It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth's retainers come to retrieve their duke's body. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon 'the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy'. Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable, not just as an heroic tale but in vividly expressing the lost language of our ancestors and celebrating ideals of loyalty and friendship. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, due to it being immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. Tolkien's most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts. This book will be of interest not only to students of Old English and all those interested in the history of northern Europe and Anglo-Saxon England, but also admirers of The Lord of the Rings who will be fascinated to see how Tolkien handled a story which he did not invent.First ever standalone edition of one of J.R.R. The story has the added attraction that it describes the events immediately preceding the first Germanic invasion of Britain which was led by Hengest himself.

Tolkien's original and persuasive solution of the many problems raised by the story ranged widely through the early history and legend of the Germanic peoples. Bringing his unique combination of philological erudition and poetic imagination to the task, however, Tolkien revealed a classic tragedy of divided loyalties, of vengeance, blood and death.

The story is told in two Old English poems, Beowulf and The Fights at Finnesburg, but told so obscurely and allusively that its interpretation had been a matter of controversy for over 100 years. His most significant contribution to Anglo-Saxon studies is to be found in his lectures on Finn and Hengest (pronounced Hen-jist), two fifth-century heroes in northern Europe. Professor J.R.R.Tolkien is most widely known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but he was also a distinguished scholar in the field of Mediaeval English language and literature.

Tolkien's famous translations and lectures on the story of two fifth-century heroes in northern Europe.

Finn and Hengest by J.R.R. Tolkien