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Updated: June 19, 2025
"It seems to be there when needed." "Well, it is not that used here. Get the housecarls to teach you better manners." Then Havelok bowed a little, in token that he would do so; and when Alsi spoke to him next it was in Welsh. "You are a marshman, as I hear?"
"Well, and what is the talk of the housecarls, Erling?" I asked. "Good also," he growled. "But I would that I kenned the talk of her of whom I have seen overmuch in the days gone by." Then he remembered that of this matter Father Selred knew nothing, and he swore under his breath at his own foolishness; but the good father had not heard him, or his rough Danish prevented his understanding.
Just a year afterwards he received a message from Harold to come up to London, and to order his housecarls to hold themselves in readiness to start immediately on receiving an order from him.
"It was not," answered Ragnar, "for it seemed to me that the men looked only to find your Welsh thane Griffin and his men. When they saw my Norfolk housecarls, they waited no longer, and we only rode down one or two of them. But I have somewhat against this Griffin, for he helped me not at all.
Before they could run up and seize them the two men had leapt up into the saddles and galloped furiously away. Unfortunately the other four horses had followed, and immediate pursuit was therefore impossible. The housecarls had run to the spot where their horses were stabled and had gone off in pursuit, but Beorn feared that the men would have far too great a start to be overtaken.
Wulf had with some difficulty obtained from Harold the command of twelve of the soldiers. "I have my reasons, my lord king, though I would rather not state them. I would remind you that I have shown that it is not my habit to take alarm lightly. Your brother Gurth laughed at me when I begged to watch over his camp with my housecarls, and I saved him from a sudden attack by the Welsh thereby."
There was no body of seasoned troops like the housecarls to serve as a nucleus, and to bear the chief brunt of the battle. All alike were raw, inexperienced, and badly armed, save for the axe, which was the favourite weapon of the English.
But now I must be going, for I shall ride on ahead so as to go down to Steyning and fetch our men. I was before sorry that, owing to my being here, they did not come down with the king; now I am glad, for I might have lost half of them, while as it is I shall have a hundred men as good as his own to help to fill up the ranks of Harold's housecarls, besides the general levy of my tenants."
Beyond the other door lay the housecarls of Offa down the long hall where we had feasted, and within his own chambers there were a score or more of the young thanes of his bodyguard sleeping across his own doors. Now we heard the still voice of Selred, and after it a stifled outcry, hushed almost before it arose, and then silence.
I would that one of our brothers would come from home that I might send it to them in Grimsby. We do not need it." So I showed him the gold, and he wondered at it, and laughed, saying that the housecarls had the best place after all. And so he went on, and I back to the gate.
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