And this I know full well, that until a host lands I can gather no levy, for our men will not wait for a foe that may never come." I knew that his words were true, and could say nothing.

Only I thought that it had been better if we had held to our Mercian overlords in Ecgberht's time than fight for this Wessex sovereign who was far from us; for that unhealed feud with Mercia seemed to leave us alone now.
"Yet," said Ethelred, "these men are not such great chiefs, as it seems.

Maybe their threats will come to naught." But I told him of that great gathering at the sacrifice, and said also that I thought that needs must those crowded folks seek riches elsewhere than at home.

Then he asked me many things of the corn and cattle and richness of the land; and when I told him what I had seen, he looked at me and Ingild.
"Such things as crowding and poverty and hardness drove us from that shore hither.

I pray that the same be not coming on us that we brought to the ancient people the Welsh, whose better land we took and now hold." So we left him, and I could see that the matter lay heavily on his mind.
In a week thereafter I rode away homeward, and came first to Framlingham, where Eadmund our own king was.