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Updated: May 20, 2025
"Heregar, the thane of Cannington." said I, still only anxious that he should go quickly. "Heard one ever the like!" said the man, and then I remembered. I looked round at my fire. Two huts were burning now, very brightly, for the wind fanned the flames. "Saw you ever the like?" I said, and pointed. "Now, will you go?"
Then fear for his life began to creep into our minds, and we came back to Cannington sorely downcast. Then Heregar spoke to me very kindly of what he thought I could best do, and it was nothing more or less than that I should leave this land, which seemed to have no hope of honour for me now. "Go rather to Rolf, your countryman," he said.
Then I saw one of those horses, a great white steed, standing, snorting, by the wayside where he had stopped, and I spoke to him, and he let me catch and mount him, and so I rode on. Yet when I came to the top of Cannington Hill I looked back. All the road was full of our men, flying; and a thought came into my head, and I dared to draw rein and wait for them, linking my mail again across my face.
N.W. of Bishop Lydeard Station, which gets its name from the Floreys, the ancient owners of the manor. Its church, Perp. in the main, contains some interesting memorials. In the N. wall the heart of a lady, "Maud de Merriette," who was a nun of Cannington, is recorded to have been buried.
However, Wulfhere must needs go back to the war arrow business, and then to the staying of the flight at Cannington, and in this Alfred did not stop him, though I thought it more than needed. So he told all his tale, even to the slaying of the berserk, and things like that.
And there was a knot of the men, standing and listening. I listened also, and far off towards Cannington I could hear the sound of the tread of many feet, for the morning was still and quiet; and the men said that this was growing nearer.
So I and Alswythe grow old here in Cannington, seeing our children grow up around us. And Alfred the king has our eldest in his court, there training him in all things well and wisely. And Turkil is thane of Watchet, and our son-in-law, much loved by all, well and faithfully tending all my shore as Wulfhere tended it in his time.
Smoke rose from behind it, but that was doubtless from Cannington; yet there were other clouds of smoke rising against the sun, and as he looked at these the old warrior said that he feared the worst, for surely the Danes were spreading over the country and that need for them to keep together was gone. "If we see not Bridgwater on fire by tomorrow," he said, "it will be a wonder."
"Aye, man, and half the levy with him. The Danes will go away now. Enough are left to mind them." Then Wulfhere stamped on the ground in rage, cursing the folly of every man of the levy. And the housecarle stared at him as at one gone suddenly mad; but I knew only too well that his worst fears were on the way to be realized, and that soon there would be no force left on Cannington Hill.
That was the Valkyria, for her mail sparkled in the sun; but I had eyes only for that one whom I thought I should not see again, whose little glove was on my heart. Now, if we were desperate, Odda was not the man to waste any chance of victory that there might be. We went swiftly up the long slope of Cannington hill, and fell on the post there before they on the main guard could reach them.
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