romised to collect and equip his own fleet as soon as possible, and
follow him. All this took place early in September; so that, at the same
time that William's threatened invasion was gathering strength and
menacing Harold's southern frontier, a cloud equally dark and gloomy,
and quite as threatening in its aspect, was rising and swelling in the
north; while King Harold himself, though full of vague uneasiness and
alarm, could gain no certain information in respect to either of these
dangers.

The Norwegian fleet assembled at the port appointed for the rendezvous
of it, but, as the season was advanced and the weather stormy, the
soldiers there, like William's soldiers on the coast of France, were
afraid to put to sea. Some of them had dreams which they considered as
bad omens; and so much superstitious importance was attached to such
ideas in those times that these dreams were gravely recorded by the
writers of the ancient chronicles, and have come down to us as part of
the regular and sober history of the times. One soldier dreamed that the
expedition had sailed and landed on the English coast, and that there
the English army came out to meet them. Before the front of the army
rode a woman of gigantic stature, mounted on a wolf. The wolf had in his
jaws a human body, dripping with blood, which he was engaged in
devouring as he came along. The woman gave the wolf another victim after
he had devoured the first.

Another of these ominous dreams was the following: Just as the fleet was
about setting sail, the dreamer saw a crowd of ravenous vultures and
birds of prey come and alight every where upon the sails and rigging of
the ships, as if they were going to accompany the expedition. Upon the
summit of a rock near the shore there sat the figure of a female, with a
stern and ferocious countenance, and a drawn sword in her hand. She was
busy counting the ships, pointing at them, as she counted, with her
sword. She seemed a sort of fiend of destruction, and she called out to
the birds, to encourage them to go. "Go!" said she, "without fear; you
shall have abundance of prey. I am going too."

It is obvious that these dreams might as easily have been interpreted to
portend death and destruction to their English foes as to the dreamers
themselves. The soldiers were, however, inclined--in the state of mind
which the season of the year, the threatening aspect of the skies, and
the certain dangers of their distant expedition, p