At length Ethelred fell, and his son Edmund, who was at the time of his death one of his generals, succeeded him.

Emma and his two other sons had been left in Normandy.
Edmund carried on the war against Canute with great energy.

One of his battles was fought in the county of Warwick, in the heart of England, where the peasant Godwin lived.

In this battle the Danes were defeated, and the discomfited generals fled in all directions from the field wherever they saw the readiest hope of concealment or safety.
One of them, named Ulf,[1] took a by-way, which led him in the direction of Godwin's father's farm.
Night came on, and he lost his way in a wood.

Men, when flying under such circumstances from a field of battle, avoid always the public roads, and seek concealment in unfrequented paths, where, they easily get bewildered and lost.