Listening to: Sheryl Crow
Reading: next on TBR
First stop on Sunday was at Maldon. Admittedly the ground levels have shifted during the last thousand years, but this is the view of Northey Island (where the Danes camped) from the mainland, showing the causeway across the River Blackwater at low tide. (Back then it was known as the River Panta.)
The channel was slightly narrower, too, so it was perfectly possible for the Viking leader to shout across that the English could give them money and they’d make a truce and keep the peace. And equally possible for Byrhtnoth to shout back:
Gehyrst þu, sælida hwæt þis folc segeð?
Hi willað eow to gafole garas syllan,
Ættryne ord and ealde swurd,
Þa heregeatu þe eow æt hilde ne deah.
(Apologies for being a bit indulgent there. My translation:
Do you hear, seafarer, what these people say?
They will give you spears for tribute,
Poisonous points and tried sword-edge,
Your war-tax will not help you in the fight.)
(If you're wondering about the space in the middle of the lines - that's a convention of Anglo-Saxon poetry.)
And then, instead of picking off the Danes one by one as they came across the causeway, Byrhtnoth let them all come over to fight. Was it a misguided sense of fair play? Or was it because he knew the Danes would continue raiding the coast if he didn’t try to stop them (and he thought maybe his warriors would be enough)? We'll never know.
More tomorrow :o)