But they left one behind, who joined himself to our little company.

And that was Turkil, clad like myself in silver mail, and on a white pony, but with flame-coloured cloak and scarf.

For that was the atheling's doing, when he knew that "Grendel's friend" was to be brought up in our hall, to grow into the stout warrior I had boded him to be.
Now should my story be ended were it a fairy tale, but it is not that.
Well I knew that, happy as I was, the day must come when I must bear forward to battle the golden dragon banner of Wessex, and I cannot rightly tell if I dreaded or longed for that day.

Maybe there was a mixture of both dread and longing in my thoughts thereof.
But when we came over Brent Knoll, on our way back to my place and Alswythe's at Cannington, there lay the black ships under the holms yet, and there, too, were the burnt walls of our houses, though these were rising up again as the king's men wrought at them.

And all the land lay waste and neglected, and, as we rode over Cannington hill, a broken helm rolled from my horse's hoof from among the grass of the roadside.