Battle of Brunanburh - Battle

Battle

The medieval records of the battle are too elusive to trace the course of the battle with any surety, but the sources consistently describe it as a massive and bloody engagement even within the context of warfare in the Middle Ages.

The famous poem about the battle in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the deaths of five kings and seven earls among Athelstan's enemies, along with (or among them) Constantine's son:

Five lay still

on that battlefield – young kings

by swords put to sleep – and seven also

of Anlaf’s earls, countless of the army,

of sailors and Scotsmen. There was put to flight

the Northmen’s chief, driven by need

to the ship’s prow with a little band.

He shoved the ship to sea. The king disappeared

on the dark flood. His own life he saved.

So there also the old one came in flight

to his home in the north; Constantine,

that hoary-haired warrior, had no cause to exult

at the meeting of swords: he was shorn of his kin,

deprived of his friends on the field,

bereft in the fray, and his son behind

on the place of slaughter, with wounds ground to pieces,

too young in battle.

Æthelweard's Chronicle notes that the battle was still called "the great war" by people in his day. Henry of Huntingdon describes the aftermath of carrion:

Then the dark raven with horned beak,

and the livid toad, the eagle and kite,

the hound and wolf in mottled hue,

were long refreshed by these delicacies.

In this land no greater war was ever waged,

nor did such a slaughter ever surpass that one.

The Annals of Ulster describes the battle similarly:

A huge war, lamentable and horrible, was cruelly waged between the Saxons and Norsemen. Many thousands of Norsemen beyond number died although King Anlaf escaped with a few men. While a great number of the Saxons also fell on the other side, Athelstan, king of the Saxons, was enriched by the great victory.

The largest list of those killed at the battle comes from the Annals of Clonmacnoise and names several kings and princes.