Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

The Use of Good in Maldon
The poem about the Battle of Maldon (Scragg 1981) is a fragment; lines are missing
at the beginning and at the end of the text (cf. Laborde 1936; Lund 1991). As the
structure of the Anglo-Saxon epic was characterised by a composition consisting of
several more or less independent episodes, it is impossible to know what the lost
verses may have contained. But if we view the poem as one-episode poem, it can be
said that we have access to a large part of such an independent unit. We have no
reason to doubt that at its centre it was meant to have Byrhtnoth’s death, flanked by
the events leading up to it and the consequences which followed upon it. Nonetheless,
an Anglo-Saxon epic may, for instance, for didactic reasons have included
some lesser episodes around the central one in order to drive home the message.
To support the view that the poem is in essence a one-episode epic we can point
out the following: Byrhtnoth is cut down in what is today line 181, and the battle is
obviously about to come to an end in the last line, 325. There is reason to believe that
the manuscript originally consisted of 8 sheets and that the first and the last have been
missing since the manuscript was first described. This opinion is supported by
Laborde’s observation (1936, pp. 67 ff.) of the scribe’s crowding the letters of the
last page, which speaks in favour of a recalculation of the number of letters necessary
on each line in order to finish the poem at the bottom of the next or next plus one
page. Even the idea of symmetry around Byrhtnoth’s death suggests a recalculation,
since half the poem will not have room on the remaining pages when the point of
Byrhtnoth’s death is reached, if the letters are not crowded on the last pages. To sum
up: some twenty-five per cent of the poem has probably been lost, but in this loss we
should include some introductory and concluding lines around the battle. The loss is
great if we want to judge the intention of the poem as a whole, but from the point of
view of the narrative it is not a major problem since the lack of beginning and end
makes the character of the poem clearer. It is a one-episode epic like the fragment
about the fight at Finnsburg (Klaeber 1950, pp. 231 ff.). Broad epic traditions need
this kind of poem or tales, which, like the Icelandic þáttr (cf. Guðnason 1976;
Danielsson 1986), facilitates the composition of standard scenes with a clear meaning
such as Maldon, as well as scenes from everyday life in which even myth seems
to be lived, e.g., Brunhild crossing the Pyrenees (cf. below p. 97).
Also the use of the word good seems to indicate that the greater part of the
description of the battle, or the battle episode, is known to us, since, as mentioned
above with reference to Figs 22–24, there is a tendency within the poem itself and
likewise within Beowulf (Part I) to begin and end an episode, in which the meaning
of being good is in focus, with a more frequent use of this word.
This is clearly the case in the dramatic climax when Byrhtnoth dies: in line 170 he
can no longer stand, but he can still speak and tell his ‘good’ men to go forth and
fight. Then he prays to God that his soul may be granted God’s ‘goodness’, (l. 176),
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