And they told me that Thorkel's fleet had sailed northward on Swein's death, and that the thingmen whom he had left in the place had gone to London.
"That is as I thought," said Olaf.

"Now there will be more trouble in driving them out than there has been in letting them in." When we came at last in sight of London Bridge I knew that Olaf was right, for since the Danes had gained the city they had not been idle.

They had built a great fort on the Southwark side of the river, girt with a wide moat, and all the stronger that the walls thus surrounded were partly of timber and stone.

The road from across London Bridge runs through this fort, so that one might by no means pass over it until the place was won.

And at the other end of the bridge the old Roman walls of London itself were far too strong for our force to take by storm.
But the strangest thing to me was to see what they had done to the great timber bridge itself, for they had made that also into a fortress.