Do you like my poem about war with the Danes?

Question

*****

One thousand years ago
Ethelred, unready paid
Thirty thousand pounds to the Danes
For two years of peace from their raids
Perhaps if he’d not defica’ ted’
In the Baptismal Font, and in his bed
Olaf Trygvasson’s fleet would have fled
Instead, Ethelred
Ordered them all massa’cred
And on St Brice’s they celebra’ ted
Foot games with heads of the Vikings dead
Sweyn Haraldsson so enraged
Engaged in campaign to win Engl’end
Thrown back in the sea again and again
By Edmund the Ironsi’ed’

*****

Answer 1

Oooooh...look at all of those names I am SO familiar with...I frequently go to sleep reading my favorite reference book "The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England" and have read about these "characters" many times...

Answer 2

I got a large laugh out of this. I'm a history buff, but you should teach the subject. Then students will also be interested. I've always wondered why he was called the Unready; somehow I've never done the research.

Answer 3

Ya sea swab!!! I'M of Viking descent!!! And, we NEVER lost a war...don't care what the history books, chroniclers, scribes, kings, Vatican, scholars, experts, researchers, or runes in Massachusetts have to say....

Uh, but your poem is another excellent one!

Elysabeth...poemhunter

Answer 4

Another Great poem and another footnote. "Unrede" translates as "ill advised," not "unready," which so many historians mistake it for.

Answer 5

Yes...well written and informative.

I'd describethis one the way Alexandre Dumas described his novels..."History is the nail on which I hang [referring to his writings]..."

Answer 6

I should get a rubber stamp of approval for your poems, TD. They are always pretty darn good.

Answer 7

excellent