Alfgar, Earl of Mercia after his father, who died, after a short and
stormy life, leaving two sons, Edwin and Morcar, the fair and hapless
young earls, always spoken of together, as if they had been twins; a
daughter, Aldytha, or Elfgiva, married first (according to some) to
Griffin, King of North Wales, and certainly afterwards to Harold, King of
England; and another, Lucia (as the Normans at least called her), whose
fate was, if possible, more sad than that of her brothers.

Their second son was Hereward, whose history this tale sets forth; their
third and youngest, a boy whose name is unknown.

They had, probably, another daughter beside; married, it may be, to some
son of Leofric's stanch friend old Siward Biorn, the Viking Earl of
Northumberland, and conqueror of Macbeth; and the mother, may be, of the
two young Siwards, the "white" and the "red," who figure in chronicle and
legend as the nephews of Hereward. But this pedigree is little more than a
conjecture.

Be these things as they may, Godiva was the greatest lady in England, save
two: Edith, Harold's sister, the nominal wife of Edward the Confessor; and
Githa, or Gyda, as her own Danes called her, Harold's mother, niece of
Canute the Great. Great was Godiva; and might have been proud enough, had
she been inclined to that pleasant sin. And even then (for there is a
skeleton, they say, in every house) she carried that about her which might
well keep her humble; namely, shame at the misconduct of Hereward, her
son.

Her favorite residence, among the many manors and "villas," or farms which
Leofric possessed, was neither the stately hall at Loughton by
Bridgenorth, nor the statelier castle of Warwick, but the house of Bourne