Her first aim was to promote ill-feeling between the Voizins and their neighbours; this part of the campaign was prosecuted with vigour.  Cattle were lost on either side of the boundary; houses were burnt; old wells ran dry; rumours, mysteriously circulated, spoke of these as no accidental mishaps; suspicions were whispered; instances of retaliation followed.  At the time when a dangerous feeling was thus growing up a famine broke out in the Voizin country while the islanders were well supplied.  The hungry Voizin men heard voices in the darkness scoffing at them, laughter and sneers.  When their carts were sent to fetch the necessaries of life, lynch-pins were loosened; in more than one case the draught oxen were houghed; the provisions, when received, were mouldy and unwholesome.  At last sickness broke out, with stories of poison; then the tension became insupportable.  The Voizin chief, too proud to go to his neighbours, summoned them to him; the messenger was murdered.  This assassination, of which the natives denied all knowledge, was met by prompt reprisals; three Perelle fishermen were hung on the spot where the body was found.  From this date the outbreak of hostilities was but a question of time.  A sternness of purpose ruled in the councils of the Voizins which frustrated all attempts at conciliation.  A little before Christmas a trivial incident kindled the smouldering flames, and the hordes, pouring from the Torteval valleys, swept over the districts now known as the parishes of St. Saviour’s and the Catel; the resistance was tame and ineffectual, sufficient only to give occasion for considerable slaughter and plunder.  The invaders, seeing no reason for returning to their famine-stricken fastnesses, settled themselves in the enjoyment of the abundance of the vanquished, who, in their turn, with their accustomed versatility, submitted patiently, and even cheerfully, to a yoke which, after the first onslaught was over, pressed lightly; the Voizins, to whom fighting was a pastime, bearing no malice, and passing imperceptibly into a genial mood.

Judith now prepared to develop the next move, the object of which was to undermine the authority of the monks, and make them vulnerable by isolation.  Derisive hints were dropped respecting the failure of the new religion to help its votaries in the hour of peril; the victory of the Voizins was attributed to the superiority of their Gods rather than to deficiency in courage on the part of their foes:  this theory, which was not unpalatable to those who had been half-hearted in defence of their homes, was also utilized by the more sober spirits as an argument wherewith to restrain the more ardent from attempting to renew the struggle under similar conditions.  The observances of the religion of Thor and Odin, or rather of that debased form of it which prevailed among this singular people, were celebrated under their more alluring aspects:  frequent feasts and dances captivated the laughter-loving