Citation Needed - The Battle of Stamford Bridge

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

The Battle of Stamford Bridge (Old English: Gefeoht æt Stanfordbrycge) took place at the village of Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire, in England on 25 September 1066, between an English army under King Harold Godwinson and an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Hardrada and the English king's brother Tostig Godwinson. After a bloody battle, both Hardrada and Tostig along with most of the Norwegians were killed. Although Harold Godwinson repelled the Norwegian invaders, his army was defeated by the Normans at Hastings less than three weeks later. The battle has traditionally been presented as symbolising the end of the Viking Age, although major Scandinavian campaigns in Britain and Ireland occurred in the following decades, such as those of King Sweyn Estrithson of Denmark in 1069–1070 and King Magnus Barefoot of Norway in 1098 and 1102–1103. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

So, uh, so did you see Tenet? No, because I don't want to die. Did you see it? No, I also don't want to die. Yeah, I had to subtract it. It's smart. Surprise! Oh, man!

What did you guys do this time? She's wealthy. So we know how you're doing your episodes this week and next about the battle of Stamp Aid Ridge. That's Stampord Bridge. Stampord. Right. Stampord. Yep. And we recreated the battlefield for you as a gift.

You replaced our podcasting recording studio of the 12th century muddy field. The smell. Mm-hmm. Yes, 12th century. Down to the last cobblestone, by the way. What on earth would make you guys think that I would want to do this?

The mics are covered in hay. Are those wheel horses over there? Yeah, because You know battle thing that you're doing because here's the deal guys I Absolutely fucking love it. It's amazing Yeah, for sure you get get to good Normandy. Who's the Dunk of Murmolsey? I have no idea.

Okay. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm no one, I'm going to be leading this army tonight, but there are other errors to my title. First up, three men whose battles have generally started with both players shuffling their decks, Cecil Heath and Ela. Okay, don't kink shame no one. Come shame. You know better than that. No, Nackluck, you don't want to get some of this deck right? Right? I'm just so honored that Noah thinks

I'm smart enough to play any trading card. Really? This is a lovely day for me. I don't think that's what he was saying. And also joining us tonight as a man whose battles generally begin when asked to turn on a piece of electrical equipment. Okay, turning things on has never been a strong suit of mine. I've never said what. Never. No.

That's something that all the us podcasters share really. Now, before we get going tonight, I want to remind our listeners that the job market is thinning out. And, you know, if this gig falls apart, at least two of our cast members aren't qualified for anything, but roving mercenary. So if you'd like to help them avoid that, be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us Tom, what person-placed thing concept phenomenon or event will we be talking about today.

Today we will be discussing the year 1066, but just part one of it because some years, some years need more than one part man. This is the battle with Stanford Ridge today. Bridge, bridge. That's okay. No, I get it. Not everybody can fit an entire year into a single episode. It takes a lot of skill to do that.

And so you wrote the article. You probably watched a documentary or two, read a book or two, recreated all of this painstakingly with Legos and my new video. Are you ready to weave the tale? Well, that's not neglect staring for hours in an 11th century tapestry. I know we shouldn't neglect that, but we didn't know. We should do the edit. That's it. All right.

So where does this story begin? See, so. All right. So our main story takes place in the year 1066, but in order to grasp all the characters, we have to go back a little bit and get a lay of the land and meet some of the major players. So mostly this story will be about a guy named William the Baster. Lots of people in the 11th century had interesting neckdames that stuck with them. And it also helped differentiate people because there was not a plethora of first names to go around.

Right. Yeah. And noises are hard to come up with. Yeah. William. And then you got. Well, okay. Heath, awful, Jud judgey for a guy who went by chunk for a presidential administration. We're not going to start with William. We're going to start with the King of England in 1065. Edward the Confessor. Edward was the son of Ethel Red the Unready. Yeah, he was so unready. The A, he seems to have run right into the E in his name.

Ethel Red so unready. The A, he seems to have run right into the E in his name. He was here. Aethel read the unready. He's that king that like gets out to his horse, only have to run back into the castle because he forgot his flag and a mead and just come on. Aethel read. Pat himself down. You look fine.

You can't be sad. I said. You can't be sad. I said, no. Athler Ed was the king of England from 978 to 1016, kind of. I mean, there was a short exile in there from 1013 to 1014, but he was basically the king for a long goddamn time. When he died, there was this weird chess match with multiple pieces, except these pieces were people.

And when you got knocked off the board, you didn't come back when a pawn made it to the other side. That's people were exiled. That's a fucking thing. People were killed. I just realized, okay. We would just be like, oh poor person, tried to have some social mobility. We sacrificed it.

We'll trade here. We'll trade here tonight, queen. So people were exiled, people were killed. Widows married new kings, they supported new sons over their older sons. And they died young because it was the past. Well, to be fair, until we discover immortality, everyone who dies doesn't because it's...

And she's doing it. And she's doing it. So during a lot of this time, Edward the Confessor was an exile. England was too hostile for him as he was the legal heir to the throne. If he would have stepped foot into England at the time without an army of sufficient size, he'd have been killed.

But at a certain point, his half brother, Harthakannute, calls him back to England to make a good word. These hangars. I know, we have to see. No, he has to buy a ball and they're somewhere at least to a ship. But that's how you pronounce it. It's Harth Martha Canute. There's a C and it's C not at the other end.

It looks like it. So Martha Canute does call him back to English. C not. And make it hard for the official air because Martha Canute's dying. All right. Let's be honest. King of the canoe was now working out. No. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what happens when you settle on any noises for a name. Yeah, they really just stood as just stuck with William. Yeah. This guy is his half brother because his dad, Kanut, he married Edwards biomom after killing Edwards dad, which is very awkward. That's got to be a weird Thanksgiving. Anyway, after Arthur Kanut's death, Edward became king in 1042 and remained king until very early in 1066. Okay. All right. I think I know the rest of this story. remained king until very early in 1066. Okay. All right.

I think I know the rest of this story. See, then he meets a mere cat and a warred hog. And it's a song. And they're going to learn a little something about themselves along the way. So now we get to the real problem with royal secession. It is pretty easy. It was going to be pretty easy. It was going to be pretty easy.

Yeah. It was pretty easy with sons, half sons, and people with big ass armies. But now, Edward the Confessor has no heirs. There are really three people that could possibly take over the throne. The first is Harold Hardrada. He's the current King of Norway and really one of the last badass Vikings. There's Harold Godwinson, who's basically the most powerful Lord in England at the time. And then there's the Duke Normandy William the Bastard, who's basically the most powerful lord in England at the time, and then there's the Duke Normandy, William the Bastard, who's across the English channel and what

would eventually become France. Okay, so we can choose between a Viking, Nazi hyperbole, and William the Asshole. I just, I do want to remind people who can plan about the Democratic primary, so that this is technically what they were in place. Right? So, it was all Iowa caucuses for a long time. So in late 1065, Edward the confessor fell ill and then fell into a coma. He at this point has no air, but before he died in 1066, he briefly wakes up from his coma to say

that he commends Harold Godwin's sin to protect his wife and his kingdom. Absolutely not. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. Right. Yeah. Everybody, everybody afterward, it's like I was on base the whole time. Everybody's got his story. He was me when I shut it though. Right. He cut it out. It didn't. He also commends that Jingleey the Jester is number two king. And he told me that. Jingleey. You know, to be honest, though, this is probably the best move if true. Harold Godwinston is the Earl of Westcakes at the time and he's the most powerful Lord

in the land. His family has basically been the people who decide who gets the throne just by being their ally. So, it's only logical that he would be the person who could handle the job. He also was in someone from another land coming into claim to throne, like William or Harold Hardrada. So the day after Edward kicks it,

Harold Godwinson is the new king of England. Yeah, his campaign slogan was, you're gonna be tired of all the God winning. And he was right. He was very right. He was right. Yeah, yeah. So that didn't sit too well with his brother,

Tostig, Heath. Tostig was exiled from England. Okay, come on. At this point, is there anyone left in England? Everybody's been exiled. Where are they going off to? Oh, so how is that place not better than being in England right? Now Tostick has a total hate on for his brother the king Tostick decides to go raise troops

To take over the throne for himself And he actually heads to Normandy to talk to William. I guess nothing comes to this and he leaves to go to Norway to convince their king, Harold Hardrada to invade England. Harold Hardrada started his military career as a mercenary and a military commander before deciding to declare himself king of three countries, Denmark, Norway and England. The three nations too polite to say, no, it makes sense. Yeah, right.

By the way, I'm King of Canada. And now you are. And now you will be forever. Turns out he couldn't enforce all these declarations. I mean, he rated Denmark from 1046 to 1064, but he could not defeat the other guy who said he was king. So at a certain point, he declared the Danish throne was made of sour grapes and that he totally didn't want it.

Coincidentally, he was also visited around this time by Tostek Godwinson, the brother of the king of England that wanted some revenge. And they decided to team up and invade Northumbria, which is basically the giant middle stripe on England. Yeah, the Skidmark of England, if you will. So how did Harold have a claim to the throne? This is Harold Hardrada. At one point, Arthur Canute, the former King of England, and Harold Hardrada had a pact.

If one of them died and didn't have a proper heir, then the other one would take over his leader of the country. Nice, also known as a Tantine, or also known as, I'm definitely gonna murder you as soon as I get out of here. Our business agreement is drafted as a Tantine. I'm terrified now. I'm scared. So, if Harold died,

Partha Kanut would be King and Norway, and vice versa for England. Well, when Edward took over England, Harold was in the middle of trying to secure the Danish throne so he didn't drop everything and claim England. But now he's getting older. He wanted to settle down in a place better than Norway so he decided to go with a safety school. Your university, that track.

How? How? How? This is great because he's actually going to York in a second. That's like a real thing. I know. Right, right, right. Ardjada set sail with 300 ships and 10,000 men.

He set sail in his flagship Orman or the Serpent and he stopped along the way to pick up a few more troops. They made landfall in Round of Food with Tostig and his troops and at this point, they have like 15,000 men. And while Tostig didn't bring as many troops to the party here, he did offer Harold something that was very useful. Tostig was the old Earl of Northumbria before his exile and this is the area of England that they're invading.

So Tostig knew the lay of the land and where to hit the countryside to make it sting. Yeah, because before that, fight, he news just ran around screaming into empty field, scary little hell out of the shitty. Nobody has been biking. They were headed right for York and just like a video game, they weren't going to walk right in or meet the final boss just yet. Two sub bosses awaited them. There are two orals in the area in a more car in Edwin. The English forces tried to set up their line at Fulford, and it stretched from a nearby river to a marshy swamp. And this is kind of ideal, actually, for a defending force. There's one thing you don't want is for you enemy to circle around your line of defenders

on the side. They call that a flanking maneuver, and it's really almost always bad for the people getting flanked. The natural boundaries of the battlefield help the defenders protect their flanks pretty well, or so they thought. Oh, that sounds pretty good, Cecil, but can you describe the battle in a way that sounds like fucking? Okay. I was, uh, you don't want to ram all your forces right down the middle without playing

around a bit on the edges first. Yeah. Okay. I said, see, what you need, but good. I just want to give it a whirl. What you need, what you need Eli is a WAP, a wet ass failings. Okay, so Harold Hardroddy used his best troops to slam into the line and break through, not at the flank, but more towards the middle. And even though he's art numbered, his army was full of veterans, and they pushed the defenders back and isolated a large group of them shoving them into the water. Yeah, you touch water, you're out. 60 pounds arm or yeah, yeah. The other flank crumbled as well. And as more and more invading troops filled the gaps, the English defenders fled back to

the city and eventually surrendered. Now normally you go to a city and you occupy it. Now when you phrase it in the second person, it sounds accusatory, see so. One would go to a city, am I right? But Tostig used to be the Earl here and I think he was angling for something like this again and he decided not to raise the city. They negotiated with the town leaders and they moved on. It's suspected that he wanted to keep this capital intact as much as possible, thinking

he was probably going to be running it again. So why ruin it? Hardrada and Tostig knew that kicking this thing off with York was going to bring Tostig's brother, Harold Godwinson, running from the South to battle. They just didn't realize how quickly that was going to happen. All right. Well, damn it. Cecil didn't leave genuine tension there that I don't want to undercut with some pun

and filled segue. So fuck it, we're just gonna pause for a while for nothing then. Hark the Knute. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha My Lord, the King is dead! Blast! Send them in! His Lord Duke Edward of Moth, Bob! My Lord, Edward, please sit down. Thank you, my Lord.

Baron Heath, the bitch tits of your... Thank you. Wait what? Heath come in must discuss the new king No, no, no, no, what that guy just said Hogan, the Hogan on Wonderful. Yes. That's something. All right. That's all of us gentlemen. We must Actually, he do you mind closing that door? Oh, yeah, sure Baron Heath the fat bitch tits of you okay he absolutely said something there he made

a door door please yes got the door now the matter at hand Okay And we're back when we last left off the King of Norway was reminding us just how relative greener Pastures are as a concept by coming to England, but they already have themselves again in England. So what does Godwin's inducing? All right, Harold Godwinson, right after the death of Edward Confessor, basically ran right to the church and was crowned like a late night drunken run to white castle. And as they say, Mo money, Mo problems as as soon as his country is invaded by his exile brother and the king in Norway, he's got to mobilize.

But this is a good thing, kind of, because he was ready for an invasion. He just thought it was coming from Normandy and the other guy, William the Bastard, would be leading it. So he's standing there on the southern coast, looking out over the channel, taping his watch, waiting for an invasion when he gets word about York. Okay, they're 15 minutes late now. This is 15 minutes late is rude. I would say, you should leave.

Okay, 20 more minutes and I'm going to leave for 20 minutes. This is ridiculous. A surprise at the back door is not a great way to start the day for anyone. That's, it's because of the lies. It's because of the lies of the people, okay? So he knows he can't have his brother in the country raising the land and kicking up dust and William, who's supposed to be there a couple of months ago,

isn't coming across and his troops, which had some conscripted farmers and such, were actually scheduled to be released from service. In fact, he sent some of them home on September 8th. With a dwindling army, no enemy in the South and a north on fire, he had to act. He gathers his full-time soldiers or house carls. No, no, I'm not sure we can say house carls.

He's like, oh, pretty sure that's a no. And things, okay, we can be based on the spelling. I didn't think I could say that, but things, I think I can say. Yeah, there's a GN and there a weird GN. And these are all basically the veterans. And then they also had conscripted men. He gathers as many as he can and he heads north and he heads north fast. And I know what you're thinking. How fucking fast could you possibly go in 1066? We leave this, leaves are this

troops on September 21st 1066 and he arrives in Yorkshire four days later. His troop smarts day and night and covered 185 miles. That's 45 miles a day. That's that's that's center of Chicago to center of Indianapolis by the way, almost dead ass. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's one of these people are walking faster and carrying wargate. dead ass on. Yeah, it's it's it's it's and these while these people are walking fast and carrying warg Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, any actually surprised the invading army when he shows up. It's just like, today's the day we have a fuck me give me a second. My vengeance.

Oh, I'm a girl. Why do we wear so much armor? Why is this for? You're just gonna push us in a river. So there's lots of theories on why the invaders were caught with their pants down here, and it's possible that the 185 mile distance made them think there's no way that he could have made it there that fast. It could also have been bad until, or it could have just been that the Vikings invaded England and won a big fuck all battle and they were

on a four day bender celebrating their victory at York. But whatever the reason, Harold Godwin's in rides up with his troops and the invading army doesn't have their armor on. Guys, you still don't have the armor on? This is why we can't have casual Friday. You're abusing it. And there's one right here. We look ridiculous. How fucking long does it take to put on your armor? I get they were surprised in like, oh shit, and I think they'd be here today sort of a way. But like 15,000 dudes walking up to you doesn't seem like some of you'd miss until the last,

right? Yeah, I googled it by the way. It said 20 minutes with a good squire to put it out. But before I read that, I was just picturing kind of like a NASCAR pit crew type thing, but, I think you're taking it. You guys hear anything?

Does that sound like 15,000 people approaching that? I just lay around some more. The way this is written though, I think a lot of times the Norse are basically saying, yeah, we totally lost that battle, but we didn't have our armor on. You know what I mean? Yeah, I was like, it's one of those things. I go, I was like,

I was in the ranch. It was a whole thing. Oh, it kick jurace about that, my armor on. I know they got your ass kicked. And some asshole wrote about it afterwards, basically making excuses for you getting your ass kicked. So there's a lot of other legends around this battle. We're on the tapestry later.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of other legends around this battle. We're on stupid in that tapestry later. There's a lot of other legends around this battle. And I think it might be time to talk about the sources we have for what happened. There's contemporary sources writing things down as they happen. And these are from both sides of the battle, the Scandinavian sources and English sources. And there's also a tapestry called the Bayou tapestry. Tapestry, ped patents, of course, are going to say it's actually an embroidered cloth, but whatever it is, it depicts the story.

Oh, great. See, so now you lost us the tapestry, patents, base of our audience. And finally, there are 12 century sources that write about this about 50 to 100 years after it happens. So the sources are pretty biased or not writing at the time. Regardless of their validity, there's two absolutely awesome stories that come out of this battle of Stanford bridge. And I don't want to skip them. The first is what happens before it starts. So like I said, the invading army is not prepared. Harold Hardrada and Tostek Godwinson are on horseback and they see a rider from the opposing side ride out to Parley. Okay.

You're going to negotiate slowly. It feels like you just attacked the army and sweatpants right away. I don't think this actually happened either, but it's a great legend. He's cloak. This rider's cloak. He rides up and he doesn't say a word to Hardrada. He instead turns to Tostig and he says basically, you turn your forces against Hardrada, you can come back from exile and have your Earldom back.

And Tostig says, yeah, that's cool and all, but what are you going to offer my compatriot for his trouble? And the writer says, and it's hard to think of more debt-ass lying than this, quote, seven feet of English ground as he's taller than other men. That's all. That's all. Super hot fire. So, Tostick of course refuses in the writer reds off. And this is a quote, quote, hardrada was impressed by the writer's boldness and asked Tostick

who he was and Tostick replied that the writer was herald godwinson himself. Oh, well, yes, just didn't. Yeah. No, right? Yeah. No. Yeah, like can you imagine like like afterwards when he finds that out like? Wait, what?

Who was that? That Shia was all nemesis. Herod Godw's in the flesh. That was the guy who was in charge of the army opposing our inv- That was him. Yes, that guy. Yes, one in the same, and a right-wit to boot, I must say. Yeah, okay, indeed, but why didn't we just kill him? Sir?

Yeah, kill him. He was right here, there's two of us, We could just kill them and then you know gone to lunch Seriously, this was a missed opportunity me things kill the enemy before the battle. You know what? God, Sire Okay, no, sorry. Oh, you're right. That'd be that'd be dumb Anyway, let's head back and tell the boys to get ready to be chopped into screaming bloody pieces I'milled a king. I know a stupid thing.

It's pretty much exactly. I don't believe it happened to you. But it's awesome. Yeah, right? It's a great fucking story, right? It's a great story. Great line. Yeah.

The other story, also probably not true, but I love it so much. So while the invading unprepared army is set upon by the English, they start to form defensive positions. They also start retreating over this bridge. Well, this one big sum bitch pulls off a Gandalf. He basically says to the rest of the retreating army, don't worry, I'll hold them off. Now, this guy does have his armor on according to legend. And so he's such a bad ass that he just walks around with it on all the time. He's like one of those super annoying morning people. I don't know. Anyway, Camo is like a fucking medieval Ted Nugin.

Anyway, takes out a bearded axe and he blocks the bridge. Yeah, his axe was on the DL, kept a close sword friend around just to throw everyone on. He has the vacations with the sword. Yeah. Well, that's a pretty cool looking ax, but I bet Cecil doesn't even know any more details about the weapons and armor. I bet that's like a real man. You would be wrong.

Let me prove you wrong right now. So the best armored people on both sides of this battle would have been, they better had like a chainmail shirt and a chainmail coin for a hood. They would have maybe had a few hard pieces in other areas like the head, but it would have been male or scale male armor. Poor soldiers would have had boiled leather or some kind of thick padding. Do you mean nerf? You said that's not like nerf.

Well, yeah, it's like nerf. It's not like nerf or knurf. It's like nerf. It's not like nerf or not. Well, it's it. It sounds like me being a poor kid hockey player. Yeah, it's like, you can shingards. This is ladies home general and tape.

You're fine. It's just like one soldier with like a couch cushion on his back. So the soldier's probably would have fought with swords and shields. The swords have been in long, one handed swords made for hacking, not stabbing. And the shields would have been thick wood secured together with metal bosses or metal rims. And they either been completely round around at the top and pointed at the bottom. Okay.

I would officially like to take back how ridiculous larkers look. Apparently running around covered in foam and random chunks of armor is a bad idea. So I'm good. Does it make them look less ridiculous? So the Norseman in this also used what was called the bearded acts. Now, the bearded acts is basically a giant ass two handed acts that had was not symmetrical. Instead, it was longer at the bottom, thus calling it bearded. And it's such a big axe that it could to capitate horses. There's actually an image of this in the Bayou tapestry. Okay, I actually looked up the Bayou tapestry.

It looks like a five year old tried to draw the script of Braveheart on a blanket. It's really bad. It's so bad. I actually looked up the axe, and there's a Disconcerting number of website Cecil that sell these Jesus and not repert like this means right now there's a

Disconcerting number of people in their homes dreaming of Decapitating either horses or English. There's really no other use for it. Ireland. I gotta say though this tapestry is the funniest look and think you've ever seen. And you've made better art wiping barbecue sauce off your face with a napkin. It's the fun. I'm leaving. I'm going to go on the fridge like no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, It seriously looks like it's drawn by Mrs. Johnson's third grade class. It's the worst thing you know.

All right, everybody, let's think the soldiers. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like they drew an army of hand chickens all marching across. So it's fucking hilarious. So anyway, back to Nordic Gandalf. He takes his axe and he tries to give his side just a little time to get their armor, armor on and he guards the bridge. Now supposedly he kills 40 dudes that try to cross. Just fucking slap in these guys down like toddlers. And all the while one English soldier gets

in a barrel or a small boat there, there, there's conflicting reports. And then he floats under the bridge and he stabs this guy from underneath the spirit. Oh, just floating by. Hello, Viking. I'm just a normal guy on a normal barrel floating five. For me, you're ignoring me. Stab you. So I just got to point out that if I'm going to cover myself in any armor, the first thing

I'm going to armor is the job. Yeah. What the fuck? I'm not going to die of in any armor. The first thing I'm going to armor is the gel. Right. Yeah. What the fuck? I'm not going to die of a fucking little head wound. That's fucking ridiculous. I love to that he's standing on this bridge and it's probably wide enough for multiple people, but he's fighting these people one on one and it takes another guy to come

you just like, come on, you can't fucking get this guy like three guys at a time. That is fucking whatever. He couldn't just like for Christ's sake. He's got a spirit for Christ's sake. Our Our teachers to one end of the bridge and be like, I'm gonna start shooting you. All right. We're getting close. Anyway, runs Adam, they're like, no, no, okay, okay, okay.

We're going back. It's a bunch of that. Just through the barrel plan. And evidently, this guy didn't get enough time because there's only a slight delay in battle. It wasn't enough time for the invaders to get their armor on, but it was enough time for them to form a shield wall. And this is done by interlocking their shields together to form a, it's like a single big

barrier. So the English ross across the bridge, which seemed like a good choke point, but okay, whatever. And when they cross, they assemble and they rush at the shield wall. The battle itself lasts longer than it probably should for a group that isn't wearing armor. English are just like, come on, they made Vultron. Are they allowed to be Vultron? So that will rage us for a while. Tostock dies. They never say how they just say he died. Well, based on the embroidered cloth, they either got smushed by a truck or eaten by a dinosaur.

The invaders did get word back to a contention of soldiers that were left with the 300 boats that basically were at holy fuck help us. And so this group of Norsemen headed to the battle. And I guess they ran so fast. And this is a quote, quote, some of the men were said to have collapsed and died of exhaustion upon reaching the battlefield. Oh, she's still right. Oh, good.

I re-informed. Never mind. Forget it. Forget it. Oh, fuck. Okay. Yeah, you should have hydrated, man. You got to hydrate.

That's like first rule of Nordic fight. Have whatever we do. Have what he's gatorade gummies. It'll help. Let's take one of those. Let your lights do. I tell you all the time, electrolytes. The others that showed up

plowed into the English and they put up a good fight, but and they slowed their events sort of briefly, but they were outnumbered and their allies were basically naked, so they lost. Hardrada, at some point, catches an arrow and is windpipe and with no one leading them, the invaders are routed. Okay, so they need one very specific leader guy to keep explaining the situation of fight the guys. Stab.

No, it's a hacking sword, not a stabbing sword. That's why we lost the last battle. So they're chased into the water to drown or they circled them in a field and slaughter them. Here's a quote, so many died in an area so small that the field was said to have been whitened with bleach bones 50 years after the battle. End quote. See now the fucked up thing about our job is that Cecil writes that and then we all sit

there going like, okay, what would be a good giant pile of human remains quip? 50 year old pile that we haven't already used. Yeah, right. Yeah. Bummer. What? So the remaining invading soldiers that didn't die were allowed to leave as long as they Pinkie Swarrow, they wouldn't attack England again. And they got their asses kicked so bad that they came over in 300 boats, but they only needed 24 to sail.

Wow. God damn. You just know 12th century heath was like calling dibs on two boats. So you had room to stretch out. Make a cab, a little net down. So after the battle of Stanford bridge, Harold Godwinson decided to take a nice break and have a feast up in Northumbria. And you're going to have to tune in next week to find out how well that went. All right. So if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be, Cecil?

If you exclude acts types, Pants' wife is the second best beard in history next to Michelle Bob. Are you ready for the quiz, sir? Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Cecil, this episode has obviously been full of some pretty silly names, but we're talking about England and you've left some out.

Which of the following is actually in their name of a place in England? A. Tom Titt's bottom. B. That's scratchy bottom. C. Twatt. Or D. Shitterton. There's no hearth of canoe. That's weird. Um, let's go with twat. I think it doesn't matter if it's real or not. That's a, that's a city I want to live in. Uh, it's actually secret answer. E all of the above there. Oh, wow. No, no, no, no, no, no,

sure that he's correct. At least you gotta see it. So any of you are correct. Yes. All right. See so clearly dying gloriously in battle is a pretty It's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very Yeah. Be forgetting your data raid before running over to help that's a real one. Or see a zipping your dick in the fly of your armor because you're caught with your pants. The visual for a has to win that one for sure.

Absolutely. So I'm going there. Got it again. It's definitely my favorite level of that game. That this is a favorite. Yeah. All right. See, it's like I won more for you.

So these guys all just wanted to make out with each other. Obviously, which of the following is the best European nobility porn? A, the Marquis de Sodomy. Don't worry about a condom on Baron or Two-year-olds one cop that was good You know teeth. I'm surprised Debbie does palace isn't in this one. Oh I love but Marquis de Saad. Oh my gosh. That's a fucking amazing. It's a it's got to be a that is correct

All right, well in that case nobody wins and I'm gonna declare myself the winner so that I can make Cecil finish this story next week Promise I promise I will all right, so for Cecil Eli heath and Tom I'm no one thing I get you for hanging out with us today. We're gonna be back next week and by then Cecil Be an expert on the same thing but more so between now and then you can hear Tom and Cecil talk about stuff. Heath and Eli and I already talked about on our shows over on Cockney Fizz and Disney or you can listen to Heath. Eli and I talk about Shed the Tom and Cecil already covered on their show on the skating aides to cap Skeptocrat and

to a far lesser extent, God off of movies. We also have a podcast called D&D Minus, but it doesn't fit into that joke at all. It kind of fucks the whole thing up. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave a five star review everywhere You can and if you'd like to get in touch with us check out past episodes connect with social media or check the show notes Be sure to check out citation pod dot com

All right gentlemen, it is decided. Heath is king long-lived king bitch church. Oh my god. I'm gonna execute that guy so bad Heath is king! Long live king bitch-titch! Oh my god, I'm gonna execute that guy so bad.