Star of Mercia

From that day forth was Earl Sweyn forced to flee from shire to shire. For wheresoever he would go, the noise of his sacrilege sped before him. All priests of God cried out upon...

"My lord, Ethelbert is young, and as for thee, thou hast looked thy last upon the height of thy manhood. And Egbert our son will never be the man that thou art. I say, beware! C...

The sun was shining so strongly that we could almost hear the shooting of his beams. The air was seen to throb. White dust lay thickly over grass, bush and tree. There was a dre...

"They are all mightily drunken with the use and custom of sins!" he thundered. "If I reckoned without pause for ten years, the scandals concerning the high men of Britain would...

The crowd had borne Alftrude away from her brother-in-law's side during the scuffle: she stood by the booth of a seller of gilded gingerbread, the nearest stall to the thanes' e...

Mogneid came up the hill, smiling to himself. He knew the lie of the country of Gwrtheyrnion well by now, and the disposition of its people. He entered the castle hall. To his s...

Several women pushed a maiden into the middle of the ring formed by the assembly. She seemed to have been weeping, for her eyelids were flushed; she shook her dark hair over her...

There are three reading-publics to which a tale-writer who attempts the uncertain business of writing about Wales may appeal. One is the homebred Welsh public that asks for a ta...

"Why, he liketh not that Alftrude bestir herself overmuch, or rub shoulders with all and sundry," answered Ulwin contemptuously. "Treats her as she were the Mother of God hersel...