On the inner semicircular mounds the Saxon force gathered four deep.
With loud shouts the Danes rushed forward, climbed the outer mounds, and reached the breaches.

Here the leaders paused on seeing the gulf below them, but pressed by those behind they could not hesitate long, but leapt down from the breach on to the slippery hides below.
Not one who did so lived.

It was impossible to keep their feet as they alighted, and as they fell they were impaled by the pikes and stakes.
Pressed by those behind, however, fresh men leapt down, falling in their turn, until at length the hides and stakes were covered, and those leaping down found a foothold on the bodies of the fallen.

Then they crowded on and strove to climb the inner bank and attack the Saxons.

Now the archers on the walls opened fire upon them, and, pierced through and through with the arrows which struck them on the back, the Danes fell in great numbers.