"But at least he does not blame us for leaving the old gods.

He says he is too old to learn what we younger men think good." "I will seek him and speak with him again," Neot said.

"I think I owe him somewhat." Then we thanked the holy man for the honour that he was showing us; but he put thanks aside, saying that we were his sons in the truth, and that the honour was his rather.
Now in the seven weeks that we waited for Guthrum at Aller, while the priests whom Alfred sent taught him and his chiefs what they should know rightly before baptism, Osmund and I were wont to go to Taunton, across the well-known fens, and bide for days at a time in Odda's house there, and we told Thora for what we waited.
She had come to England, when she was quite a child, with the first women who came into East Anglia, and already she knew much of Christianity from the Anglian thralls who had tended her.

And when she had heard more of late from Etheldreda and Alswythe, she had longed to be of the same faith as these friends of hers, and now rejoiced openly.
"Ranald," she said, "I had not dared to speak of this to my father, but I was wont to fear the old gods terribly.

They have no place for a maiden in their wild heaven.