Edwin, a compact man with chestnut hair, a grey-threaded beard, and heavy rings on both arms, sat on his carved stool under the oak, his chief steward Coelgar at his ear and his advisers about him, with his chin on his fist and his eyes on the petitioner, a one-handed local thegn, rewarded with five hides by Æthelric Spear years past for service rendered as gesith, who complained that a local widow had set eel traps in the river:
