BATTLE OF BRUNANBURGH.
It is remarkable that the site of this great battle, the effects of which were so important to the Anglo-Saxon power, remains to this day undetermined.
The several chroniclers who describe it give various names to the locality, though modern authors generally adopt the name of Brunanburgh or "Town of the Fountains." Not however to insist on such variations in the name as Brunandune, Bruneberik, Bruneford, and Brumby, Simeon of Durham describes the battle as occurring at a place named Wendune, otherwise Weondune, to which moreover he assigns the further name of Ethrunnanwerch. The locality has been sought for in most improbable places,—in Northumberland and Cheshire. There can, however, be little or no doubt that this Waterloo of the Anglo-Saxons, as it has been called, is really to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of the Humber; though, whether on the northern or southern bank of that river seems quite uncertain: so far at least as the evidence hitherto adduced affords us the means of judging. In the Winchester volume of the British Archæological Association, MR. HESLEDEN states his belief that he has traced the site of this battle on the south of the Humber, near Barton in Lincolnshire; but the evidence on which he grounds this opinion, whilst demanding for this locality further consideration, seems to me far from conclusive. MR. HESLEDEN describes some curious earth-works in this situation, and thinks he has discovered the site of Anlaff's camp at Barrow, and that of Athelstan at Burnham (formerly, as he informs us, written "Brunnum"), where is an eminence called "Black Hold," which he thinks was the actual seat of the battle. At Barrow are places called "Barrow Bogs" and "Blow Wells." Does MR. HESLEDEN think we have here any reference to the "fountains" giving their name to Brunanburgh?
It is very desirable, in a topographical and historical point of view, that the site of this remarkable contest between the Anglo-Saxons and the allied Scandinavians and British reguli under Anlaff, should be determined on satisfactory data; and the allusion to it by MR. HESLEDEN, in a recent communication to "NOTES AND QUERIES" (Vol. iv., p. 180.), induces me to call the attention of your readers, and of that gentleman in particular, to some mention of this battle, topographically not unimportant, which is to be found in Egil's Saga; the hero of which was himself a combatant at Brunanburgh, under the standard of Athelstan, and which appears to have escaped the observation of those who have discussed the probable site of this deadly encounter. The circumstantial account to be found in the Saga, chap. lii. and liii., has not been overlooked by Sharon Turner, who however does not quote the passages having a special topographical interest. It is remarkable that the name of Wendune, for which among Anglo-Saxon writers there appears the single authority of Simeon of Durham, is confirmed by the testimony of the Saga: at least there can be little doubt, that the Vinheida of the Saga is but a Norse form for the Wendun or Weondune of the Anglo-Saxon chronicler. The natural and other features of the locality are not neglected by the author of the Saga, who describes it as a wild and uncultivated spot, surrounded by woods, having the town of Vinheida not far distant on the north. These particulars I take from the Latin of the Saga; but the reader of the Icelandic would possibly find more minute characteristics, which may have been lost in the process of translation. As, by his residence in the neighbourhood, MR. HESLEDEN is favourably situated for the further prosecution of this inquiry, I should be glad to find whether his conclusion as to the site of the battle received confirmation, or otherwise, from the passages of the Saga to which I have now ventured to direct attention.
I may here observe, that if we consider the situation of Jorvik, or York, the capital of the then Norse kingdom of Northumbria, we shall perhaps conclude that it was on the Yorkshire rather than on the Lincolnshire side of the Humber, that—
"Athelstan, king,
of earls the Lord,
of heroes the bracelet-giver,
And his brother eke,
Edmund etheling,