Now were we who were left safe, and knew we had done a deed which would
he told and sung till other tales of victory blotted out its remembrance
if they might.
Then Ealhstan bade us sit down, for our horsemen were between us and the
foe, and thereon he raised his voice, and with one accord his lay
brethren and his own housecarles joined in singing a psalm of victory.
And it was just at the matin time--yet that psalm ended not as it was
wont, for ere the last verses were sung, it was drowned in a great and
thundering war song of Wessex, old as the days of Ceawlin or beyond him.
And if I mistake not, in that song bishop and lay brethren joined,
leaving the chant for their own native and well-loved tongue, else would
they have been the only men of all the host unstirred thereby and silent.
Now, from that war song came a strange thing. It caused two great Danes
to go berserk in their rage, and back they flew on us, their shields
cast aside, and their broad axes overhead, howling and foaming as they
came.
One of Osric's men tried to stop them. But he and his horse fell, for (I
say truth) one leapt high above the horse, smiting downwards with his
axe, so that the man was swept in twain under that blow, and the berserk
Dane came on unhindered, straight for the standard, for his comrade had
hewed off the horse's head.
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