Does this poem have any real value?

Question

*****

THE UNREADY

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 Engal’end

Thrown back in the sea again and again

By Edmund the Ironsi’ed’

*****

Answer 1

Read the information in the link I provided. Heck, even I learned something from this. I should be thanking you!

Answer 2

My Norwegian mother- in -law would have had a fit with this . My English grandmother would smile wryly even though her children were red heads.  You flatter me, sir.

Answer 3

I especially like this line:

Engaged in campaign to win Engal’end

For we know the Norse did invade England and were mighty warriors -- perhaps even part of the Scots / Celts.

You have taken a moment of history and shown what really happened and why, how stupid it was to pay for peace to wild men.

Good, to me.

Answer 4

The poem pretty much states that there was a guy who paid a certain amount to the Danes in order to acquire peace.

But he expelled bodily wastes into some baptism fountain and that caused problems.

And that made Olaf's fleet mad and... i think the rest is unclear to me, but Ethelred's army was courageous in defeating the other army so the clelebrated.

Answer 5

It's a very norse read TD me ol China Plate. But I think I need my Ethel-red after this.

I am Canuting as we speak on the shores of confusion. Thank you for pushing my boat out. My bi-horn'd helmet (holder of wine and bits of hair) bids you power and speed, both by God.

I have no idea if Canute does suit the theme, he just sprang to mind. Shore he did Jellz!

Answer 6

Edmund can be caustic at times, but truth be told he is a pretty sharp person.

Yeah, this was quite a daunting, pretentious labor to read.  I don't know if you wrote it or not, I am just saying I did not care for it.

Answer 7

A bit of a history buff, are we?

Answer 8

'Foot games with heads of the Vikings dead' - is that the origin of soccer?

Answer 9

I'll gi'e ye two quid thruppence ha'p'ny. It waren't an arf bad ditty.

Answer 10

You wrote it TD, so it must have.....how's that for a sickening sycophantic response?

No, seriously, folks....I loved it.  What is going on in your head? It must be a weird place to be..........got behind in my reading and have just whipped through your recent postings - each one unique and as they used to say 'off the wall'

I wait in an-----ti------ci-----pa----tion for more.

Answer 11

Thirty-thousand pounds was an enormous sum to pay in those days, but money never buys peace, cf the war in Iraq. I knew some of this story, but had no idea of the soiling of the Baptismal Font.  I am assuming this is not something you made up!

Answer 12

not to me... I am simply not ready.

Answer 13

I'm not trying to sound stupid but I don't get it, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't hold any real value to me. I can say this... It sounds like it was written from the head and not the heart. Like he just consintrated on the kinds of words to make us look like idiots. There's no feeling in them at all. At least, I don't see any feeling in them.

Answer 14

If you think I read your poems and then totally forget about them, then you are wrong!

I still don't under'stand the use of apostrophes here...

I have just realized it made me think of this:

Such was the very armour he had on

When he the ambitious Norway combated;

So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.