Yuletide needs a good story to tell at the fireside on a cold winters evening. Let me take you back to the north east coast of England in the early years of the 11th century. Make yourselves comfortable and I'll begin.
The Saxon English have been driven back by viking settlers. They came to conquer, to trade and finally to settle and farm. From what is now Norway and Denmark they came in their longboats. Jorvik (York) was their capital, at the centre of a thriving trading economy. The vikings of England's Danelaw sat at the junction of western viking commerce. It was to the Danish king that taxes were paid, not the Saxon English king in London.
The Vikings and their Scandinavian homelands have fascinated me since I was a boy, but Torfin is special. He is MY viking. I am one of hundreds alive today that are descended from him, but I get ahead of myself.
This is the land to which Torfin came towards the end of the viking era, to take his place amongst a patchwork of Saxon and Viking fiefdoms of Yorkshire. Torfin was a Norwegian viking. A powerful lord he took the land that included Malham Tarn, the highest fresh water lake in England. His seat of power was his great hall at Whitreburne. Living side by side with Earl Edwin, a powerful Saxon nobleman, they were surrounded by a mixed hierarchy of native Saxons and Vikings. These were real men. They lived. Their names ring out across the centuries to me. Arnebrand, Archil, Orm, Uflred, Gamelbar, Gospatric, Suartcol, and Torfin. Torfin's daughter would established a lineage that would endure, but through marriage and politics, not warfare. His story in England was ended hundreds of miles to the south in 1066, when William Duke of Normandy defeated Harold's English at Hastings. Saxon England was doomed, and with it the Danelaw.
The land our ancesters called home.
Twenty years later the great census, the doomsday book, picks up the story of the lords of the north. Against almost all of the fiefdoms, measured and taxes due, is written, taken from him and given to Roger of Pictou, and now lays waste. Witreburne is amongst them.
According to my story Torfin landless, left Yorkshire by boat, and returned to Norway. A refugee? Rich or now penniless? He may have been the first of my ancestors to lose a fortune, but he wouldn't be the last. He left behind one stubborn daughter who refused to leave the land of her birth. She vowed that her descendants would regain the great hall at Witreburne, and so they did. Astute dealings and romance with the new Norman masters ensured that the blood of Torfin would run through the veins of the men of Winterburn as the place was renamed. Over a thousand years we became English. We served as soldiers. We would stand up to the tyranny of King Henry the VIII in the 16th century (more of us heading for the coast I guess, or the block).
I love the fireside story of my ancesters, but right now I have a dinner to prepare. Seasons greetings to you all on the feast of St Stephen. To the English, enjoy the cold cuts and pickles of Boxing Day. For us it's roast haunch of venison. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy!
No comments:
Post a Comment