Some seventy years later, just before it ends, the "Chronicle" has a long and famous passage about the cruel oppressions in Stephen's reign (1137). By that date the language has changed so much, that the meaning can easily be made out, even by readers who do not know Anglo-Saxon. The style of the "Chronicle" is always extremely simple, and the good monks are usually more interested in events affecting their own monasteries, than in matters which are of more importance to the history of the country. Nevertheless, there are records of periods in the "war-age" when the Danes were burning, plundering, and slaying through England, and there are characters of great interest among the kings, earls, and counsellors, lay or clerical, of whom we should know little or nothing if the monks had ceased to make their entries in the "Chronicle". To students of language, with its dialects and changes, the "Chronicle" is priceless, and a few poems and ballads are contained in its pages. The most famous poem in the "Chronicle" is on the battle of Brunanburh (937), when the English, under Æthelstan, defeated the Scots and Danes. This song, translated by Tennyson, does not so much describe the fighting as the triumph after the battle. Five lay On that battle-stead, Young kings By swords laid to sleep: So seven eke Of Olaf's earls, Of the country countless Shipmen and Scots. Olaf fled in his ship over the barren sea, the aged Constantine, King of the Scots, left his son dead on the field. As usual the raven, wolf, and eagle have their share of the corpses: an Anglo-Saxon poet could not omit these animals. This poet boasts that there has been no such victory since first the Anglo-Saxons "the Welsh overcame". Perhaps the enthusiasm of English students rather overrates the poetical merits of this war-song. There is more poetry, and more originality in "Byrhtnoth," a song of a defeat at the hands of the Danes. The warrior entering the field of battle Let from his hands his lief hawk fly, His hawk to the holt, and to battle he stepped. He haughtily refuses to accept peace in exchange for tribute which the Danes demand. The armies are divided from each other by a tidal river, and Byrhtnoth chivalrously allows the heathen to cross, at low tide, and meet him in fair field. There are descriptions of hand to hand single combats; and of the wounds given and taken, and the boasts of the slayers, who throw their spears, piercing iron mail, and shields of linden wood; and strip the slain of their armour and jewels. The friends of the fallen fight across the corpses. Byrhtnoth falls, some of his company flee, the rest make a ring of spears about the hero, one cries The more the mood, as lessens our might, that is, The braver be we, as our strength fails.