But before he went he accepted from Alfred the gifts that an under-king should take from his overlord, and they were most splendid.

All men knew by those tokens given and taken that Alfred was king indeed, and that Guthrum did but hold place by his sufferance.

Those two parted in wondrous friendship with the new bond of the faith woven round them, and the host passed from Wessex and was gone.
Yet, as ever, many a long year must pass by before the track of the Danes should be blotted out from the fair land they had laid waste.
Everywhere was work to hand on burnt hall and homestead, ruined church, and wasted monastery.

There was nought that men grieved over more than the burning of King Ine's church at Glastonbury, for that had been the pride of all the land.

Once, after the Chippenham flight, the monks had dared to go out in sad procession to meet the fierce raiders at the long dike that bars the way to Avalon, and for that time they had won safety for the place--maybe by the loss of their treasures given as ransom, or, as some say, by the power of fearless and unarmed men; for there were men in the Danish host whose minds were noble, and might well be touched thereby.