21. Then he heard them talking about king Alfred, and saying, they supposed he was dead, as he did not come to fight them, so they need think of nothing but enjoying themselves; and thus he discovered they were not prepared for a battle, and were almost sure to be defeated, if taken by surprise.
22. He, therefore, left the camp as soon as he could, and sent a message to his friends to meet him in Selwood Forest, also in Somersetshire, with all the men they could muster; and, when they were all come, he put himself at their head, and, marching suddenly down upon the Danes, fought and won a great battle at Ethandune, a place in Gloucestershire, now called Woeful Danes’ Bottom, from the terrible slaughter of the Danes there.
23. But there were a great many Danes in England who had not been engaged in this battle, and who had possession of almost all the northern part of the country; so the king wisely considered that it would be much better to induce them to settle peaceably in the country as friends, rather than prolong those dreadful wars, which had already caused so much misery.
24. He therefore proposed to the Danish chief that, if he would promise to keep at peace, he should have a wide tract of country, which had been desolated by these wars, all along the east coast, from the river Tweed to the river Thames, for himself and his people, to be called the Dane land; so Guthrun, the Danish chief, accepted the offer, and parcelled the land out amongst his followers, who settled there with their vassals, and lived the same manner as the Saxons.
25. You may think how glad the people were that the wars were over, and the king was very glad too, for he now had time to do what was more pleasant to him than fighting, which was, to do all the good he could for the country. He thought the best way to defend it against its enemies was to have good ships to keep them from landing; but, as the English did not know much about ship-building, he sent for men from Italy to teach them, and also had models of ships brought that they might see how they were constructed, and men were taught to manage them, so that England, for the first time, had a navy.
26. These ships were called galleys, and were worked both with oars and sails; they were twice as long as those of the Danes, and stood higher out of the water.
27. While some workmen were making ships, others were employed in rebuilding of the towns and villages that had been burned down by the Danes; and the king ordained that there should be schools in different parts of the kingdom, where noblemen’s sons might be educated, for he had found the benefit of learning himself, and thought it a sad thing that all the great men should be so ignorant as they were.
28. You may, perhaps, wonder why so good a man as Alfred should only think of having the great people taught to read; but reading would have been of no use to the common people, as the art of printing was unknown, and there were no books but those written by the monks or nuns, which were so expensive that none but very rich people could afford to have even two or three of them.
29. The principal school founded by king Alfred was at Oxford, which was then a small, poor place, with a monastery, and a few mean wooden houses for the scholars to live in, very different from the present grand university, and the masters, who were all churchmen, and called learned clerks, resided in the monastery.
30. Alfred, with the help of some good and clever men, whom he consulted in every thing, made some very wise laws, and obliged the people to obey them, by having courts of justice held in the principal cities, regularly once a month; for nobody had thought much about law or justice either, while the wars were going on, so that there was need of some very strict regulations to restore good order, without which there can be neither happiness nor comfort any where.