The Battle of Maldon is the name given to an Old English poem of uncertain date celebrating the real Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the English failed to prevent a Viking invasion. Only 325 lines of the poem are extant, both the beginning and the ending are lost.
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The poem
The poem is told entirely from the perspective of the English, with many individual and, Mitchell and Robinson[1] believe, real Englishmen named.
Mitchell and Robinson conjecture that the lost opening of the poem must have related how Byrhtnoth, the English leader, hearing of the Viking invasion, raises his troops and leads them to the shore.[1]
The poem as we have it begins with the English preparing for battle. A Viking messenger offers the English ealdorman Byrhtnoth peace if he will consent to pay tribute. Byrhtnoth angrily refuses, telling the messenger that he will fight the heathen Vikings in defence of what he regards as his land, and the land of his king, Æthelred. However, due to his “ofermōde” (This word, occuring in line 89, has caused much discussion. Literally “high spirits” or “overconfidence”, “ofermōde” is usually translated as “pride”, and occurs in Anglo-Saxon Genesis poems when referring to Lucifer. Both Glenn and Alexander translate it as “arrogance”[2] and Bradley as “extravagant spirit”[3]) Byrhtnoth allows the Vikings entry to the mainland, giving them room in which to do battle, rather than keeping them penned in on the more easily-defended causeway that links the mainland to the small island where the Vikings have landed.
Individual episodes from the ensuing carnage are described, and the fates of several English warriors depicted – notably that of Byrthtnoth himself, who dies urging his soldiers forward and commending his soul to God. Not all the English are portrayed as heroic however: one, Godric the son of Odda (there are two Godrics in the poem), flees the battle with his brothers and, most improperly, does so on Byrthtnoth's horse. Several lines later the English lord Offa claims that the sight of Byrthtnoth's horse (easily recognisable from its trappings) fleeing, and so Byrthtnoth, as it would appear from a distance, has bred panic in the ranks and left the English army in danger of defeat. There follow several passages in which English lords urge on their soldiers and voice their defiance of their enemy, and descriptions of how they are then killed by the un-personified “sea-wanderers”. The poem as it has come down to us ends with another Godric disappearing from view. This time it is Godric the son of Æthelgar, advancing into a body of Vikings and being killed.
History of the text
In 1731 the only known manuscript of the poem (which, as with the modern version, was missing its beginning and ending[3]) was destroyed in the fire at Ashburnham House that also damaged and destroyed several other works in the Cotton library. The poem has come down to us thanks to the transcription of it made c.1724, which was published by Thomas Hearne in 1726. After being lost, the original transcription was found in the Bodleian Library in the 1930s.[4][5] Who made this original transcription is still unclear, some favouring John Elphinstone[2][3][4][5], others David Casley.[1][6]
Scholarship
George K. Anderson dated The Battle of Maldon to the 10th Century and felt that it was unlikely that much was missing.[7] R.K. Gordon is not so specific, writing that this "last great poem before the Norman Conquest ... was apparently written very soon after the battle"[8], while Michael J. Alexander speculates that the poet may even have fought at Maldon.[2]
S.A.J. Bradley reads the poem as a celebration of pure heroism – nothing was gained by the battle, rather the reverse: not only did Byrthtnoth, “so distinguished a servant of the Crown and protector and benefactor of the Church,” die alongside many of his men in the defeat, but the Danegeld was paid shortly after – and sees in it an assertion of national spirit and unity, and in the contrasting acts of the two Godrics the heart of the Anglo-Saxon heroic ethos.[3] Mitchell and Robinson are more succinct: “The poem is about how men bear up when things go wrong”.[1] Several critics have commented on the poem's preservation of a centuries-old Germanic ideal of heroism:
Maldon is remarkable (apart from the fact that it is a masterpiece) in that it shows that the strongest motive in a Germanic society, still, nine hundred years after Tacitus, was an absolute and overriding loyalty to one's lord.—Michael J. Alexander, The Earliest English Poems
In popular culture
The Anglo-Saxon scholar and writer J. R. R. Tolkien was inspired by the poem to write The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, an alliterative dialogue between two characters at the end of the battle. In publishing the work, Tolkien included alongside it an essay on the original poem and another on the word “ofermōde”.
See also
- Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – records the battle and the paying of the Danegeld.
- Liber Eliensis – or the Book of Ely; features another retelling of the battle.
- Sermo Lupi ad Anglos – or The Sermon of the Wolf to the English; in which this and other Viking raids are seen as punishment for England's lax morals.
- Byrhtferth – whose Life of Oswald also features the battle and the death of Byrthtnoth.
Notes
- ^ a b c d A Guide to Old English, 5th ed. by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, Blackwell, 1999 reprint ISBN 9780631166573
- ^ a b c The Earliest English Poems translated by Michael J. Alexander, Penguin Books, 1966
- ^ a b c d Anglo-Saxon Poetry translated and edited by S. A. J. Bradley, Everyman's Library, 2000 reprint ISBN 9780460875073
- ^ a b The poem translated into modern English by Jonathan A. Glenn Retrieved on 27 October 2009
- ^ a b Commentary Retrieved on 27 October 2009
- ^ The Battle of Maldon: Fiction and Fact, edited by Janet Cooper, Hambledon , 1993 ISBN 9781852850654
- ^ Old and Middle English Literature From the Beginnings to 1485 by George K. Anderson, OUP, 1950, pp.29-30
- ^ Anglo-Saxon Poetry selected and translated by R.K. Gordon, J.M. Dent & Sons, London, pp. vii, 361
Further reading
- The Return of the Vikings: The Battle of Maldon 991 by Donald Scragg, Tempus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 9780752428338
External Links
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Battle of Maldon |
- Hypertext version of the poem with translations and commentary
- The poem in original Anglo-Saxon
- The poem in original Anglo-Saxon
- Read aloud in Anglo-Saxon
- The poem translated into modern English by Jonathan A. Glenn
- Translated by James M. Garnett at Project Gutenberg
- The poem translated into modern English by Wilfrid Berridge
- Bartleby Essay from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
- Review of an edition and translation of the text
- Article on Tolkien and The Battle of Maldon
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