Harold Godwinson (Harold II) was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. He
led the English army against William the Conqueror's Normans at the battle of Hastings in 1066. The Normans won the war and
took over the rule of England.
King Harold was killed on the field at Hastings, and popular legend has it that he died when an arrow
pierced his eye socket. An embroidered depiction of his death is on the famous Bayeux Tapestry. The explanation for the
belief that he died with an arrow in his eye is based on a depiction on the tapestry of a fallen soldier with an arrow
in his eye while another victim next to him is hacked to death. Later chroniclers decided that there was a mix-up
and that the hacked soldier was King Harold. In more recent times, an Englishman named Peter Burke suggested that Harold II
had actually escaped and lived incognito for an additional 40 years.
No matter
the truth of it, the element of a lost eye in a battlefield principle suggests a reference to Odin with his
one eye. The idea that Harold might have pulled off a clever scheme to avoid being executed falls right in line with the character
of Odin the shamanic trickster.
Insofar as comparing the legend of how Harold died to the popular pagan concepts of the time, it
is not really necessary to know exactly how Harold died. The story of losing his eye suggests that the pagan folk beliefs
were probably alive and well at the time of the Norman Conquest.
