The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wulfric the Weapon Thane, by Charles W. Whistler
Wulfric the Weapon Thane:
A Story of the Danish Conquest of East Anglia
by
Charles W. Whistler.
Contents
PREFACE.
CHAPTER I. HOW LODBROK THE DANE CAME TO REEDHAM.
CHAPTER II. HOW LODBROK SPOKE WITH BEORN THE FALCONER.
CHAPTER III. WHAT CAME IN A NORTH SEA FOG.
CHAPTER IV. THE SONG OF THE BOSHAM BELL.
CHAPTER V. HOW WULFRIC, LODBROK, AND BEORN HUNTED.
CHAPTER VI. THE JUSTICE OF EARL ULFKYTEL.
CHAPTER VII. HOW WULFRIC CAME TO JUTLAND.
CHAPTER VIII. HOW WE FARED WITH INGVAR THE DANE.
CHAPTER IX. JARL HALFDEN'S HOMECOMING.
CHAPTER X. WHAT BEFELL AT THE GREAT SACRIFICE.
CHAPTER XI. THE COMING OF INGVAR'S HOST.
CHAPTER XII. IN HOXNE WOODS.
CHAPTER XIII. HOW BISHOP HUMBERT JOINED THE KING.
CHAPTER XIV. HOW WULFRIC AND RAUD SEARCHED TOGETHER.
CHAPTER XV. THE MESSAGE OF HALFDEN THE KING.
CHAPTER XVI. HOW WULFRIC BROUGHT OSRITHA HOME.
NOTES.
PREFACE.
A word may be needed with regard to the sources from which this story of King Eadmund's armour bearer and weapon thane have been drawn. For the actual presence of such a close attendant on the king at his martyrdom on Nov. 20, 870 A.D. we have the authority of St. Dunstan, who had the story from the lips of the witness himself.
But as to the actual progress of events before the death of the king, the records are vague and imperfect. We are told that, after the defeat at Thetford, the king had intended to seek safety in the church, probably at Framlingham, where the royal household was, but was forced to hide, and from his hiding place was dragged before Ingvar the Danish leader, and so slain.
The two local legends of the "king's oak" in Hoxne woods, and of the "gold bridge", may fill in what is required to complete the story.
The former, identifying a certain aged oak as that to which the king was bound, has been in a measure corroborated by the discovery in 1848 of what may well have been a rough arrow point in its fallen trunk; while the fact that, until the erection of the new bridge at Hoxne in 1823, no newly-married couple would cross the "gold bridge" on the way to church, for the reasons given in the story, seems to show that the king's hiding place may indeed have been beneath it as the legend states. If so, the flight from Thetford must have been most precipitate, and closely followed.
There are two versions of the story of Lodbrok the Dane and Beorn the falconer. That which is given here is from Roger of Wendover. But in both versions the treachery of one Beorn is alleged to have been the cause of the descent of Ingvar and Hubba on East Anglia.
