Norman harbours.[1] In the Isle of Wight, some 20 leagues away, Harold took post, and noted with watchful eye this growing force. All summer he was there with such fleets and armies as had never before been seen ; but on the 8th (now 15th of September) the Saxon people were wont to lay up store for the on-coming winter , and " no man could keep them there any longer." His armies melted away, all save his hired soldiers, and many of his ships were lost. The while, the N .E . winds kept the impatient Normans in their ports. Hardly had Harold reached his capital when messengers came posting in , to say Northumbria had submitted to a Norwegian host. In four days Harold was at York, and on the fifth he assaulted Hardrada, who little thought his foe so near,and whose troops were scattered and unarmed . The Norwegians fiercely stood at bay,but Saxon valor broke their iron ring, and Hardrada and Toustain , hard by Stamford Bridge, were slain . Of 500 ships, but 24 revisited their native fiords. Meantime the winds veered round and William 's fleet put out to sea , only to be driven by a storm confusedly into the Somme, and all the shores of Normandy were strewn with the bodies of the drowned. Loudly rejoiced the English people and king Harold , and thought the danger o'er; but this confidence was England's ruin.
William 's fleet had in the main escaped unscathed , and when afterwards the favoring breeze wafted it across, for -
- ↑ The number of ships is variously given from seven hundred to three thousand - the number assigned in the " Roman de Rou," is perhaps the most probable - 696.
