Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who was once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great.  When Sitric died, Athelstan came northward to claim Northumbria for himself.  He captured Bamburgh—­the first time that stronghold of the Bernician kings had ever been taken—­and arranged for two earls to govern Northumbria for him.  They attempted unsuccessfully to oppose a force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was joined by two earls of Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped near a place called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton.  Athelstan advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle on this ground.  They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham woods and the Till).  The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan’s men, who set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving their king time to reach a little “burg” (Old Bewick) in the neighbourhood.  A running fight followed, which was carried on the next day, and with the help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who were Norsemen, it ended in a complete victory for Athelstan.  While in the north, King Athelstan gave the well-known rhyming charter to a certain Paulan of Roddam;

“I kyng Adelstan giffs hier to Paulan Oddam and Roddam als gud and als fair als evyr thai myne war, and thar to wytness Mald my Wiffe.”

Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan vanquished Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots.  The site of this battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it was into the Humber that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their large fleet; but the precise spot has never been determined.

In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of Lothian from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast possessions of St. Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be lost to the church of Durham.  Accordingly, the clergy called upon all the people of St. Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed—­all those, that is, who dwelt on lands granted by various donors to the church of St. Cuthbert—­to rise and march northward to fight for their lands.  This great company set out, in the autumn of 1018, and reached Carham on the Tweed, where they were met by Malcolm king of the Scots.  A comet had been seen in the sky for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots.  From whatever cause it arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic spread among the followers of St. Cuthbert.  They were utterly routed, and most of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were slain—­thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle of Carham.