Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ulfcytel
ULFCYTEL or ULFKETEL (d. 1016), earl of the East-Angles, probably, as his name suggests, of Danish descent, is perhaps the thegn Ulfcytel who witnesses a charter of 1004 (Kemble, Codex Dipl. No. 710); in that year he was earl of the East-Angles, and, Norwich having been taken and burnt by Sweyn [q. v.], king of Denmark, Ulfcytel gathered together the East-Anglian ‘witan’ and made a peace with the invaders. Shortly afterwards the Danes broke the peace and marched against Thetford. On this Ulfcytel sent to men whom he trusted to destroy the ships of the Danes in their absence, but they did not carry out his orders. Then, having gathered such force as he could muster, he met the Danes near Thetford on the day after they had burnt the town. The battle was fierce and the loss heavy on both sides, many of the chief men in the earl's army being slain. The result was indecisive, and it was said that, if the earl had had a larger force, the Danes would not have been able to return to their ships; indeed, as it was, they declared that ‘they had never met with a worse hand-play in England than Ulfcytel brought them.’ When the Danes invaded East-Anglia in 1010, Ulfcytel met them with the force of his earldom on 18 May at Ringmere, near Ipswich, where another battle took place. In the thick of the fight a thegn of Danish race named Thurcytel in the English army set the example of flight, and was followed by the army generally, though the men of Cambridgeshire stood their ground for some while longer. The Danes were completely victorious, and again slew many of the chief men of the earldom. After the battle they harried East-Anglia for three weeks. The earl was slain fighting against the Danes in the battle of Assandun in 1016 [see under Edmund or Eadmund, called ‘Ironside’].
[A.-S. Chron. ann. 1004, 1010, 1016, ed. Plummer; Flor. Wig. (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Henry of Huntingdon; Will. Malm.'s Gesta Regum, iii. c. 180 (both Rolls Ser.); Corpus Poet. Boreale, ii. 105, 107; Freeman's Norm. Conq. i. 350–2, 378, 431.]