of their ears, and nostrils, and some even of their manhood. Thus tyrannizing over the innocent, and boasting of the feat, he returned to his own country. In the same year the sea-flood, which the Greeks call Euripus, and we Ledo,[1] rose to so wonderful a height, that none like it was recollected in the memory of man, for it overflowed the villages, and destroyed their inhabitants, for many miles.
The year following a grand council of Danes and English, was assembled at Oxford, where the king commanded two of the noblest Danes, Sigeferth, and Morcar, accused of treachery to him by the impeachment of the traitor Edric, to be put to death. He had lured them, by his soothing expressions, into a chamber, and deprived them, when drunk to excess, of their lives, by his attendants who had been prepared for that purpose. The cause of their murder was said to be, his unjustifiable desire for their property. Their dependants, attempting to revenge the death of their lords by arms, were worsted, and driven into the tower of St. Frideswide's church at Oxford, where, as they could not be dislodged, they were consumed by fire: however, shortly after, the foul stain was wiped out by the king's penitence, and the sacred place repaired. I have read the history of this transaction, which is deposited in the archives of that church. The wife of Sigeferth, a woman remarkable for her rank and beauty, was carried prisoner to Malmesbury; on which account, Edmund, the king's son, dissembling his intention, took a journey into those parts. Seeing her, he became enamoured; and becoming enamoured, he made her his wife; cautiously keeping their union secret from his father, who was as much an object of contempt to his family as to strangers. This Edmund was not born of Emma, but of some other person, whom fame has left in obscurity. With that exception, he was a young man in every respect of noble disposition; of great strength both of mind and person, and, on this account, by the English, called "Ironside:" he would have shrouded the indolence of his father, and the meanness of his mother, by his own conspicuous virtue, could the fates have spared him. Soon after, at the instigation of his wife, he asked of his father the
- ↑ He here considers Ledo to imply the spring tide; but others say it means the neap, and express the former by Malina. See Du Cange.
