Luke – and many others – live with cancer. Just as many live alongside it, journeying with, caring for and learning from a family member whose life has been changed almost beyond recognition by the progress of an unforgiving illness. I am one of the alongsiders, accompanying my husband Ian on a journey first through Myelodysplasia with excess blasts and now Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. These are unrelenting, unremitting, incurable and for the most part, untreatable cancers, and living with them or alongside them – and in pandemic conditions – has called forth resources neither of us knew we had. 

You might reasonably expect that in the context of the many challenges I have faced as an alongsider, settling on a B2B Half-Way Challenge would be relatively plain sailing. I confess I did not find it so. It certainly presented a much chirpier conundrum than many I have pondered during the last two years, but dreaming up something worthwhile I could do – on my own, within severe time constraints, and in full knowledge that diverse long-distance runs, swims, bike rides, mountain walks and Lord only knows what else would be taking place and involving untold numbers of people – looked pretty daunting. What could I do? And how could I share it? Answers were neither obvious nor immediate.

Among the Anglo-Saxons: St Bene’t’s to Byrtnoth

The idea of a B2B journey among the Anglo–Saxons came slowly and in response to some desultory thoughts that surfaced – on one of my solitary walks – about Anglo-Saxon poetry and the particular conception of wisdom that underlies its often rather bleak outlook. I found myself thinking about the emphasis of some Anglo-Saxon poets on the impermanence of all things and on wisdom as the ability to make a decision that would lend honour to oneself and to those whose lives depended on oneself. Survival, being uncertain, was not a primary consideration, and honour was a matter not of whether one triumphed and lived but of the choices one made and how one was remembered. I thought too of Hamlet’s much later anguish for his “wounded name” and his plea to Horatio to “tell my story,” and how we all want to be remembered not for the sickness, sorrow or hardship we endure but for the things we try to make of our lives, for the lived experience we try to share, and for the love that inheres in all we attempt, even when circumstance prevents us from attempting what we would most like to do. And thus was conceived an idea for a journey in memory of the Anglo-Saxons and their struggle in violent, unstable times to live honourably and write memorably, and of all those in literature and in life who since have tried to do the same. 

I planned to start on foot from St Bene’t’s Church, its tower being the only surviving Anglo-Saxon structure within striking distance of our house in Cambridge. I would read the Lord’s Prayer in Anglo-Saxon from within the tower, then proceed on foot to Cambridge Rail Station, travel by rail to Ely, and then on foot again from Ely Station to the Cathedral, entering from the Galilee Porch at the west end, down the nave, underneath the Octagon, lighting a candle in the Choir at the site of the shrine of St Etheldreda ( 7th-century Anglo-Saxon queen who founded Ely Abbey), to the chantry chapel in the far southeast corner where the mortal remains of Byrtnoth, Anglo-Saxon earldorman of Essex, thegn of King Aethelred, warrior and tragic hero of the Battle of Maldon, are entombed. There I would read from The Battle of Maldon, an Anglo-Saxon poem from the 10th century in which Byrtnoth’s leadership is spoken of at length in very moving terms and in which his death is recounted, and also read St Gildas’ 6th-century Latin hymn for protection. I accomplished all of this except that I had to read the Lord’s Prayer (sotto voce) by the railings of St Bene’t’s, rather than within the tower, as the churchyard and church were locked; everything else went according to plan.

For the benefit of anyone wondering about the choice of texts, the point is that by 991, when Byrtnoth met his end, nearly all Anglo-Saxons – and certainly Byrtnoth – would have known or at least heard the Lord’s Prayer, either in Latin or the vernacular (both were used), and would probably also have known or heard St Gildas’ hymn for protection. Gildas is a particularly good read because much of the hymn is heavily influenced by the tradition of pagan charms. He bids not only for general protection from all manner of threats and evils in this uncertain world but also for specific protection for each part of the body which he names in a great list with a catchall at the end for any that may have slipped his mind. The times were violent and life precarious, and neither Gildas nor those who came after him were tempted to take anything for granted, Byrtnoth least of all. Both these texts would almost certainly have been part of Byrtnoth’s lived experience and very likely part of his preparation for battle with the invading Danes.

For those curious about Byrtnoth himself, he rates a mention in various Anglo-Saxon chronicles but most of what we know about him is from The Battle of Maldon, the last of the surviving Anglo-Saxon epic poems, which like virtually all extant Anglo-Saxon poetry, survives in a single manuscript. Only a fragment of the poem has come to us but much of it is devoted to Byrtnoth who led the Anglo-Saxons (on behalf of King Aethelred Unraed) into battle with the Danes at Maldon and whose “ofermod” ultimately led to his own death and the defeat of his men. “Ofermod” is usually translated “pride,” but in my view is better understood literally as excessive (ofer) courage/anger (mod) which leads him to ask too much both of himself and his men. He is depicted as an exemplary leader, inspirational, heroic and imperfect. To the poet, writing soon after the battle, the most important thing is that Byrtnoth and those who served with him are named and their story remembered. The name of the poet does not survive.