| Aethelstan |
| Being a chronicle of the life and accomplishments of Prince Aethelstan of the Saxons, and of the Saxon people, and of their quest to unify the isles of Britain and Ireland to withstand the raids and invasions of the fierce and warlike Vikings. |
| Anno Domini 815 - Dorcic, West Saexe, in the Kingdom of the Saxons |
| Aethelstan, fourth son of King Behrtric the Saxon and a warrior newly
come of age, was nervous as he strapped on his hauberk of mail. After
all, was not Lord Oswulf the single greatest general in all of Mercia, a
land famed for its military prowess? And here was Aethelstan, only days
past his sixteenth birthday, leading the fyrdmen of the Saxon kingdom
into battle, both he and they novices against the battle-hardened
Mercians. Technically it wasn't his army - it was his brother Egbert's. But the heir to the kingdom, while he was a great warrior, was no general. At least Aethelstan had paid attention to the stories his father and Lord Sihtric told around the fires. But was that enough to make him a leader of men? He knew not. Aethelstan gazed down upon the field of battle from his vantage
point, the top of a large hill. His men were drawn up around the hill -
the fyrdmen halfway up, the archers on the summit. The mounted
bodyguards of both Egbert and himself lounged on the far side of the
hill, waiting for orders. Below him to the front stretched a long,
shallow slope down into the plain, and to his right the hill fell into a
gully before rising into another hill, a twin to the one on which he now
stood. The army of Lord Oswulf was drawn up on the plain, gazing at the
Saxons. |
| Anno Domini 816 - Dorcic, West Saexe, in the Kingdom of the Saxons |
| And here I thought Oswulf's debacle would have taught them a
lesson, thought Aethelstan, fourth son of King Behrtric the Saxon
and acknowledged as the greatest leader of men in all the realm. But
apparently not. And they're really bringing it to us this time. That's
the King's standard in the center. And there's Prince Offa's as well.
It'll be hard fighting today. Hard indeed. It could almost have been a replay of the first fight at Dorcic. Once again the Saxons drew themselves up on a hill, spears to the front and archers to the rear. The bodyguards of the princes waited in a small wood on one side of the hill. But there were fewer of them, now. Some fyrdmen had come to replace the losses a year previously, but not enough. Never enough. And the Mercians, well, King Aethelbert had brought the best troops Mercia could muster to this fight, and as many of them as he could. Over thirteen hundred Mercians drew themselves up before half as many Saxons. There were peasants in the ranks, yes, but plenty of fyrdmen and huscarls as well, and plenty of archers. And of course the mounted bodyguard of the royalty. Aethelbert had never had a reputation as a general, and this day would not improve it. As they had a year previously, the Mercian foot charged straight up the hill, followed by both the King and Prince Offa. Aethelstan winced, knowing what would happen. Shield walls were a brutal business, with both sides ramming at each other with shields and stabbing with spears until one side finally broke. But there was little that could be done about that now. There was something HE could do, however. Once again, the Mercians had left their archers unprotected, easy pickings for the Saxon cavalry, and once again Aethelstan led his men down onto the plain and made it into the grave of hundreds of Mercians. When he killed the last of the archers and looked back to the battle this time, however, what he saw was a mess. One part of the Mercian line had broken, and was being persued by Egbert and some of the fyrdmen. In another part, the few survivors of a Saxon fyrdman company staggered away from the fray as the Saxon archers drew swords and clubs and moved to engage a knot of Mercian axemen. Elsewhere, more Mercians were fleeing, with none to oppose them. It was at these Mercians Aethelstan sent his horsemen, and when they were all dead he looked at the battlefield once more, and saw that the axemen were dead, Prince Offa's bodyguard was destroyed, and King Aethelbert was fleeing from the battle, alone. One of Aethelstan's bodyguard turned his horse, preparing to ride down the King of the Mercians, but the Saxon prince raised a hand. "Let him go. Our horses are exhausted, and we'll never catch him. And he fought well. He deserves to live." And thus the few Mercian survivors left the field of Dorcic for the last time. Over twelve hundred of them would never leave the field, and seven hundred and more Saxons joined them. |
| Anno Domini 835 - Offa's Farm, Wrocen Saetan, in the Kingdom of the Mercians |
| Wihtric leaned on his heavy axe and tried to shift the bulk of his
mail armor to make himself comfortable. It was a losing battle. Rain
pouring down from the heavens pattered on his helmet, and soaked through
his padding to the skin. The only part of him that remained dry were his
feet, protected by good leather boots. Around him, other Saxon huscarls
did the same, watching as the great general Aethelstan, Prince of Pouis
and uncle of the King, paraded up and down before the Saxon army. Wihtric was more than a little afraid of the general. Most were. All respected the man for his prowess in battle, demonstrated over the course of twenty years, but there was something...unnatural about him. Men said he lived only for war and for his lands - after all, while the Mercians cursed his name, and while Pouis was the best-run province in all the realm, Aethelstan had never married, was never seen in church, and never conversed with his subordinates for anything other than business. He didn't even drink ale! There were even some who said that Aethelstan was an atheist, or even a devil worshipper. After all, were they not fighting in the rain, and did not Aethelstan always fight in the rain, when nobody else did? And he never took prisoners, not that any good Saxon would want a Mercian for a slave. Too much bad blood, in a war that had lasted for Wihtric's entire lifetime. Bored with speculating about the general, Wihtric began looking up and down the Saxon lines. The finest warriors in all Saxony had come today, here to meet the King of the Mercians in one last battle to decide the fate of lower England. Lord Swithnoth and his huscarls stood to the right, flanked by Wulfheard, the King's brother in law. Wihtric trusted neither. Both were formerly Mercians, lured to the Saxon side in this war by promises of gold and lands. Nevertheless, both were fine leaders of men. The left side of the field was dominated by Saxon nobles, all the huscarls who could be gathered. Behind him, he knew, was the mercenary cavalry, hired by Prince Aethelstan solely for this fight. Done with his mental catalogue of the army, Wihtric turned back to the front, and stiffened. The Mercians had arrived in the thousands, far outnumbering the Saxon army. Huscarls, fyrdmen, even peasants were marching from the hills, summoned by King Coeldred in one last desperate attempt to save Mercia from destruction. It was the cavalry on the left flank that acted first, the mercenary commanders leading their men without orders straight at the pesants in the weak Mercian left flank. On the edge of a lone farmstead they clashed, men and horses screaming and thrashing as they fought. Wihtric turned away from that fight as the men around him began charging, straight into the huscarls and fyrdmen on the right flank of the Mercians. He lost track of his surroundings for a time then, thrashing and flailing around him with his great two-handed axe, hacking and cleaving a space around him. Men died all around him - Many Saxons, but even more Mercians, slaughtered by the fearsome Saxon warriors. Wihtric saw horses at times, some wearing Mercian colors, and others behind the Mercians who must have been the mercenaries. Time passed, and men continued to fight and die. And then it happened. Wihtric paused for a moment to pull his axe from the body of a Mercian huscarl, and before him was Coeldred, the enemy King. Yanking his axe from the corpse, Wihtric shouted, and charged. The surprised Mercian king barely managed to parry the first blow, and the two men began a furious battle, the strength of the Saxon tempered by the skill of the Mercian. Finally the King's sword broke under the Saxon's fury, and Wihtric cleaved the head from the Mercian king, the greatest enemy the Saxons had ever known. Exhausted, he rested there for a time. The scant few Saxons remaining on the right side of the field did the same. Not a Mercian remained - all hacked to death under the vengeful axes of the huscarls. Elsewhere on the field, things had apparently gone much better for the Saxons. Faced by weaker peasant levies on the left, the huscarls there stood and watched as the remaining Mercians fled, chased by what remained of the cavalry. Wihtric watched as the cavalry went up the ridgeline, killing as they went, and then over. And then, nothing. The air resonated with the sounds of battle, but nothing could be seen. And then the cavalry reappeared, victorious. No, wait. That isn't our cavalry, those are Mercian banners! The bastards brought up reinforcements! Of the mercenary cavalry there was no sign, but the Mercian cavalry was charging down the hill towards the depleted and tired Saxon ranks, and hundreds upon hundreds of peasant levies followed, the last of the Mercians. In amongst the buildings of the farmstead they met the axes of the Saxons, and there they perished, and fled. They came again once more, but it was futile. The survivors fled, persued by Aethelstan himself. Once more the Saxon cavalry charged over the ridge, and once more the sounds of battle issued from beyond it. But this time, as the sun sank low in the sky, Aethelstan and his bodyguard returned, framed by the blood red sunset. And Wihtric sighed with relief, for it was over. Saxon and Mercian had fought one another for twenty years, and now the Mercians were no more. War would continue for the Saxons, but their mortal enemies were finished. |
| Anno Domini 843 - Luel, Cumbri, in the Kingdom of the Northumbrians |
| Aethelstan, Prince of Pouis and the most renowned general in all the
isles, found it within himself to relax. He didn't usually like to
relax, and didn't usually like feasts, but it had been a hard day's
fight. Vikings are tough bastards, even if their king isn't a fighter, thought Aethelstan, raising a mug to his lips. Halfway through the feast, and he was still on his first. Had their roles been reversed, the Viking King Harald would have been on the ground by now, or so the Prince of Pouis had heard. During the battle, Harald had been almost too drunk to fight, swinging his axe around but rarely hitting anything. How he had managed to escape was beyond Aethelstan, except that Harald was renowned for being able to escape from the hopeless situations he had put himself in. Usually, anyway. There are those rumors that he spent time in a Mercian dungeon, after all. It had, in any case, not been much of a battle, except for the hard fighting. Both the Saxons and the Vikings had come to Cumbri expecting there to be no opposition but the disorganized remnants of the Northumbrian nobles, leaderless now that their king was dead. Instead, they found each other, while the Northumbrians, sensing the way their wind was blowing, fled entirely. So the Saxons and Vikings had squared off against each other and fought. It was a short, brutal fight, with superior Saxon weapons and numbers utterly decimating the Vikings, and decimating their leaders. Of the four sons Harald had brought to the battle, two were dead, and two now languished in a Saxon dungeon. But at least the Vikings fight better than the blasted Welsh, mused Aethelstan, lifting the mug once more while around him the collected Saxon nobility were getting progressively drunker. [/i]King of the Welsh and his three sons barely put up a fight. But then, what do you expect of people who run into battle naked? Give me a suit of mail any day.[/i] The Welsh had, indeed, barely put up a fight, three years before when Aethelstan's Saxons had invaded the last Welsh stronghold in Clywd. Oh, they had found a decent enough ridge to fight on, but their army, with its majority of archers, was unable to pierce the mail coats and large shields of the Saxon huscarls, and the half-naked Celtic warriors merely died on their axe blades. In desperation, the remaining Welsh had retreated into a forest, and there the Saxons had caught up with the Welsh cavalry, including the bodyguards of the royalty, and slaughtered them to a man. The Welsh, never a strong kingdom to begin with, had died with barely a whimper. But on this day of victory, Aethelstan had other things to consider. Things like his young nephew, Aethelred, who was at least nominally the King of the Saxons. He was, as was generally acknowledged, not exactly the best king they could have chosen. He was an inept manager of land - and even worse, he was a terrible leader of soldiers. Some said it was he had come to the throne young, at only eighteen, but Aethelstan, already a great general at sixteen, knew that some men were simply born to rule, and some were not. But while Aethelred may not have been a born leader, he was at least a marginally better king than Aethelstan's brother Egbert. Egbert may have been a great warrior, but he had been a terrible king, and touched in the head besides. It had been something of a relief at court when Egbert had finally lost it, leading his bodyguard off into Mercia to single-handedly attack their armies, and never returned. But Aethelred, now. He was worrisome, but not because he was inept. No, as long as Aethelstan could keep his young nephew marginalized in his hall at Sumorsaete, he could use his power as Prince of Pouis to keep the realm running. But not, Aethelstan mused bitterly, If my damn generals are determined to destroy what I've built. The generals, of course, knew as well as anyone how inept the king was. And for the past few years, rumors had been spreading of secret plots of rebellion. Sometimes it was Lord Swithnoth of Mierce who was talked about as the leader, or Wulfheard, the King's brother in law. Both were former Mercian generals, and Aethelstan trusted neither, even while using them against their former masters. And at home in the south, other nobles were said to be discontent, in Dornsaete, Cantware, and the Saexelands. But they could be dealt with. The nobles at home could be watched, and if necessary, killed. They were unimportant. Swithnoth and Wulfheard, however, were trickier to handle. Though, in truth, Swithnoth was not much of a worry in recent months. Wulfheard, on the other hand, was dangerous. But Aethelstan knew just what to do. Land was what Wulfheard wanted, so he would have land. The devastated Mercian homelands in Wrocen Saetan were just the thing. And they were. |
| Anno Domini 852 - Din Eidyn, Fib, in the Kingdom of the Picts |
| Wihtric leaned on his axe, staring at nothing. The effort of seeing
cost too much. Blood ran down him in rivers, some from a dozen nicks and
cuts he had taken, more from Pictish warriors he had slain. Around him,
the surviving huscarls of Prince Aethelstan's army rested in a similar
fashion, either leaning on axes made dull by the day's hard usage, or
sitting wherever they could find a space amongst the dead and wounded. So many dead, thought Wihtric. So many. Wihtric, a veteran of a lifetime of fighting, had never seen anything like it. Even Offa's Farm against the gathered Mercians had been nothing like Din Eidyn. Luel, where the Saxons had fought and destroyed the raiding army of the Viking king, that had been a bloodbath, but still nothing like this. Bodies lay in piles waist deep in a rough arc around the survivors, marking the place where the warrior nobles of the Saxons had met the Pictish hordes and triumphed. Many of those Saxons lay amongst the piles, but always covered by ten or twelve Picts. More bodies, all Pictish, lay strewn about all the way up the mountain, ridden down by the Saxon cavalry. And that, reflected Wihtric, was what there was to tell. We met them here, we fought them, and they died. For how could anyone who was not at Din Eidyn ever understand? It had not been a battle full of dazzling tactical genius or skillful manouvers. Din Eidyn was war at its most brutal, men hacking at each other, screaming, dying. Endless waves of Picts had run down the hill to the front of the Saxon lines, most half-naked as was their custom, but some wearing armor and carrying spears. They had all died equally well - The two-handed axes wielded by the Saxon huscarls cut through armor and flesh with equal speed. The huscarls had met them head on, and fought them until they broke and ran, and then Prince Aethelstan and the cavalry rode down the survivors and killed them. And then the surviving Saxons drew themselves together and did the same to the next wave of Picts. Five, six times the Picts had charged, and five, six times the Saxons routed them, until finally there were no more Picts to be routed and the Saxons stood alone on the field. And that's just as it should be, thought Wihtric, as kneeled down to loot a particularly rich-looking Pict. There would be plenty of riches for everyone this day. It used to be that people feared the Vikings. They should have feared us. They should have feared Prince Aethelstan. As if on cue, screams pierced the air once again. Wihtric could not see, but he could imagine what they were. Almost a thousand Picts had surrendered, but Prince Aethelstan had no use for prisoners, so they were all being put to death. It was a merciless way to act for a man who had been newly appointed the chief of Saxon justice, but Aethelstan had always been a hard man. Despite himself, Wihtric shivered. He hoped he would never have to face that justice, as these Picts had. As all Picts would. For with the destruction of their armies at Din Eidyn, all of the north lay open to the Saxons, and no force living could stop them. That was the lesson of Din Eidyn. |
| From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle |
| Anno Domini 863 - This year King Eoganon of the Picts pled with the Saxons that they might cease the devastation wrought upon the Picts, and sought to marry his daughter to the Saxon Prince Harald. This embassy was sent away, and Prince Aethelstan of the Saxons met King Eoganon on the field of battle in Moray, and there killed the King and many men of the Picts, and the Picts fell under the rule of the Saxons. Also the Vikings were driven from East Engle, and their king slain. |
| Anno Domini 868 - Dorcic, West Saexe, in the Kingdom of the Saxons |
| At sunset they gathered together to pay tribute to the great man,
greatest among all the Saxons. Rank after rank of Saxon nobles circled
his body. Nobles from Cantware, from Moray, from Mierce. Young and old,
most of them owed their titles, their lands, and their lives to this
man. By his sword and his deeds, he had carved out a kingdom for the
Saxons - a great kingdom, spanning the length of Britain. Only the Irish
and the Vikings did not now pay homage to the Saxon King, and all
present knew that, one day soon, the Irish too would pay homage, and as
to the Vikings, their king had been killed along with almost all of his
nobles earlier that year in Lothene. The kingdom of the Saxons was the
safest, the most prosperous it had ever been, and all thanks to one man. That man, known in life as Aethelstan, Folcwine of the Saxons and Prince of Pouis, lay stretched out upon the deck of a Viking longship, captured in Lothene and transported here for this funeral. He was atired in his finest clothes and his best armor, a gilded suit of mail which had once belonged to the King of the Welsh. The sword at his side was engraved with the griffon of Mercia, taken from that King. Around him were piled the spoils of a dozen campaigns. Viking battleaxes lay heaped on Mercian shields, mixed with Welsh bows and Pictish swords, enough to equip a hundred men. One man stepped out from the gathered nobles. He was Dryhtwald, and claimed to be the son of the great Prince, a claim which was greeted with scorn by the King and all who knew that Aethelstan had never married, but was upheld by the Bishop of Dorcic, and so it was that the new Prince of Pouis and Focalwine laid the first torch on the kindling around the ship, whereupon the gathered nobles did the same, cremating the old Prince in the old way. The Bishop did not approve, but all there thought it the best way, and as the spectators watched a great rush of flame erupted from the ship, and a great column of smoke rose, and it was done. The greatest general of the Saxons was no more. But the Saxons would go on. And so it was that in the year of our Lord 884, after fifteen years of fierce warfare against the hordes of the Irish, Prince Dryhtwald led the final assault on their stronghold, and overthrew them, and the Saxons ruled over the Isles for many years thereafter. Thus wrote Wihtric, an old warrior and a monk at the abbey of Lindisfarne: By the grace of God we have conquered in the name of Christ and by the power of his Cross. The pagans have been driven back, and these islands are ours by right of conquest and by payment in our blood. Our shield wall held true, and now only the bards need remember our enemies, in tales and songs to thrill the heart on a winter's night. Saxon lore runs from shore to shore, from sea to shining sea, and no man need fear the sight of a sail or coming of a stranger. Our people united under one king, one law, will last forever in these islands. It is God's blessing upon our people. |