ld battle-song, and whirling up his
sword in the air and catching it again as it fell.

Now the battle began in real earnest.

A flight of arrows was let loose upon the English host, then the
Normans charged up to the palisade.

As well might they have flung themselves against a stone wall.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, the English swung their huge
battle-axes, which clove their way through armour and shirts of mail.
Again and again the Normans charged against the barricade, the duke
himself at their head, his eyes shining like balls of living fire and
his voice like a trumpet; but they were driven back like waves breaking
around the base of a cliff.

On all sides the battle raged. Lances clashed, sword rang upon sword,
arrows whizzed through the air, and battle-axes crashed through steel
armour; while the cries of the wounded mingled with the blasts of the
war-horn and English cries of 'Out, out!' answered the Norman shouts of
'God aid us!'

Stoutest of the English was Harold, whose heavy battle-axe would cut
down horse and rider at a blow. Among the Normans there arose a cry
that the duke was slain.

'Here am I,' shouted William, tearing off his helmet, 'and by God's aid
will yet win the day!'

Maddened with war fury, he spurred up the hill, broke single-handed
through the barrier, and rode straight to Harold. The brother of the
king stepped before him, and was hewn down by a blow from William
before the duke himself was unhorsed and fell to the ground. Mounting
again quickly, William cut his way through his foes and was back again
in the Norman lines before any one could harm him.

A body of Normans having given way, the Kentish men in their eagerness
overleaped the barricade and gave chase to their flying foes.
Instantly William saw his advantage. The Normans turned, galloped up
the hill, and poured by thousands into the gap thus left undefended.

This proved the turning point of the day.

'Slowly and surely,' says an old writer, 'the Norman horse pressed
along the crest of the hill, strewing the height with corpses as the
hay is strewn in swaths before the mower.'

Still the ring round the standard remained unbroken, and in the centre
Harold and his bodyguard held their ground, dealing blows around them
with their great battle-axes. Beyond the ring the dead lay piled up in
heaps, English and Norman together.

'Shoot upward,' cried the duke to his archers, 'that your arrows may
fall like bolts