Essay: The Narrative Functions of Vikings in Tenth Century Literature

Anglo-Saxon England saw over two hundred years of Viking attacks at the turn of the first millennium. By the end of the tenth century, Anglo-Saxon England had become Anglo-Scandinavian England (Frank 23). The Scandinavian presence in England is the subject of much Early Medieval poetry, prose and historical literature. The Danes, a geographically foreign and pagan people, emerge as an Other against which the Anglo-Saxons struggle to maintain their ideological integrity. In the poem “The Battle of Maldon” the warfare waged against the Vikings exposes weakness within the ranks of the English. In the “Life of St. Edmund”, an Anglo-Saxon defeat in a battle against the Vikings gives rise to a saint who works miracles from beyond the grave. Even though both texts were written within decades of one another, the recentness of the events depicted and the thematic focus of their authors result in two very different treatments of a similar historical setting.

Ælfric’s “Life of St. Edmund” is an explicitly Christian text. The account, written in AD 995, is concerned with King Edmund, who was killed in a Viking attack about 126 years earlier in AD 869 (Liuzza 202). The narrator distinguishes between the benevolent, Christian Anglo-Saxons and the savage, heathen Vikings. “The blessed Edmund, king of the East Angles, was wise and honorable, and always worshipped the almighty God with noble customs” (203). The author lauds King Edmund, representative of the Anglo-Saxon Christians, for the secular virtues of wisdom and honor as well as his devoutness. In the following paragraph, Ælfric provides a diametric description of the Danes. “The Danish people went with their fleet, pillaging and killing throughout the land, as their custom is” (203). In addition, “the principal leaders of the fleet were… united by the devil … and stalked about the land like a wolf … and shamefully tormented innocent Christians” (203). 

The author goes on to create a thorough profile of the Anglo-Saxon character through contrast with the Danes. The Viking king Ivar threatens not only to attack the Anglo-Saxons, but to “have winter quarters here with his troops” (203). This prospect of permanence is unbearable to Edmund, who proffers to sacrifice his life for his homeland and for his fellow men. “I would rather die, if I must, for my own land, and the almighty God knows that I will never turn away from his worship nor from His true love, whether I live or die .” (203). Thus patriotism is placed alongside Christian faith, and loyalty to land and fellow men become implicated in the Christian Anglo-Saxon identity. Edmund hands himself over to the Vikings. They proceed to tie him to a tree in a fashion remarkably reminiscent of Christ. The Vikings then behead him, after which Edmund’s people bury him and build a church in the now-Saint’s honor. 

But the text doesn’t end there. Even though our hero Edmund is dead, his ability to influence the living world is very much intact. This narrative structure in which an irreverent enemy challenges the Christian Anglo-Saxons recurs not once but twice more in the tale. The first of these are “eight unlucky thieves” (206), who come to steal the treasures pilgrims had brought to Edmund’s church. Whereas the Vikings had succeeded in thwarting the English, however, the thieves “toiled in vain and fared miserably, for the holy man miraculously bound them … so that none of them could commit his crime or escape” (207). The thieves suffer a sentence that history failed to extend to the detested Vikings: they are hung by the bishop of the church. 

Yet another opponent of the Church is introduced, “Leofstan, powerful in the world and foolish before God” (207). He arrogantly demands that he be shown the saint’s body to verify its physical preservation. Upon seeing the uncorrupted body he “immediately went mad and roared savagely, and wretchedly ended with an evil death” (207). Leofstan is the second in a sequence of two enemies of Christ to suffer defeat at the hands of the saint. What he failed to do in life, St. Edmund succeeds to do in death. 

Roy Liuzza suggests that as a text, “Life of St. Edmund” may not be all that different from Beowulf. Even though Beowulf’s last thoughts are of treasure and Edmund’s last thoughts are of God, both texts share 

a belief that fidelity to one’s ideals is more important than victory or long life … both present noble figures from the past; both celebrate ideals which are worthy of emulation. Both draw on a similar stock of narrative themes and patterns to present a hero who is at the same time exemplary – available for emulation and contemporary appropriation – and historically rooted (41).

I suggest that beyond these thematic similarities, “Life of St. Edmund” is structurally similar to the epic poem. Beowulf encounters three monsters in his lifetime: Grendel, his mother and the dragon. Our hero Edmund, king and then saint, encounters three opponents as well: the Vikings, the thieves and Leofstan. Whereas Beowulf “encourages … praise of secular deeds, heroic integrity, and a hero’s sad and noble courage in the face of inevitable defeat” (Liuzza 40), “Edmund” can be read as a parable promoting a devout Christian life. The fact that Edmund is dead when he encounters the majority of the “monsters” matches the Christian emphasis of the spiritual over the material. Wise and honorable Edmund suffers a great defeat in this life, but he goes on to gain two victories in the afterlife. In this way Ælfric skillfully marries Germanic heroic lore with Christian tradition, and shows that heroism and devoutness need not be mutually exclusive. The Vikings are reduced to a nuisance one needs to face gracefully in this life to gain good purchase in the next.

The poem “The Battle of Maldon” is dated to within a decade or two of the writing of “Life of St. Edmund” (Irving 457). Despite this chronological proximity, “Maldon” lacks the mysticism and factual vagueness with which “St. Edmund” is suffused: it is a realistic account of a battle between the Vikings and an Anglo-Saxon force led by commander Byrhtnoth. Edward Irving suggests that “the abundance of concrete historical detail in the poem and its accuracy, where it can be corroborated by contemporary documents, suggest strongly that the poem was composed shortly after the battle, which took place in the year 991” (457). Of course, this would impede the occlusion of the historical event by myth and superstition, a process nearly inevitable in the 130 or so years that separated the death of King Edmund and Ælfric’s rendering of the account of the saint’s life.  Irving describes the poem as characterized by a “realistic style – plain, concrete, sometimes almost prosaic” (458).

Indeed, the ostensible temporal contiguity of “The Battle of Maldon” to its historical counterpart means a very different treatment of the Vikings in that text. Whereas in “Edmund” the king was willing to die to serve his country, the warriors in “Maldon” very much need to live in order to save theirs. The abstract treatment of the Vikings as associates of the devil is hardly helpful when the enemy is in sight and mortality is imminent. In “The Battle of Maldon”, the enemy is very real and the description of warfare is correspondingly realistic, so that “the account of the battle [becomes] almost a news story” (Irving 458). The poet scrutinizes the mood of the warriors before and during the battle; he describes stabbings and spear-wounds and eagles circling above the battle ground. “Then the sea-warrior sent a southernspear, /so that the warriors’ lord was wounded; / he pushed then with his shield, so that the shaft burst, and the spear shattered, so that it sprang back” (134-7). Descriptions of battle maneuvers are vivid and detailed, whereas in “Edmund” they are a two-dimensional force of malice driving the king to his death.

In opposition to “Edmund”’s severe, unyielding Scandinavian/Anglo-Saxon binary, lines 132-3 of “Maldon” indicate a more complex attitude toward their enmity. “Went resolute the earl at the churl, / each considered evil for the other.” These two lines convey a surprisingly mature and equanimous attitude: a concession that warfare is not a clean struggle of good against evil, and the admission that each of the parties of a conflict feels their cause is legitimate. There is no trace of “Edmund”’s extremist denouncement of the Scandinavians as unnatural servants of the devil; the enemy “churl” is just as human as the “earl” trying to kill him.

Morton Bloomfield explores the more nuanced manifestation of the attempt at equalization within the following lines (86-95): 

… then the hated guests began to beguile,

asked if they could have some landing,

to go over the ford, to lead foot-soldiers. 

Then the earl for his ofermōd began to allow

too much of the land to the hated nation.

Then Byrhthelm’s son began to call

over the cold water (men listened):

‘Now space is made for you, come quickly to us,

men to war; God alone knows

who will control the place of slaughter.’

Bloomfield suggests that the alderman has set the stage for a “trial by combat” – that is, “Byrhtnoth is inviting the enemy to an even contest in order to leave the judgment to God” (547). This suggestion that the enemy in not automatically in the wrong echoes the poet’s sophisticated insight that “each [side is] considered evil for the other”. 

Despite the “Maldon” poet’s grudging respect for the Vikings, the religious and national thematic distinction between the Christian Anglo-Saxons and the pagan Vikings is not entirely absent from the text. In many ways, the “Maldon” poet describes them in a manner similar to Ælfric. Like “Edmund”’s Ivar who “stalked the land like a wolf”, the Scandinavians at Maldon are named “slaughter-wolves” (96). They are also dubbed “hated guests” and “hated nation” (86-90). Their religious Otherness is also pointed out, as they are twice described as “heathens” in the poem (54, 181).

Further religious clues may be found in the word ofermōd in the excerpt above. The word is used to describe Byrhtnoth’s choice to allow the Vikings to cross the ford so that the two sides can make battle. Scholars disagree whether ofermōd is neutral or pejorative, that is, whether Byrhtnoth’s behavior is courageous or prideful, irreverent or devout. One critic has noted that Byrhtnoth appeals to God to decide the outcome of the battle, and that such an appeal is hardly characteristic of a proud man (Blake, qtd. in Bloomfield 547). Bloomfield proposes that Byrhtnoth’s behavior is not intentionally arrogant, but “might rather be regarded as a tempting of God - a forcing of Him to render judgment when He is not ready to do so” (547). The poem can thus be interpreted to contain a Christian explanation for the Anglo-Saxon defeat: the Anglo-Saxon commander’s sin of pride or, alternately, his inadvertent tempting of God.

The Anglo-Saxons’ relationship with God, however, is certainly not at the thematic center of this poem. The poet’s focus is much greater on the moral integrity and ideological conviction among the Anglo-Saxon troops. Loyalty is introduced early in the (existing) poem as the foremost battlefield value: loyalty to one’s fellow fighters and to one’s country. Both soldiers and commanders are described as loyal. Of Eadric the poet says “as long as he could hold with his hands / shield and broad sword—he fulfilled his promise / that he would fight before his lord” (14-16). To the Vikings, Byrhtnoth declares: “here stands an irreproachable earl with his troop, / who will defend this homeland, / the territory of Æthelred, my ruler, his people and their soil” (51-4).

 The narrative crisis in “Edmund” was the ostensible defeat of King Edmund by the Vikings. In “The Battle of Maldon”, however, the crisis is the threat to the Anglo-Saxon value system of loyalty, honor and courage when several soldiers flee from battle. Most notably, Godric the coward flees the battlefield on Byrhtnoth’s horse, not only betraying his fellow fighters but causing confusion among the ranks who think it is their leader abandoning the battlefield. Due to the missing portions of the text we cannot make any sweeping statements regarding the structure of the poem, but we can tentatively note that Godric’s betrayal is situated not only thematically at the center of the poem but roughly at its structural center – his flight is related in line 185 out of the surviving 325. 

The remainder of the poem is concerned with attempts to repair the damage to the morality and the morale of the English wreaked by the betrayal of Godric and the other absconders. Of the men who do not flee, the poet says “Then valiant thegns went forth there / men undaunted eagerly hastened: / they all wished, then, one of two things-- / to leave life or [their] loved one avenge” (205-8). Thegn after thegn deliver speeches of encouragement, condemning Godric’s actions and inspiring renewed loyalty to Anglo-Saxon men and land. Each thegn, after delivering his speech, proceeds to act in the spirit of his words. “Aelfwine spoke then, valiantly said:/ … / ‘Nor among the people shall thegns blame me / that I from this fyrd wish to flee’” (211-26). After he asserts his bravery, “Then he went forth, mindful of battle, / with spear-point pierced one, / a seaman among the folk, that he on fold lay, / destroyed with his weapon” (227-8). Soldiers Leofsunu, Dunnere, Eadward the Long and others follow suit, speaking against cowardice, promoting loyalty and venturing into the scuffle. There is even a second Godric who, as though to redeem the mistakes of the cowardly first, valiantly fights, then falls in battle. The general effect of these repeated shows of bravery, patriotism and camaraderie restore the values that pervaded the poem’s beginning and leave the reader confident of the Anglo-Saxons’ mettle.

In “The Life of St. Edmund” the Vikings served as a springboard to an afterlife of heroism. Their literary function in “The Battle of Maldon” however is quite different. In the poem, the Scandinavians are a test for the courage of the Anglo-Saxons and the strength of their characters. As Aelfwine declares (212-15),

Remember the speeches we spoke at mead,


when we our boast on the bench raised,


heroes in hall about hard fight:


now I may test who is keen.

It is one thing to uphold a pristine set of values in the peaceful security of one’s own mead hall; it is quite another to translate these values into action in the heat of combat. Although the Anglo-Saxons suffer defeat in battle they rack a win in spirituality. Both Ælfric and the Maldon poet perform an impressive literary deed: they take a detestable, fearsome enemy and respectively transform it into a basis for promoting religious, and moral, conviction.

Image by Kristijan Arsov

Works Cited

Ælfric. "Life of St. Edmund." Afterword. Trans. R. M. Liuzza. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2000. Print.

Anlezark, Daniel, and Jonathan Glenn, trans. The Battle of Maldon. Rpt. in Myths, Legends and Heroes Unit Website. Sydney: University of Sydney, 2012. Web.

Bloomfield, Morton W. "Beowulf, Byrhtnoth, and the Judgment of God: Trial by Combat in Anglo-Saxon England." Spectrum 44.4 (1969): 545-59. Jstor. Web. 27 May 2012.

Frank, Roberta. "Terminally Hip and Incredibly Cool: Carol, Vikings, and Anglo-Scandinavian England." Representations 100.1 (2007): 23-33. Jstor. Web. 27 May 2012.

Irving, Edward B. "The Heroic Style in "The Battle of Maldon"" Studies in Philology 58.3 (1961): 457-67. Jstor. Web. 31 May 2012.

Liuzza, R. M. "Beowulf Between Court and Cloister." Introduction. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2000. 31-40. Print.