Byrhtwold’s Speech in The Battle of Maldon : A New Analogue in Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgmentsMy wholehearted gratitude goes to Professor Leonard Neidorf for his unreserved support and insightful feedback throughout my composition of this note.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1. See Halbrooks (239–49).2. See Frank (101–04).3. See Blake (124–26).4. See Harris (309–10).5. See Phillpotts (172–90).6. For a detailed summary of such debates, see Frank (98–99).7. See Blake (128); Halbrooks (241); Clark (476); Neidorf, “Politics” (465).8. See Frank (104–06).9. Eduard Sievers argued that the phraseological and thematic resemblances between Frotho’s dragon-fight in Saxo’s work and Beowulf’s final adventure suggest the indebtedness of both narratives to a shared literary tradition. See Sievers (175–92). More recently, Leonard Neidorf argued that a common archetype informed Starcatherus’s verbal incitement of Ingiald in Gesta Danorum and the old Heathobardic warrior’s incendiary speech in the Ingeld digression in Beowulf (ll. 2041–66). See Neidorf, “Decorum” (21–24).10. The text and translation of Gesta Danorum are cited throughout by page and volume number from the bilingual version edited by Karsten Friis-Jensen and translated by Peter Fisher.11. The original text of Maldon is cited by line number from the edition of Scragg. The translation is that of Gordon.12. See Porck (161); Neidorf, “Decorum” (21–24).