Caesar in fault, not to have invented a weapon so dread."

And striding back into his pavilion, he came forth with the helm and
shirt of mail, which was worn stronger and heavier by the Normans, as
fighting usually on horseback, than by Dane and Saxon, who, mainly
fighting on foot, could not have endured so cumbrous a burthen: and if
strong and dour generally with the Norman, judge what solid weight
that mighty Duke could endure! With his own hand William placed the
mail on the ruined Druid stone, and on the mail the helm.

Harold looked long and gravely at the edge of the axe; it was so
richly gilt and damasquined, that the sharpness of its temper could
not well have been divined under that holiday glitter. But this axe
had come to him from Canute the Great, who himself, unlike the Danes,
small and slight [195], had supplied his deficiency of muscle by the
finest dexterity and the most perfect weapons. Famous had been that
axe in the delicate hand of Canute--how much more tremendous in the
ample grasp of Harold! Swinging now in both hands this weapon, with a
peculiar and rapid whirl, which gave it an inconceivable impetus, the
Earl let fall the crushing blow: at the first stroke, cut right in the
centre, rolled the helm; at the second, through all the woven mail
(cleft asunder, as if the slightest filigree work of the goldsmith,)
shore the blade, and a great fragment of the stone itself came
tumbling on the sod.

The Normans stood aghast, and William's face was as pale as the
shattered stone. The great Duke felt even his matchless dissimulation
fail him; nor, unused to the special practice and craft which the axe
required, could he have pretended, despite a physical strength
superior even to Harold's, to rival blows that seemed to him more than