What is Gyrwas?
[[File:Fenland pasture - geograph.org.uk - 599587.jpg|thumb|right|250px|{{Center|Fenlands, home to the Gyrwas}}]] '''Gyrwas''' (also called '''Gyrwe''') was the name of an early [[Anglo-Saxon]] people. They lived mainly on the western edge of the grassy [[wetlands]] called the [[Fens]] in eastern [[England]]. They were divided into two tribal groups; the northern Gyrwas and the southern Gyrwas. This is how they were recorded in the [[Tribal Hidage]].{{efn|Called the ''Norþ gyrwa'' (North Gyrwas) and the ''Suþ gyrwa'' (South Gyrwas) they were each listed in the Tribal Hidage at ''syx hund hyda'' (six hundred hides).}} The name Gyrwe means 'fen-dweller'.<ref name=Blair183>Peter Hunter Blair, ''Roman Britain and Early England; 55 B.C.–A.D. 871'' (New York; London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1966), p. 183</ref> The [[:wikt:territory|territory]] of the Gyrwas included [[Lindisfarne]], [[Hatfield Chase|Hatfield]], [[Nottinghamshire]], Northern [[Cambridgeshire]], [[Huntingdon|Huntingdonshire]], and as far south as [[Peterborough]] in Northamptonshire.<ref>Josiah Cox Russell, 'The Tribal Hidage', ''Traditio'', Vol. 5 (1947), p. 205</ref> The area around [[Jarrow]] was in their territory as well. The Fens supplied the Gyrwas with fish and [[:en:wikt:gamebirds|gamebirds]] but they lived on the drier lands and islands nearby.<ref name=Blair183/> The Gyrwas had their own leaders as late as the first half of the [[7th century]].<ref name=Chadwick437>Hector Munro Chadwick, ''The Early Cultures of North-West Europe'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 437</ref> [[Bede]] records a Tondbert, ''priceps''{{efn|The [[Latin language|Latin]] word ''princeps'' is sometimes translated as '[[prince]]' but in this case the word means [[:wikt:leader|leader]]. The ''Liber Eliensis'' calls him an [[ealdorman]] which is also an interpretation of ''princeps''.<ref name=Fairweather17/>}} of the South Gyrwas.<ref name=Bede236>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', trans. Leo Sherley Price, revsd. R. E. Latham (Lo