l this, I suppose, befell in the Castle of Malwood.

After dinner the King prepared to hunt. "Being in great spirits," says
Ordericus, "he was joking with his attendants while his boots were
being laced, when an armourer came and presented him six arrows. The
King immediately took them with great satisfaction, praising the work,
and unconscious of what was to happen, kept four of them himself and
held out the other two to Walter Tyrrel. "It is but right," said he,
"that the sharpest arrows should be given to him who knows best how to
inflict mortal wounds with them." This Tyrrel was a French knight of
good extraction, the wealthy lord of the castles of Poix and Pontoise,
filling a high place among the nobles, and a gallant soldier; he was
therefore admitted to familiar intimacy with the King and became his
constant companion. Meanwhile as they were idly talking and the King's
household attendants were assembled about him, a monk of Gloucester
presented himself and delivered to the King a letter from his abbot.
Having read it, the King burst out laughing and said merrily to the
knight just mentioned, "Walter, do what I told you." The knight
replied, "I will, my lord." Slighting then the warnings of the elders,
and forgetting that the heart is lifted up before a fall, he said
respecting the letter he had received, "I wonder what has induced my
lord Serlo to write me in this strain, for I really believe he is a
worthy abbot and respectable old man. In the simplicity of his heart he
transmits to me, who have enough besides to attend to, the dreams of
his snoring monks and even takes the trouble to commit them to writing
and send them a long distance. Does he think that I follow the example
of the English, who will defer their journey or their business on
account of the dreams of a parcel of wheezing old women?

"Thus speaking, he hastily rose and mounting his horse rode at full
speed to the forest. His brother, Count Henry with William de Bretanel,
and other distinguished persons, followed him, and having penetrated
into the woods the hunters dispersed themselves in various directions
according to custom. The King and Walter Tyrrel posted themselves with
a few others in one part of the forest and stood with their weapons in
their hands eagerly watching for the coming of the game, when a stag
suddenly running between them the King quitted his station and Walter
shot an arrow. It grazed the beast's grizzly back, but glancing