Note 791 — Chapter V · THE DANISH CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.[464] 975–1016. (continued 3)
Reading edition
Ibid. “Rex Eadmundus aciem, sicuti instruxerat, velociter movet, et repente signo dato Danos invadit.” This seems to imply the charge down hill. In the rhetoric of Henry of Huntingdon we may spy out fragments of a ballad which may have rivalled those of Brunanburh and Maldon; “Loco regio relicto ... cucurrit terribilis in aciem primam. Vibrans igitur gladium electum et brachio juvenis Edmundi dignum, modo fulminis fidit aciem,” &c. So Hist. Ram. lxxii. (Gale, i. 433); “Ædricus ... videns Ædmundum furore fulmineo hostium aciem penetrantem.” Cf. Draco Normannicus, i. 318;
“Fulguris instar habens hostibus ense fremit.”
As the Danes no doubt keep their shield-wall, we may compare the charge of the Alemanni in the battle of Strassburg, Ammianus, xvi. 12; “Barbari in modum exarsere flammarum, nexamque scutorum compagem, quæ nostros in modum testudinis tuebatur, scindebant ictibus gladiorum adsiduis.”
Mark that the sword is still the English weapon.