Seven Feet of English Ground

The Viking era was previously thought to have ended on September 25, 1066 when the invading army of Harald Hardrada, blond, XXXL, saga-tastic King of Norway and claimant to the English throne was defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge (Gefeoht æt Stanfordbrycge) in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Undoubtedly a more fun battle narrative than Hastings — and not just because we won this one — it is often dismissed as little more than the amuse-bouche to events related in the Bayeux Tapestry.

Back in the winter of '83 I visited York and did a little side trip with my father to 'Battle Flats', the supposed site of this last great Viking denouement.

In truth nobody is entirely sure where it went down. The bridge itself, spanning the river Derwent was made of wood and no archaeological trace of it has been found. Detectorists have not uncovered any tell-tale clusters of weapons buried beside battered skeletons. But the designated location seemed appropriately bleak that morning.

Hardrada had sailed across the North Sea with a host of 7000 keen Scandinavians. They then performed the ‘RO!’ up the Ouse, capturing the city of York/Jorvik.

He was joined there by the English King’s disaffected younger brother Tostig Godwinson, who had been stripped of the Earldom of Northumbria and was aggressively chippy in the age-old manner of royal second sons.

Harold's response was to march his army up north in record time, catching the Norwegians by surprise. They covered 185 miles in just 4 days.

As the two hosts gathered either side of the river, a loan horseman is said to have ridden across the bridge and approached the Vikings for a bit of pre-violence diplomacy.

He offered Tostig his old titles back in return for changing sides. Tostig then asked what might be on the table for his mate Harald, and the rider famously responded...

“Seven feet of English ground, as he is taller than other men.”

Well, that was how Snorri Sturluson tells it. According to Henry of Huntingdon it was only six feet of English soil.

As the rider departed, Harald asked Tostig if he knew this fellow with a heap of attitude ‘That was my brother Harold’, Tostig replied.

The contest did not start especially well for the English. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that a giant Norwegian armed with a Dane-axe prevented the English from crossing the bridge. (I think we can all picture this particular bloke, but anyway, we now have AI...)

He is said to have systematically cut down forty Englishmen, but one was eventually cunning enough to float himself under the bridge in a barrel which enabled him to skewer the Norwegian human barrier with his spear.

The Vikings then did their low block (parking the bus?) shield wall thing and the battle raged for several hours, but after Hardrada took an arrow in the neck and Tostig was also cut down, it seemed like game over.

Yet ‘extra time’ ensued. 

Hardrada’s prospective son-in-law, Eystein Orre, back guarding the ships, launched a counter-attack which Norwegian tradition refers to as ‘Orre’s Storm’. They briefly slowed the English advance but eventually succumbed after Orre himself was slain.