From the first the proceedings of the invaders were not calculated to win over the Northumbrians to their cause. As the great fleet of 500 sail bore for the Humber, numerous troops were landed to ravage the coast; and a fierce swoop was made upon Scarborough, which was burnt to the ground. Sailing up the Humber, the invaders continued their evil work, and the sky was lurid with flame and dark with smoke, and slaughtered peasants were strewn on the soil which they had ploughed and sown in the earlier days of the year, when they looked forward to the harvest of the scythe and sickle, nor dreamt that Autumn would bring upon them the sharp chastisement of the sword. York was the prize for which the invaders offered, and, sailing up the Ouse, they moored their fleet at the village of Riccall, ten miles from the city, upon which they at once directed their march. Jarls Edwin and Morkar made strenuous efforts to arrest the invaders, but the northern forces were insufficient to meet so numerous and powerful an army as that of Hardrada. Nevertheless, the brothers assembled such troops as they could collect, and took up a position at Fulford to cover the city. Hardrada occupied a defensive position, with the river on his right flank, and a morass on his left. Edwin and Morkar showed no lack of spirit in the combat which ensued, and promptly charged the Norwegian lines, which they penetrated, making a very great slaughter; but being too weak in numbers to reap the full advantage of their valour, they were unable to rout the ranks which they had thrown into disorder; and the Norwegians clung to their ground, and maintained a hand-to-hand conflict until the arrival of large reinforcements from the fleet enabled them to push back the Northumbrian ranks, and to charge them in turn. This was decisive of the battle: the Northumbrians had exhausted their strength in the first conflict, and could not stem the tide of fresh warriors that bore down upon them, with their ringing war-song, and with flashing spears and axes. The disordered ranks of the Northumbrians were speedily broken, and the army dissolved in a wild rout of savage fugitives, oft turning stubbornly at bay, and exacting a heavy price for their lives. Many of the Northumbrians were forced into the river, or took to the water in their endeavours to escape the vengeance of the unsparing Norwegians, so that more men of the Saxon army perished in the Ouse than fell by the sword on the field of Fulford. "And this fight was on the vigil of St. Matthew the apostle, and it was Wednesday."