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Calne and Marlborough, to be the entrenchment to which the 
Danes fled ; Lysons, in his Magna Britannia, would transplant it 
to Heddington in Berkshire, near Hungerford ; Whitaker, dissent- 
ing from these opinions, contends that it was fought near Yatton, 
in North Wilts, where he finds the name of “ Slaughterford ” a 
passage of the Avon near Chippenham. To make his case out he 
considers Highley Common in Melksham to be the Eglea of Asser, 
and finds the Danish stronghold in Bury Wood, between Colerne 
and Wraxall. This view has been also maintained by Dr. 
Thurnam and Mr. Powlett Scrope, in the “ Wilts Archeological 
Magazine.” It would take too long to discuss all the arguments in 
favour of these views. I shall content myself by stating as clearly 
as I can the arguments which have been advanced in favour of 
Edington, and the reasons which seem to militate against the 
other conjectures, availing myself of the papers published in the 
“ Wilts Archeological Magazine,” by Mr. Matcham and others. 
The first argument in favour of Edington is its name, which 
certainly can fairly be considered to represent Ethandun, as it has 
differed very slightly in spelling, and the difference can be easily 
accounted for. Ethandun would, by a mere omission of a stroke to 
the second letter of the Saxon word, become Edandun ; and it is 
written Edendone in Domesday, and Edyndun as late as Henry 
VI. time, 1449. The present mode of spelling is of compara- 
tively modern usage. Heddington near Calne was written with 
a“t” in Domesday, and its aspirate seems to show it to have 
been a different word. Yatton never had a “dun” or don 
attached to it in ancient documents, and is written “ Ettone” in 
Domesday. It would be strange indeed if the memory of Alfred's 
victory fought at Htton-down, as Dr. Thurnam and Whitaker 
imagine, could have been so forgotten that the “dun” should 
have fallen out of the word by the time of William the Norman. 
Secondly—The old tradition which has for so many centuries 
linked the site of the battle to Edington is still preserved, and the 
White Horse is believed by the most learned Archzologists to be 
