same wild poetry and harsh inversions as the older heathen ballads.
Amongst them stand the lines on the fight of Brunanburh, whose exordium
is quoted above. Its close forms one of the finest passages in old
English verse:--

Behind them they Left, the Lych to devour,
The Sallow kite and the Swart raven,
Horny of beak,-- and Him, the dusk-coated,
The white-afted Erne, the corse to Enjoy,
The Greedy war-hawk, and that Grey beast,
The Wolf of the Wood. No such Woeful slaughter
Aye on this Island Ever hath been,
By edge of the Sword, as book Sayeth,
Writers of Eld, since of Eastward hither
English and Saxons Sailed over Sea,
O'er the Broad Brine,-- landed in Britain,
Proud Workers of War, and o'ercame the Welsh,
Earls Eager of fame, Obtaining this Earth.

During the decadence, in the disastrous reign of AEthelred, the Chronicle
regains its fulness, and the following passage may be taken as a good
specimen of its later style. It shows the approach to comment and
reflection, as the compilers grew more accustomed to historical writing
in their own tongue:--

An. 1009. Here on this year were the ships ready of which we
ere spake, and there were so many of them as never ere (so
far as books tell us) were made among English kin in no
king's day. And man brought them all together to Sandwich,
and there should they lie, and hold this earth against all
outlanders [foreigners'] hosts. But we had not yet the luck
nor the worship [valour] that the ship-fyrd should be of
any good to this land, no more than it oft was afore. Then
befel it at this ilk time or a little ere, that Brihtric,
Eadric's brother the ealdorman's, forwrayed [accused]
Wulfnoth child to the king: and he went out and drew unto
him twenty ships, and there harried everywhere by the south
shore, and wrought all evil. Then quoth man to the ship-fyrd
that man might easily take them, if man were about it. Then
took Brihtric to himself eighty ships and thought that he
should work himself great fame if he should get Wulfnoth,
quick or dead. But as they were thitherward, there came such
a wind against them such as no man ere minded [remembered],
and it all to-beat and to-brake the ships, and warped them
on land: and soon came Wulfnoth and for-burned the ships.