King Edmund

There are lots of legends surrounding East Anglian King Edmund.

He was killed by the Vikings in the year 869, and not much else is really known about who he was, where he came from or even how he really died. It is said that he refused to deny his belief in God, so the Vikings wanted to make an example of him. Apparently they shot him so full of arrows that he looked like a hedgehog! Other stories say that his head was chopped off, but then was found by a family of wolves and it was still able to talk. The wolves reunited the head and body and it joined back together again.

It all seems a bit far fetched to us!

He was made a saint some years later, and the town Bury St Edmunds is named after him (it used to be called Beodricksworth). However, despite popular belief, he probably isn’t buried in Bury St Edmunds.