Then was such a terrible roar from the Saxons as I had never heard—­the roar of desperate men who have their foes before them, more awful than any war shout.  And at that even the vikings shrank a little, closing their ranks, and then, with all the weight of the close-ranked wedge behind me, we were among them, and our axes were at work where men were driven on one another before us; and the press thinned and scattered at last, while the Danes howled, and for a moment we three and a few lines behind us stood with no foemen before us, while all down the sides of the wedge the fight raged.  Then we halted, and the Danes lapped round us.  I do not know that we lost more than two men in this first onset, so heavy was it; but the Danes fell everywhere.

Now began fighting such as I had heard of, but had never seen before.  The scalds sing of men who fought as fights a boar at bay in a ring of hounds, unfearing and silent; and so fought we.  My axe broke, and I took to sword Helmbiter, and once Kolgrim went Berserker, and howled, and leaped from my side into a throng which fell on us, and drove them back, slaying three outright, and meeting with no hurt.

Our wedge held steady.  Men fell, but we closed up; and there grew a barrier of slain before us.  I had not seen Hubba since we first closed in, and then he had been a little to the right of where we struck his line, under a golden banner, whereon was a raven broidered, that hung motionless in the still morning air.

Presently the Danish onslaught slackened.  Men were getting away from their line to the rear, worn out or wounded, and the hill beyond them was covered with those who had fallen out.  They had beaten against our lines as one beats on a wall—­hewing out stones, indeed, but without stirring it.  They had more hurt than we.

Odda pushed to my side, and said to me: 

“What if we advance towards the hill crest?”

“Slowly, then,” I said.

He passed the word, and we began to move, and the Danes tried to stay us.  Then their attack on the rear face of the wedge slackened and ceased, and they got round before us to fight from the higher ground.  At once Odda saw that an attack in line as they wavered thus would do all for us, so he swung his hard Devon levies to right and left on us Norsemen as the centre—­maybe there were twenty of us left at that time—­and as the wings swung forward with a rolling cheer, the Danes crumbled away before them, and we drove them up the little hill and over the brow, fighting among the half-burnt watch fires and over heaps of plunder, even to where the tall “Raven” drooped from its staff.

Then I saw the mighty Hubba before me; and had I not known it already, one might see defeat written in his face as he looked across to his ships.  His men were back now, and stood on the far shore, helpless.  Then was a cheer from our left, and he looked there, and I looked also.

Out of the fort came our wounded—­every one who could put one foot before another—­a strange and ghastly crowd of fifty or sixty men who would yet do what they might for England.  And with them was a mixed crowd of thralls and village folk, bearing what arms they could find on the place whence we drove the first Danes, and forks, and bill hooks, and heavy staves.