Well, the battle wasn’t going well for Alfred – but then he remembered something that he’d heard a long time before. It was from a time when he’d been on the run from the Danes, those vile Vikings, and he’d been hiding out in a marshy place called the Somerset Levels. He had been staying with an old woman, and when she’d asked him to look after her cakes that were baking in the hearth, whilst she went out to milk the cow, he had let them burn. This was because he was a lousy cook; being a king he had always had servants to cook the food. This had made her really cross, and I don’t blame her. ‘If I wasn’t an old woman,’ she had shouted, ‘I’d throw you into running water, and watch you being washed away like a dragon.’
‘Running water,’ thought Alfred. ‘Dragons hate running water.’ So, just as the dragon was busy growing sixty-four heads, Alfred charged at it; and he and his mighty steed pushed the dragon into the stream. It immediately shrivelled up, and was washed away down the river. Some say that it was washed all the way out to the sea at Millford; but others say that it crawled out of the stream at the place that was later to be called Hordle, because that was where it kept its treasure, and it sleeps there still – under the hill, which is now under the village.
So it is that the river runs red with dragon blood (Alfred threw all the heads into the water) and Hordle got its name because beneath it lies a dragon hoard. There is a hill there called Golden Hill, which is named after the treasure, and the fumes from the dragon’s breath seep up through the soil, which explains why the inhabitants of Hordle are a bit weird. Oh – and Bashley is called Bashley because that is where King Alfred bashed the dragon.
Maybe, though, the dragon really represents the Danes, and there was a battle between the Saxons of Wessex and the Viking Danes; the Danes were defeated, and the stream ran red with their blood. That would explain the name.
I did read somewhere, however, that the ‘Dane’ in the word ‘Danestream’ comes from an old Saxon word Denu, which means ‘stream’. But then that would mean that Danestream means ‘Streamstream’, so I like my story better! And what is more, I looked up the name ‘Hordle’ in my great big book of English place names, and it says that the word probably comes from the Old English words hord-hyll, which means ‘treasure mound’ – so maybe the story is true after all.
PART TWO
GUY AND COLBRAND
The terrible time when the Danes were attacking the country, when no one was able to feel safe, stayed in the memory of the people through the stories. In medieval times, 500 years later, the stories were transformed into tales of knights in armour. One of these stories was about a knight called Guy of Warwick and was popular in Hampshire as well as Warwickshire because it told of a great battle near Winchester.
But – to begin at the beginning. Guy was a mighty knight who lived in Warwick, and who spent a great deal of time clobbering anyone who was considered an enemy. This made him a very great man in the eyes of a lot of people – but still, when he fell in love with Felice the Fair, daughter of Roland, Earl of Warwick, he wasn’t considered posh enough for the daughter of an earl.
This meant he had to go off and prove himself – so off he went to the country of his enemies, which was possibly the Danelaw. Now, this was in the days when Athelstan was king, and Warwick was on the very edge of the Danelaw. So Guy did lots of bashing and thrashing, and built himself up an even greater reputation as an almighty hero. Then he went back home, and found that he was expected to do still more bashing in order to prove himself worthy of Felice the Fair.
So he had to fight a dragon – isn’t that always the case? Then he had to fight a particularly fierce wild boar, and we’ve already seen that there’s lots of them about too. Then he had to fight a giant cow. I’m not joking – it was called the Dun Cow. ‘Dun’ means ‘brown’. Fight a brown cow? How now, brown cow. This cow was huge, the size of an elephant, and it was terrorising the neighbourhood. Maybe there is some more meaning behind all this. Throughout England there are pubs called ‘The Dun Cow’ – believe me, I’ve been in a few of them, so there would seem to be a history here, and sometimes people like to call beer ‘the milk of the Dun Cow’. A nineteenth-century writer called Isaac Taylor suggested that the phrase ‘Dena Gau’ has changed over the centuries, so it sounds like ‘Dun Cow’, and that the phrase ‘Dena Gau’ means ‘The Danish Region’. So perhaps Guy was really fighting the Danes, in a region near Warwick.
Anyhow, at this stage Roland, Earl of Warwick, died, and at last Guy was allowed to marry Felice, though I don’t know what she thought about this, and he became Sir Guy, Earl of Warwick.
He’d achieved his aim – hooray – so shouldn’t this be the end of the story? And shouldn’t this story be in a book of Warwickshire folk tales?
It is a terrible fact, though, that when great, long-sought after goals are achieved, then it all turns to ashes.
Sir Guy of Warwick was sick at heart. He’d fought dragons, wild boars and giant cows. He had fought Danes. Lots of them. Lots of battles. Lots of killing. Lots of horrors. He sat on his great chair in Warwick Castle, and wondered if it was all worth it. He lost his appetite, he didn’t want to quaff ale (and when a great lord was off his ale that was serious) and he felt no pleasure in the company of Felice, though he loved her well.
Time for a pilgrimage.
He put aside his sword, hung his armour up in the wardrobe, and donned the cloak of a pilgrim. He fixed a cockleshell, the symbol of a pilgrim, to his cloak, cut himself a stout staff – and set off for the Holy Land.
Felice also gave herself up to religious practice. She sold her jewels and her fine clothes, she gave money to the poor, she built homes for orphans and widows, and she built a large hospital. To be honest, she was being a lot more useful than Sir Guy, but everyone to their own way. I don’t know if she managed to rule Warwick as well – maybe she employed an estate agent.
Well, Sir Guy was gone for a long time; his hair turned white, his beard grew all the way down to his belly, and his clothes were in rags. He became very holy, and entirely turned his back on bashing and thrashing, which seems to me like a good thing. However – sometimes things come back to haunt you.
One day, when Sir Guy was far away in the East, he came upon a graveyard. Lying in the graveyard there was a worm-eaten skull. Sir Guy picked up the worm-eaten skull and spoke to it (pilgrims do this sort of thing):
‘Perhaps you were a prince or a mighty monarch, a king, a duke, or a lord. But king or beggarman, we all return to the earth. Perhaps you were a queen, or a duchess, or some such high-born lady, but queen or washerwoman, we all end up being eaten by the worms.’
‘Blimey,’ said the skull. ‘If I had a penny for every time someone picked me up and came out with all that old guff, there’d be a pile of treasure here.’
To say that Sir Guy was a bit startled would be an understatement. He dropped the skull.
‘Oy, pick me up, Sir Pilgrim,’ ordered the skull. ‘I’ve got something important to tell you.’
Sir Guy picked the skull up, keeping his fingers well clear of the gnashing teeth.
‘Whilst you’ve been wandering around thinking about your almighty soul,’ said the skull, in a very disrespectful manner, ‘Wessex has been suffering mightily. The Danes have never left off their raiding, so no one has been able to safely work the fields and grow their crops; they’ve all been living in fear and hunger. You know what happens when the Danes turn up – same thing every time, they’ve got no imagination; they steal the treasure, burn the village, church, monastery or priory, and kill the people or take them as slaves. The people have been living in a state of constant anxiety, fearful that they might see a line of those stupid-looking helmets, and then find themselves set upon by another horde of vile Vikings. Worse still, some of these Vikings have managed to leave off bashing each other long enough to join together and form an army, and this army has invaded Wessex.’
‘Alas, poor Warwick, I know it well,’ howled Sir Guy to the skull.
‘Never mind Warwick,’ said the skull, ‘this is a book of Hampshire folk tales, and the Viking army is besieging Winchester, and King Athelstan is holed up inside.’
So it was that Sir Guy of Warwick knew it was time to return. Bringing the skull with him, he took ship on a galley carrying barrels of wine bound for Southampton, and then took the old pathway along the River Itchen. Sir Guy came to a ridge overlooking Winchester (a ridge that is now called Oliver’s Battery after Oliver Cromwell, and a later war, and a later siege), and there he saw the mighty army of Danes camped around the city walls, just sitting, waiting for the citizens of Winchester to run out of food and surrender. Athelstan didn’t want to surrender, he was well aware of the horrors that would be unleashed if he did, and the Danes would certainly do something very nasty to him.
Sneaking through the Viking army wasn’t easy, but when one Dane saw him, Sir Guy held up the skull, which chattered its teeth, and said something very rude.
‘Aaargh, Sköll!’ screamed the Viking, and fled. (Sköll is a kind of Viking demon.) He didn’t tell any other Vikings, because Vikings aren’t allowed to admit to running away, so Sir Guy was able to sneak on through.
He found a small door in the city wall; it was at the back – a tucked away part of town called Winnall. He held the skull up to the grid on the door, and it clattered its teeth, stared at the guard and mesmerised him.
‘Open the door,’ ordered the skull.
So it was that Sir Guy, dressed as a pilgrim, entered Winchester, and presented himself before the king. He regaled the king with tales of the Holy Land, and the latest news from Francia, whilst the skull sang a few folk songs, and for a while King Athelstan was able to forget the horrors that beset him.
But the next morning there came a terrible roar from the Viking army. They started to shout, and banged their swords on their round shields. The men of Wessex watched from the city walls as a huge and terrible giant stepped forward from the ranks of the Danes. He had a massive black beard, very sinister-looking eye make-up, and he was brandishing an enormous, wooden club.
‘I AM COLBRAND,’ he roared in a voice as deep as thunder, ‘and you Wessexonians are a bunch of cowards. You boast of your great deeds in the stories, but you are nothing but a bunch of foxes that hide in the woods. You are a trembling bunch of plucked chickens, and you all smell of poo. Send me forth your champion – I challenge him to single combat.’
Well, several knights did go to King Athelstan and offer to be his champion, though all of them knew that they didn’t stand a chance. To the king, however, the strangest offer came from the old, white-haired pilgrim.
‘I had foresworn violence,’ he said, ‘but now I know there is no choice. I will be your champion.’
‘What foolishness is this?’ said the king, but there was something about the tall pilgrim that stopped him from dismissing the whole idea. ‘We have no armour for one as tall as you,’ he said.
‘Send word to Warwick, I would have Guy of Warwick’s armour.’
‘Guy of Warwick is long gone. They say he went mad and disappeared to foreign lands. After the Danes have taken Winchester, they will surely go north and take Warwick.’
‘Send for the armour, My Lord. If the Lady Felice is given this pilgrim shell, she will know to send it.’
Well, a soldier went to the battlements, and shouted, ‘Hang on, lads, give us a few days, and we’ll find someone to fight your giant.’
The Danes fell about laughing.
‘Ooooh, give us a few days,’ they mocked in silly voices.
‘You have a few days,’ roared Colbrand. ‘A few days to say your prayers, before I slay your champion.’
So, a scout was sent out through the Winnall door, and he took the skull, which helped him sneak through the Viking lines. He got himself a horse in the village of King’s Worthy, and galloped all the way to Warwick. When the Lady Felice saw the pilgrim shell, she knew that Sir Guy was back.
The scout returned to Winchester, capital of Wessex, and once again sneaked through the Viking lines – no mean feat whilst carrying a large bag full of armour. He was, of course, aided by the skull, which did seem to make Danes run away on an individual basis, and maybe the Vikings were so used to victory, and the terror of their victims, that they were careless; they never felt that they were ever in any danger.
The scout, and the bag full of armour, was admitted through the Winnall door, and everyone, including Athelstan, looked on in amazement as the armour was seen to fit the pilgrim perfectly. Probably, they started to guess who he was.
So, the pilgrim, clad in shining armour, strode out of the main gates of Winchester to face the giant Colbrand. The Danes roared and banged their shields – and up they all went to a place called Norn Hill, where the fight was to take place.
A Dane strode forward and rang a bell.
‘Seconds away, round one,’ he shouted, and the two fighters began their battle, each knowing that there was only going to be one round, a long one, and only one end, a death.
Back in Winchester the skull snapped its teeth, and suddenly grew wings. ‘Craak,’ it croaked as it changed into a terrible, gaunt-looking crow and flapped its way towards Norn Hill.
The fight lasted for hours. Sir Guy, even though he wasn’t as young as he used to be, was the faster of the two, but, tall as he was, he looked like a dwarf next to the giant Colbrand. A strange crow, however, came ‘craaaking’ out of the sky and flew around the giant’s head, continually bothering and bedizening him.
Every swing of Sir Guy’s sword seemed to take a slice off the giant’s great, wooden club, and it got smaller, and smaller, and smaller, whilst the crow croaked in the giant’s ear every time he tried to bash Sir Guy. This went on until the giant, meaning to take a great swipe at Sir Guy, realised that all that was left of his club was a little splinter of wood, the size of a toothpick.
‘Oh,’ he said in astonishment, and stopped and gazed at the toothpick. Sir Guy moved in close, and chopped off the giant’s head.
‘I AM THE VICTOR!’ Sir Guy bellowed at the Danes. ‘TURN NOW AND LEAVE THIS PLACE.’
‘CRAAAK,’ said the crow.
By all the rules, that was what they were supposed to do – but never trust a Viking.
‘KILL HIM!’ shouted their leader. ‘AND TAKE WINCHESTER BEFORE THE FOOLS SHUT THE GATE.’
At that moment there came a terrible shriek from up on Chilcomb Down (Downs are always up) – and a shriek can be more terrifying and blood-freezing than the deepest of shouts. Up on the hill, mounted on a great white horse, was the Lady Felice, and the horse reared, before galloping down the slope towards the Danes. Behind her, with a roar, came the army of Warwick.
Or at least, half the army of Warwick, because from Magdalene Hill Down, on the other side of the valley, came the other half. Then, from out of the gates of Winchester galloped Athelstan’s men, and the Danes, caught between the three charging hordes, were annihilated.
So, Wessex was saved from the Danes, and after feasting and rejoicing, and rewards from King Athelstan, Felice, Guy, the skull (no longer a crow), and the men of Warwick took their leave.
It is said that Sir Guy never took up his place as Earl of Warwick, sitting on his great chair in Warwick Castle. He’d doubly had enough of war and bloodshed, and finally thought that, in the woods and fields of his homeland, his pilgrimage was really over. It is also said that he went to live in a cave near Warwick, whilst the skull sat outside shouting very rude things at unwelcome visitors.
Maybe it was the Lady Felice who continued to rule Warwick wisely and well, or maybe she left it to the estate agent. That I don’t know – I’d think I’d better leave that to the author of a book about Warwickshire folk tales to tell us.
PART THREE
SAINT SWITHUN AND THE EGGS
These stories describing the effect the Danes had on Wessex are full of fighting and violence, and that is not surprising. There is one story, though, that feels quite different –
it is about a gentle man, and an act of kindness.
We don’t really know much about Swithun, except that he became Bishop of Winchester in 852. Stories have grown around him, though, and one of these can be seen pictured on the wall of a little Saxon church in the village of Corhampton, in the Meon Valley. Once upon a time the walls of most churches were covered in paintings – and almost like a comic strip or a graphic novel, these were paintings that told stories. During a time called the Reformation, in the sixteenth century, most of these paintings were destroyed – sometimes they were gouged out of the walls, sometimes they were whitewashed over. In 1968 some of the old paintings were discovered beneath the whitewash in Corhampton Church (you can see them now), and one of them tells the story of Swithun and the eggs.
Swithun had ordered that a bridge should be built over the River Itchen, at the bottom of Winchester High Street. When the building was finished, Swithun blessed the bridge, and then stood on it to preach a sermon to the crowd. But this was the time when the Danes were constantly attacking and raiding Wessex, and the people had developed the bad manners and lack of care of people who lived in a dangerous time, a time when people learned to look after themselves before others.
In the crowd there was an old woman carrying a basket of eggs that she planned to sell at the market. She was pushed and jostled by the crowd, until she dropped the basket and all the eggs were broken.
As she scrabbled around after the basket, the people continued to jostle the old woman, and she would surely have been trampled underfoot if there hadn’t been a great roar from the bridge. ‘SILENCE!’ shouted Swithun. ‘Have you fools no care?’
Swithun strode through the crowd to the old woman, and helped her to her feet. He then knelt down and gathered up the fragments of eggshell, and as he did so, the eggs were miraculously restored, and it was a basket of whole eggs that he handed back to the woman.
Hampshire Folk Tales for Children Page 5