The saddest thing of all was the fate of Edwin's two brave young sons. The body of Offrid was never found. Eadfrid was taken prisoner, and shortly afterwards was basely murdered by his cousin Penda.
In the second night after the battle three lights might have been seen flickering over the ghastly field. One came from a lantern held by Wiglaf, Godric's man, who was searching for the body of his master, accompanied by the two sons of that valiant paladin. They found it, and carried it to his home, where it was buried amidst fruit trees, on the site on which afterwards rose the church of East Markham. The other two lights were carried by Sivel and the Deacon James. They found the precious remains lying as they fell under the yew tree. Long they gazed on those peerless forms. "When will God send us their equals?" sighed Sivel. "It must be long, alas!" assented the good Deacon. "Perhaps in His own good time men like them may arise again." The three bodies were borne away to the Humber by many loving hands, and placed in a boat. Proceeding up the Ouse, the boat was met opposite to Acaster by Froda and a few surviving Stillingas. The bodies of Coelred and Porlor were handed over to them, and were borne slowly to Stillingfleet, where they were interred by the side of Shuprak on the spot they had loved so well. The Deacon James performed the funeral service, and afterwards a tumulus was raised over their grave. Sivel then went to York with the body of the King. Bassus and Ethelburga had already departed. The head of Edwin the Great was interred under the porch of his unfinished church. His body was borne to Aldby, and buried by the side of his sister Alca. Long afterwards it was removed to Whitby by his grand–daughter the Abbess Elflaed.
The work of Edwin and his paladins seemed to be all undone. But it was not so. The good seed was sown. Northumbria flourished wonderfully for nearly a century through the initiative given to progress by Edwin's brilliant administration, and her Kings were Bretwaldas of Britain. A great calamity swept over the land, a storm beat down the ripening grains, but they rose again, bright and golden, and the sowers had not lived in vain.
Through labour to rest,
Through combat to victory.
Thomas à Kempis.
EPILOGUE
This story will be incomplete if a concluding narrative is not given of the subsequent fates of the friends and relatives of King Edwin and his paladins, of their children and immediate descendants, as well as a brief notice of the historian to whose laborious zeal our knowledge of this striking episode in our annals is due.
As soon as Sivel had performed his pious duties, he took refuge at Driffield, for the Welsh were close upon his track.