Hereward: Mayhem, Man, Myth

Hereward the Wake, for a thousand years, has been hailed as a national hero, a brave warrior making a stand against England’s new masters, the Normans. His last acts of defiance took place across the marshlands of Ely. This book explores what we actually know about Hereward, what myths we have pinned on him, and why, over the centuries, we have done so. Hereward, for a very short time, made a noise in the world, and gave William the Conqueror quite a few sleepless nights. Centuries after he died, he became an icon of Resistance to Tyranny. But we cannot know much about what this mysterious man was like, not even where he was born or where and when he died: he comes out of shadows and returns to them. This book explores the turbulent world he lived in, and what it would have been like to have lived through events that reverberate right down to today. It also explores how people remembered Hereward, how they made a myth of him, and how he became a symbol of Englishness.