Sweyn’s ship lay under the larboard bow of the
Serpent, and Wolf the Red had thrown out grappling
hooks, holding her there. She was a longship,
of twenty banks of oars, and her crew were the pick
of all the warmen of Denmark. Sharp and fierce
was the fight at this side, and great was the carnage.
While Kolbiorn and others of Olaf’s stem defenders
kept up an incessant battle with their javelins and
swords, King Olaf and his archers shot their arrows
high in air so that they fell in thick rain upon the
Danish decks. Yet the Danes, and the Swedes from
the rear, were not slow to retaliate. Although
they found it impossible to board the Serpent, they
nevertheless could assail her crowded decks with arrows
and well aimed spears, and the Norsemen fell in great
numbers. In the meantime Sweyn’s other
ships—not one of which was larger than the
smallest of King Olaf’s eleven dragons—made
a vigorous onset upon Olaf’s left and right
wings. The Norsemen fought with brave determination,
and as one after another of the Dane ships was cleared
of men it was drawn off to the rear, and its place
was occupied by yet another ship, whose warriors,
fresh and eager, renewed the onset. All along
Olaf’s line there was not one clear space, not
a yard’s breadth of bulwark unoccupied by fighting
men. The air was filled with flying arrows and
flashing spears and waving swords. The clang of
the weapons upon the metal shields, the dull thud
of blows, the wild shouts of the warriors and cries
of the wounded, mingled together in a loud vibrating
murmur. To Earl Sigvaldi, who lay with his ships
apart at the far end of the bay, it sounded like the
humming of bees about a hive. Not only at the
prows, but also behind at the sterns of Olaf’s
compact host, did the Danes attempt to board.
The Norsemen, indeed, were completely surrounded by
their foemen. King Olaf fought from the poop
deck of the Serpent with no less vigour than did Kolbiorn
and his stem defenders at the prow. He assailed
each ship as it approached with showers of well directed
arrows. Then, as the stem of one of the Danish
longships crashed into his vessel’s stern, he
dropped his longbow and caught up his spears, one
in either hand, and hurled them into the midst of his
clamouring foes. Time after time he called to
his followers, and led them with a fierce rush down
upon the enemy’s decks, sweeping all before
him. Seven of King Sweyn’s vessels did he
thus clear; and at last no more came, and for a time
he had rest. But a great cry from the Serpent’s
forecastle warned him that his stem men were having
a hard struggle. So he gathered his men together
and led them forward. Many were armed with battleaxes,
others with spears, and all with swords. Calling
to his shield bearers to make way for him, he pressed
through the gap and leapt down upon the deck of Sweyn
Forkbeard’s dragon.
