[492] ‘arcem imparatam atque immunitam, nisi quod moenia nostro more erecta … haberet … locus tutissimus … sicut nos ipsi uidimus,’ ib. Is any type of earthworks known which is specifically Welsh? Asser’s episcopal charge of Exeter, if a fact, would account for his knowledge of the district. The name of Odda comes from Ethelwerd, p. 515 D.
[493] Mediaeval and modern writers, overlooking the word ‘brother,’ write as if it were Ingwar and Halfdene themselves who fell; so S. D. ii. 111, 114. Professor Oman writes Ingwar and Hubba, on I know not what authority, Essays, p. 137. The name Ubba comes only from Gaimar.
[494] The details are mostly from Asser, u. s. He gives the number of slain as 1200; i.e. CↃCC for IↃCCC. Ethelwerd, p. 515 E, says that the Danes were finally victorious; but it is hard to reconcile this with the Chronicle, and still more with Asser.
[495] The Chronicle puts this under 879; but, seeing that the battle of Ethandun was fought in May, it almost certainly belongs to the same year 878. It is this mistake which throws the chronology of the Chronicle a year wrong from this point up to 897 (= 896).
[496] No document exists embodying the terms of the agreement of 878. ‘Alfred and Guthrum’s peace,’ often confused with the treaty of Wedmore, belongs to 886.
[497] Chron. ii. 114.
[498] Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur.
[499] Chron. u. s. chiefly from Green, Conq. Engl. pp. 111 ff.
[500] p. 515 D.
[501] Cf. what is said in the Soliloquies, p. 182: ‘gyf þonne æfre gebyreð þ þu … hæfst ealle þine freond myd þe … on þam ilcan weorce, ⁊ on þam ilcan willan ðe ðe best lyst don’; cf. Boeth. xxix. § 1 (p. 66): ‘cyningas ne magon nænne weorðscipe forðbrengan buton hiora þegna fultume.’