Fire & Steel (28 page)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As far as we can tell at this distance in time, the decade which began in 520A.D appears to have been a crucial point in the birth of the nation which later came to be called England. The later kings of Wessex certainly took the arrival of Cerdic and his son Cynric as the beginning of their dynasty, but the dates given in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which began to be compiled during the time of Ælfred in the later 9
^th
Century, give us a confusing picture at best. Cerdic's landing appears twice within the narrative, once in 493 and again in 514, and both descriptions are very similar. Some scholars have taken the later to be a duplication by a later scribe, but I decided to use this discrepancy to my advantage. By making Cerdic a Briton driven from his land in the civil war which followed the death of Arthur, I could easily explain this possible double entry. Cerdicsford, the name of the battle site, lies at a strategically important junction on the River Avon and it seemed perfectly possible that more than one battle could be fought here. What's more, many historians believe that the return of Cerdic happened later than the dates in the Chronicle, even as late as the early 520's. Many also believe that King Eomær of the Engles led his people to Britain during this decade. Modern scholarship is beginning to chip away at the traditional view of Anglo Saxon conquerors replacing and driving out indigenous Romano-Britons with a far more complex and, I think, likely scenario.

Because of these discrepancies in the dating of even major events, I thought that it would be helpful to provide the timeline here within which I have set both this new series and my earlier series, Sword of Woden.

470's: The 'king' of British Dumnonia, Riothamus, extends his control overseas to include the territory of Armorica, an area of Gaul with long-standing trade and cultural links to that part of Britain, dividing the region into Domnonee and Cornouaille to reflect the divisions found within British Dumnonia. Large numbers of settlers and troops cross the channel either to defend the area against the turmoil within Gaul or take advantage of the chaos and extend the borders of their new land of Bro Gwereg.

500: The Battle of Mons Badonicus/Mount Badon. The Britons under Arthur defeat the Anglo Saxons in a decisive battle which, according to the British writer Gildas who claims to have been born in the same year as the great battle, ushered in a period of peace which lasted 'a generation’.

520: The death of Arthur at the Battle of Camlann. Arthurian forces under Cerdic and others are defeated and driven into exile to Bro Gwereg. Hythcyn becomes King of Geats following a coup in Geatland. The
Swedes sensing weakness invade, but are repulsed at the Battle of Sorrow Hill.

521: A combined Geatish/English army defeats the Swedes in the fighting at Ravenswood. The English thegn, Eofer, kills the Swedish King Ongentheow and Hygelac becomes King of Geats following the death of his brother, Hythcyn.

523: Cerdic and his son Cynric return to Britain and defeat a rival force at Cerdicsford. On the continent, the Geats under King Hygelac raid the lands of the Frisians and Francs. Following a successful summer raiding they are overtaken by a powerful Frankish army and in the ensuing battle Hygelac is killed and their fleet driven off.

524: The migration of the English from their continental homeland of Engeln to what we now call East Anglia under the leadership of King Eomær and his son Icel.

If not a 'Dark Age' exactly, the various histories, mostly written hundreds of years after the events themselves, are nothing if not a confused mishmash of semi-legendary figures and battles. The above time line at least gives a coherent and logical order of events within which to base my narrative, and if I am wildly out then at least it will be difficult to prove!

In many ways the area which began as the civitas of the Belgae, and later became the kingdom of Wessex, appears central to this process. This was the area after all which appears to have been crucially important during the earlier Roman invasion and occupation of the isles. As the most 'Romanised' part of the British Isles, it would have been natural for this area to employ Germanic troops, both as l
æti, armed war bands, and foederati, the settlement of family groups in border areas in order to bolster their defences. This was common practice in the later years of the Empire so its use by the British authorities would be seen as 'business as usual', both by themselves and the incoming settlers. In this book the Gewisse are an example of læti, a powerful armed force placed by the British Atrebates tribe to protect their northern border and control the important trade routes of the Icknield Way and River Thames. Further south Cerdic's enemy, Natan, settled Jutes, a seafaring people, as foederati to control the area of the Solent, the southern border of their lands.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to see the creation of Wessex as the work of Germanic settlers alone. Later kings of Wessex claimed their descent and right to rule from their relationship to Cerdic, right up to Edgar the Ætheling in 1066, and the lists of the early kings of Wessex are strewn with what can only be described as British names. Cerdic itself is a later form of the British name Caratacus, the name of the great leader of the British resistance to Rome following the invasion in the first century, and the following kings in the Wessex king list, Cynric, Ceawlin and Coel all bear British names. Cerdic Strongarm was a historical figure known within the British settlements of Bro Gwereg, and it was a nice fit with my desire to show him as a Belgic leader who was returning home to re fight a civil war at home.

I decided to have King Eomær of Engeln leading the Engles across the North Sea from their continental homeland on present day Jutland in the year 524. This seemed to be about the midpoint of the various estimates made by later historians and fitted in well with my own time line. The Venerable Bede, a Northumbrian cleric writing in the eighth century, stated that the area which was still called Engeln in his day was emptied by the migration and through my research for this book I have come to the conclusion that this was no exaggeration. Almost any attempt to discover the history of place names on the Jutland peninsula gets no further than the later Viking Age. This allowed me licence to import names from Anglo Saxon England. Harrow is the ancient English name for a temple,
Hearg
, and it seemed the perfect name to use for the island which contained the famous votive site at Gudme, which I Anglicised to Godmey. On the same island the modern town of Odense takes its name from the Norse god Odin, so it was natural to change this to Wodensburh to reflect the earlier English name for the god. Like many early peoples, the English raised earthworks to mark the borders of their territory if no obvious physical feature existed or, more commonly, to link those which did. The feature which I have called Grim's Dyke in Engeln is such an earthwork, known today as the Olgerdiget. Dendrochronological dating of the oak timbers used in its construction place its origin as far back as the first century and it is commonly held to mark the earliest border between the continental Angles and the Jutes. Likewise the earthworks known as Fleama and Miceldic in Anglia are known today as Fleam Dyke and Devil's Dyke and mark an early border of the East Anglian kingdom, stretching between the wetlands of the fens to the West and the heavily forested belt to the East.

If anything illustrates the difficulties faced by the historian in piecing together a cohesive narrative for this time, the events surrounding the conflict between the Danes and the Heathobeards is as good as any. In this tale I have largely followed the progression of events as laid out in the old English epic, Beowulf, so as to tie in neatly with the narrative in my earlier books. The possibly older English poem Widsith contains the passage which I quoted on the frontispiece to this book, with Ingeld and his War-Beards being repulsed at the hall of the Danish King Hrothgar itself. The Gesta Danorum, the 'Deeds of the Danes' written in the twelfth century, contains no less than three accounts of the events and all differ to a greater or lesser degree, and there are others. The difficulties of the historian are of course a novelist's opportunity, and I grabbed at the chance for Eofer to rescue his brother and fire Heorot, the Danish hall at Hleidre of Beowulf fame, the spark which would soon flare into the war of Fire & Steel.

Those who have read my earlier books will have already come across the exploits of Eofer and his family. Eofer first appears at his betrothal to Hygelac's daughter, Astrid, and later, along with his father Wonred and brother Wulf, he is part of a joint English/Geat expedition to Swede Land in which he kills the Swedish king, Ongentheow, the deed which leads to his nickname of king's bane. This book, Fire & Steel, is in many ways a continuation of that earlier series. In it, Beowulf kills Grendel in 521 and the series ends with the historically attested raid by the Geats to Frisia in 523. All the dates dove-tailed nicely together, allowing Eofer's rescue of his brother-in-law to follow on from the ending of the last tale in that series, Dayraven. Changing the main character from Beowulf to the Englishman, Eofer, allowed me to move the main focus of the new series from events in sixth century Scandinavia, across the North Sea to Britain at the time when the first English kingdoms were beginning to form. Eofer's kinship with the Geatish royal family will enable me to involve him and his war band in events throughout the North. There is a wealth of information contained within the Beowulf poem and the Scandinavian sagas and histories which can be brought into the story which will enable me to widen the scope of the books as they progress to encompass the whole of the northern world. Although it is unlikely that Beowulf himself actually existed, the other principal characters contained within these books certainly did. Hygelac and Heardred were kings of Geats in the early sixth century and the burial mound of King Ongentheow, the king of Swedes killed in battle by Eofer, can still be seen in Uppsala today. Another book written in England and dated to the later years of the sixth century known as the
Liber Monstrorum
, tells us that Hygelac’s bones were ‘of wondrous size’ and that they were still to that day ‘preserved on an island in the Rhine, where it flows into the sea, and they are exhibited as a marvel to travellers coming from afar.’ Whether these bones were the remains of King Hygelac or Beowulf, it certainly illustrates the sheer physical size of the Geat ruling class. The wars and alliances contained within the Beowulf poem were very real and removing the character Beowulf from the storyline will remove any fantasy element, grounding this later series in what facts we do know of that far-off time.

I will address the hoary old question of ships with sails for the last time here. Again, those who have read my earlier books will know that I, along with an increasing number of experts, believe that the ships which carried the Engles, Saxons and others southwards to raid and settle must have carried sails. Sails had been in use in the Mediterranean for thousands of years and it seems beyond ridiculous that seafaring peoples would not use a means of propulsion which they must have been aware of. Greek and Phoenician traders were visiting northern Europe in ships with sails at least one thousand years before the events in this book, and the Roman fleets which plied the North Sea certainly carried sail. It seems too fantastic to imagine that the Roman and post Roman forces which were stationed at the forts which lined both sides of the North Sea and English Channel, the so-called Saxon Shore forts, would have been unable to sweep the seas clear of raiders whose ships were crewed by exhausted men sweating over banks of oars for days on end.

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In the following book the full might of King Eomær's army is brought to bear on the Danes as the English people begin to move west across the sea.

CHARACTERS

Anwyl – Cerdic's helmsman.

Astrid – Daughter of King Hygelac of Geatland, wife of Eofer.

Bassa – A youth.

Beornwulf – A youth.

Beowulf – Ealdorman of Wægmundings, kinsman of King Heardred of Geatland and Eofer king's bane.

Brecc – Eofer's British
thræl.

Cerdic strongarm – Belgic exile, a Briton.

Coelwulf – An English thegn.

Crawa – A youth, twin to Hræfen.

Cynric – Son of the British leader, Cerdic strongarm.

Eahlswith – King Eomær's cwen.

Eofer Wonreding, king's bane – Son of Wonred, brother of Wulf.

Eomær Engeltheowing - King of the English.

Finn – A youth.

Freawaru – Daughter of King Hrothgar of the Danes, betrothed to King Ingeld of the War-Beards.

Frithgar – Ealdorman Wonred's duguth.

Grimma – Leader of the English bowmen.

Grimwulf – An English
thræl
, freed in Daneland. Joins Eofer's youth.

Heardred Hygelacson - Son of King Hygelac of Geatland. Inherits the throne on his father's death in Frisland. Eofer's brother-in-law.

Hræfen – A youth, brother of Crawa.

Heorogar – A Jutish jarl.

Hrethmund – A Jutish jarl.

Hrothgar Halfdanson– King of Daneland.

Hrothwulf Halgason - Nephew of King Hrothgar.

Icel Eomæring – English ætheling, son of King Eomær.

Imma Gold- Eofer's duguth.

Ingeld Frodason - King of the Heathobeards – the War-Beards.

Octa – Eofer's duguth.

Osbeorn – Eofer's duguth.

Osea – King of Jutes.

Osric – A shipwright at Strand.

Osgar – The chief guda at Sleyswic.

Oswin word-poor – A youth.

Penda – A duguth, Wonred's
weorthman.

Porta – A youth.

Rand – A youth.

Sæward – Eofer's steersman. A duguth.

Spearhafoc/Dwynwyn – Sparrowhawk, Eofer's British shield-maiden.

Starkad Storvirkson – A Heathobeard warrior.

Thrush Hemming – Eofer's
weorthman
, his senior duguth.

Ubba – A Danish war lord.

Weohstan – Young son of Eofer and Astrid.

Wictgils – A Jutish jarl.

Withergeld – A Heathobeard warrior.

Wonred – Folctoga and father of Eofer and Wulf.

Wulf Wonreding – Son of Wonred, brother of Eofer.