Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest

Splendor in heaven, and horror on the main! Sunshine and storm at once--a troubled day; Clouds roll in brightness, and descend in rain. Now the waves rush into the rocky bay, Sh...

"Weep not for him that dieth, For his struggling soul is free, And the world from which it flieth Is a world of misery; But weep for him that weareth The collar and the chain; T...

Long before the dawn had begun to grow gray in the east, Kenric had taken his way to the castle, by a direct path across the hills to a point on the lake shore, where there alwa...

"He rode half a mile the way; He saw no light that came of day; Then came he to a river broad, Never man over such one rode; Within he saw a place of green, Such one had he neve...

For several days after the visit of the Lady Guendolen and her lover to the house of the verdurer of Kentmere, rumors, many of which had been afloat since the catastrophe on the...

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As "...

"Then rode they together full right, With sharpe speares and swordes bright; They smote together sore. They spent speares and brake shields; They pounsed as fowl in the fields;...

"The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom, So fair a bride shall leave her home! Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay, So fair a bride shall pass to-day."

There is nothing in all the reign of that wise, moderate, and able prince, as viewed according to the circumstances of his position and the intelligence of his era, the Second H...

"And I'll be true to thee, Mary, As thou'lt be true to me; And I never will leave thee, never, Mary, As slave man or as free; For we're bound forever and ever, Mary, Till death...

The year had by this time worn onward to the last days of summer, or one might almost say to the earliest days of autumn, and the lovely scenery of the lake country had begun to...

Two hours' hard riding, considering that the riders were men armed in heavy mail, brought the party into the narrow, ill-paved streets of Kendal, at least two hours earlier than...

Leaving the warder lounging listlessly at his post, as in a well-settled district and in "piping times of peace," with no feudal enemies at hand, and no outlaws in the vicinity,...

"Great mountains on his right hand, Both does and roes, dun and red, And harts aye casting up the head. Bucks that brays and harts that hailes, And hindes running into the field...

The glad days rapidly passed over, and the morning of the tenth day, as it broke fair and full of promise in the unclouded eastern sky, looked on a gay and happy cavalcade, in a...

High up in a green, gentle valley, a lap among the hills, which, though not very lofty, were steep and abrupt with limestone crags and ledges, heaving themselves above the soil...

"'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good green wood, When mavis and merle are singing; When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter's horn is ringing."

That was a dark day for Eadwulf, on which the train of Sir Yvo de Taillebois departed from the tower of Waltheofstow; and thenceforth the discontented, dark-spirited man became...

Until the last glimmer of daylight had faded out in the west, and total darkness had prevailed for several hours through the forest, Eadwulf remained a prisoner in his hollow tr...

It did not prove, in truth, a matter altogether so easy of accomplishment as Guendolen, in her warm enthusiasm and sympathy, had boasted, to effect that small thing, as she had...

"I say not nay, but that all day, It is both writ and said, That woman's faith is, as who sayeth, All utterly decayed; But neverthelesse, right good witnesse In this case might...

One of those serfs, Eadwulf, was little disposed to resign himself tranquilly to his fate; as within a short period after the occupation of Waltheofstow by the new seneschal, hi...

A sister of Guendolen's departed mother, Abbess of St. Hilda, a woman of unusual intellect, and judgment, character and feelings, in no degree inferior to her talents, had taken...

As for the rest appealed, It issues from the rancor of a villain, A recreant and most degenerate traitor; Which, in myself, I boldly will defend; And interchangeably hurl down m...

It was fortunate, for all concerned, that no long time elapsed before more efficient aid came on the ground, than the gentleman who first reached the spot, and who, although a m...

High up in the gray square tower, which constituted the keep of the castle of Waltheofstow, there was a suite of apartments, the remains of which are discoverable to this day, k...

"Sweetly blows the haw and the rowan-tree, Wild roses speck our thickets sae briery; Still, still will our walk in the green-wood be-- Oh, Jeanie! there's nothing to fear ye."