This saga was composed in response to one Odd Oddson, who filked my Battle Of The Dyle and retold the story in an entirely inaccurate, slanderous and (worst of all!) pro-Viking manner. I called this “a blatant attempt to snatch Vik-story from the jaws of Dyle-feat”.

Technical notes for fellow wordsmiths: This employs the complex ABCD-ABCD rhyme-scheme I call the Adicote Rhyme, in honour of my Baroness. You can see this scheme elsewhere, in Songs Of The West and How Is It, Why Is It, and other songs. Note the double acrostic: I’m sure you’ll figure that out. The Gerard-Manley-Hopkinsesque style of the poem is my own approximation of the bizarre word-making style of early sagas; it also makes rhyming a little easier, which is important given the bloody alliteration. I think this is the only way to get a complex rhyme scheme and alliteration to work together.

[August 1998]