Battle of Cannington

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Part of the Viking-Saxon wars

Date	878
Location	Cannington, Somerset
Result	Decisive Saxon victory

Combatants

West Saxons

Danes (Vikings)

Commanders

Ealdorman Odda

Ubbe Ragnarsson†

Strength

Unknown

1200

Casualties

Unknown

The Battle of Cannington, in 878, took place at the fort of Cynwit, now recognised as being on Cannington Hill, near Bridgwater in Somerset, England.

A party of Vikings lead by Ubbe Ragnarsson, brother of Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan Ragnarsson, landed on the coast at Combwich with 23 ships and twelve hundred men. There they observed that a number of English Thanes and all of their men had taken refuge in the fort of "Cynwit" for safety. While the fort was secure on all sides except for the East, it lacked adequate fortifications. Thus Ubbe and the Vikings proceeded to besiege the fort, expecting the English to surrender eventually from lack of water (as there was no available source near the fort). The English however, instead of waiting to die of thirst on top of the hill, attacked suddenly out of the fortress at dawn, taking the Danes by surprise and winning a great victory.

Cynwits Castle hill fort and site of the battle

While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle glosses over the battle of Cannington, it is important for two reasons.

First: because it was an important victory for the English won by someone other than Alfred the Great, the king of England at the time who was most successfully spearheading the English resistance of the Viking invasions. The Chronicle, in addressing the year 878, makes the claim that: “all but Alfred the King” had been subdued by the Vikings. Alfred, as it turns out, was actually hiding elsewhere with a small band of followers. Credit for the victory at Cannington – as revealed by Aethelweard - is due to Ealdorman Odda, who is not mentioned in either the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or Asser’s Life of King Alfred, mostly likely out of reverence for Alfred’s status as king. The Battle of Cannington shows us that, while Alfred was a major force in uniting the English peoples against the Danes, a number of local Ealdormen still held sway over the peoples of Wessex.

Second: At the battle of Cannington, Odda and the English forces not only succeeded in killing Ubba, but they also captured a Danish War banner called “Hrefn” or The Raven. While the Anglo-Saxon chronicle only briefly mentions the battle, it does draw attention to the capture of the banner, which is interesting considering that it does not single out any other trophy captured by the English in the many other victories they had against the Danes. What made this banner so special? Sources tell us that out of the three commanding brothers of the Vikings – Halfdan, Ivar, and Ubbe – Ubbe was the most superstitious and prone to consultation of pagan seers to dictate his course of action in battle. As Ubba’s battle flag, the Raven banner therefore held specific ritual meaning amongst the Danes, and is even described as being as ritually important to the Danes as the ‘holy ring’ that the Danes used to declare their peace with Alfred after the battle of Edington some months later.

[edit] The battle in fiction

One significant treatment of the battle is in The Marsh King, a children's historical novel by C. Walter Hodges, where its location is called "Kynwit". Although this novel is about King Alfred, it gives due credit to this victory, although the description of the battle may not be very accurate.

The battle also features in Bernard Cornwell's novel The Last Kingdom. Cornwell ascribes the victory, as well as the killing of Ubbe, to his fictional hero Uthred.

[edit] References

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Life of King Alfred by Asser
The Latin Chronicle by Aethelweard.
Cornwell, Bernard. The Last Kingdom. (Harper Collins: London) 2005.
Keary C.F. The Vikings in Western Christendom. (T. Fisher Unwin: London)1891.
Smyth, Alfred P. King Alfred the Great. (Oxford University Press: Oxford) 1995.