King Harald Godwinson gave King Harald Sigurdson's son Olaf leave to go
away, with the men who had followed him and had not fallen in battle;
but he himself turned round with his army to go south, for he had heard
that William the Bastard was overwhelming the south of England with a
vast army, and was subduing the country for himself. With King Harald
went his brothers Svein and Gyrd, and Earl Valthiof. King Harald
and Earl William met each other south in England at Helsingja-port
(Hastings). There was a great battle in which King Harald and his
brother Earl Gyrd and a great part of his men fell. This was the
nineteenth day after the fall of King Harald Sigurdson. Harald's
brother, Earl Valthiof, escaped by flight, and towards evening fell in
with a division of William's people, consisting of 100 men; and when
they saw Earl Valthiof's troop they fled to a wood. Earl Valthiof set
fire to the wood, and they were all burnt. So says Thorkel Skallason in
Valthiof's ballad:--
"Earl Valthiof the brave
His foes a warming gave:
Within the blazing grove
A hundred men he drove.
The wolf will soon return,
And the witch's horse will burn
Her sharp claws in the ash,
To taste the Frenchman's flesh."