by Jodi Taylor
‘All right,’ he said. ‘King Edward has died. Harold Godwinson has been crowned King of England, breaking his oath to William, who immediately sets about building a fleet and assembling an army. He sends an envoy to the Pope for papal blessing, which he gains. In the eyes of all Europe, King Harold is a perjured man.
‘However, Duke William is not the only one with his eyes fixed on the English crown. Tostig, brother to Harold, ex Earl of Northumbria, and brother-in-law to William, has allied with King Harald Hardrada of Norway. The two of them raise an army and sail for England. Three hundred ships sail up the River Ouse towards York. The northern earls meet them at the Battle of Fulford on 20th September and are soundly defeated. The entire northern army is scattered across Mercia, Northumbria and Yorkshire. This is a bit of a double whammy for our King Harold because it means none of them can be reorganised in time for Stamford Bridge or Hastings. People often wonder why Harold undertook the long march north to meet them when, if he’d stayed down south, there was a very good chance he would have beaten Duke William, because William was a foreigner in a foreign land and his back was to the sea, but King Harold has publicly stated that neither Tostig nor Hardrada will gain one foot of English soil, so he speeds north.’
‘Yes, all of History could have been different,’ said Sykes, ‘but we could just as easily have had the same result but the other way around. Harold stays in the south and defeats William. Then races north to engage Tostig and is defeated at Stamford Bridge instead of at Hastings. We could be celebrating the Battle of Stamford Bridge, 1066. The last time the English were successfully invaded. Imagine if, instead of Europe, it was with Scandinavia that England had been linked.’
We took a moment to think about the implications.
‘Anyway,’ said Atherton, rousing himself. ‘Here are the protagonists – Tostig and his ally, King Harald Hardrada. And King Harold Godwinson, whom we know quite well now. Since we have two Harolds and they’re both kings, I shall refer to them as Hardrada and Godwinson. Everyone clear?
‘Right. Godwinson, with little choice in the matter, sets off for the north. Tostig and Hardrada are passing the time with a little high-spirited pillaging and looting. The village of Scarborough has a particularly bad time of it. The Viking army thinks it has nothing to fear. Not only is the northern opposition scattered, but Godwinson is down south, hundreds of miles away and, they think, preoccupied with the Norman fleet heading his way. They’ve misjudged their man, however. Godwinson obviously decides that Hardrada and Tostig are a more immediate threat and he heads north to sort them out.’
‘You can see his point of view,’ said Clerk. ‘If the Vikings get themselves established in the north and William arrives in the south, he could be caught in a very nasty pincer movement.’
‘Indeed,’ said Atherton. ‘At this point, Godwinson’s army consists only of housecarls or thegns. Three thousand mounted men. They’re trained fighters and the backbone of his army, but he needs the fyrd. The men at arms. He sends the thegns to range ahead and recruit fighting men along the way. And they don’t hang about, either. Godwinson and his army will march one hundred and eighty miles in four days.
‘In the meantime, Tostig and Hardrada have negotiated a very lucrative peace deal with the terrified citizens of York. Stamford Bridge is to be the meeting place for an exchange of hostages and money. From the Viking point of view, what could possibly go wrong?’
He paused for a sip of water.
‘There’s always something, though. Some little fly in the ointment. This time, it’s the weather. The 25th September is a very hot day. No doubt thinking the hardest part is over and done, Hardrada has left a large part of his army back with the ships back at Riccall guarding his plunder, together with the greater part of everyone’s armour, because it’s just too hot to wear it. Everyone else is relaxing twelve miles away on the banks of the River Derwent and having a ‘me’ day after their recent exertions. They think they’re safe because their enemy is hundreds of miles away and are definitely not aware that he and around ten thousand slightly miffed Saxons are going to appear over the horizon any moment now. Max.’
He smiled at me.
‘Thank you. As Mr Atherton has said, this is the point at which we will appear. Thanks to excellent contemporary sources, just for once, we know exactly where and when we want to be. We’ll land, fairly early in the morning, on the outskirts of a small wood slightly to the north of the area now known as Battle Flats.’
I brought up a map of the area.
‘The Vikings are camped on the east side of the River Derwent with a small force on the west side, holding the bridge itself. Godwinson and the Saxon army will approach from the west.
‘Miss Sykes and Mr Bashford, please stick with Harold Godwinson. Miss North and Mr Clerk – William isn’t around for this one so you’ve got the Vikings. I particularly want you to focus on the legend of the giant Viking who holds the bridge against the Saxons. Did it or did it not happen? Did he actually manage to kill forty men before being killed himself? You know the drill. At some point, Eystein Orri will arrive with Viking reinforcements. Mr Atherton, if you could cover him and his army, please. Miss North and Mr Clerk will remain with Tostig and Harald Hardrada.’
They both nodded.
I continued. ‘We’re all in Number Five for this one. We won’t be venturing outside so there are no costumes involved. You’ve all read up on the background, battle strategies, the aftermath and the lead-up to Hastings. Report to Hawking 09:30 tomorrow morning. Any questions?’
We landed on the north side of what would be known as Battle Flats on the outskirts of a small deciduous wood. Although we were heading towards October, the warm weather meant the leaves had hardly begun to change at all and there was plenty of cover. And, as Atherton said, pretty soon everyone was going to have much more important things to worry about than us anyway.
We had a good position, sitting on a small rise above Stamford Bridge and the River Derwent. In fact, it couldn’t be better. We would have an excellent view of Harold’s army when it arrived – although I did feel that even we couldn’t miss three thousand mounted men and around ten thousand men at arms.
It was a hot day. A very hot day. Down below us, the Vikings were relaxing in the sun, playing ball games, fishing, or wrestling. Many of them were having a nap. They were armed – I could see their swords thrust into the ground only an arm’s reach away, but most of their armour was back at the boats, twelve miles away at Riccall.
He might have won the battle and scattered the northern army, but Harald Hardrada was making a huge mistake. He was far too complacent. We scanned backwards and forwards, but as far as we could see, there were no sentries. No scouts. They had invaded a foreign country; they were far from home and they hadn’t posted lookouts of any kind. It was madness. And then he’d compounded his error by splitting his army into two. The very much smaller contingent was stationed on the western side of the bridge, with the bulk of his army sprawled on their backs on the east side.
We checked over our equipment, made ourselves a cup of tea, and sat down to await the arrival of Godwinson’s Saxon army.
The first Hardrada knew about it – the first any of us knew about it – was when a massive roar could be heard and the ground shook. The Vikings leaped to their feet, dazed and sleepy, staring around themselves in bemusement just as Godwinson’s army breasted the hill and came storming down upon them. In one moment all was peace and quiet and, in the next, thousands of Saxons were pouring down the hillside, axes in their hands and revenge in their hearts.
They completely engulfed the smaller army on the west bank of whom there were only about a thousand anyway. The Vikings snatched up their weapons – many of them had been swimming and were naked or nearly so – and setting their backs to the river, prepared to defend the bridgehead, to give Hardrada time to get his main force armed and ready. We could hear his chieftains shouting orders as they struggled to get the shield wall together. Wit
hout it they would be cut to pieces.
They were cut to pieces.
Nearly a thousand men died in the first fifteen minutes.
They had only swords or axes. No mail or armour. Blows that would be turned aside by armour, or even mail, cut deeply into unprotected flesh. Arms and heads flew through the air. Men fell, gutted from groin to gizzard. It was a slaughter. There seemed to be nothing to stop Godwinson and his men thundering across the bridge and laying into the main body of Hardrada’s army, who themselves still seemed stunned by the swiftness of an attack from a man they had believed to be hundreds of miles away.
Hardrada, however, did not completely lose his head. From out of the milling turmoil of his army still desperately trying to form up, three riders emerged, galloping hell for leather away from the slaughter. He was sending a desperate appeal to his ships at Riccall. Three thousand of his men lay there, guarding not only the ships and the plunder gained so far, but all their armour and spare weapons as well.
I said quietly, ‘Miss North…’
‘I’m on it.’ And indeed she was. Two of the screens showed close-ups of the riders galloping over the crest of a hill and disappearing from view.
I did some quick calculations. Ten miles away. On horseback. Unfamiliar countryside. Say an hour to get there. How long to assemble three thousand men and get them moving? And that was the easy bit, because even if every available man set off immediately, not only would they themselves be heavily armoured, but they would be carrying spare shields and armour for those who’d left them behind. And it was a very, very hot day. So say another hour to get themselves organised and moving. And then the ten miles back again. At a run. Heavily laden. In this heat. Two hours. Minimum. Harald Hardrada could not expect to see reinforcements in anything under four hours. Could he and his men last that long?
‘There,’ said Sykes suddenly. ‘There. At the bridge. The Viking. There he is.’
And there he was indeed. Long-handled axe in one hand, giant shield in the other. A legend springing to life before our very eyes.
There’s a story – well, a legend really, that the main part of the army was only saved from early annihilation by a giant Viking warrior, who planted himself on the bridge, and held it against Godwinson’s attack, thus giving Hardrada the time he so desperately needed. The legend goes on to say that the Viking – his name sadly lost over time – killed over forty men that day, laying about him until the river ran red with the blood of his fallen foes and the bridge itself was littered with their limbs.
Well, it wasn’t forty men, but it was close.
True, he had only his axe, but the bridge was narrow and could only be approached by a maximum of three men at a time and he was a ferocious fighter.
Accounts say that the battle stopped as everyone watched this modern day Horatio, but no, the battle didn’t stop. On the western side the struggle continued until he stood almost alone, splattered with blood and gore, friends and enemies alike piled around him. Heads, limbs, and bodies lay everywhere.
He was unmoveable. The man was truly a hero, and today no one can even remember his name.
The forty men might have been an exaggeration, but not by much. The bridge was awash with blood which dripped into the river beneath. Ribbons of red trailed downstream. I don’t know how long he could or would have lasted, but further upstream, an enterprising Saxon had climbed into half a barrel and, armed to the teeth, was floating downstream. We zoomed in on him being borne downstream, his spear ready in his grasp, and with two or three spares ready to hand. He had no shield with which to defend himself. The barrel was swirling madly in the current, uncontrollable. Its occupant could only hang on with his other hand and hope and pray he arrived at the right place at the right time.
It was hard to see how he could be a threat, but a group of Harold’s men, seeing what he was doing, hurled themselves on what would turn out to be a suicide mission, engaging the Viking for as long as they could, sacrificing themselves to push him back across the bridge into the path of the oncoming barrel. He tore into them, but for every one that fell, another stepped up to take his place, and while the Viking was concentrating on the enemies before him, the soldier in the barrel reached his destination. Holding fast to the bridge with one hand, he stabbed upwards through the planking with the other. Once, twice, three times. He must have caught the Viking in the groin because a great gout of blood spurted into the faces of his attackers. Still he stood, however, and the soldier was forced to use a second and then a third spear. Still roaring, the giant yanked them out and fell to his knees. Panting Saxons stood back and watched as slowly, he slipped sideways into the water. Trailing ribbons of his own blood, he floated slowly away. Out of sight and out of History.
Roaring their triumph, the Saxon army streamed across the bloody bridge, took a moment to form their line, and advanced.
Hardrada had arranged his forces in some semblance of order, ready to receive them, but only just in time. Their long front line ranged from north to south. It had to be as long as they could make it so that the Saxons couldn’t get around them, but they were stretched very thin. Too thin in places, it seemed to me. And not every fighter had a shield.
The two armies faced each other, ready to begin. A horn sounded. And again. Both sides seemed to pause.
‘A parley?’ said Sykes in disbelief.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Bashford in excitement. ‘This must be where Godwinson tries to negotiate a deal with Tostig. And when Hardrada demands a piece of England for himself, Godwinson offers him seven feet of earth. Because he’s tall. My God – that could actually have happened.’
Well, maybe it did and maybe it didn’t – we had no way of knowing, but a parley was definitely taking place. It lasted only a few minutes – just long enough for an offer to be made and rejected. Both sides moved away from each other, and without waiting another minute, Godwinson advanced his men.
Still the sun beat down. The heat was almost unbearable and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky to give either side any respite.
They went at each other like madmen. Both sides incurred heavy casualties, but the unarmoured Vikings were faring worse. Much worse. In a desperate effort to shore up his weakened shield wall, Harald Hardrada was moving groups of men from one point to another, but his men were falling faster than he could replace them.
Time passed – the sun wheeled across the sky. Hardrada must have been growing more desperate by the minute but there was still no sign of reinforcements. His line was ragged, his men exhausted.
And then…
‘Listen,’ said Atherton suddenly, and turned up the volume. We could hear horns blowing in the distance, faint but clear. ‘Eystein Orri is here.’
Weary Vikings raised their heads and even managed a ragged cheer. Their own horns rang out in reply. As if in answer, a group of men breasted the hill, paused for a moment, silhouetted against the pitiless blue sky, and then swept down towards the battle.
There weren’t anything like as many as Hardrada could have anticipated. If he had hoped for three thousand fully armed warriors ready to get stuck in then he was to be bitterly disappointed. I wondered how many had fallen by the wayside. Their exhaustion was apparent to everyone. Any hope they might have brought to the beleaguered Vikings was short-lived. The reinforcements were as fatigued as those they were relieving. They’d run more than ten miles, not only in full armour themselves, but carrying spare gear for their comrades. Many had died of heat exhaustion before even reaching the battlefield. Godwinson’s army, realising the newcomers were not likely to be a big threat to them, regrouped for a fresh attack.
The Saxons weren’t big on archers. They relied mainly on their shield wall and their sword arms, but Godwinson took advantage of the lull to bring up the few he had. A hail of arrows darkened the sky. And then another. And another.
We knew Hardrada would be killed by an arrow in the throat. He would die in seconds.
I said to North, ‘Make sure
you don’t miss it,’
‘I won’t,’ she said shortly, so I left her to get on with it.
I didn’t see it myself – I was focussing on another part of the battle, but we heard the roar that went up from both sides, announcing his death.
Even then the Vikings didn’t give up. I could see Eystein Orri desperately trying to hold their forces together. Horns sounded again and, abandoning the wavering shield wall, he grouped his men into a solid mass, weapons bristling outwards, still formidable foes.
This stand is known in song as ‘Orri’s Storm’, and they held for a while, beating back the Saxons time after time, but slowly and surely, as the sun began to drop in the sky, the Vikings were whittled away. The final straw was when, surrounded by half a dozen roaring Saxons, Tostig himself went down, bringing Hardrada’s raven banner down with him. The Saxons closed in and that was the end. Leaderless, the Vikings scattered in every direction. Some would be chased all the way back to their ships at Riccall.
For the Vikings, the day had been so disastrous that of the three hundred ships that had brought them here, only twenty-four were needed to take the survivors home.
Of those fleeing the field, some ran uphill towards us, seeking refuge in the woods. Time for us to go, too.
I said, ‘Start shutting things down, Mr Clerk, and let’s go home.’
‘Copy that,’ he said, and he and North busied themselves at the console. Sykes and Atherton began to clear things away into the lockers.
I said, ‘Everyone ready?’ but before we could initiate the jump, a group of blood-splattered Vikings crashed through the undergrowth, closely followed by some half dozen Saxons, their swords and axes raised. They were seeking out the enemy, driving the exhausted men before them, mercilessly pursuing the final remnants of Hardrada’s army.
With nowhere to go, the Vikings turned at bay, to make a stand. They were hacked down, one by one until, eventually, not one was left standing. The shouts and screams died away and only a handful of victorious Saxons remained, leaning on their swords, panting, surrounded by the wounded, dead, and dying.