And friends had fallen on the field of battle, Slain at the strife, and his son left behind On the field of fight, felled and wounded, Young at the battle. No boast dared he make 45 Of strife and of sword-play, the silver-haired leader, Full of age and of evil, nor had Anlaf the more. With their vanquished survivors no vaunt could they make That in works of war their worth was unequalled, In the fearful field, in the flashing of standards, 50 In the meeting of men, and the mingling of spears, And the war-play of weapons, when they had waged their battle Against the heirs of Edward on the awful plain. Now departed the Northmen in their nailed ships, Dreary from dart-play on Dyngesmere. 55 Over the deep water to Dublin they sailed, Broken and baffled back to Ireland. So, too, the brothers both went together, The King and the Aetheling; to their kinsmen's home, To the wide land of Wessex --warrior's exultant. 60 To feast on the fallen on the field they left The sallow-hued spoiler, the swarthy raven, Horned of beak, and the hoary-backed White-tailed eagle to eat of the carrion, And the greedy goshawk, and that gray beast, 65 The wolf in the wood. Not worse was the slaughter Ever on this island at any time, Or more folk felled before this strife With the edge of the sword, as is said in old books, In ancient authors, since from the east hither 70 The Angles and Saxons eagerly sailed Over the salt sea in search of Britain,-- Since the crafty warriors conquered the Welshmen And, greedy for glory, gained them the land. 31. _Anlaf_: the Old English form of "Olaf." 52. _Heirs of Edward_: the English, descendants of Edward the Elder. 58. _The Aetheling_: Edmund the Aetheling (or prince) of line 3. THE BATTLE OF MALDON [Critical edition: Sedgefield, _The Battle of Maldon and Six Short Poems from the Saxon Chronicle_, Boston, 1904, Belles Lettres Edition. Date: It appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 991. "_The Battle of Maldon_ treats not of legendary heroes of the Germanic races but of an actual historic personage, an English hero and patriot fallen in battle against a foreign invader a very short time before the poem was made. A single event in contemporary history is here described with hardly suppressed emotion by one who knew his hero and loved him. There is none of the allusiveness and excursiveness of the _Beowulf_; we have here not a member of an epic cycle, but an independent song. Very striking is the absence of ornament from the _Battle of Maldon_; all is plain, blunt, and stern."--Sedgefield, _The Battle of Maldon_, pp. vi-vii.]