ruggle against Penda of
Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda and Cadwallon on the
Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a victory which obtained for
him many years of peace. Penda was finally slain by Oswald's successor
Oswy in a great battle which is supposed to have taken place on the
banks of the Tweed.

Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who was
once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King Athelstan,
grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died, Athelstan came northward
to claim Northumbria for himself. He captured Bamburgh--the first time
that stronghold of the Bernician kings had ever been taken--and arranged
for two earls to govern Northumbria for him. They attempted
unsuccessfully to oppose a force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was
joined by two earls of Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped
near a place called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton.
Athelstan advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle
on this ground. They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was
staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham
woods and the Till). The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan's men, who
set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving their king
time to reach a little "burg" (Old Bewick) in the neighbourhood. A
running fight followed, which was carried on the next day, and with the
help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who were Norsemen, it ended in a
complete victory for Athelstan. While in the north, King Athelstan gave
the well-known rhyming charter to a certain Paulan of Roddam;

"I kyng Adelstan
giffs hier to Paulan
Oddam and Roddam
als gud and als fair
als evyr thai myne war,
and thar to wytness
Mald my Wiffe."

Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan vanquished
Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots. The site of this
battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it was into the Humber
that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their large fleet; but the
precise spot has never been determined.

In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of Lothian
from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast possessions of St.
Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be lost to the church of
Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon all the people of St.
Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed--all those, that is, who