A runic inscription on a standing cross found in the cemetery of the church of Monkwearmouth is thought to bear his name.

[7] Historian James Raine suggested that his death may have occurred there, waiting to take a ship from the mouth of the river Wear.

[9] Another explanation is that given by William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, namely that The army of the Danes, feared since the days of Alcuin, came to our land.

They killed or put to flight the people from Hexham, set fire to the roofs of their dwellings and exposed their private rooms to the skies.

[10] Modern historian, David Rollason, wrote that Hexham's disappearance was "unlikely to have had anything to do with Viking activity".