days, resting our horses. There was a wandering gleeman who came
into the marketplace on the hill top, and we stood and listened to
him.

And first he sang of how Danes had come and burnt Harwich town. But
the people told him to sing less stale news than that, for Harwich
was close at hand. Now it was Halfden's ship which had done that,
and the fires we saw before the fog came had been the beacons lit
because of his landing.

Then he made a great outcry until he had many folk to listen, and
they paid him well before he would sing. Whereon, forsooth, my ears
tingled, for he sang of the burning of Bosham. And when he came to
the stealing of the bell, his tale was, that it, being hallowed,
would by no means bear that heathen hands should touch it, so that
when it came to the deepest pool in the haven it turned red hot,
and so, burning a great hole through the Danish ship, sank to the
bottom, and the Danes were all drowned. Whereat the people
marvelled, and the gleeman fared well.

I suppose that the flashing of the great bell that I had seen gave
rise to this tale, and that is how men tell it to this day. And I
care not to gainsay them, for it is close enough to the truth, and
few know that I had so nearly a hand in the matter.

So we rode to Thetford, and how we were received there is no need
for me to tell, for I came back as it were from the dead, and
Egfrid after years of absence. And there with Eadmund were my
father and mother, and Eadgyth, and Lodbrok, and Egfrid's folk
also, with many more friends to greet us, and the king would have