PAST CRIMEStroops ambushed. They found a collection of‘hags’who were speaking in a
mysterious language and pouring a poisonous brew over a wax image. The
witches were arrested and burned to death – and the king got better!
Unfortunately, returning to the same area again a short while later, King
Duffus was murdered and his body hidden under the bridge by Forres.
A charter in Peterborough Cathedral referring to property of one Wulfstan
Uccea tells us that he inherited it from his father who had been given the land
by king Eadred in 948 after the previous owner, an unnamed widow, had been
executed for witchcraft, and her son sent into exile. The language used in the
charter implies that she had been using a wax effigy to cause harm to
someone. The woman was drowned at London Bridge, eighty miles away,
according to the records–or possibly at a nearer bridge over the River Nene
on the London road. This all seems rather unlikely–at that time, sticking pins
into an effigy was not a capital offence unless it could be proven that someone
died as a result. The researcher who describes this case suggests that Wulfstan
and his father may have trumped up the charges in order to gain a valuable
piece of real estate!^10
Crime in a North German town
Some criminal evidence has come from the North German town of
Hedeby. Around 982, a royal longship was sunk near the town.
Excavations in 1979 discovered an oak chest lying on the sea bottom,
close to the keel of the royal vessel, but half a metre deeper (Figure 16).
How did it get there? The chest was some 5m from the jetty–too far for it
to have been accidentally dropped when the ship was being loaded. The
chest was very well made, with panels fixed into grooves for the sides, a
strong floor board fixed by mortices and nails and a curved lid. There is
decoration on the exterior, carved into the wood and it once had a strong
iron lock. The sides slope slightly inwards, so that it would have remained
stable on a rocking ship.
When it was found, the chest was lying open, and upside down, in the mud
of the harbour with nothing but a large granite boulder in it. The lock had been
forced off. The chest must have been stolen, the lock broken, and the contents
pillaged. Then the chest was thrown overboard from a ship, with a rock from a
ship’s ballast inside to weigh it down and hide the evidence.
The Hedeby harbour investigations also found a great many coins,
mostly early local types, but with some Islamic, Carolingian, German and
Northumbrian examples as well. In one small area, nine silverdarāhim
were found. They were apparently struck in Baghdad in 807/8 for the