Tóm tắt

Hereward the Wake: Last of the English (also published as Hereward, the Last of the English) is an 1866 novel by Charles Kingsley. It tells the story of Hereward, a historical Anglo-Saxon figure who led resistance against the Normans from a base in Ely surrounded by fen land. It was Kingsley's last historical novel, and was instrumental in elevating Hereward into an English folk-hero. Hereward is, in Kingsley's novel, the son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and Lady Godiva. He is introduced as an eighteen-year-old bully and the ruffian of the fens who is outlawed by Edward the Confessor at the request of his father. He sets off to see the world, considering such options as the Vikings of the northern seas, the Irish Danes or service with the Varangian Guard in Constantinople. He is accompanied by Martin Lightfoot, a devoted but eccentric servant. At an early stage in his journey Hereward defeats a caged polar bear in single combat in the north of England. He brawls his way through Cornwall and eventually arrives at the court of Baldwin of Flanders. Once there, he demonstrates his prowess against Baldwin's knights, and wins the love of Torfrida whom he marries. Three years after the Norman Conquest, Hereward returns to England and encounters the brutality of the new regime. Hereward takes revenge on the Normans who killed his brother. At a drunken feast he kills fifteen of them, with the assistance of Martin Lightfoot.