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#PT-7986
Longing to free the townsfolk of Coventry,
England from the oppression of heavy taxes, The Countess Godiva implored her
husband, the Earl Leofric to offer relief. With great urgency and prayer she
asked him, but the Earl sharply rebuked her for foolishly asking what was so
much to his detriment, forbidding her to speak to him on the subject ever again.
But with a woman's tenacity, she never ceased her request, and at last her
husband made her a deal.
"Mount your horse and ride naked, before all the people, through the market
of this town from one end to the other, and on your return you shall have your
request."
Godiva replied, "But will you give me
permission if I am willing to do it?"
"I will," he said.
Then the Countess loosed her hair and let
down her tresses, which covered the whole of her body like a veil, and then,
mounting her horse and attended by two knights, she rode through the marketplace
without being seen, except her fair legs, and having completed the journey, she
returned with gladness to her astonished husband and obtained of him what she
had asked.
Earl Leofric freed the town of Coventry and its inhabitants from the tax, and
confirmed it by a charter.
You go girl!
Source: Edwin Widney Hartland, English
Fairy and other Folk Tales (London: Walter Scott Publishing Company, n.d.
[ca. 1890], pp. 55-56.
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