,"

note his beneficent progress at home--

"In Windsor forest he did slay
A boar of passing might and strength;
The like in England never was,
For hugeness both in breadth and length.
Some of his bones in Warwick yet,
Within the castle there do lye;
One of his shield bones to this day
Hangs in the city of Coventry.

"On Dunsmore heath he also slew
A monstrous wild and cruel beast,
Call'd the dun cow of Dunsmore heath,
Which many people had opprest;
Some of her bones in Warwick yet
Still for a monument doth lie,
Which unto every looker's view,
As wondrous strange they may espy.

"And the dragon in the land,
He also did in flight destroy,
Which did both men and beasts oppress,
And all the country sore annoy:"

Or look we at him all doughty as he was, as the pilgrim of love, as
subdued by the influence of the tender passion, a suppliant to the
gentle Phillis, and ready to compass the earth to fulfil her wishes,
and to prove his devotion:

"Was ever knight for lady's sake
So tost in love, as I, Sir Guy;
For Phillis fair, that Lady bright,
As ever man beheld with eye;
She gave me leave myself to try
The valiant knight with shield and spear,
Ere that her love she would grant me,
Who made me venture far and near."

Or, afterwards view him as--

"All clad in grey in Pilgrim sort,
His voyage from her he did take,
Unto that blessed, holy land,
For Jesus Christ, his Saviour's sake."

Lastly, recal we the time when the fierce and ruthless Danes were
ravaging our land, and there was scarce a town or castle as far as
Winchester, which they had not plundered or burnt, and a proposal was
made, and per force acceded to by the English king to decide the
struggle by single combat. But the odds were great: Colbrand the
Danish champion, was a giant, and ere he came to a combat he provided
himself with a cart-load of Danish axes, great clubs with knobs of
iron, squared barrs of steel lances and iron hooks wherewith to pull
his adversary to him.

On the other hand the English--and sleepless and unhappy, the king
Athelstan pondered the circumstance as he lay on his couch, on St.
John Baptist's night--had no champion forthcoming, even though the
county of Hants had been promised as a reward to the victor. Roland,
the most valiant knight of a thousand, was dead;