“Aye, brother,” he said, “deny it not, for I saw you thrust yourself forward and save me by yourself, which doubtless is your way of settling a grudge, brother, and a good one.”

So those two were sworn friends from that day forward, as were many another couple who met on that field for the first time, fighting side by side for Wessex.

Thus wore away the day and the next night, and with the morning those ships were yet under the holms, swinging at their anchors, for the westerly breeze held.

Then said Eanulf:  “Let them be; harm can they do none, being so few.  They will go with the shift of wind.”

But the shift of wind came not for days and days, and there they lay, never putting out from shelter.  And they are out of my story, so that I will say what befell them.

One night it freshened up to a gale, and in the morning there were five ships where six had been.  One had sunk at her moorings.  Then men said that the Danes had made a hut on the flat holm, plain to be seen from the nearest shore.  And at last a shift of wind came, and they put not out.

So certain fishers dared to sail across and spy what was amiss, and finding no man in the ships, nor seeing any about the hut, went ashore, none hindering them.

Ships and hut and shore were but the resting place of the dead, for after a while they had no food left, and were too few and weak even to man one ship and go.

Many a long year it was before the king of their land, Norse or Dane, whichever he was, learned what had befallen his host, and how their bones lay on the Wessex shore and islands, for not one of all that had sailed that spring returned to give the news, or to tell how his comrades died on Stert fighting to the last, and on the island wishing they had fallen with the slain.

Now must I tell how we went back to Glastonbury town, marching proudly as became conquerors, while on every side was shouting of men, and at the same time weeping of women for those who had fallen.

When we came to the great square there stood Tatwine the Abbot and all his monks; but I had no eyes for them.  For there, with abbess and nuns, stood Alswythe, smiling on me through tears of joy, and though her cheeks were thinner and paler by reason of fasting and prayer for us all, looking most beautiful, and to me like a vision of some saint.

That was all I could see of her then, for we must kneel, while a great Te Deum was sung, and then crowd into the abbey to hear mass once more.

Then after that was over, there was a great feast in the wide hall of the abbey, where Ealhstan and Eanulf sat side by side in the high seats, and on their right, Osric and myself, and on the left, Wulfhere and Wislac, none grudging those chief places to the men who had kept the standard and broken the Danish ring.

When the feasting was done, then came the telling of great deeds over the ale cup, and that lasted long, and many were the brave men praised; nor were the deeds of the vikings, as brave foes, forgotten, for men praised them also.  Moreover, the gleemen sang of the fight, and in those songs my name came so often, as needs it must, seeing that I bore the standard, that I will not set them down.  Nor is there need, for the housecarles sing them even yet.