Note 54 — Chapter VIII · EDWIN OF DEIRA.

“Ond rixode twelf gear, ond he timbrode Bebbanburh, seo waes aerost mid hegge betyned, ond aefter mid wealle.” Mr. Bates, whose History of Northumberland is a most helpful guide to this part of our history, reminds us that this “hackneyed passage is an interpolation of a Kentish scribe in the eleventh century”. Still, though we may not quote it as a first-rate authority, there seems no reason for rejecting it altogether.