By TJiereza Story Maskelyne. 407 



the place at Elleiidune, now a manor of the Prior of Winton." ^ 

 Beornwulf is said to liave liad thousands to Egbert's Imndreds, Ijut 

 his defeat was complete. " Egbert's men, pale and lean, lieorn- 

 wulf's well-fed and ruddy, but inexperienced and rash." " When 

 ]3eornwolf lied he would not for three pence have lost his spurs!" 



It was then that, in the words of an unknown and long-forgotten 

 West Saxon poet, "The Ijrook of Ellendune ran red with gore, it 

 was choked with slain, and became foul with the carnage." 



This scrap comes as a quotation in Henry of Huntingdon, but, 

 as Prof. Oman remarks, "it clearly represents an old poem."- 



Wheri thinkini^ of this decisive battle it becomes interesting to 

 conjecture by what roads the Mercians could have arrived, and the 

 answer is not far to seek when we take the nature of the country 

 into consideration. The Thames, which flows along the valley ten 

 n)iles north of Ellendune, was the frontier between Mercia and 

 Wessex. In days when there were but few roads by which an 

 army could traverse country largely overgrown by forests such as 

 J3raden, covering a large district N.W. of this spot, and preventing 

 any approach through them, the Poman road from Cirencester cross- 

 ing the Thames at Cricklade would almost certainly have been that 

 along which the Mercians would come; thus avoiding the undrained 

 thickets of Braden. It seems to have been the only way of approach 

 to the spot wlieie the battle was probably fought. 



Where the river or brook of Ellendune was is another question. 

 Tiieie is no river in this neighbourhood excepting a small one 

 called the Pey, which joins the Thames near Cricklade ; but in 

 former days the waters that are now collected at the WrougliLun 

 Waterworks and the stream rising in Markham bottom (Marcomlje) 

 were ])robably good streams, and together fijrmed a larger river 

 than the Pey is at ])resent, and we know that when Domesday 

 Book was compiled there was enough water to turn the seven mills 

 of Ellendune reeonled in IhaL book. 



If it was the river Pey that " ran red with blood ' after the 

 battle of Ellendune, we know that the l)attle must have been fought 



' Dupfdale's Winchester Annals ? 



- Oman's JlUtnyij uf Kmjlnnd, ^wj^v [V,)-l. 

 \i«l.. XXXVll. — NO. CXVll. *J L 



