About the Norðdæle

nebraskaenergyobserver

As far as I remember, we haven’t noted any anniversaries in history this week. That’s unfortunate but easily remedied. There are a couple of big ones. Last Monday was the 953d anniversary of that little scrap that the village of Battle was named after: The Battle of Hastings. Leaving all of us in the English speaking working world to talk about 1066 and all that. Actually, the fact that we speak English is itself a great victory of the common people over the elites. For centuries after the Conquest, the rulers of England spoke French.

But far less known is the battle almost fifty years to the day before Hastings. The battle of Assandun, between King Cnut and Edmund Ironside in Essex on 18 October 1016. Cnut’s victory here gave him the rule of what we might call the Danelaw, and Edmund’s death a few weeks later gave him the…

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