Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Scandinavian Britain - II. The Danelaw - 4. The Kingdom of York
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In the grave-monuments showing wheel-crosses and
other motives derived from Irish and Scottish art,
and in the curious carved bone from York, figured
in The Reliquary for Oct. 1904, we see evidence
of the connexion between Northumbria and the
Celtic lands ; the Reycross at Stainmoor, as far as its
original form can be determined from its damaged
remains and from seventeenth-century descriptions,
must have been of the type in vogue about the middle
of the tenth century, and may be conjectured—though
such conjectures are not legitimate archæology—to be
a memorial of the great battle of Stainmoor (954?),
which ended the life of Eirík Blódöx and the independence
of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria.
A finer and more authentic memorial is the "Eiríksmál;"
see Corpus Poeticum Boreale (i., p. 260) and
the paraphrase in Dasent’s Burnt Njál (ii., p. 384)
which describes Odin awaking in Valhöll, and bidding
his heroes make ready to welcome Eirík and the five
kings who fell with him.
The spirit of local independence was not dead,
for on the accession of the boy-king Eadwig, in
957, Mercia and Northumbria revolted, and invited
his brother Eadgar, a still younger boy, but one
with more tact and spirit, to be their king. The
revolution was effected without war. For two
years Eadgar was independent ruler of Danish England,
while Bernicia still remained Anglian under
Oswulf. Under Eadgar’s rule influences from the
south of England doubtless improved the growing
civilisation and prosperity of Yorkshire. No great
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