o 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 way by fallen flowers, and green leaves, and the deep
ruts made by oxen (yoked often in teams from twenty to forty, in the
wains that carried home the poles); and fair and frequent throughout the
land, from any eminence, you might behold the hamlet swards still crowned
with the May trees, and air still seemed fragrant with their garlands.

It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story opens, at the House
of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrtha. It stood upon a gentle and verdant
height; and, even through all the barbarous mutilation it had undergone
from barbarian hands, enough was left strikingly to contrast the ordinary
abodes of the Saxon.

The remains of Roman art were indeed still numerous throughout England,
but it happened rarely that the Saxon had chosen his home amidst the
villas of those noble and primal conquerors. Our first forefathers were
more inclined to destroy than to adapt.

By what chance this building became an exception to the ordinary rule, it
is now impossible to conjecture, but from a very remote period it had
sheltered successive races of Teuton lords.

The changes wrought in the edifice were mournful and grotesque. What was
now the Hall, had evidently been the atrium; the round shield, with its
pointed boss, the spear, sword, and small curved saex of the early
Teuton, were suspended from the columns on which once had been wreathed
the flowers; in the centre of the floor, where fragments of the old
mosaic still glistened from the hard-pressed paving of clay and lime,
what now was the fire-place had been the impluvium, and the smoke went
sullenly through the aperture in