The Legend of Hereward

"On mid-summer's eve in the year 1063, just before noon, two young men, heavily armed, rode into Bourne looking for a fight."

It was the beginning of the Legend of Hereward - but which Hereward? Hereward The Outlaw? Hereward the Firestarter? Hereward the Plunderer? Hereward the Witch-Killer? Was he an English hero leading a last-ditch resistance against William the Conqueror and the invading Normans, whose exploits inspired the romantic myth of Robin Hood? Or was he a dangerous 'berserker' for whom murder, deceit and betrayal were constant companions? More than a century on from his short and violent life, it is the learned monk Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambriensis or Gerald de Barri) who has to piece together - and put a favourable gloss on - the legend of Hereward and reveal what happened at the siege of Ely and its Abbey, deep in the flooded and mysterious East Anglian Fens.