186 The Battle of Ethandmi. 



place adjoining and within sight of Bratton Castle.' I think, 

 therefore, -3^cglea ought to be placed somewhere in the neighbour- 

 hood of Clay HiU or Bucley. 



" Let us next consider the events of the third day, which at 

 length decided the superiority of the Saxon monarch over his in- 

 veterate enemies, the Danes. The village of Edington corresponds 

 so well, both in name and situation, with the Ethandum of Asser, 

 and the Ethandune of the Saxon Chronicle, that I shall not hesitate 

 to place the scene of action at that place. It is situated at a short 

 distance from Bratton, under the ridge of Chalk hills, upon a bold 

 point of which stands the fortress to which the Danes were driven 

 for a temporary refuge. The original entrances to this camp are 

 still used as a thoroughfare for the road to Bratton : and in the 

 valley to the eastward, is a fine perennial spring, called Lockham, 

 near which the residence of the Danes is still commemorated, in 

 the name of a field called Danes Ley. 



" Less would have been written or said on this memorable sub- 

 ject, had authors taken the pains to examine personally the local 

 situation, or line of country through which King Alfred would 

 naturally have directed his march. In the course now laid down 

 before my readers, we find nothing improbable, and even etymology 

 need not be tortured in order to explain the names of places re- 

 corded on this occasion. For we find the Petra ^gbryhta re-echoed 

 in Brixton, the ^cglea in Clay, Clea, or Bucley ; and the Ethan- 

 dune in Edington. But the Cornish historian, Mr. Whitaker, dis- 

 regarding the records of Asser and the Chronicle in this instance, 

 (though in others he has held them forth as of the highest author- 

 ity,) seeming to difier merely for diflTerence sake, and in his dicta- 

 torial tone exclaiming, "Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas,"^ 

 has transferred -3^^cglea and Ethandune to Higbley and Yatton, 



* Those who are intimately acquainted vnXh the ground, will judge how far 

 this remark may be qualified by the consideration, that in those times and sub- 

 sequently, the woodland extended over the neighbourhood of Westbury Leigh. 

 See Hund. of "Westbury. 



2 " A few strokes of his ( Whitaker' s) pen demolish authorities as easily as he 

 sometimes unduly stretches them." — Turner's Hist, of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. 

 ii. p. 59. 



