“And so also do these North men, or Normans,” said Hereward, “only they have more affinity to Danes and Norwegians than to us; and while the Danish pirates were ravaging the coasts of England, Rollo, the North man, ravaged the coasts of France, and gained a settlement and sovereignty, and gave the name of Normandie to the country which has now sent forth these new conquerors and devastators upon England. Trace back our blood to the source, and I, and the Lord Abbat Thurstan as well as I, and many other true Englishmen, natives of the English Danelagh, may be called half Danes; but a man can have only one country, and only one people that he can call countrymen, and these admixtures of blood in parts and parcels of England will not be considered by the English people at large; and let it be Danes, or let it be Normans, it will be the same to them.” “But,” said the Abbat of Cockermouth, “the Danes be now very poor, and their king will not be able to raise an army sufficiently strong to aim at any great thing by himself.” “And therefore is it,” quoth the Lord of Brunn, “that come king or come king’s brothers, they will get what they can from us poor Saxons as the price of their assistance, then get all the gold they can get from the Normans as the price of their neutrality, then betray all such of our secrets as they possess, and then embark and sail away for their own country, leaving us in a far worse plight than before. I say, let us not send for them, or ask their aid at all! If a people cannot defend themselves by their own swords, they will never be defended at all. If England cannot be saved without calling in one foreign people to act against another, she will never be saved. If this king of Danemarck comes this year he will act as his kinsmen did last year, and we shall rue the day of his coming. Wherefore, I say, let us pray for the speedy return of King Harold, and let us keep what little store of gold and silver we possess to nurture and pay our own native soldiers, and to purchase in the Netherlands such munition and warlike gear as we may yet need; but let us not waste it by sending into Danemarck.” “Were our enemies less numerous and powerful,” said one of the chiefs, “we still might hope to stand our ground, in this wet and difficult corner of England, alone and unaided!” “We shall be the better able to stand our ground against any foe if we be on our guard against false friends, and keep our money and our own counsels,” said Abbat Thurstan. “Lord Hereward hath reason for all he saith; take my word for it he is right.”