them must be interpreted from the oldest ideas of our
race. It is only by thus disengaging the traditions which have grown
round the historical person that the correct interpretation of the
position can be attempted, and when that is done we are left, not with
a mass of uncertain and misleading testimony about a national hero,
but with certain definite historical facts belonging to Hereward, and
certain traditions attached to Hereward, certifying to his great place
in the popular estimation, telling of facts which do not, it is true,
belong to Hereward, but which, in a special sense, belong to the
people who were reverencing Hereward.

If I have made it clear from these examples that the explanation of
historic fact and mythic tradition in combination does not lead either
to the discrediting of history or to the creation of new mythic
realms, I need not dwell much longer on this class of illustrations of
the relationship between history and tradition. Over and over again,
in the local records, are examples to be found where history is in
close contact with tradition, and I am far more inclined to question
the evidence which proves the falseness of any authenticated tradition
than I am to trust all the statements which do duty for history. It is
not only the traditions looming largely in popular interest, but some
of the smallest local traditions which throw light on great
historical events. They may tell us not merely of the great historical
event, but of the peculiar relationship of parts of the kingdom to
that event, which no purely historical evidence could by any
possibility explain. One of the most striking examples is, perhaps,
the Sussex tradition of "Duke" William as a conqueror.[45] The title
Duke is here faithfully recorded of the great conqueror, who
everywhere else in England, both in historical documents and in the
popular language, is referred to as king. The explanation is, if the
identification of this tradition with the great Norman king is
correct, that Sussex being more or less separated from the rest of the
country by its great weald, carried its own tradition of the bloody
field at Hastings sufficiently long and uninterrupted for it to be
stamped upon the minds of the people in its original form, and thus to
remain. No better evidence could be found for the relationship of
Sussex to this great event. All the chapters in Mr. Freeman's great
history do not impress the imagination so strongly as this o