War of the Wolf is set in the early 920s. Uhtred, though born a Saxon (his mother was a Saxon, his father an Angle, though for fictional purposes I usually conflate the two), thinks of himself as Northumbrian. He is surprised by the word Ænglisc, English, but that word will come to have real meaning during his long lifetime. Englaland, England, does not yet exist, but its birth, in blood, slaughter, and horror, is close. But that too is a story for another novel.