Gytha

Countess Gytha was the mother of King Harold and the sister of King Cnut of Denmark. She and her daughter-in-law Edith Swan-Neck falsely identified the body of her son on the battlefields of Hastings on 14 October 1066.

This lie allowed her son to be "reborn" as Hereward the Wake, a formidable Saxon guerrilla warrior. (PROSE: The Real Hereward)