The supper was in the great hall. I do not know what they had to eat, but after supper the king asked the company to go and sit round the fire, and drink ale and mead. Now they had no fireplace like ours at the side of the hall; but there was a great stone hearth in the very middle of the floor, and a large fire was made on it of logs of wood bigger than one man could lift, and there was no chimney, but the smoke went out at a hole in the roof of the hall. When the company came to the fire, King Athelstane made King Egill sit on a high stool face to face with him, and King Athelstane had a very long and broad sword, and he laid it across his knees, that if any of the company behaved ill he might punish them. And they all drank a great deal of ale, and while they drank there were several men, called minstrels, singing to them about the great battles they had fought, and the great men who were dead; and the kings sang in their turn, and so they passed the evening very pleasantly. The next morning, when Egill and his friends expected to be sent to prison, King Athelstane went to them, and told them he liked such brave and clever men as they were, and that if they would promise not to come to England to plague the people any more, they might go home unharmed. They promised they would not come any more, and then Athelstane let them go home, and gave them some handsome presents. CHAPTER XI. How King Edmund was killed by a robber; how Bishop Dunstan ill-used King Edwy; how Archbishop Odo murdered the Queen; what Dunstan did to please the people; how King Edgar caused the wolves to be destroyed; and how his son, King Edward, was murdered by Queen Elfrida. King Athelstane died soon after the battle of Brunanburgh. His brother Edmund began his reign very well, and the English people were in hopes that they should be at peace, and have time enough to keep their fields in order, and improve their houses, and make themselves as comfortable as they were when Alfred was king. But Edmund was killed by a robber before he had been king quite six years; and his brother Edred, who was made king when he died, was neither so brave nor so wise as Edmund or Athelstane, and did not manage the people nearly so well.