The anonymous poem on the Battle of Brunanburh appears under the year 937 in four manuscripts (A, B, C and D) of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It celebrates the victory of King Athelstan over the allied forces of the Irish Vikings and the King of Scots…
A series of genealogical charts of the major figures in the poem, annotated by event and line number. While based on the genealogical charts usually given at the back of Beowulf editions, I attempt here to provide a complete picture of all the named…
This text is an adaptation from the Old English poem 'The Ruin', which is preserved in the tenth-century Codex known as The Exeter Book. The Old English 'Ruin' describes a fallen and decaying city, and has sometimes been seen as an Anglo-Saxon…
The Ruthwell Cross is an Anglo-Saxon (or more properly Northumbrian) stone sculpture, dating from the eighth (or perhaps seventh) century, and now housed in Ruthwell parish church in Dumfriesshire, although it may have once stood outside. Runic…
Sometime in the early 1970s, the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges visited his friend the poet (and later Borges' translator) Alistair Reid at St Andrews in Scotland. Various myths and legends have grown up around this visit in the oral tradition…
A poem describing a reading of 'The Battle of Maldon' at Maldon by a group of Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts, including myself, who were members of the Sutton Hoo Society. I am a published poet and about forty of my poems have appeared in poetry magazines…
Pre-print extracts from E. Solopova and S. Lee's 'Key Concepts in Medieval Literature' (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2007) with illustrative essays on Old English and the Anglo-Saxons. Can be ordered (pb/hb) at:…