bin asked of his
welfare, and the knight told of his protection of the poor wrestler,
for which Robin thanked him warmly. When he would fain have repaid the
loan the generous outlaw refused to accept the money, though he took
with hearty thanks the bows and arrows. In answer to the knight's
inquiries, Robin said that he had been paid the money twice over
before he came; and he told, to his debtor's great amusement, the
story of the high cellarer and his eight hundred pounds, and
concluded: "Our Lady owed me no more than four hundred pounds, and she
now gives you, by me, the other four hundred. Take them, with her
blessing, and if ever you need more come to Robin Hood."

So Sir Richard returned to Uterysdale, and long continued to use his
power to protect the bold outlaws, and Robin Hood dwelt securely in
the greenwood, doing good to the poor and worthy, but acting as a
thorn in the sides of all oppressors and tyrants.

CHAPTER XVI: HEREWARD THE WAKE

Introduction

In dealing with hero-legends and myths we are sometimes confronted
with the curious fact that a hero whose name and date can be
ascertained with exactitude has yet in his story mythological elements
which seem to belong to all the ages. This anomaly arises chiefly from
the fact that the imagination of a people is a myth-making thing, and
that the more truly popular the hero the more likely he is to become
the centre of a whole cycle of myths, which are in different ages
attached to the heroes of different periods. The folk-lore of
primitive races is a great storehouse whence a people can choose tales
and heroic deeds to glorify its own national hero, careless that the
same tales and deeds have done duty for other peoples and other
heroes. Hence it happens that Hereward the Saxon, a patriot hero as
real and actual as Wellington or Nelson, whose deeds were recorded in
prose and verse within forty years of his death, was even then
surrounded by a cloud of romance and mystery, which hid in vagueness
his family, his marriage, and even his death.

The Saxon Patriot

Hereward was, naturally, the darling hero of the Saxons, and for the
patriotism of his splendid defence of Ely they forgave his final
surrender to William the Norman; then they attributed to him all the
virtues supposed to be inherent in the free-born, and all the glorious
valour on which the English prided themselves; and, lastly, they
surrounded his death with a halo of desperate figh