Dudo of St. Quentin's Gesta Normannorum

Rollo and his followers plunder among the Angles

     AND WHILE HE LINGERED, sorrowful, at Skania island and, burning under the anxious compulsion of twisting wrath, struggled to avenge himself on his foes, and very many whom royal heinousness had chased out of Dacia were returning to him, a divine voice cried out to him, his limbs, wearied by exertion, overpowered by deep sleep, saying: "Arise swiftly, Rollo, going hastily across the deep in navigation, proceed to the Angles, there you will hear that you will return healthy to the fatherland and that in it you will, without defeat, enjoy never-ending peace." When he had recounted this dream to a certain wise and Christian man, he explained it with a speech of this type: "In the opportune course of time to come, you will be purified by sacrosanct baptism and will become an especially worthy Christian and at a future time you will come from the deception of this wavering world all the way to the Angles, that is the angels and with them you will have the glory of everlasting peace." But immediately outfitting ships and equipping them with oars and loading them with grain and wine and heads of swine, swiftly flying across the sail-winged sea, he goes to the Angles and supposes that he will linger there calmly for a while. However, the peasants of that territory, hearing that Rollo the Dacian has arrived, have brought together against him the greatest possible army. And they have tried to chase him from their borders. He has gone to meet them in battle in his accustomed manner, without hesitation, and has overthrown very many of them and has harassed with a spear the backs of the rest, turning in flight. At length many more peasants than before, collecting in a mass, again send out against Rollo the hardiest possible army and try to kill him or cause him to slip away in flight. But he, well versed in the zealous exertions of war and extremely fierce in the exigencies of combat, has proceeded swiftly and without hesitation, enveloped in a helmet wonderfully ornamented with gold and a mail coat, against the armed throngs of those setting out and attacking him. He has savagely overthrown thousands of them with a conquering  hand and, pursuing fugitives with a swift course and capturing many of the leaders and returning to the place of the battle, he has placed the bodies of the slain in the earth and has carried off the rest, discolored by wounds and bound them captive to the ships. Then he begins to anguish greatly and to be grieved, vacillating among three kinds of wandering, whether he should hit upon Dacia or should proceed to Francia or should, through battle, strike and claim for himself the English land.

APOSTROPHE TO THAT VERY MAN

Why do you tremble, Rollo, wavering, and why, perplexed, do you fear? Why do you torment your spirit, filled with the pestilence of musing? Why do you consume your heart, filled with the squalor of concerns? Why do you mutter in your spirit, why do you meditate by musing now? Why are you stuck, father, with a fixed gaze? Why do you reconsider in your mind, recalling doubts and darkness? And why are you astounded at your malign misfortune in your present lot? According to the fated order, after many perils of war And after the marine swellings of the boiling main, You will have power by right, a patrician blossoming with merits, A never-ending Christian, loftier than the Frankish hall, And you will capture the deserved crown as worthy recompense And you will deserve to benefit, in the deity, from the highest good.