Hereward the Wake, the last Englishman to hold out against the Normans, once had designs on Peterborough. He planned to strip the abbey and burn the town.
On the night before he meant to do it, an old man came to him in a dream. The visitor was splendidly dressed, held a key in his hand, and was very angry indeed. Give back what you have taken from the church, he said, or you will not live out tomorrow.
Hereward gave it back. Yet as he and his men left Peterborough they lost themselves in the Bruneswold, the great forest that once ran west and south of the city. The dark closed in and no path could be found. Then a huge white dog appeared among the trees, and the men saw it was not a dog at all but a wolf. Pale flames, the sort country people call fairy lights, settled on the tips of their lances and burned without heat. The wolf walked ahead. The men followed it all night, and at dawn found themselves safe on the edge of Stamford. The lights went out, the wolf was gone, and the soldiers gave thanks.
The wolf was the beast of the old gods and later became a symbol of English resistance. Whoever sent it, it saw Hereward’s men home.
Where: Peterborough Cathedral precincts, the traditional site of the abbey Hereward spared.
