Only two of our men stayed here with us, being fishers and old comrades of my father.  The rest he bade find their way home to Denmark to their wives and children, from the Northumbrian coast, or else take service with the king, Ethelwald, who ruled in East Anglia, beyond the Wash, who, being a Dane by descent from the Jutes who took part with Angles and Saxons in winning this new land, was glad to have Danish men for his housecarls.  Some went to him, and were well received there, as we knew long afterwards.

The man who had been washed overboard and hauled back at risk of his neck was one of these.  His name was Mord, and he would have stayed with us; but my father thought it hard that he should not have some better chance than we could give him here, for it was not easy to live at first.  Somewhat of the same kind he said to Arngeir, for he had heard of this king when he had been in the king’s new haven in the Wash some time ago.  But Arngeir would by no means leave the uncle who had been as a father to him.

Now when we marked out the land that Witlaf gave us, there was a good omen.  My father set the four blue altar stones at each corner of the land as the boundaries, saying that thus they would hallow all the place, rather than make an altar again of them here where there was no grove to shelter them, or, indeed, any other spot that was not open, where a holy place might be.  And when we measured the distances between them a second time they were greater than at first, which betokens the best of luck to him whose house is to be there.  I suppose that they will bide in these places now while Grimsby is a town, for, as every one knows, it is unlucky to move a boundary stone.

Soon my father found a man who had some skill in the shipwright’s craft, and brought him to our place from Saltfleet.  Then we built as good a boat as one could wish, and, not long after that, another.  But my father was careful that none of the Lindsey folk whom he had known should think that this fisher was the Grim whom they had once traded with, lest word should go to Hodulf in any way.

Now we soon hired men to help us, and the fishing throve apace.  We carried the fish even to the great city of Lincoln, where Alsi the Lindsey king had his court, though it was thirty miles away.  For we had men in the villages on the road who took the great baskets on from one to another, and always Grim and one of us were there on the market day, and men said that never had the town and court seen such fish as Grim’s before.  Soon, therefore, he was rich, for a fisher; and that was heard of by other fishers from far off, and they drew to Grimsby, so that the town spread, and Witlaf the good thane said that it was a lucky day which drove us to his shore, for he waxed rich with dues that they were willing to pay.  We built boats and let them out to these men, so that one might truly say that all the fishery was Grim’s.