Sermo Lupi ad Anglos as the king's chief legal draftsman on into the reign of the Danish king Cnut the Great. It is both remarkable and puzzling that Wulfstan was able to play so central a role in politics under both Æthelred's and Cnut's reigns, especially as it was under Æthelred's reign that Wulfstan, in his "Sermo Lupi", so vehemently decried the depredations of the Danish and Norwegian Vikings. King Æthelred II — nicknamed Æthelred 'The Unready' - ruled England from 978-1016. For virtually his entire reign, England was the object of successive Viking raids. Between the period of 980-1016, few areas of southern
The King of England and his Three Sons not stir. In the morning, the old man gave him breakfast, a new horse, and a ball of yarn to throw between the horse's ears. When the prince threw it and chased it, he came to the old man's brother, who was uglier than the first one. He received the same hospitality, and the same unpleasant night, and this brother sent him on to the third brother. At the third brother's, the brother, who was even uglier than the second one, told him he must go on to a castle. There, he must tell swans to bear him over the