The history of the Axtells has been traced to 1534 in Berkhamsted, England. Prior to that there is only the oral tradition, from which the following legend:
Not long after the year 1000, a blackguard chieftain terrorized the North. Wallace Fordor, known as Wallace the Lawless, lusted for the lovely Agnes Axtell and demanded that her father yield her up. He of course refused. The dastardly outlaw put him and Agnes’s mother to the sword and eventually every other Axtell in the region save Agnes. His explanation: “No man needs a mother-in-law.” No one surnamed Axtell dared return to Northumberland until the Tudors had established their dominance over the Fordors.