Battle of Ringmere explained

Conflict:Battle of Ringmere Heath
Place:Near Ipswich
Result:Danish victory
Combatant1:Anglo-Saxons
Combatant2: Danish Vikings
Partof:the Viking invasions of England
Commander2:Thorkell the TallPossibly Olaf Haraldsson
Commander1:Ulfcytel Snillingr

52.475°N 0.825°WThe Battle of Ringmere was fought on 5 May 1010. Between an East Anglian contingent led by Ulfcytel Snillingr and a danish army under Thorkell the Tall Norse sagas recorded a battle at Hringmaraheiðr; Old English Hringmere-hǣð, modern name Ringmere Heath.[1]

The Anglo-Saxon chronicle records that the English were routed by the flight of Thurcytel "Mare's head", and only the men of Cambridgeshire stood to fight.

John of Worcester records that the Danes defeated the English. Over a three-month period the Danes wasted East Anglia, burning Thetford and Cambridge.

In his Víkingarvísur, the poet Sigvat records the victory of Saint Olaf, fighting alongside Thorkell the Tall

Yet again Óláfr caused a sword-assembly [BATTLE] to be held for the seventh time in Ulfcytel’s land, as I recount the tale. The offspring of Ælla [= Englishmen] stood over all Ringmere Heath; there was slaying of the army there, where the guardian of Haraldr’s inheritance [= Óláfr] caused exertion.[2]

References

  1. Stevenson . W. H. . Notes on Old-English Historical Geography . The English Historical Review . 11 . 42 . 301–304 . Apr 1896 . 20 May 2011 . 10.1093/ehr/xi.xlii.301.
  2. Judith Jesch (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Víkingarvísur 7’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 544. https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=verse&i=3848