Everyone in England knows the date 1066, for in that year England changed forever. Most will connect 1066 with the Battle of Hastings but Hastings was the culmination of a series of major events that had taken place that year. When the saintly and childless King Edward died the king's council, the Witan, gathered to elect a new king. Finding no suitable member of the Royal Family, they decided to make Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, the new king. Of Danish Royal blood through his mother, he had in fact been effectively running the kingdom for several years. Harold faced a challenge to his new throne from the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada, who claimed to be Christendom's best warrior. Harald invaded the north of England with a fleet of 360 longships manned by men from all over the Viking world. Harold Godwinson marched 200 miles in six days and caught the Viking army off guard and killed Hardrada and most of his men. The English victory was such that only 24 longships were needed to get the Viking survivors home. Whilst celebrating the victory feast news was given to Harold that another challenger had landed, William the Bastard of Normandy. Harold gathered the remnants of his army and rapidly marched south to meet the new threat. Outside Hastings, with reinforcements still arriving, the English army was defeated, King Harold died and with him fell his household troops and the flower of the English nobility. What happened to England next?
In Woden's Wolf you see through the eyes of a dispossessed English small holder struggling to come to grips with the new complex world he finds himself in. For England at that time was very complex as the many peoples, languages, and customs that now lived in the land met, clashed, and mingled in the bubbling cauldron of history that was to produce the English nation and language we recognise today.
