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National genealogy is an important instrument of legitimating dominant power. Patriotic“imagined community”constructed national consciousness, fabricated collective identity, and all these contributed to the formation of the ideological state apparatus. These ancient war poems provided an account of ideal legendary warriors in order to establish the core heroic values of bravery and patriotism. Such heroic poetry had been supported and strengthened by their cultures or civilisations over time. To sacrifice one's life and what is best for someone consequently became the intensely wanted attribute for each soldier to fight. Whereas the Middle Ages had its glorious tales of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, the spirited behaviour of warring parties had dramatically altered by the 17 th century. To some extent, the English national formation goes closely together with the linguistic formation of the Old English , the language spoken from about AD 500 to AD 1100, one of the Germanic languages derived from a prehistoric Common Germanic originally spoken in southern Scandinavia and the northernmost parts of Germany.
Written in the Old English dialect sometime between the first part of the 8 th century and the 10 th century, the poem was considered to be the earliest English epic with some of its old linguistic and storytelling roots. Preserved in late 10 th century manuscript, it was probably composed by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet following the versification and style of Germanic oral poetry. Beowulf, who fought two monsters, Grendel and his mother,ruled a kingdom with courage and wisdom, and killed a dragon in his last battle. Built on an alliterative, strong-stress pattern, in which each line normally contains four strongly stressed syllables, the poem deals with the Germanic forebears of the English people, specifically the Danes, who inhabited the Danish island of Zealand, and the Geats of southern Sweden. It mixes elements of the Christian tradition with the heroic ideals of a pagan, warrior society.The excerpt is from the modern standard version of Craig Williamson's translation version [1] :Lines 3137—3182, depicting the magnitude of the loss of Beowulf's funeral, which provides the last chance for his retainers and subjects to mourn together in an attempt to reaffirm their love for their lord and their sense of shared values:
The old battle-warrior. The Geats prepared
His funeral pyre, a splendid hoard
Hung with helmets, battle-shields,
Bright mail-coats, as Beowulf had asked.
In the middle they laid their battle-lord,
Lamenting their leader, mourning the man.
There on the barrow they woke the flame,
The greatest of funeral fires, stoking the pyre.
The wood-smoke rose to the sound of wailing
In the curling fire. The blaze was fierce,
Its fury twisted with the sound of keening.
The wind died down—the fire had ravaged
Beowulf's bone-house, hot at the heart.
Sad in spirit, they mourned their prince;
Likewise a lonely old woman of the Geats,
With her hair bound up, wove a sad lament
For her fallen lord, sang often of old feuds
Bound to fester, a fearful strife,
The invasion of enemies, the slaughter of troops,
Slavery and shame. Heaven swallowed the smoke.
Then the Geats built a barrow, broad and high,
On the sea-cliff to be seen by seafarers.
It took ten days to build that beacon,
A hero's monument. The pyre's remains,
The fire's offering of ashes and dust,
They wrapped in walls for the great warrior,
As beautiful as craftsmen knew how to build.
In that best of barrows, the Geats buried
Rings and gems, ornaments and heirlooms,
All they had hauled from the worm's hoard.
They returned to earth its ancient treasure,
The gifts of men now gold in the ground,
Where it still lies useless, unloved, unliving.
Then around Beowulf's barrow twelve
Battle-warriors rode, mourning their prince,
Keening for the king, shaping their praise
For a precious man. They spoke of sorrow,
They sang of courage, of great words and deeds,
Weaving glory with a weft of power.
When a lord's life lifts from its body-home,
It's only fitting to mourn and remember,
To lament and praise. So the Geats recalled
His great heart and lamented his fall,
Keening and claiming that of all the kings,
He was the kindest of men, most generous and just,
Most desiring of praise, most deserving of fame.
The Battle of Brunanburh is one of the most representative national poems that defined Great Britain, of which people today know as England, Scotland and Wales for the battle was the greatest one ever fought in England. In 937, when the battle took place, Britain was a divided nation, ruled by several Kings and Earls, all vying for land and power: In the far north, there were the Celts, divided into two main Kingdoms; Alba (mainly in Scotland) led by Constantine, and Strathclyde (nowadays SW Scotland, Cumbria and parts of Wales) ruled by Owain. The poem is recorded in four manuscript copies of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , and in fact serves as the entry for the year 937, although it is entirely unclear as to whether it was written specifically for The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , or an entirely independent work that was simply incorporated into later manuscript copies. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of interrelated texts that have a similar core but considerable local variations, beginning as early as the time of Julius Caesar, but most of the entries range from the 5 th century to the 11 th or the 12 th century. Originally written in the Old English, the poem represents the battle as the continuation of a tradition of heroic action, creates an unbroken tradition of national and racial heroic glory extending from the earlier kings in the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogy of a national kingdom, and has become a poetic tradition that later poets continue to relate the topic, such as Alfred Lord Tennyson's (1809—1892) translated poem of the same title. [2]
In this year King Athelsta, ruler of earls,
Ring-giver of men, and his brother Edmund,
A proud prince won lifelong glory
At a fierce battle near Brunanburh—
Bold brothers wielding sharp, bitter swords,
Offering their enemies the edge of destruction.
The sons of Edward gave no respite—
They hacked through the shield-wall,
Splintering the hand-held, sheltering wood,
Brought death with the gift the forge-hammer left,
A whistling steel, a deadly strike.
Their family legacy was firm: fight the foe,
Protect the heritage of land and treasure,
Hoard and home. Enemies perished—
Scots and seafarers, Viking pirates.
The battlefield was flattened with heavy bodies
And saturated with blood from the day's dawn—
When the star-fire sun knifed through the dark,
God's bright candle lifting its light,
Gliding high over earth's broad plains—
To the day's darkening down at long last,
As the shaping radiance slipped to its rest.
Warriors lay wounded, a multitude of men,
Their unshielded flesh in unwaking sleep.
Norsemen and Scots lay dead on the field,
Gutted by spears thrust over the shield- wall,
All of them battle-weary, sated with slaughter.
The warriors of Wessex dogged the enemy
All day long, hacking and hewing from behind
The hostile heathens with whetted swords.
Nor did the Mercians make any concessions.
They refused no hard hand-play of swords
With the savage Vikings who landed in hordes
With their leader Anlaf from across the ocean.
They rode in the belly of wood over rough waves,
A sea-steed stuffed with daring warriors
Doomed in battle. Five young kings
Were camped on the battlefield, all cold,
Tucked into a final rest with ravaging swords,
A blade's quick kiss, an unseen swipe.
Seven of Anlaf's earls, countless Scots,
And seafaring Vikings shared that bed,
Broken bodies in unbroken sleep.
Then the Norse leader was forced to flee,
Seeking protection at the ship's prow
With his paltry remnant. The sea-floater
Set sail, angling on the ocean, driven out
On the dusky waves, saving the king.
Crafty Constantine, king of the Scots,
Also fled north to his native land.
The gray-haired warrior had no need to boast
Of sword-strike and blade-play
Since his kinsmen were cut down
In the fiercest of battles. He lost many friends,
Left them sleeping in the field of slaughter.
Also his young son, savagely undone,
Went weary to bed with bitter wounds.
The crafty old king had no cause to brag
Or have sung the story of great battle-deeds.
Anlaf also sailed home, humbled.
His scop was silent, his song unsung.
With the small remnant left, they had no need
To laugh or exult over their accomplishments
In the spear-clash and battle-crush,
In that savage meeting of men and standards,
The sword-conflict with the sons of Edward.
The Norsemen sailed off in their nailed ships,
Skulking home on the sea with their battle-shame,
A hacked host of what the Saxon swords left.
They sailed on the waves of Dingesmere Sea,
Over deep water home to Dublin, humiliated.
The victorious brothers, both king and prince,
Went home to Wessex, exulting in triumph.
They left behind them a feast of corpses,
Carrion comfort for the savage scavengers,
The dark-feathered raven, his horny beak
Ravenous, the gray-feathered eagle
With his white tail, a greedy war-hawk,
And that gray stalker, the wolf in the wood.
Books tell us that never before on this island
Has there ever been such a slaughter
Of warriors struck down by the sword's edge—
Never since the Angles and Saxons came sailing
Across the broad sea, seeking Britain,
Proud warriors and battle-craftsmen
Who overcame the Welshmen, conquering their country?
They were bold in battle, eager for fame.
The poem is also recorded in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . With a continuation of the Old English poetic convention to shape a sense of national cohesion and purpose, it relates that King Edward fights as a Christ-like warrior to rid Mercia of its heathen Norse invaders and free the enslaved Danes who had earlier settled there and had come to consider themselves natives.
In this year King Edmund, lord of the English,
Beloved protector of people, famous for great deeds,
Conquered Mercia, overran all the boundaries,
From Dore to Whitwell Gap and the River Humber,
That broad stream, seizing the five boroughs—
Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, and Stamford.
The Danes living there had long been held
In cruel captivity, heathen bondage,
By the fierce Norsemen until finally freed
By the brave deeds of Edmund, son of Edward,
The worthy protector of warriors, the conquering,
Righteous king who rescued and released them.
It is an Old English heroic poem, describing a historical skirmish between the East Saxons and Viking (mainly Norwegian) raiders. The Battle took place at Maldon along the shores of the River Blackwater in Essex, where a small force of the East Saxons was cut down by the Viking invaders in AD 991. Composed in the oral tradition of Old English alliterative verse, the poem The Battle of Maldon , only part of which survives, takes a heroic stand by the Anglo-Saxons against the Viking invasion, which ended in utter defeat for Brithnoth and his men, offering a mournful and ambiguous celebration of heroism in its narrative of the defeat of the English. What it celebrates is not victory, but failure, a failure so heroic that the losers are remembered long after the victors are forgotten. Brithnoth is thus a caricature of British heroism that conceives a peculiarly British character.
Then Byrhtnoth ordered every warrior to dismount,
Let loose his horse and go forward into battle
With faith in his own skills and bravery.
Thus Offa's young son could see for himself
That the earl was no man to suffer slackness.
He sent his best falcon flying from his wrist
To the safety of the forest and strode into the fight;
The boy's behaviour was a testament
That he would not be weak in the turmoil of battle.
Eadric too was firmly resolved to follow his leader
Into the fight. At once he hurried forward
With his spear. He feared no foe
For as long as he could lift his shield
And wield a sword: he kept his word
That he would pierce and parry before his prince.
Then Byrhtnoth began to martial his men.
He rode about, issuing instructions
As to how they should stand firm, not yielding an inch,
And how they should tightly grip their shields
Forgetting their qualms and pangs of fear.
And when he had arrayed the warriors' ranks
He dismounted with his escort at a carefully chosen place
Where his finest troops stood prepared for the fight.
Then a spokesman for the Vikings stood on the river bank
And aggressively shouted
A message from the seafarers
To Byrhtnoth, the earl, on the opposite bank.
“The brave seafarers have sent me to say to you
That they will be so good as to let you give gold rings
In return for peace. It is better for you
To buy off our raid with gold
Than that we, renowned for cruelty, should cut you down in battle.
Why destroy one another? If you're good for a certain sum,
We'll settle for peace in exchange for gold.
If you, most powerful over there, agree to this
And wisely decide to disband your men,
Giving gold to the seafarers on their own terms
In return for a truce,
We'll take to the sea with the tribute you pay
And keep our promise of peace.”
Then Byrhtnoth spoke. He grasped his shield
And brandished his slender ashen spear,
Resentful and resolute he shouted his reply:
‘Can you hear, you pirate, what these people say?
They will pay you a tribute of whistling spears,
Of deadly darts and proven swords,
Weapons to pay you, pierce, slit and slay you in storming battle.
Listen, messenger! Take back this reply:
Tell your people the unpleasant tidings
That over here there stands a noble earl with his troop—
Guardians of the people and of the country,
The home of Ethelred, my prince—who'll defend this land
To the last ditch. We'll sever the heathens' heads
From their shoulders. It would be much to our shame
If you took our tribute and embarked without battle
Since you've intruded so far
And so rudely into this country.
No! You'll not get your treasure so easily.
The spear's point and the sword's edge, savage battle-play,
Must teach us first that we have to yield tribute.’
Then Byrhtnoth gave word that all his warriors should walk
With their shields to the river bank.
The troops on either side could not get at one another,
For there the flood flowed after the turn of the tide;
The water streams ran together. Waiting seemed like passing years,
Waiting to cross and clash their spears.
The East-Saxons and the Ship-army
Stood beside the River Panta in proud array.
But no warrior could work harm on another
Except by the flight of a feathered arrow.
The tide ebbed; the pirates stood prepared,
Many bold Vikings ready for battle.
Then Byrhtnoth, brave protector of his men, ordered
A warrior, Wulfstan by name, to defend the ford.
He was Ceola's son, outstanding for his courage amongst courageous men
He struck the first seafarer with his spear
Who stepped intrepidly on to the ford.
Two experienced warriors stood with Wulfstan,
Ælfere and Maccus, both brave men.
Nothing could have made them take flight at the ford.
They would have defended it
For as long as they could wield their weapons.
But as it was, the Danes found the dauntless guardians
Of the ford too fierce for their liking…
The hateful strangers began to use guile
And asked if they could cross,
Leading their warriors over the water.
Then, in foolhardy pride, the earl permitted
Those hateful strangers to have access to the ford.
The son of Byrhthelm began to call out
Across the cold water (the warriors listened):
“Now the way is clear for you. Come over to us quickly,
Come to the slaughter. God alone can say
Who of us that fight today will live to fight again.”
Then the wolvish Vikings, avid for slaughter,
Waded to the west across the River Panta;
The seafarers hoisted their shields on high
And carried them over the gleaming water.
Byrhtnoth and his warriors awaited them,
Ready for battle: he ordered his men
To form a phalanx with their shields, and to stand firm
Against the onslaught of the enemy. Then was the battle,
With its chance of glory, about to begin. The time had come
For all the doomed men to fall in the fight.
The clamour began; the ravens wheeled and the eagle
Circled overhead, craving for carrion; there was shouting on earth.
They hurled their spears, hard as files,
And sent sharp darts flying from their hands.
Bow strings were busy, shield parried point,
Bitter was the battle. Brave men fell
On both sides, youths choking in the dust.
Byrhtnoth's sister's son, Wulfmær, was wounded;
Slashed by the sword, he decided
To sleep on the bed of death.
This was violently requited, the Vikings were repaid in kind.
I was told that Eadweard swung his sword
So savagely—a full-blooded blow—
That a fated warrior fell lifeless at his feet.
Byrhtnoth shouted out his thanks to him,
His chamberlain, as soon as he had a chance to do so.
The brave men stood resolute, rock firm.
Each of them eagerly hunted for a way
To be first in with his spear,
Winning with his weapons the life
Of a doomed warrior; the dead sank down to the earth.
But the rest stood unshaken and Byrhtnoth spurred them on,
Inciting each man to fight ferociously
Who wished to gain glory against the Danes.
Then a brave seafarer raised up his spear,
Gripped his shield and advanced towards Byrhtnoth.
The resolute earl advanced towards the churl;
Each had evil designs on the other.
The Viking was the quicker—he hurled his foreign spear
Wounding the lord of the warriors.
Byrhtnoth broke the shaft with the edge of his shield;
The imbedded spear-head sprang out of his wound.
Then he flung his spear in fury
At the proud Viking who dared inflict such pain.
His aim was skilful. The spear
Slit open the warrior's neck.
Thus Byrhtnoth put paid to his enemy's life.
Then, for safety's sake, he swiftly hurled another
Which burst the Viking's breastplate, cruelly wounding him
In the chest; the deadly spear pierced his heart.
The brave earl, Byrhtnoth, was delighted at this;
He laughed out loud and gave thanks to the Lord
That such good fortune had been granted to him .
But one of the seafarers sent a sharp javelin
Speeding from his hand
That pierced Byrhtnoth's body, the noble thane of Ethelred.
By his side stood a young warrior,
Wulfmær by name, Wulfstan's son,
Who without a moment's hesitation
Drew out the blood-red javelin from Byrhtnoth's side
And hurled it back as hard as he could
At the man who had grievously injured his prince.
The sharp point struck home; the Viking sagged, and sank into the dust.
Another seafarer advanced on the earl, meaning to make
Short work of him and snatch away his treasures—
His armour and his rings and his ornamented sword.
[1] Craig Williamson, ed. and trans., Beowulf and Other Old English Poems . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
[2] The poem is selected from Craig Williamson, ed. and trans., The Complete Old English Poems .Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.