Anlaf altered not his position, but stood front to front with his forces, drawn up opposite the Saxon monarch. Behind the right wing of the army of Anlaf there stretched a vast wood; facing, and nearly out-flanking it, were drawn up the soldiers Thorolf commanded; who, eager as a hawk to rush upon the quarry, was the first to plunge headlong upon the enemy, and in a moment he was in the very thickest of the ranks, having far outstripped all, but a few of the foremost of his companions. Adils, a British prince, who fought under the banner of Anlaf, wheeled his Welsh forces round, and severed Thorolf and his friends from the rest of their followers, and slew them. Egil saw the standard of Thorolf surrounded by the enemy, beheld it rocking and reeling above the heads of the combatants as it was borne towards the wood, and conscious that his brave companion in arms had not betrayed his trust; that the banner of Thorolf was never seen to retreat whilst its leader was alive; he, with his shield slung behind his back, and wielding his huge claymore, rushed on like a dreaded thunderbolt to revenge his death. The forces which Athelstan trusted to his command deserted him not; they hewed their way through the enemy's ranks, they pursued them into the wood, and Adils fell in the fight, for the Welsh wing, which occupied the front of the forest, was defeated with terrible slaughter. Meantime, in the centre of the plain, the combat raged with unabated fury; arrows, darts, and javelins, were abandoned; for it was now the close hand to hand contest, when blows were dealt at arm's length with the sword, and the battle-axe, and the club, bristling with sharp steel spikes, which bit through, or crushed the heaviest helmet;--when the huge two-handed claymore was swung with giant arms, and men fell before it like grass before the scythe of the mower in a summer field;--when blood flowed and none heeded it, but the combatant placed his foot upon the dead that the blow might fall with heavier force;--when vassal and chief rolled over together;--when horse and rider fell, yet scarcely broke for a moment the enraged ranks who passed over them--while over all the war-cry, and the shouts of the combatants rang, drowning the moans of the wounded and the dying. Cool and collected amid this breathless struggle, the chancellor Turketul selected a chosen band from amongst the Londoners and the brave men of Worcestershire, who were renowned for their valour, and who feared nothing while Singin was at their head. These the warlike chancellor placed in close order, and himself leading the way, they plunged headlong upon Constantine and his Scots, Turketul paying no more regard to the arrows that stuck in his armour than a rhinoceros would if pierced with a dozen pins, nor did he halt until he had dealt a heavy blow on the helmet of the Caledonian monarch. Had not the Scots rushed up in a body to the rescue, Turketul