CHAP. II. TIIK (illKAT U'YKL <>K Till-; I'MXS. 23 



tin- waste, and the fen. The islands were long the 

 haunts of marauders and banditti, and when plunder 

 failed them, the abundance of iisli and fowl offered them 

 a readv means of subsistence. But about the period of 

 the Conquest a new class of refugees swarmed into them. 

 The defeated and still resisting Saxons fled thither for 

 shelter against the mailed men-at-arms of the Norman. 

 The situation of Ely at the junction of the ancient 

 branch of the Ouse (called the West River) with the 

 Cam 011 its course from Essex and Cambridgeshire, 

 surrounded by morasses and fens, and accessible only 

 by one entrance at Aldreth High Bridge, rendered it 

 of great strength. It became a camp of refuge for the 

 Saxons, who, led by Hereward, maintained for many 

 years their last desperate but unavailing struggle for 

 independence. 



The other Fen islands which acquired a similar cele- 

 brity in those ancient times were Crowland, Ramsey, 

 Thorney, and Spinney. They rose up at intervals far 

 apart amidst the dead watery level of the Fens, grown 

 over with rushes, flags, and sedge. The atmosphere 

 which hung over them was moist and putrid, and " full 

 of rotten harrs." But the very desolation and horror 

 which enveloped the district seem to have proved attrac- 

 tions in the eyes of the recluse Gluthlac the saint of the 

 Fen islands. Having journeyed towards the margin of 

 the Fens, he inquired of the borderers what they knew 

 thereof; and they told him many things of the dread- 

 fulness and solitude of these places, but especially that 

 in the remote and secret parts of the Fen there lay a 

 certain island which no one dared to inhabit because 

 of the strange and uncouth monsters with which it 

 abounded. Whereupon Guthlac earnestly entreating 

 that he might be shown that place, a fisherman pro- 

 ceeded to row him thither in his boat, and landing him 

 ai the spot now known as (Voyland, there left him. 

 Guthlac built for himself " a hut in a hollow, on the side 



