He must be the victor who can
give away both his own and what belongs to his foe." [238]

All on the continent of Europe regarded England's king as
accursed--William's enterprise as holy; and mothers who had turned pale
when their sons went forth to the boar-chase, sent their darlings to
enter their names, for the weal of their souls, in the swollen
muster-roll of William the Norman. Every port now in Neustria was busy
with terrible life; in every wood was heard the axe felling logs for the
ships; from every anvil flew the sparks from the hammer, as iron took
shape into helmet and sword. All things seemed to favour the Church's
chosen one. Conan, Count of Bretagne, sent to claim the Duchy of
Normandy, as legitimate heir. A few days afterwards, Conan died,
poisoned (as had died his father before him) by the mouth of his horn and
the web of his gloves. And the new Count of Bretagne sent his sons to
take part against Harold.

All the armament mustered at the roadstead of St. Valery, at the mouth of
the Somme. But the winds were long hostile, and the rains fell in
torrents.

CHAPTER XI.

And now, while war thus hungered for England at the mouth of the Somme,
the last and most renowned of the sea-kings, Harold Hardrada, entered his
galley, the tallest and strongest of a fleet of three hundred sail, that
peopled the seas round Solundir. And a man named Gyrdir, on board the
King's ship, dreamed a dream [239]. He saw a great witch-wife standing
on an isle of the Sulen, with a fork in one hand and a trough in the
other [240]. He saw her pass over the whole fleet;--by each of the three
hundred ships he saw her; and a fowl sat on the stern of each ship, and
that fowl was a raven; and he heard the witch-wife sing this song:

"From the East I allure him,
At the West I secure him;
In the feast I foresee
Rare the relics for me;
Red the drink, white the bones.

The ravens sit greeding,
And watching, and heeding;
Thoro' wind, over water,
Comes scent of the slaughter,
And ravens sit greeding
Their share of the bones.

Thoro' wind, thoro' weather,
We're sailing together;
I sail with the ravens;
I watch with the ravens;
I snatch from the ravens
My share of the bones."

There was also a man called Thord [241], in a ship that lay near the
King's; and he too dreamed a dream. He saw the fleet nearing land, and
that land w