There greeted us Earl Wulfnoth himself in the courtyard of his great house. One went inside the castle walls to find almost a village of buildings, all of timber, that had grown up round the hall that stood in the midst, and that had its courtyard and stockading, as had our own house on the open hill at Bures. I think there was no stronger place than this castle of Pevensea in all Sussex, if anywhere on the southern coasts.
Now it were long to say how Wulfnoth the earl welcomed King Olaf, but it was after a kingly sort, for he was king in all but name in his earldom, shut off as it is from the rest of England by the deep forests. But he feasted us for two days before he would speak a word with Olaf as to what he had come to ask him, saying that it was enough for him to see the bridge breaker and the taker of Canterbury town, and to do him honour. For Olaf's fame had gone widely through all England.
Now Godwine would ever talk with me, for I could tell him of Olaf, and also of the long war, and of the Norman court, so that we became great friends. But he had no liking for Ethelred, which was not wonderful, seeing that Wulfnoth his father had not a good word to say for him.
At last, when Olaf told him plainly of the needs of England and of her king, and of what he feared of the return of Cnut, Earl Wulfnoth answered:
"Had you come to ask me to go a-viking with yourself, gladly would I have joined with or followed you. Godwine my son has yet some things to learn which a Norseman could teach him, and it would have been well. But Ethelred holds me as a traitor; and while Edric Streone is at his side I will not have aught to do with him. I will drive any Dane out of my land, and that is all. Neither Ethelred nor Cnut is aught to me. I and my son are earls of Sussex."
Then he rose up from his high seat and strode out of the hall, bidding us follow him. He led us to the eastern gate, and climbed to the broad top of the ramparts.
"See yonder," he said, and pointed eastward across the river and marsh. "There is the hill where our standard has been raised time after time since OElla and Cissa drove in flight the Welsh who had raised theirs in the same place before us. There will I raise it again against Cnut or Streone or any other of his men."
"Edric Streone is with King Ethelred," said Olaf; "he is not Cnut's man."
"He has been Swein's man; and if it suits him will be Cnut's. I will not alter my saying of him."
"Ethelred believes in him," answered Olaf, "and Eadmund the Atheling believes in him as in himself."