Various attempts have been made to present in modern English the Ballad of Brunanburh, the most successful being that by the Poet Laureate. Our language is rather out of practice for kindling a poetic fervour around the sentiment of flinging scorn at a vanquished foe; but the following will serve to illustrate this heathenish element, or such relics of it as survived in the tenth century. The person first railed at is Constantinus:—

X.

Slender reason 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!

XI.

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 played with
The children of Edward.

Alfred Tennyson, “Ballads and Other Poems,” 1880, p. 174.

The longest of our ballads, though it is imperfect, is that of the “Battle of Maldon.” In the year 991 the Northmen landed in Essex, and expected to be bought off with great ransom; but Brithnoth, the alderman of the East Saxons, met them with all his force, and, after fighting bravely, was killed. The lines here quoted occur after the alderman’s death:—

Leofsunu gemælde,
and his linde ahof,
bord to gebeorge;
he tham beorne oncwæth;
Ic thæt gehate,
thæt ic heonon nelle
fleon fotes trym,
ac wille furthor gan,
wrecan on gewinne
mine wine drihten!
Ne thurfon me embe Sturmere
stede fæste hæleth,
wordum ætwitan,
nu min wine gecranc,
thæt ic hlafordleas
ham sithie
wende from wige!
ac me sceal wæpen niman,
ord and iren!
 Then up spake Leveson
and his shield uphove,
buckler in ward;
he the warrior addressed:
I make the vow,
that I will not hence
flee a foot’s pace,
but will go forward;
wreak in the battle
my friend and my lord!
Never shall about Stourmere,
the stalwart fellows,
with words me twit
now my chief is down,
that I lordless
homeward go march,
turning from war!
Nay, weapon shall take me,
point and iron.

Other ballads, or something like ballads, that are embodied in the Saxon chronicles are:—“The Conquest of Mercia” (942); “The Coronation of Eadgar at Bath” (973); “Eadgar’s Demise” (975); “The Good Times of King Eadgar” (975); “The Martyr of Corf Gate” (979); “Alfred the Innocent Ætheling” (1036); “The Son of Ironside” (1057); “The Dirge of King Eadward” (1065).

Others there are of which only brief scraps remain, almost embedded in the prose of the chronicles:—“The Sack of Canterbury” (1011); “The Wooing of Margaret” (1067); “The Baleful Bride Ale” (1076); “The High-handed Conqueror” (1086).[88]