“I must here entreat your patience, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, to follow the old Norwegian through the consequent battle; for although he gives us no more scenery of London Bridge, yet he furnishes us with a minute account of its destruction, and of a conflict upon it, concerning which all our own historians are, in general, remarkably silent. I say too, with Falstaff, ‘play out the play;’ for I have yet much to say on the behalf of that King Olaf, who, we shall find, is the patron protector of yonder Church at the South-East corner of London Bridge, since he died a Saint and a Martyr. Snorro Sturleson then, having cleared the way for the forcing of London Bridge on the behalf of King Ethelred, thus begins his account of the action, entitling it, in the Scandinavian tongue, Orrosta, or the fight. ‘King Olaf, having determined on the construction of an immense scaffold, to be formed of wooden poles and osier twigs, set about pulling down the old houses in the neighbourhood for the use of the materials. With these _Vinea_, therefore,’--as such defences were anciently termed--‘he so enveloped his ships, that the scaffolds extended beyond their sides; and they were so well supported, as to afford not only a sufficient space for engaging sword in hand, but also a base firm enough for the play of his engines, in case they should be pressed upon from above. The Fleet, as well as the forces, being now ready, they rowed towards the Bridge, the tide being adverse; but no sooner had they reached it, than they were violently assailed from above with a shower of missiles and stones, of such immensity that their helmets and shields were shattered, and the ships themselves very seriously injured. Many of them, therefore, retired. But Olaf the King and his Norsemen having rowed their ships close up to the Bridge, made them fast to the piles with ropes and cables, with which they strained them, and the tide seconding their united efforts, the piles gradually gave way, and were withdrawn from under the Bridge. At this time, there was an immense pressure of stones and other weapons, so that the piles being removed, the whole Bridge brake down, and involved in it’s fall the ruin of many. Numbers, however, were left to seek refuge by flight: some into the City, others into Southwark. And now it was determined to attack Southwark: but the Citizens seeing their River Thames occupied by the enemy’s navies, so as to cut off all intercourse that way with their interior provinces, were seized with fear, and having surrendered the City, received Ethelred as King. In remembrance of this expedition thus sang Ottar Suarti.’ “And now, Sir, as this is, without any doubt, the first song which was ever made about London Bridge, I shall give you the Norse Bard’s verses in Macpherson’s Ossianic measure, as that into which they most readily translate themselves; premising that the ensuing are of immeasurably greater authenticity.