Harold | Page 7

the Anglo- Saxon the enjoyments of certain luxuries (gold and silver plate--the use of glass, etc.), which were extremely rare in an age much more recent. There is no ground for that doubt; nor is there a single article of such luxury named in the text, for the mention of which I have not ample authority.
I have indeed devoted to this work a degree of research which, if unusual to romance, I cannot consider superfluous when illustrating an age so remote, and events unparalleled in their influence over the destinies of England. Nor am I without the hope, that what the romance-reader at first regards as a defect, he may ultimately acknowledge as a merit;--forgiving me that strain on his attention by which alone I could leave distinct in his memory the action and the actors in that solemn tragedy which closed on the field of Hastings, over the corpse of the Last Saxon King.

CONTENTS
BOOK FIRST
The Norman Visitor, the Saxon King, and the Danish Prophetess
BOOK SECOND
Lanfranc the Scholar
BOOK THIRD
The House of Godwin
BOOK FOURTH
The Heathen Altar and the Saxon Church
BOOK FIFTH
Death and Love
BOOK SIXTH
Ambition
BOOK SEVENTH
The Welch King
BOOK EIGHTH
Fate
BOOK NINTH
The Bones of the Dead
BOOK TENTH
The Sacrifice on the Altar
BOOK ELEVENTH
The Norman Schemer, and the Norwegian Sea-king
BOOK TWELFTH
The Battle of Hastings

HAROLD, THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS
by Edward Bulwer Lytton

BOOK I.
THE NORMAN VISITOR, THE SAXON KING, AND THE DANISH PROPHETESS.
CHAPTER I.
Merry was the month of May in the year of our Lord 1052. Few were the boys, and few the lasses, who overslept themselves on the first of that buxom month. Long ere the dawn, the crowds had sought mead and woodland, to cut poles and wreathe flowers. Many a mead then lay fair and green beyond the village of Charing, and behind the isle of Thorney, (amidst the brakes and briars of which were then rising fast and fair the Hall and Abbey of Westminster;) many a wood lay dark in the starlight, along the higher ground that sloped from the dank Strand, with its numerous canals or dykes;--and on either side of the great road into Kent:--flutes and horns sounded far and near through the green places, and laughter and song, and the crash of breaking boughs.
As the dawn came grey up the east, arch and blooming faces bowed down to bathe in the May dew. Patient oxen stood dozing by the hedge-rows, all fragrant with blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the May came forth from the woods with lusty poles, followed by girls with laps full of flowers, which they had caught asleep. The poles were pranked with nosegays, and a chaplet was hung round the horns of every ox. Then towards daybreak, the processions streamed back into the city, through all its gates; boys with their May-gads (peeled willow wands twined with cowslips) going before; and clear through the lively din of the horns and flutes, and amidst the moving grove of branches, choral voices, singing some early Saxon stave, precursor of the later song--
"We have brought the summer home."
Often in the good old days before the Monk-king reigned, kings and ealdermen had thus gone forth a-maying; but these merriments, savouring of heathenesse, that good prince misliked: nevertheless the song was as blithe, and the boughs were as green, as if king and ealderman had walked in the train.
On the great Kent road, the fairest meads for the cowslip, and the greenest woods for the bough, surrounded a large building that once had belonged to some voluptuous Roman, now all defaced and despoiled; but the boys and the lasses shunned those demesnes; and even in their mirth, as they passed homeward along the road, and saw near the ruined walls, and timbered outbuildings, grey Druid stones (that spoke of an age before either Saxon or Roman invader) gleaming through the dawn-- the song was hushed--the very youngest crossed themselves; and the elder, in solemn whispers, suggested the precaution of changing the song into a psalm. For in that old building dwelt Hilda, of famous and dark repute; Hilda, who, despite all law and canon, was still believed to practise the dismal arts of the Wicca and Morthwyrtha (the witch and worshipper of the dead). But once out of sight of those fearful precincts, the psalm was forgotten, and again broke, loud, clear, and silvery, the joyous chorus.
So, entering London about sunrise, doors and windows were duly wreathed with garlands; and every village in the suburbs had its May- pole, which stood in its place all the year. On that happy day labour rested; ceorl and theowe had alike a holiday to dance, and tumble round the May-pole; and thus, on the first of May--Youth, and Mirth, and Music, "brought the summer home."
The next day you might still see where the buxom bands had been; you might track their