Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 101, October 4, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 101, October 4, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
Notices to Correspondents 263
Advertisements 264
Notes.
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?
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