#edmund the martyr

[illustratus]

St Edmund slain by the Danes, AD 870 by Harry Payne

[grayjoy15]

👉👈 you said requests are open, do you take commissions, cause i wanna see u draw sweyn forkbeard, he's so fun to read about

Hello!! I know it’s been months since you sent this request, but I hope you do check by soon and see this!

Did you know Forkbeard was supposedly killed by the ghost of St Edmund the Martyr? Cause it’s flipping hilarious XD

[canuterex]

St Edmund in battle against the Vikings.

[lordwilde]

Flag of Saint Edmund the Martyr, original Saxon saint of England.

[maypoleman1]

20th November

St Edmund’s Day

The Martyrdom of Edmund from the Passio Sancto Eadmundi. Source: Wikipedia

Today is St Edmund’s Day. Also known as Edmund the Martyr, he was king of East Anglia when the Anglo-Saxon kingdom was attacked by the Viking Great Heathen Army in 869. Edmund led his soldiers out to oppose the invaders but the East Anglians were defeated. Whether Edmund was killed in the battle of Hoxne in Suffolk or taken prisoner by the Danes and murdered thereafter is a matter of dispute. Tradition has it that the Vikings offered to spare Edmund his life and return him to the throne of East Anglia if he would embrace the Norse pagan religion and rule as a Scandinavian puppet. Edmund supposedly piously refused and paid a grisly price: the Viking warriors tied the king to a tree and shot him full of arrows. Sainthood and martyrdom were then mere formalities. Other traditions make Edmund less heroic. It is said that he fled the field of Hoxne and hid under Goldbrook Bridge, but that the glint of his royal golden spurs was spotted by a newly wed couple who immediately gave him away. As the king was hustled away by the Danes, Edmund cursed all married couples crossing the bridge and to this day, newlyweds in Hoxne take an alternative route home.

Edmund was buried in a Suffolk town which appropriately became named Bury St Edmunds thereafter. His feast day remained popular in the county with a special bun being baked and issued to schoolchildren every November 20th. Unsurprisingly it was called St Edmund’s Bun.

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day

Saint Edmund Campion

1540-1581

Feast day: December 1

Saint Edmund Campion was an English Roman Catholic Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Anglican England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. He is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here. (website)

[verecunda]

I know we all love our St Sebastianification of Celebrimbor, for obvious gay reasons, but I'm going to throw this out as something more closely connected to Tolkien's own field of obsession:

St Edmund the Martyr

fwiw, I don't think we really have to go looking for historical/mythological parallels in every single thing Tolkien put down in his books (man had an imagination of his own), but he was your certified nut for all things Old English, so it's quite fun when you notice something that seems to resonate. :)

Edmund (d. AD 869) was King of East Anglia. Unlike St Sebastian, who was martyred during an imperial purge of Christians, Edmund died at the hands of an invading army. This was the time of the Great Heathen Army, a great Viking coalition that made war in Britain from 865, and in some versions Edmund died at the hands of the (in?)famous Viking king Ivar the Boneless. First Ivar sent him a message, demanding his submission, as well as all his treasure and heirlooms. (A bit like Sauron attacking Eregion in pursuit of the Three Rings and having his army ransack the House of the Mírdain in search of the Three Rings?)

Needless to say, Edmund refused these terms and Ivar attacked. Rather than flee, the King resolved to stand firm and face the attackers, not unlike Celebrimbor meeting the Mordor hordes alone at the door of his house. According to the most well-known version of his death, first he was tortured with whips and rods, but when that failed to break his spirit, they shot him through with arrows (or spears) "as if it was a game, until he was entirely covered with their missiles, like the bristles of a hedgehog."

The Vikings didn't use Edmund's body as a war-banner, but they did desecrate it by cutting off the head and hiding it in a bramble thicket, so he could not be buried properly. But, so the story goes, a friendly wolf guarded the head from being gobbled up by any other woodland scavengers, until it could be recovered by his people and buried along with the body. (Which has absolutely nothing to do with Celebrimbor; it's just a good story. Old saints' lives are the best.) Many miracles soon became attributed to the murdered king, and his shrine was moved from its original burial place to the town which is now called Bury St Edmund's. He was venerated as one of England's patron saints until St George was given the role in the later Middle Ages.

[willowswriting]

for @dcynnight continued from here

Josephine didn't think that Teddy was clueless at all. In fact she was aware that he was quite intelligent. She never went into something without first having done her research, she was a professional after all. However he was really the only chance that she had at receiving any type of insider information. She was fully aware that they were feeding her bullshit... that was usually always the first step when the person that she sat down with knew the line of work that she was in. "Are the two of you close?" she questioned, steering it away from a business intensive conversation into one a little more casual, hoping to maybe lower his guard just a smidge.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Saint Edmund the Martyr by Karl Fitzgerald

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (December 1)

Edmund Campion was born in London on 25 January 1540. He was raised as a Catholic.

He had such a powerful and flamboyant intellect that at the age of only 17, he was made a junior fellow at Saint John’s College of Oxford University.

On visiting the university, Queen Elizabeth I was so taken by Edmund’s brilliance, as were a few of her dignitaries, that she bid him to ask for anything that he wished.

The exaltation and praise of so many fed his vanity and eventually led him away from his Catholic faith.

He took the Oath of Supremacy and acknowledged the Queen as head of the church. He also became an Anglican deacon.

However, his brilliant intellect and his conscience would not allow him to be reconciled to the idea of Anglicanism for too long.

After staying a period of time in Dublin, he turned back to his Catholic faith and returned to England.

At this point, he was suspected of being too Catholic and was shaken when he witnessed the trial of a soon to be martyr.

It carried him to the conviction that his vocation was to minister to the Catholic faithful in England who were being persecuted. He also felt the call to convert Protestants.

He set off to Rome barefoot. In 1573, he entered the Society of Jesus.

He was ordained in 1578 and had a vision in which the Virgin Mary foretold him of his martyrdom.

When he returned to England, he made an immediate impression, winning many converts.

On 17 July 1581, he was betrayed by one of the faithful who knew his whereabouts and was thrown into prison.

The queen offered him all manner of riches if he would forsake his loyalty to the Pope, but he refused.

After spending some time in the Tower of London, he was sentenced to death by hanging, drawing, and quartering.

His martyrom in Tyburn on 1 December 1581 sparked off a wave of conversions to Catholicism.

He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 29 December 1886. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI on 25 October 1970, as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

[scholarofgloom]

[illustratus]

The Wilton Diptych (1395–1399)

The kneeling King Richard II is presented by Saints John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor and Edmund the Martyr, each holding their attribute. In the right-hand panel the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child in her arms is surrounded by eleven angels, against a golden background and field of delicately coloured flowers.

[kentengland]

Martyrs Memorial ~ Bury St Edmunds #burystedmunds #martyrsmemorial #cat...

[emvidal]

[gravedigg]

The Martyr

(Saint Edmund the Martyr King of England, Luc-Olivier Merson)

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith

1585-1628

Feast Day: August 28

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, born Brian Arrowsmith, but preferred his confirmation name Edmund was a Jesuit martyr. His family suffered steadfastly for their Catholic faith through the anti-Catholic period in England. His parents were arrested when Edmund was a child. He never saw them again. In 1605, he left England and became a priest in Douai, Belgium, and returned in 1612 to serve for 15 years in Lancashire. In 1622, he was arrested for being a priest, only to be pardoned by King James I. He became a Jesuit after he completed the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises in 1624. Once again he was betrayed as a priest in 1628 and hanged and quartered. His last words were, “Bone Jesu” (O good Jesus). He’s one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)