The work, as published, was thus presented as: The play itself is the story of two characters, Tidwald (Tida) and Torhthelm (Totta), retrieving the body of Beorhtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex, from the battlefield at Maldon.

Eventually the two characters load the lord's body onto a cart, and the drama closes with them leaving the battlefield for a nearby abbey in Ely.

[3] George Clark states that Tolkien's reworking of The Battle of Maldon specifically "chastises" Beorhtnoth for his pride and generally criticizes the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideals of pursuing fame and material wealth (41).

She recalls Tolkien's own metaphor of the northern heroic spirit as an impure "alloy", composed of a combination of a self-sacrificing bravery for the good of others (the gold) and a selfish, reckless pursuit for wealth and fame (the base metal).

Bowman's point, then, is that Tolkien was concerned with "refining" the heroic code—with separating and burning away the selfish, destructive slag of "overmastering" and excessive pride, while retaining the gold of courage.