MIDDLE-EARTH TIMELINE
The Battle of Maldon is an Old English poem about a fight in 991 between the English, led by the earl Beorhtnoth, and Viking raiders on the Essex coast. This book gives Tolkien's prose translation of the poem, published here for the first time, and his own verse play The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, a sequel set on the night after the battle.
Edited by Peter Grybauskas, it also includes Tolkien's essay on the word ofermod, or overconfidence, and his lecture The Tradition of Versification in Old English. HarperCollins published it in 2023.
Tolkien's translation of the Old English poem on the Battle of Maldon, with his own verse play written as its sequel.