Behind them they Left, the Lych to devour,
    The Sallow kite and the Swart raven,
    Horny of beak,—­ and Him, the dusk-coated,
    The white-afted Erne, the corse to Enjoy,
    The Greedy war-hawk, and that Grey beast,
    The Wolf of the Wood.  No such Woeful slaughter
    Aye on this Island Ever hath been,
    By edge of the Sword, as book Sayeth,
    Writers of Eld, since of Eastward hither
    English and Saxons Sailed over Sea,
    O’er the Broad Brine,—­ landed in Britain,
    Proud Workers of War, and o’ercame the Welsh,
    Earls Eager of fame, Obtaining this Earth.

During the decadence, in the disastrous reign of AEthelred, the Chronicle regains its fulness, and the following passage may be taken as a good specimen of its later style.  It shows the approach to comment and reflection, as the compilers grew more accustomed to historical writing in their own tongue:—­

An. 1009.  Here on this year were the ships ready of which we ere spake, and there were so many of them as never ere (so far as books tell us) were made among English kin in no king’s day.  And man brought them all together to Sandwich, and there should they lie, and hold this earth against all outlanders [foreigners’] hosts.  But we had not yet the luck nor the worship [valour] that the ship-fyrd should be of any good to this land, no more than it oft was afore.  Then befel it at this ilk time or a little ere, that Brihtric, Eadric’s brother the ealdorman’s, forwrayed [accused] Wulfnoth child to the king:  and he went out and drew unto him twenty ships, and there harried everywhere by the south shore, and wrought all evil.  Then quoth man to the ship-fyrd that man might easily take them, if man were about it.  Then took Brihtric to himself eighty ships and thought that he should work himself great fame if he should get Wulfnoth, quick or dead.  But as they were thitherward, there came such a wind against them such as no man ere minded [remembered], and it all to-beat and to-brake the ships, and warped them on land:  and soon came Wulfnoth and for-burned the ships.  When this was couth [known] to the other ships where the king was, how the others fared, then was it as though it were all redeless, and the king fared him home, and the ealdormen, and the high witan, and forlet the ships thus lightly.  And the folk that were on the ships brought them round eft to Lunden, and let all the people’s toil thus lightly go for nought:  and the victory that all English kin hoped for was no better.  There this ship-fyrd was thus ended; then came, soon after Lammas, the huge foreign host, that we hight Thurkill’s host, to Sandwich, and soon wended their way to Canterbury, and would quickly have won the burg if they had not rather yearned for peace of them.  And all the East Kentings made peace with the host, and gave it three thousand pound.  And the host there, soon after that, wended