A Thane of Wessex: Being a Story of the Great Viking Raids into Somerset

by Charles W. Whistler

Soon fugitives -- men, women, and children -- began to straggle in wretched little groups up the hill, weeping and groaning, and I knew there would soon be too many there for my liking. So I crept away, easily enough, and went out to the headland.

But I could see nothing on the sea now; and so, very sad at heart, I sought a bushy hollow and laid me down and slept, while the smoke of Watchet hung round me, and now and then a brighter glare flashed over the low clouds, as the roof of some building fell in and fed the flames afresh.

I woke in the light of the gray dawn, and the smell of burning was gone, and the sea I looked out on was clear again, for a fresh breeze from the eastward was sweeping the smoke, as I could see, away to the other hills, westward. But the town was gone -- only a smoke was left for all there was for me to look down on, instead of the red-tiled and gray-thatched roofs that I had so often seen before from that place or near it.

Next I saw the ships of the vikings. They lay out in the channel at anchor, for the tide was failing. I suppose they had gone into the little haven as soon as there was water enough, and that those lights I saw were signs made from one to the other when that was so. There were specks near them -- moving -- their boats, no doubt, from the shore, bringing off plunder. The long ships themselves looked like barley corns from so high above, or so I thought them to look, if they were larger to sight than that, for that was their shape.

Now I had not thought that they would have bided when the beacons were lit; but would have gone out westward with this tide. And therefore I wondered what their next move would be, but expected to see them up anchor and go soon.

Waiting so, I waxed hungry, for nought had I tasted, save a few birds' eggs that I had found in Holford Coombe, since that time yesterday. Birds' eggs, thought I, were better than nought, so I wandered among the bushes seeking more. As I did so, by and by, I came in sight of the beacon on the hilltop, and looking up at it, rather blaming my carelessness, saw that but two men were there, tending it, and from their silver collars I knew that they were thralls. They were putting on green bushes to make a smother and black smoke that would warn men that the enemy were yet at hand.

When I saw that both the men were strange to me, I went up to them, as though come to find out news of the business. And they saluted me, evidently not knowing me. I talked with them awhile, and then shared their breakfast with them, glad enough of it. They had, however, no more to tell me than I had already learnt, beyond tales of horror brought by the fugitives of last night, which I will not write.

Those people had soon passed on, fearing, as each new group came up, that the enemy was on their heels. They had doubtless scattered into the villages beyond.

So the time went idly, and the sun rose, while yet the tide fell and the ships lay beneath us. Smoke, as of cooking fires, rose from their decks, and they were evidently in no hurry. Nor need they be. In those days we had no warships such as our wise king has made us since then, and none could harm them on the open water.

In an hour's time, however, there came a change over the sea. Little waves began to curl over it, and when the sun broke out it flashed bright where the wind came over in flaws here and there. Then from each ship were unfurled great sails, striped in bright colours, and one by one they got under way, and headed over towards the Welsh coast, beyond channel. The tide had turned.