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
Legends about “the Danes” are very much disseminated among the people,
even in the south of England. There is scarce a parish that has not in
some way or another preserved the remembrance of them. Sometimes they
are recorded to have burnt churches and castles, and to have destroyed
towns, whose inhabitants were put to the sword; sometimes they are said
to have burnt or cut down forests; here are shown the remains of large
earthen mounds and fortifications which they erected; there, again,
places are pointed out where bloody battles were fought with them. To
this must be added the names of places; as, _the Danes-walls_, _the
Danish forts_, _the Dane-field_, _the_ _Dane-forest_, _the Danes-banks_,
and many others of the like kind. Traces of Danish castles and ramparts
are not only found in the southern and south-eastern parts of England,
but also quite in the south-west, in Devonshire and Cornwall, where,
under the name of _Castelton Danis_, they are particularly found on the
sea coast. In the chalk cliffs, near Uffington, in Berkshire, is carved
an enormous figure of a horse, more than 300 feet in length; which, the
common people say, was executed in commemoration of a victory that King
Alfred gained over the Danes in that neighbourhood. On the heights, near
Eddington, were shown not long since the entrenchments, which, it was
asserted, the Danes had thrown up in the battle with Alfred. On the
plain near Ashdon, in Essex, where it was formerly thought that the
battle of Ashingdon had taken place, are to be seen some large Danish
barrows, which were long, but erroneously, said to contain the bones of
the Danes who had fallen in it. The so-called dwarf-alder (_Sambucus
ebulus_), which has red buds, and bears red berries, is said in England
to have germinated from the blood of the fallen Danes. It is therefore
also called _Daneblood_ and _Danewort_, and flourishes principally in
the neighbourhood of Warwick; where it is said to have sprung from, and
been dyed by, the blood shed there, when Canute the Great took and
destroyed the town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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