The Wolf and the Raven

by H A CULLEY

  Eventually merchants and others arrived with a more accurate tale and the survivors were revealed as the cowards and liars that they were. Some were killed by the distraught relatives of those who had died and the rest were either banished or fled. They would have done better to stay and die with their comrades.

  ‘Did you hear father’s comment about the piglets squealing when they heard of the death of the old boar?’ Sigurd Snake in the Eye asked Ivar the Boneless when he heard the story.

  ‘Yes, you may like to think of yourself as a piglet but I certainly don’t.’

  ‘I don’t think he meant it like that. He meant that we would avenge him.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘At any rate the whole of Scandinavia is talking about his death. It’s a disgrace that he was thrown in a snake pit without a sword to defend himself.’

  ‘I heard he was buried alive.’

  ‘Either way we must avenge him. Everyone one expects us to.’

  At that moment Halfdan entered the hall and joined his brothers, yelling for a thrall to bring him some ale.

  ‘Sigurd’s right. We’ll be called cowards if we do nothing.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t intend to sit on my arse. It gives us the perfect excuse to gather a mighty warband and invade England.’

  ‘Excuse? I don’t understand,’ Sigurd asked, a little bewildered.

  ‘Our father was a fool to go to Northumbria with so few men. Even then he managed to lose a third of them at sea. No, when I land it will be at the head of a great army. Given time and luck we should be able to gather perhaps three thousand warriors.’

  ‘Three thousand? Why do you need so many to avenge father’s death?’

  ‘I don’t. Revenge is merely the pretext. What we’re really going to do is to conquer the whole of England. Here the land is poor, the winters long and we need to raid just to survive. Wessex, Mercia, Kent, much of East Anglia and the southern half of Northumbria is rich and fertile farming land.’

  ‘You intend to settle?’ Sigurd asked incredulously.

  ‘Why not? Other Norse have settled around Duibhlinn in Ireland.’

  ‘Yes, and others in Orkneyjar and the Land of Ice and Fire,’ Halfdan added, getting enthusiastic.

  Ivar gave him a pitying look.

  ‘Both of those are worse than here. The only people who settle there are outlaws and folk too poor to make any sort of living here. No, England is a land where we can thrive and prosper, once we have killed or made thralls of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.’

  ‘Three thousand warriors?’ Sigurd mused. ‘We’ll need fifty drekar or more to transport us.’

  ‘Which is why we have to be patient. In five years many of today’s young boys will be warriors and we need the time to build the extra ships to carry them. Then we’ll set sail with the largest Viking army the world has ever seen.’

  The End

  The Kings of Northumbria Series will conclude with

  Sons of the Raven

  due out later in 2018

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Kings of Northumbria

  Very little is recorded about Northumbria during the ninth century. It appears to have been somewhat of a backwater where little of what happened was recorded.

  What we do have is the names of the kings, but in some cases even their regnal dates are uncertain. I have set out below a precis of the facts that we are aware of:

  Eardwulf ruled from 796 to 806, when he was deposed and went into exile. He may have had a second reign from 808 until perhaps 811 or 830, records vary.

  Ælfwald appears to have been a usurper who ruled from 806 to 808 before Eardwulf was restored.

  The only reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to Eanred, Eardwulf’s son, is the statement that in 829 Egbert of Wessex led an army against the Northumbrians as far as Dore, where they met him, and offered terms of obedience and subjection. Eanred appears to have succeeded his father in 810, 811 or 830. He may have ruled until 854.

  Æthelred II was the son of Earnred but his regnal dates are uncertain. All that is known is that he was king in the middle of the ninth century. Once source states that he ruled from 840 to 848, when he was killed, with an interruption in 844 when Rædwulf usurped the throne. However coinage surviving from the time indicates that Æthelred's reign was from c.854 to c. 862, with Rædwulf's usurpation in 858. The latter was only on the throne for a few months before he was killed in battle by Viking raiders.

  Little is known about the reigns of Osberht and Ælle. Whilst Ælle is described in most sources as a tyrant and not a rightful king, one source states that he was Osberht's brother. What seems certain is that Ælle became king after Osberht was deposed. This is traditionally dated to 862 or 863 but evidence about Northumbrian royal chronology is less than clear about dates prior to 867and it may have been as late as 866.

  It is possible that a civil war over the disputed crown raged between the two until they agreed a truce in 867 in order to face the threat posed by the Great Heathen Army.

  Ragnar Lodbrok

  Ragnar is the archetypal Viking hero, but his story is so mixed up in myth and folklore that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to sift the truth from the legend. The various accounts even differ on who he was married to when and who his sons were.

  Part of the problem lies in the fact that much early Scandinavian history was recited by the skálds - poets who entertained at the courts of Scandinavian leaders during the Viking Age and Middle Ages with sagas that mixed history with fable. Skaldic poetry forms one of two main groupings of Old Norse poetry, the other being the anonymous Eddic poetry. Such tales were verbal in the main and were altered to make them more entertaining or to flatter the king or jarl in whose hall the skáld was staying. Only later were some of the sagas written down.

  Most of what has been recorded about Ragnar Lodbrok was written much later and it is entirely possible that what survives relates to more than one man. He is variously described as a Dane, a Swede or a Norseman (Norwegian). Some accounts say that his father was King Sigurd Hring of Sweden, but then they give different names for his mother. In some tales he is a king of Sweden who ruled for sixty one years, which seems somewhat unlikely.

  What is known is that Paris was captured by the Vikings in 845 and that their leader was a Norse chieftain named "Reginherus", or Ragnar, who is traditionally associated with Ragnar Lodbrok.

  There is also evidence in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the sons of Ragnar fought under a war banner depicting a raven. It therefore seems reasonable that was also Ragnar’s emblem.

  I have tried to take the various sources and combine them to produce what is, I hope, a credible story.

  About the Author

  H A Culley served as an Army officer for twenty four years during which time he had a variety of unusual jobs. He spent his twenty first birthday in the jungles of Borneo, commanded an Arab infantry unit in the Gulf for three years and was the military attaché in Beirut during the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War.

  After leaving the Army he spent twenty one years in the education sector. He has served on the board of two commercial companies and has been a trustee of several national and local charities. His last job before retiring was as the finance director and company secretary of the Institute of Development Professionals in Education. Since retirement he has been involved in several historical projects and gives talks on historical subjects. He started writing historical fiction in 2013.

  He lives between Holy Island and Berwick upon Tweed in Northumberland.

 

 

 
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