On this day – August 10th

The Battle of Maldon

The Vikings (mostly Danes) were marauding over Essex and Kent in the year 991AD, ineffectually opposed by Ethelred (the Unready, although strictly the epithet means the Ill-advised).

The Danish Force occupied Northsey Island in the Blackwater Estuary, an island at all but low tide when a narrow causeway connects it to the mainland.

Bryhtnoth, an Essex nobleman, arrived on August 10th, 991, with a small force on the Essex side, while the Danes were secure on Northsey Island. The two armies passed the time hurling abuse at each other (mainly "No Deal", "No Deal" from the English, and something incomprehensible about an Irish backstop from the Danes) as the tide gradually ebbed. At last the causeway emerged and the two sides could start proper fighting.

Because the causeway was so narrow, the much smaller English force was able to keep the Danes at bay – the latter then called on Bryhtnoth's sense of fair play, and he agreed to allow the Danes across the causeway onto the Essex side so that both sides could line up for a proper battle – and, of course, the English, and Bryhtnoth himself, promptly got slaughtered.

This was, in fact, a relatively small incident in the years of fighting between the English and the various brands of Viking, but it is made famous by the finest battle-poem in Old English that has survived. This poem includes one of the clearest statements of the old Germanic code of honour –

"Thought shall be the harder, heart the keener,
mood the more, as our might lessens."

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