But his head we could not find, though now I bade my dog search also.

He led us westward through the wood, until we came to a rising ground, and there we could go no further.

For thence we saw the Danish horsemen by scores pressing towards us, searching for cattle and sheep as the army passed southward.

And the farms were blazing in the track that they had crossed everywhere.
Then said the men: "We must fly.

We who live must save ourselves, and must come back and end this search when we may." "Let us bear back the king's body," I said, "and find some hiding place for it at Hoxne." So we did, hurriedly, and hid it in a pit near the village, covering it with boards and gravel as well as we could for haste.
Then I asked the men where they would go.
"By boat down the river," they said, "and so join the thane and his party wherever they might be.