NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix, JAN. 4, 1902.
was the kingdom of Elmet, which Bede (I.e.)
calls British, and which Nennius (app.) says
became Northumbrian on its seizure by King
Edwin. Elmet therefore was not Northum-
brian, and the 'Tribal Hidage' shows it as
having fallen to Mercia. It was in this dis-
trict that Penda was killed at the battle ol
the Winwsed. The site is said to be Wm-
moor, to the north-east of Leeds, which place
was reached by Oswy a little after the battle.
Close by one of the great Roman roads passes
northward through Aberford. The Northum-
brians, being comparatively weak in numbers,
seem to have waited for the attack on then-
own ground. The Wharfe gives the most
probable boundary line. It is the boundary
of the hundreds, one of which is named bkyr-
ack (division oak?). For the Nidd, it may
be said that it forms the boundary of the
archdeaconry of York or the West Riding,
the civil boundary of this district being still
further to the north. Possibly the district
between the Wharfe and the Nidd was a
"mark" or No-man's-land. Nennius calls
the district where the battle took place the
Field of Gai ; Guiseley and Kayley, places
lying between Cawood and Keighley, may
preserve this ancient name. Elmet is attached
usually to Barwick-in-Elmet, and sometimes
also to Sherburn.
The Northumbrians, however, made con- quests further west, and Ethelfrith's descent on Chester in 607 or later, perhaps by way of
as the position of Spalding and Spaldwick
shows, and so we may conclude that the inter-
mediate tribes belonged to the same group.
The country occupied by the Gyrwas, to give
them their general name, includes South
Lincolnshire (Kesteven and Holland), Cam-
bridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and the nor-
thern end of Northamptonshire. Bede (iv. 6)
tells us that Peterborough was in the country
of the Gyrwas, and the historians of Ely call
the people of their district by the same name.
Further, Bede speaks of the "province" of
Oundle, just as he speaks of the province"
of the East Angles or of the East Saxons ;
hence it may be inferred that Oundle was the
chief city of the South Gyrwas, and so the
seat of government for the whole group. This
"province "of Oundle maintained a sort of
distinction till a later period, being known
as "The Eight Hundreds" in the time of
Edgar ('A.-S. Chron.,' 963). The 'Tribal
Hidage ' assigns only 600 hides to the South
Gyrwas, so that there had been some enlarge-
ment, either by addition or by natural growth,
in the 300 years intervening. That the
Gyrwas were East Anglian in sympathy and
doubtless by race is proved by the story of
their conversion. This was probably effected
by St. Felix, who is said by tradition to have
had a church at Soham, on the border of their
country ; and his successor in the East
Anglian bishopric was " his deacon Thomas,
of the province of the Gyrwas " (Bede, iii. 20).
Sedbergh or of Colne, secured for them most of j Then we have the story of St. Botolpji. It
the present counties of Lancaster and Chester, |
which probably remained Northumbrian till I
the overthrow of Oswald in 641. Oswestry ;
seems a peculiar site for a battle between the
kings of Mercia and Northumbria, but if we
suppose that Oswald was trying to join the
Wessex forces by way of the Severn Valley,
it will be seen that Penda attacked him just
after he had crossed the Northumbrian limit,
at the southern boundary of Cheshire (now a
detached portion of Flintshire) as soon, in
fact, as he became a trespasser on what Penda
considered his own domains. The East Angles occupied Norfolk and
Suffolk, and their allies or subjects the
Gyrwas spread themselves over the Fen
country and its margin. It appears from
Bede that the South Gyrwas were the domi- nant people among the Fenmen he men- tions them by name, and their chief was of
rank to marry a daughter of the East Anglian
king and the ' Tribal Hidage ' agrees with
this by giving them the first place in its list,
thus : South Gyrwa, North Gyrwa, East
Wixna, West Wixna, (Herstina), and Spalda.
The last named were certainly Fenmen by race,
can scarcely be doubted that Siwara, Queen
of the "Southern English," was the ruler of
the South Gyrwas in succession to Tonbert.
Botolph obtained from her an islet in the Fens
as the site for his hermitage, and the gift was
ratified by the kings of the East Angles. If
Boston be the site of Ikanho, the land granted
him must have been near a Spalda district ;
and so his story shows that in 654, when
Penda was in the zenith of his power, the
Fenland tribes held together under the
suzerainty of the East Angles. A little later
St. Etheldreda settled at Ely, " in the pro-
vince of the East Angles, a country of about
600 families "probably the Herstina of the
'Tribal Hidage' which had been assigned
to her as dowry by her first husband Ton-
bert, and the people of which, as already
stated, were Gyrwas (Bede, iv. 19 ; ' Liber
Eliensis'). It is sometimes supposed that
they were the South Gyrwas ; but it is so un-
likely that a chief would give the central
district of his province as dowry that nothing
further need be said as to this. Another
piece of evidence is given incidentally by
Bede (ii. 12), who, in mentioning the great
