London (England) -- Antiquities; London (England) -- History
"We are told that Sweyn made warfare in the land of
King Ethelred, and drove him out of the land; he put
_Thingumannalid_ in two places. The one in Lundunaborg
(London) was ruled by Eilif Thorgilsson, who had sixty ships
in the Temps (Thames); the other was north in Sleswik. The
Thingamen made a law that no one should stay away a whole
night. They gathered at the Bura Church every night when a
large bell was rung, but without weapons. He who had command
in the town (London) was Ædric Streona. Ulfkel Snilling ruled
over the northern part of England (East Anglia). The power of
the Thingamen was great. There was a fair there (in London)
twice every twelve month, one about midsummer and the other
about midwinter. The English thought it would be the easiest
to slay the Thingamen while Cnut was young (he was ten winters
old) and Sweyn dead. About Yule, waggons went into the town to
the market, and they were all tented over by the treacherous
advice of Ulfkel Snelling and Ethelred's sons. Thord, a man
of the Thingumannalid, went out of the town to the house of
his mistress, who asked him to stay, because the death was
planned of all the Thingamen by Englishmen concealed in the
waggons, when the Danes would go unarmed to the church. Thord
went into the town and told it to Eilif. They heard the bell
ringing, and when they came to the churchyard there was a
great crowd who attacked them. Eilif escaped with three ships
and went to Denmark. Some time after, Edmund was made King.
After three winters, Cnut, Thorkel and Eric went with eight
hundred ships to England. Thorkel had thirty ships, and slew
Ulfkel Snilling, and married Ulfhild, his wife, daughter of
King Ethelred. With Ulfkel was slain every man on sixty ships,
and Cnut took Lundunaborg."
Matthew, of Westminster, also records this massacre of the Danes, and
other authorities consider that the account in the _Saga_ is founded
on fact. However that may be, the Danes undoubtedly had a colony here
of their traders, merchants, and seamen, and dedicated their church
to their favourite saint, St. Clement, the patron of mariners, whose
constant emblem is an anchor. Nor was this the only location of the
Northmen. Southwark was their fortified trading place, where they
had a church dedicated to St. Olaf, the patron saint of Norway. His
name remains in Tooley Street, not a very evident but certainly true
derivative of St. Olaf's Street. There are three churches dedicated to
St. Olave, who was none other than St. Olaf. St. Magnus, too, tells
of the Northmen, who was one of their favourite saints. Going back to
the church of St. Clement Danes, we notice that it was rebuilt in 1682
under the advice of Wren, the tower and steeple being added forty years
later. Dr. Johnson used to attend here, and a pillar near his seat
bears the inscription:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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