70 
lays as he fights with his accustomed vigour, as the Saga 
describes him : — 
" \Miere the battle-storm was ringing, 
Where the arrow-cloud was singing, 
Harold stood there, 
Of armour bare. 
His deadly sword still swinging ; 
The foemen feel its bite, 
The Norsemen rush to tight, 
Danger to share — with Harold there. 
Where steel on steel was ringing." 
An arrow or bolt pierces him in the heck, lie falls dead. 
After Harold's death, Tosti has the charge of the king's 
Standard. Tosti, in turn, bites the dust. But Lrystein 
Orre, left in command of the ships, and his contingent, now 
arrived, " all clad in armour." " They had come so fast, 
they were exhausted, and hardly fit to fight, before they 
came to battle. They were ofiered quarter ; they refused it. 
They threw ofi" their coats of ring-mail, and many fell from 
weariness, and died almost without a wound. This happened 
towards evening; many fled, and darkness fell before the 
slaughter ended." 
So far we have the events described in the Sagas of the 
kings of Norway. 
Florence of Worcester, the Chronicle of — 
"After this, Harold Harvagra, king of the Norwegians, and brother 
of St. Olaf, the king, arrived on a sudden at the mouth of the river 
Tjne, with a powerful fleet, consisting of more than five hundred large 
ships. Earl Tosti, according to previous arrangement, joi)ied him with 
his fleet. They hastened their course, and entered the riv^er Humber, 
and then sailing up the river Ouse, against the stream, landed at a place 
called Eichale. King Harold, on hearing this, marched in haste 
towards Northumbria ; but, before his arrival, the two brothers. Earls 
Eadwin and Morcar, at the head of a large army, fought a battle with 
the Norwegians on the northern bank of the river Ouse, near York, on 
Wednesday, being the Vigil of the feast-day of St. Matthew the apostle 
(20th September), and they fought so bravely at the onset that many of 
