Redrawing the battleground

MICHAEL WOOD gives his verdict on an ambitious book that attempts to finally provide a definitive location for one of the most famous battles in Anglo-Saxon history

- MICHAEL WOOD

I’m a fan of Bernard Cornwell. There, I admit it. I really enjoyed Last Kingdom. The sweep of 70 years of this electric time in English history was a feat of imagination, told with verve and relish. Of course most of his story didn’t actually happen, but you don’t have to believe it. It’s fiction. Cornwell composed the introduction to Michael Livingston’s new book, and his name appears large on the cover. So does his aura: the epic title, the smoking sword, the Last Kingdom-esque graphics.

It’s a great story, of course: the 937 invasion of England by a huge coalition of North Britons and Vikings; the epic struggle at Brunanburh, long remembered as the “Great Battle”. But despite its fame, the site is lost. Not even the general location is known for certain, and the debate is getting heated.

Livingston is not a historian of the 10th century; he’s a scholar of Middle English literature, and the author of historical fantasy novels. A few years ago he edited a “casebook” on Brunanburh, pulling the sources together – an interesting idea compromised by having no Anglo-Saxon historian on board. This lapse confirmed the book’s aim: to fix the Wirral as the location of the battle.