10 SCANDO-GOTHIC ART IN WESSEX. 



pagans under Guthrum, their King. And then, with thirty 

 chosen men, Guthrum came to Alfred and was baptised. The 

 holy chrism was poured upon him at Aller, near Athelney, 

 in Somerset, and Alfred was his sponsor, when Guthrum 

 received the name of ^Ethelstan. And the chrismal fillet 

 was removed, eight days after, at Wedmore, Alfred's Vill.* 

 Subsequently a treaty was made between the two Kings, 

 which determined the boundary between Wessex and East 

 Anglia which for fourteen years had been in the possession of 

 the Danes ; whilst another enactment ensured a continuance 

 of the spiritual dignitaries in that province under the 

 suzerainty of Wessex. f 



But, with other Danes, other battles had to be fought 

 in 980 at Southampton, in 981 in Cornwall, in 982 in Portland, 

 in 988 at Watchet, in 997 in Devon, in 1001 and 1003 at 

 Exeter. 



And now, in spite of the fact that Norse converts sometimes 

 assumed, on baptism, Anglo-Saxon names, is there any 

 direct evidence that in the years we have spoken of, Danes 

 were living in Wessex as citizens and as monks ? Yes ; a 

 good deal. Professor Anderson } makes the luminous 

 assertion that " when [air, or Thor, appears in compound 

 " names in Anglo-Saxon deeds or charters which pretend to 

 " be older than the Danish invasion of the IX. century, it is 

 "a sure sign of forgery." From this, two inferences are 

 inevitable ; first, that such forgeries were the work of Danish 

 monks ; and second, that in Wessex all such names of persons, 

 at whatever period they occur, belong to Norsemen. But we 

 may extend these inferences to other patronymics, such as 

 those compounded of Rafn, raven ; and of Ketill, the Holy 

 Cauldron used at sacrifices, and as sacred to the Scandinavians 

 as the Chalice is to us. 



* his crism lysing waes set Wedmor : A. S. Chron. See also Asser. 

 f Lappenberg II., 56, 58. 

 J Norse Mythology, p. 459. 



