Note 1053 — Chapter XIV · THE NORWEGIAN INVASION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF STAMFORDBRIDGE.[928]
Reading edition
I accept this incident, as one likely to be remembered, from Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 762 C) and the Ramsey History (cap. cxx.), though they absurdly represent the feast as held, and the message as brought, on the day of the battle, when William had not yet landed. So Wace says of his Thegn who brought the news from Sussex;
“Ultre le Humbre l’a trové:
En une ville aveit disné.”
The writer of the De Inventione (c. xx.) most strangely makes Harold go, after the battle, to Waltham, and hear the news there; “Waltham rediit, ubi de applicatione Normannorum nimis veridicâ narration e nuntium suscepit.”