ther by attack on some one point, and that as soon
as may be, before Hubba comes. I do not want to hold their place."

Now that was the first of daily attacks on the Danish posts, at
different places along the Selwood and Polden hills, until they
thought that we wished to win Edington height, where we began and
annoyed them most often. So I will tell how such a raid fared.

Good it was to lay aside pick and spade and take sword Helmbiter
again, and don mail and helm; and I made Harek fence with me, lest
I should have lost my sword craft through use of the weapons
whereby the churl conquers mother earth. But once the good sword
was in my hand I forgot all but the warrior's trade.

So Ethelnoth and I and twenty young thanes went in the evening to
Othery island, and there found a fenman to guide us, and so went to
the foot of Edington hill just as darkness fell. The watch-fire
lights, that were our guide, twinkled above us through the trees
that were on the hillside; and we made at once for them, sending on
the fenman to spy out the post before we were near it. It was very
dark, and it rained now and then.

When he came back to where we had halted, he said that there were
about twenty tents, pitched in four lines, with a fire between each
line; and that the men were mostly under cover, drinking before
setting watch, if they set any at all.

So we drew nearer, skirting round into cover of some trees that
came up to the tents, for the hilltop was bare for some way. The
lighted tents looked very cheerful, and sounds of song and laughter
came from them, and now and then a man crossed from one to another,
or fed the fires with fresh wood, that hissed and sputtered as he
cast it on.

"How shall we attack?" said Ethelnoth.

"Why, run through the camp in silence first and cut the tent lines,
and then raise a war shout and come back on them. Then we may slay
a few, and the rest will be scared badly enough."

Thereat we both laughed under our breath, for it seemed like a
schoolboy's prank. Well, after the long toil in the fen, we were
like boys just freed from school, though our game was the greatest
of all--that of war--the game of Hodur's playground, as we Norse
say.

Then I said:

"After we come through for the second time, we must take to this
cover, and so get together at some place by the hill foot. There is
a shed by a big tree that can be found easily."

So we passed the wood, and our comrades chuckled. It was