Yeenoghu
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kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1432
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
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kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1432
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Yeenoghu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy_of_manners
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scouring_of_the_Shire
"
Another element in the chapter is the appearance of Tolkien's own feelings about England. Shippey writes that there is a "streak of 'wish-fulfilment'" in the account, and that Tolkien would have liked "to hear the horns of Rohan blow, and watch the Black Breath[c] of inertia dissolve"[26] from England. More specifically, Shippey applies this idea to "The Scouring of the Shire", noting that Merry returns from Rohan with a horn, brought by Eorl the Young, founder of Rohan, from the dragon-hoard of Scatha the Worm from the North. The horn, he explains, is "a magic one, though only modestly so":[26] blowing it brings joy to his friends in arms, fear to his enemies, and in the chapter, it awakens the "revolution against sloth and shabbiness and Saruman-Sharkey"[26] and quickly gets the Shire purified. Shippey suggests that Tolkien wished to do the same, and notes that with his novels he at least succeeded in bringing joy.[26] Tolkien wrote in a letter that "the man-made ... is ultimately daunting and insupportable", and that "If a Ragnarök would burn all the slums and gas-works, and shabby garages, and long arc-lit suburbs, it [could] for me burn all the works of art – and I'd go back to trees."[T 6] Caitlin Vaughn Carlos writes that Sam Gamgee's exclamation "This is worse than Mordor! ... It comes home to you, they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was ruined"[T 1] encapsulates the impulse to nostalgia, since Sam is longing for the remembered home, not the one which now exists.[27]
"
https://zhaaburi.wordpress.com/hurrian- ... ck-speech/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Speech
"
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the word durbatulûk, "to rule them all", embodied Tolkien's view that sound and meaning went together, commenting that[13]
certainly, the harsh vowels and jagged consonants and consonant clusters lend themselves to rough and rasping pronunciation, a fitting evocation of the voices of Orcs.[13]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_and ... ddle-earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense_verse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonaesthetics
"
The linguist Allan Turner[7] writes that "the sound pattern of a language was the source of a special aesthetic pleasure" for Tolkien.[8] In his essay about constructing languages, "A Secret Vice", Tolkien wrote that
The communication factor has been very powerful in directing the development of language; but the more individual and personal factor—pleasure in articulate sound, and in the symbolic use of it, independent of communication though constantly in fact entangled with it – must not be forgotten for a moment."[T 1]
Tolkien explained in the essay that the person inventing a language must address the "fitting of notion to oral symbol", and that the pleasure in such invention derives mainly from the "contemplation of the relation between sound and notion". He went so far as to state that he was "personally more interested perhaps in word-form in itself, and in word-form in relation to meaning (so-called phonetic fitness) than in any other department".[T 2]
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes that in The Fellowship of the Ring, the poem A Elbereth Gilthoniel, written in Sindarin, one of Tolkien's invented Elvish languages, is presented directly without translation:[6][9]
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, sí nef aearon![T 3]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secret_Vice
"
Shippey asks rhetorically what any reader could be expected to make of that. He answers his own question by stating that Tolkien had a private theory of sound and language. This was that the sound of words was directly connected to their meaning, and that certain sounds were inherently beautiful. He intentionally chose words and names in his constructed Middle-earth languages to create feelings such as of beauty, longing, and strangeness. Shippey gives as one example Tolkien's statement that he had used such names as Bree, Archet, Combe, and Chetwood for the small area, outside the Shire, where Hobbits and Men lived together. Tolkien selected them for their non-English elements so that they would sound "queer", with "a style that we should perhaps vaguely feel to be 'Celtic'".[6]
Shippey calls this "Tolkien's major linguistic heresy". It would work, he explains, if people could recognise different styles in language, somehow sense the depth of history in words, get some degree of meaning just from the sounds of words, and even judge some sound combinations beautiful. Tolkien, he writes, believed that "untranslated elvish would do a job that English could not".[6] Shippey notes, too, that Tolkien is recorded as saying that "cellar door" sounded more beautiful than the word "beautiful";[6] the phrase had however been admired by others from at least 1903.[10]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name
"
Tolkien allows his characters to listen and appreciate "in highly Keatsian style",[20] enjoying the sound of language, as when the Hobbit Frodo Baggins, recently recovered from his near-fatal wound with the Nazgûl's Morgul-knife, sits dreamily in the safe Elvish haven of Rivendell:[20]
At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. Swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.[T 3]
When the Hobbits meet Gildor and his Elves while walking through the Shire, they get the feeling, as Turner comments, that even though they do not speak Elvish, they "subliminally understand something of the meaning".[8] In The Two Towers, while a party of the Fellowship of the Ring is crossing the grassy plains of Rohan, the immortal Elf Legolas hears Aragorn singing a song in a language he has never heard, and comments "That, I guess, is the language of the Rohirrim ... for it is like to this land itself, rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains. But I cannot guess what it means, save that it is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men".[6] When Gandalf declaims the Rhyme of the Rings in the Black Speech of the evil land of Mordor at the Council of Elrond, his voice becomes "menacing, powerful, harsh as stone" and the Elves cover their ears.[6] When the Dwarf Gimli sings of the Dwarf-King Durin, the gardener Hobbit Sam Gamgee says "I like that! I should like to learn it. In Moria, in Khazad-Dum!"[6] Shippey remarks that Sam's response to the sound of language is "obviously ... a model one".[6]
"
"
The linguist Joanna Podhorodecka examines the lámatyáve, a Quenya term for "phonetic fitness", of Tolkien's constructed languages. She analyses them in terms of Ivan Fonágy's theory of symbolic vocal gestures that convey emotions. She notes that Tolkien's inspiration was "primarily linguistic"; and that he had invented the stories "to provide a world for the languages", which in turn were "agreeable to [his] personal aesthetic".[21] She compares two samples of Elvish (one Sindarin, one Quenya) and one of Black Speech, tabulating the proportions of vowels and consonants. The Black Speech is 63% consonants, compared to the Elvish samples' 52% and 55%. Among other features, the sound /I:/ (like the "i" in "machine") is much rarer in Black Speech than in Elvish, while the sound /u/ (like the "u" in "brute") is much more common. She comments that in aggressive speech, consonants become longer and vowels shorter, so Black Speech sounds harsher. Further, Black Speech contains far more voiced plosives (/b, d, g/) than Elvish, making the sound of the language more violent. Podhorodecka concludes that Tolkien's constructed languages were certainly individual to him, but that their "linguistic patterns resulted from his keen sense of phonetic metaphor", so that the languages subtly contribute to the "aesthetic and axiological aspects of his mythology".[21] She notes, too, that Tolkien commented that in his 'Elven-latin' language Quenya, he chose to include "two other (main) ingredients that happen to give me 'phonaesthetic' pleasure: Finnish and Greek"; and that he gave Sindarin "a linguistic character very like (though not identical with) British-Welsh: because that character is one I find, in some linguistic moods, very attractive; and because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers".[21][T 4] Christopher Robinson concurs that Tolkien took extreme care to ensure phonetic fitness in his languages, arguing that Tolkien's detailed philological analysis and knowledge of linguistics enabled him to achieve a highly polished result.[22]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Etymologies_(Tolkien)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scouring_of_the_Shire
"
Another element in the chapter is the appearance of Tolkien's own feelings about England. Shippey writes that there is a "streak of 'wish-fulfilment'" in the account, and that Tolkien would have liked "to hear the horns of Rohan blow, and watch the Black Breath[c] of inertia dissolve"[26] from England. More specifically, Shippey applies this idea to "The Scouring of the Shire", noting that Merry returns from Rohan with a horn, brought by Eorl the Young, founder of Rohan, from the dragon-hoard of Scatha the Worm from the North. The horn, he explains, is "a magic one, though only modestly so":[26] blowing it brings joy to his friends in arms, fear to his enemies, and in the chapter, it awakens the "revolution against sloth and shabbiness and Saruman-Sharkey"[26] and quickly gets the Shire purified. Shippey suggests that Tolkien wished to do the same, and notes that with his novels he at least succeeded in bringing joy.[26] Tolkien wrote in a letter that "the man-made ... is ultimately daunting and insupportable", and that "If a Ragnarök would burn all the slums and gas-works, and shabby garages, and long arc-lit suburbs, it [could] for me burn all the works of art – and I'd go back to trees."[T 6] Caitlin Vaughn Carlos writes that Sam Gamgee's exclamation "This is worse than Mordor! ... It comes home to you, they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was ruined"[T 1] encapsulates the impulse to nostalgia, since Sam is longing for the remembered home, not the one which now exists.[27]
"
https://zhaaburi.wordpress.com/hurrian- ... ck-speech/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Speech
"
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the word durbatulûk, "to rule them all", embodied Tolkien's view that sound and meaning went together, commenting that[13]
certainly, the harsh vowels and jagged consonants and consonant clusters lend themselves to rough and rasping pronunciation, a fitting evocation of the voices of Orcs.[13]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_and ... ddle-earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense_verse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonaesthetics
"
The linguist Allan Turner[7] writes that "the sound pattern of a language was the source of a special aesthetic pleasure" for Tolkien.[8] In his essay about constructing languages, "A Secret Vice", Tolkien wrote that
The communication factor has been very powerful in directing the development of language; but the more individual and personal factor—pleasure in articulate sound, and in the symbolic use of it, independent of communication though constantly in fact entangled with it – must not be forgotten for a moment."[T 1]
Tolkien explained in the essay that the person inventing a language must address the "fitting of notion to oral symbol", and that the pleasure in such invention derives mainly from the "contemplation of the relation between sound and notion". He went so far as to state that he was "personally more interested perhaps in word-form in itself, and in word-form in relation to meaning (so-called phonetic fitness) than in any other department".[T 2]
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes that in The Fellowship of the Ring, the poem A Elbereth Gilthoniel, written in Sindarin, one of Tolkien's invented Elvish languages, is presented directly without translation:[6][9]
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, sí nef aearon![T 3]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secret_Vice
"
Shippey asks rhetorically what any reader could be expected to make of that. He answers his own question by stating that Tolkien had a private theory of sound and language. This was that the sound of words was directly connected to their meaning, and that certain sounds were inherently beautiful. He intentionally chose words and names in his constructed Middle-earth languages to create feelings such as of beauty, longing, and strangeness. Shippey gives as one example Tolkien's statement that he had used such names as Bree, Archet, Combe, and Chetwood for the small area, outside the Shire, where Hobbits and Men lived together. Tolkien selected them for their non-English elements so that they would sound "queer", with "a style that we should perhaps vaguely feel to be 'Celtic'".[6]
Shippey calls this "Tolkien's major linguistic heresy". It would work, he explains, if people could recognise different styles in language, somehow sense the depth of history in words, get some degree of meaning just from the sounds of words, and even judge some sound combinations beautiful. Tolkien, he writes, believed that "untranslated elvish would do a job that English could not".[6] Shippey notes, too, that Tolkien is recorded as saying that "cellar door" sounded more beautiful than the word "beautiful";[6] the phrase had however been admired by others from at least 1903.[10]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name
"
Tolkien allows his characters to listen and appreciate "in highly Keatsian style",[20] enjoying the sound of language, as when the Hobbit Frodo Baggins, recently recovered from his near-fatal wound with the Nazgûl's Morgul-knife, sits dreamily in the safe Elvish haven of Rivendell:[20]
At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. Swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.[T 3]
When the Hobbits meet Gildor and his Elves while walking through the Shire, they get the feeling, as Turner comments, that even though they do not speak Elvish, they "subliminally understand something of the meaning".[8] In The Two Towers, while a party of the Fellowship of the Ring is crossing the grassy plains of Rohan, the immortal Elf Legolas hears Aragorn singing a song in a language he has never heard, and comments "That, I guess, is the language of the Rohirrim ... for it is like to this land itself, rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains. But I cannot guess what it means, save that it is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men".[6] When Gandalf declaims the Rhyme of the Rings in the Black Speech of the evil land of Mordor at the Council of Elrond, his voice becomes "menacing, powerful, harsh as stone" and the Elves cover their ears.[6] When the Dwarf Gimli sings of the Dwarf-King Durin, the gardener Hobbit Sam Gamgee says "I like that! I should like to learn it. In Moria, in Khazad-Dum!"[6] Shippey remarks that Sam's response to the sound of language is "obviously ... a model one".[6]
"
"
The linguist Joanna Podhorodecka examines the lámatyáve, a Quenya term for "phonetic fitness", of Tolkien's constructed languages. She analyses them in terms of Ivan Fonágy's theory of symbolic vocal gestures that convey emotions. She notes that Tolkien's inspiration was "primarily linguistic"; and that he had invented the stories "to provide a world for the languages", which in turn were "agreeable to [his] personal aesthetic".[21] She compares two samples of Elvish (one Sindarin, one Quenya) and one of Black Speech, tabulating the proportions of vowels and consonants. The Black Speech is 63% consonants, compared to the Elvish samples' 52% and 55%. Among other features, the sound /I:/ (like the "i" in "machine") is much rarer in Black Speech than in Elvish, while the sound /u/ (like the "u" in "brute") is much more common. She comments that in aggressive speech, consonants become longer and vowels shorter, so Black Speech sounds harsher. Further, Black Speech contains far more voiced plosives (/b, d, g/) than Elvish, making the sound of the language more violent. Podhorodecka concludes that Tolkien's constructed languages were certainly individual to him, but that their "linguistic patterns resulted from his keen sense of phonetic metaphor", so that the languages subtly contribute to the "aesthetic and axiological aspects of his mythology".[21] She notes, too, that Tolkien commented that in his 'Elven-latin' language Quenya, he chose to include "two other (main) ingredients that happen to give me 'phonaesthetic' pleasure: Finnish and Greek"; and that he gave Sindarin "a linguistic character very like (though not identical with) British-Welsh: because that character is one I find, in some linguistic moods, very attractive; and because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers".[21][T 4] Christopher Robinson concurs that Tolkien took extreme care to ensure phonetic fitness in his languages, arguing that Tolkien's detailed philological analysis and knowledge of linguistics enabled him to achieve a highly polished result.[22]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Etymologies_(Tolkien)
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kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1432
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Yeenoghu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulfings
Added in 4 minutes 56 seconds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuffingas
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The author Sam Newton has claimed that the Old English epic poem Beowulf may have been composed during the reign of Ælfwald. Before the end of his rule, East Anglia contained a group of ecclesiastical centres, all of which had strong associations with the Wuffingas dynasty. These included the sees at Dommoc and Helmham, Botwulf of Thorney's monastery at Icanho, the religious foundations at Ely and Dereham founded by daughters of Anna, the minster at Blythburgh and the monastery founded by Sigeberht prior to his abdication and subsequent death in battle.[12]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealhtheow
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Wealhtheow is of the Wulfing clan,[1] Queen of the Danes. She is married to Hrothgar (Hrōðgār), the Danish king and is the mother of sons, Hreðric and Hroðmund, and a daughter Freawaru.
In her marriage to Hrothgar she is described as friðusibb folca[2] (l. 2017), 'the kindred pledge of peace between peoples', signifying interdynastic allegiance between Wulfing and Scylding achieved with her marriage to Hrothgar. She is both 'Lady of the Helmings' (l. 620) (by descent, of the Wulfing clan of Helm) and 'Lady of the Scyldings' (l. 1168), by marriage and maternity.
Two northern sources associate the wife of Hrothgar with England. The Skjöldunga saga, in Arngrímur Jónsson's abstract, chapter 3, tells that Hrothgar (Roas) married the daughter of an English king. The Hrolfs saga kraka, chapter 5, tells that Hrothgar (Hróarr) married Ögn who was the daughter of a king of Northumbria (Norðhymbraland) called Norðri.
The argument was advanced in 1897 that the Wulfing name may have been synonymous with the East Anglian Wuffing dynasty, and the family name Helmingas with the place-names 'Helmingham' in Norfolk and Suffolk, both of which lie in areas of 5th–6th century migrant occupation.[3] Although the theory was not favoured by some,[4] it has more recently resurfaced in a discussion of the identity of Hroðmund.[5]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scylding
Added in 42 minutes 34 seconds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuffa_of_East_Anglia
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By tradition Wuffa was named as the son of Wehha and the father of Tytila, but it is not known with any certainty that Wuffa was an actual historical figure. The name Wuffa was the eponym for the Wuffingas dynasty, the ruling royal family of the East Angles until 749.
Bede regarded Wuffa as the first king of the East Angles, but the author of the Historia Brittonum, writing a century later, named Wehha as the first ruler.
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The kingdom of the East Angles was an independent and long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom that was established after migrants arrived in southeast Suffolk from the area now known as Jutland. Rainbird Clarke identified Wehha as one of the leaders of the new arrivals: the East Angles are tentatively identified with the Geats of the Old English poem Beowulf.[1] Historians have used sources such as the Anglian collection too as an aid in calculating a date for the establishment of the kingdom. Collingwood and Myers note the use of literacy sources and archaeological finds as evidence of how the region was settled during and after the 5th century, when various disparate groups arrived in Norfolk and Suffolk from different parts of the coast and the rivers of the Fens.[2]
The kingdom of the East Angles was bordered to the north and east by the North Sea, to the south by mainly impenetrable forests and by the Fens marshes on its western border. The main land route from East Anglia would at that time have been a corridor, along which ran the prehistoric Icknield Way.[3] The Devil's Dyke (near modern Newmarket) may have at one time formed part of the kingdom's western boundary, but its construction cannot be dated accurately enough to establish it as of Anglo-Saxon origin.[4]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s ... ridgeshire
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The Dyke is thought most likely to be Anglo-Saxon, by analogy to the similar Fleam Dyke for which radiocarbon dating was performed in the 1990s, with Fleam Dyke's earliest construction phase dated within the uncertainty range of AD 330 – 510.[5] The site is a Scheduled Monument.[6]
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The earthwork has been described by various different commentators since Anglo-Saxon times. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may refer to the Devil's Dyke in its annal for 905, when Edward the Elder is recorded as fighting and defeating the Danes of East Anglia, after first laying waste to the countryside: 'and he laid waste their land between the Dyke and the Ouse as far northward as the Fens'—' and oferhergade call hera land betwuh dicun and Wusan. call oþ da fennas norð' .[7] Abbo of Fleury, writing in the late 10th century, described East Anglia as "fortified in the front with a bank or rampier like unto a huge wall, and with a trench or ditch below in the ground".[8] The mediaeval Flores Historiarum, referred to "...duo fossata sancti Eadmundi..." – the two fortifications of St Edmund – when describing the battle between Edward and his adversaries.[9]
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Devil's Dyke is the largest of several earthworks in south Cambridgeshire that were either boundary markers or designed to control movement along the ancient trackways of Street Way (Ashwell Street) and Icknield Way. When it was created, it completely blocked a narrow land corridor between the southern edge of a region of water-logged marsh (now known as The Fens) in the north-west and dense woodlands in the south, so making circumvention difficult and forming an effective defensive barrier for the lands to the east. The dyke may have served as a way of controlling trade and movement in and out of the area. Findings such as the small quantity of silt in the ditch fills suggest that the dyke fell into disuse soon after it was built.
The other Cambridgeshire dykes include Fleam Dyke, Brent Ditch and Bran Ditch. In Suffolk, to the north west of Bury St Edmunds, a fifth earthwork, Black Ditches, Cavenham, guards the Icknield Way.
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At Mutlow Hill the dyke runs beside a Bronze Age barrow dated to 2000 BC, which contained eight urns with cremated human remains, and which was reused in the Roman period as a shrine. The finding of a fourth-century Roman coin under the dyke established the dyke's post-Roman construction date. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Anglo-Saxon weapons and burials were found. An excavation in 1991, on occasion of widening the A11 road, established by radiocarbon dating that it had been built in several phases, the first between AD 330 and 510, and the last between AD 450 and 620. It is believed most likely to have been built by early Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century AD as a defence against Romano-British attempts to recover their territory.[3]
In later Anglo-Saxon times, the northern part of Fleam Dyke was also the boundary between Flendish and Staine Hundreds (county subdivisions).[3] In this period, when villages grew and parish boundaries were established, parishes in this part of the county were long and narrow stretching from the fens to the presumed Icknield Way (now the A11) as this gave access to wood from the uplands, thatching from the fens and fertile local soil. Thus, what is now Stow-cum-Quy (with its potentially separate section of Fleam Dyke) was originally the northern part of the two Wilbraham villages (Great Wilbraham and Little Wilbraham) situated near the main Fleam Dyke.[4] The main part of Fleam Dyke today still constitutes a parish boundary.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbo_of_Fleury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Heathen_Army
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The Great Heathen Army,[a] also known as the Viking Great Army,[1] was a coalition of Scandinavian warriors who invaded England in AD 865. Since the late 8th century, the Vikings had been engaging in raids on centres of wealth, such as monasteries. The Great Heathen Army was much larger and aimed to conquer and occupy the four kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.
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Though they may have traveled from the area of Scandinavia, their blood is not Scandinavian or the same as the general Scandinavian population today.
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The name Great Heathen Army is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The force was led by three of the five sons of the semi-legendary Ragnar Lodbrok, including Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless and Ubba.[c] The campaign of invasion and conquest against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms lasted 14 years. Surviving sources give no firm indication of its numbers, but it was described as amongst the largest forces of its kind.
The invaders initially landed in East Anglia, where King Edmund provided them with horses for their campaign in return for peace. They spent the winter of 865–866 at Thetford, before marching north to capture York in November 866. York had been founded as the Roman legionary fortress of Eboracum and revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic. During 867, the army marched deep into Mercia and wintered in Nottingham. The Mercians agreed to terms with the Viking army, which moved back to York for the winter of 868–869. In 869, the Great Army returned to East Anglia, conquering it and killing its king. The army moved to winter quarters in Thetford.
In 871, the Vikings moved on to Wessex, where Alfred the Great paid them to leave. The army then marched to London to overwinter in 871–872. The following campaigning season the army first moved to York, where it gathered reinforcements. This force campaigned in northeastern Mercia, after which it spent the winter at Torksey, on the Trent close to the Humber.[1] The following campaigning season it seems to have subdued much of Mercia. Burgred, the king of Mercia, fled overseas and Ceolwulf, described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as "a foolish king's thegn" was imposed in his place. The army spent the following winter at Repton on the middle Trent, after which the army seems to have divided. One group seems to have returned to Northumbria, where they settled in the area, while another group seems to have turned to invade Wessex.[5]
By this time, only the kingdom of Wessex had not been conquered. In May 878 Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington, and a treaty was agreed whereby the Vikings were able to remain in control of much of northern and eastern England, a region later known as the Danelaw, which was formalised in the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum.[6]
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not mention the reason for this invasion, perhaps because Viking raids were fairly common during that period. The Tale of Ragnar's Sons,[7] on the other hand, mentions that the invasion of England by the Great Heathen Army was aimed at avenging the death of Ragnar Lodbrok, a legendary Viking ruler of Sweden and Denmark.[d] In the Viking saga, Ragnar is said to have conducted a raid on Northumbria during the reign of King Ælla. The Vikings were defeated and Ragnar was captured by the Northumbrians. Ælla then had Ragnar executed by throwing him into a pit of venomous snakes. When the sons of Ragnar received news of their father's death, they decided to avenge him.[8][9]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubba
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Ubba (Old Norse: Ubbi; died 878) was a 9th-century Viking and one of the commanders of the Great Heathen Army that invaded Anglo-Saxon England in the 860s.[note 1] The Great Army appears to have been a coalition of warbands drawn from Scandinavia, Ireland, the Irish Sea region and Continental Europe. There is reason to suspect that a proportion of the Viking forces specifically originated in Frisia, where some Viking commanders are known to have held fiefdoms on behalf of the Franks. Some sources describe Ubba as dux of the Frisians, which could be evidence that he also associated with a Frisian benefice.
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Whilst the Old English Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls the Viking army micel here, the Latin Historia de sancto Cuthberto instead gives Scaldingi,[23] a term of uncertain meaning that is employed three times in reference to the leadership of the Viking forces. One possibility is that the word means "people from the River Scheldt".[24] This could indicate that Ubba was from Walcheren, an island in the mouth of the Scheldt.[25] Walcheren is known to have been occupied by Danish Vikings over two decades before. For example, the Annales Bertiniani reports that Lothair I, King of Middle Francia (died 855) granted the island to a Viking named Herioldus in 841.[26] Another possibility is that this term simply refers to Scyldings, an ancient lineage from which Danish monarchs of the time claimed descent.
According to the same source and the 9th-century Annales Fuldenses, another Viking named Roricus was granted a large part of Frisia as a benefice or fief from Lothair in 850.[27] As men who held military and judicial authority on behalf of the Franks, Herioldus and Roricus can also be regarded as Frisian duces. Although it is uncertain whether Ubba was a native Frisian or a Scandinavian expatriate, if he was indeed involved with a Frisian benefice his forces would have probably been partly composed of Frisians. If his troops were drawn from the Scandinavian settlement started by Herioldus over two decades before, many of Ubba's men might well have been born in Frisia.[28] In fact, the length of Scandinavian occupation suggests that some of the Vikings from Frisia would have been native Franks and Frisians. The considerable time that members of the Great Army appear to have spent in Ireland and on the Continent suggests that these men were well accustomed to Christian society, which in turn may partly explain their successes in Anglo-Saxon England.
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Ubba is associated with the martyrdom of Æbbe, an alleged abbess of Coldingham said to have been slain by Vikings in 870.[129] The historicity of this woman is nevertheless uncertain.[130] The earliest accounts of the alleged events at Coldingham date to the 13th century. They include Chronica majora,[131] and both the Wendover[132] and Paris versions of Flores historiarum.[133] According to these sources, Æbbe compelled the nuns of Coldingham to disfigure themselves to preserve their virginity from an incoming horde of Vikings. Leading by example, Æbbe is said to have cut off her nose and upper lip with a razor. When the Viking arrived the following morning, the sight of the mutilated and bloody women repelled the raiders. Nevertheless, Ivar and Ubba are stated to have ordered the razing of the monastery, burning to death Æbbe and her faithful nuns.[134]
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The accounts of Æbbe could be an example of such a constructed tale. The story appears be ultimately derived from the account of Coldingham preserved by the eighth-century Historia ecclesiastica.[160] According to this source, Æthelthryth (died 679), wife of Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria (died 685), entered the monastery under the tutelage of an abbess named Æbbe (died 683?). At some point after Æthelthryth left Coldingham to found a monastery at Ely, Historia ecclesiastica reports that the monastery of Coldingham burned to the ground.[161] This account of Coldingham's burning was later incorporated into Liber Eliensis, a 12th-century chronicle covering the history of Æthelthryth's establishment at Ely.[162] The account of the burning given by Historia ecclesiastica may well be the inspiration behind the tale of facial mutilation and fiery martyrdom first associated with Coldingham by the Wendover version of Flores historiarum.[148][note 19] To 12th-century ecclesiasts, invented tales of 9th-century violence—particularly violence inflicted by Ivar and Ubba—may have been intended to validate the refoundation of certain religious communities.[164][note 20]
The earliest Anglo-Saxon virgin-martyr is Osyth.[174] A now-lost 12th-century vita of this woman associated Ivar and Ubba with her seventh-century martyrdom. According to this source, Ivar and Ubba commanded the pirates who beheaded her after she refused to worship their pagan idols.[175] This work may have been the inspiration behind the Anglo-Norman hagiography Vie seinte Osith,[176] a composition that also attributes Osyth's killing to Ivar and Ubba and their followers.[177][note 21]
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A depiction of Ragnar Lodbrok (Lothbrok) and his sons, Ivar and Ubba, worshipping pagan idols, as it appears on folio 39r of British Library Harley 2278.[307] This illustration depicts the pagan Danes as elaborately dressed Muslim Saracens, wearing tall turban-like headdresses and forked beards. Other illustrations in the manuscript, depicting Ivar and Ubba, show Vikings armed with curved swords.[308][note 37]
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... xcerpt.jpg
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Although Ubba and Ivar are associated with each other by Passio sancti Eadmundi, the men are not stated to be related in any way.[310] The earliest source claiming kinship between the two is the Annals of St Neots,[311] an 11th- or 12th-century account stating that they were brothers of three daughters of Lodbrok (Lodebrochus).[312] This source further states that these three sisters wove a magical banner named Reafan that was captured at the Arx Cynuit conflict.[313] Although certain versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also note the capture of a raven banner, named Hræfn ("Raven"), they do not mention any magical attributes, or refer to Lodbrok and his progeny.[314][note 38]
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The name Rafan has its roots in Arabic, deriving from the word "rafā" which means "to elevate" or "to raise."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_banner
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Whilst Scandinavian sources—such as the 13th-century Ragnars saga loðbrókar—tend to locate the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok in a Northumbrian context, English sources tend to place them in an East Anglian setting.[369] The earliest source to specifically associate the legend with East Anglia is Liber de infantia sancti Eadmundi,[370] a 12th-century account depicting the Viking invasion of East Anglia in the context of a dynastic dispute.[371] According to this source, Lodbrok (Lodebrok) was extremely envious of Edmund's fame. As such, it is Lodbrok's taunts that provoke his sons, Ivar, Ubba and Björn (Bern), to slay Edmund and destroy his kingdom.[372][note 43] Although this text is heavily dependent upon Passio sancti Eadmundi for its depiction of Edmund's death, it appears to be the first source to meld the martyrdom with the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok.[371][note 44]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Scandinavian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A4llinge_statuette
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The statuette is made of bronze and has been dated to the late Viking Age, around the year 1000.[2] It is 6.9 centimetres (2.7 in) high and weighs 141.3 grams (4.98 oz).[3] Based on the design, and how it differs from contemporary artworks from continental Europe, it is assumed to have been made by a Scandinavian sculptor.[2] The figure sits cross-legged and clasps his beard with his right hand while his left hand rests on his knee, with a part of the left arm missing. He wears a bracelet on each wrist and a conical helmet or pointed cap on his head.[4] The beard is pointed and long and is accompanied by a large, upturned moustache. The figure is ithyphallic, which means he is depicted with an erect phallus. The back of his shoulders and his buttocks are decorated with spiral patterns.[5]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin_from_Lejre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helg%C3%B6_Buddha
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The Helgö Buddha is a small Buddha figure of the 6th century Gupta Empire period,[1] found during excavations of a trading post that was active between approximately the 3rd century and the 8th century, that is, between the Migration Period and the Viking Age, on Helgö.[2][3]
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Other unusual finds have been found in the surrounding area that are otherwise rarely found in Swedish finds from the Early Iron Age, including an Irish crook and Irish book bindings, a Coptic wine bucket, Roman gold coins, a rare Frisian sceatta coin, and East Baltic jewelry.[6] However, the Buddha figure is considered the most remarkable find as it is unique in the Nordic Iron Age context.[7]
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It is North Indian, [8] but the exact location of its manufacture is uncertain, perhaps in the Kashmir Valley[5] or the Swat Valley in present-day Pakistan.[2]
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https://news.artnet.com/art-world/first ... 1997?amp=1
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que acceperunt spolia mon minima. In quo etiam
acceperunt illud vexillum, quod Reafan nominant. Dicunt
enim quod tres sorores Hinguari et. Hubbae, filiae videlicet
Lodebrochi, illud vexillum texuerunt, et totum faraverunt
5 lud uno meridiano tempore. |Dicunt etiam, quod in omnz
bello ubi braecederet. idem signum, si victoriam adefturi
essent, appareret in medio.szgni quas: corvus vivens volitans :
sin vero vincendi im futuro fuissent, Denderet directe. niil
movens. Et hoc saepe probatum est.
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which they received the least spoils. In which they also received that standard, which they call Reafan. They say that the three sisters Hinguari and Hubba, daughters of Lodebroch, wove that standard, and made it all in 5 days at one noon. They also say that in every war where they were to fight, the same sign, if they were to win, would appear in the middle of the sign: a living raven flying: if they were to win in the future, it would be given directly. nothing moving. And this has often been proven.
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Added in 28 minutes 51 seconds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortain
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According to the first branch (enfances) of Le Chevalerie Ogier, Ogier was still unknighted and sent as hostage to King Charlemagne. Thus when the French began to fight Saracens invading Rome, the unarmed Ogier only spectated. Eventually however he entered the fray, wresting the arms of the standard-bearer Alori who fled in retreat.[12][13] His deeds were rewarded by knighthood, and Charlemagne girt him with his own sword.[14][15]
In the continued conflict, the Saracen Karaheut of India[c] who owned Cortain challenged Ogier to duel. Karaheut's weapon, "the sword Brumadant the Savage"[22][d] was remade more than twenty times by the swordsmith Escurable; when it was tested on a block of marble it broke about a palm's length, and had to be reforged shorter-bladed; hence it was [re]named Corte or Cortain,[29] meaning "Short".[6][7] This became the weapon of a chivalric-minded Karaheut,[30] who gave his destrier and arms (including Cortain) to Ogier so he could now fight the new opponent, Brunamont, in single combat.[e][f][35][36][37]
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The legend that Ogier fought valiantly with some Saracens in his youth is the chief material of the first branch (about 3,000 lines) of Raimbert's Chevalerie Ogier.[27] This is also recounted in Enfances Ogier (c. 1270), a rhymed poem of 9,229 lines by Adenet le Roi. The story of Ogier's youth develops with close similarity in these two works starting at the beginning, but they diverge at a certain point when Raimbert's version begins to be more economical with the details.[28]
In the 14th-century and subsequent versions of the romance, Ogier travels to the Avalon ruled by King Arthur and eventually becomes paramour of Morgan le Fay (the earliest known mention of her as his lover is in Brun de la Montaigne[29]). This is how the story culminates in Roman d'Ogier, a reworking in Alexandrins written in the 14th century, as well as its prose redaction retitled Ogier le Danois (Ogyer le Danois) printed in a number of editions from the late 15th century onwards.[30] The Alexandrines version may contain some vestiges of the lost 12th-century Chevalerie Ogier.[1] It is also possible[31] that Ogier the Dane has first appeared in the Arthurian context as the Saxon prince Oriolz[j] the Dane (de Danemarche), sometimes known as the Red Knight, in the 13th-century Vulgate Merlin and its English adaptation Arthour and Merlin.
There are also several texts that might be classed as "histories" which refer to Ogier. Girart d'Amiens' Charlemagne contains a variant of Ogier's enfances.[32][33] Philippe Mouskes's Chronique rimée (c. 1243) writes on Ogier's death.[34] Jean d'Outremeuse's Ly Myreur des Histors writes of Ogier's combat with the capalus (chapalu), which is a giant cat monster known from the Arthurian cycle.[35]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Knight
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In the Livre d'Artus, the Red Knight is a heathen prince named Oriols (Oriolz), son of Saxon king Aminaduc (a nephew of Hengist) and the unnamed Queen of Denmark (Danemarche). He dwells with his mother and others (including a trio of cannibal giants) in the cursed castle (later known as the Castle of Maidens) where they work to conquer Logres, until they are overthrown by Gawain and Sagramore and flee. He also appears in the Vulgate Merlin (and in its English adaptation Of Arthour and of Merlin) under variants of this name (Oriel, Oriens, Oriol, Oriolt, etc.), but not as the Red Knight. It is possible that he is related to the legend of Ogier the Dane.[9]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Maidens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagramore
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In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, his father is renamed as Nabur the Unruly (Nabur le Desreé / li Derr[e]és[15]), here a duke of an unidentfied foreign land. In the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, the infant Sagremor becomes foster-brother to the rescued and also newborn Mordred (he also figures as a brother of Mordred, named Segures, in Renaud de Beaujeu's version of the story of Le Bel Inconnu[13]).[16]
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After these initial trials, Gareth must face the Red Knight of the Red Launds, whose real identity is Sir Ironside. Ironside has the strength of seven men and has trapped the princess of Lyonesse in a tower from which Gareth must save her. Though he had demonstrated a cruel and sadistic nature, Ironside is brought to Arthur's court and even made a Knight of the Round Table.
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In Chrétien's story Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, Esclados the Red (Old French: li Ros) is the guardian of an otherworldly fountain in the enchanted forest of Brocéliande. He appears as spouse of the lady Laudine (usually known as "the Lady of the Fountain") prior to Sir Yvain. He was slain by Yvain for attacking the latter's cousin, Sir Calogrenant, in defence of the magic fountain (or well, or spring).
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Mark Twain characterised Sagramor le Desirous (first name Clarence), or 'Saggie', as an angry, backwards knight in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, who challenges the Yankee to a duel to the death and is defeated by the Yankee's modern weaponry despite the supposed magical "veil of invisibility" protection by Merlin; his armour, later displayed in a museum featuring a gunshot hole inflicted by the Yankee, serves as a setpiece to the start of the story. His figure arguably symbolises "English journalism's solemnity".[26]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_o ... alogrenant
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In Yvain, Calogrenant tells a story to a group of knights and Queen Guinevere about an adventure he had in the forest of Brocéliande, where here was a magic spring that could summon a large storm. Calogrenant reached the spring and summoned the storm, after which a knight named Esclados attacked and defeated him. Yvain is upset that Calogrenant never told him of this defeat, and sets out to avenge him, embarking on the adventure that sets up the remainder of events in the romance. His character has been derived from the Welsh mythological hero Cynon ap Clydno, usually the lover of Owain mab Urien's sister Morvydd; although in Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain, Cynon is stated to be the son of Clydno, possibly connected to Clyddno Eiddin. Roger Sherman Loomis and some other scholars speculated that Calogrenant was used specifically as a foil for Kay in some lost early version of Yvain's story. Chrétien characterized him as everything Kay is not: polite, respectful, eloquent, and well-mannered. By this theory, his name can be deconstructed to "Cai lo grenant", or "Cai the grumbler", which would represent another opposite characteristic of Kay, who was famous for his bitter sarcasm.[33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynon_ap_Clydno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudine
https://whiteroseofavalon.life/2025/02/ ... -fountain/
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Laudine was a Lady of the Fountain and a Faery Queen ruling a Court
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https://nightbringer.se/nightbringer/a_laudine.html
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Laudine of Landuc
Analida, Alundyne, La Dame de Landuc
The Lady of the Fountain who became Yvain’s wife after Yvain killed her husband, Esclados. She was the daughter of Laudunet. She married her husband’s killer to ensure that her lands would be protected. When Yvain stayed away from her for over a year, she renounced him. After a series of adventures, Yvain was able to return to her favor. According to Heinrich von dem Türlin, she later failed a chastity test at Arthur’s court.
Chrétien gives us her name only in line 2151 of Yvain; but according to D.D.R. Owen's note to that verse, most of the manuscripts have not "Laudine of Landuc", but "la dame de Landuc". Was Landuc her father Duke Laudunet's domain, or was it the castle and the territory of her husband Esclados ... or were they, perhaps, one and the same property, inherited from her father and shared with her successive husbands? Owen, citing Loomis, suggests that "Laudine" might derive from a form of "Lothian" and point to early Scottish origins. Ruth Harwood Cline states that Chrétien giving his name as "of Troyes" implies that he was not at the time living in Troyes, but Susan Haskins quotes a mystery play of 1486 in which Mary Magdalen is chatelaine of the castle of Magdalen, thus explaining her name. It would appear that Landuc might or might not be the name of the castle in which Ywaine (Owain) finds Laudine residing.
How seriously are we expected to interpret Laudine's angry statements of undying hatred for Ywaine at various stages of romance? The proper actress could so deliver these speeches as to give Laudine's subsequent capitulations perfect psychological plausibility.
Laudine's Damsel
Not Lunette, but a second capable maiden of Dame Laudine's.
This damsel arrives alone, mounted on a black palfrey with white feet, to find Ywaine at Chester, where Arthur is holding a mid-August court and tournament. Having taken off her mantle - this may have some significance in courtly protocol - she marches into the tent and up to Arthur, greets him and all his other knights, singles Ywaine out for a tirade of about sixty lines reminding him that he had promised to return to his wife by Saint John's Day, informs him that he has broken Laudine's heart by failing to keep his word, and demands Laudine's ring back.
When he sits stricken dumb, she pulls the ring off his finger and takes her leave, commending the king and everyone else except the guilty party to God. In her tirade, she lays and all but formal accusation of treachery against that person who brought about Ywaine's marriage to Laudine. It sounds as if she means Lunette and may have some connection with Laudine's seneschal, who later makes the accusation formal.
Laudine's Ring
When worn by a true lover, its stone had the power to protect him from wounds and loss of blood, making his flesh harder than iron. Laudine gave it to her new-wedded lord Ywaine when he left for his year on the tournament round. After he stayed away about six weeks overtime, she sent a damsel who reclaimed it on her behalf, with the message:
Don't come home.
Laudine's Seneschal and His Brothers
Described as neither stammerer nor laggard, although either unwilling on for some reason himself ineligible to take on the role of guardian of the marvelous spring, this knight urges Laudine's council to advise her to take Ywaine as her new husband after the death of Esclados.
Arthur is coming, and the seneschal emphasizes Arthur's supposed intention of warring against them and laying waste their land. The thought that a single good man as their lady's husband and the spring's protector can avert this catastrophe shows the perceived value of strong leadership; the context also shows that the seneschal feels himself unqualified to provide the same leadership. His moral defects appear later: when Ywaine overstays the year's leave of absence Laudine granted him, the seneschal charges Lunette with treason for having promoted the marriage.
Feeling cocky in her innocence, Lunette offers to have her case defended in trial by combat by one against three. Instead of declining this offer, which would have been the courtly course and one she expected him to take, he enlists his two brothers to help him await her single champion. Then, when Ywaine shows up (incognito) with his lion, the seneschal insist on the beast's staying out of the three-against-one combat. The seneschal's foresight is foiled, however, disobeying Ywaine's orders, the lion eventually jumps into the fray and wounds the seneschal mortally, facilitating Ywaine's victory. Laudine's seneschal and his brothers end burnt on the pyre originally intended for Lunette.
Phyllis Ann Karr suspect a connection between this seneschal and Laudines' unnamned damsel, but can find no allusion in the text to any such liaison. Instead, Lunette herself states envy of her own position to have been the seneschal's motive. It also occurs to me that the seneschal's original speech to Laudine's council plays in so beautifully with Lunette's own matchmaking as to suggest that when the marraige seems to go badly sour, the seneschal may turn against Lunette in order to forestall being accused himself.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galadriel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothl%C3%B3rien
https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Galadriel
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuffingas
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The author Sam Newton has claimed that the Old English epic poem Beowulf may have been composed during the reign of Ælfwald. Before the end of his rule, East Anglia contained a group of ecclesiastical centres, all of which had strong associations with the Wuffingas dynasty. These included the sees at Dommoc and Helmham, Botwulf of Thorney's monastery at Icanho, the religious foundations at Ely and Dereham founded by daughters of Anna, the minster at Blythburgh and the monastery founded by Sigeberht prior to his abdication and subsequent death in battle.[12]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealhtheow
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Wealhtheow is of the Wulfing clan,[1] Queen of the Danes. She is married to Hrothgar (Hrōðgār), the Danish king and is the mother of sons, Hreðric and Hroðmund, and a daughter Freawaru.
In her marriage to Hrothgar she is described as friðusibb folca[2] (l. 2017), 'the kindred pledge of peace between peoples', signifying interdynastic allegiance between Wulfing and Scylding achieved with her marriage to Hrothgar. She is both 'Lady of the Helmings' (l. 620) (by descent, of the Wulfing clan of Helm) and 'Lady of the Scyldings' (l. 1168), by marriage and maternity.
Two northern sources associate the wife of Hrothgar with England. The Skjöldunga saga, in Arngrímur Jónsson's abstract, chapter 3, tells that Hrothgar (Roas) married the daughter of an English king. The Hrolfs saga kraka, chapter 5, tells that Hrothgar (Hróarr) married Ögn who was the daughter of a king of Northumbria (Norðhymbraland) called Norðri.
The argument was advanced in 1897 that the Wulfing name may have been synonymous with the East Anglian Wuffing dynasty, and the family name Helmingas with the place-names 'Helmingham' in Norfolk and Suffolk, both of which lie in areas of 5th–6th century migrant occupation.[3] Although the theory was not favoured by some,[4] it has more recently resurfaced in a discussion of the identity of Hroðmund.[5]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scylding
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuffa_of_East_Anglia
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By tradition Wuffa was named as the son of Wehha and the father of Tytila, but it is not known with any certainty that Wuffa was an actual historical figure. The name Wuffa was the eponym for the Wuffingas dynasty, the ruling royal family of the East Angles until 749.
Bede regarded Wuffa as the first king of the East Angles, but the author of the Historia Brittonum, writing a century later, named Wehha as the first ruler.
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The kingdom of the East Angles was an independent and long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom that was established after migrants arrived in southeast Suffolk from the area now known as Jutland. Rainbird Clarke identified Wehha as one of the leaders of the new arrivals: the East Angles are tentatively identified with the Geats of the Old English poem Beowulf.[1] Historians have used sources such as the Anglian collection too as an aid in calculating a date for the establishment of the kingdom. Collingwood and Myers note the use of literacy sources and archaeological finds as evidence of how the region was settled during and after the 5th century, when various disparate groups arrived in Norfolk and Suffolk from different parts of the coast and the rivers of the Fens.[2]
The kingdom of the East Angles was bordered to the north and east by the North Sea, to the south by mainly impenetrable forests and by the Fens marshes on its western border. The main land route from East Anglia would at that time have been a corridor, along which ran the prehistoric Icknield Way.[3] The Devil's Dyke (near modern Newmarket) may have at one time formed part of the kingdom's western boundary, but its construction cannot be dated accurately enough to establish it as of Anglo-Saxon origin.[4]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s ... ridgeshire
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The Dyke is thought most likely to be Anglo-Saxon, by analogy to the similar Fleam Dyke for which radiocarbon dating was performed in the 1990s, with Fleam Dyke's earliest construction phase dated within the uncertainty range of AD 330 – 510.[5] The site is a Scheduled Monument.[6]
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The earthwork has been described by various different commentators since Anglo-Saxon times. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may refer to the Devil's Dyke in its annal for 905, when Edward the Elder is recorded as fighting and defeating the Danes of East Anglia, after first laying waste to the countryside: 'and he laid waste their land between the Dyke and the Ouse as far northward as the Fens'—' and oferhergade call hera land betwuh dicun and Wusan. call oþ da fennas norð' .[7] Abbo of Fleury, writing in the late 10th century, described East Anglia as "fortified in the front with a bank or rampier like unto a huge wall, and with a trench or ditch below in the ground".[8] The mediaeval Flores Historiarum, referred to "...duo fossata sancti Eadmundi..." – the two fortifications of St Edmund – when describing the battle between Edward and his adversaries.[9]
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Devil's Dyke is the largest of several earthworks in south Cambridgeshire that were either boundary markers or designed to control movement along the ancient trackways of Street Way (Ashwell Street) and Icknield Way. When it was created, it completely blocked a narrow land corridor between the southern edge of a region of water-logged marsh (now known as The Fens) in the north-west and dense woodlands in the south, so making circumvention difficult and forming an effective defensive barrier for the lands to the east. The dyke may have served as a way of controlling trade and movement in and out of the area. Findings such as the small quantity of silt in the ditch fills suggest that the dyke fell into disuse soon after it was built.
The other Cambridgeshire dykes include Fleam Dyke, Brent Ditch and Bran Ditch. In Suffolk, to the north west of Bury St Edmunds, a fifth earthwork, Black Ditches, Cavenham, guards the Icknield Way.
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At Mutlow Hill the dyke runs beside a Bronze Age barrow dated to 2000 BC, which contained eight urns with cremated human remains, and which was reused in the Roman period as a shrine. The finding of a fourth-century Roman coin under the dyke established the dyke's post-Roman construction date. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Anglo-Saxon weapons and burials were found. An excavation in 1991, on occasion of widening the A11 road, established by radiocarbon dating that it had been built in several phases, the first between AD 330 and 510, and the last between AD 450 and 620. It is believed most likely to have been built by early Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century AD as a defence against Romano-British attempts to recover their territory.[3]
In later Anglo-Saxon times, the northern part of Fleam Dyke was also the boundary between Flendish and Staine Hundreds (county subdivisions).[3] In this period, when villages grew and parish boundaries were established, parishes in this part of the county were long and narrow stretching from the fens to the presumed Icknield Way (now the A11) as this gave access to wood from the uplands, thatching from the fens and fertile local soil. Thus, what is now Stow-cum-Quy (with its potentially separate section of Fleam Dyke) was originally the northern part of the two Wilbraham villages (Great Wilbraham and Little Wilbraham) situated near the main Fleam Dyke.[4] The main part of Fleam Dyke today still constitutes a parish boundary.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbo_of_Fleury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Heathen_Army
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The Great Heathen Army,[a] also known as the Viking Great Army,[1] was a coalition of Scandinavian warriors who invaded England in AD 865. Since the late 8th century, the Vikings had been engaging in raids on centres of wealth, such as monasteries. The Great Heathen Army was much larger and aimed to conquer and occupy the four kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.
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Though they may have traveled from the area of Scandinavia, their blood is not Scandinavian or the same as the general Scandinavian population today.
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The name Great Heathen Army is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The force was led by three of the five sons of the semi-legendary Ragnar Lodbrok, including Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless and Ubba.[c] The campaign of invasion and conquest against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms lasted 14 years. Surviving sources give no firm indication of its numbers, but it was described as amongst the largest forces of its kind.
The invaders initially landed in East Anglia, where King Edmund provided them with horses for their campaign in return for peace. They spent the winter of 865–866 at Thetford, before marching north to capture York in November 866. York had been founded as the Roman legionary fortress of Eboracum and revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic. During 867, the army marched deep into Mercia and wintered in Nottingham. The Mercians agreed to terms with the Viking army, which moved back to York for the winter of 868–869. In 869, the Great Army returned to East Anglia, conquering it and killing its king. The army moved to winter quarters in Thetford.
In 871, the Vikings moved on to Wessex, where Alfred the Great paid them to leave. The army then marched to London to overwinter in 871–872. The following campaigning season the army first moved to York, where it gathered reinforcements. This force campaigned in northeastern Mercia, after which it spent the winter at Torksey, on the Trent close to the Humber.[1] The following campaigning season it seems to have subdued much of Mercia. Burgred, the king of Mercia, fled overseas and Ceolwulf, described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as "a foolish king's thegn" was imposed in his place. The army spent the following winter at Repton on the middle Trent, after which the army seems to have divided. One group seems to have returned to Northumbria, where they settled in the area, while another group seems to have turned to invade Wessex.[5]
By this time, only the kingdom of Wessex had not been conquered. In May 878 Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington, and a treaty was agreed whereby the Vikings were able to remain in control of much of northern and eastern England, a region later known as the Danelaw, which was formalised in the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum.[6]
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not mention the reason for this invasion, perhaps because Viking raids were fairly common during that period. The Tale of Ragnar's Sons,[7] on the other hand, mentions that the invasion of England by the Great Heathen Army was aimed at avenging the death of Ragnar Lodbrok, a legendary Viking ruler of Sweden and Denmark.[d] In the Viking saga, Ragnar is said to have conducted a raid on Northumbria during the reign of King Ælla. The Vikings were defeated and Ragnar was captured by the Northumbrians. Ælla then had Ragnar executed by throwing him into a pit of venomous snakes. When the sons of Ragnar received news of their father's death, they decided to avenge him.[8][9]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubba
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Ubba (Old Norse: Ubbi; died 878) was a 9th-century Viking and one of the commanders of the Great Heathen Army that invaded Anglo-Saxon England in the 860s.[note 1] The Great Army appears to have been a coalition of warbands drawn from Scandinavia, Ireland, the Irish Sea region and Continental Europe. There is reason to suspect that a proportion of the Viking forces specifically originated in Frisia, where some Viking commanders are known to have held fiefdoms on behalf of the Franks. Some sources describe Ubba as dux of the Frisians, which could be evidence that he also associated with a Frisian benefice.
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Whilst the Old English Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls the Viking army micel here, the Latin Historia de sancto Cuthberto instead gives Scaldingi,[23] a term of uncertain meaning that is employed three times in reference to the leadership of the Viking forces. One possibility is that the word means "people from the River Scheldt".[24] This could indicate that Ubba was from Walcheren, an island in the mouth of the Scheldt.[25] Walcheren is known to have been occupied by Danish Vikings over two decades before. For example, the Annales Bertiniani reports that Lothair I, King of Middle Francia (died 855) granted the island to a Viking named Herioldus in 841.[26] Another possibility is that this term simply refers to Scyldings, an ancient lineage from which Danish monarchs of the time claimed descent.
According to the same source and the 9th-century Annales Fuldenses, another Viking named Roricus was granted a large part of Frisia as a benefice or fief from Lothair in 850.[27] As men who held military and judicial authority on behalf of the Franks, Herioldus and Roricus can also be regarded as Frisian duces. Although it is uncertain whether Ubba was a native Frisian or a Scandinavian expatriate, if he was indeed involved with a Frisian benefice his forces would have probably been partly composed of Frisians. If his troops were drawn from the Scandinavian settlement started by Herioldus over two decades before, many of Ubba's men might well have been born in Frisia.[28] In fact, the length of Scandinavian occupation suggests that some of the Vikings from Frisia would have been native Franks and Frisians. The considerable time that members of the Great Army appear to have spent in Ireland and on the Continent suggests that these men were well accustomed to Christian society, which in turn may partly explain their successes in Anglo-Saxon England.
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Ubba is associated with the martyrdom of Æbbe, an alleged abbess of Coldingham said to have been slain by Vikings in 870.[129] The historicity of this woman is nevertheless uncertain.[130] The earliest accounts of the alleged events at Coldingham date to the 13th century. They include Chronica majora,[131] and both the Wendover[132] and Paris versions of Flores historiarum.[133] According to these sources, Æbbe compelled the nuns of Coldingham to disfigure themselves to preserve their virginity from an incoming horde of Vikings. Leading by example, Æbbe is said to have cut off her nose and upper lip with a razor. When the Viking arrived the following morning, the sight of the mutilated and bloody women repelled the raiders. Nevertheless, Ivar and Ubba are stated to have ordered the razing of the monastery, burning to death Æbbe and her faithful nuns.[134]
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The accounts of Æbbe could be an example of such a constructed tale. The story appears be ultimately derived from the account of Coldingham preserved by the eighth-century Historia ecclesiastica.[160] According to this source, Æthelthryth (died 679), wife of Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria (died 685), entered the monastery under the tutelage of an abbess named Æbbe (died 683?). At some point after Æthelthryth left Coldingham to found a monastery at Ely, Historia ecclesiastica reports that the monastery of Coldingham burned to the ground.[161] This account of Coldingham's burning was later incorporated into Liber Eliensis, a 12th-century chronicle covering the history of Æthelthryth's establishment at Ely.[162] The account of the burning given by Historia ecclesiastica may well be the inspiration behind the tale of facial mutilation and fiery martyrdom first associated with Coldingham by the Wendover version of Flores historiarum.[148][note 19] To 12th-century ecclesiasts, invented tales of 9th-century violence—particularly violence inflicted by Ivar and Ubba—may have been intended to validate the refoundation of certain religious communities.[164][note 20]
The earliest Anglo-Saxon virgin-martyr is Osyth.[174] A now-lost 12th-century vita of this woman associated Ivar and Ubba with her seventh-century martyrdom. According to this source, Ivar and Ubba commanded the pirates who beheaded her after she refused to worship their pagan idols.[175] This work may have been the inspiration behind the Anglo-Norman hagiography Vie seinte Osith,[176] a composition that also attributes Osyth's killing to Ivar and Ubba and their followers.[177][note 21]
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A depiction of Ragnar Lodbrok (Lothbrok) and his sons, Ivar and Ubba, worshipping pagan idols, as it appears on folio 39r of British Library Harley 2278.[307] This illustration depicts the pagan Danes as elaborately dressed Muslim Saracens, wearing tall turban-like headdresses and forked beards. Other illustrations in the manuscript, depicting Ivar and Ubba, show Vikings armed with curved swords.[308][note 37]
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... xcerpt.jpg
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Although Ubba and Ivar are associated with each other by Passio sancti Eadmundi, the men are not stated to be related in any way.[310] The earliest source claiming kinship between the two is the Annals of St Neots,[311] an 11th- or 12th-century account stating that they were brothers of three daughters of Lodbrok (Lodebrochus).[312] This source further states that these three sisters wove a magical banner named Reafan that was captured at the Arx Cynuit conflict.[313] Although certain versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also note the capture of a raven banner, named Hræfn ("Raven"), they do not mention any magical attributes, or refer to Lodbrok and his progeny.[314][note 38]
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The name Rafan has its roots in Arabic, deriving from the word "rafā" which means "to elevate" or "to raise."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_banner
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Whilst Scandinavian sources—such as the 13th-century Ragnars saga loðbrókar—tend to locate the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok in a Northumbrian context, English sources tend to place them in an East Anglian setting.[369] The earliest source to specifically associate the legend with East Anglia is Liber de infantia sancti Eadmundi,[370] a 12th-century account depicting the Viking invasion of East Anglia in the context of a dynastic dispute.[371] According to this source, Lodbrok (Lodebrok) was extremely envious of Edmund's fame. As such, it is Lodbrok's taunts that provoke his sons, Ivar, Ubba and Björn (Bern), to slay Edmund and destroy his kingdom.[372][note 43] Although this text is heavily dependent upon Passio sancti Eadmundi for its depiction of Edmund's death, it appears to be the first source to meld the martyrdom with the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok.[371][note 44]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Scandinavian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A4llinge_statuette
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The statuette is made of bronze and has been dated to the late Viking Age, around the year 1000.[2] It is 6.9 centimetres (2.7 in) high and weighs 141.3 grams (4.98 oz).[3] Based on the design, and how it differs from contemporary artworks from continental Europe, it is assumed to have been made by a Scandinavian sculptor.[2] The figure sits cross-legged and clasps his beard with his right hand while his left hand rests on his knee, with a part of the left arm missing. He wears a bracelet on each wrist and a conical helmet or pointed cap on his head.[4] The beard is pointed and long and is accompanied by a large, upturned moustache. The figure is ithyphallic, which means he is depicted with an erect phallus. The back of his shoulders and his buttocks are decorated with spiral patterns.[5]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin_from_Lejre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helg%C3%B6_Buddha
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The Helgö Buddha is a small Buddha figure of the 6th century Gupta Empire period,[1] found during excavations of a trading post that was active between approximately the 3rd century and the 8th century, that is, between the Migration Period and the Viking Age, on Helgö.[2][3]
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Other unusual finds have been found in the surrounding area that are otherwise rarely found in Swedish finds from the Early Iron Age, including an Irish crook and Irish book bindings, a Coptic wine bucket, Roman gold coins, a rare Frisian sceatta coin, and East Baltic jewelry.[6] However, the Buddha figure is considered the most remarkable find as it is unique in the Nordic Iron Age context.[7]
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It is North Indian, [8] but the exact location of its manufacture is uncertain, perhaps in the Kashmir Valley[5] or the Swat Valley in present-day Pakistan.[2]
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https://news.artnet.com/art-world/first ... 1997?amp=1
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que acceperunt spolia mon minima. In quo etiam
acceperunt illud vexillum, quod Reafan nominant. Dicunt
enim quod tres sorores Hinguari et. Hubbae, filiae videlicet
Lodebrochi, illud vexillum texuerunt, et totum faraverunt
5 lud uno meridiano tempore. |Dicunt etiam, quod in omnz
bello ubi braecederet. idem signum, si victoriam adefturi
essent, appareret in medio.szgni quas: corvus vivens volitans :
sin vero vincendi im futuro fuissent, Denderet directe. niil
movens. Et hoc saepe probatum est.
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which they received the least spoils. In which they also received that standard, which they call Reafan. They say that the three sisters Hinguari and Hubba, daughters of Lodebroch, wove that standard, and made it all in 5 days at one noon. They also say that in every war where they were to fight, the same sign, if they were to win, would appear in the middle of the sign: a living raven flying: if they were to win in the future, it would be given directly. nothing moving. And this has often been proven.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortain
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According to the first branch (enfances) of Le Chevalerie Ogier, Ogier was still unknighted and sent as hostage to King Charlemagne. Thus when the French began to fight Saracens invading Rome, the unarmed Ogier only spectated. Eventually however he entered the fray, wresting the arms of the standard-bearer Alori who fled in retreat.[12][13] His deeds were rewarded by knighthood, and Charlemagne girt him with his own sword.[14][15]
In the continued conflict, the Saracen Karaheut of India[c] who owned Cortain challenged Ogier to duel. Karaheut's weapon, "the sword Brumadant the Savage"[22][d] was remade more than twenty times by the swordsmith Escurable; when it was tested on a block of marble it broke about a palm's length, and had to be reforged shorter-bladed; hence it was [re]named Corte or Cortain,[29] meaning "Short".[6][7] This became the weapon of a chivalric-minded Karaheut,[30] who gave his destrier and arms (including Cortain) to Ogier so he could now fight the new opponent, Brunamont, in single combat.[e][f][35][36][37]
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The legend that Ogier fought valiantly with some Saracens in his youth is the chief material of the first branch (about 3,000 lines) of Raimbert's Chevalerie Ogier.[27] This is also recounted in Enfances Ogier (c. 1270), a rhymed poem of 9,229 lines by Adenet le Roi. The story of Ogier's youth develops with close similarity in these two works starting at the beginning, but they diverge at a certain point when Raimbert's version begins to be more economical with the details.[28]
In the 14th-century and subsequent versions of the romance, Ogier travels to the Avalon ruled by King Arthur and eventually becomes paramour of Morgan le Fay (the earliest known mention of her as his lover is in Brun de la Montaigne[29]). This is how the story culminates in Roman d'Ogier, a reworking in Alexandrins written in the 14th century, as well as its prose redaction retitled Ogier le Danois (Ogyer le Danois) printed in a number of editions from the late 15th century onwards.[30] The Alexandrines version may contain some vestiges of the lost 12th-century Chevalerie Ogier.[1] It is also possible[31] that Ogier the Dane has first appeared in the Arthurian context as the Saxon prince Oriolz[j] the Dane (de Danemarche), sometimes known as the Red Knight, in the 13th-century Vulgate Merlin and its English adaptation Arthour and Merlin.
There are also several texts that might be classed as "histories" which refer to Ogier. Girart d'Amiens' Charlemagne contains a variant of Ogier's enfances.[32][33] Philippe Mouskes's Chronique rimée (c. 1243) writes on Ogier's death.[34] Jean d'Outremeuse's Ly Myreur des Histors writes of Ogier's combat with the capalus (chapalu), which is a giant cat monster known from the Arthurian cycle.[35]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Knight
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In the Livre d'Artus, the Red Knight is a heathen prince named Oriols (Oriolz), son of Saxon king Aminaduc (a nephew of Hengist) and the unnamed Queen of Denmark (Danemarche). He dwells with his mother and others (including a trio of cannibal giants) in the cursed castle (later known as the Castle of Maidens) where they work to conquer Logres, until they are overthrown by Gawain and Sagramore and flee. He also appears in the Vulgate Merlin (and in its English adaptation Of Arthour and of Merlin) under variants of this name (Oriel, Oriens, Oriol, Oriolt, etc.), but not as the Red Knight. It is possible that he is related to the legend of Ogier the Dane.[9]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Maidens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagramore
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In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, his father is renamed as Nabur the Unruly (Nabur le Desreé / li Derr[e]és[15]), here a duke of an unidentfied foreign land. In the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, the infant Sagremor becomes foster-brother to the rescued and also newborn Mordred (he also figures as a brother of Mordred, named Segures, in Renaud de Beaujeu's version of the story of Le Bel Inconnu[13]).[16]
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After these initial trials, Gareth must face the Red Knight of the Red Launds, whose real identity is Sir Ironside. Ironside has the strength of seven men and has trapped the princess of Lyonesse in a tower from which Gareth must save her. Though he had demonstrated a cruel and sadistic nature, Ironside is brought to Arthur's court and even made a Knight of the Round Table.
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In Chrétien's story Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, Esclados the Red (Old French: li Ros) is the guardian of an otherworldly fountain in the enchanted forest of Brocéliande. He appears as spouse of the lady Laudine (usually known as "the Lady of the Fountain") prior to Sir Yvain. He was slain by Yvain for attacking the latter's cousin, Sir Calogrenant, in defence of the magic fountain (or well, or spring).
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Mark Twain characterised Sagramor le Desirous (first name Clarence), or 'Saggie', as an angry, backwards knight in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, who challenges the Yankee to a duel to the death and is defeated by the Yankee's modern weaponry despite the supposed magical "veil of invisibility" protection by Merlin; his armour, later displayed in a museum featuring a gunshot hole inflicted by the Yankee, serves as a setpiece to the start of the story. His figure arguably symbolises "English journalism's solemnity".[26]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_o ... alogrenant
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In Yvain, Calogrenant tells a story to a group of knights and Queen Guinevere about an adventure he had in the forest of Brocéliande, where here was a magic spring that could summon a large storm. Calogrenant reached the spring and summoned the storm, after which a knight named Esclados attacked and defeated him. Yvain is upset that Calogrenant never told him of this defeat, and sets out to avenge him, embarking on the adventure that sets up the remainder of events in the romance. His character has been derived from the Welsh mythological hero Cynon ap Clydno, usually the lover of Owain mab Urien's sister Morvydd; although in Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain, Cynon is stated to be the son of Clydno, possibly connected to Clyddno Eiddin. Roger Sherman Loomis and some other scholars speculated that Calogrenant was used specifically as a foil for Kay in some lost early version of Yvain's story. Chrétien characterized him as everything Kay is not: polite, respectful, eloquent, and well-mannered. By this theory, his name can be deconstructed to "Cai lo grenant", or "Cai the grumbler", which would represent another opposite characteristic of Kay, who was famous for his bitter sarcasm.[33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynon_ap_Clydno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudine
https://whiteroseofavalon.life/2025/02/ ... -fountain/
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Laudine was a Lady of the Fountain and a Faery Queen ruling a Court
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https://nightbringer.se/nightbringer/a_laudine.html
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Laudine of Landuc
Analida, Alundyne, La Dame de Landuc
The Lady of the Fountain who became Yvain’s wife after Yvain killed her husband, Esclados. She was the daughter of Laudunet. She married her husband’s killer to ensure that her lands would be protected. When Yvain stayed away from her for over a year, she renounced him. After a series of adventures, Yvain was able to return to her favor. According to Heinrich von dem Türlin, she later failed a chastity test at Arthur’s court.
Chrétien gives us her name only in line 2151 of Yvain; but according to D.D.R. Owen's note to that verse, most of the manuscripts have not "Laudine of Landuc", but "la dame de Landuc". Was Landuc her father Duke Laudunet's domain, or was it the castle and the territory of her husband Esclados ... or were they, perhaps, one and the same property, inherited from her father and shared with her successive husbands? Owen, citing Loomis, suggests that "Laudine" might derive from a form of "Lothian" and point to early Scottish origins. Ruth Harwood Cline states that Chrétien giving his name as "of Troyes" implies that he was not at the time living in Troyes, but Susan Haskins quotes a mystery play of 1486 in which Mary Magdalen is chatelaine of the castle of Magdalen, thus explaining her name. It would appear that Landuc might or might not be the name of the castle in which Ywaine (Owain) finds Laudine residing.
How seriously are we expected to interpret Laudine's angry statements of undying hatred for Ywaine at various stages of romance? The proper actress could so deliver these speeches as to give Laudine's subsequent capitulations perfect psychological plausibility.
Laudine's Damsel
Not Lunette, but a second capable maiden of Dame Laudine's.
This damsel arrives alone, mounted on a black palfrey with white feet, to find Ywaine at Chester, where Arthur is holding a mid-August court and tournament. Having taken off her mantle - this may have some significance in courtly protocol - she marches into the tent and up to Arthur, greets him and all his other knights, singles Ywaine out for a tirade of about sixty lines reminding him that he had promised to return to his wife by Saint John's Day, informs him that he has broken Laudine's heart by failing to keep his word, and demands Laudine's ring back.
When he sits stricken dumb, she pulls the ring off his finger and takes her leave, commending the king and everyone else except the guilty party to God. In her tirade, she lays and all but formal accusation of treachery against that person who brought about Ywaine's marriage to Laudine. It sounds as if she means Lunette and may have some connection with Laudine's seneschal, who later makes the accusation formal.
Laudine's Ring
When worn by a true lover, its stone had the power to protect him from wounds and loss of blood, making his flesh harder than iron. Laudine gave it to her new-wedded lord Ywaine when he left for his year on the tournament round. After he stayed away about six weeks overtime, she sent a damsel who reclaimed it on her behalf, with the message:
Don't come home.
Laudine's Seneschal and His Brothers
Described as neither stammerer nor laggard, although either unwilling on for some reason himself ineligible to take on the role of guardian of the marvelous spring, this knight urges Laudine's council to advise her to take Ywaine as her new husband after the death of Esclados.
Arthur is coming, and the seneschal emphasizes Arthur's supposed intention of warring against them and laying waste their land. The thought that a single good man as their lady's husband and the spring's protector can avert this catastrophe shows the perceived value of strong leadership; the context also shows that the seneschal feels himself unqualified to provide the same leadership. His moral defects appear later: when Ywaine overstays the year's leave of absence Laudine granted him, the seneschal charges Lunette with treason for having promoted the marriage.
Feeling cocky in her innocence, Lunette offers to have her case defended in trial by combat by one against three. Instead of declining this offer, which would have been the courtly course and one she expected him to take, he enlists his two brothers to help him await her single champion. Then, when Ywaine shows up (incognito) with his lion, the seneschal insist on the beast's staying out of the three-against-one combat. The seneschal's foresight is foiled, however, disobeying Ywaine's orders, the lion eventually jumps into the fray and wounds the seneschal mortally, facilitating Ywaine's victory. Laudine's seneschal and his brothers end burnt on the pyre originally intended for Lunette.
Phyllis Ann Karr suspect a connection between this seneschal and Laudines' unnamned damsel, but can find no allusion in the text to any such liaison. Instead, Lunette herself states envy of her own position to have been the seneschal's motive. It also occurs to me that the seneschal's original speech to Laudine's council plays in so beautifully with Lunette's own matchmaking as to suggest that when the marraige seems to go badly sour, the seneschal may turn against Lunette in order to forestall being accused himself.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galadriel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothl%C3%B3rien
https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Galadriel
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