Ascension Tide, 1010.--
A sorrowful Ascension Tide indeed! They have landed in East Anglia. A battle has been fought and lost. Nearly all the English leaders slain.
Whitsuntide.--
We can hardly keep the festival, the people are so excited by the news; all Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire (once more) are laid waste. They are on the road to Bedford.
Edmund and Alfgar, with young Hermann, and all our fighting men, have gone out on their own account against them.
July.--
The Danes elude all our troops. Edric persuades the king to go eastward, and the Danes are westward. They go westward, and the Danes are eastward. There is no chieftain. A witan is summoned; it will do no good.
November.--
Northampton has fallen, cruelly fallen. The town is burned, and all therein slain.
Edmund and Alfgar, with not more than half our men, have returned with the news. Hermann is seriously wounded, but bears it bravely. He is only sixteen now. There is mourning over all our fallen heroes; but they have died so bravely. Edmund says they have slain far more than twice their number of the marauders. Still his father will give him no command. It is like private war so far as he is concerned; but many fresh recruits have joined his standard, and will go out with him in spring.