326 



continuing, it says, Ethelred the " Archbishop of Canterbury was 

 doubtless there, and we may presume officiated at the baptism." 

 Having thus got him there in imagination and put him to work 

 by presumption, a little further on he is there in fact. " Here," 

 cries the preacher, "was Alfred the King, and Ethelred the Arch- 

 bishop, and Ethelnoth, the Alderman or Duke of Somerset," and 

 so, with but little effort, the scene becomes a thrilling moment. 

 Now no mention is made anywhere of a camp at Aller. Aller 

 being " very near" to Athelney, which even three hundred years 

 later consisted of only two acres of dry land, there Guthrum was 

 taken. No archbishop or priest is mentioned, but one chronicler 

 does say, that Guthrum was purified by Aethelnoth, Duke of the 

 Somersetun.* The other bishop, at a meeting held later in the 

 day, speaking of Wedmore said, " at this time there was a resi- 

 dence here of some kind belonging to King Alfred ;" the " Saxon 

 Chronicle says it was a royal residence." Here again the Saxon 

 Chronicle says nothing of the sort, it simply says of Guthrum, 

 that " his chrism loosing was at Wedmore." Asser, in his Annals 

 says that the chrism loosing was — in villa regia quce dicitur TFaedmor. 

 This is a,lways translated — at a royal town called Wedmor ; or, 

 as an early translator puts it, more literally for us, " the lewsinge 

 of whose christian was the 8 day aftar in the Kinge's towne or 

 manor called Waedmor."t In the hands of our modern translator 

 an attempt is made to improve this into, " his chrysom-leasing 

 took place at the i-oyal villa called Wedmore. "J Here chrysom- 

 leasing, which conveys no meaning and cannot be understood, is 

 substituted for chrism loosing which can be understood, and by a 

 forced meaning never before imagined the town, or manor, 

 becomes a " villa" called Wedmore. Thus we get the desired 

 result, the modem idea of a " villa," but no township or manor. 



• Ethel werd. 



+ Harleian MSS. No. 563, fol. 61. 



i Somst. Arch. Proceediogs, xxi, ii. 24. 



