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miles above London, where they made another burg,
which has been identified with the earthworks of
Walbury Camp, near Little Hallingbury. In the
summer the Londoners tried to take the fort, but
were put to flight. During harvest King Ælfred,
being encamped near London to protect the harvesters,
and one day riding up the river, noticed a place where
the stream might be obstructed by building fortresses
on either bank, and perhaps by stretching a chain or
boom across the stream. He succeeded in "bottling"
the ships, but the Danes rode off, once more across
country. Their rapid rides are not surprising, for
they commandeered the horses which were everywhere
to be found (as in Iceland now-a-days, the
usual means of transport), and rode them until they
dropped. Reaching Quatford, below Bridgnorth,
on the Severn, they built a fort—of which the
mound remains—and wintered. But Wales would not
receive them, and in the summer of 896 their host
dispersed, some finding a refuge in Northumbria,
others in East Anglia, and the greater part returning
to France under Hástein, who soon afterwards settled
on the land of Chartres, and became a great lord in
the Frankish king’s service.
So ended the great invasion. The Northumbrians
and East Anglians still sent out war-vessels to the
south coast, light "esks" of thirty or forty oars : in
Icelandic the word askar is sometimes used in this
sense, giving askmenn, the ascmanni of Adam of
Bremen and æscmen of the Anglo-Saxons, signifying
"pirates." King Ælfred designed larger ships to
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