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So Blaise wrote down the battle, word for word, as Merlin told him; and in the same way ever after, all the battles of King Arthur's days Merlin caused Blaise, his master, to record. The Adventure of the Questing Beast King Arthur drives the Saxons from the Realm The Battles of Celidon Forest and Badon Hill
The eleventh was on the mountain Breguoin, which we call Cat Bregion. The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon. In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons were successful. For no strength can avail against the will of the Almighty.
The most important of them was that of Badon, by some supposed to be Bath, by others Berkshire. This was the last of his battles with the Saxons, and checked their progress so effectually, that Arthur experienced no more annoyance from them, and reigned in peace, until the revolt of his nephew Modred, twenty years later, which led to the fatal battle of Camlan, in Cornwall, in 542.
Cerdic was not wanting to his good fortune; and in order to extend his conquests, he laid siege to Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath, whither the most obstinate of the discomfited Britons had retired.
At all events, under his leadership, the oppressed people defeated the Saxons in a desperate fight at Mons Badonicus, perhaps the little place in Dorsetshire known as Badbury, or, it may be, Bath itself, which is still called Badon by the Welsh. After that victory, history has little to say about Arthur.
Then girding on Excalibur and taking in his right hand his great lance Ron, he placed his men in order and led them out against the enemy, who stood for battle on the slope of Badon Hill, ranged in the form of a wedge, as their custom was. And they, resisting all the onslaughts of King Arthur and his host, made that day a stout defence, and at night lay down upon the hill.
Even so in England, Old Sarum was indeed the mother of Salisbury, and Caer Badon or Sulis was the mother of Bath. And when there was first a Fæsulæ on the hill here there could be no Florence, as when first there was an Old Sarum on the Wiltshire downs there could be no Salisbury, and when first there was a Caer Badon on the heights of Avon there could be no Bath.
Hoel, being detained by sickness, took no part in this battle. This is called the victory of Mount Badon, and, however disguised by fable, it is regarded by historians as a real event.
The feats performed by Arthur at the battle of Badon Mount are thus celebrated in Drayton's verse: "They sung how he himself at Badon bore, that day, When at the glorious goal his British sceptre lay; Two daies together how the battel stronglie stood; Pendragon's worthie son, who waded there in blood, Three hundred Saxons slew with his owne valiant hand." Song IV.
But the forest-belt around it checked any further advance; and only a year after Charford the Britons rallied under a new leader, Arthur, and threw back the invaders as they pressed westward through the Dorsetshire woodlands in a great overthrow at Badbury or Mount Badon.
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