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Severn, and also some part of the North -Welsh people. 
When they had all drawn together then they came up with 
the army at Buttington on the bank of the Severn, and 
there beset them about, on either side, in a fastness. When 
they had now sat there many weeks on both sides of 
the river, and the King was in the west in Devon, against 
the fleet, then were the enemy distressed for want of food, 
and having eaten a great part of their horses, the others 
being starved with hunger, then went they out against the 
men who were encamped on the east bank of the river 
and fought against them, and the Christians had the 
victory. And Ordheli a kings-thane was there slain ; and 
of the Danish men there was very great slaughter made, 
and that part which got away thence was saved by flight 
When they had come into Essex to their fortress and the 
ships, then the survivors again gathered a great army from 
among the East-Angles and the North -Humbrians before 
winter, and committed their wives and their wealth and 
their ships to the East- Angles, and went at one stretch, day 
and night, until they arrived at a western city in Wirral, 
which is called Legaceaster (Chester). 
It is evident from this passage that a most desperate 
battle was fought at Buttington, between the Danes and 
the combined English and Welsh forces. And when we 
consider the position of the church-yard, which is slightly 
above the level of the fields on the east side, and which 
stands out boldly above the stretch of alluvium on the 
north side, there can be but little doubt that the battle 
was fought on the very spot where the bones were dis- 
covered. In the Chronicle we read that the Danes were 
compelled to eat their horses. The jaw of a horse was 
discovered in the excavations, together with many horse’s 
teeth. It is therefore almost certain that these human re- 
mains belong to the men who fell in this battle. We cannot 
tell who arranged the bones in the way in which they were 
