You do but go back of your own free will." Now I was fain to say that I would at once go back to my place, but there was one thing yet that I would say to Guthrum.
"Will you let the Christian folk be unharmed ?" "Little will our people care," he said, "when once they have settled down, what gods a man worships.

Nor would I have any meddled with because of their faith." "Now am I most willing to help you," I said; "and I will say this--so are you likely in the end to be hailed king indeed." "That is well," he answered, flushing a little.

"But there is one man whom I will never ask to own me as king, and that is yourself.
But if you do so of your own will, it will be better yet." So we parted, each as I think pleased with the other, and I knew that East Anglia had found a wise ruler in Guthrum the Dane.
Straightway now I told my people the good news that Reedham was safe.

The longships came up to Norwich time after time now; and there had been but one thought among us, and that was that our place could not have escaped the destruction that had fallen on all the shore and riverside villages.
Then Ingild said: "These Danes have come as our forefathers came here, to take a new and better country for themselves, but the strife between them and us is not as the strife between alien peoples.

They are our kin, but between us and the Welsh was hatred of race.