Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

Celtic—kings. So we have this coalition of Scots, Norsemen from Ireland, and British kings against the Saxon king Athelstan, which means “noble stone,” and one of his brothers. There is one detail that has never been explained. According to all the chronicles, the Danish king of Dublin leaves Dublin to invade England. What one would naturally expect is for him to cross the North Channel and land in England. For unknown reasons, though—perhaps he was hoping for a surprise attack—he took his ships—five hundred, each carrying one hundred warriors—all the way around the north of Scotland and landed in a place, which has not been well identified, on the east coast of England, not on the west coast as we would expect. There he joined forces with the Scots of Constantine and with the last British kings, who came from Wales. And thus they made up a formidable army. Then King Athelstan and his brother Edmund advance from the south to meet them. The two armies meet, confront each other, and decide to wait till the following day to begin the battle—battles in those days were a little like tournaments. King Anlaf devised a plan to discover the location and layout of the Saxon camp. He dressed up as a minstrel, took a harp—clearly he knew how to play the harp and sing—and presented himself in the court of the Saxon king. The two languages, as I have said, were similar. Moreover, as I have also said, at that time, wars were not seen as being waged between one people and another, but rather between one king and another, hence the appearance of a Danish minstrel would not have alarmed or surprised anybody. They lead the minstrel to King Athelstan, he sings in Danish, the king enjoys listening, then he gives him, possibly tosses at him, some coins. The minstrel, who has observed the layout of the Saxon camp, leaves. And here something happens that is not mentioned in the
Chronicle
, but which is not difficult to imagine. King Anlaf has received some coins. They have been given to him by the Saxon king, whom he plans to kill, or in any case, defeat, the following day. He might be thinking several things. He might be thinking—and this is the most probable—that these coins will bring him bad luck in the battle he will wage the following day. But he is probably also thinking that it is not right to accept money from a man he means to fight. Now, if he throws the coins away, they can be found, and his trick might be discovered. So he decides to bury them. But among the Saxon king’s men was one who had fought under Anlaf, and he has suspicions about the identity of the phony minstrel. He follows him, sees him burying the coins, and his suspicions are thereby confirmed. So he goes back and tells the king, the Saxon: “That minstrel who was singing here is really Anlaf, king of Dublin.” 18 And the king says, “Why didn’t you tell me before?” And the soldier, obviously a noble personage, says, “King, I have sworn loyalty to you. What would you think of my loyalty if I betrayed a man I had sworn loyalty to in the past? But my advice is that you rearrange your camp.” So the king heeds the soldier, rearranges his camp, and in the spot he occupied previously—this is somewhat perfidious on the part of the Saxon king—he leaves a bishop who has arrived with his people. Before dawn, the Scots, Danes, and Britons attempt a surprise attack, duly killing the bishop, and then the battle is waged and lasts all day and is recounted in “Battle of Brunanburh.” Now, this battle was recounted by the great Icelandic poet as well, the Viking poet EgilSkallagrímsson, who fought with the Saxons against his Norse brothers. And in that battle, one of Egil’s brothers died while fighting alongside him; Egil celebrated the Saxon victory afterward in a poem that is famous in the history of Old Norse literature. 19 And that poem, that panegyric to the king, includes an elegy to his brother. It is a strange poem: a panegyric, a poem of victory, that includes a sad elegy about the death of his brother who fell next to him in battle.
    But let us return to the poem. We don’t know who wrote it. Probably a monk. This man, although writing at the beginning of the tenth century, had his head full of all the previous Saxon epic poetry. We find a sentence from
Beowulf
buried in the poem. He talks, for example, of five young kings put to sleep with a sword. It is one of the few moments of tenderness in the poem, how he speaks about