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Do you feel as if a fight would be cheerful after this spade work?" Now I could wish for nothing better, and I said so. "Well, then," he went on, laughing at my eagerness, "go to Ethelnoth, and take twenty men, and do you and he fall on that post from Othery by night; and when you have scattered it, come back into the fen.
So Ethelnoth and I and twenty young thanes went in the evening to Othery island, and there found a fenman to guide us, and so went to the foot of Edington hill just as darkness fell. The watch-fire lights, that were our guide, twinkled above us through the trees that were on the hillside; and we made at once for them, sending on the fenman to spy out the post before we were near it.
We would cut them off amid the peat bogs, or they would founder therein, and sink under the weight of armour. Then they tried to force some fenmen they caught to guide them to us at Othery.
By that time we had made causeways to other islets from the fort, and the best of these was to Othery, a long, flat island that lay to the east, nearer to the Polden Hills and Edington. So one day the king sent for me as we wrought at the fort, and both he and I were horny handed and clay stained from the work. I came with spade in hand, and he leaned on a pick. Whereat he laughed.
S. of Taunton, which represents in its name an alliance between a Portman and the heiress of the Orchards. The most noteworthy features of its small Perp. church is a Norm. Othery, a parish on the Sedgemoor plain, 3 m. N.E. of Athelney Station. Its church has quite a number of interesting features.
The churchyard commands a good view of Sedgemoor, with the towers of Othery, Middlezoy, and Weston Zoyland rising conspicuously from it. There are some carved bench-ends and old oak seats. Muchelney, 2 m. S.E. of Langport, is a small village rich in antiquities. Like Athelney, it was once a marsh-girt "island " the largest, or muckleey, amongst its peers. At the W. door there is a fine stoup.
But we were gone, leaving six slain and many more wounded among them, while not one of us was scratched. They did not follow us, and we heard the clamour we had caused going on for some time after we had gained the fen. Presently, too, when we reached Othery, we saw a fire signal lit to call for help, and we were well content. Doubtless those Danes waked under arms all that night through.
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