the day had been
very long and I was weary, else would sad thoughts have kept me
waking. And presently there was a rumble and snapping that woke me
up in a dream of falling ruin, and the man who lay next to me cried
out and dragged me roughly aside.

The broken wall had fallen, crumbling with the heat of the fire, I
suppose, and had almost slain me. But I was not touched, though the
sword was broken. And when Ottar the scald heard of it he was
troubled, not knowing what this might betoken. But Olaf thought
little of it.

"It means that axe is better than sword for this fight," he said,
for he had armed me like himself after the Norse manner, than which
is none better or more handsome. He had given me a byrnie {10}
of the best ring mail, and a helm gold-inlaid as became a king's
kinsman, and axe and shield like his own. He and his men alone of
all Norsemen in those days bore the cross on both helm and shield.
Nor would Olaf have any unchristened man in all his host. Many a
stout warrior did he turn away because he was not and would not be
a Christian, for many Danes were yet heathen, and most Norway men.

Some of the men who had gone out to see the Danish force came back
soon after midnight, and they said that there would seem to be
close on a thousand of them in all.

After that we knew that a hard fight was before us, and the king
bade us sleep and take what rest we might. Then, very early, came
men to say that the Sudbury folk had come, and Olaf and I went down
to the village to meet them. Close on two hundred men had come with
Prat, the son of the sheriff of Sudbury, at their head, and they
were not to be despised, for they were sturdy spearmen, and many
had mail, though the most wore the stout leathern jerkin that will
turn a sword cut well enough.

And Prat asked that they should have the first place in the fight,
seeing that they fought for their own land.

"That is the place of my own ship's crew," said Olaf, "nor will
they be denied it. Now shall you fight under Redwald, your own
thane, and he will have the next place to me."

That pleased both them and me well, and after that Olaf sent me on
as advance guard, for we knew the country.

We were nine hundred strong in all, and when I took my men to the
hilltop I met a man who said that the Danes mustered some fifteen
hundred strong. There were Anglian Danes there besides thingmen.
But Olaf had said that we would fight two to one if necessary, and
so I