38 
found; nor do we know whether they belonged to Danes, 
English, or Welsh, but it is hardly probable that the 
victors would knowingly give Christian burial to their 
heathen adversaries. The commanding position offered by 
the camp caused it to be chosen by the monks of the neigh- 
bouring Abbey of Strata Marcella for the site of the present 
church, and it is very probable that they discovered the 
relics of the battle, and arranged them in the pits in the 
church-yard, after the same fashion as is seen in many 
crypts and catacombs. 
There is another point of interest in this passage of the 
Chronicle. Buttington is said to be on the east bank of the 
Severn. Since that time the river course has passed to 
the westward, at a distance of about a quarter of a mile. 
Its ancient course however is still marked by a small brook 
running close under the churchyard, and which finds its 
way into the Severn by “the main ditch.” In connexion 
with this I may remark that Col. Lane Fox and myself, 
when examining Offa’s dyke in the year 1869, lost all trace 
of it in passing from Forden northwards, when we arrived 
at this stream. The Severn, flowing at that time close to 
Buttington Church, would form a natural barrier between 
the Mercians and the Welsh, and render the erection of a 
dyke unnecessary. There is no material fact added to this 
account in the Chronicle of Ethel werd, or in that of 
Florence of Worcester, or Henry of Huntingdon. 
It is quite possible to trace at the present time the boun- 
daries of the Danish camp. It was defended on the north- 
west by the river Severn; on the east by a rampart running 
parallel, or nearly so, with the road to Forden; on the north- 
east by the church-yard wall; and on the south by the 
depression which runs down from the present line of the 
Forden road behind the Yicarage garden down to what was 
then the old course of the Severn. It may also ha^ 
included the site of the out-buildings, opposite to the Green 
Dragon Inn. 
