Page:Source Problems in English History.djvu/44

 because of hunger and thirst, for there was no water near. But it did not turn out as they expected. For the Christians, before they suffered any such straits, prompted by God to believe it much better to win either death or victory, at dawn made an unexpected sortie upon the pagans, and shortly slew most of them, together with their king, only a few escaping to the boats.

In the same year after Easter, King Alfred, with a few to help him, made a stronghold in a place called Athelney, and thence kept tirelessly making attacks upon the pagans with his Somersetshire retainers. And again in the seventh week after Easter he rode to Egbert’s Stone, which is in the eastern part of the forest called Selwood—in Latin “Sylva Magna,” in Welsh “Coit Maur”—and there met him there all the dwellers about the districts of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, who had not through fear of the pagans gone beyond sea; and when they saw the king, after such great sufferings, almost as one risen from the dead, they were filled with unbounded joy, as it was right they should be; and they pitched camp there for one night. At dawn the next morning the king moved his camp thence and came to a place called Æglea, and there encamped one night.

Moving his standards thence the next morning,