e boatmen at such times will call out to each other, "Have a care!
there is the Eager coming!" This, says Carlyle, is a relic of Norse
mythology, coming down to us from the time when pagan boatmen on the
Trent believed in that Northern deity, Aegir, the God of the Sea Tempest,
whose name (as he picturesquely puts it) "survives like the peak of a
submerged world." This by the way.

Willenhall, however, was situated outside the Danelagh, the western
boundary of which was the Watling Street; indeed, the place nomenclature
of this locality affords very few examples which are really traceable to
the Danish occupation--an almost solitary specimen being the
aforementioned name of Bustleholme, near the Delves.

The etymological derivation which has found most favour in times past is
that based on the erroneous Domesday form, Winehala. Perhaps Stebbing
Shaw is responsible for this, as in his history of the county, written
1798, he says:--"As Wednesbury is but two miles, and Wednesfield but one
mile from hence, it is probable that this name might be changed for that
of Winehale, from the Saxon word for victory, when that great battle was
fought hereabout in 911."

Of this battle, and the victory or "win" which the founding of Willenhall
was supposed to commemorate, some account will be given in the next
chapter. But the hypothesis of Shaw, and those who adopted his view,
apparently involved the supposition that the earliest mention of
Willenhall was of a date subsequent to 911 A.D.; but thanks to the recent
researches of our eminent local historiographer, Mr. W. H. Duignan,
F.S.A. (of Walsall), that position is no longer tenable.

There is in existence a couple of charters dated A.D. 732 (or 733;
certainly before the year 734) which were executed by Ethelbald, King of
Mercia, at a place named therein as "Willanhalch."

Mr. Duignan says the Mercian kings frequently reside in this part of
their dominions, as at Kingsbury, Tamworth, and Penkridge; probably for
the convenience of hunting in Cannock Forest, within the boundaries of
which Willenhall was anciently located.

Virtually the two charters are one, the same transaction being recorded
by careful and punctilious scribes in duplicate; and their purport was to
benefit Mildrith, now commonly called St. Mildreda, one of the
grand-daughters of King Penda, and probably one of the few canonised
worthies who can be claimed as natives of this county-area. She was the
Abbess o