116 THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG. 



landed, and before the battle. He first made war upon and overpowered 

 the two governors of Northumbriji , one of whom fled to Athelstan with 

 the tidings. Anlaf most probably marched northward to repossess 

 Xorthumbria, his expulsion from which had caused the war. His fleet 

 would follow him to Holy Island or Berwick ; there he would be joined 

 by the Scottish king, and, turning back, would confront Athelstan, who, 

 by that time, would have gathered his forces, and marched to meet the 

 invader ; and Bromeridge, in that case, was a very likely place for the 

 meeting. 



The author of the Saxon ode, Ethelwerd, and perhaps Egel's Saga, are 

 the only contemporary writers about the battle. The ode calls the place 

 ** Brunanburh ;" Ethelwerd calls it " Brunandune f I know not whe- 

 ther Egel's Saga names it, but, at all events, he does not fix its position. 

 Simeon of Durham, the next in point of date, lived 200 years after, and 

 knew little about it ; he calls the place sometimes '* Weondune," then 

 " Erthrunnanwerch," and then *' Brunanbyrge ;" and the chroniclers 

 who follow, as well as the modern historians, merely copy each other, 

 but all place the scene in Northumbria. This would cut off the places 

 in Lincolnshire and in Cheshire, which have been named in connection 

 with the battle. 



As Northumberland is a wide word, especially as there applied, this 

 still leaves any peculiar claims of Bromeridge without support. All I 

 can muster for them is the following : 



1^^, There are three entrenchments, with several military lines, on 

 Bromeridge, placed so as to protect a large army encamped on that 

 height ; and these, after an ancient tradition, are called " The Danish 

 Forts." 



2(1, There is a slight tradition of a great battle having been fought 

 near Bromeridge, and the farmer of it tells me, that rude implements of 

 war, some made of stones, have formerly been ploughed up on Brome- 

 ridge farm. 



3<i, Anlaf escaped to his ships, which may have followed his progress 

 northward, and which conveyed him back to Dublin. The king of Scot- 

 land escaped by land. Had the battle been near the Humber, he 

 would have fled by sea also, but the nearness of his own kingdom to 

 Bromeridge, enabled him thus to escape without the heavy ransom which 

 some of Anlaf 's followers were obliged to pay. 



^ih, Camden, the greatest authority on a point of mere antiquarianism, 

 says, •* The battle was fought near Bromeridge in Glendale in Northum- 

 berland." 



The original of the Anglo-Saxon ode will be found in 1 Ellis's Speci- 

 mens, 14 ; an excellent literal rendering in 3 Turn. A. S. 318 ; and in 

 1 Ellis, 32, a curious metrical version in imitation of the style and lan- 

 guage of the 14th century, made by John Hookham Frere, when a school- 

 boy at Eton, " which," says Sir James Mackintosh, in 1 History of 

 England, 50, "is a double imitation, unmatched in literary history, 

 placing its author alone amongst English translators." 



