The Dragon and The Raven: Or The Days of King Alfred

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The respite purchased by the king from the Danes was
but a short one. In the autumn of 875 their bands were
again swarming around the borders of Wessex, and constant
irruptions took place. Edmund received a summons to gather
his tenants, but he found that these no longer replied
willingly to the call. Several of his chief men met him and
represented to him the general feeling which prevailed.

"The men say," their spokesman explained, "that it is
useless to fight against the Danes. In 872 there were ten
pitched battles, and vast numbers of the Danes were slain,
and vast numbers also of Saxons. The Danes are already far
more numerous than before, for fresh hordes continue to
arrive on the shores, and more than fill up the places of those
who are killed; but the places of the Saxons are empty, and
our fighting force is far smaller than it was last year. If we
again go out and again fight many battles, even if we are
victorious, which we can hardly hope to be, the same thing
will happen. Many thousands will be slain, and the following
year we shall in vain try to put an army in the field which can
match that of the Danes, who will again have filled up their
ranks, and be as numerous as ever. So long as we continue to
fight, so long the Danes will slay, burn, and destroy
wheresoever they march, until there will remain of us but a
few fugitives hidden in the woods. We should be far better
off did we cease to resist, and the Danes become our masters,
as they have become the masters of Northumbria, Mercia,
and Anglia.

"There, it is true, they have plundered the churches and
thanes' houses and have stolen all that is worth carrying away;
but when they have taken all that there is to take they leave
the people alone, and unmolested, to till the ground and to
gain their livelihood. They do not slay for the pleasure of
slaying, and grievous as is the condition of the Angles they
and their wives and children are free from massacre and are
allowed to gain their livings. The West Saxons have showed
that they are no cowards; they have defeated the Northmen
over and over again when far outnumbering them. It is no
dishonour to yield now when all the rest of England has
yielded, and when further fighting will only bring ruin upon
ourselves, our wives, and children."

Edmund could find no reply to this argument. He knew
that even the king despaired of ultimately resisting the Danish
invasion, and after listening to all that the thanes had to
say he retired with Egbert apart.

"What say you, Egbert? There is reason in the arguments
that they use. You and I have neither wives nor children,
and we risk only our own lives; but I can well understand
that those who have so much to lose are chary of further
effort. What say you?"

"I do not think it will be fair to press them further,"
Egbert answered; "but methinks that we might raise a band
consisting of all the youths and unmarried men in the earldom.
These we might train carefully and keep always together,
seeing that the lands will still be cultivated and all
able to pay their assessment, and may even add to it, since
you exempt them from service. Such a band we could train
and practise until we could rely upon them to defeat a far
larger force of the enemy, and they would be available for
our crew when we take to the ship."

"I think the idea is a very good one, Egbert; we will propose
it to the thanes." The proposition was accordingly made
that all married men should be exempt from service, but
that the youths above the age of sixteen and the unmarried
men should be formed into a band and kept permanently
under arms. Landowners who lost the services of sons or
freemen working for them should pay the same assessment
only as before, but those who did not contribute men to the
levy should pay an additional assessment. Edmund said he
would pay the men composing the band the same wages they
would earn in the field, and would undertake all their
expenses. "So long as the king continues the struggle,"
he said, "it is our duty to aid him, nor can we escape from
the dangers and perils of invasion. Should the Danes come
near us all must perforce fight, but so long as they continue
at a distance things can go on here as if we had peace
in the land."

The proposal was, after some discussion, agreed to, and
the news caused gladness and contentment throughout the
earldom. The younger men who had been included in the
levy were quite satisfied with the arrangement. The spirit of
the West Saxons was still high, and those without wives and
families who would suffer by their absence or be ruined by
their death were eager to continue the contest. The proposal
that they should be paid as when at work was considered
perfectly satisfactory.

The men of Sherborne had under their young leader
gained great credit by their steadiness and valour in the
battles four years before, and they looked forward to fresh
victories over the invader. The result was that ninety young
men assembled for service. Edmund had sent off a messenger to
the king saying that the people were utterly weary of war and
refused to take up arms, but that he was gathering a band of
young men with whom he would ere long join him; but he
prayed for a short delay in order that he might get them into
a condition to be useful on the day of battle.

After consultation with Egbert, Edmund drew up a series
of orders somewhat resembling those of modern drill.
King Alfred had once, in speaking to him, described the
manner in which the Thebans, a people of Northern Greece,
had fought, placing their troops in the form of a wedge. The
formation he now taught his men. From morning to night
they were practised at rallying from pursuit or flight, or
changing from a line into the form of a wedge. Each man had
his appointed place both in the line and wedge. Those who
formed the outside line of this formation were armed with
large shields which covered them from chin to foot, and with
short spears; those in the inner lines carried no shields, but
bore spears of increasing length, so that four lines of spears
projected from the wedge to nearly the same distance. Inside
the four lines were twenty men armed with shields, bows,
and arrows. The sides of the wedge were of equal length, so
that they could march either way.

Egbert's place was at the apex of the wedge intended
generally for attack. He carried no spear, nor did those at
the other corners, as they would be covered by those beside
and behind them; he was armed with a huge battle-axe. The
other leaders were also chosen for great personal strength.
Edmund's place was on horseback in the middle of the wedge,
whence he could overlook the whole and direct their movements.

In three weeks the men could perform their simple
movements to perfection, and at a sound from Edmund's
horn would run in as when scattered in pursuit or flight,
or could form from line into the wedge, without the least
confusion, every man occupying his assigned place.

The men were delighted with their new exercises, and
felt confident that the weight of the solid mass thickly
bristling with spears would break through the Danish line
without difficulty, or could draw off from the field in perfect
order and safety in case of a defeat, however numerous their
foes. The two front lines were to thrust with their pikes, the
others keeping their long spears immovable to form a solid
hedge. Each man carried a short heavy sword to use in case,
by any fatality, the wedge should get broken up.

When assured that his band were perfect in their new
exercise Edmund marched and joined the king. He found
on his arrival that the summons to arms had been everywhere
disregarded. Many men had indeed come in, but these
were in no way sufficient to form a force which would enable
him to take the field against the Danes.

Edmund therefore solicited and obtained permission to
march with his band to endeavour to check the plundering
bands of Danes, who were already committing devastations
throughout the country.

"Be not rash, Edmund," the monarch said, "you have
but a handful of men, and I should grieve indeed did aught
of harm befall you. If you can fall upon small parties of
plunderers and destroy them you will do good service, not
only by compelling them to keep together but by raising the
spirits of the Saxons; but avoid conflict with parties likely to
defeat you."

"You shall hear of us soon, I promise you," Edmund replied,
"and I trust that the news will be good."

The little party set out towards the border, and before
long met numbers of fugitives, weeping women carrying children,
old men and boys, making their way from the neighbourhood of
the Danes. The men had for the most part driven their
herds into the woods, where they were prepared to defend them
as best they could against roving parties. They learned that
Haffa, a Danish jarl, with about 600 followers, was plundering
and ravaging the country about twelve miles away. The force
was a formidable one, but after consultation with Egbert,
Edmund determined to advance, deeming that he might find
the Danes scattered and cut off some of their parties.

As they neared the country of which the Danes were in
possession the smoke of burning villages and homesteads
was seen rising heavily in the air. Edmund halted for the
night in a wood about a mile distant from a blazing farm,
and the band lay down for some hours.

Before daybreak three or four of the swiftest-footed of
the men were sent out to reconnoitre. They learned, from
badly wounded men whom they found lying near the burning
farms, that the Danes had been plundering in parties of
twenty or thirty, but that the main body under Haffa lay five
miles away at the village of Bristowe.

A consultation was held, and it was agreed that the party
should remain hidden in the wood during the day, and that
upon the following night they should fall upon the Danes,
trusting to the surprise to inflict much damage upon them,
and to be able to draw off before the enemy could recover
sufficiently to rally and attack them.

Accordingly about nine o'clock in the evening they
started, and marching rapidly approached Bristowe an hour
and a half later. They could see great fires blazing, and round
them the Danes were carousing after their forays of the day.
Great numbers of cattle were penned up near the village.

Edmund and Egbert having halted their men stole forward
until close to the village in order to learn the nature of
the ground and the position of the Danes. Upon their return
they waited until the fires burned low and the sound of
shouting and singing decreased. It was useless to wait longer,
for they knew that many of the Danes would, according to
their custom, keep up their revelry all night. Crawling along
the ground the band made for the great pen where were
herded the cattle which the Danes had driven in from the
surrounding country, and over which several guards had been
placed. Before starting Egbert assigned to each man the
special duties which he was to fulfil.

The Saxons crept up quite close to the Danish guards
unobserved. To each of these three or four bowmen had
been told off, and they, on nearing the sentries lay prone on
the ground with bows bent and arrows fixed until a whistle
from Edmund gave the signal. Then the arrows were loosed,
and the distance being so short the Danish sentries were all
slain. Then a party of men removed the side of the pen
facing the village; the rest mingled with the cattle, and soon
with the points of their spears goaded them into flight. In a
mass the herd thundered down upon the village, the Saxons
keeping closely behind them and adding to their terror by
goading the hindermost.

The Danes, astonished at the sudden thunder of hoofs
bearing down upon them, leaped to their feet and
endeavoured to turn the course of the herd, which they
deemed to have accidentally broken loose, by loud shouts
and by rattling their swords against their shields. The oxen,
however, were too terrified by those in their rear to check
their course, and charged impetuously down upon the Danes.

Numbers of these were hurled to the ground and
trampled under foot, and the wildest confusion reigned in
the camp. This was increased when, as the herds swept along,
a number of active men with spear and sword fell suddenly
upon them. Scores were cut down or run through before
they could prepare for defence, or recover from their
surprise at the novel method of attack.

At last, as the thunder of the herd died away in the distance,
and they became aware of the comparative fewness of
their foes, they began to rally and make head against their
assailants. No sooner was this the case than the note of a
horn was heard, and as if by magic their assailants instantly
darted away into the night, leaving the superstitious Danes
in some doubt whether the whole attack upon them had not
been of a supernatural nature.

Long before they recovered themselves, and were ready
for pursuit, the Saxons were far away, no less than 200 of the
Danes having been slain or trampled to death, while of
Edmund's band not one had received so much as a wound.

The Saxons regained the wood in the highest state of
exultation at their success, and more confident than before
in themselves and their leader.

"I am convinced," Edmund said, "that this is the true
way to fight the Danes, to harry and attack them by night
assaults until they dare not break up into parties, and become
so worn out by constant alarms that they will be glad to
leave a country where plunder and booty are only to be earned
at so great a cost."

Knowing that Haffa's band would for some time be thoroughly
on the alert Edmund moved his party to another portion of
the country, where he inflicted a blow, almost as heavy
as he had dealt Haffa, upon Sigbert, another of the Danish
jarls. Three or four more very successful night attacks were
made, and then the Danes, by this time thoroughly alarmed,
obtained from some Saxon country people whom they took
prisoners news as to the strength of Edmund's band.

Furious at the heavy losses which had been inflicted
upon them by so small a number, they determined to unite
in crushing them. By threats of instant death, and by the
offers of a high reward, they succeeded in persuading two
Saxon prisoners to act as spies, and one day these brought in
to Haffa the news that the band had that morning, after
striking a successful blow at the Danes ten miles away,
entered at daybreak a wood but three miles from his camp.

The Northman, disdaining to ask for assistance from
one of the other bands against so small a foe, moved out at
once with 300 of his men towards the wood. The Saxons had
posted guards, who on the approach of the Danes roused
Edmund with the news that the enemy were close at hand.
The Saxons were soon on their feet.

"Now, my friends," Edmund said to them, "here is the
time for trying what benefit we have got from our exercise.
We cannot well draw off, for the Danes are as fleet-footed as
we; therefore let us fight and conquer them."

The men formed up cheerfully, and the little body moved
out from the wood to meet the Danes. The latter gave a
shout of triumph as they saw them. The Saxon force, from
its compact formation, appeared even smaller than it was,
and the Norsemen advanced in haste, each eager to be the
first to fall upon an enemy whom they regarded as an easy
prey. As they arrived upon the spot, however, and saw the
thick hedge of spears which bristled round the little body of
Saxons, the first comers checked their speed and waited till
Haffa himself came up, accompanied by his principal warriors.

Without a moment's hesitation the jarl flung himself
upon the Saxons. In vain, however, he tried to reach them
with his long sword. As he neared them the front line of the
Saxons dropped on one knee, and as the Danes with their
shields dashed against the spears and strove to cut through
them, the kneeling men were able with their pikes to thrust
at the unguarded portions of the bodies below their shields,
and many fell grievously wounded. After trying for some
time in vain, Haffa, finding that individual effort did not
suffice to break through the Saxon spears, formed his men
up in line four deep, and advanced in a solid body so as to
overwhelm them.

The Saxons now rose to their feet. The spears, instead
of being pointed outwards, were inclined towards the front,
and the wedge advanced against the Danes. The Saxon war cry
rose loud as they neared the Danish line, and then, still
maintaining their close formation, they charged upon it. The
assault was irresistible. The whole weight was thrown upon
a point, and preceded, as it was, by the densely-packed spears,
it burst through the Danish line as if the latter had been
composed of osier twigs, bearing down all in its way.

With shouts of surprise the Danes broke up their line
and closed in a thick mass round the Saxons, those behind
pressing forward and impeding the motions of the warriors
actually engaged. The Saxons no longer kept stationary. In
obedience to Edmund's orders the triangle advanced, sometimes
with one angle in front, sometimes with another, but
whichever way it moved sweeping away the Danes opposed
to it, while the archers from the centre shot fast and strong
into the mass of the enemy.

Haffa himself, trying to oppose the advance of the
wedge, was slain by a blow of Egbert's axe, and after half an
hour's fierce fighting, the Danes, having lost upwards of fifty
of their best men, and finding all their efforts to produce an
impression upon the Saxons vain, desisted from the attack
and fled.

At once the wedge broke up, and the Saxons followed
in hot pursuit, cutting down their flying enemies. Obedient,
however, to Edmund's repeated shouts they kept fairly together,
and when the Danes, thinking them broken and disordered,
turned to fall upon them, a single note of the horn
brought them instantly together again, and the astonished
Danes saw the phalanx which had proved so fatal to them
prepared to receive their attack. This they did not attempt to
deliver, but took to flight, the Saxons, as before, pursuing,
and twice as many of the Danes were slain in the retreat as in
the first attack.

The pursuit was continued for many miles, and then,
fearing that he might come across some fresh body of the
enemy, Edmund called off his men. Great was the triumph
of the Saxons. A few of them had suffered from wounds
more or less serious, but not one had fallen. They had
defeated a body of Danes four times their own force, and had
killed nearly half of them, and they felt confident that the
tactics which they had adopted would enable them in future
to defeat any scattered bodies of Danes they might meet.

For a week after the battle they rested, spending their
time in further improving themselves in their drill,
practicing especially the alterations of the position of
the spears requisite when changing from a defensive attitude,
with the pikes at right angles to each face, to that of an
attack, when the spears of both faces of the advancing wedge
were all directed forward. A messenger arrived from the king,
to whom Edmund had sent the news of his various successes,
and Alfred sent his warmest congratulations and thanks for
the great results which had been gained with so small a force,
the king confessing that he was unable to understand how with
such disproportionate numbers Edmund could so totally have
routed the force of so distinguished a leader as Haffa.

For some weeks Edmund continued the work of checking
the depredations of the Danes, and so successful was he
that the freebooters became seized with a superstitious awe
of his band. The rapidity of its maneuvering, the manner in
which men, at one moment scattered, were in another formed
in a serried mass, against which all their efforts broke as
waves against a rock, seemed to them to be something
superhuman. In that part of Wessex, therefore, the invaders
gradually withdrew their forces across the frontier; but in
other parts of the country, the tide of invasion being
unchecked, large tracts of country had been devastated, and
the West Saxons could nowhere make head against them. One day
a messenger reached Edmund telling him that a large Danish
army was approaching Sherborne, and urging him to return
instantly to the defence of his earldom.

With rapid marches he proceeded thither, and on arriving
at his house he found that the Danes were but a few miles
away, and that the whole country was in a state of panic. He
at once sent off messengers in all directions, bidding the
people hasten with their wives and families, their herds and
valuables, to the fort. His return to some extent restored
confidence. The news of the victories he had gained over
the Danes had reached Sherborne, and the confidence of
their power to defeat the invaders which his followers
expressed as they scattered to their respective farms again
raised the courage of the people.

All through the night bands of fugitives poured into the
fort, and by morning the whole of the people for many miles
round were assembled there. Egbert and Edmund busied
themselves in assigning to each his duty and station. All the
men capable of bearing arms were told off to posts on the
walls. The old men and young boys were to draw water and
look after the cattle; the women to cook and attend to the
wounded. The men of his own band were not placed upon
the walls, but were held in readiness as a reserve to move to
any point which might be threatened, and to take part in
sorties against the enemy.

Soon smoke was seen rising up in many directions, showing
that the enemy were at their accustomed work. Cries
broke from the women, and exclamations of rage from the
men, as they recognized by the direction of the smoke that
their own homesteads and villages were in the hands of the
spoilers. About mid-day a party of mounted Danes rode up
towards the fort and made a circuit of it. When they had
satisfied themselves as to the formidable nature of its
defences they rode off again, and for the rest of the day
none of the enemy approached the fort.

CHAPTER VI: THE SAXON FORT

A strict watch was kept all night, and several scouts
were sent out. These on their return reported that
the Danes were feasting, having slain many cattle and
broached the casks of mead which they found in the cellars
of Edmund's house. This they had not burned nor the houses
around it, intending, as the scouts supposed, to make it their
headquarters while they attacked the fort.

Edmund and Egbert agreed that it would be well to show
the Danes at once that they had an active and enterprising
foe to deal with; they therefore awakened their band, who
were sleeping on skins close to the gate, and with them started
out.

It was still two hours before dawn when they approached
the house. Save a few men on watch, the great Danish host,
which the messengers calculated to amount to ten thousand
men, were asleep. Cautiously making their way so as to avoid
stumbling over the Danes, who lay scattered in groups round
the house, the Saxons crept forward quietly until close to the
entrance, when a sleepy watchman started up.

"Who are ye?"

The answer was a blow from Egbert's battle-axe. Then
the leaders with twenty of their men rushed into the house,
while the rest remained on guard at the entrance.

The combat was short but furious, and the clashing of
arms and shouts of the Danes roused those sleeping near,
and the men who escaped from the house spread the alarm.
The fight lasted but three or four minutes, for the Danes,
scattered through the house, and in many cases still stupid
from the effects of the previous night's debauch, were unable
to gather and make any collective resistance. The two jarls
fought in a manner worthy of their renown, but the Saxon
spears proved more than a match for their swords, and they
died fighting bravely till the last. Between Saxon and Dane
there was no thought of quarter; none asked for mercy on
either side, for none would be granted. The sea rovers never
spared an armed man who fell into their hands, and the Saxons
were infuriated by the sufferings which the invaders had
inflicted upon them, and had no more pity upon their foes
than if they had been wild animals. Besides the jarls some
thirty of their minor leaders were in the house, and but five
or six of them escaped. It was well for the Danes that the
detachment which lay there was not their principal body,
which was still a few miles in the rear, for had it been so two
of their kings and six jarls, all men of famed valour, would
have been slain. The instant the work was done the Saxons
rejoined those assembled at the entrance.

Already the Danes were thronging up, but at present in
confusion and disorder, coming rather to see what was the
matter than to fight, and hardly believing that the Saxons
could have had the audacity to attack them. In an instant the
Saxons fell into their usual formation, and overturning and
cutting down those who happened to be in their path, burst
through the straggling Danes, and at a trot proceeded across
the country.

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