The Dragon and the Raven; Or, The Days of King Alfred

by G. A. Henty

"Now, my friends," Edmund said to them, "here is the time for trying what benefit we have got from our exercise. We cannot well draw off, for the Danes are as fleet-footed as we; therefore let us fight and conquer them."

The men formed up cheerfully, and the little body moved out from the wood to meet the Danes. The latter gave a shout of triumph as they saw them. The Saxon force, from its compact formation, appeared even smaller than it was, and the Norsemen advanced in haste, each eager to be the first to fall upon an enemy whom they regarded as an easy prey. As they arrived upon the spot, however, and saw the thick hedge of spears which bristled round the little body of Saxons, the first comers checked their speed and waited till Haffa himself came up, accompanied by his principal warriors.

Without a moment's hesitation the jarl flung himself upon the Saxons. In vain, however, he tried to reach them with his long sword. As he neared them the front line of the Saxons dropped on one knee, and as the Danes with their shields dashed against the spears and strove to cut through them, the kneeling men were able with their pikes to thrust at the unguarded portions of the bodies below their shields, and many fell grievously wounded. After trying for some time in vain, Haffa, finding that individual effort did not suffice to break through the Saxon spears, formed his men up in line four deep, and advanced in a solid body so as to overwhelm them.

The Saxons now rose to their feet. The spears, instead of being pointed outwards, were inclined towards the front, and the wedge advanced against the Danes. The Saxon war cry rose loud as they neared the Danish line, and then, still maintaining their close formation, they charged upon it. The assault was irresistible. The whole weight was thrown upon a point, and preceded, as it was, by the densely-packed spears, it burst through the Danish line as if the latter had been composed of osier twigs, bearing down all in its way.

With shouts of surprise the Danes broke up their line and closed in a thick mass round the Saxons, those behind pressing forward and impeding the motions of the warriors actually engaged. The Saxons no longer kept stationary. In obedience to Edmund's orders the triangle advanced, sometimes with one angle in front, sometimes with another, but whichever way it moved sweeping away the Danes opposed to it, while the archers from the centre shot fast and strong into the mass of the enemy.

Haffa himself, trying to oppose the advance of the wedge, was slain by a blow of Egbert's axe, and after half an hour's fierce fighting, the Danes, having lost upwards of fifty of their best men, and finding all their efforts to produce an impression upon the Saxons vain, desisted from the attack and fled.

At once the wedge broke up, and the Saxons followed in hot pursuit, cutting down their flying enemies. Obedient, however, to Edmund's repeated shouts they kept fairly together, and when the Danes, thinking them broken and disordered, turned to fall upon them, a single note of the horn brought them instantly together again, and the astonished Danes saw the phalanx which had proved so fatal to them prepared to receive their attack. This they did not attempt to deliver, but took to flight, the Saxons, as before, pursuing, and twice as many of the Danes were slain in the retreat as in the first attack.

The pursuit was continued for many miles, and then, fearing that he might come across some fresh body of the enemy, Edmund called off his men. Great was the triumph of the Saxons. A few of them had suffered from wounds more or less serious, but not one had fallen. They had defeated a body of Danes four times their own force, and had killed nearly half of them, and they felt confident that the tactics which they had adopted would enable them in future to defeat any scattered bodies of Danes they might meet.

For a week after the battle they rested, spending their time in further improving themselves in their drill, practicing especially the alterations of the position of the spears requisite when changing from a defensive attitude, with the pikes at right angles to each face, to that of an attack, when the spears of both faces of the advancing wedge were all directed forward. A messenger arrived from the king, to whom Edmund had sent the news of his various successes, and Alfred sent his warmest congratulations and thanks for the great results which had been gained with so small a force, the king confessing that he was unable to understand how with such disproportionate numbers Edmund could so totally have routed the force of so distinguished a leader as Haffa.

For some weeks Edmund continued the work of checking the depredations of the Danes, and so successful was he that the freebooters became seized with a superstitious awe of his band. The rapidity of its maneuvering, the manner in which men, at one moment scattered, were in another formed in a serried mass, against which all their efforts broke as waves against a rock, seemed to them to be something superhuman. In that part of Wessex, therefore, the invaders gradually withdrew their forces across the frontier; but in other parts of the country, the tide of invasion being unchecked, large tracts of country had been devastated, and the West Saxons could nowhere make head against them. One day a messenger reached Edmund telling him that a large Danish army was approaching Sherborne, and urging him to return instantly to the defence of his earldom.