ALDBROUGH
Danish Sun-Dial Built into the Wall of Aldbrough Church.
Though written in Anglian letters, the names Ulf and Gunvör are both Danish names, and the word ‘Hānum’ is likewise a purely Danish word. Who this Ulf was we do not know, for the name was a common one. One jarl Ulf married the sister of King Cnut, and another was the owner of lands at Aldbrough and Brandesburton during the reign of King Edward the Confessor.
IX.
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 892.
A Picture of Life in the East Riding drawn from
Details in the old Norse Sagas.
The year of Our Lord is eight hundred and ninety-two, and the scene lies a couple of miles north of the village of Hessle, on the Yorkshire bank of the Humber.
Twenty-five years before this date a heathen army had crossed over the Humber on their march to York, and a good number of broken heads and hewn-off limbs had been the result of their visit to the province of Deira. Then, like sensible people, the invaders and the invaded had come to terms. Villages of the Angles were not too numerous in the district. At any rate there was plenty of unoccupied land lying around them, and this was just what the invaders wanted; for their brothers and sisters had grown so numerous in the lands across the sea that those who had left their homes had no great desire to go back to them.
Among the band of heathen Northmen had been a jarl named Anlaf, and between Anlaf and the ealdorman at Beverley it had been agreed that the former should choose land whereon to settle his men somewhere in the four miles of unoccupied country lying between Hessle and Cottingham. Also his men were to be allowed to choose wives from among the maidens of these two villages or the neighbouring ones of Weighton and Riplingham. In return the Northmen were to give their attention to clearing and tilling the land they had chosen, and to conduct themselves, as far as could reasonably be expected, in a manner harmless to the people of all the surrounding villages.
Such had been the beginnings of Anlafsbyr. The land for settlement was chosen—nice dry land on rising ground with a natural drainage to the river—rough shelters for the men were first made, and the ground was then marked out for the building of Anlaf’s hall. Three times was the ground measured for this, and each time after the first the measurements proved slightly larger than the previous ones. This boded good luck, and the work was therefore entered upon with spirit.
In the course of time the building of the hall was finished. Then came the rewards to Anlaf’s men for their labours. The surrounding land was marked out and divided up, each karl receiving a portion, large or small in accordance with his own worth; and a considerable portion was left over to belong to all the karls in common. The thralls of course got no land—they did not count as men but as cattle. Probably some of them were exchanged with the ceorls of Hessle for four-legged cattle.