on a date between 6 and 12 May 878. The Battle of Maldon The Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, which survives only in an unfinished fragment, celebrates the battle of the same name. On 11 August, 991, Byrhtnoth, Ealdorman of the Kingdom of Essex, died at the head of his troops fighting against the invading crew of a Viking longship. J.R.R. Tolkien's 1953 verse drama The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son depicts the events of the same Battle. King Brian Boru The Brussels Manuscript of the Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib, which is believed to have been written around 1635 by Franciscan friar and historian Mícheál Ó Cléirigh, contains many Irish war poems not found elsewhere. Like the other two surviving manuscripts, the Brussels Manuscript relates the wars between the Irish clans and the Norse and Danish invaders, and celebrates the ultimate rise to power of Brian Boru as High King of Ireland. The Cogad alleges that as the Hiberno-Norse King Ivar of Limerick attempted to extend his power into Thomond, the Dál gCais Chief of the Name, Mathgamain mac Cennétig, and his younger brother, Brian Boru, "transported their people and chattels across the Shannon, westwards, where they dispersed themselves among the forests and woods of the country." Mathgamain, who had defeated King Ivar and claimed the High Kingship of Munster at the Rock of Cashel, was captured and assassinated in 976 by Donnubán mac Cathail and Máel Muad mac Brain, who then reigned as King of Munster for the following two years. Brian, the Tanist of his Clan, was so moved by news of his brother's assassination, that he is said to have publicly cried out and vowed vengeance. Norman invasion of Ireland The Song of Dermot and the Earl is an anonymous Anglo-Norman verse chronicle written in the early 13th century in England. It retells the 1170 invasion of Ireland by Diarmait Mac Murchada, the deposed Irish clan chief King of Leinster, and Strongbow in 1170 (the "earl" in the title), the wars that followed between the invaders and Haskulf Thorgilsson, the last Hiberno-Norse King of Dublin and Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, the last High King of Ireland, and the subsequent visit to Ireland by King Henry II of England in 1172. The chronicle survived only in a single manuscript which was re-discovered in the 17th century at Lambeth Palace in London. The manuscript bears no title, but