This comes from BBC’s 1964 doc “The Great War”. I personally have never heard such a graphic yet poetic description of combat.
Warriors rose for combat, formed ranks:
With the single mind they assaulted
Short their lives, long their kinsmen long for them
Seven times their sum of Englishmen they slew
Their fighting turned wives into widows:
Many a mother with tear-filled eyelids.
Never was built a hall so flawless.
[line lost]
So generous, lions rage, wide ranging
As kind hearted Cynon, Lord most fair
Refuge in combat, on the far wing,
Door, war-host’s anchor, noblest of blessings,
Of those I have seen, I see, in the world
Wielding weapons the bravest in battle,
He would slash the foe with the sharpest blade:
Like rushes they’d fall before his hand
Son of Clydno, Long praised, I will sing to you, Lord.
Praise unstinted, unstilled.
After wine-feast and mead-feast
They furnished slaughter.
Manly youth, highly praised,
He made a stand
Before Buddugre’s slope,
Crows arise, a cloud climbing,
Soldiers were falling like a swarm upon him:
Not a move towards fleeing.
Far-sighted, quick-moving,
From white steeds a sword’s edge and from the wall a sword-stroke.
First in feasting, sleepless,
not sleepless today,
Rheiddun’s son, lord of battle.
Because of wine-feast and mead-feast they left us,
Mail-coated men, I know death’s anguish.
Before their grey hairs came their slaughter.
Of Mynyddawg’s men, great is the grief,
Of three hundred, but one man returned.