Wulnoth the Wanderer: A Story of King Alfred of EnglandInman, Herbert
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Wulnoth the Wanderer: A Story of King Alfred of England
Inman, Herbert
Alfred, King of England, 849-899 -- Fiction
Down came the sails, and round came the ships; and from their sides
rained the arrows and the casting-spears; but from the shore came
others in reply, and wherever the arrow of Garth sped, there a Dane
went to the storm-land on its point.
Then into the sea foam the warriors sprang, and rushed forward with
shields upraised and swords bare, and the man's game began, and the
wounded fell on both sides. And there strode Biorn Ironbeard clearing
him a pathway with his wide-sweeping sword; and to him went Borric
the Ealdorman, and Borric took a mighty mace, and he smote once, and
Ironbeard staggered; and he smote twice, and Ironbeard fell on his
knees; and he smote yet again, and Ironbeard fell dead.
Then did the Saxons cry in triumph, and Wulnoth shouted to the
Ealdorman,--"Thou hast had thy prize, O friend, may I also have mine!"
"And that thou shalt have, if I am thy prize," shouted Hubba, and he
came striding on, his banner behind him; and all the forces of the
Danes, and the people of the land met, and surged around, and for the
time drove them apart.
But then Wulnoth whirling an axe in either hand, as he had been taught
of old by Osth the giant, dashed against the Danes, and they shrank
back; for to them he looked like a wild berserker, he raged so; and
he reached the place where the banner of Regner waved, and with one
blow he cut down the banner bearer, and with another he smote back his
champion watcher, and then he hurled one axe away, and waved the banner
aloft, and cleaved himself a road through the Danes with his weapon.
And then the vikings cried to Hubba that his banner was stolen; and the
son of Regner came, raging like a bear, towards Wulnoth; and so at last
these two met, and Wulnoth laughed right joyously--
"Oh! greeting, greeting, Hubba. Long have I sought thee. Now,
greeting!" But Hubba spake not, but he aimed a mighty blow at Wulnoth's
head, and cut clean through the wing of his helm.
"A good blow, Hubba, a mighty blow," laughed Wulnoth. "Yet methinks
this is better. Dost remember the mace which belonged to thy brother,
and how I cut its handle in twain? Look now, Hubba, and say is this
blow as good?"
Now while he spoke, three blows, mighty blows did Wulnoth turn with
his shield; and then he smote, and men said that never was there such
a blow, for neither shield nor mail could turn it, but the axe sped
through all as if 't were but thin bark; and it fell on Hubba's side
where the shoulder fits the neck, and it cut through bone and muscle,
and the arm fell, and the axe went on and bit deep into the side; and
Hubba fell as the oak falls before the lightning, fell at the feet of
Wulnoth the Wanderer, while all the Danes cried out in dismay at what
had been done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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