Ivanhoe: A Romance

Chapter 62: NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI

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About This Book

The narrative follows a disinherited knight who returns to a divided medieval England where Norman conquerors and native Saxons contend for power. Political rivalries, tournaments, outlaw raids, and legal struggles intersect with romantic entanglements and shifting loyalties. A captive noblewoman and a Jewish woman become central to episodes that probe honor, prejudice, and the ideals of chivalry, while masked identities and dramatic rescues drive much of the action. The work mixes adventure, courtroom drama, and social contrast to examine medieval manners, feudal authority, and the tensions between personal devotion and public duty.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI

Note G.—Ulrica’s Death song.

It will readily occur to the antiquary, that these verses are intended to imitate the antique poetry of the Scalds—the minstrels of the old Scandinavians—the race, as the Laureate so happily terms them,

“Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure,
Who smiled in death.”

The poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, after their civilisation and conversion, was of a different and softer character; but in the circumstances of Ulrica, she may be not unnaturally supposed to return to the wild strains which animated her forefathers during the time of Paganism and untamed ferocity.