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Updated: May 8, 2025
Then Lodbrok said that he had been in London at a time when Offa the King was there, and it was long years ago, but that the very day might be remembered by reason of a great wedding that he had been to see out of curiosity, knowing little of Saxon customs. And he named the people who were married in the presence of Offa and many nobles. Then Eadmund laughed a little.
"You are Saxon by all seeming," said the leader, "yet you speak like a Dane. Whence are you, and how learned you our tongue so glibly?" "We are from Reedham in East Anglia, which is at peace with the Danish host," I said; "and I learnt the Danish speech from one who is my friend, Lodbrok the Dane, whom men call Jarl Lodbrok."
Then my father would have him come back to the house at once, out of the stormy weather, for the rain was coming now as the wind fell; and we went, not waiting for the change of garments, for that the king would not suffer. As we turned away from the staithe, Lodbrok took my arm, asking me where he might find shelter. "Why, come with us, surely!"
"Speak to him, and ask him to leave the land in peace," he said. Now I thought that was of little use, but I would do the king's bidding, and asked what I should say. "Offer him ransom, if you will," Eadmund answered. So I went forward, and stood at a bowshot's length from our people, leaning on the axe that Lodbrok had made me, and there waited till the Danes came on.
And Ingild sent writing to my father by the hand of some chapman travelling to the great fair at Norwich; and with his letter went one from me also, with messages to Lodbrok for Eadmund had made me learn to write.
But between me and the gate sped arrows thick as hail, so that to reach it I must needs pass through them. Then said Jarl Lodbrok, 'Here is the entry, and it is so hard to win through because of me, yet not by my fault. But I think you will not turn aside for arrows, and when you come therein I pray you to remember me. Then pressed I to the gate, unheeding of the arrow storm.
Here are two men found fighting over the body of a third who is known, as men say, to have been friendly with both. No man saw the beginning of the business. Now we will hear what was seen, but first let this Wulfric speak for himself;" and he turned his bright eyes on me. Now I told him all the truth from the time when I parted from Lodbrok until the men came.
Now have I little more to say, for I have told what I set out to tell how Lodbrok the Dane came from over seas, and what befell thereafter. For now came to us at Reedham long years of peace that nothing troubled. And those years, since Osritha and I were wedded at Reedham very soon after we came home, have flown very quickly.
But one thing more he said at first, and that was that Eadmund the King set him on to slay the jarl." On that I cried out that the good king loved Lodbrok too well, and in any case would suffer no such cowardly dealings. "So ran his after words; but that was his first story, nevertheless." "Then he lied, for you have just now heard him say that his own evil thoughts bade him do the deed."
I looked at the beautiful boat astern, tossing lightly on the wave crests, and saw that she would surely be lost over the bar; so I asked my father now, as I had meant before, if we might not try to get her on board. For answer he turned to Lodbrok. "Set you much store by your boat, Jarl?" he asked him. "The boat is yours, Thane, or Wulfric's, by all right of salvage.
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