neighbourhood of Langport. Local tradition
and legend place a battle also at the ancient Roman fortress of
Norton Fitzwarren, which Ina certainly superseded by his own
stronghold at Taunton after the victory. As Nunna is named as
leader of the Saxons, together with the king himself, it seems most
likely that there were two columns acting against the Welsh advance
on the north and south of the Tone River, and that therefore there
were battles at each place. On the Blackdown Hills beyond Langport
a barrow was known until quite lately as "Noon's barrow," and it
would mark at least the line of flight of the Welsh; and if not the
burial place of the Saxon leader, who is supposed to have fallen,
must have been raised by him over his comrades.

The line taken by the story will not be far wrong, therefore, as in
any case the Blackdown and Quantock strongholds must have been
taken by the Saxons to guard against flank attacks, from whichever
side of the Tone the British advance was made.

The course of the story hangs to some extent on the influence of
the old feud between the British and Saxon Churches, which dated
from the days of Augustine and his attempt to compel the adoption
of Western customs by the followers of the Church which had its
rise from the East. There is no doubt that the death of the wise
and peacemaking Aldhelm of Sherborne let the smouldering enmity
loose afresh, with the result of setting Gerent in motion against
his powerful neighbour. Ina's victory was decisive, Gerent being
the last king of the West Welsh named in the chronicles, and we
hear of little further trouble from the West until A.D. 835, when
the Cornish joined with a new-come fleet of Danes in an
unsuccessful raid on Wessex.

Ina's new policy with the conquered Welsh is historic and well
known. Even in the will of King Alfred, two hundred years later,
some of the best towns in west Somerset and Dorset are spoken of as
"Among the Welsh kin," and there is yet full evidence, in both
dialect and physique, of strongly marked British descent among the
population west of the Parrett.

There is growing evidence that very early settlements of Northmen,
either Norse or Danish, or both, contemporary with the well-known
occupation of towns, and even districts, on the opposite shores of
South Wales, existed on the northern coast of Somerset and Devon.
Both races are named by the Welsh and Irish chroniclers in their
accounts of the expulsion of these se