A.D. 858. VICTORIES OVER THE DAXES. 37 number of the ships -was but small, still the number of men on board of them was considerable. In the fifth year after this, the venerable bishop Alstan and duke Ernulph with the men of Somerset, and duke Osred with the men of Dorset, fought against an army of Danes at Pendredesmutho,46 and by the aid of God, slew many of them, and obtained the glory of a triumph. Ln the sixteenth year of his reign, Ethelwulph and his son Ethelbald, having collected all their forces, fought with a large army of the barbarians, who had come with two hundred and fifty47 ships to Thames-mouth, and had destroyed those cities, famous and renowned for ages, London and Canterbury, and put to flight Bretwulph, king of the Mercians, together with his army ; who never afterwards enjoyed success, and dying in the following year, was succeeded by Burrhed. After this, the Danes growing still bolder, all their forces were collected in Surrey, and they met the king's troops at Akelea.43 In consequence, a battle was fought between these two great armies, so mighty and so severely contested, that no person had ever before heard of such a battle being fought in England. You might behold warriors sweeping onward on either side, just like a field of standing corn, rivers of blood flowing and rolling along in their streams the heads and limbs of the slain ; but it would be an act of excessive and over-nice fastidiousness to attempt to describe individual exploits. In short, God granted the fortune of war to the faithful, and those who put their trust in him, but to his enemies and contemners defeat and indescribable confusion. King Ethelwulph therefore, being conqueror in this mighty battle, gained a glorious triumph. In the same year, Ethelstan, king of Kent, and duke Eal-red49 fought a naval battle against the Danes at Sandwich, and laving made a great slaughter of the enemy, captured nine of their ships, on which the rest took to flight. Earl Cheorl, also, with the men of Devonshire, fought against the pagans at Wienor,50 and having killed a great number of them, was victorious. Consequently, this year was one of good fortune to the 46 The mouth of the river Parrei, in Somersetshire. 41 Another reading is 315 ; but the other historians make the number 350. « Ockley. 49 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Ethelwerd's Chronicle call him Elchere : he is also so called in p. 42. 40 Wembury, near Plymouth.