Battle of Maldon The Battle of Maldon took place three weeks before Whitsun in 991 AD near Maldon beside the River Blackwater in Essex , England , during the reign of Aethelred the Unready . Earl Byrhtnoth and his thegns led the English against a Viking invasion . The battle ended in an Anglo - Saxon defeat . After the battle Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury and the aldermen of the south - western provinces advised King Aethelred to buy off the Vikings rather than continue the armed struggle . The result was a payment of 10 , 000 Roman pound s ( 3 , 300 kg ) of silver , the first example of Danegeld in England . An account of the battle , embellished with many speeches attributed to the warriors and with other details , is related in an Old English poem which is usually named The Battle of Maldon . A modern embroidery created for the millennium celebration in 1991 and , in part , depicting the battle , can be seen at the Maeldune Centre in Maldon . One manuscript of the Anglo - Saxon Chronicle said a Norwegian , Olaf Tryggvason , led the Viking forces , estimated to have been between 2 , 000 and 4 , 000 fighting men . A source from the 12th century , " Liber Eliensis " , written by the monks at Ely , suggests that Byrhtnoth had only a few men to command : " he was neither shaken by the small number of his men , nor fearful of the multitude of the enemy " . Not all sources indicate such a disparity in numbers . The poem " The Battle of Maldon " . ' The Battle of Maldon ' is the name conventionally given to a surviving 325 - line fragment of Old English poetry . Linguistic study has led to the conjecture that initially the complete poem was transmitted orally , then in a lost manuscript in the East Saxon dialect and now survives as a fragment in the West Saxon form , possibly that of a scribe active at the Monastery of Worcester late in the 11th century . Fortuitously this was early attached to a very notable manuscript , Asser ' s " Life of King Alfred " , which undoubtedly assisted in its survival . The manuscript , by now detached , was burned in the Cotton library fire at Ashburnham House in 1731 . The keeper of the collection , John Elphinstone ( or his assistant , David Casley ) , had transcribed the 325 lines of the poem in 1724 , but the front and back pages were already missing from the manuscript ( possibly around 50 lines each ) : an earlier catalogue described it as " fragmentum capite et calce mutilatum " ( " mutilated at head and heel " ) . As a result , vital clues about the purpose of the poem and perhaps its date have been lost . At the time of battle , English royal policy of responding to Viking incursions was split . Some favoured paying off the Viking invaders with land and wealth , while others favoured fighting to the last man . The poem suggests that Byrhtnoth held this latter attitude , hence his moving speeches of patriotism . The Vikings sailed up the Blackwater ( then called the Panta ) , and Byrhtnoth called out his levy . The poem begins with him ordering his men to stand and to hold weapons . His men , except for his household guard , were peasants and householders from the area . He ordered them to " send steed away and stride forwards " : they arrived on horses but fought on foot . The Vikings sailed up to a small island in the river . At low tide , the river leaves a land bridge from this island to the shore ; the description seems to have matched the Northey Island causeway at that time . This would place the site of the battle about two miles southeast of Maldon . Olaf addressed the Saxons , promising to sail away if he was paid with gold and armour from the lord . Byrhtnoth replied , " We will pay you with spear tips and sword blades . " Olaf ' s forces could not make headway against the troops guarding the small land bridge , and he asked Byrhtnoth to allow his warriors onto the shore . Byrhtnoth , " for his ofermōde " ( line 89b ) , let all the Vikings cross to the mainland . Battle was joined , but an Englishman called Godrīc fled riding Byrhtnoth ' s horse . Godrīc ' s brothers Godwine and Godwīg followed him . Then many English fled , recognizing the horse and thinking that its rider was Byrhtnoth fleeing . To add insult to injury , it is stated that Godric had often been gifted many a horse by Byrhtnoth , a detail that , especially during the time period , would have had Godric marked as a coward and a traitor , something that could have easily been described as worse than death . The Vikings overcame the Saxons after losing many men , killing Byrhtnoth . After the battle Byrhtnoth ' s body was found with its head missing , but his gold - hilt ed sword was still with his body . There is some discussion about the meaning of " " ofermōd " . " Although literally meaning " over - heart " or " having too much heart " , it could mean either " pride " or " excess of courage " ( cf . Swedish " övermod " or German " Übermut " , which mean both " hubris " and " recklessness " ) . One argument is that the poem was written to celebrate Byrhtnoth ' s actions and goad others into heroic action , and Byrhtnoth ' s action stands proudly in a long tradition of heroic literature . Another viewpoint , most notably held by J . R . R . Tolkien , is that the poem is an elegy on a terrible loss and that the monastic author pinpoints the cause of the defeat in the commander ' s sin of pride , a viewpoint bolstered by the fact that " ofermōd " is , in every other attested instance , used to describe Satan ' s pride . There is a memorial window , representing Byrhtnoth ' s dying prayer , in St Mary ' s church at Maldon . It is believed by many scholars that the poem , that while based upon actual events and people , was created to be less of a historical account and more of a means of enshrining and lifting up the memories of the men who fought and lost their lives on the battlefield protecting their homeland , especially in the case of the English commander of the battle , Byrhtnoth . He ( Byrhtnoth ) seems to embody many of the virtues that are uplifted in the Anglo - Saxon world , and is compared often by many scholars to the character Beowulf . Norse invaders and Norse raiders differed in purpose . The forces engaged by the Anglo - Saxon were raiding , or ( in Old Norse ) " " í víking " " , to gather loot , rather than to occupy land for settlement . Therefore , if Byrhtnoth ' s forces had kept the Vikings off by guarding the causeway or by paying them off , Olaf would likely have sailed farther up the river or along the coast , and raided elsewhere . As a man with troops and weapons , it might be that Byrhtnoth had to allow the Vikings ashore to protect others . The poem may , therefore , represent the work of what has been termed the " monastic party " in Ethelred ' s court , which advocated a military response , rather than tribute , to all Norse attacks . Other sources . The death of Byrhtnoth , an ealdorman of Essex , was recorded in four versions of the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " . Its Cotton Tiberius manuscript says for the year 991 : - " The Life of Oswald " , written in Ramsey , England around the same time as the battle , portrays Byrhtnoth as a nearly supernatural , prophetic figure . In 1170 , the " Book of Ely " retold and embroidered the story and made the battle two fights , with the second being a fortnight long against overwhelming odds . These texts show , to some degree , the growth of a local hero cultus . Manuscript sources . In the Cotton library , the " Battle of Maldon " text had been in Otho A xii . The Elphinstone transcription is in the British Library .