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Updated: May 14, 2025
"I like thine answer," said Tostig, smiling, "and I like still more to watch thine eye gazing on the prows of thy war-ships. Strange indeed it were if thou, who hast been fighting fifteen years for the petty kingdom of Denmark, shouldst hesitate now, when all England lies before thee to seize."
Grim and tall rose the standard, and the streamer shrieked and flapped in the wind as if the raven had voice, when, right before Harold, right between him and the banner, stood Tostig his brother, known by the splendour of his mail, the gold work on his mantle known by the fierce laugh, and the defying voice. "What matters!" cried Haco; "strike, O King, for thy crown!"
The meeting was less stormy than had been expected; for the minds of most men were made up, and so far as Tostig was interested, the facts were too evident and notorious, the witnesses too numerous, to leave any option to the judges.
No knee bent the rider, no cap did he doff; but seizing the startled Norman with the gripe of a hand as strong as his own, he led him aside from the courtiers, and said: "Thou knowest me, William? though not thus alone should I come to thy court, if I did not bring thee a crown." "Welcome, brave Tostig!" said the Duke, marvelling. "What meanest thou? nought but good, by thy words and thy smile."
Raising his voice the thane addressed Tostig, "I bring to Tostig the greeting and message of his brother King Harold. Let him return to his allegiance and he shall again have the earldom of Northumberland; nay, he shall have a third of the kingdom to rule together with the king." "What, then," Tostig asked, "shall be given to King Harold of Norway?"
Then Harold turned back, and, his heart was full; and, when he reached the house, his father was sitting in the hall on his chair of state; and Githa sate on his right hand, and a little below her sate Tostig and Leofwine, who had come in from the bear-hunt by the river-gate, and were talking loud and merrily; and thegns and cnehts sate all around, and there was wassail as Harold entered.
His gallant stand, however, had sufficed to give his countrymen time to complete their preparations, and the shield-wall of the Norsemen stretched across the gentle ascent from the bridge. With his hands raised aloft, as a sign that his mission was a peaceful one, an English thane with twenty mounted horsemen rode across the bridge. He was met by the king, Tostig, and his chiefs.
Godwin sprang on the deck of the nearest vessel, and all the passions that Tostig had aroused, he exerted his eloquence to appease. In the midst of his arguments, there rose from the ranks on the strand, the shout of "Harold! Harold the Earl! Harold and Holy Crosse!"
It was certain that an invading force from Norway would land in Northumbria, and Harold, although he might not be able to rely greatly upon the assistance of the northern earls as against the Normans, knew that they would do their best to defeat an expedition landing on their own shores, especially when Tostig was a sharer in the invasion.
And Earl Godwin came first to his house in London near the Tower Palatine, in what is now called the Fleet and Harold the Earl, and Tostig, and Leofwine, and Gurth, were to meet him there, and go thence, with the full state of their sub-thegns, and cnehts, and house-carles, their falcons, and their hounds, as become men of such rank, to the court of King Edward.
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