Cnut’s fleet went from the Medway northward, and it was in the thoughts of all men that the end had come, and that he sought his own land at last.  And that seemed the more certain to most because Streone had submitted, as if he knew that he had no further hope of honour from the Danish king.  Presently, however, it was plain that his coming over was but part of the deepest plot that he had yet made.

Suddenly, even as our levies dispersed in spite of all the king’s entreaties, came the news that the Danish fleet had turned and was in the Crouch river in Essex, whence already the host had begun their march inland across Mercia in the old way.  And so for the fifth time Eadmund strove to gather all England to him, and his summons was well obeyed.  The thanes and their men gathered in haste, savage with hope deferred, and Cnut shrank back again to Ashingdon on the Crouch, and there built himself an earthwork on the south side of the river, while his ships lay on the further shore at Burnham, and in the anchorage, and along the mud below the earthworks, seeming countless.  And there he waited for us, and there we knew that he meant to end the warfare in one great fight for mastery, with his ships behind him that he might go if he were at last obliged.

And there, too, though we knew it not, he waited for Streone to give England into his hands.

We were close on him when his main force fell back upon his earthworks, where they stand on the little hill above the river banks that men will call “Cnut’s dune” {13} henceforward, in memory of what he won there.  And Ulfkytel and I and the few East Anglians that we had were with the advance guard, and drove in the pickets that were between us and the hill.  And then we knew that Cnut meant to stand and fight in the open, and we were glad, for out of his intrenchments poured his men, and we sent horsemen back to Eadmund to hurry on the main body of our forces.

They were a mile or two behind us, and we waited impatiently, watching the Danish host as it neared us, forming into the terrible half circle as it came.  And I remember all of that waiting, for the day began with such hope, and ended so fearfully for us.

One could not have had a better day on which to fight, for there was neither sun to dazzle, nor rain to beat in the faces of men who needed eyes to guard their lives.  But it was a gray day with a pleasant wind that blew in from the sea, and the light was wonderfully clear and shadowless as before rain, so that one could see all things over-plainly, as it were.  The rounded top of Ashingdon hill seemed to tower higher than its wont, and close at hand, beyond the swampy meadows to our left, and I wondered that Cnut had not chosen that for his camping ground, though maybe it would have been less well placed for reaching the ships, owing to some shoaling of water that did not suit them.  The tide was nearly high now, and all the wide stretch of the Crouch river was alive with the ships that brought over men from the Burnham shore, and one could see the very wake and the ripple at the bows as they came.