Editorial note — APPENDIX.
Reading edition
Hereward is said (in Vita Herewardi) to have made his way to the sea shore. Wells in Norfolk is supposed to be the spot where he embarked, and the supposition rests upon the phrase “Mare wide vocatum juxta Welle.” But Hereward could much more easily have reached Welle in the Fens—(there are now Upwell and Outwell in Norfolk); Welle in the Fens was not so far from the sea then as it is now, and if vessels were ready, Hereward could have entered the Wellestream which at that time ran past Lynn. The Ouse flowed past Wisbech then, and the Normans appear to have been in force at the “Turf Castle” in that town.
If it were necessary to evade the Normans, supposing they were in force, off the mouth of the Ouse, in the Wash, he could take to the open sea—and if the course were open he could enter the Welland and approach Spalding or Bourn.
Whatever may have been the course pursued, the fugitives could not have arrived at either place in so short a time as is represented at the commencement of Chap. XXVI.
From Ely to Spalding by railway is some 36 miles.