Senlac Ridge by Dave Walmsley from Barrow-in-furness United Kingdom

senlac ridge (5.48)
a) the legend
b) the battle
c) the aftermath
d) the last voice
written, arranged & performed by dave walmsley (c) 2025 silent songs
a short cat production of a prog folk recording
recorded in the musical box using the reaper daw

i recently discovered via our local paper that it was the anniversary of 1066's the battle of hastings ~ the 14th of october. to commemorate it i thought a song about the battle would be a worthwhile project...

it turned out there are quite a few conflicting reports on what actually happened that day. what was true beyond doubt is that king harold defeated the vikings lead by hardrada and tostig (harold's brother) at stamford bridge in yorkshire. harold was already aware of william's invasion of the south coast but decided stopping the vikings getting a foothold in northern england was best dealt with first. he then force marched south picking up extra troops en route. apparently he didn't take the french by surprise as his army was spotted by william's scouts. the battle proper was held on senlac hill/ridge near battle and not in hastings as we all thought!

one account said the french pretended to panic and retreated followed by the english foot soldiers. this turned out to be a ruse and the battle turned in france's favour. another account doesn't mention this at all but does say the english troops “ran out of steam” after harold was killed (allegedly by being shot in the eye with an arrow according to the bayeux tapestry). it could also be said that after the forced march from yorkshire that the english troops were exhausted while william's troops were fresh. apparently it was a very close thing and amazingly the battle only lasted just short of a day!

whatever really happened the result was the same harold, the last anglo-saxon king, was defeated and william the conqueror became the king of england...and so it came to pass that words like cul-de-sac and croissant filtered their way into the english language!

one fascinating “fact” i came across while doing some research is that allegedly the river asten on or near the battle sight was “stained with english blood” and that for years afterwards, every time it rained the soil turned red. we haven't visited the battle sight but it's apparently well worth the effort. dw

ps: i'm currently working on a more “folkier” stripped back version of this song...