Dryhthelm is denied entry into these paradisal landscapes until after death, but the Ecclesiastical History continually hints at the possibility of realizing the heavenly on earth and, more importantly, on English soil. When Oswald's Christian Saxon army defeats the British pagans at Heavenfield in 642, Bede notes the name of the place in both Latin and English. ‘This place is called in English Heavenfield, and in Latin Caelestis Campus, a name which it certainly received in days of old as an omen of future happenings’ (Vocantur locus ille lingua Anglorum Hefenfeld, quod dici potest latine ‘Caelestis campus’, quod certo utique praesagio futurorum antiquitus nomen accepit). The place of battle and suffering is transformed into an image of heaven, recalling both the paradisial claims of Dryhthelm’s vision and the Edenic image of Britannia which opens the History. Clearly, the narratives of specific individuals and places can be seen as microcosmic performances of the myth central to the Ecclesiastical History: the aspiration to re- discover and recover an ideal, unfallen state through faith and struggle.

Whatever one thinks of her interpretation, Professor Clarke was cavalier with the facts. Oswald's army was Anglian, not Saxon; its Welsh enemies were Christians, not pagans; the battle was fought not at Heavenfield, but several miles away; and it took place in the winter of 634– 35, not 642. Her ‘vocantur’ is a mistake for Bede's vocatur. Battles and Latin grammar are not the strong point of Catherine Clarke, or (it seems) of Southampton University, where she now has a Chair of English.

However, reference to better historians also reveals inconsistency and error, as we shall see. The Tudor antiquary Leland reported on the matter thus.