ell full cold in the clammy earth.
Full dim and dismal that den is to live in.
Doorless is that house, and is dark within;
Down art thou held there and death hath the key.
15 Loathly is that house of earth and horrid to live in.
There thou shalt tarry and be torn by worms.
Thus thou art laid, and leavest thy friends;
Thou hast never a comrade who will come to thee,
Who will hasten to look how thou likest thy house.
20 Or ever will undo thy door for thee.
. . . . . . . . and after thee descend;
For soon thou art loathsome and unlovely to see:
From the crown of thy head shall the hair be lost;
Thy locks shall fall and lose their freshness;
25 No longer is it fair for the fingers to stroke.

III. POEMS FROM THE CHRONICLE

THE BATTLE OF BRUNNANBURG

[Critical edition: Sedgefield, _The Battle of Maldon and Six Short Poems
from the Saxon Chronicle_, Boston, 1904, Belles Lettres Edition.

Translation: Tennyson; Pancoast and Spaeth, _Early English Poems_, p. 81.

Date: It appears in the Chronicle under the year 937.

Danes living north of the Humber conspired with their kinsmen in Ireland
under the two Olafs, together with the Scottish king Constantine and the
Strathclyde Britons under their king Eugenius, against Aethelstan, king of
Wessex. The allies met in the south of Northumbria. Aethelstan encountered
them at Brunnanburg and defeated them.

The site of Brunnanburg has not been identified. The best claim is
probably for Bramber, near Preston, in the neighborhood of which, in
1840, was found a great hoard of silver ingots and coins, none later than
950. This was possibly the war chest of the confederacy. _Dyngesmere_ has
not been identified.

More than half the half-lines are exact copies from other Anglo-Saxon
poems.]

Here Aethelstan the king, of earls the lord,
Bracelet-giver of barons and his brother as well,
Edmund the Aetheling, honor eternal
Won at warfare by the wielding of swords
5 Near Brunnanburg; they broke the linden-wall,
Struck down the shields with the sharp work of hammers,
The heirs of Edward, as of old had been taught
By their kinsmen who clashed in conflict often
Defending their firesides against foemen invader