An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and IrelandWorsaae, Jens Jacob Asmussen
History
An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland
Worsaae, Jens Jacob Asmussen
Great Britain -- Civilization -- Scandinavian influences; Northmen -- Great Britain; Northmen -- Ireland
During the last period of the declining house of the Anglo-Saxon kings,
we further meet with the Scandinavian names of Guttorm, Hagen, and
Magnus. The name of Magnus, borne by King Harald Godvinsön’s youngest
son, was introduced into Norway through a mistake. It is related that a
son having been born one night to King Olaf (Saint Olaf), no one dared
to awake the King and inform him of it. The child, however, being very
weakly, the priest Sighvat Skjaldt took upon himself to baptize it, and
called it Magnus, after “the best man in the world,” Karl Magnus, or
Charlemagne; probably in the belief that the Latin word _magnus_, which
was only the Emperor Charles’ surname, was a real name. The boy grew up,
and afterwards became king of Norway, where he was usually called
“Magnus the Good.” Magnus’s grave is said to have been discovered in St.
John’s Church, in the town of Lewes, in Sussex. In the new church, which
has lately been built on the site of the old one, has been preserved,
and built into the wall, the monumental stone, which bears the following
inscription:—
“Clauditur hic miles Danorum regia proles; Mangnus nome(n) ei Mangne
nota progeniei. Deponens Mangnum, se moribus induit agnum P(re)pete
p(ro) vita fit parvulus arnacorita.”
Or, “Here lies a warrior (or knight) of the royal Danish race; his name,
Mangnus, is the mark of his great descent. Laying aside his greatness he
adopted the habits of a lamb, and exchanged his busy life for that of a
simple hermit.”
That this Magnus, “of the royal Danish race,” was the son of the Harald
Godvinsön lately mentioned (whose mother Gyda, it is true, was of the
Danish royal family) is, however, a mere conjecture. An older legend
states that he was a Danish chief, or commander, taken prisoner by the
English in a sanguinary battle near Lewes, and who, being well treated,
afterwards laid aside his sword, and became a hermit at that place. (See
Lower, in “Transactions of the British Archæological Association at its
second Congress at Winchester,” pp. 307-310.) It may, perhaps, be most
probable that he was one of those scions of the Danish aristocracy that
remained in the south of England after the Norman conquest had
overthrown the supremacy of the Danish chiefs in that part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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