hese chiefs and their brother Halfden, and Guthrum, are of course
historic. Their campaign in England is hard to trace through the
many conflicting chronicles, but the broad outlines given by the
almost contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, supplemented with a few
incidents recorded in the Heimskringla of Sturleson as to the first
raid on Northumbria by Ingvar, are sufficient for the purposes of a
story that deals almost entirely with East Anglia.

The legend of the finding of the head of the martyred king is given
in the homily for November 20 of the Anglo-Saxon Sarum Breviary,
and is therefore of early date. It may have arisen from some such
incident as is given here.

Details of the death of Bishop Humbert are wanting. We only know
that he was martyred at about the same time as the king, or perhaps
with him, and that his name is remembered in the ancient kalendars
on the same day. For describing his end as at his own chapel, still
standing at South Elmham, the fate of many a devoted priest of
those times might be sufficient warrant.

As to the geography of the East Anglian coast, all has changed
since King Eadmund's days, with the steady gaining of alluvial land
on sea at the mouth of the once great rivers of Yare and Waveney.
Reedham and Borough were in his time the two promontories that
guarded the estuary, and where Yarmouth now stands were sands,
growing indeed slowly, but hardly yet an island even at "low-water
springs". Above Beccles perhaps the course of the Waveney towards
Thetford has altered little in any respect beyond the draining of
the rich marshland along its banks, and the shrinking of such
tributaries as the Hoxne or Elmham streams to half-dry rivulets.

With a few incidental exceptions, the modern spelling of place
names has been adopted in these pages. No useful purpose would be
served by a reproduction of what are now more or less uncouth if
recognizable forms of the well-known titles of town and village and
river.

C. W. W.

CHAPTER I. HOW LODBROK THE DANE CAME TO REEDHAM.

Elfric, my father, and I stood on our little watch tower at
Reedham, and looked out over the wide sea mouth of Yare and
Waveney, to the old gray walls of the Roman Burgh on the further
shore, and the white gulls cried round us, and the water sparkled
in the fresh sea breeze from the north and east, and the bright
May-time sun shone warmly on us, and our hearts went out to the sea
and its freedom, so that my fat