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STUDY HINTS

What beautiful thought runs through the entire poem? Why did the child feel so much at home?

SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READINGS

We are Seven. William Wordsworth.

Little Lamb. William Blake.

I remember, I remember. Thomas Hood.

For the teacher to read to the class:

The Fighting Weak, Habit, The Trees from The Flame in the Wind, by Margaret Steele Anderson; The Night, The Chimney-Sweeper, On Another's Sorrow, The Land of Dreams, by William Blake; and parts of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel.

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HEREWARD'S ADVENTURE WITH THE WHITE

BEAR 1

CHARLES KINGSLEY

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), born in Devonshire, England, was both clergyman and teacher. He held many responsible positions, among them that of teacher of English literature at Queen's College, London, and later of history at Oxford. One of his best-known books is Westward Ho! which is, like Hereward the Wake, an historical novel. Perhaps his most widely read books to-day are Water Babies and Greek Heroes. He gives very vivid pictures of English history and customs. See also: Letters and Memories of his Life, edited by his wife.

GILBERT of Ghent, who owned many a fair manor in Lincolnshire, heard that Hereward2 was outlawed, and sent for him, having, it would seem, some connection with his father. And there they lived, doubtless happily enough, fighting Celts and hunting deer, so that as yet the pains and penalties of exile did not press very hardly upon him. The handsome, petulant, good-humored lad had become in a few weeks the darling of Gilbert's ladies, and the envy of all his knights and gentlemen.

Hereward the singer, harp player, dancer, Hereward the rider and hunter, was in all mouths: but he himself was discontented as having as yet fallen in with no adventure worthy of a man; and he looked curiously and longingly at the menagerie of wild beasts enclosed in strong wooden cages, which Gilbert kept in one corner of the great courtyard, not for any scientific purposes, but to try with them, at Christ

1 From Hereward the Wake (1866).

Hereward was an English hero living in the eleventh century.

mas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, the mettle of the young gentlemen who were candidates for the honor of knighthood. But after looking over the bulls and stags, wolves and bears, Hereward settled it in his mind that there was none worthy of his steel, save one huge white bear, whom no man had yet dared to face, and whom Hereward, indeed, had never seen, hidden as he was all day in the old oven-shaped Pict's house of stone, which had been turned into his den.

There was a mystery about the uncanny brute which charmed Hereward. He was said to be half human, perhaps wholly human; to be a son of the Fairy Bear, near kinsman, if not brother, uncle or cousin, of Siward Digre himself. He had, like his fairy father, iron claws; he had human intellect, and understood human speech, and the arts of war, at least so all in the palace believed, and not as absurdly as at first sight seems.

For the brown bear, and much more the white, was, among the Northern nations, in himself a creature magical and superhuman. "He is God's dog," whispered the Lapp, and called him "the old man in the fur cloak," afraid to use his right name, even inside the tent, for fear of his overhearing and avenging the insult. "He has twelve men's strength, and eleven men's wit," sang the Norseman, and prided himself accordingly, like a true Norseman, on outwitting and slaying an enchanted monster.

Terrible was the brown bear; but more terrible "the white sea-deer," as the Saxons called him; "the whale's bane," "the seal's dread," "the rider of the iceberg," "the sailor of the floe," who ranged for his prey under the six months' night. To slay him was a feat worthy of Beowulf's 1 self; and the greatest wonder, perhaps, among all the wealth of Crowland, was the twelve white bearskins which lay before

1 An English hero living probably in the eighth century. His character and exploits have been celebrated in the greatest Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf. It is one of the great epics of the world.

the altars, the gift of the great Canute. How Gilbert had obtained his white bear, and why he kept him there in durance vile, was a mystery over which men shook their heads. Again and again Hereward asked his host to let him try his strength against the monster of the North. Again and again the shrieks of the ladies, and Gilbert's own pity for the stripling youth, brought a refusal. But Hereward settled it in his heart, nevertheless, that somehow or other, when Christmas time came round, he would extract from Gilbert, drunk or sober, leave to fight that bear; and then either make himself a name, or die like a man.

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Meanwhile Hereward made a friend. Among all the ladies of Gilbert's household, however kind they were inclined to be to him, he took a fancy only to one a little girl of ten years old. Alftruda was her name. He liked to amuse himself with this child, without as he fancied any danger of falling in love; for already his dreams of love were of the highest and most fantastic; and an Emir's1 daughter, or a princess of Constantinople, was the very lowest game at which he meant to fly. Alftruda was beautiful, too, exceedingly, and precocious, and it may be, vain enough to repay his attentions in good earnest. Moreover she was English, as he was, and royal likewise. Between the English lad then and the English maiden grew up in a few weeks an innocent friendship, which had almost become more than friendship, through the intervention of the Fairy Bear.

For as Hereward was coming in one afternoon from hunting, hawk on fist, with Martin Lightfoot trotting behind, crane and heron, duck and hare, slung over his shoulder, on reaching the courtyard gates he was aware of screams and shouts within, tumult and terror among man and beast. Hereward tried to force his horse in at the gate. The beast stopped and turned, snorting with fear; and no

1 A ruling prince among the Arabs.

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wonder; for in the midst of the courtyard stood the Fairy Bear; with his white mane bristled up till he seemed twice as big as any of the sober brown bears which Hereward yet had seen, his long snake neck and cruel visage wreathing about in search of prey. A dead horse, its back broken by a single blow of the paw, and two or three writhing dogs, showed that the beast had turned (like too many of his human kindred in those days) "Berserker." The courtyard was utterly empty; but from the ladies' bower came shrieks and shouts, not only of women but of men; and knocking at the bower door, adding her screams to those inside, was a little white figure, which Hereward recognized as Alftruda's. They had barricaded themselves inside, leaving the child out; and now dared not open the door, as the bear swung and rolled towards it, looking savagely right and left for a fresh victim.

Hereward leaped from his horse, and drawing his sword, rushed forward with a shout which made the bear turn round.

He looked once back at the child; then round again at Hereward; and, making up his mind to take the largest morsel first, made straight at him with a growl which there was no mistaking.

He was within two paces; then he rose on his hind legs, a head and shoulders taller than Hereward, and lifted the iron talons high in the air. Hereward knew that there was but one spot at which to strike; and he struck true and strong, before the iron paw could fall, right on the muzzle of the

monster.

He heard the dull crash of the steel; he felt the sword jammed tight. He shut his eyes for an instant, fearing lest, as in dreams, his blow had come to naught; lest his sword had turned aside, or melted like water in his hand, and the next

1 At first a warrior who wore a bearskin shirt; later from his fierceness the term grew to represent a very fierce warrior of Scandinavia.

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