Maldon: A Version

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Maldon is a version of the Anglo-Saxon epic fragment usually known as The Battle of Maldon, which tells the tale of a battle between the Anglo-Saxons and the invading Vikings which took place ca. 991 AD on the shores of the River Blackwater, almost certainly opposite Northey Island.

Smith’s version [of Maldon] preserves nicely a ghost of the alliterative pattern that rumbles through the original, without trying to reproduce it fully in a clog-dance of consonants. It is recognisably the same poem as the original: it has its linguistic density and compelling narrative pull, but it is free from the mildewed quaintness that sometimes hangs around translation from Old English.

-Dr. Alex Davis, U.C. Cork