When Egil returned from the council to his fellows, they asked him what tidings he could tell them of
the Scots’ king. He sang:

’Olaf one earl by furious

Onslaught in flight hath driven,

The other slain: a sovereign

Stubborn in fight is he.

Upon the field fared Gudrek

False path to his undoing.

He holds, this foe of England,

Northumbria’s humbled soil.’

After this they sent messengers to king Olaf, giving out this as their errand, that king Athelstan would
fain enhazel him a field and offer battle on Vin-heath by Vin-wood; meanwhile he would have them
forbear to harry his land; but of the twain he should rule England who should conquer in the battle. He
appointed a week hence for the conflict, and whichever first came on the ground should wait a week
for the other. Now this was then the custom, that so soon as a king had enhazelled a field, it was a
shameful act to harry before the battle was ended. Accordingly king Olaf halted and harried not, but
waited till the appointed day, when he moved his army to Vin-heath.

North of the heath stood a town. There in the town king Olaf quartered him, and there he had the
greatest part of his force, because there was a wide district around which seemed to him convenient for
the bringing in of such provisions as the army needed. But he sent men of his own up to the heath
where the battlefield was appointed; these were to take camping-ground, and make all ready before the
army came. But when the men came to the place where the field was enhazelled, there were all the
hazel-poles set up to mark the ground where the battle should be.

The place ought to be chosen level, and whereon a large host might be set in array. And such was this;
for in the place where the battle was to be the heath was level, with a river flowing on one side, on the
other a large wood. But where the distance between the wood and the river was least (though this was
a good long stretch), there king Athelstan’s men had pitched, and their tents quite filled the space
between wood and river. They had so pitched that in every third tent there were no men at all, and in
one of every three but few. Yet when king Olaf’s men came to them, they had then numbers swarming
before all the tents, and the others could not get to go inside. Athelstan’s men said that their tents were
all full, so full that their people had not nearly enough room. But the front line of tents stood so high
that it could not be seen over them whether they stood many or few in depth. Olaf’s men imagined a
vast host must be there. King Olaf’s men pitched north of the hazel-poles, toward which side the
ground sloped a little.

From day to day Athelstan’s men said that the king would come, or was come, to the town that lay
south of the heath. Meanwhile forces flocked to them both day and night.

But when the appointed time had expired, then Athelstan’s men sent envoys to king Olaf with these
words: ’King Athelstan is ready for battle, and had a mighty host. But he sends to king Olaf these
words, that he would fain they should not cause so much bloodshed as now looks likely; he begs Olaf
rather to go home to Scotland, and Athelstan will give him as a friendly gift one shilling of silver from
every plough through all his realm, and he wishes that they should become friends.’