A journey around Anglo-Saxon histories and mythologies


From Crayford to Pegwell Bay, on Monday 30 July we (Beth and Fran, King’s College London) led the intrepid CRAY group around five sites associated with the founding legend of the arrival of Anglo-Saxons in Britain.

Some of the sites were important to the Anglo-Saxons, and we know this thanks to archaeological or textual evidence. However, Some of the sites became linked with stories of the Anglo-Saxons later centuries, or even in the last 100 years. The children all thought about the difference between history and stories, why we remember the past, and made some fantastic creative work in response to the places we visited.

St Paulinus Church


A church has stood at this site since at least the 9th century according to archaeological remains, and it’s mentioned in the 1086 Domesday survey ordered by William I (the Conqueror). However, it’s likely that the site has been important for much longer. As the children noticed, the church is on a high point overlooking the surrounding area - an excellent place for a settlement or sacred site.

Locally, ‘Mound Nod’, on which St Paulinus stands, is said to be where the 4000 warriors who were killed at the Battle of Crayford were buried. No one knows where this myth came from: we can’t find any evidence of it being called ‘Mount Nod’ in the medieval period. If you’re local to Crayford, ask your grandparents why they think the area is called ‘Mount Nod’, maybe they will have their own story!

The children read the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry, the oldest text that mentions the ‘Battle of Crayford’ explicitly, in Old English:

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 'C-text' version, British Library Cotton Tiberius B.I, folio 118v.

CCCCLVI Her Hengest 7 Æsc his sunu fuhton wiþ Bryttas in þære
stowe þe is gecueden Crecganford 7 þær ofslogon
iiiim. wera, 7 þa Bryttas þa forleton Kentlond 7 mid
myclum ege flugon to Lundenbyrg.

We didn’t need to give them the English translation that we had prepared - as they worked out the meaning from listening carefully to the sounds of the words! Can you work it out (answer at the bottom of this blog post!).


Watling Street and Waterside Gardens


From the church we walked down to the Waterside Gardens (skirting the Watling Street route at the London Road roundabout!), we all thought carefully about what we could see, hear, smell, and feel, and tried to imagine how things would’ve been different in the 5th century.


At the gardens, we talked about the things we had noticed on our walk. The children talked about how there might have been more trees during the fifth century, the ground could have been very soggy and swampy, and the river wider. There might’ve been fires lit before the battle, for cooking meals for the warriors, or to make a threatening barricade. We talked about how the river was important as both a border and a highway, making Crayford a place ripe for a battle.

Kennings in the making!
We used these images to come up with kennings to describe the Anglo-Saxon landscape. A kenning is a compound word (a word made of two words) that describes something metaphorically. The children came up with a whole range of kennings to imagine a battle-scene: the ‘emerald-swayers’ (trees) along the ‘bird’s pool’ (river), the ‘golden-dancer’ (fire) flickering in the distance.

We also talked about how we know about the Anglo-Saxons through the objects they left behind. Everyone got their own Anglo-Saxon brooch (sticker) and we saw how the Anglo-Saxons loved the combination of gold, red garnets, and blue glass. Being in the waterside gardens, we also talked about how the river has been important through time - with the 17th century bleaching grounds, which gave rise to the Victorian silk printing industry (read more about this here). We wove together the Anglo-Saxon history and the Industrial Revolution, and the children each made a bracelet of gold, red, and blue threads.

A 'wunden' bracelet inspired by Anglo-Saxon jewellery colours.




Faesten dic


Our next stop was to Joydens Wood, to the Faestendic. Literally ‘strong(hold)’ ‘ditch’, this is an earthwork in the woods, that some people (as this blog by Surrey Medieval explores) have dated to the Roman period, others say was built during the time of Hengest and Horsa, while others suggest it was built during trouble between the Kentish Saxons and the West Saxons in 686-87 or the Mercians in the 770s.

Measuring trees in Joydens Wood
Whatever the case, it’s a good location for thinking about why and how such a ditch might work as a defensive structure. The children played a game of ‘Saxon Eyes’: one person stood at a high point on the dic, while everyone else hid, and tried to get as close as possible without being seen.

We also took the opportunity of being at a possible ‘conflict’ location to think about the objects used in battle. The Anglo-Saxons have left us lots of riddles, many in Latin, and many in Old English. The Old English riddles are found in the Exeter Book. At Faestendic, the children read two riddles in Old English and modern english. Can you guess what they are?


Riddle 23
Agof is min noma eft onhwyrfed
ic eom wrætlic wiht on gewin sceapen
þon ic onbuge, ond me of bosme fareð
ætren onga, ic beom eallgearo
þæt ic me þæt feorhbealo feor aswape
siþþan me se waldend se me þæt wite gescop
leoþo forlæteð ic beo lengre þon ær
oþþæt ic spæte spilde geblonden
ealfelo attor þæt ic ær geap ·
neto gongeð þæs gumena hwylcum
ænigum eaþe     þæt ic þær ymb sprice
gif hine hrineð þæt me of hrife fleogeð
þæt þone mān drinc mægne geceapaþ
full wer fæste feore sine
nelle ic unbunden ænigum hyran
nymþe searosæled. Saga hwæt ic hatte!
Riddle 23
Wob is my name turned back;
I am a wondrous being, shaped for battle.
When I bend, and from my bosom travels
a poisonous dart, I am very ready
so that I sweep that deadly evil far away from me.
When my ruler, he who designed that distress,
looses my limbs, I am longer than before,
until I spit, debased by destruction,
the terrible poison that I took in before.
What I speak about here does not
easily pass away from anyone,
if that which flies from my belly strikes him,
so that he buys that evil drink with his strength,
pays full compensation with his very life.
Unbound, I will not obey anyone
unless skilfully tied. Say what I am called.
Riddle 20
Ic eom wunderlicu wiht on gewin sceapen
frean minū · leof fægre gegyrwed
byrne is min bleofag swylce beorht seo mað
wīr ymb þone wælgim þe me waldend geaf
se me widgalum wisað hwilum
sylfum to sace þōn ic sinc wege
þurh hlutterne dæg hondweorc smiþa
gold ofer geardas oft ic gæstberend
cwelle compwæpnū cyning mec gyrweð
since ond seolfre ond mec on sele weorþað
ne wyrneð wordlofes wisan mæneð
mine for mengo þær hy meodu drincað
healdeð mec on heaþore hwilum læteð eft
radwerigne on gerūm sceacan
orlegfromne…
Riddle 20
Translated by Kevin Crossley-Holland
I’m a strange creature, shaped for a scrap,
Dear to my lord, finely decorated.
My clothing is motley and bright metal threads
Mount the deadly jewel my master
gave me – the man who at times involves me
in a fight. I carry treasure then,
the handiwork of smiths, gold in the court,
all the clear day. I often despatch
well-armed warriors. A king enriches me
with silver and precious stones, honours me
in the hall; he doesn’t stint but sings my praises
to the gathering – men swigging mead;
at times he holds me in reserve, at times
sets me free, travel-weary, eager
in the fray…


Everyone guessed the answer to the first riddle, perhaps it was too easy - the first line gives it away if you’re paying attention (WOB backwards is BOW, a weapon that ‘spits terrible poison’). For the second riddle, most of us guessed ‘sword’, but we also had the suggestion of ‘drinking cup’, paying attention to the details of mead being shared, and decorations on the object. The Exeter Book riddles do not have titles or solutions written with them, so it was great to see how, through careful reading, the children came up with their own ideas.

Reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo drinking horns, showing their decoration.
Sword hilt with interlace pattern, found at the Crundale Downs, Kent, in the British Museum collection.

We also thought about different ways that we can think about history surrounding us. In teams of boys against girls, they measured the biggest tree that they could find, eventually finding an American Elm that was 254 years old!


The Medway Megaliths

At Kits Coty House
Arriving at Kits Coty House, we took the opportunity to think more carefully about the differences (if any!) between ‘history’ and ‘stories’.
We read through four of the earliest texts that describe the arrival, and first battles of, Hengest and Horsa.

Gildas (500-570AD) gives the earliest account of the ‘coming of the Saxons’. He doesn’t actually name the brothers, but he does describe how:

A multitude of cubs (the Saxons) came forth from the lair of this barbaric lioness, in three cyuls, as they call them, their ships of war, with their sails wafted by the wind and with omens and prophecies favourable. They first landed on the eastern side of the island, by the invitation of the unlucky king, and there fixed their sharp talons, apparently to fight in favour of the island, but alas, more truly against it!
(Originally written in Latin, translated by J A Giles.)

As we can see in this text, Gildas was not impressed by the Saxons. In other parts of his ‘Ruin of Britain’, he explains that their arrival in Britain can be understood as divine punishment on the Britons who had lost their Christian ways.
Bede, a Northumbrian, Anglo-Saxon monk wrote his ‘Church History of the English People’ c. 731AD. His is arguably the earliest surviving text to name the brothers, and also recounts a mythological family tree:
In the year of our Lord 449, the race of Angles or Saxons invited by Vortigern, came to Britain in three warships and by his command were granted a place of settlement in the eastern part of the island to fight on behalf of the country, but their real intention was to conquer it.
They came from three very powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. Their first leaders are said to have been two brothers, Hengist and Horsa. Horsa was afterwards killed in Battle by the Britons, and in the eastern part of Kent there is still a monument bearing his name. They were the sons of Wihtgisl, son of Witta, son of Wecta, son of Woden, from whose stock the royal families of many kingdoms claim their descent.
(Originally written in Latin, translated by Judith McClure and Roger Collins)

Not only does Bede give the brothers names and family tree, but he also writes that Horsa fell in battle against the Britons, and is buried ‘in the eastern part of Kent’. We’re getting closer!

Nennius was probably a Welsh monk (although his exact identity is not known). He gives a little more precision to where Horsa was supposedly fell, and may have been buried:
Vortimer valiantly fought four battles against the Saxons. The first battle was that above mentioned; the second by the river Darent; the third on the ford, which is called in their language Episford (Aylesford), in our language Rit Hergabail, and there fell Horsa, along with the son of Vortigern, whose name was Categern.
(Written in Latin (c. 850), translated by Richard Rowley.)

Nennius names Aylesford as the area of the battle, and also adds the detail that Categern died at the same battle.

We’ve already seen how the The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (compiled 880-1160) describes Hengest and Ash’s battle at Crayford, and it doesn’t really give much more information about Horsa’s death than we already know:
AD. 455. This year Hengist and Horsa fought against king Vortigern at the place which is Aylesford and his brother Horsa was there slain, and after Hengist took the kingdom, and Ash his son.
(Originally in Old English).

When we get to Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095-1155), things become a little more dramatic!

Four battles Vortimer fought with them, and was victorious in all: the first upon the river Derent; the second upon the ford of Epsford, where Horsa and Catigern, another son of Vortigern, met and, after a sharp encounter, killed each other; the third upon the sea-shore, where the enemies fled shamefully to their ships, and betook themselves for refuge to the isle of Thanet. But Vortimer besieged them there, and daily distressed them with his fleet.
(Originally written in Latin, translated by Aaron Thompson.)   

Again, we have the repetition of the location of Aylesford. We have the added detail that Horsa and Categern don’t just die, but slay each other.

But, perhaps you’ve noticed, none of these four earliest sources mention a stone of any kind. In fact, Nellie Slayton Aurner looked at all sources that describe the death of Horsa until the 12th century, and there’s no mention of any stones or burials in Kent.

So what were we doing at Kits Coty?


William Lambarde's 'The Perambulation of Kent'.
The person we think might be responsible is William Lambarde, who, in 1576, penned The Perambulation of Kent. He explains that on coming across the Kits Coty stone, he realised   it must’ve been the site of Categern’s burial. He writes that the Britons:

‘erected to the memorie of Categerne (as I suppose) that monument of foure huge  and hard stones, which are yet standing in this parish, pitched upright in the ground, covered after the manner of Stonage [Stonehenge] (that famous Sepulchre of the Britons
upon Salisburie plaine) and now tearmed of the common people heere Citscotehouse [Kits Coty House].’

But he rejects the idea that Horsa was buried with such a monument:

‘partly because this fashion of monument was peculiar to the Britons, of  which nation Categerne was, but chieflie for that the
memorie of Horsa was by all likelyhood left at Horsted, a place not farre off, and both then and yet so called of his name’

Following Lambare, a great many gentleman wanderers and tourist guides to Kent from the 16th- early 20th century repeated the idea (with more or less conviction) that Kits Coty House was the grave of Categern. Even those people who treated the story as mythology rather than fact still repeated it, alongside giving other possible explanations for the name: a favourite of ours being ‘Kit’s Coty House’ was simply used by a shepherd called Keith or Christopher as a regular shelter. Cat Coit might also mean ‘battle of the wood’ in British, or ‘Categern’s coits’, ‘Categern’s stones’.

Colebrooke, writing in 1763, says how he was show what ‘‘was reputed to be Horsa’s monument by the people of the country. On the side of a hill, in the middle of a wood, is a great quantity of flint stones [in a pile], which, by the length of time and the dripping of the trees, was overgrown with moss.’ Colebrook is not convinced by the pile of stones, however, and believes instead that Kits Coty is not Catigern’s burial, but is rather Horsa’s.

When we reach the 19th century, Lampreys, in his 1834 A Brief Historical and Descriptive Account of Maidstone and Its Environs insists that the standard of the Saxons led by Hengist and Horsa— legendary figures who brought the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain—was found by or beneath the White Horse Stone following the Battle of Aylesford in 455.

So after all that, there’s still not any evidence that Categern was buried at Kits Coty, or Horsa buried there, or at White Horse Stone. However, the legends persist to this day.

At the White Horse Stone
What we can say for sure is that the Megaliths of both structures are probably 3000 years old, or older, and each formed part of a barrow or other grave marker. The British and Anglo-Saxons, although their texts show little interest in the strange stones around them, must have noticed them, and may have repurposed them. The stones do lie barely two miles from the roads that cross the river at Aylesford, and so it would not be too much of a journey to bring the bodies to the stones.

The children did some brilliant critical thinking about how the myths of the stones came about. They pointed out how the stones are really obvious but really strange in the landscape, and so someone in the 17th century, who knows the stories of the Anglo-Saxons, could be easily tempted to associate the stones with the battles that they thought were so important. One person made the great observation that the stones have an unusual ‘mood’ - which is probably the most important thing to notice, that the feel of places can have influential effects on how we understand the world around us.

From F J Bennett's 'The White Horse Stone and its Legend'
It was certainly very surprising to us to see how wooded the area around the White Horse Stone has become, compared to photographs from just over 100 years ago (this photo appears in The White Horse Stone and its legend, by F J Bennett, printed in 1907). Without the woods around it, it doesn’t seem quite as atmospheric!

At the White Horse Stone itself we spoke more about how Hengest and Horsa have represented over time, and looked at three images of the brothers.



This image is by Richard Verstigan, 1605. Richard was a British-Dutchman, who was exiled from England for writing sympathetically about the execution of a Catholic monk, but he must have admired the Anglo-Saxons: as the children pointed out, he dresses them here in grand, Elizabethan style clothing, and they stride confidently towards the viewer, into their new lands.



This second drawing was by American artist Bill Nye, for his Comic HIstory of England, printed in 1906. The children carefully observed how here Hengest and Horsa are anything but heroes! They seem to be lazy, with someone else carrying their bags. They are slumped over and heavy, nothing like the gentlemen imagined by Verstigan.



The last image we looked as was by J Edward Parrott, who was an English MP. The image appeared in his Pageant of British History, which was a celebration of patriotism, designed to up uncritical pride in all of ‘British’ history from the stone-age to the present day (1909). The children again explained how the men here look proud and strong, and we talked about how their helmets are more like fantasy Vikings than Anglo-Saxons.

We were really impressed with the way the children thought carefully about why different people might tell different stories about history: whether they are proud of it, want to hide it, whether they are looking for entertainment or a religious feeling, or want to change history  to fit their own ideas about what is ‘good’, ‘admirable’, or what should be made fun of!

Our final challenge at the White Horse Stone was for everyone to imagine, and act out, a scene from the White Horse Stone’s history or mythology. We saw the stone used for a game of hide-and -seek, as an actual horse, ridden by a fierce warrior, and as the work of a perfectionist sculptor interrupted by meddling friends!

The White Horse Stone performs as a horse in a reenactment of a battle between Anglo-Saxons and Britons.

Pegwell Bay (and the story of Tonge Castle)

The 'Hugin' ship at Pegwell Bay
The last stop! Pegwell Bay has been identified by historians and myth-makers as an arrival place for many new ideas and peoples. Recent archaeological work suggested that Caesar sailed into the bay in 54AD, with defenses build against the Roman army nearby. It may be the landing spot of Hengest and Horsa in 449AD. St Augustine, who brought Christianity (back) to this island and would become the first Archbishop of Canterbury, is thought to have arrived here in 597AD. It’s a good place to make a landing, being a wide and sandy natural harbour.

Sitting by the ‘Hugin’ ship, gifted to Britain by the Danish government in 1949 (supposedly to commemorate the landing of Hengest and Horsa… but this is very much a later Viking rather than early Anglo-Saxon style boat), we discussed some of the place names we had seen on our coach journey. We discussed how place names can tell us something about what a place was used for, or what its landscape might have been like, in the Anglo-Saxon period. For instance, place names ending in -ley or -lea indicate that the place was a clearing in a wooded area. -ford, as in Crayford and Dartford tell us that there was a river-crossing. Some place names are easier to guess than others. One that we found surprising was Ramsgate - no, it’s not a place through which sheep might pass, but it comes from 'Hraefns geat, the 'Raven's cliff gap'. The nesting, flying birds must’ve made quite an impression on the people who first named the place.

Cutting and sticking our paper 'thongs' to make the longest possible piece!
As we were running a bit over-time, we missed out one of the stops before Pegwell Bay: at Tonge Castle. However, we still explored the myth of how the castle was founded. Geoffrey of Monmouth writes that, having served the British well, Hengest asks the British king Vortigern for even more land than he had already been granted. Vortigern refuses at first, as the Kentish lords did not want to give any more land to these demanding Saxons. But Hengest says he only wants as much land as he can encircle within an oxhide. Vortigern agrees and is tricked: Hengest slices the oxhide thinly, tying the ‘thongs’ together to secure himself enough land to build his castle. Scholars have pointed out that inspiration for this story might have come to Geoffrey of Monmouth through Classical texts: after all, Dido, queen of Carthage, secured the site for her city with the very same trick. Geoffrey certainly was interested in creating a history of Britain to rival grand Classical traditions.

Measuring up to find the longest 'thong'!

 The children then worked in pairs in their own ‘oxhide’ challenge - with three minutes to cut up and stick together an A4 sheet into the longest possible ‘thong’! It was close, but the red team won by a few inches!
The Cotton World Map, Cotton Tiberius BV, possibly made at Canterbury, held at the British Library.
The last challenge was to draw out a map of the day, inspired two medieval maps from the 11th and 15th centuries. The Cotton Map (above) was made in around 1025-50 at Canterbury. After close examination, the children found Britain - just in the bottom left corner! This map shows the known world, with Britain and Europe in the bottom left quarter, Africa in the bottom right quarter, and Asia (including india and Sri Lanka) across the top half. The large sea cutting through the middle of the map is the Mediterranean, with a large and lopsided Italy, and Jerusalem almost in the centre. The children guessed that the large size of Italy suggests that the makers thought that this area, which of course includes Rome and key trade routes, was very important.


The Totius Brittanae map, MS Harley 1808, British Library.
This map is the 15th century ‘Totius Brittanae’, which is found in the same manuscript as a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s writing on Britain. As with the Cotton map, it tells us more about what sites are considered important, rather than giving geographic precision. It’s oriented with England at the top and Scotland at the bottom, and cities are depicted as big castles.

A completed map! Very much in the medieval style.
Everyone drew brilliant personal maps of their journeys inspired by these old maps. The map above we think is really in the early-medieval tradition, with Crayford defined with a prominent circle, just like Jerusalem on the Cotton Map, and the straight lines of the boundaries between different places are exactly like the lines drawn on the Cotton Map to show the different ‘tribes of Israel’. If you didn’t know, you would definitely be able to guess that the person who made this map calls Crayford home!

The map below also includes details such as ‘grandma’s house’, in true early medieval style, this map-maker has paid attention to the places that matter most to them, and represented the other places visited with symbols, much like the makers of both the Cotton and the Totius maps.

A map which includes 'grandma's house' as well as the sites from the journey.
Phew! As you can see, the children did so much work thinking about the different layers of history at just a few Kentish sites. We were really impressed by how thoughtfully they answered questions, read poems, and interpreted pictures, and their energy and excitement in all the activities was fantastic. Thank you to CRAY for inviting us to lead you on a journey through times and stories!

Cheese! A group selfie at the Medway Megaliths.
Thank you to everyone at CRAY for a fantastic day! We loved exploring Kent with you all!

Beth and Fran

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