ace of conflict.
Alfred then being second in command, when he could no longer endure
the ranks of the foe, except he either retreated from the fight, or
dashed forward against the hostile forces before his brother’s arrival,
at last boldly, after the manner of a wild boar, guided the Christian
forces against the foe as had been determined, though still the king
had not come. Thus relying on the guidance of God, and supported by His
help, with the lines drawn up closely, he moves forward the standard
with speed against the enemy. But to those who know not the place it
must be explained that the site of the battle was unequal for the
belligerents, for the pagans had occupied beforehand a higher position;
but the Christians drew up their lines from a lower place. There was
also, in the same place, a single thorn-tree of very small size, which
we ourselves have seen with our own eyes. Around this, therefore, the
hostile armies, all with a great shout, meet together in conflict, the
one acting most wickedly, the other to fight for life and friends and
country. And when they fought for some time, fiercely and very cruelly
on both sides, the pagans, by the divine judgment, could endure the
attack of the Christians no longer; and the chief part of their forces
being slain, they took to flight disgracefully. And in this place one
of the two pagan kings and five jarls were slain; and many thousands
on the pagan side, both in that place and along the whole breadth of
the plain of Æscesdune, where they had been everywhere scattered, were
slain far and wide. For there fell their king Baegsaeg and Jarl Sidroc
the elder and Jarl Sidroc the younger, and Jarl Obsbern, and Jarl
Fraena, and Jarl Hareld; and the whole army of the pagans was put to
flight till the night, and even to the following day, until those who
escaped arrived at the citadel, for the Christians pursued them until
night and overthrew them everywhere.” “Never before or since,” says a
Saxon writer later on, “was ever such slaughter known, since the Saxo