brought to the great tent, where they sat carousing, in hopeful
anticipation of coming victory.

Alfred, nothing loath, sought Guthrum's tent, where, with stirring songs
of the old heroes of their land, he flattered the ears of the chiefs,
who applauded him to the echo, and at times broke into wild refrains to
his warlike odes. All that passed we cannot say. The story is told by
tradition only, and tradition is not to be trusted for details.
Doubtless, when the royal spy slipped from the camp of his foes he bore
with him an accurate mind-picture of the numbers, the discipline, and
the arrangement of the Danish force, which would be of the highest value
in the coming fray.

Meanwhile, the Saxon hosts were gathering. When the day fixed by the
king arrived they were there: men from Hampshire, Wiltshire, Devonshire,
and Somerset; men in smaller numbers from other counties; all glad to
learn that England was on its feet again, all filled with joy to see
their king in the field. Their shouts filled the leafy alleys of the
forest, they hailed the king as the land's avenger, every heart beat
high with assurance of victory. Before night of the day of meeting the
woodland camp was overcrowded with armed men, and at dawn of the next
day Alfred led them to a place named Icglea, where, on the forest's
edge, a broad plain spread with a morass on its front. All day long
volunteers came to the camp; by night Alfred had an army in open field,
in place of the guerilla band with which, two days before, he had
lurked in the green aisles of Selwood forest, like a Robin Hood of an
earlier day, making the verdant depths of the greenwood dales his home.

At dawn of the next day the king marshalled his men in battle array, and
occupied the summit of Ethandune, a lofty eminence in the vicinity of