Month: December 2019

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Edmund hadn’t lost, and for now that was enough.

He had shown himself to be a contender. So Ironside took his remaining men and marched East… but the accounts are careful to point out that he stayed north of the Thames…. And this decision has lead scholars to believe that Mercia may have already been on Edmund’s side, or was quickly coming around to it.

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Can you feel it? It feels like there is a lull before the storm. AEthelred Unread is now gone, and Normandy is now officially on the board. 1066 is on the doorstep.

But the lull is an illusion you experience because you know what is coming next. For the people living it, things are heating up on the island at the dawn of the millennium. And what you’re about to hear is part one of a two part series on one of England’s best stories that you’ve likely never heard. It’s the story of the Rise and Fall of Edmund Ironsides. This is a story of a forgotten civil war, a legendary warrior, and the fall of the line of Alfred the Great.

And the story starts in the North.

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Christmas is old. Older than Christianity, in fact.

As a consequence, there’s a lot to it. Symbols and traditions that come from all over the world, and from all across time. It’s a complex event that, predictably, can provoke a complex set of emotions from people.

But when you look past the trees, and the logs, and the stockings, and the manger, and the guy in red, and the scary monsters punishing kids, and all the other things that have been added to it… when you boil it down to it’s essence what you find is that ancient root of the holiday. A very simple and clear root.

It’s a winter feast. And like any good feast, we don’t just eat and drink. We celebrate our lives and we celebrate each other.