Fresh from the ravage of Ipswich, under the command (almost certainly) of the king of Denmark, they were intent no doubt on the rich spoils to be had from the royal Mint at Maldon. Facing them on the shore was Byrhtnoth, the second nobleman of the realm, with an army drawn from the households of the region. The ensuing fight was terrible in its ferocity. Byrhtnoth and many of his companions were slain, and eventually the vikings triumphed. Their victory marked the collapse of effective armed resistance to the Danes, and presaged the end of Anglo-Saxon England.

    It represents the first comprehensive revision of accepted views about monastic life in England before the Benedictine reform. Sarah Foot shows how early Anglo-Saxon religious houses were simultaneously active and contemplative, their members withdrawing from the preoccupations of contemporary aristocratic society, while still remaining part of that world. Focusing on the institution of the 'minster' (the communal religious community) and rejecting a simplistic binary division between active 'minsters' and enclosed 'monasteries', Foot argues that historians have been wrong to see minsters in the light of ideals of Benedictine monasticism. Instead, she demonstrates that Anglo-Saxon minsters reflected more of contemporary social attitudes; despite their aim for solitude, they retained close links to aristocratic German society.

    All of these texts are enigmatic. Some are riddles; others are riddle-like in their manner of simultaneously giving and withholding information. A number of them feature the literary use of runes. The author approaches these poems as microcosms of the art of Old English poetry in general, which (particularly in its more lyrical forms) relies on its audience's ability to decipher metaphorical language and to fill out many details that remain unexpressed. The author's chief claim is that Old English poetry is a good deal more playful than is often acknowledged, so that the art of interpreting it can require a kind of 'game strategy' whereby riddling authors match their wits against adventurous readers. New readings of a number of particular poems and passages are offered; the whole collection of Exeter Book riddles is given a set of answers posed in the language of the riddler; and some possible instances of 'creative runography' are explored. The book combines the methods of rigorous philology and imaginative literary analysis.

    The book elaborates new interpretative paradigms, drawing on the work of continental scholars and literary critics, and on complementing interdisciplinary scholarship of medieval imaginary spaces and their representations. It gathers evidence from both Old English verse and historico-geographical documents, and focuses on the juncture between traditional scientific learning and the symbolic values attributed to space and orientation. Combining close reading with an original theoretical model, Creation, Migration, and Conquest offers innovative interpretations of celebrated texts and highlights the links between place, identity, and collective identity.