Then he tosses his black mane on high and cries:
"'And if the sea and sky be foes,
We will tame the sea and sky.'"
And so Alfred is sure too of his help.
Alfred is then taken by the Danes as he is playing on his harp to the camp of Guthrum and there is made to sing and play again:
"And leaving all later hates unsaid,
He sang of some old British raid
On the wild west march of yore.
He sang of war in the warm wet shires,
Where rain nor fruitage fails,
Where England of the motley states
Deepens like a garden to the gates
In the purple walls of Wales."
He sang until Harold, Guthrum's nephew, snatched the harp from him and began in his turn to sing of ships and the sea and material delights:
"'Great wine like blood from Burgundy,
Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,
And marble like solid moonlight,
And gold like frozen fire.'"
Elf the minstrel then took the instrument:
"And as he stirred the strings of the harp
To notes but four or five,
The heart of each man moved in him
Like a babe buried alive."