The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Life of Oswald are near contemporary sources and provide reasonably reliable information but the detail they provide about the battle is very sparse.

However the poem The Battle of Maldon provides a wealth of detail, far more than for any other battle from the period. Indeed the location of the battlefield and most of the story of the battle in modern studies are built around the evidence in the poem.

There are also several medieval sources for the battle but they add little or are considered highly unreliable.