THIRD QUARTERLY MEETING. 37 
might have taught many a modern general the irresistible 
effect which is produced by numbers brought to bear upon 
a single point. King Alfred’s standard acting as a beacon, 
unseen by the enemy alone, brought his men, each moving 
on his own radius of the circle, to the centre, where the 
king was waiting ; a rapid march along the hill country, 
enabled him on the second morning to seize on the eminence 
where stands the mound called Bratton Castle, and the 
Danes almost terrified into defeat before the armies met, 
submitting to their master, suffered themselves to be made 
eultivators of those lands, which they had come to burn 
and destroy. 
Dr. WOoDFORDE, in confirmation of this view of Alfred’s 
strategy, reported that a custom preyails at Taunton down 
to the present time, of holding a ball, in the cold season of 
the year, called the Ashen Fagot Ball, in memory of the 
delight which King Alfred’s men, coming up cold and hun- 
gry to the rendezvous all through the night, felt at finding 
that the ash-trees, common to the neighbourhood, would 
burn with ease, though green. This was a novelty to them, 
coming mostly from Somersetshire, where there is little 
wood but the elm, which burns with difficulty, even when 
dry. 
Tue SocıErY have to deplore the demolition, within the 
last few months, of the remains of the Old Priory (as it is 
generally believed to have been) at Keyford. The com- 
mittee are however enabled to give an engraving of the 
same, from a drawing by Mr. C.E. Giles, with a short 
descriptive notice, in the second part. 
