My mother lived but a few months after that flight of ours; but at least she knew before she died that Bertha was safe.

What the old nurse had foreseen had come to pass.

The half-Danish and Danish folk of the East Angles owned Swein as king, though not willingly, and a housecarle from Wormingford made his way to us with word from Gunnhild that set our minds at rest.

Truly our hall and Osgod's had been burnt by parties from the Danish host, and for a time the danger was great, for Swein's vengeance for his sister's death was terrible.
Now the land was poorer, but in peace.

Yet Hertha would keep in hiding till we might see how things went, for the Danes might be forced back, and when a Danish host retreats it hinders pursuit by leaving a desert in its wake.