With room for them all!"

But Harold Hardrada scorned witch-wife and dream; and his fleets
sailed on. Tostig joined him off the Orkney Isles, and this great
armament soon came in sight of the shores of England. They landed at
Cleveland [242], and at the dread of the terrible Norsemen, the
coastmen fled or submitted. With booty and plunder they sailed on to
Scarborough, but there the townsfolk were brave, and the walls were
strong.

The Norsemen ascended a hill above the town, lit a huge pile of wood,
and tossed the burning piles down on the roofs. House after house
caught the flame, and through the glare and the crash rushed the men
of Hardrada. Great was the slaughter, and ample the plunder; and the
town, awed and depeopled, submitted to flame and to sword.

Then the fleet sailed up the Humber and Ouse, and landed at Richall,
not far from York; but Morcar, the Earl of Northumbria, came out with
all his forces,--all the stout men and tall of the great race of the
Anglo-Dane.

Then Hardrada advanced his flag, called Land-Eyda, the "Ravager of the
World," [243] and, chaunting a war-stave,--led his men to the
onslaught.

The battle was fierce, but short. The English troops were defeated,
they fled into York; and the Ravager of the World was borne in triumph
to the gates of the town. An exiled chief, however tyrannous and
hateful, hath ever some friends among the desperate and lawless; and
success ever finds allies among the weak and the craven,--so many