and he celebrates their
triumphs with an exulting heart, as if British victories were not Saxon
defeats. Bede, the Anglo-Saxon, and Wace, the Norman, "a Frenchis clerc"
as he calls him, are, in his eyes, authorities of the same sort and same
value, equally worthy of filial respect and belief. "It came to him in
mind," says Layamon, speaking of himself, "and in his chief thought that
he would of the English tell the noble deeds.... Layamon began to
journey wide over this land and procured the noble books which he took
for pattern. He took the English book that St. Bede made," and a Latin
book by "St. Albin"; a third book he took "and laid in the midst, that a
French clerk made, who was named Wace, who well could write.... These
books he turned over the leaves, lovingly he beheld them ... pen he took
with fingers and wrote on book skin."[352] He follows mainly Wace's
poem, but paraphrases it; he introduces legends that were unknown to
Wace, and adds speeches to the already numerous speeches of his model.
These discourses consist mostly of warlike invectives; before slaying,
the warriors hurl defiance at each other; after killing his foe, the
victor allows himself the pleasure of jeering at the corpse, and his
mirth resembles very much the mirth in Scandinavian sagas. "Then laughed
Arthur, the noble king, and gan to speak with gameful words: 'Lie now
there, Colgrim.... Thou climbed on this hill wondrously high, as if thou
wouldst ascend to heaven, now thou shalt to hell. There thou mayest know
much of your kindred; and greet thou there Hengest ... and Ossa, Octa
and more of thy kin, and bid them there dwell winter and summer, and we
shall in land live in bliss.'"[353] This is an example of a speech
added to Wace, who simply concludes his account of the battle by:

Mors fu Balduf, mors fu Colgrin
Et Cheldric s'en ala fuiant.[354]

In such taunts is recognised the ferocity of the primitive epics, those
of the Greeks as well as those of the northern nations. Thus spoke
Patroclus to Cebrion when he fell headlong from his chariot, "with the
resolute air of a diver who seeks oysters under the sea."

After Layamon, translations and adaptations soon become very plentiful,
metrical chronicles, like the one composed towards the end of the
thirteenth century by Robert of Gloucester,[355] are compiled on the
pattern of the French ones, for the use and delight of the English
people; chivalrous romances are also written in Eng