A Little Wonder Through Whacky Early British History

Today I have plunged into the world of British history, venturing into territories previously unknown.

Listening to The Rest Is History episode on Æthelstan, I couldn’t help but notice echoes of Tolkien’s world: names and stories that feel almost mythic in themselves.

Æthelstan’s mother, Ecgwynn (pronounced Eggwin), and Æthelweard (Æthelweird!) sound as though they have stepped straight from Middle-earth.

This particular podcast episode was funny as they had mentioned how they had run a type of ‘world cup’ getting listeners to vote on their favourite British monarch and surprisingly Æthelstan, a pre-1066 King won!

Tom Holland’s evident fascination with St Cuthbert in a different episode was particularly amusing.

In their episode on St Patrick, I learned something extraordinary: for a runaway slave in early Ireland, travelling without an overlord was perilous. Yet protection could be gained in a peculiar way: by sucking the nipple of someone of noble birth, thereby forming a bond of loyalty. Astonishingly, bodies of gentry have been found with severed nipples, possibly to prevent them from ever offering such protection or claiming kingship themselves.

Holland even suggests this practice may trace its rationale back to Isaiah 60:16: ‘You will drink the milk of nations and be nursed at royal breasts.’

History, it seems, never runs short of the weird and wonderful.