Lyrskog Heath 1043 AD

[aligern]

The  battle of Lyrskog Heath 1043
Protagonists:

The Dano Norse
King Magnus I the Good of Norway and Denmark.
Duke Ordulf  Brunswick, Magnus' brother in law. Referred to in Snorre's text as Duke Otto.
Perhaps 7,000 men from Denmark, Norway and Germany
We are given no numbers  except for 15,000 Wendish casualties,  but the  Wendlanders were in great numbers and substantially  outnumbered the Norse.



The Wends Led by the sons of Rettebur, late king of Wendland
Perhaps as many as 10-12,000 Snorre claims 15,000 Wends were killed which looks a very high figure. An army losing that number would be at least 20,000 men, a huge figure for the region.


SourceThe Heimskringla of Snorre Sturlason (1179-1241), Saga of Magnus the Good fom the Online Medieval and classical Library

Chapter 27. OF KING MAGNUS' MILITARY FORCE.

King Magnus heard this news, and at the same time that the people
of Wendland had a large force on foot.  He summoned people
therefore to come to him, and drew together a great army in
Jutland.  Otto, also, the Duke of Brunswick, who had married
Ulfhild, King Olaf the Saint's daughter, and the sister of King
Magnus, came to him with a great troop.  The Danish chiefs
pressed King Magnus to advance against the Wendland army, and not
allow pagans to march over and lay waste the country; so it was
resolved that the king with his army should proceed south to
Hedeby.  While King Magnus lay at Skotborg river, on Lyrskog
Heath, he got intelligence concerning the Wendland army, and that
it was so numerous it could not be counted; whereas King Magnus
had so few, that there seemed no chance for him but to fly.  The
king, however, determined on fighting, if there was any
possibility of gaining the victory; but the most dissuaded him
from venturing on an engagement, and all, as one man, said that
the Wendland people had undoubtedly a prodigious force.  Duke
Otto, however, pressed much to go to battle.  Then the king
ordered the whole army to be gathered by the war trumpets into
battle array, and ordered all the men to arm, and to lie down for
the night under their shields; for he was told the enemy's army
had come to the neighbourhood.  The king was very thoughtful; for
he was vexed that he should be obliged to fly, which fate he had
never experienced before.  He slept but little all night, and
chanted his prayers.



28. OF KING OLAF'S MIRACLE.

The following day was Michaelmas eve.  Towards dawn the king
slumbered, and dreamt that his father, King Olaf the Saint (Magnus dead father),
appeared to him, and said, "Art thou so melancholy and afraid,
because the Wendland people come against thee with a great army?
Be not afraid of heathens, although they be many; for I shall be
with thee in the battle.  Prepare, therefore, to give battle to
the ndlanders, when thou hearest my trumpet."  When the king
awoke he told his dream to his men, and the day was then dawning.
At that moment all the people heard a ringing of bells in the
air; and those among King Magnus's men who had been in Nidaros
thought that it was the ringing of the bell called Glod, which
King Olaf had presented to the church of Saint Clement in the
town of Nidaros.



29. BATTLE OF LYRSKOG HEATH.

Then King Magnus stood up, and ordered the war trumpets to sound,
and at that moment the Wendland army advanced from the south
across the river against him; on which the whole of the king's
army stood up, and advanced against the heathens.  King Magnus
threw off from him his coat of ring-mail, and had a red silk
shirt outside over his clothes, and had in his hands the battle-
axe called Hel , which had belonged to King Olaf.  King Magnus
ran on before all his men to the enemy's army, and instantly
hewed down with both hands every man who came against him.  So
says Arnor, the earls' skald: --

     "His armour on the ground he flung
     His broad axe round his head he swung;
     And Norway's king strode on in might,
     Through ringing swords, to the wild fight.
     His broad axe Hel with both hands wielding,
     Shields, helms, and skulls before it yielding,
     He seemed with Fate the world to share,
     And life or death to deal out there."

This battle was not very long; for the king's men were very
fiery, and where they came the Wendland men fell as thick as
tangles heaped up by the waves on the strand.  They who stood
behind betook themselves to flight, and were hewed down like
cattle at a slaughter.  The king himself drove the fugitives
eastward over the heath, and people fell all over the moor.  So
says Thiodolf: --

     "And foremost he pursued,
     And the flying foe down hewed;
     An eagle's feast each stroke,
     As the Wendland helms he broke.
     He drove them o'er the hearth,
     And they fly from bloody death;
     But the moor, a mile or more,
     With the dead was studded o'er."

It is a common saying, that there never was so great a slaughter
of men in the northern lands, since the time of Christianity, as
took place among the Wendland people on Lyrskog's Heath.  On the
other side, not many of King Magnus's people were killed,
although many were wounded.  After the battle the king ordered
the wounds of his men to be bound; but there were not so many
doctors in the army as were necessary, so the king himself went
round, and felt the hands of those he thought best suited for the
business; and when he had thus stroked their palms, he named
twelve men, who, he thought, had the softest hands, and told them
to bind the wounds of the people; and although none of them had
ever tried it before, they all became afterwards the best of
doctors.  There were two Iceland men among them; the one was
Thorkil, a son of Geire, from Lyngar; the other was Atle, father
of Bard Svarte of Selardal, from whom many good doctors are
descended.  After this battle, the report of the miracle which
King Olaf the Saint had worked was spread widely through the
country; and it was the common saying of the people, that no man
could venture to fight against King Magnus Olafson, for his
father Saint Olaf stood so near to him that his enemies, on that
account. never could do him harm.


Commentary.
King Magnus was the illegitimate son of Olaf the Saint and was raised to the kingship in Norway. He was called 'the Good' because he foreswore  from maintaining feud against the men who had killed his father. By an arrangement with Harthacanute he become king of Denmark too.  The Wends are the Slavic inhabitants of the lands on the Eastern Baltic. It is likely that they had raised a force to ravage Southern Denmark because Magnus had recently campaigned in Wendland, destroying the fortress of Jomsborg,  though the stated reason is that the sons of Rettebur were seeking revenge for their father killed on a raid by the Danes.
It is likely that a normal Wendish incursion would be relatively small in number, so Magnus was daunted when he discovered the size of the invasion. After some soul searching he attacked violently, throwing off his mail shirt and swinging his axe. This matter of discarding armour occurs elsewhere in Snorre e.g. the saga of Haakon the Good and interestingly at Stamford Bridge in 1066 we might consider whether it is one of his stock dramatic devices. Although Snorre is writing 150 years after the event I am not unhappy that this is a reasonably believable account.
The battle is short, there are no great tactics, Magnus leads the charge and his men run to keep up, perhaps giving the effect of an impromptu wedge. Most likely the Norse are an elite force with Magnus hearth troop, the men of the Danish earls and Ordulf of Brunswick's best men. A large levy of Wends may well have contained many ill equipped and untrained men, hence the flight from the rear when the Norse broke the line, .Mind you, having a river at their back cannot have helped morale.

R.G.B

[Erpingham]

It is worth comparing Magnus' actions with those of Thorold  at the Battle of Vinheath in Egil's saga

"Then Thorolf became so furious that he cast his shield on his back, and, grasping his halberd with both hands, bounded forward dealing cut and thrust on either side. Men sprang away from him both ways, but he slew many. Thus he cleared the way forward to earl Hring's standard, and then nothing could stop him."

The question then becomes how much is this a stock heroic image and how much a legitimate tactic?  There is a hint of berserker in both descriptions.  Yet to form a wedge behind the leader and charge in, particularly against a more numerous but clearly shaky enemy, looks like a do-able (if rather risky) tactic.

[aligern]

It is certainly how Snorre sees Magnus, because he has him doing much the same at Aarhus.  So it might well be a stock heroic stereotype. However, it is not his standard depiction of a king in action.

As you say, it is a tactic that will work if it surprises the enemy and is followed up by a loyal troop rushing forward.
Roy