THEN the king [Ethelred] and his witan* decreed that they should be sent to, and promised tribute and food, on condition that they should cease from their plundering: which terms they accepted. And then all the army came to Southampton, and there took up their winter-quarters: and there they were victualled from all the realm of the West-Saxons, and they were paid sixteen thousand pounds of money.
Then the king sent bishop Alfheah* and Ethelwerd the ealdorman after King Olaf, and the while, hostages were delivered to the ships; and they then led Olaf with much worship to the king at Andover. And king Ethelred received him at the bishop’s hands, and royally gifted him. And then Olaf made a covenant with him, even as he also fulfilled, that he never again would come hostilely to the English nation.*
translated by J. A. Giles
Literally ‘wise men’. An Anglo-Saxon King’s council was his ‘witenagemot’ or meeting of wise men. It was formed from whoever was available. Although their advice was not legally binding, any King who spurned it might be labelled ‘unrede’ (uncounselled) and lose respect among his noblemen, as Ethelred the Unready later did.
His Anglo-Saxon name was Ælfheah (pronounced alf-high or elf-high, and meaning ‘elven-tall’), but most churches in England dedicated to him, including the one on the traditional site of his martyrdom in 1012, are dedicated to St Alphege (pronounced alf-edge), which is how the Normans would have known him.
As the Chronicler says, it was a promise which Olaf kept; others did not. Years later, on April 19th, 1012, bishop Alphege, by then Archbishop of Canterbury, lost his life after being kidnapped by Danes and then murdered because he would not instruct his impoverished flock to raise a ransom. His feast as a martyr is kept on that day.