ross some fresh body of the enemy, Edmund called off his
men. Great was the triumph of the Saxons. A few of them had suffered
from wounds more or less serious, but not one had fallen. They had
defeated a body of Danes four times their own force, and had killed
nearly half of them, and they felt confident that the tactics which
they had adopted would enable them in future to defeat any scattered
bodies of Danes they might meet.

For a week after the battle they rested, spending their time in further
improving themselves in their drill, practicing especially the
alterations of the position of the spears requisite when changing from
a defensive attitude, with the pikes at right angles to each face, to
that of an attack, when the spears of both faces of the advancing wedge
were all directed forward. A messenger arrived from the king, to whom
Edmund had sent the news of his various successes, and Alfred sent his
warmest congratulations and thanks for the great results which had been
gained with so small a force, the king confessing that he was unable to
understand how with such disproportionate numbers Edmund could so
totally have routed the force of so distinguished a leader as Haffa.

For some weeks Edmund continued the work of checking the depredations
of the Danes, and so successful was he that the freebooters became
seized with a superstitious awe of his band. The rapidity of its
maneuvering, the manner in which men, at one moment scattered, were in
another formed in a serried mass, against which all their efforts broke
as waves against a rock, seemed to them to be something superhuman. In
that part of Wessex, therefore, the invaders gradually withdrew their
forces across the frontier; but in other parts of the country, the tide
of invasion being unchecked, large tracts of country had been
devastated, and the West Saxons could nowhere make head against them.
One day a messenger reached Edmund telling him that a large Danish army
was approaching Sherborne, and urging him to return instantly to the
defence of his earldom.

With rapid marches he proceeded thither, and on arriving at his house
he found that the Danes were but a few miles away, and that the whole
country was in a state of panic. He at once sent off messengers in all
directions, bidding the people hasten with their wives and families,
their herds and valuables, to the fort. His return to some extent
restored confidence. The news of the victories he had gain