The Thames in the heart of London today. London Bridge is the second bridge from the right – the first is Tower Bridge, and the castle occupied by the Danes may well have stood where William the Conqueror built the Tower of London fifty years later. Southwark lies on the south bank, on this side of the river. Ethelred’s fleet sailed up from the right towards a bridge packed with Danes, and with Cnut’s men massed on both sides too. Until Olaf took a hand, Ethelred’s cause seemed hopeless.
Part 1 of 2
KING Ethelred called together all the chiefs to consult how they should get the bridge broken down. Then said King Olaf he would attempt to lay his fleet alongside of it, if the other ships would do the same.*
King Olaf ordered great platforms of floating wood to be tied together with hazel bands, and for this he took down old houses; and with these, as a roof, he covered over his ships so widely, that it reached over the ships’ sides. There both was room for swinging their swords, and the roofs were strong enough to withstand the stones cast down upon them.
Now when the [English] fleet and men were ready, they rowed up along the river; but when they came near the bridge, there were cast down upon them so many stones and missile weapons, such as arrows and spears, that neither helmet nor shield could hold out against it and the ships themselves were so greatly damaged, that many retreated out of it.
Olaf was not yet King of Norway; that title he claimed in 1015, and confirmed in 1016 when he defeated Norway’s de facto ruler Earl Sweyn at the Battle of Nesjar to become Olaf II. He is credited with helping to establish Christianity in Norway, in part using English bishops. The first Bishop of Nidaros, the Mediaeval name for Trondheim, was an English monk named Grimketel.
Précis
In 1014, King Sweyn of Denmark died while attempting to conquer England, leaving the campaign to his son Cnut. Ethelred the Unready, emboldened, allied with Norwegian prince Olaf Haraldsson and attempted to recapture London; but when his fleet attempted to pass a bridge over the Thames, the Danes hurled missiles from above and drive his ships off. (56 / 60 words)
Part Two
Havhingsten fra Glendalough (‘The Sea Stallion from Glendalough’) entering Ramsgate harbour near the mouth of the River Thames, on its way back home to Roskilde in Denmark in August 2008 after visiting Dublin. Sea Stallion is a replica of a Viking warship built in Dublin in about 1042 (using oak from Glendalough in County Wicklow) which was discovered near Roskilde, Denmark, in 1962. Such ships were not always images of fear. Ethelred and his Franco-Viking backers across the Channel in Normandy were delighted to see Olaf’s fleet; Anglo-Vikings in northern and eastern England had been just as pleased to see the ships of King Sweyn, who had friendly ties to the English Church.
BUT King Olaf, and the Northmen’s fleet with him, rowed quite up under the bridge, laid their cables around the piles which supported it, and then rowed off with all the ships as hard as they could down the stream. The piles were thus shaken in the bottom, and were loosened under the bridge.
Now as the armed troops stood thick of men upon the bridge, and there were likewise many heaps of stones and other weapons upon it, and the piles under it being loosened and broken, the bridge gave way; and a great part of the men upon it fell into the river, and all the others fled, some into the castle, some into Southwark.* Thereafter Southwark was stormed and taken.
Now when the people in the castle saw that the river Thames was mastered, and that they could not hinder the passage of ships up into the country, they became afraid, surrendered the tower, and took Ethelred to be their king.*
Sturluson quoted a Scandinavian poet at this point, and translator Samuel Laing took a few liberties to recall a much later nursery rhyme:London Bridge is broken down,—
Gold is won, and bright renown.
Shields resounding,
War-horns sounding,
Hildur shouting in the din!
Arrows singing,
Mail-coats ringing—
Odin makes our Olaf win!‘Our Olaf’ however spent the winter of 1014-15 in Normandy with the Duke, Richard II, grandfather of William the Conqueror, and was baptised there at Rouen by the Archbishop, Richard’s brother Robert the Dane. The first Duke of Normandy and Count of Rouen had been a Viking raider named Rollo (r. 911-927).
Olaf helped Ethelred regain London, Canterbury and Lindsey, and for a time his ships patrolled England’s southern coast. But by the time Ethelred died on April 23rd, 1016, Olaf had sailed away first to Normandy and then to Norway to claim his kingdom, leaving England at the mercy of Cnut once again. Ethelred’s son Edward the Confessor eventually became King of England in 1042; Olaf’s half-brother Harald very nearly did, but was defeated by Harold II at Stamford Bridge near York in 1066.
Précis
Although Ethelred’s fleet could not pass the bridge occupied by the Danes, Olaf, who had added wooden coverings to his ships, was able to sail beneath it and dislodge the piles on which it stood. The bridge fell, taking the Danish army with it; and thanks to Olaf’s ingenuity Ethelred was able to liberate London. (55 / 60 words)
