will permit,
both as to accuracy in the delineation of character, and correctness in
that chronological chain of dates without which there can be no
historical philosophy; that is, no tangible link between the cause and
the effect. The fictitious part of my narrative is, as in "Rienzi," and the
"Last of the Barons," confined chiefly to the private life, with its
domain of incident and passion, which is the legitimate appanage of
novelist or poet. The love story of Harold and Edith is told differently
from the well-known legend, which implies a less pure connection. But
the whole legend respecting the Edeva faira (Edith the fair) whose
name meets us in the "Domesday" roll, rests upon very slight authority
considering its popular acceptance [3]; and the reasons for my
alterations will be sufficiently obvious in a work intended not only for
general perusal, but which on many accounts, I hope, may be entrusted
fearlessly to the young; while those alterations are in strict accordance
with the spirit of the time, and tend to illustrate one of its most marked
peculiarities.
More apology is perhaps due for the liberal use to which I have applied
the superstitions of the age. But with the age itself those superstitions
are so interwoven--they meet us so constantly, whether in the pages of
our own chroniclers, or the records of the kindred Scandinavians--they
are so intruded into the very laws, so blended with the very life, of our
Saxon forefathers, that without employing them, in somewhat of the
same credulous spirit with which they were originally conceived, no
vivid impression of the People they influenced can be conveyed. Not
without truth has an Italian writer remarked, "that he who would depict
philosophically an unphilosophical age, should remember that, to be

familiar with children, one must sometimes think and feel as a child."
Yet it has not been my main endeavour to make these ghostly agencies
conducive to the ordinary poetical purposes of terror, and if that effect
be at all created by them, it will be, I apprehend, rather subsidiary to the
more historical sources of interest than, in itself, a leading or popular
characteristic of the work. My object, indeed, in the introduction of the
Danish Vala especially, has been perhaps as much addressed to the
reason as to the fancy, in showing what large, if dim, remains of the
ancient "heathenesse" still kept their ground on the Saxon soil,
contending with and contrasting the monkish superstitions, by which
they were ultimately replaced. Hilda is not in history; but without the
romantic impersonation of that which Hilda represents, the history of
the time would be imperfectly understood.
In the character of Harold--while I have carefully examined and
weighed the scanty evidences of its distinguishing attributes which are
yet preserved to us--and, in spite of no unnatural partiality, have not
concealed what appear to me its deficiencies, and still less the great
error of the life it illustrates,--I have attempted, somewhat and slightly,
to shadow out the ideal of the pure Saxon character, such as it was then,
with its large qualities undeveloped, but marked already by patient
endurance, love of justice, and freedom --the manly sense of duty rather
than the chivalric sentiment of honour--and that indestructible element
of practical purpose and courageous will, which, defying all conquest,
and steadfast in all peril, was ordained to achieve so vast an influence
over the destinies of the world.
To the Norman Duke, I believe, I have been as lenient as justice will
permit, though it is as impossible to deny his craft as to dispute his
genius; and so far as the scope of my work would allow, I trust that I
have indicated fairly the grand characteristics of his countrymen, more
truly chivalric than their lord. It has happened, unfortunately for that
illustrious race of men, that they have seemed to us, in England,
represented by the Anglo-Norman kings. The fierce and plotting
William, the vain and worthless Rufus, the cold-blooded and relentless
Henry, are no adequate representatives of the far nobler Norman

vavasours, whom even the English Chronicler admits to have been
"kind masters," and to whom, in spite of their kings, the after liberties
of England were so largely indebted. But this work closes on the Field
of Hastings; and in that noble struggle for national independence, the
sympathies of every true son of the land, even if tracing his lineage
back to the Norman victor, must be on the side of the patriot Harold.
In the notes, which I have thought necessary aids to the better
comprehension of these volumes, my only wish has been to convey to
the general reader such illustrative information as may familiarise him.
more easily with the