The Saga of Hengest: Nordic Heroes, #1

By Christopher Webster

Exiled after a bitter battle in Finnsburgh, the Angle thegn, Hengest, turns his three war keels to Britannia. All he wants is land and a mead hall of his own, but he ends up winning a country - a country that will later be named England.

The original Saga of Hengest is lost, except for a tantalising fragment known as the Freswael, which tells of that battle in Finnesburgh. The rest of the saga has been reconstructed from other, later, sources, mainly Layamon's Brut. 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: EKP
• Release date: Feb 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386314462

Christopher Webster

In Conisbrough, in the West Riding, I spent most of my childhood, where there's an old castle, presiding over the local neighbourhood. The castle teased me with its mystery and got me interested in history. Later, at University, I took a Literature degree, choosing an option on Jane Austen and Regency Society, and also one on poetry: worlds which I loved to get lost in – and now I show appreciation by trying my hand at narration.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

THE Saga of Hengest is the epic story of the founding of the English Nation. It was well known to the Anglo-Saxons, and particularly valued, because it was the only form of history they had until the days of Alfred the Great and The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Like Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon epic poems, it was composed orally in the settlement period, and passed on by word of mouth for hundreds of years before being written down. But unlike Beowulf, the manuscripts did not survive the turmoil of the early middle ages. Christianity, Viking raids, the Norman conquest, and the rapid change in the English language all took their toll; and the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 took care of the remaining copies. However, by some miracle, a some fragments of the Anglo-Saxon saga did survive, and a fairly full version survives in Early Middle English, in Layamon’s Brut (c 1190).

THE SAGA OF HENGEST

THIS VERSION OF The Saga of Hengest is based on my earliest version of the saga, begun in about 1980. I later produced a scholarly edition, with a detailed analysis of sources and a text in a modern version of the Anglo-Saxon poetic line, entitled Hengest, and recently completed what I like to think of as my masterpiece on the subject (note the inverted commas, signifying my reservations!), a pentalogy entitled English Dawn, and a verse equivalent, English Morn.

I

Hear!

The Saga of Hengest, and of Horsa his brother,

Sons of Whitgils, son of Wecta, son of Woden.

Across the whales’ way they came to Britain,

And with well wrought weapons won fame,

And founded the land we live in, Angleland...

—The Saga of Hengest

SO BEGINS THE SAGA of Hengest, fairest of aethelings and founder of Angleland. But I am not going to declaim it to you again my old throat is not up to it, and my ague-twisted fingers are clumsy on the lyre strings. No. I will tell you the story in plain words, just the way it happened. Then, when you next hear the saga sung by some younger skald you will understand it better, and perhaps remember me. For the saga is my story too.

Like so many sagas, the Saga of Hengest begins with a feud. I have not the breath to tell, nor you the patience to hear, the ins and outs of it, for they are more complicated than the intertwining gripping beasts carved on the royal portal. Suffice it to say that Hengest first won a reputation as a swordsman in that feud, though at that time he was still learning his trade: gaining strength and skill in the butchery of the war-hedge. It was years later, after the first feud had ended and the second had begun, that Hengest came to the fore.

The ending of the first feud was sealed by the marriage of Hildeburh, King Hoc’s daughter, to King Finn – and how I pitied that poor beautiful young thing as she went sobbing into the arms of her enemy – and all for nothing! A second feud broke a few years later during a peace mission to Frisia. King Hoc wanted a closer alliance between the two peoples, for protection against the Jutes, who were pressing ever harder on our borders, and to set the seal on the Anglo-Frisian peace. Perhaps it was too soon for armed Angles to be seen again in Frisia, however peaceful the intention; perhaps the Jutes were working secretly to prevent an alliance; or perhaps it was simply not meant to be. Whatever the reason, things went wrong from the very first night in Frisia.

The voyage was commanded by Prince Hnaef, as King Hoc was by then too old for such a journey. Hengest, who was of royal blood, was second-in-command, and as Hengest’s skald, I was to go too. I can remember that voyage as though it were yesterday...

The ring-prowed ship rolled in the waves;

The sea heaved in storm, the sail billowed.

The sailors at the oars struck against the wind,

until, through the spray, they sighted land.

We sailed in Swan-neck, Prince Hnaef’s own ship. She was a magnificent vessel, clinker built for flexibility in high seas, and narrow for speed. But the rows of brightly painted shields along her gunwales and her fierce dragon prow, showed her for what she was – a war keel. Nothing less would have fitted the dignity of Prince Hnaef, but as I was soon to find out, war keels were not built for comfort.

At that time, Hengest was ‘theodnes thegn’ to Prince Hnaef – his leading thegn. He was a lion of a man, with a great tawny mane and a tawny beard that came down to his chest. He was strong and well-muscled, because he was always fighting or training to fight, and when there was any work to be done, such as kitting out Hneaf’s ship, he was not the last to come forward.

The crossing from Angeln to Frisia took several days and the weather was bad for most of way. Waves washed constantly over the low gunwales, and we were so busy bailing that we hardly had time to be seasick. There were no comfortable cabins below decks, such as might be found in merchant ships, so at night we had to huddle under a sailcloth awning and try to