Eadric the Grasper: Sons of Mercia: 1

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Eadric crossed his arms over his chest. “Am I? Think about it, friend. Our Saxon kings tried to fight the Vikings for over two hundred years, and it hasn’t accomplished a thing.” Clearly he did not, but Eadric smiled. “Cheer up, my friend. The purpose of a job is to buy bread and live a comfortable life. Therefore its purpose is to be happy, and so it must be useless, if it makes no one happy.” The boy still seemed confused, so Eadric contrived another way to explain it. “Consider the king. He is a king! And yet do you hear how people ridicule him?” Eadric or Edric Streona (died 1017) was an ealdorman of the Saxon Mercians. "Streona" appears to have meant "the Grasper".

Edmund and Cnut made peace on the advice of Eadric on Ola's island near Deerhurst. It was decided that England would be split in half at the Thames, Cnut in the North and Edmund in the South; however, Edmund did not live much longer and Cnut became sole ruler of England. Eadric held his position as Ealdorman of Mercia. [15] Death [ edit ] I felt as if I should leave a more ambivalent review to counterbalance the glowing praise in the other ones, and give people a more realistic picture of it. In this historical epic based on a real-life medieval rogue, a cunning young man rises through treachery—or is it statesmanship?—in an England beset by Viking invasions. Also, given how insistent she is on Engla-lond and similar spellings, it's odd that she goes for Canute for the Viking King's name,

Hooper, Nicholas and Matthew Bennett. The Cambridge illustrated atlas of warfare: the Middle Ages. 1996. Web. Fall, 2009. Lacey, Robert and Danny Danzinger. The Year 1000 : What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium. Little, Brown and Company, 1999. Print. The early 12th-century historian John of Worcester writes that Eadric the Wild was a son of one Ælfric, whom he identifies as a brother of Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia under King Æthelred the Unready. [4] While five of Eadric Streona's brothers appear to attest witness-lists of King Æthelred's charters, no Ælfric makes a plausible candidate for identification with a brother of the ealdorman. [4] It is possible that Ælfric was not a brother but a nephew of the ealdorman. [5] If so, Eadric (the Wild) would belong to the same generation as his cousin Siward son of Æthelgar, who was himself a grandson of Eadric Streona. [5]

Athelward became ealdorman of Wessex, or the “western provinces,” sometime between 973 and 975 A.D. He came from a strong royal lineage, as his great-great grandfather was the brother of Alfred the Great, Ethelred of Wessex. Considering the fact that Athelward focused a great deal of his written chronicle to tracing his own family tree, his ancestry was no doubt of great personal importance to him. He also devoted his chronicle to his cousin Matilda, abbess of the Essen monastery, and wanted her to send him information on her local relatives in return. But most importantly, Athelward’s efforts made him the first layman since King Alfred himself to write a book in England. As Eadric watched him go, he felt that he had wasted his time and a great deal of leaking wine for nothing. He turned away with a scoff. Then he saw someone else watching him with a gaping mouth. Domesday Book mentions 'Edric salvage' as the former tenant of six manors in Shropshire and one in Herefordshire. He may have held others but there is a profusion of Eadrics in Domesday, rendering closer identification difficult if not impossible. R. W. Eyton commented that 'a genealogical enthusiast would have little hesitation in assuming as a conclusion 'the possibility that William le Savage, who held Eudon Savage, Neen Savage and Walton Savage of Ranulph de Mortimer in the twelfth century, could have been a descendant of Eadric'. Eadric himself is perhaps first identifiable in the witness lists of charters, along with his father and brother Brihtric, in 1002. [3] Other members of Eadric's family seem to have been present at court in some strength in 1004–5; there are no lists in which Eadric appears in 1006, but Eadric was reported in that year for being involved in the killing of Ealdorman Ælfhelm:If it is true, however, that the silvatici were for some years a widespread and well-known phenomenon, that might help to explain aspects of later outlaw stories that have puzzled historians. Few outlaws in other countries have apparently left so powerful a legend as Robin Hood. ...The most famous outlaws of the greenwood before him were probably the Old English nobility on their way down and out. Legacy [ edit ] Hammer of Justice - Stuns a random target for 6 seconds and make it vulnerable to Hammer of the Righteous. Cast immediately before Eadric casts Hammer of the Righteous. Magic effect. Green, W.C., Translator. Egil’s Saga. Translated 1893 from the original Egils saga Skallagrímssonar. Web: “Icelandic Saga Database.” Eadric's family appears to have had interests in Shropshire and Herefordshire. John of Worcester names Eadric's father as Æthelric, a thegn who attended court from the late 980s onwards, and his siblings as Brihtric, Ælfric, Goda, Æthelwine, Æthelweard, and Æthelmær, of whom the last is said (probably mistakenly) to have been the father of Wulfnoth Cild, who was the father of Earl Godwin. The chronicler also left a blank space between Ælfric and Goda, as if allowing for the name of another brother. Thegns bearing these names occur among the witnesses to the charters issued in the name of King Æthelred II in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. These thegns occur quite often in groups of two or three, which might be interpreted as evidence that they were members of the same family. Æthelric seems to have been accompanied from the mid-990s onwards by one or more of his sons (not including Ælfric). Judging from the witness lists, it may be that the name of the other brother was Æthelnoth. Eadric the Grasper (Eadric “Streona”) is a rich, swiftly moving story, set at the beginning of the 11th century in England—or as the book has it, Engla-lond. The research is intense (nice selected bibliography at the end), with both the descriptions and settings deep and provocative.