The new tree that stands alone in the plain is soon nipped by the winter; fenced round with the forest, its youth takes shelter from its fellows [111].
So is it with a house newly founded; it must win strength from the allies that it sets round its slender stein.

What had been Godwin, son of Wolnoth, had he not married into the kingly house of great Canute?
It is this that gives my sons now the right to the loyal love of the Danes.
The throne passed from Canute and his race, and the Saxons again had their hour; and I gave, as Jephtha gave his daughter, my blooming Edith, to the cold bed of the Saxon King.

Had sons sprung from that union, the grandson of Godwin, royal alike from Saxon and Dane, would reign on the throne of the isle.

Fate ordered otherwise, and the spider must weave web anew.

Thy brother, Tostig, has added more splendour than solid strength of our line, in his marriage with the daughter of Baldwin the Count.