‘Her Aethelstan cyning laedde fyrde to Brunanbyrig’ – 937 Anglo Saxon Chronicle ‘E’

Most historians of England maintain that the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 was a decisive event in the creation of England. The battle pitted Æthelstan, the English king of Wessex and Mercia, supported by some Norse mercenaries, against a temporary coalition of Scandinavians, Cumbrians (the Strathclyde British) and Scots. The victory that the English achieved ‘led to‘ the England we know today, at least geographically, and hence Æthelstan is often called the first ‘King of England’.

I don’t want to go into the context of the battle, its course or its location here. Suffice it to say that most of the evidence, place names, topography and the political and military context, points to it being fought near to Bromborough on the Wirral peninsula, in what is now Cheshire.

Embedded within the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 937 is an Old English poem usually known not surprisingly as ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’. I reproduce this wonderful poem below, followed by two modern translations: one by Alfred Lord Tennyson (he of ‘into the valley of death… ‘), plus another rather free (but good) rendition of more recent date.

But first like all poems it should be heard. Click here (or see below) to hear the original Old English poem, with Alfred Lord Tennyson’s words as subtitles. Please note this is only part of the poem. Please note too that the commentary of the inimitable Brian Blessed hosts an horrendous hoard of heinous historical howlers.

Or try this version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfaEGU45lKA

Even though it helps that I understand German as well as English, if any native English speaker listens to this poem a few times I think they will find much of it becomes clear.

Much as I love our modern English language – its wonderful variety, its mixture of Germanic roots, Norse words, French imports and much more – when I listen to this poem I can’t help wishing we English still spoke like this. No highfalutin French frippery, no repressive legal mumbo jumbo, just earthy, no-nonsense speech and poetry.

If the Battle of Brunanburh in some way helped to ‘make England’, it was unmade little more than a hundred years later at another battle: Hastings in 1066. Some rather benighted historians used to portray the Norman conquest of England as an ultimately positive event for England and even the rest of Britain once the ‘initial’ horrors were over. It was of course nothing of the sort. The Norman French destroyed much of what was England, its language, its culture, and replaced it with a brutal centuries-long feudalism under which the people of England became serfs in the service of French masters. It’s a heritage we still live with today.

If King Harold Godwinson hadn’t rather rashly immediately engaged the Norman duke William the Bastard when tired and depleted after seeing off the Norse of Harold Hardrada at Stamford Bridge, or if the English had won at Hastings (it was a close-run thing), then just maybe we’d still talk like the poem.

I am of Welsh, English and Norse ancestry, but one can but dream. It’s enough to make me want to go and live in Scandinavia.

The Battle of Brunanburh – in Old English/Anglo-Saxon

Her Aethelstan cyning, eorla dryhten, beorna beag-giefa, and his brothor eac, Eadmund aetheling, ealdor-langetir geslogon aet saecce sweorda ecgum ymbe Brunanburh. Bord-weall clufon, heowon heathu-linde hamora lafum eaforan Eadweardes, swa him ge-aethele waes fram cneo-magum thaet hie aet campe oft with lathra gehwone land ealgodon, hord and hamas. Hettend crungon, Scotta leode and scip-flotan, faege feollon. Feld dennode secga swate siththan sunne upp on morgen-tid, maere tungol, glad ofer grundas, Godes candel beorht, eces Dryhtnes, oth seo aethele gesceaft sag to setle. Thaer laeg secg manig garum agieted, guma Northerna ofer scield scoten, swelce Scyttisc eac, werig, wiges saed. West-Seaxe forth andlange daeg eorod-cystum on last legdon lathum theodum, heowon here-flieman hindan thearle mecum mylen-scearpum. Mierce ne wierndon heardes hand-plegan haeletha nanum thara-the mid Anlafe ofer ear-gebland on lides bosme land gesohton, faege to gefeohte. Fife lagon on tham camp-stede cyningas geonge, sweordum answefede, swelce seofone eac eorlas Anlafes, unrim herges, flotena and Scotta. Thaere gefliemed wearth North-manna brego, niede gebaeded, to lides stefne lytle weorode; cread cnear on flot, cyning ut gewat on fealone flod, feorh generede. Swelce thaere eac se froda mid fleame com on his cyththe north, Constantinus, har hilde-rinc. Hreman ne thorfte meca gemanan; he waes his maga sceard, freonda gefielled on folc-stede, beslaegen aet saecce, and his sunu forlet on wael-stowe wundum forgrunden, geongne aet guthe. Gielpan ne thorfte beorn blanden-feax bill-gesliehtes, eald inwitta, ne Anlaf thy ma; mid hira here-lafum hliehhan ne thorfton thaet hie beadu-weorca beteran wurdon on camp-stede cumbol-gehnastes, gar-mittunge, gumena gemotes, waepen-gewrixles, thaes hie on wael-felda with Eadweardes eaforan plegodon. Gewiton him tha North-menn naegled-cnearrum, dreorig darotha laf, on Dinges mere ofer deop waeter Dyflin secan, eft Ira lang aewisc-mode. Swelce tha gebrothor begen aetsamne, cyning and aetheling, cyththe sohton, West Seaxna lang, wiges hremge. Leton him behindan hraew bryttian sealwig-padan, thone sweartan hraefn hyrned-nebban, and thone hasu-padan, earn aeftan hwit, aeses brucan,– graedigne guth-hafoc, and thaet graege deor, wulf on wealda. Ne wearth wael mare on thys ig-lande aefre gieta folces gefielled beforan thissum sweordes ecgum, thaes-the us secgath bec, eald uthwitan, siththan eastan hider Engle and Seaxe upp becomon, ofer brad brimu Britene sohton, wlance wig-smithas, Wealas ofercomon, eorlas ar-hwaete eard begeaton.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Battle of Brunanburh

ATHELSTAN King,

Lord among Earls,

Bracelet-bestower and

Baron of Barons,

He with his brother,

Edmund Atheling,

Gaining a lifelong

Glory in battle,

Slew with the sword-edge

There by Brunanburh,

Brake the shield-wall,

Hew’d the lindenwood,

Hack’d the battleshield,

Sons of Edward with hammer’d brands. Theirs was a greatness

Got from their Grandsires—

Theirs that so often in

Strife with their enemies

Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes. Bow’d the spoiler,

Bent the Scotsman,

Fell the shipcrews

Doom’d to the death.

All the field with blood of the fighters

Flow’d, from when first the great

Sun-star of morningtide,

Lamp of the Lord God

Lord everlasting,

Glode over earth till the glorious creature

Sank to his setting. There lay many a man

Marr’d by the javelin,

Men of the Northland

Shot over shield.

There was the Scotsman

Weary of war. We the West-Saxons,

Long as the daylight

Lasted, in companies

Troubled the track of the host that we hated,

Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone,

Fiercely we hack’d at the flyers before us. Mighty the Mercian,

Hard was his hand-play,

Sparing not any of

Those that with Anlaf,

Warriors over the

Weltering waters

Borne in the bark’s-bosom,

Drew to this island:

Doom’d to the death. Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke,

Seven strong Earls of the army of Anlaf

Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers,

Shipmen and Scotsmen. Then the Norse leader.

Dire was his need of it,

Few were his following,

Fled to his warship

Fleeted his vessel to sea with the king in it.

Saving his life on the fallow flood. Also the crafty one,

Constantinus,

Crept to his North again,

Hoar-headed hero! Slender warrant had

He to be proud of

The welcome of war-knives—

He that was reft of his

Folk and his friends that had

Fallen in conflict,

Leaving his son too

Lost in the carnage,

Mangled to morsels,

A youngster in war! Slender reason had

He to be glad of

The clash of the war-glaive—

Traitor and trickster

And spurner of treaties—

He nor had Anlaf

With armies so broken

A reason for bragging

That they had the better

In perils of battle

On places of slaughter—

The struggle of standards,

The rush of the javelins,

The crash of the charges,

The wielding of weapons—

The play that they play’d with

The children of Edward. Then with their nail’d prows

Parted the Norsemen, a

Blood-redden’d relic of

Javelins over

The jarring breaker, the deep-sea billow,

Shaping their way toward Dyflen again,

Shamed in their souls. Also the brethren,

King and Atheling,

Each in his glory,

Went to his own in his own West-Saxonland,

Glad of the war. Many a carcase they left to be carrion,

Many a livid one, many a sallow-skin—

Left for the white-tail’d eagle to tear it, and

Left for the horny-nibb’d raven to rend it, and

Gave to the garbaging war-hawk to gorge it, and

That gray beast, the wolf of the weald. Never had huger

Slaughter of heroes

Slain by the sword-edge—

Such as old writers

Have writ of in histories—

Hapt in this isle, since

Up from the East hither

Saxon and Angle from

Over the broad billow

Broke into Britain with

Haughty war-workers who

Harried the Welshman, when

Earls that were lured by the

Hunger of glory gat

Hold of the land.

The Battle of Brunanburh – translated by John Osbourne

Then Aethelstan, king, Thane of eorls, ring-bestower to men, and his brother also, the atheling Edmund, lifelong honour struck in battle with sword’s edge at Brunanburh. Broke the shieldwall, split shields with swords. Edward’s sons, the issue of princes from kingly kin, oft on campaign their fatherland from foes defended, hoard and home. Crushed the hated ones, Scots-folk and ship-men fated fell. The field flowed with blood, I have heard said, from sun-rise in morningtime, as mighty star glided up overground, God’s bright candle, – the eternal Lord’s – till that noble work sank to its setting. There lay scores of men destroyed by darts, Danish warrior shot over shield. So Scots also wearied of war. West-Saxons went forth from morn till night the mounted warriors pursued enemy people, the fleeing forces were felled from behind with swords new-sharpened. The Mercians spurned not hard hand-play with heroes that accompanied Anlaf over sea’s surge, in ship’s shelter sought land, came fated to fight. Five lay dead on the killing field, young kings put to sleep with the sword; so also seven of Anlaf’s eorls, and unnumbered slain among sea-men and Scots. So was routed the Northmen’s lord, by need forced to take ship with few troops. compelled to sea , the king set out on fallow flood, saved his life. So also the wise one fled away to his northern country, Constantine, hoary battle-man; he need not boast of that meeting of swords. He was severed from kin, forfeiting friends on that field, slain at war, and his son left on the death-ground, destroyed by his wounds, young warrior. He need not brag, the white-haired warrior, about sword-wielding, the artful one, nor Anlaf either; With their army smashed they need not sneer that their battle-work was better on the battlefield where banners crashed and spears clashed in that meeting of men, that weapon-wrestle, when on the death-field they played with Edward’s offspring. The Northmen went off in nail-bound ships, sad survivors of spears, on Ding’s mere, over deep water seeking Dublin, Ireland again, ashamed in their hearts. So both brothers together, king and atheling, their country sought, the land of Wessex, in war exulting. They left behind them sharing the lifeless the dusk-dressed one, the dark raven, with hard beak of horn, and the hoar-coated one, white-tailed eagle, enjoying the carrion, greedy war-hawk, and that grey beast, the wolf of the wood. Nor was more slaughter on this isle ever yet, so many folk felled, before this sword battle, as say the books, the old wise men, since from the east Angle and Saxon arrived together over broad briny seeking Britain, proud warriors who worsted the Welsh, eager for glory, and gained a land.