(Leaf 113) – Remembrance
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| ‘God alone knows who shall carry the wielding of this waste ground’ |
On 10th August 991 AD ninety-three longboats carrying around 5000 Viking raiders landed on the island of Northey in the River Blackwater, a little way downstream from the old town of Maldon in Essex, close to England’s southeast coast.* The Vikings were met by a small force of Saxon soldiers, who prevented them making their way across a narrow causeway connecting the island to the mainland. The confrontation which followed was later recounted in a famous Anglo-Saxon poem, ‘The Battle of Maldon.’ This poem has long fascinated me ever since I first read it, so much so that a few years ago I went to Maldon to see the site of the battle for myself (see here) – where I tried to imagine what it must have felt like on that day when the Saxons were defeated.
A battlefield
falls silent
under an overcast sky.
This poem was also written with
a famous haiku in mind, written by Matsuo Bashō:
Summer grass –
all that remains
of warriors’ dreams.
Which in turn was written with a
poem by the Chinese poet, Tu Fu in mind (see here). The translation above is by David Landis
Barnhill. I think there are probably a lot of parallels to be found in the old
warrior codes of warfare in the two island nations of Britain and Japan, and
the way such battles continue to be remembered.
.JPG) |
| Tim Chamberlain - River Blackwater at Maldon (2015) |
Image credit: artist unknown
*Reference: Michael Wood, In Search of the Dark Ages - In Search of Ethelred the Unready (1981).
