In this year, at Midwinter, after Twelfth night, the army stole itself away to Chippenham, and harried the West Saxons' land, and settled there, and drove many of the people over sea, and of the remainder the greater portion they harried, and the people submitted to them, save the king, Alfred, and he, with a little band, withdrew to the woods and moor-fastnesses. And in the same winter the brother of Inwar and Halfdene was in Wessex, in Devonshire, with twenty-three ships, and he was there slain, and with him eight hundred and forty men of his force. And there was the standard taken which they call Raven. And the Easter after, Alfred, with a little band, wrought a fortress at Athelney, and from that work warred on the army, with that portion of the men of Somerset that was nearest. Then in the seventh week after Easter he rode to Egbert's stone, on the east of Selwood, and there came to meet him all the Somersetshire men, and the Wiltshire men, and that part of Hampshire which remained of it on this side of the sea; after, he went from the camp to Aeglea, and one night after that to Edington, and there fought against all the army, and put it to flight, and rode after it, as far as the works, and there sat fourteen nights. And then the army gave him hostages with great oaths that they would depart from his kingdom; and also promised him that their king would receive baptism; and that they so fulfilled; and three weeks after, King Guthrum came to him, with thirty of the men who were most honourable in the army, at Aller, which is opposite to Athelney; and the king received him thereat baptism; and his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore; and he was twelve nights with the king; and he largely gifted him and his companions with money.
Text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 878; a reminder of why the Somerset Levels being flooded isn't always a bad thing...
(Taken from Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook)
