OF FURNESS FOLK A THOUSAND YEARS SINCE.
The winter wore and the summer came: and Eadward still ruled the land in
peace. But about hay-harvest there were rumours, at which Swein nodded
to his wife as one who says “You see I was right.” And when haytime was
well passed, came people from over the fell bidding him to a meeting at
Ulfar’s Lund.
Now this Ulfar, of whom we spoke before, had land on the brink of the
fells where they met the low country, about an hour’s journey to the
southward of Greenodd. He was an old man, and he had been a chieftain
formerly, and was a man of worth even now, and a stickler for old times
and the old laws.
Near his “town” (as we still call hereabouts any cluster of dwellings
though it be nothing like a city) and between it and the waterside,
there was a broad mound, not so high, but standing by itself: from which
could be seen a great ring of country all around: across the firth, Cark
and Cartmel way, and all the Sandgate, that is the road across the sands
of Leven, and whosoever was coming and going, for good or ill: and down
the coast to Conishead, that was the king’s seat, where the York kings
had their folk to take tax of the iron-workers and mines: and then again
westward to Pennington, where the Pennings lived.
They were an ancient family of English kin long ago settled there, and
busied chiefly in getting red iron ore out of the iron pits on their
land, and smelting it and forging it. They were great smiths, and used
charcoal in their furnaces or bloomeries as we call these old works.
The charcoal was got from the woods that in old times covered all the
country: but by now these Pennings and their people had cleared a deal
of ground: there was the Swartmoor between their town and the old road,
called so, no doubt, from the cutting and coaling that had gone to clear
it. And so much iron they smelted and forged into weapons and tools, pots
and pans, and iron-ware of all sorts, that they were glad to sell it to
the merchants who came in ships up the firth. When Ulfar came, at first
they were angry, and fought with him: but when they found that for all
their smith’s cunning they could never give him the smith’s stroke, as
the saying is, they came round to the mind of king Donal’s counsellors
that Ketel told of. They made peace with Ulfar, and found that he was
an honest man and abiding by his word. When he offered to take their
ironmongery and sell it for them, better than the cowpers who had come
before, they were glad of it, and did all the brisker business in his
company: and in the end they settled down into good neighbours and
friends.
[Illustration: THE NORTHMEN IN HOUGUN]
When the Northmen came into Hougun, that is the country we call Furness,
beside the Pennings they found a few English and some Welsh here and
there. There were Welsh in the low land over against Walney, and Rhos
they called the meadow-land thereabouts. There were already villages
between that and Dalton and up to Broughton on the Duddon, and churches
there, and priests, no doubt; but such as heard little of any English
bishops, or what we should call government whether of church or state.
Across at Cartmel the land and all the Welsh that were on it had long ago
been given to York Minster; but Furness was a bit of that broad debatable
ground over which the tide of invasion flowed from age to age and ebbed
back again, just like the sea upon Morecambe shores. As time went on,
here a piece of sand was fully reclaimed, and there a piece of land was
swallowed up by the tide. So that it is hopeless now to seek the true
boundaries either of the people or of the place so many years ago: we can
only pick out here and there an English or a Welsh name among the Norse.
But when the Northmen came they took the snuggest places for shelter and
for safety, as we said, from the great fleets of Harald and Alfred. They
always wanted a good landing spot for their flat-bottomed boats, so that
when summer came, between sheep-shearing and corn harvest, they might
make use of their spare time by pushing out to sea and doing a little
quiet trade, or may be at times you might call it “raid,” up and down the
coasts of the Irish Sea. And so they went on farming and seafaring, turn
about, and picked up a better living the harder they worked at both.
Beside Ulfar there settled others of the Northmen along the coast. There
would have been Raven at the south point of Foreness, from whom we call
Rampside and Ramsey. Beyond Barr-ey, that is Barley island there is
Orm’s Gill, and round about it the villages into which his folk spread;
Hawcott, the high cottage; Sowerby, the muddy farm; Sandscale, the shed
by the sand; and so forth. Then up the Duddonfirth there is Roanhead,
that is to say the headland with the grove of trees, at one end of the
Roman road that goes by Dalton and Lindal to Conishead and Bardsea, which
again is, in the language of the Northmen, as recorded in king William’s
Domesday-book, Barehead’s-edge, and doubtless a place of ancient
inhabitation. Then, up the Duddon again, there is Dunnerholm—the wild
ducks’ islet, a fine spot for a stronghold; and opposite to it Mealholm,
Sandy isle, where in after times Millom castle was built. A little
higher is Arnold’s-by and Wolveswater, or Ulfa, as they called the river
Duddon, and round about them many a Norse thwaite.
After a while, from these first settlements on the coast, land was taken
up inbank by the families and followers of the first viking settlers.
Around Ulfar’s town there were Rolf’s seat, and Asmund’s lea, and Hauk’s
vale, and Máni’s riggs. In the lower land across the Swarthmoor there
is one Saxon spot, namely: Eadgar’s lyth, and outlying farms with Norse
names such as Bolton, Stainton, Scales and Bousfield. Urswick, maybe
means nothing but “stone walls” and Glassertun the beck town below; and
on the coast hard by is Aldingham and its Motehill where some Saxon thane
had dwelt in bygone times. Some say the Northmen afterwards used it for
their Althing, and so gave it the name it keeps, though of this there is
no other record than the ancient name Aldhingham, and the burial place of
some Thing-priest of theirs hard by, at the Godi’s barrow.
Now you must have patience for a while to hear a word about these
Motehills, and Things, and what was meant by a Godi.
Of all the Northmen in Furness our tale tells that Ulfar was the chief,
both because he was a man of repute to begin with, and an early comer,
and because he had got wealth from his trading and shipping iron to
all parts. Being as we said a stickler for the old laws, Ulfar made a
sacrificing place on that mound near his town among the trees that grew
upon it. He set up an altar to worship Thor in that grove, and called it
his Lund. To the feasts of the Lund he bade his neighbours; and they were
glad to come, not only for the worship, and to be on good terms with the
gods, but because there was a chance of meeting one another, and talking
over their affairs. So many came and so long they stayed, as folk who
had a good way to travel and were loth to return in a hurry, that around
about the Lund they built booths to lodge in, and set up tents. Some
brought wares to sell, and others started games and wrestling-matches:
so that it was quite like a fair, at the great feasts after Yule and
after sheep-shearing, and after corn-harvest, the seasons that stand for
Ulverston fair to this day.
When anyone had a quarrel with his neighbour and there had been
manslaughter or other misdoing, since there was no king to do justice
they brought the case to Ulfar at one of these feasts, and he judged it
according to the use and wont of the Northmen; so that Ulfar was called
their Godi, or chief and priest. Over in Dunnerdale, folk would meet in
the same manner at Folksfield which is named like the Folksdale by the
Tynwald in Man; and in Kentdale Sigurd had his holy place at Sigurd’s
Hörgr, the spot we now call Sizergh: and in every dale there was some
meeting place of which we have for the most part either the name or the
spot to point to.
After a while, the people from these little meeting-places or Things, as
they called them, found reason why they must come together into greater
meetings, or Althings. And they held the Althing first in one place and
then in another: and last of all, if our guess tell truth, after the
ravaging of Cumberland by King Ethelred when the men of the Morecambe
coast were cut off from their kindred in the north, they shifted their
meeting place southward, and used the Saxon Motehill for the Althing of
Hougun, being fashioned to hand, and plain round about, and thereto the
midmost spot for the Thingmen to come at within the borders of the king
of England, in the country between the Cumberland fells and the Ribble,
namely the district which was then known as Amounderness. But this is out
of our tale.
Well, as summer was drawing on, Swein was bidden to a Lund feast: and
took boat and landed at the Hummerside and went up to the Lund. There
men were all talking of the new king, and what should be done about
him. For Eadward was now dead and Athelstan his son reigned in his
stead; a stirring man, and not one to let the fire smoulder under his
feet. The news was that Sigtrygg of York—Sihtric he is called by the
English—had marched out as soon as the old king was gone: but Athelstan
was before-hand, and met him at Tamworth in the March, and there they
made peace, and Athelstan gave Sigtrygg his sister Eathgita to wife, and
confirmed him in his kingdom.
“And Ragnwald the viking, what of him?” asked Swein.
Nobody knew: some said he was gone to France, some said he was killed:
anyway he was out of the road by this time, and Sigtrygg was now head
king over all the Danelaw. These great kings being at peace there was no
longer any chance of a rising: not that it mattered much to the Northmen
hereabouts: but they were all good fighting men as well as good farmers
and merchants. A summer without war was a season lost, to their way of
thinking. So they went home again grumbling; and the next winter nothing
happened, but that at Greenodd, Thorstein grew too big for his cradle,
and began to walk and talk.