They saw us, and halted; but Heregar waved his hand, and they came on, for they knew him.  It would be hard to say which party was the more pleased to meet the other.

“Where is the king?” we asked.

“Come with us, and we will take you to him,” Ethered said.  “But supperless you must be tonight.  We have nought in the house, and nothing can we catch.”

Then I was surprised, and said: 

“Is it so bad as that here?  In our land, when the ice is at its thickest we can take as much fish as we will easily.”

“Save us from starvation, Ranald,” said Ethered, laughing ruefully, “and we will raise a big stone heap here in your honour.”

“Kolgrim will show you,” I said; “let me go to the king.”

“I am a great ice fisherman,” said Harek; “let me go also.”

Then Heregar laughed in lightness of heart.

“Ay, wizard, go also.  There will be charms of some sort needed before Ethered sees so much as a scale.”

Whereon they dismounted, and Kolgrim took his axe from his saddle bow, asking where the river was, while he wondered that such a simple matter as breaking a hole in the ice and dropping a line among the hungry fish, who would swarm to the air, had not been thought of.  We had not yet learned that such a winter as this comes but seldom to the west of England, and the thanes knew nothing of our northern ways.

Then Ethelnoth led Heregar and me across twisting and almost unseen paths, safer now because of the frost, though one knew that in some places a step to right or left would plunge him through the crust of hard snow into a bottomless peat bog.  The alder thickets grew everywhere round dark, ice-bound pools of peat-stained water, and we could nowhere see more than a few yards before us; and it was hard to say how far we had gone from the upland edge of the swamp when the ground began to rise from the fen, and grew harder among better timber.  But for the great frost, one would have needed a boat in many places.

Then we came to a clearing, in which stood a house that was hardly more than a cottage, and round it were huts and cattle sheds.  And this was where the king was—­the house of Denewulf the herdsman, the king’s own thrall.  There was a rough-wattled stockade round the place, and quick-set fences within which to pen the cattle and swine outside that, and all around were the thickets.  None could have known that such an island was here, for not even the house overtopped the low trees; and though all the higher ground was cleared, there were barely two acres above the watery level—­a long, narrow patch of land that lay southeast and northwest, with its southerly end close to the banks of the river Tone.  Men call the place Athelney now, since the king and his nobles lay there.  It had no name until he came, but I think that it will bear ever hereafter that which it earned thus.

Two shaggy grey sheepdogs came out to meet us, changing their angry bark for welcome when they saw Ethelnoth; and a man came to the door to see what roused them, and he had a hunting spear in his hand.  I took him for some thane, as he spoke to us in courtly wise; but he was only Denewulf the herdsman himself.