The A text tells us, in no uncertain terms, that the newcomers were ‘Danish’ (denisc). While this might seem, on the face of things, to be a useful statement of origins, it is not at all certain whether that which seemed ‘danish’ to Anglo-Saxon eyes would necessarily appear ‘Danish’ to our own. As will be seen, the term denisc (along with other generic terms used throughout Britain) in fact came to be applied indiscriminately to people and things held to have emanated from the North. Far more promising is the statement that the newcomers were ‘Northmen’ (Norðmanna) from Hordaland (Hereðalande), now a county of western Norway centred on Bergen. Alas, this is surprisingly (and suspiciously) specific. The earliest record of this notice is found, not in the A text, but in the so-called ‘northern recension’ of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and can be dated no earlier than the mid-eleventh century – at least 250 years after the incident at Portland. This reference may shed more light on the origin of eleventh-century Scandinavian settlers in Northumbria than it does on events in late eighth-century Wessex.20
In other words, the sources – so promising at first reading – really only tell us that the newcomers were foreigners, probably from somewhere across the North Sea. It is certain, however, that the people of Britain thought something when they encountered strangers on their beaches and imagined the worlds from which they had come. Understanding what that something might have been – what it meant – is bound up with how the people of early medieval Britain understood their own world, and their place within it.
2
Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.
JEREMIAH 1:151
northwards lies the road to hell
SNORRI STURLUSON, Gylfaginning (early thirteenth century)2
Ærest of swin forda upp andlang broces to ceolnes wyllan …
(‘Go first up from the swine ford and along the brook to ceolnes [Ceolwine’s?] well’)3
At the river’s edge you pass a churl driving his pigs across the muddy ford, hairy oinkers on their way to the wood pasture, eager to rootle among wyrttruma (‘woody roots’) for acorns and beech mast; the animal scent of sweat and pig shit, crumbly clods of dried mud dropping from bristly bottoms. It is damp down here, soggy. Water seeps into your shoes (stitched leather – hardly watertight) as you turn to the north, away from the ford. Perhaps you slip a little on the muddy path that runs beside the brook and stub a toe on a stone – the dull throbbing adding injury to numbness in your cold feet; at least there are no midges (mycgas) at this time of year. You pause and place a bright glass bead on the flat mossy stone beside the spring where the brook wells up – you have heard from the monks how, long ago, a pilgrim called Ceolwine struck his ash staff on the stone and a rush of cold water sprang up to slake his thirst: a miracle they said. But an old man in the village told you this was rubbish: his grandfather had been a boy when the old gods still lived here and the folk made sacrifice, mounting the heads on ash poles and throwing the bones into the water; now their corpses haunt the marshy edgelands: ‘you can hear them coming when the light fails boy: drip … drip … drip …’
Probably best to leave a gift either way.
andlang hege ræwe to luttes crundele · þanon to grafes owisce · Andlang owisce to wege …
(‘along the hedgerow to luttes [Lutt’s?] pit and then on to the eaves of the grove; along the eaves to the road’)
Reaching the hedgerow is a welcome relief: the land slopes slightly away from the brook here, the earth becomes firmer. As you walk alongside the broad band of bramble and blackthorn, you can hear the rustling of foraging birds: a blackbird (ōsle) probably, or a finch (finc). A streak of brown – a mouse (mūs), or a shrew (screāwa) perhaps – shoots across the path ahead and disappears rustling into the undergrowth: all are hunting for the last berries of autumn.4 It is November (Blōt-mōnaþ: ‘the month of sacrifice’), and the scent of damp earth mingles with the vinegar notes of rotten apples. You hurry past Lutt’s pit – part stone quarry, part sepulchre (the word, crundel, is ambiguous): you have heard stories about this place too, but you would rather not dwell on them now, not until you are clear of the dark overhanging woods. You know you’re being a baby – this is managed woodland after all – but you’re glad when you reach the road all the same.
… Andlang weges to æles beorge · nyþer on aler cumb · Andlang aler cumbes ut on afene · Andlang afene eft on swin ford.
(‘along the road to æles [Ælle’s?] barrow and down to alder-tree valley; along alder-tree valley and out to the Avon; along the Avon to the swine ford.’)
From here it is an easier stroll on the compacted earth, compressed by the tread of generations of men and beasts. You need to watch where you’re going, mind – sometimes dips in the path have allowed the rain water to gather. Here the plunge of heavy hoofs, and the ruts riven by the ox-wains, have churned the path into patches of slimy mud – you dance your way with giant steps, and try to keep to the green stripe that marks the middle of the track. When you eventually look up, you give an involuntary start: massing against the westering sky, the dark bulk of Ælle’s barrow looms. The atmosphere thickens. This is a place of power; everyone knows it … even the monks, though they pretend it’s all just superstition: heathen folly, you’ve heard them call it, although not in front of the reeve – he’ll tell anyone who listens that his ancestor is buried under that mound, sleeping until the day his people call upon his aid in battle. It’s not so different, now you think of it, to the stories the monks tell: of long-dead saints who return to help the living … Lost in thought you stroll through the alder trees and back down the valley, arriving at the river as the light begins to fail.
Standing on the banks you watch the ghost-white spectre of a swan glide past, the curve of its neck rising from its breast as the prow of a ship rises from its keel, carving the placid water, silent in its grace.
The fragments of Old English, translated above, are from what is known as a boundary clause, a description of the edges of a parcel of land. This one describes an area at North Stoke in Somerset. It was written down and added to a charter documenting a grant of land made by the West Saxon king Cynewulf (r. 757–86), Beorhtric’s predecessor. Like many such clauses, it is written in