Such is the case with the writer of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from whom the following verses are abridged. They
have been already partially quoted in the text.
Here Athelstane king,
Of earls the lord,
To warriors the ring-giver,
Glory world-long
Had won in the strife,
By edge of the sword,
At Brunanburgh.
The offspring of Edward,
The departed king,
Cleaving the shields.
Struck down the brave.
Such was their valour,
Worthy of their sires,
That oft in the strife
They shielded the land
'Gainst every foe.
The Scottish chieftains,
The warriors of the Danes,
Pierced through their mail,
Lay dead on the field.
The field was red
With warriors' blood,
What time the sun,
Uprising at morn,
The candle of God,
Ran her course through the heavens;
Till red in the west
She sank to her rest.
Through the live-long day
Fought the people of Wessex,
Unshrinking from toil,
While Mercian men,
Hurled darts by their side.
Fated to die
Their ships brought the Danes,
Five kings and seven earls,
All men of renown,
And Scots without number
Lay dead on the field.
Constantine, hoary warrior,
Had small cause to boast.
Young in the fight,
Mangled and torn,
Lay his son on the plain.
Nor Anlaf the Dane
With wreck of his troops,
Could vaunt of the war
Of the clashing of spears.
Or the crossing of swords,
with the offspring of Edward.
The Northmen departed
In their mailed barks,
Sorrowing much;
while the two brothers,
The King and the Etheling,
To Wessex returned,
Leaving behind
The corpses of foes
To the beak of the raven,
The eagle and kite,
And the wolf of the wood.
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