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Updated: May 11, 2025
And for answer I threw my seax at him, and as he raised shield to stop it, for it flew straight and hard as a forester can throw, I leapt at him, going in under his shield, and he fell heavily, moving not, for my blow went home. Well it was that Wulfhere came after me, for he warded blow of axe that would have slain me. And then the Danes howled and fell on us.
It was such a party as an abbot might well travel with, and that is all that would be said of us if the Danish riders asked aught of the roadside folk. I and Eadward alone were armed as the abbot's housecarles. The men bore but spear and seax, as would any wayfarer for fear of robbers and the like.
So I leaned my staff against a tree, and drew the sharp seax from my belt.
But when I tried the joints of the masonry with the point of my seax, I did but blunt the weapon, for the mortar was harder than the stone, which was the red sandstone of the cliff where we had rested. So I forbore and sat down, leaning my aching head against the cool wall, to wait for Olaf's return.
Then came into my mind the words of my father, who would ever tell me that he is basest who would slay an unarmed foe, or smite a fallen man; and hastily I put back the seax again, lest I should be tempted to become base as men had said I was; for I hold treachery to be of the same nature as that of which my father warned me.
Then I was minded to turn away and leave him where he was, until the foe from the forest looked on him for the last time, for it was all that he deserved, and I set my seax back in my belt and turned away to my horse with a great loathing of the man in my mind; and seeing that, he begged for mercy again most pitiably. That is a hard thing to hear unmoved, and I stayed and looked at him again.
Telling him, then, that I would not run the chance of his falling on me from behind, I took his dagger and the seax they had given me, and stuck them in the ground a full hundred yards away, and then bade him, when I was out of sight, crawl thither as best he might and so loose himself.
Harek was smiling, and he pulled Kolgrim forward. "Have no fear," he said; "those who play bowls expect rubs." Then the king came down from his throne and towards us. He had on gilded armour beneath his long, ermine-trimmed blue cloak, and that pleased me. He had sword and seax, but no helm, though that was on a table by the throne for he wore a crown.
Their arms and weapons, helmet and mailshirt, tall spear and javelin, sword and seax, the short broad dagger that hung at each warrior's girdle, gathered to them much of the legend and the art which gave colour and poetry to the life of Englishmen. Each sword had its name like a living thing. And next to their love of war came their love of the sea.
Maybe that was all foolishness on my part, but I am not ashamed thereof today, as I was then. "Stay, have you any weapon?" I said, as I was turning away. "There are many ills that may befall an unarmed man in a wild country." "There was a seax here," he said, rising stiffly. "They left it on the ground, that I might see help out of my reach, as it were. Ay, here it is."
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