Wulfric the Weapon Thane

  E-text prepared by Martin Robb

  WULFRIC THE WEAPON THANE

  A Story of the Danish Conquest of East Anglia

  by

  CHARLES W. WHISTLER

  PREFACE.

  A word may be needed with regard to the sources from which thisstory of King Eadmund's armour bearer and weapon thane have beendrawn. For the actual presence of such a close attendant on theking at his martyrdom on Nov. 20, 870 A.D. we have the authority ofSt. Dunstan, who had the story from the lips of the witnesshimself.

  But as to the actual progress of events before the death of theking, the records are vague and imperfect. We are told that, afterthe defeat at Thetford, the king had intended to seek safety in thechurch, probably at Framlingham, where the royal household was, butwas forced to hide, and from his hiding place was dragged beforeIngvar the Danish leader, and so slain.

  The two local legends of the "king's oak" in Hoxne woods, and ofthe "gold bridge", may fill in what is required to complete thestory.

  The former, identifying a certain aged oak as that to which theking was bound, has been in a measure corroborated by the discoveryin 1848 of what may well have been a rough arrow point in itsfallen trunk; while the fact that, until the erection of the newbridge at Hoxne in 1823, no newly-married couple would cross the"gold bridge" on the way to church, for the reasons given in thestory, seems to show that the king's hiding place may indeed havebeen beneath it as the legend states. If so, the flight fromThetford must have been most precipitate, and closely followed.

  There are two versions of the story of Lodbrok the Dane and Beornthe falconer. That which is given here is from Roger of Wendover.But in both versions the treachery of one Beorn is alleged to havebeen the cause of the descent of Ingvar and Hubba on East Anglia.

  These chiefs and their brother Halfden, and Guthrum, are of coursehistoric. Their campaign in England is hard to trace through themany conflicting chronicles, but the broad outlines given by thealmost contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, supplemented with a fewincidents recorded in the Heimskringla of Sturleson as to the firstraid on Northumbria by Ingvar, are sufficient for the purposes of astory that deals almost entirely with East Anglia.

  The legend of the finding of the head of the martyred king is givenin the homily for November 20 of the Anglo-Saxon Sarum Breviary,and is therefore of early date. It may have arisen from some suchincident as is given here.

  Details of the death of Bishop Humbert are wanting. We only knowthat he was martyred at about the same time as the king, or perhapswith him, and that his name is remembered in the ancient kalendarson the same day. For describing his end as at his own chapel, stillstanding at South Elmham, the fate of many a devoted priest ofthose times might be sufficient warrant.

  As to the geography of the East Anglian coast, all has changedsince King Eadmund's days, with the steady gaining of alluvial landon sea at the mouth of the once great rivers of Yare and Waveney.Reedham and Borough were in his time the two promontories thatguarded the estuary, and where Yarmouth now stands were sands,growing indeed slowly, but hardly yet an island even at "low-watersprings". Above Beccles perhaps the course of the Waveney towardsThetford has altered little in any respect beyond the draining ofthe rich marshland along its banks, and the shrinking of suchtributaries as the Hoxne or Elmham streams to half-dry rivulets.

  With a few incidental exceptions, the modern spelling of placenames has been adopted in these pages. No useful purpose would beserved by a reproduction of what are now more or less uncouth ifrecognizable forms of the well-known titles of town and village andriver.

  C. W. W.