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Updated: June 26, 2025
Then Maddad, his father, Earl of Athole, died; and the widowed Margret, Harold's mother, came north to Orkney, still dangerous, still beautiful and attractive, especially to Gunni, Sweyn's brother, by whom she had a child, for which Gunni was outlawed, a punishment which alienated his brother Sweyn from Harold Maddadson.
"This; he refuses to restore thee and thy sons, or to hear thee, till thou hast disbanded thine army, dismissed thy ships, and consented to clear thyself and thy house before the Witanagemot." A fierce laugh broke from Tostig; Sweyn's mournful brow grew darker; Leofwine placed his right hand on his ateghar; Wolnoth rose erect; Gurth kept his eyes on Harold, and Harold's face was unmoved.
This memorable trial ended, as the reader will have forseen, in the formal renewal of Sweyn's outlawry, and the formal restitution of the Earl Godwin and his other sons to their lands and honours, with declarations imputing all the blame of the late dissensions to the foreign favourites, and sentences of banishment against them, except only, by way of a bitter mockery, some varlets of low degree, such as Humphrey Cock's-foot, and Richard son of Scrob.
"Sweyn's galleys will row faster than we can go with oars alone, and though they may not know the Dragon they will be sure that she is not one of their own ships. We must hope that they may attack us." The day passed on without a sight of the galleys, but late in the afternoon they were seen in the distance. The Dragon was moored near the middle of the rivet.
They had been surprised at seeing, as they supposed, one of their party addressing Freda, for Sweyn's orders that none should speak with her were precise. He had given this command because he feared, that by the promise of rich rewards she might tempt some of his followers to aid her escape.
And Harold slept slept long his face calm, his breathing regular: but ere the moon sunk and the dawn rose the features were dark and troubled, the breath came by gasps, the brow was knit, and the teeth clenched. While Harold sleeps, let us here pause to survey for the first time the greatness of that House to which Sweyn's exile had left him the heir.
Then, as Sweyn's grasp slackened, and he met the questioning astonishment of surrounding faces, with a hoarse inarticulate cry: "God help us all!" he said. "She is a Were-Wolf."
For a time the twins' variance was marked, on Sweyn's part by an air of rigid indifference, on Christian's by heavy downcast silence, and a nervous apprehensive observation of his brother. Superadded to his remorse and foreboding, Sweyn's displeasure weighed upon him intolerably, and the remembrance of their violent rupture was a ceaseless misery.
Grieved and troubled at this, William had said in my hearing, 'Would that amidst yon statues of steel, there were some cool head and wise tongue I could trust with my interests in England! and would that I could devise fitting plea and excuse for an envoy to Harold the Earl! Much had I mused over these words, and a light-hearted man was Mallet de Graville when, with Sweyn's letter in hand, he went to Lanfranc the abbot and said, 'Patron and father! thou knowest that I, almost alone of the Norman knights, have studied the Saxon language.
Agreeably surprised at this gracious reception from the son of Godwin, the Norman pressed the hand extended to him, and then drew forth a small case, and related accurately, and with feeling, the meeting of his cousin with Sweyn, and Sweyn's dying charge.
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