the rewards to Anlaf’s men for their labours. The surrounding land was
marked out and divided up, each karl receiving a portion, large or small
in accordance with his own worth; and a considerable portion was left
over to belong to all the karls in common. The thralls of course got no
land—they did not count as men but as cattle. Probably some of them were
exchanged with the ceorls of Hessle for four-legged cattle.
In three years’ time Anlafsbyr was a thriving settlement. The omens had
promised good luck and the good luck came. Meanwhile Ketil, the son of
Anlaf, chose himself a wife from Riplingham. So did others for
themselves; and some, not finding the looks of the maidens of Hessle and
Beverley and Weighton and Riplingham to their liking, went farther
afield and made raids on the villages of Hotham and Sancton, only to
retire with several cracked heads and broken arms for their pains.
But this was an exception to the general rule. In most cases the Anglian
maidens were quite willing to wed the handsome strangers, even if their
language was at first difficult to understand, and their methods of
wooing somewhat rough and unpolished. In fact they rather approved of
the roughness than disapproved of it, and to be singled out for one’s
good looks and carried off by one of those bold Northmen was something
for a maiden to be proud of.
The result of the frequent marriages between the Northmen and the Angles
quickly became apparent. Husband and wife spoke languages sufficiently
alike for one to make out the other’s meaning in most cases. But the
children were, quite naturally, brought up to speak the tongue of their
mother and not that of their father; so that as time went on the
language of the Northmen disappeared, or rather became merged in the
language of the Angles. Thus although Anlaf and his karls spoke the
Norse tongue, their grandchildren spoke the English. But for all that,
they lived in the Danelagh, where Danish customs and Danish laws were
observed.
When Anlaf died in 871, Ketil Anlafsson began to rule his father’s
settlement. His two sons, Ulf and Hrafn, went, as custom decreed they
ought to go, on Viking raids as soon as they reached the manly age of
fifteen or sixteen. Four years of these raids sufficed to prove the
prowess of Ulf Ketilsson, and his right eventually to succeed his father
as jarl. Then he settled down to help his father, who had become a man
past middle age; but Hrafn his brother continued at sea. In 890 Ketil
Anlafsson died, and his son Ulf was proclaimed jarl. Hrafn was then
away. But now in the Spring of 892 he has just returned, to be honoured
by all men as the first among them to make the perilous voyage to an
island lying far to the north-west, whose name was spoken of as
‘Iceland.’
* * * * *
Great therefore are the rejoicings at Anlafsbyr. Jarl Ulf has ridden at
full speed to the river-shore on hearing that three ships have been
sighted coming up the river with red, blue and green sails like those of
his brother’s ships. Before he leaves home he has given instructions to
his wife Helga that the hall is to be got ready for a great feast in
case the ships are his brother’s. A messenger has quickly brought back
the good tidings, and preparations are being pushed on rapidly, that the
welcome Hrafn and his men receive shall be one fitting to the occasion.
Let us now glance round the hall built by Anlaf and see what it is like.
Picture to yourself an oblong hall built entirely of wood, and with a
steep roof supported by upright and cross beams. It is built east and
west and at each end is a door, one the men’s door, the other the
women’s door. Along each side there is a low aisle, which is partitioned
off into small sleeping-rooms for the jarl’s family and guests.
Down the middle of the hall are long stone hearths on which are
smouldering three fires of wood and turf. Above each fire is a hole in
the roof through which the smoke makes its escape after eddying round
the rafters, which are covered with a thick layer of soot. The windows
are high up, of just sufficient size for a man’s body to be able to
squeeze through, and the holes are covered with the membrane obtained
from the inside of a cow, which is almost as transparent as glass.
Along the hall will be two long tables, constructed of planks resting
upon trestles. At the middle of the south side stands the high seat of
the jarl, and opposite it is another which is always reserved for the
most honoured guest. Thralls in white woollen clothes are now running
hither and thither placing the long tables in position, and coaxing the
smouldering fires into a big roaring blaze; for the nights are still
very cold.
Adjoining the hall are numerous other buildings—the women’s sleeping
rooms and the kitchens and storehouses. The last two are a scene of
bustle. Bondwomen are hurrying about in all directions. If you look at
this one you will perhaps notice that she has lost an ear. It has been
cut off for an act of pilfering, but she tries to hide her loss by
arranging her hair over the place where the ear should be. In the
distance is another bondwoman who cannot possibly hide the marks of her
punishment. Three times has she been caught pilfering, with the result
that she now has to manage as best she can without an ear at all and
without a nose.
* * * * *
But outside there is a great noise of shouting and the trampling of
horses and of men. Hrafn Ketilsson has arrived with his men, and welcome
is being given him by Jarl Ulf and his wife, Helga Eiriksson. It is not
yet time for the meal now being prepared, and Hrafn declares that he is
not hungry one little bit; so sports are hastily arranged on the green
in front of the hall. There shall be a great horse-fight; for two of
Ulf’s karls have horses which have been thoroughly trained to fight, and
neither of which has yet been beaten.
The horse-fight takes place accordingly. Each karl makes his horse rise
on its hind legs and attack the other, biting it wherever it can. As the
contest goes on, the horses get enraged and their masters incite them by
blows on their hind quarters. Finally one of the horses gives in and
runs away, leaving the other the victor.
Then there is a running contest. Hrafn the Viking has among his troop a
man from Ireland, named Gilli, whom he wagers to beat any horse in
speed. A dozen horses are immediately offered, and the best of them, a
horse belonging to a karl named Hrolf, is chosen. Gilli will race
Hrolf’s horse; and if the horse wins, its owner shall have a gold ring
given him by Hrafn. For half a mile they race along, Gilli being all the
while at the horse’s shoulder, and the result being therefore a dead
heat.
‘But,’ says Hrolf, ‘you had hold of the strap of my saddle-girth, and my
horse pulled you along.’ ‘Then,’ replies Gilli, ‘we will have it over
again.’
This time Gilli starts a yard in front of the horse, and at the end of
the half-mile he is still the same distance in front. ‘Did I this time
take hold of your saddle-girth?’ asks Gilli. ‘No,’ is Hrolf’s answer,
‘but my horse had no chance. You were just in front of him all the way,
and I was afraid of riding you down.’
‘Very well,’ says Gilli, ‘we will have the race over again.’
So for the third time they race, and this time the horse is given twenty
yards start. But Gilli catches Hrolf up, passes him, stands still till
the horse is again in front, then starts again, and finishes ten yards
in front. There is tremendous cheering, and Jarl Ulf gives Gilli a gold
ring of weight equal to that offered by his brother to the horse’s
owner.
Next a game of ball. Sides are chosen, and a hard wooden ball and two
wooden bats are brought forth. The bats are given to one man on each
side. The ball is thrown up into the air, and one of the batsmen hits it
with all his force in the direction of the other. The second batsman
tries to hit it back and not let it pass him, but before he can hit it
he is pulled down by the men of the other side. So the game goes on. It
is by no means a gentle game, for the occasion is a special one and all
the players are on their mettle. When ‘time’ is called and bruises and
wounds are reckoned up, it is found that the players have sustained
three broken arms, a broken thigh-bone, and the loss of one eye. Lesser
injuries go uncounted.
* * * * *
By this time the feast is ready, and so are the men. If good appetites
are any indication of good health, the uninjured men are all in a state
of very vigorous health. Jarl Ulf Ketilsson leads the way to his high
seat, and Hrafn the Viking is shown to the high seat opposite. Swords,
shields, and axes are hung on nails driven into the walls above the side
benches. By the side of Ulf sits his wife Helga. The scene is one of
varied colour, the blue, red, green, scarlet, and purple kirtles of the
freemen contrasting strongly with the white garments of the thralls who
serve the food.
Huge joints of beef and pork are brought in from the kitchens, and there
are numerous calls for the former; for there has been little or no fresh
meat since the beginning of last November, and men’s stomachs have a way
of getting tired of salted pig, when they have fed on it for five months
without a break. Plates are of wood, fingers serve for forks, and each
man cuts off with his knife-dagger the amount of meat and of bread that
he feels himself capable of eating. Ale is served to the jarl and his
family in bullock’s horns adorned with gold and silver bands, to the
others in wooden drinking-cups. Half-way through the feast Helga leaves
her seat, fills a horn with wine, and offers it to Hrafn. As the Viking
drains it at a draught there is a great cheer, which takes a long time
to die down.
So the meal goes on. There is little variety in the food, but there is
plenty of it, and that is the important thing where hungry men are
concerned. As they eat, all are talking. This karl is describing to
another how he has just been ‘had’ by a fellow at Weighton, who sold him
a thrall guaranteed sound in wind and limb. But the thrall cannot run
twice round Jarl Ulf’s hall without getting the stitch. His new master
is vehemently explaining that he intends to get his money back.
Another is telling how he has seen a karl’s wife and her bondwoman take
the ordeal at Hundmansbyr. The bondwoman had accused her mistress of
wrong-doing, and the mistress had challenged her bondwoman to go to the
ordeal.
So the priests had got ready a bucket of boiling water, at the bottom of
which were placed two sacred stones. In sight of all, the mistress had
plunged in her hand and brought up one of the stones. And her arm showed
no signs of a hurt. Then the bondwoman had attempted the same. But her
arm had been frightfully scalded. Thus the innocent had been
distinguished from the guilty, and the bondwoman had been taken to the
nearest ditch and drowned.
Meanwhile Hrafn the Viking’s karls have been pouring into eager ears
tales of their adventures among the snow and ice of the seas far away to
the north. One has a walrus tooth to show, and others have the claws of
a huge white beast that can walk on its hind legs and can squeeze a
man’s body in its arms till every bone is broken. They have the skin of
one of these fearsome creatures on board down at the river-shore,
intended by their Viking chief as a present to his brother’s wife. A
fine bed it will make, but it cost the lives of three men to obtain.
Would their listeners hear wonders? There are plenty to tell. In the
seas from which they have returned they sailed for four days without a
night, while the sun went round and round in a great fiery ring.
While this talk is going on, a shame-faced fellow is trying to slink in
unobserved at the men’s door. But he is greeted with cries of
‘Nithing!’[17] and receives a volley of beef bones that first bowls him
over and then makes him depart more hurriedly than he had come in. Some
of Hrafn’s men follow him, for he has been guilty of stealing from a
comrade on one of the ships. His head will be shaven to-morrow, then
dipped in tar and covered with eider down, so that he may remember for
the future that honourable karls do not steal the belongings of their
comrades.
Footnote 17:
This is the old Norse word for our ‘Villain!’
Tables are eventually cleared much more quickly than they were filled.
Places are now changed. The jarl and his brother play chess, others play
at dice. A wrestling-match is soon fixed up, in which the combatants are
strapped together at the waist and each will try to throw the other.
Following this there is a tug-of-war across the fire. An ox-hide is
brought in and an end seized by each of two men standing on opposite
sides of the hearth stones. Each tries to pull the other into the fire.
But they are fairly equally matched, and for some time neither succeeds.
Then tempers rise. The shouts of the supporters of each urge them on,
and one succeeds in pulling the other on to the fire. As he has drunk
deeply of strong ale, he is not content with his victory, but throws the
ox-hide over his fallen opponent and then jumps upon him to mark his
defeat. When the defeated karl’s friends succeed in pulling him out of
the fire, he is, naturally, somewhat scorched.
Now comes in a juggler. He can perform many tricks, and among them is
that of keeping three daggers in motion, so that one is always in his
hand and the two others in the air. Further, he offers to show his skill
on the following day by stepping from oar to oar on the outside of a
ship while it is being rowed. He will step thus from stem to stern and
back again, and moreover will keep his three daggers moving all the
time. The challenge is accepted and he shall have his choice of presents
from Hrafn if he can succeed in doing what he says he will.
Challenges are in the air, it seems. Here is Bersi, one of Hrafn’s
karls, challenging Egil, a karl of Ulf, because he finds that while he
has been away from home Egil has married the maiden to whom he was
betrothed. And Bersi is not at all pleased with the course of events, so
he has challenged the other karl for his wife. To-morrow they will go to
the _holmgang_,[18] and fight it out; and if Egil is not the victor, he
will lose his wife and Bersi will gain one.
Footnote 18:
The _holmgang_ was a duel fought according to fixed rules on a piece
of ground specially marked out for the purpose. In earlier times it
was fought on a _holm_, or island, whence the name.
The excitement caused by Bersi’s challenge is dying down when further
excitement arises from the entrance of a karl with news of a strange
sight to be seen in the sky. It had been a dark, cloudy night, but
suddenly the clouds broke up and there between two clouds appeared a
star with a long light streaming from it like a tail of fire. It is
there for all to see if they don’t believe him.
So a rush is made for the men’s door and the hall is left deserted.
Outside there are groups of wondering men looking upwards at a bright
‘hairy star,’ and asking one another with bated breath what evil fortune
to their land this marvellous sight portends.
X.
TWO FAMOUS BATTLES OF LONG AGO.
In 901 died Alfred, King of the West Saxons, and Edward, his son,
succeeded him, to be succeeded in turn by his son Aethelstan in the year
925. King Alfred had, it will be remembered, agreed with Guthrum the
Dane to divide England into two parts, one of which each of them should
rule.
But Alfred’s son Edward enlarged his power so greatly that he was in 924
‘chosen to father and lord by the Scots King and all the Scots people,
by all the men of Northumbria—both English and Danes and Northmen—and by
the King of the Strathclyde Welsh.’ To Aethelstan was accorded still
greater honour, for it fell to his lot to be the first king crowned as
‘King of England.’
Now in the reign of Aethelstan there took place the greatest battle that
had yet been fought between the English and the Northmen. The compact of
Edward’s reign was short-lived; for in 937 the Danes of Northumbria
entered into a league with Constantine, King of the Scots, and Owen,
King of the Strathclyde Britons, against the King of England. Their
league was joined also by two Norse Kings from Ireland, named Anlaf, one
of whom had married the daughter of Constantine. To meet these
disturbers of the peace Aethelstan marched north, and at a place known
as BRUNANBURH the famous battle between them was fought.
So great was the victory here won by King Aethelstan that the chronicler
who records it bursts into song when he tells how
Aethelstan the King, the lord of Earls,
The bestower of gifts, and his brother also,
Edmund the Prince, life-long honour
Won in combat, with the edges of swords,
At Brunanburh.
All day, from the rising of ‘God’s candle’ until its setting, went
on the fight; so that the battlefield streamed with blood, and many
a Northman lay on the ground struck down with spears. Weary and
sated with the fight fled the Scots, pursued by the West Saxons with
swords new-sharpened on the grindstone. To none of those who, doomed
to death, accompanied Anlaf over the sea did the Mercians refuse the
hard hand-play. On the battlefield there lay five young kings put to
sleep by the sword, with seven of Anlaf’s jarls and an uncounted
host of shipmen and of Scots. Then fled the Northmen to the shore of
the yellow flood; and so also fled Constantine, who had left behind
his son, borne down with many wounds.
Thus departed in their nailed ships those of the Northmen whom the
spears had left alive, and the King and his brother sought again the
West Saxon land, exulting in victory. Behind them they left the
dusky-coated kite, the swart, horny-beaked raven, the white-tailed
eagle, and the grey wolf—all eager to feast upon the corpses of the
slain.
Such is the picture of the battlefield painted in words by the Saxon
chronicler. And when we read it we wonder to ourselves: ‘Where was
Brunanburh, at which this great battle was fought?’ But the question is
one to which no certain answer can be given. The name ‘Brunanburh’ is
lost, and the nearest approach to it among the village names of to-day
is Bromborough, on the Cheshire shore of the Mersey.
This may possibly be the site of the battle; but it is curious that two
writers of old chronicles, both living within two hundred years of the
actual date of the battle, agree in saying that the Norse fleet invaded
England by the Humber. So also said the Bridlington monk, Peter of
Langtoft, who certainly ought to know; and a Lincolnshire hermit, who
translated Peter’s Norman-French into English, is very definite about
it:—
At Brunesburgh on Humber thei gan tham assaile,
Fro morn unto even lasted that bataile.
If Brunanburh did lie ‘on Humber,’ on which side of the river was it?
Some claim that the battle took place at Kirkburn near Driffield, and
others put it at Little Weighton, nearer the river.
But one thing is certain. King Aethelstan and his men must have marched
north by either the Watling Street or the Ermin Street. If the Norse
fleet did come into the Humber, he must have come north by the Ermin
Street, and his army could hardly have crossed the river under the
circumstances. However much, therefore, we should like to assert that
the greatest battle of olden times was fought in the East Riding of
Yorkshire, it would be wiser not to do so, but to let our somewhat
despised sister-county of Lincolnshire have the benefit of the doubt.
A glance at the map given at the end of this book will show about four
miles from the Humber, on the road from Barton to Caistor, a village
named Burnham. At this village there are still to be seen the remains of
an ancient entrenchment enclosing a space of about 64 acres. One of the
half-dozen ancient spellings of the name of the manor of Burnham is
_Brunan_, and the suffix _burh_ means ‘a fortified place.’
Further, men’s bones, Saxon coins, and a Saxon sword have been ploughed
up on the adjoining fields; while just south of Burnham there was in the
eighteenth century a road known as ‘Bloody Gate’ and just north of it
there is still a ‘Dead Man Dale.’ So we shall have to concede that the
southern bank of the ‘yellow flood’ has some considerable claims to the
possession of the site of the famous battle of Brunanburh.
* * * * *
Let us pass on to the middle of the next century. For twenty-eight years
England had been ruled by Danish Kings, when, in 1042, the Saxons came
into their own again and the third Saxon Edward began to rule in London.
But Danish jarls still ruled at JORVIK[19] and Jarl Siward, the eighth
of these, was the greatest of them all. In 1054 he took a large army and
a fleet into Scotland, where he fought against the Scots in
Aberdeenshire, and slew their king Macbeth. Siward’s son Osbern was also
slain in the battle, and when news of his son’s death was brought to the
old jarl, he rejoiced that his son had died a worthy death. In
Shakespeare’s play _Macbeth_ it is put thus. Ross, a Scots nobleman, has
just broken to Siward the news that his son ‘has paid a soldier’s
debt’:—
_Siward._ Had he his hurts before?
_Ross._ Ay, on the front.
_Siward._ Why then, God’s soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death.
Footnote 19:
Pronounced _Yór-wik_.
One year later Siward’s own death took place, and these were his words
when he felt that he was fated to die not on the battlefield but in his
bed:—
‘I feel shame not to have fallen in one of the many battles that I
have fought, and to have been preserved to die like a cow. Close me
in my mail of proof, gird my sword on me, fit the helmet on my head,
and put a shield in my left hand and a gilded axe in my right, that
I may die like a soldier.’
So died the lord of the manors of Barmston and Holmpton, and the
greatest of the Anglo-Danes of Northumbria. After his death his earldom
was given by King Edward to Tostig, the son of Earl Godwin the West
Saxon; and if one-half of the stories told about him by the old
chroniclers are true, the Northumbrians must have felt the change
acutely.
One of Tostig’s little jokes was played at his half-brother Harold’s
hall at Hereford. The two had quarrelled at Windsor in the presence of
King Edward, and Tostig, expelled from the Court in disgrace, had ridden
to Hereford, where he found his brother’s servants busily making ready
for a visit from the King. To vent his anger on his brother he killed
the servants—so the story goes—chopped up their bodies, threw the legs,
arms and trunks into hogsheads of wine and barrels of cider, and gaily
sent word to the King that ‘he had provided against his coming plenty of
salt meat.’
Small wonder that the proud Anglo-Danes of the north refused to submit
for long to such a one of the despised West Saxons. In 1064 they
rebelled against their unpopular jarl, outlawed him, slew his servants,
both English and Danes, seized all his weapons and his gold and silver
in Jorvik, and sent for Morcar, the son of Jarl Aelfgar, to be their
jarl. Tostig fled to Baldwin, Count of Flanders, vowing vengeance on his
half-brother Harold, who had advised the King to fall in with the wishes
of the Northumbrians.
Two years passed away. Edward had died and Harold, Tostig’s
half-brother, had been chosen by the Witena-gemōt to be King of England.
Now was the time for Tostig to have his revenge. So he enlisted the aid
of another Harold—Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, a warrior huge of
stature and dauntless in courage, who had, when an exile from Norway,
won fame in Sicily, Greece and Africa, and who had formed at
Constantinople a bodyguard to the Emperor, consisting of five hundred
Northmen. Together they would conquer England, and Harold of Norway
should be its king, as Cnut, King of Denmark, had been before him.
With a fleet of 240 warships Harold of Norway set out for the conquest
of England, his royal banner, the ‘Land-Waster’ proudly flying aloft.
But omens of misfortune to come were not wanting; for he and his men had
bad dreams at night—dreams of the English host marching down to the
sea-shore led by a wolf on whose back was seated a ‘witch-wife.’
Moreover, the witch-wife fed the wolf with the corpses of Northmen; and
as fast as one was eaten, another was ready.
To a superstitious people, such as the Northmen were, these omens must
have seemed to bode terrible ill-luck. But Harold had never yet turned
back from an expedition, and he did not mean to start turning back now.
So over the sea to the Shetlands and the Orkneys his fleet sailed, then
down the eastern coast of the mainland till they reached the mouth of
the Tyne. Here they were joined by Tostig, and soon afterwards the
‘Land-Waster’ was unfurled in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
So far Harold of Norway had met with no resistance. But the fisherfolk
of Scarborough did withstand the attack made upon their little town;
whereupon, so the old Norse account of Harold’s invasion tells us—