ness, and hence the
erection of these castles in Mercia, where most of the minor fighting in
that disturbed period occurred. For nine years Ethelfleda fought side by
side with her husband Ethelred, Earl of Mercia, in the pitiless struggle;
and upon his death, continuing as her brother's viceroy, she proved
herself one of the ablest women warriors this country has ever known.

In 910 (the Saxon Chronicle informs us) a battle of more than ordinary
moment was fought at Tettenhall. The Danes were returning from a raid,
laden with rich spoils, when they were overtaken at this spot by the
Angles, on the 5th day of August, and there signally defeated. It was to
avenge this disaster that the Danes swooped down the following summer
from the north, and met their antagonists exactly on the same day of the
year, and almost on the same ground. The latter fact may possibly
indicate that there was some strategic importance in the locality.
Wednesfield being almost within hail of Tettenhall; though the better
informed writers, including Mr. James P. Jones, the historian of
Tettenhall, have been led to consider the two battles as one engagement.

As a matter of fact, the exact site of the Tettenhall engagement is not
known, yet one historian has not hesitated to represent the nature of the
conflict as being "so terrible that it could not be described by the most
exquisite pen." It seems to have been an engagement of that old-time
ferocity which is so exultantly proclaimed in the ancient war song:--

We there, in strife bewild'ring,
Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
We widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen:
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.

According to Fabius Ethelwerd it was a national and a most memorable
fight which occurred at Wednesfield, where three Danish chieftains fell
in the conflict; in support of which statement it is mentioned that the
Lows, or monumental burial grounds, of the mighty dead are to be found at
Wednesfield and Wrottesley. But Wrottesley is nearer to Tettenhall than
to Wednesfield. The number of tumuli which once lay scattered over the
entire range of this district may perhaps be accountable for the
variations in the mediaeval chronicles. As we shall see, while it is
well agreed that the country lying between Tettenhall and Wombourn on the
one hand, and Wednesfield and Wil