Starting Maldon (Essex) and ending at Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk). A journey of 96 miles by car, estimated 2.5 hours on the road. Recommended to do over two days.
“Now is help once more
with thee alone! The land thou knowst not,
place of fear, where thou findest out
that sin-flecked being. Seek if thou dare!
I will reward thee, for waging this fight,
with ancient treasure, as erst I did,
with winding gold, if thou winnest back.”
Beowulf
This is not a journey, but a pilgrimage to the places and their landscape in order to discover their literary legacy.
The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East-Anglia reigned over an area that now covers the modern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Cambridgeshire and Essex between the 6th Century until 918AD, ending with the unification of England. The significance of the kingdom has left many places rich in history and culture in relation the era.
This trail will look at three great Anglo-Saxon poems: The Battle of Maldon, Beowulf and The Passion of St Edmund. The poems address three of great themes of Anglo-Saxon poetry: war, death and religion. It is within the context of these themes through which we will look the places in relation to the poems and how the landscape has since been shaped in the over a thousand years since the poems’ compositions.
Due to the Old English language being unrecognisable to modern readers, we will read the texts in translation only.