The Battle of Maldon

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 Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion. Only 325 lines of the poem are extant; both the beginning and the ending are lost.

The poem is told entirely from the perspective of the English, and names many individuals that Mitchell and Robinson believe were real Englishmen.

Mitchell and Robinson conjecture that the lost opening of the poem must have related how Byrhtnoth, the Anglo-Saxon leader, hearing of the Viking invasion, raised his troops and led them to the shore.

The poem as we have it begins with the Anglo-Saxon warriors dismounting to prepare 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 Vikings in defense of his land, and the land of his king, Æthelred. However, due to his "ofermōde"*, 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 Anglo-Saxon warriors depicted – notably that of Byrhtnoth 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 Byrhtnoth's horse. Several lines later, the English lord Offa claims that the sight of Byrhtnoth's horse (easily recognisable from its trappings) fleeing, and so Byrhtnoth, 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 warriors voice their defiance and their determination to die with their lord, 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.

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