as your strength grows less.
Here lies our leader low on the earth,
315 Struck down in the dust; doleful forever
Be the traitor who tries to turn from the war-play.
I am old of years, but yet I flee not;
Staunch and steadfast I stand by my lord,
And I long to be by my loved chief."
320 So the son of Aethelgar said to them all.
Godric emboldened them; oft he brandished his lance,
Violently threw at the Vikings his war-spear,
So that first among the folk he fought to the end;
Hewed down and hacked, till the hated ones killed him--
325 Not that Godric who fled in disgrace from the fight.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5. _Offa's kinsman_ is not named. Offa himself is mentioned in line 286.

8. Is the fact that the earl is amusing himself with a falcon just before
the battle to be taken as a sign of contempt for the enemy?

65. "The _Panta_, or Blackwater as it is now called, opens at Maldon into
a large estuary, where a strong tide runs."--Sedgefield.

70. The approaches to the bridge were covered with water at high tide;
hence the Norsemen feared to cross at high tide and asked for a truce.

140. The soldier is Byrhtnoth.

151. This refers to Byrhtnoth.

271. The two halves of the line rime in the original.

287. _Offa_: "the kinsman of Gad" in the original. The reference is to
Offa and we have avoided confusion by translating the phrase by the
name of the man meant.

APPENDIX--SELECTIONS FROM OLD ENGLISH PROSE

ACCOUNT OF THE POET CAEDMON

[From the Anglo-Saxon version of Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_. Text
used: Bright's _Anglo-Saxon Reader_, pp. 8 ff.]

In the monastery of this abbess [Hild] was a certain brother especially
distinguished and gifted with the grace of God, because he was in the
habit of making poems filled with piety and virtue. Whatever he learned
_5_ of holy writ through interpreters he gave forth in a very short time
in poetical language with the greatest of sweetness and inspiration, well
wrought in the English tongue. Because of his songs the minds of many men
were turned from the thoughts of this world and _10_ incited toward a
contemplation of the heavenly life. There were, to be sure, others after
him among the Angles who tried to compose sacred poetry, but none of th