by Walter Scott
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI.
Note D.--Battle of Stamford.
A great topographical blunder occurred here in former editions. Thebloody battle alluded to in the text, fought and won by King Harold,over his brother the rebellious Tosti, and an auxiliary force of Danesor Norsemen, was said, in the text, and a corresponding note, to havetaken place at Stamford, in Leicestershire, and upon the river Welland.This is a mistake, into which the author has been led by trusting to hismemory, and so confounding two places of the same name. The Stamford,Strangford, or Staneford, at which the battle really was fought, is aford upon the river Derwent, at the distance of about seven miles fromYork, and situated in that large and opulent county. A long woodenbridge over the Derwent, the site of which, with one remaining buttress,is still shown to the curious traveller, was furiously contested. OneNorwegian long defended it by his single arm, and was at length piercedwith a spear thrust through the planks of the bridge from a boatbeneath.
The neighbourhood of Stamford, on the Derwent, contains some memorialsof the battle. Horseshoes, swords, and the heads of halberds, or bills,are often found there; one place is called the "Danes' well," anotherthe "Battle flats." From a tradition that the weapon with which theNorwegian champion was slain, resembled a pear, or, as others say, thatthe trough or boat in which the soldier floated under the bridge tostrike the blow, had such a shape, the country people usually begin agreat market, which is held at Stamford, with an entertainment calledthe Pear-pie feast, which after all may be a corruption of the Spear-piefeast. For more particulars, Drake's History of York may be referredto. The author's mistake was pointed out to him, in the most obligingmanner, by Robert Belt, Esq. of Bossal House. The battle was fought in1066.