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English books do not mention him at all that I can find; but it is fairly credible that, as the Norse records report, in the end of Ethelred's reign, he was the ally or hired general of Ethelred, and did a great deal of sea-fighting, watching, sailing, and sieging for this miserable king and Edmund Ironside, his son. The Bridge, as usual, Snorro says, offered almost insuperable obstacles.
Now nothing seemed more plain to me than that Halfden meant that I should seek Osritha. "What is Halfden doing?" I asked. "Will he not go back to your own land?" "Why, no. For he takes Northumbria as his share of what we have won. Hubba is there now. But we fight to gain more if we may, and if not, to make sure of what we have. One way or another Ethelred's power to attack us must be broken."
Now he is tearing off his helmet " Nor was he mistaken; within spear-throw the mighty frame of the Ironside towered above his struggling guard. As he bared his head, they could even distinguish his face with its large elegantly-formed features and Ethelred's prominent chin.
Through an extreme lenity it is on some occasions tyrannical. This was the condition of Ethelred's nobility, who, by being permitted everything, were never contented. Thus all the principal men held a sort of factious and independent authority; they despised the king, they oppressed the people, and they hated one another.
On now approaching that bridge which, not many years before, had been the scene of terrible contest between the invading Danes and Ethelred's ally, Olave of Norway , you might still see, though neglected and already in decay, the double fortifications that had wisely guarded that vista into the city.
He had already discovered that his forces were too small to attempt, with any certainty of success, a deliberate conquest of England; and, indeed, even before the arrival of Ethelred's messengers, he had determined to presently withdraw his fleet until such times as he had gathered about him a host large enough and strong enough to lay siege to London.
That is Snorro's account. On a previous occasion, Olaf had been deep in a hopeful combination with Ethelred's two younger sons, Alfred and Edward, afterwards King Edward the Confessor: That they two should sally out from Normandy in strong force, unite with Olaf in ditto, and, landing on the Thames, do something effectual for themselves.
In looking forward to Ethelred's approaching death, the people, accordingly, began to turn their eyes to Alfred as his successor.
Within the city rose the ancient minster church, built by Ethelwold, ancient even then, where slept the ancient kings; Kennulf, Egbert, and Ethelwulf the Saxons; and by them the Danes, Canute the Great, and Hardicanute his son, and Norman Emma his wife, and Ethelred's before him; and the great Earl Godwin, who seemed to Hereward to have died, not twenty, but two hundred years ago; and it may be an old Saxon hall upon the little isle whither Edgar had bidden bring the heads of all the wolves in Wessex, where afterwards the bishops built Wolvesey Palace.
Alfred, by his decision and courage on the day of the battle, and by the ardor and resolution with which he pressed all the subsequent operations during the period of Ethelred's decline, made himself still more conspicuous in the eyes of his countrymen than he had ever been before.
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