yielded little subsistence. The king was obliged to make foraging raids
from his hiding-place. Now and then he met and defeated straggling
parties of Danes, taking from them their spoils. At other times, when
hard need pressed, he was forced to forage on his own subjects.

Day by day the news went wider through Saxon homes, and more warriors
sought their king. As the strength of his band increased, Alfred made
more frequent and successful forays. The Danes began to find that
resistance was not at an end. By Easter the king felt strong enough to
take a more decided action. He had a wooden bridge thrown from the
island to the shore, to facilitate the movements of his followers, while
at its entrance was built a fort, to protect the island party against a
Danish incursion.

Such was the state of Alfred's fortunes and of England's hopes in the
spring of 878. Three months before, all southern England, with the
exception of Gloucester and its surrounding lands, had been his. Now his
kingdom was a small island in the heart of a morass, his subjects a
lurking band of faithful warriors, his subsistence what could be wrested
from the strong hands of the foe.

While matters went thus in Somerset, a storm of war gathered in Wales.
Another of Ragnar's sons, Ubbo by name, had landed on the Welsh coast,
and, carrying everything before him, was marching inland to join his
victorious brother.

He was too strong for the Saxons of that quarter to make head against
him in the open field. Odun, the valiant ealderman who led them, fled,
with his thanes and their followers, to the castle of Kwineth, a
stronghold defended only by a loose wall of stones, in the Saxon