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Updated: June 26, 2025
Then suddenly Heregar rose up on his elbow from beside the standard, crying strangely: "Ay, Father Eahlstan when the tide is low. Somerset and Dorset side by side. What say you, father Somerset and Devon? Even so." The other sleepers stirred, and the lady turned and looked on the thane, but he slept even yet. "Worn out is the brave thane," said I. "Strange dreams come to one when that is so."
We had not yet learned that such a winter as this comes but seldom to the west of England, and the thanes knew nothing of our northern ways. Then Ethelnoth led Heregar and me across twisting and almost unseen paths, safer now because of the frost, though one knew that in some places a step to right or left would plunge him through the crust of hard snow into a bottomless peat bog.
"You are a great wizard, lord; and I thank you." "Here is a true saying of a friend of mine," said Heregar, coming up in time to hear this. "But what has come to you, king? have you heard aught?" Now when the old woman heard the thane name the king, before I could answer she cried out and came and clung to my stirrup, taking my hand and kissing it, and weeping over it till I was ashamed.
"That must you, Heregar the outlaw," said the old woman coolly, without a word of thanks, and I thought my story and face were better known than I deemed. Therefore I must make the best of it. "Well, Mother," said I, "you know me, and if you know me, so also must many others. But I want to join the levy, and fight if need be."
If they might not reach their ships, and became penned in on Stert, they were lost every one, for none might cross the deep ooze. "Not this time, Heregar. Remember, when the time comes," she said. And I paid no heed to her. For now horses were galloping riderless along the road and into the fields.
Then Wislac must ask him if there were any more of his sort in the abbey, and seeing that we meant no harm, and looking on me as an ally in that matter of the reading, he said there were five more, "whom Heregar the Thane knew, if he would remember, reading certain Scriptures at supper time."
They will be sure that we gather men on the Quantock side, whence Heregar can keep them; and so, while they watch for us to attack them thence, we will gather beyond Selwood, calling all the thanes from Hants and Wilts and Dorset and Somerset to meet me on a fixed day, and so fall on them.
For the men, save those of Bridgwater, would not bide on the hill, but came back, saving the Danes would surely depart. And, indeed, I also thought so; but wrongly. For even as I talked with Heregar of his own affairs, news came of a fresh attack, whereon I sent him to you, fearing the worst, for the men on the hill were few, and those in the town seeming of little spirit.
Then he said to me; "You are Heregar, the bishop's standard bearer. We have heard of you as such, and welcome you, knowing you must bring good news, as your face tells me." "I am Heregar, Lord King," I answered, "and I bring good news written in these which I am to give into your own hand." Then the king smiled a little, and signed the atheling to take the letters, and give them him.
And they could not take offence at his tone, yet they saw well what he meant; and this in the end touched them very closely, for they were in the same case as he, but with more right, being of Somerset, to wipe out their defeat. But maybe there would have been a quarrel if Eanulf had not spoken. "Peace, thanes," he said. "Heregar is right, and we must avenge our dead.
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