This was far smaller than it would have been a year earlier; but the Northmen, having once completed their work of pillage, soon turned to fresh fields of adventure.

Those whose disposition led them to prefer a quiet life had settled upon the land from which they had dispossessed the Saxons; but the principal bands of rovers, finding that England was exhausted and that no more plunder could be had, had either gone back to enjoy at home the booty they had gained, or had sailed to harry the shores of France, Spain, and Italy.
Thus the position of the Danes in Chippenham was desperate, and at the end of fourteen days, by which time they were reduced to an extremity by hunger, they sent messengers into the royal camp offering their submission.

They promised if spared to quit the kingdom with all speed, and to observe this contract more faithfully than those which they had hitherto made and broken.

They offered the king as many hostages as he might wish to take for the fulfilment of their promises.

The haggard and emaciated condition of those who came out to treat moved Alfred to pity.
So weakened were they by famine that they could scarce drag themselves along.