Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln

by Charles W. Whistler

Presently our rear was on the water’s edge, and it seemed likely that in crossing there might be a breaking of the line; and when he saw that, Havelok called to me, and he went to the front with the courtmen round him. It was good to hear the cheers of our men as they saw the dancing banner above the fight, and beneath it, in the bright sun, the gold-circled helm of their king. The Lindseymen drew back a foot’s pace as they saw the giant who came on them, and I heard some call that this was Curan of Grimsby, as if in wonder. Then we had to fight hard, and Sigurd fell back past me, with a wound on his shoulder where Alsi’s sword had glanced from the helm. No life had been left to Sigurd had a better hand wielded the weapon; but he was not badly hurt. I could not see Alsi anywhere, nor Eglaf.

Steadily the numbers drove us back, though before Havelok was always a space into which men hardly dared to come. The wedge was pushed away from us, and we had to fall back with it, until we crossed the stream; and there Sigurd swung the massed men into line, and then came the first pause in the fight. The two hosts stood, with the narrow water between them, and glared on each other, silent now. And then the bowmen began to get to work from either side, until the arrows were all gone.

Now Havelok called to the foe, and they were silent while he spoke to them.

“Is Alsi yet alive?” he said; “for if not, I have no war with his men. If he is, let me speak with him.”

None answered for a while, and the men looked at each other as if they knew not if the man they were fighting for lived or not.

Then one came forward and said, “Alsi lives, and we have not done with you yet. Get you back to your home beyond the sea!”

And then they charged us again; but the water was a better front for us than it had been for them, and across it they could not win. We drove them back once and twice; and again came a time when both sides were wearied and must needs rest.

So it went on until night fell. We never stirred from that water’s edge, and the stream was choked with valiant English and hardy Danes; and yet the attacks came with the shout of “Out! out!” and the answer from us of “Havelok, ahoy!”

At last one who seemed a great chief came and cried a truce, for night was falling; and he said that if Havelok would claim no advantage therefrom, the men of Lindsey would get back from the field, and leave it free for us to take our fallen.

“But I must have your word that with the end of that task you go back to the place you now hold, that we may begin afresh, if it seems good to us, in the morning.”